SEVEN CURES FOR A TROUBLED HEART
Psalm 37 - PART 1
After worship - READ PSALM 42. This ties into the sermon.
Ps 42:5 Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance. (NKJ)
Does anyone ever feel like that? If God is in control of my life - WHY DO I FEEL THE WAY I FEEL?
We feel guilt because we don’t fully trust that God is in control.
Psalm 37 is our antidote for a troubled heart.
Let me ask you today? What do you see around you? Do you see the way people are dressed? Who came with who? Who is successful? Who drove what? The list could go on and on.
If Jesus was sitting up here - what would He see? I think that he would see hurting heart? The disappointments of some of you this week. The hurting marriages. The lonely hearts. Those that are sick in body. Those that are sick of life. HE WOULD SEE ALL THAT AND MORE!
Matt 9:36 But when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd. (NKJ)
I have parents who are like that. They can tell when things are not right. I am married to a woman who is like that - she can see beneath the shell of my life.
God is like that today. He sees what’s in your heart.
Psalm 139:1-6
I look at some of you today. On the outside you look like you have everything together but only you and God know the pain that you carry in your heart. HE SEES.
1. THE PRINCIPLE OF NOT FRETTING - V.1-2
Psalms 37:1-2 (NLT) (Ps 37:1 (NLT)) Don’t worry about the wicked or envy those who do wrong. (2) For like grass, they soon fade away. Like spring flowers, they soon wither. 3
The word fret in the Hebrew has the idea of being “annoyed” about people around you.
The root comes from the thought of “burning with anger.”
Do people and situations annoy you? Do they take away your joy and peace? Do you see them and your spirit gets agitated.
Does anyone ever feel like that?
He says to not be jealous of others and their prosperity. He tells us that it is only temporal.
Look at verse 25.
Psalms 37:25 (NLT) Once I was young, and now I am old. Yet I have never seen the godly abandoned or their children begging for bread.
David is now looking back at his life.
Imagine yourself walking with him through the gardens. He is giving you advice about life. He turns to you and says “Fret not…”
When I take my eyes off of God - I worry and fret. I become envious. When I look at and compare myself to others - I become upset.
This is a Psalm for those of us who find ourselves on the short end of the stick more often then not - and are fed up with it.
David is speaking to people here who are trying to cling to God’s Word and God’s ways through life but keep getting cut off by people taking shortcuts - people who care nothing for God or anyone but themselves.
In this Psalm - David encourages us to look at the bigger picture not the smaller.
I was talking to my brother about when he attended the funeral of his wife’s grandmother.
Before she died she brought Robert in the room and told him - “If I knew I was going to live this long I would of started enjoying life a lot sooner.”
Between the ages of 40 and 80 she worried about everything. At the age of 80 she decided to start enjoying life. She said that she enjoyed the little things - like sitting by the window everyday and drinking tea and taking walks everyday.
She told him - “Robert, learn to enjoy life right now.”
2. THE PRINCIPLE OF TRUSTING - V.3
Psalms 37:3 (NKJV) Trust in the Lord, and do good; Dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness.
This word has the idea of safety. It speaks of being in a refuge.
In the 70’s there was a phrase out - “TRY JESUS!” This sounded like you were trying out Jesus like you would Pepsi cola.
But trusting is another matter. It speaks of totally leaning upon Him for the answers in your life.
Psalm 37 speaks of putting your trust in God when all the circumstances of life are screaming something else.
The bad guys seem to be winning - Look at vv. 7, 12, 14, 16, 35.
The are growing in power, influence, confidence and wealth while the righteous in the land were just scraping along, barely making it.
But David had made up his mind - He was going to place his full weight on the Lord’s faithfulness - come what may.
This is the kind of trust that brings healing to a troubled heart.
Sometime ago – My brother and I on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal - riding horses.
The horses wanted to run. I was afraid. I held back. The problem - the trotting was becoming uncomfortable on my southern hemisphere.
Robert kept telling me to just let the horses run and then it would be smoother. There is a different glide in the running pattern then in the trotting pattern.
By accident, I let go of the reigns and the horse began to run. Surprisingly - it was much smoother.
Why didn’t I trust earlier?
You can’t trust until you are slightly out of control. You aren’t trusting until you’ve leaned so hard on Him that if you fell, you could not catch yourself.
This means setting aside all secondary options, backup systems, and emergency parachutes. Trust says, “I’ve gone so far and there’s no return for me. If God doesn’t save me and hold me up, I’ll go under.”
Proverbs 3:5 (NLT) Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding.
3. THE PRINCIPLE OF DWELLING - V.3
Psalms 37:3 (NKJV) Trust in the Lord, and do good; Dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness.
Two words express the thought here - 1- dwelling and 2- feeding.
Dwelling has the idea of abiding/ residing/ to settle in/ to establish.
Basically… “I’m here to stay.”
I read recently of an orphanage during that was rescuing children right off the streets. They would bring them in - clean them up and care for them.
The problem was that the children could not sleep at night. Often they would cry way into the wee hours of the night.
It finally dawned on someone what to do. They figured out that the children were so used to going to bed hungry that they were living in fear of tomorrow. They were OK now but would they be tomorrow night.
The antidote! Every night when they were tucked into bed - each child was given a large bread roll that he or she could tuck under the pillow.
It would be there during the night if they would get hungry. It would be there in the morning as a reassurance of the loving care that was available to them.
From that night on the crying stopped. The children went right to bed.
In this passage - it seems that David is telling us as children of God that we never have to go to bed at night wondering whether or not He will be there when they wake up.
He tells them “Dwell in the land,” and “feed on His faithfulness.”
The NIV puts it this way “Dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.”
When David wrote this Psalm - he had seen a lot of life. He had already experienced careers as a fugitive, a warrior, and a king.
In his heart though - he would always be a shepherd. He remembered what it was like to lead his flock through the good and the bad.
The word “feed” is the identical term used for feeding a domestic animal.
Instead of allowing ourselves to be troubled, worried, or led astray by our circumstances, David is urging us to feed like humble sheep on the faithfulness of God.
Concentrate on the good that God has done. Don’t go down the path of negativity and failure.
When we speak of the “faithfulness of God” were talking about the firmness, security and stability of His character - of all that He is.
Other Psalms refer to him as a “rock,” “refuge,” “shelter,” and “fortress.”
In the New Testament - James speaks of God “in whom there is no variation or shadow of turning” (James 1:17).
This means there is never any eclipses with God. There is never anything that stands between Him and us.
There is never a time when his healing power and love will be blocked from me.
No circumstance will ever stop Him from loving me.
It is this God that I must depend on.
I must feed in His stability. Graze on His security and truth.
I must enjoy His safe pasture.
He has provided for me today. He will provide for me tomorrow.
God is faithful - no matter what the situation is.
Have you ever watched sheep? They don’t exactly get your pulse racing. What do they do all day? Eat and rest. Rest and eat. Eat and eat and rest and rest.
They don’t grab a quick breakfast and run off in a thousand different directions.
Grazing takes time. They stay at it, trusting the shepherd to protect them from predators and lead them along to fresh pasture when they need to move… and not before.
This seems to be David’s message to troubled hearts here… “Just stay near the Lord. Don’t run here and there talking to this person and that person. Stay in His Word. Talk to the Lord every time you think of it. Rest in Him.”
Song… GREAT IS THY FAITHFULNESS
Originally - Book by Ron Mehl
