NewCity Orlando Sermons

Summer in the Psalms | Psalm 37

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In this message on Psalm 37, RUF Campus Minister at UCF Hardy Reynolds encourages listeners to take the long view of life and faith. Preaching to a world where evil often appears to prosper, Hardy unpacks David’s wisdom for living with patience, trust, and hope. Rather than reacting with envy or fear, believers are called to “trust in the Lord and do good,” knowing that God will ultimately uphold the righteous and bring justice in His time.

Through vibrant illustrations and pastoral clarity, Hardy explores the Psalm’s repeated contrasts between the wicked and the righteous—not to stoke pride, but to deepen our confidence in God's promises. This sermon is a call to live faithfully and quietly before the Lord, delighting in Him, waiting patiently, and refusing the anxiety that comes from trying to control the world.

Rev. Dr. Damein Schitter:

Hello everyone. This is Pastor Damian. You're listening to Sermon Audio from New City, orlando. At New City, we believe all of us need all of Jesus for all of life. For more resources, visit our website at newcityorlandocom. Thanks for listening.

Sr. Pastor Benjamin Kandt:

Pray together with me this prayer of illumination. Thanks for listening and give us life in your ways, through Jesus Christ, our Lord, amen. Now this morning's scripture reading is the entirety of Psalm 37. It's 40 verses, so if you can stand for that marathon, I'd invite you to do so. We won't do this to you every week, but the first week we want to give you a flyover, and then we'll zero in on the future weeks.

Sr. Pastor Benjamin Kandt:

Hear now the word of God from Psalm 37. It's a Psalm of David. Fret not yourself because of evildoers. Be not envious of wrongdoers, for they will soon fade like the grass and wither like the green herb. Trust in the Lord and do good. Dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord. Trust in him and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord. Trust in him and he will act. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light and your justice as the noonday. Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him. Fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way, over the man who carries out evil devices. Refrain from anger and forsake wrath. Fret not yourself.

Sr. Pastor Benjamin Kandt:

It tends only to evil, for the evildoers shall be cut off. But those who wait for the Lord shall inherit the land. In just a little while the wicked will be no more. Though you look carefully at his place, he will not be there. But the meek shall inherit the earth and delight themselves in abundant peace. Meek shall inherit the earth and delight themselves in abundant peace. The wicked plots against the righteous and gnashes his teeth at him, but the Lord laughs at the wicked, for he sees that his day is coming. The wicked draw the sword and bend their bows to bring down the poor and needy, to slay those whose way is upright. Their sword shall enter their own heart and their bows shall be broken. Better is the little that the righteous has than the abundance of many wicked, for the arms of the wicked shall be broken, but the Lord upholds the righteous. The Lord knows the days of the blameless and their heritage will remain forever. They are not put to shame in evil times. In the days of famine they have abundance, but the wicked will perish. The enemies of the Lord are like the glory of the pastures they vanish Like smoke, they vanish away. The wicked borrows but does not pay back. But the righteous is generous and gives, for those blessed by the Lord shall inherit the land, but those cursed by him shall be cut off. The steps of a man are established by the Lord when he delights in his way. Though he fall, he shall not be cast headlong, for the Lord upholds his hand.

Sr. Pastor Benjamin Kandt:

I have been young and now I'm old, yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken or his children begging for bread. He is ever lending generously and his children become a blessing. Turn away from evil and do good, so shall you dwell forever, he says. The mouth of the righteous utters wisdom and his tongue speaks justice. The law of his God is in his heart. His steps do not slip.

Sr. Pastor Benjamin Kandt:

The wicked watches for the righteous and seeks to put him to death. The Lord will not abandon him to his power or let him be condemned when he is brought to trial. Wait for the Lord and keep his way, and he will exalt you to inherit the land. You will look on when the wicked are cut off. I have seen a wicked, ruthless man spreading himself like a green laurel tree, but he passed away and behold, he was no more. Though I sought him, he could not be found. Mark the blameless and behold the upright, for there is a future for the man of peace, but transgressors shall be altogether destroyed. The future of the wicked shall be cut off. The salvation of the righteous is from the Lord. He is their stronghold in the time of trouble. The Lord helps them and delivers them. He delivers them from the wicked and saves them because they take refuge in him. This is God's word.

Hardy Reynolds:

Thanks be to God.

Sr. Pastor Benjamin Kandt:

You may be seated.

Hardy Reynolds:

Well, good morning New City Really is a privilege to start off our Summer in the Psalms series and I promise we're not going to cover all the verses of Psalm 37, but I will be focusing on the first 13 or so. In preparing for this sermon, I was reminded of an experience I had about a month or so ago, where I was flying out of MCO, and I'm wondering if y'all have had this experience where your flight is filled with children who have just had a fun but exhausting trip to Disney, and the only difference about this trip, though, is it's, I think, the latest I've flown out of MCO. The flight was scheduled for 10 pm, it was delayed till 11.45, and that meant that we didn't land until 2 am, and our flight was full of children, and they were understandably overtired and exhausted. There was a family just across the aisle from me that were traveling with probably a four and a six-year-old, and, because it was so late we had landed, we were waiting to pull into the gate. They had been crying for probably the last hour just absolutely overwhelmed with exhaustion hour just absolutely overwhelmed with exhaustion and the younger one probably four in that just exhaustion cried out to his parents and said I hate my family and the plane did just what y'all did. They laughed, and part of that laughter was because this boy, in his own way and ability, was giving voice to the misery we were all experiencing. He didn't know what else to say. Now it is a family Sunday, so let me address the kiddos in the room real quick. Y'all know it's not cool to say that to your parents, right, you shouldn't do it. But what stuck out to me about this instance was the response of the parent. The parent, in receiving that cry, just chuckled and said oh, buddy, we'll be home soon.

Hardy Reynolds:

And the Psalms give numerous examples of where we can cry out cry out in our fears, cry out in our anxieties, cry out in our guilt, cry out in our loneliness, in our shame and even our hatred. But what Psalm 37 does here is David, in a sense, takes up the voice or the perspective of the mother and holds out a future promise to say oh, buddy, people of God, we'll be home soon. He's addressing man rather than God in this psalm to give not a prayer for us to pray, but a perspective for us to hang on to, a hope, a future. And the way that the psalm puts it is as we've titled it there is a future for the man or woman of peace, and so, in light of that promise, we're gonna look at how having this secure future affects our lives over the next coming weeks. But this morning we're just going to zero on in the first few verses of Psalm 37. What we're going to see is that, because we have a future, we are not to fret but to delight ourselves in the Lord. David knows his own heart, he knows his own propensity to look to other sources of security or other sources of a sure future, and he knows his listeners' tendency to do the same. And, rather than leaving our listeners to themselves, he actually holds out a perspective and says you have a future.

Hardy Reynolds:

And because of that future, first thing we see is we are not to fret ourselves. We see this in a couple of verses, in the opening passages of Psalm 37. It shows up in verse 1, in verse 7, and verse 8, this refrain not to fret ourselves. It's a term that often conveys this idea of burning or becoming heated with anger or with worry, and in this form it's suggesting that this is something actually that we do to ourselves internally. It's allowing ourselves to become worked up, to become anxious or to be consumed by our emotions. And so, in a sense, what verse one is getting at is we have a tendency to emotional heartburn, to dwell on our emotions, to fume, to become consumed by them, whether that be with jealousy or anger.

Hardy Reynolds:

And the reason verse one gives that this can happen is we have in focus the evildoers, or the wrongdoers and their prosperity. What's happening with them? Or the wrongdoers and their prosperity, what's happening with them Now? In the context of this Psalm, given its themes like possession of the land, the wicked here or the evildoers could be those who threaten the allotments or the family's allocation of the promised land, what the people of God have been promised and they feel like should be ours now, in the moment. And so what David is getting at is essentially, picture yourself in this way, looking out at whatever you view as the unrighteous or the wicked, and picture yourself, say like at a Florida hot summer day, at a Cimarron bus stop, concrete and asphalt for miles, and you see who you view to be the unrighteous or the wicked cruising by in their fully self-automated car, sipping an iced coffee, and you start to dwell on them and you start to think they're probably heading to your dream neighborhood on Zillow, to your dream home that is just out of reach.

Hardy Reynolds:

And what David is saying is, when you focus on the prosperity of the wicked, what the wicked have, it actually causes you to become consumed, to become envious, to have emotional heartburn as you focus on the prosperity of the wicked and David knows our propensity to do that to envy, to look out at others and what they have, and so what he does is he shifts the perspective, he changes it, and it's in this wisdom that he's likely gained through, maybe, bitter experience in his life, or even maybe more nobly, as Psalm 1 puts it, delighting himself, trusting in the word of God, meditating on the promises that the Lord holds out, and so what he discerns is actually sees their prosperity through the eyes of faith, and he gives this picture that what we view as thriving is in fact actually dying. That's the picture that we get. The wicked are actually on this path towards destruction, unless they do a U-turn, and so they're not to be envied, they're not to be looked at with envy, but to be seen in light of faith, because they will, as David puts it, soon fade like the grass and wither like the green herb. We've all seen this picture. Probably the wicked are like those of us who mow our lawns and don't bag our grass, and so the next day, what was once thriving, green and lush is now laid bare, brown and rows of just of deadness for all to see. And David is saying that's actually the end or the outcome of those that you are envying and being consumed by. So we are not to look at them in that way, and so, in a sense, david is just continuing to encourage his listeners don't get agitated over these folks, don't get envious of their success, don't consume yourself with the evil that they're carrying out verse 7. Or don't fret yourself over what you think God's timing ought to be verse 8.

Hardy Reynolds:

In other words, what David is essentially doing here is he's calling his listeners and us to self-control. It's a call to self-control that he's highlighting it is our personal responsibility for us to manage our emotions, to resist the tendency to let external circumstances to dictate our inner turmoil. He essentially says don't let yourself get worked up. Calm your own heart, quiet your soul. And you may be thinking like me when I was reading this Psalm of David. You have prayed a lot of prayers up until Psalm 37. And there've been 36 Psalms before this, with many examples of David actually praying and crying out, with explosive emotions, complaints, questions that he has about his life circumstances. And so David's call here to self-control and for us to have control over our emotions. It's learned. It's learned from seeing the true end of the wicked, but also learned in trusting the timing of God. We see this in verse seven and eight.

Hardy Reynolds:

David puts it this way Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him. Fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way, over the man who carries out evil devices. Refrain from anger and forsake wrath. Fret not yourself, it tends only to evil. In other words, you and I need to view our emotions and circumstances through the lens of God's timing, not following every direction and impulse that our emotions may lead us.

Hardy Reynolds:

In Eugene Peterson, in taking up the example that our text gives in eight, when it says refrain from anger and forsake wrath, he says your anger is not a work agenda for you to plan a vengeance that will fix the wrong. What is wrong with the world is God's business. What he's getting at is therefore, we must be still before the Lord, to refrain from anger, from wrath, from getting heated through fretting ourselves. We actually must learn to quiet our hearts by trusting the Lord. Verse 3 says actually must learn to quiet our hearts by trusting the Lord. Verse 3 says and to trust God's timing is to trust God for who he is.

Hardy Reynolds:

As the author of your story, of the circumstances you find yourself in right now, and he's saying when we do that we're called to quote wait patiently for him. Time is nothing to God and therefore we can actually grow in our trust that it shouldn't be so important to us for God to meet our timelines. God and his timing is worth waiting for. In a book or a movie or any story, really good listeners or watchers wait till the end for the plot to be cleared up. I'm not so subtly judging you if you read the last page of your books before you finish the end. What's being held out here is that God, actually his timing, is good and trustworthy and that we can wait for him, trusting that the closing scene, he's not going to leave plot holes or questions, but he knows the end.

Hardy Reynolds:

David's saying that there's actually no good but much evil in worrying your heart about the present success of others, about the timing of God, and it not only heats us up, gives us emotional heartburn, but it also dishonors God. And it not only heats us up, gives us emotional heartburn, but it also dishonors God and it exhausts ourselves. We become worn out. So David's saying make a determination now, today, to trust the Lord, regardless of the success of others, regardless of your circumstances, and do good. He says right now, where God has you trusting in his timing.

Hardy Reynolds:

You may have guessed, like if I'm watching a movie with somebody, I refuse to answer their questions Because likely the writers have thought about how the movie is going to end. Or if you just wait 10 seconds, they're going to answer the question. Or if you just wait 10 seconds, they're going to answer the question. What's the point in saying that? Well, while God is much more gracious than I am and he gives this example in countless Psalms, where he invites actually invites his people to pour out their questions and the cries of their heart as they're living through and wrestling with his timing, and the cries of their heart as they're living through and wrestling with his timing David in Psalm 37, he's giving a lesson that he has learned over a lifetime of walking with God that God is worth waiting for. He's not left plot holes, he is never before his time, he is never too late, he is going to act precisely when he means to. And if that's true, and we're not to fret ourselves because we have a sure future and we can trust in God's timing, then the question is what can we do? Well, david holds out for us. If we're not to fret ourselves, we are to delight ourselves in God. So that's the second thing we see here. It's the alternative. It's the alternative to fretting.

Hardy Reynolds:

This psalm repeatedly contrasts the fretting and the trusting in the Lord. Doing good, waiting patiently, delighting yourself in the Lord it's what David is saying is the spiritual antidote to, instead of fretting, actively cultivating trust, contentment and faith in God's justice and his provision. The way verse four puts it here delight yourself in the Lord. That's the spiritual medicine to fretting ourselves. Working ourselves up is actually pursuing contentment in God.

Hardy Reynolds:

In both cases, in fretting and delighting, it is something we do, and so, while fretting is obviously framed here as negative, something to be devoid, delighting is a positive that we are to throw our life into an intentional movement towards God. This is the call. It's an invitation to shift, to turn our focus and affection from the wicked and their success to our affections and focus to be set upon God, making him the source of our joy, making him the source of our fulfillment and hope. And the way this is stated again is it's something that we're being called to, not simply to passively sit and receive, but something to give our lives to, to delight ourselves in the Lord. And this is done throughout this psalm, but throughout scripture, through the meditating, the taking in of God's word, who it tells us that God is, who his character is, who he says he is in his goodness, in his promises and in his works.

Hardy Reynolds:

Meditating on this and delighting in that and the freedom that this invitation offers if we delight ourselves, is that our joy and our delight in this life is no longer dependent on our circumstances, it's no longer dependent on our emotions, and this is really good news. And it's good news because it's saying wherever you are, then we can direct our heart and find our joy and contentment in God, regardless of our circumstances. When we do this, our passage promises the result will be and he will give you the desires of your heart. When we delight in the Lord, our desires align with his will and he fulfills them in his perfect way and time. This is saying what we see is the way God sets us free from our fretting.

Hardy Reynolds:

Getting emotionally worked up is by changing our desires. When we delight in him, when he's promising that if you delight yourself in me and I will give you the desires of your heart, he's not promising that he will now give you that full self-driving car or that dream home in that Zillow neighborhood you've been looking at. No, he's saying God sets us free from fretting by changing what we want, changing our desires. Our desires and our loves are reordered when we delight ourselves in him. So the promise is as you delight yourself in the Lord, what you want changes and what he gives you is himself. You become delighted in God for who he is and what he promises. That's the good news here. So, in summary, to delight yourself in the Lord, it's a calling for an intentional self-direction toward joy in God. He gives the warning over and over fret not yourself. Don't go down that path, but run the path. Give yourself to the path of delighting in God.

Hardy Reynolds:

David goes on to say that this is a full life endeavor. This is not a one-time thing. This is something that is a calling for our whole life. Verse 5 and 6 says it this way commit your way to the Lord, trust in Him and he will act. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light and your justice as the noon day when I, in an effort to escape the Florida heat and being a runner, I'll try and wake up really early and also so I can make it back in time before kids get up. But that means that usually I start my run in the dark and then I end my run just at sunrise and there's a street just a block away from our house that is called Sunrise. So often I'm ending my run at sunrise, on sunrise Isn't that kind of cool. But as I run down Sun sunrise it's situated east to west, so I'm literally the last quarter of my mile of my run. I'm running directly into the sun and I've been sweating. I can barely see. It's so bright.

Hardy Reynolds:

And what the picture that David is saying is? That no matter how dark your circumstances, no matter how dark your road that you are walking right now, for those who commit their way to the Lord, he will make your righteousness like the noonday sun, your justice as the noonday. It's this promise that God will bring forth your righteousness, your goodness, your justice, as bright as a Florida noonday sun. And it's important here for us to understand what it means to commit. This word literally means to roll, as if getting rid of a heavy burden. The picture this gives is to literally roll the full weight of your life onto the Lord and trust him fully, without hedges, without any plan B or C for your future. Give him the full weight of your life.

Hardy Reynolds:

And so often this undiversified commitment is seen as foolish in other areas of life. Think about your retirement plans or your investments, your savings securities. It would be foolish to roll the full weight of your future onto one investment, onto one company, because the confidence in any one company or investment is in question. It might not pan out, not so with the Lord. What he's saying is he is worthy of your full trust. The full weight of your life, your security is in his hands, fully secure and safe, if you will. But roll the full weight of your life onto him.

Hardy Reynolds:

This is an amazing promise and yet it can stir up, probably, questions, if not theologically, practically, how do I live this out? Can he really be trusted with the full weight of my life? I'm good with trusting him with 80%, but this 20% is so hard to really roll over onto him to see if he will deliver, see if he will come through. So how can we know that he's worthy of the full weight of our life? What's amazing, I think, is what David had in promise we can actually see in fulfillment. And what I mean by that is we know the way of the Lord isn't simply God giving directions, but giving his son, who would come and say things like I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Hardy Reynolds:

And what was this way that Jesus took? He said it multiple times to his disciples See, we are going up to Jerusalem and the Son of man will be delivered over to the chief priests. You see, jesus was faithful every moment of his life, to the way and to the will of the Father. And even when it was the most difficult to entrust the weight of his life to the Father's will, what did he say? Not my will, but your will be done. So what we see is, because Jesus was faithful to the way of the Father, he has made a way for all of us who have been unfaithful. He is the way for all of us who have hedged our bets and diversified our trust. He is the way for all of us who have run after other sources of security and therefore we truly can entrust the full weight of our lives to him, delighting ourselves in him, trusting that he has made our way secure and that he provides a sure and certain future.

Hardy Reynolds:

I want to close with this. Our passage even provides a sound of this future security, and before we look at it, I would just invite you to think what does security sound like to you? It's kind of a weird question, but what does security sound like? It could be anything from as simple as the door code on your Memorial Day or your summer rental, just giving you some escape, some reprieve from the chaos of life. It could be the sound of rain on a roof in Florida, just as you escape a summer storm. It could be something maybe a little bit more meaningful, like the voice of a loved one when they welcome you home, when they read you a story. It could be a number of things. What does security sound like to you? When I was reflecting on this passage, I thought of a sound that I get to hear about once every other year.

Hardy Reynolds:

Once every other year my family gathers for Thanksgiving with my dad's side of the family. He's oldest of six and we all gather on the beaches of the Panhandle and it's grown because, as he's oldest of six, it's all of their kids, all of my cousins. Now they've started having family. So once it's all said and done and we gather there's probably 40 to 50 people in that living room home on Thanksgiving day and there's a lot of noises in that room. But there's one noise that every other year I get to hear and it's whenever my dad and his brothers get together and inevitably they start telling stories and when they do they laugh. And when they laugh I don't know if this is genetic, but they have the exact same laugh it starts at the same time, it rises in volume at the same time and it immediately ends all at the same time and when that happens this can become kind of an inside joke for myself and the cousins. We hear it, we scan the room, we lock eyes with the other cousins as if to say it happened, all is well, things are good, and to be clear in that room of 40 to 60 people as we look across. That's not to say that there's not struggles, that there's not brokenness that's represented in that room. There's chronic illnesses, there's cancer diagnoses, there's addictions that go unspoken about, there's gossip that gets relished rather than repented of. But when we hear the laughter, when we catch eyes and we get to see each other, experience it and say all is well, things are good, there's a sense of security, and what our passage holds out as a sound of security is actually the laughter of God.

Hardy Reynolds:

Verse 12 and 13 says the wicked plots against the righteous and gnashes his teeth at him. But the Lord laughs at the wicked for he sees that his day is coming. This is far from being a laughter of cynicism or callous indifference. This is a laughter of confidence, confidence that the Lord knows how the story ends. The wicked will be no more, for however loud the enemies of God are now, they will one day be silenced. For however intimidating in size and stature your circumstances with the enemies of God, look now there's a day coming where, even if you go looking carefully for them, you will not be able to see them.

Hardy Reynolds:

The Lord laughs at the wicked, for he sees that his day is coming. David, by faith. Here. He sees this day coming and he holds out this secure future for the people of God. So for all of us, we have this secure future, even those of us who have failed to delight ourselves in the Lord and have rather fretted ourselves over enemies that he's already defanged, rather fretted ourselves over enemies that he's already defanged, he's already defeated.

Hardy Reynolds:

The hope that our passage holds out is that, when we commit our way to the Lord, he has given us a sure future, and the good news of the gospel is Jesus is that way.

Hardy Reynolds:

He is the truth, he is the life.

Hardy Reynolds:

And so, for all of those that the Father is calling home, when you roll the full weight of your life on to Jesus, this promise is yours, it is ours that there is a future for the man and woman of peace.

Hardy Reynolds:

Let's pray, father. We thank you that you have not simply given us instructions or directions to follow, but you have given us the way your son Jesus, that we can trust the full weight of our lives to him and, even when we don't, that there is an abundance of forgiveness and invitations to come back, to find our security and trust in you as we look at the implications for our lives today, because we have a sure future. Would you find us faithful to the ways in which you are calling us to see your kingdom advance where there is evil, where there's darkness, where there are places where the wicked have not yet been done away with, knowing that we can pursue those things because our future is not in danger, but you have secured it in the love of your son. Knowing that we can pursue those things because our future is not in danger, but you have secured it in the love of your son? Find us faithful to those tasks. We pray in his name, amen.