Sermon on Psalm 37:4-7, for the 17th Sunday after Pentecost 2021 (B)

 

 

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen. What do you think of when you hear the word delight? Where does delight happen? What do we take delight in? We could give many different answers. A toddler delights in the cool sensations of splashing or running water. An older child delights in the colors and booms of a firework display. Young lovers delight in the warm emotions and tingling excitement of finding a person that shows mutual interest. A cowboy delights in the strength and speed of a horse. A race enthusiast delights in the roar and muscle of a stock car. An artist delights in a natural scene of beauty they can translate to the canvas. We can delight in people, relationships, sensations, beauty, power, wisdom, and a host of other things. God’s creation is full of wonders, knowledge and mysteries that spark our curiosity with delights both forbidden and blessed.

Delight happens in our heart and our eyes. We might describe it as warmth, pleasure, joy, and satisfaction. Psalm 37:4-7 for today, begins with: “Delight yourself in the LORD, and He will give you the desires of your heart.” Almost every delight described above is earthly. Here we are told to delight ourselves in the LORD. How? How do we find the LORD to be our delight and our source of pleasure, joy, and satisfaction?

The Psalms list many different delights. The delights of believers, the delights of the wicked, and even what God delights in! The believer delights in the law of the Lord (1:2), righteousness (35:27), abundant peace (37:11), God’s will (40:8), the works of the Lord (111:2), the way of His testimonies, statutes, and the path of His commandments (all of Psalm 119). These things delight the believer in God. What of the wicked? They delight in our hurt (40:14; 70:2), in war (68:30), and speaking curses, not blessings (109:17). Lastly, what does God delight in, according to the Psalms? He delights in the saints (16:3); that’s us (!) (41:11); He delights in truth (51:6) and right sacrifices (51:19). So, from the Psalms, we see that God intends for a mutual delight between Himself and believers! Delight yourself in the LORD!

Delight can’t be forced. It unfolds naturally when we discover something genuinely good. Delight in the LORD unfolds as we discover He is good and gracious. The depth of His love, His mastery of creation, His wisdom to guide us along unseen paths. It all inspires delight for the heart that turns to Him. Delight can’t be forced in a person’s heart. On the flip side from delight, a heart can be full of disgust, anger, distrust, or fear. The evildoer does not delight in the LORD. Whenever someone hates God, blames God for everything, or distorts God—they aren’t seeing the true God, and attacking a false image of their own creation. We have to see and know the true God to delight in the LORD. Delight unfolds naturally only when we “taste and see that the LORD is good,” and know the real God.

Delight yourself in the LORD, and He will give you the desires of your heart. St. Augustine, the great early teacher of the faith, wrote about this verse: “Distinguish the ‘desires of your heart’ from the desires of your flesh; distinguish as much as you can”. Both St. Augustine and King David, when they speak of the “desires of the heart”, are not talking about that old sin-laden heart of flesh we know all too well. Which heart are they talking about? The new heart that desires and seeks after the Lord. We must distinguish as much as we can between the sinful flesh and the new heart. God doesn’t promise to satisfy our sinful appetites of the flesh. He’s saying that when our heart delights in the LORD, and seeks after His ways, His righteousness, His laws or instruction, etc—when we delight in all that is spiritually good, God will supply those good desires of our (new) heart.

C.S. Lewis talked about our desires this way. He used to think they were too strong. We desire sex, or money, or power, or possessions, or praise, or whatever the flesh desires. Lewis thought we had to tamp down on desires that were too strong. Until he started to realize that the problem is not that our desires are too strong, but that they are in fact too weak! He described it this way—we are like children who are content making mud pies when don’t know what a glorious picnic we could have at the beach! It’s not that the things we desire are bad in themselves, but we get them by crooked or greedy ways. When we pursue fleshly desires, we spoil the good things by getting them badly or dishonestly. When we delight in the LORD, God will give the desires of our (new) heart. He makes our weak passions stronger, to strive after the good in a way that is honorable and pleasing to God. By putting God first, seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, all these things will be added to us as well.

God isn’t a killjoy who doesn’t want us to have the wonderful things He made. Rather, He wants us to pursue Him above all else, so in His time He will bless and give us His blessings in good measure! He will give us the good desires of our heart when it pleases Him, and when it is for our good and not our harm. The story of God’s people is a broken record of pursuing things the wrong way, and getting them to our own harm, but God patiently reteaching our hearts to yearn for Him, to delight in Him, to seek good things in a good and upright way, rather than in low, dishonest, or greedy ways.

But if we step back from this Psalm and examine it from another angle, we may ask: “How can I ever properly delight myself in the Lord? When could I commit my way to the LORD (not half-heartedly, but wholeheartedly), so that I trust in Him and He will act? When will God bring forth my righteousness as the light and my justice as noonday?” A lofty description if we suppose it fits us. With our muddled desires, our half-hearted commitment, our wavering trust. As we said last week, “LORD, I believe, help my unbelief!” We don’t want to look the way we look in the mirror—sometimes shaky, uncertain, uncommitted! So stepping back from the Psalm and asking “How can we properly delight in the Lord?”

The true answer is, as you may already know, Jesus Christ. Psalm 1 mirrors this delight, when it talks about the blessed man who delights in the Law of the LORD and meditates on it day and night. A perfect description of Jesus. Listen again to these verses, picturing Jesus as the subject:

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 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!

 

Jesus is the perfect emblem of delight in the Lord, and having His way fully committed to Him. Jesus waited for the LORD and saw God act in might. He did not fret or worry over evildoers, even as He was betrayed into a horrendous death on the cross. He did not abandon the way of the LORD, He remained fully committed and trusting in Him, so God would act.

            And in God’s good timing, the Father brought forth Jesus’ righteousness as the light, and His justice as noonday. Easter morning arrived and God vindicated Jesus’ patient waiting, His stillness, His delight in the Lord. God shows forth Jesus’ righteousness and justice. Because God did this for Jesus, because Jesus is the One who perfectly delights in the LORD and receives the desires of His heart, we are wrapped up into Him.

            Because God has made us for mutual delight, He to delight in us, and we to delight in Him, we are drawn into Jesus’ delight, His heart seeking God. This new heart in us, these new, stronger desires and passions are born of God, not of the will of man or the will of flesh (John 1:13). With the new heart of Christ beating in us, we soar to the stronger, purer, richer existence in the delight of the LORD. We no longer settle for the pale and earthly pleasures that can’t match up to the goodness and fullness of God. The desire of our heart is to “delight in His will and walk in His ways to the glory of His holy name” as we say in the confession each week. The desire of our heart is to grow in mutual delight with the LORD, deepening in our knowledge of who He is, and reveling in the truth that He delights in His saints!

            It is all for Jesus that we are given the purer desires of the new heart and a deeper delight in the Lord. It is all for Jesus that God delights in His saints. Since Jesus displayed His righteousness and justice in the sacrificial death on the cross, all our sin is forgiven. He cleanses us and purifies us from any weak desires and passions. He makes us whole, worthy, and new again. He forgives us our sins, and He makes us His saints, the object of His delight! It’s all for Jesus that we’re filled with mutual delight between us and God, and our desires are steered toward all that is good, right, and true. Pray the Psalms with all courage and conviction, to know that these words become true of us as they are first true in the life of Jesus Christ our Savior. In His precious Name we pray, Amen!