This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

(upbeat music) - Welcome to day two of our look through Psalm 36 to 40. We're
looking at Psalm 37 today. Psalm 37 is a Psalm that gives us God's truth for
dealing with our anger.

It tells us that it is meekness, not anger, that will prevail in the end. Psalm
37, 10 and 11, in a little while and the wicked will be no more. Though you look
for them, they will not be found, but the meek will inherit the land and enjoy
great peace.

Now, if you're familiar with Jesus's Beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount,
something may have sounded familiar there. The meek will inherit the land.
Blessed are the meek, Jesus said.

They will inherit the earth. He went to the entire earth. It's one of Jesus's
Beatitudes.

It's what he taught us. And Psalm 37 talks to us about how to control anger. And
instead of relying on our anger to get things done, we recognize that in our
meekness, we're relying on God.

And all of us struggle with angry words from time to time. Some of us, it's our
way of getting things done. And God wants to break through that in all of our
lives.

So he gives us the full truth about anger here. This Psalm is an alphabet
acrostic. It's a poem about anger.

In the original, it's from Aleph to Ta. All the letters of the Hebrew alphabet
start the different parts of this Psalm. It's about a man who's angry because of
those who did wrong, but seem to get richer, while those who did right seem to
get poorer.

It clearly helps us to deal strongly with all kinds of anger in our lives. So
these next few minutes together, we're going to both educate our anger and attack
our anger. We're going to take it to school and we're going to take it to the mat.

To control anger requires a combination of understanding and overcoming. So
listen to these commands against anger in verse eight of this Psalm. Verse eight
says, refrain from anger and turn from wrath.

Do not fret, it leads only to evil. So here in this one verse, you have three
commands against anger. Cease from anger, forsake wrath, fret not yourself.

Again and again and again, God says, this is not going to work in your life. In
fact, what he says here is it leads only to evil. Anger doesn't accomplish
anything but evil.

Now in the moment, sometimes it feels like you get what you want because you're
angry. But in the end, it only accomplishes evil 'cause there's the bounce back
eventually because of the anger. Some of us need to recognize the startling
truth of this fact that just because I get what I want because I'm angry doesn't
mean I'm getting what God wants or in the end, I'm getting what I really need.

We need to attack anger in our lives. And this Psalm gives us five specific, in
verses three to seven, it gives us five specific measures of counterattack.
There's some positive things that you and I can do in our lives that will change
you from an angry person to a caring person.

These are the things that temper our tantrums and fix our fits and attack our
anger. So what do you do? These five things.

Number one, you make trust your motivator. Verse three says, you trust in the
Lord and do good. Anger is often the result of the wrong motivation in our
lives.

We're motivated by guilt or by envy or by fear or by pride. When those are the
motivations, you often get anger that comes out of that. If you start with trust
in the Lord and you do good out of that trust, then all of a sudden you have a
different motivator.

You're living in a different way. I know some people who talk about, they have a
righteous anger. Well, righteous anger isn't about you.

A righteous anger isn't about destroying other people. Righteous anger is
against the evil that's being done against people. And I'm afraid that sometimes
our righteous anger is really a selfish anger if we're honest about it.

Just because we're doing good out of our anger doesn't mean it's a good kind of
anger. Trust in the Lord and do good. Not be angry and do good.

Trust in the Lord and do good. You're trusting when you're trusting God to take
care of you instead of trusting yourself. Now God has some things for you to do,
but ultimately he's the one who's taking care of you.

And when you recognize that, you are motivated in a different way. Verse 18 and
19 say that days of the blameless are known to the Lord and their inheritance
will endure forever. In times of disaster, they will not wither.

In times of famine, they will enjoy plenty. You make trust your motivator.
Second thing you do to deal with anger is you dwell in security.

This is in the last half of verse three, which says dwell in the land and enjoy
safe pasture. Dwell in security. Insecure people are angry people.

Most family arguments, you just watch, most family arguments start with some
kind of insecurity. When somebody all of a sudden blows up at you, you can just
almost always think, okay, I've touched a point of insecurity in their life. And
we need to dwell in a place of security.

Now the picture here is you enjoy safe pasture. If the sheep is always looking
over its shoulder for a wolf, it's hard to eat the grass and it gets indigestion
when it does eat the grass. We need to dwell in a place of security.

To dwell is to settle into that place. Dwell in the land. He's talking about the
promised land here.

And there were some people, David knew as the king, there were some people who
were tempted to leave the promised land 'cause it wasn't working out as they
expected it to. So if they had left the promised land that God had brought them
to, essentially they would have been saying they didn't expect that God would
keep his promises. Now how about you?

Are you living in that expectation that God's going to keep his promises? Dwell in
security. As long as you keep your bags of commitment packed, just in case it
doesn't work out with God or somebody else, you're never going to dwell in
security.

So you go all in and saying, God, I don't know how, I can't see how, but you're
going to keep your promises and that's where I'm going to live. That's one of the ways
that you deal with anger in your life, that deal with this lack of security in
your life. Verses 36 to 40 say, the salvation of the righteous comes from the
Lord.

He is their stronghold in 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.

There's a third thing you and I can do to deal with anger and that is you
transform desires with delight. Verse four says, delight yourself in the Lord
and he will give you the desires of your heart. So let's just be brutally
honest.

We feel angry when we don't get what we want. If it doesn't work out like I
wanted it to, if it doesn't work out like you wanted it to, that can create
anger. So how do we attack that?

Our answer sometimes is we feel guilty for feeling angry because we didn't get
what we wanted, but we still haven't dealt with the root cause. I wanted it, I
got angry, I feel guilty. I wanted it, I got angry, I feel guilty.

There's gotta be a better way to deal with this. And the answer is to change
what we want, to transform your desires with delight. Because sometimes we get
angry that we didn't get what we want because we wanted the wrong thing.

What you choose to delight in, listen, this is an incredibly important principle
for life. What you choose to delight in is what you will end up desiring.
Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Notice it doesn't say delight yourself in what God gives you. It says delight
yourself in the Lord. When you make the decision to delight in God, you'll end
up desiring what he desires.

And he will give you the desires of your heart because of the desires of his
heart. When you begin to live in that kind of way, you're not as angry as you
used to be. 'Cause guess what?

Life is working out. Not like you wanted it to, but like God wanted it to, and
what you most desire is life working out like God wanted it to. And when you
delight yourself in God, here's the incredible truth.

God ends up delighting in you. Listen to verses 23 to 25. If the Lord delights
in a man's way, he makes his steps firm, and though he stumble, he will not
fall, for the Lord upholds him with his hand.

I was young, and now I'm old, yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken or
their children begging bread. They are always generous and lend freely. Their
children will be blessed.

God delights in you because you're living a life of faith. That's one of the
ways you deal with anger, is you change your desires by delighting in God.
There's a fourth thing that you and I can do.

Number four, you don't complain, you commit. You do what verse five and six say.
You commit your way to the Lord and you trust in him, and he will do this.

He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause
like the noonday sun. Angry people often feel like life's given them a raw deal,
so they end up as complainers, as dissatisfied people. Even those who seem to
have it all, they end up as complainers oftentimes because they realize that the
all that they have is not fulfilling them.

Complaining builds upon anger, and the more you complain, the angrier you get.
How do you break the pattern? You commit your way to the Lord.

That word commit in Hebrew, it comes from the Hebrew word for roll, or to roll
on to another, to put on another person's shoulders. It means to entrust. You're
putting it on God's shoulders.

You're putting it in God's hands. Instead of complaining about what you're going
through in life, that thing that you're struggling with, commit it to God again
and again. God, it's yours, open hands.

I'm giving it to you again and again. And there's one final thing we do. I know
I'm walking through these fast.

You might want to go back and read through this Psalm again and again. The fifth
thing that you do to deal with anger is you don't get in a hurry. Verse seven,
be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him.

Do not fret when men succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked
schemes. When you get in a hurry, you tend to get angry. If I'm in a hurry when
I'm driving somewhere, I'm angry at everyone.

I'm angry at every red light, even though it's not the red light's fault. But if
I just give myself an extra 10 minutes, the world looks beautiful. I can pray
for everybody as I'm driving along.

Red light gives me an opportunity to stop and see the birds and enjoy the day.
Don't get in a hurry. Psalm 37, seven tells us that the great enemy of trusting
while you wait is comparison.

Just be still before the Lord, wait patiently for him. Do not fret when men
succeed in their ways. I compare myself to other people and feel like I'm doing
the right thing, they're doing the wrong thing and they're succeeding.

And that comparison can cause me to try to hurry, can cause me to try to lose,
to actually lose the joy that I have in my life. So I'm waiting on kids, but
they have kids. I'm waiting on a career.

Why do they have such a great career? They're not at all a person of faith. And
yet look at the success that seems to be in their life.

That begins to tear you up inside. And God says, don't worry about them. You
wait on me 'cause I'm trustworthy.

Don't get in a hurry trying to do it yourself because it doesn't seem to be
working out like you want. You wait on me. Verse 34, wait for the Lord and keep
his way.

He will exalt you to inherit the land. When the wicked are cut off, you will see
it. What it seems to, in this little tiny sliver of life that you're looking at
right now, what seems to be that the evil is succeeding and the good is not,
that's not the way it's going to end up in the end.

God says, I promise you, you don't have to be angry to get your way. I'm looking
out for you, for your best in the life that I've created you to live. Ephesians
4.

26 says, don't sin by letting anger control you. Don't let the sun go down when
you're still angry. And Psalm 37, which you've just looked at, tells us how to
not let anger get in control.

So let's talk to God about what he's talked to us about in this Psalm and just
make a commitment and say, God in prayer, I don't want to be an angry person. And
so I decide to do these things today and I want to decide to do them again and
again every day. I want to make trust my motivator and I want to dwell in security.

And I want to transform my desires by delighting in you so I can delight in what
you delight in. God, I don't want to be a complainer. So I commit, I roll it to
you.

And God, I don't want to be living in a hurry. I know I can trust you. So I trust
you with this day.

In your name I trust you, amen. Join us tomorrow, we're going to look at Psalm 38.
It tells us the truth about sin.