Psalm 37
September 14, 2025 In light of national and local events of the past week and weeks and months, today’s psalm—Psalm 37, written by King David—is particularly timely. Although it is not precisely addressing recent events, its wisdom speaks to those events. As we hear it this morning, let’s feel David’s earnestness and heart-felt desire that God’s people would learn this wisdom. Listen for his repeated and therefore emphatic exhortations. Let’s soak them up.
I’ll begin with prayer, then pause for the reading of the psalm, then conclude with prayer. Let’s bow our hearts together.
Heavenly Father, we look around us—in the headlines, in our scrolling, at our places of work, in our classrooms, up and down the block, in places near and far away. We see persons and nations, the powerful and the ordinary, who do wrong, who fit the Biblical category of “wicked.” They don’t know you, trust you, or live by your Word. They may be ignorantly content, passively dismissive, condescendingly tolerant, or actively hostile—even injurious, even murderous. Whether they wield firearms or keyboards or worldviews or affluence or success or charm, they have little or no regard for you. They prosper without being burdened by ethics or conscience or the ultimate future. How then, Lord, should we live?
(Read Psalm 37)
Thanks be to you indeed, Lord, for instructing us in this psalm. May we take its long view. May we embrace its sharp distinctions. May we tremble at its warnings and love its promises. May we have steady confidence in the future it reveals.
Root out of us agitation and fretting. Turn us from envy and anger and cynicism. May we trust you; be silent before you; wait expectantly for you; commit our way to you; delight ourselves in you; and live with a clear view of the future.
Thank you, Lord Jesus, for securing our future inheritance. Thank you for your willing, sacrificial submission to defeat by the wicked, to stumble and fall under the weight of the cross, to take the nails and spear—to take our sins upon yourself. Thank you for being silent and waiting patiently for your heavenly Father to deliver you through resurrection. And thank you for your amazing offer extended now in this present age to all the wicked to get in on the inheritance—to lay down their arms and trust in your superior victory and embrace your true wisdom. Lord, may we invite others to join us on this psalm’s path.
In the bleak aftermath of the recent shootings near and far, we pray for the bereaved, the wounded, the survivors, the traumatized. Lord, have mercy.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord we pray, and all God’s people said, “Amen!”