FAIR-WEATHER CHRISTIANITY
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
-[Psalm 37]
-I have been so wrapped up in a lot of personal things going on, it wasn’t until a conversation that we had this past week in the office that I was reminded that football season is almost upon us. College football will be starting up soon and preseason for the pros is under way. For those who don’t know me very well, I was born and raised in Wisconsin. The reason I bring that up is because in Wisconsin you are born and bred a Green Bay Packers fan. Up there everything is Green and Gold and full of cheese.
-It hasn’t always been easy to be a Packer fan. In my lifetime, from the 70s to the early 90s they weren’t so hot. But then we went through 30 years of having two of the best quarterbacks in the history of the game with Brett Favre and Aaron Rodgers, although there weren’t a lot of Lombardi trophies to show for it. And now we don’t know what to expect in the Jordan Love era. There’s been a lot of ups and downs with the Packers, but I will be a Packer fan through it all, just as you probably would with your team.
-But not everybody sticks with their team through the lean years. We call these people “fair-weather” fans. If their team is not doing so hot they turn their backs on them and begin rooting for another team as long as that team is winning. For some reason they think that all the time they should be on the mountaintop, but if they’re in the valley, they don’t like to lose so they jump ship. When things get tough, they want to get out.
-Let’s turn this into a spiritual application. When you look at the state of the world today, it would seem like the true church of Jesus Christ is floundering. Darkness seems to have a stranglehold over the entire world. Violence and perversion are running rampant. The enemies of God are becoming more bold, more vocal, and more violent. If you were to look at the state of the world from purely a human standpoint it would appear that the church and the ways of God and the ways of righteousness are the losing team.
-This might cause the people of God to worry and fret, so, it might be tempting for Christians to just throw their hands in the air and give up. Even worse is that it might cause envy for the prosperity of the wicked so they may be tempted to abandon their Christian principles and begin to follow the ways of the world. We can call such people Fair-Weather Christians. This refers to those who claim to believe in Jesus, but are unwilling to stick with Him or suffer for His sake, but would rather side with the world so they can enjoy its comfort and ease.
-Whatever form it takes, Fair-Weather Christianity has no understanding of Scripture or the promises of God. They also have no understanding that not everything is what it seems to be to the naked eye. The eye of faith shows a different picture. David, in this psalm, reminds us that the wicked may appear to be winning, but they’re not, so there is no reason to worry, fret, or be envious, or quit on God.
1 Do not fret when wicked men seem to succeed. Do not envy evildoers.
2 For they will quickly dry up like grass, and wither away like plants.
3 Trust in the Lord and do what is right. Settle in the land and maintain your integrity.
4 Then you will take delight in the Lord, and he will answer your prayers.
5 Commit your future to the Lord. Trust in him, and he will act on your behalf.
6 He will vindicate you in broad daylight, and publicly defend your just cause.
7 Wait patiently for the Lord! Wait confidently for him! Do not fret over the apparent success of a sinner, a man who carries out wicked schemes.
8 Do not be angry and frustrated. Do not fret. That only leads to trouble.
9 Wicked men will be wiped out, but those who rely on the Lord are the ones who will possess the land.
10 Evil men will soon disappear; you will stare at the spot where they once were, but they will be gone.
11 But the oppressed will possess the land and enjoy great prosperity.
-[pray]
-From this passage, I find three exhortations that David gives that remind us why we should not be Fair-Weather Christians, but stick with Christ and His righteousness no matter what world events might be happening. And the first exhortation:
1) Look Ahead!
1) Look Ahead!
-If you get stuck on the perspective of merely looking at the here and now, things look bleak and hopeless. In the here and now it seems we are the losing team. But God through David reminds us that this present world and this present time is not all there is.
-In all honesty, this present world and this present time are merely blips in light of eternity. This world will not last forever. And we are encouraged to look at things the way God sees things, taking on a heavenly perspective. Instead of looking merely here and now, look ahead to what God promises when Christ returns again, because at some future point Jesus will return and judge the wicked of the world. The wicked may seem to be winning now, but in eternity they will be the losers. Consider what David says:
1 Do not fret when wicked men seem to succeed. Do not envy evildoers.
2 For they will quickly dry up like grass, and wither away like plants.
-And at the beginning of v. 9 he says: WICKED MEN WILL BE WIPED OUT, and at the beginning of v. 10 it says EVIL MEN WILL SOON DISAPPEAR. The wicked think that they are prospering and controlling their own destinies, living for self and pleasure. We as Christians look at the wicked’s prosperity and might be tempted to join them, but our verses say that the end result of the wicked is their destruction. Even the prosperous wicked will face death and if they are outside of Christ they will spend eternity separated from God and all of their prosperity will fade away and be completely forgotten.
-Yes, they seem to have it all right now. But David says LOOK AHEAD. Look at what is going to be the end of the evil deeds and ask yourself, is that something to envy or desire or worry yourself about or join? If you are truly saved, do you want to join in on what is going to be the losing side for a season? And if you’re not saved in Christ, is it worth gaining the whole world and losing your own soul?
-Sinners may seem to flourish and get honor now, but everything they have is temporary and superficial, and it will end in their destruction. It says in:
5 that the elation of the wicked is brief, the joy of the godless lasts but a moment.
-But if you look ahead to what’s in store for believers in Jesus Christ, we see that we receive a grand inheritance which is greater than anything we can find on the earth. It says:
11 But the oppressed will possess the land and enjoy great prosperity.
-When you look ahead you find out that in Christ you always come out ahead. Our prosperity isn’t in the here and now, but it’s future and eternal.
-By way of analogy, suppose I had a book that told me the end results and scores of every football game that would ever be played before the games would actually be played—it told me the future, and the book has never been wrong. Suppose that the book tells me that in Week 1 this season the Packers will beat the Chicago Bears 38 to 35. Now, suppose on game day I’m watching the game and at the beginning of the 4th quarter the Packers are down 35 to 0. But the book which has never been wrong told me that the Packers would win 38 to 35. How ridiculous it would be for me to say at this point in the game, “You know what, forget the Packers. I’m going to root for the Bears.”
-Guess what, we not only have A book, we have THE book that tells the future and it is always right. It allows us to look ahead. And what we find is that the prosperous wicked who seem to be winning right now actually end up losing. Yes, it is the 4th quarter and we seem to be down 35 to 0. But what the book that has never been wrong tells us is that the team that appears to be winning right now actually ends up losing everything. They are cut off and they are tossed aside. Whereas God’s team, His church, actually end up on top. We end up winning so much more than we could ever lose here on the earth.
-How utterly ridiculous it would be for us to worry, fret, or jump to the losing side. When you look ahead, you see who wins. But we don’t just LOOK AHEAD, we also:
2) Look Up!
2) Look Up!
-When we are going through any sort of trial, our tendency is to look at the problem and/or to look at ourselves. We see how big the problem might seem and look at how inadequate we are to do anything about it. We see that the wicked in this world seem to be winning, and that’s where we focus.
-David tells us to not focus on the world, the wicked, or ourselves, but instead we are to look to the Lord. Don’t preoccupy yourself with the world but preoccupy yourself with the Living God. And David talks about what happens when we look up to God rather than down to our circumstances. First, we learn to:
A) Trust
A) Trust
-David tells us in v. 3
3 Trust in the Lord and do what is right. Settle in the land and maintain your integrity.
-When we are told to trust in the Lord, it means we exclusively depend on God and nobody else. We place our confidence in God and rely on God for our well-being and security. This is in contrast with the prosperous wicked of the world who put their confidence in their fame, fortune, and sin to maintain their way of life. The wicked look to the world, but the child of God looks up to God.
-The Bible gives many warnings about looking to the world and trusting in the things of the world. For example:
17 Command those who are rich in this world’s goods not to be haughty or to set their hope on riches, which are uncertain, but on God who richly provides us with all things for our enjoyment.
-The things of the world are temporary, they are finite, they will not last forever. God alone is trustworthy because He will not fail us or forsake us. So, David in another Psalm says:
7 Some trust in chariots and others in horses, but we depend on the Lord our God.
-In our passage David says to trust in the Lord and dwell there. Trust in the Lord who does not fail rather than the world that does.
There’s an old story of a father who took his young son out & stood him on railing of back porch. He then went down, stood on the lawn, and encouraged the little fellow to jump into his arms. “I’ll catch you,” the father said confidently. After a lot of coaxing, the little boy finally made the big leap. When he did, the father stepped back & let the child fall to the ground. He then picked up his son, dusted him off, and dried his tears. “Let that be lesson to you,” he said sternly. “Don’t ever trust anyone.”
-That is the picture of this world—it tells you to trust it and then lets you fall. But we look up and trust in a faithful God. We not only learn to trust when we look up, we also learn to:
B) Delight
B) Delight
-V. 4 in the version I read says:
4 Then you will take delight in the Lord, and he will answer your prayers.
You are probably more familiar with versions such as
4 Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.
-They say that when you take pleasure in or find satisfaction in the Lord, your desires and prayers are focused on Him and what He wants. His desires become your desires, and you take delight in the Lord. The wicked find delight in their power and position and prestige. But when you settle for the pleasures of the world you are left empty and wanting. But when you find your delight in the Lord, you find your fulfillment in Him.
C. S. Lewis described this delight 50 years ago in terms that make even more sense today in our commuter-driven society:
A car is made to run on petrol [gasoline], and it would not run properly on anything else. Now God designed the human machine to run on himself. He himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other. That is why it is just no good asking God to make us happy in our own way without bothering about religion. God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.
-If you want to find true delight, you look up. But when we look up we also learn to:
C) Commit
C) Commit
-Look at:
5 Commit your future to the Lord. Trust in him, and he will act on your behalf.
6 He will vindicate you in broad daylight, and publicly defend your just cause.
-The word for COMMIT literally means to ROLL like rolling a stone away. It speaks metaphorically of rolling the issues of life upon God. All of our needs and distresses and burdens and behaviors and lives are fully rolled onto / committed to God without holding anything back. Whatever is not committed to the Lord weighs us down and burdens us. If we continue to act like the control freaks that we are, the more burdened we become and the more miserable we become—losing out on peace, joy, and victory.
-From a purely human standpoint it would seem that the wicked have it all, and we might question God why they have what they have, and we’ve got what we got. But we have to remember that everything that the wicked have right now is all they’ll ever have in their entire existence, while we have barely begun to reap the joys and delights of eternity with Christ. Why burden ourselves with these cares of the world when we can commit them all to the Lord?
-Without committing everything to the Lord, it’d be like running a race while carrying 10 — 50 pound weights in our arms, and somebody come alongside of us and says, “Give me the weights so you can run the race.” So you decide to give that person 4 of those weights, but choose to carry the other 6. How silly is that?
-When we stop looking at the world and we look up and see the greatness of our God, no matter what’s going on down here, we know that there is a God that we can trust and commit all of our burdens to Him, knowing that eternity awaits. But then, by looking up, we learn to:
D) Rest
D) Rest
-David says:
7 Wait patiently for the Lord! Wait confidently for him! Do not fret over the apparent success of a sinner, a man who carries out wicked schemes.
-God is calling us to a patient trust as He works things out in His time. Christians cannot have a fast food mentality when it comes to the things of God. God will work things out in His time. Yes, it seems the wicked are winning right this second, but we know that in the grand scheme of things they aren’t. God is not going to just wipe them out right this second as we waits patiently for them to repent and believe. And He is asking us to wait with Him. He tells us:
10 He says, “Stop your striving and recognize that I am God. I will be exalted over the nations! I will be exalted over the earth!”
-Yes, we want to yell at God and say: DON’T YOU SEE WHAT’S GOING ON AROUND HERE? WHY DON’T YOU DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT? But God says for us to be still, wait patiently, be silent, and watch what God does. And in the waiting God is working on us, refining us, and reminding us that the way of the wicked leads to their destruction in the long run. Sin has caused things to go out of whack for now, but there will be a day when God’s justice will fully prevail. So, to prevent us from being a fair-weather Christian we look ahead, we look up, and quickly:
3) Look In!
3) Look In!
-We need to do some serious introspection to see if our actions and attitudes are a reflection of Christ and Scripture even in the midst of what we perceive as the wicked prospering. We have to ask ourselves if we are allowing what is happening in other people’s lives to determine the way we walk in obedience (or disobedience) to our calling. In the midst of perceived injustice, in the midst of the wicked prospering, in the midst of hardships and trials and troubles we are in control of only one thing, and that is our own actions and attitudes and words.
-We look in to see if we are allowing bitterness and anger and envy to rob us of joy and peace and victory in Jesus. That’s why David said:
8 Do not be angry and frustrated. Do not fret. That only leads to trouble.
-Our anger and jealousy and envy are not going to accomplish anything.
20 For human anger does not accomplish God’s righteousness.
-What do we do instead? David says in v. 3: TRUST IN THE LORD AND DO WHAT IS RIGHT. Or, as Paul put it,
21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
-We all like to think that we are reacting to the wickedness of the world in a godly manner. But are we really? Are we letting the supposed victory of the wicked to cause us to give up and walk away—to be fair-weather Christians? Or, when we take a good look inside are we free from the anger and jealousy and envy? Do we really understand the position we are in when we are in Christ despite how things appear around us?
-Just because things are hard now doesn’t mean we jump ship. If anything, now is the time to seek God harder than we ever have before. But you have to look in to see where you are in your walk with Christ and your faith in God.
CONCLUSION
CONCLUSION
-I’ll close with this thought. Several weeks ago I mentioned the statistic that 9 out of 10 pastors do not actually end up retiring as pastors. That means 90% give up on ministry as things get tough. Another statistic is that church attendance on average dropped at least 6% after COVID, with some demographics being as much as 15%—there were a lot of people who quit going to church after COVID.
-With the increase in wickedness in the world, it will be tempting to quit on God. But it’s no time for lukewarm, fair-weather Christianity or sitting on the fence. You’re either in or your not. If you’re in, then don’t let the seeming prosperity of wickedness move you. Look ahead to what their destiny is versus those of us in Christ. Look up to an eternal God who is trustworthy no matter our circumstances. Look in to see if we’re letting the ways of the world to influence us and make our decisions for us rather than Scripture.
-Christian, come to the altar and pray that God strengthens you to withstand this wicked generation.
-If you are not a Christian, believe in Jesus because He is the only way to escape this wickedness.
-If you are looking for a fellowship with whom you can encourage and receive encouragement during these dark days, consider joining yourself with Harvest Baptist Church...