Injustice
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Series Materials
We are taking this summer to walk through the book of Psalms, which is the longest book of the Bible, the book most quoted by Jesus, and it’s the book that served as the original song book of Israel. So just like any good music lyrics, the Psalms talk about human emotions. They help us to put words to what we’re feeling. But they don’t stop there. They teach us how our emotions can actually be the gateway to deeper spiritual maturity. So when you read the Psalms, if you’re paying attention, and if you open yourself up to the Holy Spirit, you’ll find yourself a little wiser, and a little more amazed with God than when you started.
So today, we come to Psalm 37, and the emotion it addresses is injustice.
In C.S. Lewis’ famous book Mere Christianity, he says if you listen to people arguing, you can learn something important. Because they say things like, “How would you like it if anyone did the same thing to you?” or “That’s my seat—I was there first,” or “Give me a piece of your orange—I gave you a piece of mine.” People say things like that all the time, right? And the person who says that isn’t just saying he doesn’t happen to like what the other person is doing. He’s actually appealing to some kind of standard of behavior that he expects the other person to know about. And the other person rarely says, “That’s a ridiculous standard.” Instead, he explains why the thing he did doesn’t really go against the standard. But everyone agrees there is a standard. And starting from there, Lewis makes a case that there is a universal law that we all know we should follow, even though we don’t consistently follow it. It’s a brilliant chapter in a brilliant book—you should read it if you haven’t.
But the point is, there’s a standard. Different cultures might quibble about some of the finer points of ethics, but in general, there’s a standard of fairness. You shouldn’t cut in front of people in line at Great Adventure. If you find someone’s wallet on a restaurant table, you should try to return it. You shouldn’t cheat on your spouse. You shouldn’t cheat on tests. You shouldn’t cheat in Monopoly. In a business deal, you shouldn’t lie to your clients. And the list goes on. Basic standards of behavior that we expect each other to follow. Makes sense, right?
So what happens when you see someone not following those standards, and instead of getting caught or getting in trouble, they get away with it? And not only do they get away with it; it seems like, by doing it, they’re getting ahead! Your nasty co-worker gets promoted. The mean girl becomes super popular. The jerky guy gets the most beautiful girlfriend. The guy who cheated on all his exams gets into the Ivy League school. Meanwhile, you’re trying to do the right thing, and your life is not going well at all. Do you know that feeling? Anybody thinking of a particular person or situation right now, and you can feel your blood pressure rising? How are we supposed to react when life is unfair?
Let’s read the Psalm together. Psalm 37, and it’s extremely long, so we’re just going to read the first nine verses. I invite you now to hear the Word of God…
1 Do not fret because of those who are evil or be envious of those who do wrong; 2 for like the grass they will soon wither, like green plants they will soon die away.
3 Trust in the LORD and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. 4 Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.
5 Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him and he will do this: 6 He will make your righteous reward shine like the dawn, your vindication like the noonday sun.
7 Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him; do not fret when people succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes.
8 Refrain from anger and turn from wrath; do not fret—it leads only to evil. 9 For those who are evil will be destroyed, but those who hope in the LORD will inherit the land. This is the Word of the Lord.
So when we are confronted by the unfairness of life, this Psalm tells us two ways we can respond—one foolish and the other very wise. So let’s look at those one at a time.
First: The Foolish Response. And he mentions to parts to this:
First, Anger. In these first nine verses, there’s a phrase that shows up three times—did you see the phrase? In verse 1, verse 7 and verse 8. The phrase is do not fret. Now, normally, when we think of “fretting,” what do we think? I think of worry and fear and anxiety—all nervous and fearful. But the Hebrew word here has a little different meaning. The word literally means “to heat up or blaze up”—like a fire. So figuratively, it was often used of anger or jealousy or being offended by something. So the Bible is saying, “Don’t get all heated up about this thing.” In English, we use that image of getting heated up all the time, don’t we? We say, “This guy makes my blood…” what? “Boil.” “This person just burns me up.” “She’s so mad, she’s over there simmering.” “He’s all hot under the collar.” So just like the Hebrews, we use the image of heat to express anger. That’s what it means to fret.
So David, who wrote this Psalm, is saying, “When you see something in life that’s unfair, watch your heart carefully—because it’s easy to become consumed by anger—and you don’t want to go there.” Down in verse 8 he says refrain from anger and turn from wrath. So it’s very realistic: there are times you’re going to find yourself going down that road—getting all worked up—and David says, “When you catch yourself going there, turn from it. Choose to resist it.”
I share this quote with you guys probably once a year, probably because I need to hear it over and over. The great writer Frederick Buechner wrote this:
Of the Seven Deadly Sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back—in many ways it is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you.
So if you respond to the unfairness of life by becoming an angry person, you might feel like you’re taking some control and making that person pay for what they’ve done, but the only person you’re really hurting is yourself. Anger will eat you alive.
Now: don’t hear me wrong. There is a time in life for righteous anger. There’s a time to be indignant against injustice. Today we’re observing Juneteenth. So thank God there were people in this country who were so angry against the evil of slavery, that it was finally overturned. Amen? So that’s a good anger—that we exercise on behalf of other people. But Psalm 37 is talking about something much more self-focused. Not just hating an unjust institution, like slavery, but hating particular people. Not just a passion to make things right, but a passion for revenge. That’s the kind of anger we need to be really careful about.
The other foolish response is: Envy. The second half of verse 1 says “don’t be envious of those who do wrong.” Why would you envy someone who does wrong? Because you want what they have! Through their unjust actions, they’re getting something in life that you wish you had! And it bothers you.
When you think about envy, what color is normally associated with it? The color green. Why green? Because envy makes you sick. It’s acid to your soul. The ancient church father, John Chrysostom, said it like this: “As a moth gnaws a garment, so doth envy consume a man.” It consumes you! You’re thinking about that dishonest or immoral person who has the body or the home or the girlfriend or the success that you wish you had, and it eats you up inside. The person you’re envying might not know anything about it! But it’s killing you.
So…when you feel like life isn’t fair, resist anger and envy. By the way, this is not the only place in the Bible we find this counsel—for example, look at Proverbs 24:19…
Do not fret because of evildoers or be envious of the wicked.
It’s the exact same advice, right? So throughout the Wisdom Literature of the Old Testament, there’s this consistent message: when you’re confronted with injustice, don’t let yourself go down the path of anger and envy. Just don’t do it.
When we talk about anger and envy, we’re really talking about “resentment,” aren’t we? You resent that person for what they have, and how they’ve gotten it. Listen to what Max Lucado wrote about resentment—this is so rich:
“Resentment is when you let your hurt become hate.
Resentment is when you allow what is eating you to eat you up.
Resentment is when you poke, stoke, feed, and fan the fire, stirring the flames and reliving the pain.
Resentment is the deliberate decision to nurse the offense until it becomes a black, furry, growling grudge.” Is that spot on, or what?
Let me share one more thing about this foolish response to injustice. A few years ago, they did a study at Erasmus University in the Netherlands. They gathered a group of participants, and they asked them to write about a time they had experienced a conflict. But there were different groups. One group wrote about a time they forgave the person—so there was no grudge or resentment anymore. Another group wrote about a time they didn’t forgive the person who offended them. Then (here’s where it gets interesting) they were given a small physical task: they were told to jump five times, as high as they could. What do you think happened? The people who had let go of the offense—the
people who forgave—jumped about 40% higher than the people who were still hanging on to the grudge. Isn’t that amazing?
So we talk about carrying a grudge being kind of a weight on your soul? It’s a weight on your body, also! The lead researcher for the study wrote this: “A state of unforgiveness is like carrying a heavy burden—a burden that victims bring with them when they navigate the physical world. Forgiveness can ‘lighten’ this burden.”
You get the point, right? When we choose anger, envy, resentment…it eats us up, it makes us sick; it weighs us down. Because it violates who God made us to be. So when you confront the injustice of life, whatever you do, resist anger and envy. Resist the foolish response.
Instead, by God’s grace, choose The Wise Response. And there are two parts to that.
First, Trust in the Lord. So you have to really believe that God is there, and that God cares about this unjust thing. By the way, if you don’t believe God is there, it’s more likely you will take justice into your own hands, and that’s a dangerous thing. So the most important thing is to trust in the Lord.
Part of that means to trust in his timing. Verse 2 says
for like the grass they will soon wither, like green plants they will soon die away.
In other words, this situation where unjust, crooked people prosper—it’s a very temporary situation. Just like your lawn that’s nice and green now, but by August it’s going to be dry and brown, their prosperity is not going to last.
There’s another Psalm that teaches a very similar message: Psalm 73. And in Psalm 73, listen to what it says about wicked people who seem to be living their best life—Psalm 73:20…20 They are like a dream when one awakes; when you arise, Lord, you will despise them as fantasies. A couple of years ago, my wife, Norma Jean, woke up, and she was very cold toward me. And I said, “Hey—is everything okay?” She said, “I’m fine.” I said, “No really—what’s the matter?” She said “ I just had this dream that you were sitting there, having coffee with…(and she said the name of a woman that we both know). And you were all interested in her, and listening to everything she had to say. And I tried to get in the conversation, but you both just ignored me. I can’t believe you would do that.” And I said, “Um…but that didn’t actually happen.” She said, “Well it seemed pretty real to me.” I said, “Yeah, but I wouldn’t actually do that.” She said, “Yeah.” And it took her about 15 minutes to fully wake up and shake it off. Is anybody feeling my pain here? Dreams can feel incredibly real.
The prosperity of godless people is a lot like that. You look around, and it seems like this is the way life works: evil people get away with being evil. The universe seems to smile on arrogance and darkness and cheating. But God says, “That’s not reality. It seems real, but one day we’re all going to wake up from the dream, and realize none of that was real. And fairness and justice will have the final word.”
And therefore—verse 7—be still before the Lord. Wait patiently for him. He will make things right in his time. Trust his timing.
And this is really a continuation of that thought: Trust his justice. He really will require people to answer for the unjust things they’ve done. Verse 9 says For those who are evil will be destroyed. In both Old and New Testament, it says there’s a Day of Judgment coming. And on that day, those who have turned their backs on God will experience the terrifying reality of having God turn His back on them. To quote C.S. Lewis again—he said: “There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says (ultimately), "All right, then, have it your way.” So these
selfish, arrogant people that David is writing about fit into that second group, right? They had pushed God out of their lives, and one day God will say, “You now get your way.” So trust his timing; trust his justice.
And trust his goodness! Look at verse 4:
Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Even when you’re struggling with the injustice of life—and maybe especially when you’re experiencing the injustice of life—learn to take delight in the Lord. Learn that this world is not going to deliver what your soul most craves, and delight yourself in the Lord. I was just with a friend whose wife had a midlife crisis; she abandoned him and their kids—there’s some injustice, right? But through that pain, he leaned on God and learned to delight in the Lord in a way he never had before, and by God’s grace his wife returned and they’re rebuilding their marriage. I’ve heard multiple stories of people wrongly convicted for crimes and sent to prison—extreme injustice! And in prison they find a delight in God they’ve never known before. And as we delight in God, he aligns our desires with his will, and we find our desires being satisfied.
So when life is unfair, trust in the Lord—his timing, his justice, his goodness.
And then here’s the second part of the wise response: Do good. Do good! Look at verse 3:
Trust in the LORD and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.
So even while that unfair situation is still happening, and that nasty person is enjoying their wonderful life, choose to do good. Because you know what the temptation is, right? The temptation is to say, “It’s not worth it. I’ve tried honoring God and doing good; look where that’s gotten me. So I’m going to give in and just join in with the darkness.” You can get so jaded when your life is hard, and you start doubting your faith and doubting God. Have you ever felt that way? Through this Psalm, God is telling you, “Don’t give in. Keep doing good.”
Not too long ago, I was having a really bad day. I felt like I was working hard and doing my best, but I was receiving a lot of complaints and criticisms. It didn’t seem fair, and I felt my heart getting a little resentful. So I made a decision to do good. It was lunchtime, and I decided to go visit someone who’s in an elder care facility. I hadn’t seen this person for a while, and it was kind of random. But I felt the self-pity coming on, and I realized I just had to get out of myself and do good for someone else. So I went and visited this person, and spent time talking and praying with her and had a really sweet visit. And I walked out of that place with a completely different mindset.
So when you feel the self-pity coming on, because life is so unfair, trust in the Lord and do good. Choose to get up and do the right thing. Spend time in the Word and prayer. Go to the gym and have good workout. Just recently I was having another bad day—this is a different bad day from the one I just told you about—and Norma Jean ordered me to go take a hike. She said, I don’t want to hear this anymore—you need to go hike. So I took a four mile hike and vented with God—it was exactly what I needed. For me at that moment, that’s what it meant to “do good.” Empty the dishwasher for your spouse. Spend time with your kids. Text a friend and see how they’re doing. Even when others are doing bad, trust in the Lord and do good. Like it says in Romans 12, don’t be overcome by evil; overcome evil with good. There’s power in that.
You know why this is actually possible? I mean, to confront the injustice of life, and actually resist anger and envy, and instead trust the Lord and do good—you know why we can actually do that? Because we have a Savior who confronted the worst injustice in all of history. You know, Psalm 37 starts out like this: Do not fret because of those who are evil. And in a way, that’s talking about all of us, isn’t it? We all have some evil in us. But one person didn’t. 1 Peter 2:22—He committed no sin, nor was there any deceit found in his mouth. The only completely righteous person who’s ever lived. And in return for his goodness, he was tortured and mocked and executed. The worst injustice that has ever occurred in human history. And how did he respond? “Father, forgive them—they don’t know what they’re doing.” He turned from anger; he trusted the Lord; he continued to do good. It’s really incredible.
And when we are connected with Jesus by faith, we receive his power—supernatural power—to respond the same way. It’s so countercultural; it’s so unusual; and it’s such a beautiful way to live.
A few years ago, Leonardo DiCaprio starred in a movie called The Revenant. Nice manly movie to talk about on Father’s Day. It’s based on a true story about a guy named Hugh Glass—he was a fur trapper who was out hunting in South Dakota, and he was attacked and severely wounded by a grizzly bear. And if you saw the movie you know what happens next: his hunting companions decide to leave him for dead, and then they murder Hugh Glass’s son before his eyes. Just a horrible injustice. And after they literally bury him alive, Glass crawls out of his grave and treks 80 miles on foot to hunt down and kill the men who betrayed him. So the movie ends with sweet revenge.
The problem is, that’s not what actually happened. In the real, historical story, Glass was betrayed and left for dead by his companions, and he did travel all that way to find them, but when he found them…he forgave them. What? I don’t know what his motives were; I don’t know if he was a man of faith; but the best historical records that we have say that actually forgave the men who had done him such harm. One popular film blogger wrote about the disparity between the real story and the movie, and he said apparently a story of forgiveness would be way too boring for Hollywood.
You know what I think? If they stuck to the real story—if they actually told that story and it ended with someone who had been done so wrong, rising above and extending forgiveness to his enemies, it would have been one of the most powerful movies anyone had ever seen. I think Hollywood missed a great opportunity—don’t you?
But I don’t want us to walk out of here today critiquing Hollywood. I want us to walk out hearing God challenging us. Calling us to respond to the unfairness of life in a beautiful, supernatural way. Whatever kind of injustice you’re facing, by the power of Christ in you, don’t get pulled down by anger; trust in the Lord and do good.