1.
Grace,
mercy and peace to you from God our Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior
Jesus Christ. Amen. Dear family and friends of LaVan. On behalf of the congregation here at Christ
Lutheran we offer to you our deepest sympathy.
May Jesus our Good Shepherd carry you in His loving arms and give you
His comfort and consolation as you mourn the death of your beloved LaVan. May you know for certain that Jesus has
offered to you and to LaVan the forgiveness of sins, eternal life, and
salvation by His cross and empty tomb. Today, we’re going to look at Psalm
37:4, LaVan’s confirmation verse, that he received on the day he confirmed the
Christian faith he received in His baptism on April 24th, 1966 here
at Christ Lutheran Church, which says, “4Delight
yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” The message is entitled, “Delighting in the LORD!.” Dear
brothers and sisters in Christ.
2.
Over
the last year and 9 months I’ve gotten to know LaVan and His family as the new
pastor here at Christ Lutheran Church. I
was impressed on how LaVan was always in good spirits when I came to visit him
and Linda at their home, at the hospital, or at the nursing home, as he was struggling
with his illness. In his 5 year struggle
with cancer LaVan showed how a Christian can entrust his days and burdens to
our loving and merciful Savior Jesus Christ.
I always saw LaVan bringing his Bible and his hymnal to worship. His Bible was well worn and falling apart,
but LaVan himself wasn’t falling apart spiritually, because his faith was
continually being strengthened through the promises of God’s Word and the
Sacraments. Even while he was struggling
with his cancer he would care for his mom, Linda. Up until a few weeks ago he was working on
getting his garden in. He loved cooking
and baking cookies as well. One of the
things that LaVan loved to do was decorate his house for Christmas. LaVan couldn’t wait to put the tree up and
start putting the ornaments on.
Christmas was his most favorite holiday of the year, probably because it
celebrates the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ who came to save us from our
sins. LaVan’s family remembers how he
would spend countless hours picking hickory nuts and then spending the time
cracking them. He also loved to hunt and
fish.
3.
LaVan’s
confirmation verse from Psalm 37:4 can show us how he was able to keep his good
spirits even while he was struggling with cancer these last 5 years. Let me read to you some portions from Psalm
37 that says, “Do not fret because of
evil men or be envious of those who do wrong; for like the grass they will soon
wither, like green plants they will soon die away. Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the
land and enjoy safe pasture. 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. 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.” (Psalm 37:1-5, 10-11)
4.
The
first eleven verses of Psalm 37 describe the quiet spirit of one who trusts in
God and doesn’t fret because of evil men.
In Psalm 37:1 we hear the words “do
not fret,” which literally means “do not get heated,” which is also how we
might express it. Or we might say, “Don’t get all worked up.” Or even “Be cool.”
This is what the psalm chiefly wants to say to us. But, how are we to remain cool when we see
evil men prospering, when we as Christians continue to struggle against the
devil, the world, and our own sinful flesh? Especially when we see the wicked
prosper at the expense of truly righteous persons, as is often the case? Jesus says in the beatitudes, “the meek … will inherit the earth.” But
it seems to us that it is the ungodly who get it. Nice guys finish last! How can we not fret when we see that
happening?
5.
Psalm
37:3–11 give two answers to those questions: We are to look up, and we are to
look ahead. The most important answer is
to get our eyes off the wicked and even off ourselves and on the Lord. More
than that, we are to trust him and commit our way to him. Trust is faith. It’s the proper starting
point for all right relationships with God. Yet as always, faith is not merely
passive but active too. It means that the person who is quietly trusting God
will experience the life and power of God in his or her life and that this new
life will express itself by doing good to others.
6.
Psalm
37:4 says, “Delight yourself in the Lord
and he will give you the desires of your heart.” Before people are converted, they resist a
relationship to God, because they don’t think that God is desirable. They
suppose him to be moralistic and harsh, establishing rules intended only to
keep people from having fun. The truth
is entirely different, for the God we come to know in salvation is entirely
delightful. He’s holy, to be sure. He’s also an awesome God. He can’t be taken
lightly. But, the one who trusts God like LaVan did also finds him to be a
source of great delight. For He’s the perfection of grace, compassion, mercy,
kindness, patience, and love. He’s, in other words, like Jesus Christ our Lord.
The reason many Christians don’t delight in God is that they don’t know him
very well, and the reason they don’t know him well is that they don’t spend
time with him in His Word and in worship.
The promise attached to this verse is that if we delight in God, God
will give us the desires of our hearts. This doesn’t mean that God will give us
any foolish thing we may long for. It means that if we are delighting in God
and longing for God, God will give us himself.
7.
Psalm
37:5 says, “Commit your way to the Lord.”
The command to “commit” our ways to
God actually carries us further in showing what it means to live with God whom
we trust and in whom we delight. The word actually means “to roll one’s way onto God,”
or to “dislodge the burden from
your shoulders and lay it on God.” This is what the apostle Peter was
thinking about in 1 Peter 5:7 when he wrote, “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.” He meant
that we don’t need to worry about things, because God cares for us, is equal to
all circumstances, and will manage anything that can possibly come into our
lives. I’m sure LaVan in his struggles
against cancer knew full well that he could entrust his days and burdens to God
and that God would care for him. He
trusted in the words of our Lord Jesus who says in Matthew 11:28-30, “28Come to me, all who labor and
are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29Take my yoke upon you,
and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest
for your souls. 30For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
8.
Finally,
LaVan’s confirmation verse from Psalm 37:4 makes me think about what St. Paul
says about himself near the end of his life and also about what LaVan was going
through as a Christian in his struggles against cancer. St. Paul writes in 2 Timothy 4, “6For
I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure
has come. 7I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I
have kept the faith. 8Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown
of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that
Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing. 18The
Lord will rescue me from every evil deed and bring me safely into his heavenly
kingdom. To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen.”
9.
As
St. Paul writes these words from 2 Timothy 4 it reminds us that our same Lord
Jesus who chose LaVan in his baptism, who gave him faith in Him, has sustained
LaVan into eternal life. LaVan has the
crown of righteousness earned by the life, death, and resurrection of our
Savior Jesus. This is why he could
delight in our God. LaVan knew that
because of Jesus’ death on the cross for the forgiveness of his sins that God
Himself would find no wrong in him. He
knew that he was God’s child washed clean and fully restored in Him. Before Jesus poured out his soul to death, He
was transfigured before His disciples giving them a glimpse of their and our
own future in heaven. Like Jesus, we
along with LaVan will be glorified in our bodies. Jesus rose in triumph from the dead to
prepare a special place for LaVan and all who believe in Him as their Savior
and Lord. Through Jesus we will be
raised to live in a place without pain, loss, or fear, where we will live with
all the saints in paradise forever. This
is why we can delight in the Lord as the Psalm says.
10.
One
Sunday School youngster did a pretty good job of summarizing the joy of eternal
life when she was asked to define heaven. “Heaven,”
said the little girl, “is when it’s
Christmas every day!” I think LaVan
would find great delight in that statement. What a precious and accurate
summary! Remember the days of your childhood, when you couldn’t wait for
Christmas to come? And when that great day finally arrived, we wished that the
joy of Christmas would last forever. And it will! We can delight in the Lord as LaVan did
because we know what awaits us is the eternal life that Christ has won for us
through His cross and empty tomb. Amen.
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