The Green Grass Heresy Text: Psalm 37:1-2
Introduction: The Snapshot and the Video
We live in an age of the perpetual snapshot. Our entire culture is built on the immediate, the instantaneous, the out-of-context flash of a moment. We scroll through images, headlines, and hot takes, and from this blizzard of disconnected data points, we are expected to form our settled convictions about the world. And in no area is this more spiritually dangerous than when we look at the apparent success of the wicked. We see the evildoer prospering, the corrupt politician grinning on television, the blasphemous celebrity collecting awards, and the corporate titan who scoffs at God building yet another tower to his own glory. We take a snapshot of that, and we are tempted to a particular kind of spiritual agitation. We fret. We get heated. We become envious.
This is not a new problem. This is an ancient problem, which is why the Holy Spirit addresses it for us here, in a psalm that reads more like a chapter from Proverbs. It is a collection of settled wisdom from an old man, David, who has seen a great deal of life. He has seen the wicked flourish, and he has seen them vanish. He has learned the crucial difference between the snapshot and the video. The snapshot shows you the wicked man on his yacht. The full-length video shows you the yacht sinking, the man drowning in a sea of his own vanities, and God laughing at his calamity from the heavens. The snapshot might tell a lie, but the story, the whole story, always tells the truth.
Psalm 37 is a call to exchange our short-sighted, fretful agitation for a long-sighted, settled faith. It is a command to stop judging the world by the ephemeral greenness of the grass and to start judging it by the eternal word of the God who made the grass, and who determines precisely when it will wither. This psalm is a potent antidote to the two great temptations that plague the righteous in a wicked age: anxiety and envy. These are not small sins. They are insidious forms of unbelief. To fret is to question God's justice. To envy is to question God's goodness. And this psalm comes to us as a divine rebuke and a divine comfort, telling us to put away our stopwatches and to trust God's calendar.
The world wants to keep you in a constant state of outrage and distraction. It wants your eyes fixed on the temporary triumphs of evil men, because if you are looking at them, you are not looking at Christ. This psalm is God's gracious intervention, grabbing us by the chin and turning our heads. He tells us to look away from the fleeting success of the wicked and to fix our gaze on the certain, coming judgment of God and the glorious, promised inheritance of the saints.
The Text
Aleph
Do not fret because of evildoers,
Be not envious toward doers of unrighteousness.
For they will wither quickly like the grass
And fade like the green herb.
(Psalm 37:1-2 LSB)
The Twin Prohibitions (v. 1)
The psalm begins with two sharp, related commands. This is the Aleph section of this acrostic psalm, the very beginning of God's alphabet of wisdom for us.
"Do not fret because of evildoers, Be not envious toward doers of unrighteousness." (Psalm 37:1 LSB)
The first command is "Do not fret." The Hebrew word here means to burn, to get heated up, to kindle with anger. It's the picture of a man stewing, vexing himself, getting bent out of shape. It's the internal churning that happens when we see injustice and it seems to be winning. We see the abortionist celebrated, the pervert praised, the liar promoted. And our blood begins to boil. Now, there is a righteous anger, a holy indignation against sin. But that is not what is being described here. This fretting is a self-centered agitation. It is an anger that curdles into anxiety and bitterness. It's a vexation that questions God's providence. "Why, God, do you let them get away with it?" Fretting is the sin of appointing yourself as God's junior prosecuting attorney, and then getting angry when He doesn't bring the case to trial on your schedule.
The second command is "Be not envious." This goes a step further. Fretting is being angry at what the wicked do. Envy is wanting what the wicked have. It is the covetous glance at their prosperity. The envious man sees the unrighteous man's big house, his easy life, his public acclaim, and a little voice in his heart whispers, "It must be nice. Why can't I have that?" Envy is a particularly foul sin because it is a direct assault on the goodness and wisdom of God. It says to God, "You are not distributing your blessings correctly. You gave that man something that should have been mine." It is the sin of Cain, who was envious of Abel's accepted offering. It is the sin of the Pharisees, who delivered Jesus to Pilate for envy. It is a rot in the bones (Prov. 14:30), and it is utterly incompatible with a life of faith.
Notice that these two sins are aimed at the same people: "evildoers" and "doers of unrighteousness." These are not morally ambiguous characters. These are people who are actively transgressing God's law. And yet, God's command to us is not to fixate on them. Our primary spiritual discipline in the face of their apparent success is to govern our own hearts. Before you go out to fight the dragon, make sure the dragon is not nesting in your own soul. The battle for justice in the world begins with the battle against bitterness and envy in the heart.
The Divine Perspective (v. 2)
God does not just give us commands; He gives us reasons. He does not just tell us what to do; He tells us what is true. The antidote to our emotional agitation is a theological education.
"For they will wither quickly like the grass And fade like the green herb." (Psalm 37:2 LSB)
Here is the reason we must not fret or envy. The prosperity of the wicked has a shelf life. It is perishable. David uses two agricultural metaphors here: grass and green herbs. What is the most notable characteristic of grass in the hot, middle-eastern sun? It is green one day and brown the next. It looks vibrant in the morning, but by the afternoon, it is scorched and withered. This is God's assessment of the power, fame, and wealth of the ungodly. It is a temporary illusion.
We look at them and see towering oaks; God sees lawn clippings. We see formidable, rooted power structures; God sees a fleeting patch of clover. The word "quickly" is crucial. It may not seem quick to us, trapped in our snapshot view of reality. But from the perspective of eternity, their entire lifespan is less than a blink. The wicked man builds his empire for seventy years, and God considers it a brief flash of green before it is cut down and thrown into the oven.
This is a central theme of Scripture. Isaiah says, "All flesh is grass, and all its loveliness is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades, because the breath of the LORD blows upon it; surely the people are grass" (Isaiah 40:6-7). The Apostle Peter picks this up and applies it to all human glory (1 Peter 1:24). The wicked man who trusts in his riches will fall (Prov. 11:28). This is not a pious wish; it is a divine guarantee. Their success contains the seeds of its own destruction. Their flourishing is the prelude to their fading.
So, when you are tempted to fret, when you see the green bay tree of the wicked spreading its branches, you are commanded to remember this verse. You are to preach this sermon to your own soul. You are to tell yourself, "That which I am tempted to envy is already dying. That power which seems so intimidating is already withering under the judgment of God. I am looking at a dead man walking. Why should I be agitated by a corpse, or envious of a ghost?" This is not denial. This is faith. It is seeing the world as God sees it. It is looking at the grass and remembering the lawnmower is coming. And as Johnny Cash once sang, "Go tell that long-tongued liar, go and tell that midnight rider, tell the rambler, the gambler, the backbiter, tell 'em that God's gonna cut you down."
The Gospel Cure for a Fretful Heart
How, then, do we practically obey this command? How do we move from a heart of fretful envy to a heart of settled trust? The rest of the psalm unfolds the answer, but the foundation is laid right here. The cure for envying the green grass of the wicked is to look to the green tree of the righteous.
The Lord Jesus Christ was "like a green olive tree in the house of God" (Psalm 52:8). Yet, for our sakes, He allowed Himself to be "cut down." He was the righteous one who was treated like the withering grass. He endured the full heat of God's wrath against sin, so that we, who were the truly withered ones, might be grafted into Him and share in His eternal life.
On the cross, all the apparent prosperity of the wicked was heaped upon Him. He endured the injustice, the mockery, the political corruption of Pilate, the religious envy of the Pharisees. He took the snapshot of ultimate injustice, so that we could see the full video of ultimate redemption. And because He was cut down, He was then raised up to a life that can never fade. He is the firstfruits of a new creation that does not wither.
Therefore, the only true and lasting cure for envy is a profound satisfaction in Christ. When we see what we have in Him, the temporary trinkets of the wicked lose their luster. Why would I envy their polluted cisterns when I have access to the fountain of living water? Why would I fret over their temporary power when I am seated with Christ in the heavenly places, sharing in His ultimate authority? Why would I covet their fading glory when I have been promised an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and will not fade away? (1 Peter 1:4).
The command to "not fret" is therefore a command to "trust in the LORD, and do good" (v. 3). It is a command to "delight yourself in the LORD" (v. 4). It is a command to look away from the withering grass and to fix your eyes on the crucified, risen, and reigning Lord Jesus. He is the true inheritance. He is the true prosperity. And when your heart is truly captivated by Him, the fleeting success of the unrighteous will seem to you exactly what it is to God: a puff of smoke, a passing shadow, a patch of grass on the verge of being cut down.