Amen, please be seated. This morning we consider our scripture text from Psalm 36. Psalm 36, and if you are turning in a pubibal, you can find them on page 465. I invite you to turn with me there.
Before we read our Psalm this morning, let's go to the Lord together in prayer. Would you pray with me, please? Oh Father, we ask that you would open our eyes that we may see wondrous things in your word. Lord, as we gaze upon your steadfast love.
Lord, as we consider your word to us, you are promised to us in Psalm 36. We ask that you would shore up our faith, O Lord, that you would strengthen us, we would fan the embers within us. We'll got it who would cause us to rejoice in the one and who we find our righteousness, which is Christ. And so Father, we pray that you would indeed give us ears to hear and eyes to see Christ this morning.
Would you bless us? Father, I pray and ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen. To Psalm 36, God's word holy, inspired, and errant, perfect, infallible.
Let us give you here. To the choir master of David, the servant of the Lord. Transgression speaks to the wicked deep in his heart. There is no fear of God before his eyes.
For he flatters himself in his own eyes that his iniquity cannot be found out and hated. The words of his mouth are trouble and deceit. He has ceased to act wisely and do good. He plots trouble while on his bed, he sets himself in a way that is not good.
He does not reject evil. Your steadfast love, O Lord, extends to the heavens. Your faithfulness to the clouds. Your righteousness is like the mountains of God.
Your judgments are like the great deep man and beast you save, O Lord. How precious is your steadfast love, O God. The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings. They feast on the abundance of your house, and you give them drink from the river of your lights.
For with you is the fountain of life. In your light do we see light. O continue your steadfast love to those who know you and your righteousness to the upright of heart. Let not the foot of arrogance come upon me.
Over the hand of the wicked drive me away. There the evil doers life all in. They are thrust down, unable to rise. This is the word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God. David here considers the heart of man. And there's a sense in which he's calling upon us to ask this question. If you could take your heart out and you could look at it, how would you respond?
And what would you say? Now, you may be anticipating this, but I don't mean this anatomically. Maybe some of you have spent time with an EKG or an echocardiogram or even a specialized CT. Now I have seen my own heart.
But what the author speaks of here regarding the heart is not that that organ that beats and pumps blood through us. What do you mean of this spiritual heart? And Sinclair Ferguson writing for Ligener Ministries gives us what he calls a catechism of the heart. He asks this question.
He says, what is the heart? And he answers this way. He says, the heart is the central core and drive of my life. And, electionally, meaning it moves my mind.
Affectionately, meaning it shapes my soul. And totally, it provides the energy for my living. The heart is that central core, which drives my life intellectually, affectionately, and totally. The heart is what drives my very body itself.
You've ever seen or maybe you remember the commercials with that Duracell pink bunny. What happens, but it just keeps going and going and going. Well, why? According to their advertising, it's because it's powered by a Duracell battery.
But in some ways, for every man, woman, and child, that's what our heart is. It's what makes us and keeps us going and going as we are sustained by the power of God. But just because we function doesn't mean that we function well or function with righteousness or function with holiness or function as God intended us. In fact, we don't because we're all falling and sin.
Our heart is the source of wickedness. And our hearts must be changed as the children have considered downstairs before we can believe in God and go to heaven. We have a diseased heart from birth. And so Ferguson writes to answer the second question.
And so I think it is important for us to see our hearts in perspective. Or we do have a diseased heart from birth. And what I think David does here in Psalm 36 is he considers the heart from a realistic perspective. Notice that David begins this psalm with the wicked.
Oftentimes, psalms like this end with addressing the wicked rather than the beginning. And so David, I think here, sets this day for us to truly love and cherish the steadfast love of God. Consider what he says of the wicked here. At its outset, he notices he speaks of our transgressions or our sins.
Our breaking God's laws and commands tells us something about the heart. Our sin is a symptom of a greater problem. Right if your eyes are watering or your nose is running and you can't stop sneezing and your head feels stuffy, at least in South Carolina all you have to do is look around at the haze that is everywhere and realize that you were probably dealing with some kind of hay fever. How do I do?
And our sin tells us that deep in our heart, there is no fear of God before our eyes. This fear isn't being afraid. It's not that terror from an abusive despot or tyrant, but this fear is an overwhelming sense of in confronting the holiness of God. What David is saying is that our sin disregards a holy God who is zealous for his own glory, who is full of mercy and grace.
And because of his steadfast love and faithfulness, he has rescued and redeemed the people for himself. So fear in God comes from his spirit-filled acknowledgement and confrontation with the gospel. Those that send David says devalue and toss aside the reality of all that God is, the wicked, he says. The second, notice, David says, how the wicked come to this point.
These are the accompanying symptoms of our fallen nature. The problem is, right, that the diagnosis is there is no fear of God before their eyes, but it reveals itself in a few different ways. In verse two, he says, he flatters himself in his own eyes. That is a liquid he cannot be found out in hated.
He thinks himself to be more righteous than he is. This is the beginning of what we call hypocrisy. And what that means is that we see what is wrong in others, but not in ourselves. Or we behold the speck in other's eyes and ignore the plank in hours.
The wicked man, according to David, is blinded by his own self-satisfaction. That is like he puts lipstick on a pig. He can't name his own sin or see his own condemnation before God. David says that only as he blinded, but the words of his mouth are trouble and deceit, he has ceased to act wisely and do good.
And it's clear from how he speaks and what he says and how he gossips and cuts down others and spreads. And thoughts hoods, but they eventually give up the charade. They give up pretending to do good and prepared to find their rest in doing evil. Plotting even upon their pillow, David says.
Some ways David describes a spiral from cherishing the appearance of righteousness to loving wickedness. Now, I promise you there's a point here, okay? I think what he's done is just described to us the nature of our own hearts, of yours and of mine. If we could take our heart out and look at it apart from the grace of God and Christ finished work and its application to us by the Holy Spirit, brothers and sisters, this is our path.
This is your trajectory, that proverbial spiraling from the appearance of righteousness, that the loving wickedness. But David has good news for you and me this morning. That doesn't have anything to do with us. That has everything to do with God.
The wicked make sharp their own way. The wicked make sharp their own way, but first what I want you to see this morning is the righteous know the steadfast love of the Lord is perfect. The righteous know firstly that the steadfast love of the Lord is perfect. This first bit of good news is one that we need to remind ourselves of and do so often.
The steadfast love of the Lord is unending. It is great. And it is the source of this grace. It doesn't come from within, but it comes from without.
We look outside of ourselves to find the overwhelming mercy and steadfast love of God. It comes from on high. But because this mercy and grace flow from our God in heaven, it is as unending and it is as eternal and perfect as God himself is. Your mercy, O Lord, is in the heavens.
Your faithfulness extends to the clouds. It's unsearchable, David tells us. We'll never see its end. It is unending and it is infinite.
Think through the simple fact, for example, that it's only been in the last 60 years or so that man has left Earth's atmosphere. The Soviet Yuri Garrigan, probably butchering that name, he circled Earth outside of orbit for roughly 108 minutes before reentry. And in that moment, we were no more able to reach and know the ends of the universe than we are today. Despite moon landings, space programs, telescopes and satellites, rovers and deep space probes, they all reveal something to us and make something extremely and abundantly clear.
They help show us that the universe is all the more unknowable and seemingly unending the farther we go. When we seek to penetrate the height and glory of God's steadfast love, we see that this is a fitting description of God's grace and mercy. We find ourselves under an infinite expanse. And the more and more we grow in our understanding, even in our own personal experience of God's love for us, we're less speechless.
Or maybe we can only respond as the psalmist. I think a mark of sanctification is not merely learning new things about God, but coming to a realization of just how little we comprehend the things of God. It's not being sanctified in our minds. And yet again, we find that his judgments here are like the great deep.
And here it could be that there is a reference to his judgments against a man, or it could be a reference to the scriptures as the judgments. But either way, it would seem that there is a relation to the great deep or the sea, that there is a particular burden placed on his aspect. It's weighty. If we think about how the ocean is viewed in the Old Testament, it's a frightening place.
It's where the winds blow and the waves churn. Think of the waters ability to swallow ships. Think of the remote nature of sailing, how quickly a squall can appear. Maybe you've been on a cruise ship in the middle of night and you're struck by just how dark it is at sea.
Think of the pterod at the fell of the sea fairs when Jonah was setting sail and running from the Lord's command, there was a healthy fear in the deep in the days of David. But this is the other side of the coin, right? The revelation of God in his word is and his rendering of his judgment. It is perfect.
You can put it a different way. Who can argue with God and try as the wicked man might? But who can disagree with the Lord? Who can fathom and comprehend the mystery of his will?
Let's try to bring this in perspective a little bit here. Sometimes it feels as if we arrive under God's providence. Perhaps even from day to day or year to year or season to season, we know times of peace and times of hardship, times of abundance even. Sometimes the waters are glassy and calm.
And others, the waves, rage and the storms set in. And we wonder at just what the Lord is doing. We try to pierce the veil of the mystery of God's will and we most often can't put the pieces together. But I want you to hear the words of Charles Spurgeon.
He says this as the deep or the sea mirrors the sky. So the mercy of the Lord is to be seen reflected in all the arrangements of his government on Earth. And over the profound depth, the colors of the infinite rainbow cast its arch of comfort for the Lord is faithful in all that he does. You see the steadfast love of the Lord permeates all of our life in church, whether you're in a season of peace or tranquility or storm or a white-apped swell.
God's love for you is perfect. And you realize that we've been given a pattern for understanding God's providence in your life. We might be short-sided in the haze of God's infinitude, but he has surely revealed his nature to us by the way of the cross. And surely he who did not spare his own son but gave them up for us all.
How will he not also with him graciously give us all things? We all love the cross and the empty tomb serve the believer to not only accomplish salvation, but to be the way through which we view God and our circumstance when life happens to us. Don't lose view of the cross. Secondly, in contrast to the wicked, the righteous know the steadfast love of the Lord is priceless.
The righteous know the steadfast love of the Lord is priceless. Very perfect. Now, priceless. The wicked may chart their own way, but the righteous know again the steadfast love of the Lord is priceless.
And this marks a shift in this song because it turns and transitions from beholding the Lord's steadfast love for what it is to raising the question, what is it to you? What is it to you? In the aim he is the believer's heart restored and beating for the sake of Christ and his glory and the proclamation of the gospel David writes in verse seven, how precious is your steadfast love, O God? The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings.
And believers, this is a glorious covenant language that is yours for he is your God and you are his people. This is a reminder of his faithfulness to you, a picture of the care of a mother showing love to her young and care for her young. The comfort and protection against those enemies that would seek and destroy. But notice that not only is the steadfast love of the Lord precious to God's children, but the quality of such a love is described.
The provision is great. They feast on the abundance of your house and you give them drink from the river of your delights. We get our fill and it is unending. Life itself springs forth from the Lord and we live and we walk in that light.
It seems to be that what David has in mind here is the idea of covenant, communion, the feeding upon and being refreshed in God's love, not with food, but himself in worship even. Even what we're gonna do soon here at the table. There's a time, a neck and eye for an anniversary. We're getting a gift card to a Brazilian steakhouse.
Maybe you've been to one before. If you've not been to one before, let me tell you it's a glorious place where people where the smells are amazing and people walk around with unending roasted meat on swords. And all they wanna do is come by you and shave off a piece and give you as much as you can eat. And since then it was such a great experience that I can't consider God's abundance apart from a Brazilian steakhouse.
Not that the little Lord's covenant love and care for us, but you can imagine, if you imagine feasting upon the Lord's goodness and his kindness towards us in Christ until we feel as if we will burst and we will pop and it never ends, it never ceases. Brazilian steakhouse may be a picture of abundance and honestly excess. But nonetheless, this idea of satisfaction and abundance is what drives a believer, to find the Lord's steadfast love, priceless and precious. He will not let you wither in ways away, but he will meet every one of your needs in Christ.
And so I ask the question again, do you find the Lord's steadfast love, priceless and precious? Because the Lord and his love for us is only as valuable to you as you cherish it and know it intimately. And if not, could it be that you're looking to fill your souls with something that will never satisfy? Right now, if I were to leave my children's diets up to themselves, they might feast upon ice cream and M&Ms and lollipops and chips.
But you're the problem with that, it may taste sweet, but it will not provide for them the nourishment and the nurturing they need. In fact, it will leave them feeling ill and terrible. But the point is this, could it be that our souls are restless and weird because we've not feasted upon the abundance of God's goodness. And we have not worshiped him and ascribed to him and glory and praise that we have not been known the overwhelming satisfaction of our sin being covered.
Our God who is near grace and mercy undeserved. You see, his love is not precious often because we think we have no need to take refuge under his knee, under his wings. We have no need to feast upon the abundance of his house nor drink from the river of his delights. Not the life and light as much.
Do not reside in us or shine upon us. See, the wicked man delights himself, the righteous man delights and the Lord, because of his good Christ and his finished work alone that wicked man are made righteous. And you realize that's why we gather for worship, don't you? It's why we do what we do every Lord's day.
It is our devotion to our Lord and their response to our Savior. It is the means to which we are nourished and nurtured and satisfied as we feast upon the means of grace. And with Christ and his worship become all the more satisfying to you and would you rejoice in the steadfast love of the Lord. Thirdly and lastly, we consider it as perfect priceless but as also the right to know the steadfast love of the Lord is sure.
You notice at the end here David gives himself over to prayer. In some ways this is the synthesis of these verses. And these last verses are a plea resting upon the very promises that make the Lord's love steadfast to begin with. It's an appeal to his faithfulness.
This is what Spurgeon says of prayer. He says the best praying man is the man who is most believingly meaning by faith, the man who most believingly familiar with the promises of God. After all, prayer is nothing but taking God's promises to him and saying to him, do as thou hast said. Prayer is the promise utilized.
Prayer which is not based on the promise has no true foundation. The best praying man is the man who believingly is familiar with the promises of God. And so David appeals to the Lord, asking that he might continue his steadfast love to those who know him and your righteousness to the upright in heart. Our satisfaction in the Lord is directly correlating to how well we know his promises.
Our assurance is not, as Archie Spurler said, that we hold tightly to him, but that he holds tightly to us. And so David's prayer is not wishful thinking. It's not potential possibility, but it's a sure and certain thing. This trust in the promises of God which seek to pray them back to him, this is the essence of faith.
Or as the author of Hebrews says, the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. This is not how Hebrews 11 begins. And if you were to walk through the hall of faith and Hebrews 11 to consider each entry, the story of every man and every woman was that there was a sure hope in the Lord, a trusting of God's promises. And yet this song ends on a realistic note.
Again, something like the synthesis of both, the consideration of the wicked and the steadfast of the Lord, David says and he prays, let not the foot of arrogance come upon me. Nor the hand of the wicked drive me away. They are the evil doers life fallen. They are thrust down, unable to rise.
Our holding onto God's promises is not without its trial and test friends. And so this prayer uses the steadfast love of the Lord as a lens through which the author and by way us are to see the world around us and live accordingly. This is a prayer of protection. Less we think that life is all sunshine and rainbows and butterflies.
This prayer is offered that the steadfast love of the Lord would remain in the face of wicked opposition. This is putting the promises of God to work. And just as one plus one plus one equals three, so does relying upon God's promises produce a sum of knowledge of the Lord's steadfast love. But what is this opposition David receives?
What if it's slander against your character and name for how you pursue the Lord in faithfulness, making false claims or misconsturring what you've done or what you've said? What if it's pressure to silence the Lord in quiet his words as it's read and preached and studied and proclaimed? What if it's opposition from within, not just without, but in here. Sometimes a wicked man's heart becomes known and it's revealed.
But mostly as new covenant Christians, while they should apply to worldly opposition, I think we should see the great wicked enemy as Satan himself. And can't we pray this song of him who longs for his foot of arrogance to come upon me? Whose hand longs to drive away the righteous? He gets an image of Satan wanting to place his foot upon your neck and to take you and throw you aside.
Your destruction and the silencing of God is his desire. But can't we also like David who draws attention to the state of the wicked? There they are fallen and thrust down and able to rise. Can't we say the same of Satan?
Isn't it Satan of whom Jesus says in Luke 10, I saw him fall like lightning. His house, the strong man has been bound. His power has been broken. And those who Christ has called to himself have been granted authority over all the power of the enemy.
And nothing shall hurt you. We'll have to take heart this day. That God speaks truth to you. Don't fall to the lies of the deceiver.
And so this prayer has been fulfilled in Christ. And as Christians, we can pray this in some ways with more assurance and certainly the David. It's the same faithful God to which we trust and hope. But it's a glorious thing to see what we have always been promised has come to pass in Jesus Christ.
Satan has been defeated. The Lord presently rules and reigns. And we know that despite our own sin, despite those enemies of God, despite Satan himself, the steadfast love of the Lord is unending, unfading, and unfailing. And we know this through Jesus Christ.
And what do you know him more? Would you seek him more? Would you worship him more? Would you follow him more?
Would you love him more? And like that in him, we find our righteousness. Let's pray together. Oh, Father, we thank you for your love is sure.
It is steadfast and it is unending. And Father, we ask that when we would doubt that love for us, that we would have our hearts and minds cast to the cross, where we see love on display, and find our hope is as alive as Christ is raised from the dead. And so, Lord, we pray that you would cause us to reflect upon and to dwell upon and delight in your steadfast love of the more. And Father, it might be that we would believe upon you, be strengthened, and follow after you.
In Christ's name we pray. Amen. Let's stand together and sing Jesus' light blood and righteousness.