“Track 36: With You is the Fountain of Life (Psalm 36)", Will DuVal | 7/12/26
Psalm 36 | 7/12/26 | Will DuVal
Let’s play a game to kick things off this morning; I’m gonna give you a SLOGAN, and let’s see if you can guess the COMPANY behind it. Ready? We’ll start off easy…
· “I’m LOVIN’ it!” (McDonalds)
· “Live MAS” (Taco Bell; “live MORE”)
· “Save money, live better.” (Wal-Mart)
· “The happiest place on earth.” (Disney)
· “A little happiness in every bar.” (Hershey’s)
· “Open happiness.” (Coca-Cola)
· “Delivering happiness.” (Zappos; online shoes & apparel)
The list could go on and on, of course. Because the goal of EVERY good marketing campaign, at its core, is to convince you that their product can “DELIVER” you happiness, that you’re gonna “LOVE it”, and “live BETTER” BECAUSE you bought whatever it is they’re selling you; that you’re gonna “live MAS”, live MORE… more contented, more comfortable, more FULFILLED.
That’s what all of us want, deep down, isn’t it? To “live MAS”? King Solomon sure did. Solomon was both the WISEST… AND the WEALTHIEST man who has EVER lived. And yet at the END of his life, when he looked back in the book of Ecclesiastes over ALL that he had accomplished and PURSUED, in his quest, his LONGING for contentment, satisfaction, joy… MEANING - Solomon concluded that at every turn, his heart was left wanting… wanting MORE:
*All his Wisdom… left him wanting.
*His WEALTH left him wanting.
*PLEASURE left him wanting.
*Work left him wanting.
*YOUTH-fulness left him wanting - we see a lot of THAT in marketing today, don’t we? “This skin cream will make you look 10 years younger…”; Solomon observes, “But eventually Father Time comes for us all…”
*And conversely, OLD AGE, the quest for LONGEVITY left him wanting too; “Eventually, the GRIM REAPER comes for us all”.
What “vain pursuits” have YOU tried, in YOUR quest to “live mas”?
Sometimes in our Entry Point class, when I share my testimony, I borrow from Solomon’s framework here, in Ecclesiastes, and I admit how I sought joy and fulfillment in:
*My Family (…until my dad left and it fell apart)
*So I sought it in SIN (I hated God, and wanted to get BACK at Him… but it only left me feeling MORE empty)
*So I tried Achievement and Perfectionism…
*People-Pleasing… and People-Pushing…
*Romanticism…
*Intellectualism…
*Deconstruction and ATHEISM…
*I tried to make MARRIAGE my Savior, MINISTRY my Savior…
*And beneath ALL of it, what I was REALLY trying to do was seek my joy and fulfillment in being the Lord of my own life. [adapted from DuVal, “Everything is Hevel”, Sept 11, 2022]
But Jesus Christ made this BOLD claim - this GRACIOUS INVITATION - in John 10, when he said, “I came that [you] might have LIFE to the FULLEST.” Jesus says, “You wanna “live MAS”? You need ME! I am the ONLY one who can fulfill your heart’s TRUE deepest longings.”
And a whole millennium before Jesus, King David illuminated the path to true meaning and happiness for us in Psalm 36: “With YOU [, O Lord,] is the fountain of life” (v9).
God is both the SOURCE and SUPPLIER of all true joy and purpose in this life.
Commentator James Hamilton Jr. notes that (Psalms, 392): “Psalm 36 is about SATISFACTION and where it can be found. The first four verses discuss the way the wicked seek fullness in SIN, and the REST of the psalm celebrates the incomparable delight of knowing GOD.”
Derek Kidner points out: “This is a psalm of powerful contrasts, a glimpse of human wickedness at its most malevolent, and then divine goodness in its many-sided fullness… Few psalms cover so great a RANGE in so short a space.”
Last week in Psalm 35 we observed that “Nice guy finish LAST in this fallen, corrupt world of ours”. This week in Ps36, David looks around him at the wicked prospering… at the evil that they perpetuate IN ORDER to prosper, and then he considers his OWN way of life, and steps back to ask himself: “Which path is BETTER?”
For David, the answer is CLEAR: “With YOU [, Lord,] is the fountain of life… you give [us] drink from the river of your delights” (vv8-9).
SCRIPTURE: Let’s read it together now; I invite you to STAND… Psalm 36… hear the word of the Lord:
-
“To the choirmaster. Of David, the servant of the Lord.
36 Transgression speaks to the wicked deep in his heart;[a]there is no fear of God before his eyes.2 For he flatters himself in his own eyes that his iniquity cannot be found out and hated.3 The words of his mouth are trouble and deceit; he has ceased to act wisely and do good.4 He plots trouble while on his bed; he sets himself in a way that is not good; he does not REJECT evil.
5 Your steadfast love, O Lord, extends to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds.6 Your righteousness is like the mountains of God; your judgments are like the great deep; man and beast you save, O Lord.
7 How precious is your steadfast love, O God! The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings.8 They feast on the abundance of your house, and you give them drink from the river of your delights.9 For with you is the fountain of life; in your light do we see light.
10 Oh, continue your steadfast love to those who know you, and your righteousness to the upright of heart!11 Let not the foot of arrogance come upon me, nor the hand of the wicked drive me away.12 There the evildoers lie fallen; they are thrust down, unable to rise.” This is the word of God…
Before we even get to the psalm proper, we’re given a HINT as to the overarching theme of the chapter from its superscription:
““To the choirmaster. Of David, the servant of the Lord.”
Now that tells us the AUTHOR: David, Israel’s greatest king (until Jesus).
It tells us his PURPOSE: David is writing a SONG here, a song of both WARNING (against evil) and PRAISE (for Yahweh), to be sung by Israel’s royal CHOIR.
But lastly and most telling: we get a glimpse of the SUBJECT of David’s writing here, in his self-claimed EPITHET: “the SERVANT of the Lord”. First, let’s appreciate how profound it is that David would RATHER be known as the “servant of Yahweh, than to be known as the KING over all Israel”. He doesn’t introduce himself as “David, king of Israel”; “David, God’s ANOINTED”; No, in humility, David recognizes that even the most powerful RULER in all of THIS world, is but a vassal, just a PAWN on God’s great chess board. And yet being the LORD’s servant is more prestigious than being man’s king.
But second, David pens this psalm to paint a picture for us of what it means to be a “servant of the Lord”; it means THREE THINGS, and they constitute our 3 main POINTS this morning.
FIRST, being a faithful “servant of the Lord” means that #1- The godly will REJECT the Lord’s proscriptions. (vv1-4)
Now, quick point of clarification: a “proscription” refers to a “thing that is PROSCRIBED,” or prohibited, “denounced or condemned as dangerous or harmful” (dictionary.com). And when I say that the GODLY will REJECT God’s proscriptions, I of course DON’T mean that we “cast ASIDE” God’s restraints, but rather, that WE reject what GOD rejects. If God has proscribed it - OUTLAWED it - then we TOO will REJECT it.
The FIRST portrait David paints for us here is that of a WICKED man, who seeks “life to the fullest” NOT in the Lord, but in a life of SIN. And David wants us to see the evolution - or the DE-volution, as it were - of following that course, the way of SIN.
V1 describes the PROVENANCE (or source) of wickedness.
V2- the PERMISSIBILITY (or sanction) of wickedness.
In v3 we see the PROOF of wickedness.
And in v4: its PROGRESSION.
So first, where does sin START? David answers in TWO ways: sin starts in our HEART, and in our EYES.
First he says, “Transgression speaks to the wicked deep in his heart”. And the more WICKED one is, the DEEPER sin’s voice PENETRATES his heart. Let me ask you: Did SIN speak to JESUS’s heart? Before you answer, remember the BIBLE says that Jesus was tempted in EVERY respect just as WE are (Heb 4:15). Jesus had the SAME little angel… AND the same little DEVIL… sitting on opposite shoulders, whispering to him; as a matter of fact, JESUS had Satan LITERALLY whispering in his ear out in the wilderness in Matthew 4 - “Turn these stones to bread… I’ll give you ALL the kingdoms of the WORLD, if you’ll just worship me…”. But the question isn’t “does sin SPEAK to us”, but rather, “how DEEP does its voice penetrate your HEART”?
Satan’s words bounced right OFF of Jesus. He came suited UP, in the armor of GOD, ready to WIELD the “sword of the Spirit” which is the word of GOD (Eph 6:17) - “Be GONE, Satan! For it is WRITTEN…”
But when the WICKED hear sin’s voice, their ears perk UP. Their heart starts beating faster, like a teen seeing her crush. And they TAKE those words down, deeper and deeper into their “heart”, the CORE of who they are.
The world tells us to “listen to your heart, to FOLLOW your heart”, but God’s WORD tells us that “The heart is deceitful above all things,
and desperately sick”. We picked up Chinese on Friday night, and my 3 year old son BO’S fortune cookie could not have been funnier… WORSE; it encouraged him to “Lead with your heart”. The same deceitful, sin-sick heart that had “led” him the night before, when Polly and I attempted to take the dog on a 15-minute walk around the block WITHOUT the kids, and have just one moment to ourselves, and 12 minutes into that 15 minute walk we got a call from Elijah informing us that Bo had YELLED at his sister (who we left in charge), KICKED Elijah in the STOMACH so hard it made him cry, and by the time we got back to the house, Bo had protested Ellery sending him to his ROOM, to time-OUT, by pulling off his diaper and purposely PEE-ing all over his own BED. And the WORLD says, “You do you! Follow your little heart!”
But DAVID says, “DON’T trust that voice that’s whispering (or in Bo’s case, “SHOUTING”) in your heart; it’s the voice of SIN!”
But that’s not the only, or even the most ultimate source of sin; David reveals THAT in the SECOND half of v1 now: “there is no fear of God before [the wicked’s] eyes.” Christopher Ash explains (Psalms, 435): “The word fear here is not the usual (Hebrew) word for reverence. It means something like TERROR… the wicked have not learned (in conviction of SIN) to be properly FRIGHTENED of God in his majesty and holiness. To be frightened of God is the necessary precursor to GRACE. NOT to tremble before God is both the ROOT and the RESULT of [sin].”
Let me ask you: How many of you - by show of hands, if you’re willing to - have a testimony in which you trusted in Jesus, possibly at an early age, because you heard about the reality of HELL and quite frankly, you got the Hell scared right out of you?! You heard about God’s HOLINESS and His righteous WRATH against sin - ALL sin, ANY sin, YOUR sin! - and you were AFRAID of having to stand before the Lord one day, as the Bible says we all must, and give an ACCOUNT for every deed done in the body, whether good or evil (Rom 14:12; 2 Cor 5:10)... you were afraid of the CONSEQUENCES of your sin, and that FEAR drove you to JESUS for REFUGE, for MERCY, for FORGIVENESS. Is that your testimony?
If so, can I just ENCOURAGE you this morning, that that is a BEAUTIFUL, BIBLICAL testimony. As a matter of fact, that’s how SOLOMON’S testimony concluded, at the end of Ecclesiastes; when all was said and done - he’d tried WISDOM and WEALTH, hedonism and workaholism - are this was his verdict: “The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man” (Ecc 12:13). FEAR GOD!
JESUS HIMSELF affirmed as much: “Don’t fear [the things that can] kill [your earthly] body [which is passing away ANYWAY]… Rather fear him who can destroy both soul AND body in HELL”, namely: GOD! Fear the LORD!
So again, if that’s your testimony this morning: your fear of the Lord DROVE you into the arms of JESUS: praise GOD for it! Don’t ever let anyone convince you that it’s somehow better to come to the Lord because you just felt so LOVED by Him; look: the book of PROVERBS says that “the fear of the Lord is the BEGINNING of wisdom”, it doesn’t say “the LOVE of the Lord is our first step toward learning to live rightly”; No, FIRST we’ve gotta be awakened to our deep, desperate need for God’s MERCY - as we begin to grasp His holiness, and our OWN sinfulness… THEN we gain a proper CONTEXT for appreciating the LOVE that God’s lavished on us in the gift of His Son JESUS.
And I say “OUR sinfulness”, friends, because make no mistake: NONE of us fears the Lord to the degree that we should. In fact, the apostle Paul quotes this verse as the capstone of his famous “all have SINNED” warning in Romans ch3:
““None is righteous, no, not one;
11 no one understands;
no one seeks for God.
12 All have turned aside… no one does good,
not even one”.
Then like DAVID, Paul offers us a sketch of the wicked: “their tongues deceive… “Their feet are swift to shed blood;
16 in their paths are ruin and misery,
17 the way of peace they have not known.””
But it all CULMINATES for Paul in David’s dire diagnosis that “There is no fear of God before their eyes.” (Rom 3:18)
Before OUR eyes. Because, as Paul rightly recognizes, “ALL are under sin” (3:9).
We all suffer from sin-sick HEARTS. That is the PROVENANCE, the source of wickedness.
But now in v2 David describes its SANCTION: the wicked “flatters himself in his own eyes that his iniquity cannot be found out and hated.”
Even WITH a sinful heart, INCLINED toward evil, we might do our best to try and keep those desires at bay, and choose to say and do GOOD instead… if we were absolutely CONVINCED that our wicked ways would EVENTUALLY - some day - catch up to us; that there’d be a PRICE to pay.
But our sinful hearts DECEIVE us into believing that we can somehow get AWAY with it; that there are like LAPSES in God’s omnipresence, His omniscience - Proverbs 15:3 declares “The eyes of the LORD are in every place, keeping watch on the good AND the evil” - and we think, “Every place… but HERE; God probably won’t notice THIS…”
Commentator Matthew Poole points out at least THREE ways we sometimes “FLATTER ourselves” concerning our sin:
*First, we hope God won’t notice. But deep down, we know He does. So…
*Second, we “flatter” ourselves that our sins aren’t REALLY sins, or that they’re “but SMALL sins”; no big deal. But deep down, don’t we know that ANY sin against a perfectly HOLY God must be a big deal? JESUS wasn’t CRUCIFIED for NOTHING! So, finally,
*Third, Poole notes, we “flatter ourselves” that our sins “will be excused, if not justified by honest intentions, or by outward professions and exercise of religion, or by some good actions, wherewith [we] think to make some compensation for [our sin].”” (quoted in Guzik, Enduring Word, “Psalm 36”)
“Well, even if God DOES notice and care… and even if it IS technically a “sin”, and technically a “big deal”... surely it’s not SO big that I can’t just “pay it off” on my own, WORK it off with some extra GOOD deeds and a few “Hail Mary”s.
And all these “flatteries” and self-DECEPTIONS conspire and persuade us to give permission - LICENSE - to our sin. But, as the great Charles Spurgeon observed: ““To smooth over one’s own conduct to one’s conscience (which is the meaning of the Hebrew phrase here, “he FLATTERS himself in his own eyes”; to smooth over your SINS) is to smooth one’s own path to HELL” (quoted in Guzik).
Last point on v2: notice David’s repeated reference from v1 to the wicked’s “EYES”. “There is no fear of GOD before his eyes”; instead, he “flatters HIMSELF in his eyes”. And that is the HEART of our heart PROBLEM: we have too LOW a view of God (“no fear”), but too HIGH a view of SELF (self “flattery”); we spend far too much time looking INWARD (at self) or OUTWARD (at sin), when we SHOULD be looking UPWARD, fixing our eyes on THE LORD.
That’s what David’s gonna do in v5; stop looking AROUND him at all this WICKEDNESS and lift his gaze UP to the LORD. But let’s finish vv3 & 4 first, quickly.
We’ve considered sin’s SOURCE, and its SANCTION. Now in v3 we see its SYMPTOMS, in the life of the wicked: “The words of his mouth are trouble and deceit; he has ceased to act wisely and do good.”
Sinful SPEECH, sinful ACTIONS. It’s that simple. “You know a tree by its FRUIT,” Jesus said. “Good trees produce GOOD fruit; and BAD trees produce BAD fruit.”
And in v4, David observes sin’s SUMMATION, its end result, where it will lead and LEAVE us, without God’s grace intervening: the wicked “plots trouble while on his bed”.
How do you know whether you’re a saint who occasionally slips up and sins, or you’re an unregenerate sinner? David offers us at least one practical litmus test here: When you lay down at night, do you “PLOT” your sins for the next day? Or do you genuinely REPENT of your wickedness from the previous one? When you wake UP in the morning, still in your bed, are your *wheels already turning toward SINFULNESS, or are you at least praying “Lord, lead me NOT into temptation, but DELIVER me from evil!”, such that you’re at least rolling out of bed with every INTENTION to TRY and follow God’s lead, as He “leads you in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake”? That kind of saint may still slip up and sin. But he stands in stark contrast to the WICKED man here, who “SETS himself in a way that is not good” (v4); that indicates an INTENTIONALITY to this sinner’s evil ways. “He does NOT reject evil,” v4, but the Hebrew verb tense here implies an ongoing action that could REALLY be translated more like “He NEVER rejects, is INCAPABLE of rejecting evil,” because he is so far gone. Like Esau, who according to Hebrews 12:17 WANTED to “obtain the grace of God… [but] found no opportunity to repent, though he sought it with tears.” It is possible to sear our consciences so persistently, to harden our hearts so thoroughly, that we’re no longer even CAPABLE of feeling REMORSE, much less REPENTANCE, for our sin.
And friends, that prospect ought to TERRIFY us. We ought to pray DAILY that God would make us not LESS, but MORE sensitive to our sin. It WILL be one or the other. Every day, the SINNER gets LESS sensitive, more ACCUSTOMED to his own sin. But the GODLY grow more SENSITIVE to, less TOLERANT of their sin, with each slip up. So Hebrews 3 exhorts us to “Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart [that’s where sin ULTIMATELY comes from; Tim Keller used to say that ALL sin can be traced back to UNBELIEF; that every time we sin we are failing to believe some promise of God; So “WATCH OUT for that kind of heart”], leading you to fall away from the living God. 13 [INSTEAD] exhort one another every day… that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin” (vv12-13).
So consider this your “exhortation” for TODAY. But “take care”: you’re gonna need ANOTHER exhortation TOMORROW… and the NEXT day… and every day after THAT, because our hearts are “deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand them?” (Jer 17:9) So I hope you’ve got friends who love you enough, to call you on your sin. I hope this isn’t the ONLY sermon you’ll be listening to this week. We need exhortation EVERY day, that we might NOT “be hardened by the deceitfulness of our sin”.
Hamilton observes that (397): “Evil will be rejected by those who look not at what it OFFERS but rather, at what it COSTS and at what it takes AWAY.” – On Monday last week, Elijah was playing outside with his friend next door, and Polly said, “I don’t want you to go in their house; stay outside.” Twenty minutes later, she popped her head out the back door; no kids. So she walked next door, and there they were, on the neighbor’s couch, watching God knows what (cuz there are NO RULES, next door). So Elijah lost his play privileges with Bennet for the rest of the week. And every day Bennet would get home from camp, and call across the fence, “Hey Elijah, wanna come over and play?”, and every day, Elijah had to answer, “I CAN’T”. Because in that moment on Monday, he was considering what sin OFFERED him - an extra 10 or 15 minutes of unregulated SCREEN time - INSTEAD of considering what it would COST him - HOURS and hours, the whole rest of the week, of FUN, playing with his best friend.
But then I got to thinking, “How often do I do that?” Take the 5 seconds of validation that sin offers me, making sure Polly knows that I was right and she was wrong, even though it costs me intimacy, closeness, good relationship with her the rest of the evening, she’s upset.
I ate a DONUT yesterday! No adult should EVER eat a DONUT. But I chose the 60 seconds of sweetness it offered me, over the hours of REGRET I felt the rest of the morning.
“Sin will be rejected by those who look not at what it OFFERS but rather, at what it COSTS.” And then Hamilton finishes his thought, “[Sin] will be particularly hated by those who love Jesus, who see that it cost his LIFE, and that it threatens to take their communion with him. Those who do not reject evil will be rejected by God” (ibid).
But the godly REJECT the Lord’s proscriptions.
John Piper points out that “sin is what you do when your heart is not satisfied with God” (Future Grace, p?). God made us for relationship with Him, and He ALONE can satisfy the deepest longings of our heart. “SIN” is everything ELSE. It’s “settling”, for less. Our hearts CRAVE that joy and fulfillment, and they WILL search out SUBSTITUTES, if we don’t find our satisfaction in the Lord, the ONLY one who can truly fill that “God-shaped VOID” in each of our hearts.
NOW David turns his attention to HIM, to the LORD:
“Your steadfast love, O Lord, extends to the heavens,
your faithfulness to the clouds.
6 Your righteousness is like the mountains…
your judgments are like the great deep”
The WICKED rejoice in their SIN. But…
#2- The godly REJOICE IN the Lord’s goodness. (vv5-9)
David’s transition here is abrupt, almost JARRING; v5 seems almost like a total non-sequitor, coming out of vv1-4 and his portrait of the wicked. But here’s the connection: vv5-9 are the CURE for vv1-4! The cure for loving SIN is learning to love GOD MORE. What Thomas Chalmers called “the EXPULSIVE power of a NEW affection”. How do you subvert, REPLACE your love of DONUTS? By valuing your WAISTLINE MORE (valuing SELF-RESPECT!). And how do we kill and kick out the SIN from our hearts? By loving the LORD more. Rejoicing in, DELIGHTING in God’s goodness.
Seen in TEN of His divine attributes, PERFECTIONS here; God displays His goodness to us in:
1) V5a: His LOVE (which reaches to the heavens)
2) V5b: His FAITHFULNESS (reaching the CLOUDS)
3) V6a: His RIGHTEOUSNESS (which soars like the mountains; Hamilton notes that (398): “David employs the extremities of the known world here to describe Yahweh’s (magnanimous) character.”)
4) V6b: His JUSTICE (as unsearchable and profound as the oceans’ depths).
5) V6c: His KINDNESS (to SAVE us, v6; sinful humans like US… even the “BEASTS”; God cares about His creation, even deigns to “feed the little birds” (Mt 6:26); and “Are you not of more value [to Him] than they?”, Jesus reminds us. God is so KIND.)
6) In v7, We see His TENDERNESS (v7: “How precious is your steadfast love, O God”
7) His PROTECTION (we “ take refuge in the shadow of your wings”; the image is one of a mother hen, sheltering her young chicks through a storm)
8) V8a: We enjoy God’s PROVISION; v8: we “feast on the abundance (literally, “the FATNESS”) of your house”; “fatness” connotes not only quantity (“abundance”) but QUALITY as well; “the BEST PORTION”.
9) V8b: We rejoice in God’s PLEASURES; He “gives [us] drink from the river of [His] delights”. Wanna guess the Hebrew word for “delight” here? ‘EDEN! Hamilton explains (400): “The references to the Lord’s HOUSE and his EDEN here point to the way that the Lord satisfies his people with his PRESENCE, communing with them as their… FATHER.” And then LASTLY, as sort of a summary acclamation in v9…
10) “For with you is the fountain of life [O Lord];
in your light do we see light.”
God is the Giver of all LIFE and LIGHT.
But friends, where do we see God’s goodness on FULLEST display for us? Not in CREATION - “the heavens… the mountains… the great deep”, although we do see it there. Not even in His WORD, in such beautiful descriptions of God’s virtues recorded for us in the Scriptures, like THIS one in Psalm 36; although God’s word OBVIOUSLY testifies to His goodness as well.
But if the Bible is in 2D and Creation is in 3D, we see God’s goodness on display in 4K in the life of His Son JESUS!
1) God’s LOVE? “By this we know [God’s] love,” 1 John 3:16 says, “that [JESUS] laid down his life for us”.
2) God’s FAITHFULNESS? Jesus is “faithful over God's house as a son,” Hebrews 3:6 says, “And we are his house”. He’s faithful to US.
3) God’s RIGHTEOUSNESS? 1 Corinthians 1:30 declares that Jesus “became to us… [the] righteousness from God”; that while NO ONE - not ONE of us - is righteous on our own, that if we are “found in [CHRIST],” Philippians 3:9, then we have “a righteousness NOT of [our] own… but that which comes through faith in Christ”; we are “clothed in HIS righteousness”, Isa 61:10.
4) God’s JUSTICE? Jesus declared in John 5 that “the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son… Whoever hears my word and believes… has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life” (vv22-25). Which points ALSO to
5) God’s KINDNESS revealed to us in Christ. “We were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. [We were “the WICKED” of the first 4 VERSES of Psalm 36!] 4 But [Titus 3 rejoices] when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, 5 he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own MERCY… poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior” (Tit 3:3-6).
6) “How PRECIOUS is HIS steadfast love”; “we were RANSOMED”, 1 Peter 1:19, “with the precious blood of Christ, like a lamb without blemish or spot.”
7) We receive His PROTECTION. Jesus SHIELDS us from God’s righteous JUDGMENT against all sin and wickedness; 1 Thessalonians 1:10 promises, “Jesus delivers us from the wrath to come.”
8) Now we can INSTEAD enjoy God’s gracious PROVISION, and FEAST with CHRIST on the “ABUNDANCE of God’s house”, around His heavenly BANQUET table, in Paradise.
9) We get to enjoy God’s eternal PLEASURES, forever… “drink from the river of His delights”. Jesus said, “whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again.[b] The water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”” (Jn 4:14) He said, “You drink THIS water - money, power, sex, family, career - you’re ALWAYS gonna need MORE; the next vacation, the next promotion, the next DRINK, the next FIX - but it’ll NEVER be enough to truly satisfy you, “quench” your thirst.” “Only MY water,” Jesus says, “can ETERNALLY satisfy.” “Come to me… and find rest for your [tired, thirsty] souls.” (Mt 11:28-29)
10) “For with HIM [friends, with JESUS] is the fountain of life;
in [His] light do we see light.”
“The true light, which gives light to everyone, came into the world… In him [in JESUS] was life,[a] and the life was the light of men” (Jn 1:4,9). “I came”, he said, “that [you] may have life and have it to the FULLEST.”
You wanna “live MAS”? Life to the MAX? Die to yourself, to your sin, and come find ETERNAL life in Christ JESUS.
Come REJOICE in HIS goodness.
When we DO, lastly, we can…
#3 - REST in, we RELY ON the Lord’s justice. (vv10-12)
Can we just be HONEST about it this morning: if the Bible’s not TRUE, then we Christians are WASTING our LIVES! David has set TWO ways of LIVING before us here: the way of the WICKED, who rejoice in SIN… and the way of the GODLY, who rejoice in the LORD. If the atheists are RIGHT, and there IS no “Lord” to even REJOICE in, then as the apostle PAUL concedes in 1 Corinthians 15: “ If in Christ we have hope in this life only, then we [Christians] are of all people most to be pitied” (v19).
If THIS life is ALL that there is, then the CHRISTIAN way of living makes ABSOLUTELY no sense. As SOLOMON conceded in the book of Ecclesiastes, if this world is IT, life HERE, “under the sun”, then by all means: “eat, drink, and be merry” (Ecc 8:15), for tomorrow, we DIE! So LIVE IT UP while you still can! “Go ahead and FOLLOW your wicked heart; whatever makes you HAPPY.” That’s the only way it makes SENSE to live… is this life is IT, if there is NO God, no JUDGE, to whom we will one day ANSWER ETERNALLY for how we lived our brief, momentary life here.
But what if there IS a life to come, a JUDGMENT to come. How, then, ought we to LIVE? We live all of life in light of, in anticipation of, that moment when we will at last stand face to face before the LORD. No LONGER just in FEAR of His JUDGMENT, because we know that “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom 8:10). So we don’t live in FEAR of the consequences of our SIN any more, praise God! No, NOW we can live in ANTICIPATION, in the prayerful HOPE that we will INSTEAD receive not God’s condemnation, but His COMMENDATION: “Well DONE, my GOOD and FAITHFUL servant.” We live all of LIFE in THIS world, for those 7 seconds, to hear Him say those 7 words to ME, personally.
That is essentially David’s closing PRAYER here in Psalm 36: “Oh, continue your steadfast love to those who know you”; I don’t WANT to be one of those TRAGIC pseudo-believers from Matthew 7, who are gonna say to Him, “Lord, Lord, don’t you remember how very DEVOTED, how RELIGIOUS I was…”, only to hear Him say, “DEPART from me, sinner, I never KNEW you” (v23). NO! I want to KNOW the Lord, and thus know TRUE satisfaction, I want to DRINK from the river of His ETERNAL delights.
“Let not the foot of arrogance come upon me,
nor the hand of the wicked drive me away” - “Lead me NOT into temptation, Lord, but DELIVER me from evil”. “Help me stay the COURSE, God; PRESERVE my life, with YOUR righteousness.”
[[CONCLUSION]]: Which means we rely not ONLY on God’s JUSTICE, to VALIDATE the path we chose, trusting in faith that this life is NOT all there is, so I’m gonna LIVE it in light of the one to COME!
We rely ALSO… on God’s MERCY.
How can we pray, with David here, “O Lord, continue your love… to the UPRIGHT of HEART”... when “NO ONE is righteous, no not ONE”?
We PRAY it, trusting in JESUS - HIS righteousness, HIS “uprightness of heart”...
Let’s pray…