The world and the Lord

Good morning Church!

Bibles out! Psalm 36.

We are going to do something different today…we are going to be preaching this morning out of the KJV version of the bible…

As i was reading this week I realized just how rich this translation is in Psalm 36 and that the KJ text is structured in a way that I fell is easier to understand…so I decided it best to just use this translation this morning…

Don’t panic…I will walk you through the THEES and THOUGHS…And you will leave here I hope with a better understanding of this text…

Continuing our Summer in the Psalms Series

Last week Pastor Brad opened up this short series…

laying the foundation of worship in the book of Psalms…

As he walked us through Psalm 33 which showed us WHO WE WORSHIP…WHY WE WORSHIP…AND HOW WE WORSHIP…

So here is the thing God desires to be worshipped…

And He created you to worship…

The Lord has given us an instruction manual on how He desires to be worshipped…

So He gave us all the tools we need to worship Him as He desires to be worshipped

So we are going to spend the next month just worshipping the Lord through the word in the book of Psalms together…

Through the book of worship…

And as a church shepherding you…teaching you how to do this daily in your life

Because what you will see in our short time walking through some of the text in this book of worship is how we are to be in continual worship of the Lord no matter what season of life we are in…

I was listening to a pastor preach one time on Psalms and he said “In the book of Psalms you will find every human emotion…every season of life”

And as you read through it you find out how true that statement is…

Read and you will find…war, loss, gain, sinfulness, rescue, anxiety, trust, restoration, justice, blessing, mercy, grace…every season of life…and every human emotion that is felt in that season of life…

And what we see as wee read through the pages of this book of worship is this…

NO MATTER WHAT IS GOING ON AROUND YOU…GOD IS STILL GOD…

No matter what season of life you are in…no matter what emotion you are experiencing…

GOD IS STILL GOD

And the Lords true identity… leads us to worship Him…

And that is what we are going to see today as we open up into Psalm 36.

Psalm 36…written by King David…is going to show us how we are to respond to every season of life we are in….

YALL READY TO GET INTO GODS WORD THIS MORNING?!?!?!

READ ALL PSALM 36.

Today we are going to break down this text verse by verse…

And the Lord is going to show us 4 things we must understand no matter what is going on around us…

And the first is this…

As Christ followers we must…

See the world for what it truly is. (v. 1-4)

What we see in these first 4 verses in this oracle David is having is that of the wickedness of the world…

So David is looking around at the world…And what he sees in verse one he says is affecting his heart…

And what does David see as he looks at the world he is living in…in whats going on around him…

He sees evil…wickedness…

He sees the transgressions of the wickedness…

He sees the masses of the world committed to lives of continual sin…

He says “the words of the peoples mouth is iniquity (faulty) its full of lies”

“no one is wise…no one does good”

The bible says they lay in bed at night plotting the evil they will commit when the sun comes up...

“they are all committed to a way of wickedness” (v4 -they set themselves in a way that is not good, they abhorreth not evil “abhorreth means disgusted with”…so the bible is saying they are not disgusted with evil, but embrace it)

And even worse…v2 says they “flatter themselves in their own eyes”

They are soothing their own conscience…They justify their actions

Essentially saying wrong is right….

And David tells us they will continue to live this way “until God returns to judge them”

And this is what we see in the world today isn't it???

Nothings changed church…theres nothing new under the sun….

When we look out into the world around us today we see its wickedness…

Murder, adultery, greed, thievery, lusts of the flesh, addiction…

People living and embracing their sin and justifying it as right…

And as a Christ follower, just like David this burdens our hearts…

Doesn't it burden your heart to hear about another shooting on the news…

Another human trafficking ring discovered…

Another overdose…

Another murder…

Another war…

Another baby being aborted…

As a Christ follower this breaks your heart…

David is heart broken over what he is seeing…

We are heart broken when we look at the world around us…

And the root of the issue David tells us in V1 is this…

NO FEAR OF GOD

I used to think…How could people do some of the things that they do…

How could they commit these evil acts…

THEY HAVE NO FEAR OF GOD…

They have no fear that there will be repercussions for their actions...

When I was a boy…and I was behaving badly…my mother would tell me “wait till your father gets home”

Would send a shiver down my spine…

Nothing made me behave better than the fear of not only the punishment i would receive from my father… But disappointing him with my behavior…

Proverbs 9:10 “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.”

We just read Davids words…these wicked people have no wisdom…Because they have no fear of the Lord…

Their lack of knowledge of truth has them blind to their actions and blind to the coming consequences…the wrath of God

So how do we…as Christ followers…cope and live in this world full of wickedness???

The next thing David shows us is…

WE MUST…

See God for who He truly is. (v. 5-6)

READ V 5-6

In contrast to what we just read about the wicked world…

David is comforted by the truth of who God is…

No matter how evil the world is…or how badly the people in it are behaving…

GOD IS STILL GOD!

V5- His mercy and faithfulness are vast…they reach to heaven…they are eternal, never ending…

His righteousness is like a great mountain…His justice is like deepest of deeps…

We need to sit and look at not only the attributes (AT-tributes) of God but the adjectives that are describing the vastness of them…

As high as heaven…great as a mountains…as deep as the deep…

God’s love, faithfulness, mercy, righteousness, justice are VAST and inexhaustible!!!

My wife and I went to the Tetons last year…in Wyoming…The most beautiful place in America in my opinion…

And we would just sit and stare at the vastness of the Grand Teton Mountains…

Its hard as your standing there take them all in…

And then we climbed up them…We hiked for 8 hours yall…and at one point on the mountain trail there is a map that shows you where you are and after 8 hours we were barley on the map!!!

I was thinking, you could climb this mountain for a lifetime and not see all of it…

As David is reflecting on Gods righteousness…it vast like those mountains…

Did you know that only 24% of the ocean floor has been mapped…

Less then a quarter of the ocean floor has been seen by human eyes…

Thats how vast God’s Justice is…

And this same God…Who is great and mighty…

Who is VAST IN ALL WAYS OF MERCY< LOVE< FAITHFULNESS…

He is preserving us…HE LOVES US…HE IS holding us up…HE IS carrying us on…

NO MATTER WHAT THE WORLD IS…NO MATTER WHAT IS GOING ON AROUND US…

THAT IS WHO GOD IS…

And the 3rd thing David shows us…

Is when we see who God is in contrast to the world around us...

WE MUST…

Worship God for who He is. (7-9)

READ V 7-9

As David is meditating on the VAST ATTRIBUTES OF GOD…

IT LEADS HIM TO WORSHIP!!!!

It leads him to adoration…

“How excellent is your loving kindness Lord”

“We put our trust in you Lord”

“You are great!! You are mighty”

“Like a baby bird, you shelter us under your wings”

“YOU SATISFY US ABUNDANTLY!!”

“We drink from the river of your pleasures!!!”

We are moved to worship God NO MATTER WHAT THE WORLD LOOKS LIKE NO MATTER HOW BAD SOCIETY GETS…

WE ARE TO RESPOND IN WORSHIP TO THE LORD BECAUSE OF WHO HE IS!!!!

There is a great NT example of this in ACTS 16.

In Acts 16 Paul and a few other followers of Christ are in Philippi

And there they cast a demon out of a woman who was a fortune teller…

Problem with that was that she was a slave owned by men who were propheting from her ability to tell fortunes…

So these men had Paul and Silas stripped naked, beaten, and thrown into the inner prison…locked in stocks around their feet…

So here they are naked, bloody, chained in prison for HELPING A WOMAN WHO WAS DEMON POSSESSED…

And I picture them looking at their surroundings…being heartbroken as David is…

But how do they respond…

Acts 16:25 “About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them,”

That is what Psalm 36 is showing us today…

HOW DOES GOD DESIRE YOU TO WORSHIP HIM???

He desires you to worship Him NO MATTER WHAT IS HAPPENING AROUND YOU…

NO MATTER WHAT SEASON OF LIFE…NO MATTER HOW DEPRESSED OR ANXIOUS OR STRESSED OR SAD OR DESTROYED OR SCARED OR LOW YOU ARE…

GET YOUR EYES ON WHO GOD TRULY IS…AND GET ON YOUR FACE AND WORSHIP THE GREAT I AM!!!!

BECAUSE HE IS MIGHTY…HE IS POWERFULL…HE IS FULL OF JUSTICE AND MERCY…

AND BY THE WAY…HE LOVES YOU!!! HE CHOSE YOU!!!! HE DIED FOR YOU!!!!

DON’T MOPE AROUND…”MAN BEING A CHRISTIAN IS HARD”…

“Im being persecuted”

“MAN THE WORLD IS SO MESSED UP”

YOU BELONG TO GOD!!!!

YOU ARE BOUGHT AND PAID FOR BY HIS BLOOD!!!

YOU ARE FREE IN CHRIST…DONT SPEND ONE MORE MINUTE THINKING ABOUT YOUR CURRENT SEASON OR HOW ITS EFFECTING YOU…

DONT SPEND ONE MORE MINUTE LOOKING AROUND AT THE LOSTNESS OF THE WORLD

GET TO WORSHIPPING THE LORD FOR HIS FAITHFULNESS TO YOU!!!

Life as a Christian can be difficult…your living in a world you dont belong in…

BUT LIFE WITHOUT CHRIST, AS WE JUST SAW IN VERSES 1-4 IS MUCH WORSE YALL

YOU HAVE THE VICTORY…WORSHIP THE LORD BECAUSE HE PURCHASED IT FOR YOU

(PAUSE)

The final thing David does here as he finishes out this Psalm is he turns to prayer…

He transitions in verse 10 from worshipping in truth to worshipping in prayer…

Showing us that as Christ followers

WE MUST…

Pray to God for His protection. (v. 10-12)

A few weeks ago we worshipped in the word…

We picked a Psalm and worshipped through it…

We are going to round out our time today following David’s lead…

Here David, coming out of worshipping god for who He is…

Prays and asks the Lord to protect him from being influenced by the world…

But instead to keep the truth of who the Lord is at the center of His heart…

We will follow suit today…

Lets walk through this line by line and pray as David is that the Lord would shelter us from the influence of our surroundings…

PRAY AMEN!!!