Transgression vs Faithfulness | Psalm 36 | Family Camp 2026 Session 1 | Dr. Jason Oakes | 06/14/2026

What a great way to open our hearts to

remember that his glory is really our

good. Some men are running to the front

right now. They're coming all the way

forward to give out some outlines. And I

want to encourage you if you got in here

for some reason and you don't have an

outline. I want to encourage you to lift

your hand this morning. You will need

that. If you're new to us, our church

believes in studying the Bible. And so,

um, as we do that, we take seriously

that you don't need three points in a

poem. What you really need is the word

of God. And so, that's the that's the

task of every uh time we meet and every

time we come to um uh to uh preach the

word of God. Well, as our opening

message for family camp, Pastor Jason is

going to come and he is going to um

bring to us a message from Psalm 36. And

I want to encourage you to just allow

God's word to touch you and to work in

you. Go ahead and take your Bible and

turn with me to Psalm 36. And um he is

going to come and and share with us from

God's word. So would you please welcome

again Pastor Jason to the pulpit this

morning. [applause]

Thank you.

Was reminded

my sister Marcy slipped out. She's doing

something no doubt responsible. Uh

one of the first years she was with us

at Christmas time.

My family in a way that probably wasn't

very empathetic to her plight and her

journey of not quite knowing all of the

English. We played Pictionary. if you

remember Pictionary

and I recall I'm pretty sure one of the

words most of the words she didn't know

what they were that she was supposed to

be drawing. So she's seen a word in

English out of context and supposed to

be drawing it and I recall pretty sure

one of them was pogo stick

and I was called to go into the other

room and explain to a Brazilian what a

pogo stick was then for her to come back

in and draw it. And I don't think I

explained it very well. And uh we

remember pogo stick ever since. Let me

pray for us. Uh that's what we need. We

need help from the spirit for our task.

So let's let's ask that now.

Father, son, and holy spirit. Uh we come

to you uh with humility. We're going to

open your word. And

on the one hand, the task seems

relatively simple. read, explain, talk

about your word.

But on the other hand, our hearts are

hard. Our ears can be

slow to hear. My tongue can be slow to

speak. So, we need the spirit's help in

helping us to understand, helping us to

apply, helping us to live out.

God, I pray that uh your word would be

made more valuable in our lives in this

time. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

So, we're going to be looking at Psalm

36.

And my goal this morning is very modest.

It's my only goal really is to have each

of us come away with a greater

appreciation for Psalm 36 than you

walked in. Your your uh family camp for

the kids is Psalm 23. I don't know about

you, there's a number of Psalms that I

just think about, right? There's Psalms

that are sort of they're at my disposal.

Psalm 23 is one. Psalm 1 is one. Psalm

103. And through the last few years of

my life, Psalm 36 has been added to that

list. And I I hope that at least it'll

slide a little bit further for you in

that direction. What we're going to see

in Psalm 36 is a surprising contrast.

The Bible's full of contrast. Life is

full of contrasts. I mean, even this

very morning, we have a a a picture of a

contrast. My brother-in-law is older

than me, but has a full head of hair.

I'm younger and I'm bald. I don't

understand. But that's just the contrast

that you have. You have to listen to a

bald preacher today. I'm comfortable

with my baldness.

When I think of the biblical contrast, I

think of in the New Testament, the

contrast between the sheep and the

goats. Jesus's teaching between the

wheat and the tears. And in the Old

Testament, particularly in Proverbs, you

see this constant contrast of the wise

person versus the foolish person.

I mentioned Psalm 1 earlier. I'm

actually going to read Psalm 1 because

Psalm 1, you don't have to turn to it

unless you choose, is is familiar to all

of us. And there's a contrast in Psalm 1

that is somewhat similar to the contrast

we're going to see in Psalm 36.

The first bit of Psalm 1 sets apart

the blessed man. Blessed is the man who

walks not in the counsel of the wicked,

nor stands in the way of the sinners,

nor sits in the seat of scoffers, but

his delight is in the law of the Lord

and on his law. He meditates day and

night. He is like a tree planted by

streams of water that yields its fruit

in its seeds and its leaf does not

wither. In all that he does, he

prospers. In verse four comes the

contrast.

The wicked are not so, but they're like

chaff that the wind drives away.

Therefore, the wicked will not stand in

the judgment, nor sinners in the

congregation of the righteous. For the

Lord knows the way of the righteous, but

the way of the wicked will perish. Psalm

36, we think, is going to be a similar

contrast. We're going to read it here in

a second. It starts with a similar

contrast starting with the wicked.

But the reason this passage has become

this particular psalm so dear to me is

the contrast is surprising when we get

there.

It's going to talk about the

transgression speaking to the heart of

the wicked and sort of give some nice

visual reality of what the wicked person

is like. And then we're expecting next

to come here's what the righteous person

is like or here's what the blessed

person is like. Here's a checklist of

how to not be wicked and instead we see

everything pointed towards God and his

faithfulness. So it's a surprising

contrast.

Sometimes the surprising ones are the

more memorable ones. Um, my younger

daughter Stella, she's 20 now, but when

she was younger, she was doing a battery

of different testings and readings and

all these other kinds of things. And

they were testing her vocabulary. And

they were testing her vocabulary by

asking her opposites. They'd give her a

word and then check mark whether she got

the correct opposite of that word or

not. Right? So hot, the right answer is

cold.

Right? in the right answer is out. And

we're going over the results with him.

At that point, we were homeschooling our

kids. So, I was the principal of the

home school. And I made an executive

decision as the principal of the home

school that even though the textbook

answer that she gave was supposedly not

correct, because it was a surprising

contrast, it should have been right

because here's what she said. The

opposite that they asked about was lost.

Expecting the right answer to be what?

What's the right answer to lost? Found.

Instead, Stella says safe.

And as the principal, I was like, "Yeah,

that's the right answer.

That might not be what the textbook

answer. It's a surprising contrast, but

wow, what a what a beautiful

and get emotional. It's I've turned 50

this year, Andrew, and I start crying

all the time while I preach, so my kids

make fun of it. It's okay. I'm I'm

comfortable with it as well." We're

going to see a similar contrast right

here. Let me read the entirety of Psalm

36.

You'll probably already pick out this

contrast, but we're going to talk in

detail about it. It's in your notes. I'm

going to read it from God's from from my

copy of the Bible out of the ESV

translation.

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 Lord. 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 water of your delights.

For with you is the fountain of life. In

your light do we see light.

Oh, 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, nor the hand of the wicked drive me

away.

There the evildoers fly lie fallen. They

are thrust down unable to rise. Thank

you

Holy Spirit for your word. All right.

For the first four verses, the first

blanks in your sheet says, "We see very

visually and clearly here the heart, the

words, and the actions of the wicked."

The passage starts by telling us

something about the wicked person. And

it gets to the actions of the wicked,

but it starts with an internal state.

And then it moves towards

the way that such a person speaks to

himself and to others and ultimately to

the actions.

And these first few verses are they're

they're

a pretty clear picture of a pretty

wicked person.

Transgression speaks to the wicked deep

in his heart. If you have a different

translation, that first verse may be

translated quite differently. It's

actually a it's a struggle for this is

one of those passages the the people who

read Hebrew don't have any struggle with

what the Hebrew says. they have a

struggle with trying to figure out how

to put it in the English because

typically when we see this word oracle

or trans this oracle is usually always

oracle of the lord and in this passage

it says the oracle speaks to the heart

so there's some sort of like what

exactly does that mean other than

there's something speaking to us deeply

in our heart to the wicked person and to

use the wording of the proverbs there's

this person rejects God there's no fear

of God before his eyes this is all still

internal, isn't it? It's in the heart.

He flatters himself in his own eyes that

his iniquity cannot be found out and

hated. This is a person who cherishes

their sin

even even sort of rejoices in it. And

then the hiding of the sin is one of the

things that they're sort of like

captured by

being selfdeception.

Deliberate selfdeception is the wording

I think of as this, right? He flatters

himself that his own sins will not be

found out and if they were found out

they would be hated. Hated by who? Hated

by others but probably even hated by

himself.

We have a way of sometimes of the

exposing our sin causes us to see

sometimes properly what our sin for what

is. But if we hide it, then not only

will other people not hate it and hate

us for it, it

removes that ability for us even to

despise

our own wickedness.

You see it work itself up, right? It

reminds you of the teachings of Jesus,

right? The teachings of Jesus in Matthew

and in Luke both. In Matthew 15, Jesus

says,

"What comes out of the mouth proceeds

from the heart, and this is what defiles

a person." Same in Luke 6, the good

person out of the good treasure of his

heart produces good and the evil person

out of the evil treasure produces evil.

Because the first two verses are focused

on this internal state of the heart. And

then by verse three, we get to the

words,

the words of his mouth, trouble and

deceit. Then we get to his actions. He

is seized 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.

My guess is many of you like me have had

days where you've

done something, maybe even on purpose,

something that's wrong. And then that

night when you're going to bed, the

spirit reminds you and you're like, "Oh,

I need to repent. I need to change. I

need to confess. I need to maybe even

get up and make things right right now

or for sure make a note to do that this

next week or this next day." But the

wicked person does just the opposite.

While on the bed, more wickedness is

being planned for the next day.

That's a vivid illustration of a wicked

person who has set their heart in such a

way of blindness and selfdeception,

deliberate selfdeception in order that

they will not be exposed. They will not

change their course.

Some of the psalms we have a clue about

when in David's life he's written this.

This is a Davidic psalm. We're told in

36 in the intro,

but we don't know when in David's life

he wrote this psalm.

Perhaps it was one of the times in

David's life where he had an actual

enemy in mind. Right? David was a

warrior. David fought with people. He

had enemies outside of himself. And that

might be the part of this that most of

us, maybe maybe all of us, but I'm going

to guess there's some of you who may

have come from context where there were

enemies maybe because of your faith that

wanted to kill you because you were a

Christian.

One of the pl there's there's places all

over the world we could go to to to talk

about this exact thing right now. One of

the ones that my wife and I having boys

that are Ethiopian, we've been back to

Ethiopia a couple of years. the primary

road that we drive on between Odis Ababa

and the south where my sons are from. We

just went a couple years ago. We're

going to talk about that a little bit

more I think tonight.

Right now, if we were to fly into Odis

and go south, we that road is closed

because

Christians are being killed on a road in

Ethiopia as they traverse from the north

to the south by people who are opposed

to Christians.

David knew that. And so I like to just

pause here and think, okay, so maybe

David was thinking about that kind of a

wicked person, that kind of an enemy.

And how is David's response that? Well,

we can go other places in the Psalms of

David to see what he responds as. So one

time sometimes David responds and say,

"Hey God, there are these wicked enemies

and I want you to take care of them. I'm

going to pray." These are these are sort

of psalms where David and other

psalmists as well but particularly David

is saying God get the wicked. The wicked

are estranged from the tomb. They go

astray from birth speaking lies. This is

talking about the wicked. And now

DAVID'S PRAYER IS GOD BREAK the teeth in

their mouths. Tear out the fangs of the

young lions. Let them vanish like water

that runs away.

When he aims his arrow, let them be

blunted. Let them be like the snail that

dissolves into slime. I have missed this

psalm most of my life. I've read through

the psalm so many times and somehow

snails dissolving into slime. You'd

think that would stick.

I've got that one now. Psalm 58.

Sometimes we might have someone we

think, "Oh, that's my enemy. I want them

to be like a snail dissolving into

slime." That's a that's a good biblical

sort of a way to speak about probably

not with forgiveness and kindness.

So David has enemies. One of his ways

that he prays is, "God, dissolve my

enemies." Another way that David

sometimes prays about these kinds of

enemies is, "God, give me the power to

kill my enemies." And in David's life,

he's literally killing his enemies. You

think about Goliath and the Philistines.

He's constantly battling the

Philistines. Throughout David's life, he

has these external enemies outside of

himself. Here's one of those examples of

a Davidic psalm. pursued my enemies and

overtook them. Did not turn my back till

they were consumed. I thrust them

through that they were not able to rise.

They fell under my feet. And here's

where you see David sort of like, God,

you equipped me with strength for this

battle.

You made those who rise against me sink

under me. You made my enemies turn their

backs to me, and those who hated me I

destroyed.

So, you see, David at times recognizes

these enemies are outside of me. I'm

going to pray that God destroy those

enemies, and I'm also going to at other

times pray that God gives me the power

to destroy those enemies.

But there's other times in David's life

that his enemies were a slightly

different kind of enemy.

There are other times in David's life,

and maybe this can register with you as

well as it does with me, where someone

who once was close, someone who was once

trusted, someone who was once someone

that you wanted and and loved and they

loved you, then turned

in David's life. You see it with his own

son later, but probably most famously

with his rocky relationship with Saul.

In just a few chapters of 1 Samuel,

you'll see Saul's relationship with the

King Saul dramatically turn from one of

love to one of attempted murder. Just

going to read a few passages. I think

they're in your notes as well, just to

show how quickly this escalates.

And the point being, when David's

thinking about enemies and he's writing

this psalm, we don't know who he's

thinking about. Is he thinking about

someone like Saul or his son Abselon? Or

is he thinking about Goliath?

Early in 1 Samuel, David came to Saul

and entered his service. Saul loved him

greatly and he became his armor bearer.

Saul sent to Jesse, that's David's

father, saying, "Let David remain in my

service, for he's found favor in my

sight."

And Saul would be attacked by these this

this evil uh darkness and David would

play his harp and it would help Saul.

So, so, so the Lord brought David to

Saul for Saul's aid.

Then you see David

become not just the artist, not just the

harpist, you see David the warrior

killing Goliath. And then not long after

that when Saul Saul knew that the Lord

was with David and that Michael, Saul's

daughter, loved him, Saul was even more

afraid of David. So Saul was David's

enemy continually. Right? Right? So, you

already have the women saying, "Saul's

killed some people, but David's killed

way more people. So, Saul's already

jealous of David's successes." And then

within Saul's own family

and between 1st Samuel 18 and 1st Samuel

19, things escalate quite quickly to the

point that Saul's trying to kill David

actively. I mean, this is almost it

almost feels like Saul might have been

plotting while on his bed David's

destruction.

Saul sent messengers to David's house to

watch him. said he might kill him in the

morning, but Michael David's wife told

him, "If you're not escape with your

life tonight, tomorrow you'll be

killed." And then sort of straight out

of some sort of uh escape war movie,

right? She creates some sort of an idol

on the bed and acts like it's David

while David gets away.

I just want to pause when we're thinking

about this wickedness and who David has

in mind. There's there's no reason to

conjecture at what point in David's life

he was writing this psalm. It's not

useful to us. But we do know that

sometimes David might have been thinking

about the wicked person as Goliath.

Sometimes he might have been thinking

about the wicked person as someone who

at one point was close like Saul who is

now his enemy. And that's a stormy or

that's a that's a more um

complicated relationship.

God gave David multiple opportunities

during this exact fight to kill Saul and

David would not touch him. said, 'I will

not put my hand against God's anointed.'

So perhaps when you read this passage,

you think of an enemy that's out to kill

you, like on the the road south of Adis

Aaba, or maybe you think of someone who

once was close to you, who has set

themsself against you and has hurt you,

and maybe that person isn't even aware

of the pain that they've caused you. But

in either place, I like to just point

out, wow, there's there's something we

can find that we have in common with

David here.

But that's not the only time in David's

life that we see that he might have been

thinking of a character who plots evil

while on his bed. David at other points

in his life could have been thinking

about himself in these first four

verses.

Let me say that again. David could have

at other points in his life been

thinking about himself in these four

verses of someone who plots trouble

while on his bed, flatters himself in

his own eyes that his iniquity cannot be

found out and hated.

thinking about David taking another

man's wife

and then orchestrating a scenario in

which that man will be killed in battle,

essentially creating a a murder of that

man and then stuffing it and hiding it

all the way until Nathan the prophet

comes and tells a beautiful story. David

gets irate about the story and then

Nathan points and says, "No, David,

you're that man."

And we have David Devavidic Psalms where

he's wrestling with this exposure of his

own sin.

In fact, that's exactly

how Paul applies this passage. This

passage, one clue we always have of what

we should do with Old Testament passages

is what happens with them in the New.

So Paul in Romans 3 cites this passage

towards the end of this long list of

psalms and other passages that Paul's

drawing from to make one point. His

point he's trying to make is all have

sinned and fall short of the glory of

God.

In Romans 3, Paul is citing and drawing

from various places primarily in the

Psalms. As it is written, no one is

righteous, know not one. No one

understands. No one seeks for God. All

have turned aside. Together they have

become worthless. No one does good, not

even one. Their throat is an open grave.

They use their tongues to deceive. The

venom of ass is under their lips. Their

mouth is full of curses and bitterness.

Their feet are swift to shed blood. In

their paths are ruin and misery. And the

way of peace they have not known. And

here's the passage that he takes from

our passage. There is no fear of God

before their eyes. Pulling it straight

out of verse one of Psalm 36.

I don't know about you, but for me, it's

very telling that I might have to sit in

this passage for a while before it gets

to me.

I'm going to be very quick to notice of

my enemies outside of me or the people

who have hurt me or the people that have

at somehow or another caused me such

pain. But it's going to take me a little

bit of time before I really probably

allow the Holy Spirit

to apply this passage to me.

One of the books that was given away to

one of the families is by one of our

favorite authors that we're going to

reference multiple times throughout this

week, Ted Trip. Ted Trip says in a short

little devotional on Psalm 36, "Sin is

deceitful, and guess who it deceives

first.

I have no trouble seeing the sin of my

wife and my children and my friends and

my family, but I can be surprised when

my sin is pointed out."

Other people's sins are very easy.

They're very noticeable to us.

[laughter]

Particularly other people's sins against

us are very noticeable to us.

We probably without even recognizing it

keep a list in our head. But our own

sins so frequently are not as visible to

us. It's another reason we need God's

people around us speaking truth lovingly

to us. It's why we need membership.

in local churches where we're aligned

with people who will speak truth to us

in this way.

My guess is whenever David wrote Psalm

36, at some other point in his life, he

could have read back on it and then he

could have seen, oh, at this point I'm

thinking of myself. At this point, I'm

thinking about Goliath. At this point,

I'm thinking about Saul. It applies to

all three scenarios. Enemies outside of

us that we don't know. People who were

once friends who have now hurt us as

well as ourselves.

And now we get the contrast.

I don't know about you, what I expect

next is going to be a checklist how not

to be wicked,

right? And the Bible does that at

various times. That's not surprising. I

can think of uh other psalms that say

here's what the blessed man does, right?

He he acts in such a way and he speaks

in such a way.

Got a couple of them written down,

right? You might expect to hear

something like what's in Psalm 15 next.

Who sojourn to your tent? Who shall

dwell on your holy hill? He who walks

blamelessly and does what is right and

speaks the truth in his heart. That

would be a perfect contrast to the

wicked.

And it's other places in the Bible and

in the Psalms. So, not minimizing that,

but it's not what we get here. We don't

get a how-to manual.

How-to books used to be big sellers. I

started think this is a book that uh my

daughter bought for me for my first

Father's Day. She was like 7 months old.

I don't know how she got to the

bookstore and bought it and had the

mental capacity to put red on her hand

and shove it on. It's all sort of

amazing to me looking back on it that a

seven-month-old would be able to find

this book. The name of the book is How

to Mow the Lawn:

The Lost Art of Being a Man.

This is

TWW 2002 is when this book was

published. It's it's very the the It

says right here, inside these pages,

you'll find everything you know to be

everything you need to know to be a man.

That's a high claim for a book that's

got mostly pictures and less than 127

pages.

I was actually this morning I I started

thinking I don't know if I mean

bookstores aren't what they used to be,

right? Bookstores haven't completely

gone out, but Barnes & Noble used to be

a big thing. I don't know that self-help

books are as big as they used to be. I'm

guessing that there's still a market for

self-help books. But then it hit me why.

3 years after this book came out,

YouTube came out. [clears throat]

I don't look for books anymore on how to

change my car battery. That's one of the

chapters in this. I look to YouTube

because in YouTube I can find an expert

who can tell me exactly how to do

whatever I need to do to my Toyota

Tundra. And so I expect at this point

the contrast to come up and give me a

how-to manual. How to not be like these

people. Okay, God, give me a checklist.

I can start checking them off.

I don't want to be the wicked. And I

might be prone to like a little works

righteousness right now.

I might be prone to say, "Okay, God,

give me the list. Give me the hurdles.

I'll jump over them. What do I need to

do?" And this is what's so beautiful

about this particular psalm. And

hopefully you caught it as I read it

because in verse five,

the telescope goes up.

It doesn't go inward anymore. The inward

part of this passage is the inward

workings of the wicked person.

And now the contrast very much like to

what's the opposite of lost. It's you

might think it was found but safe is a

good answer as well. What's the opposite

of the wicked? It's the attributes of

God.

It's absolutely beautiful. And what we

see here is the protection and provision

and pleasure that's found in God or you

could say more clearly in the attributes

of God.

These passages just read like a they're

they're a hymn. They're they're the kind

of thing we sing, aren't they? Your

steadfast, O Lord, extends to the

heavens. Your faithfulness to the

clouds. Your righteousness is like the

mountains. Your judgments are like the

great deep man and beast you save, O

Lord.

Now, some of you are are sciency people.

I'm not really a sciency person. I my

studies have been in philosophy and a

little bit theology, but some of you

sciency people can sometimes miss the

beauty of poetry, right? Because you're

like, "Oh, I know how tall mountains are

and I know how deep the ocean." Some of

you know those measurements right now. I

don't. But what we want to recognize is

put yourself not just in the perspective

of sort of David from long time ago, but

even us now.

The way we experience the world is what

helps us with this poetry. The heavens

are as high as you can go. The mountains

are as big as you can get, as immobile

as you can get. The ocean, the deepest

part of the ocean is as deep as you can

get. So don't allow yourself to sort of

miss like, oh well, they didn't know how

to measure such things back then. They

didn't have sonar. That's not the point.

The point is just to put yourself as a

person into the poetry to say, "Wow,

God's attributes exceed all

expectations.

They're vast."

That's really the only point we want to

make. Spurgeon says here in the quote

that you have in your notes, firm and

unmoved, lofty and sublime as winds and

hurricanes shake not an alp. So the

righteousness of God is never in any

degree affected by circumstances. He is

always just.

The attributes that are particularly

picked out here, there's a little we're

doing theology now. This is a theology

text. It's a worship-minded theology

text, which is a great reminder that

theology I I teach an introduction to

theology class to Biola students that

are normally freshmen, and it's usually

a pretty good sized class. And one of

the things I want to remind myself and

my students all the time is we don't

just study things to learn them up here.

That theology should always respond in

doxology. It should always respond in

worship. And it's exactly what you see

here that that the psalmist David is

helping us meditate on these incredible

truths of God that hurt our brain, but

he doesn't let it sit there like, "Oh,

don't you feel better about yourself

now? Aren't you smarter?" No, no, no. It

it responds in worship.

The first attribute is God's steadfast

love, his unending love, his loving

kindness to us.

The contrast to the verse previous is

the wicked plots evil on his bed. And

the next contrast is the steadfast

loving kindness of a merciful God,

righteousness,

judgments, faithfulness. One of the I've

never thought about this word since. One

of the commentators I read preparing for

this particular uh sermon

pointed out that to call God faithful is

always assuming and reminding us that he

is a promise making God because it only

makes sense to call someone faithful if

they've sort of like made promises in

order to be faithful to. So even this

morning we were singing I'm pretty sure

we sing faithfulness of God at some

point. And the faithfulness of God is a

reminder that God is the kind of God who

has revealed himself. He's given us

promises.

He's given us his word and he'll keep

those promises because he's faithful to

his promises.

Thank you, Lord.

How precious is your steadfast love, oh

God. Oh God, the children of mankind

find refuge in the shadow of your wings.

Verse eight, they feast on the abundance

of your house. You give them drink from

the river of your delights.

For with you is the fountain of life and

in your light do we see light.

There's an entire history of uh

Christian philosophers and theologians

Augustine in the midst of that who

really camp out on verse 9. I was so

tempted to go in that direction because

I'm interested in that kind of stuff.

But I don't think that's the primary

point of sort of like what do we know

because of God. This is not an

epistemological passage. is in a passage

about worshiping the Lord and finding

refuge in his attributes.

I I mean I think the wording here is

beautiful, isn't it? It's not it's not

merely that we find protection that God

is a refuge. We have an entire history

of passages about the refuge of God.

Right? Here's verse Psalm 57. A very

pretty similar psalm. Be merciful to me,

oh God. Be merciful to me. For in you my

soul takes refuge.

In the shadow of your wings I will take

refuge till the storms of destruction

pass by. I cry out to God most high to

God who fulfill or who further who who

fulfills his purposes for me. So we can

seek God as our refuge. We can hide

under the shadow of his wings under the

protection of his wings. Th this whole

thing reminds me

of that story that Jesus tells. It's

only in Luke. We typically call it the

prodigal son. It's really a story about

two separate sons both responding

differently. And the prodigal son is

sort of a good example of this, right?

He he starts to plot evil on his bed. He

goes to his father in the story. It's a

parable. These are these are fictitious

characters.

And in the story, the way Jesus sets it

up, that the son plots evil on his bed

and says, 'I just wish dad was dead.

Life would be so much better for me. If

dad was dead, I could have his money. So

when he goes to his father and he says,

can you just give me my part of the

inheritance now? It's essentially a

death wish. Dad, I wish that you were

dead. And then Jesus story says what?

that this this son he goes off doesn't

give much details of what he does other

than he lives in a way that squanders

this wealth.

I like this notion in this passage to

think about what was the son's goal

pleasure. That's what he was going for,

right? He was going off for pleasure.

And we all, some of us may have

experienced these own things in our own

life where we we thought, I think I have

a better recipe for pleasure than the

one that God's going to give me in his

word. It's exactly what you see the

younger son do. And then what actually

ends up happening is he's broke.

He's starving.

He's humbled.

He comes walking back home

thinking, "Maybe my father will allow me

just to be a servant. The servants eat

pretty well in this house. Maybe I could

just be like a servant." and is amazed

when the father runs out to meet him,

greets him

and says to him, "Bring quickly the best

robe. Put it on him. Put a ring in his

hand and shoes on his feet and bring the

fatted calf and kill it. Let us eat and

celebrate."

What does the younger son learn? He

learns, "I went out for pleasure, but

the pleasures that I so desire and seek

were found in the refuge of my father's

home."

The returning to my father's home,

returning to the refuge is where all of

those things that I thought that I

needed to write my own recipe for, that

I needed to give myself the explanation

of here's how I'm going to pursue this.

Here's how I'm going to seek this. When

he finally came to the end of himself

and literally turned and walked back,

humbled himself to walk back, he's

rewarded with what? Well, very similar

to this passage.

They feast on the abundance of your

house. You give them drink from the

water of your delights. For with you is

the fountain of life, and in your light

do we see light.

You might be tempted to sometimes think,

"Ah, just the Bible's a book of rules

and got to follow it." And sometimes we

might not think of, "No, no, no. With

God is where we find

drinking from the river of delights."

What a beautiful metaphor.

Fountain of life, seeing light, the

opposite of darkness. pleasure,

provision, and protection is found under

the wings of our good God.

So, we get the contrast set up. The very

end of the passage, it's sort of three

quick verses, but we see sort of the

finish. We at this point in the psalm,

we have no idea what happens to the

wicked. Frequently in the Psalms and in

the Proverbs, it shows us, oh, the

wicked will not win in the end. But at

this point, all we know is we have this

vivid im or this vivid image of the

wicked person plotting trouble on their

bed. And then we're reminded, hey, when

you're experiencing that, whether from

outside, from a friend, or from

yourself, look to God. That's what the

that's what the psalm is teaching us so

far. And then the psalm ends with this

little reminder. Oh yeah, by the way,

the way of the wicked will not end up

winning. And that's the final point that

Jesus is the victor. We see it in the

final few verses.

I'm going to read them starting in verse

10. Oh, 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, nor the hand of the wicked drive me

away. There the evildoers lie fallen.

They are thrushed down, unable to rise.

And a nice reminder that wickedness does

not pay.

Some of you maybe who are more

biblically and theologically minded

might have said, "Oh, wait, Jason."

So, I get that Jesus is always the

Sunday school answer. So, Jesus is the

victor is a good way to end this. But

this passage isn't necessarily

pointing in any sort of direct way to

Jesus. And I I actually like that.

That's that's good thinking. Anytime we

read the Old Testament, we can sometimes

make one of two mistakes. One mistake is

we forget to read the Old Testament as a

Christian.

If you think about that, like we can

just sort of read the Old Testament as

if we're an Old Testament Jewish

observant

believer.

And we always want to try to one time I

I I thought about this really clearly.

One time I was at a apologetics

conference and uh there was an excellent

conversation happening. But at one point

I recalled

there's nothing explicitly Christian

that this speaker is saying. Every

single thing this person is saying is

from the Judeo Christian worldview, but

they haven't hinted at the gospel at

all. And I just walked away from that

thinking I want to be a person who reads

the Old Testament. I want to be a person

who does my apologetics. always thinking

about the gospel, always thinking about

how do I think about this as a

Christian. Is everyone following me?

Like one one mistake we could make from

this is actually I tend to do this when

I read Old Testament. I read some Old

Testament commentaries from Torah

scholars, from Jewish scholars. I should

probably come to some different

conclusions than the Torah scholars,

although they can be really helpful to

me.

The other mistake we can kind of make,

sometimes people think Charles Hen

Spurgeon makes this mistake. If you're

going to make a mistake, this is the one

to make it on. in this commentary on and

on his sermon on this passage, he

doesn't make this mistake at all. But

some people make fun of Spurgeon for he

just sort of hops, skips, and jumps over

the original context and goes straight

to the Jesus. Well, if you're going to

make a mistake, make that one. That's

the better one. Let's get to Jesus.

Let's get to the gospel. I think

sometimes he may do that. He didn't do

it whenever we read here. But what we do

want to think is how do Christian eyes

help me understand this passage?

And it's not really that hard.

Particularly this this language of

the refuge

and taking refuge in the shadow of God's

wings that there's this notion of okay

yes so we can understand in some way

through the Old Testament he Hebrew eyes

of how God is a refuge but man do we as

Christians have a much clearer and vivid

example of what it means to take our

refuge in Christ.

as he provides for us

justification, sanctification, all that

we need, we receive through the gospel.

I think of an example of this. Um, any

high school English teachers in the

room? I'm sure we have a couple. Middle

school, high school English teachers.

There's a I don't see any hands. Oh. Oh,

okay. There's two. Okay. I was going to

say I'm going to get away with this

story, but now you guys are When I was

in high school, I was in a small little

town in the panel of Oklahoma. And my

senior year, we had to read four books

off of the book list. I wasn't much of a

scholar back then. And many of you guys

are going to and probably some of you

girls too, but many of you guys are I

picked my four books strictly on the

four shortest books on the list.

That was that was I had only and the

problem was is me and all my friends

Graham who who Andrew knows we were

competing for the same four books out of

the library because Lord of the Flies

short book weird book but short book we

all read that one. Catcher and the Ry

really weird book but short book. So

that's another one that we read. And

then another one that my teacher in a

public high school put on the list was

Corey Tinboom's hiding place.

Now I was already a Christian. And I was

already I already took my faith pretty

seriously. And I knew from my mom that

my mom really liked this author when I

read that book. It was sort of one of

those times where my faith became real.

Right? So you probably know the story,

but Corey Tinboom and her family during

World War II are hiding image bearsers

of God who are going to be taken to

camps and killed. And because they're

found hiding image bearers of God, they

themselves are taken to camps. Her

father dies in the process.

Her sister also dies towards the end

before they get emancipated from the

camp.

And then the rest of Corey Tinboom's

entire life

was talking about the goodness and the

faithfulness of God. Now think about it

just for a second.

She had experienced

experientially

enemies plotting evil on their bed

against her. And she came out

saying this, this is from her sister.

She credits most of her faithfulness

during this journey to her sister who

died. She called her Betsy. Her name was

Elizabeth. Here's what uh Corey says

about her sister before she died. She

says, "When we are free from this

terrible place, and we will be freed,

Corey, before the new year, we must go

over the world and tell everyone who

will listen what we have proved to be

true in this terrible place. That the

love of God is stronger than the deepest

darkness.

>> They will believe us

because we were here.

Wouldn't it have been tempting for Betsy

and Corey to have exactly the opposite

response given the wickedness that they

have lived and experienced? They could

have come out like Elite Ellie Vold or

any number of other people who walked

out of that with sort of a a shattered

view of God's faithfulness.

How could God let this happen to us? But

instead, what did they do? They allowed

by faith for their response to not go

inward to the sinfulness of heart, but

to go outward to the attributes of God

so they could find their hope in the

faithfulness, the loving kindness,

the steadfast love of the Lord.

when I was I had heard this a couple of

years ago. Uh so we live in Southern

California right on the boundary between

um LA County and Orange County. We're a

little bit further away from downtown LA

than you guys are from downtown Miami,

but it's approximately similar. In the

last 3 to 5 years of Corey Tin Boom's

life, she lived in a town not far from

us in Placentia, California. She had a

stroke. book. And so that there's

actually a book called the the quiet

years or the silent years I think it is

of Corey Tinboom's life where her

primary caregiver who was also a

missionary wrote this this incredible

book about the end of her life. And

she's buried not far away. I had a

picture I don't know if we have it on

the slides. I got to go to Citinboom's

grave site not long ago. It's in Santa

Ana. It's about 20 minutes from my

house. And on her tombstone it is

beautiful. All it says it's it's little.

In fact, with GPS now on your phone,

it's sort of remarkable. I put the GPS

coordinates into my Google map and drove

up to it, parked my truck, walked

around, and I was like, "All right, it's

got to be around here somewhere." And I

stood and I was I'm not even

exaggerating about this story. It's not

a preacher story with exaggeration. Not

that Andrew would ever do that, but

I was saying, "Where is it? Where is it?

Where is it? Where is it?" And I looked

down and I was literally standing right

above it. The GPS took me to the exact

spot and all it says is Jesus is victor.

Corey Tinboon in the hazard years.

Jesus is victor embodied

in this faithful servant who had

experienced so much pain.

Seen firsthand

evil, unspeakable evil.

speaking transgressions to the heart.

But our Christian faith very much like

Corey's can say the love of God is

stronger than the deepest darkness.

They will believe us because we were

here.

Reminds me of a piece of art that we'll

show one of these nights. And it's it's

this it's it's a a man who does

exegetical art. Um, and he has this

vivid image of the cross protecting us

from hell's fire. And he calls that

passage, he's he's an exogetical artist.

He the passage's name is first John

1 John 4:10

4:10. The the artwork

it says, "In this is love that we have

loved, not that we have loved God, but

he saved that he loved us and sent his

son to be the propitiation for our

sins." propitiation is a big word, but

it just means that Christ took upon

himself

all that comes with sin so that we don't

have to.

And that's the refuge of the gospel.

That's what we can see that this passage

can point us straight to Jesus. And when

we're talking about how precious is your

steadfast love, oh Lord, are like, "Oh

yeah, like the steadfast love displayed

in the cross, we can take refuge in the

shadow of your wings. Oh yeah. Just like

we can take refuge under the work of

Christ through the cross. We don't have

to have a self-check list trying to earn

our righteous. Christ has done it all

for us.

How precious is your steadfast love? Oh

yeah. You mean like the kind of

steadfast love that God demonstrated by

sending Jesus to live a perfect life and

die on the cross feasting on the

abundance of your house. Drink from the

river of your delights. For with you is

the fountain of life, and in your light

do we see light.

Here's the takeaway.

Remember, my goal is modest. My goal was

you like Psalm 36 a little better than

you did coming in. Maybe it even becomes

like sort of a a memory. And here's the

memory. When confronted by the heart,

words, and actions of the wicked,

found in others or in yourself,

wickedness can be found outside of you.

Wickedness can be found inside of you.

When confronted by those, what do you

do? You look to the steadfast love,

faithfulness, and righteousness of God

as demonstrated in the gospel of Jesus

Christ. Feast on his grace. Drink from

the river of his merit.

Take refuge in the work of Jesus on the

cross.

It's a pretty big room. I'm guessing

there's some people here that might not

exactly know what I'm talking about with

this sort of language. And so there may

be some people here that maybe you know

that you're not a believer in Jesus or

maybe you sort of are are trying it out

and kind of curious about it. And I

would just say this is a great time

to do exactly that.

Rest in the gospel. Trust that Jesus has

achieved for you that which you cannot

achieve on your own. Maybe you're

caught. You're you're struggling with an

attack on you from someone that you love

or from maybe an actual enemy of some

kind and and you're you're so tempted to

do other things with that. But I would

say come to the refuge of the gospel.

Come to the cross. Come to Jesus.

Some of you

might be thinking, "Man, I'm I've been

plotting trouble on my bed. I did it

last night again.

I'm hiding it. I don't want people to

see it. I don't want people to hate it.

I don't want to hate it. I don't want to

repent."

Come to Jesus.

What you think you're achieving, just

like the prodigal son, is going to end

in the opposite of pleasure. It's going

to end in brokenness.

Let me pray for us. Oh God, thank you

for your word. I pray that we would rush

to you with everything we have so that

you can be the one who gives us the

satisfaction [music]

that we need. You're a good God. You are

full of faithfulness [music] to their

promises. So when you say that you will

forgive us of our sins, you will [music]

make good on that promise. When you say

that we will find our pleasures and our

peace [music] in you,

that is to be trusted. Thank you for

that. Work in our hearts. In Jesus name

we pray. Amen.