Introduction: Read Psalm 36
I heard of a car bumper sticker that says, "Honk, if anything falls off." Does anybody feel that your life is like that sometimes?
I. God Is Trustworthy (verses 5-7a)
Look at verses 5-7a. Notice how the Psalmist compares the character of God to nature. He wants there to be no doubt left in our mind, God is trustworthy. He is trustworthy because in a way that no human being, no government or program, no amount of financial resources and assets, and no amount of personal achievement can, God is able to provide for our deepest needs.
"Your mercy, O Lord, is in the heavens..." God’s mercy means that He is dependable. The great and mighty of this world will let us down, but we can trust God. We know the song, "Great is Thy Faithfulness". "Great is Thy Faithfulness, O God, my Father, There is no shadow of turning with Thee. Thou changest not; Thy compassions, they fail not. As Thou has been Thou forever wilt be."
"Your righteousness is like the great mountains..." God’s righteousness means that we can depend upon His holiness and His uncompromised integrity in all He does. Because of His righteousness, we know that God really has our best in mind.
"Your judgments are a great deep..." God is not passive. He is the Lord of action and His judgments reflect that we can trust Him to handle matters in His time and His way.
"How prescious is your lovingkindness, O God!" We can give God control of our life and trust Him to lead us right. Psalm 33:5 says, "He loves righteousness and justice: The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord."
II. Man Trusts (verses 1-4, 7b)
Because God is trustworthy, our fitting response is to trust Him. "Therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of Your wings." in Psalm 36:7b is just one of 50 occurences of the word "trust" in the book of Psalms. Without a doubt, trust is one of the greatest themes in the book of Psalms and the Bible.
Notice that the trust in Psalm 36, verse 7b is contrasted with the first four verses. In Psalm 36:1-4, we find the description of wicked men who do not trust the Lord.
What does it mean to trust the Lord? That’s where the title of the message comes in: "Trust Is More Than Skin Deep." It is not enough to say, "I trust the Lord" at the surface level. A case in point. Look at our money. From the penny to the $500 dollar bill it says, "In God We Trust." Yet, the love of money has kept thousands from trusting in God.
Look at this aluminum can of V8 juice (object in pulpit). My family thinks I’m wierd, because I drink V8 juice by itself out of a can, but I can always defend myself, because if thousands of other people didn’t do it, they wouldn’t sell it in small cans. If I rubbed this on my skin (or on my clothes), it wouldn’t do anything for me except to make an ugly mess. To receive its nutritional benefits I have to drink the V8 juice and get it inside me. The same is true with trust. Trust in the Lord has to come from something deep inside our soul. All that we are must be surrendered to the experience of trust for our faith to be vibrant. That’s why so many Christians live mediocre lives. They don’t really trust God. They’ve become use to going through the motions, and at the surface level they appear to fit in, but they don’t have real trust in their heart for the things of God. Are you on fire for God today? You can’t have a fire without it getting on the inside.
Trust is more than skin deep means we have to demonstrate that trust by surrendering everything to God each day. If we give God control of our life, it means that there are things we will experience that we will not understand, but praise the Lord, we can have confidence that God knows what’s going on.
Oswald Chambers wrote, "Trustfulness is based on confidence in God, whose ways I do not understand. If I did, there would be no need for trust." [Source: E-Prayer January 13, 1998]
Former NBC news anchor, John Chancellor, who died of cancer in July, 1996, commented in an interview before his death, "As I read somewhere, ’You want to make God laugh? Tell him your plans.’" [Source: Detroit News, July 13, 1996 ]
Some of us here today are going through difficult times. All of us will go through difficult times at some point. Be assured that whatever is happening to your plans, God loves you. He wants you to give him the opportunity to help you.
III. God Satisfies (verses 8-12)
On to the last part of the Psalm. Notice that the Psalmist does a very unusual thing here. He concludes with the bad news. We’re use to bad news first, and then good news in conclusion. Verse 8-10 which offers satisfaction is contrasted with the hopelessness in verses 11-12. In verses 12, we hae a concise message about the hopeless doom of one who does not trust in God.
"There the workers of iniquity have fallen; They have been cast down and are not able to rise." (Psalm 36:12)
We have a choice. We can be debilitated by our lack of trust or we can be assured that God satisfies, if we trust the Lord.
Verses 8-10 of Psalm 36 provide a description of the way in which we should be satisfied.
"They are abundantly satisfied with the fullness of Your house, And you give them drink from the river of Your pleasures. For with You is the fountain of life; In your light we see light. Oh, continue Your lovingkindness to those who know You. And Your righteousness to the upright in heart."
"The Fullness of God’s House", "Drink from the river of God’s pleasures," "Fountain of Life", "Light", "Lovingkindness", "Righteousness". Wow! Do you think these things can satisfy you? They can if we will allow them to. The problem in our world is not that God is unable to satisfy, it is that we have become satisied with so much less than God. We have become satisfied with unrighteous things that God can not provide for us. If you are not satisfied with trusting in God, than go below the skin and look at your soul. If He doesn’t satisfy you than you need a fresh touch of His righteousness.
Psalm 37:25 gives us an additional testimony of how God satisfies. "I have been young, and now am old; Yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken, Nor his descendents begging bread."
Illustration: A young father and his daughter were on a "get-away" cruise, because his wife and the girl’s mother had just died. As they were huddled together on the deck of the ship, coping with the pain, the little girl asked her father, "Daddy, does God love us as much as Mommy did?"
At first the father didn’t know what to say. But he knew he couldn’t side step the question. Pointing out across the water to the most distant horizon, he said, "Honey, God’s love reaches farther than you can see in that direction." Turning around he said, "And God’s love reaches farther than you can see in that direction." And then the father looked up at the sky and said, "And God’s love is higher than the sky, too." Finally he pointed down at the ocean and said, "And it’s deeper than the ocean as well." After hearing that, the girl responded: "Oh, just think, Daddy. We’re right here in the middle of it all." [Source: Homiletics January 5, 1992]
Do you know that if you trust God and that trust is more than skin deep, you will stand right in the middle of His love? God is trustworthy, Man Trusts, God Satisfies. Trust Him today, and experiences the satisfaction of His fullness.
