This is one psalm in which the superscription is especially important. I'm not going to be able to develop everything in this psalm today. There's so much in it, but we'll try to take at least a flyover look at it. Psalm 36. to the choir master of David, the servant of the Lord. We ought to hear echoes of Isaiah, who constantly referred to Messiah as the servant of the Lord, as one of his favorite names. These first four verses then talk about the wicked. This transgression speaks to the wicked deep in his heart. 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. And then the psalmist sets forth the perfections of Yahweh. Your steadfast love, O Lord, extends to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds. Your righteousness is like the mountains of God. Your judgments are like the great deep. Man and beast you save, O Lord. How precious is your steadfast love, O God. The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings. They feast on the abundance of your house. You give them drink from the river of your delights. For with you is the fountain of life. In your light do we see light." And then a prayer to close out the psalm. 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 evil doers lie fallen. They are thrust down, unable to rise. Let's pray. Our father, we thank you so very much for the scriptures. Thank you. This great gift of the word of God that has come to us. from the very inspiration of your spirit, from the word of God, the living word, your son, we thank you and bless you that you have not left us ignorant and without direction, but you filled us with knowledge and wisdom from the very word of God. We thank you and bless you as you give us understanding and help with it to this day. In Christ's name, amen. This superscription again, as I said, is very important. To the choir master of David, the servant of the Lord. In David's words, we read of Yahweh's servant, and really this is Jesus Christ. Can't take time to develop all of that, but we have here a prayer and meditation in his righteous human nature as the greatest of godly men who knew Yahweh and was opposed by the wicked of this world of this age. So we have here a great meditation and prayer of the Lord Jesus Christ himself. If you take up this psalm with him in prayer and meditation, you are renewing your mind with Christ's mind. It's a beautiful concept to think about. You set yourself against the world, the flesh and the devil, against the wicked, just as we pray, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. So it's a great psalm to lead us in prayer and in wisdom and good meditation. So pray this psalm with Christ to sharpen your understanding of the working of sin within your own soul. It's a wonderful way of thinking through this, to rebuke sin within yourself. Pray this psalm with Christ to nourish your soul in the being of God. It's very helpful to this sin, especially as you think upon him as your holy creator and your covenantal redeemer. So Christ began his worship song with a graphic description of the wicked. Now, there's some debate over how verse 1 is translated here. I don't want to get into that. I'm just going to take it as it's laid out for us here in the ESV. Transgression speaks to the wicked deep in his heart. It's a very graphic description, isn't it, of the way sin works within us. Ask yourselves, what is this idea of wickedness? Why are certain people designated wicked? Why is this such a big deal? The idea of wickedness is really captured in David's first word, transgression. That word is a word of activity. There's a dynamism of sorts to it. To transgress is to simply sin, to move across or go against or beyond a limit. The idea is two parties with an agreement in which one makes a breach of the relationship. Thus, it's referring to or based in a covenant between two in which one breaks the covenant. This assumes that mankind is in covenant with its creator. This covenant assumes initial agreement between the two. And so we know that it's referring to the covenant of works. Notice his description of the wicked, of transgression. First of all, in verse 1, it indicates his nature. It speaks deep within his heart. Therefore, we see then, there is no fear. of God, no fear of Elohim before his eyes. He goes on, and I'm just gonna list a few these things out. Self-deception in verse 2, lying in verse 3, foolishness in verse 3, plotting evil in verse 4. He sets himself to transgress rather than to do good. Don't miss this. Every thought, every word, every movement of the wicked has an object. He's opposed to God himself. As if the creating self-existent God must be opposed. And that is the focus of the wicked in his unbelief. Therefore, he is lawless, he's a rebel, he is not a God-fearer. That's what we want to be. We want to be God-fearers, in the right sense of that word. Well, Jesus began his worship song with a graphic description of the wicked, but then he went on to set out the perfections of Yahweh Elohim with whom they broke covenant, against whom they had transgressed. This psalm is very similar as we think about the beginning of this psalm and how this psalm develops. It's very similar to Psalm 2. I'll leave that for you to think about yourself. It's a beautiful parallel with one another, correlation. What we've had there in verses five through nine, then, is Christ meditating on Christ, on God's perfection, on Yahweh Elohim's perfections. He is holy and faithful. Against him, the wicked rebelled. He is ultimate, he is final, he is supreme, he is the highest. The transgressions of the wicked point to the one against whom they have rebelled in every way. Well, what are the perfections of God, our Lord? Those things that Jesus prized and to which He turned His attention and our attention. Well, first, His names, I've already mentioned. This psalm addresses Elohim. It's with that word God. This refers to God being triune, God being almighty, God being full of majesty. So, while men were not fearers of God, we should fear Elohim, the one who is full of majesty. And then as it says there in verse 6, your righteousness is like the mountains of God, the mountains of Elohim. And in verse 10, Oh, continue, your steadfast love, excuse me, that's not the verse I wanted. Verse seven, how precious is your steadfast love, oh Elohim, the one full of power and majesty, loves. He moves in love toward us. Well, also it's the word Yahweh, as is mentioned in verse 5. Your steadfast love, O Yahweh, extends to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds. And then verse 6, at the end of that verse, man and beast you save, O Yahweh. This is His character, this is His being. And by the way, let me just mention, over 5,000 times in the Old Testament, this name Yahweh is used to communicate to us the personal name of God and of His being, and of His essence, His self-existence, the fact that He is absolutely independent and absolutely unchangeable. We gotta love this name of God. We gotta look for it. Pay attention how it's used all over the scriptures. The one who simply is. You think about God. You think, okay, he's self-existent. He has an eternal and infinite being. So how do you describe this God? His being is nothing like ours. His existence is nothing like our existence. He simply is. And that's what we think of when we see this name of God used. He causes all other existence, and He is faithfully present everywhere at all times. He's the God who makes Himself known, particularly as the God who keeps covenant with His people. Well, let's move on. In this psalm, we see what delighted Jesus' inner being, what delighted his soul, and we glimpse in this the fellowship of the Son with the Father by the Spirit's power. He knew God as God has revealed himself in his Word, and he rejected all idolatry. And He took in all truth. This is a beautiful meditation and prayer of our Savior. As you read it that way and as you meditate and pray it yourself, you'll be strengthened in that way yourself. Well, today we're going to take, in the morning sermon, a look at 1 Corinthians 10. And in that scripture verse in the New Covenant, Paul revealed the opposition in Israel against Yahweh Elohim. They didn't know Him. So they did not prize Him. They did not obey Him. Well, we're going to have good instruction to help us remember that we have the same sins within our souls that killed them. And so we must kill sin and delight in Yahweh Elohim. How do we do this? Well, two things, let me say right quickly. In part, we do this by knowing God. So we want to come to the text of the scripture. We want to there learn who God is. We want to there teach ourselves what He has revealed about Himself. So Psalm 36, among many other texts, is a wonderful song to take as a tutor, in grace, by Christ, to know who God is. There's rich, wonderful, deep meditation here upon whom God is. The other part is, learn to delight in God. As you know Him, it's not just getting a bunch of facts stacked up in your mind. This is why it's so important to learn to pray through the perfections of God. This helps you delight in Yahweh Elohim, who has revealed Himself to you, if you are in Christ. He really is the only true soul nourishment. There are many things in this life that we delight in as human beings. And it's right that we delight in them. All of them will fail. Every last one of them will fail. He doesn't. He is the true nourishment of soul. He's the ultimate reason for being alive. And if you're ever tempted to think, as we see sometimes in the Psalms or in other texts of scripture, to think, I wish I'd never been born. If you learn to delight in God, you will put your hand over your mouth and you will sink your soul into the very being of who God is, this God of steadfast love, this God of righteousness and justice, this God of safety and abundance and delight and joy. Well, so, how do you learn to kill sin and delight in God? In part, know Him and learn to delight in Him. Let me mention one last thing here before we go to prayer. One more perfection of God comes out in this prayer and meditation. A meditation on the reality of life in this world of wicked men and the God of all perfections. What is that perfection? He, and He alone, is the one to whom we pray. He is the God who hears prayer. That is of his being and of his character. It's of his perfections. We read in verse 10, Oh, continue your steadfast love to those who know you and your righteousness to the upright of heart. That's a good prayer for yourself and for us as a congregation. Pray it for us. Let not the foot of arrogance come upon me. In other words, don't let me be dominated by sinful people and sinful ideas. Nor the hand of the wicked drive me away. There the evil doers lie fallen. They are thrust down, unable to rise. We direct ourselves to the one God in three persons who alone can hear and answer in faithfulness all our petitions. Do you have anything within yourself that prays? He hears. That's his character. That's his essence in being. He hears. Because he gave himself, excuse me, there are no idols, no others who can hear and answer and say. We direct ourselves to the one God and three persons. There's always opposition in this life from which we need deliverance, in which we need provision. with Him is abundance. He is our house. He is our food. Because He is so replete with perfections, He is more than able to provide for you. This is the one to whom we pray. And this one is in fact our Savior and Lord. Because he gave himself in steadfast love to take you to himself, take him, take Jesus Christ as your example, who endured more contradiction, more opposition, more affliction, more difficulty, and more suffering than we ever will, but he was faithful in duty to his father. We need to come to know Yahweh Elohim as Jesus did. With that knowledge, with that love and that affection, sacrifice yourself for God and for us as Jesus Christ sacrificed himself for his father and for us. Remain faithful in all the duties he has laid on you, learning more and more to rely on him. Oh, continue your steadfast love to those who know you. and your righteousness to the upright in heart.