Living With the New Gift

Psalm 36:5-10
5 Your steadfast love, O LORD, extends to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds. 6 Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, your judgments are like the great deep; you save humans and animals alike, O LORD. 7 How precious is your steadfast love, O God! All people may 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 we see light. 10 O continue your steadfast love to those who know you, and your salvation to the upright of heart!

We all have one gift that we get for Christmas that we cherish above all other gifts. It is usually something we have been hinting at for months. We leave clues everywhere or when the thing we want is advertised we comment that we sure would like to have that. At last Christmas comes and we open the gift and we say, “How did you know?” or “This is just what I always wanted?” What we meant to say was if I didn’t get it someone was going to be in trouble.
We keep the present near to us caring for it and trying to keep it new. We go to great lengths to keep the present looking just as it did the day we opened it. Two Christmas’ ago I received just such a gift in a XM radio. I would keep it in its’ case, wipe it off when I used it, took it in and out of my truck. When I saw the first scratches on it I was upset. Despite my best efforts it looked used and the newness had worn off. All things, no matter how hard we try to keep them new, wear out and end up in the trash.
There are attributes of God’s nature that when in a relationship with Him we can consider gifts in our lives. What do I mean? If you were born into an affluent family you might by association of your birth to the family be entitled to an easier life, than someone who has to struggle for everything they get. Being born into the family of God and having a relationship with him does not entitle us to a more affluent life but because of His nature we benefit from his nature. The Psalmist writes in verse five, “Your mercy,” and “Your faithfulness,” these are attributes of God’s nature that are given to us. For what good is mercy without someone to extend it to, and what benefit is to be faithful if you have no one to benefit from that faithfulness. The gifts of God mentioned in the 36 Psalm are gifts that are eternal, they are new to us every day, and they never wear out.
Let’s look at the five attributes of God that are extended to us. The first mentioned in verse five is Mercy. God’s mercy is not something that is owed to us as some in the world think that everything is owed to them. Exodus 33:19 says; And the Lord said, “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.” A mother once approached Napoleon seeking a pardon for her son. The emperor replied that the young man had committed a certain offense twice and justice demanded death. "But I don't ask for justice," the mother explained. "I plead for mercy." "But your son does not deserve mercy," Napoleon replied. "Sir," the woman cried, "it would not be mercy if he deserved it, and mercy is all I ask for." "Well, then," the emperor said, "I will have mercy." And he spared the woman's son. If we received what we are owed we would receive death, but because of God’s mercy He extends life to us. Not because of anything we do but in spite of what we do.
The second attribute that is mentioned in verse five is faithfulness. David writes your faithfulness reaches to the clouds. If we look up no matter where the cloud cover is that is as far as we can see. This is what David was trying to get across when he wrote this. As we look at each day that is ahead of us, each problem that will come our way, or every fear that confronts us, we can know that God is faithful to see us through it. We can walk forward knowing the God of heaven has gone before us, goes along side us, and comes behind us, as far as we can see God is there. These are comforting words to hear but how can we walk in the faith that no matter where we are God is there with us.
The only thing that that I can think of that would make us doubt God’s faithfulness is if we were not faithful to Him. If we had not walked in the way of the Lord and we sinned against Him this would cause us to doubt His faithfulness or make us feel that we didn’t deserve it. Reenter God’s mercy!! Psalm 37 says; “Trust in the Lord, and do good; Dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness.” Even when we fail God he will not fail us. He is faithful to us even in our sin, by convicting us and leading us to repentance. So even when we fail to trust in Him and no not do good, we are to live each day feeding on his faithfulness that he will not leave us in our sin.
Still God’s faithfulness is sometimes hard for us to understand because it extends beyond what we can understand. When things are going our way it is easy to be faithful, when people treat us right it is easy to be faithful. But when things begin to get hard, and people tend to abandon us it becomes harder to focus on our faithfulness. We can only see our difficulties and we are blinded to see beyond them. Feeding on God’s faithfulness will enable us to see beyond the clouds of doubt. This takes prayer and practice, learning from our failures and trusting God for what we don’t understand.
The third attribute mentioned is in verse six. David writes; Your righteousness is like the great mountains. When we think of a mountain, we get the image of something that is steadfast and unmovable, not easily assailed, something that is difficult to get around, awe inspiring, it becomes an obstacle that we have to deal with, a beautiful landmark that inspires us to creativity. As we think of the attributes of God we come face to face with God’s righteousness and we are forced to take a look at it. As we marvel at a righteous God we are also forced to look at our own righteousness. Isaiah 64:6 says; But we are all like an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags. When we try and compare our righteousness to God’s we see that no matter how good we think we are, no matter how we try and excuse our behavior, compared to God’s righteousness, our righteousness is nothing. We can’t get under it, around it, over it, we are forced to look upon our righteousness and measure it against the righteousness of God.
God’s righteousness is more than an avenue for self exploration it is a refuge to us. Because God’s righteousness is steadfast, we can trust in it and that He will always make the best choice for our lives if we surrender to Him and learn not to trust in our own righteousness. Our choices are sometimes motivated by emotions and worldly influence, but God’s choices are always motivated by His righteous nature.
God’s righteousness become a blessing to us as we search for it and find it in Him. Jesus said in Matthew 5:6 “blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.” Hunger is a desire that drives us, and as we hunger and search out righteousness we find faith. We have examined our own righteousness and compared it to God’s are left wanting. We are left hungry searching for a righteousness we can only have filled by faith. That faith is fueled by God’s righteousness and a promise that He will provide redemption for us and has in the person of Jesus.
As we continue to study the attributes of God’s nature found in Psalm 36 we come across Judgments. David says that God’s judgments are a great deep, and finishes his observation of God’s judgments by saying that you preserve man and beast. As David looked at the wickedness around him he had to wonder where the judgment of God is. I know that in my own life I have witnessed others, who seemed to get away with so much,
I wonder as much myself. In verses one thru four David goes on about the wickedness of man then turns his attention to the attributes of God, David had examined man and found him to be wicked and without fear of God. He had examined the judgments of God and wondered how He could allow such injustice to go on.
The illustration that David uses as he examined the judgment of God was that of a great deep. Those going to sea would take a rope knotted at certain intervals with a weight on the end. The distance between these knots was called fathom. As it was dropped in the sea they would call out the dept by how many knots or fathoms went under the water. David had found the judgments of God could not be measured and could not be understood. He found God to be sovereign and that He owed no account of how he administered His sovereignty to him. He found that God acts wisely in all matters, even though he could not always see the way God acted. Many times as we observe the wickedness of man we wonder where the judgment of God is, because we can not see how God is acting in each situation. It is enough for us to know that he is acting, and it is enough for us to know that in time all things will be revealed to us. It may not be in this lifetime, but in time we will have understanding.
Having measured the judgments of God and found them to be immeasurable, David turns his attention to the providence of God. David writes that God preserves man and beast. David found that God provided for the beast of the field, the righteous, and the wicked alike. We are not to wonder why God would provide blessings for the wicked any more than we are to fear that God will provide for good men. God’s provisions are just that God’s provisions and it is by His sovereign will that He would administer them.
We look at the lives of the wicked and wonder why they seem to have more than us. We wonder why their driveways are graced with new cars and they seem to have little worries. What David is saying is that God’s blessings fall on who He wills. We are to take courage in that the God who provides for the wicked will not let His children starve.
In this way God’s judgments become a gift to us that we can trust in and live our lives serving him not fearing for our own needs.
The last attribute in this psalm is loving-kindness. David says that God’s loving-kindness is precious to him. In Psalm 63:3 David continues this thought when he says that God’s loving-kindness is better than life itself. His loving-kindness is alluring in that it draws us to Himself. When we begin to date we are attracted by someone’s eyes, the perfume they wear, their looks, the car they drive, the way they carry themselves, and the list can go on. As we get to know this person and they begin to display love and kindness to us and we are drawn to that and begin to take the relationship further. We begin to trust this person, and begin to explore the feelings of love that we are starting to feel for them. As this feeling gets deeper we find ourselves not only trusting the other person but finding out we can’t get along without them.
In Jeremiah 31:3 we read: The Lord appeared to us in the past, saying; “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness.”
What good is to say that God appeared to us in the past and told us He loved us?
When we are in trouble, have lost a loved one, or feel so far from God, how can this comfort us? God says I love you with an everlasting love. The loving-kindness we felt that God drew us near to him is still present in times of trouble. Nothing can separate us from the love of God, not trouble, not debt, not fear, and as David found out not the loss of a child. As David was on his face praying for God to heal his child, it was the memory that God stilled loved him that carried him through the pain of losing a child, and the pain of the sin against God. It was that same love that allowed him to dust himself off and go on with his life after the child had passed. It is the memory that God’s love is still extended to us even when we can’t feel it.
To many times we can’t get past the lost of a child, the loss of a spouse, the pain of broken relationships. We feel that God has abandoned us and we blame Him for the pain we are experiencing. As I have confessed to you before that I was stuck in such in just such a place after my divorce. I felt that God had forgotten His promise to love me, but it was His persistent love that brought me back to the memory that His love was eternal. In this way God’s gift of loving-kindness was extended to me, and I was able to rest in it.
As these attributes of God become gifts in our lives, we become satisfied with them, but yet want more. How is this possible? How can you be satisfied with something but yet want more? In our attempt to keep up with the Jones, we want bigger and better. We get a 52 inch big screen and see that someone else has a 61 inch screen. We become dissatisfied with our big screen and we want a bigger one. We may want more of God’s mercy, faithfulness, righteousness, judgments, and loving-kindness but not to keep up with the Jones of the world, but because we crave the closeness to God that we experience from a relationship with Him. Because we have learned that it is all we will ever need. In God’s gifts we find a fountain of life not only to carry us into eternity, but our daily lives. As we drink in the gifts of God we are refreshed, renewed, and able to face what ever comes our way.
In verse nine David also talks about seeing light in God’s light. As we gaze at God’s light and live in it, it becomes reflective. In it we can see eternity and take hope that whatever happens to us that light and the love that glows from it will never fade. As we allow God’s light to live in us it becomes reflective in our lives as well, and as it shines out of us it catches on another, and yet another, and still another. We have received some precious gifts. What will you do with them? Will you place them on a self and marvel at them dust them off now and then? Or will you keep them new by sharing them with someone else?