Between two worlds

There are times, when what we see with our eyes and what we know in our hearts seem like two very different things.

We watch the news and we see a world that often appears to be in chaos. There are terrorist attacks and bombings and wars, natural disasters, financial disasters and tragic accidents. And then we come to church and we sing songs and pray prayers and read from the Bible about the love and peace and kindness and goodness of God.

All around us we see a world that seems happy to go on as if there is no God. People don't seem to care about him or give him much thought. Courts and politicians and social media and public opinion, they tell us what is acceptable and what isn't. And then we come to church and the Bible tells us that there is a God in heaven, he is our creator and one day he will be our judge. And He alone gets to say what is right and what is wrong.

During the week we go to work and spend time with friends, we watch films, we go shopping, we make plans we take holidays. And God doesn't seem to play a part in any of that. And then once a week, for a few hours on Sunday, we come to church and we talk about God for a while. And then we go back. Back into a world that denies that he even exists.

Being a Christian, can feel almost schizophrenic can't it? As if we live two, separate lives, in two, separate worlds.

And perhaps, if you're a Christian here tonight, then you don't even feel as if you live in two worlds, you feel as if you live between two worlds.

We live in the world around us, we have jobs and go to school and watch TV, but we're different from it. Because we also believe in Jesus, and sin and forgiveness and heaven and hell, but what difference does that make to our everyday lives? How do we bring these two worlds together? How do we make sense of what we see with our eyes, and what we know in our hearts?

That's the question that David is wrestling with in Psalm 36, and that what we're going to be thinking about tonight. How do we live our lives, between two worlds?

Let's pray and ask God for his help to find out.

Look at v1a…

An oracle is within my heart concerning the sinfulness of the wicked:

Here is an oracle, a profound, divinely inspired truth about the sinfulness of the wicked, v1b…

There is no fear of God before his eyes.

David looks at the world, and all around him he sees,

Seeing the sinfulness of man, vv 1-4

Why is that? What is it that makes men wicked? Answer – they don't fear God. "There is no fear of God before their eyes."

All around him live people who don't care about God, who don't worry about God. As far as they are concerned they have no need of God. "For," v2…

...in his own eyes he flatters himself too much to detect or hate his sin.

They don't care about God, and they certainly aren't listening to God, so they decide what is right and wrong, they decide what is good and bad. And so what they do, in their own eyes and by their own standards, is not that bad.

The wicked person does what he wants and lives how he pleases because he makes up his own rules. And by his own standards he flatters himself into thinking that he's a good guy. So why does he need God? And once he has chosen to ignore God, well then what he says and does will be wicked.

He lives with no reference to God. So what he says and what he does, is all according to his own wisdom. He has, in essence, set himself up as his own god. He says in his heart, "I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul."

He lives without God, he does his own thing. And do you see what that means? Now, even when he does what is right, he's not doing it for the right reason, he does it not out of obedience to God. But out of obedience to himself. Even when he does the right thing, he does it out of rebellion against God. So the "good" things he does are not "good" and the "wise" things he does are not wise. They are rebellious and wicked, v3…

The words of his mouth are wicked and deceitful; he has ceased to be wise and to do good.

And rebelling against God and rejecting God is not something that only happens occasionally, during his worst moments, it is his carefully considered plan. v4…

Even on his bed he plots evil; he commits himself to a sinful course and does not reject what is wrong.

This is the world that David lives in, that is the world that he sees everyday with his eyes. Everywhere he looks he sees sinful man in rebellion against God. And even though David wrote this psalm about 3000 years ago, not much has changed, has it?

Go anywhere, live in any country at any time in history and this is what you'll see. It may appear different in different contexts, some people's sin may be more socially acceptable than others. But it's all the same.

When we look at the world around us, everywhere we turn we see the sinfulness of man. That is the world that we see with our eyes, and yet. That is not the whole story. There is more to this world than just what we see with our eyes.

If we are Christians, then we also know in our heart…

Knowing the lovingkindness of God, vv 5-9

Suddenly in v5 the psalm totally changes. Because what David sees with his eyes and what he knows in his heart are so radically different. Look at vv 5-6b…

Your love, O LORD, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies. Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, your justice like the great deep.

The love of God is so vast, that it fills the earth. It touches everything and is seen everywhere. God's faithfulness goes on and on as far as the eye can see. The righteousness of God, his right-ness, his goodness, is like a mountain.
Enormous, unchanging and towering over us. His justice never runs out, never runs dry, it is bottomless, fathomless, endless.

As David grew from a boy to a man, from a shepherd to a king, he knew; he has experienced in his own life, God's love and his kindness, his care and his generosity, his forgiveness and his mercy, his grace and his patience and his power, That go on and on and on.

Like a man standing at the foot of a mountain, whose summit is so high that he cannot even see the top. David stand and considers the lovingkindness of God, and he marvels. His mouth falls open. Words cannot describe or express the kind of God that David knows.

Whose love is so vast, v6, that he preserves both man and beast. Every moment of every day we exist, because God sustains us. Water flows, birds fly, fish swim, rain falls, plants grow, people laugh the sun rises and the seasons come and go, only because God commands them to.

If you love the great outdoors, then every time you step out of the front door you should praise your creator. And if you love the great indoors, then you should praise the God who made homes and sofas and slippers too!

We sometimes believe that God doesn't care. That he is too far off and too bury to care about us or our lives and our struggles. But the truth is if there was ever even a moment where God was not with you, holding your life in his hands, you and I would simply cease to exist.

God made us and he sustains us, and he blesses each one of us, every day, in a thousand different ways. You simply cannot begin to fathom how precious God's love is, David says, in v7. All of us, "Both high and low…vv7b-9…

...find refuge in the shadow of your wings. They feast on the abundance of your house; you give them drink from your river of delights. For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light.

Consider just one example. Has it ever crossed your mind that God could have made all food taste the same, or have no taste at all? He could have made the process of eating entirely practical and not at all pleasurable.
But instead he gave us ice-cream! And milk and meat and bread and cheese and wine and beer, and bread and butter pudding and apple crumble.

Just think of all the things that you love. Sport and books and friends and poetry and dancing and fashion and holidays, and everything else that you find any delight in. God is the source of all life and light. And he gives life and light to all people. The high and the low. Those who love him, and those who hate him.

He gives life and light to those who sing his praises. And he gives life and light to those who curse his name. Who say with lips that he created, and language that he invented, and voices that he put inside them, "There is no God."

He gives life and light to those who stand on mountain tops that he made, and watch sunsets that he painted, and hold hands with ones that he chose for them. And who say in their hearts, "I cannot believe in a God of love."

God shows his love for all of us, whether we worship him or not. In fact the only reason that any of us know what love is, or have a sense of right and wrong and justice and injustice is because God exists and has put his truth into our hearts.

Do you see? As Christians we often feel as if we live between two worlds. There is the world that we see with our eyes. And there is the world that we know in our hearts. And we feel as if there is a vast chasm between the two.
Or as if one has nothing to do with the other. There are times when it feels as if we live two separate lives in two totally separate worlds. And yet those two worlds are not separate at all.

When we look at the world around us, everywhere we look, we see the sinfulness of man. But why are people sinful?
What makes their deeds wicked? It is because they have turned away from God. "There is no fear of God before their eyes."

The sinfulness of man, and the wickedness of our world doesn't prove that God doesn't exist, or that he is far off and far away. No, wickedness is wicked and sinfulness is wrong, precisely because God does exist and has told us what is right and wrong. Men and women are wicked because they deny God. It is only when we come to know God that we can make sense of the wickedness of the world around us.

And at the same time, when we look at this world and see its sinfulness, we also see most clearly the lovingkindness of God. We are the wicked ones. You and I. Everyone of us, by our very nature. And yet God chooses to love us.

He loves us so much, in fact, that even though we are sinful, and we reject God and try to live our lives without him, he sent us his one and only son, Jesus, to come and take the punishment that we deserve for our sin by dying on the cross. So that if we admit our fault and turn back to him, he will forgive us, and welcome us back.

Do you see? The world we see with our eyes, on the news and in our families, and the world we read about in the Bible and know to be true in our hearts are not two different worlds. They explain one another. And one gives us hope for the other.

And that's the final thing we see in this pslam. Because if, like David, we have come to know God, and love him, then we can live our lives...

Trusting God for today and tomorrow, vv 10-12

Look at vv 10-11…

Continue your love to those who know you, your righteousness to the upright in heart. May the foot of the proud not come against me, nor the hand of the wicked drive me away.

Even though the world around him looks out of control, and all around him David sees the sinfulness of man, he knows that God is still in control and that he is a God of love and justice. And so his prayer for today is that God would keep on showering his love upon those who trust him, to those who are upright in heart, and that God would thwart the plans of those who are wicked. And that can be our prayer too.

The world may look in chaos, and it may seem that sinful men can do whatever they like whenever they like, But if you are a Christian then you know better. We know the lovingkindness of God. And if we know God's love, we can trust him for today.

And we can trust him for tomorrow. Look at v12…

See how the evildoers lie fallen-- thrown down, not able to rise!

When David wrote this psalm he was still surrounded by wicked men. But he knew that one day v12 would come true.
He knew that because of the lovingkindness of God one day justice will be done. And on that day what we know in our hearts we will see with our eyes. On that day Jesus will come back, justice will be done to the sinful, and those who trust in him will experience his lovingkindness perfectly, forever.

Have you ever watched a film that really draws you in? You find yourself caring about what happens. You worry about what will happen, and you wonder whether the bad guys will win and the good guys will fail. For a couple of hours you're absorbed in what you're seeing. It feels real. It momentarily becomes your world.

But then the film ends. And as soon as it does, you remember that it's not real. The things that made you anxious, the danger, the bad guy, they seemed real, but now it's over and you're back to reality.

One day, Jesus will come back. The God who we know in the Bible, and our hearts if we are Christians. The God who is full of lovingkindness will come into the world that we see with our eyes.

And I wonder if, on that day, the things that made us anxious, the things that kept us up at night, the danger that we felt, the worry that we felt, the pain that we felt, and that feels so real. I wonder, if on that day we won't wake up and realise that there is a far greater reality.

When Jesus returns, the world that we see with our eyes will be the world that we know now in our hearts. A world that will be full of the lovingkindness of God. Forever.

Let's pray.