Under Jesus' Wings

Introduction:

Some people hate the Psalms, but I love them. Bring out some Psalms around Thanksgiving

WBTU:

This is an encouraging section in Psalm 36:5-9. It talks about the wonderful attributes of God. God’s love reaches to the heavens. How priceless is God’s unfailing love. God’s faithfulness reaches to the skies. God’s righteousness is like the mighty mountains.

In Vs. 7 “Men find refuge in the shadow of your wings.”

Luke 13:34- O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!

There was a great fire and a mother hen was killed in the flames. When they moved the hen they found her chicks under her wings and the chicks were alive and well.

When we made Jesus Christ our Savior and Lord, in a sense we went under His wings to be protected from evil, from harm, from sin, from hell, from death, and from the devil.

Verses 7 to 9 are in the present tense. These are things to be enjoyed now. In the future in heaven for sure but also now. The Psalmist is not speaking of future blessedness, to be realized in some far off day to come, but of what is possible in this life.

Thesis: Under Jesus’ wings, there is satisfaction, sweetness, supply, and sight.

For instances:

Satisfaction (vs. 8- They feast on the abundance of your house)

Many of us will be doing something similar on Thanksgiving. We will eat and be satisfied.

More than providing food, God satisfies our every desire with the fatness of His house.

Proverbs 30:15- 16 says “There are three things that are never satisfied, four that never say, 'Enough!': the grave, the barren womb, land, which is never satisfied with water, and fire, which never says, 'Enough!” Give me some liberty here and we might add a 5th and that is human beings. They are never satisfied no matter how much they have. They are as thirsty for satisfaction as the desert sands but no matter how much is poured upon them, they can’t get no satisfaction. They are like fire than never consumes enough.

We want to be satisfied. We don’t like to have wants, needs, and desires unfulfilled. We have a desire satisfied in one area and we realize that we are unsatisfied in another. Jeremiah 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?

an answer for our dissatisfaction. It is Jesus Christ. John 6:35 (Jesus) I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.

Christ will satisfy all my longings and desires with His own great abundance or fatness. He does it in his own time but these things put within us will not go unfulfilled.

Fill my cup, Lord, I lift it up, Lord. Come and quench this thirsting of my soul. Bread of heaven, feed me till I want no more; Fill my cup, fill it up and make me whole.

Psalm 23:1- The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.

Isaiah 55:2- Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.

Some day He will satisfy me if I stay under His wings. Yes, in heaven but also today. Augustine said- "Our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee, O Lord"

Sweetness (vs. 8- You give them drink from your river of delights)

This word delights (sweets, dessert) is translated as pleasures in the King James. In the hymn He Hideth My Soul- the first verse says, “He hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock, Where rivers of pleasure I see."

Pleasure, delight, sweets, is not the way Christianity is usually described. It is described by some as a restrictive life. Let’s think of it as a group of children who are playing on top of a monadnock (Pilot Mountain) and around the point where the rock drops off there is a large fence. While the fence is there, the children play and run because they know that they are safe. The fence will keep them in the boundaries where it is safe. Take the fence away and the children do not run and play because they know that if they get carried away and don’t pay attention, they will fall off of the monadnock to their deaths.

Same way it is with us. While we are under Jesus’ wings, we are safe. When we leave His presence and come out from underneath His wings, we are unprotected.