We could call Psalm 36 “King David’s ode to the unworthiness of sinners, and the goodness of God.” The first portion of the psalm describes what sinners are like, and then shifts quickly to David’s praise for God, for His mercy not only to people, but even toward animals. The LORD is good, and David wants everyone to know it.
Psalm 37 shows us King David extolling the virtue of loving and serving the Lord. One of the most familiar verses of the Bible is found in it: 4Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart. Psalm 37:4 (NIV) David promises goodness and blessing to those who follow the LORD. The promises seem to be without qualification, but several times David does point out we must sometimes wait for our reward. The tone of this psalm affirms the idea that those who follow the LORD will always be blessed. While David has shown us in other psalms that he knew and even experienced times when the righteous were not exalted, Psalm 37 elevates the “rule” that obedience to the Lord brings blessing.
Psalm 38 offers us a quick return to King David’s realization both that his sinfulness has caused him great spiritual and physical pain, and his enemies have rewarded his goodness with evil. David once again confesses his own sin and asks for forgiveness, and then calls on the LORD to vindicate him from experiencing the vindictiveness of his enemies. The psalm ends with an affirmation of the LORD, as is often David’s tendency.
In Psalm 40 King David focuses on the brevity of life. While his tone is not quite that which we find from his son, King Solomon, in the Book of Ecclesiastes, there is a sense in which David sees a bit of “vanity” in the brief life we live, and then leave our wealth to others, whom we might not even know. There is no sense of hopelessness from King David, but he makes us quite aware of the permanence of the LORD and the brevity of our lives.
As we turn to Luke 6, Luke starts by telling us the account of Jesus’ disciples picking grain on the Sabbath, and the Pharisees calling Jesus to task for it. Jesus responds with an example of King David “breaking the rules” by eating bread reserved for the priests, and then telling the religious leaders the Sabbath was made for us and not the other way around. That account is followed immediately by Jesus healing a man with a withered hand on the Sabbath and drawing the wrath of the religious leaders. Next, Jesus chooses the twelve disciples. Following that, Luke devotes the remainder of the chapter to what has often been called “The Sermon on the Plain.” If you line up the content of this portion of Luke 7, with Matthew 5-7, you will see a great deal of overlap. While the order differs, many of the points are word-for-word the same as in the Sermon on the Mount. Some biblical scholars contend Luke has just varied the content, because he wasn’t there, while others contend Jesus would have taught this content many times, because it was the core of His teaching. Either way, the content is vital, because it is recorded in both gospels.