Our Refuge in Life and Death #2

As David writes this psalm, he's praising God now because he's confident that God will bless him in the future. He doesn't wait until he experiences the blessing and says, oh, I will praise him then. No, he says, right now I'm confident. This is the Truth Pulpit with Don Green, founding pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio, where Don is teaching God's people God's Word.

I'm Bill Wright. Don has said that as we stand firm in our commitment to living a life that is faithful to God, we can be supremely confident he will honor our commitment by blessing us in an immeasurable way, both here on earth and in eternity. We're glad you're with us for today's lesson. Open your Bible now to Psalm 16 as we get started.

Here's Don Green with part two of a message called Our Refuge in Life and Death. Going back to Psalm 16, if you would, here in this closing portion of the opening section, he expresses the exclusivity of his affection to God. Look at Psalm 16, verse 5. He says, the Lord is the portion of my inheritance and my cup.

You support my lot. The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places. Indeed, my heritage is beautiful to me. He's expressing here the purity of his satisfaction in the person of God. And he says that, Lord, you are what I will receive in life, and that is enough to me. That is beautiful to me. Your person is my reward.

Who you are is the gift to me. That is the outcome of my life, and I find that beautiful and pleasing to me, is what he says. He says the Lord is the portion of my inheritance. If you remember back when we surveyed Joshua a few weeks ago, God distributed in the Old Testament the land of Canaan to the different tribes of Israel. And the section of the Promised Land that each tribe received was their inheritance from the Lord.

It was the place where they would physically live and receive their blessing. What David is saying here is that he sees the Lord himself as his inheritance. It is the Lord himself that is his blessing.

By knowing God, by being in submission to him, by being in relationship with him, he has the blessing, he has the reward, he has everything that he could possibly want. And what David is expressing in these two verses is the complete nature of his devotion. He is expressing his final satisfaction in God alone. He is just expressing this love and this commitment and this devotion and this faithfulness to God in prayer, declaring it before men, saying, I want you to know that my lot is with the Lord and I'm content there. And his satisfaction, one man has said that God is most glorified when we are most satisfied in him.

David is saying, I find my complete satisfaction in Yahweh and in that I am expressing the fullness of my commitment to him. It's not that I need Yahweh and something else to make my heart satisfied. I have Yahweh and Yahweh alone is enough. Here in the New Testament era, there should be this sense, this realization, this aspiration of our heart that says, I have Christ and that is enough to satisfy my soul. I have the one who laid down his life in love for my soul.

This one who gave himself for me, who loved him and gave himself up for me. I would boast in nothing, I would glory in nothing but the cross of Christ. Because in Christ, I find the one who loved me to that extent.

And in response to his love, I give him all of my love and all of my affection. Without distraction, if I have Christ, I have it all. And so, those of us with Christ would look at Psalm 16 verse 6 and then in an even greater way than David said, the lines have fallen to me in pleasant places. The boundary marks of my life, the boundary lines of my life are found centered on the Lord Jesus Christ.

I have it good. This is pleasant to me. This is pleasing to me.

I'm with Christ, my earthly circumstances fade in importance by comparison. Indeed, my heritage, what belongs to me, my heritage in Christ is beautiful to me. And it's instructive for us men to realize that David doesn't hesitate to use words like pleasant and beautiful to describe his appreciation for the gift of God and his salvation. You see how he's just expressing this fullness of commitment, this commitment to faithfulness? Well, that's the first six verses.

As you proceed in the rest of Psalm 16, it only gets better. He's expressing because he's expressing more than just a commitment to faithfulness here. It's more than David lifting his heart up, as it were, and offering it to God in an act of pure devotion and worship.

It's more than that. He's expressing, as you go through the rest of the Psalm, a confidence that God is going to bless him. He's expressing a confidence in blessing. So point number one, he was expressing a commitment to faithfulness, but now he's expressing here in the rest of the Psalm, point number two, a confidence in blessing. And he articulates in verses 7 and 8 his serene, peaceful, confident, assured view of the future. Look at verses 7 and 8. He says, I will bless the Lord who has counseled me. Indeed, my mind instructs me in the night. I have set the Lord continually before me, because he is at my right hand.

I will not be shaken. This is a statement of complete confidence about what the future holds for him. And it's totally separate from his circumstances. It has nothing to do with knowing how this trial or that works out.

It has nothing to do with knowing the outcome of his life. He says, God is at my right hand. God is at the place of preeminence and exaltation in my heart. And as a result of that, I am confident that I will not be shaken. I will not be moved. God is with me.

And beloved, this is so practical and personal. God is not a theoretical concept to David. He's not a theological construct.

It's personal. God to David is who he really is. God is a living person who is with him throughout all of his life. It would be abhorrent to David to hear as some people out in the world say, ah, the big man upstairs. What a shameful way to allude to God. David reveres him.

David loves him. And this great and compassionate and faithful God so completely consumes his affections that he says, with this God with me, I am unconquerable. My heart cannot be moved because it is so completely anchored in affection for this one who is my God. And we ask ourselves, is that the way that we feel? Is that the way that we think? Is that the way that we respond to our Christ?

Are we so conscious of his presence? Is it so real to us that we can express it in this way with a confidence in blessing that says, I will not be shaken? Romans 8, 38, who can separate us from the love of Christ? That's actually verse 35.

Shall tribulation or distress or famine or nakedness or peril a sword? Now, I'm convinced that neither death nor life nor powers nor height nor depth nor any other created thing can separate us from the love of God who is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Complete confidence. Settled!

That's the thing. This is settled in his mind. It doesn't rise and flow and ebb and flow with his circumstances. He's expressing a settled conviction that God is good, God is sovereign, God is always with him, so the destination can only be positive.

It can only be good. And so, far from David being in a time of distress when he writes this psalm, I think that he's in a period of rest where he's able to clarify these convictions. You know from experience that there are times when trials hit and sometimes this view of things gets a little bit cloudy.

Well, beloved, listen. If you're in a time of blessing, that's the time to seek God all the more and let these convictions and these affections be crystallized and clarified in your mind so that they go even deeper. So that what you see in the light is what establishes your mindset toward life and that when the trials come and when the clouds overshadow you, you don't deny in the darkness what you came to know in the light. David here is writing in a time where things were clear to him and he expresses these settled convictions and they helped to carry him when the trials came later in life. Psalm 23 is similar in import. Psalm 23 verse 4 says, I fear no evil for what?

You are what? With me. I fear no evil for you are with me. You are my shepherd. You guide me, direct me, provide for me. Verse 8 of Psalm 16, He's at my right hand, I will not be shaken. These are the settled convictions of the person who truly knows Yahweh. And listen, beloved, let's get personal about this and let's take this and work this all the way through.

This challenges us if you're like me and you tend toward a more pessimistic bent and you have ten reasons why things can go bad with every situation that comes up. Notice what David is doing here. We need to address that pessimistic streak in our spirits and our constitutions and our dispositions and correct it biblically. Notice what David is saying. He is praising God now as he writes this psalm. He's praising God now because he's confident that God will bless him in the future. He doesn't wait until he experiences the blessing and says, Oh, I will praise him then. No, he says, right now I'm confident. Right now I'm telling you I will not be shaken. My heritage is beautiful to me right now because he's with me right now. And that defines and shapes the way that he looks at the future.

You see, and you work it all the way through and it could be no other way. Listen to me. If God is really who you say you believe that he is, every one of you here would say, almost everyone without exception would say, He's sovereign.

He's good. He's faithful. If we sang hymns like that, you would stand up and you would sing that from your heart, wouldn't you?

You would sing those things. Well look, if that's true, then work out the implications of it. If he's good and gracious and faithful now and he's the unchanging God, then that's not going to change in the future. And so by what twisted sense of logic do we look at the future with fear and anxiety if our God is who we say that we believe him to be? If this good and gracious and faithful God is always with us, then it can't possibly do anything other than come out good for us in the end.

That's why David can say, He's at my right hand. I won't be shaken. Spiritual confidence. Spiritual maturity. Doubt is not good. Faith is good.

Confidence in God is good. To doubt God in light of what he has revealed himself to be in the Scripture. Doubt in light of Christ crucified and resurrected and ascended into heaven. Doubt is sin. By what basis do we cast questions on the character of God, on the sovereignty of God? By what righteous basis do we question his character and his intentions for his people? That's not the mark of faith to question that. To do it in a settled way, in an ongoing way, and not just in a moment of weakness, is a sign of unbelief. No, beloved, for you and me, for those of us gathered under the teaching of the Psalms and the Word of God, let's be like David, shall we? Let's settle it in our minds right here, right this moment. It says, because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken.

He knows the outcome, because he knows it's God. Everything else is details. Imagine what would happen. Fantasize with me for a moment.

Imagine something with me for a moment. Imagine how it would transform our prayer lives even. Your prayer life. If instead of focusing and majoring on our needs and the physical and circumstantial problems that we're facing in this day and week in our lives, imagine what would happen, imagine how it would be transformed if instead we spent a greater amount of time thanking God that he was at our side and affirming in prayer our confidence that he will always be good, gracious, and faithful to us because we're his people.

Imagine how that would change the atmosphere of your prayers from one of desperation to one of serenity and confidence. That's what David's expressing here. Look at verse 9. David's soul is rejoicing. He says, therefore my heart is glad and my glory rejoices. We talk often about noticing words like therefore. He's at my right hand.

I will not be shaken. Therefore, here's the implication that he draws out of that. Because he's at my right hand, because I will not be shaken, therefore the implication of this is that my heart is glad and my glory rejoices and my flesh also will dwell securely. He's expressing in multiple ways with the word heart and flesh and his glory. His inner man is saying, there's joy.

There's security. I'm glad as a result of all of these things. The reality of who God is and who I am in relationship to him drives my disposition toward life.

Wow. You see what I mean? When I say that these things shape the way that we think, this shapes everything about the way, this shapes the fundamental way that you view life and process everything that happens to you. There is nothing that is outside the boundaries of what this encompasses in your inner man. David is undivided in his confidence. He's not like James describes in chapter 1 verse 8. He's not a double minded man who is unstable in his ways.

David is expressing a settled maturity. God is glorified in his heart. And beloved, to the extent to which you recognize that your heart is not quite there yet, you haven't come to that point yet in your Christian experience, make this the aspiration that I want to move in that direction. I reject being a faithless, doubting, professing Christian.

I reject that. I want to be like David. Lord, move me in that direction.

Move me so that I would be settled and confident and consistently proclaiming my confidence in you and my satisfaction in you. And now we get to the best part of the psalm. We haven't even gotten to the good part yet. It's all good, but I mean, David comes to a great climax here in verse 10. His confidence soars to profound and breathtaking heights. In verse 10, he works this all the way through so that it encompasses even his view of death.

Verse 10, he says, My flesh will dwell securely there at the end of verse 9. 4. He's drawing out another implication. He's just working through implications and taking it all the way to its logical conclusion.

4. You will not abandon my soul to Sheol, nor will you allow your Holy One to undergo decay. Sheol is a reference to the realm of the dead. What David is saying here in verse 10, even as an Old Testament saint, is this. He's saying, Even death won't separate me from this gracious God who is with me. He says, and he's working this all the way through before Christ, before the resurrection. And he says, he says, I belong to this living God, and He is good and He is faithful. And that means that when I die, He will still be good and faithful to me, and therefore the grave will not be the end of my existence.

The grave will not bring a separation between me and my God. Couldn't be that way because God is too good and faithful to His people. This is an Old Testament expectation of eternal life.

And yet it's even more breathtaking than that. David here in this verse is actually prophesying about the eventual resurrection of Jesus Christ. David, a thousand years before Christ, from this position of confidence in the blessing and goodness of God, was moved by the Holy Spirit to speak of the ultimate resurrection of our Savior.

Scripture defines that for us. It says in verse 30 there, Because He was a prophet, I shouldn't skip over verse 29, Brethren, I may confidently say to you, regarding the patriarch David, that He both died and was buried, and His tomb is with us to this day. He was physically buried, although His Spirit was with the Lord. But he's talking about the Holy One not undergoing corruption.

And so verse 30, He was a prophet and knew that God had sworn to Him with an oath to seek one of His descendants on His throne. He looked ahead and spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that He was neither abandoned to Hades nor did His flesh suffer decay. Psalm 16 is a direct prophecy of the resurrection of Christ. David wasn't saying that he himself would not undergo physical decay. He was saying that Christ is the one who would not undergo decay. In Psalm 16, David is expressing a profound inner sanctification. He is expressing a significant level of spiritual maturity, expressed in a mature commitment to faithfulness and a confident expectation of God's blessing on his life. And that commitment and trust provide a context for us to understand the resurrection of Christ.

Beloved, listen to me. These words about the resurrection came as David was reflecting and expounding on the goodness and faithfulness of God to his people. And he says God is so faithful that not even death will separate us from Him. David says God is so powerful that death could not bring decay to His Christ. Death!

Decay! They go together, not to Christ. That's how supreme the power and faithfulness of God is.

Now watch this. Watch what this means for you. Those of you who tremble at the thought of death, let that be put away from your soul here. We know the same God that David knew. But now we have even more than David had when he wrote those words. For us, Christ has come. We look back now and see that Christ is resurrected. And Christ said in John 14, 19 to His disciples, Because I live, you will live also.

We have no fear of death. God brought Christ through the resurrection. And by our union with Christ we know for a certain fact that He will bring us through death to the ultimate resurrection as well. We are joined together with Christ. What happened to Him will happen to us.

Did He have a physical resurrection? Then we will too. There is no fear of death as a result. And that's why we can say with David, look at Psalm 16 verse 11. We say with a confidence born of a knowledge of God and a true knowledge of Christ. David says, he concludes on this final word of confidence that stretches into the realms of eternity. You will make known to me the path of life. In your presence is fullness of joy.

In your right hand there are pleasures forever. God will lead us in life. Our Christ will lead us through death. He will bring us safe to the other side. He will give us, because He loves us, pleasures at His right hand forever. And when we know this God and we know His intentions for us, what can we do except be committed to faithfulness and confident in His ultimate blessing? We go out in confidence, in peace, in serenity, in a joyous love for our God. including today's message in its entirety.

Again, just visit thetruthpulpit.com. Well, Don, it takes a lot of courage to live a joyful and fearless life that glorifies God. But how do we find that courage? As society becomes more secular and hostile to Christianity, and even as governments in some parts of the world become directly hostile to Christians and to the Church and to Christian thinking and Christian speaking. So we need to know an answer to this, my friend.

And I would say this. Christian courage starts from having a deep knowledge of God and His attributes. You have to start there. When we know who God is, when we know who the Lord Jesus Christ is, when we know that He is sovereign and He works all things together for good to those who love Him, when we know that He turns what men mean for evil, He even works that out for good, all of that begets courage in our hearts. And when we remember the deep love of Christ for our souls, as we remember the deep love of Christ as He suffered for us at the cross, it gives us a desire to glorify Him, to honor Him, to be faithful to Him, and to be bold to please Him no matter the cost. That is the soil, my friend, in which the roots of Christian courage grow. Don't start by trying to be courageous. Start by knowing God in the person of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Thanks, Don. And friend, I'm Bill Wright, looking forward to being with you again next time as Don Green continues teaching God's people God's Word here on the Truth Pulpit.