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December 19/20, 2015
Jason Meyer | Psalms 16:1-11
Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge.
I say to the LORD, “You are my Lord;
I have no good apart from you.”
As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones,
in whom is all my delight.
The sorrows of those who run after another god shall multiply;
their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out
or take their names on my lips.
The LORD is my chosen portion and my cup;
you hold my lot.
The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.
I bless the LORD who gives me counsel;
in the night also my heart instructs me.
I have set the LORD always before me;
because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.
Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices;
my flesh also dwells secure.
For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol,
or let your holy one see corruption.
You make known to me the path of life;
in your presence there is fullness of joy;
at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.—Psalm 16:1–11
Introduction
Have you ever noticed how many of the Christmas songs we sing are in the present tense? Jesus came as a baby more than 2,000 years ago (talk about the past!) and yet we sing them as though it just happened this day or this night.
“O Holy Night, the stars are brightly shining, it is the night of the dear Savior’s birth.”
“Silent night, holy night … Christ the Savior is born. Christ the Savior is born.”
“Yea, Lord we greet thee, born this happy morning. Jesus to thee be all glory given. Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing, O come let us adore him, O come let us adore him, O come let us adore him, Christ the Lord.”
Why? I think I have the answer, but you will have to wait until the end because it will make more sense at that time. The way we answer that question makes an eternal difference.
Outline
“Preserve me, O God.”
How many times have we seen the Psalms start this way? They start by shooting the emergency flare up in the air. They start with the hazard lights on: help! I am in danger! Preserve Me! It is a humbling thing to always be cast in the role of Lois Lane always needing to be rescued by Superman. That is who we are. We begin on the note of desperate plea: help me—preserve me! The question at this point is what is the danger? Why the desperation—why the plea—why the petition to preserve—from what? David will tell us as we move through this poetic petition. For now, he moves to point 2: confession of faith (verses 1b–8).
David asks God to preserve him because of all that God is for him. This is a confession of faith that reminds God of David’s relationship to God. The confession declares 7 things: (1) God is his refuge, (2) God is his only good, (3) God’s people are his only delight, (4) God is his inheritance, (5) God is his blessed counselor, (6) God is his best thought by day or by night.
Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge.
God is the only place he can run and feel safe. Every other place of refuge is too flimsy—his only secure place where he can fully rest is God.
I say to the LORD, “You are my Lord;
I have no good apart from you.”
Here David says that Yahweh is his master—his Lord. He is the only good that David has. David here distinguishes between ultimate good (singular) and lesser goods (plural). I take that to mean that David can have lots of good things, but only one ultimately good thing. He could lose all other good things and not despair if he still had God that would be enough forever. If he loses God, all the lesser good things become basically worthless and he would despair.
As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones,
in whom is all my delight.
The sorrows of those who run after another god shall multiply;
their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out
or take their names on my lips.
David says that he delights only in those who share his delight in God. Those who disagree (the counsel of the wicked—Psalm 1), he has disgust for what they say and suggest.
Let me try to give you a word picture for this. I remember a couple of years after my grandpa died, that I was in the kitchen with my grandma. Her grandson (one of my cousins) was with me. He mentioned some older man to my grandma and suggested that maybe she should think about dating again and starting with him. My grandma became more fierce than I have ever seen her. She normally moved slow, but she was lion-like as she verbally pounced on him and said, “do you have any idea what it is like to find the love of your life and share life with him for half a century—he was enough of a man for me for several lifetimes—don’t talk to me about this again—she would have kept after him, but he wisely left the house. She basically verbally escorted her grandson out of her presence when he suggested looking for another man. She would not have it!
That is what David is saying here. Those who delight in you—I want to be around them and delight in you together with them. Those that disagree and run after other gods—I won’t have it—I won’t even mention their blasphemous, filthy names of their gods on my lips.
The LORD is my chosen portion and my cup;
you hold my lot.
The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.
These two verses need some background to make sense. In the Old Testament, there is a story about the conquest of land called the Promised Land. The land was divided among the 12 tribes of Israel. But there was one tribe that didn’t get any land. The land was called a portion or inheritance. It may sound like that tribe got a raw real estate deal. But that is not the way the Bible presents it. Numbers 18:20 says,
And the LORD said to Aaron, “You shall have no inheritance in their land, neither shall you have any portion among them. I am your portion (share) and your inheritance (allotment) among the people of Israel.
David is saying, “You are my portion! You gave me you. I am so lavished with love and blessing to know you!” If there was a table set out with the finest food and cups of the choicest wine—I would choose you—I hunger and thirst for you!
I bless the LORD who gives me counsel;
in the night also my heart instructs me.
The way that God preserves him is through his word. God guides him. He listens to God’s instructions (think of Psalm 1—on his law he meditates day and night). I think David means that he hides God’s word in his heart so that day and night it serves to guide and guard.
I have set the LORD always before me;
because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.
I love the resolute language of this verse: "I have set the LORD always before me." I have the remote—I turn it to your channel. I have the phone in my hand—I you’re your number. I have my library in front of me—I take your book off the shelf. You are my treasure. You are more appealing to me than anything or anyone else.
Notice the effect that this confession of faith has had on him. He was crying out for God to preserve him—he felt so shaky and flimsy and fragile. Now that he has confessed (or taken stock) of all that God is for him, at the end of the confession of faith he is now standing firm, feeling so secure, and not shaking anymore.
Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices;
my flesh also dwells secure.—v. 9
Do you see the word “therefore”? This is the conclusion of the psalm. All that God is for him is enough to make his heart and whole being burst with gladness and rejoicing. But David has a certain type of joy—an unshakably secure joy that extends to even his body or flesh (flesh dwells secure).
Look now at the specific, prophetic ground of David’s joy in verse 10:
For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol,
or let your holy one see corruption.
This Psalm is prophetic. David says that he believes in the resurrection. Where does he get that idea? 2 Samuel 7 told him that he would have a son and God would establish the throne of his kingdom forever (2 Samuel 7:13). How would that happen? How could one son rule forever—with no succession—he would have to be able to conquer death!
David prophesies the same thing in Psalm 110:4,
The LORD has sworn
and will not change his mind,
“You are a priest forever
after the order of Melchizedek.”
How can he be a king forever and a priest forever? The resurrection. The apostle Peter’s sermon in Acts 2 makes it crystal clear that David is a prophet of the resurrection.
God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it. For David says concerning him,
“‘I saw the Lord always before me,
for he is at my right hand that I may not be shaken;
therefore my heart was glad, and my tongue rejoiced;
my flesh also will dwell in hope.
For you will not abandon my soul to Hades,
or let your Holy One see corruption.
You have made known to me the paths of life;
you will make me full of gladness with your presence.’
“Brothers, I may say to you with confidence about the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne, he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses.—Acts 2:24–32
Now the tension is resolved. Do you see it? The Bible has an exciting feature called foreshadowing. Some things don’t make sense until later. David was not a priest, but he acted like one at times. The first glimpse of it comes in the Samuel narrative where David wore a linen ephod (like a priest) when the ark was brought into Jerusalem (2 Samuel 6). Now in this psalm we hear David say that God is his only inheritance like the priests.
Later Psalm 110 will prophesy further and paint a picture in which the kingship gets painted with a priestly color pattern. Just like Adam was a royal priest, Israel was to be a royal priesthood, and now David speaks of an inheritance in priestly terms: Jesus is the only one that matches this description perfectly. He is a king forever (Psalm 110) through the power of an indestructible life—a body not undergoing decay (Psalm 16), who for the full and forever joy set before him endured the cross, endured the shame and is seated at the right hand of God.
The Resurrection opens the door to incomparable pleasures:
You make known to me the path of life;
in your presence there is fullness of joy;
at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.—Psalm 16:11
The Resurrection is the path of life that leads to fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore in God’s presence. If the question of Psalm 15 was how someone could dwell in God’s presence, Psalm 16 is the answer—we can stay there forever through the resurrection. Notice that this path of life offers the greatest possible pleasure: (1) full (fullness of joy), not partial, and (2) forever (pleasures forevermore), not temporary. The main point of Psalm 16 is the call to rejoice in the Resurrection.
Transition
There is nothing we could talk about right now that would matter more. According to the latest numbers from UNICEF, about 29,000 children under the age of five will die today (800 during this sermon alone) die every day, mainly from preventable causes.
The statistics are more startling when you include adults into the total. 56 million people die every year—almost 2 people per second (106 per minute) and 4,240 during the course of this sermon. The statistics are crushing.
One statistic that is supremely sobering is that 100% of people in this room and in this world will die. It probably doesn’t feel like I am spreading Christmas cheer right now does it? What kind of Christmas sermon is this? It is the most important kind—the life and death, heaven and hell, everything is on the line kind of Christmas sermon.
Death is like living next to an active volcano—you know it will erupt, you just don’t know when. Sometimes it smokes and there is a tremor that shakes you and gives you advance warning—but sometimes it just erupts suddenly. You cannot outsmart death or outrun death. You can’t take a pill or get a shot or vaccine to make you immune. Death is absolutely coming. Consider Psalm 16 your wake up call.
The Resurrection is the greatest news of all because it answers the greatest need of all. And God answers our greatest need in the greatest way conceivable. I will let one of the Puritans explain what I mean (from The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment, by Jeremiah Burroughs).
To grant great good after great evil is one thing, and to turn great evil into the greatest good is another; and yet that is God’s way: the greatest good that God intends for his people, he many times works out of the greatest evil, the greatest light is brought out of the greatest darkness. I remember, Luther has a striking expression for this: he says, ‘It is the way of God: he humbles that he might exalt, he kills that he might make alive, he confounds that he might glorify.’ This is the way of God, he says, but every one does not understand it. This is the art of arts, and the science of sciences, the knowledge of knowledges, to understand this, that God when he will bring life, brings it out of death, he brings joy out of sorrow, and he brings prosperity out of adversity, yea and many times bring grace out of sin, that is, makes use of sin to work furtherance of grace. It is the way of God to bring all good out of evil, not only to overcome the evil, but to make the evil work toward the good.
1. The Cross: Reverse the Grip of Sin Through Sin
The murder of the Son of God is the supreme sin—the greatest injustice in history. He was the only perfect person to ever walk the earth and he was condemned as a criminal who committed a capital crime. His murder was a cosmic crime committed by humanity. But look again at what God accomplished—no one there understood. Jesus “the supreme champion” (recall the quote from Donald Bloesch back in Psalm 14) took the grip of evil and reversed its grip against itself. Jesus made a way for us (the ungodly and unjust) to be declared just through the greatest injustice ever committed. God is both just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Justice switches sides. We were so guilty that it would be unjust to decree that we are not guilty. Now, in Christ, we are justified—the gavel has come down—the decree is that we are righteous in Christ. Justice has switched sides and reassures us of his love and our innocence. When we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from unrighteousness. Now watch the second move from God the supreme champion.
2. The Resurrection Reverses the Grip of Death Through Death (Resurrection Power)
The sacrificial lamb is swallowed up by death—but the lamb is also the Almighty Lion of Judah who slices death to shreds with his sharp claws.
We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him.—Romans 6:9
A more complete victory is inconceivable. He is invincible. Death must now serve him because death no longer has any power over him. Death could not grip him in any way anymore—it is like he took death’s grip and used it to rip the arms off of death. There is no possible way death could ever grip him—he can never die and death is now at his beckoning call.
Do you understand what this means? There is no possible way that we could lose—only if we leave him and join the losing team. Check the score—Christ is risen. He can’t lose. We can’t lose in him.
Conclusion
Back to my original question: Why are Christmas songs in the present tense if they happened in the past?
Take the story of Henri Nouwen as an example. He had an experience with Rembrandt’s painting the Return of the Prodigal Son. He was a professor at Harvard, deciding if he should leave Harvard and volunteer in France at a facility for the disabled for a year. He saw Rembrandt’s painting of the return of the Prodigal Son and it had a profound impact on him. That started a journey to figure out why. He went to see the original in Russia. And the way the light hit the painting, the people in the background stood out more—onlookers of the way the Father tenderly put his hands on the son’s shoulder. Then it hit him.
He had been telling people about coming to God his whole life—what he needed most was not to explain it as an onlooker, but experience it as a receiver: front and center on his knees, receiving the embrace, not talking about it.
I want you to be there in present tense: Fall on your knees, feel caught up in the embrace, taste the grace. What happens is that you will talk about Jesus in the present tense in the first person. It will not be a historical (he was this)—it will be an ever-present (he is this). You will talk about him differently—it will feel like you are talking about a person that you really met—that you could go and bring him back and introduce him to people—there is a directness, an immediacy, an intimacy that does not have the dust of history, but the warmth of intimacy that comes from personal relationship.
Christ the Lord is risen today—today! The Resurrection makes everything, including Christmas and Easter, present tense. Fall on your knees—O hear the angel voices! O night divine. Christ is the Lord, O praise his name forever. His power and glory evermore proclaim.
The most important question—not just the most important actual question, but the most important possible question is how we can have life forever. There is one question on my grown up Christmas list: how can I have eternal life—how can I be eternally happy? If full and forever joy are found only in your presence, then how can I be in your presence forever and ever and ever. The resurrection of Jesus is the answer. Whoever confesses with their mouth Jesus is Lord and believes in your heart that God raised him from the dead will be saved.
I still remember my conversion. I remember when the Christmas songs I grew up singing all my life were in present tense—I felt like I was hearing them and singing them for the first time. It was my story. I was there falling on my knees. I could hear the angel voices and sing “Glory to God in the highest” with them. I heard the angel message in Luke 2:10–11.
And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.
The ancient prophecy was given in present tense as well:
For to us a child is born, to us a son is given.—Isaiah 9:6
Forever given—forever born—the incarnation cannot be undone. Forever risen—forever victorious—the resurrection can’t be undone. He is coming soon. Let us sing like it is true. Life is short. Eternity is long. Death is defeated. Christ is risen! Sing like never before! Merry Christmas indeed!
Sermon Discussion Questions
Outline
Main Point: Rejoice in the Resurrection
Discussion Questions
Application Questions
Prayer Focus
Pray for a grace to experience the fullness of love from the fountain opened up by the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Christ. Pray for a grace to feel your Father’s hands resting tenderly on your shoulders and receiving you as his child forever.