Heavenly Hope

It’s great to be back with you all this morning and it is great to be back in the book of Psalms. One thing that we probably don’t think about very much is the fact that the Psalms were the hymns of ancient Israel and that which has been past down to us are the very Psalms that Jesus Himself would have sang. This is a very special book of the Bible because it is the songbook of Jesus. Last night was a very heavy night and we talked about something incredibly important but also hard hitting. The reality of hell and our desperate need for salvation should rouse us up. But the beauty of the Gospel is that where there is a burden, there is also relief. Jesus Himself says in Matthew 11:28–30, “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. “Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. “For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” There is great hope in the Gospel and there is great hope for all believers in Jesus Christ. We have seen this every time that we have met together and we will see it again this morning. If you have a Bible, go ahead and turn to Psalm 16. This is a wonderful passage that is full of hope and it is a hope that is not based in this life only, it is a heavenly hope. It is a hope that cannot be removed from us and it is a hope that we must cling to day after day. This is a great Psalm that I believe pairs nicely with what we read the other day in Psalm 91. Psalm 16 is another Psalm that was written by David and unlike Psalm 3, it does not necessarily seem to be connected to any one event in David’s life but appears to be a natural crying out of his soul. What I want to do this morning is really start your day off right with some encouragement. I know that in this world we do have trouble. I know that some of you have situations that you are going to go back home to tomorrow that you are not looking forward to. Maybe it is something immediate or maybe it is something that is coming down the road. Regardless of what may happen in the future, this Psalm is an excellent tool to have in your tool belt and I would encourage you to memorize not just this Psalm but as much as the Bible as you can. I can’t even begin to tell you how often I have been in a funk only to have the words of Scripture come rushing into my mind. Let’s pray and then we will look at what David writes in Psalm 16.

Psalm 16 (NASB95)

Preserve me, O God, for I take refuge in You.

I said to the Lord, “You are my Lord;

I have no good besides You.”

As for the saints who are in the earth,

They are the majestic ones in whom is all my delight.

The sorrows of those who have bartered for another god will be multiplied;

I shall not pour out their drink offerings of blood,

Nor will I take their names upon my lips.

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.

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.

Therefore my heart is glad and my glory rejoices;

My flesh also will dwell securely.

For You will not abandon my soul to Sheol;

Nor will You allow Your Holy One to undergo decay.

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.

Something that I want to do a little different this morning is just walk through this Psalm line by line. I know that sounds like a lot but take a second and think of how this could apply to your life and how you could come back to this throughout your day. The first verse sounds just like what we read in Psalm 91 on Sunday. It is God that David flees to, it is God that is David’s refuge. But God is more than just a refuge for David, He is his Lord. David is saying, “Lord, you are my Master, you are the sovereign One of all creation and you take an interest in me.” Christianity, I don’t know if you know this, is the only religion in the world that I can think of where the God of that religion takes a personal and intimate interest in the individual. The God of Christianity is the only God that we can possess and desires that close of a relationship with us. David goes on by saying, “I have no good besides You.” What this means is that everything in David’s live, everything in our lives, every thing that is good is entirely dependent on the God who gives grace. As we go on into verses 3 and 4 David stresses the benefits of the faithful and the loss that will be found of those that are devoted to other gods. In verses 5-6 David points to how the Lord continually provides for Him. Every basic need that David has ever needed to worship the Lord has been given to him. Now if you were to stop and think about it, you may disagree with me, but I think I’m pretty right on this, you have never lacked anything that has kept you from worshiping the Lord. Everything that you have truly needed to worship God has been given to you. Maybe not everything you want, but you cannot tell me that God has kept anything from you that you have truly needed in order to see His goodness and His willingness to give. This is an important question for you guys to think over throughout the day: What is it that you really need in order to worship the Lord? Not what do you want, what do you need? And then as you stop and reflect on that, see if you have ever really lacked that. Verses 7-11 is what I really want us to look at. In verse 7 we see that the Lord is the giver of wisdom. We serve a God that is able to be known. The Lord has given us His word so that we might know Him better. I know that I don’t know everything about the Lord. I don’t know everything about the Bible and I never will this side of Heaven but there is nothing wrong with asking the Lord that He would make things clearer to us, that He would increase our wisdom. James says in James 1:5 “But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him.” Notice that James doesn’t say that if you lack material wealth just ask and it will be given to you, James says if you lack wisdom! Why are we so afraid to ask that God would reveal Himself more to us as we study the Word? If you read your Bible every day, and I hope that you do, what is it that you are hoping happens? Are you just trying to check something off a to do list or are you hoping to know the God that inspired that book better? I know for me personally that there are times when I don’t read my Bible like I should. There are times where I do it and rush through it, not realizing that the great lover of my soul is waiting for me in those pages. I want us to read Psalm 16:8-11 again because these words are just so important.

Psalm 16:8–11 NASB95

I have set the Lord continually before me; Because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. Therefore my heart is glad and my glory rejoices; My flesh also will dwell securely. For You will not abandon my soul to Sheol; Nor will You allow Your Holy One to undergo decay. 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.

What is it that David is saying and how does this connect to us? What David says in verse 8 is really the same thing that Paul would say in Romans 8:31 “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us?” If God is at my right hand, what could possibly shake me in this world? David is saying, “God is unmovable and because I am His and He is mine, I am unmovable too.” In verse 10, David says “For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol; Nor will You allow Your Holy One to undergo decay.” Sheol was what the Jews referred to as the realm of the dead. Sheol was used to describe death for both believers and unbelievers. What David is holding onto is what you and I need to hold onto as well: Resurrection hope. How can David so confidently say that the Lord would not abandon his soul to death? While he may not have seen the fullness of what he was saying, we can. We have the tendency to read the Bible back through the cross which means we can see clearly what was only seen hazily to the Old Testament writers. The reason that David and ultimately all believers in Christ can confidently know that God will not abandon them in death is because Jesus Christ, the Holy One, was raised to life and where Jesus is, we will be also. We can never be forsaken by our Heavenly Father because Jesus on the cross, took all the forsakenness that you and I deserve and took it on Himself! The reason that we have hope, the reason that Christians die will is because they have the unwavering hope that just as God has not abandoned them in life, He will not abandon them in death. The Christian will be more alive at the end of his earthly life than he was during it. I heard it said of Heaven that if we only knew what awaited us in Heaven, the joy that was to come, we wouldn’t bother looking both ways as we cross the street. C.S. Lewis wrote, “They say of some temporal suffering, ‘No future bliss can make up for it,’ not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory.” It is the assurance of future glory that will get you through not just this day but every day between now and eternity. Do you have the hope of Heaven? Because if your eyes are set on the King, it doesn’t matter what’s going on with the jester. Thomas Brooks said, “Hope can see Heaven through the thickest clouds.” If you have a living hope in a living Savior, you can go through anything in this life with the same exact confidence that David has here in Psalm 16. So do you have this hope? Do you possess it? Because a man or a woman without hope is a horrible and pitiful thing. I’m not sure if you knew this or not but during the Jewish holocaust, there have been several survivors that have said that those who lost hope would die the quickest. The body gave up the desire to live because they had no hope. I forget where I read it but one Holocaust survivor shared how as the Nazi’s would take the Jews on these death walks that there were some who looked completely healthy who would just drop dead. Man needs something to put his hope in but it needs to be in something that cannot be swayed. True hope needs to be in something that is certain. Where else can this be but in the God who never changes? We need a hope in something that is outside of us. Do you know what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15? In 1 Corinthians 15:19-28 Paul says:

1 Corinthians 15:19–28 NASB95

If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied. But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep. For since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, after that those who are Christ’s at His coming, then comes the end, when He hands over the kingdom to the God and Father, when He has abolished all rule and all authority and power. For He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet. The last enemy that will be abolished is death. For He has put all things in subjection under His feet. But when He says, “All things are put in subjection,” it is evident that He is excepted who put all things in subjection to Him. When all things are subjected to Him, then the Son Himself also will be subjected to the One who subjected all things to Him, so that God may be all in all.

There is our living hope. There is our heavenly hope. One day we will see all things subjected to Christ, to the One who was and is and is to come. This morning, where is your hope in? Let’s pray.