Psalm 16

You Will Not Abandon My Soul

I have no good apart from You (v.1-2)

A. I must say to the Lord, “You are my Lord,” because “I have no good apart from You”

You are the only God, the only One in which there is any fulfillment, satisfaction, and joy. I know that the pleasures of the world are empty, both from experience and from God’s Word. I have tasted and seen that the Lord is good, and that there is nothing like Him in this world.

I must live by this and treat You like You actually are the only God of my life if I want to have any joy at all in this life.

There is no joy or good in a life in which I am acting as the god.

B. I must pray earnestly that God will not let my heart go astray

My flesh desperately wants to take over as the god of my life, and it will if I am not constantly on guard.

I cannot guard my own heart well, but God can and promises to.

I must stay vigilant and watchful in prayer that, not just my mind, but my heart also is focused on God’s glory over my own and on God’s being God.

God delights in the saints (v.3)

A. God delights in me because I am His.

B. God delights in protecting my heart.

Running after other gods multiplies sorrows (v.4)

A. There is good in nothing apart from the Lord

Anything that I put in the place of God will not be able to fill the God-sized hole in my heart.

B. Selfishness never actually leads to joy, especially as a believer

An unbeliever has never known anything else, so living for themselves is the best that it can get even though it is empty. But a believer ultimately knows that living for themself is empty and unfulfilling, so why do we let ourself get sucked into the trap?

How can I be so stupid? I know for a fact that I have no good apart from the Lord, so why do I let myself slide into selfishness so easily? It never feels good like I want it to. But I KNEW that it wasn’t going to. Sin is never what it promises.

This is why it is so hugely important to feed the truth into my brain like an IV. The very second I stop thinking about the Lord and His Scripture my flesh begins to take over. I must not stop. I must “set the Lord always before me.”

My Beautiful Inheritance

A. Because He is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.

He will never leave me nor forsake me

B. There is no good apart from God, but He is always with me

THEREFORE my heart is glad

A. In your presence there is fulness of joy

B. You promise to never abandon my soul