The Life of the Holy One
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Introduction
Introduction
I have been going through Psalm 16 the last few times I have preached and we now come to the last three verses that conclude this Psalm.
As I have done in the past, I would like to read through the whole Psalm so we can keep it fresh in our mind.
Text
Text
A Miktam of David. 1 Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge. 2 I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you.” 3 As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones, in whom is all my delight. 4 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. 5 The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup; you hold my lot. 6 The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance. 7 I bless the Lord who gives me counsel; in the night also my heart instructs me. 8 I have set the Lord always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken. 9 Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices; my flesh also dwells secure. 10 For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your holy one see corruption. 11 You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
One of the main themes and focus of this Psalm is the Lord’s presence in our life.
We see promise after promise of this.
The Lord will never abandon us.
His presence is ever with us.
He preserves us and we find refuge in the Lord.
He is our only source of true goodness.
He delights in us as His saints.
In Him, we find our strength, our counsel, and perfect wise instruction.
And because of Him we are not shaken.
We have a sure footing in this life.
We do not have to wander to and fro and be tossed around from one belief to the next.
The life of a Christian is one of assurance in the Lord.
The last 3 verses of this Psalm hammer this point home.
They are the apex of this Psalm, and the culmination of our relationship with Him, which goes beyond the peace and security of this life but show us the promise of eternal life with Him.
And when we look at these 3 verses we can look back at the first 8 verses of this Psalm and realize that these promises are not just for the here and now but they are for eternity.
I want to conclude our time in this Psalm by looking at these last 3 verses.
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.
The Picture of What the Christian Heart Should Be
The Picture of What the Christian Heart Should Be
David begins these verses by saying, “Therefore, my heart is glad”
The word “Therefore” is an indication that David is coming to a conclusion and bringing all that he said before to a final point.
Because of all that he said in verses 1-8, he says “my heart is glad and my whole being rejoices.”
David rejoices and is glad and dwells securely because of the goodness of God, His refuge, His preservation, His wise counsel, and His instruction.
For David, the response to all this great news is an outpouring of worship.
The Lord has given him so much that David can’t help but rejoice.
And this should be our response as well.
This does not mean that we are supposed to laugh when life punches us in the face.
It goes deeper than this.
It is the kind of joy that Paul had, who was able to worship God sitting in prison after being beaten and shipwrecked.
And when I read this Psalm and I see David’s heart, I wonder how can I have this heart?
How is it possible to live with this kind of joy every day?
How is it possible to have a heart that is glad and rejoices?
In thinking about this and meditating on this Psalm, I see 3 things that are a part of David’s life that must be present in our life.
They are as follows.
David has an awareness of God.
David has a relationship with God
David worships God
Be Aware Of God
Be Aware Of God
Let’s first talk about being aware of God.
All of these things that David writes about in Psalm 16 come from a heart that has been made aware of God and is continually aware of Him.
Verse 11 says that God has “made known to him” the path of Life.
God has revealed it and David is now aware.
For someone to live in a state of gladness in the Lord, this awareness must come first.
This is not the only time we read of this in scriptures
The Lord has made known his salvation; he has revealed his righteousness in the sight of the nations.
At that time Jesus declared, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children;
All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.
In order for our hearts to be glad, we must be made aware of God and who He is.
Of course, it has to go beyond simple awareness in the sense that we are aware that there is a God.
I am aware of a lot of things.
I am aware of Weis markets in town.
I am aware of the rust spot on my car. I am aware of my parents. I am aware of my gray hair.
Being aware of God involves being aware of not only who he is but what he has done and what he will do.
It is a total awareness of the personhood and character of God.
And it is a constant awareness which involves meditating and studying. Getting to know God.
I love my wife because I am aware of her but I also know her.
I know who she is and what she does and how she feels about me.
But I did not marry my wife and then stop thinking about her.
I think about her all the time.
I am continually aware of her and getting to know her more.
And for us to continue in this state of awareness we must think about God.
We must have our minds stayed upon Him and His word.
We must seek Him.
Remember verse 8, David says, “I have set the Lord always before me.”
David is constantly thinking about God.
The reason that this awareness must come first is because it the first step to having a relationship with someone.
Without this awareness in our mind we have nothing to rejoice in.
We cannot be happy about something of which we are not aware.
And we certainly cannot have a relationship with someone who we do not know.
An example of how this works......
If someone tells you that you are going to love a certain food and that it will be your favorite food and the most amazing dish you have ever eaten if your life.
They tell you that the ingredients cost thousands of dollars and come from the deepest remotest jungles in the world.
They tell you that only 200 people have ever had the privilege of eating this food.......... but ........ they don’t tell you what it is or where to find it or how to cook it.
So no matter how amazing this food is, it can’t be your favorite food because you have never tasted it.
You have never seen it. You aren’t aware of it. You don’t know it.
So in order for us to have a heart that is glad in the Lord we must be aware of God and we must meditate on God and what he has done for us.
We must taste and see that the Lord is good.
One of the main reasons that we can sometimes struggle with faith is that our awareness of God dwindles.
We stop thinking about him.
Like Peter, who lost focus and took his eyes off Jesus walking on the water in a storm, we sink and need Him to pull us up again.
When we cry out to him and set our eyes on him again we are reminded of who he is and what he has done.
When I find myself in a frame of mind that goes against what God has promised the Christian life to be, I have usually been unaware of God and very aware of myself.
My mind is focused on the things of this world instead of the creator of this world.
And when your mind is focused on something other than God you cannot be be glad in the Lord because the mind is what triggers the heart.
This is why we are told to worship with our heart and our mind.
This is why it is vital that we are spending time in the word daily and thinking about God constantly.
We must always be aware of God.
God makes it possible for us to be aware of Him
“He has made known to us the path of life.”
Second, in addition to being aware of God we must be in right relationship with God.
In verse 11 we read that “in your presence there is fullness of joy and at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”
This is a promise that indicates relationship with God.
To be in the presence of God is to be in right relationship.
To be receiving pleasures forever is a sign of closeness.
Be In a Relationship With God
Be In a Relationship With God
We must be in relationship with God because awareness is not enough.
I did not become married to my wife by simply being aware of her.
There was a process and there was a moment we entered into a covenant relationship.
It is the same with God.
It is not enough for a person to read their Bible and be mentally aware of who God is and what he has done for the world.
It is not enough to show up at church every week.
Even demons are aware of who God is. Even more than we are.
They even believe in God but they do not submit to him in faith.
They are not in right covenant relationship with God. They do not have the Holy Spirit in them.
So there must be be both an awareness and a relationship with God before we can ever have gladness in Him.
There are countless passages in the Bible that call us to this right relationship.
One of the most amazing is found in the Gospel of John.
And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.
22 The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.
This unity with Christ is the only way we can be in relationship with God.
Jesus in us and God in Jesus.
We are now one with Christ.
And when we are aware of God and we dwell in relationship with Him, we come to the 3rd characteristic of the glad Christian heart and that is worship.
Be Worshipping God
Be Worshipping God
A Christian who is truly aware of God, and knows God cannot help but worship God.
Our hearts will overflow.
Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices; my flesh also dwells secure.
David paints a complete picture of mankind here because we see the heart, his being, and his flesh.
The word for heart refers to the inner being or as Matthew Poole puts it, the “proper seat of joy and all the affections.”
This phrase “my whole being rejoices” is interesting because the word that is used here for being means “glory”.
Meaning that the entirety of man in all his glory, of body, soul, and mind worships God.
Some other examples we see in the Psalms:
My heart is steadfast, O God!
I will sing and make melody with all my being!
that my glory may sing your praise and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever!
Awake, my glory! Awake, O harp and lyre! I will awake the dawn!
David is aware of God and knows God and worships God.
David completes the picture of the spiritual and physical makeup of humans when he says “my flesh is secure”
Another verse that points to this complete picture of man is
Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
David is making it very clear that when it comes to worship, every fiber of his being rejoices in God.
His heart, his soul, his mind, and his tongue.
Worship is done with our whole being because we feel with our heart and soul and think with our mind.
It is so important for us to realize these things when we worship God.
If we mouth the words to songs or prayers with no heart or understanding we are not truly worshipping.
If we only dance around for joy looking for the goosebumps of emotion but have no idea what we’re happy about we are not worshipping.
Worship involves our whole being that is responding to our relational awareness of God.
These are the three things I see in this Psalm that must be in place before we can be glad in the Lord.
We must be aware, we must be in relationship with God, we must be worshipping God.
And our gladness and our worship comes from the outpouring of a mind and a heart that is full of God.
Worship is our response of thanksgiving to these amazing gifts of God.
God Gives Us True Life
God Gives Us True Life
As I said, David then concludes verse 9 by saying, “my flesh dwells securely.”
David is obviously not saying nothing will happen to his flesh.
The word “securely” means “confident”. David’s flesh dwells confidently in this world.
We too can dwell confidently in this life.
We dwell confidently not only because of who God is and what he has provided for us in this life, but also what he has done for us in the light of eternity.
It does not matter what happens to our body because our soul has been saved.
He has made known to us the path of life that does not go away.
Psalm 16:10-11 This is what Verses 10-11 are about.
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.
There are promises of eternity in this passage.
Phrases like “pleasures forevermore”, and not being abandoned to Sheol and not seeing corruption, all point to something that is eternal.
In light of this, we must deal with another question.
What does David mean by saying “you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your holy one see corruption?”
For the Hebrews, Sheol was where you went after you died.
The Baker encyclopedia of the Bible defines it at as follows:
Sheol. Hebrew term of uncertain etymology. In ordinary usage it means ravine, chasm, underworld, or world of the dead. In the OT it is the place where the dead have their abode, a hollow space underneath the earth where the dead are gathered in. Synonyms for Sheol are pit, death, and destruction (Abaddon). Sheol is a place of shadows and utter silence. Here all existence is in suspense, yet it is not a nonplace like utopia, but rather a place where life is no more.
Elwell, W. A., & Beitzel, B. J. (1988). Sheol. In Baker encyclopedia of the Bible (Vol. 2, p. 1948). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House.
The word “corruption” also refers to a pit or the grave.
In order to interpret this, we must face the glaring issue here that David is dead.
And since he is dead and in the grave, reason would have us ask, who is “the holy one?”
As you have probably figured out, this is a prophetic Psalm about Jesus.
Both Peter and Paul quote this Psalm in the book of Acts in reference to Jesus.
Paul says this in Acts 13:35-37
Therefore he says also in another psalm, “ ‘You will not let your Holy One see corruption.’ For David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep and was laid with his fathers and saw corruption, but he whom God raised up did not see corruption.
And Peter quotes the last 4 verses of this Psalm in Acts 2:25-28 but then says this in Acts 2:29-31
“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.
When we understand that David was talking about Jesus, this Psalm makes more sense in the context of the Gospel.
God raised Jesus from the grave.
Jesus is the Holy one who did not see corruption.
Jesus’ soul was not abandoned to Sheol.
But........ While David is prophesying of Jesus here, this promise applies to us as well.
The resurrection of Jesus is the most important part of the Gospel because it is a symbol for what the Gospel does for us.
First, it applies to us when Jesus returns.
We will physically be raised from the dead to put on immortal bodies.
I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.”
God will raise all those who believe in him from the dead when he returns to live with him.
Secondly, we have also been raised from the dead even now in a spiritual sense.
23 Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” 24 Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” 25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”
I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him.
Our flesh dwells securely because we already walk in newness of life.
We have already been spiritually raised from the grave.
Our old self was crucified with Christ 2000 years ago.
And every person who has believed in Jesus as the son of God ever since that moment has been resurrected in newness of life.
Death no longer has dominion over us.
We do not need to live this life in fear of death because we are called to live with Christ now, and for eternity when we are raised from the grave.
And if this were not enough, we have been made holy.
If you believe in Jesus, you are a holy one. Not only as an individual but as part of the universal church.
12 Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience,
19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, 21 in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. 22 In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.
The Life of the Holy One is what this Psalm is about.
It is about Jesus.
It is about the Gospel.
It is about you who believe in Jesus.
It is the promise of how God takes each one of us sinners who fail every day and transforms us without any merit of our own.
There is no goodness in us that can partake in these gifts and promises in Psalm 16 without Jesus and the Holy Spirit coming into our hearts.
There is no strength in us to muster up a glad heart without God revealing himself to us, allowing us to be in relationship with him and allowing us to worship him.
The Gospel is not about trying to live a life without sin in order to earn salvation.
The Gospel is that our sinful self died with Christ and we have been raised in newness of life even now in part, but also for eternity when we will be physically raised from the dead as he was.
The Gospel has made us Holy and righteous in God’s eyes because of Jesus.
I am not making lite of COVID, but there has been so much focus on death these last couple years that I fear people can easily forget the promise that we have in this life.
God has made known the path of life. And there is nothing that can take this away from us.
Not COVID, not cancer, not sickness, and not even physical death can take away the life of the holy one.
It is on this path that we are preserved, we are protected, we find God’s goodness, our inheritance, and God’s wisdom and counsel not just for this temporal life on earth but for eternity.
It is on this path of life that we find Jesus.
6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
How can we not have a heart that is glad when we are aware of this good news?
I encourage us all today to take serious stock or our thoughts today.
Stop and ask yourself, what are you focused on daily. What are you aware of these days?
Are your eyes on Jesus?
If we are only focused on ourselves, we will never be able to be glad because there is nothing about us that that is worth being glad about, with the exception of Jesus and that you are a child of God.
When we focus on Jesus and what he has done for us, and that we live in the newness of life even now, it is then we will have something to be glad about and it is then that our whole being will rejoice.
The Life of the Holy one is found in Jesus.
Amen.