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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
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.
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
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
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
We must be in relationship with God because awareness is not enough.
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