The Soul's One Refuge
“Hope can see heaven through the thickest clouds.”
So wrote the Puritan Thomas Brooks in his book, Heaven on Earth. It is a treatise on assurance in the Christian life. And Psalm 16, which we will look at today, is an extended prayer about that concept, the hope and security that is found in Christ alone.
Psalm 16 can be found starting on page 304 of the pew Bible. Psalm 16 is the lectionary Psalm this week, which as I mentioned a couple weeks ago, I like to go to for my preaching text during church holidays and these margin weeks in between other series.
Psalm 16 is a song of trust and of confession of faith in God through and by Jesus Christ. It is a song of confidence and assurance in the faithful care and provision of the Heavenly Father as we journey through good times, dark times, and as we eventually face the time of our death.
Our big idea from Psalm 16 this morning is this:
In times of mounting adversity, rejoice and trust in the Lord. Recount the blessings of following him and hope for the glory to come through our Savior Jesus Christ.
In times of mounting adversity, rejoice and trust in the Lord. Recount the blessings of following him and hope for the glory to come through our Savior Jesus Christ.
I trust you are in Psalm 16 at this point, so let’s read our text this morning.
Psalm 16 CSB
A Miktam of David.
1 Protect me, God, for I take refuge in you.
2 I said to the Lord, “You are my Lord; I have nothing good besides you.”
3 As for the holy people who are in the land, they are the noble ones. All my delight is in them.
4 The sorrows of those who take another god for themselves will multiply; I will not pour out their drink offerings of blood, and I will not speak their names with my lips.
5 Lord, you are my portion and my cup of blessing; you hold my future.
6 The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.
7 I will bless the Lord who counsels me— even at night when my thoughts trouble me.
8 I always let the Lord guide me. Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken.
9 Therefore my heart is glad and my whole being rejoices; my body also rests securely.
10 For you will not abandon me to Sheol; you will not allow your faithful one to see decay.
11 You reveal the path of life to me; in your presence is abundant joy; at your right hand are eternal pleasures.
In times of mounting adversity, rejoice and trust in the Lord. Recount the blessings of following him and hope for the glory to come through our Savior Jesus Christ.
That is David’s end here in this psalm: to express his confidence in the provision of the Lord in the midst of some adversity and to declare his trust that God will keep him in death.
This morning, I want to call our attention to three ways David expresses his confidence and trust in the Lord:
David acknowledges God as
his satisfaction,
his stability, and
his security.
Those 3 points will be the first half of my sermon. David acknowledges God as his satisfaction, his stability, and his security.
And in the latter half of today’s sermon we will look at how this Psalm applies to Christ — or better, how Christ applies this Psalm to us.
Reading and preaching the Psalms presents an interesting challenge, much like the rest of the Old Testament, in that we must find the proper balance between understanding the words in its immediate context — that is, as David wrote them — but also looking for Christ. Jesus said on numerous occasions that the Scriptures pointed to him as their fulfillment. And so, we misread this Psalm, and all Psalms, and all the Old Testament, and all the Bible, if we do not see Jesus.
Thankfully, with Psalm 16, Saint Peter makes it easy for us by taking the words of this psalm and applying them properly to Christ in Acts 2, which we will look at later.
But first, let’s look at the Psalm itself.
David starts this Psalm with a quiet, yet confident plea: Protect me.
We don’t know exactly what was going on in David’s life at this point — there is no indication of the exact trouble he’s facing — but it seems like something bad. Maybe this was written after his father-in-law tried to murder him in the palace. Maybe it was while he was on the run and had to hide in caves. Maybe it was written before one of the many battles David fought. Maybe it was while he was fleeing for his life after his son staged a coup.
We don’t know, but we do know that David understood that God was his only protection. I think some translations put it as preserve me or keep me safe. The idea is that of a shepherd looking out for their sheep, a task David understood well.
I take refuge in you. David had to put his trust exclusively in God.
And the basis for that trust are the three confessions that David makes.
Satisfaction
First, he confesses the Lord as his sole satisfaction. Verses 1 and 2:
Psalm 16:1–2 CSB
1 Protect me, God, for I take refuge in you.
2 I said to the Lord, “You are my Lord; I have nothing good besides you.”
David is expressing his total reliance on the Lord. He says you, God, are the source of all good things.
When good things happen to me, I know that they are from you. And therefore I acknowledge you as my sole satisfaction. And then he takes it a step further: I have nothing good besides you.
All of the gifts you give? Trinkets, compared to your presence.
The palace, the kingship, the army? You can keep them if I can keep you.
The temple, the treasury? Without you, they might as well be scrap.
God was David’s one and only good thing.
If we’re really honest with ourselves, how many of us are finding our satisfaction in the things that God gives more than God himself?
How many of us find our satisfaction in the act of coming to church rather than worshiping the Lord of the church?
Paul said it well in Philippians 3, that he was joyful to suffer the loss of all things for the sake of Christ. In fact, he counted all of the stuff as dung next to the surpassing value of knowing Jesus Christ.
Christ himself is the only satisfaction for our soul.
Stability
Secondly, David proclaims that the Lord is his only source of stability in this life, and that he will not turn to idols for assurance.
Look again at verse 3 and following:
Psalm 16:3–4 CSB
3 As for the holy people who are in the land, they are the noble ones. All my delight is in them.
4 The sorrows of those who take another god for themselves will multiply; I will not pour out their drink offerings of blood, and I will not speak their names with my lips.
David’s doing two things here: he’s praising the community that remains faithful to God in times of adversity and repudiating those who would turn away when times get tough.
The holy people are the noble ones. All my delight is in them.
I’m just gonna jump straight to application here, it’s pretty self explanatory. Guys, Christian community is so important for us. Being gathered together is so important for us. We have, built in as the Church, a system to hone and strengthen us in our faith and in our doctrine. To help carry us when we are down. To rejoice with us when we are rejoicing.
But then look at verse 4. He compares the faithful community to those who pursue other idols.
Now, it’s important for us to get this here. David is not talking about the nations who worshipped other gods. He’s not bemoaning the sins of “those people out there.”
He’s talking about people in his community who left Yahweh, or added other idols to their worship. “Those who take another God.” They had Yahweh, but decided that times were too scary, they needed something more tangible. When things felt unstable, they felt like they needed something they could see to get them through.
For those people, their sorrows will be multiplied. He’s using the same words that God used in Genesis 3 to describe part of the curse. In childbirth, your sorrows or pain will be multiplied. Because you relied on something else for your stability, because you had me and turned away from me, sorrows are being multiplied.
How many idols are we turning to for stability in times when things feel bad?
Are you trying to pile up money to make sure you don’t run out? Is sacrificial giving the first thing on the chopping block in your budget when gas prices go up?
When the nation falls deeper and deeper into sin, are you placing our trust in God who rules over all things and who can actually change hearts or do you look to people who promise they can somehow make America great again?
When things feel out of control at home, do you pour yourself into you work? If I can just sell this much more, if I can just process this much more, if I can just harvest this much more, things will be OK.
In a world where things seem to be changing faster and faster every day are holding on with a death grip to tradition to try and slow it down?
Fear — fear of the unknown, fear of missing out, fear of losing something — it drives us to seek stability somewhere, anywhere.
It’s no secret that Christianity is on the decline in the United States. Yes, if you try to define it culturally, a vague belief in God like the Founding Fathers had or something, you might still see strong numbers. But theologically, those who are actually trusting in Christ, and with a biblical worldview we are the minority.
And it’s been trending that way since about the 60s, honestly. But I think middle-aged and older Christians began to feel it in the 90s and early 2000s. And they got fearful, a deep-seated anxiety settled in that things were changing. Kids and grand kids weren’t going to church anymore. Sin was becoming more normal and open and expressive.
And it’s at that point that our idols start creeping up and whispering: we can fix this. Look at what they’re doing. They’re stealing God’s rainbow. They’re taking God out of schools. They’re taking your jobs. They’re taking over your neighborhoods. They’re taking your guns. They’re forcing you to wear a mask and get a shot.
Fear and desperation make us do whatever we have to do to make sure things stay like they are. But idols do not help and then quietly go away. They deeply entrench themselves into our hearts until we no longer see them as idols but simply the way we are. The human heart is deceitful above all things, Jeremiah says. We lie to ourselves and defend our idols to death.
Stability in this world is a myth. Things will change. Sin will flourish. We will lose power in the public sphere and that is OK, because that is not what Christianity is about. We are called to make disciples not win Senate seats. We are called to take the gospel to the nations, not build up our nation.
Psalm 16:5 CSB
5 Lord, you are my portion and my cup of blessing; you hold my future.
Don’t buy the lie that anything can make this life more stable. Stability is found in Christ alone.
Security
Third, David expresses his confidence in the Lord for his security, because the Lord guides his life and holds his death. Look at verse 7:
Psalm 16:7–11 CSB
7 I will bless the Lord who counsels me— even at night when my thoughts trouble me.
8 I always let the Lord guide me. Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken.
9 Therefore my heart is glad and my whole being rejoices; my body also rests securely.
10 For you will not abandon me to Sheol; you will not allow your faithful one to see decay.
11 You reveal the path of life to me; in your presence is abundant joy; at your right hand are eternal pleasures.
I won’t spend much time here, but when David was looking at death, he was able to say, God, I trust that you will not abandon me. Even looking at death there is joy because I am in your presence.
Memento mori. Remember that you will die. And if you are in Christ, see that for the secure thing it is. With Christ, the grave is a comfortable place.
Christ’s Prayer
And now, for our last few minutes, let’s turn and see how this Psalm is applied to us through the work of Jesus Christ.
Go ahead and turn in your Bibles to Acts 2. The portion we will look at today is on page 620. Acts 2, of course, like we saw just a few weeks ago is the narrative of the Day of Pentecost, when Jesus poured out His Holy Spirit on the disciples. Through the preaching of the gospel by the power of the Holy Spirit, the New Testament Church was born when 3000 people repented and came to Christ in faith. Let's look at the part of Peter’s sermon where he quotes Psalm 16, verse 22:
Acts 2:22–25 CSB
22 “Fellow Israelites, listen to these words: This Jesus of Nazareth was a man attested to you by God with miracles, wonders, and signs that God did among you through him, just as you yourselves know.
23 Though he was delivered up according to God’s determined plan and foreknowledge, you used lawless people to nail him to a cross and kill him.
24 God raised him up, ending the pains of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by death.
25 For David says of him: I saw the Lord ever before me; because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken.
Peter says in his sermon that David, when writing Psalm 16 was ultimately speaking about Jesus, the Messiah. In this sense, then, we can read Psalm 16 as Jesus’ own words, Jesus’ own prayer.
Listen to these words now in that sense, as Jesus himself proclaiming them. Imagine the Savior, praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, drops of blood pouring from his head as his body and spirit are in anguish about the morning which is to come, and then hear the confident trust toward the Father:
Acts 2:25–28 CSB
25 For David says of him: I saw the Lord ever before me; because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken.
26 Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices. Moreover, my flesh will rest in hope,
27 because you will not abandon me in Hades or allow your holy one to see decay.
28 You have revealed the paths of life to me; you will fill me with gladness in your presence.
It is on this foundation of confidence in the Lord that Jesus can say, “Not my will, but yours be done.” Knowing full-well that God’s will would lead him in just a few short hours to torture, and mocking, and beating, and crucifixion, and ultimately to death. With that misery on the horizon, Jesus can say that his flesh will rest in hope.
“My flesh will rest in hope, because you will not abandon me in Hades.”
It is from this line, both in Psalm 16 and Acts 2, where we get in part the phrase in the Apostle’s Creed, “He descended into hell.”
When Christ offered himself as a sacrifice for the sin of the world, it was necessary for him to receive the due punishment for the sin that was placed upon him. All of the sin of God’s elect was put upon Jesus and he bore it at his death, taking it to the grave to face Death and Hades.
But, because the sinless one died for the sinner, he could face Death and Hades with the confidence of the words of this Psalm: “My flesh will rest in hope, because you will not abandon me in Hades.” Necessary for him to go to bear the sin to the grave, but impossible for it to keep him, because he had done nothing to earn the wages of sin.
And now, because his sacrifice atoned for sin, those who are in Christ have the same benefit.
Look back at Acts 2, let’s see what Peter does with this:
Acts 2:32–33 CSB
“God has raised this Jesus; we are all witnesses of this. Therefore, since he has been exalted to the right hand of God and has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit, he has poured out what you both see and hear.
God raised Jesus from the grave and raised him on high to rule over all things because of his obedience. And Paul will say later, we saw this in 1 Corinthians 15, that all the benefits of the resurrection belong to us in Christ.
In Christ, we will not be abandoned to Hades.
In Christ, our flesh will not see decay.
In Christ, we will not be shaken.
In Christ, our flesh rests in hope.
That is why we can cling to the Lord as our soul’s one refuge. That is why we need not fear when the world seems evil. That is why we need not turn to the idols that our hearts create for security. That is why we need not be in a posture of culture war. We don’t have to protect Jesus or the Christian way of life. We don’t have to protect Jesus from Disney. Or protect Jesus from the liberals. Or protect Jesus from the communists.
Guys, is our God that weak? Is our God that small? No! He is the protector. Do you remember what happened on the night that Jesus gave himself up to be crucified? In the Garden of Gethsemane? Do you remember? The mob comes to take Jesus and Peter whips out his sword, “I gotta make Israel great again!” and chops off some dude’s ear. What does Jesus say to him? Put it away, man! Don’t you know I can take care of myself?
Despite the heresy — yes, I said heresy — that a certain US Representative might say, the government didn’t kill Jesus because he didn’t have enough AR-15s to defend himself. He went willingly and told his followers to pray with him, not fight for him.
Let’s put away our swords and take up our cross, because we have a sure hope in Christ. God has already proven that he will fulfill his promises by doing it for Christ and giving us the Holy Spirit as a guarantee that he will do the same for us.
In Christ, our hope is sure, so cling to him.
Psalm 16:11 CSB
You reveal the path of life to me;
in your presence is abundant joy;
at your right hand are eternal pleasures.
Do you long for meaning full direction? Find it in the one who reveals life’s paths. Rest assured, the path of life for the Christian leads to a cross, to giving up ourselves, to adversity, but the path of the cross is the path of glory.
Do you long for joy? Find it in the presence of the Holy One.
Do you long for eternal pleasures? They are at the right hand of the Lord, David says. And when we look to the right hand of the Almighty, we see the Lion of Judah, the Lamb who was slain, seated, ruling over all things, letting nothing go by. Counting our tears. Eternal pleasures are in Jesus the Christ, he is our soul’s one refuge.
In times of mounting adversity, rejoice and trust in the Lord. Recount the blessings of following him and hope for the glory to come through our Savior Jesus Christ.
Put your idols to death. Put down your swords. And take up Jesus and the cross today. Let’s pray.