The NXR Podcast - SUNDAY SERMON - How To Pray In Times Of Trouble (Part 1) - Psalm 16

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, real quick, before we get started, I have a small request.

00:00:03.360 If you've been blessed by our content and you like this show,

00:00:06.420 would you take just a brief moment and leave us a five-star review?

00:00:09.760 This is quite possibly the most effective thing that you can do

00:00:12.860 to ensure that this content gets out to as many people as possible.

00:00:17.520 Thanks.

00:00:18.000 Our text for today is Psalm 16.

00:00:21.480 God's Word says this,

00:00:23.360 Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge.

00:00:27.640 I say to the Lord, You are my Lord.

00:00:30.860 I have no good apart from You.

00:00:33.600 As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones, in whom is all my delight.

00:00:39.080 The sorrows of those who run after another God shall multiply.

00:00:43.280 Their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out or take their names on my lips.

00:00:49.140 The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup.

00:00:52.520 You hold my lot.

00:00:53.820 The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places.

00:00:57.100 Indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.

00:01:00.580 I bless the Lord who gives me counsel.

00:01:03.600 In the night also my heart instructs me.

00:01:06.640 I have set the Lord always before me.

00:01:09.260 Because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.

00:01:13.340 Therefore, my heart is glad and my whole being rejoices.

00:01:16.800 My flesh also dwells secure.

00:01:19.560 For you will not abandon my soul to shield or let your Holy One see corruption.

00:01:24.140 You make known to me the path of life.

00:01:27.520 In your presence there is fullness of joy.

00:01:30.260 At your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

00:01:33.700 This is the word of the Lord.

00:01:36.760 Please be seated and join me as I pray for us once more.

00:01:40.520 Father, we thank you for your word.

00:01:43.200 And now by your grace and by the revelation,

00:01:47.400 the spiritual eye-opening power of the Holy Spirit with humble hearts,

00:01:52.160 we acknowledge, not only acknowledge, but we agree with,

00:01:57.440 we give our assent to the testimony of your word,

00:02:00.920 namely that each of us have sinned and fallen short of your glory.

00:02:05.480 And that by virtue of our own volitional rebellion against you,

00:02:10.620 by virtue of the fact that each of us as individuals

00:02:14.060 have committed cosmic treason against the king of all kings,

00:02:18.600 the king of the universe, we have by our sin forfeited whatever right we may have previously

00:02:25.660 possessed in order to be deserving of or entitled to a revelation of your truth, a revelation of you

00:02:34.260 and who you are and what you've done. As sinners, we do not deserve the privilege of knowing

00:02:43.220 the holy God.

00:02:46.140 And so, your word,

00:02:48.060 a revelation of who you are,

00:02:49.760 what you've done,

00:02:50.540 and what it is that you require from man

00:02:53.180 as a right response of obedience

00:02:55.540 and love and worship,

00:02:57.420 this revelation of your truth

00:02:59.360 comes to us this morning

00:03:00.880 as it always does.

00:03:02.680 It comes to us as an undeserved gift.

00:03:05.220 It comes to us as unmerited favor.

00:03:07.700 It comes to us as grace.

00:03:11.140 And so, Father, we pray

00:03:12.280 that by the power of your Holy Spirit

00:03:15.100 that you might properly equip us

00:03:19.000 to be good stewards of this grace.

00:03:22.220 That you might equip us with spiritual eyes to see

00:03:25.760 and spiritual ears to hear

00:03:28.000 with new hearts that are softened and malleable

00:03:30.960 and receptive to your truth.

00:03:34.140 Father, I ask that indeed

00:03:35.520 through the preaching of your word today

00:03:37.660 coupled by the conviction

00:03:39.560 and the illuminating power of the Holy Spirit

00:03:42.840 that your people would, in fact,

00:03:44.940 arrive at a greater, more accurate,

00:03:47.460 more proper, more biblical understanding

00:03:50.060 of who you are, of what you've done,

00:03:53.300 and of what it is that you require

00:03:55.180 from each of us in obedience,

00:03:57.560 in worship, in adoration.

00:04:00.180 And Father, we pray that this right knowledge

00:04:02.420 of who you are,

00:04:03.980 that it wouldn't just be good theology

00:04:06.260 as an end in itself,

00:04:08.220 That it wouldn't just be right knowledge for the sake of right knowledge, but that right knowledge of you would serve as the necessary means, as a platform propelling us into right love for you.

00:04:24.040 The heart cannot adore what the mind does not know.

00:04:28.600 An empty mind lends towards an idolatrous and wandering heart.

00:04:35.440 In order for us to have right affection and love for you,

00:04:39.640 we must rightly in our minds know you.

00:04:43.640 So Father, we pray that that would be achieved

00:04:46.740 by your grace and power today,

00:04:48.880 that through the preaching of your word,

00:04:51.000 our minds would be filled with right truth,

00:04:55.080 right knowledge of you,

00:04:57.040 and that this would propel our hearts

00:05:00.420 into right love for you,

00:05:02.900 a right response to your word.

00:05:06.500 We pray all these things ultimately

00:05:08.360 that you might be glorified in all the earth.

00:05:11.120 But we also pray these things

00:05:12.820 for the good of those people

00:05:13.860 that you're saving across the globe,

00:05:16.560 in our city,

00:05:17.840 and perhaps even in this room.

00:05:20.860 We pray these things

00:05:22.180 in the precious name of your son, Jesus.

00:05:24.780 Amen.

00:05:26.780 By way of introduction,

00:05:28.340 if you have your sermon notes,

00:05:29.700 feel free to follow along.

00:05:31.420 I've written the following.

00:05:32.900 The main point, I believe, of Psalm chapter 16 is this.

00:05:36.960 God promises to preserve all his people, both body and soul,

00:05:42.860 through life and death to complete and eternal pleasure.

00:05:48.240 Or we could say it like this.

00:05:49.580 God promises to preserve, that is to maintain, to sustain all of his people,

00:05:55.280 not some of them, but all who have been born again by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.

00:05:59.580 all his sons and daughters who have been adopted by the ministry of the Holy Spirit

00:06:05.200 God promises without exception to preserve and sustain and hold and keep all of his people

00:06:14.720 both physically and spiritually body and soul not only through this life but even through death

00:06:22.460 and to carry us all the way to a particular end.

00:06:27.100 This end being complete and eternal pleasure,

00:06:31.400 that is fullness of joy and a full duration of joy.

00:06:37.480 That in God and only in God himself

00:06:40.540 can we experience and receive not only our highest joy,

00:06:46.000 but our everlasting joy.

00:06:49.540 God is the only being in all the universe,

00:06:53.280 the only someone or also the only something.

00:06:56.920 Not that God is a thing, but out of all things and all people,

00:07:01.280 God is the only being in all the universe

00:07:04.880 who can provide for us joy, comfort, pleasure, happiness,

00:07:12.040 blessedness in full measure and full duration.

00:07:18.800 Another way of saying this is that heaven apart from God would be, in a sense, hell.

00:07:24.960 I don't want it to be a biblical hell.

00:07:27.140 The Bible says that what makes hell hell is not the absence of God's presence.

00:07:33.160 Many Christians are confused on this matter.

00:07:35.500 They think that hell is hell because God is not there.

00:07:40.400 But the reality, the frightening reality that makes hell so terrible is not that God is absent,

00:07:47.340 But that God is present in hell, but he is only present in his judgment, in his justice, in his wrath.

00:07:59.200 Now we know that God is present in hell because David prays elsewhere in the Psalms.

00:08:04.460 He says, where can I go that your presence would not be with me?

00:08:08.600 If I'm on the ocean or the bottom of the sea, or I'm on the land, or I was in the sky, or even in the earth, or Hades.

00:08:17.340 Sheol, you are there. 0.63

00:08:19.720 We know that God is in hell because God is omnipresent.

00:08:26.580 He is infinite.

00:08:28.420 If there is anywhere in all the universe,

00:08:32.500 in the heavenly realms or the earthly planes that God is absent,

00:08:36.380 then we must say that in some capacity, God is finite in his presence.

00:08:41.540 But if God is infinite, not only in his power, omnipotence,

00:08:46.340 not only in his love, his omnibenevolence,

00:08:50.560 not only in his knowledge, omniscience,

00:08:53.820 but also that God is infinite in his presence,

00:08:57.280 then we must say he is omnipresent,

00:09:00.420 meaning there is nowhere where God cannot be found.

00:09:06.100 The beauty of the immutability of God,

00:09:09.920 the doctrine of God's unchangeableness,

00:09:13.600 is that God remains the same

00:09:16.000 yesterday today and forevermore god never changes the old testament says this the prophet speaking

00:09:25.900 on behalf of god god says behold i am the lord i changeth not so that you the sons of jacob

00:09:33.800 are not consumed it is to the great and eternal benefit of the people of god that our god is

00:09:41.940 immutable, that he never changes, that he will not change his mind. Elsewhere in the scripture,

00:09:49.440 the Bible says, God is not a man that he should repent or change his mind. When the scripture

00:09:57.660 uses language like this, that God repented of making man when he saw the great evil on the earth.

00:10:04.940 The Bible, when it speaks with these kinds of terms, we must understand this in theological

00:10:10.740 terms as the doctrine of analogy. The overarching doctrine here, the overarching banner is the

00:10:17.600 doctrine of analogy. Now, underneath this banner of the doctrine of analogy, we have two primary

00:10:23.200 categories. One is understanding the physical traits, as it were, of God in analogous terms.

00:10:33.780 The theological term that you may not be familiar with, but perhaps some of you have heard it before,

00:10:39.020 is the idea of God having eyes

00:10:43.840 that roam to and fro over all the earth

00:10:46.060 looking for the righteous

00:10:47.720 or that God has a right arm

00:10:49.940 that is mighty to save.

00:10:52.760 This is the analogous language

00:10:54.600 that speaks of God in physical ways.

00:10:58.580 And the word I actually cannot remember right now

00:11:01.820 for some reason.

00:11:04.740 Anthropomorphic, thank you.

00:11:05.780 That's the beauty of doing church

00:11:07.200 in a living room, in a home.

00:11:09.020 With educated saints such as you, I knew that somebody would have it.

00:11:13.840 Anthropomorphic.

00:11:14.320 On the other side, the other category, underneath this banner of the doctrine of analogy, it's anthropopathic.

00:11:21.760 So anthropopathic is tending to speak of God in emotional ways.

00:11:27.720 So when the Bible says that God was grieved, or when the Bible says that God was happy,

00:11:33.760 We should always understand these kinds of sayings about God as analogous.

00:11:40.740 God was grieved as it were.

00:11:44.020 We should use that phrase, as it were.

00:11:46.640 Or God has eyes roaming to and fro over the whole earth as it were.

00:11:51.120 Now, these are proper ways to speak about God because God himself speaks of himself in this way.

00:11:57.620 This is biblical language.

00:11:59.820 So God is speaking to us under the banner of analogy

00:12:02.920 precisely because God wants to be understood.

00:12:06.340 God wants to be known.

00:12:08.420 See, there are some theologians in past years,

00:12:11.420 just a few decades ago,

00:12:12.680 who were fond of saying that God is completely other.

00:12:17.100 He is entirely other.

00:12:19.300 Well, if God is entirely other,

00:12:21.160 then there's nothing that we can understand of him.

00:12:24.440 God is not entirely other.

00:12:26.680 Certainly, he is infinitely greater than you and I.

00:12:31.020 But the mere fact that mankind, according to Scripture, was created in God's image

00:12:36.000 tells us that God possesses, as it were, communicable attributes.

00:12:42.700 That there are things that we can know about God.

00:12:45.660 Now, we'll never know the fullness of the extent of these things,

00:12:48.860 but you and I can say, as God says about himself in his word, that God is good.

00:12:54.460 And when we say that God is good, we are saying something that is empirically true and proper to say about God.

00:13:03.980 And yet the reality still exists that none of us fully understand what God being good really means.

00:13:13.080 No eye has seen, no ear has heard what God in his goodness, we might imply, has in store for those who love him.

00:13:20.840 And so the fullness of God's goodness, the extent of God's goodness cannot be fully comprehended by you and I because the infinite can never be fully known by the finite.

00:13:32.980 Even in heaven, you and I will not enter heaven and automatically achieve or we can say ever achieve a full comprehensive knowledge and understanding of God.

00:13:45.760 Because in heaven, our fallenness will be no more.

00:13:49.960 That is, our sinfulness.

00:13:52.520 In heaven, you and I will no longer be sinful.

00:13:55.100 We will no longer sin.

00:13:56.280 Our fallenness will be done away with, but our finitude will remain.

00:14:01.120 In heaven, you and I will no longer be fallen creatures, but we will still be creatures.

00:14:06.400 Redeemed creatures, justified creatures, sanctified creatures, and in heaven, glorified creatures.

00:14:13.960 But always creatures.

00:14:15.760 always finite.

00:14:18.380 And so our understanding of God in this life

00:14:21.000 is marred and tarnished and twisted

00:14:23.260 and perverted by our fallenness, by sin.

00:14:26.300 But it is also limited by our finitude,

00:14:30.780 the fact that he alone is the creator

00:14:33.180 who is to be forever praised.

00:14:36.040 Amen.

00:14:36.840 Where you and I remain creatures, finite.

00:14:40.960 And so God speaks to us

00:14:42.540 in order to be known by his people.

00:14:44.320 He speaks to us in his word, in his revelation, underneath the banner of analogy.

00:14:52.380 He speaks to us in terms that we can understand, not comprehensively, not the fullness of everything that he is, but we can get a sense of who he is.

00:15:03.740 R.C. Sproul uses this illustration.

00:15:05.620 He says that when we say that I have a good dog, what do we mean, my goodness, when we're using the term to describe a pet, such as a dog?

00:15:16.520 I have a good dog. He's a good boy.

00:15:19.400 What we mean is that he doesn't pee in the house.

00:15:23.260 He doesn't bite the mailman's leg.

00:15:26.100 And he comes when I call him.

00:15:29.400 But if I were to say that David is a good friend,

00:15:34.260 I do not mean that he doesn't pee in the house,

00:15:37.140 that he doesn't bite the mailman's leg,

00:15:39.520 and that he comes when I call him.

00:15:41.740 So the word goodness takes on a much higher meaning

00:15:45.780 when it's used to describe a person rather than a dog.

00:15:50.840 It's the same principle applied to God.

00:15:54.320 When we say that God is good,

00:15:57.200 Imagine everything that you can think in terms of goodness and describing people.

00:16:02.600 When you say that a person is good, you mean one thing.

00:16:06.460 But when you say that God is good, you mean something entirely more, something infinitely more.

00:16:14.820 When we speak of the goodness of God, and yet that word, that term, God is good, still tells us, we cannot comprehend everything,

00:16:24.760 but it still tells us something.

00:16:27.520 We're still understanding something about God.

00:16:31.260 So God promises to preserve all of his people

00:16:34.100 both in body and soul through life and death

00:16:37.380 to complete an eternal pleasure.

00:16:40.980 Complete an eternal pleasure.

00:16:43.180 Meaning that God is the only being in all of the universe

00:16:47.220 that ultimately can capture our hearts,

00:16:51.780 joy, and affection to the highest degree

00:16:55.680 and for an everlasting duration.

00:17:01.520 And hell is hell because God is there

00:17:05.200 in his justice, in his judgment,

00:17:08.520 in his righteousness.

00:17:11.040 And yet heaven is heaven

00:17:13.980 because God is there in the very same way,

00:17:17.960 but the people, the audience, if you will, of God,

00:17:21.700 That's what changes.

00:17:23.480 And that's what I was getting at with this doctrine of analogy,

00:17:26.560 the idea that God is immutable, that he never changes.

00:17:29.520 He does not actually have a physical arm.

00:17:31.940 This is anthropomorphic language.

00:17:34.200 He does not actually have emotions.

00:17:36.240 He's not just changing his mind or repenting or regretting or being grieved.

00:17:40.460 That's anthropopathic language.

00:17:42.720 God is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

00:17:46.180 And so what that means, I believe it was Sam Rinehan, a Reformed Baptist theologian.

00:17:51.420 who said this he said that in the gospel it's not that God changes his disposition toward us

00:17:58.060 when God saves someone by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone he is not changing

00:18:05.520 God is not changing toward us rather God is changing us toward him think of the sun Charles

00:18:13.840 Spurgeon said the same sun that hardens the clay it melts the wax well think about God as the

00:18:21.400 sun, S-U-N, the sun in the sky. There were certain things that we could leave for a whole day out in

00:18:28.660 the sun, and they would become putrid. They would decay. They would devolve. But there are other

00:18:39.160 things, such as a flower planted in the ground, that with the sunlight, it begins to blossom

00:18:45.600 and to grow.

00:18:47.920 In the gospel, God does not change toward us.

00:18:52.480 The gospel is not that God, the infinite,

00:18:55.680 the unchanging, immutable God,

00:18:57.380 undergoes some kind of transition

00:18:59.280 that previously he was angry with us

00:19:02.380 and now all of a sudden he loves us.

00:19:05.700 That's not the gospel.

00:19:07.620 No, the gospel is that God in his mercy,

00:19:10.700 he doesn't change toward us.

00:19:12.640 God in his mercy through the finished work

00:19:14.480 of Jesus Christ received through faith, he changes you. He changes you. And that's why the Bible

00:19:21.360 speaks that in Christ, we are a new creation. There's something about us in conversion,

00:19:31.180 in salvation that undergoes change. So we go from being a meatloaf, for lack of a better example,

00:19:38.440 to a tulip meaning if God is the sun and you and I are a meatloaf and we're left outside all day

00:19:46.480 for 12 hours in the scorching heat of Texas in July if we're a meatloaf by the end of the day

00:19:53.680 who wants to eat that right the experience of the meatloaf is not going to be positive

00:20:00.280 as it receives the light and heat of the sun all day long.

00:20:07.120 But the flower, the flower experiences something entirely different.

00:20:11.760 It's not as though the flower is in the presence of one sun

00:20:15.540 and the meatloaf is in the presence of another.

00:20:18.360 It's the same sun, but that sun in its effects, as it were,

00:20:23.740 on different objects, different variables, it has different effects.

00:20:29.460 And so what God does in the gospel is he changes us.

00:20:32.780 He clothes us in the righteousness of his own son.

00:20:35.920 He causes us to become a new creation in Christ Jesus.

00:20:39.140 He causes us to become spiritually alive.

00:20:41.620 He gives us ears to hear.

00:20:43.160 He gives us eyes to see.

00:20:44.880 He gives us hearts that are no longer like stone, Ezekiel chapter 36,

00:20:49.200 but rather hearts of flesh that are softened and malleable and receptive to his word.

00:20:54.020 The change is not in God.

00:20:55.720 The change is in his people.

00:20:58.040 God changes his people in such a way to where when we spend eternity with God in heaven, we'll be like the tulip, like the flower in the presence of the sun.

00:21:09.420 But hell, rather, is like the meatloaf.

00:21:13.860 Completely and slowly and eternally devolving, decaying, rotting, becoming putrid.

00:21:22.300 so God promises to deliver not all people but his people both in body and soul that does not mean

00:21:32.460 that we will not undergo physical death but it does mean that this body not a different one not

00:21:39.820 a new one but this physical body that we have in this life according to scripture is promised to

00:21:46.240 be resurrected and glorified. And so God is going to ultimately, in an ultimate sense,

00:21:53.400 in the eternal sense, he has promised to preserve all of his people, not only in spirit or soul,

00:21:59.840 but even in body forever through all of eternity and to bring us to eternal and perfect or complete

00:22:09.780 pleasure, eternal and perfect joy. Our joy will be at its highest and our joy will have an

00:22:18.580 everlasting duration. But how does he do this? According to Psalm 16, there's four primary

00:22:26.260 things that we see about God, who he is, that give us the answer for his methods, how he will

00:22:33.600 fulfill this promise of everlasting preservation, of bringing us through life and death in body

00:22:41.500 and in soul to eternal and perfect pleasure and joy. How will he do this? He will do this by being

00:22:49.980 for us a safe refuge, our supreme treasure, our sovereign Lord, and our sure counselor.

00:23:00.580 I used four S's alliteration in order to help us remember.

00:23:05.480 I hope that it's helpful.

00:23:07.100 Four things.

00:23:08.340 Now certainly there's more that we can glean from the text,

00:23:11.460 but I believe there are at least, at minimum,

00:23:13.960 four primary things that we see about God.

00:23:18.420 Who he is, but here's the key.

00:23:21.180 It's not just who God is.

00:23:23.380 As I preach through this text, we must understand

00:23:25.840 it's who God is for us.

00:23:29.420 See, that's the disconnect.

00:23:32.240 There are too many Christians today that believe, they give credence, they give their affirmation, their acknowledgement, their assent to the fact that God is sovereign.

00:23:41.560 But what they struggle to believe at a heart level is that God in his sovereignty is being sovereign for them.

00:23:49.220 the reason why you and i so often struggle to trust god is not always because we don't believe

00:23:59.260 the the mere existence or the mere reality of his attributes or his perfections our hang-up

00:24:06.960 our struggle our hindrance to trust god is not always rooted in the fact that we don't really

00:24:12.820 believe he's sovereign or we don't really believe he's merciful or we don't really believe he's

00:24:17.380 kind. It's that we don't really believe he's sovereign, merciful, and kind for us. That God

00:24:23.700 will be kind to me. It is so easy, I think, at least at a personal level, I'll speak for myself,

00:24:31.340 it is so easy for me as a Christian to have so much more faith in the character and goodness

00:24:38.040 of God for others than it is to believe in his character and goodness for me.

00:24:42.320 i i have very little trouble believing the gospel for others for the proverbial someone somewhere

00:24:53.400 out there even on my worst days if you ask me is there a god in heaven who is thrice holy

00:25:00.160 but also a merciful god who has promised to save his elect people through the personal work of his

00:25:06.180 son Jesus, by grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone? I'll say yes, there is. But on my

00:25:12.720 worst day, if you ask me, and are you included among those elect? Are you a beneficiary of his

00:25:20.320 goodness, his kindness, his salvation, and forgiveness of sin? On my worst days, I'll struggle

00:25:26.380 at times to say yes. It's not just believing who God is that is the challenge. When it comes to

00:25:34.700 trusting the Lord, often the greatest challenge is believing in who God is and that he will be

00:25:41.100 this God for me. I think of Galatians where Paul says, he says that Jesus gave himself up for me.

00:25:55.660 It's very personal language. I believe it's Galatians 2 or perhaps Galatians chapter 3,

00:26:01.020 where he says, the Son of God loved me.

00:26:03.920 He says, I believe, I'm convinced, I'm persuaded

00:26:06.080 that the Son of God, that Christ, he loved me

00:26:08.880 and gave himself up.

00:26:11.040 That is, sacrificed himself, died for me.

00:26:15.020 He doesn't just say, I believe that the Son of God

00:26:17.260 loves people and gave himself up

00:26:21.020 as a lamb to be slaughtered for people.

00:26:24.760 No, he says it at a personal level,

00:26:28.080 at an individual level.

00:26:29.840 Jesus loves me.

00:26:31.020 in some sense we need to get back to to to some of the the old children's classics

00:26:39.380 jesus loves me this i know why because you've had some kind of mystical personal experience with him

00:26:47.080 a dream or a vision no jesus loves me this i know for the bible tells me so

00:26:53.900 and it's enough the bible tells me so that the bible is it's sufficient that in god's word

00:27:02.680 he tells me that he loves me now you might be saying joel where in the bible does it say

00:27:06.900 god loves joel the bible tells me that god loves me individually by the internal witness of the

00:27:15.940 Holy Spirit that cries out, Abba, Father. The Bible, working in conjunction with the Spirit

00:27:24.280 in the power, in the method of illumination, tells us as individuals that God not only exists

00:27:33.420 and loves someone, but that God loves us. We find that in the Word, but you will never find,

00:27:41.400 You can read the Bible all day long like the Pharisees 0.72

00:27:44.620 who relentlessly and incessantly searched the scriptures

00:27:48.600 and yet they never saw Christ in the scriptures.

00:27:52.180 They missed Jesus.

00:27:55.200 And yet the reality is that we can read the scripture

00:27:58.520 for years, for decades, our entire life

00:28:01.480 and see the love of God for someone

00:28:03.960 but never see the love of God for us.

00:28:06.020 But it is only when the reading of the scripture

00:28:09.440 is coupled with the work of the Spirit

00:28:13.120 that we begin to see that all of who God is

00:28:17.440 is for us.

00:28:19.240 That we are a recipient of his goodness,

00:28:22.840 his kindness, his love.

00:28:24.980 See, it's the Holy Spirit in his two roles

00:28:27.360 as it pertains to the Scripture.

00:28:29.820 It is inspiration and illumination.

00:28:34.800 The Holy Spirit inspired the authors of Scripture

00:28:38.160 so that they did, in fact, write not the word of man, but the word of God.

00:28:45.000 But the Holy Spirit is still working in Scripture today,

00:28:48.800 no longer inspiring the authors of Scripture,

00:28:51.820 but now illuminating the word for the readers of Scripture.

00:28:58.460 And when we read the Scripture with the eyes and ears and hearts

00:29:04.180 that the Holy Spirit supernaturally supplies,

00:29:08.160 We see that God and his character, all of his attributes, the fact that he is a safe refuge, supreme treasure, sovereign Lord, and sure counselor, that he is not merely those things for someone.

00:29:24.760 He is, in fact, those things for us.

00:29:28.400 So Psalm 16 begins with David's petition.

00:29:31.680 It's a plea.

00:29:32.940 It's a request.

00:29:33.880 He's crying out to God, and he says, preserve me, O God.

00:29:40.300 That's Psalm 16, verse 1a.

00:29:42.940 That is the first half of verse 1.

00:29:45.140 David is pleading with the Lord to preserve him through some kind of trial, tribulation, or threat.

00:29:51.440 We haven't seen exactly what this tribulation or threat is,

00:29:55.160 but we'll find further on through the psalm what it is.

00:29:58.320 At this point, all we know in the first half of the first verse of our text

00:30:02.720 is that David has some kind of looming threat

00:30:06.220 hanging over him.

00:30:08.340 That there's some sense of fear,

00:30:10.120 some sense of dread,

00:30:12.200 an urgent sense of need.

00:30:14.520 And so he cries out to God

00:30:16.660 with a petition, a plea.

00:30:19.920 And notice that his words in his prayer,

00:30:22.760 in his petition, are few.

00:30:25.120 Preserve me, O God.

00:30:28.320 In other words, Psalm 16,

00:30:30.300 it's a prayer.

00:30:31.620 Because why?

00:30:32.720 Who is he talking to?

00:30:34.580 He's not talking to his fellow man.

00:30:36.800 He's not talking even to himself,

00:30:38.980 but he is talking to God.

00:30:40.600 Preserve me, O God.

00:30:42.320 And because in our psalm we find from the very outset

00:30:45.040 that David is speaking to God,

00:30:47.300 we know that this particular psalm is a prayer.

00:30:50.880 Therefore, as we work through Psalm 16,

00:30:53.640 let us seek to learn how God the Holy Spirit

00:30:56.620 inspires his people to pray,

00:30:59.600 especially in times of trouble.

00:31:02.720 See, the first thing we discover in Psalm chapter 16 is this.

00:31:06.940 David only uses four words, preserve me, O God,

00:31:11.180 and technically two, to make his petition.

00:31:15.340 Preserve me.

00:31:17.600 Sustain me.

00:31:20.320 Keep me.

00:31:21.960 Hold me.

00:31:23.400 Save me.

00:31:25.900 The remainder of David's prayer is reserved for declaring who God is,

00:31:30.980 what God has done, and what God promises to do.

00:31:34.780 So in summary, we could say this.

00:31:36.880 The very first half of the first verse of our psalm today

00:31:39.940 tells us that this psalm is in fact a prayer

00:31:42.380 because it's directed towards, oh God,

00:31:45.100 and that it is a prayer for salvation.

00:31:48.560 It's a plea, it's a petition.

00:31:51.180 And yet, notice this.

00:31:52.840 The Holy Spirit, when he inspires his people

00:31:55.760 to pray prayers of petition,

00:31:58.800 they spend, at least in this case,

00:32:01.680 a grand total of four and perhaps,

00:32:05.120 depending how you're counting,

00:32:06.260 even two words to make that petition.

00:32:10.200 The whole rest of the prayer is praise.

00:32:15.300 It's petition, praise.

00:32:18.660 Petition, preserve me.

00:32:22.180 And then praise for 11 more verses.

00:32:24.840 now what does praise have to do with petitions this is a key principle that we find in prayer

00:32:32.700 praise for who god is what god has done and what god promises to do is the whole entire basis

00:32:45.900 the whole foundation it is the grounds for why we have any confidence to make our petitions to begin

00:32:53.460 with. We only petition God for something because we believe in who God is. There's no point in

00:33:02.300 crying out and pleading to the Lord, preserve me, oh God, if he is not for us a safe refuge,

00:33:12.160 supreme treasure, sovereign Lord, and sure counselor. Now, if you're getting nervous,

00:33:19.560 I should have said this at the very beginning. I'm not just deciding it now. I promise you may

00:33:23.320 not believe me, but I decided this on Tuesday of last week as I was preparing my notes.

00:33:31.260 This is going to be a two-part sermon. So take a deep breath and a sigh of relief because if you're

00:33:39.820 looking at the notes and you're doing the math of what percentage we've gotten through so far

00:33:44.740 and the time on the clock, that's a frightening thing. I understand. You might be thinking

00:33:51.860 Nap time's not going to happen today.

00:33:53.960 We're not going to make it through.

00:33:54.940 This is going to be a two-part sermon.

00:33:56.500 That's the beauty of preaching God's word.

00:33:58.520 I love it because I usually am a man of many words.

00:34:02.060 I can tend to be long-winded.

00:34:03.500 There's a lot that I want to say.

00:34:04.760 But the beauty in preaching the Bible is, well, we'll just pick up where we left off.

00:34:09.720 I mean, what's the rush?

00:34:12.320 You know, the alternative is I've got to preach through this portion of the Bible so that I can do what?

00:34:16.800 Preach through a portion of the Bible?

00:34:19.540 So we'll just preach through this portion longer.

00:34:21.680 So Psalm 16, this is going to be a two-part mini-series within our larger series,

00:34:26.180 the Psalter, as we're working through the Psalms.

00:34:28.560 So let's just look at a few of God's attributes.

00:34:31.660 Let's try to work through probably not all of verses 1 through 7,

00:34:35.920 but at least half of this, where we begin to get the sense of what it means

00:34:39.820 for God to be a safe refuge, a supreme treasure, a sovereign Lord,

00:34:44.740 and a sure counselor.

00:34:46.040 In your notes, I've written this, Psalm 16, 1a, that is the first half of the verse, that's where we find the petition.

00:34:53.100 That's what we've already covered.

00:34:54.240 That's where we see the plea, preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge.

00:35:00.820 See, so the first half of Psalm 16, 1 is the plea, preserve me, O God.

00:35:06.860 The second half is that we see precisely why David has enough confidence in God's ability

00:35:15.860 and willingness to preserve him to make that plea in the first place.

00:35:20.560 See, David does not merely acknowledge that God is a refuge.

00:35:25.520 David proves that God is the refuge, the ultimate refuge,

00:35:31.140 by committing to trust in God for safety above all other natural means of safety.

00:35:39.480 He doesn't just say, preserve me, O God, because you are a rock or a tower,

00:35:46.200 a strong tower of safety and refuge.

00:35:49.380 No, he says, preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge.

00:35:54.540 So he doesn't just say, God, please preserve me because I acknowledge,

00:35:57.480 I give my assent that you are a means

00:36:00.940 or at least one of the many options

00:36:03.080 of safety and security in this life.

00:36:05.900 Preserve me, oh God,

00:36:06.940 because I recognize that you are a refuge.

00:36:09.540 No, preserve me, oh God,

00:36:11.160 because in you I take refuge.

00:36:14.680 Now notice, in a sense,

00:36:15.860 this is conditional language.

00:36:19.000 Preserve me, oh God, for,

00:36:20.940 or because in light of this.

00:36:24.400 God, I am asking with confidence

00:36:26.600 that you grant my petition,

00:36:29.080 you grant my request of preservation

00:36:31.460 on the basis of who you are,

00:36:35.400 but not only who God is, a refuge,

00:36:38.500 a strong refuge,

00:36:39.660 but also on the basis of my obedience

00:36:42.300 to seek refuge in you.

00:36:45.760 Now, this is not works-based righteousness.

00:36:49.860 This is not the prosperity gospel.

00:36:52.700 This is not, you know, if I do this,

00:36:54.940 then God will do that.

00:36:56.600 But there is a sense in which we don't earn our salvation.

00:37:02.780 We are justified by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.

00:37:06.920 We don't earn salvation.

00:37:09.360 But the fatherly pleasure of God for his sons and daughters in this life

00:37:14.580 is often conditioned upon our obedience.

00:37:19.620 What I mean by that is this, that a person can never lose what they did not earn.

00:37:24.200 So I believe in the doctrine of the eternal security of the believer, that Jesus has promised never to leave us or forsake us.

00:37:32.200 Once saved, always saved. Better put, if saved, always saved.

00:37:36.480 Some people, it's not that they lost their salvation, it's the sheer fact that they never had it to begin with.

00:37:42.120 The apostate, the person who ultimately drifts away from the gospel, who ultimately rejects Jesus, is the person who never really accepted Jesus to begin with.

00:37:51.020 And so none of what I'm about to say is meant to be received as a contradiction to the doctrine of the eternal security of the believer, the security of salvation.

00:38:02.860 But for those who are saved, although you cannot forfeit your salvation, if you've truly been saved by grace through faith in Christ,

00:38:11.280 there is a sense of being under God's fatherly pleasure or under God's fatherly displeasure.

00:38:18.280 Now still, the adjective is fatherly.

00:38:21.100 Meaning in both cases, we have an adopted son or daughter.

00:38:24.460 In both cases, we have someone who is regenerate.

00:38:27.120 We have someone who is born again.

00:38:28.660 We have a child of God.

00:38:31.740 But you can be underneath, as a genuine, bona fide child of God,

00:38:36.060 you can be underneath his fatherly pleasure,

00:38:38.480 and you can be under his fatherly displeasure.

00:38:41.480 Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge.

00:38:44.880 Listen, one of the ways that God preserves us is by granting us faith to believe that he is a refuge.

00:38:55.140 See, you can be a child of God.

00:38:56.620 You can be genuinely born again, and you can go throughout a great deal, a large portion of your life, feeling vulnerable, feeling insecure, feeling as though you have no safety.

00:39:11.380 because you're not, as David is, taking refuge in God.

00:39:18.660 See, God is a refuge, but that's not what David says.

00:39:22.240 He doesn't say, preserve me, O God, because you are a refuge.

00:39:25.420 And by the mere fact of you being a refuge,

00:39:27.460 that guarantees my safety and preservation.

00:39:30.980 No, he's saying, preserve me, O God, because in you, I personally,

00:39:34.800 I'm going to take upon me the onus of taking refuge in you.

00:39:40.120 God is a strong tower.

00:39:42.020 God is a rock of defense.

00:39:44.080 God is our shield, our protector, our refuge, our safety.

00:39:48.700 But experiencing the joy and peace of that reality of who God is,

00:39:54.340 is something that only comes when we trust him and go to him.

00:40:00.220 So you can be a Christian and salute the power, the preserving power of God,

00:40:07.480 but not experience the peace that comes by God being a refuge

00:40:12.140 if you don't actually run to Him and find safety under His wings.

00:40:18.180 There are many Christians who are burdened

00:40:21.480 and even overwhelmed at times with anxiety,

00:40:25.460 not having a sense of safety at all,

00:40:28.140 but it's precisely because they're running for refuge to idols rather than God.

00:40:34.560 they're trusting in idols rather than trusting in the rock see the reason why idols produce

00:40:45.100 anxiety i preached this a few weeks ago saint augustine said that that anxiety and anger and

00:40:52.280 turmoil and all these kinds of human problem emotions it's like the smoke that rises from

00:40:58.780 the sacrifices that we make on the altars to our idols and the reason why anxiety comes about and

00:41:05.620 we'll see this later in the text later in the text David actually says this he says the sorrows of

00:41:13.040 those who run after another god shall multiply right when you run after idols when you run after

00:41:19.200 other gods when you ultimately take refuge in something or someone else other than god the only

00:41:25.840 true and ultimate refuge, your sorrows are multiplied. The smoke rising from the altar

00:41:32.340 that you build to that idol, it billows, it increases, it grows, that anxiety grows and

00:41:40.260 multiplies. Why? Because you're putting your hope in something that ultimately it can be shaken.

00:41:46.660 And that's what we see later in the psalm. David says, well, after he's spent a very thorough

00:41:55.840 Prayer, praising the character of God and the goodness of God.

00:42:01.040 After he makes the petition in the first half of verse 1,

00:42:04.220 he praises God for who he is in the next seven verses.

00:42:07.580 And then it's only later in the psalm that David says,

00:42:11.100 I will not be shaken.

00:42:13.860 Why?

00:42:15.700 Because the foundation.

00:42:18.040 David's not, he's not being arrogant.

00:42:20.340 This isn't a boast of pride.

00:42:22.780 He's not saying, I will not be shaken because I'm unshakable.

00:42:25.580 because I'm immutable, because I'm invulnerable.

00:42:29.640 No, he's saying I will not be shaken

00:42:31.020 because I've taken refuge in God and God cannot be shaken.

00:42:34.500 I will not be shaken because I've built my house

00:42:37.060 not on the sand, but on the rock.

00:42:39.840 I will not be shaken by virtue of the strength

00:42:43.400 of the foundation that I've put my hope and trust in.

00:42:48.840 Those who run after idols,

00:42:51.700 those who run after other gods,

00:42:54.520 their sorrows will be multiplied.

00:42:58.080 But those who trust in the Lord find refuge.

00:43:03.720 They find peace.

00:43:06.800 See, even in the first sentence of David's prayer,

00:43:09.120 he's already trusting that God will answer favorably

00:43:11.960 because he knows who God is.

00:43:17.220 It's because of who he knows God to be.

00:43:20.860 In other words, David is declaring the character of God

00:43:23.780 as the grounds or the basis of his hope.

00:43:27.180 Throughout Psalm chapter 16, verse 1 through 7,

00:43:30.340 this continues to be David's prayer strategy.

00:43:33.120 And we need to take that away.

00:43:34.460 This is a key strategy for prayer.

00:43:38.300 If you want to pray in ways that are pleasing to the Lord,

00:43:41.280 if you want to follow the mold provided for us in Scripture

00:43:45.820 for Holy Spirit-inspired praying,

00:43:48.860 if you want to pray well, learn this.

00:43:53.680 David is committed to bolstering his faith,

00:43:56.800 or that is his hope in God,

00:43:59.120 by declaring who God is for him.

00:44:02.900 By declaring who God is for him.

00:44:06.580 So what's the structure of this prayer today?

00:44:10.420 Two to four words, a petition, a plea.

00:44:14.960 Then the next seven or six and a half verses,

00:44:18.860 David prays who God is.

00:44:22.580 And in light of who God is,

00:44:24.700 David is bolstering his faith.

00:44:27.320 So David makes a petition,

00:44:28.460 please do this for me, God.

00:44:30.760 It's almost like the centurion man with Jesus

00:44:33.040 who says, I believe, help my unbelief.

00:44:35.980 Well, how do we help unbelief?

00:44:38.120 I must believe at some level

00:44:41.960 because I'm willing to go to God

00:44:44.060 and make this petition in the first place.

00:44:46.360 I think of Hebrews, it says,

00:44:48.140 that God is

00:44:50.920 a rewarder of those who diligently

00:44:52.920 seek him. It says

00:44:54.920 that the one who is

00:44:56.820 pleasing to God, without faith it's impossible to

00:44:58.800 please God, for to please God you must believe

00:45:01.000 what? That he exists

00:45:02.300 and that he diligently

00:45:04.080 rewards those who diligently

00:45:06.680 seek him. So there's some level of

00:45:08.720 faith simply to go to God in the

00:45:10.760 first place. So David is going to

00:45:12.800 God and yet we know that

00:45:14.700 David is lacking in some

00:45:16.560 level of faith.

00:45:18.140 And that's why he bolsters his faith. The weapon that he uses to increase his faith is praise.

00:45:27.380 So he's already got some faith, just like you and I. If you're a Christian, you have some faith.

00:45:32.020 If you had no faith, you wouldn't be born again. If you had no faith, you wouldn't belong to Christ

00:45:36.700 because we're saved through faith. So if you're saved, it's because you have faith.

00:45:42.020 but the problem is that even in this life in having faith often as jesus chastised the disciples

00:45:50.820 we have little faith little faith now the reality is in terms of salvation it's not the size or the

00:45:58.480 degree of our faith that saves us but rather the object of our faith so a little faith placed in

00:46:04.360 jesus is still saving whereas a mountain of faith placed in some other gospel is still damning

00:46:12.220 Having a lot of faith in the wrong thing or the wrong person will send you to hell.

00:46:16.940 Having a little bit of faith in Jesus, his person and his work, will get you to heaven.

00:46:23.460 But having a little faith in the person of Jesus, although sufficient for justification,

00:46:28.400 for salvation, as I was saying earlier, may still leave you with much anxiety and turmoil in this life.

00:46:35.640 And so David approaches the throne of God in prayer, making a petition.

00:46:39.320 The petition signifies that he already has at least some degree of faith to begin with.

00:46:44.820 But he now begins to bolster his faith.

00:46:47.940 Take whatever faith he has and begin to multiply it, increase it through the weapon of praise.

00:46:54.920 This is who you are.

00:46:56.120 This is who you are.

00:46:57.300 This is who you are.

00:46:58.400 And as I said at the beginning, the key is, this is who you are for me.

00:47:03.900 For me.

00:47:04.360 Psalm 16, verse 2 says, I say to the Lord, you are my Lord.

00:47:09.840 I have no good apart from you.

00:47:12.400 God is David's supreme treasure.

00:47:14.780 That's what he's saying.

00:47:16.060 He's saying apart from you, if there were no God, there would be no good in this world.

00:47:21.220 I would have no joys in this world.

00:47:23.980 There would be no pleasure, no comfort, no happiness.

00:47:27.080 You are my portion.

00:47:29.440 You are my supreme treasure.

00:47:31.240 You are the source of all that is good, the source of my happiness and joy.

00:47:38.900 God is David's supreme treasure.

00:47:41.220 That is, God is David's highest good.

00:47:44.500 Apart from God, there is no good in this life.

00:47:47.480 He is the joy in our joys and the source of all joy.

00:47:51.700 And all other goods in this life are only truly good because, not just because they come from God,

00:48:01.240 No, they're only truly good.

00:48:02.780 That is eternally or ultimately good

00:48:04.880 because they reveal to us more of God.

00:48:09.280 See, all the goods that we experience in this life,

00:48:12.980 the good of on our Saturday evenings,

00:48:15.220 our Sabbath dinner and worship,

00:48:16.980 feasting together, that's good.

00:48:19.920 It's good.

00:48:20.620 Or the good that we see later in our psalm

00:48:22.260 as we'll see in a moment

00:48:23.000 where David, he praises the saints, right?

00:48:26.660 He's not just praising God.

00:48:27.920 He's praising, he begins to praise the people of God.

00:48:30.260 He says, for they are the excellent ones.

00:48:32.900 In whom is all my delight?

00:48:34.620 And you're like, wait a second, that doesn't sound good.

00:48:36.620 That sounds like idolatry.

00:48:38.140 In whom is all my delight?

00:48:39.480 All my delight is in the people of God rather than in God himself.

00:48:43.240 No, what David's saying, because notice that comes on the heels of Psalm 16 too.

00:48:47.700 And what is David already clarified, right?

00:48:49.920 He's already given the fine print, the conditional statement.

00:48:52.840 He's already given the disclaimer.

00:48:54.540 The disclaimer again is this.

00:48:56.340 I say to the Lord, you are my Lord.

00:48:58.700 I have no good apart from you.

00:49:00.980 So when David says, I love the people of God, I love the saints,

00:49:05.940 they're the majestic ones, the excellent ones,

00:49:08.160 they're the best people in all the land, and in them is all my delight,

00:49:12.740 we know he's not being idolatrous.

00:49:14.540 We know he's not finding delight in the people of God

00:49:17.860 as a substitute for finding delight in God himself

00:49:20.820 because he's already stated in a prior verse

00:49:24.100 that there is no good apart from God.

00:49:27.540 See, the saints are a great example of something in this life that is good,

00:49:33.560 but only good because of God.

00:49:37.200 The people of God are good, but they're only good because God is good.

00:49:43.300 Feasting and choice meat and wine is good, but it's only good because God is good.

00:49:48.260 A sunrise and a sunset is good, but it's only good because God is good.

00:49:53.180 the rain that waters the earth

00:49:56.280 and the crops that grow

00:49:57.320 and all these things

00:49:58.080 the beauty and the enjoyment of family

00:50:00.660 and the blessing of children

00:50:02.140 are good

00:50:03.140 but they're only good because God is good

00:50:06.260 Christ is the joy in our joys

00:50:09.540 he's the basis

00:50:12.160 the foundation of goodness

00:50:14.480 all these other good things in life

00:50:16.720 that God richly and lavishly blesses us with

00:50:19.920 they only really have true goodness

00:50:23.040 because they're standing on top,

00:50:27.540 the shoulders of the infinitely good God.

00:50:31.220 It is only because we've already,

00:50:33.800 in an ultimate sense,

00:50:35.220 been satisfied with God and his goodness

00:50:38.720 that all these other good things that he provides

00:50:42.080 bring us joy rather than ultimately sorrow.

00:50:46.240 See, those who run after other gods,

00:50:48.220 as we'll get to later,

00:50:49.460 their sorrows are multiplied.

00:50:51.920 That means those who are trusting in other things beside God.

00:50:55.380 Those who are running after idols.

00:50:57.660 The blessing of children can be an idol.

00:51:00.320 Marriage can be an idol.

00:51:02.520 Feasting can be an idol.

00:51:03.780 Money can be an idol.

00:51:04.760 Houses can be an idol.

00:51:06.660 Nature and beauty, aesthetic beauty in this world can be an idol.

00:51:10.680 And if you're running after those things as God,

00:51:14.320 notice the result is not that you delight in it.

00:51:19.360 No, the result is actually that your sorrow is multiplied.

00:51:23.780 When you trust in good things, ultimately, it multiplies sorrow.

00:51:29.240 But when you trust in God, ultimately, God himself multiplies joy.

00:51:34.940 And all those other good things that he gives to us are joyous.

00:51:40.220 They bring happiness and pleasure.

00:51:44.980 Psalm 16, verse 3 says, as for the saints, this is where we're already going.

00:51:49.360 In the land, they are the excellent ones in whom is all my delight.

00:51:53.180 David confirms his belief in God's goodness by what he says about God's people.

00:51:59.420 It's not contradicting that God is the true ultimate source of goodness.

00:52:04.100 No, David is not contradicting.

00:52:05.640 He's confirming God is good.

00:52:07.740 And because I truly believe God is good, I also, by default, believe that his people are good.

00:52:13.920 It's kind of reminiscent of 1 John.

00:52:16.140 that if anyone claims to love God

00:52:18.380 but hates his brother, he's a liar

00:52:19.860 and the truth of God is not in him. 0.99

00:52:21.580 That's what David's doing here.

00:52:22.720 He's saying, because I believe that God is good,

00:52:25.020 I cannot help but also enjoy his people.

00:52:29.420 Because I claim that God is good

00:52:31.020 and because he's good, I love him.

00:52:33.300 I also must affirm that at least at some level

00:52:36.320 the people of God are good and I enjoy them.

00:52:41.720 See, David confirms his belief in the goodness of God

00:52:44.080 by what he says about God's people.

00:52:46.620 It is the saints who provide David with comfort and joy.

00:52:50.400 This does not mean that David delights in God's people

00:52:52.600 as a substitute, as an idol,

00:52:55.320 for delighting in God himself.

00:52:57.020 It simply means that godless people

00:52:59.680 do not provide David with any comfort or joy.

00:53:03.280 In short, David is admitting

00:53:05.020 that he is a people person, we might say.

00:53:08.140 That's kind of what he's saying.

00:53:09.040 He's saying, as for the saints,

00:53:10.800 they're the excellent ones in all the land,

00:53:12.940 and in them are all my delight.

00:53:15.620 All right, now this is poetic language

00:53:17.520 inspired by the Holy Spirit.

00:53:19.580 But if we were to kind of dumb it down a bit,

00:53:22.020 this is totally what your typical extrovert would say.

00:53:26.280 I love going to parties

00:53:27.920 because when I'm surrounded by a sea of people,

00:53:31.920 in them is all my delight.

00:53:33.060 That's where I'm energized.

00:53:34.500 That's where I get excited.

00:53:35.880 It's almost like David is confessing in some sense

00:53:37.940 that he's a people person, but notice this.

00:53:40.540 However, what David enjoys most about people

00:53:42.820 is not their love for him.

00:53:45.600 What he enjoys most about people is their love for God.

00:53:49.560 This is the true source of sweetness in human friendship.

00:53:54.500 We got a lot of bad ideas about friendship,

00:53:57.540 the premise of friendship, the contents of friendship.

00:54:00.560 What is genuine, true friendship,

00:54:03.920 especially in a Christian worldview?

00:54:07.440 I think C.S. Lewis actually sums it up quite nicely

00:54:10.760 when he says, friendship is born at that moment

00:54:13.320 when one person says to another, what?

00:54:15.840 You too?

00:54:16.960 I thought I was the only one.

00:54:19.680 He furthermore says, what draws people to be friends

00:54:22.800 is that they see the same truth.

00:54:25.460 They share it.

00:54:27.320 See, the essence of friendship is not two people

00:54:29.940 standing parallel and gazing into each other face to face,

00:54:38.300 loving each other, admiring each other,

00:54:40.540 cherishing each other. That is a part of friendship, and certainly we see that aspect

00:54:45.760 of friendship in marriage. There's a face-to-face aspect of relationship. But the ultimate

00:54:54.760 foundation of long-lasting and heart-delighting friendship is not face-to-face. It is first and

00:55:05.100 foremost predominantly shoulder to shoulder it's not standing and looking at each other

00:55:11.980 enjoying each other it's standing side by side and cherishing and enjoying something else

00:55:19.220 the same thing what you too you you see this too you you cherish this too you recognize this truth

00:55:29.140 also i thought i was the only one think about some of the closest friendships you've ever had

00:55:35.120 Weren't they built on that exact premise?

00:55:38.240 Wasn't it that you felt in some sense alone?

00:55:41.720 Like there was something about God.

00:55:43.920 There was something about his world that he created.

00:55:46.280 Something about family.

00:55:47.460 Something about life.

00:55:48.380 Some kind of belief.

00:55:50.340 Some kind of conviction that you held.

00:55:53.820 That you felt like nobody else really got it.

00:55:56.980 Nobody else really shared that.

00:55:59.640 And then all of a sudden, when God in his providence introduced you to someone else

00:56:04.740 who saw that same reality, who saw that same truth, who prioritized that same value,

00:56:12.860 wasn't there just kind of like this moment of relief?

00:56:15.440 Like, finally, I found, and you might even say this, I found my people.

00:56:21.620 These are my people.

00:56:23.900 I mean, that's what the church of God is.

00:56:26.380 The church of God is the place where surely it swarms with many faults, as Calvin said.

00:56:33.400 You know, certainly there's a lot of heartache in the church, and it's riddled with sin,

00:56:38.140 because in this life we still wrestle with sin.

00:56:40.780 But as Charles Spurgeon said, on earth, the church is the sweetest place I know.

00:56:47.720 It's riddled with sin, there are problems, there's betrayal, there's heartache, there's pain.

00:56:51.980 because sin, even in the church, still exists.

00:56:56.560 But still, despite all the pain,

00:56:59.120 the church of God is the sweetest place I know.

00:57:01.660 Why? Because the church of God is the place

00:57:03.480 where we can find the people of God.

00:57:05.480 And the people of God are those people

00:57:08.000 who we can stand, not just face to face,

00:57:11.940 idolizing one another,

00:57:14.820 but no, we can stand shoulder to shoulder,

00:57:17.220 side by side and say,

00:57:18.600 you too. Finally, I've found someone who gets it. Finally, I've found someone that we can bond

00:57:27.040 over the reality that we see and savor the same truth. This will be our final point for today,

00:57:36.340 and we'll pick back up. But this is Psalm 16, verse 4. This is kind of the other side of the

00:57:42.860 coin now. David delights in the people of God. But on the other side of the equation, Psalm 16,

00:57:48.860 4, he says, the sorrows of those who run after another God shall multiply. This is the sorrows

00:57:56.640 being multiplied in the lives of idolaters, the pagans. So David says in verse 3, the people of

00:58:04.620 God, the saints, they're the excellent ones. And they're the ones that I gain great joy in.

00:58:10.760 In them is all my delight.

00:58:13.720 So the people of God, they're the ones that I gain so much joy by being around.

00:58:17.880 But notice, David, if he was an extrovert, going back to my previous point,

00:58:21.680 if he was an extrovert, if he was the type of person who gets his energy, his life by being around others,

00:58:26.940 he's not an extrovert in the terms that we see many extroverts today.

00:58:31.420 There are extroverts that I've met, I don't know about you, but they can, I mean,

00:58:34.940 If I just painted a portrait of a person on a wall and it was convincing enough to where they thought it was a real person, they could get energy from a hologram, from an illustration of a person, right?

00:58:50.460 So they're not actually delighting in someone because of who that person is.

00:58:54.540 They're delighting in someone because they like to air their own opinions and just be heard.

00:58:58.660 They're really delighting in themselves.

00:59:00.580 And people are actually just tools

00:59:02.480 that they take advantage of and use

00:59:04.640 in order to get their own joy.

00:59:06.820 They just want to talk.

00:59:08.300 And they're just glad that someone's going to listen.

00:59:10.140 They don't care if it's helpful for the person.

00:59:11.700 They don't care if the person goes away being energized.

00:59:13.940 You can like, sometimes you meet an extrovert.

00:59:15.780 They're like a social, emotional vampire.

00:59:18.780 They're a relationship.

00:59:19.520 It's like when you get done with that conversation,

00:59:21.760 you're a corpse, right?

00:59:23.620 And they've just had their fangs in you 0.98

00:59:25.140 for the last hour and a half.

00:59:26.540 They're walking away.

00:59:27.780 it's like did you just get younger I feel like like you just shaved 10 years off of your like

00:59:32.600 like some kind of vampire situation like I think you just regressed time for yourself and I feel

00:59:38.000 like I just gained 40 years I feel like I'm literally about to die and you're walking away

00:59:42.380 smiling you know with a with a skip in your step that's not loving people see notice David he's a

00:59:49.100 people person it might be possible especially when we look at other other things that the

00:59:53.900 Bible describes about David, it does seem as though he's an extrovert. But he's a Christian

00:59:58.180 extrovert. He's a Christian extrovert. He doesn't take pleasure in people just in general. Because 0.99

01:00:06.260 he says, I take no pleasure in what? Idolaters. I take no pleasure in people who are not God's

01:00:14.480 people. And the people who run after other gods. They themselves, by virtue of their idolatry,

01:00:21.800 by virtue of them choosing to run after other gods

01:00:24.580 rather than taking refuge in the true God,

01:00:27.180 their own sorrows are multiplied.

01:00:29.180 But when I'm around them,

01:00:30.460 we get a sense and implication from verse four.

01:00:33.080 David's saying they multiply their own sorrows

01:00:35.460 by their idolatry,

01:00:36.800 but I even feel a sense of sorrow

01:00:39.160 when I'm around idolaters.

01:00:41.460 They bring me down.

01:00:43.700 So I'm not a people person

01:00:45.200 just in the sense of just this general extrovert

01:00:47.980 who can talk to a person painted on the wall

01:00:49.920 and get life and energy and joy from it.

01:00:52.120 No, no, no.

01:00:53.480 I glean delight and joy and pleasure from people,

01:00:57.380 but a particular kind of people, God's people.

01:01:01.220 The people who run after God.

01:01:04.180 The people who, like me in the beginning of my prayer,

01:01:06.640 take refuge in God.

01:01:08.760 The saints, they're the excellent ones.

01:01:11.240 They're the ones who bring me joy and delight.

01:01:13.400 Why?

01:01:13.880 Because they're the ones I can count on

01:01:15.820 to point me to Christ.

01:01:18.580 They're the ones I can count on in times where I feel vulnerable,

01:01:23.300 when I feel insecure, in times where I'm in peril or danger or turmoil.

01:01:28.260 They're the ones I can count on to preach to my soul

01:01:31.540 and point me ultimately towards Christ, who is the refuge and safe place.

01:01:39.780 God is enough.

01:01:41.360 I'm sorry.

01:01:42.200 And seeing and savoring the goodness of God,

01:01:44.140 David declares that it is sheer folly

01:01:46.980 to trust and take joy in idols

01:01:48.940 that only leave men sorrowful in the end.

01:01:52.700 I think we could say it succinctly like this.

01:01:56.860 Idolatry multiplies sorrow,

01:01:59.460 but the true God multiplies joy.

01:02:02.920 Idolatry multiplies sorrow,

01:02:05.860 but when we run to God and find refuge in Him,

01:02:09.500 He multiplies joy.

01:02:11.900 Now notice this.

01:02:12.720 the last thing I'll say in closing.

01:02:15.800 Idolatry does not just cause sorrow.

01:02:19.920 According to David in verse 4,

01:02:21.920 he says those who run after idols,

01:02:24.400 who run after false gods,

01:02:26.280 their sorrows will be multiplied.

01:02:28.740 So he doesn't just say that the pagan,

01:02:31.300 the unbeliever, if they run after false gods,

01:02:33.660 they'll experience emptiness and sorrow.

01:02:35.780 He says if they run after a false god,

01:02:38.440 they already have sorrow.

01:02:40.100 That's what's causing them to go after the idol

01:02:41.960 in the first place, and when they go after the idol, the sorrow that they already had

01:02:46.180 will be increased. It'll be multiplied. In real terms, the way that I could explain

01:02:52.120 how, right, because you might be asking, well, how is sorrow multiplied by running after

01:02:56.900 idols? This is how. You run after an idol in the first place because you have lack.

01:03:01.980 You have some kind of need, some kind of want, some kind of problem, but when you run after

01:03:08.100 an idol to solve a problem, what you're ultimately doing is you're erecting a foundation, you're

01:03:16.080 erecting some kind of structure, some kind of hope, some kind of faith on sand, on sinking

01:03:23.400 sand, on an unsure foundation. And then what it ultimately does, the final result, is that it

01:03:29.340 fails. And when it fails, it doesn't just lend you right back to where you started, where now I have

01:03:35.720 to fix this problem again. No, it creates more problems. Think of a line, for example.

01:03:43.180 See, when you tell a line, what usually happens? In order to bolster that lie, to keep it going,

01:03:50.100 you're almost always required to tell more than just the original lie. It demands a continued,

01:03:58.440 ongoing, perpetual deceit.

01:04:02.160 And so it is with idolatry.

01:04:04.760 When we have some kind of lack in our life,

01:04:07.360 some kind of problem, some anxiety,

01:04:09.620 some turmoil, some tribulation,

01:04:11.580 and we go to an idol rather than going to Christ,

01:04:16.420 it doesn't just produce sorrow

01:04:19.240 because ultimately it will fail

01:04:21.060 and we go right back to the same problem we had.

01:04:23.920 No, what it does is it causes a ripple effect

01:04:26.440 because by trusting in this other thing,

01:04:28.980 we begin to have to prop up this idol.

01:04:31.480 There are other lies that we have to believe.

01:04:33.560 There are other sins we have to commit.

01:04:36.600 In committing, I mean, think about just the 10 commandments

01:04:38.980 that we read in the beginning of our Lord's Day service

01:04:41.220 every week.

01:04:42.360 Have you noticed that in many ways, they're connected?

01:04:46.200 That if you break one,

01:04:48.040 by virtue of breaking one commandment,

01:04:49.740 you have to usually break three or four others?

01:04:53.020 So it is with idolatry.

01:04:54.740 That's the first commandment.

01:04:56.440 I mean, really, it's the first and second and third and fourth commandment.

01:05:00.420 Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

01:05:02.540 Thou shalt have no graven images.

01:05:04.580 Thou shalt not take my name in vain,

01:05:06.160 and thou shalt remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.

01:05:09.100 When we run after other gods,

01:05:12.540 what we're doing is we're erecting altars to false gods

01:05:16.200 that cannot save us.

01:05:18.860 They cannot satisfy us.

01:05:20.940 And when we erect one altar in order to prop it up,

01:05:24.600 In order to keep the deception, the delusion, the idolatry going,

01:05:28.860 it requires that we break other commandments and run after more and more gods.

01:05:34.220 Our hope begins slowly but gradually.

01:05:37.020 It begins to continually siphon away from Christ into idols.

01:05:43.340 Our sorrows are not just created by idolatry.

01:05:48.080 Our original sorrows that cause us to go to idols are multiplied in idolatry.

01:05:53.220 we'll stop there and Lord willing by God's grace we'll pick back up with Psalm 16 verse 5 next

01:06:00.800 Lord's Day thanks so much for listening but real quick before you go do us a small favor take a

01:06:06.640 moment and leave us a five-star review if you enjoyed the show this is undoubtedly the best

01:06:12.380 way that you can help us get this biblically faithful content to as many people as possible

01:06:17.360 thanks so much

The NXR Podcast - July 03, 2022

SUNDAY SERMON - How To Pray In Times Of Trouble (Part 1) - Psalm 16

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript