Please can you take your Bibles in hand and turn with me to Psalm 16. If you need to use a church Bible, you’ll find Psalm 16 on page 453. You will find it helpful once you’ve turned there to keep your Bibles open as we read and then consider the teaching of this part of God’s Word.
Now both the apostles, Peter and Paul, quote from Psalm 16 as speaking about Jesus Christ and especially about His resurrection from the dead. In Acts chapter 2, Peter quotes Psalm 16, verses 8 through 10, which conclude, “You will not abandon my soul to Sheol or let your holy ones see corruption.” And then Peter says David, the original author of these words, couldn’t possibly have been speaking about himself in Psalm 16 for the simple reason that David died and his tomb is with us to this day. David did see corruption, didn’t he? His bones lie mouldering in his grave right now, he told the people of Jerusalem. So who is this person who won’t stay in Sheol? Sheol is the Hebrew word for the realm or the state or the condition of death. Who is this person whose body won’t see corruption? Well Peter says David is speaking about Jesus who rose in glorious victory from the dead on the third day, according to the New Testament. Psalm 16 is the resurrection psalm. It’s the Easter psalm.
As we will see in a moment, the whole psalm is written in the first personal singular – “I, me, my.” In other words, while David wrote it, it is Jesus Christ and not really David the king who is the true speaker in Psalm 16. And when you understand that, working through this psalm can really help us see and savor the work accomplished for us by the Lord Jesus on that final Passover that first Easter Sunday, 2000 years ago. Let’s take a quick look at it just for a moment if you would. Psalm 16. I want you to see four things about Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. First in verse 1, I want you to see Jesus dependent in prayer. Jesus dependent in prayer. He cries to God to be preserved in the midst of all His suffering. Then verses 2 through 4, Jesus devoted in life. He pledges Himself to a life of obedience and service to His God. Thirdly verses 5 through 8, you will see Jesus delighted in heart. He is satisfied. Gladhearted. Thoroughly pleased with all that God is for Him. And then finally in verses 9 through 11, Jesus decided in hope. Even though death overtakes Him, He faces it with assured confidence in His own certain resurrection victory. Jesus is dependent in prayer, devoted in life, delighted in heart, and decided in hope.
And we are not at all like that, are we, not even on our best days. Truth be told, dependent in prayer, devoted in life, delighted in heart, decided in hope – that’s not me. I’m pretty sure it’s not you. Praise God that that is Jesus Christ – dependent in prayer, devoted in life, delighted in heart, and decided in hope. And because He was like this, we who fall short of the glory of God may hide our sin under His perfect righteousness and even now, today, begin for ourselves to have the same confidence, the same assurance, the same decided hope with which this psalm rings and resounds. Well, all of that said, before we read the text together would you bow your heads with me as we ask for the Lord to help us understand and believe His holy Word and then we’ll read Psalm 16. Let us all pray.
O Lord our God, You raised the Lord Jesus from the dead on the third day. We remember with great joy His wonderful victory over death on this day and we pray that the triumphant Christ might send us now the same Spirit to give life where we are spiritually dead, to give light into the midst of our sin-darkened understanding, and to show Himself to us from this portion of His holy, inerrant Word. For we ask it in His matchless name, amen.
Psalm 16 at verse 1. This is the Word of God:
“A Miktam of David.
Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge. I say to the Lord, ‘You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you.’
As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones, in whom is all my delight.
The sorrows of those who run after another god shall multiply; their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out or take their names on my lips.
The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup; you hold my lot. The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.
I bless the Lord who gives me counsel; in the night also my heart instructs me. I have set the Lord always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.
Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices; my flesh also dwells secure. For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your holy one see corruption.
You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”
Amen.
Well I must say, you are all dressed up in lovely, bright Easter Sunday colors this morning. You have family home for the weekend. It’s all wonderfully cheery. You look very nice! So I hope you won’t think me too much of a ghoul when I tell you that I have a particular fondness for old graveyards. I know, I know, trust the Scotsman, we’re all here with our families, all dressed up and happy, and he’s in a graveyard – happy Easter! Well I’m sorry, but actually I find something really moving about, you know, brushing off the moss from an old tombstone and reading the words of affection and hope etched into the granite, often in the language of holy Scripture and often longing explicitly for the great coming day of glorious resurrection. The preserved memory of the faith of those who have gone ahead of us I find to be quite inspiring as I stand at their graveside. Sometimes in those windswept graveyards I’m encouraged by the quiet witness of the believing dead to look forward through life with all its difficulties to the life to come.
If you’ll look at your Bibles with me, you will notice that Psalm 16 has a superscription. This psalm, we are told, is a “Miktam of David.” Do you see that language right there at the very beginning of the psalm? We don’t really know what that word “miktam,” that Hebrew word means. It might be a musical notation of some kind for those who are accompanying the singing of this psalm, but honestly we’re really not sure what this word means. But the ancient Jewish scholars who translated the Hebrew scriptures into the Greek language, the ancient Greek language, they suggest one possibility. The ancient Greek version renders this word “miktam” as “stelographia.” That is, a word or words inscribed on a stele. A stele was a stone monument. So they considered this psalm like words engraved in rock, like the tombstone testimony of the believing dead, bearing eloquent witness to the goodness of God down through the ages. Only in this case, the words of Psalm 16, written as it were on the tombstone of the Messiah, tell all who visit this graveyard that this particular grave is empty. “He is not here. He has risen.”
Let’s look at the passage together and let’s see how that is so. Notice in the first place in verse 1 – Jesus’ dependent prayer. Jesus’ dependent prayer. “Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge.” This is the only petition in the psalm, the only prayer in the psalm, and we don’t discover how urgent this prayer is until we get almost to the very end of the psalm. But in verse 10, finally it becomes clear that Sheol, the realm or the state of death, that’s the great threat from which the psalmist seeks to be preserved. Now when you read the psalm as I think the New Testament intends us to read the psalm as the cry of Jesus Christ, it’s hard not to hear the echoes of Gethsemane here in this opening line of Psalm 16, isn’t it? You remember the scene. On the night of Jesus’ arrest and betrayal, under the weight of anticipated agony as He looks into the darkness of His coming suffering, just a few short hours away He gathers with His disciples to pray in the garden of Gethsemane and to seek the face of His Father. And there, as the enormity of His coming ordeal, bore down upon Him. He cried, do you remember, “Father, if it be Your will, let this cup pass from Me. Yet not My will but Your will be done.” He cried, in effect, “Preserve me, O God, for in You I take refuge.” God His Father was His hiding place, His refuge, His security.
Often we don’t know what to pray for in suffering, do we, when it’s acute and sore and we are desperate. Not infrequently our words just fail. Here’s how our Savior prayed in the depths. Here’s how He prayed. “Preserve Me, O God, for in You I take refuge.” Now I dare say, however dark your sufferings, you can pray these words too. When you have no other words to say, you can pray with your Savior, “Preserve me, O God, for in You I take refuge.” Faith takes refuge in the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Father heard Him when He took refuge in Him. And if you are trusting in Jesus Christ, taking refuge in the Lord, He will hear you too. And so first, Jesus was dependent in prayer.
Then secondly, though, notice Jesus is devoted in life. Look this time at verses 2 through 4. The threat of death is looming over Him. The prospect of Calvary throwing its shadow over His mind. But notice how He responds in verse 2. “I say to the Lord, ‘You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you.’” This was Jesus’ posture throughout His whole life, wasn’t it? Always He turned toward His Father and sought no good anywhere but in Him. Even at the pinnacle of His suffering, as He hung there between two thieves amidst all the jeers and the blasphemies of the crowd hurled at Him, even then, submerged beneath the flood of judgment and the awareness of God’s abandonment, even there, even then, when all the pressure was pushing Him to abandon the Lord, you remember how He spoke? “My God. My God.” Here in the dark, in the loneliness and the pain of the cross, still “I say to the Lord, ‘You are my Lord and I have no good apart from You.’” At no point did our Savior turn aside from total devotion to His Father. The words of the first commandment require that we have no other god apart from Me. “I am the Lord your God. You shall have no other gods apart from Me.” And here is the obedient Son, keeping the law, saying even in the uttermost extreme of suffering, “You are My Lord. I have no good apart from You.”
When I was in college, I knew a man who had a really frustrating habit. If you ever see me do this to you, you have my permission to smack me upside the head! When he was talking to you, especially in a crowded room, his habit was, he would be talking to you and then he’d start to look over your shoulder. And you know, he would notice someone over there more interesting that he wanted to talk to. So you felt at first like you really had his attention, but not for long. Christopher Ash says that the speaker of the psalm here, “will not, as it were, look over God’s shoulder to see if he can find blessing from some other sources. Much as we might look for blessing outside God’s will in selfish career ambitions, sexual immorality, covetousness, disobedience to authority, and so on. He knows that every good and perfect gift comes from God.” Jesus kept this pledge perfectly. Perfectly obedient, finding no other god but the Lord.
So thoroughgoing is his commitment to life God’s way in fact that he loves to be with those who love God too, doesn’t he, and he refused to participate in the wickedness of those who do not. Do you see that in verses 3 and 4? “As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones, in whom is all my delight. The sorrows of those who run after another god shall multiply; their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out or take their names on my lips.” Christ delights in the people of God but He is never drawn into idolatry. And again, the contrast with us is striking here, isn’t it? Even as mature Christians who really do love to be with the saints, with the people of God, even then the idols of our culture, they turn our heads, they steal our affections. But not so the Lord Jesus Christ. When Satan tempted Him in Matthew chapter 4, telling Him that he could provide a shortcut to kingly rule over all the world if only Jesus would bow down and worship him, you remember how our Savior replied? “Be gone, Satan, for it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and Him only shall you serve.’” David who first wrote these words couldn’t really say them with complete integrity. His heart, like my heart and your heart was “prone to wander, Lord we feel it; prone to leave the God we love.” But Jesus Christ was the obedient servant of the Lord, tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin.
He was dependent in prayer. He was devoted in life. Thirdly, look at verses 5 through 8 and see Jesus delighted in heart. Dependent in prayer. Devoted in life. Delighted in heart. Notice the language carefully in verses 5 through 8. The psalm speaks of “my chosen portion and cup; my lot” that the Lord holds for him. “The lines that have fallen in pleasant places.” Boundary lines. “I have,” verse 6, “a beautiful inheritance.” That’s language used in the Old Testament scriptures to describe the allotment of territory of a physical plot of dirt, assigned to each family in the nation of Israel in the promised land. But it’s not a well appointed vineyard or a delightful mountain pasture or a beautiful sea view from his lovely family home that the speaker is talking about and celebrating here when he says, “The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places,” is it? What is his allotment and his inheritance? Verse 5 – “The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup.” The Lord is his beautiful inheritance.
Now that’s challenging. Isn’t that challenging? I find it challenging. We run after all these things, don’t we? We want the earthly portion. Jesus is nice and all, but give me a beautiful sea view from my lovely family villa. That’s our heart. But Jesus doesn’t live for this world’s treasure. The Lord is His portion. In John 17:5, on the eve of His crucifixion, Jesus looked past His coming suffering and death to the full enjoyment of this inheritance that the psalm is speaking of here. After His resurrection in John 17:5, he prays, “Father, glorify Me in Your own presence with the glory I had with You before the world existed.” That was the longing of His heart – not earthly success or fleeting pleasures. I wonder what you are living for. What are you living for? You can’t have the Lord as your beautiful inheritance and live for the accumulation of things. “You cannot serve,” Jesus said, “You cannot serve God and money.” The Lord was Christ’s portion. What is your portion? It is one or the other. What are you living for?
We see a bit more of what it means for Jesus to find His inheritance, His heart’s desire in the Lord if you look in verses 7 and 8. Look there please. “I bless the Lord who gives me counsel; in the night also my heart instructs me. I have set the Lord always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.” What a precious inheritance he has in his God whose counsels guide him. His heart literally – in the Hebrew language it’s not your heart; it’s your bowels that are the center of emotion but we use the heart to mean the same thing – the emotional center of the self. His heart, his affections, they give him counsel. They don’t accuse him; they counsel him in the night.
So here’s the picture. I want you to get this in your mind. The Word of God has so permeated his inner life that even in the middle of the night – so think about that moment, 2am, you’re lying awake, you have that cold, sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach as your mind plays back over that conversation two days ago and the terrible mess you made and the stupid things you did and it all comes flooding back; your heart condemns you – you know what I’m talking about? Do you? Is it just me? Well that never happened to Jesus. In the night watches at 2am, His heart counseled Him. He had nothing against Himself. There was not a moment’s self recrimination. That’s not arrogance. That is the peace of a perfectly clean conscience that only our Savior knew. When we look honestly at ourselves, don’t we find nothing but reasons for self reproach? But Jesus lives by the counsels of God and His heart instructs Him in the night. And because the Lord is always before Him, He says, “I will not be shaken. I live in unassailable security.”
And that brings us to the last thing I want you to see in this psalm. Jesus dependent in prayer, devoted in life, delighted in heart, but now look at verses 9 through 11 and see Jesus decided in hope. What does He mean when He says with such confidence in verse 8, “I shall not be shaken”? What is He talking about? He means He can look into Sheol in verses 9 and 10 with an unassailable hope. You see that language in verses 9 and 10? Look there. “Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices; my flesh also dwells secure. For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your holy one see corruption.” So He can stare into death, Sheol, death, and face it with unwavering assurance. That’s what He means when He says, “I shall not be shaken.” Sheol, the realm of death, it’s the pit into which our Lord stared so intently that night in the garden of Gethsemane when He was betrayed.
And there He saw what was waiting for Him – not just physical death, the mere termination of bodily life. He saw the full horror of death under the wrath and curse of God that is due to all our sin. Certainly, certainly He saw that His coming crucifixion would entail unspeakable, physical pain as the nails were driven into His hands and feet and His cross was dropped with a jolt into its stand. But in Gethsemane He saw much more than that – not just the physical pain; He looked beyond that. He saw, He saw the fury of God’s righteous anger at David Strain, of David Strain’s pride and David Strain’s laziness and David Strain’s self righteousness and David Strain’s twisted, idolatrous heart. In Gethsemane, Jesus looked into Sheol, into death, and He saw there the hell I deserve, the wrath of God that ought to slam down like a falling hammer on my head, and He took it from me and He bore it in my place. He saw the righteous anger of infinite, divine holiness barreling toward us like a runaway train, suddenly now switched from a collision course on one track now to run on another track entirely so that instead of barreling down on a collision course toward us, it collides with Him.
That’s what He saw waiting for Him as He gazed into Sheol that night in the garden, and yet still He fought through the horror to submit Himself to the will of God. He took it all and said, “My flesh dwells secure. You will not abandon My soul to Sheol or let Your holy one see corruption.” Though His perfect humanity appropriately shrank back from the suffering that He saw was coming, still He knew death couldn’t win in a contest of strength with Him. Corruption would find no purchase upon Him. And so He didn’t refuse; He embraced the cross. “Not My will, but Your will be done.”
In fact, armed with this great assurance, He can sing about how, in verse 11, “You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” Think again about the Lord Jesus gone now from Gethsemane, dragged by the mob to Caiaphas and Pilate, being flogged and beaten, condemned and mocked. And now here He is, see Him now hanging between two thieves, nailed to His cross. The acid of divine wrath is etching itself into His soul. Everything that He saw in anticipation was waiting for Him in Sheol, in the grave. All the horror and suffering and judgement of God due my sin, all of it, He now feels and experiences and endures.
And then, and then as the unutterable horror of it all plays out, somehow in the middle of it, right in the middle of it, one voice changes tone. One of the mockers screaming in agony and hatred nailed either side of Him, these two thieves, one of them has a change of heart. He repents and he cries, “Lord Jesus, remember me when You come into Your kingdom. Have mercy on me.” Do you remember Jesus’ response? It’s stunning. His answer to the repentant, dying thief tells us that even there in the darkest night of human history when the Son of God who made all things was murdered by the people He came to save, even there the bright hope of Psalm 16:9-11 was shining brightly in Jesus’ mind, so that somehow through the pain He was able to tell this dying sinner, “Today, you will be with Me in paradise.” Even in the abyss of the cross, the bright assurance of paradise filled His mind. Paradise is coming. “At Your right hand, O God, are pleasures forevermore. That’s where I’m going, and I’m taking you with Me,” He told the repentant sinner.
“God has made known the path of life,” the psalmist says. Well the path of life for Jesus required that He be perfectly dependent in prayer, perfectly devoted in life, perfectly delighted in heart, perfectly decided in hope. And He was. He was all of those things. Always the obedient Son, even unto death, even the death of the cross. And that’s why, having secured life by His obedience, death could no longer hold Him and He rose in victory on the third day. His body did not see decay, but He triumphed over the grave. Because of His perfect obedience, Jesus lives. Obedience was the path of life for Jesus. But think again now about the dying thief. That option was not available to him – perfect obedience – was it? There was no perfect obedience for him. No, he understands as he slowly here bleeds out on his own cross, he understands that he is beyond helping himself. He has no boast. He has no works to perform. His hands are bound by nails to a wooden cross. No, nothing to do. Nothing he could do. He has no goodness. He is the epitome of moral bankruptcy. His only hope lay not in any effort of his but in the perfect obedience of the man dying next to him. That’s the path of life. Jesus is the path of life that God has made known for me and you.
And listen, when you come to Jesus like the dying thief came to Jesus – which is the only way any of us ever can come to Jesus – not trying to cut a deal, not trying to bargain with your attempted good behavior, but actually understanding the truth you are actually as bankrupt as that dying thief, and you come to Jesus not trying to bargain but begging for mercy, the same assurance that flooded the heart of our Savior is the same assurance He gave to that dying thief He now gives to you. He now gives to you. “As you trust Me, you will be with Me in glorious paradise. Let your heart be glad and your whole being rejoice; your flesh also now and forever dwells secure. For God will not abandon even your soul, sin-stained, broken, guilty, world weary, worn out, threadbare, not even your soul to Sheol, to death, because I died for you and I have triumphed over the grave for you. I am the path of life now for you, and if you will trust Me, be assured that in God’s presence there is fullness of joy for you now and pleasures at His right hand forever more.”
The obedient, dying, rising, reigning Jesus was the path of life for the dying thief and He is the path of life for me and the path of life for you. He discovered the way to life. So can you. Cry to Christ. No more bargaining, no more offering up your best behavior. Forget it. All your righteousness is filthy rags. Ask for mercy. That’s the path of life. Now it may be as you reflect on your life and on the cross and on the empty tomb and the resurrection of Jesus Christ this Easter, it may be you are beginning to realize how badly you really need Him. I hope that’s so. Maybe you’d like to talk to someone about that. There will be a pastor down front after the service. We would love to talk to you. I’ll be in the back with Scott. We would be delighted to meet with you. Remember that there is a meet and greet in the Welcome Center. Please do linger. We have some gifts for you. There will be staff around the building. If you are a visitor here, please don’t leave without getting one of these little booklets. If you are interested in knowing more about the message of the Christian Gospel and the path to life, this will really help you. We also have a little gift for your children. If you are a visitor or if you have questions, please take one of those. Our staff are eager to help you. That’s our Easter gift to you. No salesman will call. No commitment required. We just want to bless you and point you to Christ.
But listen now, the response you really need to make doesn’t involve talking to anybody here. You don’t have to talk to anybody here. You don’t need to sign up for anything. The response you need to make, you need to make is the response of the dying thief. And you can do that right now as you sit quietly here in the pew before God. Would you bow before Him and confess your sin and guilt today, maybe for the very first time. Tell Him that you are so sorry, so helpless, and so lost, and ask the Lord Jesus who died for sinners like me and you for mercy. Plead with Him, the crucified, risen Christ, to save you. Do you know what? Everyone who ever did heard Him say, “Yes” and “Welcome.” He will if you call out to Him. “You will be with Me in paradise.” That’s His promise.
Why don’t we do that now in the quiet for a moment or two and then I’ll lead us in prayer before we conclude our service. Let us pray.Lord Jesus, we confess to You how unlike You we really are, how our hearts run after and inheritance of earthly pleasures, how though You say, “Have no other gods beside Me,” we are constantly making idols to live for and serve; how we are never satisfied with the good things You give, how in countless ways in our thoughts and words and actions we have fallen short of Your glory. There is not one of us righteous, not even one. We own it and we confess it. We are just like that dying thief. We have been pretending, we have kidded ourselves for awhile that we are good, together, we’re put together; we have a plan. We’re competent, capable, smart, upright people. God ought to be impressed. But here today this Easter Sunday before You, the truth is we are bankrupt and broken and helpless and dirty and we really need Your mercy. Lord Jesus, remember us from the throne of glory and have mercy. Save us and grant that the power of Your resurrection life might fill our hearts with new life of its own. For Jesus’ sake we pray, amen.