NXR Podcast - SUNDAY SERMON - How To Pray In Times Of Trouble (Part 1) - Psalm 16
Aired: 2022-07-03
Duration: 01:06:18


=== Equip Us To Be Stewards (05:33) ===

[00:00:00]  Hey guys, real quick before we get started, I have a small request.
[00:00:03]  If you've been blessed by our content and you like this show, would you take just a brief moment and leave us a five star review?
[00:00:09]  This is quite possibly the most effective thing that you can do to ensure that this content gets out to as many people as possible.
[00:00:17]  Thanks.
[00:00:18]  Our text for today is Psalm 16.
[00:00:21]  God's word says this Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge.
[00:00:28]  I say to the Lord, You are my Lord.
[00:00:31]  I have no good apart from you.
[00:00:33]  As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones, in whom is all my delight.
[00:00:39]  The sorrows of those who run after another God shall multiply.
[00:00:43]  Their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out or take their names on my lips.
[00:00:49]  The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup.
[00:00:52]  You hold my lot.
[00:00:54]  The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places.
[00:00:57]  Indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.
[00:01:00]  I bless the Lord who gives me counsel.
[00:01:03]  In the night also, my heart instructs me.
[00:01:06]  I have set the Lord always before me.
[00:01:09]  Because He is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.
[00:01:13]  Therefore, my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices.
[00:01:16]  My flesh also dwells secure.
[00:01:19]  For you will not abandon my soul to shield, or let your Holy One see corruption.
[00:01:24]  You make known to me the path of life.
[00:01:27]  In your presence, there is fullness of joy.
[00:01:30]  At your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
[00:01:33]  This is the word of the Lord.
[00:01:37]  Please be seated and join me as I pray for us once more.
[00:01:40]  Father, we thank you for your word.
[00:01:43]  And now, by your grace, and by the revelation that the spiritual eye opening power of the Holy Spirit with humble hearts, we acknowledge, not only acknowledge, but we agree with, we give our assent to the testimony of your word, namely that each of us have sinned and fallen short of your glory.
[00:02:05]  And that by virtue of our own volitional rebellion against you, By virtue of the fact that each of us as individuals have committed cosmic treason against the King of all kings, the King of the universe, we have, by our sin, forfeited whatever right we may have previously possessed in order to be deserving of or entitled to a revelation of your truth,
[00:02:32]  a revelation of you and who you are and what you've done.
[00:02:38]  As sinners, we do not deserve the privilege of knowing.
[00:02:44]  The Holy God.
[00:02:46]  And so, your word, a revelation of who you are, what you've done, and what it is that you require from man as a right response of obedience and love and worship, this revelation of your truth comes to us this morning as it always does.
[00:03:02]  It comes to us as an undeserved gift.
[00:03:05]  It comes to us as unmerited favor.
[00:03:08]  It comes to us as grace.
[00:03:11]  And so, Father, we pray that by the power of your Holy Spirit, that you might properly.
[00:03:18]  Equip us to be good stewards of this grace.
[00:03:22]  That you might equip us with spiritual eyes to see and spiritual ears to hear, with new hearts that are softened and malleable and receptive to your truth.
[00:03:34]  Father, I ask that indeed, through the preaching of your word today, coupled by the conviction and the illuminating power of the Holy Spirit, that your people would, in fact, arrive at a greater, more accurate, more proper, more biblical understanding of who you are.
[00:03:52]  Of what you've done and of what it is that you require from each of us in obedience and worship and adoration.
[00:04:00]  And Father, we pray that this right knowledge of who you are wouldn't just be good theology as an end in itself, 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]  The heart cannot adore what the mind does not know.
[00:04:28]  An empty mind lends towards an idolatrous and wandering heart.
[00:04:35]  In order for us to have right affection and love for you, we must rightly in our minds know you.
[00:04:43]  So, Father, we pray that that would be achieved by your grace and power today, that through the preaching of your word, our minds would be filled with right truth, right knowledge of you.
[00:04:57]  And that this would propel our hearts into right love for you, a right response to your word.
[00:05:06]  We pray all these things ultimately that you might be glorified in all the earth.
[00:05:11]  But we also pray these things for the good of those people that you're saving across the globe, in our city, and perhaps even in this room.
[00:05:21]  We pray these things in the precious name of your son Jesus.
[00:05:24]  Amen.
[00:05:27]  By way of introduction, if you have your sermon notes, Feel free to follow along.
[00:05:31]  I've written the following.

=== God Is Omnipresent And Infinite (03:33) ===

[00:05:33]  The main point, I believe, of Psalm chapter 16 is this God promises to preserve all his people, both body and soul, through life and death to complete and eternal pleasure.
[00:05:48]  Or we could say it like this God promises to preserve, that is, to maintain, to sustain all of his people, not some of them, but all who have been born again by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.
[00:06:00]  All his sons and daughters who have been adopted by the ministry of the Holy Spirit, God promises without exception to preserve and sustain and hold and keep all of his people, both physically and spiritually, body and soul, not only through this life, but even through death, and to carry us all the way to a particular end.
[00:06:27]  This end being complete and eternal pleasure, that is, fullness of joy.
[00:06:34]  And a full duration of joy.
[00:06:37]  That in God and only in God Himself can we experience and receive not only our highest joy, but our everlasting joy.
[00:06:49]  God is the only being in all the universe, the only someone, or also the only something.
[00:06:56]  Not that God is a thing, but out of all things and all people, God is the only being in all the universe.
[00:07:05]  Who can provide for us joy, comfort, pleasure, happiness, blessedness in full measure and full duration?
[00:07:18]  Another way of saying this is that heaven apart from God would be, in a sense, hell.
[00:07:25]  Now, it wouldn't be a biblical hell.
[00:07:27]  The Bible says that what makes hell hell is not the absence of God's presence.
[00:07:33]  Many Christians are confused on this matter, they think that hell is hell because God is not there.
[00:07:40]  But the reality, the frightening reality that makes hell so terrible is not that God is absent, but that God is present in hell, but he is only present in his judgment, in his justice, in his wrath.
[00:07:59]  And we know that God is present in hell because David prays elsewhere in the Psalms.
[00:08:04]  He says, Where can I go that your presence would not be with me?
[00:08:09]  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]  Sheol, you are there.
[00:08:19]  We know that God is in hell because God is omnipresent, He is infinite.
[00:08:28]  If there is anywhere in all the universe, in the heavenly realms, or the earthly planes, that God is absent, then we must say that in some capacity, God is finite in His presence.
[00:08:42]  But if God is infinite, Not only in his power, omnipotence, not only in his love, his omnibenevolence, not only in his knowledge, omniscience, but also that God is infinite in his presence, then we must say he is omnipresent.
[00:09:00]  Meaning there is nowhere where God cannot be found.

=== Understanding Analogous Language (08:05) ===

[00:09:06]  The beauty of the immutability of God, the doctrine of God's unchangeableness, is that God remains the same.
[00:09:16]  Yesterday, today, and forevermore.
[00:09:20]  God never changes.
[00:09:23]  The Old Testament says this the prophet speaking on behalf of God, God says, Behold, I am the Lord, I change not, so that you, the sons of Jacob, are not consumed.
[00:09:36]  It is to the great and eternal benefit of the people of God that our God is immutable, that he never changes, that he will not change his mind.
[00:09:48]  Elsewhere in the scripture, the Bible says, God is not a man that he should repent or change his mind.
[00:09:56]  When the scripture uses language like this, that God repented of making man when he saw the great evil on the earth.
[00:10:05]  The Bible, when it speaks with these kinds of terms, we must understand this in theological terms as the doctrine of analogy.
[00:10:14]  The overarching doctrine here, the overarching banner, is the doctrine of analogy.
[00:10:19]  Now, underneath this banner of the doctrine of analogy, we have two primary categories.
[00:10:25]  One is understanding the physical traits, as it were, of God in analogous terms.
[00:10:34]  The theological term that you may not be familiar with, but perhaps some of you have heard it before, is the idea of God having eyes that roam to and fro over all the earth looking for the righteous, or that God has a right arm that is mighty to save.
[00:10:53]  This is the analogous language that speaks of God in physical ways.
[00:10:58]  And the word I actually cannot remember right now for some reason.
[00:11:04]  Anthropomorphic.
[00:11:05]  Thank you.
[00:11:05]  That's the beauty of doing church in a living room, in a home with educated saints such as you.
[00:11:12]  I knew that somebody would have it.
[00:11:13]  Anthropomorphic.
[00:11:14]  On the other side, the other category underneath this banner of the doctrine of analogy is anthropopathic.
[00:11:21]  So, anthropopathic is.
[00:11:23]  Tending to speak of God in emotional ways.
[00:11:27]  So, when the Bible says that God was grieved, or when the Bible says that God was happy, we should always understand these kinds of sayings about God as analogous.
[00:11:40]  God was grieved, as it were.
[00:11:44]  We should use that phrase, as it were.
[00:11:46]  Or God has eyes roaming to and fro over the whole earth, as it were.
[00:11:51]  Now, these are proper ways to speak about God because God Himself speaks of Himself in this way.
[00:11:57]  This is biblical language.
[00:11:59]  So, God is speaking to us.
[00:12:01]  Under the banner of analogy, precisely because God wants to be understood.
[00:12:06]  God wants to be known.
[00:12:08]  See, there are some theologians in past years, just a few decades ago, who are fond of saying that God is completely other.
[00:12:17]  He is entirely other.
[00:12:19]  Well, if God is entirely other, then there's nothing that we can understand of him.
[00:12:24]  God is not entirely other.
[00:12:26]  Certainly, he is infinitely greater than you and I.
[00:12:31]  But the mere fact that mankind, according to Scripture, was created in God's image.
[00:12:36]  Tells us that God possesses, as it were, communicable attributes.
[00:12:42]  That there are things that we can know about God.
[00:12:45]  Now, we'll never know the fullness of the extent of these things, but you and I can say, as God says about Himself in His Word, that God is good.
[00:12:55]  And when we say that God is good, we are saying something that is empirically true and proper to say about God.
[00:13:04]  And yet, the reality still exists that none of us fully understand.
[00:13:09]  What God being good really means.
[00:13:13]  No eye has seen, no ear has heard what God in His goodness, we might imply, has in store for those who love Him.
[00:13:21]  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.
[00:13:33]  Even in heaven, you and I will not enter heaven and automatically achieve, or we can say, ever achieve.
[00:13:41]  A full comprehensive knowledge and understanding of God.
[00:13:46]  Because in heaven, our fallenness will be no more.
[00:13:49]  That is, our sinfulness.
[00:13:52]  In heaven, you and I will no longer be sinful.
[00:13:54]  We will no longer sin.
[00:13:56]  Our fallenness will be done away with, but our finitude will remain.
[00:14:01]  In heaven, you and I will no longer be fallen creatures, but we will still be creatures.
[00:14:06]  Redeemed creatures, justified creatures, sanctified creatures, and in heaven, glorified creatures.
[00:14:14]  But always creatures.
[00:14:16]  Always finite.
[00:14:18]  And so our understanding of God in this life is marred and tarnished and twisted and perverted by our fallenness, by sin.
[00:14:26]  But it is also limited by our finitude.
[00:14:30]  The fact that He alone is the Creator who is to be forever praised.
[00:14:36]  Amen.
[00:14:36]  Where you and I remain creatures, finite.
[00:14:40]  And so God speaks to us in order to be known by His people.
[00:14:44]  He speaks to us in His Word, in His revelation.
[00:14:48]  Underneath the banner of analogy, 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]  R.C. Sproul uses this illustration.
[00:15:05]  He says that when we say that I have a good dog, what do we mean by goodness when we're using the term to describe a pet, such as a dog?
[00:15:16]  I have a good dog, he's a good boy.
[00:15:19]  What we mean is that he doesn't pee in the house, he doesn't bite the mailman's leg, and he comes when I call him.
[00:15:29]  But if I were to say that David is a good friend, I do not mean that he doesn't pee in the house, that he doesn't bite the mailman's leg, and that he comes when I call him.
[00:15:41]  So the word goodness takes on a much higher meaning when it's used to describe a person.
[00:15:49]  Rather than a dog, it's the same principle applied to God.
[00:15:54]  When we say that God is good, imagine everything that you can think in terms of goodness and describing people.
[00:16:02]  When you say that a person is good, you mean one thing.
[00:16:06]  But when you say that God is good, you mean something entirely more, something infinitely more.
[00:16:14]  When we speak of the goodness of God, and yet that word, that term, God is good, still tells us.
[00:16:23]  We cannot comprehend everything, but it still tells us something.
[00:16:27]  We're still understanding something about God.
[00:16:31]  So, God promises to preserve all of His people, both in body and soul, through life and death, to complete and eternal pleasure.
[00:16:41]  Complete and eternal pleasure, meaning that God is the only being in all of the universe that ultimately can capture our hearts, joy, and affection to the highest degree.
[00:16:56]  And for an everlasting duration.
[00:17:01]  And hell is hell because God is there in his justice, in his judgment, in his righteousness.

=== The Unchanging Sun Of God (04:59) ===

[00:17:11]  And yet heaven is heaven because God is there in the very same way, but the people, the audience, if you will, of God, that's what changes.
[00:17:23]  And that's what I was getting at with this doctrine of analogy the idea that God is.
[00:17:27]  Immutable, that he never changes.
[00:17:29]  He does not actually have a physical arm.
[00:17:31]  This is anthropomorphic language.
[00:17:34]  He does not actually have emotions.
[00:17:36]  He's not just changing his mind or repenting or regretting or being grieved.
[00:17:40]  That's anthropopathic language.
[00:17:42]  God is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
[00:17:46]  And so, what that means, I believe it was Sam Rinahan, a Reformed Baptist theologian, who said this.
[00:17:52]  He said that in the gospel, it's not that God changes his disposition toward us.
[00:17:58]  When God saves someone by grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone, He is not changing.
[00:18:05]  God is not changing toward us.
[00:18:08]  Rather, God is changing us toward Him.
[00:18:12]  Think of the sun.
[00:18:13]  Charles Spurgeon said, The same sun that hardens the clay, it melts the wax.
[00:18:19]  Well, think about God as the sun, S U N, the sun in the sky.
[00:18:25]  There are certain things that we could leave for a whole day out in the sun.
[00:18:30]  And they would become putrid.
[00:18:33]  They would decay.
[00:18:36]  They would devolve.
[00:18:38]  But there are other things, such as a flower planted in the ground, that with the sunlight it begins to blossom and to grow.
[00:18:48]  In the gospel, God does not change toward us.
[00:18:52]  The gospel is not that God, the infinite, the unchanging, immutable God, undergoes some kind of transition that previously he was angry with us, and now all of a sudden.
[00:19:04]  He loves us.
[00:19:05]  That's not the gospel.
[00:19:07]  No, the gospel is that God, in His mercy, He doesn't change toward us.
[00:19:12]  God, in His mercy, through the finished work of Jesus Christ received through faith, He changes you.
[00:19:18]  He changes you.
[00:19:20]  And that's why the Bible speaks that in Christ we are a new creation.
[00:19:28]  There's something about us in conversion, in salvation, that undergoes change.
[00:19:35]  So we go from being a meatloaf, for lack of a better example, to a tulip.
[00:19:40]  Meaning, if God is the sun, And you and I are a meatloaf, and we're left outside all day for 12 hours in the scorching heat of Texas in July.
[00:19:51]  If we're a meatloaf, by the end of the day, who wants to eat that?
[00:19:56]  Right?
[00:19:56]  The experience of the meatloaf is not going to be positive as it receives the light and heat of the sun all day long.
[00:20:07]  But the flower experiences something entirely different.
[00:20:12]  It's not as though the flower is in the presence of one sun.
[00:20:16]  And the meatloaf is in the presence of another.
[00:20:18]  It's the same sun, but that sun, in its effects, as it were, on different objects, different variables, it has different effects.
[00:20:29]  And so, what God does in the gospel is He changes us, He clothes us in the righteousness of His own Son.
[00:20:35]  He causes us to become a new creation in Christ Jesus.
[00:20:39]  He causes us to become spiritually alive.
[00:20:41]  He gives us ears to hear, He gives us eyes to see, He gives us hearts that are no longer like stone, Ezekiel chapter 36, but rather.
[00:20:49]  Hearts of flesh that are softened and malleable and receptive to His Word.
[00:20:54]  The change is not in God.
[00:20:55]  The change is in His people.
[00:20:58]  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]  But hell, rather, is like the meatloaf completely and slowly and eternally devolving, decaying, rotting, becoming putrid.
[00:21:24]  So, God promises to deliver not all people, but His people, both in body and soul.
[00:21:31]  That does not mean that we will not undergo physical death, but it does mean that this body, not a different one, not a new one, but this physical body that we have in this life, according to Scripture, is promised to be resurrected and glorified.
[00:21:49]  And so, God is going to ultimately, in an ultimate sense, in an eternal sense, He has promised to preserve all of his people, not only in spirit or soul, but even in body forever through all of eternity, and to bring us to eternal and perfect or complete pleasure.

=== Struggling With Personal Faith (05:54) ===

[00:22:11]  Eternal and perfect joy.
[00:22:14]  Our joy will be at its highest, and our joy will have an everlasting duration.
[00:22:21]  But how does he do this?
[00:22:23]  According to Psalm 16, there are four primary things that we see about God who he is.
[00:22:29]  That gives us the answer for his methods, how he will fulfill this promise of everlasting preservation, of bringing us through life and death in body and in soul to eternal and perfect pleasure and joy.
[00:22:46]  How will he do this?
[00:22:48]  He will do this by being for us a safe refuge, our supreme treasure, our sovereign Lord, and our sure counselor.
[00:23:01]  I used four S's, alliteration, in order to help us remember.
[00:23:05]  I hope that it's helpful.
[00:23:07]  Four things.
[00:23:08]  Now, certainly, there's more that we could glean from the text, but I believe there are at least, at minimum, four primary things that we see about God.
[00:23:18]  Who He is, but here's the key it's not just who God is.
[00:23:23]  As I preach through this text, we must understand it's who God is for us.
[00:23:29]  See, that's the disconnect.
[00:23:32]  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.
[00:23:42]  But what they struggle to believe at a heart level is that God, in His sovereignty, is being sovereign for them.
[00:23:51]  The reason why you and I so often struggle to trust God is not always because we don't believe the mere existence or the mere reality of His attributes or His perfections.
[00:24:06]  Our hang up, our struggle, our hindrance to trust God is not always rooted in the fact that we don't really believe He's sovereign.
[00:24:14]  Or we don't really believe he's merciful, or we don't really believe he's kind.
[00:24:18]  It's that we don't really believe he's sovereign, merciful, and kind for us.
[00:24:23]  That God will be kind to me.
[00:24:25]  It is so easy, I think, at least at a personal level, I'll speak for myself.
[00:24:31]  It is so easy for me as a Christian to have so much more faith in the character and goodness of God for others than it is to believe in his character and goodness for me.
[00:24:44]  I have very little trouble believing the gospel.
[00:24:48]  For others, for the proverbial someone somewhere out there.
[00:24:55]  Even on my worst days, if you ask me, is there a God in heaven who is thrice holy, but also a merciful God who has promised to save his elect people through the person and work of his son Jesus, by grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone?
[00:25:09]  I'll say, yes, there is.
[00:25:12]  But on my worst day, if you ask me, and are you included among those elect?
[00:25:17]  Are you a beneficiary?
[00:25:20]  His goodness, His kindness, His salvation, and forgiveness of sin.
[00:25:24]  On my worst days, I'll struggle at times to say yes.
[00:25:29]  It's not just believing who God is that is the challenge.
[00:25:33]  When it comes to trusting the Lord, often the greatest challenge is believing in who God is and that He will be this God for me.
[00:25:44]  I think of Galatians where Paul says, He says, That Jesus gave himself up for me.
[00:25:55]  It's very personal language.
[00:25:57]  I believe it's Galatians 2 or perhaps Galatians chapter 3, where he says, The Son of God loved me.
[00:26:03]  He says, I believe, I'm convinced, I'm persuaded that the Son of God, that Christ, he loved me and gave himself up.
[00:26:11]  That is, sacrificed himself, died for me.
[00:26:15]  He doesn't just say, I believe that the Son of God loves people and gave himself up.
[00:26:21]  As a lamb to be slaughtered for people.
[00:26:24]  No, he says it at a personal level, at an individual level.
[00:26:29]  Jesus loves me.
[00:26:33]  In some sense, we need to get back to some of the old children's classics.
[00:26:39]  Jesus loves me, this I know.
[00:26:42]  Why?
[00:26:43]  Because you've had some kind of mystical personal experience with him, a dream or a vision?
[00:26:48]  No, Jesus loves me, this I know.
[00:26:51]  For the Bible tells me so.
[00:26:55]  And it's enough.
[00:26:57]  The Bible tells me so.
[00:26:58]  That the Bible is, it's sufficient.
[00:27:01]  That in God's word, He tells me that He loves me.
[00:27:04]  Now, you might be saying, Joel, where in the Bible does it say God loves Joel?
[00:27:11]  The Bible tells me that God loves me individually by the internal witness of the Holy Spirit that cries out, Abba Father.
[00:27:20]  The Bible, working in conjunction with the Spirit in the power and the method of illumination, tells us as individuals that God not only exists and loves someone, but that God loves us.
[00:27:38]  We find that in the Word, but you will never find.
[00:27:41]  You can read the Bible all day long, like the Pharisees who relentlessly and incessantly searched the Scriptures, and yet they never saw Christ in the Scriptures.
[00:27:52]  They missed Jesus.
[00:27:55]  And yet the reality is that we can read the Scripture for years, for decades, our entire life, and see the love of God for someone, but never see the love of God for us.

=== Finding Refuge In God (15:08) ===

[00:28:06]  But it is only when the reading of the Scripture Is coupled with the work of the Spirit that we begin to see that all of who God is is for us.
[00:28:19]  That we are a recipient of His goodness, His kindness, His love.
[00:28:25]  See, it's the Holy Spirit in His two roles as it pertains to the Scripture inspiration and illumination.
[00:28:34]  The Holy Spirit inspired the authors of Scripture so that they did, in fact, write.
[00:28:41]  Not the word of man, but the word of God.
[00:28:45]  But the Holy Spirit is still working in Scripture today, no longer inspiring the authors of Scripture, but now illuminating the word for the readers of Scripture.
[00:28:59]  And when we read the Scripture with the eyes and ears and hearts that the Holy Spirit supernaturally supplies, we see that God and His character.
[00:29:12]  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]  He is, in fact, those things for us.
[00:29:28]  So, Psalm 16 begins with David's petition.
[00:29:31]  It's a plea, it's a request.
[00:29:34]  He's crying out to God and he says, Preserve me, O God.
[00:29:40]  That's Psalm 16, verse 1.
[00:29:42]  That is the first half of verse one.
[00:29:45]  David is pleading with the Lord to preserve him through some kind of trial, tribulation, or threat.
[00:29:51]  We haven't seen exactly what this tribulation or threat is, but we'll find further on through the psalm what it is.
[00:29:58]  At this point, all we know in the first half of the first verse of our text is that David has some kind of looming threat hanging over him.
[00:30:08]  That there's some sense of fear, some sense of dread, an urgent sense of need.
[00:30:14]  And so he cries out to God with a petition, a plea.
[00:30:20]  And notice that his words in his prayer, in his petition, are few.
[00:30:25]  Preserve me, O God.
[00:30:28]  In other words, Psalm 16, it's a prayer.
[00:30:31]  Because why?
[00:30:32]  Who is he talking to?
[00:30:34]  He's not talking to his fellow man.
[00:30:36]  He's not talking even to himself.
[00:30:39]  But he is talking to God.
[00:30:40]  Preserve me, O God.
[00:30:42]  And because in our psalm, we find from the very outset that David is speaking, Speaking to God, we know that this particular psalm is a prayer.
[00:30:50]  Therefore, as we work through Psalm 16, let us seek to learn how God the Holy Spirit inspires his people to pray, especially in times of trouble.
[00:31:02]  See, the first thing we discover in Psalm chapter 16 is this David only uses four words preserve me, O God, and technically two to make his petition preserve me, sustain me, keep me, hold me, save me.
[00:31:26]  The remainder of David's prayer is reserved for declaring who God is, what God has done, and what God promises to do.
[00:31:34]  So, in summary, we could say this the very first half of the first verse of our psalm today tells us that this psalm is, in fact, a prayer because it's directed towards, oh God, and that it is a prayer for salvation.
[00:31:48]  It's a plea, it's a petition.
[00:31:51]  And yet, notice this the Holy Spirit, when He inspires His people to pray prayers of petition, They spend, at least in this case, a grand total of four and perhaps, depending how you're counting, even two words to make that petition.
[00:32:10]  The whole rest of the prayer is praise.
[00:32:15]  It's petition, praise.
[00:32:18]  Petition, preserve me.
[00:32:22]  And then praise for 11 more verses.
[00:32:26]  Now, what does praise have to do with petitions?
[00:32:30]  This is a key principle that we find in prayer.
[00:32:35]  Praise for who God is, what God has done, and what God promises to do is the whole entire basis, the whole foundation.
[00:32:48]  It is the grounds for why we have any confidence to make our petitions to begin with.
[00:32:54]  We only petition God for something because we believe in who God is.
[00:33:01]  There's no point in crying out and pleading to the Lord, preserve me, O God, if He is not for us a safe refuge, supreme treasure, sovereign Lord, and sure counselor.
[00:33:18]  Now, if you're getting nervous, I should have said this at the very beginning.
[00:33:21]  I'm not just deciding it now, I promise.
[00:33:23]  You may not believe me.
[00:33:24]  But I decided this on Tuesday of last week as I was preparing my notes.
[00:33:31]  This is going to be a two part sermon.
[00:33:34]  So take a deep breath and a sigh of relief because if you're looking at the notes and you're doing the math of what percentage we've gotten through so far and the time on the clock, that's a frightening thing.
[00:33:49]  I understand.
[00:33:50]  You might be thinking, nap time's not going to happen today.
[00:33:54]  We're not going to make it through.
[00:33:54]  This is going to be a two part sermon.
[00:33:56]  That's the beauty of preaching God's word.
[00:33:58]  I love it because I usually am a man of many words, I can tend to be long winded.
[00:34:03]  There's a lot that I want to say.
[00:34:05]  But the beauty in preaching the Bible is, well, we'll just pick up where we left off.
[00:34:09]  I mean, what's the rush?
[00:34:12]  You know, the alternative is I got to preach through this portion of the Bible so that I can do what?
[00:34:16]  Preach through a portion of the Bible?
[00:34:19]  So we'll just preach through this portion longer.
[00:34:21]  So, Psalm 16, this is going to be a two part mini series within our larger series, The Psalter, as we're working through the Psalms.
[00:34:28]  So, let's just look at a few of God's attributes.
[00:34:31]  Let's try to work through probably not all of verses one through seven, but at least half of this, where we begin to get the sense of.
[00:34:39]  Of what it means for God to be a safe refuge, a supreme treasure, a sovereign Lord, and a sure counselor.
[00:34:46]  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]  That's what we've already covered.
[00:34:54]  That's where we see the plea Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge.
[00:35:00]  See, so the first half of Psalm 16 1 is the plea Preserve me, O God.
[00:35:07]  The second half is that we see precisely why David has enough confidence in God's ability and willingness to preserve him to make that plea in the first place.
[00:35:20]  See, David does not merely acknowledge that God is a refuge.
[00:35:25]  David proves that God is the refuge, the ultimate refuge, by committing to trust in God for safety above all other natural means of safety.
[00:35:39]  He doesn't just say, Preserve me, O God, because you are a rock or a tower, a strong tower of safety and refuge.
[00:35:49]  No, he says, Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge.
[00:35:54]  So he doesn't just say, God, please preserve me because I acknowledge, I give my assent that you are a means or at least one of the many options of safety and security in this life.
[00:36:05]  Preserve me, O God, because I recognize that you are a refuge.
[00:36:09]  No, preserve me, O God, because in you I take refuge.
[00:36:14]  Now, notice, in a sense, this is conditional language.
[00:36:19]  Preserve me, O God, for or because in light of this.
[00:36:24]  God, I am asking with confidence that you grant my petition.
[00:36:29]  You grant my request of preservation on the basis of who you are, but not only who God is, a refuge, a strong refuge, but also on the basis of my obedience to seek refuge in you.
[00:36:46]  Now, this is not works based righteousness.
[00:36:50]  This is not the prosperity gospel.
[00:36:52]  This is not, you know, if I do this, then God will do that.
[00:36:57]  But there is a sense in which, there is a sense in which we don't earn our salvation.
[00:37:02]  We are justified by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.
[00:37:07]  We don't earn salvation.
[00:37:09]  But the fatherly pleasure of God for his sons and daughters in this life is often conditioned upon our obedience.
[00:37:19]  What I mean by that is this that a person can never lose what they did not earn.
[00:37:24]  So I believe in the doctrine of the eternal security of the believer.
[00:37:29]  That Jesus has promised never to leave us or forsake us.
[00:37:32]  Once saved, always saved.
[00:37:33]  Better put, if saved, always saved.
[00:37:36]  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]  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]  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.
[00:38:01]  The security of salvation.
[00:38:03]  But for those who are saved, although you cannot forfeit your salvation if you have truly been saved by grace through faith in Christ, there is a sense of being under God's fatherly pleasure or under God's fatherly displeasure.
[00:38:18]  Now, still, the adjective is fatherly, meaning in both cases, we have an adopted son or daughter.
[00:38:24]  In both cases, we have someone who is regenerate, we have someone who is born again, we have a child of God.
[00:38:31]  But you can be underneath, as a genuine, bona fide child of God, you can be underneath his fatherly pleasure and you can be under his fatherly displeasure.
[00:38:41]  Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge.
[00:38:44]  Listen, one of the ways that God preserves us is by granting us faith to believe that He is a refuge.
[00:38:55]  See, you can be a child of God, 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 because you're not, as David is, taking refuge in God.
[00:39:19]  See, God is a refuge, but that's not what David says.
[00:39:22]  He doesn't say, Preserve me, O God, because you are a refuge.
[00:39:25]  And by the mere fact of you being a refuge, that guarantees my safety and preservation.
[00:39:31]  No, he's saying, Preserve me, O God, because in you, I personally, I'm going to take upon me the onus of taking refuge in you.
[00:39:40]  God is a strong tower.
[00:39:41]  God is a rock of defense.
[00:39:44]  God is our shield, our protector, our refuge, our safety.
[00:39:48]  But experiencing the joy and peace of that reality of who God is, is something that only comes when we trust Him and go to Him.
[00:40:00]  So you can be a Christian and salute the power, the preserving power of God, but not experience the peace that comes by God being a refuge if you don't actually run to Him and find safety under His wings.
[00:40:18]  There are many Christians who are burdened.
[00:40:21]  And even overwhelmed at times with anxiety, not having a sense of safety at all, but it's precisely because they're running for refuge to idols rather than God.
[00:40:36]  They're trusting in idols rather than trusting in the rock.
[00:40:43]  See, the reason why idols produce anxiety, I preached this a few weeks ago, St. Augustine said that anxiety and anger and turmoil and all these kinds of human problem emotions.
[00:40:56]  It's like the smoke that rises from the sacrifices that we make on the altars to our idols.
[00:41:03]  And the reason why anxiety comes about, and we'll see this later in the text, later in the text, David actually says this.
[00:41:11]  He says, The sorrows of those who run after another God shall multiply.
[00:41:16]  Right?
[00:41:16]  When you run after idols, when you run after other gods, when you ultimately take refuge in something or someone else other than God, the only true and ultimate refuge, your sorrows are multiplied.
[00:41:30]  The smoke rising from the altar that you build to that idol, it billows, it increases, it grows.
[00:41:37]  That anxiety grows and multiplies.
[00:41:41]  Why?
[00:41:42]  Because you're putting your hope in something that ultimately it can be shaken.
[00:41:46]  And that's what we see later in the psalm.
[00:41:48]  David says, well, after he's kind of spent a very thorough prayer praising the character of God and the goodness of God, after he's He makes the petition in the first half of verse one.
[00:42:04]  He praises God for who he is in the next seven verses.
[00:42:08]  And then it's only later in the psalm that David says, I will not be shaken.
[00:42:14]  Why?
[00:42:15]  Because the foundation.
[00:42:18]  David's not being arrogant.
[00:42:20]  This isn't a boast of pride.
[00:42:22]  He's not saying, I will not be shaken because I'm unshakable, because I'm immutable, because I'm invulnerable.
[00:42:29]  No, he's saying, I will not be shaken because I've taken refuge in God, and God cannot be shaken.
[00:42:34]  I will not be shaken because I've built my house not on the sand, but on the rock.
[00:42:40]  I will not be shaken by virtue of the strength of the foundation that I've put my hope and trust in.
[00:42:49]  Those who run after idols, those who run after other gods, their sorrows will be multiplied.
[00:42:58]  But those who trust in the Lord find refuge, they find peace.
[00:43:06]  See, even in the first sentence of David's prayer, he's already trusting that God will answer favorably because he knows.

=== Joy Found In God's People (15:16) ===

[00:43:14]  Who God is.
[00:43:17]  It's because of who he knows God to be.
[00:43:20]  In other words, David is declaring the character of God as the grounds or the basis of his hope.
[00:43:27]  Throughout Psalm chapter 16, verse 1 through 7, this continues to be David's prayer strategy.
[00:43:33]  And we need to take that away.
[00:43:34]  This is a key strategy for prayer.
[00:43:38]  If you want to pray in ways that are pleasing to the Lord, if you want to follow the mold provided for us in Scripture for Holy Spirit inspired prayer, Praying, if you want to pray well, learn this.
[00:43:53]  David is committed to bolstering his faith, or that is his hope in God, by declaring who God is for him.
[00:44:03]  By declaring who God is for him.
[00:44:06]  So, what's the structure of this prayer today?
[00:44:10]  Two to four words, a petition, a plea.
[00:44:15]  Then the next seven or six and a half verses, praise.
[00:44:21]  Who God is.
[00:44:22]  And in light of who God is, David is bolstering his faith.
[00:44:27]  So David makes a petition, please do this for me, God.
[00:44:31]  It's almost like the Satyrian man with Jesus who says, I believe, help my unbelief.
[00:44:36]  Well, how do we help unbelief?
[00:44:38]  I must believe at some level because I'm willing to go to God and make this petition in the first place.
[00:44:46]  I think of Hebrews, it says that God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
[00:44:54]  It says that the one who is pleasing to God, without faith, it's impossible to please God.
[00:44:59]  For to please God, you must believe what?
[00:45:01]  That he exists.
[00:45:03]  And that he diligently, or he rewards those who diligently seek him.
[00:45:07]  So there's some level of faith simply to go to God in the first place.
[00:45:11]  So David is going to God, and yet we know that David is lacking in some level of faith.
[00:45:18]  And that's why he bolsters his faith.
[00:45:22]  The weapon that he uses to increase his faith is praise.
[00:45:27]  So, he's already got some faith, just like you and I. If you're a Christian, you have some faith.
[00:45:32]  If you had no faith, you wouldn't be born again.
[00:45:34]  If you had no faith, you wouldn't belong to Christ, because we're saved through faith.
[00:45:39]  So, if you're saved, it's because you have faith.
[00:45:43]  But the problem is that even in this life, in having faith, often, as Jesus chastised the disciples, we have little faith.
[00:45:54]  Little faith.
[00:45:55]  Now, the reality is, in terms of salvation, it's not the size or the degree of our faith that saves us, but rather the object of our faith.
[00:46:02]  So, a little faith placed in Jesus is still saving.
[00:46:07]  Whereas a mountain of faith placed in some other gospel is still damning.
[00:46:12]  Having a lot of faith in the wrong thing or the wrong person will send you to hell.
[00:46:17]  Having a little bit of faith in Jesus, his person and his work, will get you to heaven.
[00:46:23]  But having a little faith in the person of Jesus, although sufficient for justification, for salvation, as I was saying earlier, may still leave you.
[00:46:32]  With much anxiety and turmoil in this life.
[00:46:35]  And so David approaches the throne of God in prayer, making a petition.
[00:46:39]  The petition signifies that he already has at least some degree of faith to begin with.
[00:46:44]  But he now begins to bolster his faith.
[00:46:47]  Take whatever faith he has and begin to multiply it, increase it through the weapon of praise.
[00:46:54]  This is who you are.
[00:46:58]  And as I said at the beginning, the key is this is who you are for me.
[00:47:03]  For me.
[00:47:04]  Psalm 16, verse 2 says, I say to the Lord, You are my Lord.
[00:47:09]  I have no good apart from you.
[00:47:12]  God is David's supreme treasure.
[00:47:14]  That's what he's saying.
[00:47:16]  He's saying, apart from you, if there were no God, there would be no good in this world.
[00:47:21]  I would have no joys in this world.
[00:47:23]  There would be no pleasure, no comfort, no happiness.
[00:47:27]  You are my portion.
[00:47:29]  You are my supreme treasure.
[00:47:31]  You are the source of all that is good, the source of my happiness and joy.
[00:47:39]  God is David's supreme treasure.
[00:47:41]  That is, God is David's highest good.
[00:47:44]  Apart from God, there is no good in this life.
[00:47:47]  He is the joy in our joys and the source of all joy.
[00:47:52]  And all other goods in this life are only truly good because, not just because they come from God, no, they're only truly good.
[00:48:02]  That is, eternally or ultimately good because they reveal to us more of God.
[00:48:09]  See, all the goods that we experience in this life, the good of on our Saturday evenings, our Sabbath dinner and worship, feasting together, that's good.
[00:48:20]  It's good.
[00:48:20]  Or the good that we see later in our psalm, as we'll see in a moment, where David he praises the saints, right?
[00:48:26]  He's not just praising God, he's praising, he begins to praise the people of God.
[00:48:30]  He says, For they are the excellent ones, in whom is all my delight?
[00:48:34]  And you're like, Wait a second, that doesn't sound good.
[00:48:36]  That sounds like idolatry.
[00:48:38]  In whom is all my delight?
[00:48:39]  All my delight is in the people of God rather than in God himself.
[00:48:43]  No, what David's saying, because notice that comes on the heels of Psalm 16 2.
[00:48:48]  And what has David already clarified, right?
[00:48:49]  He's already given the fine print, the conditional statement.
[00:48:52]  He's already given the disclaimer.
[00:48:54]  The disclaimer, again, is this I say to the Lord, You are my Lord.
[00:48:58]  I have no good apart from you.
[00:49:01]  So when David says, I love the people of God, I love the saints, they're the majestic ones, the excellent ones, they're the best people in all the land, and in them is all my delight, we know he's not being idolatrous.
[00:49:14]  We know he's not.
[00:49:16]  Finding delight in the people of God as a substitute for finding delight in God Himself because He's already stated in a prior verse that there is no good apart from God.
[00:49:27]  See, the saints are a great example of something in this life that is good, but only good because of God.
[00:49:37]  The people of God are good, but they're only good because God is good.
[00:49:43]  Feasting and choice meat and wine is good, but it's only good because God is good.
[00:49:48]  A sunrise and a sunset is good, but it's only good because God is good.
[00:49:54]  The rain that waters the earth and the crops that grow and all these things, the beauty and the enjoyment of family and the blessing of children are good, but they're only good because God is good.
[00:50:07]  Christ is the joy in our joys.
[00:50:11]  He's the basis, the foundation of goodness.
[00:50:14]  All these other good things in life that God richly and lavishly blesses us with, they only really have true goodness because they're standing on top the shoulders of the infinitely good God.
[00:50:31]  It is only because we've already, in an ultimate sense, been satisfied with God and His goodness that all these other good things that He provides bring us joy rather than ultimately sorrow.
[00:50:46]  See, those who run after other gods, as we'll get to later, their sorrows are multiplying.
[00:50:52]  That means those who are trusting in other things beside God.
[00:50:55]  Those who are running after idols.
[00:50:57]  The blessing of children can be an idol.
[00:51:00]  Marriage can be an idol.
[00:51:02]  Feasting can be an idol.
[00:51:03]  Money can be an idol.
[00:51:04]  Houses can be an idol.
[00:51:06]  Nature and beauty, aesthetic beauty in this world can be an idol.
[00:51:10]  And if you're running after those things as God, notice the result is not that you delight in it.
[00:51:19]  No, the result is actually that your sorrow is multiplied.
[00:51:23]  When you trust in good things, ultimately, it multiplies sorrow.
[00:51:29]  But when you trust in God, ultimately, God Himself multiplies joy, and all those other good things that He gives to us are joyous.
[00:51:40]  They bring happiness and pleasure.
[00:51:44]  Psalm 16, verse 3 says As for the saints, this is where we were already going.
[00:51:49]  In the land, they are the excellent ones, in whom is all my delight.
[00:51:53]  David confirms his belief in God's goodness by what he says about God's people.
[00:51:59]  It's not contradicting that God is the true ultimate source of goodness.
[00:52:04]  No, David is not contradicting.
[00:52:05]  He's confirming God is good.
[00:52:08]  And because I truly believe God is good, I also, by default, believe that his people are good.
[00:52:14]  It's kind of reminiscent of 1 John that if anyone claims to love God but hates his brother, he's a liar and the truth of God is not in him.
[00:52:21]  That's what David's doing here.
[00:52:22]  He's saying, because I believe that God is good, I cannot help.
[00:52:26]  But also enjoy his people.
[00:52:29]  Because I claim that God is good and because he's good, I love him.
[00:52:33]  I also must affirm that at least at some level the people of God are good and I enjoy them.
[00:52:41]  See, David confirms his belief in the goodness of God by what he says about God's people.
[00:52:46]  It is the saints who provide David with comfort and joy.
[00:52:50]  This does not mean that David delights in God's people as a substitute, as an idol for delighting in God himself.
[00:52:57]  It simply means.
[00:52:58]  That godless people do not provide David with any comfort or joy.
[00:53:03]  In short, David is admitting that he is a people person, we might say.
[00:53:08]  That's kind of what he's saying.
[00:53:09]  He's saying, as for the saints, they're the excellent ones in all the land, and in them are all my delight.
[00:53:14]  All right, now this is poetic language inspired by the Holy Spirit, but if we were to kind of dumb it down a bit, this is totally what your typical extrovert would say.
[00:53:26]  I love going to parties.
[00:53:29]  Because when I'm surrounded by a sea of people, in them is all my delight.
[00:53:33]  That's where I'm energized.
[00:53:34]  That's where I get excited.
[00:53:35]  It's almost like David is confessing, in some sense, that he's a people person.
[00:53:39]  But notice this.
[00:53:40]  However, what David enjoys most about people is not their love for him, what he enjoys most about people is their love for God.
[00:53:49]  This is the true source of sweetness in human friendship.
[00:53:54]  We've got a lot of bad ideas about friendship, the premise of friendship.
[00:53:59]  The contents of friendship.
[00:54:00]  What is genuine, true friendship?
[00:54:04]  Especially in a Christian worldview.
[00:54:07]  I think C.S. Lewis actually sums it up quite nicely when he says, Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, What?
[00:54:15]  You two?
[00:54:17]  I thought I was the only one.
[00:54:19]  He furthermore says, What draws people to be friends is that they see the same truth, they share it.
[00:54:27]  See, the essence of friendship is not two people standing parallel and gazing into each other.
[00:54:36]  Face to face, loving each other, admiring each other, cherishing each other.
[00:54:42]  That is a part of friendship, and certainly we see that aspect of friendship in marriage.
[00:54:48]  There is a face to face aspect of relationship.
[00:54:53]  But the ultimate foundation of long lasting and heart delighting friendship is not face to face, it is first and foremost, predominantly shoulder to shoulder.
[00:55:09]  It's not standing and looking at each other, enjoying each other.
[00:55:13]  It's standing side by side and cherishing and enjoying something else.
[00:55:20]  The same thing.
[00:55:21]  What?
[00:55:21]  You too?
[00:55:23]  You see this too?
[00:55:25]  You cherish this too?
[00:55:27]  You recognize this truth also?
[00:55:30]  I thought I was the only one.
[00:55:32]  Think about some of the closest friendships you've ever had.
[00:55:35]  Weren't they built on that exact premise?
[00:55:38]  Wasn't it that you felt, in some sense, alone?
[00:55:41]  Like there was something about God, there was something about His world that He created, something about family, something about life, some kind of belief, some kind of conviction that you held that you felt like nobody else really got it, nobody else really shared that.
[00:56:00]  And then all of a sudden, when God in His providence introduced you to someone else who saw that same reality, who saw that same truth, who prioritized that same value.
[00:56:13]  Wasn't there just kind of like this moment of relief?
[00:56:15]  Like, finally, I found, and you might even say this, I found my people.
[00:56:21]  These are my people.
[00:56:24]  I mean, that's what the church of God is.
[00:56:26]  The church of God is a place where surely it swarms with many faults, as Calvin said.
[00:56:33]  You know, certainly there's a lot of heartache in the church, and it's riddled with sin because in this life we still wrestle with sin.
[00:56:41]  But as Charles Spurgeon said, on earth, The church is the sweetest place I know.
[00:56:48]  It's riddled with sin, there are problems, there's betrayal, there's heartache, there's pain.
[00:56:52]  Because sin, even in the church, still exists.
[00:56:56]  But still, despite all the pain, the church of God is the sweetest place I know.
[00:57:01]  Why?
[00:57:01]  Because the church of God is the place where we can find the people of God.
[00:57:05]  And the people of God are those people who we can stand not just face to face, idolizing one another.
[00:57:15]  But no, we can stand shoulder to shoulder, side by side, and say, You too.
[00:57:20]  Finally, I found someone who gets it.
[00:57:24]  Finally, I found someone that we can bond over the reality that we see and savor the same truth.
[00:57:34]  This will be our final point for today, and we'll pick back up.
[00:57:38]  But this is Psalm 16, verse 4.
[00:57:40]  This is kind of the other side of the coin now.
[00:57:44]  David delights in the people of God.
[00:57:46]  But on the other side of the equation, Psalm 16 4, he says, The sorrows of those who run after another God shall multiply.
[00:57:55]  This is the sorrows being multiplied in the lives of idolaters, the pagans.
[00:58:01]  So, David says in verse 3, the people of God, the saints, they're the excellent ones.
[00:58:07]  And they're the ones that I gain great joy in.
[00:58:11]  In them is all my delight.
[00:58:13]  So, the people of God, they're the ones that I gain so much joy by being around.
[00:58:17]  But notice, David, if he was an extrovert, going back to my previous point, if he was an extrovert, if he was the type of person who gets his energy, his life by being around others, he's not an extrovert in the terms that we see many extroverts today.

=== Sorrows Caused By Idolatry (07:46) ===

[00:58:31]  There are extroverts that I've met.
[00:58:32]  I don't know about you, but they can, I mean, 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]  So they're not actually delighting in someone because of who that person is.
[00:58:54]  They're delighting in someone because they like to air their own opinions and just be heard.
[00:58:58]  They're really delighting in themselves.
[00:59:00]  And people are actually just tools that they take advantage of and use in order to get their own joy.
[00:59:06]  They just want to talk and they're just glad that someone's going to listen.
[00:59:10]  They don't care if it's helpful for the person.
[00:59:11]  They don't care if the person goes away being energized.
[00:59:13]  You can, like, sometimes you meet an extrovert, they're like a social, emotional vampire.
[00:59:18]  They're a relation.
[00:59:19]  It's like when you get done with that conversation, you're a corpse, right?
[00:59:23]  And they've just had their fangs in you for the last hour and a half.
[00:59:26]  They're walking away.
[00:59:28]  It's like, did you just get younger?
[00:59:30]  I feel like you just shaved 10 years off of your, like, some kind of vampire situation.
[00:59:34]  Like, I think you just regressed time for yourself.
[00:59:37]  And I feel like I just gained 40 years.
[00:59:40]  I feel like I'm literally about to die, and you're walking away smiling, you know, with a skip in your step.
[00:59:45]  That's not loving people.
[00:59:47]  See, notice David, he's a people person.
[00:59:50]  It might be possible, especially when we look at other things that the Bible describes about David.
[00:59:55]  It does seem as though he's an extrovert, but he's a Christian extrovert.
[01:00:00]  He's a Christian extrovert.
[01:00:02]  He doesn't take pleasure in people just in general, because he says, I take no pleasure in what?
[01:00:10]  Idolaters.
[01:00:12]  I take no pleasure in people who are not God's people, in the people who run after other gods.
[01:00:19]  They themselves, by virtue of their idolatry, by virtue of them choosing to run after other gods rather than taking refuge in the true God, their own sorrows are multiplied.
[01:00:29]  But when I'm around them, we get a sense and implication from verse 4.
[01:00:33]  David's saying, they multiply their own sorrows by their idolatry, but I even feel a sense of sorrow when I'm around idolaters.
[01:00:41]  They bring me down.
[01:00:44]  So, I'm not a people person just in the sense of just this general extrovert who can talk to a person painted on the wall and get life and energy and joy from it.
[01:00:52]  No, no, no.
[01:00:53]  I glean delight and joy and pleasure from people, but a particular kind of people God's people.
[01:01:01]  The people who run after God.
[01:01:04]  The people who, like me, in the beginning of my prayer, take refuge in God.
[01:01:08]  The saints, they're the excellent ones.
[01:01:11]  They're the ones who bring me joy and delight.
[01:01:13]  Why?
[01:01:13]  Because they're the ones I can count on to point me to Christ.
[01:01:18]  They're the ones I can count on in times where I feel vulnerable, when I feel insecure, in times where I'm in peril or danger or turmoil.
[01:01:28]  They're the ones I can count on to preach to my soul and point me ultimately towards Christ, who is the refuge and safe place.
[01:01:40]  God is enough.
[01:01:41]  I'm sorry.
[01:01:42]  And seeing and savoring the goodness of God, David declares that it is sheer folly to trust and take joy in idols that only leave men sorrowful in the end.
[01:01:53]  I think we could say it succinctly like this.
[01:01:56]  Idolatry multiplies sorrow, but the true God multiplies joy.
[01:02:02]  Idolatry multiplies sorrow, but when we run to God and find refuge in Him, He multiplies joy.
[01:02:11]  Now, notice this the last thing I'll say in closing.
[01:02:15]  Idolatry does not just cause sorrow.
[01:02:20]  According to David in verse 4, he says, Those who run after idols, who run after false gods, their sorrows will be multiplied.
[01:02:28]  So, he doesn't just say that the pagan, the unbeliever, if they run after false gods, they'll experience emptiness and sorrow.
[01:02:35]  He says if they run after a false god, they already have sorrow.
[01:02:40]  That's what's causing them to go after the idol in the first place.
[01:02:43]  And when they go after the idol, the sorrow that they already had will be increased, it'll be multiplied.
[01:02:50]  In real terms, the way that I could explain how, right, because you might be asking, well, how is sorrow multiplied by running after idols?
[01:02:57]  This is how you run after an idol in the first place because you have lack.
[01:03:02]  You have some kind of need, some kind of want, some kind of problem.
[01:03:07]  But when you run after an idol to solve a problem, what you're ultimately doing is you're erecting a foundation, you're erecting some kind of structure, some kind of hope, some kind of faith on sand, on sinking sand, on an unsure foundation.
[01:03:26]  And then what it ultimately does, the final result, is that it fails.
[01:03:30]  And when it fails, It doesn't just lend you right back to where you started, where now I have to fix this problem again.
[01:03:37]  No, it creates more problems.
[01:03:39]  Think of lying, for example.
[01:03:43]  See, when you tell a lie, what usually happens?
[01:03:46]  In order to bolster that lie, to keep it going, you're almost always required to tell more than just the original lie.
[01:03:55]  It demands a continued, ongoing, perpetual deceit.
[01:04:02]  And so it is with idolatry.
[01:04:05]  When we have some kind of lack in our life, some kind of problem, some anxiety, some turmoil, some tribulation, and we go to an idol rather than going to Christ, it doesn't just produce sorrow because ultimately it will fail and we go right back to the same problem we had.
[01:04:23]  No, what it does is it causes a ripple effect.
[01:04:27]  Because by trusting in this other thing, we begin to have to prop up this idol.
[01:04:31]  There are other lies that we have to believe, there are other sins we have to commit.
[01:04:36]  In committing, I mean, think about just the Ten Commandments that we read in the beginning of our Lord's Day service every week.
[01:04:42]  Have you noticed that in many ways they're connected?
[01:04:46]  That if you break one, by virtue of breaking one commandment, you have to usually break three or four others?
[01:04:53]  So it is with idolatry.
[01:04:54]  That's the first commandment.
[01:04:56]  I mean, really, it's the first and second and third and fourth commandment Thou shalt have no other gods before me, thou shalt have no graven images, thou shalt not take my name in vain, and thou shalt remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.
[01:05:09]  When we run after other gods, what we're doing is we're erecting altars to false gods that cannot save us.
[01:05:18]  They cannot satisfy us.
[01:05:21]  And when we erect one altar in order to prop it up, in order to keep the deception, the delusion, the idolatry going, it requires that we break other commandments and run after more and more gods.
[01:05:34]  Our hope begins slowly but gradually, it begins to continually siphon away from Christ into idols.
[01:05:43]  Our sorrows are not just created by idolatry.
[01:05:48]  Our original sorrows that cause us to go to idols are multiplied in idolatry.
[01:05:54]  We'll stop there, and Lord willing, by God's grace, we'll pick back up with Psalm 16, verse 5, next Lord's Day.
[01:06:01]  Thanks so much for listening.
[01:06:03]  But, real quick, before you go, do us a small favor take a moment and leave us a five star review if you enjoyed the show.
[01:06:10]  This is undoubtedly the best way that you can help us get this biblically faithful content to as many people as possible.
[01:06:17]  Thanks so much.