Sunday Sermon host unpacks Psalm 16, arguing believers should briefly petition for preservation before bolstering faith through praise rather than anxiety. He contrasts deceptive leaders with faithful ministers serving God's Word and condemns government seizure of intellectual property like Moderna's vaccine formulas as biblical theft. The sermon teaches that meditating on Scripture transforms the heart from a source of civil war into a counselor providing peace at night, culminating in the assurance that while David faced decay, Jesus Christ remains the Holy One who was not abandoned to Sheol. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, WAV2VEC2_ASR_BASE_960H, sat-12l-sm, script v26.04.01, and large-v3-turbo
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Bolster Faith Through Praise00:14:38
Hey guys, real quick before we get started, I have a small request.
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Thanks.
Again, our text for this morning is Psalm chapter 16.
The Bible says this 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 upon my lips.
The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup.
You hold my lot.
The lions have fallen from 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 shield, or let your Holy One see decay.
You make known to me the path of life.
In your presence there is fullness of joy, and at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
This is the word of the Lord.
All right.
Please be seated and join me as I pray.
Father, thank you for your word.
We pray, Lord, that through the preaching of your word, the exposition and application of your word today, that your people would indeed arrive at a greater, more biblical, more faithful understanding of who you are, of what you've done, and of what it is that you require from us as a right response of obedience, of worship, of adoration, and love.
Father, we pray.
Lord, that you would fill our minds with your truth so that our hearts might be propelled to worship.
We pray that we would not arrive at right theological knowledge of you as an end in itself, but rather as the necessary means of propelling our hearts into greater affection and love and worship and obedience to you.
The heart cannot love what the mind does not know.
So we pray that you would fill our minds with your word.
In such a way that it would direct our hearts and our worship in a way that pleases you and does great good to us.
We pray all these things ultimately that you might be glorified in all the earth, but we also pray these things for the good of those people that you're saving across the globe, in our particular city, here in Texas, in our area, and also perhaps, Lord, even in this room, especially with our children.
We pray these things in the name of your Son Jesus.
Amen.
All right, let me remind us, kind of a recap, our introduction.
I'll read it again just so that we can get back on page this morning from where we were last week.
I wrote this.
The main point of this particular psalm, Psalm 16, is this God promises to preserve all his people, both in body and in soul, not just in a spiritual sense, but even physically.
God promises to preserve, sustain, save all his people, those who trust in Jesus, both physically and spiritually, in body and soul, through life, this life, and even death.
All the way to a particular end.
What is that end?
Complete and eternal pleasure.
That is fullness of joy and everlasting joy.
Now, how does God fulfill this promise?
He fulfills this promise by being for us our safe refuge, our supreme treasure, our sovereign Lord, and our sure counselor.
What we saw last Lord's Day in the first few verses of our text, verses 1 through 4, is the way in which God promises to preserve us by being, in particular, our safe refuge.
Today, we're going to pick back up with God being our supreme treasure.
And Lord willing, we'll see also how he is our sovereign Lord and sure counselor.
Psalm 16 begins with David's petition.
It's his request.
It's his earnest plea.
He says, Preserve me, O God.
His plea is four words, and technically it's only two.
Preserve me.
Sustain me.
Save me.
The rest of the psalm is devoted to David ultimately praising God for who he is and what he's done and what it is that God promises to do for him.
And not just what God promises to do for David in terms of the actions of God, as it were, but it's what God promises to do for David in light of who God promises to be for David.
Right?
God promises to protect him, defend him, because God promises to be his safe refuge.
God promises to satisfy David because he promises to be his supreme treasure.
God promises to provide for David because he promises to be his sovereign Lord.
And God promises to instruct and guide David because he promises to be his sure counselor.
And so we see David very briefly making his plea, his request, and then spending the bulk of his time, the bulk of his prayer in Psalm 16, praising the Lord.
Ultimately, what we see David doing is this we see David inspired by the Holy Spirit in this particular passage of Scripture, setting for us an example of how we, as the people of God, should pray, especially in times of trouble.
And one of the principles that we see in prayer, prayer especially in the midst of trial, tribulation, and trouble, is that we should make our request known to God.
It reminds me of other passages of Scripture be anxious for nothing, but with prayer and supplication, make your request known to God.
But furthermore, we've seen in Matthew chapter 6 that Jesus says, when we make our request to God in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says that our words should be few because God, our Father, already knows what we need.
And he already has modeled for us provision as a benevolent creator, not only with those made in his image, human beings, but even for lilies of the field that he clothes and dresses in an array that's more splendorous than Solomon and his temple, or even the way that he feeds the sparrows.
They neither store up or have to prepare for the future, but God gives them their daily sustenance, just as he's promised to give us our daily sustenance.
Bread.
And so Jesus says, Let your words be few.
And that's precisely what David is doing in Psalm 16.
His words are very few in terms of his petition, his plea, his request to the Lord.
But you'll notice, at least in terms of proportion, his words are very many in terms of praise.
So what we see is this David begins with a petition and it's brief, but then he proceeds with praise.
And it's thorough.
And so, too, we as the people of God, when we come before the Lord with a need, first, the first thing that we need to do is come before the Lord.
Be anxious for nothing, but with prayer and supplication, make your request known to God.
I spoke a few weeks ago about this innate, inherent prayer reminder that it seems every single man, woman, and child has or possesses namely, anxiety.
And as often as we are anxious, that is, biblically speaking, as often, at least as often, at a minimum, as often as we should pray.
We spend so much time being anxious.
And with our anxiety, we spend time plotting, scheming, planning, thinking.
And then eventually, we spend some time praying.
Oh, if we would begin with prayer.
I like what Charles Spurgeon says.
He says anxiety does not rob tomorrow of its trouble, it robs today of its joy.
That's all anxiety does.
Anxiety doesn't ultimately fix the problems of the future, it just ruins the present.
And so, when we are anxious, let us make prayer, supplications, petitions, pleas to the Lord.
But when we, so that's the first step.
When you're anxious, pray.
Make your request known to God.
The second step is, now looking at Matthew chapter 6, the Sermon on the Mount, when we make that request known to God, let's remember, keep in mind that He already knows it.
He already knows it.
So, let your words be few.
And so, the principle that Jesus gives us in Matthew chapter 6, we see the case study in Psalm 16.
David makes his request, his petition, in two words Preserve me.
And then what he continues to do is exalt and praise the Lord for who he is, what he's already done, and what he promises to do.
It reminds me of what David says to King Saul when he wants to go into battle against Goliath, the giant, that uncircumcised Philistine who is mocking the armies of the living God.
What does David say?
What's the basis of his confidence?
Saul says, You're just a boy.
You can't do this.
David says, The Lord has already been faithful to empower and strengthen me to do what?
To slay the lion and the bear.
David, he had all experienced victory and success as he was guarding the flock.
And now, just at a greater level, no longer is he going to guard a literal flock of sheep as a shepherd, but he's now going to stand in representative as a defender, a protector, an advocate for the flock of God, Israel.
And his confidence comes from what God had already done in the past.
And so, too, we see in Psalms chapter 16 what we see David doing is he's saying, I have a present petition, but I'm going to praise you for your past faithfulness.
And the confidence, the basis of my confidence and hope and trust that you will meet and answer my present request is your past faithfulness.
It reminds me of what David says elsewhere, where he says, Surely, goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever and ever.
Amen.
What is David doing in that prayer, in that particular song?
He's saying, God has been good to me so many times and in so many ways and for so long, I cannot help but believe that he will continue to be good.
Because it makes no logical sense.
Set aside a biblical understanding for a moment, that's a phrase you won't hear me say often, but to set aside a biblical understanding, Strictly from a logical standpoint, it would make no sense.
Think of God as a great wise investor.
Who would invest and invest and invest so methodically, so carefully, so thoroughly, so compassionately for years, year after year, and the years roll into decades and then all of a sudden stop?
It just makes no sense.
It's not what we see in scripture in a biblical sense, and it doesn't even make logical sense.
And so David says, Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the rest of the days of my life because I've been so drenched in the goodness and mercy of God thus far.
And it would make no sense that he would stop what he has done so well and for so long.
And so David makes his petition briefly and then he begins to praise.
And one of the lines that I believe I used last week is this David is committed to bolstering his faith by declaring who God is for him.
Or we could say it in a shorter, simpler phrase, and hopefully it'll be better for your memory.
We as the people of God are called to bolster faith by praise.
Bolster faith, increase faith, raise faith by praise.
So, when we make our petitions, we need faith.
The book of James in the New Testament speaks of that.
It says, Make your request known to God, but when you ask, right?
Does any man lack wisdom?
Let him ask God.
He gives without finding fault, without reproach.
Meaning, God does not count your past failures against you when you come before Him and make a request for something.
But God gives generously to the one who asks.
But when you ask, James says, You should ask.
With faith, not doubting, not like a wave tossed to and fro in the ocean.
Don't be double minded, James goes on to say.
Right?
And what do we do when we're double minded?
Meaning that part of our mind says, God will grant this request.
I trust him.
And then, in a sense, it's almost like we have a second mind telling us that God's not going to be faithful.
Well, in those cases, what we do, as we've discussed before, is we follow the example of the centurion who comes to Jesus and says, Lord, I believe, help my unbelief.
Part of my mind trusts you, and part of my mind does not.
So, what we need to do when we come to God, when we have anxiety, first we need to quickly go to God before His throne of grace.
And we need to make our petitions.
In our petitions, our pleas, our requests, we need to be brief because God already knows what we need.
Now, what do we, one of the things that we require as we make our petitions?
Faith.
Well, where does faith come from?
What do we do when we're double minded?
What do we do when we believe and don't believe?
When we ask the Lord, help my unbelief.
But what agency does God use to bolster faith?
Choosing God as Enough00:13:33
Praise.
And why?
How do we know that?
Well, we see it in Psalm 16, but we also see it in Hebrews.
Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
And when we're praising God, that's precisely what we're doing.
We are speaking forth, we are declaring the word of God.
What God says about himself.
No man has ever praised God in a way that would be an invention.
In a way that would be novel.
When men praise God, we merely echo what God has already said about Himself.
That's what men do.
That's what we do when we praise God.
We're not coming up with new things about God.
No, we're merely echoing what God has already said about Himself.
Our triune God who praises Himself.
He's not selfish, He's not self consumed.
No, God praises Himself because it's the most righteous thing that He can do.
Think about that for a moment.
For God to truly be God, he must be holy.
And for him to be holy, he must live by, as it were, his own law.
And what's the first commandment that we read each Lord's day from the Ten Commandments in Exodus chapter 20?
Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
If God was to love anything more than himself, he would be an idolater.
God loves himself more than anyone else, not because he's selfish or vain, but because he's holy and good.
And it is the right thing to do and the good thing to do to love the most lovable person the most.
God loves Himself the most.
God is for God.
And so when we praise God, we're merely echoing God's own praise for His triune self, what God has said about Himself in His Word.
In other words, when we praise God for who He is, what He's done, and what He promises to do, we are speaking forth, declaring the Word of God.
Words that God has already spoken about Himself.
And faith comes not by sight, but by hearing.
And hearing what?
The Word of God.
So when we're anxious, go to God.
With what?
A petition.
The petition, let it be brief.
For our Heavenly Father already knows what we need before we ask.
And then what do we do?
When we petition, we need to petition not being double minded, not with doubt, but with faith.
But what happens when we believe, but also don't believe?
Where do we get faith?
We get faith when we hear the Word of God.
And so we should preach to ourselves.
And we should preach to ourselves the Word of God, who God is, in the form of praise.
Petition and praise.
Praise as a means for bolstering faith.
All that being said, let's look at Psalm 16, verse 5.
The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup.
You hold my lot.
This means that David recognizes God as the one who both satisfies and sustains.
David is saying this God is sufficient, God is enough.
We choose God as Christians, as lovers of God.
We choose God not because He is the only portion available.
No, we choose God precisely because He is the only portion that will not have us empty and sorrowful.
That's what we saw last Lord's Day in verse 4 of our text.
Verse 4 says the sorrows, the emptiness, the deception and depression, all of these things of the wicked, it's multiplied as they commit idolatry, as they further and further run after idolatry.
Other gods.
Psalm 16, 4, the sorrows of those who run after another God shall increase.
They shall multiply, exponentially grow.
Their sorrow, their emptiness, their misery grows as they commit idolatry.
Their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out or take their names upon my lips.
But by contrast, now, contrast in verse 5, you see, the Lord is my chosen portion.
See, David's saying, he's saying, the wicked go after other gods and their sorrows are multiplied.
But as for me and my house, we choose the Lord.
He's not just a portion.
And notice, David doesn't just say the Lord is a portion or even the Lord is the portion, the best portion.
He says he's my chosen portion.
There are many in the church today, including myself, in moments of failure and sin, that will salute the concept, the doctrine, the idea in theoretical terms that God is the best portion laid before us at the table.
We'll acknowledge it in word.
Will recognize it and salute it in theory.
But oh, how many times we still choose a portion.
How many times do we, even as Christians, break the first commandment?
How many times do we look more like the wicked in verse 4 than the righteous, David, in verse 5?
How many times have we, even as Christians, saved by the grace of God, run after other gods?
Run after idols, put our hope and our trust and our treasure in other gods.
And how often have we seen the fulfillment of verse 4 that in those moments our sorrow is multiplied?
When we're anxious and we run to something or someone other than God, it doesn't solve the problem, it doesn't assuage our anxiety, it doesn't calm us or bring us peace.
What does it do?
It only produces more anxiety, it exasperates our fears.
It accentuates our depression and our misery.
But David, in verse 5, as a direct and stark contrast to the wicked, in verse 4, he says, The Lord is my chosen portion.
He's my cup.
And he furthermore goes on to say, You hold my lot.
John Piper, in commenting on that little phrase in Psalm 16, verse 5, You hold my lot, he says the following.
When the dice are rolled and the straws are drawn and the wheel is turned, whatever happens to me comes from the hand of God.
God holds my lot.
That is, God decides it.
God rules over it.
God is my sovereign and I am glad to have it so.
I don't just affirm it stoically, I exult in it.
That is, I take joy in it.
I praise the reality that God holds my lot.
And I say that for a moment because it's important, especially for those of us who would claim to be reformed in our soteriology and our view of the sovereignty of God.
Too often, again, the same principle that I've already spoken of, we salute the sovereignty of God, but how often do you rejoice in the sovereignty of God?
Right?
There is a difference in acknowledging God's sovereignty over all things versus rejoicing God's sovereignty over all things.
There are far too many in the church today, too many Stoic Calvinists.
Who salute the sovereignty of God as a doctrine, but don't rejoice in the reality of God's sovereignty in the form of praise?
Are we happy about the fact that God holds our lot?
Because there's a way of having a begrudging spirit, an obligation, that I recognize and I acknowledge the sovereignty of God, but I'm not particularly happy about it.
See, there's a dynamic difference in theologically acknowledging the sovereignty of God versus someone who is actually excited about the fact that God is sovereign.
And not just over the universe, but they are particularly excited and rejoicing over the fact that God is sovereign over them.
You hold my lot.
Not just the lot.
Not just someone else's lot.
Not just the universal human history big picture 30,000 foot view lot.
No, you hold Joel's lot.
My lot for today.
All these things come from the hand of God.
That even when it comes to suffering and even sin, nothing can come to me in this moment, this day, if it does not first pass through the banner of your sovereign, benevolent love.
Do we rejoice, not just acknowledge theologically the sovereignty of God, but do we rejoice in the goodness of the sovereignty of God?
Now, this concept is fleshed out even more in verse 6 of our text.
Psalm 16, verse 6 says, The lines have fallen from me.
In pleasant places.
Indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.
Notice again, David is speaking now of the sovereignty of God.
At first, he names the sovereignty of God in the big overarching general principle you hold my lot.
So he names the principle, but he's already made it personal.
So he names the principle, but in personal terms you hold my lot.
But now he begins to give some practical examples of what it looks like, of what it means for God to hold his lot.
The lines have fallen for me.
In pleasant places.
Indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.
Notice David doesn't say that the kingdoms that I have conquered and the ways, the territorial boundaries that I have expanded through my exploits and my decisions and my work and my actions are good.
No, he says the lines have fallen for me.
See, David recognizes his own agency, his own human responsibility.
But above all that, beyond all that, in an ultimate sense, he recognizes.
That the lines for him, his lot in life has been given him.
It hasn't been something that he's accomplished, that he's executed.
David's lot in life is not the work ultimately of David.
David's lot in life is ultimately the provision of the Lord.
It's fallen for him, it's been handed down from heaven, from God.
It's been ordained for him.
See, David proves that he does not merely affirm God's sovereignty, but he actually rejoices in it.
And he does so by celebrating.
The results of God holding the law.
So we must not merely acknowledge the sovereignty of God.
We must rejoice in the fact that God is sovereign.
But one of the ways that we rejoice in real terms, a test, if you will, a measuring rod, in order to discern whether or not you're actually rejoicing in the sovereignty of God, is can you rejoice in the practical circumstances today that God has provided?
Right, so we say God is sovereign, but are you happy about that?
Do you take joy in the fact that God is sovereign?
That's the next step from acknowledging the sovereignty of God to exulting in the sovereignty of God.
But then the third step is this How do you know you're exulting in the sovereignty of God?
Not merely acknowledging or affirming or recognizing, but praising the fact that God is sovereign.
How do you know?
Well, you know when you're content and happy with what God has executed in his sovereignty for you today.
That's what David's doing.
So he says, You hold my lot.
I am happy.
I am pleased.
I am comforted.
I am relieved that you, O God, are sovereign for me.
You hold my lot.
But then he gets even more practical, even more specific.
He says, In this principle of you holding my lot, this is what it looks like on the ground, in real terms.
It looks like the lines falling for me in pleasant places.
And at this point in the life of David, it's important to note there were enemies that David had still not defeated.
It would have been very easy for David to say that the lines for me have fallen in decent places, but not great.
Yeah, I have a lot more than maybe the average person.
I'm the king of Israel, but there are still enemies that have territory that are encroaching upon Israel's borderlines.
There are threats out there.
I mean, there were even threats outside, but even threats inside.
Later on in the life of David, what we'll see is his own son from his own family, his own lineage, Absalom, turns against him.
And Absalom, he does this strategically and subtly and deceptively.
One of the things that Absalom does is this as people were coming to meet with David, the king, Absalom would meet them at the gates.
And he would say, What's your problem, brother?
What can I do for you, sister?
The Tone of Ministry00:03:52
And he would have a really kind of Joe Biden tone, really soft and really.
It's kind of like Absalom and David, it's like kind of the difference between Biden and Trump.
David actually has some good policies, David's actually being obedient to the Lord.
But David's also a man of war.
He wasn't even permitted by God to build the temple because he had shed too much blood.
It went ultimately to his son Solomon.
Right?
Whereas Absalom, he was graceful in his speech, deceptive in his heart, horrible policies, wanting to undo all the righteous things that David, his father, had accomplished.
And yet Absalom won the heart of the people.
How?
By righteous policies and principles?
No.
By good tone.
I just got to stop for a moment and just say, how often do people fall prey to good tone?
And that's not to say that there aren't scriptures that speak to the Christian saying that we should be gentle and that our speech should be seasoned with grace.
There is a biblical mandate, there is a biblical principle for not just what we say, but how we say it.
But notice this, brothers and sisters clearly, in biblical terms, in the whole of scripture, what we say matters more than how we say it.
Now, we should strive to do both righteously.
But often, what we see in the church of God, not just in culture, not just I used political examples with Joe Biden and Donald Trump, but even in the church, even in the evangelical church in America today, what we see is often ministers and Christian leaders that rise to prominent positions.
They're not the ones who necessarily have the best policies, the best theology.
They're not necessarily the guys who are the most faithful and the most courageous or are actually doing the most for the glory of God and the most for the good of his people.
It's just the guys who They speak with a silver tongue.
Right?
Out of their mouth, out of their lips, it's like honey.
But honey, although it's sweet, it's not sustenance.
It doesn't actually satisfy, it doesn't actually sustain the people of God.
See, faithful ministers give bread.
And it's not their bread.
Right?
A faithful minister is not a chef.
I've heard that illustration before.
You know, in a sermon, he's cooking up a meal.
No, a faithful pastor is less of a chef, he's just a butler.
Chef is beyond him.
That's too glorious of a position to use to describe a faithful minister of God.
He's not a chef.
He's not cooking up dishes.
The dish is already made, it's right here.
God makes the dish.
God provides the sustenance.
He provides the bread.
He provides the meal.
And all a faithful pastor does, he doesn't make the dish, he just runs it from heaven to the earthly table where the saints are gathered.
Here's the meal.
Here's the meal.
And what is this meal?
What is the Word of God?
It's like bread.
Remember, even the Israelites, they were discontent in the wilderness.
They were being fed every morning with manna from heaven.
But eventually they say, Give us meat.
We want something else.
We're tired.
We're bored.
It's bland.
We're sick of it.
And so too, we, the people of God, we're so often dissatisfied with sustenance.
And what we want instead is something.
Sweet, but not satisfying.
It's like bread versus honey.
It's something that's simple and satisfying versus something that is sweet but empty.
Sweet but empty.
Sweet But Empty Bread00:02:44
And so this isn't just a universal human problem, but this is a church problem.
It's a problem for even the people of God.
And so too it was with David.
Absalom, he would meet people as they were coming to meet with David and he would sort out their problems.
He would extend his hand, the Bible says, and he would.
He would lock arms with them and say, I will fix your problem.
You're upset about something.
I'll fix it.
Now, here's the deal.
David wasn't actually fixing, or Absalom rather, wasn't actually solving problems.
One of the reasons he was able to win the hearts of Israel, is what the Bible says, win the hearts of Israel away from his father David to himself, was because he would solve someone's immediate problem, but in such a way it would create a further problem down the line for someone else.
Right?
So, when there was conflict, the first person who came to him, Absalom, would just simply give them what they wanted.
Whether it was righteous or not.
It's like Proverbs, I believe 17, verse 18, or it's 18, 17, one of the two, where it says, one is thought right, the one who presents his case first is thought right until another cross examines him.
And what Absalom was doing is just whoever got in the door first, whoever arrived first and stated their problem, gave their criticism, their complaint, he would tell them what they want to hear.
He would do what they want.
Because he wasn't actually interested in Israel's long term good.
He was interested.
In his approval ratings, his polls, in the immediate.
All he needed was for Israel to like him enough temporarily for him to seize that opportunity, that window of public favor to overthrow his father who was in current power.
And that happens in the church all the time.
That happens with nations, that happens with pastors.
I mean, that happens with parents.
I have been shocked when I think of the fear of man.
I've been shocked to realize that I am such a sinner that I can fall prey to the fear of man, not just with dozens of adults.
I can fall prey to the fear of man with a three year old, it turns out.
Gosh, I really hope she likes me.
With a three year old.
And I can give her presently what she wants to garnish her temporary favor at the cost of what she long term ultimately needs.
And so, this is what's happening with David and Absalom.
And so, my whole point is to say that David had rising threats within his kingdom, in his own family, his own son.
And he had looming threats outside of his kingdom borderlines and foreign nations that hated God and hated the people of God.
Thanking God for Pain00:05:41
They were still posing a great threat.
And yet, David is still able to say, The lines have fallen from me in pleasant places.
What he's saying is this he's saying, God is not just sovereign in theoretical, theological terms.
And I'm not merely acknowledging and affirming that doctrinal truth.
No, God is sovereign in an ultimate theological sense, but God is also sovereign in a personal sense for me.
He holds my lot, and I don't just acknowledge it, I exult in it.
I rejoice in it.
And furthermore, this is what it looks like in practical terms on the ground for God to be my sovereign.
And how do I know that I'm not just acknowledging the sovereignty of God, but actually rejoicing in the sovereignty of God?
Because I rejoice and take pleasure, and I am content with what God is.
Sovereignly provides.
How do you know, Christian, how do you know whether or not you are actually content with God being your sovereign when you are content with what He sovereignly provides?
To say that you rejoice in the fact that God holds your lot, but then to be dissatisfied and frustrated and anxious and angry about your lot is to completely refute the prior statement.
God, you are sovereign.
I don't just salute it, I rejoice and exult in the fact that you are sovereign.
And not just for someone somewhere out there, but you hold my lot.
You are my sovereign Lord.
I rejoice in that today.
Man, I'm really frustrated with the size of my house.
I don't like my work.
My marriage, I'm not really happy with.
You've just undone everything that you previously said.
You have proved otherwise.
To rejoice in God's sovereignty is ultimately to rejoice in what He provides.
Now, that being said, you might be thinking, well, I don't know if I agree with that principle.
Should we rejoice?
When God provides, what about suffering?
What about sickness?
Well, I don't know.
What did Paul and Silas do when they were chained up in prison?
They're rejoicing and praising God.
See, this is the biblical principle.
The Christian is not ever commanded or expected to petition, that is, to ask for suffering.
But there is a mandate biblically for the Christian to praise and be thankful for all things, including suffering.
So we're not masochistic or.
In the sense that the Christian isn't supposed to be someone who is, you know, whipping themselves, you know, as they pray and cry out to God and inflicting pain and suffering on their own life or in love with suffering or in love with pain.
No, no, no.
The Bible does not teach that.
We petition and request that the Lord would give to us pleasant things, that He would give to us things that are good.
So we ask the Lord, and rightly so, for physical health in this life.
We ask the Lord for many children because children are a blessing and healthy.
Children, we ask the Lord for homes and jobs and all these things, and there's nothing wrong with that so long as that we don't put our ultimate hope and trust in these earthly blessings that come from the Lord, but rather we ultimately trust in the Lord Himself.
So we ask for good things from the Lord, we don't ask for pain, we don't ask for suffering, but when it comes, not if because it will come for all of us in various ways and at various times, suffering is part of God's plan for His people here in this life, and when that suffering comes, we don't ask for it.
But when it comes, we do thank God for it.
We see Peter speaking about that.
Through various trials and tribulations, God uses this for not only his glory, but for your good.
Through suffering comes endurance.
Through endurance comes faith and hope and all these different things.
God is producing something in us.
Hebrews 12 says that the Lord disciplines his own, that if God doesn't discipline us, it's actually a sign that we may be an illegitimate child.
That we may not actually belong to the Lord.
Because if we do in fact belong to God and that He is in fact our Heavenly Father, then He does not only give us provision and sustenance and good, but He also gives us His rod.
And when He disciplines us, again, we are grateful.
We are thankful for His loving discipline that comes through the agency sometimes of sickness or suffering.
All these different things, the Lord disciplines His own.
We thank Him for that discipline.
We thank him for the difficult things in life.
And there is a dynamic difference, again, between asking for pain versus thanking God for pain because we know that if he gives us pain, it is for good, wise, and holy purposes.
He is giving us pain for our ultimate joy, our ultimate good.
It is to produce in us something that is beautiful.
I remember a minister once said, speaking of suffering, that suffering is our slave.
And he was using the writings of the Apostle Paul.
It says that suffering produces.
And he was using that language of suffering producing and speaking in the terms of a master slave relationship.
That a master would say to his slave, Go out into the field and produce fruit for me.
Produce gain, increase, resources, grain.
Go and work, produce.
Suffering Produces Good00:04:33
I own you, and I own you for the very purpose of you producing wealth for me.
You work for me, and your work is.
Is my fruit.
It's my gain.
You produce wealth for me.
And this minister used that to speak of the Christian and his relationship with suffering.
In the same way that a master has a relationship with a slave where he owns the slave, and therefore because he owns the slave, he has ownership over the slave's labor and the production of the slave.
Right?
The kind of ownership that people think they have today in America.
Right?
It's the difference between passive and active rights.
When people say, I have an inherent right simply by virtue of existing and breathing, I have this God given right, this inherent right to free health care.
No, you don't.
And the reason why is because it is because God in His Word clearly prescribes the beauty and the righteousness and the goodness of property ownership.
And that's not just land or houses or physical property and cause, but that's also the property, owning the property of our labor.
That's also intellectual property.
So, some of you might be aware that in some of the current events and the news that we've seen lately in our nation, that all of a sudden companies like Moderna, right?
The government didn't get us through COVID.
The government doesn't get us through anything because the government doesn't ever do anything.
Right?
That's what you can count on the government to do nothing.
So, what ultimately produces jobs?
Not Joe Biden.
He's never produced a single job in his life, not one.
And for the record, neither did Donald Trump or any other president or any other government official.
They don't do anything like that.
What produces jobs is the American people.
It's people who work, it's entrepreneurs, it's companies.
And so, what got us through the pandemic?
Well, I mean, a lot of things.
One was people waking up and realizing it's not actually that bad.
But another one that got us through the pandemic was the vaccine.
The government did not produce the vaccine.
Certainly, Biden didn't.
He's taking credit for it.
But Trump didn't either.
He had some policies that helped expedite it.
But who created the vaccine?
Private companies.
And now, Moderna, the government is trying to step in because there are third world countries who need the vaccine.
And rather than buying it from these private companies, it worked to produce this intellectual property, the formula, the vaccine.
Rather than the government saying, well, we want to help these several countries, they can't afford the vaccine, so we'll buy it and give it to them.
No, instead, what they're doing is they're trying to, through legislation, through coercion, actually take the intellectual property from private companies like Moderna and say it belongs.
They don't actually have a right to it, it belongs to us now.
Well, that is theft.
Right?
If somebody, if a private citizen breaks into their neighbor's house, sneaks through the window, and steals their stuff, it's stealing.
It's theft.
When a government does the same thing, it's still theft.
Well, we have this mindset in America today that if a government does it, it's not stealing.
No, that just means instead of a private individual stealing, a government is stealing.
And a government can steal from its citizens, they can also steal from private companies like Moderna.
But it's theft, it's stealing.
And so, in terms of property ownership, One of the principles that we see in scripture is that owning property is a human right.
And so to say, well, I have an inerrant right to free health care, what that says, that active right, if you will, what it does is it actually blatantly and directly contradicts the passive right that actually is biblical, is inerrant, of the right to labor, the right to intellectual property.
See, when someone says, I have a right to free health care, what it says is to the doctor, it says, you don't have a right to your own labor, your own time, your own research, your own intellect.
Your own knowledge.
You owe me.
You're my slave.
See, a right to free health care makes doctors the slave of a person.
It says your right to your labor is trumped by my right to free health care.
And there are nations that have done this.
You know what happens in those nations?
When they need surgery, they come here.
Because turns out doctors don't want to be robbed from, nobody wants to be stolen from.
People want to be able to own their property, whether it be physical or intellectual.
Or the property of their labor, their time, whatever it is.
Letting the Lord Counsel Us00:13:26
And these are things that God's Word protects and defends the goodness and the inherent righteousness of property ownership.
And so, all that being said, the idea that God is sovereign, David is saying, hey, here's my property, here are the lines, here are the territorial boundaries around Israel.
There's more that I would like.
And not only is there more that I would like for pleasure, but there's more.
I would like going all the way back to God being a safe refuge.
There's more I would like for security, for safety, because it's not just here are my boundaries, but on the other side of these boundaries are enemies and threats that loom over me, and even threats like my own son within.
But God has given me what I have.
And in order for me to be integrous and truthful, when I say that I not only affirm the sovereignty of God, but that I actually rejoice in the sovereignty of God, in order for that to be a true statement, if I really rejoice and celebrate the sovereignty of God, I must rejoice and celebrate.
The provision of God.
If I rejoice in the fact that God is sovereign, I must rejoice in the fact that He sovereignly provides.
Psalm 16, verse 7 says, I bless the Lord who gives me counsel.
In the night also my heart instructs me.
God is not only our safe refuge, we've seen that thus far.
Not only our supreme treasure, I have no good beside you.
You're my portion, the chosen portion, my cup, we've seen that now.
And not only our sovereign Lord, the one who holds our lot.
The one who dictates and ordains for us the lines that fall in pleasant places.
He's not only our safe refuge, our supreme treasure, our sovereign Lord, but He is also our sure, that is, our trusted counselor.
It is vital for us to recognize that God is our refuge, treasure, and sovereign by.
This is what I want you to see.
By.
How is He these things?
See, the way that I, as I was executing this text over the last couple of weeks and working to exposit it and seeing how to.
But the question you always want to ask with Scripture is this not what, not merely.
You got to get that.
What?
Is the Bible saying?
What is God saying about Himself?
But the next question that we want to ask is how?
How is He good?
How is God saved?
How does God accomplish these things?
How does He preserve His people?
How does He save His people?
How does He satisfy His people?
See, that's what it is in Psalm 1, where we started just a few weeks ago.
Psalm 1, it says, The righteous man, the blessed man, he meditates.
He doesn't just read the Word of God, he doesn't even just memorize the Word of God, but he meditates on the Word of God day and night.
And I said, Christian meditation is not the emptying of the mind, but it's the focusing on the mind on the Word of God.
It is to think deep thoughts upon what God says in His Word.
And one of the deepest thoughts that we can ever think is asking simply the question, How?
How?
How is God trustworthy?
How is He good?
And so, one of the things as I was working through the text and exposing the text that I saw is this I think this fourth characteristic, if you will, of God.
Sure counselor.
I'm using the word sure to say trusted counselor.
The counsel, the kind of counsel that you want.
The kind of counsel that is trustworthy, that is true, that is good.
Good counselor.
Right?
There's a lot of people, they'll give you advice whether you ask for it or not.
They'll give you counsel, but it may not be good.
God is the good counselor, the trusted counselor, the sure counselor.
And as I was working through the text, what I saw is this it's almost as though, in the way that David writes in Psalm 16, it's almost as though he's saying that God is actually three things, not four, three things.
He's our safe refuge, supreme treasure, and sovereign Lord, and he is these three things for us by the fourth thing, namely his short counsel.
Now, he is a short counselor, but I think the better way to read it is this.
He is a supreme treasure, a safe refuge, a sovereign Lord through his or by his, the way he is these things for us our safety, our satisfaction, right?
That's the supreme treasure, the safety, safe refuge, and the sovereign Lord.
Right, the protector, the provider, the way that He is our safety, the way that He is our satisfaction, our joy, our pleasure, and the way that He is our provider, our sovereign Lord, our sustainer, the one who holds our lot.
He does all this by His counsel.
So, the way that God is these first three things for us refuge, treasure, and Lord is by the agency.
The agency that God utilizes is His instruction.
His counsel.
And I think it'll make more sense as I read on.
See, it's vital for us to recognize that God is these things by His counsel, or that is by His instruction and guidance.
For instance, see, safety, joy, and contentment, they're not automatic in this life.
See, in order for us to find these things, we must submit to God's word.
We must live out, we must obey God's counsel.
For instance, here's an example just using the first, safe refuge, as a case study.
God is a safe refuge.
But how?
See, God becomes our refuge by counseling us how to walk in the way of life and not death.
And for those who regularly meditate upon God's word, his counsel, furthermore, in verse 7 of our text, it comes to us even in the night.
And what's significant about that?
I think what David is getting at is I read commentaries on this.
David's saying that at the night, in the nighttime, in the evening, when it's dusk, when it's dark, and that's often the time where the work of the day that preoccupies our mind and our thoughts and our inclinations has ceased.
And is it not at those moments of the day, usually the evening and the night, when we're laying in bed, when our work has ceased?
Where we begin to worry?
See, night is often the time where our heart condemns us.
But David says, David says that by praise, that when the blessed man, when the righteous man praises God for who he is and meditates on God's word, not my anxious thoughts, not my worry, not my fear, but when I focus my mind and meditate on God's word day and night, then in the night, rather than my heart condemning me, my heart accusing me, my heart worrying me, My heart instructs me.
Now, David's not saying that the heart is inherently good.
No, the heart, in biblical terms, well, Jeremiah says the heart is deceitful above all else.
Out of it comes malice and wickedness and deceit and all kinds of manner of evil.
But sometimes, Christians, we look at the heart and we see all the things, and we're so quick to affirm total depravity, and we see what the Bible says about the heart and how it can deceive us, how it can mislead us, and then we develop this doctrine in our doctrine of original sin, but we apply it to the Christian, and that's actually theologically wrong.
Right?
As Christians, we sometimes say, well, even the Christian, their heart is above all else wicked.
Why?
No, it's not.
You know why it's not?
Because Ezekiel 36 says that God removed the heart of stone and replaced it with a heart of flesh.
The Corinthians, Paul's letter to the Corinthians says that we've been born again, that we've become a new creature in Christ Jesus, that we've actually been changed.
And so for the Christian, the heart is, well, really, the heart is a civil war.
See, this side of heaven, This side of heaven, for the Christian, there is an internal war.
What is it?
It's Galatians 5.
It's Galatians 6.
It's do not gratify the evil desires of the flesh, but do what?
Instead, walk by the Spirit.
By walking by the Spirit, you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.
So, for the unregenerate man, for the unbeliever, the heart is nothing but deceitful.
Nothing but deceitful.
And for the Christian in heaven, David now, as he's with God in heaven, the glorified Christian man, the heart is only good.
But for the Christian, it's this in between.
The unbeliever, an evil heart.
The Christian now glorified in heaven, a good heart.
But for the Christian here, the heart, it can be, well, it can be a tool for evil.
It can also be a tool for good.
David says, My heart instructs me, even in the evening, at the night.
David is ultimately saying this.
He's saying, I have so saturated my heart with the word of God, the character of God, the promises of God, the goodness of God.
By praising God, that my heart, rather than working against me, my heart is working for me.
Rather than my heart working to my detriment, my heart, even at the nighttime, is working for my benefit.
See, this is the result of the blessed man all the way back from Psalm chapter 1.
What do you get?
What do you get?
What's your benefit for modeling your life after the blessed man in Psalm chapter 1?
The person who is a tree planted by streams of water, whose leaves are evergreen, and who bears fruit in its season.
Well, what's your benefit?
What's your reward for meditating on God's law and delighting in God's law day and night?
The benefit is this.
The benefit is that when you've ceased for the day with the work of your hands, when your thoughts are no longer preoccupied by your task and endeavors, and you lay your head down on your pillow to sleep, and all of a sudden, that's the time when your mind is stilled and your heart tends to rise up and begin to present you with a host of worries and anxieties.
For the blessed man who meditates on God's word day and night, the heart, rather than rising up to To cause you fear, the heart rises up to give you peace because your heart has been trained.
We need to train our hearts.
It is possible for the Christian by dwelling and thinking deeply upon the Word of God day and night, by delighting in His law, and by praising Him.
Not just petition, petition, petition, short petition, lots of praise.
And by the time you finish it, I don't think it's a coincidence.
This is the last thing that David's saying in praise.
You're my sure counselor.
I think what David is saying is because I've praised you and seen you and remembered you and celebrated you as my safe refuge, because I've done that with you as my supreme treasure, because I've done that now with you as my sovereign Lord, because I've saturated and reminded and preached to my own heart your goodness and your promises.
When I lay down at night while others are plagued with worry and fear, my heart rises up and instructs me, my heart counsels me, my heart reminds me of the very thing I've trained my heart to do.
With discipline to do.
My heart, it's not just your word instructs me.
No, my heart has been so saturated in your word that even my heart, its default position now, through discipline, through practice, through study, through prayer, through righteous living, through obedience and worship and adoration, because I have chosen to be so diligent to saturate my life in the righteousness of God and in the word and truth of God, my heart's first default position when I silence my day.
At the end of my day and silence my mind, the first thing by default that my heart begins to speak is your word.
That's what I've been thinking about all day.
I remember there was a season in my life where I was playing hours and hours of chess, and it was crazy to where I would literally close my eyes and I would see squares and chess pieces.
I would be driving and I would see even the road like it was a chessboard.
If I needed to merge lanes, I was thinking about a bishop, you know, going around a knight.
Like by default, I didn't mean to.
It was probably not super safe.
You know, it was like almost like I was on some kind of chess drugs or something like that.
It felt like I'm not even fit to drive anymore.
I'm so obsessive playing so much chess, I'm seeing chess pieces and squares everywhere I look.
So it is with meditating upon God's Word day and night.
You close your eyes, the law of God that you've been delighting in all day long is the first thing that your heart pushes up to your mind.
Your heart instructs you.
So David's not saying, My heart is my counselor.
My point in all that is to say this the Lord is my counselor, and He's a sure counselor, a trusted counselor.
And because I have chosen by diligence to saturate my life in His counsel, my heart now echoes the counsel of the Lord.
It's not my heart that is my counselor.
The Lord is my counselor, but I've so submitted my will to His counsel that my heart, by default, echoes His counsel, even at the end of the day, when often the heart echoes.
Would bring worry.
My heart brings promises and peace.
All right, we need to go ahead and land the plane here.
My Heart Echoes His Peace00:10:02
David has spent seven verses declaring who God is for him.
God is his safe refuge, supreme treasure, sovereign Lord, and sure counselor.
The result of David's declarations, his praise to bolster faith for that original petition, preserve me, save me.
What's the result of all his praise, his declarations about the character of God?
Is that his original petition in Psalm 16 1, preserve me, right?
That was a request.
Now it's become a confident assertion in Psalm 16 8.
So now instead of David asking the Lord to preserve him like he did in verse 1, In verse 8, after seven or six and a half verses of praising God for who he is, David now says, I shall not be shaken.
See, at first it's God, would you please preserve me?
A question.
But now it's a statement.
I will be preserved, is essentially what David's saying.
I will not be shaken.
And this confidence that David will not be shaken leads to the final thing that we find in his prayer in Psalm 16 rejoicing.
Joy, happiness.
He says, Therefore, my heart is glad and my whole being rejoices in verse 9.
And then he furthermore goes to the last verse of our text, verse 11, and says, In your presence there is fullness of joy, and at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
See, petitions, this is the principle of prayer in times of trouble.
Get this.
If you want to underline this line in your notes, this is the map, if you will, it's the itinerary for prayer specifically in times of trouble.
Petitions for God's preservation lead to declarations of God's character, which lead to confidence in God's promises, which lead to joy in God's presence.
I'll say it again.
Petitions for God's preservation lead to declarations of God's character, and declarations, praising God for who He is, His character, leads to confidence in God's promises, and I will not be shaken, verse 8.
And confidence in God's promises leads to verse 9, which is, Joy in his presence.
My heart is glad.
In verse 11, in your presence is fullness of joy.
That is the model, the map of prayer for the Christian in times of trouble.
Petition, praise, and then remember his promises, declare, and then ultimately, finally, rejoice, exult, revel in the goodness of God.
See, a chief cause of our anxiety is that we often spend far too much time listening to ourselves and far too little time preaching to ourselves.
Listening, how do I feel?
Rather than preaching, what do I know?
See, finally, in Psalm 16, verse 10, we see that's the final verse.
I went from 8 to 9 real quick and then to 11 because 9 and 11 are both this rejoicing in the presence of God because of verse 8, which is David now making a confident assertion, I will not be shaken.
And he has that confidence in verse 8 because of verses 11.
1b through 7, which is David praising God for his character and who he is, and all that, beginning with the first half of verse 1, his petition, right?
So, first half of verse 1, God, I need you to save me, preserve me.
And then, second half of verse 1, all the way through verse 7, I'm doubting whether or not you'll save me.
And so, I need to bolster my faith through praise, praising you for who you are a safe refuge, a supreme treasure, a sovereign Lord.
And you do all this for me through your sure and trusted counsel.
Then verse 8, because I've bolstered my faith through praise, I'm now no longer with a doubt, petitioning.
I'm now declaring I will not be shaken.
You will preserve me.
And because I have that confidence, now verse 9 and 11, I'm rejoicing.
I'm rejoicing in your promises, your goodness, your protection, your salvation, your preservation.
And all of that is kind of the map of prayer.
But there's one little verse that we haven't done, and we'll end on it this morning.
And that's verse 10.
Now, at the surface level, verse 10, it's strategically positioned, rightly positioned, right in between verse 9 and verse 11.
Because it's David again declaring, it's his confident assertion You won't abandon me.
You're not just going to preserve my soul, you're not just going to save me, sustain me spiritually, but you're going to preserve my soul.
My body, right?
That was the main point that I started last week with, and this week, as a reminder, God promises to preserve all His people both in body, not just soul, but in body and soul through life and death to complete and eternal joy.
God fulfills this promise by being our safe refuge, supreme treasure, sovereign Lord, and sure counselor.
That's where we began, and that's precisely what David is saying in verse 10.
He's saying, My heart is glad.
You've preserved me.
I won't be shaken spiritually.
I'm rejoicing spiritually.
I'm secure.
Spiritually, I am safe.
And all of that's going to culminate, verse 11, in my eternal and everlasting full joy and pleasure in your presence.
But verse 10, he speaks to the safety and security that he is now confident of, not just spiritually, not just his joy, but his body.
You will not abandon my body to shield.
You will not let your Holy One see decay.
At the surface level, David is simply making another confident assertion because he's bolstered his faith.
Not only about God's protection and preservation and salvation for him spiritually, but even his preservation for David physically.
That God is going to save and preserve David both in body and soul.
That's the surface level meaning.
But we know that there's a much higher meaning to verse 10 of our text.
That the true Holy One is not King David, the true Holy One is who is now seated on the Davidic throne.
The one that David ultimately looked to, to be his refuge, to be his rock, to be his treasure, to be his sure counselor and his sovereign Lord.
The true Holy One who God the Father would not abandon his body to shield or let this Holy One see decay is not David, but Christ.
In closing, I want to just read a quote from Joe Rigney.
I thought it was beautiful in speaking of the true fulfillment of Psalm 16, particularly verse 10.
He says this.
This verse is a puzzle because of a simple fact.
David died.
His body did see decay.
He was buried, and his soul was abandoned to Sheol.
He was laid with his fathers and saw corruption.
And not only David, but all the saints in the Old Testament died in this way.
Psalm 16 gives us a window into what happened when people died.
At death, the soul is separated from the body, the body is laid in the ground and decays, the flesh falls to corruption.
The soul is sent to Sheol, to Hades, to the realm of the dead.
The righteous journey to Abraham's bosom, to the place of waiting, while the wicked land across the chasm wide in a place of torment.
This is speaking to the righteous and the wicked before the cross Old Testament and Old Testament unbelievers.
But everyone, wise and foolish, rich and poor alike, everyone goes the way of all flesh.
No man can ransom another from the power of Sheol.
No amount of wealth or riches can suffice to keep us from the place of the dead.
Death comes as a shepherd, and all of us are his sheep.
But unlike the myriads who had sunk down to Sheol before, Christ took the journey with joy.
He wasn't just going the way of all flesh.
He was making a new way for all flesh.
And he knew it.
We know Jesus knew it because he sang Psalm 16.
He had warned the scribes and Pharisees who would crucify him.
Just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
Matthew 12 40.
And just as Jonah sang in the belly of the fish, as we see in Jonah chapter 2, Jesus went into the earth, into the tomb, singing.
Like Paul and Silas, who would shake the foundations of a prison with a simple melody in Acts chapter 16, Jesus sang a greater earthquake into the prison of all prisons.
Christ had run his race and finished his course.
For the previous six days, he had labored, and now on the seventh day, he rested in shield, in the belly of the earth.
And while Jesus waited, he sang Psalm 16.
It makes me think of the magician's nephew, Isaiah Lewis.
That Aslan, the great lion, speaks the creation into existence through song.
That Christ, as he waits in the belly of the earth, he went to the cross for the joy that was set before him.
He went with joy because Christ knew that his body would not be abandoned to shield, that he would not see decay.
He had prophesied, he had spoken with confidence that in the same way that Jonah was delivered up from the belly of the fish, After three days, three nights, that so too the Son of Man would be delivered up, that the earth, the tomb, could not hold him, that like the fish spewed up Jonah out of his mouth, that the earth itself, that Sheol, the grave, would spew up the Son of God, because the Son of God, if you think of it almost like a fish, like digestive, that the fish, Jonah just didn't sit well with the fish.
He couldn't digest him, he couldn't keep him, he couldn't consume him.
He had to throw him up.
In the same way that you eat a meal or something that, you know, you get food poisoning, it's like, I can't keep it down, so too the tomb could not keep.
The Tomb Could Not Hold Him00:01:11
Christ down.
The earth swallowed him up at Calvary, but the earth could not hold him.
The tomb could not digest him, as it were.
But rather, three days later, just as the great fish with Jonah, the earth, the tomb, spewed up the Son of God.
And while he was there in the belly of the earth, he's saying, You will not let your Holy One see decay.
You will not abandon my soul to Sheol.
And it came to pass, the Son of God raised on the third day.
Crucified for the forgiveness of sins and raised for our justification.
Let's pray.
Father, we thank you for your word.
We pray that you would bless it to our hearts, our minds, our bodies.
And we pray, Lord, that you would be glorified in all that we do and all that we say.
We pray these things in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Thanks so much for listening.
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