Psalm 16 (Saved and Sanctified, Jeff Kliewer)

Salvation and Sanctification in Psalm 16

We pray that we would find pleasure and delight and joy in knowing you, in opening your word, in beholding you. We pray that you would fill us with your Holy Spirit this morning.

Lord, as we open the word,.

We also know that it is a sharp sword, and sometimes we need a good wound. So Lord, our prayer this morning is that you would cut away the things that are not like you, that you would conform us into the image of the beloved Son, that you would do surgery on our hearts, that you would make us to love you with an undivided heart, with all of our hearts, soul, mind, and strength.

Help us, Lord, this morning to know you more. We pray that you would open your word to us, open our hearts to your word, in Jesus' name. Amen. I know a man who claims to be saved, but he shows little sign of being sanctified, little evidence that he in fact is saved.

Now, this man is actually not just one person. This person is about 10 people that I have in mind, and making them into one conglomeration, I'll just call him one. He gave a ready ascent to the gospel when he was young.

He prayed the sinner's prayer. In fact, he walked in Isle, and he still goes to church. He brings his family with him to church, and yet he hasn't read the Bible on his own in years. Send him a Christian book, and it will collect dust.

Yet, he's a big reader. He reads The Atlantic, and he reads The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times. He's very culturally aware. In his mind, he is one of the most knowledgeable people.

That there is.

He has friends, mostly from college,.

And he really does follow his alma mater. He has a sinful habit in his life that he does from time to time, and each time, he convinces himself that it's just one last time. But here's what he thinks about on a daily basis.

Sports, his 401k, his savings, his house, his car,.

And his image.

It's very important to him that other people think that he's spiritual and indeed Christian. It's important to him especially that he'd be viewed as having a good marriage. His kids are doing well at school, but he tries not to think about the condition of their heart because somewhere deep down, he knows that his kid's heart is not walking with the Lord.

And there is a deep longing in his heart for God, but his life is too full with the things of this world to admit that to himself, to admit that he's empty.

I have a question.

Is this man saved? I have an answer for you.

I don't know.

A saved person who is not walking closely, not being sanctified, and someone who was never saved in the first place but is only making an appearance of salvation, those two people are known by God. That's why the Bible says it's not so much to know God but to be known by God.

They are known by God, but for us looking on from the outside, the one can look like the other and be.

Nearly indistinguishable to us. We can't always make that judgment, and indeed we're not called to. We are called to examine the fruit of a false prophet and reject false prophets, but we don't know who's saved and who's not in every particular case.

The weaker brother of Hebrews 6, in fact, the false convert of Hebrews 6, often looks like the weaker brother and vice versa. This person is not all that uncommon, but this person is not ordinary, according to what the Scripture teaches.

Sadly, though, if you look out across the American church, it's all too common to see people who have prayed a sinner's prayer and who go to church but whose hearts are far from God. They're not being sanctified in any discernible way.

So my question is, do you know who I was preaching about? And if you come up to me and ask, that's a dangerous thing to do. I could turn on you like Nathan turned on David. And Nathan pointing his finger, I might point my bony finger.

And say, you are the man.

So don't ask who it is.

Indeed, we don't need to know, but we do need.

To look into our own hearts.

Spurgeon said, this present age is so flippant that if a man loves the Savior, he is a fanatic. And if he hates the powers of evil, he is a bigot. We live in a culture, in an American church,.

Where devotion, wholehearted, fiery devotion.

To the Lord Jesus Christ is considered fanaticism. The evil and sinfulness and unrighteousness,.

That is considered bigotry.

It's a sad state of the American church. But this morning, we're gonna look to Psalm 16. The ones who take refuge in God for salvation.

Are set free to be sanctified. Salvation leads to sanctification,.

That having been saved from our sin,.

We find refuge in Christ in order to be transformed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another.

Sanctification is the ordinary caboose.

That follows the train of salvation.

We talk about salvation is by faith alone.

In grace alone, we just sanctify him.

Faith is alone in saving us. Works have nothing to do with saving us, but faith does not remain alone.

James 2 teaches that.

Salvation by faith, which doesn't remain alone,.

But begins to issue forth in good works.

This is what we're called to. Before I go into Psalm 16, though, we're gonna have to spend a little bit of time reviewing Psalm 2, because Psalm 2 was really about finding a refuge from the wrath of God, finding salvation from his judgment and his punishment in Christ.

So I wanna review that for that reason, but also for another reason. Last week, I did something rather unordinary. I wore a tie. I typically don't do that, but this tie, I think, had silk. And because of that silk in the tie, there was feedback from my microphone, and in the recording in the back, it was very crackly, because I was wearing a tie.

Now, sound guys, that's not their fault. That's actually the preacher's fault.

He was the one who messed up the sound.

However, here's the lesson I wanna, the reason I bring that up.

In life, sometimes frustrating things happen, and that's how it was this week, when I looked back and I saw, oh, the sermon got messed up on video. That's too bad. I was upset. Here's what I've been trying to do.

Whenever something frustrating or bad happens, recognizing a high view of God, that God has a sovereign purpose in everything, to say, Lord, what are you doing with this? Why did you allow this to happen?

Not that it was some tragic thing, but just a frustration. I said, Lord, what are you doing with this video? And here's what I felt like I understood from him. He wants me to review Psalm 2 this morning.

He wants us to talk about it again, so that this morning we could be reminded, because I feel like it was a very important thing that we learned from Psalm chapter two.

For a couple of reasons, let's review.

Number one, why do the nations rage.

And the people's plot in vain?

The kings, they take a stand against the Lord and against his anointed, and what do they say? Let us throw off their bonds. Let us cast aside their restraints. So the first thing to notice from Psalm chapter two, we're not to 16 yet.

In Psalm chapter two, there is a rage against God. We described it in three ways. One, it is raging. So it's not controlled and measured. It's irrational and it's hostile and it's hasty. It is a rage against God, number one.

But number two, it's weak. It's a vanity to think that they can throw off the restraints of God in opposition to the sovereign king.

Who made all things.

It is a weak rage, and then third, it is immoral. It is the throwing off of God's bonds, his rules, his categories of right and wrong.

Let us throw off restraint, the nations.

And last week, we paused to take a minute to consider our own culture in which we live. People today throw off the restraints of God. They reject his moral law and yet signal their own virtue. You'll recall somebody, one of my passengers seeing the coexist bumper sticker said, we need a little more turn signaling and a little less virtue signaling.

The people in this culture will signal their virtue by opposing Christians who make moral statements all the while throwing off true morality, throwing off the righteousness of God. We saw it in five categories.

Number one, in sexuality.

God has clearly defined in his word that sex is for married people, a husband and a wife. We learned that clearly from Genesis 2 21 -25 and then the moral law in Leviticus 18. Jesus reaffirms it in Matthew 19.

It's all over the scriptures and yet this culture is casting aside the moral law of God.

And accusing Christians of being bigoted and hateful, homophobic and haters.

Because we hold to the teaching of God. Number two, in race. God has defined all nations as descending from Adam and Eve, one people.

And yet the social justice warriors as I've called them.

Have tried to divide humanity by race with people of color versus white people and looking for oppression wherever they can find. Calls us to be one in Christ.

And to put away all ethnic distinctions.

That would divide us and come to Christ as one,.

All of us in the same way.

Third, we talked about nationality, that there are nations that God has created, God being the author and the one who determines the boundaries of our habitation in Acts 17 and yet people throw off the moral governance of a government which doesn't bear the sword in vain.

We talked about 1 Peter 2 affirming and Romans 13 affirming the authority of nations. Last week we also spoke about gender. Jesus affirmed in Matthew 19 verse four, male and female he created them but this culture has thrown off even the very definition of male and female and you see the injustice, the throwing off of the bonds of God and the horrible things that are done, the mutilating of the flesh and even the killing of innocent ones in order for all to be equal in the name of equality.

Finally, economics which we said was built on coveting. Exodus chapter 20 verse 17 says not to even covet what is your neighbor's and with that there is an assumption and a teaching of private property but all the Marxist redistribution schemes that come into the culture are fundamentally immoral because they're built on coveting your neighbor's property.

So this is the culture in which we live and yet we do live and yet it virtue signals and masquerades as morality, it's new morality when in fact it's the throwing off of the bonds of God. Psalm chapter two verse three, throwing off of restraint.

So people feel comfortable even in the midst of a culture which is dark and hardened against God. So how does God feel about humanity? Well, Psalm chapter two verse four and following says that he has wrath and fury.

Wrath, it's weak, it's vain. The immorality of the nations juxtapose that to the wrath of God which is patient. He says he set his king on his holy hill but he waits patiently for a final day of men continues on the earth, he waits patiently for a final day of reckoning and to me that's far more terrifying than a quick and hasty rage.

The storing up of wrath but his righteousness.

Undergirds his judgment.

He's making just and moral judgments based on truth not based on the emotions and feelings of mere people. He is righteous as a judge and so his wrath lingers.

But it's there.

Next in the Psalm we see that the end has been decreed. It's certain that the king who is coming, the Christ, the anointed, he will reign over all the earth. Christ will reign. The end has been decreed and so we're left with this tension where the rage of the nations is meeting the wrath of God.

We know that the end is certain but the end of Psalm chapter two sounds a hopeful note because God does not warn people to taunt them. A warning in fact is a call to repentance. If God said nothing about sin and sat in judgment, he would be righteous to judge every last one of us in this room and so we do not stand on any footing to judge anybody else because we ourselves are guilty of sin and at whatever point we judge another, we find ourselves guilty.

We're all alike under sin, aren't we? We are but here is the good and hopeful news.

Of the gospel.

Blessed are those who take refuge in him.

In who?

Kiss the son lest he be angry with you. Kiss the son, swear allegiance to the son, come to the son as a refuge and you will be blessed. You will be sheltered from the wrath of God and so Psalm chapter two is a psalm about salvation.

It's not finally a psalm about judgment although that is there but the warning is given as a call to repentance. Come, find refuge in the rock. Come into the fortress.

He will shield you.

He will rescue you from the wrath of God. Apart from this shield, you stand condemned already. You need a refuge and so I fear that many come to the altar, so-called altar, there's no altars in the New Testament but to the altar and they pray a prayer.

They say the sinner's prayer and they write their name in their Bible and they mark the date and they say, on this day I was saved because something was stirred in them in the preaching of the word that told them to run, to flee from the wrath to come and some of those salvations are genuine and others are not because running from that wrath, they didn't really understand to whom it was they were coming.

They never knew the Lord and so Matthew seven tells us, many will say on the final day of judgment, Lord, Lord, did we not do these great things in your name? Terrifyingly, Jesus will say, I never knew you.

There are false converts who want wrath escape. They want fire insurance but they've never truly been born again. This morning, as we turn now to Psalm 16, unto sanctification, genuine salvation rescues us from the wrath of God.

We find refuge in Christ and that is all the work of grace called by faith alone but having come to him, we're transformed from the inside out and the process of sanctification begins. If you see no evidence of that, I want you to tremble this morning.

I want you to say, am I really saved? It's not the worst thing in the world to wrestle with assurance of salvation. The Bible tells us, continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.

Ephesians 2, 8, 9, that is by grace that you are saved through faith and that not of yourselves, it's a gift of God, not of work so you cannot boast. We love that as evangelicals, don't we? We need to remember the very next verse, Ephesians 2, 10, for God prepared these works for you to walk in.

We are prepared to do good works. We're made a new creation to walk in these good works. So, Psalm 16, as I was studying this week, it just overwhelmed me to see first of all the refuge but then the sanctification that comes after it.

Consecration: Taking Refuge and Saying “You Are My Lord”

Look at verse one, preserve me, O God, for in you I take, what? Refuge. Here we see a connection with Psalm chapter two and indeed the apostle Paul in Acts chapter 13, he connects Psalm two and 16. The gospel, both of these are messianic so there is a tie from last week right there.

For in you I take refuge. I say to the Lord, you are my Lord. You are my Savior, you're my refuge and my rescue but you're also my Lord. I am now in obedience to you, I am submitted to you. I have no good apart from you.

This should be your prayer every morning. In this Psalm, I see three of the biggest and I think I was trying to brainstorm this week, is there anything bigger than the three things I see in this passage?

For you to be sanctified, for me to be sanctified. I think these are the three biggest things. Number one, consecration. Consecration meaning to be set apart as holy unto God. To be set apart as his servant and he's your Lord, he's your God, you belong to him.

The number one thing, preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge. I say to the Lord, you are my Lord. In you I take refuge. On a daily basis, we need to come to God and humble ourselves before him. Consecrate our hearts to him.

I like to do that on my knees once a day. Just to kneel and say, I am yours, I am yours. Remember Martin Luther? When he stood for the true gospel of salvation by grace alone, through faith alone,.

He was dragged before a court.

His life hung in the balance. He was shown his books and said, recant or else essentially you will die. That night when he was told what he must do, he fell silent. He needed a night alone with God and they granted him one day.

That night he prayed from Psalm 119. I am yours, save me. I am yours, save me.

All night long.

The next day he stood in the strength that God supplies and he said, here I stand. I can do no other. I can't go against conscience. That's not right nor safe. Here I stand. He stood upon the truth of God's word, expecting to die.

And as he was escorted out from there, he was accosted by soldiers on horses and he thought his end had come, but no, they were rescuers. The princes come and took him to Wartburg Castle where he then translated the Bible into German in a matter of months and distributed that to the people.

He was willing to die for the gospel and that's what sparked the reformation. When the word of God was put into the known language of the people, he was willing to die. This prayer, here I am, save me.

Lord, I am yours, save me. I have no good apart from you. We should pray this every morning. To set apart our lives to God. To be saved from wrath, but also to be saved from our selfishness and living without God, but to give ourselves entirely to him.

I love John Piper.

You guys know that.

We're doing a study. Of when I don't desire God. And one of the things that stood out to me the most this last week was a funny thing that Piper said. He said he was in a moment of worship right before preaching.

And as he was singing, you are my portion, you are my prize, you are everything to me, you are my treasure, his heart was caught up in worship. And he thought, I want to finish well. I think that one day I'll be preaching the gospel, I'll be on fire for the Lord, and that's when the Lord will take me.

And the thought crossed his mind, wouldn't it be great to have a heart attack? Wouldn't it be great to have a heart attack, he thought, and then he went up and preached. Well, why did that thought come into his mind?

It wasn't a morbid desire for death or anything like that. The concept was, I want to finish well. I want to be in this mode, fully committed to the Lord, sold out for him until the day I die. Guys, look at your own heart.

Remember that Psalm, prone to wander, Lord I feel it. Prone to leave, God I love. We need to fight for joy in Christ. We need to fight for our walk with the Lord. We cannot take this walk with Christ lightly and flippantly, as Spurgeon said.

We have only one life to live, and it is so easy for our hearts to become cold. When Jesus addressed the seven churches of Revelation, five of them had grown cold. One of them, he used those terms to describe it.

You're lukewarm. You're not hot and you're not cold. You're lukewarm and it makes me want to vomit you out of my mouth, says the Lord Jesus. A harsh rebuke. And so the most important thing for Christians on a daily basis is to consecrate our hearts to him again and anew, afresh, and say, Lord here I am, save me.

Here I am. I have no good apart from you. You're my treasure. I'm living for you today. I'm not living for a 401k. I'm not living to get a bigger house. I'm not living for anything but you. This day is for you.

I devote this time and this life to you. Sanctification happens by grace, just like salvation does. But here's what happens. On a daily basis, when we sin, we grieve the spirit of the living God. And the fire that should naturally and ordinarily be a part of our lives, that fire is quenched by sin in our lives.

Whether that sin is just apathy where we're distracted and we love everything else in the world, just that worldliness, the love of the world is the opposite of the love of the father, according to 1 John 2, 15.

Whatever that sin issue is in your life, that needs to be put to death. It needs to die because it's grieving the spirit of God. It's quenching the spirit of God. And you're not being sanctified because you're grieving the Holy Spirit.

He's the one that makes us holy. He's the one that sanctifies.

That's the first thing.

Fellowship with the Excellent Ones

Now, the second thing, very important as well. The second thing is fellowship with other Christians. You show me your five closest associations in your life, and I'll show you who you will become in five years.

And nowadays, with podcasts and radio, maybe your closest friend isn't actually somebody that you see face to face. It's somebody that talks into your ear every day. You're becoming like that person by hearing them all the time.

Our fellowship changes who we are, verses three and four. As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones, in whom is all my delight. The sorrows of those who run after another God shall multiply.

Their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out or take their names on my lips. Notice in verse three, David is saying the saints,.

The holy ones.

And that doesn't refer to any special person who's lived this life and has some treasury of merit that's stored up that they can share with others when they die. No, this refers to living people that David knows, the ones who love God and that sharpen him when he spends time with them.

He loves that.

He delights in the excellent ones. Guys, you need to get around people in your life that will sharpen you, that will challenge you, that will call you out sometimes and encourage you in other times. You need to be around the excellent ones.

This is what changes you. I'll use a sports analogy. I know some of you when I do that are like, oh, I hate these sports analogies, which is understandable, so I try not to do it too often. But Wilford is a college that was playing basketball yesterday in the NCAA tournament.

I haven't really been following college basketball for years, but I heard that they have this player named McGee who is just the greatest shooter ever. He's breaking the records for most three-pointers made in college history, something like that.

I'd never seen him. So the game starts, and I'm watching him thinking, all right, who is this guy? And this guy named Murphy and this other guy whose name I forget begin to shoot these three-pointers.

And this other guy, McGee, is shooting. And for the first half of the game, I have no idea which one is the star. They're all doing something very unique, though. Whenever they catch the ball, they're fading away from the defender and shooting these fadeaways, and it's just hitting nothing but net.

And the commentator made a very interesting point. He said they practice that all the time. The one guy who turned out not to be McGee, he gave a ball fake right at the guy's face and then shot it in one motion, nothing but net.

So I spent the whole time watching that half like, which one is the star? There was no way to tell the difference because they practiced together. And I'm sure the one was a little better, and that would come out in time.

I didn't watch the rest of the game to find out. Only found out another day. But here's the point. You become like the people you're with. You become like them. The influence that other believers and spouses and children, the people that we live with and spend time with are changing us more than we realize.

Their influence is strong. And so the second part of this, in verse 4, the sorrows of those who run after another God shall multiply. And David says their drink offerings of blood, he calls them, not just pouring out beautiful drink offerings.

These are violent and false and vain offerings, maybe to another God or maybe hypocritically to the God of Israel while they're actually living with hearts far from him. David says, I want nothing to do with it, and I won't even take their names off my lips.

Romans 16, the last chapter of Romans. There are commendations to those that he's greeting at the Church of Rome. Greet Phoebe, this amazing deaconess in the sense of being a servant of the church, whether or not that's an office or just a role is unclear.

But greet her, she works hard in the Lord. And then all of these commendations, halfway through Romans 16, though, he says the opposite. Watch out for those who cause divisions and have nothing to do with them.

Says the same thing in Titus, chapter 3, verse 10. Warn a divisive person once, then warn them a second time. After that, have nothing to do with them. Guys, sometimes in this Christian life, we have to make a separation.

Doesn't mean we have to shun somebody. But we may have to separate and spend more time with those who are sharpening us and leading us toward godliness, and less time with those.

Who we know in our heart of hearts are leading us astray.

We need to choose our friends wisely. Isn't this what the scripture teaches? First Corinthians 15, 33, bad company corrupts good morals. We need to be in the presence of believers. I think that's the second most important thing.

Where you go to church, who you spend your time with, who you listen to, that is shaping you. And it doesn't take long to begin to see that change that comes as we spend time the way David did, not with those who run after another god,.

But with the, quote unquote, excellent,.

Have that righteousness of Christ,.

Are being sanctified, who don't tolerate hypocrisy and fake Christianity.

Devotion to the Word and Prayer

Verses 5 to 8 is the third thing, devotion.

And by this, I mean time spent with God, devoting time to his word and to prayer. He says, the Lord is my chosen portion and my cup. You hold my lot. The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places. Indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.

I bless the Lord who gives me counsel. In the night also, my heart instructs me. I have set the Lord always before me because he's at my right hand. I shall not be shaken. Guys, this culture, this American culture, this evangelical culture that we live in, has the teaching of salvation and sanctification completely backwards.

It says that you have all the freedom in the world to come to God, as if you're not a slave to sin and dead in your sin. In truth, grace must awaken you to belief and faith. But notice this, that having come to faith, you are set free.

They shall know the truth, and the truth shall set them free. Having come to Christ, you are now free to pursue godliness. And there is some synergism in that. In other words, God has provided a means of grace, a means of grace.

There's something that we do to grow in grace and godliness in the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Well, what do we do? We open the scriptures, and we read his word. And we take time, and we pray.

We devote our lives to him. And that word and prayer, that is sanctifying. Sanctify them by your truth. Your word is truth. So look at David here in verse 5. He says that the Lord is his chosen portion.

He makes a choice. He decides that the Lord is my portion. And he has a beautiful inheritance. God has blessed him in so many ways. But his portion, his cup, is God himself. He devotes his life to that.

In Ephesians 118, we learn about our inheritance that we have in Christ. Maybe some of us here don't have an inheritance.

But we have Christ.

And we have an inheritance that's unspeakable, kept in heaven for us. He says, I bless the Lord who gives me counsel. How do you receive the counsel of God?

You listen to him.

You don't do all the talking. Prayer very much is talking to God. Counsel from God is listening to him and his word. Psalm 119, verse 105, your word is a lamp to my feet and a light unto my path.

This is what you do.

You open the scriptures. And you go to God through his word to grow in godliness. I have set the Lord always before me, verse 8. Always before me. This is the habit of David's life. He's always thinking about God.

Does that describe you? Is this your thought day in and day out that the Lord is your portion? You think about him all day long. And at night, your heart is turned to him, verse 7. Your heart is instructing you to call upon his name.

You're praying for your children. You're praying for your parents or grandchildren, for your friends. Your heart taking counsel, the word and prayer. That's the third thing. So there's three things, then, that I say we must pursue.

We must make a choice in these periods. We must decide that our hearts are given entirely to him. That's consecration. We must, every day, because we're prone to wander, we must say, Lord, here I am. Save me.

I have no good apart from you. That's number one. Number two, we need to spend time with those who are the excellent ones. We need to get around that discipleship. If you don't have that in your life, you can ask a godly man in this church.

Or if you're a woman, according to Titus 2, a godly woman who can instruct you, and walk with you,.

And help you grow.

And then third, devotion. It really comes down to, will you set aside time every day to read his word, and to pray?

The Resurrection of Christ and the Call to Salvation

Read like David did, verses 9 to 11.

Oh, the reward is very good. 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 corruption. You make known to me the path of life.

In your presence, there is fullness of joy. At your right hand are pleasures forevermore. We will be caught up into resurrected, glorified life. You see that word life in verse 11? And when this happens, when Christ comes, will he find faith on earth?

If you're raptured that day, if you're caught up to meet him in the air, you will spend eternity in fullness of joy, with pleasures forevermore. At your right hand are pleasures forevermore, verse 11.

Therefore, my heart is glad, says David. My whole being rejoices. My flesh also dwells secure. Not only your spirit, but even your very body. Your body will be resurrected one day to meet your spirit again.