Confidence in God

we reverence the reading of God's Holy Word, Psalm 16 beginning in verse 1.

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 excellent ones, in whom is all my delight.

The sorrows of those who run after another God shall multiply. Their drink -offering of blood

I will not pour out or take their names on my lips. The Lord is my chosen portion in my cup.

You hold my lot. The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places.

Indeed, I have an inheritance. I have a beautiful inheritance.

I bless the Lord who gives me counsel, and the night also my heart instructs me.

I have set the Lord always before me, because he is at my right hand

I will not be shaken. Therefore, my heart is glad and my whole being rejoices.

My flesh also dwells secure, for you will not abandon my soul to Sheol or let your

Holy One see corruption. You make known to me the path of life.

In your presence there is fullness of joy at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

Let us pray. Father, we're thankful tonight for your

Word. As the song we just heard, we're thankful for Calvary. Calvary covers it all.

That there is not one person who is too vile and too wicked.

Lord, that is too lost in sin. That you can't, by your grace, regenerate their heart.

Save them, Lord, and with a new heart they love you.

Lord, we rejoice in this fact that your gospel, Lord, saved the vilest sinner when it saved me.

Lord, it has saved vile sinners throughout the ages. Lord, what a glorious gospel that we have.

I pray tonight as we look at this psalm of David, Lord, and we see the confidence that he had in you.

Pray, Lord, that as we read it, as we study its words very briefly, Lord, that we would grow in our view of you and our confidence in you.

Lord, I pray that the sermon this evening would be glorifying to you and edifying to your church.

We ask all these things in Christ's name. Amen. Verse 8.

I want to read verses 8 and 9. It says,

I bless the Lord who gives me counsel, and not 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. Because he is at my right hand, who is at his right hand?

The Lord is at his right hand. And because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken.

Verse 9. Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices. My flesh also dwells secure.

And all of this is because the Lord is at his right hand.

There are so many things in this life that we place our confidence in.

We place our confidence in our families. We place our confidence in friends.

We, sometimes foolishly, place our confidence in politicians.

We place our confidence in doctors. And you know, there are reasons for each.

We, tomorrow we will go to the doctor tomorrow morning and Jace will have tubes placed in his ears so that he won't deal with as many ear infections that the fluid will drain.

It's giving him trouble most of his life. And I have some deal of confidence tomorrow that the doctor knows what he's doing.

He's done it before. He comes highly recommended. And so I do have some deal of confidence when we go in tomorrow that the doctor who says he's going to place tubes in Jace's ears will do what he says.

I have some deal of confidence and this may be more silly, but I have some deal of confidence in my truck out there.

And I'm hesitant to say that. It may give out on me on the way home. I may be calling for somebody to come help me.

But I have, there are things that we do have confidence in. I have confidence in my wife.

I have confidence in many of you or all of you in certain areas for certain things.

And I don't think that we are wrong in assuming that David had confidence in various things in his life.

They had confidence in the commanders of his armies that, you know, he had confidence in Joab and in others.

We, I don't think we're wrong in assuming that. But our text this evening that we've read here in Psalm 16, and I read these verses, they stood out to me as I was reading it.

I have set the Lord always before me because he is at my right hand. I will not be shaken. The Lord is at his right hand.

He will not be shaken. Therefore his heart is glad and my whole being rejoices and my flesh also dwells secure.

Our text this evening clearly shows where David's greatest confidence laid.

What his confidence most of all was in, and that was in his Lord. David speaks in this

Psalm of his confidence in God. That's the overarching theme here.

And he mentions many things throughout this Psalm, and we don't have time to dissect this entire

Psalm. I'm gonna, I'm gonna go here and there looking at this Psalm. We're gonna look at just about every verse, but we're gonna go here and there and not necessarily in any particular order.

But he mentions things about God that instill confidence. And I want you to notice that David is not deriving confidence from his own doings and his works, but rather the workings of God provide him with confidence.

And there are truths about God that he mentions here that makes him secure.

There are reasons that he mentions here that the Lord being at his right hand has made him where he will not be shaken.

That has made it possible where his heart is glad and his whole being rejoices and my flesh also dwells secure.

He gives some reasons why that verse is true. He writes about God to show why he had confidence.

He had confidence because God is, in verse 1, says, Preserve me,

O God, for in you I take refuge. He had confidence because God is a preserving God.

That God would preserve him. He speaks in verse 1 that God is his refuge.

Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge. God is a refuge. This preserve me,

O God, can be viewed rightly also as protect me, O God.

Preserve me, O God. Protect me, O God, for in you I take refuge. David begins this psalm with speaking of God as his refuge.

He felt secure because of God, because of the God that he served.

It was only, and David understands, that it was only by the hand of God that David had been sustained to where he was.

It was only by the grace and mercy of God that David is where he is when he's writing this psalm.

You can look at this physically. He was alive only by the hand of God. Many sought to kill

David. We don't know exactly when this psalm was written, but we know that throughout his life, even as a young child with the bears and the lions, whenever he was out tending the sheep and Goliath, and then

Saul tried to kill him, and then he fought many battles. His own son later in life tried to kill him.

So it really doesn't matter what point of his life that this is written. David knows that he was only alive by the hand of God.

There was only breath in his lungs because God had graced him with such.

The same is true with us. We are only here today by the grace of God. We have breath in our lungs because of the grace of God.

We are alive today only by the grace of God. Brayden, can you turn me down just a little bit?

We're only alive by the grace of God. And he elaborates in verse 10.

He says, for you will not abandon my soul to Sheol.

You will not abandon my soul to Sheol or let your Holy One see corruption.

Verse 10 elaborates on the preservation given by God.

Not only is He a protector of the body, but of the soul. He preserves our souls.

He keeps us in Him. If we could walk away from Him, then we surely would.

He kept David, and David would not be abandoned after his death. He said, for you will not abandon my soul to Sheol or let your

Holy One see corruption. This promise of preserving, this promise of preserving would pass into eternity.

He would not be abandoned after his death, and this would only be possible even in David's case.

We need to be clear that even in David's case, this would only be possible and made possible through the perfect life, death, and resurrection of Christ.

Peter quotes this psalm in Acts 2, and we don't have time to go to Acts 2, but tonight if you're looking for somewhere to read, go to Acts 2.

Acts 2, Peter mentions this psalm, and so we do need to understand that when he says, for you will not abandon my soul to Sheol or let your

Holy One see corruption, we understand that David did see the grave. David saw the grave, and his physical body still remains there, and I think

David knew that. As David is writing this, David knows that he will die a physical death, and while I do believe

David is referring to God not abandoning him after death, there's more spoken here.

Whether David realized it or not, he was prophesying of Christ here.

We learned that from Peter. In Acts 2, Christ, the descendant of David, would not stay in the grave.

Christ, the descendant of David, there would be no corruption in him. Whether David realized the fullness of that or not, he had confidence in God, and a great deal of that confidence was that God would preserve him.

He would persevere only through the divine workings of God. For David to be saved, for David to not be abandoned,

Christ had to come, and where David would fail, where David had failed,

Christ would succeed. Christ would be the true and better David, the true and better King upon the throne.

Where David had broken the law, Christ would keep it, and there would be no corruption in him, and he would be crucified, and he would overcome the grave, raising victoriously on the third day.

This is why David had confidence that God was his refuge, and that through Christ, he would be preserved.

Through Christ, he would persevere. Our preservation, you know, we talk about the perseverance of the saints.

Well, the perseverance of the saints, we must understand, when we talk about the perseverance of the saints, it relies not upon our strength.

We would walk away if we could. We would abandon the faith if we could.

If left to our own devices, we would abandon, but we are preserved only by the sovereign workings and will of God.

David had confidence in that. He had confidence in the gospel. Abraham had confidence in the gospel.

We read of the gospel all the way back in Genesis. Adam had confidence in the gospel.

We can have a great deal of confidence knowing that we will be preserved by God.

Those who are in Christ will be preserved by God, and that he will remain our refuge. We will not be abandoned.

He will remain our refuge. You know, there are many who profess

Christ, and though they were never in Christ, they do walk away.

And David says in verse 4, look at verse 4, David says that their sorrows will multiply.

Those who run after another God, the sorrows of those who run after another God shall multiply as they run to other gods, as they exchange the true

God for idols, idols that don't preserve them, idols that don't protect them, idols that can't save them.

And not only can these idols not preserve David or us, and not only can they not provide a refuge, they also cannot provide us with fulfillment.

These things, these other gods that many run to, that we have ran to, they cannot provide us with true fulfillment.

David says that his fulfillment comes in and through God. Look at verse 5.

Verse 5 says, the Lord is my chosen portion and my cup.

You hold my lot. So David writes, he said he has confidence in his God because his

God will, it's his refuge, his God will preserve him. But he also says that he has confidence in God because God is his portion.

He says, you are, the Lord is my chosen portion and my cup. He was David's portion.

He, as a believer, should be our portion. He is what we need. If we have

God, we have all that we need. He is good and anything truly good that we have comes from him.

Verse 2, David says, I say to the Lord, you are my Lord. I have no good apart from you.

David had no good apart from God. Neither do we. There is no joy apart from God.

He says, in your presence there is fullness of joy. At your right hands are pleasures forevermore.

In verse 9 that we read earlier, my heart is glad and my whole being rejoices. In my flesh also dwells secure.

There is no joy apart from God. There is no true happiness apart from God.

There is no security apart from God. He could not say these things apart from God.

David could not be confident apart from God. There is no happiness or joy or security apart from God.

Only wrath and terror. Only hopelessness and despair.

David was thankful for God. We ought to thank God for God. How often do we do that?

We thank God for many, all the blessings that we have and rightly so. We thank him for this church.

We thank him for our families. We thank him for our jobs. We thank him for our health. We thank him for Christ, which we're not trying to separate

Christ and God. But how often do we thank God for God the Father, God the Son, God the

Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit of God. We ought to be thankful for God. We don't need anything else.

Those things that we mentioned earlier, or those people that we mentioned earlier in verse 4, that it says they run after other gods.

Those gods can't fulfill them. The other things that they run to can't fulfill them. They're not capable of providing fulfillment.

You know, when I was thinking of this, I was thinking of our teenage boys and our young ladies.

I was thinking of them, but this applies even for the oldest person in here.

And I'm going to point fingers to who the oldest person in here is, but it works for everybody.

This is from the youngest to the oldest. That there are so many things that we run after in life that cannot provide fulfillment.

Things that you're chasing after that are not God cannot fulfill you.

These can be sinful things. These can be sinful things. These things that only increase your sorrows.

We think of drugs, alcohol, relations outside of marriage. These things that promise a short time high and leave you worse off than you were before.

These things will not provide you lasting fulfillment. But also, even things that aren't sinful, but aren't

God, cannot fulfill you. There are many people that run after hobbies desiring for fulfillment.

There are many people that, you know, I love to hunt. I know we've got boys in here that love to hunt.

I think it's good to hunt. I think it's a God -given opportunity that we have, that God desires for us to do these things.

And I love to hunt, but it isn't capable of providing lasting fulfillment. It won't fulfill you in and of itself.

It's the same with sports. There's people in here that love sports. These boys and some of these girls, I know they love sports, and I think that that's good.

Go play sports. But these things cannot provide you with lasting fulfillment.

Even our families cannot provide this kind of fulfillment. My family provides me with so much joy.

They provide me with so much love. I'm very blessed with the family that I have.

You all provide me with so much joy. But if I'm looking for complete joy and delight in my family,

I will be left wanting, and so will they if they're looking for complete joy and fulfillment in me.

We ought to praise God. Praise God for your spouse. Praise God for your children. Praise God for your parents and so on, but they cannot take the place of God.

They cannot take the place of God in your life. We see this in our day and age where this happens to the detriment of families, where families, they arrange everything around their children.

They make idols of their children, or we see where idols can become people that make idols of their spouses.

Delight in other believers. Verse 3 says, as for the saints in the day, they're excellent ones, in whom is all my delight.

We should delight in one another. We as believers, we should we should delight in one another.

We should love one another. We should want to be around one another.

David says this, but even other believers are not our portion and our cup.

If you run even after these good things to complete your joy and delight, you will be sorrowful.

So tonight I have a question. What are you seeking fulfillment in? Is it a job? Is it a person?

Is it something other than Christ? Because it will leave you wanting. It will leave you disappointed.

You know, so many they run after worldly knowledge. They run after science for fulfillment. Many this leads them farther away from God, because knowledge apart from God is vain, and it leads to pride.

There is no true wisdom apart from God. For you could have all the worldly wisdom possible, but if you still reject

Christ, then you're a fool. We should want to be knowledgeable. We should want to be wise, but not apart from God.

Solomon asked for wisdom and discernment over riches, and this pleased God. A lot of books can be very useful, and there were probably many in Solomon's day that could be useful, but they're not what made

Solomon wise, and they aren't what will make us wise. What will?

What will educate us? What instructed David? Who instructed David? The Lord.

He's an educating God. Verse 7, it says, I bless the Lord who gives me counsel.

This is not like the counsel of man. He is the giver of true knowledge and of wisdom.

Who made Solomon the most wise man ever to live? It wasn't

Solomon. It was granted to him by God. Seek wisdom from God.

Dive into his word. We spent a lot of time this morning on the Word of God. Dive into his word.

Read it over and over. Pray for understanding. Pray for discernment, and understand that God is pleased with this.

God is pleased to give wisdom and knowledge to those who seek it. He is for this.

May we hunger not to just rely on the milk. May we hunger to not just have a surface -level understanding of the

Word and doctrine. May we hunger for more. May we say, God, increase my knowledge. Instruct me more.

Help me to understand your word even more. Help us to want to be ever -increasing in our knowledge of the

Word of God. He is faithful to impart wisdom and knowledge on those who seek it in faith.

But this will not be done apart from seeking him through prayer and his word.

That's how God directs us. He directs us through prayer and his word. This is how he led and guided

David. Look at verse 11. You make known to me the path of life.

He makes known the path of life. What leads us through this life or who rather?

It's God. And it's a path that leads to life everlasting and eternal joy.

A path of peace for the weary soul. David didn't want David to be the one leading through life.

He wanted to experience God making known the path of life. We see in Scripture what happens when

David is leading. We see that. We don't know exactly when the psalm is written. I've mentioned that already.

We don't know if this was written after his great sin with Bathsheba or before. But we get to see what happens when

David is following his desires. We have seen in our lives what happens when we are following our desires.

In this psalm, David is asking to be led by God. He says, you make known to me the path of life.

When we lead, trouble will soon follow. We will err and we will make mistake after mistake.

We will run after idols. But may we pray that this path of life be made known to us through his word.

This is only found in Christ. Peter speaks of this as well in Acts chapter 2. But here's a common problem.

So many pray to God for direction and guidance, but they never read his word.

They pray. I prayed that. I remember being, you know, as a new Christian or even as a not -so -new

Christian, praying for direction, praying, God give me direction on this decision or that.

What do you want for me? What do you want me to do? But not reading his word. When you really think of it, what sense does that make?

That we're being given the word of God and we seek direction without opening his word. We have the written word of God to guide us in our lives, but instead we run to the fallible works of men.

I mean, I seek counsel from Quattro. I seek counsel from many people, even in this room, but ultimately the word of God has got to be what directs my life.

Too often we rely on our own feelings or our own heart, but may we desire for Christ and his word to be the foundation of our lives and our actions.

Really quickly, I want to provide you just a few applications. We should have confidence in our

God. The kind of confidence that David writes about in this psalm.

He alone, he alone, there's nobody else worthy of the confidence that David had here.

He alone is worthy of complete confidence placed in him. Too often we place our confidence in fallible people or things.

In verse 4, we are the ones that we run to other gods. We place our confidence in other things.

We have done that and we must repent of it. Must repent of it and seek God. We can have count confidence in the counsel of God.

We have confidence through his word. How do we receive counsel from God? Through his word.

We can have confidence in his word. Read it. Pick it up daily and meditate upon it. Pour into its pages because the

Bible says that the word of God is more precious than fine gold and honey.

King David put his trust in Christ. He put his trust in the one true

King who was to come. May we do the same. May we be confident that there is no one greater that we can put our trust in than the

Lord. No one can compare. Maybe someone here tonight hasn't believed in faith in this

King. What are you waiting for? What are you waiting for? Repent and believe.

Be led by God. Quit running to idols that will never fulfill you. Too often we run to these things, but you too can have confidence in our sovereign

God that he will be your refuge, that he will preserve you, that he will fulfill you, that he will educate you, and that he will guide you.

Trust in him tonight. Have confidence in our Lord. We do not serve a

God that is false. We do not serve a God that is dead. You know there's a song that, and I can't remember the name of it, that talks about if you go to the grave of Buddha, he's still gonna be there.

You go to Muhammad's grave, he's still gonna be there. We don't serve a false God. We don't serve a dead

God. We serve the one true and living God. He's worthy of our confidence. In all situations, in the valleys, in the mountaintops, the good times and bad, he is worthy of our confidence.

Trust him. Read his word. Be confident that he is who he says he is, and that he is working all things out for the good of those who trust in him.