Resurrection Hope - [Psalm 16]

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Well on the wall of my bedroom at home are two groups of photos of My wife and I take in on two different vacations about ten years apart
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Now in some ways the newer group of photos is better The resolution is sharper.
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The print quality is higher We got them done on like metal print and so it looks really fancy and sharp, right?
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but There's also in that newer group a hint of a downward trajectory
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If you know what I mean I'm a little grayer I'm a little softer around the belly in the second group.
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I'm a little more worn And and interestingly if the older group of pictures, right
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They betray a little bit of this descent as well because on that older group there. They're a little more faded the frames are a little dented from the time they've fallen off the wall and As I sat in my bedroom and I was preparing this message and I was sort of mindlessly looking at them but this came to mind it was you know, this is a a hard reminder that as time marches on so does decay
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I Once had four more teeth in my mouth and They're never gonna come back my shoulder that I injured skiing last
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January it's never going to be exactly the same as it was before and The number of times that I get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom.
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It's only gonna increase My hairline it's only going up from here
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Slow but unstoppable We return to the dust You're only young once the only sure thing is death and taxes and father time remains
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Undefeated is there any hope for us?
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Is there any light at the end of this encircling darkness? Of course there is of course there is who shall deliver me from this body of death
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Jesus Amen, Jesus will The passage that for deep read from Acts tonight is from Peter's famous Pentecost sermon and to proclaim
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Christ's resurrection Which had happened some two months before To his fellow
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Jewish countrymen Peter took as his text psalm 16 And in verse 10 in particular for you will not abandon my soul to Sheol or let your
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Holy One see corruption and Peter says David wrote these words
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King David the famous one, but we all know We all know that he's dead and buried
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He decayed He saw corruption look we can go over his tomb right now
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March on over and if we go in there and open it up. We're gonna find nothing in there, but dust and bones
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So it might have been David writing Peter says But it was someone else talking
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It was someone else talking Someone else is the antecedent of the word my here when it says you will not abandon my soul to Sheol what we have
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If you read as what we read in Acts 2 what we have written in Acts 2 is the
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Septuagint version the Greek version of the Old Testament and Whether Peter actually spoke that on Pentecost morning
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Or if maybe Luke just looked it up when he was writing his history book of Acts years later. I don't really know but there are two phrases in verse 10 and In the
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Old Hebrew text they are linked even more strongly This is key for us to really under unlock and understand all of Psalm 16 in Acts and in our
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ESV Translation even in the Hebrew text of the psalm There's an or right for you will abandon my soul to Sheol or let your
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Holy One see corruption There's an or there and with that or it kind of separates them a bit
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You could almost say that there's one subject in the first phrase that my is
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David And then there's another in the second phrase this Holy One is another person with that or there, but in the
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Hebrew From what we call the Masoretic text It's just for you will not abandon my soul to Sheol you will not give your
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Holy One to see destruction There's no or and hearing it that way don't the two subjects start to seem more like one
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Don't they just sort of flow more together don't they? There's parallelism there, and if we were you were in my
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Sunday school this morning about Psalms You know that this with the indentation that these two lines there are two lines in the
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Hebrew But they're a couplet the way they're indented so you know that they're a couple they're meant to be together.
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They're a parallel There's a parallelism within them so not permanently lost to the realm of death not dead long enough to see decay and if the
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New Testament Reinterprets or not just about reinterprets I'm sorry if the New Testament interprets the old if we're supposed to read
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Backwards and understand the Old Testament in the fullest way only in the light of Jesus well
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It starts to become clearer that it's not just David speaking in this psalm and Peter tells us
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Who Peter tells us who is speaking? He tells us it's Jesus. You will not abandon my soul
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Jesus says to the father You will not let me see corruption some commentators
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As they take this and then they read through the rest of Psalm 16 I think they they might have run it a little too far with this
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I saw some who try to connect each verse in the psalm with a different event in Jesus's life
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Others who tried to parallel it with Jesus's prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane But I think
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Spurgeon I think he has it the most right he's got the right level of restraint I think about this as a messianic psalm when he describes what's going on in Psalm 16 as Jesus speaking through David When David wrote this psalm
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Was he talking about how God preserved him and provided for him and gave him counsel for sure.
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Yes, he was But was Jesus also speaking through David and praying to the father?
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Also, yes, it is said that while the rest of the
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Bible is God speaking to us the Psalms are us Speaking to God, but this psalm as we read it tonight
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This psalm is more this psalm is the prayer of the Holy One of whom
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Peter spoke and When I consider that I can do no good thing.
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I can't obey Oh enough. I can't do good enough I can't love right. I certainly can't even pray, right?
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How wonderful then that I find a book where Christ prays for me Not just for me like I'm the object of his prayers but literally does the praying for us
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Does the believing does the trusting for us? So let's look tonight at this prayer as a whole.
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We'll get back to this mountaintop verse of verse 10 Eventually, it's it's like we stand almost at the at the bottom.
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We're looking up at the summit through this the hazy clouds You can almost sort of make it out in the bright sunshine
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But for us to really grasp this resurrection hope we've got to climb the whole mountain
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All right. So as we look at Psalm 16 tonight, we're gonna first see faith in God alone faith in God alone and then second faith in God today and finally faith in God forever
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Faith in God alone faith in God today and faith in God forever
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So let's begin at verse 1 The first three stanzas of this
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Psalm are verses 1 through 4 in your Bible and they speak of gut faith in God alone
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Preserve me Oh God For in you I take refuge. I say to the
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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 all is all my delight
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The stars of those who run after another God shall multiply their drink offerings of blood
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I will not pour out or take their names on my lips So this very opening here in verse 1
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It tells us the prayers primary concern and the theme of this song preservation preserve me
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Oh God for in you I take refuge and right away. He wants to establish.
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He is going to look to God alone to preserve him See how strong and definitive and personally as you are my
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Lord. He says I have no good apart from you My faith has found a resting place as the old hymn goes right and that place is in Yahweh's refuge
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In there is the indestructible fortress in there is Perfect protection in there is really the only true refuge
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And from that refuge the king looks out in verse 3
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He looks out across all the land and he sees others who share that faith with him
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He sees the Saints as for the Saints who are in the land But look how he describes these
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Saints he calls them the excellent ones the excellent ones and whom is all my delight
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The word Saint, of course The idea being sanctified made perfect set apart
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So yes, they're the excellent ones who makes them excellent the Savior made them excellent
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It's their faith that made them excellent their faith is what has justified them their faith has made them set apart and made them holy
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Giving them the excellence that they have it and don't you just hear Jesus talking here He delights in his people in whom is all my delight
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He loves his people and another Psalm in Psalm 149
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It says the Lord takes delight in his people. He crowns the humble with victory
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And the Prophet Zephaniah he promises that Messiah will take great delight in you in His love he will no longer rebuke you but he will rejoice over you it says with singing
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Jesus celebrates these Saints I'm reminded as I read this of what the
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Puritans called God's natural work his Natural work and when they talked about that they meant namely his mercy that he is the father of mercies that it's
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Natural for him to be merciful His wrath they would say his wrath and his anger
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They needed to be provoked the Bible talks about provoking his wrath provoking his anger
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But his mercy his mercy doesn't need provoking his mercy. It's like it's ready to burst It's ready to just pour out at any moment.
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Do you think that God is eagerly waiting for you to mess up?
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I used to think that I Used to think that God My picture of God the father was so fuzzy
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That I used to think that he was waiting with like sort of waiting with a hammer just sort of hovering over my head
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Just ready to pop me right now The minute I messed up To order pointed at my face
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Look what you've done Almost as if he was anxious to be able to drop it on my skull as soon as I sent
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But here's the truth about God that's not his natural work That's his strange work.
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God isn't looking for an excuse to blow you away He's instead always looking to save you
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He's always looking to shower you with mercy They are the excellent ones.
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You are the excellent one Saints in whom is all his delight and then
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Jesus in verse 4 He draws a sharp picture of those without faith in God alone
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The sorrows of those who run after another gone those sorrows. They're gonna multiply Their drink offerings of blood.
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I will not pour out or take their names on my lips He might delight in the
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Saints but for these others He's not even gonna speak their names
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He doesn't even want to talk about them and the truth is it is scary to not be named by God I Think of those who stand at the judgment seat in Matthew 11
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Who thought they were religious who thought they were serving Jesus who thought they had it all They thought they were in a good place with God and Jesus says to them.
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I never knew you Depart from me You're not one of my own. You're not my people
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Be gone because truth is they've run after another
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God They run off another God what God well the drink offering here that's being spoken of in verse 4
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It's one that is not really often preached about today But if you saw blood and and drink and your mind went to the
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Last Supper, you're wrong But you're forgiven. I understand because I went there too when
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I first saw it That's like wait, what's wrong with the idea of blood in the cup, but that's not the drink offering, right?
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That's not the Old Testament drink offering the Old Testament drink offering. It was always strong wine interestingly pure wine
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Never watered down not in a bit And it was that way because the wine in it was a symbol of joy
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Right a symbol of joy if you turn to Psalm 104 very briefly You'll see one place where we talk about that The Bible talks about that about wine being the joy
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In verse 14 and 15 you cause the grass to grow God you cause the grass to grow for the livestock and plants for man to cultivate that he may bring forth food from the earth
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And wine to gladden the heart of man oil to make his face shine bread to strengthen man's heart
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Right and so in this and in other places Wine is always specially pure wine.
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It's a symbolic of joy Right symbolic of joy and the drink offering in the temple practices
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It was offered at the end of all the other rituals. All right, it was poured out after the sacrifice
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Because what it symbolized was accomplishment. It was accomplishment it it Foreshadowed in a way
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God's joy at the accomplishment of the work of Christ at Calvary Right if this sacrifice itself was typological of this of Christ's sacrifice
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Then the drink offering the wine being poured out was Typological of the joy that the father would have over the fact that Christ had accomplished his mission
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There is joy now. We've done it. You've done it Jesus Your mission is complete the rescue mission the people they are their sins are forgiven.
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They're saved and so because of that When you think about it for the psalm here and back in psalm 16 for the psalmist to speak of blood in the drink offering was
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Incredibly offensive It was a pagan abomination to do that because to put blood in the drink offering would be to say
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That the original sacrifice wasn't enough It would be to say no.
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Wait, we need a little bit more blood. It's not really accomplished It's not really done yet Needs a little more
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We can't just have pure joy we can't celebrate over the finished work of Christ we need a little bit more
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So frankly those of you probably know where I'm going with this it's a picture of going back to works
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Instead of faith Christ wasn't enough. The cross wasn't enough.
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I Need to do also enough good to earn my way into heaven All he did was sort of make a way open the door now
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I've got to go through and when I get there, I'm gonna give him the old proverbial fist bump of how hey
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Jesus we did it I'm here instead of pure joy at Christ's accomplishment.
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There's my own blood in there My blood my sweat my toil and it's mine
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Unfortunately, that's fouling it all up And so if that's how your understanding of how you get to heaven that Christ's death merely opened the door for you
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But now that you've got to be good enough to enter then You are one of these people of which the psalm speaks
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Stop stop trusting in yourself Confess that you cannot possibly earn
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God's favor on your own because you recognize that your sin is an offense to a holy and perfect God and Trust in Christ's work alone to find salvation so having proclaimed his faith in God alone
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And encouraging all of us to do the same the prayer goes on to describe his faith in God today
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That is in his present. It's a faith that properly sees good things. He has today as gifts from God and It is in fact a rhythmic repetition of verse 2 where he already acknowledged that he was has no good thing right apart from the father
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And so we have these gifts in verses 5 through 8 the Lord is my chosen portion and my cup you hold my lot
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The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places indeed. I have a beautiful inheritance.
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I Bless the Lord who gives me counsel in the night. Also my heart instructs me I have set the
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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
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So what are these gifts that he has faith in God today? Well first there's food and there's drink right?
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There's my chosen portion and my cup our daily bread in our drink the cup here probably just a poetic transition away from the drink offerings that we of the wicked that we were just talking about and They've got a nasty drink.
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I believe my food and drink comes from God and Then next there's this his lot in his lines
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Which are in fact a callback to when Joshua cast lots to decide which tribes would get which areas of the promised land
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Interestingly, if you've ever studied and looked at this thing about casting lots in the Old Testament We don't really actually know the exact mechanism they used
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Some folks think that you know, maybe they had colored or marked stones that they drew out of a bag pebbles
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Maybe they had sticks of different length that they drew ancient dice flipping coins.
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I don't know something like that We don't really know But it was something that in our modern eyes
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Would look rather random Right would look rather random. I can't help but think as ever
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I consider it of playing a board game Right and you flip the card or you roll the dice
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Some random event of chance and of randomness, of course is the god of our modern culture
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It is randomness to our modern eyes that Conceived us its randomness that we live where we do everything about our health is spoken about in probabilities
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Right. I've increased by you know, oh by eating this I've increased my chance of premature death by 15 %
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Right or by exercising that way, you know, I'm now my risk of dementia is now 14 % lower
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You know, it's it's it's random that we evolved to be the dominant animal species it's random that life evolved on this planet at all and it's a random event that triggered this massive
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Big Bang that started everything and you know, there's good news if Your God is randomness
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The good news is that you don't have anybody to obey and there's no one whose law you failed to live up to But the bad news is when your
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God is randomness that you also have no one to thank for the good things in your life And you have no one to turn to when the odds are suddenly not in your favor
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In fact, I will tell you that there is no such thing as chance There is no such thing as chance if there were such a thing as chance then
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God would cease to be God because nothing occurs In this universe that is not completely within his control
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Although it might look random. God is in control of that coin flip No matter your risk factors in your health
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The father is the one who holds your health in his hand and it's
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God who decided through casting of lots the boundaries of Israel's tribes and David saw his physical inheritance here
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His place in the promised land when it talks about the lines Have fallen for me in pleasant places is literally talking about his property lines and David of course, he called it a pleasant place and then sure that makes sense.
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He's the king. He had a pretty good spot I'm guessing But what of Jesus if Jesus is speaking through David here?
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I mean, what was Jesus's beautiful inheritance? He was a carpenter. He's raising a rural backwater
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He had no family wealth to speak of once he began his teaching ministry Even he he abandoned even those meager dwellings, right?
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I mean, there's this one point where Jesus Tells an eager seeker who comes to him. He says, you know, he warns him
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He says the Son of Man has no place to lay his head. I got nowhere to even live Let alone any possessions or any money.
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So so what is Jesus's beautiful inheritance? What is his pleasant place? Well for that answer, we can look to another sermon recorded in Acts This one preached by Paul turn to Acts chapter 13
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Acts chapter 13 and in Acts 13
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In the latter half of its around verse 26 and later We have a recorded a sermon by Paul in which he's picking up Peter's Pentecost point
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About our Psalm 16, but Paul also connects it To these lines from Psalm 2 if you look in verse 33
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Well, we'll start in verse 32 and we bring you the good news that what God has promised to the fathers that he has fulfilled to us their children by raising
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Jesus as Also, it is written in the second Psalm Psalm 2 you are my son today.
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I have begotten you and As for the fact that he raised him from the dead no more to return to corruption.
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He has spoken in this way I will give you the holy and sure blessings of David. That's from Isaiah chapter 55 and therefore he says also in another
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Psalm. Here's our Psalm 16 you will not Let your Holy One see corruption now
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Paul just quoted this one part. You are my son today. I have begotten you but if you turned over to Psalm 2
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You don't have to go for sake of time But the couplet to that Psalm or to that line in the
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Psalm is ask of me Son, and I will make your the nation's your heritage
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I'll make the nation's your heritage your inheritance and the ends of the earth your possession
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All right, so there's certainly that Jesus Son of God heir of all things all things he will rule and reign forever
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But I'd like to focus down on some of those things in particular All right, some of those things in particular because remember
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Psalm 16 is a song. This is poetry There are parallels and there are echoes right so turn back to Psalm 16 and let's look at this
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Jesus may rule and reign in a kingdom in the forever future, but today His faith in the
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Father today. Well, what have we already heard in this Psalm that is pleasant and beautiful for him
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Right. Yes back in verse 3 the Saints the Saints were the beautiful thing. They're the excellent ones. They are all his delight
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It's as if saying that the most precious jewel of his inheritance of Jesus's inheritance is you
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It's you Christian. You're the precious inheritance. You're the beautiful jewel. You're the pleasant places a
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Faith that properly sees the good things he has today as gifts from God daily provision Control over the paths of your life brothers and sisters in the church.
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That's all the gifts for which David and Jesus are thankful for but then there's finally one more gift in verse 7
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One more gift. I bless the Lord who gives me counsel and the night also my heart instructs me
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It is God who gives counsel and God gives the best counsel. No surprise as You read through the four
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Gospels It should strike you how frequently Jesus is described as retreating to quiet places To pray to his father to seek his will his guidance his instruction and he always received it.
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He always received it I've heard it said that a prayer for wisdom is the one prayer that God promises to always answer with a yes
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Now, I don't know if I that's totally accurate First John for example, you know, it tells us that God is faithful and just to forgive us for every sin that we confess to him
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In prayer, so there's a prayer that God also promises. He's always going to answer. Yes. Yes, I forgive you But still regarding wisdom
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James wrote if any of you lacks wisdom Let him ask God who gives generously to all without reproach and it will be given him
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Okay, so Sure sounds like it wisdom and and and I'm all certainly
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I've always clung to this promise I've prayed it probably more times than I can even remember
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But the thing is I'm not really sure. I always got a yes answer Because sometimes
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I Applied that wisdom I made that decision that I was praying about and it all seemed to blow up in my face
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Right, you know, am I am I alone in this did any of you? Okay good I've seen at least a few head nods things have blown up in your face, even after you prayed about them beforehand
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Right. So what's going on? Did we not get the wisdom? Did is God unfaithful to his promise?
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Well, I think there's there's some possibilities here I don't know about your case, but I at least in my case
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I do have to consider the possibility of the caveat that James includes immediately After the promise when he says but let him ask in faith with no doubting
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So that's one possibility And that's a sobering thought. It's an anxious thought even what if I didn't believe enough
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But if I just didn't believe it When they said that he would give me wisdom and that's why
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I didn't get it and to that I say quiet my foolish soul Look brother sister if you two have ever had thoughts like this
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Then it's my strongest. Hope that what if when you say to yourself?
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What if I? That becomes a trigger phrase for you, but a good way trigger phrase in a good way
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I want whenever you hear what if what if I didn't pray enough? What if I didn't obey enough?
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Yes, you know where I am going with this that I gave the same list only minutes ago in my introduction
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So when you hear what if I want you to think? Jesus Jesus And I want you to think about all that.
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He has done He's the answer To this question because Jesus believes enough
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Jesus prayed enough Jesus obeyed enough and All that he has done and still does on your behalf
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Jesus never doubted and So when Jesus prayed this for the
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Lord who gives me counsel when Jesus retreated to those quiet places during his earthly ministry When he prayed for this he got wisdom.
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He got the Father's counsel But you know what the second possibility
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Sometimes it looked like it even for him. It looked like it blew up in his face I mean does it look like a really wise move to read that Isaiah passage to the people of Nazareth?
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When immediately after he read it they become enraged and they drag him outside and they're about to throw him off a cliff
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That didn't seem like it was so wise to a certain kind of eyes How many arguments did
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Jesus win with the Pharisees? How many and by that you know when I say win?
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I mean that he all the folks. He was debating. He completely turned them to his way of thinking
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They agreed come totally with him and they immediately started following him right how many times did he win those arguments those debates?
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Not many maybe maybe one I think that we Not certainly not many did it seem
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Like a good idea to the Apostles to go to Jerusalem for that third
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Passover Or do they all say well? This is it.
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We're all gonna die doesn't seem very wise to our earthly eyes
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To our limited finite vision does it? Yet in all of these of course
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I say them not to actually accuse them of being unwise But rather because with the passage of time with the instruction of the
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Holy Spirit We can see in fact that there was great wisdom in all of those moments and a purpose to every occurrence
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So yes, maybe to you, maybe in this moment. It looks like it blew up in your face
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But trust him for wisdom in your decisions. Yes, and please keep on trusting him through the outcome of those decisions
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Because that is true biblical wisdom applied All right well having read this prayer of faith in God Alone and having the faith in God in the present now.
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We finally we're finally here We finally reached the summit Can you feel the the music building?
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Many Psalms they climax in their middle, but Psalm 16 it just sort of seems to like build and build and build and build
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Right let's look. I have set the Lord always before me verse 8 because he is at my right hand
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I shall not be shaken therefore my heart is glad and my whole being rejoices My flesh also dwells secure for you will not abandon my soul to Sheol or let your
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Holy One see corruption It's the crescendo of it
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First he's not shaken then he's glad then he's secure and it finally all builds up to resurrected
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Resurrected in verse 10. It's the greatest of all hopes the highest of all beliefs.
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I Believe I will live again And it was a belief so sure a belief that was the bedrock the bedrock of Christ's preaching about himself
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Tear down this temple. He said of himself, and I will rebuild it in three days There will be no sign to this generation
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He says but the sign of Jodah and after I am in the belly of death for three days and three nights
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I will live again I Have the authority to lay down my life. He said and to pick it back up again
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Spurgeon wrote of this verse. He said our Lord. Jesus was not disappointed in this Hope this hope that I will not be abandoned to Sheol He declared his father's faithfulness in the words that will not leave my soul in hell
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And that faithfulness was proven on the resurrection morning Among the departed and disembodied
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Spurgeon says Jesus was not left He had believed in the resurrection and he received it on the third day and when his body rose in glorious life
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According as he had said in joyous confidence, neither wilt thou suffer thine holy one to see corruption
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Into the outer prison of the grave his body might go but into the inner prison of corruption.
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He could not enter end quote There was the bedrock, right?
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That was the bedrock here in this resurrection Hope but we see that bedrock developing in verses eight and nine
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You know for reasons as I was studying this for reasons that I don't really quite understand in verse 9 the translation
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It's missing this verb tense change that happens in the Hebrew Because in the in the
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Hebrew the heart is past tense glad All right, my heart was glad the soul is past tense rejoiced on my soul did rejoice was rejoicing but his flesh future tense dwells secure
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Most literally it's like also my flesh will also rest in confidence Right when
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I die Jesus says predicting the future. I I'm already glad I'm already Rejoicing and when
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I die, I will die confidently I will go to the grave as Spurgeon said secure in the knowledge that the grave will not hold me for long
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That's Jesus's bedrock belief his resurrection. Hope he had resurrection hope so you can have
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Resurrection hope and Finally looking forward to that eternal life the psalm concludes in verse 11
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With one last stanza of three lines a triplet That described the threefold beauty of being in Christ's presence in heaven
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There we will have a clear path There we will have life to live you will make me know you make known to me the path of life
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There will be life to live there But there will be no struggle in heaven about the right decisions to make we talked about it a minute ago
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But you won't have to worry about how you apply your wisdom in heaven in heaven the path of life
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It's going to be well paved and very clear and it will lead as it goes on in your presence
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There is fullness of joy. It will lead to the fullest joy. No sin or or even temptation tomorrow
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That that really that thought totally blows my mind. It's one thing to say that I won't even
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That I won't sin anymore in heaven But that I won't even be tempted to sin that it won't even occur to me to sin
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Right now. It's so natural so easy. I'm always struggling the other direction Gotta make sure
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I don't sin gotta try harder gotta try to grow be more Christlike But in heaven the fullest joy.
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There's no hint of discontent Instead we're constantly asking ourselves In your presence who am
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I to get to be in cons presence? That's gospel humility.
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That's gospel humility that leads finally to the last line at your right hand our pleasures forevermore they lead to eternal pleasures on earth as Believers we have joy.
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Yes, we have joy indescribable But we have that joy and almost in the face of pain and suffering right despite the pain and suffering we have the joy in heaven
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We have joy Unshackled and here in verse 11 this psalm
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It has its final poetic repetition of the Hebrew because pleasures here The word pleasures is the same word as pleasant places from verse 6
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Which of course evoked the beautiful delight of verse 3? All right the pleasure of the presence of the
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Saints of the celebration of all of us together in perfect union and communion with Jesus with God the
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Father come totally and completely one as Jesus prayed in John 17 Finally all in one as we are one
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All together fully united and notice in that back in verse 8
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God was at the singers right hand, but here in verse 11 now.
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We're at the right hand Right Jesus is at the right hand the positions have swapped in verse 8
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What was going on was it was Jesus in his humanity spoke of God at his right hand as sort of a metaphor for God as helper right
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God as Keeping him safe totally safe from attack Protecting him the bodyguard right over here at the right hand
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In verse 11 now this right hand the metaphors changed Okay, the metaphors changed.
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It's it's not about assistance anymore. We're not assisting God that would make no sense It's it's about being though at the honored position
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We're given a position of honor But of course Jesus the New Testament tells us is given the ultimate position of honor
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In Hebrews over and over again Jesus described as having sat down at the right hand of the father
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Having made his sacrifice once in forever Now he sits and he waits for God to make his enemies his footstool
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Now he sits at the place of honor where forever and ever we can sing glory to the
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Lamb Glory to the Lamb so Christian brothers and sisters
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I've preached to you this psalm tonight to encourage you and one to be more
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Christlike because yes I want you To have this same faith in God alone
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God today and God forever But I have also shared this psalm with you to reassure you
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That Jesus already has this faith for you Jesus already has this faith for you
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He believed in his resurrection hope so that you and I might have resurrection hope
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This was all so certain for him that he could speak about it in tenses as if it had already occurred
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I suspect among you there is at least one who if you were really honest with yourself
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That you're fearful of death that when you think about it too long dread starts to creep in Starts to mingle a little bit with your doubts
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Maybe that decay that I spoke of at the beginning that you felt all over yourself You just start to think it's just gonna keep on going and going and going until I'm nothing but dust and shadow
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Ground and nothingness and friend if you are not in Christ, then these are the right fears to have
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And I beg you I beg you to act on them act on them tonight
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For now is the right time to look to him Now is the time to look to him and be saved now is the time to repent of your sins and trust in him alone but Christian if You have fears like that if death worries you and scares you
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You you don't need to You don't need to because Jesus even believed right on your behalf
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He had faith on your behalf for you. He trusted God to raise him Trusted God to raise him and all of his sheep like you
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From the dead for you He praised God with this beautiful prayer through his prophet
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David and for you and I'm echoing verse 11 now that you may know that He is the way the truth and the life
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That you may be filled with with You may be filled just knowing because you will be with him
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That you will not just be honored but glorified with him
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And for that my heart is glad Is your heart glad? Is your heart glad?
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Well, then let's join me now that our tongues rejoice All right, our tongues will rejoice now in song.