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Bro. Dave Huber II
Okay, good morning, we will be in Psalm chapter 16, 16,
Psalm 16, give you a moment to get there in your
Bibles, but you're going to put a finger there or a little dog ear your page or something.
And we're actually going to start in 2 Samuel 7, yes.
So you can tell we have a lot of ground to cover if we're going to go from 2 Samuel the 16th chapter of Psalms morning.
So the reason why we're going to start in 2 Samuel is apparently it was right after chapter 7 of Samuel that David wrote the 16th
Psalm. So we're going to look at what happened in the second chapter of Samuel, I'm sorry, the seventh chapter of 2
Samuel. And that will give us an idea of what's on David's mind when he writes the psalm, which
I think will bring new life to the psalm. All right, so David will start in verse 1 of chapter 7.
David has a plan. All right, it says in verse 1, and it came to pass when the king sat in his house and the
Lord had given him rest roundabout from all his enemies that the king said unto Nathan the prophet, see now
I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of God dwelleth within curtains.
And Nathan said to the king, go do all that is in thine heart for the
Lord is with thee. So in other words, David is like, I've got a great house and God doesn't have a temple.
He's got his ark, but it's in a in a tabernacle of sheets, you know, like it's a tent and it doesn't, this doesn't feel right.
So David wants to do something for God. But we're about to find out that God has a different plan.
So it says, and it came to pass that night that the word of the Lord came into Nathan saying, go and tell my servant
David thus, thus saith the Lord, shalt thou built me a house for me to dwell in?
Whereas I have not dwelt in any house since the time that I brought up the children of Israel out of Egypt, even to this day, but have walked in a tent and in a tabernacle and all the places wherein
I have walked with all the children of Israel, spake I a word with any of the tribes of Israel whom
I commanded to feed my people, Israel saying, why build ye not me a house of cedar? Okay.
So David has a plan. He says, I'm living in a nice house. God's not.
We got to make, we got to make this right. We got to fix this. And God says, why?
Why are you, why are you thinking this way? Then God says, now, therefore, so shalt thou say unto my servant,
David. Remember, he's talking to Nathan, the prophet, and he's telling Nathan to say this to David. Thus saith the
Lord of hosts. I took thee from a sheep coat from following the sheep to be ruler over my people over Israel.
And I was with thee withersoever thou wentest and have cut off all thine enemies out of thy sight and have made thee a great name like unto the name of the great men that are in the earth.
Moreover, I will appoint a place for my people, Israel, and will plant them that they may dwell in a place of their own and move no more.
Neither shall the children of wickedness afflict them anymore as before time.
All right, before we keep going, what's happening? What's God saying? Okay.
So David basically comes to the point of saying, I'm going to do something for God and God goes, no, thanks.
Let me do something for you. So he starts talking about what he's going to do for David and for David's people.
And as since the time that I commanded judges to be over my people, Israel, and have caused thee to rest from all thine enemies, also the
Lord telleth thee that he will make thee in house. And when thy days be fulfilled, thou shalt sleep with thy fathers.
I will set up thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish his kingdom.
He shall build in house for my name and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.
I will be his father and he shall be my son. If he commit iniquity, I will chase in him with the rod of men and with the stripes of the children of men.
But my mercy shall not depart away from him as I took it from Saul. Whom I put away before thee.
In thine house and thy kingdom shall be established forever before thee. Thy throne shall be established forever.
According to all these words and according to all this vision, so did Nathan speak unto
David. Okay, so let's break down everything that God said. Essentially, why are you wanting to build me a house?
Here's what I'm going to do for you. He is reestablishes or first he establishes
David's rule. Now, I will make you a great name. So David, you're the king because I made you.
So then he reaffirms his promise from his previous two covenants.
See what we're reading here is known as the Davidic covenant. This is the covenant God made with David.
He's already made a covenant with Abraham and made a covenant with Moses. And in verse 10, he's reestablishing that covenant covenant or reaffirming it.
He's saying that he promises that Israel will have a home, right?
So Israel is going to have a place of their own. We know this is the promised land. He told
Abraham go to a place that I will show you and to Moses. He said that you're going to lead my people into this promised land here.
He is reaffirming that promise and basically he's saying like they have a place now.
So we can kind of see like with Abraham. It's you're going to get to see it like this. I'm going to show you a place.
Moses, you're going to take them to the place and David, you're going to dwell in the place. That kind of thing.
Then he has a fulfillment of his previous promise. So he says
Israel will have a time of peace. That's also in verse 10. David's rule will extend to his children.
So that's something new, right? Not only are you going to rule, I'm going to make sure your kids rule.
And then your kids are actually going to build that temple that you're wanting to build so badly. So Solomon is going to be the one who builds the temple.
That's verse 13. Then there's like this upgrade to the promise. David's house will rule forever.
This is not something that has been revealed so much in the previous covenants.
This is like an upgrade to the covenant from man's perspective. It's always been the plan, but from man's perspective, it's like an upgrade.
He says David's house will rule forever. That's in verse 13. How is that going to work? How is it possible that David's house will actually rule forever through Christ?
Yep. That's the mechanism that will make this upgrade work. And there's actually a hint to what that mechanism is.
When you read verse 14, it says, I will be his father and he shall be my son.
So not only is it through a particular person, Christ, but it's activated through relationship with God.
So this forever rule is going to happen through a relationship with God, the father.
David's seed will become God's seed. So Christ, who is a direct descendant of King David, is actually
God's seed. His only begotten. So because David's seed has become
God's seed, must rule forever. Because he's the child of the creator of the universe.
He's King of Kings and Lord of Lords. So this is, of course, a foreshadowing of Jesus.
And in fact, in Matthew chapter 21, verse 9, it says it actually calls
Jesus the son of David. So we see that this promise is going to be, it's not just upgraded from man's perspective.
We're going to see how it's going to flesh out to here pretty soon. But the seventh part of this covenant, we've gone through six so far.
The seventh part is mercy will not depart from David's house.
So he will have mercy forever and ever, which is kind of cool. So if you'll remember what happened with Saul, God took his hand from Saul.
He's not going to do that with David's house. And so there's seven parts. He establishes
David's rule. He reaffirms his promise. He has a fulfillment of his previous promise and that Israel is now going to have a time of peace.
David's rule will extend to his children. Solomon will build the temple. There's an upgrade to the promise and that David's house will rule forever.
And then mercy will not depart from David. Can you imagine having God tell you all of that?
Like you got it in your head, you're going to do something for him. And he's like, okay, no thanks.
But let me tell you what I'm going to do for you. Because even just the idea of building something for God, it sounds like yes.
All right. Awesome. I'm going to do it. But think of what it must seem like in comparison to God.
Seem pretty paltry, right? Like our righteousness is as filthy rag.
So the very best thing we can build is going to be like insignificant to the
Lord. He cares about us building stuff for him and he invites us to do that. But if we get it in our heart that we're going to do something great for him, we got to remember he's actually got it in his heart to do something mind -blowingly awesome for us.
And so that's what he's showing David. It's like, you think you're going to do something good for me? Watch this. You can sum up the
Davidic Covenant in three different parts. God mentions the throne of David that represents rule.
He mentions the kingdom of David. So that's the Dominion that he's going to give David. And he mentions the house of David.
So legacy, right? So you're going to rule. You're going to have a people to rule and a place to rule and it's going to last.
That is quite a promise from the Lord. So here's what
David's response to God's plan is and and I'm going to I'm going to read each verse and then my my paraphrasing of the verse.
I guess you could say like how I how I would probably say what
David said. Okay, so in verse 18 David says it says then went then went
King David in and sat before the Lord. Which is already it's like this imagine
God saying I'm going to do all this for you and David's just got to sit down like he sits before the
Lord and says who am I? Oh Lord God and what is my house that thou has brought me hitherto?
It's as if to say like why me? We receive mercy and blessing like here us in in this room.
That's what we receive. And what's interesting is as we read through what
David's response is. I want you to imagine that we are a part of this covenant, right?
And we we receive mercy and blessing forever from the
Lord. And so David's response in here is kind of like a clue as to what it what it's like to actually become a
Christian kind of I mean, he's already God's man, but his response is kind of how we respond to salvation.
All right, so like who am I? Like why me and if you think about the fact that God chose you before the foundation of the world.
It's like that. Why me? Why did he choose us?
Verse 19 and this was yet a small thing in thy sight. Oh Lord God, but thou has spoken also of thy servants house for a great while to come.
And is this the manner of man? Oh Lord God. In other words, continual mercy and blessing.
Who does this? Like that's no man does this right?
And it's as if David saying that like continual mercy and blessing who does this?
Verse 20 and what can David say more unto thee? So David is saying this and what can
David say more unto thee? For thou Lord God knowest thy servant.
It's almost like he's saying what can I say? You know me, but it's about it.
Like I don't even know what to say. Verse 21 for thy word's sake and according to thine own heart has thou done all these great things to make thy servant know them.
In other words, you did it because it was within you to do it. So David has not no part in it other than he receives it.
He doesn't even know what to say about it. It's so far beyond his comprehension. How great it is.
He has to sit down. He's like why me who does this? What do
I say, you know me and you you're doing this because it's within you to do it.
So he shows that he had he understands that it's completely the work of God and it's from the
Lord. It's not from him. Verse 22 wherefore thou art great.
Oh Lord God for there is none like thee neither. Is there any God beside thee according to all that we have heard with our ears.
In other words, you're the only one who would do this. There is none other you are he begins to praise the
Lord for the work that the Lord has done for him or has promised him. And he recognizes that only
God could do this could could promise him continual mercy and blessing to promise him rulership authority over his own assignment.
Promise him Kingdom like a to have an assignment giving him purpose and then also promises him legacy so that this this will last forever.
Only God can do that. So then he decides what do
I say next to God? He's like, what do you say to this? He basically says, okay, do what you promise watch verse 25.
And now Oh Lord God the word that thou has spoken concerning thy servant and concerning his house establish it forever and do as thou has said.
Okay, do it. And this is really it's really funny because it reminds me of it kind of reminds me of Peter and I thought
I had that in my well, we'll get to that in a minute because I do have my notes a little bit further down.
Verse 26 and let thy name be magnified forever saying the Lord of hosts is the
God over Israel and let the house of thy servant David be established before thee.
In other words, let it be for your glory. Alright, so okay, do what you promise.
Let it be for your glory because you said you're going to do it and people are going to see that you do what you say. For thou
O Lord of hosts God of Israel has revealed to thy servant saying I will build thee in house therefore hath thy servant found in his heart to pray this prayer unto thee.
This is a very interesting verse because he's saying I am saying this stuff to you because you first said all that stuff to me and I only found these words to say to you because of what you said to me.
So I can only pray this prayer because of what you revealed to me. You see how that's so much like salvation.
If we can't even pray to ask the Lord for salvation unless he reveals himself to us.
There's none that is good. There's none that seeketh God. There's none that is righteous, right? So like this is really cool how this is paralleling what it's like to get saved.
And so the next part is what really reminds me of Peter verse 28 and verse 29.
And now O Lord God thou art that God and thy words be true and thou has promised this goodness unto thy servant.
Therefore now let it please thee to bless the house of thy servant that it may continue forever before thee for thou
O Lord God has spoken it. And with thy blessing let the house of thy servant be blessed forever.
In other words, so go for it God. Like this feels a lot like Peter when
Jesus is washing their feet and Peter's like not me. And Jesus is like well if you don't let me do this you have no part with me.
And Peter goes well then not just my feet my hands and my head also, right? Like let's do this thing.
He is so over the top excited about what the Lord is doing in that moment. Peter is.
And that's what David is doing here. He's like yes this is going to be awesome. Just go for it God.
Just do it all. And so that is all of Samuel chapter, is it
Samuel? Second Samuel chapter 7. And that is what has occurred just before David writes the 16th
Psalm. So we're going to spend the rest of our time going through the 16th Psalm. And keep in mind it is right after David receives his covenant from the
Lord. And this is awesome, right? Because he is over the top excited. But also keep in mind what has to happen in order for the covenant to be fulfilled, right?
If it's going to be ruling forever and it's going to happen through the person of Christ.
How does Christ end up ruling forever? He's got to die, alright?
So that's the setup for Psalm chapter 16. So here's 16. We'll try to get through it quickly.
A Michtum of David. Michtum is a weird word that no one really knows what it means.
But it's root word. It has a primitive root which means to carve or engrave.
And by implication, to inscribe indelibly. Almost like to mark, like you're marking gold or something.
So in other words, this is a psalm that is worthy of being inscribed into gold.
It's that precious. And it's often considered the golden psalm of David.
So it's kind of cool that he writes this psalm after receiving the covenant.
Acts 2 .25 -27 gives us a clue as to why this is a praiseworthy psalm.
Peter is preaching on the day of Pentecost. What's he preaching about on the day of Pentecost, Peter? This is when the
Holy Spirit comes in. There's flames of tongues of fire over people's heads. And people are like, oh, these men must be drunk.
They're speaking in weird languages and stuff. And Peter stands up and corrects it.
He goes, no, this is a fulfillment of prophecy. This is the Holy Ghost. And then he begins to preach
Jesus who died on the cross. And so when he's preaching this, he literally says in that sermon, he says, for David speaketh concerning him.
And then he quotes Psalm 16. So this is how we know that Psalm 16 isn't just about Jesus.
It's actually going to be from the perspective of Jesus. David's writing it, but through the inspiration of the
Holy Ghost, he's writing it as if he's the son of God, right, so to speak.
Now, in David's mind, he's not thinking he's the son of God. But there are a lot of psalms like this where the words of David end up being the words of Christ as well.
So Psalm 16 is more than just about Jesus. It is from the perspective of Jesus.
So I want you to imagine Jesus saying the words in Psalm 16. And in verse 10 and 11 of this psalm, it makes it pretty clear that it is
Jesus. Okay, so David thinks he can do something for God. He basically gets a no thanks.
And then God blesses David beyond his imagination and far beyond his worthiness.
So David prays a response that's reminiscent of salvation. And then we see him write prophetically from the perspective of the one who will fulfill
God's promise and our salvation. All right, watch how Jesus gives us a model for living as a
Christian, just as David gave us a model for becoming a Christian. Verse 1, preserve me,
O God, for in thee do I put my trust. Imagine Jesus asking for preservation.
It almost doesn't seem like he would need that. But he did.
He constantly tapped into the power of the Father for that preservation. The word for preserve means to guard.
And Jesus was fully man when he needed this protection. So he asked for that protection from the
Lord, trusting that God would provide it. For in thee do
I put my trust. Verse 2, O my soul, thou hast said unto the Lord, thou art my
Lord. My goodness extendeth not to thee. When I see the phrase,
O my soul, especially in the Psalms, it's a really cool thing to me because it seems very practical.
This is when David's writing, he often writes things as if he's talking to himself.
There's like a self -talk going on here. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me.
So that's one of David's self -talks. What we see, if you imagine Jesus saying these words,
Jesus has a similar dynamic where he's talking to himself. And what he's doing is he's bringing his spirit under, or I should say his spirit.
He's bringing himself under submission to the Lord. Like he's commanding himself.
And so, O my soul, thou hast said unto the Lord, thou art my
Lord. My goodness extendeth not to thee. So two things here. Jesus submitted himself to the
Lordship of the Father, right? Hey, you called God your
Lord. Reminding himself of that will cause him to do things that act that out.
It's like, hey, you said he's your Lord. Imagine saying that to yourself.
You have said God is your Lord. That's a powerful thing to say to yourself, because if you remind yourself that you have called
God your Lord, you might start treating him more like your Lord. The second thing, look at the humility of the statement.
My goodness extendeth not to thee. Jesus really truly felt that, that he was not near as good as the
Father. But just think how incredibly good he is, and how much the
Father exalted the Son. So there's a lot of humility there.
He also thought it not robbery to consider himself equal with God. So this is truly coming from a place of humility.
It's not that he believes he's not good. It's just he believes so much more that God is better.
And that keeps him humble. Verse three, but to the saints that are in the earth, and to the excellent in whom is all my delight.
Imagine Jesus saying these words. All right, there's not much that we can do for God, but to serve his people.
Jesus delighted in doing just that, serving God's people. Perhaps this is what it means to delight yourself in the
Lord, because Jesus certainly did so, and we know we're supposed to delight ourselves in the
Lord. And yet Jesus also says that all his delight is in the saints.
How do you delight yourself in the Lord, and also all your delight be in the saints? Well, he modeled what this relationship would look like with his father in his conversation with none other than Peter, when he said,
Peter, do you love me? Feed my sheep, right? So like, how do you delight yourself in the
Lord? You serve him by helping his people, by going out and expanding the kingdom for him, right?
And so that's what Peter does after Jesus has passed away and has risen and come back.
Jesus becomes emboldened and goes out and serves God's people for the rest of his life.
And so this is what we do. This is what Jesus did. He served his people, and that is how he delights in the
Lord. Their sorrows, verse four, their sorrows shall be multiplied, that hasten after another
God. Their drink offerings of blood will I not offer, nor take up their names into my lips.
It's like a warning that we should heed. Idols bring sorrows.
The idolatry of self -love is essentially what all idols boil down to.
I've been reading a book by Jonathan Cahn. It's the one that Myron mentioned in his sermon a few weeks ago,
The Return of the Gods. And it's really a fascinating book because it shows you how the false gods of the
Bible are infiltrating America today. But some really fascinating nuggets
I've picked up out of it, and that is one, when Israel turns away from God, they first turn to the
God of Baal. That's the one they made the molten calf to, right? He is considered the
God of wealth, right? So they begin to serve money rather than the true
God. That's often where they start and then closely following Baal is
Ishtar. And Ishtar is the goddess of fornication and self -indulgence.
And she blurs the lines of... What's the word
I'm looking for? Boundaries. Like she constantly violates boundaries. That's what she wants to do.
Anything that sets up an absolute, like a boundary. For instance, there's male and there's female.
She wants to break down that wall. I don't want there to be male and female anymore. And she begins to blur the lines.
And so if you look at the digression of Israel, they often start with Baal, they move to Ishtar, and all kinds of terrible fornication and stuff like that.
And then Molech comes in. And Molech promises that you will achieve a higher status.
You'll be able to climb the ladder of society. And all you have to do is sacrifice your children to him.
And so by sacrificing the children, you now have the ability to, in today's terms, climb the corporate ladder.
That's what abortion looks like. Now I can go and be a career person because I don't have kids to take care of. You see, so it's the same sort of things happening in today's society.
The prosperity gospel came on the scene really close to the time that you had the sex, drugs, and alcohol, or sex, drugs, and rock and roll,
I think is what it is. That whole mantra from the 60s and early 70s, all that came on the scene pretty soon afterwards.
And it just both carried on through into today's society. And then, of course, abortion was legalized for over 50 years as well.
Did you have something you wanted to say? Right.
So you can kind of tell that the false gods often work together, right?
So mom said that even in today's society, you could climb the political ladder by sacrificing the gender of your children to the god of Ishtar, really is what it is.
And so Jesus here says, their sorrows shall be multiplied that hasten after another god.
Their drink offerings of blood will I not offer, nor take up their names into my lips.
So in other words, think of just these three gods, for example.
All three boil down to a self -love, right? So that's an idol in and of itself.
Loving yourself is an idol. And that is prominent in today's society.
That's kind of the, it has been behind the scenes. It's becoming more overt. Like, this is all about you got to love yourself.
People have come to believe that self -love promises fulfillment. It promises the activation of the ability to love others because you have to love yourself first.
That's not scriptural. That's not what Jesus did. He did not put himself first.
They're going to find that sorrows are multiplied when this happens. And that's why society is just breaking down, why things are getting worse, why crime is going up, why divorce is increasing.
Like, all of that sorrows are multiplying because we're chasing the idol of self -love. Jesus is saying he will have no part in that, right?
In fact, there's even a best -selling book right now that Katie showed me yesterday called Selfish is a Superpower.
I mean, I want to give the author of the book the benefit of the doubt because I've not read it.
And maybe there's a little twist in there to make it like selfishness is not really self -fit.
Like, we're going to not be selfish, but we're going to use a catchy title to get people to read the book, maybe.
I don't know. Doubtful. Because if you just look at how society has gone, it's like, you know, you need to take care of yourself first.
It's so ingrained in everything. Like, it has always bothered me when I get on an airplane and they're like, in the event of an emergency, please put your own mask on before you try to put your children's on.
I'm like, no, hold my breath. I'll put my kid's mask on, then I'll get mine on. I'm not going to let my kid sit there and suffocate while I'm like, okay,
I can help you now. You know, it's not going to happen. Like, it's so ingrained in everything we do.
But you got to help yourself first before you help somebody else. Jesus would have no part with idols.
He would not drink their offerings. It says their blood offerings, which there you go. There's a signal to Molech, right?
I'm not going to do that. We too should separate ourselves from all forms of self -love and from the idols that represent that self -love.
Verse five, the Lord is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup. Thou maintainest my lot.
So the secret to avoiding idol worship, Jesus gives us that right here.
I should say Jesus and David. David's the one writing, but it is as if it's
Jesus talking. The secret to avoiding idol worship is becoming content with God. Jesus displayed this contentment when tempted by Satan in the wilderness.
All these things will I give thee, said Satan, right? But Jesus merely quoted the words of his father, right?
So he basically, he just quotes scripture. And he's content with the words of his father.
How are we going to be content with the words of our father if we don't know what those words are?
If we don't know much about him? If we're going to get content with God, we got to get more in his word so that we can know what we're supposed to be content about.
Like, what are the promises that God gave us? How does he say that he's going to fulfill them?
What hope do we have that they will actually come true? We wouldn't know that if we don't actually read his word.
If we just take some preacher's word for it, preacher could get it wrong. We could find ourselves going,
I'm not very content with what I've heard about God. No one can talk about God better than God can.
So get in his word and be knowledgeable of his word. Jesus literally quotes the scripture, so he's very knowledgeable of the word.
And that's what we should do as well. Verse six, the lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places.
Yea, I have a goodly heritage. See, pleasantness is the experience of the believer who is in service to his
God. Do we find joy in serving our Lord? Or is it a burdensome task?
The inheritance that God promised David, an everlasting kingdom, rulership, he would establish his house forever, his mercy would not be removed from him.
All of this was fulfilled in his son Jesus and extended unto us through that son and through the death of Jesus and the resurrection.
So what a heritage, what a goodly heritage we have, right? How pleasant should it be to serve that God?
It should be very pleasant. When are you able to be content?
Or I should say, when you are able to be content with the Lord, you will find pleasure in doing service to him and you will have a goodly inheritance.
There's the whole we do have thing that we've often seen from what Myron taught us and stuff.
Verse seven, I will bless the Lord who hath given me counsel. My reigns also instruct me in the night seasons.
So as Christians, we should be as resolved as Christ was to bless the Lord. I like how he says that,
I will bless the Lord. This is a resolution, it's just gonna happen. I'm gonna bless him. We like him should walk in the counsel
God has given us. Jesus spent many nights alone speaking with the
Father, planning his work, readying the execution of those plans, while sinners work at night to cover, under the darkness of night, they cover their sins or attempt to.
Jesus used that same time to draw nearer to the Father. It was at night that he prepared for the cross, sweating blood in the garden and pleading with his heavenly
Father. And at day, he set his face like flint and resolved himself to bless the
Lord with his service. So like the nighttime was the preparation time, right?
And the daytime was the execution time. How often do we use the day?
We might say, okay, like, I'm gonna do a quiet time in the morning. And we're not even very good at that oftentimes, right?
I think Charlotte's probably the best I know at doing a quiet time in the morning. I don't know anybody who's as consistent with their quiet time as she is.
And so we'll use the day and at night, we're
Netflixing and stuff, right? And we're like doing stuff on TV and then that's it, right?
And then we go to sleep. How much preparation at night have we done as well? Jesus used that a lot.
Nighttime was a huge preparation time for him. So that's a point that I'm certainly weak at that I need to get better at.
I, by default, kind of did it last night because I was working on my Sunday school lesson last night. But it was just because I didn't have time to work on it before.
So it's something that it's interesting how when you wake up, your brain works differently when you went to sleep thinking about the
Lord. And sometimes we do that just in the, like maybe after we turn off the TV, we have a little prayer time and stuff.
But being more mindful of that time and being more intentional with that time could serve us well.
Verse eight, I have set the Lord always before me because he is at my right hand.
I shall not be moved. So serving the Lord definitely comes at an expense, right?
The cost is self -sacrifice, sacrifice of fleshly desire, sacrifice of negative thoughts, sacrifice of social acceptance.
That's just to name a few. How do we stay resolved? Well, we've got to fix our eyes on serving him as the ultimate prize.
Like that's the prize. Sometimes we go, all right, heaven, or you know, like blessing from the
Lord. But the fact that he allows us and causes us to do service to him, it's greater than anything else we could do or receive.
Like when you get to heaven, it's that, the service that you've actually done to God that you will be rewarded for.
So those rewards in heaven are really almost just a token. What are we going to do with our crowns?
We're going to take them off and throw them at Jesus' feet. Like the rewards in heaven are just a token of the true reward, which is the fact that we get to serve him, that we get to do things for him, that he causes us to do things.
So like Jesus did, I have set the Lord always before me. Put the
Lord in front of you as like, that's what I'm striving for. I'm striving for the
Lord because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. So when you have him, he's going to grab you by the hand.
When you have him in front of your face and you're grabbing by the hand, spiritually speaking, and he's going to walk you through all the wiles of life and you'll be like David, talks about in his sermons where you're just holding the hand of Jesus.
You can't sin during that time, right? When you're holding onto the hand of Jesus, it's impossible to sin.
And so that's what this means. He's at my right hand, I shall not be moved. You will not deviate to the left or to the right because you've got the
Lord always before you and you're holding his hand. Verse nine, therefore my heart is glad and my glory rejoiceth.
My flesh also shall rest in hope. That said, there's a saying about soldiers.
The best soldiers are the ones who fight as though they are already dead. There's no tomorrow.
Take as much ground as you can before you sleep the eternal sleep. Like that is the most effective soldier, the one who counts himself dead already.
And Jesus, when he's speaking these words, you get a hint at what's on his mind there at the last part of verse nine.
My flesh also shall rest in hope. His flesh is gonna rest.
He's gonna die. And he's got death on his mind when he says, therefore my heart is glad and my glory rejoiceth.
That's an interesting thing because we know that Jesus did, he kind of feared going to the cross.
At one point, he struggled with that fear and overcame it in the garden of Gethsemane. He asked the
Lord, if there'd be any way, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but thy will be done, right?
So we know that he had that struggle, which he overcame. But here you see just how much he overcame it.
Here it's like, therefore my heart is glad and my glory rejoiceth.
As if he is a soldier who's already counted dead. That's a foregone conclusion.
I'm going to the cross. So I might as well do as much good as I possibly can up until that point.
We too are like this, right? I am crucified with Christ.
That's dead by the way. Nevertheless, I live yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.
In the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.
That's in Galatians 2 .20. So we are supposed to walk as if we've already died.
We are a soldier that is in battle. I've already got bullets going through my body, so I might as well keep running as fast as I can until the bullets stop me, right?
And just do as much good, take as much ground as I possibly can before the
Lord takes me home. That's a pretty powerful verse if you think about it in Jesus showing us how to live like a
Christian. Verse 10, For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine
Holy One to see corruption. This is one of those verses that really proves this is Jesus. You will not suffer thine
Holy One to see corruption. And we know that Jesus did not see corruption. He was dead for three days.
That was it. And then he rose again. Jesus believed in the resurrection.
He looked forward to it. It was a great hope of glory to be reunited with his
Father in heaven. And we too have this exact same hope if we are crucified with Christ.
Like him, we too must die. That's gonna happen someday. But like him, we will be raised again to life everlasting.
Pretty cool. That should give you some boldness like it did him.
Verse 11, Thou wilt show me the path of life. Thou wilt show me the path of life.
In thy presence is fullness of joy. At thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore.
It's interesting to me that the Lord saw fit to focus on the promises of his Father for more than a third of this
Psalm. More than a third of Psalm chapter 16 is
Jesus focusing on the promises of the Father. Similar to David who just received those promises from the
Father. It shows us where our focus should be. Jesus saw the fact that he would die.
He focused on the promises of being shown the path of life as opposed to the pain of death.
He focused on experiencing fullness of joy. He focused on having eternal pleasure. And this focus resulted in faith that helped
Jesus overcome the feelings of anxiety about the cross with feelings of anticipation about God's truth.
This of course resulted in him powerfully enduring the cross for us thereby fulfilling the
Davidic covenant that was just made to David before he wrote this Psalm.
Isn't that cool? So, yes. Yes. Yes.
Yes. Yes. Okay.
Interesting. That is cool.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, that's really good. And then especially when you think about the fact that the goodness, his source of goodness is the
Father. And when you follow it up with the next verse to the saints that are in the earth, that's how we experience the goodness of the
Father is through the Son. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, super cool.
Yeah. David's response to the Davidic covenant is it's exactly like us.
Yeah. Yeah. Let's do it.
Isn't that cool? Yeah. Thank you. All right, any other thoughts before we pray and call it quits?
Okay. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, wow.
It's like David said, we just don't know what to say. Your goodness is more than we can handle.
It's more than we deserve. It's more than we can comprehend. And yet it's exactly what we get.
We get to experience it because of your Son, and we thank you for that. Father, we know that we fall short and we fall to the idol of self -love too often.
We thank you that your Son modeled a perfect Christian life so that we can look to him, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the prize that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down on the right -hand side of God.
We know that just like he did, we can do if we are holding onto your hand.
Help us to always put you before us and to have no part in idolatry.
Help us to examine our own lives, identify the idol that we are representing our self -love with, and ask you to bind rebuke and send it away.
And then, Father, we ask that you make good on that promise as well, that you will come to our rescue.
We love you. We thank you for all the promises that you have and that your mercy is new every morning. It's in Jesus' name we ask these things.