Psalm 16: Practicing the Presence of God
Introduction:
Bill Hybels titled a book years ago, "Too Busy Not to Pray." We live in a busy world. A world where the expectations of the workplace are rising, where the prices of groceries are increasing, yet we are bombarded with ads attempting to entice us to imbibe the consumerism of our materialistic culture. Life in the 21st century is increasingly fragmented. People are not whole. Our phones have rewired our brains and sometimes it is not that we do not have time to pray, we cannot concentrate when we do pray. Our minds are distracted and our hearts are confused. But, it should be the goal of the Christian to live with a continual awareness of the Presence of God. Psalm 16 gives us a formula for what Brother Lawrence calls "the practice of the presence of God." For the next few weeks, we will slowly walk through this Psalm and its teaching.
A Mikhtam of David.
Mikhtam: "An Inscribed Psalm" -- this superscription is found in six psalms (16, 56-60). Its meaning is disputed: in later Hebrew (and Greek) it means "inscribed poem," "epigram," or "a poem containing pithy sayings."
"Of David" means that this Psalm was written by, for, about, or pertaining to David and the Davidic monarchy. Prophetically these psalms extend to the ultimate Son of David, Jesus.
Psalm 16 is quoted both by Peter and Paul in the NT as about Jesus. We will look at their interpretation of Psalm 16 when we get to the verses they quote.
Psalm 16 can be divided into three basic sections: 1) a prayer for protection (16:1-4), 2) praise for provision (16:5-8), and 3) confidence in preservation (16:9-11).
The psalmist begins with prayer. David was a person of prayer. We find him praying at all the critical junctures of his life. His greatest victories come through prayer and his greatest defeats were the result of a lack of prayer. When David defeated Goliath it was with a confession of the greatness of God on his lips. When David sinned by forcefully taking Bathsheba and ultimately killing her husband, it was a lack of communion with God that contributed to his downfall. When David took a census of Israel's armies, it was against what he would have heard God speaking into his spirit, if he had been listening. We cannot truly be the humans, Gid created us to be outside the Presence of God. It is the environment for which we were created, the relationship that makes us truly human.
Prayer's basic meaning is a petition and that is where prayer begins. It begins as a realization that without Him we can do nothing. In Psalm 16, David begins with a prayer for protection. It begins as a lament but ends with confidence. Prayer may begin with tears, but if we stay at it long enough, confident joy will result. Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning! Let's look at this part of the Psalm this morning:
I. Prayer for Protection (Psalm 16:1-4)
16 Protect me, God, for I take refuge in You.
"Protect me" is a petition for God to "keep me safe." Salvation has so many dimensions in the Bible because contrary to the way we often hear it, God is not interested only in "souls," but in "wholes." The salvation of the human person and all of creation is the work of God from beginning to end. When we experience healing in our bodies, provision, protection, reconciliation in our relationships, and justice in our present life, it is a declaration of the perfect wholeness that we will experience in the resurrection and the renewed creation at the coming of the Lord. Salvation involves it all.
David says that he has taken refuge in God. The word refuge is a favorite in the passages about warfare. It means a fortress, a high place in the mountains of Palestine, where David would hide. The present world system is contrary to the Christian living a life that pleases God. But, we are hidden in Christ. We can find a place that is higher than the enemy. We have the high ground. The battle is already won.
The writers of the NT use the phrase "in Christ" to refer to those who have trusted in the faithfulness of Christ for their salvation. They are baptized into Him, both in water and Spirit.
To be "in Christ" is to possess all that He possesses and to be all that He is.
Our prayers should be from this posture. Praying "in Jesus's Name" is not a magical formula that we invoke, but a realization that we are His body, His hands, His feet, His mouth. Christ took on what we are that we might take on what He is.
The next verse recognizes this.
2 I said to the Lord, “You are my Lord;I have nothing good besides You.”
"You are my Lord" echoes the basic Christian confession that Jesus is Lord. This is the confession that we make when we are baptized in Jesus's Name. To confess "Jesus is Lord" is a confession that He is the Ruler or Master of our lives. Our lives are not our own, we are bought with a price. Therefore we are to glorify God in our bodies and spirits which are God's.
Paul confessed, "I know that in me, that is in my flesh, there dwelleth no good thing. Goodness is an aspect of the fruit of the Spirit's work in the life of the believer.
God is the Author of all that is good. In the song of creation in Genesis 1, we read with consistency that God looks at what He has made and declared that it is good!
"What is needed is a constant awareness of the goodness and grace of God--He is not capricious..." Capricious is defined as "given to sudden and unaccountable changes of mood or behavior."
Without a firm conviction of the goodness of God, guilty fears take over, insecurities run away with people, prayer becomes hoping against hope, and praise, if it exists at all, has a hollow ring to it" (Ross).
I want to take a moment to affirm the goodness of God's creation. Creation is good, but it has been subject to futility through the disobedience of humanity. The whole good creation is groaning in anticipation of its release from the burden placed upon it. Romans 8 tells us that the resurrection of Jesus is the beginning of what is coming.
Romans 8:28 tells us that God makes all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose! 8:29 tells us that the ultimate "good" is that we should be more and more like Christ.
Everything in life should not be a battle. Take time to enjoy the good that God has given you. The writer of Ecclesiastes says this.
The words in the second part of this verse can be translated, "my good is not beyond you (or, apart from you). "My good" is more specifically understood as "my welfare," meaning "my care and happiness" in general (it is used in Job 22:21 for Job's restoration and in Gen. 50:20 for God's care and exaltation of Joseph). By stating that that his well-being, all of it; and as a result there is no limit to that goodness. There is nothing God cannot provide; and there is nothing anyone else can provide that God has not provided" (Ross).
Loyalty. Loyalty is a virtue that our world sometimes forgets. David begins to talk to God about his loyalty to the Lord.
He first identifies with the saints and then in verse 4, he distances himself from false worship, religious apostates, or idolatry.
3 As for the saints who are on the earth, They are the majestic ones; all my delight is in them.
David confesses that the "goodness" in his life is because he belongs to the covenant community. Positionally, the covenant community is holy. The word "holy" means that they are set apart by God from all other people. The purpose of their holiness is to demonstrate and declare what it should look like when a community of humans are in fellowship with God.
David looks at the church, the way that God does. Much like Paul, who writes to the church at Corinth with all its issues and calls the members of that carnal but gifted church "saints" David says the community of faith is majestic. Balaam was hired by Balak, king of Moab, to curse Israel, but he couldn't. From his exalted place, he saw Israel spread out in tents in the formation of the cross.
When the writer of Hebrews lists the heroes and sheroes of the faith, he deletes their flaws! When Peter speaks about Lot, Abraham's nephew, he calls him righteous. Oh, Calvary covers it all!
The reason we are saints is because the righteousness of Christ has been imputed to us!
David delighted in being a part of the people of God. I don't come to Sunday morning worship because I'm perfect, I come to worship a perfect God who willingly came down and partook of our humanity in order to make us partakers of His divinity! The reason the ground around the place where the burning bush was holy was because God was there! Oh, what makes us Holy is His presence in our lives!
Oh, God restore unto us the wonder of being a part of the church. If you hang around long enough, you will realize that the church really is made up of a bunch of redeemed sinners that God graciously declares to be saints. We don't always get it right individually or collectively.
This can wear on you, discourage you. But, the key is to get into the Presence of God again and to look with fresh eyes on the wonder of God's salvation. David's worshipping community was not large in the big scheme of things in the ANE world. It was a small group that had its issues, but it also had God. It had his written Word, the temple, and sacrificial system and most of all His Spirit dwelling among them. When they followed Him they prospered, and when they didn't He loved them too much to let them go. Even with all our issues, it is to the church that people turn when they need prayer.
David ends this section by renouncing idolatry...
4 The pains of those who have acquired another god will be multiplied;I will not pour out their drink offerings of blood, Nor will I take their names upon my lips.
David remained loyal to God when it came to worship. He determined that he would not go after the gods of the nations around him.
Idolatry is a tricky thing. We can profess belief in the true God as He has revealed Himself in Christ, but follow our culture's idols unintentionally.
We can get so caught up in the consumerism and politics of our world that we forget to be different from the world around us by our actions. David let God know that he had not done this! He was determined to be loyal to his Lord. He didn't get it perfect every time, but he knew who his Lord was. And that matters.
Conclusion:
Perhaps your prayer life has grown cold and you aren't living in continual practice of the Presence of God. Today this altar is open to those who desire to seek Him.
