Ps 16
our thoughts and our god
(Psalm 16)
Jason Procopio
We continue today in our summer series in the Psalms, and today we happen to be in my favorite psalm. But it’s my favorite psalm because it’s the psalm that hurts me the most—in the best possible way.
There are certain markers we all tend to develop over the course of our Christian lives, to help us see how we’re doing. We gain a certain amount of theological knowledge, so we think we’re doing okay. Or we learn to live in a certain way, and that way of life convinces us we’re doing okay.
Theological knowledge and obedience to God’s commandments are wonderful things, and essential if we want to grow. But they are not enough.
Psalm 16 is a psalm which doesn’t allow us to be content simply with a love for the Bible. It doesn’t allow us to be content with simply “living right.” At the same time, it doesn’t allow us to remain in our despair, angry and bitter at our “enemies,” or at the circumstances of our lives.
It calls us to go deeper than that.
It calls us away from simple thinking, away from distraction. So it’s difficult for all of us. Because even the most focused and concentrated among us have a hard time always keeping our minds focused on a given task.
The only thing that makes distraction nearly impossible is if we have thought so long and hard about something that it becomes part of the way we think about everything else.
We’ve all done this. We’ve all integrated certain ways of thinking so completely that we see the world through that filter; and we do it without even realizing it.
But what would our lives look like, if the "filter” we had adopted so completely that it colors everything else we think about, was God himself?
That is the question to which David gives the answer in Psalm 16.
And that’s why it hurts me so badly, every time I read it. Because of all the psalms in the Bible, this is probably the one I imitate the worst. This is the one I need the most. So I want you to know going into this, that everything I’m saying, I’m saying to myself first. I need this as much as—if not more than—all of you.
The orientation of our thoughts (v. 1-6)
The first verses of this psalm all describe some aspect about the way the Christian mind should operate. Derek Kidner writes in his commentary: “Almost every verse in this half of the psalm speaks of some aspect of single-mindedness: i.e. of throwing in one’s lot with God in the realms of one’s security (1), welfare (2), associates (3), worship (4) and ambitions (5f.).” David shows how every thought, every area of his life, is focused on one singular goal—the sun around which the solar system of his life turns. And that goal is God himself.
Let’s take it verse by verse. V. 1:
Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge.
David looks to God for his security. He is not hedging his bets. He is not paying lip service to God, saying he’s counting on him while maniacally trying to control every area of his life so that everything goes the way he wants it to. He knows that God will protect him, and he trusts in God’s protection.
And that’s how he can ask God to preserve him. He says, Preserve me, O God, FOR in you I take refuge. In other words, he is only asking God to do what God has promised to do, and what David knows God will do. There is no more restful prayer than the prayer which asks of God that which he has already promised.
If you trust that God will be faithful to protect you, you will be less worried when the circumstances of your life make you feel unprotected. You won’t feel the need to control everything. If you know God is protecting you, then you are freed to focus on the things that really matter—the things that God has given you to do—rather than trying to take from God responsibilities he has put on himself.
V. 2:
I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord;
I have no good apart from you.”
Likewise, David looks to God for his happiness. David was king of Israel. He was incredibly rich. He had people serving him in every area of his life; he had access to good food, beautiful women, all the worldly pleasures he could ever have asked for. And yet, here he recognizes that none of those things can ultimately make him happy. None of those things will bring him lasting satisfaction.
If there is one concept I think most young people in France today should repeat to themselves every minute of every day, it would be this one. Our society is essentially a gauntlet we are running, and the dangers being thrown at us are enticements to pleasure. “Look at me! Love me! Enjoy me! Have fun with me!” The most dangerous thing about this gauntlet is that when these things come flying at us, we don’t see them as dangers, but as gifts. We welcome the temptation, the way we welcome a kiss from our sweetheart.
Take a walk through the mall—you will be bowled over by a wave of false promises, things which promise us satisfaction if we would only wear the right clothes or have the right phone or eat the right food or have the right accessories. The same thing happens in our jobs, or when we look at other people’s perceived happiness or success or families. We are being formed by these things, whether we know it or not; so we need a counter-formation, which reminds us that for as enticing as all these things are, HE is our Lord, and we have no good apart from him.
This is what the apostle Paul was saying in Philippians 3.7-8 when he listed all of his personal achievements and then said:
But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ…
GOD is our good. HE is our happiness. HE is our joy. Everything else, no matter how good, is nothing in comparison.
V. 3:
As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones,
in whom is all my delight.
Next, David looks to God for his friendships.
This one is tough, and I’ll give you an example from my own life. One of the hardest things in the beginning of my Christian life was spending time with other Christians. I had very good friends before I became a Christian, and frankly, by comparison I found most Christians I knew to be pretty dull. They were too neat, too clean. I didn’t feel like I could relate to them because most of them didn’t seem to be as screwed up as I was. And let’s be honest: in most stories, the squeaky-clean guy isn’t as interesting as the messed-up guy. That’s why Batman is so much more more interesting than Superman.
But David touches on something really important here. He talks about “the saints in the land”—anyone who belongs to God’s family (for those whom God saves, he declares a “saint”)—and he says that “they are the excellent ones”. The word “excellent” doesn’t do justice to what he’s saying; the word in Hebrew carries with it the sense of majestic, magnificent, or mighty. These are the people everyone wants to be; in a superhero movie, these would be the superheroes.
So clearly these other Christians around me—no matter how boring they might have seemed at first—had understood something I hadn’t. They had understood something about the universe, and about the God who created it, that made them far more impressive than they would otherwise have been. They may not necessarily be smarter or stronger than me, but they know the God who is the source of every joy, every strength, and every gift, because God has made himself known to them. And I know that, because I can see them displaying the character that Christ displayed in his own life.
David says, “These are the people I want to spend time with. These are the people I delight in. If they are the excellent ones—the majestic, mighty, magnificent ones—then I want to know what they know. I want to grow as they are growing. I want to set my sights on the same things.”
Is it any wonder that we are constantly telling you to spend a lot of time with one another? The people sitting around you, if they know and love Jesus Christ, are the excellent ones. And we should be pursuing their company above all others.
V. 4:
The sorrows of those who run after another god shall multiply;
their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out
or take their names on my lips.
Next, God is the focus and the source of David’s worship. This sounds pretty obvious—David serves the one true God, so obviously that’s the God he worships.
It’s actually not so obvious. Even in David’s time, the temptation to worship other gods was intense, often driven by the idea that those gods would give you everything you desire, as long as you’re willing to give them something in return (say, by offering your children as human sacrifices).
If this temptation was prevalent in David’s time, it is every bit as prevalent today, because it has become acceptable. We are surrounded on all sides by things which are begging us to worship them, and most of the time we don’t even realize it’s happening. False worship happens when we love the thing more than the Creator, or when we pursue something to the detriment of our pursuit of God himself.
If you’ve ever been obsessed—or even overly preoccupied—with your appearance, or what other people think of you, or a relationship, or a leisure activity, or a specific ideology (political, sexual or otherwise), or the satisfaction of any number of desires, most of the time, the root of that preoccupation is idolatry. It is love of creation over love of Creator.
If you’ve ever esteemed what your spouse thinks about you over what God says about you; if you’ve ever gotten so stuck on your own logic that you can’t quite believe what the Creator God says about himself; if you’ve ever despaired over some felt need you’ve had not being met, most of the time, the root of these problems is idolatry. It is love of self over love of Creator.
All of these tendencies are natural; and all of them will kill us if we let them.
David takes the time to divert our attention from his own attitude for a moment, to tell us why he feels that way. He says, The sorrows of those who run after another god shall multiply. We all worship something, and if that thing we worship isn’t God, it will always be to our detriment. It’s not just that these things won’t fulfill us; they will actively bring us sorrow. Whatever joy or satisfaction we find in them is an illusion, and it won’t last. The only lasting joy and satisfaction for humanity is found in God himself.
And this is why David is resolute: he will not join with those who live this way. Of course, he won’t remain perfect in this resolution—we see him make this very mistake later on, with Bathsheba. But this is the trajectory he sets out for his life; this is the kind of man he wants to be.
V. 5:
5 The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup;
you hold my lot.
6 The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.
In other words, David looks to God to shape even his ambitions. Many of you here are in the early years of your professional careers; you want to build your skills and multiply your successes in the workplace (as you should). Others of you are newly married; you want to build a family (as you should). Others of you are simply happy with this phase of your life, and want to stay here for a while (and that’s okay too).
But how many of you would be not just willing, but happy to say to God, “Lord, take all of it away if you want. If you think it’s a good idea, bulldoze my career. Don’t give me the family I’ve always dreamed of. Slap me with a situation that takes me out of this great stage of life I’m in. Because no matter what happens, none of those things are actually what I’m here for. You are my portion. You have decided my inheritance, and even without any of these other things I want, the inheritance you want for me is beautiful.”
We have to understand that accepting God as our “portion” is not something God asks only of the super-spiritual. As Kidner notes, “my chosen portion” should be translated as “my allotted portion”—as in, the portion God has decided to give me. “This God-centeredness is not extravagant piety but simple obedience.” The portion God has allotted to his people is himself.
And having God as our portion is infinitely better than anything else he could give us.
So think of whatever is the most important thing, or situation, or ambition, or plan, in your life. Would you be willing to let it go in order to know Christ better? Would you be willing, as we read earlier, to consider it “rubbish” in order to gain Christ?
This the kind of single-mindedness we are called to. That God might be the source and the focus of every security, all of our welfare, every friendship, all of our worship, and every ambition. God is the goal.
The Blessings of Our god (v. 7-11)
David has just spent six verses explaining where his mind is focused, toward which goal his heart is oriented. God is the goal of his life. And now, beginning at v. 7, he rejoices in the reward that goal brings him. Here’s Kidner again: “Some of the particular blessings of the ‘goodly heritage’, which is God himself, now come into focus. To have him is to enjoy not only guidance (7) and stability (8), but resurrection (9f.) and endless bliss (11).”
V. 7:
I bless the Lord who gives me counsel;
in the night also my heart instructs me.
The first blessing of our heritage is God’s direction.
The way David says this is very interesting. He starts by saying, I bless the Lord who gives me counsel. The idea that God directs and guides us is nothing new, if you’ve been in church for a while; we pray for this all the time. What we often fail to see is that God is guiding us, even when it doesn’t seem like it. We often think of God’s guidance as him helping us make big life decisions, like what job we’ll do, where we’ll move to, whom we’re married to, and so on. But in the Bible, God is far less interested in those kinds of practical life decisions than he is in what kind of people we become. He’s far more interested in our character than our profession.
You know that feeling you get when you’re tempted to sin? You know what you should do, and you know what you want to do, and those two things aren’t the same. So you’re torn—you feel your desires pulling yourself in one direction and something else pulling you in the other. That “something else” pulling you away from sin, that heavy, unsettled feeling you get in that moment, that’s God, directing you and guiding you through his Holy Spirit.
Every single day of our lives God is guiding us. He is directing us. So we should always be thankful for his direction and guidance.
But David doesn’t stop there. In the second half of v. 7, he says, in the night also my heart instructs me. So God guides and directs David…and David’s own heart considers God’s direction, and examines it, and comes to conclusions about where God is taking him and why. We know what he’s talking about. Have you ever puzzled over a situation to the point where you’ve lost sleep? That’s what he’s describing. He’s taking God’s direction so seriously that he keeps on poring over it at nighttime.
Now, this isn’t worry; it’s not stress that’s keeping him up. It’s God’s instruction and guidance, applied to David’s heart through the Holy Spirit, and then integrated by David into his own thoughts. Too few Christians really take the time to listen to God’s voice directing them through his Word; far fewer take the time to give serious thought to that direction, so that they might apply it to all of life.
But both things—God’s direction, and our integrating that direction into our lives—are essential parts of the process through which we grow, for which we can be thankful.
V. 8:
I have set the Lord always before me;
because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.
The second blessing of our heritage is something so many Christians are woefully in need of: stability.
We’ve all seen parents do this thing with their babies, where they take their hands and hold them up as they “walk” along. We do that because they need it. These kids are like Bobble Heads; if we don’t hold them up, they’ll keel right over. But at the same time, while the parents are holding their baby’s hands, that baby will not fall. Why? Because the parent is attentive, and because (compared to the baby, at least) the parent is strong.
One of the main reasons the single-mindedness David described at the beginning of this psalm is so important is that when we have our eyes constantly fixed on him, and we remember that he is always “at our right hand,” nothing can shake us. Not because we’re unable to be shaken, but because he is.
And he’s holding our hands.
God is infinitely attentive, and he is infinitely strong. NO WAY will he let us fall!
The Christian who realizes this fact is stable. If we realize this, we won’t be shaken by the storms and the winds of life. We’ll feel them, absolutely; we may even have moments when the winds and waves are so intense that there is some trepidation. But then we remember that God is at our right hand, and that the waves towering over our heads don’t even reach God’s ankles. We’re fine, because he’s got us.
V. 9:
9 Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices;
my flesh also dwells secure.
10 For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol,
or let your holy one see corruption.
The next blessing of our heritage is far from the least: resurrection.
Now there’s more going on here than meets the eye. Obviously, David did go to Sheol (i.e. the place of the dead), because David died. David did decompose, like every other human being who dies.
The only person in history (at least, so far) for whom this isn’t true is Jesus Christ. And that’s the way the apostles saw these verses of this psalm. In Acts 2, after the Holy Spirit came on the apostles, Peter quoted these verses in his sermon to the crowd, showing that even if David didn’t realize it at the time, he was speaking, not of himself, but of Jesus Christ.
Christ, after fulfilling the law for his people and living the life they should have lived, took their sins on himself and died in their place, suffering the punishment for their rebellion against God. He was in the tomb three days, visiting (but not residing in) the place of the dead. And on the third day, God raised him from the dead through the power of his Spirit.
This was a perfect fulfillment of the prophecy of these verses, for God had promised David that one of his descendants would be set upon the throne and rule over God’s people; and this descendant was Christ himself.
But while this verse doesn’t directly speak of David (or any of us), it does so indirectly, because the resurrection which Christ received, he will share with those who have placed their faith in him. At his return, we will be raised as he was raised, and we will enjoy eternal life. We will never die, we will never corrupt, we will never decompose. His resurrection will be ours. So the joy David expresses here—the joy of a glad heart and a protected body and a whole being rejoicing—is ours as well.
Which is, in fact, the last blessing of our heritage that David mentions here: everlasting joy. V. 11:
You make known to me the path of life;
in your presence there is fullness of joy;
at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
If you read this verse in the context of the whole song, the logic of it is inescapable. We’ve all been to restaurants and seen a young man and woman who are so in love it’s annoying. How do we know they’re in love? They can’t stop looking at each other. Their eyes never leave the other person. Intimacy looks to the object of its love.
Obviously our relationship with God is not that kind of relationship (we’re not in love with God). But the idea holds: the man who has his sights always fixed on God, whose thoughts and heart are always focused on God, enjoys an intimate relationship with God. He doesn’t have to wait for it. Because God is always with him, and God always has his attention, and he always has God’s attention. The closeness and the joy of such a relationship is impossible to overstate.
So if that’salready true today, and we know that (as Paul said) to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord, what can we expect after our death? If we know (as David says here) that God makes known to us the path of life, and that we have received eternal life from him, what can we expect in that eternal life? The same joy, the same satisfaction…but infinitely better. For in that eternal life, there will be no sin to draw us away from God; no sickness to distract our attention from him; no worries to preoccupy our minds and divert our eyes. Our eternal life is life in his presence, and in his presence, there is fullness of joy; at his right hand are pleasures forevermore.
In one sense, this is something we’re waiting for. But in another sense, this is something we’re already living; or at least, it’s what we could live, if we would only look to him.
Conclusion
It’s possible that some of you find all of this very theoretical—the kind of thing that’s nice to think about but that has little real-world application for us. Nothing could be further from the truth.
It is possible that some of you—if not many of you—are finding obedience really difficult these days. You see what God calls you to do, and it’s not what you want to do. We all have moments like that.
But if you find Christian obedience difficult to get behind, it is almost definitely because you don’t believe the reward is as great as it actually is. If you find perseverance in suffering a tough pill to swallow, it is almost definitely because you don’t believe the reward is as great as it actually is. If you find—like me—Christian joy difficult to seize and even more difficult to maintain, it is because we don’t believe the reward is as great as it actually is.
Once again I’m speaking first and foremost to myself today. And what I’m saying to myself—what I’m saying to all of us—is this: Set your eyes on God. Let your focus be single, and let it be him.
It’s going to take a long time; this isn’t something you can just do. It’s the habit of an entire lifetime. But it has to begin somewhere. It starts by fixing our eyes firmly on Christ in his Word; in the encouragement of our brothers and sisters; in our obedience to him in the small and great matters of our lives, day in and day out. It will take a while, but there is no better way to spend your time and energy.
Because when our eyes are set on him, we know we are protected.
When our eyes are set on him, we find our ultimate good.
When our eyes are set on him, we love those who also look to him.
When our eyes are set on him, we are driven to worship.
When our eyes are set on him, our ambitions become his.
When our eyes are set on him, we follow his guidance.
When our eyes are set on him, we know where our hope lies.
When our eyes are set on him, we find our joy.
When our eyes are set on him, we know that our joy in him will last forever, because even when we die, we get to be with him.
Set your eyes on God. Let your focus be single, and let it be him.
