Resurrection Sunday - Psalm 16: The Path of Life

I invite you to take your Bible and go to Psalm 16 with me, Psalm 16.

And if you don't have a Bible with you, you can find one in front of you in the pew.

And on page 478, 478, you'll find Psalm 16.

And just an invitation to you, if you do not have a Bible and would like to have a Bible, we gladly give you the one that's right there in front of you.

Feel free to take that and bring it home.

Write your name in it, call it yours.

If your children put their crayons in it, it's well, it's on you.

So now, if you have a Bible and uh you want another one, there are plenty of places where you can find one.

So, but for those of you that don't have a Bible and would like one, we'd love to give you one of these.

And please accept it as our gift to you.

Easter, like Christmas, is full of all kinds of added bits in our culture, traditions that we have.

I wasn't raised in a Christian home.

However, our family still celebrated Easter.

A few days before Easter Sunday, we'd gather in the kitchen and we'd my mother would have bought a few dozen eggs and we'd be decorating them and painting them and staining them and dyeing them.

And Sunday morning I would wake up and next to my bed would be a little basket, and uh it would have this chocolate bunny rabbit in there, or chocolate egg.

And I was always disappointed when I found out it was hollow.

I didn't like that.

But we would take that basket after you know a little bit, and we'd my sister and I'd go out and we'd see all the eggs that we had painted, sort of stuck in different places around the house and the yard, and we would go out hunting for them, and that was a lot of fun.

And then we would enjoy later in the day an Easter dinner that was either a rib roast or a ham and sometimes lamb.

My palate wasn't quite adjusted to lamb in those days, so that wasn't a special meal for me.

It is now.

Another thing my mother used to do is make these sugar egg panoramas.

She was quite a cake decorator and artistic, and she would make these sugar eggs with a little panorama of pastel bunny rabbits and fences and flowers and different things like that.

And our table used to be filled with dozens of those things that she would pass out to friends and to family and to neighbors, uh, some of the folks my dad worked with, people at the ceramic shop where she would uh she would frequent.

Those are Easter traditions that my family would have.

Uh, for other people, maybe perhaps you have Easter outfits that you would receive, or an Easter hat or bonnet that you might wear.

Maybe you have some special foods of your own family that you would be or might even be eating this afternoon, exchanging Easter gifts.

And so for some folks, coming to church on Easter and Christmas is a tradition.

For us, it never was.

We never attended church at Easter or Christmas.

As I look back on my life in those years, I had some notion that Easter was about the resurrection of Jesus, but it only mildly sparked my interest.

And it didn't really carry any weight of influence at all on how I lived my life.

Easter was just a day of traditions, fun ones, but just traditions.

And much like the cycles of the seasons, year by year, Easter would come and I would enjoy the moment, enjoy the traditions, but give a casual shrugging, so what?

To any message behind it.

So what?

And so what's not such a bad question if it's asked sincerely and with the right emphasis.

Mine was a shrugging, so what?

But your question might be a little different this morning.

Your question might be, so what is Easter?

And so what is its significance?

Well, the so what of this day, many call Easter, I prefer resurrection Sunday, but Easter works too, is a day of remembrance of the day when Christ Jesus rose from the dead and put death to death and took away from us all of its fear-inducing power, that we might be able to go into it with hope and not with fear.

The resurrection of Jesus Christ, the scriptures declare, is alongside the cross of Christ, the central historical fact that gives us the basis for our faith.

Without the resurrection, there would be no Christianity.

The Apostle Paul said, if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, and your faith is also vain.

In fact, he said, if we only in this life have hope in Christ, honestly, really, we are the of all people the most to be pitied.

Why?

Because there's a certain way that we live, there's a certain attachment that we have to the things that we believe, there's a certain restriction of our behavior, there's a certain focus of our priorities, and if there's no hope of eternity, well, Paul said, why not just take up what everybody else takes up?

Eat and drink for tomorrow we die.

This day, Easter, Resurrection Sunday, is a foundational day for us.

You might ask another so what question.

So, what is its influence on my life?

As I said, it carried none in mind for many, many years.

And I certainly didn't have anyone in my family pressing at home upon my conscience or my soul or even to my interests.

Today I would like to take the place of maybe a family member who could have said something to me, to you today.

What is the influence of this day in our life?

Well, I want to take us to a place that might seem very odd to go to, and that is to Psalm 16.

Psalm 16 is a song of praise that David speaks to God in light of his goodness, in light of his person, and David does so in the most personal and intimate ways.

In this song of rejoicing and trust, David proclaims freely that all of his benefits and all of his blessings come from God.

And though he doesn't use this word, you can feel that he's satisfied fully in the God that he's praising.

Take a look at the personal pronouns.

Just glance over this psalm.

It's not long, and you can see them quite easily.

These personal pronouns of you and your to God and I and me and my when David speaks.

And then you look through this and you can see just how intimate this song is to David.

He's not standing as the king over the nation.

He's not speaking as one of the one on behalf of all the Israelites.

He's talking from the very depths of his own personal soul to God.

And he's saying, God, verse 1, you're my refuge.

God, you're my Lord in verse 2.

You are my goodness, my portion, my cup, in verses five and six.

You are my counsel, my wisdom, in verse seven.

You're at my right hand in verse eight.

You're my security, he says in verse nine.

You're my guide, you're the fullness of my joy, and at your right hand are my pleasures forevermore.

He is satisfied in God and can't help but sing about it.

Jonathan Edwards, who was one of the greatest, if not the greatest, theologian in America, the first president of Princeton, said this.

He said, God is glorified not only by his glory being seen, but also by his glory being delighted in.

Those who see God's glory certainly give him praise for understanding it, but those who delight in it bring an even greater degree of glory to the glory of God.

And all those words that Jonathan Edwards said capture David's heart right here.

He not only saw the Lord's glory, he's delighting in it.

And he can't help but talk about it.

Let's briefly walk through this psalm.

Verses 1 and 2, you see that he's satisfied with God's protection.

Protect me, God, for I take refuge in you.

It is said to I said to the Lord, You are my Lord.

I have nothing good beside you.

Now David was a man who was significantly experienced in battle.

He was not only valiant, brave in battle, but he was also victorious over formidable enemies in those battles.

But here he seeks protection from God.

He doesn't lay his trust in his strategic abilities, in the strength of his arm, in the power of his army, in the force of David's mighty men.

He doesn't take any notion of the alliances that his nation has made with other countries as some sort of combined coalition of force.

No.

He looks alone to God as his protection.

Notice something else.

Verses three and four, he's satisfied not only with God's protection, he's satisfied with God as his priority and God's people as his priority.

In verses three and four, as for the holy people who are in the land, they're the noble ones, all my delight is in them.

The sorrows of those who take another God for themselves will multiply.

And I will not pour out their drink offerings of blood, and I will not speak their names with my lips.

He's satisfied not only to have God as his protection, but to have God as his priority.

Now David was a king.

David was a man of power and influence, and he had access to the upper echelons of society.

And he could command the audience with the best of anyone.

Anytime he needed some assistance or even some amusement, he could call into his presence top advisors, entertainers, people who sang and danced, poets, musicians.

He could call in scholars.

He could name who he wanted to name, and they would be honored to come into the king's presence and to have some time with him and to share their skills or their abilities.

But what kind of company did David want to keep?

As for the holy people who are in the land, they are the noble ones, and all my delight is in them.

God's people are a priority to him.

And he was so committed to the Lord as his priority that he would not so much as soil his lips or his hands with a libation or a word of worship to anyone other than the Lord his God.

Verses five and six, he speaks of God as his prize.

Lord, you are my portion and my cup of blessing.

You hold my future.

The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places.

Indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.

The surrounding nations had their deities, and were often named after the things that they wanted from these gods.

And they would call upon these deities to exert their powers of fertility and prosperity for their crops and for their herds.

And they felt like by giving these kinds of sacrifices of worship and these promises to these gods, that the gods would in turn favor them and prosper them.

David himself was a very rich man, prosperous.

And he could have easily spoken about the great portion that he had received as a very wealthy person, all the acquisitions that he had gained over the years.

But here he makes a declaration that God, who is his protection, who is his priority, is also his prize.

Lord, you are my portion.

Lord, I don't take stock in my herds.

I don't take stock in the accumulation of my gold or silver.

I don't care about those things.

God, if I was to say, what is my most valuable possession?

It's you.

It's you, God.

And even if David had lost his prestige or lost his properties, and there were times in his life when he did, he would still say this: my wealth is not found in what I own.

It's found in him.

And I'll never lose that.

We also see here that he is satisfied not only with God as his protection and his priority and as his prize, but also he is finding satisfaction in God's providence and God's precepts.

Take a look at verse 7.

I will bless the Lord who counsels me.

Even at night when my thoughts trouble me, I always let the Lord guide me, because He's at my right hand, I will not be shaken.

He took the scriptures at face value, that they were God's revelation, and that they were instructions for him for life and eternity.

And he says, I will submit myself gladly to him, because he counsels me, he guides me, he leads me providentially and through the proclamation of the word.

I love your instruction, he said in another psalm.

It is the meditation of my heart every day.

And then one last one.

Satisfied in his providence and precepts, but here he has God as his highest pleasure.

In verse 9, he expresses the peak of joy and satisfaction and the depths of his confidence here.

My heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices, and my body also rests securely.

Verse 11, you reveal the path of life to me, and your presence is abundant joy, at your right hand are eternal pleasures.

Why this sort of extreme, maximal, extraordinary degree of attachment and affection from David, this confidence which seems unshaken.

Verse 10 there's a promise that he's relied on.

For you will not abandon me to Sheol.

You will not allow your faithful one to see decay.

David could talk about God being his ultimate satisfaction, his protector, his priority, his prize.

He could talk about God being the one who guides him by word of his precepts and his providence.

He could talk about being satisfied with God as his highest pleasure because he had rested himself and anchored everything that existed about him on this promise.

On this promise.

David was confident that he would come through death and out the other side.

That's glorious.

I have to tell you though, David died.

And he was buried.

And his flesh did decay.

And it corrupted.

In the normal way that all of ours will too.

And that leads us to a question.

Was this just a hollow fable?

Was this something that merely just distracted the king from the cares of rule and the strategies of being a commander of his armies?

Was this just some way to express himself poetically?

In distraction, lift himself above the realities of life into the ethereal escape of poetic expression.

Was he one like Paul said should be of all people most pitied?

If David's hope was personified, would it be like Shelley's poem Oxamandius Mandius?

The poem when a traveler comes through the desert to two giant stone legs, and next to those legs is a shattered head of a statue with a pedestal.

And the traveler looks on the pedestal and reads these ironic words.

Look on my works, you mighty, and despair.

And the traveler's like, you're nothing but a broken statue.

Was David's confidence a broken statue?

Full of boasting, but in reality, just headed back to desert sand, just like Osimanteus' statue.

Is David's confidence nothing more than that?

Perhaps it was in vain.

Perhaps he should have swelled with pride about his accomplishments instead of saying God should get all the glory.

Maybe he should have dived deep into the pleasures of his power and position and privilege.

Perhaps he should have spent more time thinking about his agenda, and he could have been marked even as a greater one in human history.

For over 900 years, David's body suffered the effect of death and decay.

For over 900 years, the question of David's confidence stood unanswered.

Was his confidence no more meaningful than the Easter baskets and chocolate bunnies that I got as a child?

900 years later.

Nine hundred years later, Peter the Apostle stood up on the day of Pentecost in Jerusalem.

And he stood before masses of people who had been gathered because they had heard some roaring sounds like a rushing mighty wind.

And they had heard with their ears people speaking the praises of God in a language that they could understand, though when they looked at them, they'd realized they are certainly not from the same place they were.

And they were puzzled and questioning, what is going on in Jerusalem?

And Peter stands before this puzzled and perplexed people, and he says to them in Acts chapter 2, fellow Israelites, listen to me.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

Listen to these words.

Jesus of Nazareth was a man attested to you by mighty by God with miracles and wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, just as you know.

Though he was delivered up according to God's determined plan and foreknowledge, you use lawless people to nail him to a cross and kill him.

Why?

Because it's not possible for him to be held by death.

How do you know that, Peter?

Because Peter had read Psalm 16.

And in Psalm 16, he would read verse 10 You will not abandon me to Sheol, you will not allow your faithful one to see decay.

David knew that he was not the faithful one.

He penned Psalm 51, where he speaks.

Of his sin.

He speaks of the corruption of his heart.

In sin did my mother conceive me.

He speaks of the corruption of his life in the actions that he did.

And he calls out for cleansing.

He knows he's not the holy one.

Who is this holy one?

Peter sat with Jesus for three years and marveled, and he said, Part from me, Lord, for I am a mere man.

He knew that he was in the presence of the Holy One.

He knew he was in the presence of the faithful one.

Peter, who tried to be faithful, said, I will never deny you, but did that night three times curse and deny the Lord.

He knew he wasn't the faithful one.

Who was this faithful one?

This is exactly what Paul or Peter says in Acts 2.

He says, For David says of him, I saw the Lord ever before me, because he's at my right hand.

I will not be shaken.

Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices.

My flesh will rest in hope, because you will not abandon me in Hades or allow your holy one to see decay.

You have revealed the path of life to me, and you fill me with gladness in your presence.

Peter is arguing that David could not have been talking about himself, but talking about one who is to come, and had put his trust in the one who was going to be the faithful one, the one who would not see decay.

And he says, brothers and sisters, again speaking to these Israelites, he said, I can confidently speak to you about the patriarch David.

He's both dead and buried, and his tomb is with us here today.

See, David was dead 900 years.

His body did see corruption 900 years.

His muscles, his skin, and his tissues rotted away and turned to dust.

Peter declares that David was speaking of one to come.

That he put his hope in the prophecy of God's coming holy one, God's coming faithful one.

And he continues his sermon on that day.

Since he was a prophet, he knew that God had sworn an oath to him to seat one of his descendants on the throne.

And seeing what was to come, he spoke concerning the resurrection of the Messiah.

He was not abandoned to Hades, and his flesh did not experience decay.

God has raised this Jesus, and we are witnesses this day of him.

And before the crowds he spoke the resurrection of Christ.

And on that day, 3,000 people realized they had crucified the Lord Christ, and with stricken hearts and their consciences broken, they cried out, What must we do?

And Peter said, Repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins.

And three thousand people that day believed and were baptized.

Peter applied Psalm 16 to Jesus.

In Acts chapter 13, the Apostle Paul also, standing before people, preaches Jesus Christ and the resurrection from this very same spot.

Acts 13 · chapter mention

And he says to the Jews in Antioch, we ourselves proclaim to you the good news of the promise that was made to our ancestors.

And God has fulfilled it to us, their children, by raising Jesus.

He says, As to his raising from the dead, never to return to decay, he was spoken of in this way.

I will give you the holy and sure promises of David.

And therefore he also says in another passage, you will not see your holy one in decay.

Paul read Psalm 16 and saw what Peter saw, the same thing that David saw: a coming one, a holy one, a faithful one, who for through no fault of his own would die, but would never stay dead.

He would rise.

And Paul continues just as Peter did, that David was not talking about himself.

He said, David, after serving God's purposes in his own generation, fell asleep.

He died.

And was buried with his father and decayed.

But the one God raised up did not decay.

Now, what is the significance of this?

Listen to the significance that Paul gives to it.

Let it be known to you, brothers and sisters, that through this man, Jesus, forgiveness of sins is being proclaimed to you.

Everyone who believes is justified through him from everything that you could not be justified from through the law of Moses.

What is Paul saying here?

You cannot go to heaven by being the faithful one yourself.

You cannot go to heaven by trying to be the best you can be.

The law of Moses strikes every one of us down.

The law of Moses not only calls out our actions, it also calls out the recesses of our motivations, of our hearts.

That very last one is the one that got right between the ribs of Paul.

You shall not covet.

And he knew he did.

He said, the forgiveness of sins doesn't come through rituals, it doesn't come through ceremonies, it doesn't come through the sacrifices of blood, of bulls and of goats, it doesn't come from you making any of the efforts, it comes through a person, Jesus Christ.

And how I can tell you that that is the truth is because Christ rose from the dead.

Death is a circumstance of sin.

Christ never sinned, and he rose from the dead.

But on the cross, he bore the sins of many.

What happened to them?

They went in the grave with him, and they stayed there when he came out.

That all who believe on Christ are justified, declared righteous, like Christ was when he was resurrected.

Amen.

And so Paul preaches Psalm 16.

Your sins can be gone in Christ.

Your justification, your declaration of righteousness can be had in him, and you're going to participate in his resurrection.

This is why David could say, My body rests in hope.

Because you will not allow your faithful one to see decay.

David himself knew that the grave would not be the end of him.

100 years after he dies, if he could have spoken to that generation, he would say, Just wait.

200 years, just wait, 300, 400, 500, 600, 700, 800, 900 years, just wait.

My faith was not in vain.

Just wait.

And up from the grave he arose, and David's soul sang, The truth, the truth of why he was so satisfied, was found in reality, in human history.

Jesus rose from the dead.

And so he sang, in anticipation of that day, and in light of that coming day, 900 years before it happened, God, you are my refuge, God, you are my goodness, God, you are my portion and cup.

God, you are my counsel.

God, you are my partner at my right hand.

God, you are my security and my guide.

You are the fullness of my joy, and in your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

He spoke that looking forward to the day.

Looking forward to the day.

And we stand here today seeing not just the promise, but the fulfillment of the promise.

And we can confidently share in David's praise of Psalm 16.

We can confidently share these very words.

My heart is glad.

My whole being rejoices.

My body rests securely.

For you will not abandon me to Sheol.

You will not allow your faithful one to see decay.

You did not allow him to see decay.

And in Christ I will rise too.

You reveal the path of life to me.

So that confidence of rest, that confidence of rescue, that confidence of reward that David speaks about here in triumphant jubilation at the apex of his song, that's our song.

That's our praise.

So what is Easter, you asked?

Well, it's the confidence of our hope.

That's what it is.

It's the confidence for all who believe on Christ, that this life is not it.

It is not all there is at all.

And that God, yes, in this time is our protector.

He is for us, certainly our priority and our prize.

We certainly submit ourselves gladly and joyfully to his precepts and watch the unfolding of his providential hand.

And in a way, yet, we're still learning to make him our highest pleasure.

The day will come when we will be unleashed from the limitations of our body and soul and life in this world.

And in that day, look out.

You better have your airinades turned down because there's gonna be a lot of shouting.

The resurrection.

Everyone who believes on Christ is granted all that Christ has gained on their behalf.

When he died, if you believe on Christ, you died with him.

When he was buried, your sins were buried with him.

When he rose victorious over death, you will rise victorious over death with him.

You will rise.

And in rising you will understand the enjoyment of the Lord.

You will experience the same treasures that God has laid upon his beloved Son, because you are a co-heir with Christ.

What is the significance of death of Christ and the resurrection of Christ?

It is for us confidence in the face of death.

We believe on the basis of God's character and God's actions in Christ that He will not abandon those who believe on Jesus to the grave.

And though we stretch each foot forward day after day, we do so confidently that we will one day come into the presence of God and enjoy him forever without condemnation.

We will take up with confidence these very words.

You have revealed to me the path of life.

And as a believer, we can speak to our Lord and say, I have no other guide but you.

I trust no priest, no man like myself.

I don't even trust an angel.

I trust only you, you who led your people through the wilderness by a pillar of fire and smoke.

You who lead us now will lead us into the path of life.

And though I come to death alone as a solitary traveler from this life to the next, I don't know where I'm going, but you will show me the path of life.

You will devote your wisdom and your strength and take me by the hand and lead me home like a father leads his child.

You will be gentle and patient with me.

And when I am so broken by death, so blind that I cannot see with my eyes, I will hear you say, This is the way.

Come now and enter into the joy of your Lord.

Can you hear the answer to the question yet?

So what?

So what?

How can I have ever said so what?

So, what is the significance of the resurrection celebration that we have today?

Do you see how precious it is, how full of meaning it is for the psalmist David to cry, you reveal to me the path of life?

Christ, the resurrected one, can give you that confidence too.

And though the dewdrops of death might might lay cold and clammy upon your brow, you don't have to go there and fear.

The Lord Jesus will show you the way.

The Lord Jesus will give you the victory over your greatest adversary.

You do not have to fear death.

He will teach you how how to find life in death and how to triumph in the midst of this last earthly conflict that will endure.

And that moment when we part this life and our spirit is launched into the sea that we've never traversed before.

We don't go alone.

We will leave the familiar surroundings of this place to come to a place we call home.

Home.

You will never have to cry as a believer as your last breath is spent saying, Where will I go?

Because you will not be left in an unknown land of death without guidance.

You will not need to ask any question because you already know the answer.

You have shown me the path of life.

Up to the realms where angels dwell, on eagle's wings born, you shall to heaven ascend and find it home.

God Himself will stoop from heaven and be your guide, and he will take you to dwell at his right hand.

The ages, yes, they'll speed on, and anybody left on earth will see your grave, just as they saw David's tomb.

And they might ask the same question.

Was all his confidence, all her hope, vain?

And years, decades, maybe even centuries, might continue to roll, and the question might continue to hang in the air about you and me who believe on Christ and others and different places and times.

Was there confidence vain?

Should they have just eaten and drunk?

Because tomorrow they died.

Is it?

If David cried from the tomb for 900 years, he would just say, just wait.

Just wait.

Just wait.

And if we could cry from our grave to those who might ask the question about any confidence of our hope, just wait.

Just wait.

Just wait.

Because the ages will speed on, and due time there will ring out the mighty blast of the resurrection trumpet.

And that trumpet will sound, and these limbs all moldered to the dust, these eyes that have vanished from family and friends.

This whole moral fabric of our bodies, dissolved and returned to Mother Earth, will arise in Christ.

We don't have to worry about our own power to lift ourselves out of the grave.

We don't have the power to put bone to bone and knit ourselves back together.

God will call out to each and every Adam and say, Come together, and we will be who we are, but something far grander than we are.

Wondrously and mysteriously changed.

Paul said this in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet, the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we will be changed.

For this corruptible body must be clothed with incorruptibility, and this mortal body clothed with immortality.

When this corruptible body is clothed with immortality, and when this mortal body is clothed with immortality, then the saying that is written will take place.

Death has been swallowed up with victory.

Where death is your victory, where death is your sting, and will stand on the neck of death because Christ our King killed it already.

Amen.

And in Christ He's revealed to us the path of life.

If we're in union with him, we will have the victory he won over death.

So if you're a brother and sister in Christ, drink this in today and let us rejoice with greater voice than David could have even spoken.

He saw promises afar.

We look back and see realities in place.

We know it's true.

He looked for it to happen.

We look back at what happened and we rejoice because that gives us a grander, deeper, greater sense of enjoyment and satisfaction and delight than David could have even mustered as he looked for the promise to be real.

Amen.

If you're here this morning and your question might have been, well, Easter's kind of a tradition for me, but not a reality for me.

I know what that's like.

I lived that way for many years.

But it's so much more.

There's so much what to it that you never has to ask so what again.

It's here.

Drink it in and let it kill all your fears of death.

And let all of those things fly away as you meditate upon this comforting assurance to the promise of those who are in Christ.

And bring yourself to him.

Call out to him to be your Lord and Savior, to deliver you from death and the consequences of your sin.

Call out to him to save and deliver.

And you can talk about the confidence of rest and rescue and reward that's found in him, just as David did and just as we do today.

Amen.

Let's pray.

Father, this truly is such a blessed truth that we have been given, shown, taught, revealed the path of life.

That those who are in Christ will be in your presence with abundant joy, and will be by your gift of grace, not because of works we have done, but what you've purposed in Christ and by your grace to bring us into your presence with eternal pleasures.

Father, I pray that our voices lifted now might sing your praise, and that our lives as we leave this building will continue to demonstrate a satisfied soul in you.

Father, I pray that you would awaken the consciences of those who perhaps don't know you yet.

And Lord, that you would give them the faith to see Christ as their only Savior.

Move their heart to turn away from their trust of themselves or any pleasure in sin and disobedience.

May they rue the day when they called those things their loves, and may they turn to Christ and rejoice as we do in Him.

That hallelujah, He is risen.

Amen.