Refuge: Find Out What it Means to Me

Well, we invite you to turn to our scripture reading for this morning, which is found in the the Old Testament Book of Psalms.

And we'll be looking at Psalm sixteen this morning.

Preserve me, O God.

For in you I take refuge.

I say to the Lord, You are my Lord, I have no good apart from you.

As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones in whom is all my delight.

The sorrows of those who run after other gods shall multiply.

Their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out or take their names on my lips.

The Lord is my chosen portion in my cup.

You hold my lot.

The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places.

Indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.

I bless the Lord, who gives me counsel.

In the night also my heart instructs me.

I have set the Lord always before me, because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.

Therefore my heart is glad, my whole being rejoices.

My flesh also dwells secure, for you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your holy one see corruption.

You make known to me the path of life.

In your presence there is fullness of joy.

At your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

Well, here ends the reading of Scripture.

Well, as we continue in our series on a summer in the Psalms, I'd like us to begin with the key observation that may be helpful to you as you read Psalms throughout the year.

It's often been pointed out that the main theme of a psalm is usually revealed in the opening verse or two of the psalm, and then it's unfolded in the rest of the psalm.

And so, for example, if you were just turn back a couple of pages to Psalm 8.

Psalm 8, O Lord our God, how majestic is your name in all the earth.

That's the theme of this psalm.

And the rest of the psalm unpacks that the majesty of the character and the name of God.

Or if you were to look at, say, Psalm 15, Psalm 15, a couple of verses forward.

O Lord, who shall sojourn in your tent?

Who shall dwell on your holy hill?

And the rest of the psalm goes on to unpack the answer to that question.

And so it is today in Psalm 16.

The theme of this psalm is revealed with an urgent cry to God for help from one of the most important figures in ancient Israel, David, King David.

Preserve me, deliver me, preserve me, O God.

And it's not just a cry for help.

It's not merely a cry for divine help, but it is a cry that is leveraged with a reason.

For in you I take refuge.

I wonder why David did that.

Many Christians would feel very reluctant, I think, to leverage any of their requests with a reason or an argument.

We're just not really comfortable with that oftentimes.

And if we did, I don't think it would be this one.

For in you I take refuge.

What did David know that we need to hear?

Or maybe I want to put this a little different way, a better way.

What does God want us to know about what it's like to find our refuge in Him?

Psalm 16 lays this out in really a stunning way.

This answer you could get from other psalms.

But it's kind of like last week there was a meteor shower.

And my family were out in the backyard at midnight watching these falling stars here and there.

It was a great show.

But amid the shower, there was some extraordinary, extraordinary flashes that when those who saw them saw them, and they only happened in a nanosecond, a star that was seemed like above the tree line, and it crossed the sky faster than you could blink.

And when we saw it, everybody just instinctively cried out, wow.

And I think Psalm 16 is like that.

The Psalms are a meteor shower when it comes to the God as our refuge.

But Psalm 16 is one of those wow moments.

If we take the time to dig deep in this psalm and to chew on what God tells us about the kind of refuge that He is and what it's like to have Him as our refuge.

The first is, is what is a refuge?

And then why do we need a refuge?

And finally, why should we make the Lord our refuge?

So we'll begin with just some definition here.

Refuge.

It's not a normal word we use every day.

It means a shelter or protection from danger or trouble.

It's anything to which one has recourse for aid or relief.

It's an asylum, a sanctuary, a stronghold, a shield.

In fact, the English word refuge comes from the Latin, which means to escape.

So Aubrey, your Latin classes weren't in vain.

Some examples of refuge that we were familiar with.

If you know your Bible, you know in the Old Testament there were cities of refuge that were set up by God.

There's a half a dozen cities when He created Israel as a nation.

And these cities were set up to whether Israelites or foreigners who accidentally killed someone, they could flee there for refuge.

They would meet with the elders of the land, and there would be protection against a relative who wanted to avenge the blood of the one accidentally killed.

Or in our own day, think of a wildlife refuge.

This is a kind of geographical location that's set aside to protect animals in a special habitat, usually animals that are under a significant threat, mostly by us, by humans.

And then there's the idea of a refugee that we're very familiar with here in Grand Forks, because we've had a lot of refugees in the past half dozen years or so that have come from a country where there was a threat against these people.

And they came to a new country that was to be a refuge for them to make a life, a new life.

But of all of these, I I really think the best example of a refuge is a storm shelter.

And I'd like to, the most graphic storm shelter I've ever seen, I'd like to share with you if we have that queued up, I'd like to go ahead and play that now.

Especially later on this morning.

Why do we need a refuge?

Why do we need a refuge?

You know, our need of a refuge, our need of deliverance from a host of threats is a constant theme in the Psalms.

Here's a few examples and the kinds of things that the writers of scripture flee to God for as their refuge.

So just listen to a few of these samples.

Psalm 143.

I have fled to you for refuge.

So refuge from enemies.

Psalm 2, 12.

Kiss the Son, lest he be angry and you perish in your way, for his wrath is quickly kindled.

Blessed are all who take refuge in him.

And it like it, Psalm 34, 22.

The Lord redeems the life of his servants.

None of those who take refuge in him will be condemned.

There you have refuge from divine wrath and justice.

There is refuge from the wicked in this life in God.

Psalm 46, one, which Pastor Pat brought to us several weeks ago, God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble, in troubles of all kinds.

And elsewhere, the Psalms speak about God as our refuge from the sword.

He's our refuge from sin.

He's our refuge from illness, our refuge from danger.

And all of these are touching on some very deep needs that we have.

But in our own psalm here, in Psalm 16, I'd like to call your attention down to verse 10.

Our own psalmist is thinking about one of the very deepest needs.

He says to the Lord, For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, that is, to the grave.

Or let your holy one see corruption.

If you want to know what the storms are in your life, I think a good question to ask is what is it that you fear?

What are you afraid of?

What are you anxious about?

In our culture, I it has struck me, and it's more and more because our culture is changing.

There's a kind of phenomenon that's I think it's always been around, but it seems to be really prominent now.

It's very common for young men, especially to kind of create an image of toughness and of no fear.

And they'll do this in all kinds of ways.

They'll do it with different paintings and markings, they'll do it with shirts that have flames and death on them and skull and crossbones.

They'll do it with the way they groom themselves, they'll do it with what they drive, they'll do it with how they carry themselves.

But you just see it all the time.

And you think, you think, I wonder what this person's hiding from.

And it oftentimes their eyes betray.

There's really a fear that's deep, and that all of this is being marshaled as a kind of refuge against what their deepest fears really are.

What are we fearing this morning?

A health loss?

Financial loss?

Integrity loss being found out?

Job loss?

Enemies?

Loneliness with no end in sight.

Relationship loss.

Security loss.

The future.

Or maybe ministry opposition.

These are the things that are going to shake us.

These are the things that are going to tempt you to be shaken in life.

And I love that last clip because the sandstorm, in many ways, is just like the storms that we face in this broken, fallen world.

The onslaught of that threat was unforeseen.

It comes from the movie Hidalgo and the racers crossing across the Arabian desert.

And up rises this storm and catches everybody off guard.

No one saw it coming.

And yet the threat was real and dangerous and potentially life-altering.

And that's the kind of threats that will come to you and to me.

You'll wake up in the morning with them.

They weren't here yesterday, and now they're here today.

There are storms in this life, unavoidable storms in this life, that are way beyond human strength.

And so all of us, in spite of how we might try to sh to mask that with persona, everyone needs a refuge.

And everyone makes a refuge.

Which now brings us to our third question.

Why should we make Yahweh our refuge?

Why should we make the Lord our refuge?

Life's filled with choices.

We all know that.

We have choices to make about who or what we're going to make our refuge.

Everyone chooses a refuge, but not everyone chooses the Lord as his or her refuge.

I'd like you to look with me in verse 4.

Here we read some stark words of those who opt for other pathways.

The sorrows of those who run after another God shall multiply.

Let that sink in.

The sorrows of those who run after another God besides Yahweh, the one true and living God, the sorrows of that person shall multiply, not even add up, they shall multiply.

You say Christians have many sorrows too.

What's the difference?

The difference is that for the Christian, there is hope in sorrow.

The very psalmist that we're reading is finding, is facing some kind of sorrow here.

He's calling out for deliverance from the Lord.

But there is hope in his sorrow that those who run after other gods will never have.

Think back to those cities of refuge.

There's no guarantees.

There's no guarantees in the Old Testament if you ran to one of those cities, then an avenger wouldn't ultimately get you, was there?

It was a system, it was nice, it was set up, there were rules.

But people died in those cities.

The wildlife refuge.

Think of a wildlife refuge.

Here's an article from the National Wildlife Refuge Association, a recent article.

That there is a new creation of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

It's one of the largest intact ecosystems in the world.

With its unique wildlife, unspoiled wilderness, cultural heritage, and diverse habitat.

It is the crown jewel of the refuge system.

Wow, really?

Okay.

And vital to protecting America's wildlife.

And then they have this picture, you can't see it, I wished I had it on the screen, of about a about a 2,000-pound polar bear.

And it says, polar bear, prowling the Arctic National Refuge.

Does that strike anyone else as being odd?

Okay, if it's a polar bear refuge, but if you're a seal, there's no refuge in the wildlife refuge.

If you happen to be on the wrong end of the food chain.

And think of those refugees who leave other countries.

Even think of those who have come here to America.

There's no guarantees.

There's no guarantees that they'll really find a new life here.

There's no guarantees they won't be exploited and taken advantage of and hated and some of them even murdered.

There's no guarantees.

And what about storm shelters?

My favorite illustration.

I can't think of a better example here.

Than the biggest storm shelter of all.

2005 in Louisiana.

The Superdome.

Hurricane Katrina is blasting the city.

Twenty thousand people go into the superdome.

And here's an article that was written about this event.

And listen to it.

Thousands still wait to be evacuated from the Louisiana Superdome five days after Hurricane Katrina.

Dirty, fearful, and exhausted, they press their faces against the metal gates, begging and pleading for a chance to board a bus and get away from a refuge that had become a nightmare.

A refuge that had become a nightmare.

After five days in the stinking, crowded, sweltering confines of the New Orleans Superdome, the thousands of people who emerged formed a slow-moving tide of desperation, looking for escape and relief from the refuge.

The Superdome was meant to be a hurricane refuge, but those who sought shelter there described it as a lawless concentration camp where refugees were terrorized by rioters.

A refuge?

Had it become a nightmare?

Even in Hidalgo, the clip that we saw.

Because what this cowboy actually does is he comes into an empty shell of a building.

There's nothing in there.

Yeah, it protects him from the immediate physical danger.

It does that.

But his deepest needs were not attended to.

This past week, my wife and I shared an amazing tale, a real life tale of a friend who this past week, I think it was, found her real birth mother.

She had been adopted.

She'd never known who her mother was, and she's probably in her mid-40s.

There's always something in her that wanted to find out where did I come from?

What are my roots?

Who made me, physically speaking?

And when she found that out, it was just a remarkable, joyful time.

And we all know how that kind of thing goes.

But that's a kind of weak pointer to a lot deeper kind of finding of our roots that we have in Scripture.

We were made by someone.

We were made for a purpose.

There is a future that lies ahead of us.

And relying on just a shell for your refuge will never get you there.

One of the interesting things, one of the differences between these refuges that I just talked about, these physical, earthly kinds of refuges, is that in this psalm and in the Psalms in general, our real refuge is a relationship with God.

It's not a structure, it's a relationship with a living God.

One of the nurses in our prime timers class gave an example of this from their own experience of working in the hospital, I think it was, that they said that sometimes the very elderly, when they are in a great amount of pain, they they cry out for mom.

They cry out for a relationship.

And in a weak kind of way, that points forward to who we really are.

There's something in us that's crying out for a relationship of peace and of love with the one who made us.

What does it mean to have a relationship with the Lord as your refuge?

We only have a few moments, but I'd like it if you would look with me.

I'm just gonna summarize what this psalm has to say.

And we're just gonna walk through this psalm from verses two through eleven.

To have the Lord as your refuge means to have as your benevolent King and Lord the source of all good in the universe.

Verse 2.

Verse 3, it means to live not in lonely isolation, but to live in community with others who love and respect the one true and living God.

Verse 4, it means to live according to the truth, the freedom to live according to what really is, and not fall prey to religious masking.

Verses five and six, to have God as our refuge means to have a secure future inheritance better than any earthly land, and a divine plan for your life that is good, that is good.

It means verse seven, to have guidance and shepherding day by day in the confusion of life.

The Lord is my shepherd.

He leads me beside still water.

It means verse eight, to have the Lord near you always, and to have the Lord be the very seat of all of your strength.

It means verse nine, it means to know and to feel gladness and rejoicing and hope at the deepest levels of your heart.

It means verse 10, to not have your soul abandoned to the grave.

It means knowing that your body's final resting place is not the place of decay in the grave.

It means verse 11 to have the path on which life and peace can be enjoyed, to have that revealed to you.

It means verse 11 to have a future in the presence of God and the fullness of joy and in indescribable pleasures forevermore.

Best refuge ever.

We don't just need external stuff.

And having God as your refuge doesn't mean that you won't die from an enemy.

Plenty of martyrs are.

It doesn't mean you won't lose all your stuff eventually by being a Christian.

The Iraqis today are losing their stuff in the city of Nineveh.

It doesn't mean that we won't succumb to an illness.

Every year in this very body of believers, people do.

But what it does mean, what it does mean to have God as your refuge, it means to be taken care of.

To be taken care of at the deepest levels.

And not only that, but God will use the storms that he brings as actually his way of helping us know him better.

You can't look at this without just asking, how can this be?

How can this be?

How is it that we can enter into this kind of future and hope?

Well, I'd like you to turn to Acts 13, and we're gonna end with this.

What's really amazing about this Psalm is that in a very veiled way, this psalm is actually pointing to the way that we can enter into this relationship with God as our refuge.

It does so by pointing to the Savior, to the Messiah.

We'll begin in Acts 13, verse 32.

Acts 13:32

This is uh Paul preaching the gospel in a city called Antioch, and he's saying to a bunch of listeners, we bring you good news that God promised to the fathers.

This he has fulfilled to us, their children, by raising Jesus, as also it is written in the second Psalm, and then skip down to verse 35.

Therefore, as he says also in another Psalm, Psalm 16, you will not let your holy one see corruption.

For David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep and was laid with his fathers and saw corruption.

But he whom God raised up did not see corruption.

Let it be known to you, therefore, brothers, that through this man, Jesus, forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and by him everyone who believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses.

In other words, Jesus faced the storm for us.

He stood in the gap and faced it head on.

Beware, therefore, lest what is said in the prophets should come about.

Look, you scoffers.

In other words, look, you who choose another refuge besides the Lord.

Be astounded and perish.

Because your refuge won't hold.

Your refuge will turn into the worst nightmare there ever was.

For I am going to do a work in your days, a work that you will not believe, even if one tells you.

What it means to have Him as our refuge is the deepest, most profound thing there is in this life.

What it means to spurn that and to choose otherwise will be one of the deepest disappointments possible.

Our Father, we love your promises in Scripture.

You're a firm foundation.

You are our refuge.

And we believe, Lord, that we will not be shaken in this life.

And yet, Father, when those onslaughts come, we feel unbelief fighting against us, and we feel the shaking come on at times.

Lord, we ask that you would help us know your word and memorize your word and have your promises deep in our hearts that we can speak it to ourselves.

We pray that you would help us love one another.

Help us love one another, get through these storms with grace and truth, and your promises that you will never forsake your children.

We thank you for all these things in Christ's name.

Amen.