”Joy and Rest in God Alone” // Psalm 16 // Lakeview Bible Church

name. Amen.

>> Amen. Thank you, Tom. Uh, man, I am so

glad to be here with you guys.

Apparently, I have a lot of stuff today.

So, let me get settled and get set up.

Um, we are in Psalm chapter 16 today.

Psalms 16 · chapter mention

So, if you have your Bibles, um, you

want to go ahead and turn there with me.

We're going to read from it together in

just a moment. And while you're turning

there, um, just a reminder that we have

been in our series called summer psalms.

So, four weeks, a different psalm each

week. And our overarching theme has been

finding rest in God in the Psalms. How

to find rest in God. So, the psalms that

we've chosen all have that as a theme.

So, I want to start by reading it

together.

Psalm 16, starting in verse one. This is

a psalm of David. He says, "Preserve me,

oh 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. But 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. The Lord

is my chosen portion and 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. And then I'm

going to put this up on the screen. Will

you read it with me?

I have set the Lord always before me.

Because he is at my right hand, I will

not be shaken. Therefore, my heart is

glad and my whole being rejoices. My

flesh also dwells secure. For you will

not abandon my soul to shield 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 forever

more.

This is God's word.

Uh question to start us off today. You

get enough sleep.

That's what I thought. Uh each week

we're talking about resting in God. So I

think it's a good question to consider.

Rest is more than sleep, but sleep is a

big part of rest for sure. Uh so do you

get enough?

Oh, I got some yeses. Okay, most of you

laughed, so uh I would venture to guess

that most of you would say no. Uh in

fact, in 2004,

Disney made an ad for its cruise lines

capitalizing on just how tired working

Americans are.

>> Well, time for a

>> Let's go.

>> Oceaners Club.

>> We'll be at the beach.

>> Are you going to be okay by yourself?

>> Oh, yeah. I got a whole list of things I

want to do.

With a Disney Cruise, they can do the

things they want to do, and you

can do the things you want to do. Disney

Cruise Line, come discover uncharted

magic.

Disney thinks that you are so tired that

you would be willing to pay thousands of

dollars

to take your whole family out on a boat

in the middle of the ocean just so that

you can get away from your life and rest

and sleep. Uh that was in 2004. I don't

think it's gotten better in the last 22

years. Last year uh the let me get this

name right. The National Sleep

Foundation took a poll of American

adults and they asked about how well you

sleep and after you answer all the

questions, you get a sleep grade.

58% of Americans got a C or lower.

Six out of 10 get less than the

recommended eight hours of sleep on an

average night. Four out of 10 report

significant trouble falling asleep at

least three nights a week. and five out

of 10 have trouble staying asleep at

least three nights a week. And then

after the poll was completed, they asked

a follow-up question.

Why you think that is? Why can't you get

the sleep that you need? And there were

some, you know, health related things,

age, you know, you struggle to sleep as

you get older. But there were two

answers that rose to the top. The second

most common answer was, I'm too busy. I

never I feel like I can never get ahead.

if I'm gonna get the promotion that I

want, if I'm gonna have the life that I

want, I feel like I got to go to bed

late. I got to get up early and I got to

run run so that I can win at life. So,

too busy.

By far though, the most common answer is

worry.

I worry. I lay in bed and I worry. I

worry about money.

What if I don't have enough to live the

kind of lifestyle that I think I should

have? Or I worry about my job? Like,

what if I lose it and I can't provide

for my family? Or I never get the

promotion that I think I should have?

What if my health declines?

What if I can't live the length of years

that I'm expecting or my quality of life

goes down because my health is an issue?

People say they worry about their loved

ones. What if something happens to

someone in my family? I would just I

would be crushed. What's going to

happen? And then they worry about all

the things that are happening in the

world. There's famines and plagues and

war. And there's there's just there's a

lot, isn't there?

And the study says that we can't sleep

because we feel insecure and we feel

dissatisfied.

Psalm 16 shows us how that we can find

rest in God. He's our security. He's our

source of contentment. And we're going

to look at it in three sections. So, if

you're the type of person that likes to

know where we're going, here's where

we're going. The pursuit of false gods

leads to emptiness and sorrow. That's

section one. The provision and

protection of God leads to rest. And

then the presence of God leads to

fullness of joy. So three sections and

let's go ahead and jump in. So 1 through

4. The pursuit of false gods leads to

emptiness and sorrow. Let's read them

again.

Preserve me, oh 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. But the sorrows of those who

run after another god shall multiply.

Their drink offerings of blood I will

not pour out or take their name on my

lips.

As we jump into this psalm today, Tom

said a little bit of this last week, but

when we read the Psalms, we're reminded

that we're reading poetry.

This is creative, emotive writing and

language. And it's not always as linear

as some of the narrative writing is in

the Old Testament and the New Testament.

And it's not always as direct as some of

the letters that we get from Paul and

the apostles. It's poetry. It's

expressing love and joy and affection,

sorrow, and doubt and anger and

frustration and a whole host of other

emotions. A lot of these are songs that

are written to be sung in worship

privately or in a congregation.

A lot of them are prayers that are

crying out to God in the middle of the

night

full of emotion. And they use literary

devices, too, like repetition and

hyperbole and metaphor. And so as we

work through the Psalms together, we

remind ourselves what it is that we're

reading. But then we also remind

ourselves that even though this is

poetry, it's poetic language, it's still

the word of God. In the same way that

Genesis and Matthew, Mark, Luke, John,

Revelation, all of Paul's letters, just

the same when it comes to the authority

that it carries. This is God's word for

us. And so in this psalm, David uses a

lot of those things that we mentioned.

And he starts with bookending the psalm

with two really significant thoughts. So

at the very beginning, he says, uh, God,

I have nothing good apart from you.

That's his opening thought. He uses a

negative statement to make his point.

Nothing good apart from you. And then at

the very end, he says, there is fullness

of joy in your presence. So he opens up

with without God nothing and he

concludes with God everything and that's

where he wants us to go with him. I have

nothing without you but with you there's

nothing that I lack at all. And all of

the verses in between that we're going

to look at this morning is him working

out the implications of that truth.

He's figuring out if this is true, if I

have nothing good apart from God, but I

have everything I need in him, what does

that mean for my life? He's working out

the implications of what he knows to be

true. And so in verse one, we jump in

and David is in some kind of trouble. He

says, "Preserve me, oh God, for in you I

take refuge." And we don't know what his

trouble is, but if you're familiar with

the Psalms, you are familiar with this

reality that David is in trouble a lot.

Okay. I went and saw the Odyssey last

week. Um, and it was great. You can form

your own opinions, but I liked it. It

was good. And Matt Damon plays Odysius

in the movie, and he's one of my

favorite actors, and he's in some of my

favorite movies. But before I went to

see it, I went and read some reviews

online, which I don't recommend,

but I found a meme that made me laugh

out loud. It said, "Hollywood has spent

nearly 600 million trying to bring Matt

Damon home."

That's funny.

Apparently, there is a theme in popular

Matt Damon movies, and there's a theme

in the Psalms with David. David gets in

trouble. David cries out to God. David

gets in trouble. He cries out to God.

There's a theme.

He says, "Preserve me. You are my

refuge. I'm in trouble and you are my

help." And then in his next verse, he

says, "I say to the Lord, you are my

Lord and I have no good apart from you."

He's declaring that he belongs to God

and to no one else. He doesn't have

anywhere else to go.

And then in the next couple of verses in

three and four,

we're going to see that the first step

in finding true rest is knowing who you

belong to. Because David's going to make

a contrast in verses three and four. In

verse three, he says, "The saints in the

land, they're the excellent ones in whom

is all my delight."

That's just a really simple way of David

saying, "Look, the people who are

following after God, it makes a

difference in their lives. You can

tell." And for David, who's the king of

the nation, he's saying, "The people who

follow after God bring delight to me as

the king. There's a noticeable

difference in their lives because

they're following after God." But then

he goes to verse four and he says, "But

it's not so with those who run after

another god or other gods." He says in

verse four, "The sorrows of those who

run after another god shall multiply.

Their drink offerings of blood I will

not pour out or take their name on my

lips."

David says, "If you run after other

gods,

you are going to multiply your sorrow.

Not just add to it, multiply it." That's

a significant statement that it feels

like we should pay attention to, right?

So, let's slow down for just a second

and let's ask an important question. Who

are these other gods that he's talking

about? If you're looking at your text,

notice that it's gods with a little G,

lowercase G. Anytime the Bible refers to

God the Father, right, the one true God

of Israel, it's big G, capital G, God.

Everything else is little G, God gods.

And that's what he says. If you run

after these little G gods, you're going

to multiply your sorrow. So, who's he

talking about?

Well, in the ancient near east when this

was written, they would have believed in

a pantheon of gods. Just go see the

Odyssey for an example, okay? But there

were gods for everything. There were

agriculture gods, fertility gods, um

weather gods, if you like you name it

and there was a god for it. And if you

wanted to get those gods attention, they

had some demands. And those demands were

all over the place. And it ranged from

simple prayers and offerings all the way

up to sacrificing your own children to

gain their favor. And this is happening

in the nation of Israel and it's

certainly happening all the time in the

cultures around them. They're running

after these other gods. And David says

it leads to sorrow.

And now in 2026, you're listening to me

talk about this and you think, "Okay,

but like what does that have to do with

me?" We don't do that anymore. Well, we

do some in some places, right? Um but

for most of us, I would venture to say

you may have never prayed to some other

god about, you know, I really need this

thing and so there's this God that

represents this thing. you know, we

think we're just more educated than that

now. We are enlightened beyond those

ideas. We don't do that. So, what does

this have to do with me? Well, I'm so

glad that you asked

because here's what the Bible teaches,

and this is so interesting. The Bible

teaches that those little G gods that

David is referring to, that they

actually don't even exist.

So, hold on. David just says, "Don't run

after them." So, if you're saying he

they don't exist, what what does he

mean? The Bible acknowledges that people

believe in other gods, little G gods. It

acknowledges that they follow them, they

worship them, they rely on them, they do

things in their name, hoping to get

things from them.

But he says they don't exist. They're

not real.

And a really good example of this is in

1 Corinthians chapter 8. Paul is talking

1 Corinthians 8 · chapter mention

to believers in the city of Corinth. And

Corinth was a city full of little G

gods. There were temples and rituals and

sacrifices happening all the time. And

so what's happened is when they would

sacrifice animals in these temples, a

lot of times just to be practical, they

would take the animals after they

sacrificed them to these foreign gods

and they would take the animals to the

market and they would sell it. Aren't

you glad that doesn't happen at HB?

And so the local Christians apparently

have asked Paul like, "Hey Paul, like

what do we do? We're afraid that we're

going to go to the market and

unknowingly buy a piece of meat that has

been sacrificed to one of these little G

gods. And we want to know like are we in

trouble here? Like is God angry at us

because we might have accidentally done

this? Or does God forbid that this now

pagan deity does he now have some power

over me because I did this thing

accidentally? And here's what Paul says.

This is very kind of Paul to respond to

them in this way. This is 1 Corinthians

chapter 8:4. He says, "Therefore, as to

the eating of food offered to idols,

actually have this, let me put it up for

you.

We know that an idol has no real

existence."

That would have been shocking to a lot

of them because they lived in a world so

full of these other gods.

He says, ' And that there is no God but

one. For although there may be so-called

gods in heaven or on earth, yet for us

there is one God.

Paul says they don't even exist.

This is important for us because verse

four, it's not just about worshiping

false gods or naming a god. This one's

in control of this, this one's in

control of this, and I'm going to

worship those. Because it would be easy

for us to say, well, look, I don't do

that. So, check. I'm good there. Not

going to multiply my sorrow that way.

This is important for us, but because

when Paul says they don't exist, like

he's still referring to something. And

what he's saying is anything that

becomes an idol in your life

begins to function like a little G, God,

in your life. An idol in scripture is

anything that we come to rely on for

some blessing or help or guidance in the

place of a wholehearted reliance

on the one true and living God. Anything

that we love and value more than God

himself. We have little G gods and ours

are really dangerous because a lot of

times we don't even know what they are.

We don't even recognize it for what it

is. So, we don't pray to the promotion

God,

but we will pour out our time and energy

and our life to make him happy, won't

we? We don't pray to our money, but we

trust it. We rely on it. We put our

confidence in it. We don't call other

people in our lives gods, but we treat

them that way sometimes, don't we?

The reason that our little G gods are so

dangerous is because they're in

disguise.

And some of them can be good things,

right? Your money, your job, your

family, all good things from the hand of

God that can be used for his glory, for

your good, they're good things. But when

a good thing becomes an ultimate thing,

turns into an idol, a little G, God, in

your life and in my life. David says, "I

won't do it. Please, you don't do it

either because you'll multiply your

sorrow if you do."

Second, he says, "If you run after these

other gods, you're going to find sorrow,

but the provision and protection of the

one true God leads to rest." Verse

five, he says, "The Lord is my chosen

portion in my cup. You hold my lot. The

lions have fallen for me in pleasant

places. Indeed, I have a beautiful

inheritance." And he goes on, we're

going to read more of that later, but he

ends by saying, "Because of who God is,

my flesh dwells secure. I can rest

because of who God is." It is a

beautiful passage of scripture. He says,

"I won't be shaken. My whole being

rejoices. Every part of me rejoices in

God."

He says, "I feel secure."

We started by talking about reasons that

we can't sleep.

Worry was at the top of the list. And

the reality of why we worry is because

we don't feel safe. We don't feel

secure. Can you sleep when you don't

feel secure? How many of you get up, you

know, because you're like, you're in bed

and you're like, I don't think I lock

the door.

And what do you do? Most of us get up,

lock the door, right? Some of us are

brave, but not me. I get up and lock the

door. Uh, you can't sleep because you

feel insecure. You feel unsafe. And, uh,

speaking of feeling insecure and not

being able to sleep, it made me think

about this.

My family camps for vacation. Any

campers in the room? Oh, very few.

The few, the proud, the campers. And

look, I don't mean spending a week in an

RV that's nicer than my house, okay? I

mean like real camping, tent camping.

So, my family does this for vacation,

and I love camping now, but I didn't

always because it's a lot of work. Uh

there's just it's It's a lot of prep.

And if you're tent camping in Texas,

you're usually one of two things. You're

too hot or you're too cold. And there's

no in between. You just accept that. And

you can love camping, too. Okay.

Uh I love it now. But the thing that I

struggled with the first few trips that

we went on is I could never sleep. Why?

Because I never felt secure. Why?

Because there are a lot of dangerous

things outside. and you are sleeping in

a plastic bag.

This is a picture of a trip that we took

to the Chisos Basin in Big Bend. No

electricity, so at night it is pitch

black and it is beautiful.

But when your head hits that inflatable

pillow,

a reality sets in.

The reality is that between the bears

and the mountain lions and the snakes

and the Texas weather, the creepy guy

two sightes down

between all that and me is just a thin

layer of nylon, right? And I couldn't

sleep. I didn't my my flesh did not

dwell secure. Okay? like like David says

in verse 9,

I just I never felt safe and so I

couldn't sleep. I'd lie awake and I you

know when I got to that trip I thought

this is it. This is how I'm going to die

like out here.

David says, "If you put your confidence,

if you run after anything other than

God, any idols in your life to find your

security, this is how you're going to

feel. You're going to feel like you're

camping in a tent in the Chisos Basin at

Big Bend. You're just going to feel

insecure."

David says, "I have found a source of

security and it's God and it's the only

place I find it. Apart from him, I have

nothing else." He says, "The Lord is my

chosen portion and my cup." This is

verse five. He says, "You hold my lot."

I told you he uses repetition. So in

verse two, he says, "God, I don't have

anything apart from you. You're the only

good thing in my life." And he says it

again in verse 5, I choose you. You're

all that I have. And what does he mean

when he says, "You hold my lot." You've

heard that phrase, my lot in life. So

sometimes we say things, but we don't

really know where it came from. Uh it's

not something that we're super familiar

with. And so for the sake of time this

morning, this is an oversimplification.

So you can go do some of your own study,

but think of it like dice. Okay? In the

in the ancient world, wealth and land

passed down from parents to children,

and the oldest son would get the most,

and then they would divide the rest of

it up between the rest. And they cast

lots to divide it. So, think of it like,

okay guys, there's three plots of land

left. We got three kids. We got some

dice. This land is up first. Whoever

gets the highest number gets this one.

Whoever gets the next highest number,

this one, the next highest number, this

one. or it's like you draw the short

straw, you know, if you get the short

one, then you have to do the dishes.

That's the idea that uh we're not in

control of our circumstances all the

time. It's like this idea that we're

just we're rolling dice to see what we

get because we don't feel like we're in

control. David says that I believe that

you hold my lot. You're in control of

what happens in my life. It might seem

random, but it never is. You're in

control of everything. He says, "You're

my portion. You control my future.

And because I know that, I can begin to

rest." He says in verse six, "The lions

have fallen for me in pleasant places.

Indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance."

This is more language about the land

that you might have gotten from your

parents. The lines are boundary lines.

And he said, "Look, when when my lot got

cast, what I got was beautiful." He's

content with what God has given him. And

he knows that God is the source of it.

And so, you might think about David

writing these things and him saying, "My

inheritance is beautiful." And you might

think, well, of course he's happy with

his inheritance. Of course, he thinks

his is good. He's the king, right? He's

wealthy, lives in the palace. Like, if I

ate the best food and had all of these

resources and had whatever I wanted, I'd

be content, too. If I had servants and

guards and people around me all the

time, I could feel safe and secure.

But you think, "That's not my life,

though.

You think, "I've I've suffered.

I've been overlooked.

I've struggled. I've been confused." And

you have.

Everybody who lives does, including

David. He's no exception.

I think he's talking about more than

just his physical stuff. all his wealth,

all his power. I think he's talking

about more because if you know much

about David's story, man, he suffered,

didn't he?

David was the youngest son overlooked by

his father when Samuel came to anoint

the next king of Israel. He lined up all

his sons and he didn't even bother to

call David in from the field. He knows

what it means to be overlooked.

After he was anointed king, he waited

years for it to happen. And while he was

waiting, the current king Saul became so

jealous and paranoid that David had to

go on the run. He spent years hiding and

living in caves because Saul wanted to

kill him. When he became king, his life

wasn't all of a sudden miraculously

perfect and easy. He sinned. He

struggled. He had a very public affair.

And then he murdered someone trying to

cover it up. And he had to deal with the

fallout of all of that. Constantly

threatened by enemies from within his

kingdom and without.

He lost four children.

You realize that about David. Four of

his children died before he did. And he

suffered.

and he still says, "You are my portion

and my inheritance is beautiful."

I think it's about more than just what

he has on earth.

Let's keep going.

Verses 7-9,

he says, "I bless the Lord who gives me

counsel." David is saying God leads me

and guides me in the night also my heart

instructs me. We talk about how people

wake up in the middle of the night and

they can't stay asleep. He's saying God

comforts me when my worried mind won't

let me sleep. When I can't turn it off,

he comforts me. He counsels me. He tells

me that it's okay. He says, "I've set

the Lord always before me." David says,

'I keep my eyes fixed on him and because

he's at my right hand, I will not be

shaken. He says, I can rest because God

never leaves me ever.

He's beside me always.

And because of all of these things,

my whole being rejoices.

My flesh dwells secure.

And I want that. Don't you? You want to

rest secure. You want to rejoice with

every fiber of your being. David says,

"I can do that because of God." Because

do you notice anything about these

verses?

There is no mention of any of David's

stuff. Not his wealth, not his power,

nothing.

Who does he talk about?

He does not find his rest and his joy,

his rejoicing in the stuff that God has

given him. He finds it in the person of

God because God is always with me. I can

rest.

There's still more. Last section,

the presence of God leads to fullness of

joy.

David's found life and rest because he's

secure in God. But then in these final

two verses, he points to something even

greater. I told you he's working out the

implications, right? If it's true that I

have nothing apart from God, but in him

I have everything. If that's true, what

does it mean for my life? And this is

like him. It's like he's discovering it

as he's writing and as he's worshiping.

He says in verse 9, "My heart is glad,

my whole being rejoices, my flesh dwells

secure." But then here's the conclusion

that he comes to,

"For you will not abandon my soul to

shield

or let your holy one see corruption.

You make known to me the path of life,

and in your presence there is fullness

of joy. At your right hand are pleasures

forever more." or David says, "You're

not going to abandon my soul to Shil."

Shol is what they call the place of the

dead. It's actually difficult for us to

know what the Israelites at this time

believed about the afterlife. People

disagree, but there's just not a lot of

information. What we do know is that

it's not a very well-developed belief

system. Okay, sh for them. They called

it the place of the dead. And it was

certainly not anything like heaven that

we know from the New Testament, but it

wasn't hell either. It was just in their

mind. It was the place that you went

when you died. They didn't think you

just cease to exist. They just everybody

goes to this place. It's the place of

the dead. They didn't really look

forward to it. It was just a reality of

life. They call it different things in

scripture. They call it the pit or the

depths or uh the place of the dead. And

so David says,

"Look, the the longer I live with you,

Lord, the more I know you."

He's I don't I don't think you're going

to leave me there. This is an

interesting verse. Again, it's like

David's working it out, but with what he

knows about who God is because

resurrection was not on their radar like

it is for us now. That comes later.

That's a that's mostly a New Testament

teaching. There's glimpses of it in the

Old Testament, but it comes later. And

we have this really defined theology of

life after death and resurrection. They

didn't. But David says, "Look, you love

me. I I don't think this is all there

is. And then the next thing he says

is so so interesting.

He says, "You're not going to abandon my

soul." Okay, but then he says, "But

you're not going to let your holy one

see corruption." Now, this is strange

because David never gives any sort of

indication in all of his writings that

he thinks he's not going to die. And in

fact, he does die. He's buried in a

place like you can go there now. And

look, David David dies. And so when he

says you won't let your holy one see

corruption, what is he talking about?

Well, they they put dead people in tombs

or they buried them like we do. And what

happens when you die and get buried?

You just you start to decay.

Your body sees corruption.

And David thought that that was coming

for him just like everybody else. So,

who's he talking about? He's starting to

talk about someone else right here. And

this is

mindblowing when you see what God is

doing in his word. Psalm 16 is referred

to as a messianic psalm.

There's others. Scholars think 15 or 20.

They disagree, but um at least 15,

they're like, "Look, this psalm, even

though the writer might not have known

it, is prophetically speaking about

Jesus."

He's saying, David here is writing about

Jesus, even though he didn't know his

name. He's writing about this future

Messiah that God has promised. And David

says, "You are not going to abandon him.

to the place of the dead. You're not

going to let his body see corruption.

And we get some insight into this

because this psalm shows up two times in

the book of Acts. Acts chapter 2 and

Acts 2 · chapter mention

Acts chapter 13. So on the day of

Acts 13 · chapter mention

Pentecost in Acts chapter 2, when Peter

Acts 2 · chapter mention

is preaching the first Christian sermon,

right, he he does what I'm doing now

except 3,000 people get saved. They put

their faith in Jesus and it's the

beginning of the church in the New

Testament. And when he's preaching to

this crowd on the day of Pentecost, this

is the passage that he uses. All of the

Old Testament is at his disposal. And

this is where he goes and he quotes and

he says, look, he's he's sharing the

gospel of Jesus. Jesus has just died

recently. It's still new. It's fresh.

and he's saying, "Look, Jesus came, he

lived, he was crucified, and he has been

raised from the dead." And then he

quotes Psalm 16. But before he does, he

really explicitly says, "This is what

David said about Jesus." Verse 25, look

it up when you get home. David said

about him, and then he quotes this

passage, Psalm 16.

And then in 29

he says, "My fellow Israelites," this is

Peter talking to the crowd. I can tell

you confidently that David died and was

buried and his tomb is here to this day.

Like you can go over there now and look

in it and his bones are there because he

died and his body saw corruption.

But he says David was a prophet and

seeing what was to come, he spoke of the

resurrection of the Messiah.

That Jesus was not abandoned to the

realm of the dead, nor did his body see

decay. God has raised this Jesus to

life, and we are all witnesses of it.

He says, "We've seen it."

Those

of us who are preaching to you now,

those apostles in the early church, they

said, "We walked with him. We watched

him die."

And then we saw him when he came back to

life.

Jesus has not been abandoned

to the place of the dead. God raised him

up to newness of life. We get a little

more from Paul in Acts 13. He's

preaching to a crowd. He quotes this

same passage. You won't let your holy

one see corruption. And this is what he

says.

Let it be known to you, therefore,

brothers, that though this man, he's

talking about Jesus, that through this

man, 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.

What do they need to be freed from?

What's he talking about? In Romans,

there's a really short little verse

that's so important. It says, "For the

wages of sin is death, but the gift of

God is

eternal life." Hang on to that for just

a second. The wages of sin is death.

What's the source of all of our worry?

If you run everything that you worry

about out to its logical conclusion,

it's death, isn't it? Every single

thing. I'm not going to have enough of

this thing and I'm going to die.

I'm going to lose my health and I'm

going to die. Something's going to

happen to the people that I love and

they're going to die. And it's true.

Everybody does. It's a universal

reality.

David says you can be free from that

fear.

Peter says you can be free. Paul says

you can be free because Jesus has been

raised to life.

The cross and the resurrection of Jesus

is the turning point of history. The

most significant thing that has ever

happened until Jesus comes back again in

the future.

Because Jesus died and because he has

been raised,

everything is different now.

There's hope.

There's peace. There's freedom from the

wages of sin, which is death. Because

Jesus took your wages,

my wages. The things that I earned by my

sin and the death that I owe. He took it

and he died my death in my place.

But that wasn't the end. God raised him

to life. He didn't abandon him. And so

David says, "You won't abandon me

either." That's the hope that we have in

Jesus.

The last verse

says, "You make known to me the path of

life,

and in your presence there's fullness of

joy. At your right hand are pleasures

forever more." The path of life that God

has made known is Jesus.

What's he say? I'm the way, the truth,

and the life. No one comes to the father

except through me.

Freedom from sin and death is only found

in Jesus. Safety, security only in

Jesus. Peace that lasts only from Jesus.

Rest

only from him.

The only way that it's real is when it's

him. And he says, "Now because of that,

because I can be made right with you,

because you have been raised and I can

be raised with you in your presence,

when I'm when I'm with you,

there's fullness of joy." And look at

this last part. At your right hand are

pleasures how long?

Forever more. The wages of sin is death,

but the gift of God is

pleasures forever more.

at the right hand of God because of what

Jesus has done.

As we end this morning, I want to invite

you

to trust Jesus. I want to invite you to

believe what Paul and Peter and David

are saying, which is the cross is for

you.

The resurrection, the empty tomb, the

power of God at work in Jesus is for

you, is available to you

because God did not abandon Jesus. He

will never abandon you.

And you can be free from fear,

from consequences of sin and death. You

can be free in Jesus. So, in just a

moment, I'm going to pray. Our prayer

team is going to be down front. If you

have never put your faith in Jesus, if

you need to ask questions, know more

about what that means, we would love to

share the gospel with you to share

explicitly what it means that Jesus gave

his life for your sin, that he was

raised to new life and how you can

believe and follow him and find life in

him. And if you're here this morning and

you're already a follower of Jesus, I

want to encourage you to run to him. Not

after other things that multiply your

sorrow, but run to the one who

has fullness of joy and pleasures

forever more at his right hand because

he's available to you and he loves you.

Father,

thank you for your word. Thank you for

Jesus.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you that we

can have life and rest because you did

not abandon Jesus to the grave and you

won't abandon us either. We love you.

Pray all this in his name. Amen. Amen.

Come and pray. I would love to meet you

in the lobby if I haven't already.

You're dismissed. Thank you.