Cornerstone Mission Church, Sunday Morning Sermon (4.12.2009)
Easter is about our God displaying his mighty power over death and sin through raising his Son Jesus Christ from death. It is about God flexing his muscle over Satan. It is about God’s kingdom of his Son breaking into the kingdom of darkness with unstoppable force. It is about God securing his people on the solid ground of salvation in times of insecurity. As such, if you want security from your unpredictable, uncertain future, if you want security from your fear of premature harms or death, if you want security from your anxiety caused by having to make big life decisions, if you want security from your fear of failing yourself, failing others, or failing God, if you want security from your past failures and sins, if you want security at all for whatever reasons, God made a huge statement on Easter Sunday in the history that it is he who can secure us in his Son Jesus.
Today, I would like to take you back to three millenniums before our time or one millennium before the time of Jesus. I would like to take you back to the time of David, the king of Israel. David lived in insecure time; he was a man familiar with trials and difficulties. He faced life threatening circumstances because of the fractured human relationships; he was pursued by Saul who was rejected by God as a king; Saul was relentless in his attempt to kill David. David was also betrayed by his own son who tried to overthrow his kingdom. He lived in insecure time that should have paralyzed him with fear, anger, bitterness, hatred, inferiority complex, misery or depression. Instead what we see is David turning to God and praying earnestly for God’s security in his hopeless and insecure time.
1. David faced two dangers in Psalm 16
In verse Psalm 16:1, we see David asking God to keep him safe. We don’t know the exact circumstance David was in. But whatever it was, it involved a life threatening insecurity. Besides this danger of death, he also had to deal with the danger of compromising and loosing his faith. According to verse 4, around David were people who ran after the idols, offered to them, and pledged their trust in them. David had to fight against this temptation to forsake the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
2. Secured by relationship with God.
For David to ask God to keep him safe and to take refuge in God presupposes David’s relationship with God. It is relationship built on trust. In Psalm 17:8, David expressed his trust in God this way, “Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings.”
David understood that ultimately it was God’s responsibility or his prerogative to look after his people as their King, their rightful ruler. David called out to God for help because God was not some distant deity, but one who came into his life to rule him; David knew that he belonged to God his King. And, this belonging to God is possible because according to 1 John 4:19, “he [God] first loved us.”
God first broke into our dark world while we were ignorant, while we were sinful, while we were his enemies, to bring us into the kingdom of his Son, to secure us on the Rock, the Cornerstone, to secure us in his Son. We can hope and ask God to secure us because he has pursued us to rule over us justly, lovingly, and competently.
Consider the depth of David’s relationship with God in Psalm 16:2. David told God, “Apart from you I have no good thing.” Or put it positively, “All the good things, all that I consider good in life come from you.” James 1:17 echoes this attitude, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” David was saying to God, “God to have you is good enough.” He also told God in Psalm 16:5, “Lord, you have assigned me my portion, and my cup, you have made my lot secure” as translated in NIV. David was recounting the way God had supplied to meet his needs. ESV translation of verse 5, “The LORD is my chosen portion and my cup” captures the understanding of how God supplied to meet David’s need, but more than that, that God gave himself to David. It echoes what God told Aaron in Numbers 18:20, “You will have no inheritance in their land, nor will you have any share among them, I am your share and your inheritance among the Israelites.” God who gives abundantly to meet all our needs gives himself to us. So, here is the question, “Is God enough?” Chris Tomlin’s song we sang today, “Enough” captures this truth very well.
You are my supply, my breath of life
and still more awesome than I know.
You are my reward worth living for
and still more awesome than I know.
All of you is more than enough for all of me.
For every thirst and every need you satisfy me
with your love and all I have in You is more than enough.
3. Secured by relationship with God’s people (Psalm 16:3).
Another observation that I see from Psalm 16:3 about seeking God’s security in life is the importance of having strong and intimate relationship with God’s people. David called God’s people as the saints who are in the land and that they are the glorious ones in whom is all his delight. Do you consider me as your delight? Do I consider you my delight? Without this Christ giving connection of delighting in each other, any sense of security will seem hollow and shallow. If we want real security that comes from God, we got to learn to delight in each other.
4. Secured by the Lord’s truth.
Christian security in Christ is built on God’s truth. Psalm 16:4, we see David rejecting the temptation to compromise the faith in God by refusing to even mention the names of the idols that his contemporaries worshiped. This rejection of idolatry stems from David’s firm belief that God alone is enough.
Along with this rejection of false worship and his satisfaction in God alone, we see him being directed by God’s truth in Psalm 16:7-8. You cannot imagine being secured in God without delighting in God and his truth. David praised God because of God’s counsel and God’s instruction to his heart. Day and night, David experienced God’s abiding truth guiding him and guarding him with power. God was at David’s right hand; God was his strength. No wonder David said, “I have set the LORD always before me.” His single-hearted commitment to the Lord grew out of his experience of God and his truth. The result was the sound security in the insecure time. Or, as David expressed “I will not be shaken” (Psalm 16:8) in times of difficulties and trials.
5. Secured by the hope of resurrection.
In the original context of this Psalm, David wasn’t necessarily thinking about resurrection. What he had in his mind was deliverance from the fear of death. He was asking God to literally protect him from dying prematurely. What’s captured in verse 10 in the context of David’s life is his trust in God not to abandon him to the grave, to death, to decay in the grave. And, this hope of deliverance from the fear of death allowed his heart to be filled with gladness. Words of fear, uncertainty, doubts were replaced with words of rejoice. His body that was tense, tired, and shaking now experienced rest in security.
Peter quoted this psalm when he preached for the first time ever for any Christian in Acts 2:25-28. Peter argued that David although spoke about his life situation, but by God’s wisdom, what he spoke about himself became a prophetic description about Jesus Christ a millennium later. For David it was a matter of deliverance from death, but for Jesus it was a matter of resurrection from the dead. Peter again quotes from Psalm 16:10 in Acts 13:35 to reiterate the hope of resurrection, not just merely prevention or delay of inevitable death.
Between the hope of deliverance from death and the hope of resurrection from death, which is stronger hope? David was secured by the hope of deliverance from death. What we have is being secured by the hope of resurrection from death.
Conclusion
What makes your life insecure these days? What do you do to make your life secure in insecure time? Psalm 16 teaches us that God who is “good” (v. 2) shows you the path of life, fills you with joy, and gives you pleasures when you dwell in the hope of the Lord’s resurrection. May God help you find security in the resurrection of Jesus Christ!
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