Trusting God in Difficult Times.

Yes, there’s a sense in which we are living in difficult times. As we look at the world news, we are left in no doubt that we are living in what is often called the last days, often called difficult times, and here we are living in the midst of that.

So much of what we see in the world around us and what we read in scripture seems to fit together and help us to realise that yes, the last days are upon us, and maybe that’s a subject we need to pick up another day, but it’s not what’s contained in Psalm 16 this morning. We’ve already had two psalms in our series. I think it was two weeks ago Ross was leading us in Psalm 1. The Way of the Christian and The Way of the Wicked.

Iunisi encouraged us in the way only she can last Sunday and took us to Psalm 11. Trust was an important word. Gods got you.

Today we’re going to look at Psalm 16.

David’s cry to God was simply this, keep me safe, oh God. Anybody ever prayed that prayer? I certainly have at times.

Keep me safe, oh God. Maybe this week’s been a bit like that for some of you and you’ve cried this prayer, oh God, keep me safe. In whatever the circumstance may be, keep me safe.

The Psalms are an amazing collection and it’s too easy for us to think that the book of Psalms belongs in the Old Testament and I’m a New Testament Christian. I know it’s too easy to think like that at times but before I’m out this morning, I’m going to read to you some quotations from the book of Acts where this Psalm 19 is quoted by Peter and by Paul in the book of Acts. It’s amazing to see how the Old Testament book of Psalms and how the New Testament, even just the book of Acts, are just so meshed together.

Keep me safe, oh God. This Psalm is a celebration of the joy of fellowship with God that David realized comes from true faith in God alone. That’s where this fellowship with God comes from.

The Psalm may have been written when he faced danger in the wilderness, or it may have been when he was facing opposition in his reign. We don’t know the occasion. We’re not told the specific occasion that he was convinced that because he had come to know and to trust God as the anchor in his life, he could also therefore trust him in face of death.

Whatever the occasion, David was convinced that because he had come to know God, he could trust God as the anchor for his life and he could also therefore trust him in the face of death. The Psalm had a little title. It’s called a miktam of David.

This comes in other Psalms as well, a collection of them. Psalm 56, 57, 58, 59, 60. Those Psalms all have this same term.

Despite much discussion and study and many conjectures, the meaning of this term is really still quite obscure. We’re going to look at 11 verses today. I’m doing something I normally do at the very end, give you a one-word answer.

You know I like to conclude a Sunday morning with one word that we can take away. So, there’s one word for us for today. Confidence.

I wonder where is your confidence? The only prayer in Psalm 16 comes in the very first verse. We must remember that not all of the Psalms is David talking to God. Sometimes David is talking about God and what God is like.

Sometimes he is talking to God and sometimes he’s talking about God and sometimes David is talking about his own dedication to God and encourage those who are going to read that they too should be dedicated to God. After the prayer in verse one, David calls out to God for safety and the rest of the Psalm consists of David weaving together his own personal testimonies of commitment to God and of confidence in God. There’s a word confidence coming in.

We see David’s trust in God is in one who is totally trustworthy, totally trustworthy. That’s our God. This is if you like the overall theme or the overall message of David’s heart in Psalm 16, that God was totally trustworthy.

David had no question; he had no hesitation about his trust in God. God is totally trustworthy. David was totally committed to God.

We see that very clearly in the first half of the Psalm. In the second half of the Psalm, we see that David was fully confident of God.

Commitment to God and confidence in God, they go together. You can tell me later which one you think comes first. Is it commitment to God? That’s what comes first in our Psalm today. Or is it confidence in God? That’s the second half of the Psalm. Or maybe it’s the other way around. The more confident I am, the more I’m committed to Him.

The more I’m committed to Him, the more confident I am. It’s confidence. It’s commitment. It’s commitment. It’s confidence.

Psalm 16, God is trustworthy. We’re going to hold that with us as we come through. We’ve got David’s introductory prayers in verse 1, and then from verses 2 through to 6, we’ve got David’s testimony of his commitment to God.

In the second part of the Psalm, from 7 to 11, we’ve got David’s testimony of his confidence in God. We can ask ourselves, where is our confidence? Where is our commitment to God?  David prays, “keep me safe, O God, for I have come to you for refuge.”

This was like a cry from David.

Verse 2. I said to the Lord, you are my master. Every good thing I have comes from you. The godly people in the land are my heroes.

I take great pleasure in them. Troubles multiply to those who chase after other gods. I will not take part in their sacrifices of blood or even speak the names of their gods.

Notice the small g for the word god in both those cases. Lord, you alone are my inheritance, my cup of blessing. You guard all that is mine.

The land you have given me is a pleasant land. What a wonderful inheritance. Wow, look at David’s heart, commitment to God.

I will bless the Lord who guides me. Even at night, my heart instructs me. I know the Lord is always with me.

I will not be shaken, for he is right beside me. No wonder my heart is glad, and I rejoice and my body rests in safety. What was his cry in verse 1? Keep me safe, God.

Look here there in verse 9, my body rests in safety. For you will not leave my soul among the dead or allow the Holy One to rot in the grave. You will show me the way of life, granting me the joy of your presence and the pleasures of living with you forever.”

Wow. A couple of quick comments on the introductory prayer. Sometimes I push it, it works and sometimes it goes fast. It’s pretty good, eh? The introductory prayer, one or two comments. This prayer is like a summary of the whole psalm.

It’s David’s cry to God to keep him safe. And maybe this is how you’ve felt sometimes. Maybe this is how we cry out to God.

And I know there are times when I have sat in my car not knowing what to do now and cried out to God with tears running down my face. I can remember sitting on the foreshore in Napier when I was an industrial chaplain in Napier and Hastings in those days and with tears running down my face crying, Lord, what do I do? Keep me safe. And I was moving in and out of industry and the challenges that that brought to me at the time.

If you could ask God for one thing today, what would it be? Tell him. Tell him.

Some translations use the word preserve me. It’s a frequent request of David, begging God to protect him. Comes in Psalm 17, Psalm 140, Psalm 141. It’s there all through the Psalms. The Psalms where we find the call of David to God. God, protect me.

God, preserve me. God, keep me safe. Wow.

This is Psalm 71. I said it was there all through the Psalms. In you, Lord, I have taken refuge.

Let me never be put to shame. Let me never be put to shame. This is a summary of that first verse, that first statement.

In the Lord, I take refuge. This is David’s cry for safety. And David’s response now comes with commitment and with confidence.

Wow. We’re holding onto that God’s being trustworthy and we come to these verses on commitment. David’s testimony of commitment.

The Lord is his portion. The Lord is his life. David is fully committed to God.

And we can see this clearly in these next few verses from two through to four, which are very interesting.

In verse two, I said to the Lord, you are my master, and every good thing comes from you. Do you feel like saying that at times? This is like the divine mention of the comments that David is making at this point.

Lord, you are my master. Every good thing comes from you. I know for some people, you do feel like that at times.

Every good thing you have in your life comes from God. Notice the two types of people, the godly people and the ungodly people. The godly people in verse three, the godly people in the land, you are my heroes, and I take great pleasure in you.

I know several people I’ve said to during the week, can you find one verse in this whole 12 verses that speaks to you about Fairfield Baptist Church? And they’ve come back to me with three or four different verses. It’s been really quite encouraging. This is one of them.

The godly people in the land, I take great pleasure in them. Do you feel like that? Look at you all sitting here in church this morning. Why are you here? You’re here to worship God. You’re here to praise God, but you’re here because you take pleasure in the joy of being together with people who think like you think. People who appreciate who God is.

The ungodly people. The troubles multiply, they chase other gods, the sacrifices of blood, the names of their gods. Notice in verse four when it comes back, how the name of the small g for the word gods comes twice in that particular verse. What have you faced this week? I’ve faced some godly people this week.

Godly people here at FBC. You know where I was last Sunday? Probably sitting down somewhere and Iunisi was up here. I come here on Sunday morning because I appreciate godly people at Fairfield Baptist Church.

People will lead me to God, even if sometimes I’m struggling myself. Prayer meetings. Sometimes we pray in that side room and sometimes we sit right here, and we come into this room where we all are on Sunday morning and we sit here and we pray together, Tuesday morning.

It’s a great thing that happens in here on Tuesday morning. There’s a prayer time, then there’s a fellowship time and then there’s a fresh batch of scones that have been made for us by Gaylene.  You know, that’s the sort of thing he’s talking about. That’s the sort of thing he said. They’re godly people in the land. They’re my heroes. I take great pleasure in them.

Then in verse number four, maybe you’ve had to face some ungodly people. We have and we’ve been tested to the nth degree in the last fortnight. In a professional capacity, we had to meet with someone who turned out to be a very ungodly person.

They were content in forcing their way of living in front of us in our faces. We couldn’t say anything against that. I think that happens to all of us at times.

We are face to face with people who do not love God. In the course of the week, we came face to face with that person twice. These people are full of pride.

These people become boastful in their actions and their way of living. They think they know all above what God knows. That’s what we’re confronting at times.

Look at that confidence. I’d better not miss those two verses.

The end of commitment. Lord, you alone are my inheritance. I love these two verses.

My cup of blessing, you God, all that is mine. The land you have given me is a pleasant land. What a wonderful inheritance.

He, David, could be talking about. We could stop and just go into a whole study of where David lived and how he lived and what he gained. There’s just a whole minefield there.

I didn’t even have a chance to prepare my heart to go there and explain just where David lived and how he lived. I just love those two verses. Lord, you alone are my inheritance.

My cup of blessing, you God, all that is mine. The land you have given me is a pleasant land. What a wonderful inheritance.

Then my mind runs away and says, hey, you know, Kiwis could almost pray that prayer, couldn’t we? Lord, you’re my inheritance. My cup of blessing, you God, all that is mine. The land you have given me is a pleasant land.

What a wonderful inheritance. And we do. We do have a way of praying that little prayer to us as well.

Confidence. Verses seven to nine. Now we move from David’s commitment to David’s clearly expressing his confidence in God.

In verses seven to nine, I get really quite excited about these verses. The Lord will preserve him in life and death. Here we have the beginning of some present and some future dimensions in this as well.

The present blessings. Lord, I will bless the Lord who guides me.

Confidence of David. I will bless the Lord who guides me.

Even at night, my heart instructs me. I know the Lord is always with me. I will not be shaken for he is right beside me.

He guides me. He instructs me. He’s with me.

He’s beside me. You get the message? Let me say it again. He guides me.

He instructs me. He’s with me. He’s beside me.

No wonder my heart is glad, and I rejoice and my body rests in safety. We go back to the cry in verse 1. What was the cry in verse 1? Keep me safe. Keep me safe.

Wow. If you get nothing else, just take these verses home. I will bless the Lord who guides me.

Even at night, my heart instructs me. Are you like that? Even at night? When you wake in the middle of the night, what comes to your mind? The ups and downs of life or the Bible verse you read just before you went to sleep. Sometimes both. Who said that?  We all have times when we wake in the middle of the night for various reasons. I won’t elaborate on that.

We’ve even had one little man come along and go like this to Fay, open her eyes and go, are you there, Grandma? Fay had her glasses off and was lying in bed fast asleep and this little man came along, pulled her eye open and said, are you there, Grandma? There are all reasons. But you know, he’s instructing us. Even at night, my heart instructs me.

Where does your heart go at night? Wow. I know the Lord is always with me. I will not be shaken for he’s right beside me.

Wow. He guides me. He instructs me.

He’s with me. He’s beside me. No wonder my heart is glad, and I rejoice.

My body rests in safety. In these verses, the psalmist refers to the core of his being. In the literal translation, it’s words that are meaning my kidneys, my flesh, my heart, my soul.

It speaks of his intelligence. It speaks of his ability to speak. That’s the way the NLT translation has it.

David’s cry for safety. A couple of verses from the Psalms as we come through these very quickly together. You know, it is better to trust and take refuge in the Lord than to put confidence in man.

Okay. That’s confidence in other people and it’s confidence in yourself. It’s better to trust and take refuge in the Lord than to put your confidence in man.

The book of Psalms is so lovely, isn’t it? I’ve been using three words, and I don’t know whether you’ve realized it, but they’re all contained here in the Psalm 91. The word refuge, the word safety, and the word trust. Look at it.

This I declare about the Lord. He alone is my refuge, my place of safety. He is my God, and I trust in him.

Psalm 91 and verse two. Well, come to another couple of verses. For you will not leave my soul among the dead or allow your Holy one to rot in the grave.

You will show me the way of life, granting me the joy of your presence and the pleasures of living with you forever. Verse 10 is the hard one.

Who’s he talking about in verse 10? Is he talking about himself? Jesus. Why do you say that? Thank you. Say that a bit louder.

Jesus was the Holy one who was not allowed to rot in the grave. Yeah. We’ve got absolutely no doubt that David was thinking of two things here.

He was thinking about himself in a sense, but he’s also thinking about the Holy one who was not allowed to rot in the grave. Yeah. And I’m going to prove that to you.

And I’m going to read you a couple of verses that come out of the book of Acts. Do we realize that this Psalm is quoted in the book of Acts by Peter and then by Paul, all within the book of Acts.

And I’m going to read a couple of those verses to you in a moment, just to help you understand just how the Old Testament and the New Testament mesh together. Even if we’re just saying the book of Psalms and the book of Acts, that’s the illustration for today, but it’s even broader than that. There’s even broader commitment.

There are even broader statements in the New Testament of Old Testament scriptures, and they are bound together. These words express the confidence of the lesser David. That’s the David of the Psalms and were applied messianically to the resurrection of the greater David, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Acts chapter two and verses 24.

Peter is speaking and Peter is talking about Jesus. Verse 24 chapter two. But God raised him from the horrors of death and raised him back to life.

For death could not keep him in its grip. King David said this about him. And then he quotes this very Psalm.

I see the Lord is always with me. I will not be shaken for his right beside me. No wonder my heart is glad.

My tongue shouts his praises. My body rests in hope. For you will not leave your soul among the dead or allow the Holy one to rot in the grave.

You have shown me the way of life and you will fill me with the joy in your presence. My dear brothers, think about this. You can be sure that the patriarch David wasn’t referring to himself.

For he died and was buried in his tomb, still is among us today. But he was the prophet, and he knew God had promised with oath that one of David’s own descendants would sit on the throne. And so, the verses go on.

Acts chapter 13 and at verse 34, verse 34.

And this time, it’s not Peter who is speaking, it’s Paul who is speaking. And this is what Paul has to say. Again, he’s speaking about Jesus.

For God has promised to raise him from the dead, not leaving him to rot in the grave. He said, I will not, sorry, he said, I will give you the sacred blessings I promised David. Another psalm explains it more fully.

You will not allow your holy one to rot in the grave. This is not a reference to David. For after David had done the will of God in his own generation, he died and was buried with his ancestors and his body decayed.

No, it’s a reference to someone else. Someone whom God raised and whose body did not decay. Brothers, listen, we are here to proclaim that through this man, Jesus, there was forgiveness for your sins.

You see, there’s a truth in which David is talking about himself because there’s an aspect although his body goes down into the grave and does decay, he’s with the Lord. He’s with the Lord. He’s in the Lord’s presence.

In 2 Corinthians chapter five and verse eight, yes, we are fully confident and would rather be away from these earthly bodies, for then we will be at home with the Lord. That’s one of my favourite scriptures in 2 Corinthians to read with somebody that I know is going to be in heaven soon. Someone I know who’s dying.

That’s the sort of scripture I read to them. Listen to the words of Paul to the church at Philippi. I was torn between two desires.

I longed to go to be with Christ, which would be far better for me, but for your sakes, it is better that I continue to live. That’s what he was saying to the church at Philippi. This expression of faith is possible because Christ conquered death.

Luke had this to say in Luke 24. He isn’t here, he is risen from the dead. Remember what he told you back in Galilee.

And we can go to many places like this where the whole concept of the future. This expression of faith is possible because Christ arose again and became the first fruits of all who were asleep, 1 Corinthians 15:20. But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead.

He is the first of a great harvest of all who have died. And so, we go on.

In the Lord I take refuge, therefore I trust in him.

I love to leave you with one word, and I’ve already told you what it’s gonna be.

Let me make a couple of comments about these two words, we end up with just one. Commitment and confidence seem to go together in me somehow. If I have a commitment to God, well then, my confidence will follow in one sense.

But if I have a greater confidence in God, then my commitment to God will grow. You can actually have it both ways or either way or whatever. But following the order of the text and the emphasis at the end, I’m gonna go just for one word to conclude, confidence.

And I have to ask you the question, where is your confidence? Are you confident in God?