Rev. Alan J. Meenan
The road to Emmaus is a fascinating road. One of the people who attend this Church, Wim Wenders, a movie director from Germany, was in Israel some time ago and took a picture that he brought back to me of this famous road. It’s a rocky road, it’s stony and it’s little traveled these days. It contains marvelous vistas of undulating hills, sea and sky as one gazes down from the Judean hills to the Mediterranean Sea. Long ago on that road, two forlorn men walked and were joined by a third. He said to them, Why are you looking so downcast and sad? Man, where have you been? Don’t you know there are many things that have been going on in Jerusalemthese past days? How the Man, Jesus from Nazareth, had been crucified, led into trial? We hoped that he was the one who would redeem Israel. We had hoped that he was the Messiah promised from the ages. But our wonderful dream ended up in defeat upon a crude Roman gibbet, on a hill that we call Golgotha, the place of the skull. How can you bother asking us why we are so sad? Don’t you know? The stranger began to open the scriptures to them and tell them things about the Messiah. How the scriptures were all fulfilled in their experience of this man called Jesus of Nazareth who had died 3 days before. Finally, when they recognized that it was Jesus himself, he vanished from their sight.
What a marvelous thing it would be if we could read in a book all the things that Jesus unfolded throughout the scriptures concerning himself. I wish that there was a Scribe walking alongside the three writing it all down and publishing it later so that we could all benefit from the things that Jesus related in the Old Testament that pointed to himself. Such a book doesn’t exist. Perhaps in the providence of God’s spirit, it doesn’t exist because God wants us to search out these things for ourselves.
I am confident that day long ago, among the many portions of the word of God that Jesus opened up and read to them, was the Psalm that was read for us this morning. Psalm 16. The title of the Psalm is immediately interesting. Right before the text begins it says, A miktam of David. I wish I could give you some profound explanation of what miktam means, but we’re not quite sure. Some have suggested, and the suggestion I like best, is that it comes from a word meaning golden. A golden Psalm. A very precious Psalm. Of course, that is because it’s a Psalm that relates to Jesus Christ himself. Did this psalm strike strange chords with you? Did you see echoes of the movie The Passion of the Christ? Certainly the New Testament writers give significance and meaning to this Psalm.
When we look at it through the spectacles of the New Testament, we discover that it is indeed one of the great Messianic Psalms. The Apostle Peter, for example, on the day of Pentecost, quotes from Psalm 16. He applies it to the Lord Jesus Christ. He argues that David could not possibly be writing about himself because David died and didn’t come back to life. He must have been writing about someone else, the Apostle Peter argues. Evidently through the work of God’s spirit in the life of David, there was for-knowledge that God would raise up Christ in the miracle of the resurrection. Then in Acts 13, not only does the Apostle Peter suggest that this Psalm relates to the person of Jesus, but the Apostle Paul does it as well in Acts 13:13. Paul writes, We tell you good news that God promised our fathers. All that he has promised, he has fulfilled for us as children by raising up Jesus as it is written. You will not let your holy ones see decay. For the Apostle Paul argues in verses 36 and 37, that when David had served God’s purpose, he fell asleep. He was buried with his fathers, and his body decayed. The one whom God raised from the dead, however, did not see decay. This Psalm, says the Apostle Paul, is all about Jesus.
So I have a tremendous confidence that, long ago on the journey to Emmaus, when Jesus joined the two forlorn disciples and opening up the word of God, he opened up Psalm 16. He said, Listen to these words. They will tell you about me. Each line is pregnant with allusion to the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus. Look at some of these: Verse 1 right at the very beginning says, Keep me safe oh God, for in you I take my refuge. One sees an echo of the prayer of Jesus. Father, save me from this hour, as he prayed in Gethsemane. Yet, he still held on all the way his perfect and amazing subjection to the will of God. It is seen here in verse 2. You are my Lord. You are my master. I am the servant of the high God. I have come to do your will. And in verse 5 he says, You have assigned my portion and my cup, which brings back the echoes of the prayer in Gethsemane. Father, let this cup pass from me. Yet, not what I want, but whatever is your will. Then in verse 3 it says, As for the Saints who are in the land, they are the glorious ones in whom is all my delight. So much so, that Jesus would die for the Saints in the land. In an even deeper sense we can understand the illusion in verse 7 that by living in fellowship with the father, he is instructed by God. I will praise the Lord who counsels me. Even at night, my heart instructs me. Instructed by the Father makes it plain that Jesus evidently knew what was before him. That certainly is evident in Gethsemane, when he prayed that the cup would pass from him.
I believe that there was no one else in all of Israel who understood so fully the significance of the sacrificial system or knew himself to be the true lamb of sacrifice. Imagine what it must have meant for a moment. When Jesus picked up Isaiah 53 and read it, he knew that it referred to him. For he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our inequities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him. With his stripes we are healed. As he read these words, he knew that he would be the one who would be bruised, and yet emerging from it all was an incredible confidence in God.
In verse 8, this utter confidence prompts his obedience. I have set the Lord always before me. I will not be shaken. Because I know, (verse 10) that you will not abandon me to the grave. Nor, will you let your holy one see decay. It can only be a reference to the resurrection. While the next verse uncannily has a reference to the ascension, (verse 11) You will fill me with joy in your presence. With eternal pleasures at your right hand. He is looking to the glorious ascension when he returns again to God the Father and sits at his right hand. The Psalm is descriptive of the death, resurrection and ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ. That I will return one day and sit at God’s right hand. In the meantime, (verse 8), God is my right hand. God is my right hand strengthening me. Encouraging me and inspiring me. As a result, before Herod, before Pilate, before Caiaphas, and even hanging on a cross on Calvary, God was always there at his right hand and always there whispering a word of encouragement, whispering strength and whispering inspiration so that Jesus Christ would go to the tomb in perfect confidence knowing that God his Father would bring him back from the dead. God was always there.
By the way, that’s why we have to understand what is so mistakenly, I believe, been called by the Church, the cry of dereliction. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? I defy Biblically anyone suggesting that God did in fact forsake his son when God in Christ was reconciling the world to himself. Jesus was merely quoting from Psalm 22 one of the great victory songs of the Church. God is my right hand. He will never leave me and he will never forsake me. What utter confidence even to know that through his death, God would bring him back just like Abraham when he took his son Isaac. God said, Abraham I want you to sacrifice your son. Abraham went to Mt. Mariah and there he laid his son on the altar. He was about to kill his son believing, the Biblical writer tells us later. Believing that God is able to even raise from the dead his son.
What incredible, wonderful confidence to have in God. Is that a confidence that you and I might ever be able to emulate? Is it possible for us in the 21st Century, with the sophisticated lifestyles that we lead to have this utter abandonment and confidence in God? No matter what, God will take care of us. We are never out of his hands. He is always at our right hand. He will never leave us and he will never forsake us. Nothing untoward will ever happen to us that is not filtered through his love and grace. Jesus gives us an example to follow: The Psalmist in his writing is not only describing Jesus, but inspiring us today, the followers of the Christ to be able to live our lives in this quality of confidence and abandonment. God longs to raise men and women who can live this audaciously, in a hopeless world.
Somehow I believe the Psalm is reflected in Paul’s question to the Church at Rome 1,000 years later. When he says, What shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall nakedness or peril or the sword? No, he says, in all these things we are more than conquerors in his love. So the great desire of the Psalmist, the great desire of the spirit working in the Church today is to instill a sense of complete trust among those of us who own the name of Jesus. To be able to trust to a point that we believe utterly and fully that God is able to do far more abundantly above and beyond all that we can ever begin to imagine or dream about. This is our God. We shouldn’t be satisfied with anything less. He is able to rescue us from the jaws of death if need be. Do you believe like that? Even more beyond death to welcome us home at journey’s end, it is to instill this sense of feeling that we are in the firm hold of God in our lives. Oh Lord, the Psalm begins, keep me safe. For I take refuge in you. Keep me safe. As shepherds protect their flocks. So Lord, protect me.
How can we live such confidence and such victory in the face of a precarious life that we live these days in the 21st Century? Would it not be easier when trouble comes to lean our weight on God and something else as well? After all, two is usually better than one. So we are told. Well, this might be a desire for something like double indemnity or double protection: God and something, another resource. There can’t be any harm in that. By all means God, one is not arguing against that, but is arguing against something else, some other resource, some other God in our lives so that God and this something or someone else are standing side by side.
The Psalmist refers to such a thing as synchronism, where there is something besides God in our lives. All too often we become synchronistic. We rarely use the word, but the reality is there. While we may not be following the gods of Canaan or the Roman gods, all who thought the philosophy of more than one God was essentially a good idea. If one God disappoints you, you have 200 others that you can go to. This synchronism has not left the human psyche, even though the names of the gods may have changed.
For example, self has become a god. While we give lip service to depending on God and having utter confidence in God, we often depend on our own ability to get us that which we seek. God helps those who help themselves. I used to think that was somewhere in the Bible. It’s quoted with such authority by Christian people and by my mother. Having finally read the Bible from cover to cover, I discovered it wasn’t there. In fact, quite the opposite is there. God helps those who cannot and do not help themselves. That’s the Biblical message.
Now there is always God and money. When God isn’t there, money is a way to help out. Money becomes a replacement for God. Fame is another item. One needs to mention that in Hollywood. Love can even be another God. If it is used in a synchronistic way. Synchronism is anything that one adds to God in one’s life. Anything that you love to play an equal role to or more important role than God makes you a synchronist. The whole concept of synchronism is an affront to the Psalmist. One scholar said, They that multiply Gods multiply grapes. For whoever thinks one God too little will find two too many, and yet hundreds are not enough.
No one will ever find peace of mind or joy of heart by going after anything contrary to the will and mind of God. Synchronism is a faith that is somewhat elastic. Is clearly in contravention of the first commandment: No other gods. So we’ve said the Psalmist believes this totally abhorrent in verse 4 and he says at the end of the verse, I will not pour out their libations of blood. I will not even take their names upon my lips. I will resist any temptation to put anything at an equal to, or even more than God himself. I will find my only help in God alone for my salvation. Jesus said something like that when he said, You cannot have two masters. For either you will hate the one and love the other or you will cling to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. So make up your mind.
The Psalmist tells us in verse 5 and 6 that, God alone is my portion. He is my portion and my cup in this life. He is my inheritance in the life to come. He is all embracing. So you see, we stand in the love and good favor of God and we say that it is enough, It is all we desire. We need no more.
My confidence is based on this (verse 8), I have set the Lord always before me. Therefore, I will not be moved. This is my hope. God alone is my good. There is no good apart from Him. This is the wonderful confidence. The Apostle Paul as he finishes his first letter to the Church at Corinth, says, Therefore my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Don’t be swayed by this force or that force. This desire or that desire. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord. Because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. I set the Lord always before me.
Oh my beloved, to be able at the last to make that wonderful statement, I have set the Lord always before me. The best I can say after thirty years of ordained ministry is I have set the Lord often before me. I wish with all my heart that it could be more. I wish with all my heart that there would be no other motive than to please Him. No other thought than to honor Him. Yet here is one: Our Lord Jesus Christ himself, who for the joy that was set before him, endured the Cross, who set the Lord always before him. When we set the Lord always before us, if we live our lives in that quality of confidence, then there is nothing in Heaven, earth or hell that can threaten to unmoor us. So the Psalmist’s confidence now goes beyond the fear of death itself.
What can separate us from the love of God? Shall peril, nakedness, sword or death? No. Not even death, cries the Apostle. Not even death, cries our Lord Jesus Christ. The Psalmist, the Apostle and Christ recognized that their relationship with God and your relationship and my relationship with God does not end with death. It simply provides a new ground of hope. For my beloved, God is a God who cares for you in life and in death. In life, verses 5 and 6 he provides security. In death, verses 9 and 10, he provides protection. We will die. Like in the opening hymn that we sang this morning, in the last verse, When ends life’s passing dream. When death’s cold threatening stream shall o’er me roll, Blest Savior, then, in love, Fear and distrust remove; O lift me safe above, A ransomed soul!
The reason we can have that confidence, you and I, even in the face of death, is that the Lord will not permit his beloved to suffer eternal alienation. This is not pie in the sky theology. The Psalmist is fully cognizant of life that can be experienced here in these marvelous verses. You have assigned me my portion and my cup. You made my lot secure. The boundary lines have fallen from me in pleasant places. Surely I have a delightful inheritance. He realizes that life in Jesus Christ, life in God in his case, is full, rich and amazingly wonderful. But he also understands that his fellowship with God is both in this world and in the world beyond because Jesus Christ embodies Psalm 16. Because we can read through Psalm 16 and with Peter and Paul, and we can see our Lord Jesus Christ there. Then we never need to live in fear, you or I. Even face to face with the last enemy we call death. There is nothing that can interrupt our confidence, our hope, our joy or our life.
Donald Ray Barnhouse, the famed preacher of The Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, lost his wife at an early age when their daughter was only 6 years of age. Barnhouse testified at the time, that with all his education and theological training, he was at a loss to know how to deal with the grief of his daughter because his own grief was inconsolable. One day he and his little girl were standing on a busy street corner in downtown Philadelphia. They were waiting for the light to change when suddenly a very large truck sped by the corner. Blotting out the sun for a moment and frightening the little girl half to death. The comforter, Dr. Barnhouse, embraced his daughter and held her in his arms. Then the wisdom of God shone through. He looked at his little girl and he said, Sweetheart, would you rather be struck by the truck or the shadow of the truck? Oh, she said, I’d rather be struck by the shadow of the truck, Daddy. Then in a wonderful insight, Donald Ray Barnhouse said to his little girl, Sweetheart, your mother was hit by the shadow of death because Jesus was hit by the truck. That’s it. That’s why we can have this glorious confidence. Our confidence can reflect the confidence of the Psalmist because it is the confidence and work of Jesus Christ who is described so incredibly specifically in this great Psalm of Christian joy.
The road to Emmaus is a fascinating road. One of the people who attend this Church, Wim Wenders, a movie director from Germany, was in Israel some time ago and took a picture that he brought back to me of this famous road. It’s a rocky road, it’s stony and it’s little traveled these days. It contains marvelous vistas of undulating hills, sea and sky as one gazes down from the Judean hills to the Mediterranean Sea. Long ago on that road, two forlorn men walked and were joined by a third. He said to them, Why are you looking so downcast and sad? Man, where have you been? Don’t you know there are many things that have been going on in Jerusalemthese past days? How the Man, Jesus from Nazareth, had been crucified, led into trial? We hoped that he was the one who would redeem Israel. We had hoped that he was the Messiah promised from the ages. But our wonderful dream ended up in defeat upon a crude Roman gibbet, on a hill that we call Golgotha, the place of the skull. How can you bother asking us why we are so sad? Don’t you know? The stranger began to open the scriptures to them and tell them things about the Messiah. How the scriptures were all fulfilled in their experience of this man called Jesus of Nazareth who had died 3 days before. Finally, when they recognized that it was Jesus himself, he vanished from their sight.
What a marvelous thing it would be if we could read in a book all the things that Jesus unfolded throughout the scriptures concerning himself. I wish that there was a Scribe walking alongside the three writing it all down and publishing it later so that we could all benefit from the things that Jesus related in the Old Testament that pointed to himself. Such a book doesn’t exist. Perhaps in the providence of God’s spirit, it doesn’t exist because God wants us to search out these things for ourselves.
I am confident that day long ago, among the many portions of the word of God that Jesus opened up and read to them, was the Psalm that was read for us this morning. Psalm 16. The title of the Psalm is immediately interesting. Right before the text begins it says, A miktam of David. I wish I could give you some profound explanation of what miktam means, but we’re not quite sure. Some have suggested, and the suggestion I like best, is that it comes from a word meaning golden. A golden Psalm. A very precious Psalm. Of course, that is because it’s a Psalm that relates to Jesus Christ himself. Did this psalm strike strange chords with you? Did you see echoes of the movie The Passion of the Christ? Certainly the New Testament writers give significance and meaning to this Psalm.
When we look at it through the spectacles of the New Testament, we discover that it is indeed one of the great Messianic Psalms. The Apostle Peter, for example, on the day of Pentecost, quotes from Psalm 16. He applies it to the Lord Jesus Christ. He argues that David could not possibly be writing about himself because David died and didn’t come back to life. He must have been writing about someone else, the Apostle Peter argues. Evidently through the work of God’s spirit in the life of David, there was for-knowledge that God would raise up Christ in the miracle of the resurrection. Then in Acts 13, not only does the Apostle Peter suggest that this Psalm relates to the person of Jesus, but the Apostle Paul does it as well in Acts 13:13. Paul writes, We tell you good news that God promised our fathers. All that he has promised, he has fulfilled for us as children by raising up Jesus as it is written. You will not let your holy ones see decay. For the Apostle Paul argues in verses 36 and 37, that when David had served God’s purpose, he fell asleep. He was buried with his fathers, and his body decayed. The one whom God raised from the dead, however, did not see decay. This Psalm, says the Apostle Paul, is all about Jesus.
So I have a tremendous confidence that, long ago on the journey to Emmaus, when Jesus joined the two forlorn disciples and opening up the word of God, he opened up Psalm 16. He said, Listen to these words. They will tell you about me. Each line is pregnant with allusion to the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus. Look at some of these: Verse 1 right at the very beginning says, Keep me safe oh God, for in you I take my refuge. One sees an echo of the prayer of Jesus. Father, save me from this hour, as he prayed in Gethsemane. Yet, he still held on all the way his perfect and amazing subjection to the will of God. It is seen here in verse 2. You are my Lord. You are my master. I am the servant of the high God. I have come to do your will. And in verse 5 he says, You have assigned my portion and my cup, which brings back the echoes of the prayer in Gethsemane. Father, let this cup pass from me. Yet, not what I want, but whatever is your will. Then in verse 3 it says, As for the Saints who are in the land, they are the glorious ones in whom is all my delight. So much so, that Jesus would die for the Saints in the land. In an even deeper sense we can understand the illusion in verse 7 that by living in fellowship with the father, he is instructed by God. I will praise the Lord who counsels me. Even at night, my heart instructs me. Instructed by the Father makes it plain that Jesus evidently knew what was before him. That certainly is evident in Gethsemane, when he prayed that the cup would pass from him.
I believe that there was no one else in all of Israel who understood so fully the significance of the sacrificial system or knew himself to be the true lamb of sacrifice. Imagine what it must have meant for a moment. When Jesus picked up Isaiah 53 and read it, he knew that it referred to him. For he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our inequities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him. With his stripes we are healed. As he read these words, he knew that he would be the one who would be bruised, and yet emerging from it all was an incredible confidence in God.
In verse 8, this utter confidence prompts his obedience. I have set the Lord always before me. I will not be shaken. Because I know, (verse 10) that you will not abandon me to the grave. Nor, will you let your holy one see decay. It can only be a reference to the resurrection. While the next verse uncannily has a reference to the ascension, (verse 11) You will fill me with joy in your presence. With eternal pleasures at your right hand. He is looking to the glorious ascension when he returns again to God the Father and sits at his right hand. The Psalm is descriptive of the death, resurrection and ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ. That I will return one day and sit at God’s right hand. In the meantime, (verse 8), God is my right hand. God is my right hand strengthening me. Encouraging me and inspiring me. As a result, before Herod, before Pilate, before Caiaphas, and even hanging on a cross on Calvary, God was always there at his right hand and always there whispering a word of encouragement, whispering strength and whispering inspiration so that Jesus Christ would go to the tomb in perfect confidence knowing that God his Father would bring him back from the dead. God was always there.
By the way, that’s why we have to understand what is so mistakenly, I believe, been called by the Church, the cry of dereliction. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? I defy Biblically anyone suggesting that God did in fact forsake his son when God in Christ was reconciling the world to himself. Jesus was merely quoting from Psalm 22 one of the great victory songs of the Church. God is my right hand. He will never leave me and he will never forsake me. What utter confidence even to know that through his death, God would bring him back just like Abraham when he took his son Isaac. God said, Abraham I want you to sacrifice your son. Abraham went to Mt. Mariah and there he laid his son on the altar. He was about to kill his son believing, the Biblical writer tells us later. Believing that God is able to even raise from the dead his son.
What incredible, wonderful confidence to have in God. Is that a confidence that you and I might ever be able to emulate? Is it possible for us in the 21st Century, with the sophisticated lifestyles that we lead to have this utter abandonment and confidence in God? No matter what, God will take care of us. We are never out of his hands. He is always at our right hand. He will never leave us and he will never forsake us. Nothing untoward will ever happen to us that is not filtered through his love and grace. Jesus gives us an example to follow: The Psalmist in his writing is not only describing Jesus, but inspiring us today, the followers of the Christ to be able to live our lives in this quality of confidence and abandonment. God longs to raise men and women who can live this audaciously, in a hopeless world.
Somehow I believe the Psalm is reflected in Paul’s question to the Church at Rome 1,000 years later. When he says, What shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall nakedness or peril or the sword? No, he says, in all these things we are more than conquerors in his love. So the great desire of the Psalmist, the great desire of the spirit working in the Church today is to instill a sense of complete trust among those of us who own the name of Jesus. To be able to trust to a point that we believe utterly and fully that God is able to do far more abundantly above and beyond all that we can ever begin to imagine or dream about. This is our God. We shouldn’t be satisfied with anything less. He is able to rescue us from the jaws of death if need be. Do you believe like that? Even more beyond death to welcome us home at journey’s end, it is to instill this sense of feeling that we are in the firm hold of God in our lives. Oh Lord, the Psalm begins, keep me safe. For I take refuge in you. Keep me safe. As shepherds protect their flocks. So Lord, protect me.
How can we live such confidence and such victory in the face of a precarious life that we live these days in the 21st Century? Would it not be easier when trouble comes to lean our weight on God and something else as well? After all, two is usually better than one. So we are told. Well, this might be a desire for something like double indemnity or double protection: God and something, another resource. There can’t be any harm in that. By all means God, one is not arguing against that, but is arguing against something else, some other resource, some other God in our lives so that God and this something or someone else are standing side by side.
The Psalmist refers to such a thing as synchronism, where there is something besides God in our lives. All too often we become synchronistic. We rarely use the word, but the reality is there. While we may not be following the gods of Canaan or the Roman gods, all who thought the philosophy of more than one God was essentially a good idea. If one God disappoints you, you have 200 others that you can go to. This synchronism has not left the human psyche, even though the names of the gods may have changed.
For example, self has become a god. While we give lip service to depending on God and having utter confidence in God, we often depend on our own ability to get us that which we seek. God helps those who help themselves. I used to think that was somewhere in the Bible. It’s quoted with such authority by Christian people and by my mother. Having finally read the Bible from cover to cover, I discovered it wasn’t there. In fact, quite the opposite is there. God helps those who cannot and do not help themselves. That’s the Biblical message.
Now there is always God and money. When God isn’t there, money is a way to help out. Money becomes a replacement for God. Fame is another item. One needs to mention that in Hollywood. Love can even be another God. If it is used in a synchronistic way. Synchronism is anything that one adds to God in one’s life. Anything that you love to play an equal role to or more important role than God makes you a synchronist. The whole concept of synchronism is an affront to the Psalmist. One scholar said, They that multiply Gods multiply grapes. For whoever thinks one God too little will find two too many, and yet hundreds are not enough.
No one will ever find peace of mind or joy of heart by going after anything contrary to the will and mind of God. Synchronism is a faith that is somewhat elastic. Is clearly in contravention of the first commandment: No other gods. So we’ve said the Psalmist believes this totally abhorrent in verse 4 and he says at the end of the verse, I will not pour out their libations of blood. I will not even take their names upon my lips. I will resist any temptation to put anything at an equal to, or even more than God himself. I will find my only help in God alone for my salvation. Jesus said something like that when he said, You cannot have two masters. For either you will hate the one and love the other or you will cling to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. So make up your mind.
The Psalmist tells us in verse 5 and 6 that, God alone is my portion. He is my portion and my cup in this life. He is my inheritance in the life to come. He is all embracing. So you see, we stand in the love and good favor of God and we say that it is enough, It is all we desire. We need no more.
My confidence is based on this (verse 8), I have set the Lord always before me. Therefore, I will not be moved. This is my hope. God alone is my good. There is no good apart from Him. This is the wonderful confidence. The Apostle Paul as he finishes his first letter to the Church at Corinth, says, Therefore my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Don’t be swayed by this force or that force. This desire or that desire. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord. Because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. I set the Lord always before me.
Oh my beloved, to be able at the last to make that wonderful statement, I have set the Lord always before me. The best I can say after thirty years of ordained ministry is I have set the Lord often before me. I wish with all my heart that it could be more. I wish with all my heart that there would be no other motive than to please Him. No other thought than to honor Him. Yet here is one: Our Lord Jesus Christ himself, who for the joy that was set before him, endured the Cross, who set the Lord always before him. When we set the Lord always before us, if we live our lives in that quality of confidence, then there is nothing in Heaven, earth or hell that can threaten to unmoor us. So the Psalmist’s confidence now goes beyond the fear of death itself.
What can separate us from the love of God? Shall peril, nakedness, sword or death? No. Not even death, cries the Apostle. Not even death, cries our Lord Jesus Christ. The Psalmist, the Apostle and Christ recognized that their relationship with God and your relationship and my relationship with God does not end with death. It simply provides a new ground of hope. For my beloved, God is a God who cares for you in life and in death. In life, verses 5 and 6 he provides security. In death, verses 9 and 10, he provides protection. We will die. Like in the opening hymn that we sang this morning, in the last verse, When ends life’s passing dream. When death’s cold threatening stream shall o’er me roll, Blest Savior, then, in love, Fear and distrust remove; O lift me safe above, A ransomed soul!
The reason we can have that confidence, you and I, even in the face of death, is that the Lord will not permit his beloved to suffer eternal alienation. This is not pie in the sky theology. The Psalmist is fully cognizant of life that can be experienced here in these marvelous verses. You have assigned me my portion and my cup. You made my lot secure. The boundary lines have fallen from me in pleasant places. Surely I have a delightful inheritance. He realizes that life in Jesus Christ, life in God in his case, is full, rich and amazingly wonderful. But he also understands that his fellowship with God is both in this world and in the world beyond because Jesus Christ embodies Psalm 16. Because we can read through Psalm 16 and with Peter and Paul, and we can see our Lord Jesus Christ there. Then we never need to live in fear, you or I. Even face to face with the last enemy we call death. There is nothing that can interrupt our confidence, our hope, our joy or our life.
Donald Ray Barnhouse, the famed preacher of The Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, lost his wife at an early age when their daughter was only 6 years of age. Barnhouse testified at the time, that with all his education and theological training, he was at a loss to know how to deal with the grief of his daughter because his own grief was inconsolable. One day he and his little girl were standing on a busy street corner in downtown Philadelphia. They were waiting for the light to change when suddenly a very large truck sped by the corner. Blotting out the sun for a moment and frightening the little girl half to death. The comforter, Dr. Barnhouse, embraced his daughter and held her in his arms. Then the wisdom of God shone through. He looked at his little girl and he said, Sweetheart, would you rather be struck by the truck or the shadow of the truck? Oh, she said, I’d rather be struck by the shadow of the truck, Daddy. Then in a wonderful insight, Donald Ray Barnhouse said to his little girl, Sweetheart, your mother was hit by the shadow of death because Jesus was hit by the truck. That’s it. That’s why we can have this glorious confidence. Our confidence can reflect the confidence of the Psalmist because it is the confidence and work of Jesus Christ who is described so incredibly specifically in this great Psalm of Christian joy.
