A Miktam of David.
Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge.
2 I say to the LORD, “You are my Lord;
I have no good apart from you.”
3 As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones,
in whom is all my delight.
4 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.
5 The LORD is my chosen portion and my cup;
you hold my lot.
6 The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.
7 I bless the LORD who gives me counsel;
in the night also my heart instructs me.
8 I have set the LORD always before me;
because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.
9 Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices;
my flesh also dwells secure.
10 For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol,
or let your holy one see corruption.
11 You make known to me the path of life;
in your presence there is fullness of joy;
at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
It’s a dangerous world out there – wars that can quickly mushroom, pulling in more and more nations… theft on a massive scale that raise prices because of insurance and cost recovery…pandemics on the loose…mentally ill lone shooters…drunk drivers…market crashes that obliterate savings…widow-maker pizzas…
But actually, I’ve started with the lightweights. The bigger threats are also the ones you’re likely to encounter, and what is especially scary is that they’re not scary to us….we almost invite them in: algorithms that keep us in echo chambers…what Paul calls “doctrine of demons” – the sourced-from-hell assumptions and priorities and opinions and ideas of success and intrigues and desires and expressions and worries that have arrived in our mind. Yes, sourced from hell, though coming through news media and stories and parental traditions and lectures and other, harder to trace routes.
Dangers out there – by far most of them spiritual. And perhaps what is most worrisome is the danger in here… our own spirits: have you lived with yourself long enough to realize that there’s this something about you that in some ways wants to shatter your own life? That often the way we eat, the thoughts we decide to settle upon, the words we say, the decisions we make: what we decide to do – or more often, leave undone – are harmful to us? Appetites and compulsions that are crowding out your ability to be productive. Hobbies and interests that are no longer adding a pleasant seasoning to your work and your family but instead have taken over. Sometimes the thought troubles you that while you’re a great browser and purchaser and gamer…you’ve lost more important skills that your grandparents had: building, gardening, fixing busted fences, rearing respectful human beings, concentrating. Or, perhaps, too often you find yourself flat, simply not caring if you’re productive, in fact not giving a hoot if things fall apart around you, ok with hating others, ok with others hating us. Bring it on…bring whatever on…WHATEVER. JUST KEEP ME ENTERTAINED, STIMULATED, ANGRY, FEELING SORRY FOR MYSELF!
So, yes, the world, the devil, and this human nature that the New Testament writers often call “Flesh” are clear and present dangers, and so this psalm and others often discuss taking refuge in God. A lot of what we need from God is simply protection. Jesus’ model prayer concludes not with a big, inspirational climax but with the rather anti-climatical realization that at the end of our prayer the evil one will be still laying traps out there and over there and in there… and please, we’d really like for God to keep us away from him.
Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge. And in God there is safety and security and all the fruits thereof – joy, duties clearly laid out in front of you, productivity, peace.
This psalm includes a few summary statements about what it looks like to take refuge in God. Let’s look at those.
What does it look like to take refuge in God? I say to Jehovah [“LORD” with all caps] You are my Lord [Adonai – my Boss, My Master]; I have no good apart from you. To take refuge in God starts with recognizing that He is the Creator and you’re the creature; He’s God and you’re not. He’s the Lawgiver and properly reflecting him has a lot to do with trusting the wisdom of his commands and then obeying.
There are a lot of people who are ok…more than ok…with the general idea of God. But then they don’t want God defined, don’t want to hear about his specific program, they want to keep his words vague and his will ambiguous. But in calling “Jehovah” his “Lord,” David is recognizing and submitting to the specific revealed plan and word of God.
Taking refuge in God starts with submission to the God who has made himself known in the Bible, the God who speaks.
Man, woman, boy, girl…HUMAN – you think that in keeping your God vague…in adopting the trendy “I’m spiritual just not religious” you’re playing it safe. You’re tapping the good out of religion while keeping your freedom intact. But not so. The facts on the ground are a) you’re made in God’s image which means you’re made for God; b) God is a speaking God who has tied himself to specific places and people and words; c) some of those words are commandments; d) you will only be safe as you obey your Creator’s specific words.
What else does it look like to take refuge in God? As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones, in whom is all my delight. Taking refuge in God entails delighting in the people of God, here called saints, or holy ones – – those who have been centrally marked by their relationship to the Holy One, the God who is unlike all others. In this new covenant age, the saints are together the Ekklesia of Christ, the Church.
David hasn’t just drifted into this position of delighting in God’s people. He hasn’t stumbled over some Christians and found them to be cool people that he easily connects with. So now, hey, turns out I really like saints.
No, there’s some resolve in this sentence: I’ve settled in my mind who I will admire – they are the excellent ones; and whose company I will enjoy – in whom is all my delight… All my delight.
There’s a tight connection between I say to Jehovah, you are my Lord AND the saints are the excellent ones…. When you submit to the LORD, you are acknowledging the force and implications of His decisions. And these saints are just the ones he has brought into covenant, he has bared his right arm to save them, he has committed to shepherd them forever.
So we, responding to Jehovah, submit to Him in our commitment to them.
Taking refuge in God involves delight in his people, which takes concrete and local expression within a local church.
We might think that the real refuge is a way that doesn’t include people… get close to the Church and you’ll end up with some bruises (hopefully just the spiritual kind!), stress, confusion. So, I’ll trust God but not his people, thank you. He’s safe; they’re not.
We’ll you’re not totally wrong but the fact is that it in the Church – and not outside of it – that God is shaping his people corporately and individually into a new humanity, a new quality of human beings. The inevitable friction that comes from committing to the saints is a feature and not a bug of God’s shaping of and protecting his people.
What does it look like to take refuge in God? 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.
David is living among people who do not know or submit to the first of the Ten Commandments: You shall no other gods before me. He lives among worshipers of other gods who carry out their worship in front of him. But David says, I’ll keep myself from worshiping these gods, pouring out their drink offerings of blood, even taking their names on my lips.
Here David reminds us that our allegiance to God always will be contested. The people of God are not worshiping the God of Scripture in a vacuum. We always do so in the presence of other gods. And among people who are worshiping those other gods, and who thereby are explicitly or implicitly compelling us away from our worship of the God of Scripture.
Let’s talk about gods. For the most part, just now in America we are not tempted away from worshiping God by gods with proper names: Moloch, Baal, Dagon, Marduk, Diana…. Although I have seen in the west a renewed interest in paganism and elemental religion.
But even if the current gods lack proper names, are there not today still gods competing for our allegiance to the Heavenly Father?
What are gods, how do they function?
- Gods, or called by another name, idols before the true God, are things or persons or ideas in whom we put our big-time or even ultimate trust for protection and advancement
- Gods are identified by the points upon which our thoughts terminate and go no further. For instance, if when we think about work our thoughts always stop just there, at work…that’s then taken the place of a god. In contrast, when you think about work, and at least sometimes your thoughts advance beyond just the work and consider how your work relates to God, what he wants from your work…then it’s not a god.
- It is to our gods that we turn for solace and assurance when circumstances are bleak, and the foundations of our lives start to shake. What do you do when a big project looms over you?
- Gods are those whom we worship by offering them what is of supreme value: our attention and delight.
- Gods are those whom we are most eager to please, to placate. To put that another way, gods are those who provoke our highest anxiety, whom we fear above all.
- Gods aren’t those we just profess to be our God, but those things or preoccupations who are actually shaping us into the sort of characters we actually are becoming
- We can mouth all the words we want, but our actual god is the one whom our children are being shown by us to be of first importance, the tone-setter, the Master of schedule and spare time.
What does dad care most about? What is mom giving her highest attention to? And without even thinking our children sound off: Well, YouTube. Or her phone.
Brothers and sisters, to whom do you turn for comfort? What rules your thinking? Who or what is actually shaping your spending habits, your child-rearing practices? Who can you absolutely not disappoint? Whose accolades are you seeking? Who must you not offend? Whose smile and frown makes or wrecks your day? Whose word are you trusting, acting upon, above all other words?
The answer to these questions points to your G/god.
The gods of this day don’t have proper names, but they’re out there, and they are called something. Find these gods lurking around Therapy. Pleasure. Ease. Money. The State. Romance. The Science. Societal approval. Sexual Freedom. Parents. Children. Self. Stuff. Progress. Progress. Promotion. Self. Entertainment. Bucket Lists. Exercise. Health. Food. Self. Fun. Nature. Excitement.
Taking refuge in God entails buying into the truth that anything or anybody who supplants the worship of and submission to the True God who has revealed Himself in Scripture will lay you low.
So, why not cave into the worship of other gods as so many others are doing?
Because they’re false. And by this we don’t just mean that there’s no substance to them. But also: they will deceive you. They will disappoint you. You lean into them… and they break on you. The other gods leave you frustrated, hungry, empty. Their worshipers eventually run into a deep sorrow in their devotion to them.
When you exist away from the word of the Father of Jesus Christ, you get injured. I could give you a thousand examples of this. To raise just one: In the past few years there’s been a rash of articles written by so-called sex-positive feminists – those who have been immersed in the idea that sexual freedom is a good– who have come to realize that the lifestyle of casual sex is deeply harmful.
In one of those articles written by a woman named Bridget Phetasy, entitled “I Regret Being a Slut,” she writes:
If I get really honest with myself, I’d say most of these usually drunken encounters left me feeling empty and demoralized. And worthless.
I wouldn’t have said that at the time, though. At the time, I would have told you I was “liberated” even while I tried to drink away the sick feeling of rejection when my most recent hook-up didn’t call me back. At the time, I would have said one-night stands made me feel “emboldened.” But in reality, I was using sex like a drug…
Even more damaging was what I told myself in order to justify the fact that I was disposable to these men: I told myself I didn’t care.
I didn’t care when a man ghosted me. I didn’t care when he left in the middle of the night or hinted that he wanted me to leave. The walks of shame. The blackouts. The anxiety.
The lie I told myself for decades was: I’m not in pain—I’m empowered.
But also, even after you come to grips with the fact that the sorrows of those who run after another god shall multiply, you might imagine that being laid low is at least better than relating properly to thisMaster. Anything but submission! Anything but submission to Him, the Creator God, the God of the Bible!
But then hear what David says next:
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.
David says that Jehovah Himself – His being, His character, His ways – are the best part of his life. You know how sometimes when you’re eating there’s something on your plate you like the most? Maybe, depending on your personality, you save it for last or you grab for it first?
David says, God himself – not what he’s going to give me, but God himself – is that for me, my chosen portion.
Then he speaks of God in terms of property lines. With God in his life, he says, he has a great property, a pleasant place, a beautiful inheritance.
Go ahead and imagine a beautiful piece of property: the Downton Abby one? A French villa overlooking the Mediterranean? A chalet in Switzerland? Crane Estate?
David says, that’s a fitting figure of My life, with God.
My Friends! The Presence and fellowship and guidance of God is the great joy of human existence. God Himself will always be the ultimate source of joy. A deep well of truth and beauty and goodness that never runs out.
And someone says, all this fancy religious talk…it does nothing for me. I get it…but, friends, who is writing these words? David, this son of God, was a man of war. A man of action. A lover of women. An acquirer. A leader of men. A musician. An expressive person. A man who had an authentic solitary life and a successful public life. A man who loved being outside in nature and who spent time in palaces. Who spent years on the run and years ruling over a country. Truly, a person of broad and deep experience.
And he says, I know of nothing more satisfying than my God. With God, the lines of my life have fallen in pleasant places. With God, no matter what the shape of circumstances at the time, I have a wonderful, beautiful life.
To take refuge in God is to realize, not pretend, but to realize that in the presence of God is fullness of joy.
Away from God, there is sorrow, even if not immediately present, then it’s coming around the bend. With God (and I admit it’s hard to believe), no matter what on the outside it might seem like, life isbeautiful, a radiance is cast, there is a deep and sturdy pleasure.
So, don’t lose sight of this beautiful God, brothers and sisters! Keep listening to him! Don’t, for instance, spend money in such a way that worry and stress almost have to become the preoccupying thought. Don’t allow your work or ministry, no matter how noble it is, to busy you away from a warm and abiding and disciplined fellowship with your heavenly Father. Don’t allow anybody or any organization bully you into an intimidation that takes you away from the commandments of God or decreases your awe of Him. Date in reference to him and not away from him. Bring him to work…really!
Don’t think, well, I’m in a trial, so I have to be totally despondent, when you know that, even during the hardship, God Himself is with you and brings some enjoyment along.
Have no other gods before the Father of Jesus Christ because He is the Joyful Fear, the Awesome Gladness in whose Presence is fullness of joy. You have no good apart from Him.
The counsel I’m giving you is the aspect of taking refuge in God that David refers to in vv. 7,8:
I bless the LORD who gives me counsel; In the night also my heart [kidneys] instructs me.
I have set the LORD always before me; Because he is at my right hand I shall not be shaken.
Taking refuge in God is to deliberately keep the LORD as your first priority, the One whose voice you hear above all, the word before you tremble.
At all times, even at blackest night, keeping your heart, or your kidneys, or as we moderns would say, the center of ourselves, in a warm and open communication with God, and only from him receiving direction for your life.
No, awesome Netflix show, the minute you’re eclipsing my view of God, you’re out of here. No, dating life, you’ll take a lot of my attention, but it’s my God at my right hand! No, out-of-work…No, doing awesome work…it’ll be all in reference to God. The Father is at my right hand…my operational hand, with which I’m doing stuff, crafting my life. He’s just there, at the place I spend money and put my efforts. And I shall not be shaken.
Oh, this is the real struggle of life, not avoiding everything harmful but rather to take refuge in God, brothers and sisters. The struggle is for genuine communication with God. How easy it is to say we’ve set God at our right hand … and yet his words…his actual words… have no practical import in our lives…instead our thoughts of God are only slogans and sentiments. It’s easy to have become bored with God while we’re still going through motions. In our imaginations having fashioned another god while we say we’re adhering to the Father of Jesus.
It’s a dangerous world out there, and in here… but David testifies that by structuring your thinking and habits to take refuge in God there’s fullness of joy in his presence.
Ok, that’s where we’ll stop. Your homework this week is to read Acts 2 and think through how Peter’s sermon ties in Psalm 16 to the Lord Jesus.
This message is loaded with gold!! Thanks, Colin!