The Weekly Perspective
by Burke Shade, Associate Pastor
Everybody has a favorite Psalm, and for most Christians, that is Psalm 23. It does a lot of heavy lifting, for sure. Others prefer the Messianic Psalms, (2, 72, or 110). But Psalm 16 is like the 18-wheeler of Psalms: highly encouraging.
It opens with a request and a statement of faith: “Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge.” That should get your faith juiced right from the beginning: I’m in God’s hand, and I am trusting Him!
The second phrase again elicits a statement of faith, as well as focusing the believer’s trust in God’s good care and love: “I say to the Lord, ‘You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you.’” Expressing your faith in Jesus is good to do, of course, but so also is recognizing that in Him rests all the goodness you’re going to find in life. That’s an encouraging and truthful reaffirmation of faith.
The third phrase opens the corporate vista to your eyes of faith: “As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones, in whom is all my delight.” The Christian faith and life is more inclusive and broader than just you and Jesus; it includes the church; your brothers and sisters as well. And they are the ones you look to for examples of faithfulness and delight! Have you been doing that lately? Are you delighting in the wonderful, Jesus-bearing, light-bearing, loving saints around you?
In contrast to the faithful and excellent family that surrounds you in the corporate body of Christ, you have the foolishness and wickedness of those who pursue idolatry: “The sorrows of those who run after another god shall multiply; their drink offering of blood I will not pour out or take their names on my lips.” This is a clear statement of differentiation, of judgment: I will not be hanging out with those people, nor considering them the excellent ones. In fact, I won’t even be mentioning them! The hymn “Who is On the Lord’s Side” comes to mind! (to be continued).