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Sunday 2/08/26
Title: Hope: Setting the Lord ALWAYS before you
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Hope: Setting the Lord ALWAYS before you
Our last Sunday teaching was about Hope – both the Person of – namely Jesus Christ and the Source of – namely Jesus Christ.
We looked at Hebrews 11:1 and Hebrews 12:1-4, which together explain that Faith is the firm foundation of confidence supporting our hearts’ expectations of God.
Of course, the things we expect of God need to be consistent with Who He is and What He has revealed to us about His ways.
Remember that Israel knew God’s actions, but Moses knew His ways.
In like manner, one of the primary differences between Paul before Christ and King David was how they viewed the Law which revealed God. Before Christ, Paul saw it as nothing but rules which if kept make you blameless and if broken condemn you. Whereas David saw it as God’s Own personal self-disclosure.
Paul said,
“the commandment, which was to bring life, I found [past tense – before Christ] to bring death.” – Romans 7:10
Once he came to Christ he realized that it wasn’t the Law that was the problem,
“(12) Therefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good. (13) Has then what is good become death to me? Certainly not! But sin, that it might appear sin, was producing death in me through what is good, so that sin through the commandment might become exceedingly sinful.” – Romans 7:12-13
David said,
“(4) Show me Your ways, O LORD; Teach me Your paths. (5) Lead me in Your truth and teach me, For You are the God of my salvation; On You I wait all the day. (6) Remember, O LORD, Your tender mercies and Your lovingkindnesses, For they are from of old. (7) Do not remember the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions; According to Your mercy remember me, For Your goodness’ sake, O LORD.” – Psalm 25:4-7
&
“(11) Teach me Your way, O LORD; I will walk in Your truth; Unite my heart to fear Your name. (12) I will praise You, O Lord my God, with all my heart, And I will glorify Your name forevermore. (13) For great is Your mercy toward me, And You have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol.” – Psalm 86:11-13
“(97) Oh, how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day.” “(102) I have not departed from Your judgments, For You Yourself have taught me.” – Psa 119:97 & 102
So God, in His Word reveals His character and how He interacts with mankind. This is the basis for our hope – meaning what we can expect from God.
Of course there are some differences based upon covenant, but far less than what most people presume because the New Covenant didn’t change God, it changed us in relation to Him!
Furthermore, we grow in our understanding of what we can expect of God by the revelation of the Holy Spirit – even as Jesus promised as we see in John 14-17.
Finally, both our hope and faith grow in proportion to what we have experienced of God. Much of the “knowing God” which is mentioned in the New Testament is a knowledge obtained by way of experience with Him.
All of this being true, as I was seeking the Lord one were to go next in our lessons on Faith and Hope, He dropped the verse in Psalm 16: 8 which says, “I have set the Lord always before me.”
This is a pivotal verse in our lessons on faith. Without this, faith becomes a mechanical tool to manage life or far worse, by which we ATTEMPT to manipulate God to act as we want Him to.
What we need is a Moses heart, who longed to know God as an ever living present reality and live out of that daily union with Him. Through his trust which undergirded those truths he came to know of God and His character by way of experiencing Him.
Turn with me to Psalm 16:1, [ESV]
“Preserve me, O God, for in You I put my trust.”
A request, founded upon a decision.
Not that the decision to trust is what moves God specifically. Rather the reliability and faithfulness of God is what moves us to make the decision to trust.
Once we trust, it completes the circuit so to speak. God sent out word of His faithfulness to us, He revealed His faithful nature to us. In turn, we respond by trusting what we have come to know of Him and place our reliance in Him.
This bidirectional connection is a relationship of knowing and trusting. This pleases God!
He is now free to express His faithfulness to us within the context of relationship.
Now I want to be careful here, because God is sovereign.
It is 100% within God’s power and authority to intervene in our lives without our faith OR consent and I believe that there are times when that happens, but most typically exercising that power runs contrary to His purposes with humanity – which is a relationship of knowing and trusting.
So when I say our faith “frees God”, I fully admit to it being a limitation of language. What I specifically mean in saying this, is that it frees Him to intervene within the environment of the trusting, free-will environment relationship.
What I am NOT implying is that God is somehow limited by anything but His nature, character as well as His plans and purposes.
As Creator and Owner of all creation – God can do what He wants, when He wants to and doesn’t require anything from us – not even our approval.
Typically we will only see this in areas where God’s plans and purposes are being advanced.
So it is that when interacting with humans within their individual lives God’s desires and design for us is a relationship of knowing and trusting Him.
As such, it is within this respectful sphere of expectancy, that we draw upon Him and He, in His faithfulness to His Own character acts.
God is always the source, and the next verse bears this out.
Psalm 16:2,
“I say to the LORD, “You are my Lord; I have no good apart from You!”
Gill –
“my goodness [extendeth] not to thee; such who suppose that David here speaks in his own person, or in the person of other believers, or that the church here speaks, differently interpret these words: some render them, “my goodness [is] not above thee” {l}; it is far inferior to thine, it is not to be mentioned with it, it is nothing in comparison of it; all my goodness, happiness, and felicity lies, in thee,
Ps 73:25; others, “I have no goodness without thee”: the sense is the same as if it was “I have said”, as read the Greek, Vulgate Latin, and Oriental versions, and so Apollinarius; I have none but what comes from Thee; what I have is given me by Thee. ”
Psalm 16:3,
“As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones, in whom is all my delight.”
- As from David – “I delight in those who delight in You”. It is a foreshadowing of the truth we experience in Christ and is testified to in the body of the New Testament writings. That if we love God, we will love His children as well.
- As from God – “I delight in My saints”
Psalm 16:4,
“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.”
Though specifically from David they could be read as from God as well. Not in contrast but as a separate truth.
Psalm 16:5&6 should be taken together…
“(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.”
Gratitude and thankfulness are attributes of those near to God.
That isn’t to say that if someone is grateful or thankful that they are necessarily near God but rather that one cannot be literally near to God relationally without being grateful and thankful.
No doubt this was David acknowledging a true statement of his current reality as well as a settled favorable expectation of his future with God in eternity.
In similar fashion this can be held on to and stated by anyone regardless of their Earthly lot both in hope that God may, in His goodness, increase our lot in this life but also with a certain knowledge that regardless of what happens in this life God is our inheritance forever.
It may be hard for you to see how some of this is connected to Faith… but let me explain to you that because both Faith and Hope are relational you cannot divorce these tender aspects of relationship from faith. They are its building blocks and are that with which relational trust is most familiar and comfortable.
The Apostle Paul set before us in 1st Corinthians 13 that after the end of all things there remains “faith, hope and love; but the greatest of these is love”.
I would suggest that your growth in faith will never exceed your gratitude to God in relationship to and with Him.
Psalm 16:7,
Here is a clear statement of Hope…
“I bless the LORD Who gives me counsel; in the night also my heart instructs me.”
And now comes THE verse the Lord dropped in my heart at night which drew us this morning to this Psalm as a whole…
Psalm 16:8,
“I have set the Lord always before me.”
This is a statement of hope – of anticipation and expectation, of longing and of love.
In the same way that you need not tell a husband or wife who are passionate about their mate to think of them, consider them, live aware of them, rejoice in them, set all your future goals and dreams with them at your side always. You wouldn’t want it any other way and quite honestly, “apart from them” is hard to even conceptualize a future.
The same is true of children you love and are devoted to their upbringing and care.
But as all encompassing as these relationships and those like them are, they pale in comparison to our relationship with God.
These others only exist from His hand and power, yet He exists eternally and without outside support.
Without Him we are nothing.
Like Jesus said,
“Whoever does not love me more than mother, father, brother, sister, children…etc. Is unworthy of Me.”
If we value the creation above the Creator, we are not only hopelessly out of focus, we are in idolatry. We do not see, recognize or truly realize His true value and worth!
Let’s read the whole verse of Psalm 16:8…
“I have set the LORD always before me; because He is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.”
Anything outside of God is inherently unstable and therefore “able to be shaken”.
Hebrews 11:26-29, tells us –
“26 At that time His voice shook the earth, but now He has promised, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.”
27 This phrase, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of things that are shaken–that is, things that have been made–in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain.
28 Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe,
29 for our God is a consuming fire.”
This setting of the Lord ALWAYS before us is a discipline of the mind and will, but love will get you there!
The more ardent your love, the less your mind will tend to roam. This is not a judgement call, it is just a simple truth.
The fullness of this verse, its meaning and rewards are found in consistency.
Like a compass that is right only half the time, it has lost all value, for even when it does point North, you’ve lost confidence that it knows what North even is!
The value in the compass needle is its unwavering consistency.
That comparison can be taken too far of course because anytime our mind is set upon the Lord, it is of tremendous value. But if we desire to reap the benefits that are presented in this Psalm, the key is consistency!
This is one of the meanings of “acknowledging the Lord in all our ways”. When we do He has our focused attention and our expectation enabling Him to direct our paths and make them straight!
[God resists the proud – of you grace to humble]
Psalm 16:9,10
“Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices; my flesh also dwells secure. (rests in hope)
10 For You will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let Your Holy One see corruption.”
True of David when spoken, true of Jesus as Messiah prophetically.
We touched on this last week. That Jesus, in His humanity, had to trust this was true.
Before He confined Himself to the limits of being human, Jesus knew redemption would work. He knew it in the kind of certainty only God can. He knew with 100% certainty that He could take on the sins of the whole world – in fact, BECOME sin and yet, not be left in the consequences of sin forever.
His soul would not be left in the realm of the dead and His body would not decay. But in His humanity this required trust!
This Psalm is a prophetic declaration of that trust!
Peter understood this as fulfilled in Christ as did Paul.
Acts 2:22-33,
“(22) Men of Israel, listen to these words: This Jesus the Nazarene was a man pointed out to you by God with miracles, wonders, and signs that God did among you through Him, just as you yourselves know. (23) Though He was delivered up according to God’s determined plan and foreknowledge, you used lawless people to nail Him to a cross and kill Him. (24) God raised Him up, ending the pains of death, because it was not possible for Him to be held by it. (25) FOR DAVID SAYS OF HIM:
“I saw the Lord ever before me; because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. (26) Therefore my heart was glad, and my tongue rejoiced. Moreover my flesh will rest in hope, (27) because You will not leave my soul in Hades, or allow Your Holy One to see decay. (28) You have revealed the paths of life to me; You will fill me with gladness in Your presence.” – Psalm 16:8-11
(29) “Brothers, I can confidently speak to you about the patriarch David: he is both dead and buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. (30) Since he was a prophet, he knew that God had sworn an oath to him to seat one of his descendants on his throne.
(31) SEEING THIS IN ADVANCE, HE SPOKE CONCERNING THE RESURRECTION OF THE MESSIAH: He was not left in Hades, and His flesh did not experience decay.
(32) “God has resurrected this Jesus. We are all witnesses of this. (33) Therefore, since He has been exalted to the right hand of God and has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit, He has poured out what you both see and hear.”
Later Paul clearly reveals that he agrees by what is recorded of him in Acts 13:32-39,
“(32) And we ourselves proclaim to you the good news of the promise that was made to our forefathers.
(33) God has fulfilled this to us their children by raising up Jesus, as it is written in the second Psalm: “You are My Son; today I have become Your Father.”
(34) Since He raised Him from the dead, never to return to decay, He has spoken in this way, I will grant you the faithful covenant blessings made to David.
(35) Therefore He also says in another passage,
“You will not allow Your Holy One to see decay.”
(36) For David, after serving his own generation in God’s plan, fell asleep, was buried with his fathers, and decayed. (37) But the One Whom God raised up DID NOT DECAY.
(38) Therefore, let it be known to you, brothers, that through this man forgiveness of sins is being proclaimed to you, (39) and everyone who believes in Him is justified from everything, which you could not be justified from through the law of Moses.”
Psalm 16:11,
“You make known to me the path of life; in Your presence there is fullness of joy; at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”
Blessings!
Tri
