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Psalm 16
A Michtam of David.
In life, we have two basic desires – to feel safe and to feel satisfied.
These two basic desires drive so many choices we make every day.
When we don’t feel safe, fear and anxiety grip our minds.
When we don’t feel satisfied, greed and lust control our hearts.
Entire industries (like marketing) and professional services (like psychology) devote themselves to fulfilling these desires.
Insurance companies, home security systems, gun manufacturers, healthcare providers, and investment agencies promise to make us safer.
Fine dining, collectibles, travel, entertainment, and entertainment promise to satisfy us.
How much money and power would it take for you to finally feel safe and satisfied, needing nothing more?
If you, like David, were king over an entire nation, would you feel safe and satisfied?
With so many opportunities and resources at your disposal, couldn’t you at last be able to get what you need to feel satisfied and safe?
In this psalm, David tells how he resolved both these desires.
His answer may surprise, because it has nothing to do with leveraging his power or wealth.
His solution cost nothing and is available to anyone.
He found safety and satisfaction not in circumstances, experiences, and possessions, but in a close, confident relationship with God.
Rather than run away from God to fulfill these desires, he ran to God instead.
Do you feel perfectly safe and satisfied?
Are you pursuing these feelings in the wrong places?
Or like David, have you found total safety and satisfaction with God?
Together, let’s trace David’s thoughts and let God’s Word challenge us to find safety and satisfaction in a close relationship with him, not just today but forever.
David expresses his trust in God.
Preserve me, God,
because I have taken shelter in you.
I said to Yahweh, “You are my Lord;
I have nothing good apart from you.”
Preserve means “to guard or watch over.”
Take shelter means to hide somewhere for protection, such as in a cave or castle.
As king over the nation of Israel, David had a castle and army to protect him, yet he still felt scared.
So, he learned not to rely on those things for his safety.
He relied on God instead.
In these opening verses, David speaks of God three ways.
He calls him ‘God’ (categorical title), then ‘Yahweh’ (personal name), then ‘Lord’ (royal title).
By using Lord, David submits himself to God as king and master over his life, which is remarkable for David to say because he was also a king and Lord over a nation.
To find safety and satisfaction in God like David, we must fully submit to God as King and Lord.
We cannot set the agenda and rules for our lives and expect to feel safe and satisfied in doing so.
Freedom from anxiety and genuine satisfaction in life begin when we submit our lives entirely to God, when we rest in him and delight in him.
As Augustine, a well-known believer from the ancient port city of Hippo in Northern Africa, rightly observed, “Because God has made us for himself, our hearts are restless until they rest in him.”
By saying, “I have nothing good apart from you,” David traces every good circumstance and detail in his life back to God.
He correctly understood what James would later say in the NT, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and comes down from the Father of lights” (Jam 1:17).
Paul agreed with this correct perspective when he said, “God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy…” (1 Tim 6:17).
If there is anything good in or about your life, then it comes from God.
Yet we should do more than acknowledge this fact of where good things come from.
We should acknowledge that we cannot enjoy true safety and satisfaction from these things without experiencing them in tandem with a close relationship with God.
We enjoy food best, for instance, when we enjoy it as being from God. That’s why we give thanks to God from our hearts for our food before we eat it.
When we distance or divorce God’s gifts from the God who gave them, we separate him from his blessings and then easily slide into worshiping his gifts rather than himself.
David associated himself with godly people.
As for the chosen ones who are in the land,
they even the prominent ones,
in them is all my delight.
They will increase their pain who hurry after another;
I will not pour their drink offerings of blood,
and I will not bear their names on my lips.
In these next verses, David explains a commitment to pursue close relationships with godly people.
As king over the people of Israel, he chose to associate with certain kinds of people on one hand while disassociating himself with other kinds on the other.
Delight here means to find joy and pleasure in people; it is a word about relationships.
In a negative sense, Eccl 5:4 tells us that “God has no pleasure in fools.”
In a positive sense, David said, “I am a companion of all who fear you, and of those who keep your precepts.”
“The chosen ones who are in the land” here likely refers Israelite people who lived in the land of Palestine, which God had given them.
“Even the prominent ones” (or “excellent,” “glorious” ones) likely refers to those who had leadership roles among the people of Israel.
Next, David clarifies that he did not closely associate with everyone who governed or lived in the land of Israel.
Some living in the land chased after other gods.
These chose to hurry or run after other gods besides Yahweh.
They did not submit to Yahweh as Lord but pursued their safety and satisfaction from other gods, instead.
This principle, associating with ungodly people carries over into the NT, when James says, “Adulterers and adulteresses!
Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God” (Jam 4:4).
So, David is saying that one ways he demonstrated his total reliance upon God for safety and satisfaction is by associating himself with people who do the same and by disassociating himself with people who do not.
The word for pour drink offerings never in the Old Testament refers to the kind of sacrifices or offerings given in the Jewish tabernacle or temple.
It refers to offering sacrifices to pagan deities and included the practice of drinking blood as part of such rituals, so David is specifically referring to the worship of gods other than Yahweh.
That he would “not bear their names on my lips” most likely refers not to the names of the people who did these things but to the names of the other gods.
In fact, you may have noticed that false gods are not even mentioned at all (though some translations supply god).
They are referred to merely as “another” in the first line of v.4.
Can you see the contrast here?
David calls speaks of God, Yahweh, and the Lord all while mentioning no names of any pagan deities at all.
With a new school year starting soon, you may be presented with a choice to make new friends.
Though we should be caring and friendly to all, we should build close, heartfelt relationships only with those who love and fear God.
Will you associate with people who trust in God and distance yourself from those who do not?
Will you run after other gods and participate in the ungodly activities and behavior of people who are searching for safety and satisfaction apart from God?
Ultimately, David reminded himself that those who look for safety and satisfaction from other gods would find the opposite experience.
They would “increase their pain” instead.
Pain here covers a range of undesirable experiences, from mental and emotional anxiety to physical injury and pain.
When you’re tempted to run after other gods and to pursue safety and satisfaction in ungodly ways, remember that your safety and satisfaction will not increase but will go from bad to worse.
Your anxiety and pain will increase.
The blessing of God is different.
As Prov 10:22 says, “The blessing of the Lord makes one rich, and he adds no sorrow with it.”
When you find your safety and satisfaction in God, then anxiety, guilt, pain, regret, and sorrow does not accompany the pleasure.
David trusted exclusively in God.
Yahweh is my share of the territory – my cup,
and you uphold my lot.
The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
indeed, my inheritance is beautiful to me.
I will bless Yahweh who gives me counsel –
even at night my heart instructs me.
I set Yahweh before me continually;
since he is at my right hand, I will not be moved.
So, David trusted completely in God for safety and satisfaction in this life and he lived out this trust by associating himself with people who shared his values and by disassociating himself with people who did not.
Now, notice how David found his safety and satisfaction not in the things which God provided but in God himself.
In the opening verses, he said he had taken shelter not from God but in God.
Here he says that he enjoyed not merely the territory or cup which God had given him, but he enjoyed God as his territory and cup.
By “my cup,” he viewed what God provided to him (esp.
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