Transcription downloaded from https://listen.trinitycambridge.com/sermons/17799/fullness-of-joy/.

Disclaimer: this is an automatically generated machine transcription - there may be small errors or mistranscriptions.
Please refer to the original audio if you are in any doubt.


[0:00] ...ones, in whom is all my delight. 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.

[0:14] The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup. You hold my lot. The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places. Indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance. I bless the Lord who gives me counsel.

[0:27] In the night also my heart instructs me. I have set the Lord always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken. Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices.

[0:42] My flesh also dwells secure. For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your Holy One seek corruption. You make known to me the path of life.

[0:53] In your presence there is fullness of joy. At your right hand are pleasures forevermore. For the next segment, Steve's going to share the message to you.

[1:05] I'm going to ask you to follow along. I will see. I think it's obvious that you can often tell how someone's doing by how life is going for them, by how they're acting or speaking.

[1:22] We helped watch our neighbor's kids this week. And one of them was just in tears as he had to go to bed and put his toys away. It was very obvious how he felt about that circumstance and situation.

[1:34] It's like, you know, I don't want to go to bed. He's setting the next toy in the pen. And we all give off very clearly in different ways how we're feeling about what we're going through.

[1:44] And I think that the psalm tonight stands in contrast to that almost and in a challenge to that. And just that even in difficult circumstances, that God is good and that we find joy in him.

[1:56] He gives us joy. And so in the psalm, we see that it looks like David has either gone through a hard time recently or is going through a hard time. Verse 1, he's asking God to preserve him.

[2:10] And in verse 10, he mentions that basically he's almost seen death in something that's recently happened to him. And so this is David's attitude even in that difficult time.

[2:24] And it's impressive, as we'll see. And I think that he starts off towards the beginning saying, you know, I have no good apart from God. In verse 4, he rejects and says, you know, the sorrows of those who run after another God will multiply.

[2:41] And their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out or take their names on my lips. And so he rejects up front, even though he's going through something difficult, other options or other attempts to fix what's going wrong.

[2:53] I think it's really instinctive for us to try to fix what's wrong. I don't think that that's a bad thing. I think we joke at my job, like I do software and website development.

[3:03] And we joke that there weren't problems, we wouldn't have work. And so, you know, I spend most of my day trying to fix problems. And I think that what probably happens with us and with serving, like, other gods and idols, like, things that we care about more than God himself, is that we misinterpret the problem there.

[3:21] The problem is not necessarily with the situation, the problem is more with ourself. And that when we're taking on idols or trying to worship other gods alongside God, we're saying we're basically trying to use more of ourself to fix the problem with ourself.

[3:39] And so we need to look to God, who is outside of ourselves, to come in and work on us in difficult circumstances. And in contrasting those idols into the struggles we may face, we know that God is good.

[3:56] And in verses 5 through 6, David really clearly contrasts the goodness of God with just kind of the foolishness of the other options when we're going through something hard.

[4:06] He says, the Lord is my chosen portion, my cup, which kind of contrasts with the drink offerings that he talks about in verse 4. And he says, you know, I have a beautiful inheritance. And just picture, you know, vast land.

[4:19] When he says the lines have fallen for me in pleasant places, think about the boundary markers of property, which we don't see in the city much. But I grew up in the country, so I can actually think of seeing boundary markers and, like, lines of property.

[4:31] And he's saying, no, there's this vast inheritance versus the sorrows multiplying. And even more than that, this is something, you know, David shows full confidence in God.

[4:46] You know, he says, my heart is glad my whole being rejoices. So he feels just every bit about him, just fully secure in God. And like I said before, he says, you know, he's basically stared death in the face, but he trusts God, even in that instance.

[5:03] Just that because the Lord is at his right hand, he won't be shaken. And so all the language he's using here is just showing just complete confidence in God. And absolute fearlessness in the face of the situation.

[5:16] And I think that, you know, that steadfastness and that security in God, what's interesting about this psalm is that it's, you know, it's later applied to Jesus, part of it.

[5:29] And it's applied to how God was faithful to Jesus in his death and his resurrection. And so when it talks about, you know, you won't let, you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, both Paul and Peter and Acts used that to say, you know, well, David ultimately died, even though he was protected in this instance.

[5:48] He went to the grave. But Jesus was raised to life. And the ultimate fulfillment of the promises here are in Jesus. And so I think that that, you know, David had the work of the Lord in his life and God was working with him.

[6:03] But we even have a clearer picture of what God has done in Jesus. And so when I see promises like, you know, I bless the Lord who gives me counsel, I think of the word that I hold here. And I think of the people that I sit among here who give me counsel.

[6:17] When I think of, you know, in the night my heart instructs me, I think about the security with which I can rescue tonight. Because I know that Jesus is caring for his people. And I think of you won't abandon my soul to Sheol.

[6:30] I think of the promise of the resurrection in Jesus that we share in. So I think that Jesus makes a lot of the promises here really clear. And what's interesting and convicting to me is that it goes beyond just that God is good, but that David acutely feels and knows that God is good.

[6:49] Verse 11. You make known to me the path of life. In your presence there is fullness of joy. And at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. And there are other places too.

[7:00] We mentioned verse 9. My heart is glad. You know, back in verse 1 it says, You are my Lord. I have no good apart from you. And so there's something more than just an assent to the fact that God is good here.

[7:12] I assent every year to the fact that I have to pay my taxes. Because I don't, like, I let them come out of my paycheck and I don't try to swindle the government from them. But that's very different than finding joy.

[7:25] We know there's a difference between affirming something and really delighting in something or loving something. I can tell you things that I'm very excited about for entertainment that are coming out.

[7:36] I can tell you about good friends that I have or how much I love Lauren. And we know, like, all those things are true. But some of them are distinctly more meaningful to us.

[7:48] And I think that that's when the work of the Christian life and the work of prayer and living each day is really moving from, you know, knowing that God is good to really growing and really specific with him.

[8:05] Knowing that these promises are true and that they really matter to how we live day to day. And that Jesus is really with us and we will not be shaken. And I think we learn that through the difficulties.

[8:20] I know I've shared with my community group that just last week, you know, I spent a long time preparing for, like, full-time ministry. And I'm working in a totally different industry now than I expected to be doing what I'm doing right now.

[8:33] And, you know, the Lord's been really good in that. You know, I'm going into, I've had a good job. I'm going into another good job. And it's learning God's goodness in situations not always dependent on what we see.

[8:49] And so I think that if we, you know, wrap back around, it's not necessarily that the situation is good or bad in our attitude towards that, but that the situation that we have with Jesus and the way that God loves us supersedes all other situations that we're in.

[9:04]  And so his promise of goodness looks so great in life, so much greater than anything else that we face. Thank you.