Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - The Path to Deeper Happiness | The Writings | Psalm 16

Episode Date: January 22, 2024

Where do you turn to in fear? Can you ever find true happiness? Are you confident. in your own faith in God? In today's episode, Keith looks to Psalm 16 to find the key to deep peace and joy in Jesus. Read the Bible with us in 2024! This year, we’re tackling a group of Old Testament books traditionally known as “The Writings”— Psalms, Chronicles, Proverbs, Daniel, Ruth and more! Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter@TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Psalm 16

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Keith Simon. Today is a good day because today we're in Psalm 16, and Psalm 16 is one of my all-time favorite Psalms. It stirs my soul to trust in God. If you made the greatest hits of the Book of Psalms, this one definitely makes the cut. At least it does if I'm the one making the list. And yet, a lot of people don't know Psalm 16 very well.

So let's go through it and, of course, think about how it applies to us. but let's also let it drive our hearts to trust in God. So here's how it starts. Keep me safe, my God, for in you I take refuge. We know that David wrote this Psalm, but we don't know the circumstances he was facing at the time. All we know is that he was under some kind of threat. We don't know if the threat came from another person or from some difficult circumstances in his life, or maybe he was a health issue, or maybe he felt like he was under spiritual attack.

We don't know the specific circumstances, but maybe that's good because it allows us to insert ourselves into this verse. No matter what fears you have, seek safety in God by taking refuge in Him. Because a lot of people use digital Bibles, whether it's on an e-reader like a Kindle or the U-Version app or something like BibleGaithway.com, we know the verses that they go to more than any other. And one of the most popular verses every year is Isaiah 410. Here's what it says, do not fear for I am with you do not be dismayed for I am your God I will strengthen you and help you I will uphold you with my righteous right hand this is always one of the most popular verses in the Bible and that's a good indication that people are afraid and why not fear seems like a reasonable

response to a lot of what's happening in the world a few years ago the most highlighted passage of any book read on Kindle was from the hunger games here's what everybody highlighted because sometimes things happen to people and they're not equipped to deal with them. That's our life, isn't it? Things are happening in our life and we don't feel equipped to deal with them. No wonder people highlighted that verse. It resonated with their experience. When we don't feel equipped to deal with life's challenges, we experience fear and worry.

But can we go deeper than that? Like, can we figure out what's underneath that fear? Let me see if this helps. We all know intellectually that driving your car is more dangerous than flying in an airplane. If you look at the number of deaths per miles traveled in cars versus planes, it's not even close. The last fatal plane crash of a commercial airliner in the United States was February 12, 2009. That was a long time ago. But if you ask people which they are more afraid of, the vast majority of people say they're more afraid of flying than driving.

Why? Well, when you're barreling down the highway at 70 miles an hour, we're under the illusion that we're in control of our own safety. We assume that if something unexpected happens, we can respond and keep ourselves from harm. But when we're flying in a metal tube 30,000 feet in the air, then anything we feel that's unexpected, maybe it's something like turbulence or maybe we hear a loud noise. Well, we have no illusion that we are in control, and that lack of control scares us. So I think that's what's underneath our fears.

of time, life has a way of showing us that we're not really in control. And as a result, people turn to the Bible. Maybe it's something like Isaiah 4110. Do not fear. Do not be dismayed, for I am your God. Or maybe it's something like Psalm 16, verse 1. Keep me safe, my God, for in you, I take refuge. Okay, here's another question. Can you guess the most common command in the Bible? Now, of course, it depends exactly how you count. But most people would say it's don't be afraid, or as the King James Version says, fear not. Some say the command to not be afraid occurs in the Bible 365 times, one for each day of the year, reminding us that there's no day that we need to live in fear. Now, I think it takes some creative counting to come up

with precisely 365 commands to not fear. But the point is correct. Those who follow Jesus don't need to live in fear. The things that people are afraid of haven't changed much over the centuries. Look through the Bible and we find that people were afraid of the same things we are. Are you afraid of physical danger? So are they. Afraid of failing? Obeying God? Other people's opinions about you? Well, so were they. That's why David starts this Psalm by saying, Keep me safe, my God. For in you, I take refuge. God is my refuge. It's not that these other things that I fear aren't a big deal. I mean, they are. I have a friend with brain cancer. That's a big deal. God doesn't pretend that there aren't real challenges in our life.

But my friend is taking refuge in God. She's not taking refuge in doctors, but in God. Fight your fears by running to him. Verse 2 says, I say to the Lord, you are my Lord. Apart from you, I have no good thing. There's a really big difference between knowing that Jesus is Lord and submitting to him as your Lord.

There's a difference between borrowing other people, faith and possessing your own faith. Some people have what I call a second-hand faith. They depend on their favorite preacher or their favorite worship band or maybe it's a great small group leader. Now, we of course need other people in the body of Christ to encourage us and help us in our faith, but we don't want to have a second-hand faith. We want to believe ourselves, read the Bible for ourselves, find our joy in God that's independent of other people. If the internet went away tomorrow so that you can't access your favorite Christian celebrities. Do you keep walking with God

because you know that he's not just the Lord or their Lord, but your Lord? Let's read verse 2 again. I say to the Lord, you are my Lord. Apart from you, I have no good thing. Every good thing in your life is from God.

Do you like the sunshine? That's from God. Whatever good health you have, that's from God. A roof over your head, a friend, an education, a working mind, a job, a vacation, a child, anything and everything that is good in your life comes from God. And of course, that means that you can trust Him. Look at how good God has been to you. Sometimes we take all the good gifts that God has given us for granted and then wonder why God isn't good to us?

Wake up. God has blessed me. God has blessed you. Verse 4. David says troubles multiply for those who chase after other gods. I will not take part. and their sacrifices of blood, or even speak the names of their God. We all want to be happy. That search for happiness is what drives us. It's why we get married and divorced. Why we have kids or not? Why are we going to diet or a vacation?

Everything we do is because we think it will bring happiness in our life. So Satan comes along and tells us that we will be happier if we do our own thing instead of God's thing. He lies to us and tells us that God is keeping something good from us, that sin will make us happy. But when David says troubles multiply for those who chase after other gods, he's reminding us that rejecting God is our father and listening to the gods of this world, the false gods that lie to us, brings trouble in our life, not happiness. Our troubles will multiply if we refuse to listen to the one true God and instead listen to the false gods in our culture. sin promises that it will make us happy and it might deliver some kind of happiness in the short term but in the long term it leaves you empty in the long term it multiplies your troubles verse five lord you alone are my portion and my cup you make my lot secure the boundary lines have

fallen for me in pleasant places surely i have a delightful inheritance the words you heard in those verses like portion or lot or boundary lines. They're all words that deal with land or property. These verses are looking back to the time that Israel went into the promised land, and God gave each tribe an inheritance. He gave every tribe a portion of land except for the Levites. He didn't give them any land as their inheritance. Remember, the Levites were the tribe who worked in the temple and provided the priests for the nation. Deuteronomy 18 says, the Levitical priests, indeed the whole tribe of Levi, are to have no allotment or inheritance with Israel. They shall have no inheritance among their fellow Israelites.

The Lord is their inheritance, as he promised then. Did the Levites get ripped off? Did they get the short end of the deal because they didn't get land, but they only got God? No way. God is their inheritance. It reminds me of gospel math, that Jesus plus nothing equals everything. Do you believe that? That Jesus plus nothing equals everything, so that if you have Jesus, then you can say like David did, that God has been good to me, that the boundary lines have fallen in pleasant places.

Verse 8. I keep my eyes always on the Lord. With him at my right hand, I will not be shaken. Life is hard. It has lots of ups and downs. I mentioned a few minutes ago that my friend has brain cancer. You've got your own set of challenges, just like David had his challenges that he went through that caused him to write Psalm 16.

If you know much about David's life, you know that his brothers and even his dad doubted him, that King Saul tried to kill him, he saw one of his children die in infancy, he had a guilty conscience because of his sin with Bashiba. One child, Absalom, rebelled against him. Another, Adinajia, tried to deceive him. David had to flee from Jerusalem to protect his own life. And so David says the way he persevered through all that hardship is by keeping his eyes focused on God. That's the only way he wasn't shaken.

This is the last verse of Psalm 16. It's verse 11. You make known to me the path of life. You will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand. God is the path of life. There is joy in his presence. Eternal pleasures at his right hand. Earlier, I said that we all pursue happiness, and that's true.

Ask a parent what he or she wants for their kid, and they'll all tell you that they don't care about what career they take, or they don't care about all the details. All they really care about is that our son or our daughter is happy. Well, the path of happiness is to follow Jesus. Jesus offers you a deeper, fuller happiness today than this world can even imagine. Jesus offers you a happiness that is beyond circumstances. It's a happiness that abides even with great sadness. It's a happiness that can coexist with suffering.

It's a happiness that can never be taken away because Jesus has promised he will never leave you or forsake you. It takes you all the way back to gospel math. What Psalm 16 is telling us that is if you have Jesus, then you don't need anything else. Jesus plus nothing equals everything. Of course you can take that the opposite way too, and you can say you can have everything, but if you don't have Jesus, then you really have

nothing. Psalm 16 is one of my all-time favorites. I hope it becomes one of your favorites, too. I hope it helps you, like it does me, to put your hope in God.