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There are moments in life when we experience true satisfaction—when we've worked hard and finally achieve something we've been waiting for, or when something we've desired for a long time finally comes to us. That pleasant feeling of sheer bliss.
I witnessed one of those moments yesterday while playing mini golf with friends. Most of us were below-average golfers. We came to a tricky hole with uneven ground—it sloped down sharply after rising up. One by one, we swung our clubs, and each time the same thing happened: the ball would go up into the right area, then veer off in the opposite direction.
Then one of our friends stepped up. He took his position, swung, and in what felt like slow motion, the ball went directly into the hole. A hole in one. I just watched his face light up. Pure satisfaction.
In Psalm 16, David tells us about a satisfaction that is far deeper and longer-lasting than any temporary pleasure. He has found his satisfaction in the Lord, and he has known this throughout his life. He trusts that he will be satisfied in the Lord beyond death into eternal life.
There is so much we can know from just this one psalm about how David sees who God is to him:
David is confident in who God is to him, and therefore he has learned to be content.
David says in verses 5 and 6:
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.
To David, God is his share, his portion, his inheritance. He is referencing something God said to the Levites in the book of Numbers.
As we go through the Old Testament, we see that God's people were promised an inheritance—blessing, descendants, and a land. When the promised land was received, it was divided among the different tribes of Israel by the casting of lots, and it was understood that God was directing this process.
But when it came to the Levites—the tribe set apart for priestly service—something different was said. This is what God told Aaron:
You will have no inheritance in their land, nor will you have any share among them. I am your share and your inheritance among the Israelites. (Numbers 18:20)
When David references this in Psalm 16, he is saying: God alone is my share. He is my inheritance. He is my portion. I choose God over anything else that could be gained in this world—any wealth, any favored circumstance, any achievement, any security.
David, who was the youngest in his family and likely overlooked in terms of inheritance, says: "Surely I have a delightful inheritance." David is rich because he has the Lord. Because God is with him and he has found his satisfaction in him.
This satisfaction that David has in the Lord flows out into the way he sees his entire life. Because God is first in his heart, David is able to see everything else in his life clearly in its proper place.
David says: "You are my Lord. Apart from you, I have no good thing."
He recognizes that anything good that he has in his life comes from God. And so:
All the good things that we have been given come from the source of all goodness—and that is God. There is so much that he has graciously given to us. Throughout our lives, we can cultivate a heart of gratitude and thankfulness.
But David is saying something even more profound: God is not just the giver from whom David gets good things. God is the good thing that David wants more than anything else in this world. God is his ultimate good. God is his ultimate satisfaction.
David comes to God not just for the good things that he can get from God, but just to be close to him, to be near him, to be in the joy of his presence, to have companionship with him, to gaze upon his beauty, to look at him because he is lovely, he is glorious, he is wonderful, and there is no one else like him.
Do we enjoy him? Do we know Jesus like this today? When you think of Jesus, what fills your heart?
There is an old song that I remember from singing in church as a child. It goes like this:
Lord, you are more precious than silver. Lord, you are more costly than gold. Lord, you are more beautiful than diamonds. And nothing I desire compares with you.
This song was written by Lynn Dazzo in the 1980s. After graduating, she was working at McDonald's while pursuing God and wanting to grow in her faith. She had learned that she could give herself to God in fasting and prayer, to feast on his presence.
One day she was fasting while working the chip shift at McDonald's. She was there preparing the fries, watching them crisp up and turn golden. The smell of the machines, the smell of the chips. She was so hungry that when no one was looking, she grabbed a couple of chips and ate them. She was gutted that she had broken her fast.
When she got home, she sat with the Lord, prayed, opened up the scriptures, picked up her guitar, and out of her flowed this song: "Lord, you are more precious. Lord, you are worth more to me than anything else—than gold or silver or diamonds, anything else that I could have in this world."
There is a gladness that is only found with the Lord. He is the deepest longing of every human heart.
David in this psalm says that the Lord is his cup. He is the one who sustains him, nourishes him, fills him. And David says that he refuses to make sacrifices or pour out drink offerings to any other god, to false gods. He won't even utter their names on his lips. His worship is only for God. God is first and there can be no other idols.
As with much of our faith, we live in this paradox: we have seen God but keep on seeking him. We have tasted of his goodness yet hunger for more. The Lord is our cup, yet we thirst for more of him. We find our satisfaction in him, we are satisfied in Jesus, and yet as we are satisfied in Jesus, we long for more of him—to have more of him in our lives.
Every other idol must be cast down, must be renounced, must be thrown to the ground. There is only one that we can worship, and we always find that only he satisfies completely. We need God's help continually to search our hearts through the Spirit and discern if we've set up anything else in God's place.
Like David, we can know the satisfaction of the Lord throughout our lives. And we can even know it in hard places, regardless of the circumstances.
We don't know exactly at what point in David's life he wrote Psalm 16, but it's very likely that he wrote it while fleeing from death, fleeing for his life. What we do know is that David's life wasn't perfect. His life was hard. He experienced difficult family relationships, the death of his best friend, misunderstanding, loneliness, and fleeing from danger.
Those don't sound like "boundary lines in pleasant places." In fact, for much of David's life, someone was trying to cross his boundary lines in order to kill him—that was Saul.
So how can David say this? How can he say that the boundary lines have fallen for him in pleasant places, that he has a delightful inheritance?
It's because of who was with him. It's because of who he knew in the midst of it. To David, God is his pleasant place. God is his delightful inheritance. It is possible for us to know the satisfaction of the Lord on hard ground in tough places.
Even when the events of David's life didn't go the way he thought they might, he turned to God and found his satisfaction in him. He has been fenced into God himself and has found it his greatest delight to be with the Lord.
When we're on tough ground, we can look around at other people's patches of land, their plots, and compare. "That person has a bigger plot of land. That person's plot has greener grass. That person has a cool water feature." We can easily look at people's lives and want what they have—their lifestyle, their achievements, their gifts, their circumstances.
But on each of our patches, on each of our plots of land, wherever we find ourselves, we can know the pleasure, the sweetness, the joy, the companionship of God. Don't miss out on the greatest reward you could ever have. It's Jesus. And we get to enjoy him. We get to enjoy life with him.
St. Teresa of Ávila was a 16th century Spanish nun and mystic known for her spiritual writings on friendship with God. She faced challenges of all kinds in her life—severe illness, public criticism, opposition. There is a prayer attributed to her that says:
Let nothing disturb you. Let nothing frighten you. All things are passing. God never changes. Patience obtains all things. Whoever has God lacks nothing. God alone suffices.
God alone suffices. There is nothing that can satisfy us the way God can. There is a God-shaped hole in every human heart that only God can fill. He is the only one that can satisfy our deepest human need, which is for him.
Now, this doesn't mean that we don't have other things in our lives that are good, that we enjoy, that matter. Enjoying God means that we can enjoy everything else in our lives in a free, good, and right way. We enjoy things more freely.
It's also important that we understand that as Christians, being satisfied in God doesn't mean that all our other desires and longings disappear. In fact, our satisfaction in God means that we have this confidence in him, confidence in relationship with him, so that we can be honest—completely honest with him.
It is possible to be satisfied in God, to have his full yes, and at the same time say: "I long for this."
There will be different things that each of us desires. And God cares. He cares about us:
It's important that we're real with God about these things. Being satisfied in God doesn't mean that we hide these things, that we deny our desires from him, that we deny things that are hard. That's not what it means.
There have been times in my life where I've held on to the words in this psalm: "Lord, you alone are my portion and my cup" in times of disappointment, in times of grief, in times of questioning. As I've expressed prayers and shouts to God, it's been like I'm a toddler having a tantrum and he can take it.
"God, I'm so disappointed. God, I'm so sad about this. God, I don't understand what you're doing. I don't understand why this situation hasn't changed. Why hasn't this prayer been answered?"
In the wrestling and in the struggle, in the pain and anguish and anger and frustration, as the tears come and the cries come and we direct harsh words at him, we can be confident of this: that he won't let us go in the grip of his infinite love. There is no one else in the world that is like him.
"Lord, you alone are my portion and my cup." And we come back to this place: God, you are enough. You are enough. And so I trust you. I trust you for today. I trust you for tomorrow. I trust you for my future.
We can bring every longing to him and find that he meets us there.
This psalm shows us that we can know the satisfaction of the Lord throughout our life. And David in this psalm is also convinced that he will know the satisfaction of the Lord into eternal life—beyond death. For the rest of eternity, he will know God and be satisfied. Even death will not keep him from this. David is sure that God will never abandon him.
Last week, Dan H spoke on Psalm 63. One of the things that Dan said is that Jesus is right at the center of the Psalms. They sing of him. They speak of him. The Psalms are all about Jesus.
We see this here in Psalm 16. In the book of Acts, on the day of Pentecost, when Peter got up to preach, he was filled with the Holy Spirit and began to tell the crowds about Jesus. As he was filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke, he quoted this psalm—Psalm 16.
He says this about Jesus in Acts 2:25-28:
David said about him: I saw the Lord always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. Therefore, my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices. My body also will rest in hope because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead. You will not let your holy one see decay. You have made known to me the paths of life and you will fill me with joy in your presence.
David here spoke prophetically about Jesus. Jesus would not be abandoned to the realm of the dead. Jesus's body would not decay. Jesus would die but then be raised on the third day. Through his resurrection, he fulfills the words in this psalm.
And now in Jesus, in him, we can experience all of the abundance that David speaks about in this psalm—life, joy, eternal pleasures with God.
How can we be satisfied in this life? What is a life well-lived? It's a life lived with God. Knowing him, enjoying him, knowing him as our greatest treasure, the joy of our lives, the song of our hearts, our first love.
It's life with Jesus, and we will enjoy him into the rest of eternity, and he will satisfy us.
In Jesus's name. Amen.
