Strikingly, Peter attibutes these words from Psalm 16 to the Lord Jesus as He faced the gruelling mission of God (Acts 2:25-28). Even through the experience of His own bloody murder, He found real courage in the mindset of Psalm 16. I can't read this Psalm, thinking about the lovely Jesus, crushed under the Father's hand on the cross, without thinking fondly of the Servant Songs of Isaiah. Jesus, the man, striding through time, bearing the burden of the mission of God upon His shoulders. The eternity of every soul resting upon His ability to compose Himself in the face of this gruesome butchery. Trembling in Gethsemane, the arrest, the shocking beatings, the mock trials, the barbaric murder, Jesus could arm Himself with the mindset of the Psalmist in Psalm 16. I take comfort in this as you can take comfort in this.
He could call out to HIS Father to keep Him safe, because HIS Father truly was His refuge. Outside of His Father He really has no good thing. The lovely Jesus truly does delight in His people whom He loved dearly enough to die that death for (see Galatians 2:20). Even though the cup held out to Him by the Father's hand was brimming with all He hated most, and he would truly suffer in the drinking of that vial, He could say that His lot was secure--He is unshakeable! Although He faced the horror of the cross, the lines for Him truly were drawn in pleasant places and He surely did have a delightful inheritance. It really was this immeasurable joy that was set before Him that energised Him to endure the cross, scorning its shame so that He could sit victorious at the right hand of the Majesty in Heaven (Hebrews 12:2).
It was His Father who wakened His ear morning after morning with delightful instruction that sustains the weary (Isaiah 50:4). He was so enthralled by the immediate nearness of His dear Father that nothing in all the universe, whether physical or spiritual could cause Him to flinch in His devotion to Him.
What delight consumed the majestic Jesus at the same time that He was consumed with the unspeakable agony of death. He could speak victory in the face of what SEEMED to be the greatest failure of history. He could have an unquestioned joy in His heart knowing that even as He entered through the jaws of death, His Father would not abandon Him to the grave or let His own dear Holy One see decay. Rather, he will be subject to the experience of delight upon delight, thrill upon thrill, joy upon joy, pleasure upon pleasure, for ever and ever! The boundaries of this delight will never be discovered. The are in a PERSON, they are in His Father.
As I have considered Jesus today, especially in this Psalm, how much deeper do these words pierce into the darkness of my ungrateful heart. How much more gripping these words become in the fight against losing heart in the bloody battle against sin. Consider HIM who ENDURED SUCH opposition from sinful men SO THAT YOU will not grow weary and lose heart.
This is phenomenal. Acts 2 brings Psalm 16 into such a sweet light. To think about Jesus holding onto this Psalm in each line, unshakably living for the Father. It brings the faithfulness and goodness of the Father to the foreground, no? Thank you for sharing this, I loved it! Karise and I just read this psalm a couple days ago, now we have much more to consider and praise God for
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2/8/14 10:50 AM
