I'll now read that same psalm, Psalm 16, where King David speaks of not being abandoned to the grave, but enjoying fullness of joy in God's presence forevermore. It's on page 535 in your Pew Bibles, Psalm 16. A miktam of David. Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge. I say to the Lord, you are my Lord, I have no good apart from you. As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent 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. The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup. You hold my lot. The lions have fallen for me in pleasant places. Indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance. I bless the Lord who gives me counsel. 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. My flesh also dwells secure. For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol or let your Holy One see corruption. You make known to me the path of life. In your presence there is fullness of joy. At your right hand are pleasures forevermore. We'll turn over to the New Testament where that psalm is quoted more than once, one of those being in Acts chapter two. This is Peter's Pentecost sermon about the resurrection of the crucified Christ. So read verses 22 through 32. This Easter morning we see Peter preaching the resurrection of Christ from Psalm 16. He says, men of Israel, hear these words. Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst as you yourselves know, this Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death because it was not possible for him to be held by it. For David says concerning him, I saw the Lord always before me. For he is at my right hand that I may not be shaken. Therefore my heart was glad and my tongue rejoiced. My flesh also will dwell in hope for you will not abandon my soul to Hades. or let your Holy One see corruption. You have made known to me the paths of life. You will make me full of gladness with your presence. Brothers, I may say to you with confidence about the patriarch David that he both died and was buried and his tomb is with us to this day. Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne, he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. This Jesus, God raised up, and of that, we are all witnesses. Thus far, the reading of God's words. Congregation, as we look at Psalm 16, this may or may not be the first place that you would go in the Old Testament to prove or to preach the resurrection of Jesus, but in the book of Acts, just several weeks after Jesus' death and resurrection, the very first sermon preached after the Holy Spirit came upon the church to empower them to testify to Christ's resurrection. was preached from this very psalm. Psalm 16 where Peter shows that Easter was already there prophesied in the Old Testament. And when David spoke as a prophet in the way that he did in this psalm, his confidence in the resurrection of Jesus gave him confidence himself in the face of death. That his flesh would dwell secure and he himself would enjoy fullness of pleasure at God's right hand forevermore. David was speaking as a prophet, pointing ahead to the fullness of pleasure that would be enjoyed by those who look in faith to the resurrection of Jesus. And so even as he prophesies for us of the resurrection of Christ, David also becomes in Psalm 16 a preacher, calling us who read this psalm and who hear it this morning to have this same confidence because of the resurrection of God's Holy One. I wanna look this morning at the resurrection of Jesus according to Psalm 16 and how it gives us confidence in the face of death. So we'll look at two things this morning. First, at how Peter interprets this psalm, and then how we apply this psalm, which teaches us that we can have victory over death through the resurrection of God's Holy One. Look first at verses eight through 11, or mostly nine through 11, and think about how Peter uses this in the New Testament. Just right in Acts chapter two, Peter is speaking to the Jews who were gathered in Jerusalem just several weeks after the crucifixion and resurrection. They're gathered on the day of Pentecost, and Peter, as he's preaching, he says, this Jesus, who was crucified and killed by your lawless hands God has raised up, loosening the pangs of death, for it was not possible that he could be held by death. Peter says that it wasn't possible for death to hold Jesus, and then his proof for that is Psalm 16. It's interesting, in Acts chapter two, when Peter says that death couldn't hold Jesus, He then grounds that claim with the word for. We see a statement like that and then he says for, he's saying this is why it wasn't possible. Right after the word for comes this quotation from Psalm 16. The reason why death couldn't hold him is because of what God himself has proclaimed in Psalm 16. For David says concerning him. And he quotes verses eight through 11 of our psalm. And focusing especially on verse 10 where it says that God would not allow his holy one to see corruption, David says, brothers, I say to you with confidence that the patriarch David has both died and been buried. His tomb is right here with us to this day. We can go and I can show you his body has indeed decayed. Which means that it cannot simply be of David himself that he was saying his body wouldn't see corruption. But David was speaking as a prophet, knowing that God had sworn to him an oath that one of his descendants would reign forever as king. And so David foresaw and spoke of the resurrection of Christ, that God would not let that holy one see corruption, but would raise him up. That's what Peter says in Acts chapter two, that when David says you will not allow your holy one to see corruption, he was speaking of the resurrection of his son. And if we believe that Peter was rightly understanding the Old Testament, which we must, then what Peter says in Acts 2 must guide the way that we understand Psalm 16. That as David, in the context of this psalm, is apparently in danger of death and he's looking to God for refuge, his hope and his confidence in the face of death are in the future resurrection of his son. And because of Christ's physical resurrection, David knew that he too would have victory over the grave. That's the idea of Psalm 16. That as David is looking death in the face, because of the future physical resurrection of his son, David knew that he too would have victory over the grave. Peter's not just making this up out of thin air. This is not just some fanciful reading of Psalm 16, but Peter gets it from a careful reading of this psalm. There is a sort of parallel pattern throughout the psalm. We're starting in verse 4b. David will make a statement and then he'll supplement it with a sort of, not only this, but also this statement. You see it at the end of verse four. He says, I won't pour out their drink offerings and, I won't even take their names on my lips. Verse five, the Lord is not only my allotted portion and cup, but he also holds my lot. Verse six, not only have the measuring lines fallen for me in pleasant places, but I also have a beautiful inheritance. Verse seven, he says the Lord gives me counsel, but not just that, he also instructs my heart in the night. Are you seeing this pattern emerge where every statement that David makes is then intensified by another? Leland Rykin, expert on literary forms in the Bible, explains it like this. He says, in this kind of parallelism, the second line adds something or intensifies the original thought. So that we can think in terms of A, and then what's more, B. Every statement that the psalmist makes is then built upon by a parallel statement that goes beyond the first. And this continues in verse eight. I have set the Lord always before me, he says, but he's also at my right hand. Verse nine, not only do my heart and being rejoice, but even my physical flesh dwells secure. And then we come to verse 10. where after six verses of these intensifying parallel statements, we ought to expect the same. And what David says at the end of verse 10 is not just a repeat of the first half of verse 10, but is building upon it. And yet many interpreters simply take that first part, you will not abandon my soul, as equivalent to the last part, or let your Holy One see corruption. But that kind of reading of verse 10 seems to ignore the pattern of the last six verses, where every statement that David makes is then built upon by a what's more statement. And so it seems that in the last half of verse 10, David is saying something more than simply that his soul will not be abandoned to Sheol, which is hinted at by the possessive pronoun that David uses in the last part of verse 10. He says your. which ought to stand out to us in the context of the rest of the psalm. If you look all the way back to verse five, David speaks of my portion, my cup, my lot. Verse six, me, I. Verse seven, my heart. Verse eight, my right hand. Verse nine, he speaks of my whole being and my flesh. Verse 10a, my soul, which makes the last half of verse 10 stand out. when he speaks not in terms of my, but your. Still, Ralph Davis says it's a bit striking to go through this whole raft of my's and then suddenly be hit with your in verse 10b. He says one might be pardoned for thinking that your holy one might refer to someone related to, but yet distinct from David himself. especially when we note that this word holy one is the Hebrew word hasid, which comes from the word hesed, meaning covenant faithfulness. And so you might actually translate this the covenant one, your covenant one, the one of whom God has made covenant promises. This is a messianic term. Speaking of the king who is the subject and center of the psalm, so that David is now looking beyond himself to his promised royal descendant, saying, not only will you not abandon my soul to Sheol, but your covenant one, his body, will be raised. And that's my confidence. It's rooted in God's covenant one, whose body will not see decay, but will be raised. which God implied when he promised to David in 2 Samuel 7, one of your sons will reign forever. And so actually when David says in verse seven that the Lord gives him counsel and instructs him in the night, I think he might actually be referring to God's covenant promises that he reflects on, which make him know that God will not abandon his soul to Sheol because God's covenant one will not see corruption. David's confidence is rooted in the oath that God made concerning his son. You will not let him see corruption. So David says, therefore, I too can face death without fear. His future resurrection is my hope. Old Testament theologian Gerard van Groningen puts it this way. He says, David, by the Spirit's enabling power, in other words, as a prophet, that's what Acts 2.30 says he's functioning as here. David, by the Spirit's enabling power, had the conviction that from his dynasty would come one who would be conqueror over death. And David understood that that conquest was to have great benefits in which he himself would participate. He would not remain in Sheol, or the grave, because the conqueror from his line would not remain. The Lord of life would make eternal life available, and David, verse 11, would enjoy it forever. You see how this works. Everything in this psalm is driving toward this climactic statement about the Holy One of verse 10b, and David's confidence is because of what God will do with him. David's confidence, Calvin says, is that the fullness of life which resides in the head alone, namely Christ, will fall down upon his members. Those who trust in him by faith, God's holy one, that that life which resides in him, the head alone, will fall down upon his members of which David is one. Those who look to this Christ in faith. Which means then that David's confidence is a confidence that not only he could have, but also we, as we too look to Christ's resurrection in faith. He looked forward to it, we look back upon it. And even as he, in looking to Christ's resurrection, was able to enjoy and share in that confidence of victory over the grave, And life after death, so we too, as we look in faith to the resurrection of Christ, that life which resides in Him, the head alone, it spills over to us so that we share in that same confidence of resurrection life. That's what Peter says in Acts chapter two. We stopped our reading at verse 32, but he goes on, if you were to keep reading the next seven or eight verses and says, If you repent of your sin and believe in this resurrection of Christ, then you will receive eternal life. That same eternal life that David speaks of in verse 11. So that those who believe in the death and the resurrection of Jesus do not need to fear death, but have the sweet promise and the sweet consolation of eternal life and the presence of God where at his right hand are pleasures forevermore, the sweet promise of life and joy forever in the presence of our Savior. And so what I wanna do now, having looked at the way that Peter understands and interprets this psalm, is go back and look through the rest of this psalm and see how you and I can sing it and pray it and apply it on this side of the cross and resurrection. How this whole psalm belongs to us and you and I can have this same confidence that David does throughout Psalm 16. How we can take refuge in the risen Lord Jesus. See what David says in verse one of Psalm 16, for in you I take refuge. As we read that first verse in light of the rest of the psalm, we see that ultimately what David is taking refuge in is God's promise concerning his son. So likewise, when we too find ourselves faced with death, as all of us one day will, like David in verses eight through 10, our confidence is in what God has done in raising his son from death. And we can look to him and say, you are my Lord, you are my master, I have no good apart from you. Like Thomas, we saw the resurrected Christ, we say my Lord, and my God, you are my treasure, and as you are, you are, as we confess in the Belgic Confession, the overflowing fount of all good. So what David is saying in verse two, I say to the Lord, you are my Lord, my God, my master, I have nothing good apart from you, but you are the overflowing fount of all good. And because of this, because we trust him, verse three, we join ourselves to his people. That's the next logical step for David in Psalm 16. He looks to the Lord and says, you are my Lord, I have nothing good apart from you. And so, verse three, as for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones in whom is all my delight. As we read this Psalm, this side of the cross and resurrection, we recognize that Jesus' resurrection does not only have implications for me personally, for me individually in isolation from the rest of God's people, but it has implications for all who are joined to Him by faith. And so because we love Him, because we say that we have no good apart from Him, our faith in Him and our love for Him spills over into love for His people. And again, that's the same thing we see in the book of Acts. That those who believed in the message of the resurrected Messiah were joined that day to the church. with whom they had all things in common. David teaches us in the book of Acts confirms that faith in the resurrected Messiah calls us not only to cling to him but to his people, the church. By publicly professing faith in the Lord Jesus and committing ourselves to a local body in which we serve and in whom we delight. Can you sense in verse three that that utter delight that David has in God's people. It's not only the New Testament that calls us to enjoy something of the same, but already here in Psalm 16, we are being urged to commit ourselves to the people of God and to love them. The flip side of which is separating ourselves, verse four, from those who run after other gods. or in a culture and day and age where we might not have the same explicit idol worship, we could sort of paraphrase that. Those who run after other godless ideologies. Those who follow anything or anyone but the risen Lord Jesus. Remember as we looked at Psalm 15 on Friday, it said that we must honor those who fear the Lord and in our eyes a vile person must be despised. That is to say, identifying with the risen Christ places us on the side of the one in Psalm 2, against whom the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain. It places us in the midst of a cosmic conflict. Taking refuge in the risen Lord Jesus means clinging to his church, and as the Belgian Confession says, separating ourselves from those who do not belong to it. It means taking sides with the risen Christ and his people. And no matter what persecution or suffering that might lead to, because Christ is our portion, we say with David in verse five and verse six, the lions have fallen for me in pleasant places. Indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance. Eternal life in the presence of my God. And as we sang Psalm 16b a moment ago, it sort of interpreted that inheritance language as speaking of the promised land. We know from the book of Hebrews that that promised land is but a type and shadow of the heavenly kingdom, the greater promised land, which is our inheritance. And so as we join ourselves to the risen Christ, who still the nations rage and plot against no matter what persecution or what suffering may come as we join ourselves to him, we say with David, the lions have fallen for me still in pleasant places. I have a beautiful inheritance. Eternal life in that heavenly promised land of the presence of my God, who not only counsels me with his word, verse seven, and will save me from death, verses eight to 10, but will give me himself on the other side of it. That's what we see in verse 11, where the climax of all of this is God himself making known to me the path of life and in his presence there being fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore. This is our future. If we trust in Jesus and in his resurrection, eternal pleasure in the presence of our God. Boys and girls, maybe you hear that and you think, well, I don't know how pleasurable, how enjoyable life forever in the presence of God sounds. God himself is the one who created pleasure. Every good taste, every enjoyable moment of laughter, every thrill that we enjoy in this good creation comes from him who is the father of lights from whom every good and perfect thing comes. He invented pleasure. He himself will fill us with eternal pleasures in his presence forevermore. If we say with David, I have no good, Lord, apart from you, but I'm a sinner and deserve death. But because Christ, the Holy One who did not deserve death, died in my place and then overcame the grave, I can have confidence that the death I deserve, He has died for me and the life He took up as He rose from the grave, I share in by faith. Like David, we can say, because God did not let His Holy One see decay, but the blameless and spotless One of Psalm 15, who died for me, swearing to His own hurt and going to the cross, because He has been raised up and conquered death, I have too. And will enjoy pleasures forevermore, verse 11, in the presence of my Savior. where David speaks of the life of eternal joy received in Christ through His resurrection and the eternal bliss of all like David who are found in Him. The eternal bliss of all like David who believe in the resurrection of God's Son. And so Psalm 16 is making us consider the question, are you among that number? Have you, as we heard earlier in assurance of pardon from Romans 10, confessed with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and you believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead? Can you say with David in this psalm that you love him and you have no good thing apart from him, he is your portion, and that because you love him, you love his people? This is what Psalm 16 is urging us to confess. And if we do, Because of the resurrection of Jesus, fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore await us. The fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore of which we're even given a little foretaste in the cup of which we drink this morning. Notice when David says in verse five, the Lord is my portion and my cup, it's as if he's saying God himself is my food and drink. He is the one who sustains and nourishes and refreshes me. That, beloved, is what Christ does this morning as we come to his table. God gives us his very self in Christ to nourish and strengthen and comfort our poor, desolate souls by the eating of his flesh and relieves and renews them by the drinking of his blood. We see it with David as we come to the table to commune with the resurrected and exalted Christ, the Lord is my portion and my cup. I have no good thing apart from him. My heart is glad and my whole being rejoices because of the beautiful inheritance of eternal joy of which this bread and this cup are a token in foretaste. Beloved, this is what is promised us in the gospel. To all who can say with David that you love Christ and He is your portion and you believe that God raised Him from the dead, this is your inheritance. Eternal pleasure in the presence of our Savior. But if you don't, if you don't love the Lord Jesus and confess that God has raised Him from the dead, if you have not taken refuge under the risen Savior, But verse four, you run after other gods, you run after other sinful pleasures, and the psalm teaches us that you will not then enjoy this eternal pleasure, but your sorrows will multiply forever as you enjoy not fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore at Christ's right hand, but weeping and gnashing of teeth far from him. This is the flip side of the blessed hope of Psalm 16, eternal pleasures and fullness of joy for those who are united to Christ by a true and living faith, but eternal sorrows for those who place their hope anywhere else but the resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. As the cup of which we partake in a moment is not only a reminder for our poor, desolate souls of the glory that awaits those believe on Christ, but as this table is reserved only for those who do, it is also a reminder for everyone else that you must take hold of the risen Christ for this eternal joy to be yours. And let David's song of hope and the resurrection of Christ and his fullness of joy in him alone be yours. May that be true of every one of us and as David's fullness of joy and all that is promised us in the gospel becomes ours, may we too respond in worship and in gladness. Let's do that now as we come to God in prayer. Father in heaven, we thank you that you did not abandon Christ to the grave or let your holy one, your covenant one, See decay, but you raised him up. Our pure and spotless sacrifice, who died in our place, now risen from the grave to impart his life-giving power to us who believe. Making that fullness of life which resides in him alone fall down also to us, his members. even giving us a token of that and the life-giving power he imparts to us now in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper where he communicates himself to us with all his benefits. Lord, we pray that you would strengthen our hope and our confidence in the final resurrection and fullness of joy that await us even now as we come to your table. We pray this in Jesus' name.