Sermon

Sermon #1022
January 2, 2011
Psalm 16
Dr. Ed Pettus

“The Lord – Always Before Me”

Thursday is Epiphany, the day we recognize the wise men coming to the stable where the Christ was born. The church year begins with the anticipation of the birth of Christ and Advent. We began the church year on November 28 of 2010, but our calendar year began yesterday, January 1, 2011! This is a time for beginnings, a time to think about birth, genesis, a new start. Some will make new year resolutions and consequently places like the fitness center will be full for the next two months. Some will vow to pray more or be kinder to co-workers or finally clean out the basement. For others life will go on as usual, perhaps with just a sense of the new year bringing in a new sense of excitement.
I’m not really one for new year resolutions only because I never really keep them very well. I want to. I think about what I would like to do differently, but as those of you older than I know, it gets more and more difficult to teach an old dog new tricks. But – the Christian life is consistently renewing, repenting, learning, growing. Christians who are truly growing are learning new things, growing closer to God, experiencing conversions and always hoping for even more.
Psalm 16 is a great prayer for renewal and recommitment. Psalm 16:8 could be adopted as a discipleship theme and a new beginning: “I keep the Lord always before me!” That is what a good disciple does; that is what an apprentice does. A disciple is just like an apprentice. An apprentice keeps the master of the craft always before him or her so that the apprentice may one day become as skilled as the master. The apprentice watches, listens, studies, and does what it takes to become like the master.
Our goal is to have Christ formed in us, in fact, that was a goal of the apostle Paul, that Christ be formed in people. He writes to the Galatians: “I am again in the pain of childbirth until Christ is formed in you” (Gal. 4:19).
I remember when I was learning how to play the guitar I was always trying to play like the people who seemed to me to have mastered the art. I would spend as much time as I could with them, watched how they played, asked questions, and tried to emulate their style and technique. I did my best to master their skill. When I was much younger and learning to play football, I watched other players: Joe Namath was one of my favorites and I wanted to be able to throw a ball like he did and play with the same confidence I saw in him.
Any of you who have sought to learn a new craft or skill know what you had to do to learn and the same is true for learning to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. We spend time with the master, studying what he did, listening for what he is doing now, and seeking to keep Christ always before us.
One of the ways we study and learn from Christ is to study the Bible. We study the gospels which tell us specifically about Jesus and what he did and said. No less important are the words Jesus himself studied in the Old Testament like Psalm 16. Imagine Jesus at home or in the synagogue hearing the same words we heard a moment ago. I imagine him listening to verse 2: “You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you.” Later in his life Jesus would be teaching the disciples as he says: “I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). Apart from God we have nothing and we are nothing. Colossians 3 speaks of Christ as our life: “Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory.” Christ is our life. Our life is hidden with Christ in God. No good apart from God. Apart from Christ we can do nothing.
Well, my thoughts on a new year have revolved around Psalm 16 and specifically verse 8: “I keep the Lord always before me.” How do we keep the Lord always before us. One way is by prayer. Psalm 16 is a prayer beginning with a petition for protection. “Protect me, O God, for I take refuge in you.”
It is significant that the Psalm is a prayer, as all the Psalms are! Prayer is a primary discipline for keeping the Lord always before us. Whether we are praying for something, praying to praise God, or just simply focusing our heart and mind upon God’s presence, we do that in prayer.
Sometimes prayer is just wanting to be with God, wanting to keep God always before us. Not asking God for everything on our shopping lists, not a one-way conversation we may offer, but simply being with God, aware that God is with us.
What, then, does this prayer offer? The Psalmist understands that protection comes when one takes refuge in God. Refuge – taking shelter from the rain, a child running to her mother for protection. We take refuge, we trust God for shelter, protection, and security. A disciple trusts in Christ to be protected.
Verse 2 acknowledges that there is nothing good apart from God, “You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you.” The simple affirmation is that all we are and all we do depends on our relationship with God. Apart from God we are not much more than empty shells. Apart from God we have no hope. Apart from God we can do nothing. Apart from God we have nothing.
Verses 5-8 are all about God. The Psalmist acknowledges God is our chosen portion, cup, and lot. The Lord gives counsel and instructs even through the night. The Lord is thus blessed, in prayer, by the disciple and kept ever before him.
The result, verse 9, is a glad heart, a joyous soul, and a secure body. Three desires we seek in our lives: happiness, joy, and security. You see, we are not a people who pursue happiness, who seek joy, or who search for security. Life is not all about the pursuit of happiness. The life of the disciple is lived in pursuit of God, keeping the Lord always before us, and the result of that pursuit is happiness, joy, and safety.
That, I believe, is a problem in our nation. We have pursued what amounts to the god of happiness, rather than the living God of Psalm 16. We have come to believe in our pursuit of happiness that we deserve certain rights or ownership, a certain standard of living, and we will do everything in our power to “make it” our own. A disciple of Christ can certainly enjoy the blessing of this life, but a disciple understands that the blessing is not the object, not the goal of this life. The goal is to follow God, to keep the Lord ever before us. Psalm 16 affirms that if we do that, good things will come. If we pursue happiness there is no assurance that we will find God, but if we pursue God there is the promise of happiness. What are we pursuing in our lives today? Let us strive to keep the Lord always before us.

The prayer concludes with confidence in God – God will not abandon! “For you do not give me up to Sheol, or let you faithful one see the Pit.”
God will direct and give pleasures: “You show me the path of life. In your presence there is fullness of joy; in your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”

In this Psalm we see a picture of discipleship. One who prays to God. One who proclaims affirmations of faith and trust and confidence in God. This is one who knows that God is at work in his life. He has seen the results of God’s presence in the marks of gladness, joy, and security. Psalm 16 gives us a good beginning, keeping the Lord continually before us.
Keep the Lord always before us! We might have various views about the Muslim faith, but one thing I admire about them is their prayer life. As I understand it they stop whatever they are doing five times during the day and pray. We, instead, claim we do not want to be legalistic about prayer, or something like that, and what we end up with is no prayer at all…well, except in an emergency. We treat prayer like a “break glass in case of fire” scenario rather than a discipline to know God and keep the Lord always before us. Paul asks us to go even further than praying five times a day when he encourages us to pray without ceasing (1 Thess. 5:17). The Christian life is to be a life of prayer – keep the Lord always before us.
We read Paul’s words and on the face of it we rationalize that Paul did not mean we should always be praying, but what does he mean? The Psalmist is not saying anything different in keeping to Lord always, always before us. We think of how we might live this way and we become somewhat paralyzed by it and, like a new year’s resolution, we simply give up. It is a work of God consciousness. One of my favorite books is Joshua, a novel about Jesus in a modern setting and one of the phrases used to describe Joshua was that he breathed God. He breathed God! Imagine a life of faith that breathes God! Every minute of thought is brought back to God. Every opportunity available is a prayer to God.
Now we know that we have other things to think about. I hope that a surgeon will be focused on the tissue about to be cut, the CPA is clear on what figure to put on a certain line, but also that when the moment allows, God is also in their thoughts. Our task in keeping the Lord before us is to direct and redirect our minds to God. Dallas Willard likens this to a compass: “Soon our minds will return to God as the needle of a compass constantly returns north” (The Great Omission, p. 125). As we are constantly distracted by our busyness, by our noisiness, and by our yearning for things other than God, we need to foster this compass mentality. I have recently lost my laptop computer, it sits at the shop for repairs if even able to be fixed, so I have been living without my constant distraction, without the constant glow of the screen. (How could I possibly get this sermon prepared? ) What am I going to do for news, sports, games, general surfing, not to mentions all the Bible resources so easily accessed? I had to resort to writing with a pen! We grow accustomed to certain ways of doing things and when those patterns are disrupted we grow anxious. We need a compass to get our bearings.
The Christian compass is with keeping the Lord always before us. Willard says that “this is the fundamental secret of caring for our souls” (p.125). We begin when we receive Christ into our lives and we nourish this discipline of mindfulness through prayer and scripture and worship and silence and solitude and other disciplines that help us to train the mind for discipleship – that is, for keeping the Lord always before us.
I encourage you to think about a new or renewed commitment to keep the Lord always before you. Memorize Psalm 16:8, “I keep the Lord always before me.” Better yet, memorize the whole Psalm! Psalm 16 is a good Psalm for discipleship. As we look to 2011, we might ask: are we living as those who keep God continually before us? Are we pursuing God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength? Is our heart glad? Does our soul rejoice? Does our body rest secure? These are the marks of discipleship. I pray that we may have those marks in our life as a result of keeping God always before us. Amen.