The Basis for Our Hope

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And this morning, that message of the death and burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ is what we’ve come together to focus on. That’s really what we focus on every morning, every time we gather. That’s the whole reason we come together on Sundays to begin with, is because Jesus Christ rose on Sunday.

Every time we gather together, whether we’re gathering together in this room or we’re gathering together in rooms all over the virtual world. We’re gathering to celebrate the fact that Jesus died to pay for our sins and that he rose again. Last week, last Sunday morning, I started a series of messages and I’ve titled the series The Road to the Resurrection because my purpose in doing this between last week and Easter was not just to tell you about the resurrection.

as incredible as it is. And I love to talk about the resurrection. I love to talk about the evidence for the resurrection.

I love to talk about the implications of the resurrection. I just, I love it. But my goal in this was not just to tell you about the resurrection.

My goal in this was to take you back through the scriptures, take you back to the Old Testament, and show you that God, the crucifixion and resurrection weren’t an accident of history. The crucifixion and resurrection were God’s plan from eternity past. And we start seeing in the earliest pages of Genesis that God talked about the Messiah. I mean, you’ve got right there in Genesis chapter 3, he tells the serpent that his head is going to be crushed and he’s going to strike at the heel of the seed of the woman.

The seed of the woman is Jesus. And Satan thought he got Jesus at the cross, but Jesus crushed his head with the resurrection. I mean, Jesus gained triumph over Satan with his death and resurrection.

And then also in that same chapter, you’ve got God making these sinful people a covering of animal skins. And he set the precedent right there that the innocent die to cover the sins of the guilty. And you start there and you can go all the way through the scriptures and you can see how God planned this out.

Again, it wasn’t an accident. It wasn’t a mistake. It wasn’t a coincidence.

It wasn’t something where God said, oh, well, look at that. They crucified Jesus. I bet I could use this for something.

No, it was God’s plan all along. And so last week we talked about God’s plan for the crucifixion, going back to the book of Psalms and really even before. But we looked at the book of Psalms and saw how God foretold the crucifixion.

And this week I want to look at how he foretold the resurrection in the book of Psalms. If you have a Bible there with you, would you turn with me to Psalm chapter 16. Psalm chapter 16. If you don’t have a Bible there with you, there are ways to get it on your device.

I don’t know if you have another device other than what you’re watching on. There are websites. There’s YouVersion.

There’s BibleGateway. com. All of those are great.

I’d encourage you to take a look at those where you can follow along. But we’re going to be in Psalm chapter 16 this morning and talk about the basis for our hope. And I have to say that it’s interesting the way things have turned out, because I actually had my sermons not written, but I had the concept for both of the series that I’m doing on Sunday morning and Sunday night mapped out before we ever went on lockdown.

And my sermon this morning is about the basis for our hope, the basis for having any hope for the future when everything around us goes topsy-turvy. How do we have that? And look at where we are today.

We’re in a situation where we’re in uncharted waters, at least for those of us who are alive today. Generations before have been through these kinds of things, but we haven’t. This is unprecedented for us, and a lot of us are looking for hope in these circumstances, because they can get to be a little trying at times.

I think we all understand that. And so we’re all looking for hope, and here I’ve had a message in the works for weeks now about the basis for our hope, and then tonight being about the love of our church. And I think if we’ve ever taken our church for granted and the ability to gather for granted, we certainly see now that that shouldn’t be the case.

We recognize the value of being able to gather. So we’ll talk about that tonight, the love that we ought to have for our church. But again, I just think it’s interesting that God wasn’t surprised by any of this, and God knew what was going to happen weeks from then.

God knew what was going to happen now when He started having me prepare these messages for you. So Psalm chapter 16, where do we look for hope in times of trouble? I think we know by now, if we put our hope in the fact that there’s always going to be stuff on the shelf at the grocery store, we’ve seen that’s not necessarily the case.

If we put our hope in our finances, well, we’ve seen the Dow Jones take a nosedive in the last few weeks. By the way, right now you can either stock up on toilet paper or you can stock up on stocks because those are on sale right now. But we’ve seen those things take a nosedive.

we could put our hope in the fact that we’re going to help each other. Well, a lot of us are trying to help each other, but a lot of people are running around just focused on taking care of themselves right now. All the things that we in good times think we can put our hope in, those things will eventually let us down.

Even good things will eventually let us down. And I think David’s got it right. As a matter of fact, I know David’s got it right.

in Psalm chapter 16, where he points out the source of his hope, where he looks for hope in times of trouble. And it teaches us, it’s instructive for us as well, about where we ought to look for hope in times of trouble. We have a God who saw all this coming.

We have a God who wasn’t surprised by any of it. We have a God who has a plan for all of it. And we have a God who not only is going to work this situation out, but is going to work every situation out, is going to work the whole world out for our good and for His glory.

And when I say our good, I don’t necessarily mean that everything turns out exactly the way we want it in every circumstance. But we understand that to mean our good in the sense that God sees and understands what’s best for us better than we understand for ourselves. So Psalm chapter 16, starting in verse 1 this morning.

David said, Protect me, God, for I take refuge in you. I said to the Lord, You are my Lord. I have nothing good besides you.

As for the holy people who are in the land, they are the noble ones. All my delight is in them. Actually, I misread my notes.

If you ever wondered if this is a, well, you can see this is not a professional production. I misread my notes. We actually are starting in verse 7 instead of verse 1.

Psalm 16, verse 7. I will bless the Lord who counsels me, even at night when my thoughts trouble me. I always let the Lord guide me because He is at my right hand.

I will not be shaken. Therefore, my heart is glad and my whole being rejoices, for my body also rests securely. For you will not abandon me to Sheol.

You will not allow your faithful one to see decay. You reveal the path of life to me. In your presence is abundant joy.

At your right hand are eternal pleasures. So in this psalm, David expressed that his hope is in God, especially here. He does that in the whole chapter, the portion that I started reading.

But really, we’re here to focus in on verses 7 through 11, just for the sake of focus and for the sake of time. And in particular, in that part of the chapter, he expresses that his hope is in God. David realized that God guided David wisely even when his circumstances were dark and his own thoughts troubled him.

He talks in verse 7 about even at night, even in the darkness, even when he’s troubled, even when his own thoughts are troubling him. Have you ever had those situations where you just feel like you’re in the darkness? And sometimes it does happen at night.

A pastor friend of used to counsel people, don’t ever make big decisions at night because there’s just something, you know, I don’t know if it’s emotions. I don’t know if it’s fear of the dark. I don’t know if we’re just less rational at night, if it has something to do with our circadian rhythms. There’s something that happens in the dark that makes us a little more unstable in our thinking.

And so David’s talking about this experience that a lot of us have. You know, we may lay awake at night and we may worry about things and we may stress over things that don’t seem quite as bad in the light of dawn. But at night, they seem terrifying.

When we’re in the darkness, things seem a little scarier. And he’s talking about his own thoughts troubling him. You know, a lot of times we don’t even need people to stress us out.

You know, our own thoughts do that well enough. And so he says, even in those times, verse 7, I will bless the Lord who counsels me. He trusted God to guide him wisely, even in those times.

And God was reliable to David. He said in verse 8, I always let the Lord guide me because he is at my right hand. Now, there are other times in the scriptures where God talks about somebody being at his right hand.

David here says that God is at his right hand. That doesn’t mean that God works for him or that David thought God worked for him, But that means that David recognized that God was reliable. God was somebody he could count on.

In the Scriptures, a lot of times somebody’s actual right hand, not being at their right hand, but the actual right hand is thought of as being stronger. For most of us, it is. I can do things better with my right hand than my left.

Being stronger and more reliable. You know, if I’m cutting a splinter out of, or digging a splinter out of one of my children’s feet, and that example comes to mind because I just recently had to do that, they don’t want me to try to do it with my left hand. They want me to do it with my right.

We’ve never had a conversation about it, but I know it would hurt a lot more with the left hand because I’m just not as skilled with it. This is the hand I rely on when it’s most important. And so David, to refer to God as being at his right hand, he’s expressing confidence in God as someone who is reliable, somebody who’s always there.

And so because of this, because of who God is, because God is a wise guide in dark times, because God is reliable like our right hand, David’s hope and trust in God were unshakable. He said, because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. I love that.

I will not. I have made the decision that I’m not going to be shaken. I am not going to be moved away from this trust that I have in God.

I think you and I need something right now to trust in that can’t be shaken. And those of you who are listening to this, I don’t know where you all stand with the Lord. But I’m telling you, we need something that we can trust in in these times where our confidence does not have to be shaken because we know we can take it to the bank, that that is trustworthy and it’s steadfast and it’s always going to be there.

David said, that’s God. And because he was able to trust in God, David experienced joy and he experienced rest and he experienced security. And he talks about those things in verse 9, and therefore my heart is glad and my whole being rejoices.

He says, my body also rests and my body rests securely. When everything’s in upheaval, when your life is upside down, joy and rest and security are hard to come by. But David found those in God and so expressed his hope in God.

He had hope no matter what because David had total confidence that God was never going to abandon him. Now hear me on that. David had hope in God no matter what because he knew he had total confidence that no matter what, God was never going to abandon him even in death.

Now in verse 10, he talks about God not abandoning him to Sheol. Sheol is a Hebrew word for the grave. And so for David in verse 10 to say that he knew God was not going to abandon him in Sheol, he meant you’re not going to just leave me in the grave.

Even if I were to die, David says, I have trust that still God is watching out for me. Well, how is that possible? You just died.

If God was watching out for you, you wouldn’t have died. David said, no, no. Because of who God is, I know that even if I die, God still has a plan and He’s still working it out and He’s still going to take care of me. And so he says, you’re not going to abandon me to Sheol.

He says, or allow your faithful one to see decay. Now this idea of being a faithful one really means somebody that belongs to God. It’s not saying that our relationship with God depends on our performance.

It’s describing this idea of being a faithful one. And I have in my notes, it has to do with the Hebrew and what it’s describing, that this idea of a faithful one is somebody that belongs to God. He’s in that faithful relationship with God.

And so it has more to do with our standing in God’s sight than it does with our behavior. That being a faithful one means somebody that belongs to God. And David said, as one of those faithful ones, because remember too, David was not always faithful in his behavior.

David is the same man that wrecked his whole family through an adulterous affair. And it was just a natural consequence of his sin. David had his moments of unfaithfulness, but his confidence was not based in his performance.

His confidence was based on the character of God and the fact that God had said, you belong to me. You are one of my children. So he was counted among these faithful ones.

And so because of David being one of these faithful ones, because of his standing, he knew that God was not going to allow decay. He said, you will not allow your faithful one to see decay. And that word for decay means in Hebrew, just what it sounds like in English, it’s decay.

It’s decomposition. And there are people in the world that think when you die, you die, and that’s it. But David here is expressing not just his hope in the sense of wishful thinking, but he’s expressing his hope in the sense of complete confidence that when he died, there was more for him than just decomposing in a grave somewhere.

That might be it for his body, but that’s not it for David. That’s not where his story ends, with just decomposing in a grave somewhere. What God brings instead, he outlines in verse 11.

He says, there’s the path of life. You reveal the path of life to me. He says, there’s abundant joy in your presence.

He said, there are eternal pleasures at God’s right hand. So what God brings instead of this abandonment and this decay, and just, you know, you live and you’re dead and God’s done with you, and you’re just in a grave somewhere, David lays out that he trusts, he has confidence that God is going to bring him new life, that he’s going to bring him life in his presence. It’s not just life floating out in the ether somewhere, but that he has life being right there in the presence of God, and that he’s going to experience the joys of heaven, first and foremost of which is the presence of God and that fellowship with him.

But David said there’s something better here than the grave. David expressed this total confidence that no matter what, even if David died, that he could still count on the faithfulness of God, never to abandon him, and that he had hope beyond the grave, beyond the circumstances of life, no matter how dire they got, and beyond the grave because he had trust in God. And we need to understand today that David’s resurrection, he’s talking about being raised to new life after the grave, David’s resurrection was made possible by the resurrection of Jesus.

You see, David shared Job’s confidence. Job was another person in the Old Testament who talked about knowing that God had a plan for him and knowing that he would live again because his Redeemer lived. He said in Job 19.

25, But I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the end he will stand on the dust. Job talked about, no matter if I die and go back to dust, I know that my Redeemer lives. And Job was expressing his confidence that he would live again also. All throughout the Old Testament, we see people with this confidence in God, this confidence that they would live again and that they would be with Him.

Well, that confidence comes from the fact that God planned this resurrection. God planned this resurrection of Jesus that made the resurrection of the rest of us possible. We know that we will live because our Redeemer lives.

Now, this isn’t just my opinion. The Bible says this. The Bible teaches this.

If you go to Acts chapter 2 this morning, you’re welcome to turn there with me. Acts chapter 2, this isn’t just Jared’s opinion. This is what the Apostle Peter, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, told the audiences there in Jerusalem when he was preaching about Jesus and the resurrection of Jesus, and he cited what David had just said in Psalm 16 about not leaving his soul in the grave and not letting his faithful ones see corruption.

He preached that David was dead and he was still buried, but that Jesus rose again. Jesus died and rose again. So while David died and was still buried, Jesus died but rose again.

And for that reason, David’s future hope was validated. You may say, but if he’s dead and still buried, his body was still buried. But David himself was already present with the Lord because of the death and resurrection of Jesus.

And it was the resurrection of Jesus that validated this hope that David had. David had hope that God would raise him again, no matter what transpired in this life, that God would raise him again. Well, that hope was fulfilled because Jesus conquered death.

And so he conquered death not only for himself, but for David and for Job and for Abraham, all the Old Testament saints, and he conquered death for you and me. The death and the resurrection of Jesus were the culmination of God’s plans for man. And they’re the ultimate evidence that God has not abandoned us.

You know, Peter quoted Psalm 16 here in Acts 2, verse 27. Because you will not abandon me in Hades. That’s the Greek equivalent of the word sheol.

You will not abandon me in Hades or allow your Holy One to see decay. You have revealed the paths of life to me. You will fill me with gladness in your presence.

And he’s talking about the resurrection of Jesus. And if you ever get to the point where you think, you know, if God really loved me, he wouldn’t let me go through this. If God really had a plan in all this, we wouldn’t be having to deal with this.

Whatever it may be. Not just coronavirus, but all kinds of things. We think those things from time to time.

And sometimes we think, because we look at our circumstances and see how dire they are, we think, God doesn’t really love me. There’s no proof that He does if I’m going through this. The book of Romans says God demonstrated His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

God doesn’t have to prove anything to us through our circumstances because God already proved His love for us by sending His Son to die on the cross to pay for our sins and to rise again to prove it. God has proved His plans for us. God has proved His love for us through sending Jesus Christ. And because Jesus tasted death for us, and because he triumphed over death for us, not just for David, not just for Job, not just for Abraham, but for all of us, we can anticipate being raised because Jesus was raised.

God’s plan all along was to send Jesus to die on the cross for our sins and to be raised for us. And because of this, we will all be raised sooner or later to stand before him. We’ll all stand before God and give an account.

And for those who have trusted in Christ as their Savior, those who look to the sacrifice of Jesus and said, I believe that was for me, and we’ve received him as our Savior, we can be confident of the same things that David was. We can be confident that we’ll have new life, that he’ll raise us to new life. We can have confidence that that new life will be in his presence.

And we can have confidence that we will experience eternal joy in His presence in heaven. We can be confident of all those things. You know, the world’s so crazy, but we know God has not abandoned us.

If God would not, you know, it’s just like the Israelites all through the Old Testament. They kept complaining about their circumstances. And why would God have brought us out of Egypt?

Why would God have gone through all that and put us through all of that just to bring us out of Egypt just to let us die in the wilderness. Hello, he wouldn’t. And that was the answer all through there.

God never intended to abandon them in the wilderness. They just were too quick to lose hope. We get that same way.

Why would God send his only begotten son that he loved to die on the cross in such a brutal way to pay for our sins and rise again if he was just going to turn around and abandon us? Doesn’t make sense. Well, it doesn’t make sense because it’s not true.

Doesn’t matter how crazy our world gets. God has never abandoned us, and He never will. If you’re a believer, if you belong to Him, you can anticipate that He’s working in your life, that He’s going to lead you and guide you just the way He did David, that He’s going to take care of you even when things get topsy-turvy, that even when our circumstances seem hopeless, that we have the hope that He’s not going to abandon us here, and He’s not going to abandon us in the grave, that we’ll all see Him.

We’ll all be with Him. And if you’ve never trusted Christ as your Savior before this morning, it’s important for you to understand that we all have an appointment with Him. Because Jesus was raised and triumphed over death, everybody is going to be raised.

But the Bible describes some being raised to life and some being raised to condemnation. And it has nothing to do with how good we are. It has nothing to do with us being good people or going to church or attending church online or giving money.

It has everything to do with what we’ve done with Jesus. Because you see, we’ve all sinned against God. We’ve all disobeyed Him.

We all deserve to be separated from Him. We are separated from Him in this life, and we deserve to be separated from Him in eternity. And God could have abandoned us to that fate.

God could have said, you don’t want me? Fine. Have eternity without me, enjoy.

And he could have sent us all to hell. But that’s not who God is. God is just enough and righteous enough to send us there if that’s what we desire.

But God is also merciful and loving and kind enough that he made a way of salvation that we didn’t earn or deserve. And he sent Jesus to bear the responsibility. Take responsibility for all your sins on his shoulders and be nailed to the cross and be punished in our place, in your place.

And this morning, the only way to have that resurrection to new life, to experience that life in His presence, to experience the eternal joys of heaven, the only way to have a relationship with God now, where you can be assured that He’s with you and He’s never going to leave you, never going to forsake you. The way you have that relationship is through Jesus Christ. So this morning, if you’ve never trusted Christ as your Savior, I’d invite you to do so while we have this time together, while we have this opportunity.

And this morning, if you realize that you’ve sinned against God, if you realize that you can never get to heaven, if you can never have a relationship with God just by being good enough, and you realize that the only way to that, the only way to this hope, The only way to have hope in this life, the only way to have hope in the resurrection, is through Jesus Christ. And you believe Jesus died for your sins and rose again, and that He’s your only Savior. This morning you can pray, you can talk to God, and you can ask Him to forgive you and save you. I never do this.

I never ever do this. And I’ve talked with Brother Greg and some others about, I never lead anybody in a sinner’s prayer if I can help it. I don’t think it’s wrong, but I just like to give people the opportunity to pray from their heart where it’s not my words.

But you know, this morning, I can’t see you. And you may be saying, I need help understanding this. So this morning, I’d like to lead you in a prayer.

If there’s anybody within the sound of my voice who knows they need to trust Christ as their Savior, but they don’t know how to go about it, and I’m not able to be with you there in person to talk with you about it more. I’m going to lead you in a prayer. And the words of this prayer don’t save you.

It’s not a magic. It’s not magic. But these are the kinds of things that you need to ask God for.

And if you really mean these things, it’s the condition of the heart. It’s the faith and believing in God, believing in Jesus Christ and his salvation. It’s the condition of your heart that makes all the difference.

So I’m going to lead us in a prayer this morning. And if you need to trust Christ, I’d invite you to pray these words with me, only if you mean them. Our gracious Heavenly Father, I thank you for your love and for sending Jesus to die on the cross for me.

I know that I’m a sinner, and I know that I can never deserve your forgiveness or your salvation. I know that I deserve to be separated from you now and to be separated from you in hell for eternity because I’ve disobeyed you. But I also believe that Jesus died to pay for my sins.

He died to pay for all of my sin. And I believe with all my heart that he rose again to prove that he was able to do it. And so this morning, I trust Jesus to save me.

And I ask you to forgive all my sins. Lord, forgive me, cleanse me, change my heart, and save me. Lord, give me new life in Jesus.

I ask all these things in Jesus’ name. Amen. Again, I very rarely do that because I prefer to talk with people and help them to pray the words that are on their heart.

But not being with you this morning. There’s no way to do that. So again, these are not magic words, but if you prayed that and you meant those things, if you sincerely recognized your sin and believed that Jesus died to pay for your sin in full and you believe that He rose again and you believe He’s your only hope and you ask God for forgiveness on that basis, if you meant all of that, we have the assurance of God’s Word that He’ll save you and He’ll forgive you and that you’ll have hope with Him, that you’ll have the hope of eternal life with Him no matter what.

And this morning, if you’ve done that, I’d invite you to let us know. Send us a private message through our church’s Facebook page, or send us an email at trinityseminole at yahoo.com.

Let us know. Get in touch with us. We’d love to answer any questions you have or pray with you more, pray for you.

We’d love to do that and help you take those first steps on your journey with Jesus Christ. For the rest of you this morning, those of you who’ve already trusted Christ, I just want to encourage you this morning that we have hope, not just in the midst of coronavirus, but we have hope in our life every day. Because we know that no matter what, God will never abandon us. We know that even unto death, God will never abandon us.

We know that we’ll be raised to be with Him, because Jesus defeated sin and rose again.