We begin a new series this morning. And I want to start by reminding you of two very simple joys in life. Joys that all of us have experienced. David mentions both of these in Psalm 16. In this psalm, David draws our memories back to two fundamental experiences of joy: “happy meals” and “happy places.”
Do you have a happy meal? I’m not talking about a kid’s lunch at McDonald’s. I’m talking about a meal that makes you happy. What’s your favorite food? What food or meal makes you smile when you think about it?
I have a lot of meals that make me happy. Let me describe one. It’s a meal I’ve enjoyed a handful of times at our local Texas de Brazil. Let’s start with the salad bar. A feast all by itself. Fifty to sixty mouth-watering wonders. Green leaf lettuce. Heart of Palm. Spinach. Romaine lettuce. An addictive Ranch dressing. Grilled asparagus. Artichoke hearts. Baby corn. Green olives. Black olives. Sushi. Smoked salmon. Lobster bisque. Marinated mushrooms. Savory cheeses. Cured meats. On and on it goes.
And then there is the main dish. Waiters walk around with skewers of sizzling meats plucked seconds ago from the kitchen flames. They offer more than a dozen delicacies such as filet mignon; top sirloin; beef rib; flank steak; chicken breast in bacon, and chicken leg Parmesan; pork loin; pork spare ribs; lamb chops; leg of lamb; and sausage. I eat and eat until I cannot eat anymore. And I’m so happy. So satisfied. It’s a delightful feeling.
Do you have a happy meal? Take a moment and share your answer with someone next to you…Whether it’s your favorite pizza, a comfort food, your well-loved deli sandwich, a Thanksgiving feast, or some other delicacy, most of us have known the pleasure of eating savory food until we’re beyond full.
David uses that image in Ps. 16:11: “in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” (Ps. 16:11 ESV). That word “fullness” is used elsewhere to describe someone who eats until completely satisfied:
- “If you go into your neighbor’s vineyard, you may eat your fill of grapes, as many as you wish…” (Deut. 23:24 ESV)
- “The land will yield its fruit, and you will eat your fill and dwell in it securely.” (Lev. 25:19 ESV) One of the best things God can say about the promised land is that it’s going to be a place where there’s food they like and they can eat it until their stomach’s content.
That’s the phrase David uses in Ps. 16. David is describing the joy that comes from your favorite meal. The happiness that results when we eat to our stomach’s content.
And that kind of joy, David says, is available when we encounter the presence of God: “in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” (Ps. 16:11 ESV).
- The “presence” is what Adam and Eve enjoyed in the Garden (Gen. 3:8)
- The “presence” is what God promised to send with Moses into the wilderness (Ex. 33:14).
Here’s what David is saying: it is possible to so live in the presence of God that we experience that pleasantly-stuffed feeling, that what-I-just-ate-was-SO-good feeling. It is possible to live so connected to God that this kind of satisfying joy becomes a constant companion.
But David not only reminds us of the joy of our favorite food. He also reminds us of the joy of our favorite places. In Ps. 16 he writes not only about happy meals. He also writes about happy places.
Do you have a happy place? A place where, when you arrive, peace also arrives? Rest also arrives? A big sigh of relief arrives? A place you can’t wait to get to and can’t stand to leave? Is there some place that just makes you happy?
One of mine is the Memphis Botanic Garden. I once spent every afternoon in the Memphis Botanic Garden for thirty days. I still stop by. It’s a place of much peace and even more beauty. There is a calm which overcomes me as I walk through the shaded paths and gaze at the beauty of the flowers, the bees and the trees. It’s a nurturing place.
Consider some of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites. In the United States, they include
- Yellowstone…
- the Grand Canyon…
- and the Great Smoky Mountains.
There are places on earth that fill us. Later in the series we will be talking a great deal more about those places.
How about you? What is your happy place? Share your answer with someone next to you…Whether it’s the beach, a lake house, a favorite getaway, a national park, a church building, or a home, most of us have those places that just make us smile.
David is thinking of these places when he writes Psalm 16. He closes the psalm with these words: “in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” (Ps. 16:11 ESV). As we have seen, that word “fullness” comes from the realm of food. But the word “pleasures” is associated with places. David uses this word earlier in v. 5-6: “The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup; you hold my lot. The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.” (Ps. 16:5-6 ESV) The word “pleasant” is the same word translated “pleasures” in v. 11. Here, David testifies that the joy/pleasure/pleasantness he feels in the presence of God is similar to the joy/pleasure/pleasantness we might feel when we are in our happy place.
David calls God his “portion,” “lot,” “lines,” and “inheritance.” He’s using images from the time when territory was assigned to the tribes of Israel. David’s imagining what it must have been like as each tribe of Israel viewed the portion, lot, and lines of the territory granted to them as an inheritance. David’s picturing what it must have been like for each tribe to feel the rush and excitement of realizing that this special space was now theirs. This happy place was now home. He’s picturing how joyful those places made the Israelites.
That, David writes, is how he feels about God. Being in the presence of God is like being in the very best of happy places. “in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” (Ps. 16:11 ESV).
To summarize, in Ps. 16 David uses food and geography to describe the joy of being in God’s presence. Living in God’s presence is similar to the happiness we experience after a full meal. Living in God’s presence is analogous to the satisfaction we feel when we are in a place we love. In other words, being in God’s presence is like the joy of the best “happy meal” or “happy place.”
So what? Why does that matter? It matters because I think we all long for happiness. We all long for joy–especially when times are tough. In his book All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr tells of a teenager named Marie-Laure who is trapped in a small French town named Saint Melo during World War II. It’s a discouraging time. A time of great sadness. One day Marie overhears her uncle and aunt, with whom she’s found refuge, talking about death and dying. Her uncle seems to have given up. Given into the despair. The war and the German occupation of France are just too much to take. But her aunt says to the uncle, “Don’t you want to be alive before you die?” That is, even now, even in this darkest of times, don’t you still want to find something to live for? Don’t you want to experience joy and happiness? Don’t you want to be alive?
That’s why this issue raised by David in Ps. 16 matters. Because joy and happiness are what we all want. I think we all want to be alive before we die. I think we all want to experience genuine, authentic, deep, lasting, overwhelming, joy in this life. Especially when things are difficult as they have been in Memphis over the past week or so. Especially when things are tense as they have been in the U. S. over the last year or so. Especially when we hit turbulence and encounter some of those down periods in life. What every human is longing for is a source of joy and happiness that doesn’t run out no matter what else is going on.
And that is what David is promising here. The joy of being in God’s presence is the joy we all live for and long for. What David is describing in Ps. 16 is something we hunger for. We all want to be happy. And the fullest experience of joy is found in connecting with the presence of God: “in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” (Ps. 16:11 ESV).
But there’s something seemingly disappointing about the presence of God–it seems fleeting and temporary. It’s great that David promises that we can have immense joy when we connect with God’s presence. But the truth is that we rarely seem to be able to connect to God’s presence. We taste that joy once in awhile, in special moments, on certain occasions. At a worship service. On a mountain top. At a retreat. When listening to sacred music. But most of our days seem to be spent apart from that presence. On most days we don’t really sense any presence of God and thus we miss the joy David promises here. So what good is it to say that we can have great joy by connecting with God’s presence, when that presence seems so fleeting?
Well, David knows something else. It is one of the most important truths of biblical spirituality. Here is it: we can encounter the presence of God anytime, anywhere. Despite what we may have experienced in the past, it is possible to connect with God’s presence anytime and anywhere–when changing diapers, when paying bills, when listening to a class lecture, when running errands, etc. It is possible to experience the presence of God anytime, anywhere. And thus it is possible to experience this joy anytime and anywhere.
This is the testimony of Ps. 139. Again and again David reaches the conclusion that it is impossible to “flee” from God’s “presence”: Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? (Ps. 139:7 ESV). In Ps. 139 David envisions the longest day possible. A day when he travels to the highest places, as high as heaven. A day when he travels to the lowest places, as low as the grave. A day when he travels as far north, south, east and west as possible. Yet in every hour and in every place he finds the presence of God. We can count the presence of God anytime anywhere.
This is the also the testimony of Ps. 105. David urges us to “seek his presence continually!” (Ps. 105:4 ESV). God’s presence is not limited to one spot or one hour. It is there continually. God’s presence is available to us anytime, anywhere. And that means this joy David speaks of in Ps. 16 is available anytime, anywhere.
But how then, do we move from connecting to that presence only occasionally to encountering God more often through the day? That’s what this series is all about. We’re going to be looking at four specific ways found in Psalms through which we can encounter God’s presence during any day and thus experience this joy all day.
The renowned architect Frank Lloyd Wright once told of an incident that had a profound influence on the rest of his life. One winter when he was nine-years-old, he went walking with his no-nonsense uncle. The two of them set out the cross a snow-covered field, leaving their footprints in the snow behind them. As the two of them reached the far end of the field, his uncle stopped him. He wanted Frank to notice their tracks. The uncle pointed out his own tracks in the snow, a straight line from one end of the field to the other. He then pointed out young Frank’s tracks. Frank’s footprints wandered all over the field. “Notice how your tracks wander aimlessly from the fence to the cattle to the woods and back again,” his uncle said. “And see how my tracks aim directly to my goal. There is an important lesson in that.” Years later, Frank said this: “I determined right then not to miss most things in life, as my uncle had.” He determined to keep wandering through life because in wandering you discovered wonderful things. It’s only when you slow down, open your eyes and lift up your head that you catch the wonder all around you.
And in this series we want to encourage you and equip you to do that very thing. We want to help you wander more through your day. It’s only when you slow down, open your eyes and lift up your head that you catch the wonder all around you–the wonder of God’s presence. Because, as we will see in this series, the presence of God is all around us if we’ll just look. We’ll be looking at how God’s presence can be experienced in creation, in man-made things, in the tough times, and in the people near us. God’s presence is all around. Anywhere. Anytime. And because of that joy is also all around, anytime, anywhere.
Here’s what I want you to do this week: Find one way to experience God’s presence this week. This might mean spending some time in a special place that makes you feel close to God. This might mean spending some time with that person who makes you feel connected to God. This might mean listening to that music that moves your heart for God. It might mean serving people around you in a way that makes you feel the presence of God. Find one way this week to experience God’s presence in a powerful way, and thus to experience the joy of being in his presence.
