Psalm 16 | Bible Words, Part 4: Life
The Third Sunday after Pentecost | June 29, 2025
Psalm 16
A Miktam of David.Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge.
2 I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord;
I have no good apart from you.”3 As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones,
in whom is all my delight.4 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.5 The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup;
you hold my lot.
6 The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.7 I bless the Lord who gives me counsel;
in the night also my heart instructs me.
8 I have set the Lord always before me;
because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.9 Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices;
my flesh also dwells secure.
10 For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol,
or let your holy one see corruption.11 You make known to me the path of life;
in your presence there is fullness of joy;
at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
This is a psalm about life. When David asks God to preserve him, he is asking him to preserve his life. It’s a beautiful psalm, we all know we want life, but do we really know what life is? If I was to ask you “What is life?” – what would you say?
In science, it is very hard to define life. We all know that there’s a difference between a human and rock – a difference we call life – but what is that difference? The scientists have identified seven things: Life is anything that eats, grows, moves, breathes, reproduces, excretes, and responds to the environment.1 Using this definition, my sixth grade teacher taught me that even cheese is alive. I did some research this week to verify this claim, and I don’t really understand it, but apparently cheese – or at least the microbes in cheese – does have the seven attributes required for life.2
It’s easy to read that definition into the Bible. The Bible says that in the beginning, the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the first man Adam became a living creature [Genesis 2:7] – it’s easy to think, “Oh, that means that Adam could eat, grow, move, breathe, and so on. God gave him physical life.”
If that’s what you think, then you’d be amazed at what happens next. Do you remember the account? God placed Adam in the garden, and he gave him one command: “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” [Genesis 2:16-17].
Adam and Eve were tempted. The devil whispered in Eve’s ear – “You will not surely die. God is lying to you. When you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate [Genesis 3:4-6].
What happened next? Did they keel over and die? No – instead, the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths [Genesis 3:7].
What happened? Why didn’t they die? The scientists would get out their textbooks and look at Adam and Eve and say, “They didn’t die, not by our definition. The devil must have been right. He said that they wouldn’t die. He said that their eyes would be opened, and that’s exactly what happened.”
But that is only true if life is only a physical thing. This account teaches us that life is so much more. Life is spiritual.
I think everybody understands this to some extent. We get upset with the couch potato who just sits and eats all day long and won’t work. We make sure people tell us who they are, not just what they do. And deep down, I think most of us have a sense that we want to do something significant in the world, in our lives. We all know that life is about more than just eating, breathing and reproducing. We want to experience something to make us truly alive.
Do you have a bucket list? It’s a list of things that you want to do before you kick the bucket – in other words, before you die. And it’s always filled with exciting things to make you feel alive. Maybe you want to go skydiving or see the Northern lights or write a song or wrestle crocodiles on the National Youth Gathering Trip.
It’s not necessarily wrong to want to do these things. But what if, before you finished your bucket list, your life was turned upside-down? What if you had a stroke? What if you went broke? On the other hand, what if you actually got the experience, and it was disappointing? What if you got your dream job, but then felt stuck in a rut? What if you found yourself in a place you hated and couldn’t escape?
Sometimes people talk this way at the end of their life in the nursing home – “I’m not truly living anymore.” “I have no quality of life.” The worst is when they use this as an excuse to kill themselves. They figure that not feeling alive in these ways is worse than death.
But that’s the mistake. When Adam and Eve died, they didn’t just lose out on cool experiences. They didn’t just find themselves in a rut for the rest of their lives, miserably working a 9-5 job with no zeal. That is not what it means to die spiritually.
To die spiritually means that you die to God. It means that you no longer reflect his righteousness and holiness. It means that you reject the only source of life – God himself. It means that you begin to look for life in all the wrong places.
That is how we are born. We are born physically alive, but spiritually dead. The reason we die physically is because we are born dead spiritually. Physical death is just a symptom of the real problem. Physical death is God’s way of reminding you that unless you repent, you are headed to eternal death.
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses [Ephesians 2:4-5], sent Jesus into our world. The Bible says that in him was life, and the life was the light of men [John 1:4]. Not just physical life – but the spiritual life we need.
He did that by giving up his life. The Bible says that while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. That is so amazing because you normally wouldn’t even lay down your life for a righteous person. Maybe it’s a really good person one would dare even to die – there are times we can recognize this in our world, especially in our soldiers or police officers willing to lay down their lives for others. Maybe for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us [Romans 5:6-8].
But he did not just give up his physical life. The nails weren’t the most painful part of the cross. Jesus suffered our spiritual death when God the Father poured the consequences of our sin onto him. He entered into our death so that we might have life. He descended into hell itself to conquer the devil. Jesus died, but God did not abandon his soul to Sheol. He did not let his flesh see corruption. No, God raised him from the dead on the third day.
And so you can be certain that death is defeated. Not physical death – we are reminded that physical death is around us every day. We’re tempted to think that it’s the worst thing that can happen. But in reality, it’s not actually the real problem. Because when you are in Jesus, you will go through death like Jesus went through death. It’s really not a big deal. It’s just for a time. The worst thing that can happen to you is eternal death. And that has been defeated. And what Jesus puts in its place is eternal life.
Jesus said… “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die” [John 11:25-26].
That is life. Life is not simply physical existence. Life is about the union to God that Jesus won for us on the cross. Life is about living with him forever. Life is about being who you were meant to be, in a world without pain or suffering. That is what Jesus gives.
Next week, I’ve got another important Bible Word to consider: It’s the word worship. I encourage you to read Psalm 66 to prepare.
For example, see here: https://www.vermontcreamery.com/blogs/learn/cheese-is-alive.