(music) Well, it's never a bad time to soak in the glorious truths of Psalm 16, and that's what we're going to do today in a clip from 2015. This clip comes from a memorable sermon titled "The Path to Full and Lasting Pleasure." The clip begins where the sermon begins, with John Piper walking out on stage at a Shane and Shane conference.

There, Pastor John recited Psalm 16 from heart. This text and this sermon was fresh on his heart, coming in light of pretty deep sorrow for the Bethlehem community, as you will hear in a moment, making for a clip and for a sermon, and for an event that has impacted many of you, I know.

Without any further introduction, here's Pastor John reciting Psalm 16. 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 noble in whom is all my delight.

Those who choose another god multiply their sorrows. Their libations of blood I will not pour out or take their names upon my lips. 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.

I bless the Lord who gives me counsel. In the night also my heart instructs me. Because you are right at my right hand, I shall not be moved. Therefore, my heart is glad and my soul rejoices, and my whole body dwells secure. For you do not give me up to shield or let your godly ones see the pit.

You show me the path of life. In your presence is fullness of joy. At your right hand are pleasures forevermore. So if you have a Bible, I want you to open it to Psalm 16, which I just recited. Let me set the table for you before I pray and ask God to come and do mighty things among us.

And the reason I feel an anticipation that he's going to do remarkable things is because the way he has set up this evening. So two weeks ago, I was in the Boundary Waters in northern Minnesota fishing with my son and six others. And one of those others was a 20-year colleague whom I love, who has been the worship leader at our church for 20 years.

When we got back to the Outfitters, he was to call home and the phone call was that his son had died at 22 without the slightest history of trouble. He was in northern Ireland doing a mission trip and simply fell over. And with his sister at his side met Jesus.

The funeral was last Friday, four days ago. And little did we know that Alex, before he had left for northern Ireland, had told his small group what he wanted in his funeral. He didn't think he was going to die, but he said here are the songs. We sang all the songs that he chose and here's the text that I want.

Psalm 16. That's the psalm that I was asked to speak on months ago at this event. And so last Friday, in front of about a thousand young people mainly, I was doing what I just did, praying over these people's Psalm 16. And now I'm here speaking to several thousand people, not too much older probably than Alex.

Psalm 16. And in my judgment, God is setting that up to burden me for you in a way that he wouldn't or couldn't any other way. You have no idea whether you will live out this week. None. He had no history whatsoever. And to this moment, we do not know why he died.

So Lord, I believe this is a divine appointment for many. Whether it be the case that some here will not live out the week or whether they will live 60 more years. It's a divine appointment and the weight I feel for this psalm to come to reality in their lives is very great.

And so I invite you, Holy Spirit, to come. In the name of Jesus, I plead with you to come. Don't leave me to my resources. I look away from myself and I ask that these friends would do the same. May they look away from themselves and all their performances and look wholly to you to speak to them now.

So that what David is and sees in this psalm, they would be and see and feel. I ask this in Jesus' powerful name. Amen. Let me give you the main point as I understand it in one sentence. I'm going to try to sum up the main point of all 11 verses in one sentence.

It goes like this. God will bring you body and soul through life and death into full and everlasting pleasure if God is your safest refuge and your sovereign Lord and your supreme treasure and your trusted counselor. I know it's a long sentence. So I'm going to say it again and then we're going to move through the entire psalm verse by verse and you will watch for whether I'm right to sum it up this way.

It goes like this. God will bring you body and soul through life and death into full and everlasting pleasure if God is for you your safest refuge, your supreme treasure, your sovereign Lord and your trusted counselor. And so if he's not, my prayer is that as God speaks through this psalm he would become that for you.

A few of you who really know your Bible well might hear that summary in one sentence and say to me, "Are you going to take into account what the apostle Peter over in Acts chapter 2 in the New Testament makes of this psalm?" Because Peter says that verses 9 to 11 are a prophecy of the resurrection of Jesus.

And you didn't mention that in your main point. Why not? Because that's the one thing he picked out of the psalm to mention. And my answer is number one, yes I am going to deal with what Peter makes of this psalm in Acts 2. And number two, the reason I don't say that the resurrection of Jesus is part of the main point of this psalm is because I don't think it is.

But rather is a massive and unshakable argument for the main point of the psalm. And if that sounds strange to you, that something is massive and unshakable and great and glorious as the resurrection of the Son of God from the dead should be an argument under a main point supporting it, just know this, that one of the great and amazing and wonderful things about the Bible is that again and again and again, glorious things, massive, unshakable, beautiful, awesome realities are made to serve practical, personal main points in texts.

That's amazing and that's true all over the Bible. So yes, we will get to Peter's application of verses 9 to 11 in the resurrection and we will discover it is not the main point of this text. The main point of this text is that God will bring you body and soul through death into full and everlasting pleasure if he is your treasure and refuge and sovereign and counselor.

That's the main point. Powerful. And that's just the start of the sermon. The whole sermon is great. It's available online. As always, it's titled "The Path to Full and Lasting Pleasure," preached on August 14, 2015 at a Shane and Shane conference. The sermon has been suggested several times to us for a clip on APJ.

This particular clip comes from Alan in Little Rock, Arkansas. Alan writes, "Thank you so much for this podcast and answering your questions and giving us sermon clips. I first listened to this sermon in 2015 and it was one of the first John Piper sermons I had checked out. I'd recently moved to a new state to help plant a church in Wisconsin and I started a new job that allowed me to listen to music and sermons while I worked.

I hit play on this one and heard John Piper recite Psalm 16 from memory. I was amazed that someone would do that. So I did it. All of Psalm 16 and have continued to recite it into my life for the past six years. God has done amazing things for me and my family through that one Psalm.

Thank you, Pastor John, for this model." Thank you, Alan. That's a great story. Many of our clips are now crowdsourced. You tell us what bits of Piper's sermon has changed your life or impacted you and we share that clip with the APJ audience. If you've got one, email me.

Give me your name, hometown, the sermon title, and the timestamp of where the clip happens in the audio file and tell me how it impacted you. Put the word "clip" in the subject line of an email and send it to me at askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org. That's our email address. askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org Well, the divided heart is a natural experience in the Christian life.

The heart, even the heart of the believer, puts up resistance against God. How to overcome this divided heart is worth some reflection and that's what we're going to do next time. I'm your host, Tony Rehnke. I'll be rejoined in the studio with Pastor John on Friday for that, talking about the divided heart.

We'll see you then.