I Have No Good Apart From You

The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

March 17, 2013

Service of Wholeness

 

I Have No Good Apart From You

Psalm 16

I say to the Lord, ‘You are my Lord;
   I have no good apart from you.’

…The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup;
   you hold my lot.
The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
   I have a goodly heritage.

I bless the Lord who gives me counsel;
   in the night also my heart instructs me.

I keep the Lord always before me;
   because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.

Therefore my heart is glad, and my soul rejoices;
   my body also rests secure.

You show me the path of life.
   In your presence there is fullness of joy;
   in your right hand are pleasures for evermore.

These are the words of a person who knows wholeness,

who knows peace,

deep peace, true peace,

wholeness and peace that comes from only one place,

one source: the Lord our God.

In God,       

through God,

with God.

“I have no good apart from you;” the psalmist writes.

“You are my chosen portion and my cup.

You give me counsel;

you show me the path of life,

and in your presence there is fullness of joy.”

Can we find wholeness,

can we find peace and serenity,

can we find security

in money?

In our possessions?

Behind gates, locked doors, with guns?

        

The psalmist tells us what we know in our hearts:

that only when we put our trust in God

will our hearts be glad;

Only when we put our trust in God

will our souls rejoice;

Only when we put our trust in God

will our bodies rest secure.

For God is the ever-present “I am”,

the one who knows our going out and our coming in;

who know us when we sit down and when we rise up;

whose hand leads us and holds us fast.

(Psalms 121, 139)

The Lord our God is the one who neither slumbers nor sleeps,

but watches over us,

you, me, all God’s children,

watches over us with tenderness and mercy,

guiding us -- when we let ourselves be guided,

and embracing us anew when we turn back

after our stubbornness and arrogance lead us astray.

No one captures the peace we can know in God

better than the writer of the 23^rd Psalm:

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

He makes me to lie down in green pastures;
he leads me beside still waters;
 he restores my soul.
He leads me in right paths for his name’s sake.

Even though I walk through the darkest valley,
   I fear no evil;
for you are with me;
   your rod and your staff—they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
   my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
   forever and ever.

The travails and turbulence of life

may push us into the darkest valley,

even into a place where we can feel death hovering,

but even there God will make us whole

gracing us with peace.

We can know this wholeness, this peace,

this serenity only through surrender,

only when we turn our lives to God,

not partially, as we are inclined to do,

but completely;

saying to God as Mary once did,

“Let it be with me according to your word.”

(Luke 1:38)

Praying to God as our Lord did,

“Not what I want, but what you want.”

(Mark 14:36)

Seventeen centuries ago Augustine put into words

the struggle we all have:

“…You were within [O Lord],

and I was in the external world and sought you there,

and in my unlovely state

I plunged into those lovely created things….

You were with me, and I was not with you.

The lovely things kept me from you...

You called and cried out loud and shattered my deafness.

You were radiant and resplendent,

you put to flight my blindness.

You were fragrant,

and I drew in my breath and now pant after you.

I …feel hunger and thirst for you.

You touched me,

and I am set on fire to attain the peace which is yours.”

(Confessions X:38)

Can you feel it?

The Lord is here!

Waiting to feed us the bread of life;

waiting to quench our thirst;

waiting for us to respond in surrender,

that we would know wholeness and peace

that comes only from God.

Acknowledge your brokenness –

where you’ve gone astray;

remembering that if you say you have no sin,

you deceive yourself.

And then surrender yourself to God’s will;

open wide the doorway to your heart,

that God’s love can fill your heart,

your soul,

your very self – completely,

wholly.

Let us pray:

“We are no longer our own, but yours, O Lord.

To you we lift up our souls, our hearts, our lives.

In you, O God,  and you alone, we trust….

for we have no good apart from you.

Make us to know your ways;

Lead us in your truth and teach us;

show us the path of life,

for you are the God of our salvation.

In your presence there is fullness of joy;

in you our hearts are glad and our souls rejoice;

You feed us;

You quench our deepest thirst.

In you there is wholeness;

In you there is peace;

now and evermore, Loving God,

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

(From Psalm 25)

AMEN