In his sermon 'Experimental Religion', Mike Davenport explores Psalm 16, focusing on the theme of preservation and personal experience in faith. He highlights the reoccurring use of the word 'my', illustrating David's personal relationship with God. Davenport defines 'experimental religion' as a personal, experiential knowledge of God that goes beyond theoretical understanding. Using analogies from Welsh pastor John Elias and Anthony Burgess, he describes this as akin to experiencing a country firsthand rather than just viewing it on a map. The sermon further delves into various aspects of this relationship: the anchor of trust, the confidence of the soul, the covenantal identity of God as 'my Lord', and the source of goodness. Davenport emphasizes the importance of finding delight in the community of believers and warns against pursuing other gods. He reflects on the inheritance promised by God, using the tribe of Levi as an example, and stresses that Christ should be the believer's portion and joy. The sermon concludes with a call to seek Christ's presence for true satisfaction, urging believers to maintain a steadfast, experiential faith.

So if you would turn with me to Psalm 16, Psalm 16, and I want to ask you to keep your ears open, excuse me, to keep your ears opening for a reoccurring word. Especially you young children, you're gonna hear a very short word, not very many letters in this word. You're gonna hear it quite a bit in this text as I read. And it has a lot to do with the theme of experimental religion. Psalm 16, preserve me, O God, for in you I put my trust.

O my soul, you have said to the Lord, you are my Lord. My goodness is nothing apart from you as For the saints who were on the earth. They are the excellent ones in whom is all my delight Their sorrows shall be multiplied who hasten after another God their drink offerings of blood I will not offer nor take up their names on my lips. Oh Lord you are the portion of my inheritance and my cup you maintain my lot The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places. Yes, I have a good inheritance.

I will bless the Lord who has given me counsel. My heart also instructs me in the night seasons. I have set the Lord always before me. Because He is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. Therefore, my heart is glad, and my glory rejoices.

My flesh also will rest in hope, for you will not leave my soul in shale nor will you allow your Holy One to see corruption you will show me the path of life in your presence is fullness of joy at your right hand our pleasures forevermore." Did you catch a small reoccurring word in that psalm? Did anybody catch that? The word my, my, m, y. Now the very first word we have in this passage is preserve, preserve. The entire passage rests upon this simple request for preservation.

Preserve me, oh my God. That's the heart of the whole entire prayer. There's no other request in the prayer. There's no other focus of the entire psalm here. The sole concern of David's heart is preservation.

Now if this is the sole purpose of what David's praying for, what's all the other stuff in the Psalm? I mean this this could have been his chance for the shortest Psalm right here, but he has other things to say. Well I propose to you this afternoon that the remainder of David's prayer is a reflection of his own personal experience with this one to whom he is praying. David had what has been called experimental religion. What is experimental religion?

We tend to think of the word experiment as we're going to try something now to see if we can get a certain thing to come at the end. We think of science, experiments. It's not exactly what's meant by that word, but it's close. Welsh pastor John Elias described it the following way, To have an experimental knowledge of something means to try it, to possess it, and to enjoy it ourselves. You must not merely read or hear about it.

You may read many a sweet chapter about Christ, And no doubt you have heard many a faithful sermon about him, and yet you may be without a saving knowledge of Christ. But an experimental knowledge of him is to prove, see, and feel what you have heard and read about him. Here it is described in another place. The author says that Anthony Burgess, a member of the Westminster Assembly, speaks of the knowledge that a man may acquire about foreign countries by looking at a map. Any of you children like looking at maps?

I love looking at maps. I enjoy it. So he says a man may get an experience, an acquisition of knowledge about a country by looking at the map. But he says map knowledge cannot compare with actually going to the country, climbing its mountains, swimming its rivers, and walking the streets of its towns. Or, as the queen of Sheba, who had heard rumors of Solomon's wisdom when she came to have an experimental knowledge of it, Then she was astonished and said all that she had heard was nothing to that which she saw.

But how, he says, it is to be feared that many have seen godliness, but on the map only. They never had experience of the thing itself. How many are there that talk of conversion or repentance as men do of bringing forth a child who never had an experience of the throbs and pains that are endured. So experimental religion. So in the time that remains before us, let's Let's walk through the Psalm together and glean the reflections of an experimental religion.

Note first in the first verse the anchor of my trust. And each of these will have the word my in it and I think only two of my some 13 or so points only two of them Referring to a verse don't have the word my actually in the verse the others actually do so first the anchor of my trust Says preserve me. Oh God for in you I put my trust. David could declare that his trust was truly in his God. Do you know anything of this?

What do you trust? You trust something. You trust something. Maybe you trust your own supposed knowledge of Where you came from, what you're here for, you trust something. And I'm not asking you what should you trust because every one of you children know exactly what you should trust or who you should trust.

I'm asking what are you trusting? You can give me all the right answers as to the fact of where your trust should be, but my question is, have you experienced, like David, such trust in Christ. He's to be the anchor. Second, verse two, the confidence of my soul, the confidence of my soul. Oh, my soul, you have said to the Lord, you are my Lord.

When Jehovah is the anchor of all my trust, then I can declare to my own soul the confidence that I can have in this one. The very one I am looking to and requesting for preservation is one with whom my soul has had interactions, one with whom my soul is familiar, David's very soul can attest to the confidence of the anchor of his trust. Oh, my soul, This is the one who your confidence is in your trust is in none other than the God of all the earth Verse 3 We see the identity of my Lord the identity of my Lord, excuse me It's in the rest of verse 2. We'll pick it up from the beginning. Oh my soul you have said to the Lord you are My Lord You are my Lord You see this third item flows out of the first two Having God as the sole anchor of my trust My soul with confidence can declare the God of the universe, the creator of all things, the righteous judge, I can declare this one my Lord.

Mine. Not simply the Lord, but I can declare the Lord my Lord. This wording draws upon the covenantal aspects of true religion. We have this language in the first chapter of Ruth. We saw it today.

We quoted it together. Your people shall be my people and your God, my God. It's a covenantal language. It's experimental religion. God throughout the Old Testament speaks in covenantal terms.

I will walk among you and be your God and you shall be my people. Dear ones, it's only the grace of God that can bring hell-destined rebel sinners to a place where they can say of the Lord, you are my Lord. I fear we take this privilege far too lightly, far too lightly, what it took for us to be able to say, he is my Lord. Matthew Henry says, those who have avowed that the Lord is their Lord should often put themselves in mind of what they have done and take the comfort of it and live upon it and live up to it. Next in the verse we see the source of my goodness, the source of my goodness.

Again in verse 2, continuing on in it, oh my soul you have said to the Lord you are my Lord, my goodness is nothing apart from you now this seems to be saying something the way it's written in reading the commentators this phrase my goodness is nothing apart from you, is a difficult phase to translate. Yet all of these commentators that I consulted seem to indicate that The idea is that God does not need our goodness, that we bring no merit to Him in and of ourselves. He is self-sufficient. He is God. In Psalm 50 verse 12, God declares, If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world is mine and all is fullness.

Paul states it this way in 1 Corinthians 4-7, What do you have that you did not receive? Now if you indeed receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it? You see, we cannot give to God anything except what he's given to us. Whatever we give to him, he's given to us. We can but give him what is his own.

And the source of that very goodness has no need of that which is produced. He's the source of it all. He's the source of our goodness. Now this line of thinking of stating this is what this means, It carries nicely into the next verse. God doesn't need What I have He's the source of it all but in need of none But then we see the object of my delight the object of my delight as For the saints not for the Lord, but as for the saints who are on the earth They are the excellent ones in whom is all my delight Matthew Henry says he devotes himself to the honor of God in the service of the saints.

He devotes himself to the honor of God in the service of the saints. He says, saints on earth we must be or we shall never be saints in heaven. Those renewed by the grace of God and devoted to the glory of God are saints on earth and we as saints have needs. We have needs. We come as a body with needs.

We read about those needs again today in Acts. Remember Acts 4, all the needs that were needed during that particular time frame which exceed our needs at least physically and the church just gave and they gave and they gave there's need can I state it bluntly those who have Christ as their Lord and Savior have His people, His church as their delight? Those that have Christ for their Savior, They have the church as their delight. The reverse of that is true as well. If God's people in all of their messed up lives are not your delight, You have no reason to think that Christ is indeed your Lord.

I Didn't say he's not I said you don't have reason because Christ has a body. The head is attached to the body. Look around this room. Are these blood-bought saints in Are these blood-bought saints in all our messed up lives, are these your delight? Are they?

I'm not asking you if you delight in the universal church. That's quite easy. The scriptures bring it down to the local level. They do. You remember that passage in Matthew 25 when the judge of all the earth returns and he judges?

What's the basis based on that scripture? What's the basis of that judgment? It's having done something for the saints, ones you could actually visit, ones whose needs you can actually relieve, ones you can feed, ones you could clothe. It's the saints that we can actually hand a cup of cold water to. Do you delight in those saints?

So as you look around this room, do you see your brothers and sisters here as the excellent ones? The excellent ones. Are you kidding? I know all about them. Yes, and Christ doesn't.

He died for them. Do you see them as excellent ones? Those bought by the blood of Christ and clothed in his perfect righteousness. Do you see a bride who is being perfected more and more, whose spots and wrinkles will be removed by her loving husband, Christ. Look back over the last few weeks.

How have you demonstrated that the people of this church are your delight? They're your delight. Are there tangible demonstrations of that delight Next we see the refusal of my lips the refusal of my lips Verse 4 their sorrows shall be multiplied who hasten after another God. Their drink offerings of blood I will not offer, nor take up their names on my lips. So having stated who he is in the previous verses, David here describes those who are not found among the excellent ones of the earth, the sons of Adam and not the sons of Christ.

And David's covenantal relationship with his Lord causes him to declare his refusal to take upon his lips the names of any God but Jehovah. My lips, says David, are not my own to do with however I please. My lips belong to my Lord, purchased by my Savior, and so I refuse to take up the names of other gods upon these lips." Can I say a word to those of you here who cannot or will not declare Christ as your Lord? Note here in this text that in so doing, you actually hasten after another God. You may say, not me, I don't have any gods.

No. You hasten after another God. Maybe you. You may be your own God, but you hasten after another God. But note the surety of the matter that those who hasten after another God shall multiply their sorrows.

That's your lot. That's your portion apart from Christ. Nothing but a multiplication of sorrows. Next in this revealing of experimental religion we see the portion of my inheritance and my cup. The portion of my inheritance and my cup.

Verse 5, oh Lord, you are the portion of my inheritance and my cup." The language here seems to be tied to the history of the Jews in coming into the land of Canaan. The land was divided up among every tribe, each tribe receiving their portion of the promised land. Except for one tribe, right? Children, do you remember the one tribe that didn't get an inheritance? Didn't get their own land?

Didn't get a nice big map with their name right there in the middle of it. There was a tribe that didn't get it, right? Levi. Levi didn't get an inheritance. Or did they?

What did the Lord tell that tribe? I am your inheritance. Me. I'm your inheritance. And thus it is with every true Christian.

Christ is the portion of our inheritance and of our cup for the Christian to live. It's Christ. He is our all in all. Is that true of you? Is that true of you?

Is Christ your portion? Do the things that you do on a daily basis the places you go The decisions you make do these things declare that Christ is your portion. That he means everything to you. That's what the psalmist says. That's the heart of experimental religion.

Next, the maintenance of my lot. The maintenance of my lot, verse 5. You maintain my lot. You maintain my lot. The Hebrew scholars point out that the verb maintain is actually in the future tense This means that the psalmist has a confidence that God holds his future in his hands That it is not up to David to maintain his portion, to maintain his great interest.

It's akin to Paul's declaration in Philippians 1 that God will complete, he will complete the good work which he has begun. He will maintain my lot. Christ's love for us is a love that will not let us go. Experimental religion rests upon Christ as the believer's portion and rests upon him for the maintaining of this great interest all the way until the end. Next verse 6, the pleasantness of my path, the pleasantness of my path.

The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places. Yes, I have a good inheritance. Now there is no my in this verse, yet it's not bereft of personal experience. We have the personal pronouns, me and I. And as David reflects upon the paths of his life and upon his sure inheritance, He declares it all as pleasant and good.

Think back a minute over David's life. Has he? He must have dementia. All the things that he's been through, And he says the lines have fallen to me in pleasant places Yes Because he was walking with his God Goodness and mercy have been following him all the days of his life Dear ones if you are experiencing Christ in the midst of your circumstances, in the midst of maybe a fiery furnace, the place you are in, whatever that place may be, that place becomes a place of pleasantness. If we are experiencing the nearness of Christ, we can have the contentment that Paul describes in Philippians 4.

Every circumstance, I can find contentment because of Christ. In the midst of heartache and trial is your personal experimental religion enough, is it real enough to supply you with the wherewithal to declare your place pleasant and to declare your inheritance good. Next, the counsel of my heart. The counsel of my heart. I will bless the Lord who has given me counsel.

My heart also instructs me in the night seasons. Do you ever struggle with the direction to go, with decisions that need to be made? Well, experimental religion finds all of its counsel in Scripture, such that the heart, by reading that Scripture, the heart is instructed and can supply the right answer even in seeming dark times. Where does your counsel come from? Does it come from the ungodly that we read about in Psalm 1?

Is that where your counsel comes from or is the Word of God your delight is The Word of God the source of your meditation day and night next the steadfastness of my right hand the steadfastness of my right hand verse 8 I have set the Lord always before me because he is at my right hand. I Shall not be moved The one who has a religion that is truly experimental keeps Christ front and center as well as at the right hand. In other words, there is a steadfastness of a heart that abides in the presence of Christ. Christ will ever be at the right hand of all who have Him at the center of their gaze. Verse 9, the gladness of my heart and the rejoicing of my glory, the gladness of my heart and the rejoicing of my glory.

Therefore, My heart is glad and my glory rejoices." The words of Psalm 128 apply here, "'Behold, thus shall the man be blessed who fears the Lord.'" These blessings belong to those who fear the Lord, who have an experimental religion. God's people and they alone can truly speak of gladness of heart and of rejoicing of glory. Now, W.S. Plummer in his commentary on the Psalms describes a verse like this, when the heart is glad, the glory of a man, that is his tongue, rejoiceth. When the fire burns within, then soon the mouth will be open." So he ties this interesting word, my glory, to the mouth, the declaration that this man makes.

And it's because his heart is glad. What are people able to detect in regard to your personal experience with Christ based on what comes out of your mouth? Oh, that brother he really loves. That dear sister I can tell she loves. What would people say?

Would they be able to sense a view like the Sanhedrin was able to see in the disciples? These guys have been with Jesus. They've been with Jesus. Then the latter part of verse 9 into verse 10, we have the hope of my flesh and the surety of my soul. The hope of my flesh and the surety of my soul.

My flesh also will rest in hope, for you will not leave my soul in shale, nor will you allow your Holy One to see corruption." I would argue that the realities of this Psalm all hinge on this experimental surety, the resurrection of Christ from the grave. Paul said that if only in this life we have hope in Christ, we are all men, the most pitiable. Why even have a psalm like this? If it's only for this life. No, there's hope.

There's hope driving all of this experiment of religion that David is having. The hope of our flesh and the surety of our soul depends on what Christ accomplished and is dying on the cross and rising from the dead Dear ones is your daily experience shaped and fashioned by eternal realities In the midst of your sickness or disease does your flesh yet rest and hope because the resurrected Jesus is your portion? Do you meditate on the reality that the grave is not the end, that eternity with Christ is your future. To live as Christ and to die as gain is your today being shaped by the realities of your tomorrow that Christ has procured. And then finally we have in this experimental religion the prospects of my satisfaction.

The prospects of my satisfaction. If you're an unbeliever here, what's your prospects look like for tomorrow? I know what mine are like. I know. It's written right here, verse 11.

You will show me the path of life. In your presence is fullness of joy at your right hand our pleasures forevermore Those who are living in and feeding upon Christ know these things to be true There is real life real joy and real pleasure only in Jesus Christ. Ask any of us who know Him. We have drunk from both fountains. We know where there is real life, real joy, and real pleasure.

If you experience nothing of real joy and in real pleasure then You're not abiding in Christ's presence or at his right hand As you look at the religion that you have that that you're working on What are the prospects for you? Is it a religion? That will bring you satisfaction Every person in this world has a religion, and for most it's an experimental religion. They are seeking to pursue and grab hold of whatever it is that their heart is worshiping, but it's not a religion that abides in the presence of Christ. In fact, it flees from it, and therefore there are no prospects of satisfaction, no prospects of finding the true path of life to those who will not abide in the very presence of Christ.

Do you have the experimental religion of David? Are you a man? Are you a woman? After God's own heart, is the language of the Song of Solomon strange to you? Or do you know something of its experience?

Like an apple tree among the trees of the woods. So is my beloved among the suns. I sat down in his shade with great delight and his fruit was sweet to my taste. He brought me to the banqueting house and His banner over me was love. Sustain me with cakes of raisins.

Refresh me with apples, For I am lovesick. That, my friend, is experimental religion. May the triune God grant us to know Him more and more experientially and experimentally. Let's pray. Oh, Father, I confess to you seasons of dryness in my own soul where I have not known this experience.

And Lord, it's due to the fact of not seeking the presence of my Savior as I should. Oh Father, this is where I want to be. This is it. Make it to be so. Make it to be so.

Give me grace to pursue my Christ and give us all grace to pursue Him, to seek to ever abide in His presence, to have Him as our focus and Him in our right hand. And in the midst of it all, preserve us, O God. We thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.