The Beautiful Inheritance Text: Psalm 16:5-8
Introduction: What Do You Own?
We live in an age of frantic acquisition. Men spend their lives stacking up trinkets, accumulating titles, and securing their portfolios. They want a legacy, an inheritance to leave, and a name for themselves. They want to own things. But the deep and dirty secret of materialism is that the things you think you own end up owning you. Your possessions become your anxieties. Your retirement account becomes your taskmaster. You are owned by your stuff.
The world offers you a cup, but it is a cup of soul-crushing anxiety, a chasing after the wind. It offers you a portion, but it is a sliver of a pie that can never satisfy. It offers you a lot in life, but it is a lot drawn in a land of shadows and death. Into this frantic and futile grasping, the psalmist David, speaking prophetically of Christ and covenantally for all who are in Him, offers a radical redefinition of wealth. He points us to the only true and lasting inheritance, the only cup that satisfies, the only property that is truly secure.
This passage is a profound declaration of contentment, but it is not a passive contentment. It is a robust, joyful, and confident satisfaction in God Himself. This is the Christian’s great secret. The world runs around trying to get God’s stuff without God. The Christian has God, and in having God, he has everything else thrown in. Our inheritance is not a thing, but a Person. Our portion is not a place, but God Himself. This is the bedrock of a stable and unshakable life. When your portion is Yahweh, you cannot lose it. When your cup is Yahweh, it can never run dry. When your property lines are drawn by Yahweh, they are drawn in pleasant places indeed.
So we must ask ourselves the question that this text presses upon us. What is your portion? What is in your cup? Who is holding your lot? Your answer to these questions determines everything. It determines whether you will be shaken or whether you will stand firm.
The Text
Yahweh is the portion of my inheritance and my cup; You support my lot. The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places; Indeed, my inheritance is beautiful to me. I will bless Yahweh who has counseled me; Indeed, my mind instructs me in the night. I have set Yahweh continually before me; Because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken.
(Psalm 16:5-8 LSB)
God as Our Great Possession (v. 5-6)
We begin with the psalmist’s central declaration of where his true wealth lies.
"Yahweh is the portion of my inheritance and my cup; You support my lot." (Psalm 16:5)
In the Old Testament, the Levites were given no territorial inheritance in the Promised Land. Why? Because the Lord told them, "I am your portion and your inheritance" (Num. 18:20). David, a king from the tribe of Judah, takes this Levitical identity and applies it to himself. This is a radical statement. He is saying that his ultimate inheritance is not his throne, not his kingdom, not his wealth, but Yahweh Himself. God is not the means to get the inheritance; God is the inheritance.
He is the "portion of my inheritance." This means that our ultimate good, our final reward, is fellowship with the living God. He is also our "cup." The cup in Scripture can represent one's appointed destiny, whether of wrath (Ps. 75:8) or of blessing (Ps. 23:5). David is saying that his lot in life, his assigned destiny, is God Himself. And God is a good drink. He is a cup of overflowing joy, not a cup of bitter dregs.
Notice the active trust: "You support my lot." The word for "support" here means to hold, to maintain, to grasp. God is the one who secures our inheritance for us. Our grip on Him is weak and faltering, but His grip on us is absolute. Our inheritance is not beautiful because we are good at holding onto it, but because He is sovereign in keeping it for us, and us for it. Peter tells us our inheritance is "incorruptible and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are protected by the power of God" (1 Peter 1:4-5). God guards the inheritance, and He guards the heir.
This confidence leads to a joyful evaluation of his life's circumstances.
"The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places; Indeed, my inheritance is beautiful to me." (Psalm 16:6)
The "lines" refer to the measuring lines used to mark out a piece of property. David looks at the boundaries of his life, the circumstances God has sovereignly ordained for him, and he calls them "pleasant." He looks at his inheritance, which is Yahweh Himself, and he calls it "beautiful." This is not the prosperity gospel. David's life was filled with immense hardship, danger, and betrayal. But because his ultimate portion was God, he could see the pleasantness and beauty even in the midst of trial. When God is your inheritance, you can be content in a palace or in a cave. The pleasantness is not in the circumstances themselves, but in the God who is present in the circumstances. He is the one who makes the places pleasant. This is a worldview rooted in divine sovereignty. God has drawn the lines of your life, and because He is good, the lines are good, even when you cannot see how.
The Internal Counselor and the Fixed Gaze (v. 7-8)
This relationship with God as our inheritance is not a distant, abstract reality. It is intensely personal and practical, as David shows us in verse 7.
"I will bless Yahweh who has counseled me; Indeed, my mind instructs me in the night." (Psalm 16:7)
Because God is his portion, David has direct access to divine counsel. This is covenantal intimacy. God does not just give us a rulebook; He gives us Himself. He guides us, advises us, and gives us wisdom. This is the work of the Holy Spirit, who leads us into all truth. The response to this divine counsel is blessing: "I will bless Yahweh." True theology always leads to doxology. When God speaks, we worship.
But notice the second half of the verse. This divine counsel is not just an external voice. It becomes an internal reality. "Indeed, my mind instructs me in the night." The Hebrew here is literally "my kidneys instruct me." The kidneys were seen as the seat of the deepest emotions and conscience. God's counsel so permeates David's being that his own conscience, his innermost thoughts, now echo God's wisdom. Even in the night, in the subconscious, in times of quiet and vulnerability, the Word of God is at work, instructing and correcting him. This is what sanctification looks like. God rewrites our internal code. His law is written on our hearts (Jer. 31:33), so that our very instincts begin to align with His truth.
This internal counsel then leads to a deliberate, conscious act of faith in verse 8.
"I have set Yahweh continually before me; Because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken." (Psalm 16:8)
The Christian life is not passive. David says, "I have set Yahweh continually before me." This is a conscious decision, an act of the will, to fix one's gaze on God. It is the discipline of remembering God in all of life, not just in the quiet times, but continually. It is to live Coram Deo, before the face of God. We are to look to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. This is a moment-by-moment choice to interpret all of reality through the lens of God's presence and promises.
And what is the result of this fixed gaze? "Because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken." The right hand is the place of power, protection, and authority. To have God at your right hand is to have your champion, your defender, standing right beside you in the fight. The world will try to shake you. Circumstances will try to shake you. The devil will try to shake you. But if God is your defender, if He is your inheritance and your stability, you are immovable. Your stability is not found in your own strength, but in His position next to you. He is the anchor of your soul, firm and secure.
Christ, Our Beautiful Inheritance
As with all the Psalms, we must ultimately read this through the lens of the Lord Jesus Christ. The apostle Peter, on the day of Pentecost, quotes this very psalm and applies it directly to Jesus (Acts 2:25-28). Jesus is the ultimate one who could say these words with perfect integrity. His portion was His Father. His cup was the Father’s will, which He drank to the dregs. He set the Lord always before Him, and because the Father was at His right hand, He was not shaken, even by the cross and the grave.
And because we are united to Christ by faith, this psalm becomes our song as well. In Christ, God has become our inheritance. In Christ, our cup is one of salvation. In Christ, the boundary lines of our lives have fallen in pleasant places, because all things work together for our good. In Christ, we have the Holy Spirit as our counselor, instructing us day and night.
Therefore, our task is the same as David's. We are to "set Yahweh continually before" us. This means we must refuse to be distracted by the cheap trinkets the world offers as an inheritance. We must refuse to drink from the world's cup of anxiety and meaninglessness. We must look at the lot God has given us, the life He has assigned us, and call it beautiful, not because it is easy, but because He is in it.
When you do this, when God Himself is your treasure, you will not be shaken. The stock market can crash, your health can fail, nations can rage, but your inheritance is secure. Your portion is the living God. And that is a beautiful inheritance indeed.