As for the saints who are in the land, they are the excellent ones in whom is all my delight.
Psalm 16:3
What delights your soul? Is it the saints you know? Do you even know any saints? And, if you do, do they make you glad?
Or does this sound like silly talk? Like such words about saints could only come from a super-spiritual poet living long ago in a faraway land?
Saint-Friends Who Stick Closer Than Brothers
It’s not silly talk. It’s real and daily- this saints-are-so-lovely talk. I know this because in the last week I’ve had- not one, not two, not three- but four different friends tell me, as it were, that sometimes blood isn’t thicker. That it depends on whose blood; specifically, if it’s saints’ blood.
All four confided to me big hurts inflicted by blood. A sister whose words are sword thrusts, a brother whose whose aloofness wounds, another brother whose lifestyle choices take him to a distant land (my friend misses him), and a father who waited until my friend was 42 to tell her, “I love you.”
All four also shared how a Christian friend- a saint- had helped them through. How, for example, when a blood-brother wound was raw, my friend texted a saint-friend to pray and then her friend not only prayed but showed up 30 minutes later to whisk my friend away to a happier place.
Christian friends may be more loyal than an unbelieving brother. Since brotherhood is one of the tightest relationships we know, a friend who sticks closer than a brother is a life-giving gift, indeed. (David and Jonathan’s friendship is a great biblical example of this type of closer-than-a-brother friendship.)
Proverbs 18:4 says, There is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. And if the friendship is between saints, it shouldn’t come as any surprise that water’s sometimes thicker.
Just who are these saints?
Saints literally means, “holy ones.”
But if the term’s still a bit murky, don’t worry. You’re not alone. One source says the word “saints” has almost completely lost its original meaning,
[T]hat is, of being set aside for the exclusive ownership and use of the Triune God. Very few people in the Christian Church today would consider themselves to be “saints”…Unfortunately the original meaning of the word “saints” has largely fallen into disuse.
But if the term’s still a little fuzzy, a quick survey of Scripture makes it clear: saints are simply believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. And all believers are called saints, even when their character is “dubiously holy.”
Paul uses the term “saints” – the plural- to refer to a group of Christians about 40 times. In fact, Paul addresses almost all of his letters to “the saints” in that particular place. (See 2 Thess. 1:10, 1 Cor. 1:2, Romans 1:7, Eph. 1:1, Phil. 1:1, Col. 1:2.) Only once does Paul refer to a solo “saint.” That’s at the end of Philippians where he writes, “Greet every saint in Christ Jesus.”
So saints are not a special class of Christian. They are all those called by God’s grace and sanctified by His Spirit. Saints are in Christ Jesus.
Saints-R-Us. Saints are believers. Saints are “just” Christians, running the race by grace through faith, in Christ Jesus.
Saints-R-Us
Still, we’re prone to put people like Mother Teresa and Apostle Paul on pedestals and think they’re super-human. We ought not.
C.H. Spurgeon explains,
Their holiness is attainable even by us. We are “called to be saints” by that same voice which constrained them to their high vocation…They lived with Jesus, they lived for Jesus, therefore they grew like Jesus. Let us live by the same Spirit as they did, “looking unto Jesus,” and our saintship will soon be apparent.
I crossed paths with some saints last week. Their names were Holly and Hannah, Jim and Jen, Christin and Cindy and Shari and Stan. They live with Jesus, they live for Jesus, therefore they are growing like Jesus.
The saints in my land are doing this. They are growing more like Jesus.
They’re growing to:
- Take more risks in love because the know God’s love for them.
- Open their homes for the sake of Jesus’ name.
- Share temptations and depend on God’s strong grace.
- Forgive faster because they know they are forgiven more.
- Count it all joy because they know light suffering produces heavy glory.
Saints in my land are growing thicker skins and softer hearts. They set their hearts to seek God.
That’s why the saints in my land make me glad. Saints remind me of Jesus.
Saint-Friends Strengthen Our Hands In God
In 1 Samuel 23:16-18, we find the best description of a best saint-friend a guy—or girl—could ever have. David is running for his life from a jealous king Saul.
Then Jonathan, Saul’s son, arose and went to David in the woods and strengthened his hand in God. And he said to him, “Do not fear, for the hand of Saul my father shall not find you. You shall be king over Israel, and I shall be next to you. Even my father Saul knows that.” So the two of them made a covenant before the LORD. And David stayed in the woods, and Jonathan went to his own house.
Whatever else Jonathan did to knit his soul with David’s he did this: he strengthened his hand in God.
We don’t use the phrase much. Maybe instead we say: He encouraged me. He gave me courage. She helped me hope in God.
We walk away from saint-friends like this feeling stronger. Feeling like we can look that difficult person in the face and take on the tough circumstance. We don’t feel so afraid. Jonathan reminded David of God’s promise—that you shall be king.
We, too, are strengthened when our friends remind us of God’s unbreakable promises.
Saints Point Us To The Right Rock
That is what Jonathan did for David. They stabilize us.
As David Guzik has noted,
Jonathan could not rescue David, but he strengthened his hand in God. Jonathan couldn’t give David all the answers, but he strengthened his hand in God. Jonathan couldn’t stay with David, but he strengthened his hand in God.
My best saint-friends are those who don’t ignore my pain or minimize my trials. And they seldom solve my problems. In fact, I wouldn’t call any friend, even my husband, my rock.
But they do point me to the rock that is higher than I. That is what the best saint-friends do.
Those nearest him are nearest one another.
It’s no wonder, then, that believers like this are closer to us in than even our non-believing families. That’s the oneness of the body of Christ. That’s the intimate, eternal relationship that we have with the saints.
That’s why the Psalmist cannot help but say, “As for the saints who are in the land, they are the excellent ones in whom is all my delight.”
Or as S. L. Johnson said, God’s the center. Those that are nearest him are nearest to one another. Saints take joy in saints.
David did this too. He took delight in the saints he knew. “I will look with favor on the faithful in the land, that they may dwell with me,” (101:6), he said. And “I am a companion of all who fear you,” (Psalm 119:63). The saints were David’s delight.
Saints make saints glad.
Do the saints make you glad?
David says that there’s one type of person who gets him stoked and fired-up and makes him really, really glad. It’s saints. It’s the holy ones who treasure God.
So I repeat, do the saints make you glad? Do you cherish God’s people? And do you delight in them or merely endure them?
If your honest answer is merely endure, I have two questions for you. They’re from this sermon by Pastor John Piper.
- Do you know any Christians? I mean radical people who lay down their lives for Jesus because Jesus means everything to them and they are servants of the world and God has broken them free from their love affair with the world and their ego and power and comfort.
- Why would it be that you, a professing Christian, would find more joy in people who find no joy in what is your primary joy?
Hard hitting, those. But it makes sense: If we treasure God, we treasure those who treasure God.
These are the excellent ones in whom is all my delight.
The “Sweetness of the Saints” Test
Piper explains how Psalm 16:3 can be,
When it comes to people, he says, the ones who give him pleasure are godly people.. He doesn’t mean that he has delight in God’s people instead of God or above God. He means that godless people don’t give him delight in their godless ways; only the godly do. What delights him about people is how they treasure God and exalt God. This is the sweetness of his relationships.
Saint-friends are sweet to us because God is sweet to them. That’s why this saint stuff matters. Because it is one way we can measure our relationship to the Lord. It’s a simple test, really. For, as James Boice explains, Those who love the Lord will love the company of those who also love him.
So I’ll ask again: Do you love other Christians? Do you cherish the people of God and seek to be near those who treasure your Lord?
Do you delight in the saints in the land?
The new men are already here, dotting the earth- recognisable if you know what to look for. They will not be very like the idea of ‘religious people’ which you have formed from your general reading. They do not draw attention to themselves. You tend to think that you are being kind to them when they are really being kind to you. They love you more than other men do, but they need you less. (We must get over wanting to be NEEDED: in some goodish people, specially women, that is the hardest of all temptations to resist.) They will usually seem to have a lot of time: you will wonder where it comes from. When you have recognised one of them, you will recognise the next one much more easily. And I strongly suspect that they recognise one another immediately and infallibly, across every barrier of colour, sex, class, age, and even of creeds. In that way, to become holy is rather like joining a secret society. To put it at the very lowest, it must be great fun.
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity