Rest and Render

2:05Well, friends, we have been in the Psalms all summer. We've been doing a series called Psalms, Psalms for Every Season. I hope you've enjoyed it. We have certainly enjoyed preaching it. And over the course of the summer, we've covered all different kinds of psalms: psalms of lament, psalms of wisdom, psalms of confidence, and praise and penitence and corporate thanksgiving. And this morning, we cover a psalm of personal thanksgiving, Psalm 116. And in this psalm, the writer is thanking God for delivering him from a near-death experience.

2:42Now, some verses seem to suggest that the writer might have been ill and nearly died from an illness. Other verses seem to suggest that he was being threatened by enemies. I tend to lean more towards that second explanation, but both are possible. Either way, the writer wrote. Really thought he was going to die. But God rescued him from death. And in response, the writer of Psalm 116 is personally thanking God for this deliverance. And so this psalm is helpful on a couple of levels. First, this psalm is helpful because all of us can grow in giving thanks to God. All of us can grow in thankfulness. I want to become a more thankful person.

3:30I want to become a more humble person, growing in my realization that everything that I have comes from a good and gracious God. It is a gift from Him. You see, proud people live entitled lives, but humble people live thankful lives. And thankfulness is one of the things that leads us to be worshipers of God. So I want to be a humble person, and this Psalm is helpful in humility and in thankfulness. But then, secondly, this particular psalm helps us not just to grow in thankfulness, but to grow in public thankfulness. Because as you heard in the reading, Psalm 116 here, the psalmist doesn't just give thanks privately, he gives thanks publicly to God in the assembly. The author has come to the house of the Lord to bear public witness to God's grace and his mercy and his kindness.

4:30And friends, in this way, the psalmist sets a wonderful example for all of us. Because I think there are times when God does amazing things in our lives, and probably most of us give private thanks to God for those things. We thank God privately in our prayer times, in our devotional times, in our quiet times. We do that. But I think that we fail often to give God public thanks, to testify, to bear witness before others of what God has done in our lives.

5:05And friends, that is a missed opportunity. That's a missed opportunity to strengthen the faith of other Christians who need to be reminded that God is always at work in our lives, that he will always come through for us. And it's a missed opportunity for evangelism to tell our non-Christian friends, look at what God did in my life. It is a missed opportunity to point to God's existence, to point to God's gracious character, to his work in our life, to how he rescues us when we need to be rescued.

5:44And so, friends, we can grow in giving public thanks to God, in telling others the great things that God has done for us, like the writer of Psalm 116. We want to give thanks not just privately, but publicly. And so, this morning we're going to divide Psalm 116. 16 into two halves because there are two big questions that this psalm helps us to answer. We'll put these on the screen for you. The first question is this: Why can we rest in the Lord?

6:13Why can we rest in the Lord? In the midst of a world that is in turmoil, in the midst of a life that is threatening to make us anxious about all kinds of things all the time, why can we rest in the Lord? And secondly, what should we render to the Lord? In other words, when God comes through for us, when He rescues us, when He does great things in our life, what do we do now in response? What should we render to the Lord? So let's pick up in verse 1 and consider the psalmist's answer to that first question: why can we rest in the Lord? Look at verse 1.

6:53I love the Lord. Let's stop there. Friends, these are not the words of an emotionally detached person. This is not a person who is going through the motions, who shows up once a week or twice a month or a couple of times a year, let's say at Christmas and Easter, to give thanks to God. This is a person who is emotional about how he feels about God. This is a person who has been. Deeply and profoundly impacted and blessed by God, and he knows it. He's grateful for it.

7:38Why does he love the Lord? Well, that is what the rest of the psalm is all about. And as we're going to see, the writer loves the Lord because God hears his people and because God delivers his people. And so because God hears his people, we should call on him. And because God delivers his people, we should trust him. So let's look at each of those truths in turn. First, God hears his people, so we should call on him.

8:12You know, when someone wishes upon a star, or crosses their fingers, or knocks on wood, or calls out to an idol, nothing changes. And we have a really powerful illustration of that in 1 Kings chapter 18. Now, as you may know, at this point in Israel's life, the nation is given over to idolatry. Tons and tons of people, seemingly the vast majority of Israelites, are worshiping a false God known as Baal. And so the prophet Elijah sees this, and he goes to the prophets of Baal and he challenges them. He says, Here's what we'll do. You guys cry out to your God, and I'll cry out to the Lord.

8:57And the one who answers by fire, he He is the true God. Now, I want you to see what happens with the prophets of Baal. Look on the screen. And they cried aloud and cut themselves after their custom with swords and lances until the blood gushed out upon them. And as midday passed, they raved on until the time of the offering of the oblation. But there was no voice. No one answered. No one paid attention. Friends, that's the problem with false gods.

9:40They do not answer. They do not pay attention. They do not care because they are not real. So when we call out to God, things are very different. I want you to look again at verse 1 in Psalm 116. I love the Lord because he has heard my voice and my pleas for mercy. Because he inclined his ear to me. Therefore, I will call on him as long as I live. The snares of death encompassed me. The pangs of Sheol laid hold on me. I suffered distress and anguish. Then I called on the name of the Lord. O Lord, I pray, deliver me. My soul.

10:33Oh, brothers and sisters, the Lord is alive. The Lord is real. The Lord pays attention. And so when we call out to him for mercy, he hears us. He inclines his ear to us. I want you to just look at a sampling of the promises that we have in Scripture about this. Look on the screen. God says to the prophet Jeremiah, Call to me, and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known. Look what Jesus says in Luke 11.

11:09And I tell you, ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be opened to you. Look what the Apostle John wrote. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of Him. Friends, if earthly parents don't ignore their children's cries for help, will our perfect heavenly Father ignore us? Certainly not. Certainly not. God hears His people, so we should call on Him. Second, God delivers His people, so we should trust in Him. God delivers His people, so we will trust him. We should trust in him. Look at verse 5, Psalm 116.

12:05Gracious is the Lord and righteous. Our God is merciful. The Lord preserves the simple. When I was brought low, he saved me. We'll come back to verse 7. Take a look at verse 8. For you have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling. So whatever was going on with the psalmist, this is a bad situation. Back in verse 3, we saw that the psalmist was on death's doorstep. And so he cries out to the Lord, believing that God will hear him and that God will deliver him.

12:51Now, you might be sitting here thinking, you know, that just seems so easy for certain people. They get into bad situations and they just seem to have natural, tremendous faith in God. They don't seem to have any doubts. They just trust and pray. They cry out to the Lord. But that's not me. Well, friends, I want to remind you, everyone is tempted to doubt God in hard situations. Everyone. Moses had doubts. David had doubts. Jeremiah had doubts. Even the Lord Jesus himself was tempted to doubt in the wilderness and in the Garden of Gethsemane.

13:42Everyone is tempted to doubt God. And we see the psalmist confessing his own doubts here. Go down to verse 10. He says, I believed even when I spoke, I am greatly afflicted. I said in my alarm, all mankind are liars. The psalmist says, I am greatly afflicted. He looks around and he sees people lying to him, about him, whatever the case was, and he says, All mankind are liars. And because of these things, he's tempted to doubt God.

14:28But in the midst of his doubts, he is determined to trust in God. Look again at verse 9. He says, I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living. I believed even when I spoke. Now, if you know the Gospels, you know that story where Jesus encounters this father whose son is possessed by a demon. And the dad is Distraught. He's asked the disciples, Can you drive this demon out of my son? And they couldn't. And so the father is totally exasperated, and he says to Jesus, If you can do anything, please help us.

15:14And Jesus looks at him and he says, If you can, all things are possible for him who believes. And the father says, I believe. Help my unbelief. What a response that is. Brothers and sisters, what I want you to see here is that God calls out to the psalmist for deliverance, and God hears him. While he waited for God to act, he determined to trust God in the midst of those trying circumstances. He said, I will walk before the Lord. I will believe.

15:59And what happened? God came through for him. Look again at verse 6. The Lord preserves the simple. When I was brought low, he saved me. Verse 8, you have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling. The psalmist cries out for deliverance. God hears and answers. And now what is he doing? He is giving thanks to God publicly. The gathered assembly, he is letting everybody know this is what God has done for me. He is testifying, he is bearing witness to God's faithful work. He's inviting everybody else in the congregation to praise God for what he did in his life and also to look at their own lives and to say, Can't you join in the chorus? Can't you also thank God for what he has done in your life?

17:00So, God hears his people, so we should call on him. God delivers his people, so we should trust in him. And what do we do while we wait? What do we do while we wait for God? Let's go back to verse 7, that verse we skipped. Return, O my soul, to your rest, for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you. The psalmist is tempted to worry, he's tempted to be overcome by anxious, faithless, godless thoughts. So, what does he do?

17:50He doesn't listen to himself, he preaches to himself. He says, We are not doing this. O my soul, return to your rest. We are changed. Choosing the way of faith. We are not going to walk by fear. We are going to walk by faith. He determines to rest in the Lord. He preaches to himself: return, O my soul, to your rest. Now, why can he do that? Is that just blind faith, as it's called? Is that just whistling in the dark?

18:24No. He can trust in the Lord. He can command his soul to rest because God has dealt bountifully with him. God hasn't just kept him alive, he has dealt bountifully with him. Friends, every day we have 10,000 reasons to give thanks to God, who is overflowing with mercy, with grace, with generosity, with love. He hears us, he delivers us, he deals bountifully with us. And so, if you're in a place where you are struggling to trust God with whatever it is that's going on in your life, take this as an encouragement to sit down and to consider all of the ways that God has dealt bountifully with you.

19:21I encourage you to make a list, to write it down. I can guarantee that your hand is going to hurt long before you get done. Making that list. That is such a faith-building exercise to regularly sit down and to contemplate all of the ways that God has dealt bountifully with us so that when we are in those tough times, when we are tempted to doubt, we can think back and remember: God has come through for me so many times in the past. He has dealt bountifully with me. So I can trust him now. I can trust him today.

19:59So, friends, why can we rest in the Lord? Because he hears us and he delivers us when we call on him. We don't have to be anxious and afraid. We can approach every situation, no matter how bad it seems, with confident faith in the Lord. And when that happens, when God comes through for us, it brings up that second question: What should we render to the Lord? Let's look now at verse 12. The psalmist asks, What shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits to me?

20:48In light of all that God has done, the psalmist is asking, What should I do in response? What should I do in return for all that God has done for me? Me, what shall I render to the Lord? And every believer has wondered this before. I mean, when someone, when another person blesses us, our natural thought is: how can I repay them? How can I show them my thankfulness? How can I show them my gratitude? And friends, since we've experienced the grace and the mercy of God Himself, we are left asking how we should respond, what we should render to the Lord.

21:32And we notice here in Psalm 116 that the writer is absolutely resolute, he is resolved in his heart and mind. As we heard in the scripture reading, there is this phrase that appears over and over: I will, I will, I will, I will. That is resolution. And what are his resolutions? They are to praise, to pray, and to pay. To praise the Lord, to pray to the Lord, and to pay his vows to the Lord. First, the psalmist is resolved to praise the Lord. Look at verse 13.

22:21I will lift up the cup of salvation. Go down to verse 17. I will lift up the salvation of the salvation. Offer to you the sacrifice of thanksgiving. What the psalmist is doing is praising God for delivering him from death. That's what he means when he says, I will lift up the cup of salvation. He has saved him from death. He wants to lift up the cup of salvation. He's offering to God a sacrifice. But this time it's not an animal sacrifice. It's not a drink offering or a food offering or a financial sacrifice, though all of those things were commanded and appropriate. No, this time what he's doing is his act of worship is to offer praise with thanksgiving.

23:11And he's not doing this privately in his prayer closet like we talked about earlier. No, in verses 18 and 19, we see where is he doing this? In the presence of all his people, in the courts of the house of the Lord, in your midst, O Jerusalem. So, friends, as we noted earlier, it is good and right to offer personal and private praise to God. That's a good thing. But when God has done great things in our lives, it is not right and it doesn't feel right to keep that to ourselves.

23:53We know almost intuitively that the appropriate response is not just to give private praise to God. Not just to give private thanks, but to give public praise and thanksgiving to God so that others may hear and benefit from it. Look at Hebrews 13. Through him, then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God. That is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. Like the psalmist, we should resolve to praise the Lord. Second, the psalmist is resolved to pray to the Lord. Look again at verse 13.

24:40He says, I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord. Verse 17, I will offer to you the sacrifice of thanksgiving and call on the name of the Lord. The psalmist called on the name of the Lord when he was in trials, when he was about to die, and now he resolves to call on the name of the Lord in the future, going forward. Friends, that resolution honors God. Because what does God want from us?

25:14Yes, it's true that God wants our praise, and we should be resolved to praise God. But in addition to our praise, God wants us to trust him. He wants us to trust him, to exercise faith matters. Moment by moment, day by day. Well, what does it look like to trust God? There are lots of answers to that question, but I think at the base level, perhaps the most basic form of trusting God is prayer. It's praying to the Lord. Because when we pray, we are communicating, I am not self-sufficient, I cannot meet all of my needs, I cannot solve all of my problems. Truly, I cannot do anything apart from Christ. That is what we are communicating when we pray. People who believe this are people who pray, people who go to the Lord in conscious dependence and say, Lord, I need you. I need your wisdom, your clarity, your energy, your heart, your grace, your mercy, your help. That is what it looks like to trust in the Lord.

26:29Friends, we live in what psychologist Jonathan Haidt calls the anxious generation. More people claim to be anxious. More people are diagnosed with clinical anxiety than ever, including many professing Christians. And maybe you're in that place. Maybe you find yourself dealing with anxiety. Regularly. It might be kind of low-grade and in the background, or it might be so intense that you are seeking professional help for that, as you should be. But what do you do? What do we do in this anxious generation?

27:21Psalm 116 encourages us to resolve to pray to the Lord. Look at what the Apostle Paul says in the New Testament, Philippians 4 on the screen. The Lord is at hand. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. I want to leave that up for a moment. Brothers and sisters, the Lord is at hand.

28:07I want you to let that sink in for a moment. The Lord is at hand. He is not a billion miles away in heaven. His address is not heaven. The Bible affirms from cover to cover that God is omnipresent. He is everywhere, all the time. He is at hand. He's not far off in. Distant, he is right here with you. And if you are a believer, he is in you through the Holy Spirit. The Lord is at hand. So don't be anxious. That does not mean that it is sinful to feel anxious. You cannot control how you feel, but you can control what you do with those feelings.

28:58Instead of sitting in that anxiety, instead of stirring it up even more by diving into the vortex of the internet or any of those AI software programs, Lord help us, pray. Pray with a thankful heart. And the promise here in Philippians 4 is that God's peace, which is a better gift than all understanding, think about what that means. God's peace is a better gift than you understanding all of the things that Claude will tell you can go wrong with you medically or can go wrong with your loved one medically.

29:44It is better, God's peace is better than you understanding what chat GPT will say could go wrong with your house or wrong with your car. Yesterday, I had a moment, I have these often. I was in the garage trying to solve any number of problems. And I already knew that two of the five cars that we own, I don't have Ferraris and stuff, I have three kids that drive. Two of the five cars that we own. I have to be clear about that. We're in a day and age where pastors, you never know. So, two of the five cars that we own that are very old.

30:26I already knew two of them had issues. And then my son comes into the garage and he says, Dad, my car won't start. Pray. That is better than knowing all of the ins and outs of what is wrong with each of my ancient vehicles. That is better than knowing the ins and outs of what could be or is going wrong with my house or my finances or my health. The peace of God, Paul says, will calm and guard your anxious heart and your anxious mind.

31:10The psalmist resolves to pray to the Lord, and we should do the same. Third and finally, the psalmist is resolved to pay his vows to the Lord. Now, he's probably referring to promises that he made to God in the depths of his affliction. And from the context of Psalm 116, it seems that those vows Included giving public thanks to the Lord in the assembly of his people. Now, as new covenant believers, Jesus commands us not to take an oath at all, not to swear, not to make vows, just let your yes be yes and your no be no.

31:49But that doesn't mean that we have no obligations to the Lord, that we don't owe him anything. So, what do we owe him? How do we pay these vows to the Lord? Look at verse 16: O Lord, I am your servant, I am your servant, the Son of your maidservant. You have loosed my bonds. Now, Jesus teaches that anyone who sins is a slave to sin. We were slaves to sin. But friends, if you are a believer in Jesus Christ, all of that changed when you put your faith in Him. Look at Romans 6:6 on the screen. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. Oh, friends, through faith, we are no longer enslaved to sin. God has loosed our bonds. Instead, we have become slaves. to righteousness, servants of God in Christ. And that is great news because God is the kindest, most gracious, most merciful, most generous master that we could ever have. That is a wonderful thing. It is better to be a servant in God's house than to be the king or the queen of the most powerful nation in the world.

33:28So as Christians, how do we pay our vows to the Lord? Well, quite simply, we pay our vows through our obedience. We live our lives as grateful, obedient servants. Look at 1 Samuel 15, 22, when the prophet Samuel is rebuking Saul for offering a sacrifice. Samuel says, Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice and to listen than the fat of rams.

34:09Here's how Paul puts it in the New Testament, Romans 12. I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual work. Worship. Our spiritual worship to God is our grateful, heartfelt obedience to Him. It's our decision each and every day to present our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to the Lord. That is how we pay our vows.

34:52Brothers and sisters, I hope that you've been reminded here in Psalm 116 that we have so much to be thankful for. Jesus promised that we would have trouble in this world. We have already walked through some trouble. You might be walking through trouble right now. If Jesus does not return today, we are almost certainly going to be walking through more trouble in the future. But the good news is that we are never walking through trouble alone. You are not alone. We have a God who pays attention, who hears and answers us when we call out to him. We have a God who delivers us, and so we can trust in him, rest in him, even in, especially in the worst times of our lives. So, friends, don't forget that. If you're a believer, you are never alone. And the tangible demonstration of that reality, of that truth, Is these people right here? These people right here and in every faithful church are the hands and feet of Jesus Christ Himself. They are a reminder that you are not alone. The Christian life cannot be lived alone, it was not meant to be lived alone. We have the body of Christ as a tangible reminder that God is near, that He hears and answers when we call, that He delivers us when we trust in Him. And so let's resolve to do that.

36:33If you are not a believer in Jesus Christ, you might have heard this verse, the seventh verse, talking about rest in the Lord. And you might be thinking to yourself, I want that. I want that so badly. Because this world certainly promises rest, doesn't it? When you think about it, every advertisement on TV or on the internet, it really comes back to promising rest. Buy this alcohol because in it you will find rest. Buy this $10,000 sleep number mattress because in it you will find rest. Go on this vacation because you will find rest. Buy this car, this house, then you will finally have arrived. Get this degree. Then you will finally be at rest. Your soul will finally be at peace. But Just talk to the older men and women who are here. Ask if any of those things have provided the rest that they promised. They don't. They don't. And you can watch documentary after documentary of famous person who has achieved the heights of their profession, of their career, of their calling, and they testify to a person, I still feel empty. Scotty Scheffler is a professional golfer. He's a professing Christian. He won four of the last six majors in the last couple of years. And he was doing an interview after winning one of those majors. And he said, it feels good for about five minutes, and then you're like, what are we going to eat for dinner?

38:15Friends, rest cannot be found in anything this world has to offer. But look on the screen at what Jesus Christ says to you. Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. Many things in this world promise rest, but only Jesus delivers. So, friends, you are invited this morning by me.

39:01By us, but most importantly, by Jesus Himself, to come. Come to Jesus, because he promises that if you come to Him, He will never cast you out. It doesn't matter what you have done, it doesn't matter what you were doing, even last night. He says, Come to me, and I will give you rest. And so, we invite you this morning, turn from your sin, turn from putting your trust in anything other than Him, and put your faith in Jesus, His perfect life, His death on the cross in your place for your sins, and His resurrection from the dead. Trust in Him, and He will give you the rest that you are looking for. God has dealt bountifully with you, and that is illustrated most clearly in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. All you need to do is accept His invitation to rest. We hope you will.

39:55Let's pray. Father, we confess that we live in an anxious generation and that we ourselves are tempted to be anxious people. We feel these feelings that we are out of control, that we don't know the future, that we cannot solve all of the issues and challenges that face us. We wonder, what are we going to do? And Psalm 116 reminds us that we are not alone. There is a God who hears and answers when we call. All we have to do is call.

41:03And so, Lord, I pray for every person here that we would turn from putting trust in ourselves and our own abilities, our own strength, our own wisdom, that we would turn from looking to other things that promise to deliver us, promise rest, and instead that we would look to Jesus, who does hear, who does pay attention, who does care, who is real. God, we thank you for all of the good you have done in our lives. You have dealt bountifully with us. May we offer our lives as living sacrifices in response. In Christ's name, we pray. Amen.

41:56Thank you for listening to the sermon audio from New Life Baptist Church in College. Station, Texas. For more information or to support our ministry, visit us online at newlifecs.net.