God Can Deliever You

All right, today's Scripture is found in Psalm chapter 116.

Psalms 116 · chapter mention

If you're using one of the Bibles and around your chair,

that's found on page 478. Psalm 116 says 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 encompass

me. The pangs of Sheol laid hold of

me. I suffered distress and anguish.

Then I called on the name of the Lord.

O Lord, I pray deliver my soul. Gracious is the Lord, and

righteous. Our God is merciful.

The Lord preserves the simple When I was brought low, He saved

me. Return, O my soul, to your rest,

for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you.

For you have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears,

my feet from stumbling. I will walk before the Lord in

the land of the living. I believed even when I spoke.

I am greatly afflicted. I set in my alarm.

All mankind are liars. What shall I render to the Lord

for all His benefits to me? I will lift up the cup of

salvation and call on the name of the Lord.

I will pay my vows to the Lord in the presence of all His

people. Precious in the sight of the

Lord is the death of His Saints. O Lord, I am your servant.

I am your servant, the son of Your maidservant.

You have loosed my bonds. I will offer to you the

sacrifice of Thanksgiving and call on the name of the Lord.

I will pay my vows to the Lord in the presence of all his

people in the courts of the House of the Lord.

In your midst, O Jerusalem, praise the Lord, this is God's

word. What's going on?

Port City family and friends, how are we doing?

Good. My name is Tanner.

I'm one of the pastors here. Glad to be with you.

It is middle of the summer. I just want to remind you, in

one month life is back. Like as a regular, all the stuff

and just a reminder that just extended time off vacations, all

the good things that we get to do in the summer do not make you

rest. They don't actually change who

you're going to be in about a month.

So just an exhortation, maybe what you need is a is a good

book. Maybe what you need is a

conversation with a friend or a pastor here at Port City or to

get to know somebody else in the congregation and just connect

with someone. Because it could be tempting to

increase your sleep, increase your your vegging and all those

things during the summer. Sometimes you just got to

remember that really don't help us here in about a month.

OK, So just a reminder, those things are good.

Enjoy the good food, enjoy the the weather, the pool, all that

stuff, but grab some good content, grab some friends in

this room and and that actually changes us and what we really

need here in about four weeks. Does that sound good?

OK, what I want to do is I want to pray one more time over Psalm

116 and we going to get after it quickly.

OK Almighty God, thank you, thank you, thank you Lord for

your word. God, we need it.

We are so desperate for your word.

We're hungry and God, I just confess in my own heart, God, we

just know how to go through the church rhythm and listen and and

hear the things and do the things and we know the right

answers. But God, I just pray by your

mercy would help us to listen in a deeper way.

God, you would help our hearts to receive.

God, you would challenge us where we need to be challenged.

You would humble us where we're proud.

You would strengthen us where we're weak.

You convict us where we're just blind.

So God, just just meet us now, please, by the power of the Holy

Spirit, we pray. Amen, y'all.

I'm gonna start real with you all this week.

Honestly, what does Jesus's death have to do with your life

tomorrow, Right? Like what does it have to do

with me? Many people for many years can

sit in church services and know that God died for them.

God loves me, but I'm jealous of that person whose life is going

better than me. And there can be a settling into

your spirit, a disappointment, discontentment, disgruntled.

Just. I'm just frustrated.

My life has not gone how I wanted it to go.

It's not going right. I felt that.

OK. And the reason I'm being real

with you to start was we're about to read what's known as a

deliverance song. OK, so the psalmist is going to

take us to the other side of Deliverance.

Think if you know your Bibles, think after Jonah gets spit out

that type Psalm and he's like talking about how good God is.

And she almost got me in. I was almost gone, but you saved

me. And it just sounds amazing.

Or it sounds amazing for some people to you and you don't

think it applies to you, and it just adds another layer of this

sounds good and I'm supposed to say that, and I know those

answers, but I don't actually think that speaks for me.

Remember, the goal of the Psalms is for them to go from speaking

to you to speaking for you, right?

That's the goal. They're speaking to us when we

read them, but the goal is that they become an expression of our

heart to God, not just information I'm receiving from

God. Does that make sense?

The Psalms are the one genre of Scripture that aren't teaching

you as much as they're speaking for you.

OK, Does that make sense? OK, so here's what I want to

tell you is that everybody in this room at some level is

struggling with the fact that life is hard.

We compare. We're going to have to be real

about that here today. I need you to be real, and

that's OK. But my prayer is that by the

end, like the psalmist, you can say I've been delivered.

I know you feel in your body right now where you want God to

deliver you. You're conscious of where you

need him to show up. And that's good.

And we're going to talk about that.

But I hope you leave convinced, as the psalmist is, that God has

delivered you. Does that make sense?

And we're gripped by that, and it shapes how we walk with God.

But I hope that's real and not just something, you know, to say

that makes sense. So here's how we're going to

take this point #1 is a vision of deliverance.

We're going to see the other side of what the psalmist now

says in light of what's happened.

Then we're going to talk about what keeps us stuck from ever

experiencing life the way the psalmist is talking about it.

And then we're going to talk about where do we go from here?

Does that sound good? If you're ready, let me hear you

say I'm ready. All right, let's talk about a

vision of deliverance, y'all. So the psalmist again, imagine

like just just it happened. They cried out and the Lord

answered, OK, the deliverance has occurred.

So what I want to do is walk through 4 marks of a delivered

life. So once delivered, what is this

life marked by? What does it look like?

What does it feel like, tastes like, sound like when you've

been delivered, how do you live 4 marks?

OK, Mark, number one is response.

People who've been delivered live in response to that

deliverance. Look again with me at verse one.

I love the Lord because He has heard my voice and my pleas for

mercy. It's happened.

I love Him because He did. He heard me verse 2 because He

inclined His ear to me. Therefore, I will call on the

name as long as I live. Verse 3 the snares of death

encompass 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 my soul gracious of the Lord and

righteous. Our God is merciful.

The Lord preserves the simple when I was brought low, he saved

me. So do we see how the the posture

of the Psalm is responding to that deliverance.

See, I'll see that like it's a a recounting.

This is what happened. OK, It's, it's David, Psalm 18.

If you want to write that one down, very similar where David

is in a cave and Saul could have killed him and at the last

minute something happened and Saul has to leave and David

writes Psalm 18. It's kind of this idea of like,

I was gone, I was done, I was dead, but I'm not I'm good like

I'm free. Praise the Lord or Jonah.

He says the, the, the I was snared up.

She'll was grabbing me, pulling me.

And then the Lord answered, it's that kind of posture.

And over and over we see the psalmist saying because you did,

I will because you showed up, I live.

Because that happened, this is how I'm going to live now.

OK, So what got into the psalmist is a settled posture

that life moving forward is a response to what has occurred.

OK, so there's ongoing posture towards the Lord, still

expecting, still asking as we're going to talk about.

There's still stuff the psalmist wants God to do, OK, But there's

a settled posture that everything from here on out is a

response to what you've already done.

It's over. That is settled, will never be

undone in that heart. Does that make sense There?

There's other things that they want God to do.

David would be in another cave. Saul would chase him down again,

right? But there's this sense that

because of what you did, I'm never going to look at you like

you don't care about me. I'm never going to come with

that posture of you don't. You don't have my best interest

at heart. This settles who you are to me,

and now I will expect you to be that.

Yes, because you've been it. But it's settled.

Does that make sense? I don't know.

If you ever talk to somebody whose mind is just made-up.

They're unshakable. OK.

I remember the first time. And if you have not experienced

this ice cream, that's OK. But I remember when I had

Jenny's ice cream. Anybody.

I was in Georgia on a trip. See.

See. See.

I'm right. And I ate it.

I was just like, what is this? I've never tasted anything like

this. And other people, they tell me

they're little, you know, they're.

I respect you. I believe that you think that's

better than Jenny's, but it's not 'cause it's settled in me,

you know what I mean? Like it's settled.

So there, there's things about there.

You live settled on certain things, right?

You do it all the time. What the psalmist is saying,

something has happened. God responded, God acted, I was

done. God did it.

It's settled that I trust him. It's settled that I'm going to

him. It's settled that He's good.

So watch this. What happens to me does not

dictate who I view him as. You see how that works once it's

settled. These settled interprets what's

unsettling instead of the unsettling.

Interpreting who he is. Now.

Who he is shapes what happens instead of what happens tells me

who he is. You see how backwards that is,

how important that is. Once it's settled, your life is

just so much easier. So I just want to invite you to

a life of response, a life that is responding to what God has

done. And just one question as we

continue to walk through the Psalm is, can you sing this

right now and mean it? Not because you know you're

supposed to, but does your soul sing this song right now?

Has God done enough? And if part of you, as I'm

saying that is wondering what has God done that would settle

it for me? Hang on to that.

Like I hope by the end you know what God has done that would

settle it for you. Second thing a delivered life is

marked by is just Godwardness. A Godwardness.

Verse 9 says this. I will walk before the Lord in

the land of the living. Like this image of like life now

is walking before God's face. It's walking in light of who God

is. Verses 12 through 14, what shall

I render to the Lord for all his benefits to me?

I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name

of the Lord. I will pay my vows to the Lord

in the presence of all His people.

It's just this image that all of life is about God.

Everything I do, I belong to him.

I'm yours. Scholars talk about this, this

imagery here between the lifting up the cup.

I know we don't really use that that language, but it's this

idea. Here's all that God's done to me

in this cup and lifting it up is just like just bringing it back

to God is like, dude, you're awesome.

Like it's it's in our vernacular.

It's kind of like toast, toast to the king type thing, but not

in a like I just made a three shout out to the Lord type way,

even though that's not wrong. Don't hate on them athletes.

It's it's never bad that they do that.

It's that they only do that. Amen somebody so so it's lifting

up all that he is and just just in the public assembly just

being like God. That's who you are like this is

you and it's saying I belong to you.

Life is yours. I I'm living God word.

What that means is all of life becomes about him.

All of it. It's not about your boss.

It's not about your spouse, it's not about your kids.

It's not about your friends, your neighbors, it's now the God

word. Life plays itself out in those

places, with your spouse, with your kids.

But because it's first and foremost about God, what you do

is dictated by who He is, not who they are.

I love my spouse 'cause God tells me to.

Because if I need them to be what my flesh dictates as

loving, there will be a time I won't do that.

Same with my kids. Same with my boss.

I, you know, I'm always tempted to gossip and all the things,

but the reason I don't is that life is God word.

It's not about them. It's not about the stakes of

what could happen to me if this happens or this or that or that.

I don't do that calculus anymore.

Does that make sense? That's kind of the idea.

Life is so God word. It's so living before Him that

it just ain't about those people as much.

And it just, it just, you see how that just chills you out a

little bit between life being a response and then it being a God

word, walking before the Lord in the land of the living.

When I do my job, when I wash the dishes, when I do anything,

I'm doing it unto the Lord. I ain't doing it for you.

There's a difference between doing your dishes so that your

wife will appreciate you and doing them because you love God.

You know what I mean? Like it's just everything, just

the edge just turns off just a little bit.

But I don't take this test so I can have a better grade than

that person and get into a better school than that person.

I take it because I care about the people I'm going to serve

through this job one day. It just, it just changes life.

So here's a question for you. Does life consistently feel like

it's between you and God? Or does it constantly feel like

it's others? And you got to remind yourself

God's even a part of it. 3rd mark of a delivered life is

trust, trust. Hopefully you picked up on this

phrase calling on the name of the Lord.

Hopefully you saw that. We see it in verse 2, verse four

and then 12 and 13. It says because he inclined his

ear to me, therefore I will call on him as long as I live.

Verse 2, verse 4, then I called on the name of the Lord.

Oh Lord, I pray, deliver my soul.

And then verse 12 says what shall render to the Lord for all

his benefits to me, I will lift up the cup of salvation and call

on the name of the Lord. You know this phrase, calling on

the name of the Lord in our vernacular is prayer.

But the second I do that, we got it, we got to.

I actually think calling on the name of the Lord might be even

more helpful if all of you've ever thought of is prayer.

OK. I think some of us relate to

prayer, the way people throw pennies in a wishing well.

Hope this works and just launching it just boom, we're

just throwing dreams up at the Lord and I know you love me and

just just maybe one of these will hit.

I'm just being honest. Like I think we we we we're just

throwing darts a little bit. And he told me to ask and not

all that's bad by the way, like that being the posture of like

you don't know and God tells you to ask and but I want to give

you the image of calling on the name of the Lord.

Y'all what the Bible means by that is the name that has

delivered me the name this person, this this God who showed

up this God who brought me out of a this God who delivered me.

That's who he is. His name is delivered.

That's who he is. So he delivered the psalmist so

that the psalmist would call on that name.

That makes sense. So like we think a prayer, like

just ask and I think ask is still probably one of the best

synonyms for prayer, but calling on the name is like grabbing

hold of the character of the person revealed to you and

begging them to be that name in the next situation.

Does that make sense? It's a casting oneself upon the

name. It's grabbing hold of.

It's it's what we see in the Gospels with with Jesus, you

know, like if we could and we're going to do a series later this

fall in the book of Matthew, chapters 8 and 9 and we're going

Matthew 8 · chapter mention

to see it people just throwing themselves upon that's calling

on the name. It's I you were that to them be

it now it's not a wish. It's not a coin in a well, hope

you're having a good day, Lord hope you're in a good mood.

Throw this out there. It's it's casting yourself upon

him to be who he's shown himself to be.

And you so trust the name that you're OK if it doesn't happen.

And at the same time you're not calculated and getting him off

the hook if he doesn't. You're just throwing yourself.

You're calling upon the name. You're casting yourself upon

this. God, you care.

Kids are so good at this when they say the words you said, can

I have a popsicle after dinner at 2:00 PM?

You're like sure. 7:49 PM when you want them in bed.

Can I have that popsicle? No, but you said, but you said

they're calling on the name, man.

That's what they doing. They holding you to what you

said and what you did and they're holding you to yourself.

You see that they're calling on the name that that that's not a

bad image, y'all? I think many have issued up

thousands of prayers and never called on the name.

You see how that's different? Like we can say prayers and not

be calling on the name of God, like pulling His character and

His essence into it. And I'm just going to be honest,

it takes time. It takes.

It's not just like I do this y'all.

This is not bad. I've got a list of the stuff I

want God to do and I ask Him for them often.

How often am I calling on the name?

I don't know. The Lord will tell me one day,

but I just want to invite you to call on the name.

And again, the question is, what name?

And that's part of why we don't 'cause we don't know the name,

you know. OK, last mark of a delivered

life is rest. Rest.

Look at verse seven. Look at verse 7.

Return, O my soul, to your rest, for the Lord has dealt

bountifully with you. Y'all this image of the

Psalmist. No longer recounting what

happened and talking about God, but looking inward and saying

soul you good rest. Isn't it amazing?

For all that God had done? If the psalmist does not speak

to himself about the activity of God, the soul is still

scrambling. Isn't that amazing, even the

activity of God? God has designed us in such a

way that the activity alone doesn't rest you.

Isn't that crazy? You play a role in your own

rest. You've got to look at yourself

and say self, God has been good to you.

Rest, return to your rest. I love that image.

You don't purchase the rest, you receive it and return to it.

You don't have to pave the way, return to it.

So God has paved it for you. You just got to return to it.

Psalm 16's another one. Go read that.

There's this image of of the lines have fallen for me in

pleasant places. I wonder if you would say that.

I think what we tend to have is the list of ways that things are

not going the way they should. If God loved me.

So yeah, we got to talk to ourselves.

Y'all. Is rest defining your life like

just under the hood? I'm not talking vacation.

I'm talking as you do what you do day in and day out.

If we pull up the hood of the souls, it just rest.

Or is it scrambling? Is it just an utter frenetic

activity to feel like you matter, to reach the next thing,

to reach the next goal, to become a somebody, to feel

valid, to get what you feel like you need to be OK?

OK, so those are the four marks. Response, governance, trust, and

rest of a life post deliverance. Let's talk about what keeps us

stuck. And I got to speed up a little

bit #1 hardship, y'all. Life is so hard.

It just is. It really is.

Terrible things happen, awful things and your families and

normal stuff. We've seen things we shouldn't

have seen that we were never designed to see.

Things don't change. You beg for them to change and

they don't. We get disappointed and we just

get grinded down. Life just grinds us down.

It's hard. And in that moment when your

dreams are not coming true, good things, and when hard things are

happening, you're just getting grinded.

And then you read a Psalm like this and it can feel insincere.

How can I sing this? How can I say God has delivered

me? How can that be my focus when

all I see is pain? When all I see is bad stuff?

For every moment of deliverance, there's a what feels like a

longer set of are you kidding me?

Are you actually kidding me? Moments, Right.

Is that not the world we live in?

If there's deliverance moments and then there's are you kidding

me moments over and over and over.

So please hear me saying I got my list of are you kidding me?

Please hear that. I'm not trying to say that if

you don't, if you have a list of complaints or if you have a list

of frustrations that's somehow antithetical to what the Bible

teaches, I would say that lamenting is a form of calling

on the name. Lamenting is a way to call on

the name. Go look up Psalm 88.

It's a great one. Put that in your in your list of

things to do after the sermon of just crying to God.

And again, I would say many of us have a list of issues with

God, but we're not calling on His name and lament.

I think we just have a list of frustrations and I don't like

it. And I've been there.

I would, I would say if you're in pain, call on the name.

When in pain, call on His name. What can happen through hardship

is your eye shift from the deliverance to the pain.

And it's not that the pain is invalid, it's just

disproportionately big. Does that make sense?

And then all of a sudden the deliverance feels like, well, I

know he did that, but what about X?

And the jump to the X is so quick, Does that make sense?

Second thing that keeps us stuck, comparison.

We do this, we do this, we do this subconsciously, directly

all the time. Y'all the the the stats around

the 2006 to 2008 window of young women 12 to 18 and mental health

since the the the introduction of the iPhone are insane.

Go look at the likelihood to have suicidal thoughts images.

The ways that the phones have shaped young people's ability to

be happy is staggering. And it's not just them, it's

adults. It's just a microcosm.

What we're all struggling with, which is we've always struggled

with comparison, and now we have a device that allows us to do

it. From the second you wake up to

look at a life that is better than yours and what happens in

comparison, OK, is you begin to think these people get to have

their cake and eat it too. They get the Lord.

Plus I just got to settle for this.

They get their dreams coming true and I don't seriously.

And you read a song like this and you're like, must be nice,

must be nice and you're just frustrated.

And y'all, we all do this kids behavior.

We compare spouses and how great their marriage looks or how they

treat them. The career stuff just keeps

going right for that joker. They get so many opportunities,

ministry sizes, their body. They can do whatever they want

and just look however they want. You know they're friends.

Why do people like them? I'm trying so hard to be a good

friend. Nobody likes me, guys.

We compare everything all the time and it's almost more like

an undercurrent just gnawing at us.

And when you add the hardship in there, we're just so angry.

And you're the last thing for that person who is stuck in

that. The last thing your soul can do

is rest Can't. Feels like rest is always a

luxury for those who are getting their dreams.

Not for me. Feels like rest is impossible.

We miss rest through control and apathy.

I'm going to get my goals so I can rest.

Once I get X I'll rest or we quit.

So either go hard to get it and then I can rest or we quit

because I'll never get it. They're going to get it.

So we we lean into detaching depression kind of paradigm or

we lean into heroism. And I could do it.

Just watch. But you ain't resting.

Your eyes shift from the deliverance you've received to

the deliverance you haven't but others have.

OK, third reason we say suck that both of these kind of point

to is we just misunderstand our biggest need.

The miss behind the misses in those first 2 is that we begin

to think God has not done enough for me.

God must do. We begin to think what God needs

to do is bigger than anything he's done and what He's done is

great. I know he did X.

That's great, but I need him to do why or he doesn't give a RIP

about me. And what can happen is we're

just so angry and frustrated and y'all this, this is the truth.

God has already done more than we need him to do.

That's a hard truth. He has done more already than we

need Him to do. And when I say that I am not

getting God off the hook of what I want Him to do in your life or

mine, OK, I have so much I want God to do, but I just need us to

hear God has done more already than we need Him to do.

So I wonder what you think your biggest need is here today?

What do you need most? What is our biggest problem?

Well, the Bible presents that our biggest problem is primarily

relational. We need reconciliation with God.

We need restoration. We need redemption.

I want your dreams to come true. I promise you I do.

But that is not your biggest need.

Your biggest need is righteousness.

Your biggest need is to be made like Christ.

Christ likeness to be one with him.

So let's talk about the way forward and we will be done.

Let's talk about the way forward Y'all I've told you, we've told

you throughout the series and each sermon, the Psalm series

we're doing Psalm 111 and 118, particularly 113 and 118 was

sang during Passover. OK, so the idea was they would

sing one 13114 they would do the Passover feast, OK, and

remembering what what happened to the Exodus story, and then

they would sing 115161718. So scholars think as best they

could tell, that's exactly what Jesus did the night before he

was betrayed. He reads and sings Psalm 113.

He reads and sings Psalm 114. Then he does the the bread, the

juice that we're going to do here in a little bit, the wine.

And then he talks about Psalm 115 that Pastor John walked

through last week and how we can be free from idols.

And then he sings this Psalm. So y'all, let's think about this

Psalm from Jesus's perspective. Y'all, the snares of death

encompass me, The pains of Sheol laid hold on me.

I suffered distressed and anguish.

Then I called on the name of the Lord.

O Lord, I pray deliver my soul yo.

First and foremost, as with all psalms, this Psalm is true of

us, can be yours, because of what it meant for Jesus.

First y'all, she all didn't just get a hold of his foot and he

got let go. She all took him down like he he

took the L like he was defeated by death.

He doesn't get to sing of deliverance in the same way.

And I know there's resurrection 3 days later, but he's swallowed

death whole like he took it on the chin.

He was crushed, he was mutilated, he was crucified, he

was destroyed. Y'all you can be delivered

because Jesus was destroyed. That's the story of the Bible.

And so when we read this Psalm before it's even about you, it's

about Jesus. That's the truth.

It's a messianic Psalm in many ways.

It's about the Messiah, about King Jesus.

We read earlier, What shall I render to the Lord for all his

benefits to me? I will lift up the cup of

salvation. Y'all, we can lift up the cup of

all the good things God intends to flow through his Son to you.

Because Jesus drank the cup of wrath, Yo, there was a cup, a

different cup that Jesus took, and it wasn't one of all God's

goodness towards him. It was a cup of wrath, a cup

full of wrath for our sin, for the consequences and effects of

sin. He stepped in to take that.

Yo, that's the gospel. How dare we sing a song like

this apart from the gospel? How dare we claim God will be

good to you? How dare we call on His name?

It would be a wishing well. Hope he's in a good mood and

that's what a lot of the other religions of this world are are

at their best is hoping that God is pleased with him on that day.

The difference in the Bible is God is going to be good to you

and is good to you. He is treating you as he would

treat his son. Whatever happens to you now

believer had to go through him first and he would not treat you

away. He would not treat his own son.

So whatever pain you're going through, God does not is not

pleased with your pain. He's not doing that to you.

He is in some kind of way is going through him to you.

He's saying yes in some sort of way, but God is doing no evil to

you. He is working it for your good.

He loves you. He sent his son for you.

But wait, there's more. Yeah, this is what's really cool

about this song. OK, you can go ahead and turn to

page 9 O 7 in your Bible. If you're if you're using one of

ours, going to be close down our time in Second Corinthians 4.

OK, so I want to set this up before I read it.

I'm going to read 2nd Corinthians 4 about 11 verses

over you to close our time here today, OK?

But I want you to understand why it's a big deal.

For those of you who don't know, Second Corinthians is a letter

written by the apostle Paul, OK? He wrote it to the church in the

city of Corinth. OK?

That's why it's called there the Corinthians, you know, So in

Psalm 116, verses 10 through 11/2 of the verses that were

Psalms 116:10–11

like, what does that mean? Verses 10 and 11, it says this,

I believed even when I spoke, I'm greatly afflicted.

I said in my alarm, all mankind are liars, OK?

Those are two verses that basically in the midst of his

distress post deliverance, the psalmist says, now that I know

the Lord loves me, I'm going to be honest about my situation and

say this is really hard, OK? So part of the delivered life is

I'm going to be real. Now, Lord, just because you

deliver me doesn't mean I like this.

OK, here's what's cool. Paul picks that up and pulls it

into his letter to the Corinthians.

The second letter to the Corinthians.

Why is that a big deal? Because part of what was

happening in the 1st century is people start believing in Jesus.

OK, they're believing in Jesus. And a group of people would come

in and hear, oh, y'all heard about Jesus, And their ministry

would be real flashy. They're dressed all dope.

They're collecting money from them, and Paul had gone off and

is getting beat down by people every day, has no money.

He's not a good speaker. He's just a good writer.

And they started being like Paul.

You kind of a bum, man. These guys are dope.

They're good speakers, they're funny, they're cool.

And Paul's like guys. What he's like.

I taught you the gospel man. And he quotes this Psalm in his

defense of his ministry in 2nd Corinthians 4.

Y'all tracking with me, So I'm going to read that here in a

moment, but it's a big deal because watch this.

I started with the question of what does Jesus's death have to

do with you? Right?

For Paul, it had everything to do with everything he was going

through. So Paul didn't read Psalm 116

and think, doesn't have anything to do with me.

I'm getting beat down. Where's my deliverance?

My life's terrible. Where's the Lord showing up?

He was reading it through. Christ who died, who took the L

so that I could live, died in my place.

I'm alive now. Watch this.

This is what I don't think we get.

I've talked to so many people over the years.

They know Christ died for them. This is the difference though.

Y'all the purpose of deliverance.

Think about a delivery from somewhere to somewhere, right?

So like you're delivered from something to something.

In Paul's mind, he was delivered from death, bondage to sin, all

the things, and he was delivered to God himself.

He was living life with God. What happened to Paul happened

to God. Listen to what I'm saying.

In Paul's mind, he was living every second of every day with

God and quotes a Psalm primarily about the Messiah, about his own

ministry. Do you see that?

So what I'm trying to tell you is God died to deliver you to

himself. We still think God died to

deliver me into some location, some place heaven.

No, God bought you through the cross and it's bringing you to

himself. And then he enters life with

you. And if it's hard, I'm not

surprised. This place sucks but he's with

you in it. Does that make sense?

So many of us think if this was happening to me, God doesn't

love me what he bought you. He's there.

It's not happening to you, it's happening to y'all like you are

him and he is you. Like that's the gospel.

But what we do is we think God died for me and it's this love

potion that I'm supposed to charge up through somehow.

But you've been united to God through Christ by the Spirit.

You're alive in Christ. So the gospel is that you are

alive with God. You've been delivered to Him.

Nothing happens to you that isn't happening to him too.

There is no you apart from Him. So whatever you're going

through, he's with you. You don't just go to the Bible

to get coached how to deal with it.

You go to the Bible to be with Him in it.

Did y'all see that deliverance isn't a a trophy?

You get that one day I get out of this hell hole and get to go

to heaven. That's like the final phase of

the deliverance. But you're delivered now to God.

That's who you've been delivered to from sin, from hell to God,

not to heaven, even though that's coming.

Does that make sense? Like I can't wait for heaven.

Amen somebody. But y'all, you've been delivered

to God himself. That's what Paul thought.

He didn't look at his life like God hasn't delivered me.

God had delivered him. God had done more for Paul.

He didn't need. If he did nothing else, it was

enough because he's alive with God.

So I just want to tell you, God has delivered you follower of

Jesus. He is with you in it in the

fire. There's another in the fire.

Like we sing that song because the fire is still coming.

Y'all like we get in our heads if he's with me, there's no

fire. Wrong.

He bought you to get in it with you.

He didn't buy you to remove it from you.

I hate to break that to you. He's committed to making you

like him, so he's going to get in it with you.

He didn't die to take the fire away.

Does that make sense? He died to get in it with you.

So I just want to invite you to union with God, life with God.

God has delivered you, believer. And if you don't know Jesus, he

hasn't. You are alone.

You don't know God, you're not delivered, you're still caught

the first part of the Psalm like you're being pulled down.

The Bible would say you're dead and you're sin and you're alone

and what you're invited to is not a life of platitude,

Christian slogans. You're invited to a life with

God himself. Isn't that amazing?

I don't know if you've heard that.

I grew up in church where so it and it's like the lights just

come on where God actually wants to live with you.

That's the gospel. He died so he could live with

you. So I want to read 2nd

Corinthians 4 some of y'all's life man, it's just hard right

now and it just gets so blurry. It can get so blurry.

How is God good I can't see just listen to how Paul talks about

this after I read this I'm a pray and we're done.

OK when he says this treasure here in this first verse.

He's just saying knowing Christ in your body on earth, in a, in

a just what feels like God forsaken land sometimes when

it's just hard. That's what Paul's talking

about. But we have this treasure in

jars of clay to show that the surpassing power belongs to God

and not to us. We are afflicted in every way,

but not crushed, perplexed but not driven to despair,

persecuted but not forsaken, struck down but not destroyed,

always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life

of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.

For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus

sake, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our

mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but

life in you. Since we have the same spirit of

faith according to what has been written.

I believed and so I spoke. We also believe and so we also

speak. That's Psalm 116, knowing that

he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus

and bring us with you into his presence, for it is all for your

sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people, it may

increase Thanksgiving to the glory of God.

Here's the gold. So we do not lose heart.

Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being

renewed day by day. For this light momentary

affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory

beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are

seen, but to the things that are unseen.

For the things that are seen or transient, but the things that

are unseen are eternal. Let's pray together.

Y'all. Our Father, we love you.

God, I just pray. Lord, please, God, please, for

those who are in Christ here, God, would you remind us we've

been delivered. God, we can sing Psalm 116.

We can go crazy. And God, I have so many things I

want you to do. Please.

There's so many people you haven't saved, so many things

you haven't done, God, and you know my frustration, I'm going

to keep calling on your name. God, may we be a church who

never gives up calling on your name to be who you promised to

be. Teach us to throw ourselves upon

you, God, please. But Lord, you have delivered us.

God, you have done so much. You've brought us to yourself.

What joy, what rest, what grace is possible for us.

Got to pray that over my brothers and sisters in Christ.

And I pray for my friends who do not know Jesus under the sound

of my voice. God, would you deliver them from

their sin? Would you deliver them to

yourself, God, from the Kingdom of self where we run the show

and think we're so pleased but we know we are miserable?

God? Would you rescue them from

themselves and sin and Satan and bring them to yourself by the

power of the Holy Spirit? We pray in Jesus name, Amen.