A Study in Psalms - Psalm 116

Let's read Psalm 116 tonight. Psalm 116.

Originally it wasn't going to cover this Psalm, but when I

read it, it just jumped off the pages, especially the 1st 4

words which is the title of our hope You have an outline

tonight. I love the Lord, but 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 encompass me.

The pangs of she hole 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 this 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.

Oh Lord, I am your servant. I am your servant, the son of

your maidservant. You have loosened 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 mist, O Jerusalem,

praise the Lord. Father, thank you that we can

look at Psalm 116 tonight. And Father, we do love you, but

we know that you first loved us and sent Jesus your Son to die

on the cross for our sins. And only because of that, the

transformation from old and new that we have love that we can

love. May we leave here tonight

sharing that love of Christ with friends, with family, with

neighbors, in Jesus Christ name, Amen.

Our Psalm begins with four great words.

I love the Lord. If you were to write a Psalm,

you will write a Psalm. And you began with those words.

What would you say? I love the Lord Because.

Because what? Because he loved you first.

Maybe somebody would say he saved me from my sins by sending

his Son to die on the cross and take away my sins and give me

forgiveness and eternal life. What else would you say the I

love the Lord for? You might say I didn't hear his

grace. OK, what about godly parents?

I think that's probably the second greatest gift that I ever

had other than salvation was that God gave me parents who

modeled and showed the way. That's that's just a great gift.

He gave me Christ Community Church that supported me and my

wife for 18 years on the mission field and I still get to come

here and work here. He gave me Pastor Lance to teach

me and godly men through that time.

He gave me a beautiful wife. I've been married for 23 years.

He gave me a beautiful daughter, Tessa.

He gave me wonderful places to live, hospitals that I could go

to when sick, when many people don't have that security and

safety, food, shelter, clothing. I could go on and on and on.

I love the Lord because He's done so much for me.

You notice there was no superscription at the top of

this Psalm. Of the 150 psalms, there are 34

like this one that have no superscription Psalms. 116 is

the 4th Psalm in what's commonly called the Egyptian Halal

Psalms. 113114115116117186OF them are called the Egyptian

Halal Psalms and they're recited at Jewish festivals.

Of course the Passover would be the big one and they recite

these sing them during Passover to express gratitude and praise

to the Lord. These psalms are called the

Egyptian hell because they celebrate Israelites exit from

Egypt and halal means praise. So during Passover they would

sing Psalm 113 and 114 before the Passover meal and then they

would sing Psalm 115 to 118 following the last cup of wine.

So it's likely that our Lord Jesus Christ sang this Psalm

that we're looking at tonight with the other 5 the night

before he went to a cross. Matthew 2630 says after singing

a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.

That would have been Psalms 115 to 118.

Think of the irony though. Our Psalm is about a man who was

near death. He was about to die.

You'll see the graphic language. He was near death and yet God

rescued him. So Jesus is singing this song on

the night before he's going to go to the garden, the night

before he's going to be betrayed, and the night before

he'd be executed on the cross. So the Psalm is about a man who

got rescued, but Jesus own father would not rescue him the

next morning. In fact, He would abandoned him

on the cross when the wrath of God was poured out on him.

When Jesus was on the cross. G Campbell Morgan said, Whatever

the local circumstances which gave rise to this song, it's

evident that in all its rich meaning was fulfilled when in

the midst of that little company of perplexed souls, the shadows

of one death already on him, Jesus sang this song, a

prophetic triumph over the sharpness of the hour of passion

to which He was passing. He has made it over to all his

own as their triumph song over death.

Say I love you and then I will. J Vernon McGee says that it's a

love song because God swallowed death in victory.

The type of Psalm we're finishing tonight is the

Thanksgiving Psalm. This psalmist is thankful that

God spared his life, that God rescued him from death.

So let's look at at at our outline tonight.

We have 4 simple points, His danger verses one to four, His

deliverer verse 5 to 9, his devotion verses 10 to 14, and

his delight in verses 515 to 19. So first obvious danger and

number. Some point says I love the Lord,

verses 1 and 2 and I just love how it begins.

I love the Lord. Our Psalm begins with a personal

pronoun I-1 of 18 times. In my ESV translation there's

only 19 verses, 18 times he says I.

So you notice it's a very personal Psalm right off the

bat. Me is mentioned 7 times and my

is mentioned 9 times. So you see how it's just a

beautiful personal Psalm which captures the soul.

It's the only Psalm of the 150 to begin with the words I love

the Lord. Now Psalms 18 which has a lot of

familiar themes with Psalm 116, Psalms 18, one says I love you,

O Lord, my strength. Psalms 3123 says Love the Lord,

all you Saints, but this is the only Psalm that begins with

those first 4 words. The psalmist uses the name of

God here as Yahweh and he's going to use it 16 times in

these 19 verses. That's the covenant name of God.

I love the Lord because of answered prayer was the catalyst

for the psalmist love. And when God answers our

prayers, it reinforces our love for Him.

How can the psalmist say these four precious words?

How can we even mutter these precious words?

It's only because God first loved us, right?

And you know the verse I think Lance managed on Sunday first,

John 419 says we love because he first loved us.

He says I love the Lord for two reasons, because he heard my

voice and because he inclined his ear.

He says because he has heard my voice and my pleas for mercy.

God answers our prayers. They may be no, they may be wait

and hopefully they're yes. But God is a compassionate,

merciful God wanting to hear our cries and our prayers.

It says because he inclined his ear.

Now we've talked about that a lot lately, haven't we?

We looked at Psalms 86 one and said God inclined his ear.

Psalms 1O2 last week inclined your ear to me 15 times in the

Psalms it says that and this is the third one that we've looked

at. So he asked God to call upon

some point to I will call upon the Lord.

The last part of verse 2. He says therefore I will call on

him as long as I live. When you go to Bible school or

seminary, they always tell you when you see a therefore in the

Bible, you should ask ourselves what is the therefore their

space FOR? What's it there for?

Well, the therefore you always go back to verse one.

And it's because God heard his cry and God inclined his ear to

him because he heard me, because he inclined his ear to me,

because he answered my prayer. I will continue to pray to him

all my life, says the psalmist. Next he says I came near to

death. He says the snares of death

encompass me, the pangs of she hole laid hold of me.

I suffered distress and anguish almost the same as Psalms 18,

which I said is familiar with Psalms 116.

Psalms 18, verse 4 to 5 says the cords of death encompass me, the

Psalms 18:4–5

torrents of destruction assailed me, the cords of she hole

entangled me, and the snares of death confronted me.

So the psalmist feels like he's trapped in a life threatening

situation and he's suffering a near death experience and only

God can bail him out and help him.

So verse four he says I called upon the Lord, then I called

upon the Lord. O Lord, I pray deliver my soul.

Notice in this Psalm 4 times in the 19 verses the psalmist calls

on the Lord verse 2. I will call on him verse 4 which

I just read. Then I called on the name of the

Lord verse 13, and call on the name of the Lord, verse 17 and

call on the name of the Lord. This psalmist was in love with

the Lord, and because God rescued him, he's going to

continue to call upon the name of the Lord.

You know, one of my goals, as many you know, is to get

everybody in our church to read 1 Psalm a day.

And if you do that for one year, you'll have read through the

Psalms 2 1/2 times in one year. And the first time you read some

psalms, like Latin, we looked at Psalm 79.

Some of them were hard, but most of them were easy.

But the more you read it after year 2, after year 3, after 3-4,

especially if you have a journal where you have a book like I

gave Bill, those books can help us.

And Diedrich Bond Offer said, the more deeply we grow in the

Psalms, the more often we pray them as our own, the more simple

and rich our prayers become. This is the central theme of

Psalm 116. The all sufficient grace of God

to help believers in their weakness.

This Psalm testifies to the strength of God manifest in the

psalmist when he had no power to deliver himself.

The psalmist was so I'll that he thought he was about to die.

There was absolutely nothing he could do save his own life.

In fact, there was nothing anyone could do to help him.

If he were to be helped, his help would have to come from

God. When commentator said there's an

old hymn that says Abide with me written in 1947 by Henry Lyle

and it says one of the same says when other helpers fail and

comforters flee, help of the helpless, abide with me.

That is what God is, the help of the helpless.

Let's look at sub point #2 His deliverer.

And the Lord is his savior, and the Lord is deliverer.

First off, the Lord is his savior.

Once again, the Psalms are going to teach us about God and His

attributes, and it lists three of them right there.

He says #1 He is gracious. It says gracious is the Lord,

just like Psalms 8615. It says when it means when it

says gracious, it means that you bend down.

You stoop in kindness to somebody inferior to you to help

them. You have favor to give them

mercy. Psalms 8615 if you don't have it

memorized, you still have time says, but you, O Lord, are a

God, merciful, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast

love and faithfulness. Psalms one O 3 verse 8 says the

Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in

steadfast love. So he's gracious then he says,

and righteous. Righteous here may not mean what

we normally think of. It means that God acts with

justice and righteousness in full accord with his divine

standards. It means he's going to keep his

covenant. He's righteous to keep his

government. And then he says he's

compassionate. Maybe you, if you have an NASB

translation, it says compassionate.

Mine says merciful. So, but there, there you can

switch the words around, but you're, you're being merciful

out of love. Our God is merciful.

He heard the cries of the psalmist.

So these three attributes, graciousness, righteousness and

compassionate or mercy, they govern the Lord's, the Lord's

response to the psalmist in his or her time of need.

There are characteristics of God, but you know they're also

characteristics of a godly man Pastor Lance finished his

message this Sunday on the godly man right and Psalms 112 verse 4

Psalms 112:4

says the same 3 terms not about God, but about a godly man.

It says for the upright he is gracious, merciful and

righteous. So we share if you're godly in

God's attributes, these three attributes, but he also says

that he's protective. Verse 6 says the Lord preserves

the simple. So not only is God gracious,

righteous, merciful, but he cares for the simple or the

little people, the common people, the everyday people.

I think we read this verse and Sunday to Jeremiah 923 and 24

says thus says the Lord, let not the wise man boast in his riches

wisdom. Let not the mighty man boast in

his might. Let not the rich man boast in

his riches, but let him who boast boast in this that he

understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices

steadfast love, justice and righteousness in the earth.

For in these things I delight. God doesn't care about the

wisdom, the might, the power, the fame that the world does.

He cares about the common and every day.

And you see that, remember the gospel went to the lowly

shepherds first, right in Luke 2.

And remember that Jesus chose uneducated and common fishermen.

At least seven of the 12 were fishermen.

He's also, at the last part of verse 6, He says He saved me.

So He's gracious, He's merciful, He's compassionate, He's

protective, and He's a Savior. When the psalmist was at death's

door, God heard his cry, verse one.

God inclined his ear, verse 2. God delivered him, verses four

and eight. God preserved him this verse,

verse 6. God's going to deal bountifully

with him in verse 7. And God saved him.

So God delivered him in the Old Testament.

But in the New Testament, when we have the word saved, you

know, John 316 of course, right? But John 317 says, for God did

not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in

order that the world might be saved through him.

And Romans 10/13 says everyone who calls upon the name of the

Lord will be saved in some .2 Here the Lord is a deliverer.

Verses 7 and 9 and #1 He blessed my life.

He says, there, return, O my soul, to your rest, for the Lord

has dealt bountifully with me. I love that word bountifully.

We don't use that word today, do we?

It's like maybe from England in the 1800s or something.

But Psalms 13 verse 6 says I will sing to the Lord because He

Psalms 13:6

has dealt bountifully with me. You know, I asked at the

beginning tonight's message if you could write a Psalm, I love

the Lord, could you count your blessings?

Could you name them one by one? Despite having a near death

experience, the psalmist says God has down dealt bountifully

with me. I hope God has down dealt

bountifully with you and you can say what the psalmist says Jesus

said in John 1010. The thief who is Satan comes

only to steal and to kill. I came that they might have life

and you might have abundantly, bountifully, abundantly, almost

the same word. That's life and that's eternal

life that Jesus gives us. He gives us a bountiful life in

this world and of course in heaven to come.

This says he delivered my life. Verse 8.

So it begins with the four. This is not a casual, but in

fact indeed, or yet maybe your translation says deliverance

came in three phases. He says you delivered my soul

from death. His life was endangered.

You can see that in verses 349 and 15.

But the Lord preserved his life. Secondly, he says my eyes from

tears, so that would be sorrow or fear that would cause the

psalmist to weep. And thirdly, my feet from

stumbling. Psalms 5613 is the only other

usage in of the word stumbling and it's the same word that

David uses in describing how the Lord preserved his life from

David's life from the Philistines and Gath.

And the next verse 9, he extended my life.

He says I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living.

This is the first time we see this word.

I will or we're going to see it 7 times.

I will. We'll talk more about that

later, but contrast this verse 9 with the words in verse 3.

In verse three, he was in the pangs of Sheol she'll the Old

Testament version of hell. Here he says the land of the

living. So the psalmist was at death's

door, but now he rejoices in the living God.

Let's move on to the Third Point.

His devotion and #1 there he says I trusted in the Lord.

Verses 10 and 11 are difficult to to translate because

commentators argue and fight about them.

So my SV says I believed in even when I spoke and there's a bunch

of different translations that they argue about, but I think

the best 1 might be he says I believe.

Therefore I said I am greatly afflicted and I set in my alarm

all mankind are liars. So these two, this verse 10 and

11 are debatable how to translate them, but I'm going to

go with the the one you know, he's saying that people can't be

trusted. This may indicate that the

psalmist was accused of false accusations by ungodly men.

Further, it's a bold statement how untrue all men are because a

lot of the men probably predicted the psalmist's death.

You're going to die and God spared his life.

So he's calling them liars. So certainly all men can only

offer a false hope for deliverance.

Only God can save. Then secondly says I thank the

Lord. And then here verse 12, how can

I repay the Lord? What shall I render to the Lord

for all his benefits to me? You know, how can I repay the

Lord for all his goodnesses? You know, it's a rhetorical

question, isn't it? Which has an emphatic answer.

No, you can't repay the Lord for all his goodnesses.

We have nothing to give to the Lord except ourselves, right?

Romans 1135, that great doxology at the end of Chapter 11 says,

who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?

All we can do is love the Lord back and honor Him with our

bodies and our hearts and our minds.

Then he says, I will thank the Lord.

Verse 13 says I will lift up the cup of salvation.

What does that mean? That's an Old Testament term

from Exodus 29 or Leviticus 23 where they would have a drink

offering and they would have the date morning sacrifice, they

would have the evening sacrifice and they would offer a drink

offering where they would pour it on the altar to give thanks

for a lot of things. So we, we knew Testament

believers, the closest you would come to this would be when you

partake of Holy Communion because you're lifting up the

cup of the new covenant, partaking in the Lord, the

Lord's death and remembering him.

The next he says, I will call upon the name of the Lord.

OK, and the phrase here calling upon the name of the Lord in the

Bible signifies more than just calling out to God or praying to

God. It represents a deep personal

relationship with God characterized by prayer, worship

and faith in action. Next he says in verse 14, I will

praise the Lord. He says I will pay my vows to

the Lord in the presence of all His people.

Notice verse 14 and verse 18 are exactly the same.

I will pay my vows to the Lord and the friends of His people.

So we have at least 10 psalms that talk about paying vows, and

we talked a little bit about that.

Remember in Psalm 65, the psalmist at the harvest festival

said he would pay his vows. So paying vows publicly

testifies to 1's responsibility for the Lord.

Vows are promises that we make to God regarding services to be

rendered to him and other people.

Now, you know, you have the soldier in the foxhole who's

who's getting shelled or shot at.

He makes a vow to God. If you Get Me Out of here, God,

I'll believe in you all the rest of my life.

And usually the soldier doesn't keep that vow.

A lot of men or women don't keep their marriage vows.

We don't really talk a lot about vows, do we?

But a godly individual fulfills his vow.

And I made a point in Psalm 65 and I'll reiterate it again

tonight. Jesus said if anyone would come

after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily and

follow me. Our evangelical world today

makes converts, but God said that worst make disciples.

Jesus said we're make disciples. Many profess Jesus Christ, but

they don't possess Jesus Christ. But if you're a follower of

Jesus Christ and you say you love him, is there a commitment

to the Lord? Disciples at Jesus time would

follow Jesus Christ even to death.

I got a little note today on the update from a website I follow.

The parliament or the Congress in the country of Spain voted

today or yesterday, and the vote was something like 330 to 31330

people voted in the Congress that if a pastor counsels

against homosexuality, they could throw him in jail.

Only 31 of the politicians voted against it.

Now, I don't know if it's signed yet, but that is a law.

And it just shows you where we are that they want to put

pastors. And I would think Spain would be

a highly Catholic country, but they're trying to ban pastors

from speaking out against it. But those pastors may have to go

to jail. OK.

Disciples will follow Christ even to death, even to jail.

If you're a follower of Jesus Christ and you love the Lord as

the Psalmist did, you'll be committed to calling upon the

name of the Lord, a devoted prayer life, consecrating

yourselves to holiness, living pure, serving the body of

Christ, using your spiritual gift, sharing Christ with

others, non believers, tithing to support the work of Christ,

and faithful preserved in Christ all the days of your life.

Let's look at the last point, verses 15 to 19, his delight.

And we begin with that wonderful verse, All the Saints are

precious to God. And then we'll look at I am a

servant of God also, but All Saints are precious to God.

You've heard this verse many times, especially when someone

you love or someone in our church passes away, right?

This is why J Vernon McGee says this Psalm is a love song

because God swallows up death and victory.

This Psalm celebrates deliverance from death, But the

psalmist knows that death is very still a reality.

He's going to die someday, but it's a reality for all God's

children. And I love the word.

It says precious, Precious. Psalm 72, verse 14 says precious

Psalms 72:14

is there blood in the sight of the Lord.

Precious means you don't take it lightly.

You value it highly, and the psalmist says that in the eyes

of God, his Saints, maybe your translation says his godly ones.

Some translations say his holy ones, his loyal ones, his

committed ones, they are precious.

It's such a beautiful verse, isn't it?

Why is the death of a believer precious to God?

I'll give you 3 quick reasons tonight #1 the Lord's death of

the Lord's godly ones is precious because Jesus Christ

died for them. Galatians 220 says I have been

crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but the life I live

by faith in the Son of God. I live by faith in the Son of

God who loved me and gave himself up for me.

You're united with Christ #2 the death of God, the Lord's godly

ones is more precious because God's the one who gave them all

the days of their lives. Psalms 139 verse 16 says while

Psalms 139:16

you are still in the womb of your mother, it says your eyes

saw my unformed substance. In your book were written every

one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there

were none of them. God.

Moses says God gives us 7080 years.

We have strength. But even those aborted babies

are precious in the sight of God.

Even those children who died in the flood in Texas, they're

precious in the sight of God #3 the death of Lord's godly 1 is

precious because they go to Him. You turn to me to 2nd

Corinthians verse 51 to 8 as you're turning there.

Yesterday, the Spanish church here, Esteban, held that they

had a service for Maria Delarosa.

She passed away a few weeks ago, and she's in heaven.

And this Friday we will have a memorial service for Cecilia

Brajas. They're all precious in the

sight of God. But Second Corinthians 5 is one

of the classic passages that it warms our heart when when we

have death. And it says, for we know that if

the tent that is earthly home, that's our bodies you have right

now is destroyed. We have a building from God, a

house not made with hands eternal in the heavens.

For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly

dwelling, if indeed by putting it on we may be found, may not

be found naked. For while we are still in this

tent, we groan, being burdened, not that we we would be

unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is

mortal may be swallowed up by life.

He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given

us the Spirit as a guarantee. So we are always of good

courage. We know that while we are at

home in the body, we are away from the Lord, but we walk by

faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage, and

we would rather be away from the away from the body and at home

with the Lord. There's a couple commentators in

this verse I'd love to read. And James Boyce, who's in heaven

with God, said God is particularly close to his people

when they stand at death's door. God watches over His people when

they're sick or dying, coming close to them and making His

presence known so that they all have comfort in death's hour.

He also frequently intervenes and does not allow them to

perish. In either case, the Lord does.

What is Beth? Spurgeon said?

Though death is a curse and an enemy, it is still precious

because it removes the remaining barriers between God and His

Saints. Death is the doorway to an

eternity of perfect fellowship. Death to the Saints is not a

penalty, it is not destruction, it is not even a loss.

Aspersion also said of Baxter, a great, a great Puritan.

When Baxter lay dying and his friends came to see him, almost

the last words he said was an answer to the question, Dear Mr.

Baxter, how are you? Almost Well, he said.

And so it is. Death cures.

It's the best medicine for those who die are not only almost

well, but they are healed forever.

And one commentator said as Jesus saying these words, Psalm

Psalms 116:15

116, verse 15, with his disciples of the night before

his own death. The words were powerful and

prophetic because Jesus was the ultimate holy one and his death

precious beyond all reckoning. Let's look on to I am a servant

of the Lord and he says there I am a servant.

I am a servant. I'm a son of a maid servant, OK,

literally saying I'm your slave. So Jonathan tonight got a legacy

standard Bible. And if you know the the leaders

at Grace Community Church and the Masters Seminary made a new

translation which I've talked and talked about and enjoyed

reading with the Psalms, and they took the word servant

completely out of the New Testament and replaced it with

slave. And as I mentioned, John

MacArthur says, you know, a slit, A servant can quit,

servant can quit and walk away from his master, right?

But a slave can never leave their master.

And if you have Jesus Christ in your heart tonight, Romans 6618

says that you are a slave of righteousness.

You're a slave of Jesus Christ. So repeated back-to-back, this

statement emphasizes the Psalmist humble submission and

dependence upon his sovereign Lord.

God loosed his bonds, he says, loosed his bond.

God looses our bonds. God loosed his bonds from

death's door. God looses our bonds from sin

and gives us eternal life and salvation, and we are his slaves

of righteousness forever. He says here in verse 17, I will

sacrifice to God another one of the I wills.

I will offer you a sacrifice of Thanksgiving and call upon the

name of the Lord. Again, these would be the

Thanksgiving offerings that are listed in Leviticus 7 Exodus

different chapters. Because I'm a slave of

righteousness, I'm going to offer the sacrifice of

Thanksgiving. And he says I'm going to fulfill

my vows. I'm not only going to fill my

vows in the middle amidst the people of God.

He says in the presence you're going to, you're going to see

the fruit. You're going to see what I

promised to do. He says I'm going to do it in

the courts of the House of God and I'm going to do it in the

city of God. So the psalmist repeats verse 14

by about fulfilling his vows in the presence of all his people.

People will see his faith in action.

His fruit will show and will be on display.

And then our psalmist ends with the words, 3 words in English,

one word in Hebrew, praise the Lord and you know that is

Hallelujah. So in the Egyptian halal there

are 6 psalms, but four of them in with praise the Lord, Psalm

113, Psalm 115, Psalm 116, and Psalm 117.

So we just have a few minutes left tonight and what can we

learn from this Psalm? Well, I hope you've learned this

10 weeks. We've looked at most of all of

the Psalms special Psalms 86 was called What a prayer of David

Psalms one O 2 was called a prayer of the afflicted Psalm 5

Psalms 27. We're all like prayers.

So I hope you've learned a lot. That's one reason I I encourage

people to read 1 Psalm a day because it, it, it challenges

you, encourage you to pray like the psalmist.

It teaches you how to pray. It teaches you how to pray and

praise the Lord, those two things.

And you know, it says in our Psalm tonight, Psalms 116 verse

Psalms 116:2

2, he cries out, incline your ear to me, right?

And Psalm one O 2 verse two said that Psalms 86 verse one said

that those Psalms we looked at. But first Peter 3 verse 12 says,

1 Peter 3:12

for the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are

attentive to their prayer. So God doesn't really have to

doesn't have eyes. He doesn't have ears, but he

already inclines his ear when we cry out to him.

So I hope that your prayer life will change.

I hope that you'll pray for people who dislike you.

Jesus tells us to pray for our enemies, right?

I pray for people you dislike and how you can love them when

some people are not lovely, right?

I pray that when you pray, you'll pray for your needs and

not your greeds or desires. I pray that your your prayer

will be like we talked about, Spurgeon says.

Arguing with God, debating with God.

This is why you need to answer this prayer.

God effort without prayer sometimes ineffective, right?

Pray that you'll pray humbly and live likewise.

Don't pray for a lighter load. Pray for a stronger back.

Pray quietly before God in the busiest and noisiest parts of

your day. Pray that you can stand up to

Satan. Well, you can't stand up to

Satan if you don't kneel before God.

But if you pray and kneel before God, you can stand up.

Satan will flee. Pray with perseverance and pray

with expectancy. Pray as if the task depended on

God and work as if it depends on you.

The next time you feel weak in your knees, try using them to

pray. There's no such thing as an

unsuccessful or or successful pray.

People of God may not talk about their prayer habits, but their

lives speak volume. So I hope your prayer life will

be enhanced and changed this summer.

Secondly, can you say those four precious words?

I love the Lord, verse one. Love calls out for God for

Christ's disciples to pray to the Lord in First Thessalonians

417 says pray without ceasing #2 love finds rest in the Lord.

Verse 7, he, he had peace with God after his healing.

God had dealt bountifully with him and he was at rest with the

Lord #3 Love always lives as if it's in the presence of the

Lord. Verse 9 I will walk before the

Lord #4 Love fulfills its vows to the Lord.

You have a you, You say you love the Lord.

We'll talk about that in a minute.

You have a commitment to follow the Lord and then #5 love serves

the Lord. You use your gift.

You know, I mentioned it last week, but to seeing, I don't

know, maybe 7080 volunteers from Christ Community Church at VBS,

it was just beautiful to see the body of Christ exercising the

gifts. And we want you to help out with

the safety team, with the greeting team, with the nursery,

with the children's ministry. So some of you worked at VBS.

We could use you. OK, it's easy to say I love the

Lord, but verse 18 of our Psalm, the psalmist says you're going

to see my faith in action. You're going to see it in the

presence of people and I hope we'll see you serving, joining

at Christ Community Church. And then lastly, if you say I

love the Lord, then what is your I will statement?

So once psalmist said you say I love you, then I will.

That was G Campbell Morgan say I love you and then I will he says

I will in verse 2, verse 9, verse 13, verse 14, verse 17 and

verse 18. If you say I love the Lord,

there's going to be something to that.

I will what are what are your I wills and I think of Hebrews 11,

that Great Hall of faith and I won't read it all, but you know,

there's I think 20 different names named, but it says by

faith. Abel offered to God a more

acceptable sacrifice and gain by faith.

Noah being warned by God, he constructed an ark by faith.

Abraham obeyed when he was called to go.

There was by faith, by faith, by faith.

And then almost every one of those characters, they did

something. Noah built an ark.

Abraham obeyed God and left Abel did the right sacrifice.

So with if you have faith in Jesus Christ, there will be

works, works that don't save you, but works because you love

the Lord. So where faith is, there's

action as we see in Hebrews and Psalms 116.

If you, if you love the Lord like the psalmist, then what are

your eye wills? I will worship him regularly.

Maybe I will pray and talk with him regularly.

I will serve the body of Christ at Christ Community Church.

I will support the work of of God in his work financially.

I will love the brethren and visit them.

There's over 51 another's in the Bible.

So if you say I love the Lord the 1st 4 words of Psalms 116,

then what are your seven I will statements?

Let's pray Father in heaven. Thank you for Psalm 116.

Father, it is such a beautiful Psalm.

The psalmist was at death's door and you spared his life.

And I'm sure today we have hospitals and doctors and better

medicine and things. But we, Father, you have spared

many of us many times from sickness, from health, from

accidents, from difficult times. And Father, we can say I love

the Lord and I know we love you. So I do pray that we search our

hearts and then see what I are. I will statements, I will call

upon the name of the Lord. I will serve the Lord.

I will follow the Lord, and especially I will walk with the

Lord daily. So Father, thank you for this

song, may we leave here today knowing more of you and applied

it and obeyed it in our life in Jesus name, Amen.