The following message was given at Grace Community Church in Mendon, Nevada. Would you open with me to Psalm 116? Psalm 116. Would you please stand for the reading of God's Word? 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. And 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 said 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 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 the reading of God's word. Please have a seat. Let's open in prayer. Our great and gracious God, thank you for being our deliverer. Thank you for being the one who hears, the one who rescues. And we pray now that you would meet with us. We pray now that you would speak to us. We pray that by your scriptures, you would speak into each one of our hearts. And we pray that you would give us cause to rejoice in you. We also pray that you give us hope to persevere. Lord, give us your help now, your needy people pray. In Jesus name we pray, amen. This is a psalm that hits us in so many different places in our lives. On the one hand, this is a looking back. And for some of you, you're going to be able to put a year, a month, whatever of your life into this psalm and see yourself. And for others, you're in it right now. For others, you're bearing that weight right now. You're suffering right now. And this psalm is for you. The psalmist begins with a proclamation. I love the Lord. because he has heard my voice and my pleas for mercy. I love the Lord. Why? Because the Lord listened to him. The Lord heard him. This is not the, you know, just the passive, oh, he heard my voice one day, you know, down the way. This is a God who heard, who listened, who helped. The psalmist is looking back on this time when he cried out, God, give me mercy. And the Lord stepped in and the Lord helped him. So he needed help in the worst kind of way. And that's what I mean. For some of you, this is a memory. For some of you, this is the present. He needed help in the worst kind of way. He feared for his life. He's got this picture of being caught in the ropes and the nets of a hunter, you know, like a hunter seeking prey. And he's the prey. He's the one who's caught. He's the one who now fears for his life. And in that fear, you hear how he describes himself. He suffered. He suffered distress. He suffered anguish, agony. Nearing death, he wept in sorrow. Close to stumbling, close to never rising again. And this is where his heart is in this moment, is in this tremendous fear, this tremendous turmoil. And he remembers when he was bearing that weight, when he feared for his life, when every day was full of stress and anxiety, and with the intensity that that kind of fire produces, that was when he cried out, Lord, deliver my soul. Deliver my soul. And the Lord saved him. The Lord saved him, and so when he says, I love you, Lord, because you heard and you helped, that love is proportionate to every fearful night, every stressful moment, every prayer when he cried out to the heavens and was unsure that his God was listening. The love is proportionate to the fear he felt, to the danger he experienced, he cried out, and the Lord heard, and the Lord helped. And so what do you do about that? How do you respond to that? With love. It's actually not some unusual response. If someone would deliver you from such pain, from such fear, from such distress, what is the response? I love you, Lord. You heard me. You helped me. Thank you, Lord, for your help. See, for some of us, like I said, this is a Psalm that is particularly speaking to you. In this church, we share our prayers, we share our lives, and we have prayed more than once for people at death's door. in fear of their lives, bearing the weight of all that stress and anxiety. And the Lord has not answered every one of those prayers, but we have been there when the Lord has answered these prayers, have we not? for you. This is your psalm, isn't it? This is describing every moment of heartache you went through, every moment when you prayed and you weren't sure God heard, but you kept praying. And then that glorious moment when you were delivered and what did you feel like doing? You felt like praising him, didn't you? I love you, Lord. You heard, you heard. This is so personal for some of you, I know it. You cried out, not someone else, not just some psalmist, you cried out and the Lord rescued you. But this is actually the experience of Christians. It's not just those who have been miraculously healed. It's not just those who have been spared from some frightening, dangerous experience. This is the Christian experience. I've given you my testimony before of how the Lord saved me, but one of the really important things for me was I was afraid of hell. I thank the Lord for my mom. My mom is the reason I knew of hell. And I was afraid of it. I knew my sin. I knew I hadn't dealt with my sin. And I knew that there was judgment coming. And that weight burdened me. I don't know how I went so long without repenting, because I was bearing that burden all the time. It was growing heavier all the time. I would pray immature prayers, but I would pray something like, Lord, don't take me yet, because I wouldn't be ready. That fear was on me. That danger was on me. I knew hell was coming. I knew judgment was coming. And I cried out. I cried out these baby prayers, but Lord, save me. Lord, save me. Lord, save me. And then one day I realized he saved me. You see what I mean? This is the Christian experience. The Christian experience is those who have at some point by God's grace been given eyes to see their sin. And they see it for its guilt and they see it for its danger. And then by God's grace, they recognize that sin is not just a worldly affair, not just interrupting their relationships or their potential. That sin threatens to drive them to the pit of hell on that last day. The Christian experiences is people who by God's grace and faith recognize, oh God, that's me. Oh God, I will answer. Judgment comes for me, Lord, help me. And the Christian experience is that he does, is that he did, is that he continues to, even to this day. So yeah, for some of us, this is a special experience. This is cure from cancer kind of experience, but for every single child of God, this is the experience of those who have known their sin, known judgment is coming, but then cried out to the Lord and God was gracious and he saved you. We get this. We get this. Those who have been loved like we have, those who have been delivered like we have, we understand what it means to say, I love the Lord because he delivered me. I love the Lord because he heard me and he rescued me. When God acts for our deliverance, when he acts for our rescue, what he's also doing is he's showing us these little glimpses of who he is. We learn about him based on what it is he has done. And this psalmist, this psalm is just filled with all these truths that he's come to realize about the Lord, just woven in the whole thing. Who did he see God was? He saw from the very get-go that God is a prayer-hearing God. He hears prayer. I'm not the only one who's felt like prayer is pointless, right? You ever wondered, am I just talking to myself? We have these doubts. We have these fears. The psalmist here is saying he heard my prayers. One of the big criticisms that God himself levels against us and against humanity across time for our idolatry is that our idols don't do anything. They can't do anything. They can't hear a prayer. If they could, they couldn't do anything about it. God is always looking at us and saying, this, this is your alternative. You want to go from the living God who hears your prayers and intervenes for your benefit to something you've carved out of a stump of wood, to a statue you've created, to an idea you made up. God has always just found that baffling. They can't do anything for you. They can't hear your prayers, but he can. He is the God who can hear the prayers. He is the God who heard the Psalmist, who in his fear and in his vulnerability in those moments when he felt so alone, he cried out to God and God heard. God helped. He's a prayer-hearing God, and why? Why does he answer prayer? It's in part what he says in verse 5, because he is the God who is gracious, merciful, righteous. This God is the God who gives us generously beyond what we deserve. He is the God who is righteous, who is always just, who is always fair, who never cheats justice. And so there we are in our situation afflicted because people have betrayed us, because people have deceived us, whatever it is. And so we appeal to the one who is just all the time, to the one who does not betray, who cannot betray. He's the God who's merciful. Not only is he gracious, I was just talking about this. Not only is he gracious, giving us what we don't deserve, he's merciful, not giving us what we do deserve. You see how those are two sides of the same coin. We go to him and if he's going to give us what's fair, he's going to say, well, here is all the sin you have committed. Here's what judgment entails. I will judge you. That's fair. But we go to him and say, Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner. Do not give me what I deserve. And you see all these things, you say, thank God. Praise God, the gracious, the righteous, the merciful. So we have a prayer hearing God. We have a God who is gracious, righteous, and merciful. We have verse six, a God who preserves the simple, who saves those who are brought low. What the psalmist can attest is that God intervenes for the helpless. God intervenes for the vulnerable. Because he's not saying, hey, everyone was after me, but then I figured it out and I beat them. Right? He's not saying I was stronger than them. I delivered myself. No, he was the one who was vulnerable, who was a danger, who was to the point of death. And God intervened for him while he was vulnerable, helpless. The simple, the inexperienced God rescues them. The psalmist, he says he was brought low, which is like he was growing weak. He couldn't hold it together. What's the world do with weakness? Pounces takes advantage of you see someone weak. You see what you can get from them. That's how the world was treating him. That's the danger he was feeling when he was weak, though, when the world was after him, the Lord was strong and he was strong for him. And the Lord intervened for him. And when he delivered, he delivered bountifully. Isn't that a great word? He delivered bountifully the world. The world is just such an enormous disappointment sometimes. It never lives up to the trailer. It never lives up to the advertisements. You get what the world is promising. You're thinking, oh, okay. Okay, that's what you were talking about. The world is this incredible disappointment, such to the point it's even the people around you. The psalmist can talk about, I looked around at one point, I said, all mankind are liars. All of them are a disappointment. All of them are faithless, but you know what? The Lord doesn't disappoint. The Lord does not disappoint. In fact, he doesn't just not disappoint. He doesn't meet expectations. He surpasses expectations. He goes further than you imagine could ever, could ever have come from that situation. He is more gracious, more merciful than you ever could have imagined. The Lord doesn't disappoint. His deliverance is bountiful. His deliverance is surpassing. It is generous. The world. No source of peace there. The world, if you've got any peace, will snatch your peace. Because there's no peace in the world. But the abundant deliverance of God restores peace. I love this moment when the psalmist looks in verse 7, he says, talking to himself now, return, oh my soul, to your rest, for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you. All that panic, all that stress, all that fear, Return to your rest because the Lord has delivered you and he delivered you bountifully. Through this trial, he learned something special. He learned something important, important for you and me today. Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. It's an interesting thing to learn from a trial. You read this psalm and honestly, you're going to pause for a second and think, how does that connect to anything? But out of all this, the psalmist wants us, not just him, us to have the benefit of knowing that there is no child of God who is cheap in God's eyes. There is no child of God who is unimportant. There is no child of God who is unloved. And that's hard to believe sometimes. It's too good. It's too much. And if you, if you've gone through suffering, if you are suffering now, it is harder in that suffering to believe this at all. Because we think if you love me, you're going to do nice, comfortable things for me. And so when we go through suffering, we think this isn't what love feels like. We think this isn't what it feels like to be precious, to be important. And so we need to hear this, not from the mouth of some preacher, but from this psalmist. What did he just go through? He's the one who can say, I almost died. I thought they had me. I was like prey caught up in a net and the predator was drawing near. He's the guy who can say, I suffered. I was in anguish during that time. I was afraid. And yet it's through that suffering, it's through that trial that he comes out with a conviction that is meant to bless the children of God forevermore. All of God's children are precious. almost died, precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. Fear, anguish, stress, worry, precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. This experience that could have driven so many people away from the Lord because they thought that doesn't, that's not what love looks like. This Psalmist learns in the worst trial, the worst kind of trial of his life. Oh no, I'm precious. My suffering has even taught me that I am precious to him. And so to all the children of God, this is this truth beautifully saved for us. Your death will never be cheap. And though you feel alone, you will never be alone. Though the world's not making you feel precious, you will always be precious to the Lord. You will never be uncared for. And in fact, if that day comes that you have to lose your life, as your blood leaves your body, as your eyes close, in that moment, you know that with all his heart, the Lord is looking at you as one of his precious children. Your death does not undermine his love for you. Even in your death, especially in your death, you are precious to the Lord. It took an incredible trial for this psalmist to be able to give us this precious truth. It was this trial that taught this man that my God hears prayer. It was this trial that drove home for him that God is gracious, righteous, and merciful. It is this trial that taught him that God preserves the simple and he saves those who are weak. And so when our sorrows come, and they do come, they will come, Like I said, you may be in them right now. When our sorrows and trials come, we are taught by this psalmist. Cry out to your God because this is who he is. When you cry out to him, know that you're crying out to a prayer-hearing God. There is no moment you are truly alone. He will not abandon you. You cry out to a God who is generous. who is just, who is merciful and gracious. You cry out to a God who does not abandon the weak, but it intervenes for the weak. And even in life and death, He is with them. When your time comes, know you are precious to God. And if the psalmist learned this, we've been taught this, even more clearly. What do we mean by that? The Lord Jesus Christ. He learned how precious he was by being delivered from death. We learn a greater lesson because we're not just rescued from death to learn that God views us as precious. We were rescued from death and eternal death and judgment by the death of Jesus Christ, the son of God. If that doesn't teach you you are precious, nothing will. The gospel shows you you are precious. We know we are precious. That's the only thing that can explain Jesus Christ dying your death, paying your price on the cross. We love our God because he delivered us. And he delivered us because he loves us, and he delivered us because he is good, and he is gracious, and he is merciful, and he delivered us because we are precious to him. Believe it, child of God, believe it. And the psalmist says that he will praise God because of who God is and because of what God has done. This last part of the psalm, it's essentially answering this question of now what? Now what? After suffering through the worst kind of trial, after fearing death itself, after a great deliverance from the hand of God, now what? Now what do I do? And this is actually how the psalmist sandwiched the whole psalm. beginning and end with this idea. Now what? Verse one and two, 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. He delivered me, I'm gonna worship him. I'm gonna worship him with every breath that I've got, with every day that I've got. The psalmist wants to spend his life worshiping the God who hears and helps. Now what, verses 12 and 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. The first part, it's rhetorical, isn't it? It's rhetorical. How can I pay him back? How can I pay God back for all he's done? It's rhetorical because there's nothing you can do to pay him back. There's nothing a person can do to pay back the almighty God over all of creation. But just because you can't pay him back doesn't mean there's not a response that is right. And the response, he will praise God. He will praise God. He will lift up that cup of salvation. Alan Ross helpfully says that's probably referring to that drink offering in the temple. He's going to offer that offering in celebration of a God who answered his prayers. He talks about keeping his vows. I'm going to keep my vows in the presence of the people. This is a theme we see actually all the time in the Psalms. They pray and they pray expectantly. They pray thinking, Lord, when you deliver me from this, when you help me from this, not if, when, I'm gonna praise you. I am going to praise you. And that's what the psalmist intends to do. I vowed to praise you. God, you delivered me. I'm praising you now. I am praising you now. He's been delivered and he's going to keep his vow and he's going to keep it in the presence of all the people, not just private, not just individual, not I'm going to go home and have just a me and God session. I'm sure that happened. I'm sure this guy could not contain himself in all the praise he wanted to show, but this was not just a private thing. He wants God to be glorified among his people. The people of God should know how good their God is. The people of God should know that their God hears and helps. One of the things I realized about Madeline and all she's gone through, she shared so much with us as she's gone through her cancer, and I know some of you told her this too, said, Madeline, we can all glorify God better because of how you included us in this. God is glorified because you shared this with us. Moreover, the people of God are built up when they know the works of the Lord. They are built up by knowing how he has acted. That's the idea of the scriptures, right? Remember what he has done and that will build you up for the life you have to live. God is glorified and the people are built up when people know that God has delivered, that God has helped. And this is something that, man, a lot of us could grow in, right? A lot of us could grow in this because we are just too private for our own good. We are just too self-sufficient for our own good. No, no, no, no. Pray about something that matters, not me. No, I shouldn't share this prayer request. This is just, this is just my situation going on. Oh, I'll let you know when this has happened or something like that, right? What if you just share the whole thing? What if you let your family know? Because God is only glorified by the work in your life if you're willing to share that with other people. You see, there's a wall there. It's a wall of your choosing. Will I let people know what I'm going through or not? Will I let people know what God has done for me or not? Are we willing to share our lives? Not like social media, like look you in the eye over lunch or whatever and say, God has really helped me recently. Or even before that, I don't know how I'm going to make it through this. And then a week later, God was good to me. What does that do in you if you're the one who hears it? Don't you say, praise God. Don't you say, may God be glorified. Don't you realize, wow, God is that kind of good. God is that kind of helping God. God is that kind of prayer hearing God. God is glorified when we are willing to share his work in our lives, and other people can't glorify God for his work in your life if they never know about it. And I'll confess, I don't do this well. I don't. I'm one of those, I don't know, by culture, just like private, bear up under it, make it through kinds of guys. How is God glorified by my privacy? How is he glorified by my refusal to talk? And even more, it's not just His glory, but it's also the good of your brothers and sisters who you love. It is your testimony and God's work in that situation that is going to build them up for when they go through it. Is there any of us that's going to be spared the trials, the sorrows, the heartache? No, this is coming for all of us. And the truth is, when I go through it, I'm going to be able to look back on my sister who was willing to share her cancer diagnosis. Say, look how she handled that. God delivered her. God helped her. May I be faithful like that. Other people can't be built up by God's work in your life if you're too private to share it. It's not like you need a megaphone. You don't have to tell everyone everything. But let God, let God's people know that God is at work. It will bring him glory and will bless your brothers and sisters. Take, for example, just the existence of this psalm. Just the fact that this is here. The psalmist clearly meant for his life, his heartache, his trial, his dark valleys to be the fuel for our praise. Tell me that wasn't a good investment. How many people have read this? How many people have read precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints and found consolation and help. And it's because there was this first one who would take his own advice and put down in the presence of the people how God had helped him. Your life, not just the psalmist's life, can be the fuel for praise and strength in your brothers and sisters lives. One last time, now what? Verse 16, oh Lord, I am your servant. I am your servant, the son of your maidservant. Now that's an interesting phrase to us. The big picture is it's like a commitment to lifelong loyal service, but why does he say son of your maidservant? What's interesting, one commentator has said that this may actually be a reference to laws around slaves. So you may have had a family of slaves, all belonging to the same master. And the father of that family may go free, but the wife and the kids would stay. What the psalmist might be saying here is, I'm the one who stays. I'm the one who never wants to be set free from my master. You set me free from my trial. I never want to be set free from you. I will be loyal, absolutely loyal for the rest of my life. I am yours. I am your servant, the son of your maidservant. So what does God want you to take from this psalm? What does he want you to have from this psalm? The first thing is just a reminder of God's good works. For some of you, This is your situation, as in you've been delivered. For some of you, you are suffering in it now. And either way, the Lord wants to remind you that he is the God who hears, who helps, who intervenes for his children. He is the God who delivers. And so if you are on the other side of deliverance, you can be like this psalmist and say, I'm going to praise God for my deliverance. If you are in the dark Valley and you can't see any light, then this is that light at the end of the tunnel to recognize my God has delivered other children of God. My God has intervened in other bleak situations. I hope, I have good hope that he will intervene for me. that he will deliver me, that he hears and he will help me. Be encouraged because you're gonna have your fair share of discouragement, of trial, of sorrow. Be encouraged that your God is the prayer-hearing, intervening God. And hold on to the faith as you endure. Never give up. Though your trial should stretch on for the rest of your life, though every day is a sorrow, though every day is a pain, never give up the faith of the psalmist here that says, I know my God hears. I know my God helps. He delivers. It's also a reminder of that right response. There's nothing for you to pay back. There's nothing you can pay back. You have nothing that you can pay him back with for all he has done to you, so you know what you can do instead? Just soak it in. Bask in the deliverance of our prayer hearing God. Soak in how good he's been to you, how mighty his deliverance has been for all his people, and especially for you. Drink that in and let your cup overflow to the point when it's just natural that God should be praised. You don't have to force it. If you're forcing your praise, you just need to spend more time with what he's done for you. You don't have to force anything. You don't. He has been so abundantly good to us. So abundantly good to you. Just dwell on that. Reflect on how Danger, how much danger you were in from your sin, how certain your fate was in hell, how fearsome that last day would have been. Reflect on how great and complete his deliverance is that there is no fear anymore. That perfect love has driven out fear and you don't fear the last day. You don't fear the most fearsome day in all of existence that's coming up because he has delivered you from it. Soak that in and let thanksgiving come forward. Let your prayers be filled with, I'm going to thank you for this. I'm going to thank you for this. I'm going to thank you for this. Let your actions show that you are a grateful child of God. My, how good he has been to you. Hey, maybe even smile a little bit. Maybe rejoice a little bit that you are the blood bought child of God delivered from near death from certain death that was coming into the family of God himself. That's a cause for joy. Let's be a people of Thanksgiving. Let's be a people of joy. Let's be a people who will share the good works of God in the presence of all the people. Afterwards, let's tell someone God has worked for me. He has intervened for me. He has delivered me. Child of God, you are made for praise. You are made for praise. You are designed for praise. You are delivered for praise. So praise God today for your great salvation. Praise God because he is a prayer-hearing, gracious, righteous, merciful God, and he is that for you. Praise God who restores the rest of your soul with his bountiful, abundant deliverance. Praise the God who delivers. Let's pray. Our great, delivering, prayer-hearing God, we praise you. Lord, we will love you. Because you heard us, you helped us. You saw our great affliction. You saw the judgment that we were headed toward. You saw our rebellion and you rescued us. May we be a people whose lives proclaim how good their God is. May we be a people who rejoice. May we be a people who give thanksgiving. Father, we thank you for the deliverance of Jesus Christ, our Savior, our Lord, our Master, from whom we never want to be separated. Please help us now to live in light of this glorious, wonderful truth. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. We hope that you were edified by this message. For additional sermons as well as information on giving to the ministry of Grace Community Church, please visit us online at gracenevada.com. That's gracenevada.com.