Please turn in God's word to Psalm 116. We want to consider today the resurrection of Jesus and his people. This is one of those Psalms that is obviously written many years, many hundreds of years before the incarnation of Jesus, but it's a psalm that tells us about Jesus, about his resurrection. And that means it tells us about our resurrection as well, you who are found in Jesus. Psalm 116, hear the word of God. I love the Lord. because he has heard my voice and my pleas for mercy. Because he inclined his ear to me, therefore I will call on him as long as I live. The snares of death encompassed me. The pangs of Sheol laid hold on me. I suffered distress and anguish. Then I called on the name of the Lord, O Lord, I pray, deliver my soul. Gracious is the Lord and righteous, and 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. 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. Amen. Let's pray. Father, our lives are marked by death. because of Adam's original sin in the garden and because of our actual sins. And Father, we have no right, we have no right before you. And yet how merciful you are, how gracious and righteous, Lord, to grant us the Lord Jesus Christ. to deliver us from not only eternal death, but to deliver us time and again, again and again and again throughout our lives when Father, death encompasses us and the shadow of death looms over our lives. Father, we ask and pray that you would do so even now, that you would deliver each and every one of us, not only from our sins and from the penalty of our sins, but deliver us, Father, from various trials and afflictions and the sorts of appearances of death that, Father, can be cast over us. You are our God and our Savior, and we will praise you. And Jesus is our Lord and the Lord of life, the resurrected Lord who has triumphed over the grave and has broken the power of death. over us who are united to him. Father, may we taste and see the goodness of our Savior today. May we taste and see his presence and his power and his life of resurrection mightily at work in us throughout all of our days. And Father, we ask and pray these things now in Jesus' name, amen. Is there a more fitting psalm for us to consider this Lord's Day? Is there a more fitting psalm for us to consider this Lord's Day than this one? Given the past few weeks, my wife had to have emergency surgery a couple of weeks ago, and I knew I was gonna preach the psalm, but we read it together before her operation. in the waiting area, and it's only an hour, 20-minute long procedure. It took about an hour with the anesthesia and all. But I read it again in the waiting area. I read it once more with her when she was awakened. We've been told about our facility. We don't have much time left here. This past week we saw, or we heard, many of us, about the public assassination of a man who was a professing believer, who stood for the truth of God, stood for sensible things. And it felt, in many ways, not only that he was assassinated, but the kind of life that he represented was assassinated. And of course, 9-11, how can we forget? And yet some of us have. Some of us have no memory of 9-11. Some of us were too young. Some of us weren't around. And some of us were around. And yet that day fades a little bit more each year in our memory, at least it does for me. And yet it need not simply be limited to this week. When you've been in pain, when you've been in affliction, when you've been distraught and distressed. Perhaps you've been in a car accident. Perhaps you've received a health diagnosis. Perhaps you have sensed the acute friction of a relationship. Perhaps you've received the tragic news of a loved one. Perhaps you've lived through the events that capture the national attention. What do you think about What do you think about? What do you feel? What do you feel? And how often it is in my heart, and I don't know about you, and this isn't about me, by the way, this is about the word of the Lord, but it's a deeply personal song. Make it your own. How out of control we are in this entire ordeal. Right, when the doctor said, well, Emily, you have this and this, and this is what we need to do. It's like, whoa, I can't help my wife. This has come upon me, this has come upon us. What power do you have to overcome trials and afflictions? And so what we have in this Psalm is a number of things, three points. We have, first of all, to see the stark reality of our suffering and our anguish, and not for one moment turn away and not see it. We need to see the anguish so often that characterizes the life of the believer. That's what you need to do first and foremost, to have comfort. Then second of all, you need to see God's work and you need to see the resurrection work of Jesus Christ in your life. And then third of all, what are you called to do when you're raised from the dead? You are called to give God thanks and to pay your vows to God who has delivered you. So I want to cover this Psalm in those three points, death, resurrection, thanksgiving. We need to see the reality of our suffering and our anguish. And how is that suffering described for us? It's found in verse three. The snares of death, the trap of death encompassed me. The pangs of Sheol, the pain, the sudden pain that struck me, laid hold on me. I suffered distress and anguish. And then if you turn over to verse eight, it says, you have delivered my soul from death. The emotional anguish and the physical distress of the psalmist is described as death. Death, as it were, is a person, is a force that reaches out, the psalmist says, and wants to grab hold of me. It ties me up with cords and I'm slipping away. I sense in the middle of this anguish and this distress, I feel like I'm slipping away from the land of the living as death drags me to the grave. This is not me giving this description. This is God giving us the description of our suffering. It's not melodramatic, in other words, to see that every suffering of the believer, every trial, every affliction, every tribulation in scripture is portrayed by God as an appearance of death. Because of man's sin, suffering is an unavoidable part of the human condition. Because we fell in the garden, because we rebelled against God, because we said, we don't want your good life, oh God. So what did God give us? He told us what he would give us. He gave us death. And so it is not only that suffering is an unavoidable part, but death is an unavoidable part of the human condition. And as a result, death is always near. That's why in scripture, death is portrayed in a number of ways that tell us of its near proximity. It's portrayed in scripture as a sea that threatens to flood and kill life. It's portrayed like a riptide that drags souls away and drowns them in overwhelming anguish. It's portrayed like a dark shadow that engulfs inhabitants in hopelessness. Here, we're told that it's like a trap that closes in on its prey. In Romans 3, we're told that all men lay under the power of death, capital D. In other words, it's a powerful ruler that enslaves and tyrannizes its subjects with cruelty. And so we have to ask the question, Not only do we see the reality of suffering, not only do we sense the anguish at times that God allows into our lives, but we have to ask the question, what or who will have the final word in the life of the believer? What will have the final word in the church? Will it be this fierce, primordial, cruel power, this enemy of God, this thing that scripture calls death? Never. The last word in the life of the believer is the word of Christ, the word of his resurrection and our resurrection in him. And so you not only have to see the reality of what's in front of us, the starkness of suffering, the appearance of death, but you need to see God's work and how is God's work described in resurrection language. We're told in verse three that the psalmist's soul languished in death. Death encompassed me, it surrounded me. And yet, what are we told in verse eight? For you have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling. Verse nine, I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living. the psalmist in his adversity. He cries out, verse four, verse five, oh Lord, deliver my soul. And God rescues him and raises him from the dead to new life. What went into this psalmist's experience? What was his life condition? We don't know. That's the beauty of Hebrew poetry. There's an ambiguity here. Was this a spiritual deliverance? Was he weighed down by guilt? We don't know. Was this a military victory over the foes of Israel? We don't know. Had he been rescued from Saul, his father-in-law, the king, who was hounding him? Was he rescued from Absalom, his son, who many decades later did the same? We don't know. And perhaps more than any one of those life circumstances, what is at the forefront of the psalmist is the Exodus. This is, of course, a psalm that would have been read during the Passover, Psalms 113 to 114, before that meal, and Psalms 115 to 118, after the meal. And here the psalmist is recollecting what happened in the Exodus. Egypt was the land of slavery, the land of death. Israel was in fact dead. And it wasn't until God rescued Israel that Israel is raised from the dead. Israel is released from captivity. If Egypt was Israel's death, then the Exodus was Israel's resurrection. And then, of course, there is the Lord Jesus Christ, to which the psalm points. You see, it is Jesus who speaks these words more than the psalmist, more than the congregation of Israel, more than any one particular Israelite. It is the Israelite. It is the true Jew. It is the Lord Jesus Christ. in whom we find the true fulfillment of this psalm. He had been encompassed by death, he had been slain, and yet God raised him from the dead. He was dead, but death could not hold its prey. He was dead, but God delivered his son from the grave for your salvation and mine. And this is no symbol in the life of Jesus. Jesus was resurrected truly, literally, bodily. And as a result, Jesus brings forth from the grave, from the power of death, all those who by faith are united to him. Because of your sin, because of my sin, because of the sins of every person that's ever lived in this world, death has a claim on us. But because you belong to Jesus. What has the last word in your life is not death, it's not its shadow, but the light of Christ's resurrection. Because you belong to Jesus, he will deliver you from death and raise you from the dead. And he will continuously raise you from the dead until the last day of resurrection. And understanding the reality before us, the reality of not only our suffering and the appearance of death, But the more fundamental reality of Christ's resurrection helps us understand the two sets of lies around us, which the psalmist recognizes in verse 11. I said in my alarm, and this kind of comes out of nowhere. There's so many verses in this psalm that we could park ourselves on. In verse 11, it kind of comes out of nowhere. I said in my alarm, all mankind are liars. What's he talking about? Psalmist, why are you saying this? The psalmist is saying, while I was afflicted, I could see clearly that all mankind are liars. Every version of the human race will lie. Every version of the human race cannot be trusted. What is one lie that is said? There is no suffering. Go on with your life. What are you talking about? Nothing happened. Nothing ever happens. You don't need to mourn. That thing that you're feeling, that affliction, that distress, that's make-believe. You're hyping yourself up. Be stoic. Be a rock. That's a lie. Jesus, before the grave of his friends, Lazarus, knowing he was about to raise him from the dead, does what? And Jesus wept. And Jesus wept. No, there is suffering in the world. And yet there is another lie that is bandied about. And the lie is simple. It says there is suffering. In fact, that's all there is. And all that you should ever do is mourn because there is no hope. And this lie casts doubt on Christ's sovereignty and His power and His wisdom to save us and to resurrect us. So don't trust God. If God were God, He would have saved you. He would have raised you from the dead. He would have delivered you. He would have provided for you already. God doesn't exist. And even if He does, He's not good. And so what is this lie calling you to do? To trust yourself. You are all that you have. You are all that you have. And yet we must say from God's word, with confidence, with biblical faith, trusting ourselves is what got us into this mess. What hope do we have to fix ourselves, to improve, to reform ourselves? All these words that are used, we have no hope in ourselves. Trusting ourselves in Genesis three is what brought us to this predicament. Trusting ourselves is what introduced death into the world. No, in our darkest hour, we say all mankind are liars. We have no hope except Jesus Christ. And this, you see, is how you are to read your life. This isn't just doctrine. This isn't just God's word, and it's there, and I open it, and I read it, and then I close it, and then I go figure out how to live my life. No, this is how you are to interpret your life. This is how you are to read all that happens in your life as a believer. Every instance of suffering and trial and pain in your life is an appearance of death, but every mercy of God in your life is an appearance of Christ's resurrection power. And that begins when you were forgiven of your sins and Christ took hold of you. You say, I was dead, but now I have been made alive. And is that a one-time thing that God did for us in Jesus Christ? No, it's a continuous deliverance from death and into life. God continually makes me alive. I would be drowning in anguish. I would be drowning in the grip of death, but Christ has given me hope in his resurrection. So what does that mean? It means that every grace of God, every blessing you enjoy from your Savior's hand, every morning He gives you when you wake up, every healing of your body that you enjoy, every meal that you eat, every promotion at work, every answered prayer, every Lord's Day is God repeating to us in miniature the reality, the narrative of the resurrection of His Son and our union with Him by faith. Why would God couch the psalmist's suffering as death and couch his deliverance as resurrection? To tell us how to view our lives. There's death, but there's a more fundamental reality. the resurrection of Jesus Christ, which means our resurrection. Every blessing God gives you is to point your attention back to that resurrection on that first Easter. And yet, there's more. Every blessing that God gives you is to point you forward to the day of your resurrection that was purchased by his resurrection. You are not only to enjoy the blessings God gives you and receive them in this veil of tears and say, how good my Savior is. I have this because Jesus was raised from the dead. But you are to say, oh, how glorious that day will be when Jesus will raise me from the dead. That day when in Christ's power, you will be renewed and you will no longer have any sin or sickness or suffering. There will be no mourning or crying. There will be nothing amiss. All will have been perfected. All will have been completed. When you finally will be delivered from the power of death, for death will be destroyed. And that's what we look forward to. In 1 Corinthians chapter 15, on that day, God says, on that day, God will ask, oh death, where is your victory? Oh death, where is your sting? Every mercy of God, which he gives you, points forward to the day of resurrection. And that's why we can say what verse seven says. Return, O my soul, to your rest. Return, O my soul, to your rest, for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you. I was in tumult, I was in a storm-tossed sea, but God has brought me back to the fair haven that He is, and so how can I be not at rest, not at peace? Return, O my soul, to your rest, for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you. I have a friend in the URC, he's a pastor, has a little motto, and I don't know where he got it from. Maybe he made it up, I don't know. But his motto is, theology becomes biography. Theology becomes biography. These truths are to mark our lives. And when they mark your life, when you read your life in the light of God's word, you start making sense of things. God has delivered me. And I know God has delivered you. God has delivered me. And I'll give you a couple of examples. In March 2013, God delivered us. We were on the highway. I was on my way to preach at our Carbondale URC sister congregation. We had run a flat. We're going 45 with the hazards on, right lane. We got hit. We spun out, out of control. And we would have gone down the hill. Humanly speaking, we're not for the guardrails. My wife was pregnant with number two. Our oldest was not even one year old in the backseat. God spared us. We walked out of there without a scratch. I remember in summer 2023, My father has dementia. He had been diagnosed already with dementia. They were on their way to church in New York City by 42nd Street. My mom tells him, wait out here. My mom didn't quite know how bad it was. Wait out here. I'll be right back. There was a Duane Reader Rite Aid on like 40th and 8th. She wanted to get a card for someone at church. My dad walks away. And for three hours, no one can locate him. We don't know where he is. And in God's mercy, he ends up walking into the 23rd Precinct House, where there's an EMT worker there, takes his pulse, gives him some first aid treatment. He'd been overexhausted walking in the sun. And we get called up and we pick him up at Port Authority. And some of you remember that when we had to leave here right away. to get our father. God has delivered me, God has delivered us. How has God delivered you? How has God delivered you? Have you forgotten? And deliverance here is not just forgiveness of sins. Deliverance here is all the times that God has spared you from the grip of death with his mercy. And I'll give you one more, and it's one that we all know. It's the one that we're facing now as a congregation. What a magnificent opportunity we have to trust the Lord's provision. We face quite the hardship as a congregation. We won't have a facility in a few short weeks or months, we don't know. Probably by the end of the year, but it's not melodramatic to confess that God has allowed death's dark shadow to be extended over us. But not only do we need to see the stark reality in front of us, we need to confess with biblical faith, God will provide for us. It is our biblical faith that cries out, Jesus, help us. Jesus, provide for us. Jesus, deliver us from tears and our feet from stumbling. Now, what will happen? How God will provide? I don't know. I don't know how God will provide, except that I know that he will. And that is our trust. And we walk in that trust. And we work in that trust. And we have a Cracker Jack subcommittee making calls and visits and emailing and putting into practice their faith. God will deliver us once more. And when he does, and he has already, what is to be your response? Finally, our third point. God calls us to thanksgiving. God calls us to thanksgiving. Verse 12, what shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits to me? Pause, ask yourself that question. What will you give to the Lord? for all his blessings, for all the deliverances he has effectuated in your life. What can we possibly give God? Nothing that can be a repayment, obviously. But what will we give God? When he hears our cries, when he rescues us from death, when he provides what you need and so much more, What's the picture that we have here in verses 13 and following? Verse 13, I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord. The cup of salvation was a holy libation, a holy drink that was poured out to God that accompanied many Old Testament sacrifices. Verse 14, I will pay my vows to the Lord in the presence of all his people. Pay your vows to the Lord. I wanna return to that. And then that's also repeated in verse 18. When you promise to do something to God, do it. Fulfill your vow. Verse 16, oh Lord, I am your servant. I am your servant, the son of your made servant. What will I pay to the Lord? I will be his servant. I will do his will. I will comply. I will conform my life, not to what I want, but to what he desires, which is my good. Verse 17, you have loosed my bond. I will offer to you the sacrifice of thanksgiving and call on the name of the Lord. And then again, verse one and verse two, I love the Lord. What can you give to God? What can you render to God? You are to give him your love. You are to give him your life. You are to give him all of your years because it is God who gave them to you. The life that I have, we are to say, belongs to you, O God, and so thus have your way in me. I will offer to you thanksgiving. It won't have to be a begrudging duty for me to worship you, for me to be here on the Lord's day, for me to open my mouth in praise and thanksgiving. I will gladly, gladly, joyfully worship you. I will give you my time. I will give you my family. I will give you my finances. It is no stretch to see verse 14 and see verse 18 as actually speaking about financial gifts to God given through the temple. Can I make a very pointed application here for us? And you might think, well, what a wonderful takeaway. Death, resurrection, now he's gonna talk about church finances. So anticlimactic. No, it's not. 1 Corinthians 15, wonderful sermon passage on the resurrection. Therefore, my beloved brothers, because these things are true, be steadfast and movable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your work is not in vain. The end of chapter 15. What does chapter 16 begin with? Now concerning the collection for the saints. as I directed the churches of Galatia, so you also are to do. I don't know who tithes here. I don't know who gives and who doesn't give. But our treasurer, I asked our treasurer, I said, tell me, I'd like to know, just a number. Are we tithing people of God? Are we giving to God just a 10% of what all that he has given to us? We're in the midst of great distress here. How are you paying your thanksgiving back to God? The Bible says you are robbing God of his thanksgiving if you do not render to him for all his benefits to you. The life that we have has been given to us by God time and again. All the energy, all the money, all the time, all that you are has been given to God. And now how are you to thank God? How are you to, what are you to give to him? You are to give him your life and all of it. because all of it belongs to him. And yet God doesn't require you to bring 100% of your paycheck, just 10%, returning to him, but a token of all that he has given to us. Let's conclude. How would you thank a rich patron who paid for your unpayable debt? How would you thank the surgeon The only surgeon who could perform life-saving surgery on your life. How would you thank your parents who brought you into this world and nourished and nurtured you? How do you thank an innocent man who offers to take your place as a defendant and suffers your death sentence for you? You see, salvation is like all of these things, but so much infinitely more. Salvation is like this, but so much infinitely more. It's God's work of paying your infinite debt, of healing your soul, of healing your body, of bringing you new life, of Jesus taking your death sentence, of Jesus rescuing you from the prison of your sin and misery, and of Jesus continually, continually delivering you from the death that encompasses you. throughout life, and most certainly at the ends, so that we can say the words of the hymn we'll sing momentarily. Even death's cold wave I will not fear, for it is God through Jordan who leadeth me. Amen, let's pray. Our gracious God and heavenly Father. Oh, would you help us. Father, would you help us to not be an unfeeling people, but to understand, Father, the anguish of this fallen world. Father, in small measure, we can never do it like you, Father. You alone are God and you alone bear up all the afflictions and the trials and the great evils of our world, you have infinite forbearance and patience. But Father, as trials are visited upon our lives, help us to understand, Father, something of the suffering you've prepared for us to walk in it. Oh, but so much more than this, Father, help us to understand the resurrection power of Jesus mightily at work in us. who have believed in him, who cry out to him, who have been joined to him by faith. Help us to know the forgiveness of our sins, most certainly. Help us to know, Father, on that last day, that resurrection from the dead, when we will see you face to face and inhabit a new creation, a new heavens and a new earth. But help us, Father, from the starting point to the last. to know your mercies, to know your deliverance. And Father, to give you thanks, to render to you the honor and the glory due your name. Father, help us, Lord, in this upcoming week, Father, to walk in the light of your word. And we ask all these things now in Jesus' name, amen.