What shall I render unto the Lord?

Robert Ferguson

Revival Baptist Church

Holidays 2024 • Sermon • Submitted a year ago • Presented a year ago

Psalm 116

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Psalm 116:1–2 KJV 1900

I love the Lord, because he hath heard My voice and my supplications. Because he hath inclined his ear unto me, Therefore will I call upon him as long as I live.

Psalm 116:3–4 KJV 1900

The sorrows of death compassed me, And the pains of hell gat hold upon me: I found trouble and sorrow. Then called I upon the name of the Lord; O Lord, I beseech thee, deliver my soul.

Psalm 116:5–6 KJV 1900

Gracious is the Lord, and righteous; Yea, our God is merciful. The Lord preserveth the simple: I was brought low, and he helped me.

Psalm 116:7–8 KJV 1900

Return unto thy rest, O my soul; For the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee. For thou hast delivered my soul from death, Mine eyes from tears, And my feet from falling.

Psalm 116:9–10 KJV 1900

I will walk before the Lord In the land of the living. I believed, therefore have I spoken: I was greatly afflicted:

Psalm 116:11–12 KJV 1900

I said in my haste, All men are liars. What shall I render unto the Lord For all his benefits toward me?

Psalm 116:13–14 KJV 1900

I will take the cup of salvation, And call upon the name of the Lord. I will pay my vows unto the Lord Now in the presence of all his people.

Psalm 116:15–16 KJV 1900

Precious in the sight of the Lord Is the death of his saints. O Lord, truly I am thy servant; I am thy servant, and the son of thine handmaid: Thou hast loosed my bonds.

Psalm 116:17–18 KJV 1900

I will offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving, And will call upon the name of the Lord. I will pay my vows unto the Lord Now in the presence of all his people,

Psalm 116:19 KJV 1900

In the courts of the Lord’s house, In the midst of thee, O Jerusalem. Praise ye the Lord.

Introduction

On October 3, 1789, the President of the United State issued a proclamation regarding the need to give thanks to God for His protection and providence during the American Revolution. This proclamation listed the date on which this thanksgiving was to take place, a Thursday in November. Every year, we celebrate this holiday.

By the President of the United States of America, a Proclamation.

Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor-- and whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.

Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be-- That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks--for his kind care and protection of the People of this Country previous to their becoming a Nation--for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of his Providence which we experienced in the course and conclusion of the late war--for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed--for the peaceable and rational manner, in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national One now lately instituted--for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed; and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and in general for all the great and various favors which he hath been pleased to confer upon us.

and also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions-- to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually--to render our national government a blessing to all the people, by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed--to protect and guide all Sovereigns and Nations (especially such as have shewn kindness unto us) and to bless them with good government, peace, and concord--To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the encrease of science among them and us--and generally to grant unto all Mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.

Given under my hand at the City of New York the third day of October in the year of our Lord 1789.

Go: Washington

Thanksgiving is a time that we get together to thank God for all that He has given us. While Washington began this tradition with an emphasis on the national need for thanksgiving, our passage this morning focuses on the personal need we have. Each of us has storms in our life. Each of us has concerns and commitments. Each of us is challenged each day with a constant doubt of our flesh against the promises of God.

What is God doing? Why is He not visibly working? What can we do in the mean time? The psalmist likely had these same questions.

But we will focus the most this morning on what we need to do when God does come through for us. We see throughout Scripture that God is on time for deliverance. He desires to be there for His people. He is listening to us every step of the way and through each trial.

The psalmist asks a question in verse 12. After telling what God has done for him, he asks how he can repay God. This morning, we will see the answers that he gives to this question.

Psalm 116:12 KJV 1900

What shall I render unto the Lord For all his benefits toward me?

Declaration

God is the giver of life and the preserver of life. Because of this truth, our salvation is found in Him. Today, respond with the psalmist with an offering of thankfulness and peace to God for all He has done for us!

Occasion for the Psalm

Psalm 116:1–11 KJV 1900

I love the Lord, because he hath heard My voice and my supplications. Because he hath inclined his ear unto me, Therefore will I call upon him as long as I live. The sorrows of death compassed me, And the pains of hell gat hold upon me: I found trouble and sorrow. Then called I upon the name of the Lord; O Lord, I beseech thee, deliver my soul. Gracious is the Lord, and righteous; Yea, our God is merciful. The Lord preserveth the simple: I was brought low, and he helped me. Return unto thy rest, O my soul; For the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee. For thou hast delivered my soul from death, Mine eyes from tears, And my feet from falling. I will walk before the Lord In the land of the living. I believed, therefore have I spoken: I was greatly afflicted: I said in my haste, All men are liars.

What was the background to the question of verse 12?

1. For the psalmist, Death was probable v. 1-4

The beginning of the psalm is a statement regarding a choice that the psalmist has made. The writer has chosen to love God. He states it as a fact. The start of the psalm is a statement that he has chosen to love God even in the midst of trials and discouragements. Love for God is both commanded and practiced in the pages of Scripture.

Deuteronomy 6:5 KJV 1900

And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.

I remember telling my wife that I love her for the first time. I was living in Tennessee at the time and I was getting ready to move back to Virginia. I wanted her to know that even though she would not see me, I still cared about her. Even though I was not there in the midst of all that she was experiencing over the next couple months, I wanted her to be safe and happy.

When we tell God we love Him, we are saying that we realize what He has done for us. He loved us and died for us. Though He is not visible now, we love Him because He cares about us!

Verses 1-2 give us the outline for the entire psalm. The writer is telling us a testimony of what he has learned in the trial of his life. He has learned to love God. He has learned to cry out to God. He has learned that God is listening. There are two reasons here to love God: He heard the voice and the prayers, and He listened to the cry of the Psalmist.

God is listening to you know. God is not just hearing it, He is responding to it. Whenever we call out to God, there is always an answer. There is always a desire to be involved in our lives. In fact, God is working the entire time. God leaned down His ear to hear what the sufferer had to say. God is leaning down today to hear us as we cry out to Him.

In verse 3, the psalmist tells us what he had gone through. He had found trouble and sorrow in his life. He was facing certain death. His reaction to this trial was to call out to God. We are also facing death for our sin. Everyone of us has trouble waiting for us in eternity if we refuse to call out to God. We can identify with this psalmist in a spiritual way.

Romans 10:9–10 KJV 1900

That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

2. However, God stepped in to save v. 5-8

God is called three things in verse 5. The psalmist calls God these things before recording how God got involved in the trial.

God is gracious. God is listening for the sufferer. He is waiting on us to call out to Him for help. God is slow to anger because He desires everyone to repent and return to worship Him.

Psalm 86:15 KJV 1900

But thou, O Lord, art a God full of compassion, and gracious, Longsuffering, and plenteous in mercy and truth.

2 Peter 3:9 KJV 1900

The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

God is righteous. God is just always. He does not excuse sin or remove punishment. Instead, for the Christian, we know that the sin was placed on Christ on the cross. God’s justice allows sin to exist only because He knows that Christ has taken the sin far away.

Psalm 103:10–12 KJV 1900

He hath not dealt with us after our sins; Nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. For as the heaven is high above the earth, So great is his mercy toward them that fear him. As far as the east is from the west, So far hath he removed our transgressions from us.

God is merciful. God shows compassion on those who are in trials and trouble. He allows the trials but He is responsive in the trials. Sin brings trials but God brings triumph! The divine action of verse 5 is that God steps into the picture and delivers the psalmist.

Lamentations 3:32 KJV 1900

But though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies.

Verse 6 tells us what happened to the psalmist. He was brought low but God helped him. God came to save him in his trial.

There is a divine action of God promised here. He preserves the simple. God is guarding those who have yet to come to the knowledge of His salvation. The simple man is found throughout Proverbs as a person who is carried about as undecided about wisdom or folly. Here is a promise that even today God is preserving those who are truly searching for truth. God is preserving you even as you cry out to Him!

The psalmist says that he was humbled by the trial. This is why he mentions the simple. They are a testimony to the fact that this man who knew God has become like the unsaved who is seeking for God. Instead of being confident in himself, the psalmist had learned to rely on God. Now he can say that he is weak and God is strong.

2 Corinthians 12:10 KJV 1900

Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.

The psalmist speaks to his soul regarding where to go in time of trouble. He tells him to return to the place of rest in verse 7. The place of rest is in the old ways of trusting God. God is the place we find rest because God had been bountiful to us. God has delivered us when we were facing eternal death.

Jeremiah 6:16 KJV 1900

Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk therein.

3. The psalmist is resolved to believe God v. 9-11

Verse 8 is possibly a saying that they would have said regularly in this day. Whether it is or not, it is a resolution for the Christian. God is the one who allows us to walk as we should.

Ephesians 4:1 KJV 1900

I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called,

The words of the writer carry down through the ages. “I believed”. Can you also say that you believe God? Paul was on his final journey to Rome. There was a storm upon the Mediterranean Sea and it seemed that there was no way that they would survive. But the testimony of Paul was that God was going to save them! Paul said to the men on the ship,

Acts 27:22–25 KJV 1900

And now I exhort you to be of good cheer: for there shall be no loss of any man’s life among you, but of the ship. For there stood by me this night the angel of God, whose I am, and whom I serve, Saying, Fear not, Paul; thou must be brought before Caesar: and, lo, God hath given thee all them that sail with thee. Wherefore, sirs, be of good cheer: for I believe God, that it shall be even as it was told me.

When there are storms about you

And the darkness creeps in,

When the sky is churning above you,

And the doubts begin,

Do you believe?

When there seems to be no one else

Standing by your side,

When the hopes that you had for good

No longer reign inside,

Do you believe?

When the words of the promises

That once spoke to your heart,

And the courage of the past

Now begins to fall apart,

Do you believe?

For the God above your storm

Nothing visibly has changed.

Instead He stands to listen

For your cry to be arranged.

So look to the sky and see Him there

He leans down constant His listening ear.

Do you believe?

Psalm 27:13 KJV 1900

I had fainted, unless I had believed To see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.

The psalmist uses the word “afflicted” to refer to how he what he had experienced. This gives us the idea of praying to God out of great trials. God is the one that we must call out to every time that we stand in need of help in trials.

During the trial, the psalmists observed that all men were untrue. But even in times of betrayal and abandonment, God is still true. God is never a liar.

Hebrews 6:16–20 KJV 1900

For men verily swear by the greater: and an oath for confirmation is to them an end of all strife. Wherein God, willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath: That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us: Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the veil; Whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made an high priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec.

The occasion of the for the psalm was the salvation of the writer from certain death by the intervention of God. So it is for us. If there is one thing that we can give God thanks for at Thanksgiving, it is this. God has given us eternal salvation through the death of His Son for us!

Romans 6:23 KJV 1900

For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.