03-03-2019 - What's Love Got to Do with It?

Psalm 116 NLT

1 I love the Lord because he hears my voice and my prayer for mercy. 2 Because he bends down to listen, I will pray as long as I have breath! 3 Death wrapped its ropes around me; the terrors of the grave overtook me. I saw only trouble and sorrow. 4 Then I called on the name of the Lord: “Please, Lord, save me!” 5 How kind the Lord is! How good he is! So merciful, this God of ours! 6 The Lord protects those of childlike faith; I was facing death, and he saved me. 7 Let my soul be at rest again, for the Lord has been good to me. 8 He has saved me from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling. 9 And so I walk in the Lord’s presence as I live here on earth! 10 I believed in you, so I said, “I am deeply troubled, Lord.” 11 In my anxiety I cried out to you, “These people are all liars!” 12 What can I offer the Lord for all he has done for me? 13 I will lift up the cup of salvation and praise the Lord’s name for saving me. 14 I will keep my promises to the Lord in the presence of all his people. 15 The Lord cares deeply when his loved ones die. 16 O Lord, I am your servant; yes, I am your servant, born into your household; you have freed me from my chains. 17 I will offer you a sacrifice of thanksgiving and call on the name of the Lord. 18 I will fulfill my vows to the Lord in the presence of all his people— 19 in the house of the Lord in the heart of Jerusalem. Praise the Lord!

Psalm 116 is part of the Hallel - made up of Psalm 113-118 - these are Scriptures recited on Holy Days. Verse 13 in particular is part of the Havdalah - which marks the symbolic end of the Sabbath (Shabot) and ushers in the new week

Love as a Learned Response is OK! (Psalm 116:1-6)

It is ok to call out for help when you are in trouble (and we are ALL in trouble) - we give fox-hole religion a bad wrap

In a lecture C.S. Lewis gave to undergraduates at Oxford just weeks after the outbreak of World War II, he spoke of one of war's (potentially salutary) side effects as its capacity to bring home to us realities we can otherwise mostly ignore: [Lewis said]:

What does war do to death? It certainly does not make it more frequent; 100 per cent of us die, and the percentage cannot be increased ... Yet war does do something to death. It forces us to remember it. The only reason why the cancer at sixty or the paralysis at seventy-five do not bother us is that we forget them. War makes death real to us...

Whether we turn to God or from God in times of great distress, we all seek the answer to the same questions, Why me, what can I or someone else do, and WHO CAN SAVE ME...

“because He hears my voice and pleas for mercy”

“commitment to a life of prayer”

“called out when in trouble - the snares of death (ropes) and pangs of Sheol brought distress and anguish / trouble and sorrow”

The Walk of Faith (Psalm 116:7-14)

Faith is truly not a private matter, though it is the faith of an individual in which God by His own choice delights and subsequently saves that person. That person’s faith - that is their Total Trust in Jesus is still the express requirement of God. Faith does not save, God Saves the person who believes.

v. 9 - This personal Trust Turns into a Public Tour in which God is Praised. Notice how the stumbling of v. 8 - our own aimless wandering turns into confident walking in v. 9 once Trust is engaged

v. 10 - Trust also engages the Mouth to speak Truth - “all people are liars” is juxtaposed to “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...”

PRAISE Practice Makes Perfect - Take Time to Rehearse, Reminisce and Revive your thinking about what God has done (Psalm 116:15-19)