Living in Light of Second Chances

Scripture Reading

(ESV)

15 Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.

16 O Lord, I am your servant; I am your servant, the son of your maidservant. You have loosed my bonds.

17 I will offer to you the sacrifice of thanksgiving and call on the name of the Lord.

18 I will pay my vows to the Lord in the presence of all his people,

19 in the courts of the house of the Lord, in your midst, O Jerusalem. Praise the Lord!

Opening

In , the psalmist at the beginning celebrates God, who hears his plight. In verses 6-12, the psalmist praises God, who acts, bringing deliverance and salvation in his greatest time of need. And now as the psalmist concludes his song, we see his response to the Lord who brought him a second chance.

Let us look at each verse together.

Verse 15

“Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.”

At first glance, it would seem that God thinks that the death of his saints is precious, perhaps that their death is something to be desired. However, this is where English language misleads us. The word “Precious” as used here, when evaluated in its Hebrew origin, means costly.

So we read, “Costly in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.” And this makes sense! As we read in verse 8, our psalmist has had a narrow escape from death. The Lord has spared him.

What is fascinating here is that the psalmist indicates that his death would not have only been costly to him personally, but costly to the Lord. Therefore, the psalmist recognizes that his life has meaning. It has purpose. It has value. He understands that his life is a second chance. It is an opportunity to live for God, to give him glory.

Verse 16

As we look here in verse 16, the psalmist magnifies how incredible it is, how unexpected it is, that he would receive a second chance. The psalmist not only claims a title of servant, a lowly position. He calls out that that he is a son of a female servant, which puts him even further down the Hebrew social order. The psalmist does this to emphasize to the hearer of this song that God preserved him despite being the lowest of the low or the least of these.

The psalmist understands that in our world, our culture, we value wealth. We value status. We value popularity. Simply said, we too often value the external. So the psalmist’s worldview is one of surprise that God recognized his plight and delivered him, or as the verse says, “loosed my bonds.”

However, let me ask you, “Should we be surprised?” These last few weeks we celebrated the fact that God sent His Son to save the world where he was born to a teenager in an animal shelter and worshipped by stinky shepherds. If presented to us in advance, everything in God’s plan to bring the Messiah to earth would be absolutely backward to us.

However, that is precisely the point. God’s salvation is first revealed in dirty places among the poor because Jesus came here to turn our world upside down. He came to save the lost, the forgotten. He came here to give out second chances to you, to I…to the world. Like the psalmist, our “bounds have been loosed.”

Verse 17

Verse 17

So the question is, how will our psalmist respond in light of God giving him a second chance? In verse 17, the psalmist does not simply state he will offer thanksgiving to the Lord for what he has done. He says, “I will offer to you the sacrifice of thanksgiving.”

Themelios: Volume 30, No. 1, Autumn 2004 Discipleship and Evangelism

Cheap Grace is the deadly enemy of our church. It is grace without price: grace without cost!… Cheap grace means grace as a doctrine … an intellectual assent … Cheap grace means the justification of sin without the justification of the sinner … Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion without confession … Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.

Here he invokes the image of sacrifice, a Levitical offering to God that will cost him something. The psalmist is not going to say thank you to God on and move on. He is going to give something up. He is providing an offering. He is going to sacrifice something of value to him. The psalmist is going to express his gratitude by sacrificing his will for God’s. The psalmist declares in song that the grace extended to him for his life was not cheap, and for him, nor will it be repaid cheaply.

Bonhoeffer for Armchair Theologians Chapter Three: Costly Grace

Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which has to be asked for, the door at which one has to knock. It is costly because it calls us to discipleship; it is grace, because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs people their lives; it is grace, because it thereby makes them live. It is costly, because it condemns sin; it is grace, because it justifies the sinner. Above all, grace is costly, because it was costly to God, because it costs God the life of God’s Son … and because nothing can be cheap to us which is costly to God.

The question for us Christ followers is, “Have we told God thank you for our second chance and moved on to live our life as we see fit? Or like the psalmist, have we decided to offer a sacrificial thanksgiving, sacrificing our will for His? Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s in his book The Cost of Discipleship gives us a picture of what it means to offer God “the sacrifice of thanksgiving.” Listen to these words...

Bonhoeffer for Armchair Theologians Chapter Three: Costly Grace

Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which has to be asked for, the door at which one has to knock. It is costly because it calls us to discipleship; it is grace, because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs people their lives; it is grace, because it thereby makes them live. It is costly, because it condemns sin; it is grace, because it justifies the sinner. Above all, grace is costly, because it was costly to God, because it costs God the life of God’s Son … and because nothing can be cheap to us which is costly to God.

The psalmist and Bonhoeffer both remind us that our salvation, our freedom was NOT FREE! It cost God something!

Verses 18-19

Finally in verse 18, the psalmist repeats his intention from verse 14 to pay his vow in a very public manner in the presence of God’s people. However, in verse 19 he added an important detail, the location. He will repay his debt to the Lord in the courts surrounding the temple located in Jerusalem. The psalmist contends that he will not be God’s “silent partner.” The psalmist will make it known to all in the most public of all places in Jewish life, the temple courtyard, he serves the Lord.

Conclusion

As I turn it back over to Ben, I leave you with these questions as we head into the new year:

What has God saved you from this year or even last year? What psalm do you need to write so that you and others can give God glory?

Secondly, as a Christian, are you prepared to call upon the name of the Lord and offer him “the sacrifice of thanksgiving?” As we enter next year, are you prepared to follow Jesus Christ if you cost you something? I ask because we do not decide this once. Bonhoeffer reminds us we must “commit to this again and again”.

Finally, if you said, “Yes, Craig. I will offer God “the sacrifice of thanksgiving,” I would ask you, “How would your spouse know? Your kids? Your parents? Your neighbors? Your boss? Your friends. How will they know you are living a sacrificial life? Will you pay your vow to God in the presence of all his people.”