Turn with me, if you would, to
Psalm 116. Psalm 116. Psalm 116, beginning
in verse 1, it says, 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 got hold upon me. I found trouble
in 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 shall I render unto the
Lord for all his benefits toward me? 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. 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. 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, in the courts of the
Lord's house, in the midst of thee, O Jerusalem. Praise you,
the Lord. Let's pray together. Dear Holy Heavenly Father, Lord,
we call upon you again. As David did there, Lord, we
call on you. We cast our all on you, Lord. We come before you. We bow before
you. We humble ourselves before you. Lord, we acknowledge that we
are nothing and you are all. And we say in our hearts, we
must decrease and you must increase. And that's our desire, Lord,
that you would increase more and more in our eyes, more and
more in our hearts, more and more in our worship. Lord, truly,
would you enable us to lift you up? and praise you and honor
you, Lord. That's our true desire. Thank
you for another opportunity to worship you, Lord. You do not
have to give us these opportunities. It has been proven to us that
at just at your word, you can put a stop to all this. And this
is all according to your will. And we are grateful that you
would give us one more opportunity to gather together in your name.
And Lord, we all took this for granted before. Let us not take
it for granted again. Thank you for letting us be here.
We pray, Lord, that you might bless us. We pray that you might
speak to us. We pray that you might touch
us by your spirit, Lord, and we pray that you would do this
for all of your people. As we pray these things for ourselves,
Lord, let us not be Selfish and only mindful of this congregation,
Lord, we pray for each one. We pray for every every dear
group of believers, wherever they are all over this world,
Lord. Come to us and help us speak to us, touch us, lead us
and guide us, Lord, as we continue the construction of this building,
Lord, would you be with us and. cause us to do this unto you
not unto us oh lord not unto us may all of this be unto you
and we pray lord that you will truly keep your spirit among
us and and truly keep a heart of unity with us and a heart
of love lord let us love each other for your sake and we pray
lord that you will Let the gospel continue here as long as you
would allow it to be here. For these children and their
children, Lord, for generations to come, would you please keep
the truth of your word here? We give you all honor and glory.
We, we praise you and we beg for forgiveness of our sin in
Christ's name. Amen. Let's everybody stand again,
if you will, please, and turn with me to 352. Hymn 352. Jesus,
lover of my soul, lend me to thee. While the near waters roll, while
the tempest still is high, Hide me, O my Savior, hide, till the
storm of life is past. Safe into the haven, God, O receive
my soul at last. Other refuge have I none, thanks
my helpless soul on Thee. Leave, oh leave me not alone
Still support and comfort me All my help from Thee I bring,
Ever my defenseless head With the shadow of Thy wing. Thou, O Christ, art all I want,
more than all in Thee I find. Raise the fallen, cheer the faint,
heal the sick, and lead the blind. Just and holy is Thy name. I am all in righteousness. False and full of sin I am, Thou
art full of truth and grace. Plenteous grace with Thee is
found, Grace to cover all my sins. Let the healing streams
abound, Make and keep me pure within. Thou of life's a fountain art,
freely let me take of Thee. Spring Thou up within my heart,
rise to all eternity. Thank you. Go with me, if you would, back
to Psalm 116. Psalm 116. I am so thankful for
the fact that the Lord really made this Psalm to be a blessing
to me. Uh, I feel that he genuinely
touched my heart with it. And because of that, I have something
to say to myself. I know that sounds a little bit
strange, but I do because He genuinely, genuinely, when I
was studying this, I just felt so blessed by it. You know how, you know what I
mean. Sometimes you read things or, and the Lord just touches
you with it. And because I believe He blessed
it to me so truly, I have something that I want to say to myself. And I have something that I want
to say to my Lord. And I have something that I want
to say to you. And I really do mean that. This
is not just a three point outline. It's just not. I really do mean
that. I have something I want to say
to myself. I have something I want to say to my Lord. I have something
I want to say to you. And I pray the Lord will make
it a blessing to you as he has to me. I pray he'll make this
to be a blessing to you. The Lord told a man one time,
and this applies to all of God's people. He said to that man,
you go and tell how great things the Lord has done for you. And that's what I want to do
tonight. I want to tell that to myself. And I want to tell that to my
Lord. And I want to tell that to you. Now listen to this verse right
here. We're going to read this together.
David is saying this to himself. And this is why I say, I have
something I want to say to myself. It's because David is saying
this to himself. And when I read this, I entered
into these words so deeply. This is what I pray for you.
I pray that as we read this right now, the Lord will let you enter
into this. I pray that He has put you in
a place where you need to enter into this. I pray that He has
prepared us. for this, and I pray that as
we read this right now, you will be able to say this to yourself,
all right? Let's read verse seven as fervently
as we can. Ask the Lord to let you say this
to yourself. Verse seven, David said, return
unto thy rest, O my soul, for the Lord hath dealt bountifully
with thee. Now that's good news, isn't it?
That is good news. That is the kind of news you
want to tell yourself. That is the kind of news that
you constantly want to remind yourself of. We know something about turmoil.
We do a little bit. We know something about trouble.
We know something about trial. We know something about heartache. We know something about sorrow.
We know something about depression. And David was able to say to
himself, he was able to speak these words into his own heart. He said, return unto thy rest. This was his advice to his own
self. Return unto thy rest, O my soul,
for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee. Every time that I get caught
up in the turmoil of this life, and the trouble of this flesh,
and the inner weariness, and the inner war with sin, Every time I become overwhelmed
by it and I become afraid because of it, disbelief can set in because
of it sometimes. It is so glorious to me to be
able to say this to my soul, return to your rest. And that's a person. That's a
person. That's saying go to a person
and return to what he's provided for you. Remember again what
He has done for you. Remember what He has secured
for you. You have a rest. Everything gets
so crazy. It just gets so crazy. And it's
so wonderful to remember you have a rest. You have a rest
that has been provided for you. There is no greater thing that
a man or a woman can say to himself or herself. with confidence. There's no greater thing that
we can say to ourselves with confidence, really believing
what you're saying to yourself. You know how you try to convince
yourself of things? I mean really believing what you're saying
to yourself. There is no greater thing that you can tell yourself
and convince yourself of and believe in your heart than You
can rest. It's okay. You can rest. You can truly rest. And the reason
is because the Lord has dealt bountifully with you. The Lord
has dealt so bountifully with you. He has dealt bountifully
with you in eternal matters, in weighty matters, matters of life and death, matters
of salvation, soul, David speaking to himself and all of God's people
speaking to themselves. We can say, so these other things,
these physical matters, they may be light afflictions to us.
They may be. But when we consider the weighty
eternal matters that Christ has dealt bountifully with us in,
we can rest. Oh my soul, he said, you can
rest. You can just rest. I don't know
of a better thing than rest. I went home after the service
this morning and I was tired. And I've needed and craved one
thing. And before I could do that, I
needed to eat and study. And the whole time I was thinking,
I need this, I'm craving this. And sometimes I'll lay down for
a minute on the couch, and sometimes I'll lay down on top of my bed,
and sometimes I'll get my PJs on and rip the covers off and
go hardcore. And that's what I did today.
And when I got in that bed, I thought, oh, I needed that so badly. I
needed rest. Return to your rest. I'm telling
you, there's nothing better, nothing better than true rest. The rest that you can just completely
lay down in, the faith that just completely lays down in it and
relaxes in it and commits to it. I committed to it today. Rest. What exactly has the Lord done
for us that is so bountiful? creating all of this rest. What has he done that would cause
my soul to have so much rest? Well, that's what I want to say
to him. What I want to say to myself is, return to your rest. I'm telling you, I'm going to
get out of that door here in a minute. And it's going to take
me less than five minutes to need to return to my rest. And that's what I want to say
to myself, return to your rest, go back to your rest. And this is what I want to say
to my Lord. I want to tell him, I want to
acknowledge to him what he has done for me. He knows what he
has done for me, but I want to acknowledge to him that I know
it too. I know what he's done for me
also. David did that right here in verse eight, and all of God's
people can do this. We all can acknowledge to him
how great things he had done for us. Verse eight, he said,
speaking to the Lord, he said, for thou has delivered my soul from death,
mine eyes from tears, and my feet from falling. That's what
you did for me." And he said, I want to tell you that, I want
to say that to you. He said, Lord, I'm speaking directly
to you, thou, you. Like in Psalm 51, David said,
I'm speaking directly to you. Against thee and thee only. He
said, Lord, I'm speaking to you and this is what I want to acknowledge
to you. Thou hast delivered my soul.
You've delivered my soul from three things. Well, you delivered
my soul from death, mine eyes from tears, my feet from falling. You saved me, you comforted me,
and you settled me on a sure foundation. And that's what he's
done. He saved us. comforted us, and settled us
on a sure foundation. We sing, how firm a foundation,
ye saints of the Lord, is laid for your faith in his excellent
word. What more can he say than to
you he hath said, to you who for refuge to the Lord Jesus
have fled? What rest it brings to be able
to say to the Lord with confidence, David is saying this to him with
confidence, truly believing what we're saying to Him. You saved
me from death. What a thing to say to Him. Lord,
I have something to say. By Your grace, with Your permission,
You saved me from death. You delivered my soul from death. You said, deliver him from going
down to the pit, I found a ransom. And that ransom was the spotless
holy son of God himself, the very one that we're gonna live
with, the very one we're gonna dwell with, the very one we're
gonna be married to. That's the one who gave his own
blood to save our souls from death. Our maker and our husband
was our Redeemer, Jesus Christ the Lord. And according to His
own Word, He did this willingly, He did this freely, He did this
fully, completely. According to His own Word, He
said, it is finished. So to my own soul, I say, rest,
for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you. To my own Lord, I say,
All the glory and the credit goes to you. And it's because you by yourself
delivered my soul from death. And through that, you by yourself
delivered my eyes from tears. You saved me and you comforted
me. You saved me and you comforted
me. Turn with me to Job 19, one book before this. Go over to
Job 19. Job 19, verse 23. Job said, oh, that my words were
now written. Oh, that they were printed in
a book. Thank God they are. Verse 24,
he said that they were graven with an iron pen and led in the
rock forever. For I know that my Redeemer liveth
and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth. He
said, I know that my Redeemer is coming to redeem me. I know
that he's gonna stand on this earth and redeem me. Verse 26, he said, and though
after my skin, worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall
I see God. He's going to restore me. He's going to redeem me. He's
gonna preserve me. in my flesh. He said in verse
27, whom I shall see for myself and mine eyes shall behold and
not another. And I just love the center margin
on this last line right here. It means my reigns within me
are consumed with earnest desire for that day. He said, my reigns be consumed
within me. He said, I just I just about
can't contain myself for the happiness that's in me because
of the comfort and the assurance that the Lord has brought to
my soul. Lord, you have saved me, you
have comforted me, and you have settled me on the assurance and
the rock of everything that you've done for me. Go with me back to our text in
Psalm 116. To myself I say, verse 7, return
unto thy rest, O my soul, for the Lord hath dealt bountifully
with thee. To my Lord I say, verse 8, for
thou hast delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears,
and my feet from falling. You can turn with me if you want
to, or just listen to these. I'm gonna read a couple of scriptures
to you. This is Psalm 27, verse five. It says, Psalm 27, verse five says, for
in the time of trouble, he shall hide me in his pavilion. In the
secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me. He shall set me up
upon a rock. And I love knowing that. It doesn't
matter what I do for myself. It doesn't matter where I put
myself and how I think I'm gonna keep myself. He shall put me
on the rock. And if he does that, we're not
gonna be moved. This is Psalm 40, verses one
and two, it says, I waited patiently for the Lord, and He inclined
unto me, and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of
an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a
rock, and established my goings." Those are the words of Christ.
And because those are the words of Christ, those are the words
of all of His people. He brought me when he, when Christ
entered that pit for me as my ransom, he brought me out. He
lifted me out of the deep miry clay. This is Psalm 91 verses one and
two. It says, He that dwelleth in
the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow
of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, He is
my refuge and my fortress. My God, in Him will I trust. Christ my rock. Christ my rock. I say to myself, return unto
thy rest, O my soul. I say to my Lord in our text,
verse eight, thou hast delivered my soul from death, mine eyes
from tears, and my feet from falling. Now to you, this is
what I want to say to you. Verse one, I love the Lord because he hath
heard my voice in my supplications. because He hath inclined His
ear unto me, therefore will I call upon Him as long as I live."
Why will I call upon Him as long as I live? Because He inclined
His ear to me. Before I called, He heard. Verse 3 says, "...the sorrows
of death compassed me, the pains of hell got hold upon me, everything
that sin did to me, Tried to take me down. I found trouble
and sorrow. Then called I upon the name of
the Lord. Oh Lord, I beseech thee, deliver
my soul. Verse five, he said, this is
what I want to say. Gracious is the Lord and righteous. Yea, our God is merciful. He is merciful. He's telling
everybody how great things the Lord has done for him. And He's
saying, if the Lord has done these great things for me, He
can do them for you too. This is a gracious God. Yea, our God is merciful. He
is so merciful. That's what I want to tell you.
Our God is merciful. Our God is merciful. I have met
people, and I would like to meet more people who are just so utterly
torn and broken and ruined because of their sin, they need to hear,
and it be like living water to them. Bread in a famine, water in the
desert. Our God is gracious and merciful. You need forgiveness, you go
to Him. So merciful. Turn with me quickly
over to Psalm 103. Let's read this together. I'm so thankful we know this
about our Lord. Verse 8, Psalm 103, verse 8,
it says, The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and
plenteous in mercy. He is merciful and plenteous
in mercy. He will not always chide, neither
will He keep His anger forever. 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 has He removed our transgressions from us. He removed
them in His Son. Verse 13 says, Like as a father
pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him.
For He knoweth our frame, He remembereth that we are dust. As for man, his days are as grass,
as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth, for the wind
passeth over it, and it's gone, and the place thereof shall know
it no more. But the mercy of the Lord is
from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, and
his righteousness is unto children's children. David said, this is
what I want you to know. Our God is so gracious and our
God is so merciful. And I love him so much because
he inclined his ear unto me. He heard me. Look back at Psalm
116, verse six. He said, the Lord preserveth
the simple. I was brought low and he helped
me. I was brought so low and He helped
me. And if you've been brought low,
He can help you too. He can help you too. In Matthew
11, our Lord said, come unto me, all ye that labor and are
heavy laden, and I'll give you rest. I will give you rest. He said, take my yoke upon you
and learn of me. For I am meek and lowly in heart,
and you shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy,
and my burden is light." So easy and so light. So here's all I
have to say to all of us. There is rest. Sincerely, truly. If anybody needs it, there is
rest. Go to the Savior of souls. Your rest, the deliverer from
tears, the establisher on the rock. He will give you rest. He will. He will give you rest. Return unto Christ your rest. Go with me over to Hebrews four.
I'm almost done. Go to Hebrews four. Hebrews 4 verse 9, it says, There remaineth therefore a rest
to the people of God. For he that is entered into his
rest, Christ's rest, the one that he provided, he that is
entered into his rest, He also hath ceased from his own works,
as God did from his. Let us labor therefore to enter
into that rest. lest any man fall after the same
example of unbelief. Verse 15 says, for we have not
an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our
infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without
sin. Let us therefore come boldly
unto the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find
grace to help in time of need. There is a rest for the people
of God, That rest is in the finished work of the sacrifice of the
Lord Jesus Christ. Let's labor to enter into that
rest. I love that statement. I love
thinking about that statement. Let's labor, labor, labor to
enter into that rest. What does that mean? What does
labor to enter into that rest means? Here's what it means.
Let's never stop reminding ourselves and saying to ourselves, you
have a rest. Return to your rest, return to
your rest. And let's never stop saying to
our Lord, let's never stop saying to our Lord, thank you for providing
that rest. We know you did it. We know this
was all of you. Thank you so much for finishing
all the work. And let's never stop reminding
each other, the Lord is good. So good. The Lord is gracious.
The Lord is merciful. We love the Lord because he's
dealt so bountifully with us, just so bountifully. We're not
going to understand that truly until we're with him. But in that moment, in that day,
we're going to know that to the fullest. So in closing, go back
to Psalm 116. Verse 1 says, 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 got 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. And therefore by His grace, verse
9, He said, I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living. So just rest. He is going to
preserve you all the way to the end. So just rest. Just go to Him and rest.