Today, from Psalm 116 we will learn how to be grateful and reflect on the question: "What shall I render to the Lord?"
This is the question of David's self-examination, as mentioned in Psalm 116:12, What shall I render to the Lord for all His benefits toward me? I believe that such self-questioning is pleasing to God.
Why did David ask this question? It’s because the benefits that he received from the Lord, as mentioned in verses 1-11.
In verse 1 he said, I love the Lord, because He has heard my voice and my supplications.
Look at the word "because”. It tells us that man needs reason to love others. One day, in the couple camp held by the church, we played a game, one of the questions we asked them was: Tell us at least one reason why you married your spouse, their responses vary. Some said because she is beautiful, he/she is brave, successful, responsible, etc. But there was a brother who answered very well. He said, I married my wife because I love her. At that time, we deliberately asked him why you love her. His answer was I don’t think we need any reasons to love. That’s a great answer!
If you love your spouse because of something, and if those things are gone, will you still love him/her? Our love for God should not be because of something, but God has mercy on us. He knows that we have no ability to love him, just as 1 John 4:19 said: We love Him because He first loved us.
The same is true for the psalmist. He loves the Lord because he appreciates the grace and benefit of the Lord. The psalmist said: I love the Lord, because He has heard my voice and my supplications. I often remind myself of the following question: if God does not listen to my prayer, will I still love Him?
We believe our God is a merciful God, he will answer a prayer that pleases Him, He hears the prayer of the psalmist. This is not an ordinary prayer. It is a prayer under a very special situation. Verse 3 says: The pains of death surrounded me, and the pangs of Sheol laid hold of me. I found trouble and sorrow. He was on the verge of death, praying in a very painful situation, and he seemed to be close to the grave.
The second sentence of verse 3 says: And the pangs of Sheol laid hold of me. He seems to have been close to hell/Sheol. Hell is where the dead go, as if the pain of facing death has seized him. This is a very, very uncomfortable situation. He expresses his feelings in terms of the fear of hell's gates.
The third sentence of verse 3 says: I found trouble and sorrow. Dear brothers and sisters, we can imagine the situation of the psalmist at that time. Sometimes we experienced hardships. And it seems like no one can understand us. No one can understand us, we can only come to God.
Just as what the Psalmist did, he experienced difficult times and in verse 4 he said: Then I called upon the name of the Lord: “O Lord, I implore You, deliver my soul!” And God heard his prayers.
Therefore, the following verses describe his gratitude and praise to God: Gracious is the Lord, and righteous; yes, our God is merciful. The Lord preserves the simple; I was brought low, and He saved me. Return to your rest, O my soul, for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you. For You have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, and my feet from falling. I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living.
And for this reason, the psalmist asked himself, what shall I render to the Lord for all His benefits toward me?
Brothers and sisters, have you ever thought about the grace you receive from God? What is that? What shall we render to the Lord for all of His benefits toward us? Let’s learn from the psalmist, he repeatedly refers to "I will" in verses 13-19
13 I will take up the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the Lord. 14 I will pay my vows to the Lord now in the presence of all His people. 17 I will offer to You the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and will call upon the name of the Lord.
First, he said in verse 13: " I will take up the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the Lord. He will take up the cup of salvation, which is to proclaim to the world all the works of the Lord on him. He will also praise the name of the Lord, including the attributes of the Lord: "Graceful, righteous, and compassionate."
Our situation is very similar to that of a psalmist, we found distress and sorrow, living in the border of death. Before we knew the Lord, we had no real joy in our hearts. Some people say that our heart is like a vacuum cleaner, we have to suck everything in. Unfortunately, all we inhale is garbage. What can be sucked in may be fame, status, and wealth. Can these really bring us happiness? No, on the contrary, many people have lost their true peace in order to grasp these, as if they were in hell pain. Inseparable feeling.
But after knowing the Lord, we experience the Lord's blessing, righteousness, and grace, as well as His mercy and salvation. We experience the salvation of the Lord Jesus Christ through the cross. He saved us from the power of darkness and moved us to the kingdom of His Beloved Son. (Colossians 1:13). We are free from the entanglement of death, free from the pain of hell, and free from all distresses and sorrows. we are really freed. He changed our lives and our worldview. After we receive these, What shall I render to the Lord for all His benefits toward me?
We must learn from the psalmist, we shall take up the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the Lord. (13) May the Lord help us lift up the cup of salvation with one heart, spread the gospel of the Lord Jesus’ salvation, and save souls, so that they can also enjoy the Lord’s salvation, escape the power of darkness, and enter the kingdom of God’s beloved Son.
Sharing the Gospel is our right and our responsibility. The Lord Jesus once promised us: “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.” (Matthew 4: l9).
Sometimes we worry too much about evangelism techniques, and of course learning techniques can be helpful. But what Jesus is emphasizing here is that he will make us his witnesses. How? He will show us his life, his speech, his actions. All his witnesses need to do is imitate him and listen to him. Do whatever he wants us to do, say whatever he wants us to say. Act like Jesus did.
Then the Lord will work in our lives, and the Holy Spirit will use our lives to touch others. As the Lord said in Acts 1:18: "But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” The Holy Spirit has come and empowered us. God is willing to make us fishers of men. What matters now is do we have this heart? Are you willing to obey the leading of the Holy Spirit and preach the gospel with the power of the Holy Spirit? If you have such a heart, then God will make you fishers of men.
What shall I render to the Lord for all His benefits toward me?
First, we shall take up the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the Lord.."
Second, the psalmist said in verses 14 and 18 say: 14 I will pay my vows to the Lord now in the presence of all His people.
To vow is to make a serious promise, just like a debt, the debtor is responsible for paying the debt. Therefore, we must pay our vow to the Lord. The preacher reminds us in Ecclesiastes 5:4-5: " 4 When you make a vow to God, do not delay to pay it; for He has no pleasure in fools. Pay what you have vowed—5 Better not to vow than to vow and not pay.
Here God is not asking us to make a vow, but reminding us not to speak rashly before God. We are not encouraged to make a vow before God, but if we make a vow before God, we should pay it back.
Sometimes we have to pay a huge price for our vows. In the book of Judges, before fighting the Ammonites, Jephthah made a vow to the Lord, and said, “If You will indeed deliver the people of Ammon into my hands, then it will be that whatever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the people of Ammon, shall surely be the Lord’s, and I will offer it up as a burnt offering.” (Judges 11:30-31).
The Lord heard Jephthah's prayer and handed the Ammonites into his hands. So, he defeated the Ammonites greatly, from Aroar to Minic, to Abele-Kiramin, and captured twenty cities. In this way, the Ammonites were subdued by the Israelites.
When he came home from the war, he must have gone back happily, but when he got home, he found that the first person to greet him was not someone else, but his daughter! And she is his only child, besides, there are no children!
Brothers and sisters, would you be happy if one day you came home and your daughter came to greet you? Of course, we will be happy, especially Jephthah, after he defeated the Ammonites. But Jephthah was not happy, because of his vow, he had to offer his daughter as a burnt offering to the LORD, because she was the first to come out of his house to meet him.
So, the Bible says: And it came to pass, when he saw her, that he tore his clothes, and said, “Alas, my daughter! You have brought me very low! You are among those who trouble me! For I have given my word to the Lord, and I cannot go back on it.” (Judges 11:35).
Jephthah was indeed sad, but he did not regret it. He didn't say to God, God, I'm sorry, I made a mistake just now, can I change my vow?
And his daughter was a very obedient daughter. She understood his father's struggle and pain, so she was willing to cooperate. The daughter said to her father, “My father, if you have given your word to the Lord, do to me according to what has gone out of your mouth, because the Lord has avenged you of your enemies, the people of Ammon.” (36)
She only asked one thing from her father, She said to her father, “Let this thing be done for me: let me alone for two months, that I may go and wander on the mountains and bewail my virginity, my friends and I.”
Jephthah agrees to his daughter’s request, and two months later, she returned to his father, and his father "did to her as he vowed."
Ecclesiastes reminds us that it is best not to make a vow to God. It is easy for many people to make a vow to God, and it is easy to forget what they have made. But such people are not pleasing to God.
What shall I render to the Lord for all His benefits toward me?
First, we shall take up the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the Lord.."
Second, the psalmist said in verses 14 and 18 say: 14 I will pay my vows to the Lord now in the presence of all His people.
Finally, the psalmist said in verse 17: I will offer to You the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and will call upon the name of the Lord.
O my soul, you have said to the Lord, “You are my Lord, my goodness is nothing apart from You.” Psalm 16:2
Whoever offers praise glorifies Me; and to him who orders his conduct aright I will show the salvation of God.” Psalm 50:23
Why do we glorify God by offering the praises and thanksgiving? For a man who offers thanksgiving to the Lord is a man who believes that he has nothing but God. He knows that everything he has is the grace of God.
As the psalmist says in verse 16: O Lord, truly I am Your servant; I am Your servant, the son of Your maidservant; You have loosed my bonds.
This Psalm is expressed in poetic style. We all know that repeated sentences in poetry emphasize their meaning. The Psalmist emphasized his relationship with God. He repeats the phrase "I am Your servant" here, and in the third line he says " the son of Your maidservant."
If we refer to Exodus 21:2-7, the third sentence has a special meaning. The son of the maidservant, although he is also a slave, He is a slave to his master for life.
When the psalmist said, O Lord, truly I am Your servant; the son of Your maidservant; You have loosed my bonds. He understood that he was God's servant for life and belonged to the Lord all his life. He is a servant who will never be free. But God has loosened his bond, God has set him free. Therefore, he offered a thanksgiving offering to the Lord.
Brothers and sisters, as Christians, we also know that we have nothing to be proud of. We are no different from the psalmist. We were slaves to sin. God set us free and brought us into the kingdom of His beloved Son. Therefore, we must live humbly before God, obey God completely, and live a life that pleases God. The glory of God will be revealed in us.
A Christian who offers a sacrifice of thanksgiving is a satisfied person. People who are not satisfied will only complain before God. The Israelites in the Old Testament era experienced God's Miraculous deliverance, God led them out of Egypt with great power, from the land of slavery, into the land of Canaan, which flowed with milk and honey. God provided them with all their needs in life, but they were not satisfied in their hearts, there was no gratitude, only complaints.
Only the contented will be grateful to God. There are many people in the world who get a lot, but they feel they are not enough. Since childhood, my mother has always reminded us that the human heart is like a bottomless pit that can never be filled.
Brothers and sisters, those who are grateful before God are the happiest people. Why? Because he/she is satisfied. If we are not satisfied, we will not be happy or grateful. Many times, we like to focus on what we don't have instead of being thankful for what we have, and as a result we are never satisfied.
In fact, the real blessing is not how much material you get, but how you respond to what God has given you. If you are satisfied with what God has given you, you will be grateful for what you have received. A truly happy person is content with all the needs and gifts that God has given, and makes good use of all the resources God has entrusted to him to glorify God. He will continue to pursue and equip himself in the truth of God, so that his life and service will be more in line with God’s will, be acceptable to God, be glorified, and benefit others.
May God help us to reflect on ourselves and ask ourselves, what shall I render to the Lord for all His benefits toward me? May the Lord also help us to
take up the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the Lord’ to pay our vows to the Lord now in the presence of all His people; to offer to the Lord the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and call upon the name of the Lord.
May God bless you!
