I Will Follow Him

 

Our text for today is Psalm 116:5-8, 12-14 “Gracious is the Lord, and righteous; Yes, our God is compassionate. 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 rescued my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling. . . What shall I render to the Lord for all His benefits toward me? I shall lift up the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord. I shall pay my vows to the Lord . . . in the presence of all His people.”

 

So, according to the psalmist, what has God done? He tells us in verses 5-8: The Lord has dealt bountifully with us; He has rescued our soul from death, our eyes from tears, our feet from stumbling.

 

And what, then, ought to be our response? He answers that question in verses 12-14: “What shall I render to Him for all His benefits? I will call upon Him and pay my vows in the presence of everyone.”

 

So, let’s start with verses 5-8. Any honest Christian who’s taken the time to review what their lives were like before they were born again through faith in Christ’s sacrificial atonement for their personal sins – any of them will quickly and willingly proclaim to others “the excellencies of Him who has called [them] out of darkness into His marvelous light.” (1 Peter 2:9) They will strive to tell others walking in darkness of God’s incomprehensible truth that He “demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”  (Romans 5:8) 

 

Nevertheless, while we were actively living life our own way, doing what was right in our own eyes, caring not about God or His commandments – despite it all, God delivered His own blessed Son to die a torturous death for us so WE would not have to experience His wrath for our sins.

 

It always causes me to wonder about the true state of someone’s salvation when they brush off my suggestion to routinely ask God to reveal to them their sins – as if to ask Him that question is unworthy of their time.

 

But the truth seems clear to me: Anyone who claims to be a follower of Christ but is unwilling or reluctant to ask God to show them their sins – they’re deceiving only themselves about their salvation. Those who are unwilling for God to reveal to them their sins do so only because they really don’t want to know their sins. They like living as they do and being as they are.

 

An unwillingness for God to reveal their sins is the very antithesis of the attitude of godly men and women described in Scripture. They WANTED God to show them where they were failing Him, so they might repent and please Him. For example, we’ve looked in the past at David’s prayer in Psalm 139, and we do it again to make the point “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me and lead me in the way everlasting!” Psalm 139:23–24

 

Job cried out to God: (Job 13:23) “How many are my iniquities and sins? Make known to me my rebellion and my sin;” and Paul counseled the Corinthians: (2 Corinthians 13:5): “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves.”

 

So, tell me how a Christian who doesn’t routinely ask God to reveal to them their sins – how is that person walking with Christ?

 

In his book, The Problem with Pain, CS Lewis writes: “We have a strange illusion that mere time cancels sin. I have heard others, and I have heard myself, recounting cruelties and falsehoods committed in boyhood as if they were no concern of the present speaker's, and even with laughter. But mere time does nothing either to the fact or to the guilt of a sin. The guilt is washed out not by time but by repentance and the blood of Christ: if we have repented these early sins we should remember the price of our forgiveness and be humble.”

 

Repentance is the only means of forgiveness, and humility is the mother of repentance. Without humility we will never honestly repent – and let me reiterate the point: Without repentance there can be no forgiveness.

 

The first recorded words of Jesus in Matthew’s gospel was, ‘Repent’ (Matthew 4:17). And the apostle John warned his readers: “If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us.” (1 John 1:8-10)

 

Christian, this is critical for our understanding of who we are in Christ, and why being in Christ is so vital to our lives both now and in eternity. If we’re unwilling to let God show us our sins – past and current – then how can we truly rejoice in His rescue, as the psalmist in today’s text describes it? How can we begin to grasp how close to eternal death we’ve come? How can we really appreciate the tears He’s save us from and the disastrous life failures that never happened to us?

 

Listen, please. Unless we see our sins in HIS light, the psalmist’s follow-on verses about what we can render back to God will mean little to us and our answer to that question will be anemic at best: “And perhaps worst of all, our attempts at evangelization will fall flat because the joy of our rescue from the domain of darkness will be muted because we’re not entirely convinced our darkness was really that dark.

 

Listen to those verses in 5-8 again: “Gracious is the Lord, and righteous; Yes, our God is compassionate. 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 rescued my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling.

 

Yes. Yes. God is gracious and compassionate well beyond our deserving. And it is worth our while to frequently call to mind our past lifestyles because when we do so with honest hearts we will be able to extrapolate – to deduce – where we’d be today if He had not SAVED us from a life of spiritual darkness.

 

Truly it is so, and please take time – lots of time and often – to think about how God saved us – saved YOU – from a lifetime of tears of regret, a lifetime of meaninglessness. He saved us from ending our lives like Solomon ended his, whose regrets bleed through that last chapter of Ecclesiastes: Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near when you will say, “I have no delight in them”; before the sun and the light, the moon and the stars are darkened. . . Remember Him before the silver cord is broken and the golden bowl is crushed, the pitcher by the well is shattered and the wheel at the cistern is crushed; then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it. “Vanity of vanities,” says the Preacher, “all is vanity!” (Ecclesiastes 12:1-2, 6-8)

 

And so, moving further through the text, the psalmist asks – and so should we: “What shall I render to the Lord for all His benefits toward me? Shall we live like ungrateful recipients of His many and abundant gifts? Don’t we know how that hurts His feelings, just as OUR feelings are hurt when our children ignore us or hardly visit or call anymore, despite the many sacrifices we made to protect them and to prosper them?

 

May God forbid it that we – you or I – ever be ungrateful to God for rescuing us from a life of tears and loss and regrets and hopelessness.  And so, what shall we render to Him? The psalmist answers that question in the next two verses: “I shall lift up the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord. I shall pay my vows to the Lord . . . in the presence of all His people.”

 

To the Hebrews, lifting the cup of salvation was in a measure like publicly raising a glass of toast in joyous celebration and honor to the Lord. If we listen carefully, we can almost hear him call out to the Lord as his cup is raised: “Hallelujah, O Lord. You alone are worthy to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing forever and ever.” (see Revelation 5:12-13)

 

In other words, God’s saving acts ought to produce a public response of gratitude and praise in the hearts of those who are sensitive to and appreciative of His overflowing mercy. And how might the believer ‘flesh’ out that gratitude in public, not only with words but also with actions?

 

Here is only one set of guidance from Scripture: “Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind . . . Abhor what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love; give preference to one another in honor . . . devoted to prayer, contributing to the needs of the saints, practicing hospitality . . . Do not be wise in your own estimation. Never pay back evil for evil to anyone.”

 

The truth is, we give a public response of gratitude to God when we live like Jesus calls us to live. And notice also from the psalmist, God’s saving acts produce within the believer an almost reflexive and spontaneous calling upon the name of the Lord. And that makes perfect sense to the believer: Psalm 8:1  O Lord, our Lord, How majestic is Your name in all the earth; Psalm 138:2 You have exalted your name and your word above all things; Proverbs 18:10  The name of the Lord is a strong tower; The righteous runs into it and is safe.”

 

What shall we render to the Lord for all His benefits toward us? Oh! How can we not give public thanks and public honor and public obedience to the One who has rescued our souls from death and our eyes from tears and our lives from incalculable regrets?  How can we not unashamedly call on His Name AND, how shall we not pay our vows to the Lord “n the presence of all His people?”

 

I want to pause here a few moments and consider the vows we have made to Him. What were those vows? To be honest, when we first committed ourselves to the Lord Jesus – whether as a young person or as an adult, most of us did not know what such a commitment meant. We only knew we were sinners and Jesus came to save sinners by releasing them from the debts those sins required. Many of us may have also promised Jesus we’d follow Him for the rest of our lives. But how many of us knew what that really meant?

 

I liken those vows to the vows young people make to each other at the altar of wedding. The most common marriage vow is: “I take you to be my wedded [husband/wife], to have and to hold, from this day forward,
for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, forsaking all others, till death do us part.”

 

When young people speak those vows, they usually have no idea where their lives together will bring them, and how those vows will be tested.

 

Many years ago, I met a woman whose husband of 55 years was suffering a slowly debilitating illness that had begun requiring near constant care. I remember asking her how she was coping and I’ll never forget her answer.

She told me she was doing well and then added: “I signed up for this when we first got married.” On the other hand, Nancy and I also know a woman who not very long into their marriage was diagnosed with a life-changing illness. But in her case, her husband divorced her.

 

To have and to hold, for better, for worse, in sickness and in health . . .

 

What are the vows that YOU have made to the Lord? The promises men and women make to each other at a marriage altar should not be different than those we make to the Lord at the altar of salvation. “For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, forsaking all other gods, till death brings me into Your presence.

 

And as many couples renew their marriage vows every 20 or 30 or 50 years, so the Christian ought to renew their vows to God – especially perhaps when life takes a turn for the worse as it often does as we age: “I will still follow YOU, I will still cherish you, I will still love you, in sickness and in health, in poverty and in wealth, and I will continue to forsake all that would pull me away from You.

 

Listen to another psalmist for whom life fell apart and yet renewed his vows to Him: “You have rejected us and brought us to dishonor, and do not go out with our armies. You cause us to turn back from the adversary; And those who hate us have taken spoil for themselves. You give us as sheep to be eaten and have scattered us among the nations . . . All this has come upon us, but we have not forgotten You, and we have not dealt falsely with Your covenant. Our heart has not turned back, and our steps have not deviated from Your way.” Psalm 44:9-11, 17-18

 

The prophet Habakkuk also maintained faithfulness to his vow, even though life for him was rapidly falling apart: “My inward parts trembled, at the sound my lips quivered. Decay enters my bones, and in my place I tremble because I must wait quietly for the day of distress, for the people to arise who will invade us. Though the fig tree should not blossom and there be no fruit on the vines, Though the yield of the olive should fail and the fields produce no food, though the flock should be cut off from the fold and there be no cattle in the stalls, Yet I will exult in the Lord, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation.” Habakkuk 3:16-18

 

Just before the Lord’s arrest and crucifixion, He gathered His disciples and told them: “You are those who have stood by Me in My trials.” Biblical scholars believe the Lord was referring, at least in part, to the various and often deadly opposition He faced throughout His ministry during which they also were often in mortal danger. I believe the Lord is here thanking them for their perseverance in remaining with Him.  (Luke 22:28)

 

And I also believe it does no harm to the whole of Scripture if we modified this text to read Jesus’ words to His disciples – you and me: You are those who have stood by Me in YOUR trials.

Think for a moment of the emotional and physical traumas you’ve faced in life – and through which you have persevered. Those trials aren’t anything to be glossed over, are they? They represent your life, your blood, your sweat, and your tears.

 

At any time, you could have given up. You could have walked away from your earlier vows. But you didn’t – and even if you did at one time walk away – you’ve returned. Thanks be to God – you’ve returned.

 

What shall you and I render to the Lord? We will with God’s help continue to publicly lift up the cup of salvation, call upon our Lord, and continue to pay our vows to Him in sickness, in health, in poverty and in wealth.

 

In 1963 a young woman by the name of Peggy March sang what became a popular song. Her lyrics tell of her love for a young man – but as the song played in my memory while I was preparing this message, I realized the lyrics could very easily apply to our love for our Jesus Christ. Think on these words at the close of this message:

 

I love him, I love him, I love him/And where he goes I'll follow, I'll follow, I'll follow/He'll always be my true love, my true love, my true love/From now until forever, forever, forever/I will follow him/Follow him, wherever he may go/There isn't an ocean too deep/A mountain so high it can keep, keep me away/Away from my love.

 

Amen