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God's Benefit Package
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We serve a God who hears and helps. The psalmist declares in Psalm 116:1, "I love the Lord because he heard my prayer and because he inclined his ear to my supplication." This is the first great benefit of trusting in God: we serve a prayer-hearing and prayer-answering God.
Don't let anyone convince you that prayer doesn't work. When you sincerely call on the name of the Lord, He will hear you and He will answer you. This isn't about rushed prayers or last-minute desperation—this is about genuine, heartfelt supplication. When you kneel at the side of your bed and cry out to God with a sincere heart, something powerful happens.
Prayer is a privilege. God doesn't have to hear us, and God doesn't have to answer us. Yet He does. When you call upon the Lord in your troubles, trials, sickness, or pain, He listens and He responds.
The psalmist continues, "The pains of Sheol surrounded me. Death had a hold of me. I found trouble and sorrow. But God delivered me" (Psalm 116:3-8). This teaches us that our God delivers from danger.
In Hebrew understanding, Sheol is a place—a state of living death and hopelessness. You don't have to physically die to experience Sheol. A job that doesn't value you can be a living hell. A loveless marriage can be a living hell. Student debt, systemic oppression, and countless other burdens can trap us in a place of spiritual and emotional death.
What makes Psalm 116 different is that the psalmist never describes what caused the trouble or mentions enemies and evildoers. Sometimes we bring trouble on ourselves. We make choices we shouldn't make. We go places we shouldn't go. We say yes when we should say no. Yet God is so good that He delivers us even from troubles we brought upon ourselves.
The Lord doesn't just deliver us from a place (Sheol); He also keeps us from experiences. He protects us from things we don't even know about. The storms that could have hit but didn't. The accidents narrowly avoided. The losses prevented. Many times we don't even realize how close we came to destruction because the Lord kept us from it.
The psalmist declares, "Be at rest, my soul. Because the Lord has dealt bountifully with you" (Psalm 116:7). Our God goes exceeding and abundantly above all we ask or think.
The Hebrew word for "bountifully" is gamal, which literally means to wean a child. Just as a nursing child must be weaned from dependence on milk, God weans us from dependence on things we thought we needed. As we grow in God, we realize we don't need human approval, validation, or favor. We've been weaned from that dependence because God has been so abundantly good to us.
When you've asked God for a little and received much, you know bountifulness. When you've been seated at a table you didn't qualify for, you know bountifulness. When God has been better to you than you deserved, that's bountifulness.
After recognizing God's goodness, the psalmist asks the crucial question: "What shall I render unto the Lord for all of his benefits unto me?" (Psalm 116:12).
God has been too good to remain silent. God deserves our praise. The only appropriate response to such boundless generosity is to open our mouths and praise the Lord from the depth of our hearts.
"I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul shall make her boast in the Lord."
Our gratitude should overflow in praise. God deserves the glory for every battle He's fought, every prayer He's answered, and every blessing He's given. This praise should not be contained or restrained—it should flow freely from a grateful heart.
Since it is the Lord's praise and it was paid for by His Son's blood, we should give it to Him the way He deserves it: with lifted hands, with open mouths, with hallelujahs from our hearts.
As the gospel singer Andre Crouch wrote in 1972:
How can I say thanks for the things you've done for me? Things so undeserved, yet you gave to prove your love for me. The voices of a million angels could not express my gratitude. All that I am and ever hope to be, I owe it all unto Thee.
The answer to how we say thanks is simple: To God be the glory. To God be the glory. For all the things He has done. With His blood He has saved me. With His power He has raised me. To God be the glory for all the things He has done.
If you're here today and you want to know more about this God—a God who hears and helps, a God who delivers from danger, a God who goes above and beyond—we invite you. If you've drifted from your faith, if you're seeking a church home where you can be fed with God's Word and encouraged to use your gifts for the kingdom, our deacons will be at the altar immediately after this service. Come and let us know that today is your day to give your life to the Lord.
