like turning your Bibles, you can turn to Psalm 98. To begin today, while the Psalms are still fresh in our minds, we are considering some summation kind of truths about them. And so today we're gonna discuss, the Lord has made known his salvation, the Psalms singing salvation or salvation in the Psalms. Are you saved? It's a good question to ask yourself today. Perhaps you've heard it many times before. Many people I think today know that question. But I submit that few know the full dimensions of what it means. Too often today, our conceptions of what it means to be saved are extremely reductionistic and therefore not very powerful. And we want to address some of that by applying the lessons while these are fresh in our minds from the Psalms. Today's sermon, I have a lot of territory to cover and I will try to do it in a relatively timely manner because in order to cover this theme of salvation in the Psalms, I really need to talk about all the Psalms. Last week, we looked at where the Psalms are designed to take us by looking at the book of Hebrews. Jesus is Lord of all. If you don't get that from the Psalms, you haven't not yet understood them. He is the anointed king. And then by singing his Psalms, we are enculturated into life in his kingdom. But really today we're going on to ask, what is his kingship like? Okay, so Jesus is Lord. He's king over everything. What does that mean he does? What should that, mean for life in this world, for the whole history of this world, for your life? And I think we can put the answer very simply, is that He saves. He saves. Look with me at Psalm 98. And it's just our entry point into considering this today. Psalm 98, verses one through three says, Oh, sing to the Lord a new song, for He has done marvelous things. His right hand and His holy arm have worked salvation for Him. The Lord has made known his salvation. He has revealed his righteousness in the sight of the nations. He has remembered his steadfast love and faithfulness to the house of Israel. All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God. Here in one of these divine kingship Psalms, we are called upon to praise the Lord, to rejoice exceedingly in God. Why? What has he done that should evoke this kind of praise? It says in the text here that his right hand and his holy arm have worked salvation for him. That's what he has done. That's how he has shown his kingship. He has brought about salvation. Of course, when the text says it's worked salvation for him, it doesn't mean he saved himself. It means he didn't need saving. It means He has worked salvation in this world. He has brought about this kind of salvation. And that's why the next verse goes on to say that the Lord has made known His salvation. He has revealed His righteousness in the sight of the nations. He is working in such a way that all the earth will have to acknowledge His righteousness. And what are they going to observe to know that? They're going to see Him working salvation. That's what He's doing. And that's why the next verse says, he has remembered his steadfast love and faithfulness to the house of Israel. All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God. In other words, this salvation we're talking about here, this text is specifically referencing, is the way God dealt with his people Israel. His working on their behalf to bring them to himself, his deliverance of them to unite them with Himself so that He would be their God and they would be His people, that they would be a kingdom of priests to Him. Him doing that means He has demonstrated how righteous He is in the sight of all the nations. Him doing that means that the earth has seen His salvation. That's what we want to talk about here today because that is what the Psalms talk about through and through. Psalms 1 and 2 set the stage for us about understanding salvation as it's talked about in the Psalms. Psalm 1, of course, calls you to the blessed life. Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers, but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. Psalm 1 is calling you to true happiness, complete fulfillment, the abundant life, with God by delighting in the Lord's instructions. And then as the Psalm goes on, we see very clearly that there are two groups, pardon me, two groups of people that this Psalm is envisioning and that carry on throughout all the Psalms, the righteous and the wicked. Clearly you want to be a part of the righteous. This man who delights in the law of the Lord is like a tree planted by the streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. And all that he does, he prospers. The wicked are not so, but are like the chaff that the wind drives away. Therefore, the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish. Two groups, the righteous and the wicked, You clearly want to be a part of the righteous, the blessed group. Psalm 2 then sings of how this is working out in all of earth's history. Why do the nations rage and the people's plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed. Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us. The nations are raging against the Lord and his anointed king. What does the Lord do? He who sits in the heavens laughs. The Lord holds them in derision. As for me, I have set my king on Zion, my holy hill. I will tell of the decree, the son says. The Lord has said to me, you are my son. Today I have begotten you. Ask of me and I will make the nations your heritage, the ends of the earth your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. Although the nations try to throw off God's reign, they try to establish their own, He sets His anointed King in Zion and makes the nations His heritage. Now right there, we've just established the fundamental setting for salvation. We've got the King and His kingdom. God has put His anointed King on His throne and He is going to inherit the nations. He is going to work out His divine prerogatives, his power, all of his character is going to be worked out in establishing this righteous reign. So with that context then, Psalm 3 launches into this issue of salvation. Look with me at it. It says, Oh Lord, how many are my foes? Many are rising against me. Many are saying of my soul, what do they say? There is no salvation for him in God. The point being, God won't save him. God won't deliver him. And so the appeal is, but you, oh Lord, are a shield about me, my glory and the lifter of my head. I cried aloud to the Lord and he answered me from his holy hill. Pardon me. Calling upon the Lord as the only one who can save here. and the confidence that brings, I lay down and slept. I woke again for the Lord sustained me. I will not be afraid of many thousands of people who have set themselves against me all around. Arise, O Lord, save me, O my God, for you strike all my enemies on the cheek. You break the teeth of the wicked." With that confidence, then, the psalm concludes, to the Lord's salvation, or salvation belongs to the Lord. Your blessing be upon your people. Already in Psalm 3, we have the song of salvation that is going to sound throughout the whole of the Psalms. This song of salvation is a beautiful, powerful song that's going to sing about literally everything in heaven and on earth, because this is what God accomplishes through his anointed king. Now you're gonna hear this theme and variation constantly throughout the Psalter, even in the variety of expressions for salvation in all the various circumstances of life and all the various circumstances of human history. Just to introduce us here, think about these variety of expressions. There are terms that mean help, salvation in the sense of help being given. Oh Lord, my God, in you do I take refuge. Save me from all my pursuers and deliver me, Psalm 7.1. Lord, in your strength the king rejoices, and in your salvation how greatly he exalts." Psalm 21, 1. And so it goes on to say, his glory is great, the king's glory is great, through your salvation, through your help, as God works on behalf of his anointed king. There are terms that mean a kind of taking out, or you might say rescue, He rescued me from my strong enemy and from those who hated me, for they were too mighty for me. Psalm 18, 17. And there are words that communicate rescue in the sense of escape. Rescue the weak and the needy, deliver them from the hand of the wicked. Psalm 82, 4. Yet another word communicates deliverance. The war horse is a false hope for salvation, and by its great might, it cannot rescue or deliver. And those are just various terms for salvation. And then there's a concept of redemption or a buying out. Redeem Israel, O God, out of all his troubles, Psalm 25, 22, praise. Another term communicating redemption. So he saved them from the hand of the foe and redeemed them from the power of the enemy, Psalm 106, verse 10 recounts. So Psalm 107 says, let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom he has redeemed from the hand of the foe. And if this rich variety of terminology was not already enough, we have many, many terms relating to helping, defending, keeping, covering, protecting, shielding, safety, hiding. Just take, for example, one term for keep or protect, preserve, such as in Psalm 140 verse one and verse four. Deliver me, O Lord, from evil men. Preserve me from violent men. Guard me, O God, from the hands of the wicked. Preserve me from violent men who have planned to trip up my feet. I've shared this just to prime your minds a little bit, to hear this theme in the Psalms, because you're going to hear it constantly. With that primer in place now, let us ask some important questions. First of all, what is salvation? As we're reading through the Psalms and we keep hearing about this, save me and the Lord saves, deliver me and the Lord delivers, rescue me and the Lord rescues, preserve, protect, hide, all these things. What exactly are we talking about? Well, as you've already picked up, salvation is help, deliverance, rescue. The Lord delivers all those who take refuge in his Son, the anointed King, as Psalm 2 says. But what does the Lord deliver those who call upon him from? I'm sure you've already heard this. A constant theme throughout the Psalms is that the Lord delivers or saves from enemies. We can call these, in many cases, evildoers or the wicked. Psalm 5, for an example, verse 4, for you are not a God who delights in wickedness. Evil may not dwell with you. The boastful shall not stand before your eyes. You hate all evildoers. You destroy those who speak lies. The Lord abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man. But I, through the abundance of your steadfast love, will enter your house. I will bow down towards your holy temple in the fear of you." The Lord delivers from these wicked men. Remember, going back to Psalm 1, there are two basic groups, the righteous and the wicked. Psalm 1 said, the Lord knows the way of the righteous. And you remember that that knowledge is a relationship of committing himself to them, bringing them to himself, entering into this relationship with him, calling them to himself, giving them his life. The Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish. We see in the Psalms that the wicked are those who devour the righteous. Another example, Psalm 10, pardon me, beginning in verse six. This wicked man says in his heart, I shall not be moved. Throughout all generations, I shall not meet adversity. His mouth is filled with cursing and deceit and oppression. Under his tongue are mischief and iniquity. He sits in ambush in the villages. In hiding places, he murders the innocent. His eyes stealthily watch for the helpless. He lurks in ambush like a lion in his thicket. He lurks that he may seize the poor. He seizes the poor when he draws him into his net. The helpless are crushed, sink down, and fall by his might. He says in his heart, God has forgotten. He has hidden his face. He will never see it. The wicked are out to devour and destroy the righteous. The righteous need God to deliver them. Arise, O Lord, this very Psalm will go on to say. Lift up your hand, forget not the afflicted. Why does the wicked renounce God and say in his heart, you will not call to account? We need God to save us from the wicked. Now, as we enter into the Psalms, there is a little bit of a complication here. Because you find, as you read the Psalms, that the line between the wicked and the righteous, or between good and evil, runs through every human heart. Therefore, salvation must encompass salvation even from the evil that is in your heart. Salvation encompasses salvation from those who would destroy the life of those who are seeking God, taking them, if you will, away from God. But it also encompasses then the very evil in your own life that would take you away from God. Look with me over at Psalm 32 to give us one example here. Verses 1 through 5, blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered, Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity, in whose spirit there is no deceit. And so the psalmist goes on to recount here, for when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long, for day and night your hand was heavy on me, my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity. I said I will confess my transgressions to the Lord, and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. Therefore, let everyone who is godly offer prayer to you at a time when you may be found. Pardon me. The good news the Psalms are proclaiming here, this blessedness that Psalm 32 talks about to begin with, is that there is a solution for our sin. That God really does work on behalf of those who confess to him, who come to him in humility and submission and trust and run to him He is righteous. He exercises his righteousness to deliver them. In fact, it's called here, for example, in this text, forgiveness. To forgive means to lift or to raise or to take away. Taking away, in this case, sin. Psalm 25, 18 asks the Lord to forgive all my sins. Psalm 85, 2 states that the Lord forgave the iniquity of his people. And this is parallel in this text, by the way, with covering their sins. And this is contextually connected with restoring the fortunes of Jacob and turning from God's anger. The Psalms appeal over and over again to the God of our salvation to do this again and do this again. And in fact, it's described as, grant us your salvation. In Psalm 99.8, the Lord is described as a forgiving God to his people who called upon him. Psalm 51, the one we sometimes even sing together as a prayer of confession, connects the God of my salvation, that's the language in the Psalm, to the joy of, and the joy of your salvation with God's mercy, with blotting out transgressions, with washing from iniquity, with cleansing from sin, with purging with hyssop, hiding your face from my sins, creating a clean heart, renewing a steadfast spirit, and God's presence and his Holy Spirit being with us. So given all that we've just summarized right here, I think we're entering into a preliminary understanding. Maybe we can give a preliminary summation of the song of salvation in the Psalms. Salvation is a deliverance. It's a deliverance from evil. It's a deliverance from evil in any way that is manifested. It's a deliverance from evil attacking, if you will, from without. It's a deliverance from evil from within. Now we need to ask, to what are we delivered? If we're delivered from all evil, what are we delivered to? We're gonna see that in a moment, but before we do that, let me ask another question. If that's what salvation is, how does salvation work? over and over again. In fact, this theme is sometimes so embedded in the Psalms that we almost miss it because it's so obvious. The experience of salvation is carried out, it works itself out in our lives by calling and answering. We call upon the name of the Lord and he hears and answers. We could simply say, I think in some ways, the Psalms simply are calling on the name of the Lord. That's what the Psalms are. They're one huge book of the Bible, songs we sing that are calling on the name of the Lord. Again, after that opening foundation in Psalms 1 and 2, just look at the following Psalms and how they exemplify calling on the name of the Lord. and looking for Him to answer. Psalm 3, 4 says, I cried aloud to the Lord and He answered me from His holy hill. And so Psalm 3, 7 appropriately then appeals, Arise, O Lord, save me, O my God. What does Psalm 4 say? Answer me when I call, O God of my righteousness. You have given me relief when I was in distress. Be gracious to me and hear my prayer. What does Psalm 5 say? Give ear to my words, O Lord. Consider my groaning. Give attention to the sound of my cry, my King and my God, for to you do I pray. What does Psalm 6 say? O Lord. I mean, this is calling on the name of the Lord. Rebuke me not in your anger, nor discipline me in your wrath. Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am languishing. Heal me, O Lord, for my bones are troubled. Verse Psalm 7, O Lord my God, in you do I take refuge. Save me from all my pursuers and deliver me. Less like a lion, they tear my soul apart, rending it in pieces with none to deliver. And we can just go on and on throughout the psalm. Psalm 18.3 says, I call upon the Lord who is worthy to be praised, and I am saved from my enemies. And because the cords of death entangled him, the psalmist goes on to cry out, in my distress I called upon the Lord. To my God I cried for help. From his temple he heard my voice, and my cry to him reached his ears." Psalm 28.1, "'To you, O Lord, I call,' he says, "'lest I be like those who go down to the pit.'" Psalm 30, verse 8, "'To you, O Lord, I cry, and to the Lord I plead for mercy, for what profit is there in my blood if I go down to the pit?' Psalm 116, rejoices in God's salvation, and the psalm recounts this, The snares of death encompassed me. The pangs of Sheol laid hold on me. I suffered distress and anguish. Then I called on the name of the Lord. O Lord, I pray, deliver my soul." And in response to the Lord's deliverance, the psalmist then continues to call on the name of the Lord in verses 13 and 17 of the same psalm. In other words, calling on the name of the Lord is ubiquitous in the psalms. You just simply can't get away from it. That's what they're doing here. The Psalms are calling upon the name of the Lord. Of course, we know that evildoers do not call upon the name of the Lord. Psalm 14.4 and 53.4. Why? They don't trust Him. They don't feel like they need Him. But the poor and the needy do trust. They commit themselves entirely to Him. That's what calling on the name of the Lord is. In fact, that term, we talked about terms for salvation, the term to trust one of them is used 46 times in the Psalms. Both expressions of trust in the Lord, exhortations to trust in the Lord. Psalm 84.12 declares the blessedness of the man who trusts in the Lord. Pardon me. Psalm 40, verse four will say, blessed is the man who makes the Lord his trust, who does not turn to the proud, to those who go astray after a lie. Psalm 65, five says, by awesome deeds, you answer us in righteousness, O God of our salvation, you who are the trust of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest sea. Psalm 71, five, for you, O Lord, are my hope, my trust, O Lord, from my youth. Folks, what we're talking about here is described in other words in the Psalms as waiting upon the Lord, seeking the Lord, seeking His face, seeking His strength. That's what this kind of relationship with God does. And then what does the Lord do as those who trust Him call upon His name? He hears. In fact, the Lord does mighty deeds. The Psalm will describe them. He arises as a warrior to defeat his enemies and to deliver his people. That's what he does when his people call upon him. In fact, Psalm 18, pardon me, describes it this way. From his temple, he heard my voice and my cry reached to him, reached his ears. Then the earth reeled and rocked. The foundations also of the mountains trembled and quaked because he was angry. Smoke went up from his nostrils and devouring fire from his mouth. Glowing coals flamed forth from him. He bowed the heavens and came down. Thick darkness was under his feet. He rode on a cherub and flew. He came swiftly on the wings of the wind. He made darkness his covering, his canopy around him. Thick clouds dark with water. Out of the brightness before him, hailstones and coals of fire broke through his clouds. The Lord thundered in the heavens. The Most High uttered His voice, hailstones and coals of fire. He sent out His arrows and scattered them. He flashed forth lightnings and routed them. He sent from on high. He took me. He drew me out of many waters. He rescued me from my strong enemy and from those who hated me, for they were too mighty for me. Ever pictured God doing that when you call upon Him for salvation? That's what the psalm says He does for those who call upon His name, put their trust in Him, submit to Him. You see, one of the truths that comes out so beautifully in this calling and answering and the whole relationship that presupposes is that you can't save yourself. Salvation comes only from the Lord. You need Him. to do exactly what Psalm 18 just described. Otherwise, you are lost. You will never overcome your enemies, both the sin without, the evil within, and the evil without. You won't overcome if the Lord does not work on your behalf. For God alone my soul waits in silence. From him comes my salvation. He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress. I shall not be greatly shaken, Psalm 62. When the Lord is, as Psalm 18 puts it, the horn of my salvation, it means that His strength is what accomplishes my salvation in Him. Therefore, I call upon the Lord who is worthy to be praised, and I am saved from my enemy. One more text. The salvation of the righteous is from the Lord. He is their stronghold in the time of trouble. The Lord helps them and delivers them. He delivers them from the wicked and saves them because they take refuge in Him. You see what we're seeing, folks? And I know I'm taking time here to give a lot of references because I want you to see this is simply everywhere in the Psalms. What we're seeing here is when the Lord exercises his kingship, when he sets his king on Zion, his holy hill, in the face of all the raging of this world, what happens? He saves those who call upon him. That's exactly what his kingship does. Psalm 74, 12, yet God is my King from of old, working salvations in the midst of the earth. And by the way, that's even a plural there, salvations. That is, He keeps doing this. He's always doing this, all the time in our lives. The Lord is my strength and my song. He has become my salvation, Psalm 118, verse 14 says. And now here comes an important point, too, to understand. As a king, The Lord brings about salvation by exercising judgment. Judgment is a key theme of how the Psalms show us God bringing about salvation. Over and over again, we see in the Psalms, we call upon the Lord to exercise judgment as the King. Why? To establish what is right and to destroy what is wrong. Psalm 35, 24. Vindicate me, O Lord my God, according to your righteousness. and let them, my enemies, not rejoice over me. That word vindicate as it's translated in ESV is just a word for judge. Judge me. Here's why that's important. A lot of times we think salvation means escaping God's judgment, but that because we presuppose judgment is only a negative thing. We forget the positive side. Why does God judge? To destroy the evil, but to establish what is good. And that's why his judgment is necessary. You realize without God's judgment, there is no salvation. If he doesn't exercise his judgment in this earth, then we are all lost. We need him to. Psalm 135, 14, for the Lord will vindicate his people and have compassion on his servants. Judgment is necessary. From the heavens you utter judgment. The earth feared and was still when God arose to establish judgment, to save all the humble of the earth. Psalm 76, 89. Did you hear that? When God arose to establish judgment, which is to save the humble of the earth. His judgment saves. We even rejoice then in God's judgment. To go back to the text we started with in Psalm 98. Let the rivers clap their hands. Let the hills sing for joy together before the Lord, for he comes to judge the earth. are glad that He comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world with righteousness and the peoples with equity. And folks, He has proven that by sending Jesus Christ, His Son, and by raising Him from the dead. Let all mortal flesh keep silent, we just sang a moment ago. Why should we sing that? Why should all the earth say, we have seen that God is establishing judgment in the earth? because Jesus has come and risen from the dead. That's God establishing salvation. That's God setting his anointed king. This is what happens. This is how salvation works. Now, what are the results of salvation? I need to move on here quickly. What are the results of salvation? Here we get back to that question I asked a moment ago. Salvation is deliverance. It's from all evil. But to what? You can answer that, I think, to all good. Pardon me, to all that is truly good, which in a word is to say to God himself, to his kingdom. You see in the Psalms, the results of salvation are peace, shalom, and the fullness of what that means in scripture, everything in its right place. everything harmonious, everything prosperous, everything being everything it was made to be, that's peace and safety. Even from the beginning, Psalm 4, 8, in peace I will both lie down and sleep, for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety. And by the way, that word in safety is another word for salvation. Elsewhere translated that. And when God makes us gives peace and safety, that gives rise to praise. Why do the Psalms keep bringing us to praise over and over again? Because the Lord is a great king, revealing his salvation, and we are experiencing that, and so we praise him. We praise him with a new song all the time, because his salvation isn't just some kind of a past deal, something that happened in the past, like a historical event. It certainly did happen in the past, but it's continuing, and it will continue, and he will triumph, and he will be king. And we praise Him for that. And of course, that means then blessedness for us, life with God. Is that ultimately not what the blessedness is that the Psalms are calling us to? It's union with God. It's knowing Him. It's having Him give us all of His life. Psalm 23, one of the most famous Psalms in all the Psalter, closes on this very note. In Psalm 23, verse 6, pardon me, where the text says, surely goodness and mercy, as God said, his steadfast love, shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. I will be with God. Anything that would have kept me away from God has been defeated, all evil, both within and without. God has overcome all of that, and he's brought me to himself. and I will dwell with him now forever. Psalm 27, verse four. One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after. In other words, when we say, God save me, what am I really after? Is it just, I don't want pain, I don't want suffering, I don't want sorrow, I don't want hard things to happen, get me out of them, God. No, one thing have I asked of the Lord that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple. Nothing between. I can see him face to face. This is the satisfaction of your soul and everything you were made for, and it has all been overcome. by his salvation. Pardon me. Psalm 84, we sometimes sing a song based on this psalm. Pardon me. So I hope it's something familiar to you, but it says the same thing. How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts. My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the Lord. My heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God. Blessed are those who dwell in your house, ever singing your praise. This is what God's salvation does, and that's what we are after. You see, ultimately, it's God himself we want. Psalm 42 and 43 are a beautiful expression a cry to God in the midst of deep suffering and sorrow, that again, many people are familiar with because of its opening words, as the deer pants for flowing streams. Pardon me. So pants my soul for you, oh God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? My tears have been my food day and night while they say to me continually, where is your God? But the refrain of Psalms 42 and 43 together says this. Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise him. Notice this, my salvation and my God. God is your salvation. What is salvation to? It's to God. In fact, God himself says, or I should say this, the psalmist asks God to say to his soul in Psalm 35.3, I am your salvation. If I can only hear God say that, I am your salvation. The Lord is my light and my salvation. Psalm 27.1, whom shall I fear? Psalm 68.19, God is our salvation. You see, through salvation, the Lord's kingdom of righteousness and peace is established and His trusting, loyal people dwell with Him forever. This is salvation in the Psalms. Now, I need to apply this here quickly to what I believe are some inadequate conceptions of salvation that we often have in our day and which keep us from enjoying the fullness of what this means to have this relationship with God, a relationship called Salvation. So I want to, just in conclusion, really exalt Jesus as Lord in salvation, even by pointing out some areas where we need to eliminate some false conceptions. First of all, we need to eliminate what I'm gonna call here the dualism. Dualism, primarily between, we often put it in terms of physical and spiritual, physical and spiritual. We seem to believe in our day that what happens in this life is not really connected. I mean, like truly intrinsically connected with the spiritual realm or our life with God. That's when we start falling into ideas like salvation is basically a ticket into heaven when you die. Get you out of hell, get you into heaven when you die. That's what salvation is. What else is that what salvation is? You can see if you have that kind of conception, salvation doesn't really have anything to do with the struggle in your relationship right now, the depression you're facing. In fact, you begin to think, actually better if I just died because then I'd be in heaven. You start to get that kind of reasoning going, right? Because the suffering I'm going through doesn't have anything to do with actual salvation. That's only for when you die. You can never get that idea from the Psalms. The Psalms are talking about salvation worked out in and through everything in your life. Everything your body experiences, you need God to deliver you from. Why do you get cancer? Because we live in a sin-cursed world and you need God to deliver you through cancer to himself. And He will do that for those who call upon His name, for those who submit to Him, put their trust in Him. Pardon me. In other words, we need to say, I need God to save me through this experience so that I come to His eternal kingdom, so that I know Him, so that He is communicating His life to me and I am enjoying life in Him. Folks, eliminate the dichotomy in your minds. that salvation is just about the afterlife somehow, and that what I'm experiencing right now isn't intrinsically connected with that. No, God is bringing everything through this. If that were really true, if this dichotomy were really true, this spiritual, physical dichotomy we've got going, then we should ask ourselves, why the incarnation? Why did Jesus actually have to become flesh, like physical material being in order to bring us to glory? You see, this is all part of God's plan. It's not some separate plan. It all works together. We're always calling upon God to save us. Is there ever a time where we wouldn't call upon God to save us? Again, this dichotomy starts to work out in our lives Sometimes when we think about this, I asked God to save me, you know, at point X in my life. Okay, now that's done. I don't ever ask God to save me again, because that's already taken care of. I just, now I know I need to trust him and things like that. But, and I know I experienced this as a teenager. I'm sure many of you have too. You start to think, well, maybe I need to ask God to save me again. Because maybe if I didn't really believe Him last time, you know, maybe I'm not really saved. And so you struggle and say, okay, well, I'll go ask God again to save me. God, if I didn't do it right last time, maybe don't say those words. If I didn't really trust you last time when I asked you to save me, please save me this time. And then we go on and maybe we struggle with some sins, we struggle with, okay, God, now this time, I really mean it, save me this time. And I hope it sticks, you know, and I don't doubt anymore. And then we try to give people assurance by saying, well, did you ask God at date X to save you? Well, then don't ever doubt. We're starting to get into an unbiblical framework of thinking about salvation. The fact is, What a calling on the name of the Lord is, is an expression of a contrite faith, believing heart. And so we call upon the name of the Lord. And then we do that again tomorrow. And then we do that again tomorrow. And we do it again the next day. Not because we don't believe him or don't think it worked last time. But because folks, this is a living relationship with God. This is God actively saving me through the very course of life and everything I experience, all the temptations, all the enemies, all the evils, and he's bringing me through it, and I'm calling upon his name, and he's bringing me through it, and I'm calling upon his name, and this is good, and it's delightful. But it's a relationship of God with God. And this is exactly the way the New Testament brings out salvation, pardon me, That's why we can say biblically all three of these statements. I have been saved. I am being saved. And I will be saved. I have been saved. Titus 3.5, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit. I am being saved. 1 Corinthians 1.18, for the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing. present tense, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. Pardon me. This is what makes sense of even passages like this. The apostle Paul told Timothy in 1 Timothy 4, 18, keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching, your teaching to the people. Persist in this, for by doing so, you will save both yourself and your hearers. You will save them through your teaching. So folks, I'm preaching here today to save you. And that's a true biblical statement. Not because we trust in us, but precisely because we trust in God. And God is using the teaching and the preaching to bring you to himself. He's calling forth faith in your heart in what he says so that you respond to him and he brings you to himself. We can also say, biblically, I will be saved. Sometimes I can jokingly say that to people, you know, I'm a pastor, And I can say, you know, I'm actually not saved yet. I will be saved, but I'm not yet. You're a pastor. You're supposed to be saved, right? The way we think of saved today. But I'm simply saying, biblically, is my salvation, is your salvation complete? No, not yet. God is bringing it all to fruition. Listen to Romans 5, 9 and 10. Since therefore we have now been justified by His blood, much more shall we be saved. This is what's going to happen by Him from the wrath of God. We shall be saved by Christ from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more now that we are reconciled shall we be saved by His life. Jesus' ongoing life is saving us, and it will bring it to fruition. We can count on that. That's a wonderful truth. The Apostle Paul certainly had this sense of how salvation worked in his life. Listen to what he said, his very last writing in 2 Timothy 4, verse 18. He's facing the end. He's facing, if you will, the last trial of his life, where he will be put to death shortly. And he says this, The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed and bring me safely, that's sozo, that's salvation, into his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen. Right? God will save me. It doesn't matter what's coming. God will save me. I trust him in that. And so I call upon his name. You see how eliminating the dualism of the physical and spiritual opens up the vast richness of how present and active God's salvation is in your life in everything you experience. And I mean everything. I need to make one more point. We need to eliminate also the individualism of salvation that tends to be what we imagine when we think about salvation. The Psalms are so wonderful in that they combine deeply personal experience. Deeply personal. I don't think there's any more deeply personal section of Scripture than the Psalms. But they combine that with God's corporate and cosmic scope of salvation. Let me say it this way. Salvation in the Psalms is not something that happens inside me as opposed to outside me. You see what I'm getting at there? Salvation is not just simply something that changes my heart, but nothing about the reality of the world. No, it's both. Salvation is not something that happens to me as an individual, as opposed to something that happens to the people of God and to the whole world. You see, God's salvation is complete when His kingdom has come, when everything is put right. And not until then. And that means, just like you see this prayed in the Psalms, our salvation is all interconnected. Do you realize that your salvation and your salvation and your salvation are very much interconnected? That when God saves, he saves his people, not just individuals, right? And it all works together. in his plan. That's why even as the church, we are looking for God's salvation and we're looking for it together. Why we want God to keep us all. This is God's means of working out, bringing us to his eternal kingdom. I need to close here. Every experience on every level, social, political, personal, spiritual, is caught up into Jesus's reign as the saving Lord. So call upon his name. See the mighty salvation that the Lord makes known. Or maybe I can ask you in conclusion today, do you sing the salvation that the Psalms sing? Do you call upon the name of the Lord? If so, would you confess your faith together? Hallelujah. Jesus is Lord. Let's do it as a congregation. Hallelujah. Jesus is Lord.