So let me invite you to open your Bibles to Psalm chapter 118. Psalm chapter 118. It's a fairly long chapter, I'll go rather briefly, because there's an important meeting afterwards. Now, Psalm 118. No, we're good, we're good. This is all part of what we're doing here together, okay? Psalm 118. Quick background on this specific Psalm. There's six psalms from Psalm 113 to 118. They're called the Hallel, H-A-L-L-E-L, Hallel Psalms. That means the praise psalms. Now, there's a lot of praise throughout the Bible, a lot of praise in the psalms, but these six psalms are very special. They kind of come as a group. And the people of God in the Old Testament used to sing these psalms on the Feast of Tabernacles. And then eventually, when the Passover would take place, they would gather and they would sing these psalms. And you may remember the night before Jesus went to the cross, after his last supper, it says, they went out at the night and sang a hymn. Most people believe this could be the hymn that they sang, because this was the final hymn of the Hallel Psalms that they always sang during the Passover when the people gathered, okay? So this Psalm was very particular for the people of God. So let's just jump in here. Psalm 118, the first four verses, the big idea we're gonna look at is we give praise to the Lord for His steadfast love. We give praise to the Lord for His steadfast love. First verse, oh, give thanks to the Lord for He is good, for His steadfast love endures forever. Let Israel say, His steadfast love endures forever. Let the house of Aaron say, His steadfast love endures forever. Let those who fear the Lord say, His steadfast love endures forever. The first verse of this chapter and the last verse are the same. These are bookends. He opens and he closes with the same big idea. Give thanks to the Lord for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever. Friends, you've been doing that all morning. You've been quoting this verse in your song and in our prayer. I was not shocked. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that the prayer that we opened our day with today had many of these phrases and these thoughts in them and many of these truths. And so this is right and good for the church to gather and recall that the Lord is good. He is good. Friends, he's always good. And I want to say this out loud. If our daughter did not get the transplant, the Lord is still good. And if our daughter didn't make it through the transplant surgery, the Lord is still good. I had to wrestle with that last week. because you know how your mind goes down different trails of what could be, what might be, and the pessimism of our hearts that's natural to most of us? You can go down a road and say, Lord, are you really good? Lord, what if this doesn't work out the way I want it to, the way I'm praying about it? What if you don't do what we're asking you or begging you to do? The Lord is still good. And there's things in my life that the Lord didn't answer the way that I had longed for. The Lord is still good. He's good by nature. He's good in His ways. He's good in His providence. He's good in the way He treats His people. He's good in the way He deals with the world. He's good by nature. He can't not be good. And even though, so we have to redefine good by His terms. The Lord is good all times. Now, for his steadfast love, your version may say for his mercies never end. They endure forever. Let me go back to... Remember this is in this Halal set of Psalms. Verse 1 of Psalm 116. I love the Lord because He has heard my voice and my pleas for mercy. Because He inclined His ear to me, therefore I will call on Him as long as I live. Here is the psalmist also saying, I love the Lord. He's heard my voice. He's heard my voice. That's similar to saying, I love the Lord. I thank the Lord because His steadfast love of mercy has been given to us. I'm gonna read something from an old dead guy. A big, round, bearded pastor from England named C.H. Spurgeon. I was reading this this week, and when we call out for mercy, have you found there's times you can't even say anything? You can't give words to it? You are so far distressed and hurting or in need. You might be a godly person. You might be a Christian for most of your life. You might have led the worship service. You might have had Bible studies all through the years, but you can't even put words into what's going on. And so I'm reading this sense of how the Lord hears our voice. And Spurgeon says this, the psalmist had used his voice in prayer. Sometimes, however, when the psalmist had lifted up his voice, his utterance had been so broken and painful that he scarcely dared to call it prayer. Words failed him. He could only produce a groaning sound, but the Lord heard his moaning voice. Have you ever been there? You'd like to be articulate, so sharp and smooth and strong and able to just declare to the Lord His kindness and His goodnesses and boldly pray and lead the church. And inside, you can't do it. You can't even give words to it. You're groaning, your heart is moaning, there's distress. And friends, Interestingly, in Romans 8 it says the Holy Spirit knows how to pray for us because He prays with groaning too deep for words. The Holy Spirit is praying in us when we can't even give words to our prayers ourselves. And this whole idea in this first verse here about supplications or mercies, where he heard my voice repeatedly, Spurgeon goes on to say, he had gone, the psalmist had gone on to the Lord again and again. Hence, he uses the plural and he says, my supplications. But as often as he had gone, so often had he been welcome. Friends, how often do we need to go to the Lord with guttural prayers? If we can give it words, great, give it words. But sometimes we can't give it words. Sometimes our life, our world, our self, our family, our situation, we feel crushed We have nowhere else to go. And it could be sometimes because of our own sin. Yes, it is. Our own choices. How'd I ever get into this? How'd this happen to me? Oh yeah, I know why now. I'm still sick about it. Other times it's because something in the world happens to us or diseases or afflictions, things far beyond our control. So sometimes we choose things that lead to our pain Other times things in this broken, sick, sinful world happen to us or around us that causes us to be absolutely distressed and anguished. But here, first verse, give thanks, Lord, for He is good. His steadfast love endures forever. Back to Psalm 118, based on the concept in Psalm 116, where I love the Lord because He heard my pleas of my heart, He heard the anguish from my soul, and we go to the Lord because we know what He's like. He declares what He's like, and we've seen it in the past. Now let's move along rather quickly here. So He gives three different, groups in verse 2-4, let Israel, that's the people of God, let the house of Aaron, that's the priesthood, and those that are the family, kind of the tribal spiritual leaders of Israel. So spiritual leaders, people in general, and then those who fear the Lord. In other words, that's a language in the Old Testament, anybody else, many other nation, tongue, or tribe, who references the Lord. of the church, but the people who turn to this God and they humble themselves and they fear and reverence Almighty God, it says, his steadfast love endures for them as well. It goes on forever. Okay, next big section here, verses five through 18. We give personal testimony of God's rescue from distress. There's a lot of ways to define rescue. But notice this section of verses five to 18, it says, It's urging the people of God to give personal testimony of the multiple ways that God has rescued them from their distress. Let's look at that rather briefly here. Verse five through seven. Out of my distress, it's on the screen, I believe. Out of my distress, I called on the Lord. The Lord answered me and set me free. The Lord is on my side. I will not fear. What can man do to me? The Lord is on my side as my helper. I shall look in triumph on those who hate me. Distress, there's that word again. Angst, anguish. Out of my anguish, in the midst of my anguish, in the midst of my difficulty, I called on the Lord. And he answered me and he set me free. Interesting word picture here in the Hebrew language here. The idea was he was in a narrow, he was in a narrow valley. He was squeezed in. How many of you are claustrophobic? You get inside a small room or a closet or if you've ever gone hiking in a cave or around rocks and you kind of have to go like this, almost hold your, I have to hold my breath to kind of exhale so I can lose some of this whatever, right? And man, you get there or you're crawling under something and just like, claustrophobic. And when you get claustrophobic and squeezed in, you just want to breathe. You can't breathe, right? And so the psalmist here is saying, I was in distress. I can't breathe anymore. I'm claustrophobic with what's going on around me. And he said, when I called on the Lord, the Lord answered me and set me free. It's like, I'm free. I'm free. The Lord is on my side. I will not fear. What can man do to me? What can man or woman do to you? I mean, there's all sorts of terrible things going on out there. Whether we're in relationship with those people or whether it's just around us. But all the things that we think humans can do to each other, the psalmist is somehow in a restful place. What can all those people do to me? What can that person do to me? You might not have all those people you're concerned about, you might have that person that you say, what can that person? And the psalmist says, what can man do to me? Lord, I have you, you have me. I'm one of yours. I belong to you. And so we are together. The Lord is on my side as my helper. I shall look in triumph on those who hate me. The Bible used a lot of words to describe Almighty God. He has lots of names, maybe a hundred or more names you could find about awesome God. But Jesus also has a lot of names. The Holy Spirit has some names, but when you have all those names of the Holy Trinity of God together, he has names like Defender, Advocate, Helper, Healer, Friend, Lord, Majestic One, Strong One, Wonderful Counsel, we've sung about that, Redeemer, He redeems you. He counsels you. He helps you. He walks with you. He encourages you. He's the comforter. He's the friend. He's the Lord. He's the majestic one. He is all those things to those who call Him their Lord, through those who are His own. Friend, He's your helper. What can anybody do to you? And if they physically do it to you or emotionally do it to you, he's still your friend because he's still good. He's still working with you. He's walking with you. He's your helper. He's your advocate. He's your defender. No matter what those people or that person ever do to you, he is yours and you are his. You belong to him if you've called out to him and you trusted him. Goes on to say here, verse 8 and 9, it is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man. It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man. Hey, trust in the doctor? Yes, but trust in God first. Trust in your friend? Yes, but trust in God first. Trust in your spouse? Trust in your parent? God first. Trust in your boss only if you work at TLCC, okay? Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. But trust in Him first. I don't trust in princes or politicians or congresspeople or doctors first. We trust in Almighty God first and then get the help we need If it's there, there'll be trust in Almighty God first. He goes on to say then in 10 through 13, all the nations surrounded me. In the name of the Lord, I cut them off. They surrounded me, surrounded me on every side. In the name of the Lord, I cut them off. They surrounded me like bees. They went out like a fire among thorns. In the name of the Lord, I cut them off. I was pushed hard so that I was falling, but the Lord helped me. Surrounded. Man, this is that suffocation feeling again. It's interesting, it says, surrounded me like bees. You ever been in a swarm of bees? I mean, one yellow jacket, you see people going like this, just one yellow jacket. Some of you have been on a picnic, and here's a hive nearby, or a bunch of them show up, and it's like, man, they're all over the place. You start running, but sometimes they surround you. They surround you, it's like, wherever they are. Our house is swarming with ants right now. I realize that's small stuff. I get that, I get that. Friends, we are surrounded by ants right now. They're bothersome. Are they hurting us? No. Are they irritating? Absolutely. And that's just a small thing, I get that. But then there's yellow jacks, then there's bees, right? And look at the psalmist said, I'm surrounded. Do troubles swarn you? Do difficulties surround you? It's like, okay, one of those I can just kind of whack it away and not let it land on me. But you know what? They're everywhere. This stuff is sticking to me. It's everywhere. I can't get rid of it. And sometimes our lives are like that. My wife's cancer. Our daughter Heidi going in for double lung transplant, waiting for it for six months. We knew she was in real trouble. Our other daughter broke her ankle three places, lived with us for nine weeks in our living room. Lisa's mom died in February. She's been the executive of the state. She's dealing with this household and everything. Her brother and sister can't help because they're both in wheelchairs and very sick themselves. There's like one thing after the other. Did your life ever swarm with challenges and difficulties? The psalmist says his did. And he's speaking 2,500 years ago. He says, my life is swarming. The nations are surrounding me. These things are surrounding me. Everything's surrounding me. I can't seem to get it off of me. But he says, I go to the Lord first. I trust the Lord first. He's my help. He's my advocate. He's my friend. He doesn't depart from me. He is good. All the nations surround him. He goes, in the name of the Lord, I cut them off. Everything that was a burden and a swarming be to him in the name Lord. He cut it off Lord You and me are getting through this Lord. I cut that off. I am with you Lord We are in this together where it takes me. I do not know but I'm with you and not these other things I cut it off You Lord are where I belong I was pushed hard so that I was falling, but the Lord helped me." Verse 13. We used to have a game called the shoving contest as a kid. You got to stand next to each other and you just kind of, two guys would go, you just kind of go, boom. And the other guy, as soon as he can handle it, then he hits you, not hits you, he shoves you. And you know, most of us usually stumble backwards. I just picture that going on here. There's a shoving contest. I pushed hard so I was falling, but the Lord helped me. It's almost like we're in a shoving contest, and the Lord is right behind you going, okay, man, shove this guy and watch what I do with him. And he's just standing, so something shoves you and you stand, and your opponent's going like, wow, how'd you do that, man? Well, because the Lord helped me. The Lord was right behind holding you up when all of a sudden they just shove you. And you're like, oh, it might've hurt a little bit, but you know what? I'm not falling down. I'm not falling backward. I'm not falling on my back. And the Lord helped me. Verse 14, 16, the Lord is my strength and my song. He has become my salvation. Glad songs of salvation are in the tents of the righteous. The right hand of the Lord does valiantly. The right hand of the Lord exalts. I thought about this in verse 15, the tents of the righteous. You know, they were living in tents. They had a large tent they called the Tabernacle when it was originally written in the wilderness. Moses was leading them out, right? And then David eventually lived, well, they had temples, but they lived in tents. And there's a sense where every household was a tent to the righteous. So we gather in this building as a group. We're all here together. But when you go home today, you're in your household, likely for the week, You'll come and go, but your tent, is it a place of righteousness? Is it a place where you are standing strong in your household, where you don't have the people of God gather around you on Sunday morning? But the tent's a righteousness here. The right hand of the Lord does validity. They could all say that the right hand of the Lord. Now, this isn't against left-handers, okay? Southpaws, all right? But the concept in the Bible is the right hand is symbolic for the strong arm, okay? The right hand of the Lord is valiant. It's a fierce, strong hand and arm. It's the one where power, if you're right-handed, comes from, strength comes from. And so this whole idea here is that the Lord does valiant things in the tent of righteousness. your household and in the people of God together. Verse 17 and 18, I shall not die, but I shall live and recount the deeds of the Lord. The Lord has disciplined me severely, but he has not given me over to death. You know, others may have said it's over. Others may have said, you have no hope. Others may have said, this isn't worth it. Others may have said that you'll never stand. But the Lord says, The psalmist says, I shall live, and the psalmist will recount the deeds of the Lord. There's two ways to recount. You can sit there quietly and think about it in your head, or you can recount it to others. Today, we're recounting it to others. We can't just let it sit in our head as a memory. We recount it out loud, okay? Last section, verses 19 to 29, big idea, we give corporate worship within the Lord's house. We worship together in the house of God. Verse 19 and on, open to me the gates of righteousness that I may enter through them and give thanks to the Lord. This is the gate of the Lord. The righteous shall enter through it. This gate idea, by the way, is often the concept of the door to the temple or the gate is how the people enter through a gate, through a door, It's how they get in to be together collectively. And I love the way you say in our house, you know, my tradition and background, we don't often say this house. We say this church, this building. No, this is a house. This is the Lord's house. The Lord is dwelling here with you. And so this is a beautiful picture, a wonderful picture. The gates of the righteousness, the doors open up. We give thanks to the Lord. This is the gate of the Lord, the righteous enter through it. And the soul must love to walk through those doors. Do you love to walk through the doors to be with the people of God? You know, whether you're meeting in this building, you're meeting in a tent, you're meeting on the street, you're meeting in a park, walk through the gates and meet with the people of God. It's worth going no matter what, right? I mean, Hebrew says, don't sit outside and be by yourself. Don't be a solo Christian, individualist Christian, you know, but gather with the people of God so that you can stimulate them to love and good deeds. So whenever you can gather, the people of God, gather there. Don't isolate yourself. Don't just listen online to your favorite preacher, Jamie Hawkins, or some other people, okay? You can listen online, but don't let that substitute the gathering. Gather. There's too many people leaving the organized, gathered church today to just do Jesus on their own. They're just doing life on their own and kind of checking it out and listen to the Bible a little bit. You know what? the life of the church. The life of the church is to be together, walk together through thick and thin, mountaintops and valleys. And so churches can almost pray the same prayer as I'm praying, right? We as a church, we as a people, we as a family, we as a household, we as this church, okay? So I thank you. Verse 21, I thank you that you have answered me and have become my salvation. The stones the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. So it's focusing on God's salvation. You, Lord, have become my salvation. You've redeemed me from the pit. I don't have it all together yet. I'm not all put together yet. I'm still on my journey. I'm on my way. But, Lord, you have redeemed me out of where I was. You've given me a new life, a new start. You put my feet on the ground. You're my helper, my advocate, my defender, my friend, my partner. I want to recall this with the people of God. I want to speak it out loud. I have to share it. I want to be a part of it. I need to sing about it. We're doing that. We do that here. Verse 23 and 24. This is the Lord's doing. It is marvelous in our eyes. This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. I quote that, you've heard me say this before, I quote that little verse almost every day driving out from our house, out of a little canyon we have to drive through. This is the day the Lord has made, I will rejoice. Let us rejoice, we will rejoice and be glad in it. Friends, this is the day the Lord has made. This isn't just about the Lord's day. You can say that on Monday. You can say that on Friday. Some of us need to say it on Friday, and Friday night, and Saturday. This is the day the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it. And then this standalone verse, verse 25. Save us, we pray, O Lord. O Lord, we pray, give us success. This is not prosperity gospel stuff. We're not talking about success like, hey man, I hope I win the lotto this week. Not that kind of success. This is success in the Lord. Save us, we pray. Give us success. Give us success in living with you. Give us success in taking steps of obedience. Give us success in living the kind of life you've called us to live. Give us success to be strong and courageous when we're facing difficulty. Give us new life success today, Lord. Give us success. Blessed, verse 26, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. We bless you from the house of the Lord. There it is again, we bless you from the house of the Lord. Now we can bless in my house. My wife and I bless the Lord in our house between the two of us and sometimes with others in our household in our tent. But no, he's saying, bless the Lord in the house. When you're gathered, bless the Lord from the house of the Lord. The Lord is God. He has made his light to shine on us. Bind the festal sacrifice with cords up to the horns of the altar. That's Old Testament talk to say when we gathered a festival to celebrate all the ceremonial things they would do, let that You know, dance and sing and be vibrant and colorful, but let it be because the Lord has shined light on you. He's given you light. He's given you hope when you didn't have hope. Verse 28, you are my God and I will give thanks to you. You are my God and I will extol, E-X-T-O-L. I don't even know what extol, man, I keep looking it up. That's an old language word, even though it's in our modern versions of the Bible. Extol means to honor and raise up. Set it up high, lift it up, okay? So you are my God, I will give thanks to you, God. And you are my God, I will extol you, declare you, lift you up. Not that you need it, I need it, and the world needs it. I'm gonna speak about you, lift you up, declare you, make it known to any who'll listen, even those who don't wanna listen. Extol, declare, lift up. O give thanks to the Lord, for He is good. He closes now, the book end. He is good. His steadfast love endures forever. His mercies are new every morning, right? What I'd like to do, just take a couple minutes, it's a very few minutes here. I'd love for any of you to just thank the Lord or say a praise to Him, extol the Lord. We need to keep it very brief, just because there's a lot of people in the room here. But say something like, I give thanks for, declare what that is for. You can stand up and say it, or I give praise to God for. What do you want to extol the Lord for? What do you want to say to honor the Lord? What has He done to redeem you, save you, defend you, help you, advocate for you, come alongside you, comfort you, friend you, redeem you? What's your testimony you can say in a couple phrases or a couple words? And we can't hear the whole story, I'm sorry, but we can't hear a short excerpt of that story. Okay, just stand up and declare, I give thanks to the Lord for, I praise God for, and what is it? Amen, amen. Amen. I'm thankful to the lord for restoration, for health, for a clear mind and because he is my god. Amen. Amen. Amen. Thank you. Amen. Thank you. Amen. Yes. Amen. Holding her hand through transition and change. That's an example we're all hearing here right now. David. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. That's right. Yeah. Amen. I want y'all to understand. I want to thank God for delivering me from anger management. I look this way, but that's not me. And I praise him because my mother, when my mother left, you know, she was, you know, she helped me a lot. But since then, y'all have become my family. And y'all have helped me. I really had a zero tolerance for anything. So every time I say no, when you say married, and I said no, you know, I'm not going to marry you. That's OK. That's good. Amen. Amen, amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. That's good. Nice. Good. Amen. Yes. That's great. So many stories. Yes. Go ahead. Yes. Amen. Wow. Amen. That's a big thank you. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Amen, amen. Everybody, there's beautiful stories all through this room. And I just rejoice that we could hear those stories, hear testimonies one to another, whether you share them in the hallway, whether you share them on the phone, you share them in someone's home, or you share them in the church. We gather to hear God's redemptive work. He gets the glory. We've had tremendous accounts of stories of pain, trouble, travail, affliction, addiction in this room. And by God's grace, He has given life and hope. He's shining light into your life. He's shining light into this church. You guys as a church are a beacon of light. And God is doing mighty, mighty things through TLCC. I would want to just be really clear today that if you have never come to a place of trusting humbly in the Lord as your Savior, today you can do that right where you're sitting. You can do that in a quiet prayer of your own heart. You can come see one of us afterwards for counsel to just walk with you and pray with you. But you know, there may be others in this room who have never humbled themselves. and repented or changed their mind about the direction they were going. They humble themselves, they surrender their life to an awesome, loving, holy, just, merciful God, humbling their heart, asking for help, declaring their need for help in prayer to the Lord. And the Lord says, He will never leave you or forsake you. He will forgive you, He'll give you His Holy Spirit, and He'll give you a family. He'll give you a family of believers to walk with together. Let me just pray right now for us, and then Pastor Jamie can come and close. Lord God, what a great number of stories shared personally around this room today. Men and women of all ages who have come through all sorts of life distresses. Many of those distresses were brought on by their own doing. Other distresses came from outside their own choice. But Lord God, we're thankful that you love and forgive. You show mercy to any and all who call on you in humility. So Lord, I pray today, if there's any man or woman in this room who's never stopped long enough to repent of their own selfishness, their own stern will, their own rebelliousness, or whatever choices they've made, Lord, that they would know that you're a redeeming, merciful, kind, forgiving God. You welcome us into your family, Lord, if we humble ourselves and trust the Lord Jesus Christ. We want to do that cross on our behalf. Thank you, Lord, so much.