This is your daily reminder. God has not run
out of mercy, not for you, not today. Welcome
to the New Mercies Podcast. Welcome. Today is
Saturday, March the 28th, 2026. We're excited
about what the reading is for today. As always,
if you're new here, be sure you like and subscribe
and follow so that you never miss an episode.
If you want to donate, you can do that in the
link in the episode description. Today's reading
is Psalm 116. And I love this psalm mainly for
a few reasons. One, as we are building up to
what's going to happen tomorrow, Sunday, We are
talking about, it's Palm Sunday, but we're not
doing the typical Jesus riding into town with
the palm branches. We're not doing that in our
church service. We are going to be looking at
Luke chapter 23, the last half of the chapter,
which is the crucifixion of Jesus. We're going
to talk in depth about the crucifixion. And so
knowing all of that, we've been building up to
that this week. In our reading plan this week,
we've looked at several places in the Old Testament,
the New Testament, and as we're guiding into
where we're headed, I'm very excited about what
today holds because Psalm 116 is sort of a worship
psalm of where we can be. This psalm has so much
gratitude in it. The writer refers to himself
so many times, more than 30 times in these 19
verses, but it's not a selfish psalm. He refers
to the Lord 15 times in these verses, specifically
with a very pointed effort. This psalm has a
lot to it, and I want to be able to share a little
bit about the psalm before we jump into it, because
one of the things that I've been able to hear
from our listeners and the people around that
are paying attention to the podcast is they say
whenever I talk about a psalm, they appreciate
me explaining it a little bit more. Because the
Psalms can be harder to deal with or harder to
understand if you're used to reading in the New
Testament or reading a historical element in
the Old Testament, or maybe you're used to reading
some prophecy books, or maybe you're used to
reading a gospel account, the eyewitness account
of Jesus, or maybe you're used to reading the
instructions to the church. And you say, well,
how do I read the Psalm? How do I understand
this? It doesn't make any sense because it's
poetry and wisdom. And so we need to kind of
understand a little bit of a framework. This
is not where you go to get. specific doctrine
for the church, right? This is where you go to
worship. This is where you go to hear the experiences
of who this God is. And you understand a little
bit more of the depth of what he does and who
he is and the way he acts and the way he does
things. There's some Psalms that have some messianic
promises and prophecy in it. There's some Psalms
that are just a human interacting with God. There's
some Psalms about a human interacting with others.
And so today's Psalm is very personal. And so
one of the reasons I put this in our reading
plan was because it's such a personal psalm.
This thing Jesus does for us that we're going
to talk about again on Sunday and we're going
to talk about again on Monday and we're going
to talk about again until he returns is how much
Jesus loves us and how personal this relationship
he has with us is. So I want to just kind of
give you a little bit of understanding of this
psalm. It has no author to it. It has no date
on it. Kind of hard to figure out who wrote it
or when it was written. Some people believe that
it was written by Hezekiah. during Hezekiah's
reign. Some people believe it was a post -exile
psalm that was written after the Israelites came
out of the Babylonian exile. Some people think
it was written after that. I kind of land in
a couple of different places, and it doesn't
matter ultimately when exactly it was written.
What matters is the words to it and how this
is what the Hebrews would sing as they were praising
and worshiping the Lord. This psalm begins with
the phrase, I love the Lord. It's awesome. If
we could just start everything we do that way.
Start your work day, I love the Lord. That's
how I want to start today. I want to start my
morning, I love the Lord. That's the first thing
I'm going to do and say. Maybe the first thing
you do before you go into a hobby that you love
or some craft that you enjoy, just start it by
saying, I love the Lord. Maybe we don't tell
him we love him enough. When was the last time
you just told the Lord, I love you? And mean
it and know that this is where it is all coming.
It's flowing into gratitude. which is why I want
to explain the first nine verses of Psalm 116
are verses of gratitude. You can hear it in the
author's voice, in his tone. He is just giving
thanks. It's the first section is just gratitude.
The first nine verses of this chapter are just
gratitude, gratitude, gratitude, gratitude. I
love the Lord so much. Then it moves from gratitude.
One of my favorite commentators has broken this
text down, so I didn't make this up. I've learned
this from what he had said. And so I want to
include that in here. This is not all your pastor
just making up stuff. I read this from his commentary.
He says the first section is all about gratitude.
Then the author goes into this grief. What it
says in verse number 10 is that he has these
afflictions. He goes into this personal aching
that goes on. And so he goes from gratitude to
grief. And then from grief, he goes into what
this commentator says are goals. Basically, they're
directives. He says, I will do this. I will do
this because the Lord's been good, so I'm going
to do this. So from verses... verses 10 through
11, he was in this grief mode. Then verses 12
through 15, he's in this goal mode. I'm going
to do these things. I will, I will. Verses 13
and 14 specifically, he says, I will do this.
I will do this. And then the Psalm ends in gladness,
as the commentator says. I like to think he just
ends with this thankful, praising heart. He ends
the Psalm with this praise. He begins it with
how much he loves the Lord. He ends it with how
much praise there is. I want to read a couple
of verses. I don't want to just overly explain
the breadth of the psalm. I want to read just
a couple of verses. Again, I want to read verse
number one first because it's a really great,
great verse. It starts out like this. I love
the Lord because he has heard my voice and my
pleas for mercy. I want to stop there and I want
to give you just a little understanding. The
psalmist says, I love the Lord because he has
done these things for me. Now, here's the difference
in our love and God's love. Our love has these
stipulations or it's a cause, right? We love
because he did something. He loves us because
of who he is. There is a deep understanding of
love. Once you realize that he didn't love you
so he could get something out of you. give him
something that he needed. He loves us because
he is love. That's the bottom line, bare truth
of all of it. He loves us because he's love.
We should be praising him for that. We should
love him and thank him so much more. Again, the
gratitude should just come pouring out over and
over and over again in our praise to him because
he's good. He's love. That's who he is. We love
him because he's awesome. That's why we as humans,
as frail, broken human beings, we have to have
a reason for some reason. We have to have a cause.
He doesn't need a cause. It's just because it's
who he is. It is just because of who he is. That's
why he loves us. As I look down, there's a couple
of verses in 7, 8, and 9 that I want to point
out. This is in the gratitude section. Again,
I love the gratitude stuff. I want to read these
couple of verses to you in 7, 8, and 9. Here
are the verses. Return, O my soul, to your rest,
for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you.
For you have delivered my soul from death, my
eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling. I will
walk before the Lord in the land of the living.
When I read the text, I see the psalmist writes
three things in those three verses. In verse
7, he says, I'm going to rest in the Lord. I
don't know if you've ever tried to rest and you
can't find it. I know there's been seasons in
my life where rest seems to be escaping away
from me. Rest is just that simple piece. I want
to rest. I don't know if you maybe have slept.
I wear my watch to bed and it tells me it gives
me a sleep score every morning. Some mornings
I get a really good sleep score. Some mornings
I get a terrible sleep score. And it's because
of how good the quality of the rest is. And what
I realized is, We look for peace and rest in
a lot of areas. I think, did I have enough water
today? Am I hydrated? Did I have enough nutrients
today? Did I get enough steps in? Did I get out
my energy the right way? Did I do all this? Did
I sleep in the right way? And all those things.
And ultimately, there's a lot that goes into
finding my rest physically. But I wonder, where
do we put our rest spiritually? We're burning
the candle at both ends. We're running our tank
on empty. We're doing all the things, and our
lives are busy, and our calendar's busy. Where
is our peace and rest? It should be found in
the Lord. As I read on verse number eight, he
talks about first his rest is in the Lord. Then
he talks about how his rejoicing is in the Lord.
His praise is in the Lord, right? Listen to verse
eight again. For you have delivered my soul from
death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stomach.
You've taken care of me. I'm going to praise
you for that. I want to acknowledge it and thank
you for it. Maybe it's time today to think about
where he's delivered you from. You are listening
to this today. You're seeing this today because
he's given you more breath in your lungs. He's
given you more life in your journey. He's done
all this for you. He's kept you from a lot of
things. No matter what you've been through, today
is a day you can thank him and rejoice in him.
Then verse number nine, he goes into making a
resolve for the Lord. He says, I want to commit
to this. This is something that matters to me.
He's like, I'm going to walk in the Lord. This
is what I'm going to do. I am going to walk in
the Lord today. Here's the challenge from Psalm
116 today. And the rest of the chapter is awesome.
Read it all. Read every word. Let it soak into
your heart and into your life. There's so much
in the Psalm. This could be a two -hour long
episode, but I've been trying to kind of condense
a little bit more because I know I'm going to
talk a lot on Sunday, so forgive me a little
bit. But I just want to say the whole chapter
is awesome. But here's the deal. Today, he says,
I will make a resolve. I will walk in the Lord.
Today, I'm asking you, what would it look like
to walk in the Lord? What message? would you
send if you were walking in the Lord? What places
would you go if you were walking in the Lord?
What things would you say? What ways would you
treat people if you were walking in the Lord?
Whatever that looks like, do it today so that
we can make the resolve that we're going to walk
in the Lord.