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Have You Experienced This Deliverance? (Psalm 40:1-5)
GIST: Be deliberate about waiting because He is listening and will rescue you, stabilize you, inspire you to praise, and use you to witness as you experience the blessing of being fully known and loved.
This morning, we’re coming to Psalm 40. We started our summer with two heart wrenching psalms where we saw David crying out under the overbearing struggle brought on by his own sin. As I noted each time, digging into those psalms can be challenging because it forces us to get uncomfortable. However, doing so is of immense value because we live in a broken-hearted world, and we know or will know what it means to feel overcome. Today, we’re transitioning to one of the more recognizable of the psalms, and though we’ll still see David speaking with that raw honesty about his struggles, the psalm picks up on the flipside of despair. It’s a psalm that speaks specifically to David being delivered and rescued from suffering.
I wish we could go through the whole psalm together this morning, but there’s just too much here. In fact, it’s a psalm the writer of Hebrews quotes and attributes to Jesus, so we’re going to want to unpack all of that together, as well...which means we’ll need to take this in chunks. For our first section, let’s just look at this picture of deliverance in verses 1-5.
“1 To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David. I waited patiently for the LORD; He inclined to me and heard my cry. 2 He drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure. 3 He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many will see and fear, and put their trust in the LORD. 4 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! 5 You have multiplied, O LORD my God, Your wondrous deeds and Your thoughts toward us; none can compare with You! I will proclaim and tell of them, yet they are more than can be told.”
I went back and forth on how to exactly break down the text this morning, but I settled on a 7-pointer ☺. Basically, I want to look at this picture of Jesus’ deliverance which applies to God’s work in our life in general, but most specifically to His work in saving us from our sin and ultimate suffering. You can think of this as 7 small points, or 1 big point with 7 aspects...whichever makes you feel better (or allows you to trash me easiest at lunch ☺). Here’s our gist: Be deliberate about waiting because He is listening and will rescue you, stabilize you, inspire you to praise, and use you to witness as you experience the blessing of being fully known and loved. Let’s dive into that!
I. Be Deliberate About Waiting
Look at the opening line again. “1...I waited patiently for the LORD…” The original text actually reads something like, “I Waited Waited”. It’s repeated to emphasize the intensity with which David was doing this waiting. Yes, we’ve talked about this every Sunday so far this summer. I told you it’s one of the most common themes in the psalms! This idea of eagerly expecting God to be God and continually coming to Him with our lives— burdens and all.
My dad’s favorite movie when I was a kid was Galaxy Quest. The catchline was “Never Give Up, Never Surrender”. Don’t think about Him occasionally, and lift up prayers every once in a while and then wonder why you don’t see His movement. Be deliberate about waiting for God. Pray that coming to Him be your lifestyle, not your afterthought. →
II. Because He Is Listening
Look what came of the waiting “...He inclined to me and heard my cry.” Don’t take the blessing of being heard for granted. You’re not talking to a blank wall. Your prayers are heard. He might not be answering like you expect, but He’s not your personal genie. He’s the God of the Universe who loves you and knows what you really need. Come to Him knowing He does care→
III. And Will Rescue You
I love this next verse. It’s the inspiration for our call to worship this morning too (“Jesus, Lover of My Soul”). “2 He drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog…” I want to point out at least two thoughts here. First, it says→ He Drew Me Up. This shows us that God is personally involved in our rescuing. He’s willing to get His hands dirty and reach into our brokenness and pull us out. He doesn’t delegate that task. He doesn’t ask us to get out on our own, so we can work something out together. He reaches down, and He does the rescuing.
Now, the imagery here is also incredible. I’d call it a→ Life Sucking Pit of Destruction. From what I’ve studied this week, this could possibly be referring to a type of prison pit used at this time which was essentially a deep hole dug into the ground. Prisoners would be tossed in and left to die. Escape was basically nullified not only by the depth of the hole, but by the state of the mucky dirt that was like quicksand making it impossible to just “get out”. Either way, this is definitely a picture of our natural state. We’re stuck in our sin. We cannot escape, and Jesus comes down and does all the rescuing. He took on Hell in our place. He rose again defeating what we could not. He endured the pit of destruction to pull us out of it! He hasn’t changed. He will still rescue and→
IV. Stabilize You
We go from miry bog to→ “... and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure.” From Shifting Sand to Solid Ground. This reminds me of the parable with which Matthew’s gospel records Jesus ending His famous sermon on the mount about two guys building houses. One built his house on a rock, a firm foundation, and the other on the sand. Storms hit both houses. There was no difference in their circumstance; they both faced hardships. But one stood in the storm, and the other one “came crumbling down”. What made the difference? The foundation. Being rescued by Jesus doesn’t mean life will magically be better. You will still face storms, but you will be upheld by→
Security From Him. Notice that He makes your steps secure. We have to get it out of our heads that somehow we’re going to figure things out, gain control, and make sense of everything. We won’t, and we weren’t meant to! Proverbs 3:5-6 puts it so well:“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.”
He will rescue. He will stabilize you, and He will→
V. Inspire You to Praise
“3 He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God…” His rescue is→ Something Intimate & Worth Singing About. His deliverance is about more than just “getting you away from bad stuff”. I think too often this is how people look at salvation. We realize the weight of our sin, and we want to be rescued from that. However, we mistakenly think that just “becoming better people” is the difference we need. In fact, I talked to someone this week who told me they were going to go to a Christian retreat and get “saved again” and then stop drinking and partying as much. That’s not what salvation is about. It’s so much deeper. We can’t just “be better”. We need Jesus to pull us from sin and change our hearts…in the complete heart transplant kind of way. We need new desires and new purposes.
If we’ve experienced that, David tells us it will result in→ Overflowing Joy. So, do you have a song of praise in your heart? Maybe music isn’t your thing. I know for me, expressions of praise naturally flow into songs, but you don’t have to feel guilty if that’s not what it looks like for you. However, we should have an excitement and gratitude and joy that flows from us because of what Jesus has done in our lives. He will change your heart→
VI. And Use You to Witness
Look at where it goes next. “...Many will see and fear, and put their trust in the LORD.” I don’t want to draw this out needlessly. Here’s the deal: Your Rescue Should Point Others To His Grace. Theology is so important. It is important for every believer to know what they believe and why they believe it. It is important to study God’s Word and come to know Him for who He really is. And having conversations with people about these truths is huge. However, I can tell you most of the times you’ll talk about your faith with someone who doesn’t believe in Jesus yet, those conversations will start (and often camp out longest) with you sharing what Jesus has done in your life. We’ve read Psalm 38 and 39. We know David spent much of his life wracked with guilt and suffering under the weight of his sin, but what did he know would be the ultimate result of that suffering? He would be rescued and moved to praise in such a way that others would hear his testimony and come to put their trust in the Lord, as well. He wasn’t going to hide the movement of God. Instead, he was going to make a point of sharing it with those around him.
I don’t know what you’re facing right now, but I can tell you He is moving in it. Seek Him now. Cling to Him now. Let Him walk with you through the miry pit. And keep your eyes open. There are people who need to hear your testimony to His great grace!
So… be deliberate about waiting because He is listening and will rescue you, stabilize you, inspire you to praise, and use you to witness→
VII. As You Experience The Blessing Of Being Fully Known & Loved
Honestly, I seriously considered stopping at verse 3, but 4 and 5 are tied so closely to this point I didn’t want to leave them out. “4 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! 5 You have multiplied, O LORD my God, Your wondrous deeds and Your thoughts toward us; none can compare with You! I will proclaim and tell of them, yet they are more than can be told.”
Pride & Lies Are The Way Of The World. We can embrace them and stay in the miry pit of self-destruction, or we can→
Trust Jesus Who Loves You More Than You Could Even Express. Did you see what he said here? God is thinking about you and His doing incredible things in your life, so much so that David wanted to tell everyone about them...but he could never recount them all. That’s how much He loves you. You’re fully known and extravagantly loved. (Tauren Wells "Known")
TAKEAWAYS
Trust God to be God every day. Wait on Him with integrity and expectancy. Let’s not overlook the obvious objection to everything we’ve talked about so far today. These are only realities for people who are actually coming to Jesus. You can try to do life your way and in your strength, but don’t expect to pull yourself from the bog. Instead→
Look to Him for guidance. Leaning not on your own understanding.
Rejoice in His deliverance, love, and heart transformation. And→
Share. You’re not the only one who needs to know they’re fully known and loved by Him!
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