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Psalm 40
40:1 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.
6 In sacrifice and offering you have not delighted,
but you have given me an open ear.1
Burnt offering and sin offering
you have not required.
7 Then I said, “Behold, I have come;
in the scroll of the book it is written of me:
8 I delight to do your will, O my God;
your law is within my heart.”
9 I have told the glad news of deliverance2
in the great congregation;
behold, I have not restrained my lips,
as you know, O LORD.
10 I have not hidden your deliverance within my heart;
I have spoken of your faithfulness and your salvation;
I have not concealed your steadfast love and your faithfulness
from the great congregation.
11 As for you, O LORD, you will not restrain
your mercy from me;
your steadfast love and your faithfulness will
ever preserve me!
12 For evils have encompassed me
beyond number;
my iniquities have overtaken me,
and I cannot see;
they are more than the hairs of my head;
my heart fails me.
13 Be pleased, O LORD, to deliver me!
O LORD, make haste to help me!
14 Let those be put to shame and disappointed altogether
who seek to snatch away my life;
let those be turned back and brought to dishonor
who delight in my hurt!
15 Let those be appalled because of their shame
who say to me, “Aha, Aha!”
16 But may all who seek you
rejoice and be glad in you;
may those who love your salvation
say continually, “Great is the LORD!”
17 As for me, I am poor and needy,
but the Lord takes thought for me.
You are my help and my deliverer;
do not delay, O my God!
(ESV)
Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
Invite you to open your bibles to Psalm chapter 40. And while you're returning there, let me just mention a couple of things. Everything we do here at Redeemer Community Church is very intentional, whether it seems that way or not. And, so there's times in our service where we might have awkward silence. We're not scared to be silent.
Joel Brooks:At the same time, we're not scared to be loud. Times of prayer, you're never gonna see, you're never gonna pray. And then open your eyes, and there's gonna be a new set behind you, or like the musicians moved off stage. We don't see prayer as a transition time. And so there's sometimes there's a little awkwardness in getting people up and down, but we want when we pray for us all, especially our worship leaders to pray.
Joel Brooks:And one of the things we had talked about years past is actually never having the band in the center of the stage, if you remember that. And so we have always attempted to have the band off to the side. And we've done that all when we were meeting at my house, when we were meeting at Girls Inc, when we used to meet here. And as you've noticed, the band is in the center. And I want to explain why.
Joel Brooks:I feel like, you know, most churches this might not be a big deal, but it is a really big deal for us. And it's something that we spend a whole lot of time talking about. And the reason is, some of these columns here block people's site. And so we needed to set up 2 screens. It would just be a lot easier for people to read the words.
Joel Brooks:And also, we wanted to make this facility here, this space more usable for Cornerstone, which uses this facility for their chapel services. They use this room for chapel. Dwight teaches every Wednesday morning for chapel, and Lane leads the worship every, more every Wednesday morning for chapel. And we wanted to make this room as best as we could for them as well. And so we started doing a number of things.
Joel Brooks:The, the sound system we have is the first time ever Redeemer's actually purchased a sound system. For 4 years, we've been borrowing Corey Scoggin sound system, which we cannot thank him enough. But we wanted if you could see how Cornerstone Kids used to do their worship in which they would bring out a little, you know, little CD player, for like 200 kids and hit play. We wanted something that they could use, which meant we needed to buy something. We need to put things up here.
Joel Brooks:And so this is one of the reasons we've been making some of these changes is the ability to use this space better, not just on a Sunday night, but also throughout the week in this school as we try to serve the students here as well. So I hope that makes sense. I hope it didn't rock your world that all of a sudden the band is in the middle. Just ignore them. Okay?
Joel Brooks:Look at the words. Alright? The lord is our focus. If you would turn to Psalm 40. Psalm 40.
Joel Brooks:I'm gonna take time to read the whole psalm. I waited patiently for the Lord. He inclined to me and heard my cry. 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. He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God.
Joel Brooks:Many will see and fear and put their trust in the Lord. And 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. You have multiplied, oh lord, my god, your wondrous deeds and your thoughts towards us. None can compare with you. I will proclaim and tell of them, yet there are more than can be told.
Joel Brooks:And sacrifice and offering you have not delighted, but you have given me an open ear. Burnt offering and sin offering you have not required. Then I said, behold, I have come in the scroll of the book. It is written of me. I delight to do your will, oh my god.
Joel Brooks:Your law is within my heart. I have told the glad news of deliverance in the great congregation. Behold, I have not restrained my lips as you know, oh Lord. I have not hidden your deliverance within my heart. I have spoken of your faithfulness and your salvation.
Joel Brooks:I have not concealed your steadfast love and your faithfulness from the great congregation. As for you, oh lord, you will not restrain your mercy from me. Your steadfast love and your faithfulness will ever preserve me. For evils have encompassed me beyond number. My inequities have overtaken me, and I cannot see.
Joel Brooks:They are more than the hairs of my head. My heart fails me. Be pleased, oh lord, to deliver me. Oh, lord, make haste to help me. Let those be put to shame and disappointed altogether who seek to snatch away my life.
Joel Brooks:Let those be turned back and brought to dishonor who delight in my hurt. Let those be appalled because of their shame, who say to me, Uh-huh, uh-huh. But may all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you. May those who love your salvation say continually, great is the Lord. As for me, I am poor and needy, but the lord takes thought for me.
Joel Brooks:You are my help and my deliverer. Do not delay, oh my god. Pray with me. Our father, we ask that you would bless the very reading of your word, that your word would go forth like a hammer shattering a rock, that it would open up dull minds hardened hearts. God, be with me in this moment.
Joel Brooks:I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore. But, lord, may your words remain, and may they change us. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. Years ago, a friend of mine, Andy Byers, asked me he was the director of, student ministries at Gardner Webb University, which is a small private Christian college in North Carolina.
Joel Brooks:He asked me to come and to speak. And, so I went there and I spoke. And on the 2nd night of me preaching, I was preaching on the book of Ezekiel. And I had finished Ezekiel, and I sat down and we were all just spending a few moments of quiet reflection and prayer before the Lord. And I could tell that the Lord had really used that message and that he was really working in our midst.
Joel Brooks:You could just sense that. And then, after about a minute of silence, all of a sudden, a girl got up and let out a blood curling scream at the top of her lungs, which, of course, rattled just about everybody in there. And it was just the longest scream, so she had no breath. And then she just collapsed weeping. And we're all looking and just going, what in the world just happened?
Joel Brooks:And then, and then another person got up and screamed as loud as they could scream and then went down weeping. And And I looked at my friend Andy and I put my hand on his knee and I said, have fun with this one. And I got up and I just started leaving and he grabbed me. He goes, oh, you're not leaving me in this. You're not leaving me in this.
Joel Brooks:And, and I was able to talk to that girl after the service, and we we were able to spend a lot of extended time in prayer. And she wasn't what I expected. She was a freshman. She grew up in a very conservative Baptist church, not charismatic in the slightest. I was like, tell me what happened.
Joel Brooks:Because the the Lord's presence was just so overwhelming. I I had never ever been so aware of my sin. Ever. And at the same time, I had never ever been so aware of my forgiveness and my restoration. And I just didn't know what to do.
Joel Brooks:I didn't know what to say. But I had to do something. And so, it just came out as this scream and this weeping. I tell you this story, because I want to remind you of one of the reasons that we've been looking at the Psalms. For the last Sunday every month, we've been looking at a different Psalm.
Joel Brooks:And one of the reasons that we do this is because the psalter gives expression to the things that the Lord is doing deep inside of us. It it tells us how to appropriately deal with conviction, how to appropriately deal with praise. It stirs up those emotions in us. And I I don't want you guys standing up and screaming. Okay?
Joel Brooks:And so that's one of the reasons we're going through the Psalms. But there's a reason the Psalms are included in every New Testament that's given out. You you don't give out Isaiah with it, or Jeremiah with it, or But you give out the Psalms because it's our prayer book. We have to learn how to pray. We have to learn how to respond when God works in our midst, And the psalter shows us how to do that.
Joel Brooks:And what I actually find when I go to the Psalms is that I am far too tame and far too timid in how I respond to God. I might think, I'm really convicted of my sin. I feel really bad of my sin. And then, you know, I'll read something like a Psalm 51 or a Psalm 38. And and as David is guiding me in his prayer, I'm realizing, wow.
Joel Brooks:I haven't felt half the emotions I should over my sin. Or, I might feel like I'm really joyful. I'm really wanting to praise the Lord in this. And but then I go to the psalter, and I read different Psalms. I'm like, gosh.
Joel Brooks:I don't feel half the joy that I need to be feeling, And as I pray the Psalms, they guide me in an appropriate way to the very throne of God. And it's one of the reasons that we study these. To give voice to those deep things that the Lord is doing in our midst. Jesus literally bled the Psalms. When he's on the cross and you can't get any worse, agony, any pain, or sorrow, he didn't let out as you just scream.
Joel Brooks:He cried out the Psalms. That gave voice to his suffering, and that also declared his hope. And so this is one of the reasons that we are studying this. We're gonna find these things in Psalm 40. This is a psalm of deliverance.
Joel Brooks:It shows us a proper response to God, to our God who delivers us. That's what the psalm is about, how we're to respond to that. Verse 1 begins, I waited patiently for the Lord. The way this is worded in Hebrew actually brings out some intensity that's not really here in the English. It's you could say, I waited, and I waited for the Lord.
Joel Brooks:This is a long, long waiting. And, and actually you see this because the Psalms leading up to Psalm 40 are all about waiting. Yeah. You go back a few chapters. Go to Psalm 37.
Joel Brooks:Psalm 37 and look at verse 5. In verse 7, it says, Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him. Turn to the next Psalm in chapter 38. Here, the psalmist has sinned. In verse 4, he's saying, For the iniquities have gone over my head like a burden.
Joel Brooks:They are too heavy for me. And then, he come to verse 13, But I'm like a deaf man. I do not hear. I'm like a mute man who does not open his mouth. I've become like a man who does not hear and whose mouth are no rebukes.
Joel Brooks:But for you, oh Lord, do I wait. It is you, oh Lord, my God, who will answer. It's like I'm in such despair. I can't I can't even open my mouth, but I'm waiting. I'm waiting.
Joel Brooks:You go to chapter or Psalm 39. The psalmist is still in despair. He is still silent. Verse 2 says, I was mute and I was silent. I held my peace to no avail and my distress grew worse.
Joel Brooks:And then you come to verse 7. And now, oh lord. For what do I wait? My hope is in you. Deliver me from all my transgressions.
Joel Brooks:Do not do not make me the scorn of the fool. I am mute. I do not open my mouth. For it is you who have done it. And so, you have all of these Psalms leading up which are about, I'm mired down in my sin.
Joel Brooks:I don't feel like singing. I don't feel like proclaiming. I just I am mute. God, I'm waiting for you. I'm waiting for you.
Joel Brooks:I'm waiting for you, and it builds up, and then you hit Psalm 40, which is a release. It's no longer I wait present tense. It's I wait past tense. I waited for the Lord. I waited for the Lord.
Joel Brooks:He inclined to me, and he heard my cry. So, this is a joyful praise. After all of this waiting, God shows up and answers. Verse 2 uses a great image to describe God's salvation. David says he's, you know, he's sinking down in his sin just like one gets sunk down in a miry bog and cannot rescue himself.
Joel Brooks:Sin casts sinners in a pit in which there is no escape. And that's what the image that David is bringing forth here. But god, after waiting and waiting and waiting and calling and calling and calling, lifted him up and set him on a rock. The result of this is verse 3. He's no longer mute.
Joel Brooks: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. So after being silent for so long, it's like bursting forward now. I've been forgiven. I've been saved, and there's a new song there.
Joel Brooks:And that new song, it as he burst forth, it results in evangelism. It says, many now are gonna see this. Many are gonna come to know the lord because of this. Let me just tell you that the reason God delivers you, the reason God forgives you is for this, is to burst into song and praise. It's what you were created to do, and to not burst into a new song and into praise when God has forgiven you is to to go against your design.
Joel Brooks:It's what you were created for. And there's no greater tool for evangelism than this. When you see somebody who was was addicted to sin, who was dead in their sin, and god has drawn them up and put a new song in their mouth and you see that, there's no greater testimony. And if you're having a hard time sharing your faith, maybe it's because you haven't been rescued. Maybe you haven't called out to him, and he's drawn you out of that pit.
Joel Brooks:Or or maybe your worship is so stale. He hasn't put that new song in your heart. And we need to be waiting and asking that the Lord would do that. We come to verse 5, which says, you have multiplied, oh, lord my god, your wondrous deeds and your thoughts towards us. None can compare with you.
Joel Brooks:I will proclaim and tell them, yet they are more than can be told. All of us in here, we love to hear a good story. I mean, man, when when Arliss was up here last week just testifying to the Lord's goodness and how the lord saved him, I could hear that every week. We we love to hear that, and and David here is saying that those stories are endless. Absolutely endless.
Joel Brooks:You can't count them. And so the more we tell and the more we declare, god just keeps doing more and more and more. Then we come to verse 9 and 10, which is really kind of the climax of this song. Since I've told you the glad news of deliverance in the great congregation, behold, I've not restrained my lips as you know, oh lord. I have not hidden your deliverance within my heart.
Joel Brooks:I have spoken of your faithfulness and your salvation. I have not concealed your steadfast love and your faithfulness from the great congregation. This is the appropriate response. It's the appropriate response when meditating on the wonders of god and the countless wonders of god. The appropriate response is that you're not silent, but you declare those things to the great congregation.
Joel Brooks:The appropriate response when the Lord forgives you and he pulls you up out of the pit, the appropriate response is that you don't restrain your lips, but you declare these things to the congregation. Aren't you glad David did? I mean, we're benefiting from what David did. Let me tell you that don't conceal your sin even. Proclaim your sin because if you conceal your sin, you also conceal God's forgiveness of that sin, and you rob him of glory.
Joel Brooks:You hear that? Even things like, if if you deny you're in a pit, if you deny deny you're stuck in the bog, you deny that you are drowning in your sin, when you deny your sin, when you don't confess your sin, you also you're not confessing God's forgiveness of that. And that robs him of glory, and it robs the congregation as well. David is an open book here. It's like my iniquities, and he's just putting it out there.
Joel Brooks:And now as we all see God's forgiveness of him, it pulls us. His story becomes our story. It pulls us in, and we pray with him, and we worship with him. That's the point of these Psalms. The greatest thing that we can do is declare to others how the gospel has changed us.
Joel Brooks:And that's actually what this psalm is about. Look look at verse 9. You see this in verse 9. And then I may give us an opportunity to declare this. It says, I have told the glad news of deliverance in the great congregation.
Joel Brooks:A lot of your bibles might actually have a footnote on deliverance. It's really the Hebrew word righteousness. So I have told the glad news of righteousness in the great congregation. Now, what is gospel? Gospel is glad news.
Joel Brooks:Gospel is good news. And so the the psalmist here is saying, I have told the gospel of righteousness. That's what he's declaring. The glad news, the good news of righteousness. But whose righteousness?
Joel Brooks:His own? Go down. Verse 10. I have not hidden your deliverance within my heart. Once again, deliverance is the word for righteousness.
Joel Brooks:I've not hidden your righteousness within my heart, but I've spoken it. And the whole flow here is, like, the gospel has changed me. It's not because I'm a righteous person, but because you're a righteous person, and I declare that. This psalm is pointing us forward to Jesus. There's great confusion if you read through a number of commentaries on this as to exactly what is going on when you get to, to verse 6 and 7.
Joel Brooks:And, I'll go back to verse 6. It says, in sacrifice and offering, you have not delighted, but you've given me an open ear. That just means you're you're letting me listen of being a receptive person. Burnt offering and sin offering, you have not required. Then I said, behold, I have come in the scroll of the book.
Joel Brooks:It is written of me. I delight to do your will, oh my god. Your law is within my heart. Now, every commentary as is going through this, it's it's saying that it sounds like David is he's talking about how God has rescued him, how God has delivered him. And he's thinking about his sin and he's saying, You know what?
Joel Brooks:Offerings don't do it. I get it. Sacrifices, the the blood of bulls, the blood of goats don't satisfy. They don't get rid of my sin, but I will come. I offer myself.
Joel Brooks:That's what it sounds like, and and they're like, okay. We kind of get it. It's somewhat of a prayer of dedication, but he's declaring the righteousness of God. He's not declaring his own righteousness. And so so commentators are puzzled.
Joel Brooks:The author of Hebrews is not. Turn to Hebrews, if you would, chapter 10. We've been in James. It's just the book before James. Hebrews 10, and we'll begin reading in verse 3.
Joel Brooks:The author of Hebrews quotes from Psalms 40 here. But in these sacrifices, there is a reminder of sins every year. So not a removal but a reminder. For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Consequently, when Christ came into this world, he said, sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body have you prepared for me?
Joel Brooks:And burnt offerings and sin offerings, you have taken no pleasure. Then I said, behold, I have come to do your will, oh god, as it is written of me in the scroll of the book. When he said above, you have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings. These are offered according to the law. Then he added, behold, I have come to do your will.
Joel Brooks:He he does away with the first in order to establish the second. And by that will, we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once and for all. The author of Hebrews was puzzled as he went through Psalm 42 because he's like, this can't be David. David's gotta be speaking more than he knows. He's gotta be casting us forward.
Joel Brooks:And he says, Christ says this. David is pointing to the greater king, to the greater offering than him. He says, consequently, you know, in verse 5, when Christ came into the world, he said Psalm 40. It was his prayer. And so this is how we have that righteousness.
Joel Brooks:It's it's not when this is how we're drawn up out of the pit. This is how God can forgive us of our sins. Where does that sin go? He doesn't just sweep it under a rug. It's gotta be dealt with.
Joel Brooks:We can't say, Well, I step forward. I'd like to do your law. God says, No, you don't. You're no good as a sacrifice. And so, he brings forth his son, who perfectly does his law and can take away our sin.
Joel Brooks:So Psalm 40 boldly proclaims