Sermon: True Deliverer

This morning we're going to look at Psalm 40 together and let's pray before we open up God's word together this morning.

Father, we are thankful for your faithfulness.

The word which you spoke long ago is a word that is living and breathing in the present will be living and breathing tomorrow and the day after tomorrow and on into eternity. And as we read these words that know that in them is life as they are words from you,

we pray that we would listen to them as words spoken from heaven, the words of mere men, the words of a sovereign, holy, good and kind God that has chosen to speak to his people. Give us ears to hear, his hearts to receive. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. Psalm 40 this morning, this is the holy errant sufficient word of God.

I waited patiently for the Lord. He inclined me and heard my cry. He drew me up from the pit of destruction and outta the myy bog and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure. He put a new song in my mouth, song of praise to our God. Many will see and fear and put their trust in the Lord. 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 they are more than can be told and sacrifice an offering. You have not delighted, but you have given me an open ear burned 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, your law is within my heart.

I've 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. 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.

Evils have encompassed me beyond number. My iniquities have overtaken me and I cannot see there 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 all together who sneak to snatch away my life. 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, aha, aha.

May all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you. May those who love your salvation say continually great. It's the Lord as for me, I'm poor and needy. The Lord takes thought for me. You are my help and my deliverer do not delay. Oh my God, the grass withers, flower fades. Word of God is forever. Thanks. Speak to God. Amen.

As I said last week, we looked at Psalm 34 and we looked at how good the Lord is. What I want to see from let's to see from Psalm 40 this morning is that our God is a deliverer. How great our God is that he is a deliverer. Again, we can't look at everything in the psalm as we even said last week. We can't go through everything but I, I want to look at the Psalm in three ways this morning. I want us to see kind of the breakdown, but before we do so,

let me just give you a little bit of connection here. I think Psalm 37, Psalm 38 and Psalm 39 are intimately tied with Psalm 40 in Psalm 38. What David does is a psalmist is that he tells us that he was waiting for deliverance and then we see in Psalm 38 and Psalm 39 that he is continuing to wait from for deliverance from whatever it is the trial that he is going through. We don't know what it was. Was it sickness? Was it his own struggle with sin and temptation?

Was it adversaries that were against him? Maybe it was all of the above. We're not sure what it was, but he is waiting for his deliverance for these things. And then in Psalm 40, what we have before us this morning, we see that that deliverance is given to him. So I want to look at the psalm this morning through three, through the natural breakdown, through three points this morning verses one through three, God delivers verses four through 10,

God is worthy of trust. And then verses 11 through 17, God is worthy of continued trust. So God delivers, God is worthy of trust and then finally God is worthy of continued trust. First verses one through three, God delivers. He begins by telling us here in the psalm that he has been waiting patiently for deliverance. Deliverance from what? Well, he gives us a little bit of an insight into the toll it's taking upon him. And verse two,

he tells us that he is in the pit of destruction. He goes on to call it a myy bo or as it is in the Hebrew, a mi of Meyer that he is in. Now, I doubt any of us have ever been in a myy bog. I don't know what that's like. I haven't been in such a bog before, but we understand the word picture here. You can see it in your mind's eye. Most of us were prepared for it in childhood. I remember, I think it was a comedian that I heard say it and it resonated with me. Uh,

he said one of the great disappointments of his adulthood and one of the great surprises was that there was not more quick sand in the world. Uh, and I agree it feels like every cartoon I watched as a kid and every western I watched as a kid there was quick sand and I've never even come across quicksand ever. I've never been in a myy bog. I've never been in a great pit and yet I know what he's talking about. Feel like you are in a trial, you're in the midst of suffering

and it feels like your head is sinking. Can't bear much more. It's just pulling you down. That's David's experience. Trial was great. Severe. Have you done this? You feel like just one more week, maybe even one more day, maybe even one more minute sometimes that if this remains, if I continue to have to battle in this,

I'm lost. If one more thing gets added to my plam lost

sinking,

but David waited for the Lord and as he waited for the the Lord, the Lord responded cuz God delivers, delivers. That's his testimony. He notes five things that God did for him. In verses one through three He says, God inclined to him God hurt his cry. God drew him up. God set his feet upon a rock, God made his steps secure. God put a new song in his mouth, he experienced God's deliverance as severe as the trial was, it did not take him. God delivers.

And that leads David to our second point verses fourth or 10, God is worthy of trust. That's David's conclusion. He says verse four, blessed is the man who makes the Lord his trust. There's only two options in life. Either we trust the Lord or we don't trust the Lord. Only two,

the height of the Cold War and the Eisenhower administration, they changed the motto on our currency and they put on our currency in God we trust and in debate whether that was a good action by our government or not, but they did it because they wanted distinguish the United States from our adversary, the atheistic communist Soviet Union that did not believe there was any God. And in very real way that's the picture. There's only two options. Either you believe in God or you don't.

You either trust in God or you don't. Those are the only two options and that's what's presented in verses four through five. There are those who trust in the Lord. Blessed is the man who makes the Lord his trust and there are those who do not trust in the Lord. They trust in the proud as David says, those who promise much but deliver little, whether those are people or things or false gods or false religions or the devil. But by experience,

what David knows is that God is worthy of trust. He knows it. Why? Cuz he delivers time and time again. He proves himself over and over again. There's nothing else like this. Verse five, you've multiplied, oh Lord my God, your wonderous deeds and your thoughts towards us. He sounds like that other great psalm as ASAP in Psalm 78 where he is trying to recall all the wondrous deeds that the Lord has done, all the mighty wonders that he has worked and Asof begins listing one

after another after another and finally he just says a stop because there's too much he can't go on. They're truly without end. It reminds me of John's comment at the end of the gospel when he says that if everything Jesus had done was to be written down, he supposed as the world could not contain the books that would be written and that was true of the 33 years of the sons incarnational ministry. If the world could not contain the books that would be written for 33 years

of wondrous deeds, then it would surely take infinite worlds filled with infinite books to record the wondrous deeds of our eternal triune God towards us.

Infinite worlds with infinite books.

You've multiplied, oh Lord my God, your wondrous deeds and your thoughts towards us none and compare with you. I will proclaim and tell them. Yet there are more than can be told.

That little negative saying that we have does the reverse in our modern day parlance where we will say, fool me once, shame on you. Will me twice shame on me. Or there there's that personality, that modern day personality that said, when someone shows you who they are, believe them. That's the negative. It is what you see is what you get. Well he has shown us time and time again who he is. He has proven it over and over and over.

He's worthy of trust.

I want you to see what David brings out about God's person in verse nine. What marks this God and whom we would trust our E S v translated says, as I have told the glad news of deliverance. But you'll see there's a little footnote there in your svs and if you drop down and look at that footnote, that word deliverance is actually the word righteousness. And David is referring to God's nature. He is righteous. He says in verse 10, I've spoken of your faithfulness, God is always true.

He says, I have not concealed your steadfast love. That is he has a committed covenant love to his people. Here is one who is righteous, who is faithful, who is ever committed and covenant love to his people. Here is one who David is saying He is worthy of your trust. This is what marks him. This is who he is. He's worthy of your trust because of who he is.

And notice David's response to his experience of this God who is worthy of trust. He speaks of it and he lives for him.

I don't know if uh, he saw it this week. I'm gonna switch to the handheld.

Uh, there was um, video this week of a sheriff's deputy in Florida that there were torrential reigns and that sheriff's deputy went out and his squad car and these huge rains were flooding all of the streets and he got out of his car to help these stranded motorists that were in the middle of the street. And as he walked towards this motorist to try and help this motorist, the two of them both got sucked into a drainage ditch

and they were submerged underwater and went through a tunnel for a full 30 seconds under the water and they went underneath the highway and they merged on the other side and he's got, you know, the camera on his uniform. And so you're watching this whole video and he merges on the other side of the highway with this man that he went in after. And you know what they do?

They just begin rejoice him with each other recalling what they had just been saved from and then they start ascribing praise to Jesus. Oh thank you Jesus.

This is what David is doing. It's a natural response of having your feet once again on solid ground. You you want to tell others and you want to thank him who delivered you. And so David does, he speaks of him. He cannot keep who God is to himself. Verses nine and 10, I have told I have not hidden, I have spoke, I have not concealed and he's going to live for him. He, he makes a commitment in verses six through eight.

He is dedicating himself much like Paul will tell us to do after he rehearses 11 chapters in Romans of what God has done for us in Christ Jesus. And then he gets there in 12 one. He says, I appeal to you therefore brothers, by the mercies of God to present your bodies as a living sacrifice. This is the response you live for him. David knows the right response to this incredible God. God wants our very persons, he doesn't just want these ritual outside exercises.

He wants our very hearts. David says, and so he pledges to give him his heart his whole life.

But David's words there point beyond himself. In fact, the writer of Hebrews picks us up in chapter 10 as we'll see as we return to it in the fall. And he says that they speak of Christ. Christ becomes the perfect man who delights to do the will of God. Not my will be done but thy will be done. He says this God who is worthy of trust Christ will say to the Father, even in his dying breath, upon the cross he will say unto your hands, I commit my spirit.

He is worthy of trust.

He's worthy of trust in both life and in death. Which leads to our final point. God delivers. God is worthy of trust in verses 11 through 17, God is worthy of continued trust. You have to keep trusting in him.

You have to. Why? Because the trials keep at it. They keep coming.

Jesus trusted in his father when he was in the wilderness and he's being tempted by his adversary. But the trial has kept coming. There was still the the trial and there was still the cross and there was still the garden of Gethsemane. He had to keep trusting his father. For David the psalmist, he was delivered but he's clear in verse 12 that new evils have come upon him. Whatever that Myy Bogg was in verse two, he, he seems to have been saved from it, but now new evils have come,

more troubles have come apparently this time a trouble that was brought on by his own sin. He gets out of one and here comes another. Haven't you felt like this?

You're in the midst of one severe trial and finally, finally you're out of it. You feel like you just started to catch your breath in a another trial comes

and you think, here we go again.

At times it almost seems unbearable

and David is forthright about that. He says in verse 12 that his iniquities have overtaken him. He has lost sight. They seem to be more than the hairs of his head. His enemies are great. In fact, he points out to verses 13 through 15 that they're rejoicing at his pain. They mock him by saying ahaha and no doubt what they're mocking him with is you said that God is your deliverer. Well where is he Now?

At the very least I had to go through David's head. Is

He still my deliverer? Is God worthy of my continued trust?

Jesus is tempted in this way on his final day as he hangs upon that cross, there will be common people that John tells us that pass by him while he hangs there and they're deriding him. And John says that they're wagging their heads at him and they're mockingly saying to him, you would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days. So save yourself, the chief priest with the scribes and the elders will mock him saying He saved

others. He cannot save himself. He's the king of Israel. Let him come down from the cross and we will believe him. And then they said, what surely was an echo of what David is either hearing or hearing in his own mind in this passage he trusts in God, let God deliver him. Now if he desires him, that's what the priest say to Jesus as he hangs upon the cross.

He trusts in God, let God deliver him. Now if he desires him,

was God his deliverer? Is he? Is he David's deliverer? Is he your deliverer?

He was at one time. The question comes, doesn't it? Is he now?

Is he my deliverer now? Does he desire me now? Isn't that the temptation? Yes, I trusted God and he proved himself before, but this trial is so very severe. If God really desired me, if he really loved me, he would end this. Now

is he worthy of continued trust?

I Was sitting with my family a couple of nights ago and we read this passage together.

At times we were talking about this and we were saying, you know at times it can feel like, like heaven is shut up.

Oh, the circumstances of our lives, the trials of our life that can feel like so many clouds that just create this kind of impregnable sphere around our lives

and it's cold and it's dark and it seems like no light is shining through.

And moments like that we can feel like, ah, I can't part those clouds.

But what we can't do, he does.

This is what he does and what he promises to do.

David May be losing sight of God as he confesses in verse 12, but God has not lost sight of David. Yes, it is true that evil remains, trials remain, pains remain. But what David is realizing is God remains too and it's not a fair fight. He wins every time.

He triumphs over all our foes and delivers us from them all.

We so often think, oh, I'm in the palm of the hands of the Lord Jesus Christ when things are going well and then when things are not going well, when there is a trial and it is severe, we think somehow we've, we've been plucked out of his hands, but he says none can pluck us out of his hands. You're in the same hands today as you were in yesterday, as you were in last week, as you were in last month when you were sailing along.

It's the same hands

and they're good hands as we saw last week, and they're great hands as David tells us in this psalm this week.

They're great hands

that can be confusing. We get out of one frying pan and feel like we're in another. As one commentator said, pass deliverances or always followed by fresh challenges and needs. And that's true in this world

day is always followed by night in this world, but the Christians enemies never have. The LA last say for the Christian night is always, always followed by day it comes,

the sun rises again. And I mean that in every sense of that phrase.

A day is coming when there will be no more night, just eternal day. That's what John tells us in Revelation 21. That celestial city has no need of sun or moon. He says, for the glory of God gives it light. And John says, there will be no night there. He is worthy of your continued trust.

He's worthy,

He delivered and he delivers.

And that leads David in verse 16 to erupt, rejoice and be glad and God made those who seek him say continually great is the Lord Indeed.

Let me just ask some questions this morning to different people in this room and closing. First, let me ask the atheist or the agnostic or the skeptic or the unbeliever in this room this morning,

where will you find deliverance?

Where Will you find deliverance,

lasting deliverance?

Two decades of ministry. Two things have become more clear to me than anything else. The first is this, everybody is suffering. Now we can play the comparison game. There are some in this room that are suffering more deeply than others. There are some that have been suffering longer than others. There are some that have suffered in various ways more than others. We can play the comparison game all day long, but every single person in this room is suffering.

I know that to be true because this is true for every single person, not only in this room but in the world. Everyone's suffering

and that means that everyone needs deliverance. The second thing I know after two decades of walking with people in suffering is that there is no true deliverance apart from Christ.

Now grant you there's temporary deliverance. There's temporary deliverance by planning and by plotting and by cajoling there is temporary deliverance through drugs and alcohol and relationships and sex and work and education and winning the lotto.

I've just as easily seen all of those things fade like a vapor.

Where are you getting lasting deliverance from? Eternal deliverance,

complete deliverance.

It's only found in Christ.

Jesus said it this way, he said, in this world you will have trouble. You will. And yet he said this, take heart. I have overcome the world. No one can say that. Nothing can say that. But Jesus,

have you trusted in him? He's worthy of your trust

to the timid. Let me ask you this question. Will you try him? I mean it. I want you to try him.

There's some who wonder whether he is worthy of trust. Others wonder whether he is worthy of more trust and you will only know you can trust him or trust him more by trying him. It's like the man that stands on this side of a gorge and there is a bridge that goes across and he wonders whether that gorge, he can cross it over that bridge, whether that bridge will hold his weight. The only way to find out is to take a step.

And he finds that with each step, that by experience that as that bridge holds his weight, he he finds that he's trusting that bridge more and more as he crosses over it. The more you lean upon God, the more you will trust God. The more you try God, the more you will find him to be worthy of trust. You try him

to the lonely, to the isolated sufferer in Christ. Let me ask you this question. Will you continue to believe that he's with you?

Continue to believe that he's with you

in the great trials within trials is that it is often a lonely space.

It's an isolated space.

As you're in the midst of your trial, everyone else's lives go on and you want them to go on, they need to go on. You're happy to see them go on. But it feels like yours has come to a crushing halt. And the feast, your famine of relationships through suffering is an isolated reality that every single person experiences,

but as alone as you feel, you are not alone. You're never isolated, dear Christian. Never. Because God is always with his people. His character demands it. He has promised it.

When Jesus was in the garden of Gethsemane, he will invite John and James and Peter to go with him. He from a human perspective, he, he needs them to be with him. He needs their friendship and he asks them, just, just watch with me. Watch and pray with me. And they can't even watch him pray with him for a few hours.

The reality is, is that no one else could carry that burden for him. Suffering by nature is isolating. It was his life. It was his burden. No one else can fully carry that burden because it is not theirs. But this is the beauty of Christ. This is the beauty of the gospel. He is unlike every other friend you can possibly has. He says, come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest. He not only walks with you through the suffering,

he takes your suffering upon himself and his person. He has done so,

takes our burdens upon himself. He alone truly walks with us even as he walks for us. There's no friend like Jesus, I will never leave you. I will never forsake you. He said, do you believe that?

Do you trust that?

Finally to the weary Christian this morning,

let me ask you, you keep trusting in God.

That's what David is admonishing you and I to do. Keep trusting. We keep trusting in God.

This is the great challenge. I think especially as trials become more severe,

your trials are more than the hairs of your head. It's a more threatening proposition for some of us than others of us. Uh, my dear friend, our former pastor, uh, Kevin de Young saying to me one time about Lee and I and our hair, he said, uh, I have never met a couple in which one spouse is so follicly blessed and the other so follicly cursed

true.

Maybe you have, uh, trials in your life like the sporadic hair is upon my head.

And that can feel overwhelming at times. Or maybe you have that full life of trial like Leah has that full head of hair. It can be overwhelming. It can feel like we are cursed in the midst of it. We are never cursed. It doesn't matter how deep. It doesn't matter how long. It doesn't matter how wide. It doesn't matter how numerous our trial is. Our sufferings are you are never cursed. Dear Christian, that's an impossibility for you.

Job had everything taken away from him. It seemed as though he was cursed, but he was not cursed. God's eye was still upon him. God still looked after him and he was still the lord's and after that night came day. And so it is true for every single Christian

never cursed. He's with us. He's with us forevermore. He's a faithful God. He is a faithful king. He is a faithful savior.

As David ends the psalm, so it should be a refrain for us. Over and over great is the Lord. He is his mercy is greater than your trials. His mercy is greater than your sins. His mercy is greater than your sufferings. His mercy is greater than all of your enemies. He's making them all a footstool beneath his feet. His mercy is greater than your darkness. He's worthy of your trust.

He's worthy of your trust.

Let's pray.

Our Father, we exalt you this morning

that we have so great to God who delivers His people,

who is worthy of trust, who is worthy of continued trust

should never leave us, nor do you forsake us, that you are a friend who draws near you're compassionate and long suffering, that you are bounding in steadfast Love that your people are always your people.

May we lean into you, always looking to you with the eyes of faith and declaring how great is our God.

It's in the strong name of Christ we pray. Amen.