The Christian Song – Part 1
Psalms 40 (1-5)
May 26, 2019
Psalms 40 has always been one of my favorite Psalms.
Namely because it was the first Psalm (really the first passage of Scripture) that I ever discovered after I was saved.
I’ve shared how I grew up in church,
• So I knew a lot of Bible stories and Bible passages.
• I had memorized Psalms 23 and other famous ones like it.
• It wasn’t until I was 19 that I actually met the Lord.
• It was then that He opened my eyes and made me alive.
• It was then that He placed His Spirit within me and gave me spiritual life.
I’ve shared how I didn’t know what happened to me
• Because at the moment I didn’t do all the typical Baptist stuff.
• I didn’t walk an aisle, I didn’t sign a card, etc.
• But I knew something was different.
It wasn’t long after that night that I came across Psalms 40.
I read:
(1-3) “I waited patiently for the LORD; And He inclined to me and heard my cry. He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay, And He set my feet upon a rock making my footsteps firm. He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God; Many will see and fear And will trust in the LORD.”
In the margin of my Bible at the time, I wrote the words “Super Summer”.
(That was the camp I was at when I was saved)
I wasn’t sure what happened to me that night, but whatever it was,
It was the same thing that David talked about in those verses.
• For the first time, I found commonality.
• For the first time, a verse in Scripture testified with my spirit.
• I’ve been a fan of Psalms 40 ever since.
As I study this Psalm for preaching, I simply call it “The Christian”
Because this Psalm, in my opinion, does as good of a job
Of revealing the Christian heart as any passage in Scripture.
We are well aware (certainly as we have been studying on Sunday mornings)
That you don’t spot a Christian outwardly. You spot them inwardly.
Paul wrote:
2 Corinthians 5:16-17 “Therefore from now on we recognize no one according to the flesh; even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him in this way no longer. Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.”
Christians aren’t spotted outwardly.
That is, we aren’t marked predominantly by our dress our or outer religion.
The greatest marking of a believer comes from their inward qualities.
• Their love, their devotion, their obedience, their faith, etc.
• Their fruit.
Now, those who do not know Christ,
But who merely go through the motions,
Typically have no clue what I’m talking about there.
The spiritually dead have no concept of what spiritual life is like.
But once Christ makes you alive,
The difference could not be more obvious.
Well, it is that reality that David sings about here in Psalms 40.
It is honestly just the deep heart desires of a Christian.
It is the realities of life that mark a true believer in Christ.
And tonight, even if you’ve never heard the song before,
I trust that you’ll be able to join in and sing right along with him
As though you’ve known this song your entire life.
I want to split this Psalm into 5 stanzas.
#1 DAVID’S DELIVERANCE
Psalms 40:1-3
The song actually begins in the middle
Of whatever situation David was previously facing.
We do find out in verse 2 that David
• Was “in a pit of destruction”
• And in “miry clay”
“pit of destruction” would indicate punishment for sin.
“miry clay” would indicate consequences of stupidity.
If you put them together we find a great description of lostness.
For we know that unbelievers are both under the wrath of God
And under the due penalty of their sin.
Romans 1 reminds us that
One of the consequences of God’s wrath is that unbelievers are “given over” to their iniquity.
In idolatry Paul describes it as being given over “to impurity so that their bodies would be dishonored”
In homosexuality Paul describes it as being given over “to degrading passions…receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.”
In rebellion Paul describes it as being given over “to a depraved mind to do those things which are not proper.”
It is both divine wrath or “the pit of destruction”
And it is the natural consequences of perversion or “miry clay”
In Ephesians 4 Paul describes the state of unbelievers as:
Ephesians 4:18-19 “being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart; and they, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness.”
WELL, THAT IS WHERE DAVID WAS.
What is not revealed to us is how David came to know of his condition.
Perhaps David read the Law and discovered his sin,
Like in Romans 7 where Paul admits that he didn’t even know what coveting was
Until he read in the Law “Thou shalt not covet”
Perhaps David found himself in horrible circumstances
Like the prodigal son in Luke 15 and finally came to his senses.
It is nothing short of the grace of God
That even awakens a sinner to his miserable condition.
To be certain sinners don’t like to be exposed,
But it is a shear blessing when they are.
We don’t know how David came to be aware of his miserable condition,
But when he starts this Psalm he is already aware of it.
WHAT IS MORE, by the time this PSALM BEGINS
David has already cried out to the LORD for forgiveness and deliverance.
We know that because David is now simply waiting.
(1) “I waited patiently for the LORD;”
• So he’s already been made aware of his sin.
• And he’s already cried out to the LORD for forgiveness and deliverance.
What I like here is that David recounts a time where he “waited patiently”
That fact reveals much about the genuineness of David’s faith
When he cried out to God.
The fact that he “waited patiently for the LORD” reveals to us two things.
1) David knew he was helpless to deliver himself (works theology) or else David would have given up waiting and taken matters into his own hands.
2) David was confident that God and God alone could deliver or else David would have gone somewhere else.
David’s patient waiting indicates to us that
When he cried out to God, his faith was genuine faith.
It was real faith. It was proved by his patient endurance.
SO GET THAT FIRST.
David was a sinner, convicted of sin,
Who had cried out to God with genuine faith.
And then comes the response:
“And He inclined to me and heard my cry.”
We know that God responds to faith.
The life of Abraham teaches us this.
Genesis 15:6 “Then he believed in the LORD; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness.”
The apostle Paul is adamant to teach us this.
Romans 3:28 “For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law.”
The writer of Hebrews drives this point home.
Hebrews 11:1-2 “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the men of old gained approval.”
GOD RESPONDS TO FAITH.
(In fact, God actually first grants it and then responds to it,
But that study is for another time)
Well David gave faith to God and God heard David.
(2) “He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay, And He set my feet upon a rock making my footsteps firm.”
That is what we call deliverance.
That is where the rubber meets the road regarding salvation.
God removed David from “the pit of destruction”
And God pulled David out of “the miry clay”
God forgave David thus making a son out of an enemy
And God removed the curse from David and turned it to blessing.
And the New Testament theme on this is so clear.
Ephesians 2:1-9 “And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.”
That is exactly what David just said.
• I was in sin…
• I was under the curse…
• I was an enemy of God headed for destruction…
• I was a rebellious sinner living in the consequences of my sin…
And then I cried to God in faith and God delivered me.
“He stet my feet upon a rock making my footsteps firm.”
David’s position of danger has been changed to a position of stability.
• David once was a man in extreme risk of destruction
• Now he is a man dwelling in absolute security.
It is salvation.
And at this point let me just state what should be obvious.
EVERY CHRISTIAN HAS THIS TESTIMONY.
Every believer has the same testimony of how God rescued them
From divine judgment and from the iniquity they once lived in.
Let me tell you how that truth was taught to me wrong.
• I have shared with you how I grew up in church,
• And walked an aisle at age 8 and was baptized.
• I was told that this was salvation.
But one of the problems I always struggled with
WAS THAT I HAD NO REAL TESTIMONY OF DELIVERANCE.
• I’d here testimonies of how people in sin were no longer in their sin.
• I’d here testimonies of how people in rebellion were no longer in their rebellion.
• I didn’t have a testimony like that.
I asked a preacher about once and here was his answer:
“Don’t focus on what God saved you out of, focus on what He saved you from.”
In other words, God just saved you early enough that you never got into all that sin and so He saved you from it, not out of it.
Now, I’ll admit, I liked that answer, and it gave me some peace.
BUT IT IS TERRIBLY WRONG.
Was I to assume
That the reason I saw no change in my life was because I was the one lost person who lived so righteous that even after salvation you couldn’t spot the difference?
Was I to assume
That the reason I saw no change in my life was because I was the one dead person who was so close to being alive that even after resurrection you couldn’t spot the difference?
Do you see how foolish that is?
Now, I’ll admit, in an external sense what that pastor said had some merit.
• I was 8
• I lived in a Christian home
• I had good parents who disciplined us
• I wasn’t doing drugs or visiting prostitutes or robbing banks.
But if we’ve learned anything about salvation
It is that God doesn’t look at the outside.
Where does God look? (the heart)
If we learn anything from the Sermon on the Mount
It is that God doesn’t judge murderers solely on the physical act of murder.
How does He judge them? (by the heart)
The same is true for adultery.
The reality is that at 8 years old I was a terrible sinner!
• I had rebellion in my heart.
• I had selfishness in my heart.
• I had discontentment in my heart.
• I had jealousy in my heart.
• I had envy in my heart.
And none of that changed until God saved me, which was at age 19.
And let me assure you, at that moment I saw a radical difference.
(You may not have seen it externally, for I was still moral)
But I promise there was a massive internal change.
• God saved me from a position of wrath.
• God saved me from a position of rebellion.
• God placed me in His family & in His kingdom and I was sealed there.
And that’s why I tell you that this reality is true of every true Christian.
If you have no testimony of
God delivering you from the evil inside of you,
Then you need to ask exactly what you’ve been saved from?
If a person moves from physical death to physical life can you tell the difference?
• So why do we assume that someone can move from spiritual death to spiritual life and there be no difference?
It is absurd.
True believers are marked by genuine deliverance from sin.
• If they are outwardly sinful in practice, that should change.
• If they are merely inwardly sinful, that should also change.
David does not say that
God saved him and left him in the pit or the clay.
GOD PULLED HIM OUT.
We reference the story of Lazarus quite a bit as a picture of salvation.
• We talk about how Christ regenerated him so that he could even hear the call
to come forth.
• We talk about how Christ raised him from the dead.
• We talk about how Christ called him out of the tomb.
But in that story there is also a picture of TOTAL DELIVERANCE.
Do you remember what Jesus said after Lazarus exited the tomb?
John 11:44 “The man who had died came forth, bound hand and foot with wrappings, and his face was wrapped around with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”
Get the death clothes off of him, and let him go to life.
Jesus did not leave Lazarus in the tomb or in the clothes of a dead man.
He does not do that for anyone He saves.
He is rescuing from God’s wrath and He is rescuing you from your sin.
David says that God:
“brought me up OUT of the pit of destruction, OUT of the miry clay, And He set my feet upon a rock making my footsteps firm.”
THAT IS SALVATION.
But that’s not all He did.
(3) “He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God; Many will see and fear And will trust in the LORD.”
It was a simultaneous occurrence.
David was lifted out of sin and into singing.
2 Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.”
Even today we understand this.
• The filling of the Holy Spirit not only delivers from sin,
• But also moves into songs of praise.
Ephesians 5:18-20 “And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord; always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father;”
So do you see what has happened to David?
He has gone from an enemy of God to a lover of God.
That is the testimony of every believer.
• It is deliverance from wrath and deliverance from sin.
• It is the consistent reality of salvation for all who are saved.
And this reality is SO POTENT
That just that reality can lead man to fear and trust in God.
David said,
“Many will see and fear And will trust in the LORD.”
I’VE NEVER been one to advocate that famous saying,
“Preach the gospel to all people, if necessary use words.”
I don’t like that statement.
As one man put it, “Saying ‘Preach the gospel to all people, if necessary use words’ is like saying, ‘Feed the poor, if necessary use food.’”
You have to actually preach the gospel.
The gospel is the power of God for salvation.
We hold to that.
BUT, WE DO NOT DISREGARD THAT
A changed life can certainly be a powerful testimony.
David knew that when the world sees what a different person I am “Many will see and fear And will trust in the LORD.”
It’s the:
Matthew 5:16 “Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.”
Remember Paul:
Galatians 1:22-24 “I was still unknown by sight to the churches of Judea which were in Christ; but only, they kept hearing, “He who once persecuted us is now preaching the faith which he once tried to destroy.” And they were glorifying God because of me.”
There is validity in a changed life and David knew that.
Some of you have seen that.
(especially those of you who were outward thugs before salvation)
Those who lived in outward immorality and rebellion and who ran in circles of immorality and rebellion…
Often times when the Lord changes them
It does send a mighty ripple effect through their circle.
And the point of David here is this:
MY CHANGE IS OBVIOUS AND GENUINE.
When David spoke of the LORD rescuing him and changing him
David WASN’T speaking in hypotheticals.
It was a real and obvious change, even evident to those around him.
“This guy is different”.
THAT IS DAVID’S DELIVERANCE,
And it is the universal truth for all who are saved.
• We are all terribly wicked and spiritually dead until God raises us out of death and into life.
Titus 3:3-7 “For we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another. But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”
That is a Christian.
David’s Deliverance
#2 DAVID’S DOXOLOGY
Psalms 40:4-5
In verse 3 David said that God “put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God.”
Here David sings that song for us.
Doxologies are the common and extremely appropriate responses
Of those who have experienced God’s goodness.
There are several even in the New Testament.
Remember when Paul talks about how God mercifully saved him even though he was the worst sinner there was?
1 Timothy 1:12-16 “I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because He considered me faithful, putting me into service, even though I was formerly a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent aggressor. Yet I was shown mercy because I acted ignorantly in unbelief; and the grace of our Lord was more than abundant, with the faith and love which are found in Christ Jesus. It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost of all. Yet for this reason I found mercy, so that in me as the foremost, Jesus Christ might demonstrate His perfect patience as an example for those who would believe in Him for eternal life.”
Do you want to know how Paul responded to that?
1 Timothy 1:17 “Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.”
In Romans 11 Paul expounds on the great wisdom of God to orchestrate the plan of salvation.
Romans 11:28-32 “From the standpoint of the gospel they are enemies for your sake, but from the standpoint of God’s choice they are beloved for the sake of the fathers; for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. For just as you once were disobedient to God, but now have been shown mercy because of their disobedience, so these also now have been disobedient, that because of the mercy shown to you they also may now be shown mercy. For God has shut up all in disobedience so that He may show mercy to all.”
And he was so blown away by that that he immediately went into doxology
Romans 11:33-36 “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways! For WHO HAS KNOWN THE MIND OF THE LORD, OR WHO BECAME HIS COUNSELOR? Or WHO HAS FIRST GIVEN TO HIM THAT IT MIGHT BE PAID BACK TO HIM AGAIN? For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.”
In Ephesians 3 Paul recounts God’s great strength in trials.
Ephesians 3:8-10 “To me, the very least of all saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ, and to bring to light what is the administration of the mystery which for ages has been hidden in God who created all things; so that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places.”
And then the doxology
Ephesians 3:20-21 “Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.”
You see how doxologies are the natural response of God’s people
To the goodness of God.
David said that God put that song in his mouth.
Well, look at David’s song
(4-5) “How blessed is the man who has made the LORD his trust, And has not turned to the proud, nor to those who lapse into falsehood. Many, O LORD my God, are the wonders which You have done, And Your thoughts toward us; There is none to compare with You. If I would declare and speak of them, They would be too numerous to count.”
David told us that he waited on God; that he trusted in God.
And then he told us how God delivered.
So it is only right that David would now praise God for that deliverance.
“How blessed is the man who had made the LORD his trust”
• We remember that David waited on God.
• He did not turn to the “proud”
• He did not turn “to those who lapse into falsehood”
He trusted God, God delivered, and David praises Him for it.
Psalms 1:3 “He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water, Which yields its fruit in its season And its leaf does not wither; And in whatever he does, he prospers.”
Jeremiah 17:7-8 “Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD And whose trust is the LORD. “For he will be like a tree planted by the water, That extends its roots by a stream And will not fear when the heat comes; But its leaves will be green, And it will not be anxious in a year of drought Nor cease to yield fruit.”
That is David’s way of saying that he is totally satisfied with God.
And this is the song of a believer as well.
I’ve never met a man or woman who was saved and then said,
“It really wasn’t worth it.”
God gets tremendous reviews from all His children.
• It is always worth it.
• In fact, it is immeasurable.
• David says, “How blessed…”
That is to indicate incalculable blessing.
And why does David speak of blessing in that way?
Because God just lavishes upon His children more than they can fathom.
“Many, O LORD my God, are the wonders which You have done, And Your thoughts toward us; There is none to compare with You. If I would declare and speak of them, They would be too numerous to count.”
Someone wants David to RECOUNT GOD’S GOODNESS
And David says, “There’s not enough time.”
It reminds of that statement John made about Jesus:
John 21:25 “And there are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they were written in detail, I suppose that even the world itself would not contain the books that would be written.”
Paul even speaks of God’s goodness as David does:
1 Corinthians 2:9 “but just as it is written, “THINGS WHICH EYE HAS NOT SEEN AND EAR HAS NOT HEARD, AND which HAVE NOT ENTERED THE HEART OF MAN, ALL THAT GOD HAS PREPARED FOR THOSE WHO LOVE HIM.”
It’s just immeasurable what God has done.
TURN TO: Ephesians 1:3-14
My goodness, do you catch all that?
• “blessed us”
• “chose us”
• “predestined us”
• “redemption”
• “grace which He lavished on us”
• “an inheritance”
• “sealed in Him”
It’s just really beyond comprehension.
God’s goodness and thoughts toward us are remarkable.
Salvation is remarkable.
And the response of the believer
Is first and foremost to praise Him for it.
LISTEN, THAT’S WHAT CHRISTIANS DO.
In fact, I don’t think there is a greater CONTRADICTION than someone who claims to have been saved who has NO PRAISE for God.
Are you telling me that
• God rescued from eternal hell
• And adopted you as His child
• Granted you an eternal inheritance
• Filled you with His Spirit
• Raised you from death to life
• Gave you a future and a hope
And you’ve got nothing to say to Him about it…
THAT’S RIDICULOUS.
Christians are people of praise.
DAVID’S CHRISTIANITY IS MARKED BY
His obvious deliverance & by his song of praise.
• Can you measure your life by those things?
• Can you see that God drastically changed your life?
• Can you say that it has resulted in your praise of God?
That’s what a Christian is.
A sinner turned into a singing saint.
There are 3 more that we’ll get to next time.
