Hello and welcome to the Middletown Baptist Church Podcast,
where we are proclaiming the truth to the world.
My name is Pastor Josh and I want to thank you for listening to
this podcast.
I hope that this podcast can be a blessing to you and strengthen
you in the word of God.
Now come along, let's look into the Bible and see what God has
for us here today.
If you have your Bibles, we're going to be in Psalm 40.
So for the next, I would say, month or so, we're going to be looking
at Psalm 40.
And there's only 17 verses here, but it is so rich in its message.
And when we get done with Psalm 40, we're going to get into
a book study, which I'll be explaining in the next few weeks.
But if you have your Bibles, turn there with me to Psalm 40.
And here in this psalm, as, as you well know, David is praising
God for what he has done for him.
And obviously the, the psalms are just that.
They're worship.
They're.
They're songs that are worshiping God.
We know that David is not the only psalmist in the, the whole book.
There's many, many psalms here.
If you counted them all up, most of you know there's 150.
And we can't go through the whole book.
We wouldn't have time to do that.
But I think that Psalm 40 is a great psalm because not only does
it talk about how God directly impacted David, but I do believe
also that David is prophesying about our salvation found in Jesus
Christ.
And so maybe you've heard this phrase before, Messianic psalms.
Messianic psalms are psalms that are not only worshiping God
in that moment, but also prophesying of the Messiah that is
to come in Jesus Christ.
And there's plenty of those.
You might be familiar with Psalm 22 and others, but I do believe
that Psalm 40 is also a Messianic psalm because it speaks
to the salvation that not only we find just with trusting God, but
specifically the salvation that we find in trusting God through
Jesus Christ.
And so the Bible is full of references to our salvation in the
Old Testament and the New.
By the way, sometimes we think that the salvation that God extends
to us is only found in the New Testament.
And even though we know the story of the Gospel in the New Testament,
the Old Testament is rich with references to the work of Jesus Christ.
Even though it doesn't explicitly say Jesus.
We do know that there are many opportunities for us to see the picture
of God's grace in the Old Testament, like we looked at this
morning with Mephibosheth.
And so it's important to remember that the whole Bible is
about God and his story and the story of his redemption to us.
And so it's a message to us.
It's a message for us.
And so for the next few weeks, forever long, we're in this.
I would like us to just dig deep into Psalm 40 and pick apart
this awesome passage of scripture that I believe applies
to us as it applied to David so long ago.
And as we go through this, you're going to.
I. I believe you're going to see this, this psalm of praise to
God for his deliverance, for a picture of the ultimate deliverance
in salvation.
And I believe it's our goal as a church to proclaim the gospel,
to live the gospel.
And I think it'll benefit us to learn what God did for us and
how we can share it with other people.
And so we're going to go verse by verse, and we're going to contemplate
what God did for us and how we can proclaim this to people around
us.
And so I would like you to make this study personal.
I'd like you to inspect it here in this time, but also if you
have time throughout your week to read through Psalm 40 and really
meditate upon the words of that we're reading here.
And ultimately, God wanted us to take into our heart and apply
to our lives.
And I want you to.
I want to pause here, and I want to talk just a moment about
that word meditate.
It's a word that we use in our culture today, but not in the biblical
context today.
Sometimes when you hear the word meditate or meditation, in,
in a worldly sense, it's all about emptying your mind and not
filling your mind with something of, of this world.
And that's not what biblical meditation is.
Biblical meditation is actually the opposite.
It's dwelling upon something in.
In this context, the dwelling upon the word of God.
So all of us, I think, know how to dwell upon something in a
negative way.
At least I do.
I'll sit there and think about something over and over again and
how I could have changed.
I don't know any of you guys have done this.
I'll be sitting there in the middle of the night.
I'm about to go to bed, and all of a sudden I start thinking
about something I said like 10 years ago.
And I'm like, why on earth did I embarrass myself?
And some of you are like, I never think about that.
I don't even think about what I said five minutes ago.
Me, I'm the type of person that I look back and I'm like, man,
why would I say that?
Or I dwell upon something that is to come.
Like, oh man, I've got a meeting in three weeks.
What am I going to say in that meeting?
How am I going to deal with that?
So I think we all know how to negatively dwell upon something that's
not going to benefit us.
It's actually unhealthy.
The Bible term for this would be meditation.
Dwelling upon something that is good, dwelling upon the word of
God, chewing on it, getting every nutrient that we can.
And I think that's important to do throughout our Bible study,
throughout our Christian life.
And so I want us to do that here in Psalm 40.
So let's look at verse number one.
It says, I waited patiently for the Lord and he inclined unto
me and heard my cry.
I think the first thing that we can see here in verse one is that
God is a personal God.
He's a God who cares about us.
He's a God who wants to meet us and our needs.
He's a God who not only knows about what's going on in our life,
but he wants to hear from us what's going on and he wants to do
something about it.
I think this verse highlights God's imminence.
This term imminence essentially means this, that he wants
a personal relationship with us.
He allows us.
Think about it this way.
God's blessing to us is that he allows us to know Him.
You ever had someone that you just really couldn't crack their
exterior?
You're like, man, they're just always are guarded.
I can never really get to know them.
I know them on the surface, but I can't really seem to get to
know them.
That's not how God is with us.
God doesn't just keep us at arms length.
God wants that personal relationship.
And I think that's an amazing fact in and of itself that he allows
us to know him in a personal way.
And so I could say here today, like, how many of you know?
And I could list a famous person, we all would probably know
of that person, but none of us probably would know that famous person
personally.
Like I know them, I know their likes, I know their dislikes, I know
their secrets, I know everything.
Well, the Bible says here in this case that God doesn't just want
us to know about him or, or know of him, but to know him in a
personal, personal way.
And so David knew salvation.
David knew deliverance only comes from God.
And so the question that I would ask you here this evening is,
are we willing to go to the Lord and cry out to him in times
of need, in times of difficulty, I think for many of us,
including myself, I run to other things in time of need.
I run to things that I think are going to give me comfort or security
or some kind of satisfaction in time of need.
But what does David do in the midst of a difficulty?
It says here, I waited patiently for the Lord.
And what happened?
And he inclined unto me and heard my cry.
I think this is very similar to the concept that we find in James,
chapter four, verse eight, when the Bible says, draw nigh or
draw near to God and He will draw near to us.
God wants that personal relationship.
And so the beautiful thing is that he hears our cry and he pursues
us.
That that word there, inclined means to stretch out.
And so the Bible says we wait patiently for the Lord.
We.
We call out to Him.
We.
We want that relationship with Him.
And what does he do?
He inclines unto us.
He stretches out to us.
And so just like Jesus stretched out to Peter when Peter
was walking on the water.
You guys remember that story?
Peter gets on the water and he starts walking to Jesus.
And everything's okay when his eyes are on Jesus, but when he looks
away, what happens?
He falls into the water.
But what does Peter do?
He calls out to Jesus for help, and the Lord reaches out for
him.
And so God reaches out to us when we call out to Him.
We don't have to have everything in order in our lives
to call out to him because he's the one that gives us order.
He's the one that gives us the deliverance.
And so I think verse one tells us that he hears our cry.
And sometimes we're tempted to think that God doesn't hear us.
And sometimes we're tempted to think that maybe if God doesn't respond
to us the way that we're expecting him to respond at the time
that we expect him to respond, that maybe he doesn't hear us or
maybe he just doesn't care.
But the Bible tells us here that God does hear us and that he
does care and that he meets us in that time of need in the way that's
best for us.
He hears our cry.
He inclines his ear to us.
He comes to us in that time of desperation.
Then we look at verse two, and it says here, the result of him inclining
himself to David and the result of God reaching out to us
is what what says in verse two.
He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry
clay, and set my feet upon a rock and establish my goings.
And so what this speaks to is God's salvation and his sustaining
grace in our life.
And so if you think about it this way, only God can save us and
sustain us.
The book of Hebrews tells us that God is the Jesus, specifically
is the author and finisher of our faith.
The way that you could say that is he's the creator and the
sustainer of our faith.
And so he.
He brings us up out of that horrible pit and in this place.
Sometimes we would think about this being like a physical place,
a horrible pit that we're in in our life.
And it could be that.
But in the greatest sense, the horrible pit that we were in was
sin.
We know we've been talking about this a lot on Sunday mornings.
For the wages of sin is death.
We were in a horrible pit in our sin.
But the Bible says that when we call out to God, he pulls us up
out of that horrible pit, out of the miry clay.
And I think of that clay being like quicksand, holding us down,
holding us in.
And so if we try to save ourselves, if we try to help ourselves,
we only cause more problems.
But what the Bible says here is that he brings us up.
It's not our work, it's only his.
And so there, there is this fallacy today that God helps those
who help themselves.
And, and I can understand why we say that, because sometimes we
think, well, like, got to do something.
Well, the only thing you have to do is rely on God and trust in
him.
And he's going to be the one that pulls you out.
It's going to be his work.
Now, that doesn't say that we just sit down and be lazy in our
life.
There's a lot to be said about not being a sluggard, as the book
of Proverbs says.
But if we think that something that we do can work ourselves out
of a problem, that's the place where we get into a dangerous.
A dangerous pit.
And so what we can do is this.
We can understand that it is God who pulls us up out of the pit.
It is God who pulls us out of the miry clay.
And so it's not pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps,
it's allowing God to pull you up.
I was watching this.
I think I mentioned this before.
I was watching this documentary of animals.
I like to Sometimes watch these videos that speak of like different
things that happen in the, in nature.
And one of those things would be like predators attacking prey.
Don't ask me why, I enjoy that.
But it's kind of interesting to watch the lions and the leopards
stalking their prey.
Some of you are like, okay, now I know something interesting
about Pastor.
It's, it's God's creation, right?
Okay, so we look at that.
So, so one of the videos that I watched, it was, it was like this
gazelle or this little impala looking deer thing and the animal
got caught in like this really, it was like a old like pond
or river area.
And it was dried up enough where there wasn't water, but it
was still like really muddy.
And this animal was running away from the enemy.
But he got stuck.
And he was in that clay.
And as much as he was fighting to get out, he kept going back in
farther and farther.
And that was an easy target for the predator to come.
And the Bible does say that in First Peter, Chapter 5, that Satan
is like a lion, like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.
And a lot of times in our life we get stuck in a situation and instead
of relying on God to pull us out, we fight against it.
And ultimately we're like an animal stuck in quicksand.
We can't avoid the enemy.
And so the more we work, the deeper and the more stuck we get.
And so he not only delivers us from destruction and bondage, but
then we see.
What does it say there?
It says, he takes us out of the miry clay and sets my feet upon
a rock.
And so he takes us out of that difficulty, but then he sustains
us and he sets us on a solid rock.
Now we know what the solid rock is.
We know the solid rock is our relationship that is secure in Jesus
Christ.
But then he takes the next step.
What does he do?
In verse two, it says that he not only sets our feet upon a rock,
a steady, sure foundation, but then it says, and established my
goings.
This is a beautiful picture of God keeping our steps secure as we
move forward in our Christian life.
And so where does he place us?
He places us on a solid rock.
He secures us in his strength.
There's a lot of different people with a lot of different hope
for their foundation.
Some people set their foundation in all the wrong things.
We as Christians have to set our foundation in the one true answer
to our struggles in life.
And that is the truth of Jesus Christ.
Some of you know the story in Matthew chapter 7 verse 24 the idea
of the wise man building his house upon the rock.
And for us to be people of faith, for us to be people that are
going to see God's sustaining work in our life, we have to set
our foundation on the rock.
Matthew 7:24 Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of
mine and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man which built
his house upon the rock.
And the rain descended and the floods came, and the winds blew and
beat upon the house, and it fell not, for it was founded upon
a rock.
And everyone that hear these sayings of mine and do it them not
shall be likened unto a foolish man which built his house
upon the sand.
And and the rain descended and the floods came, and the winds blew
and beat upon that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of
it.
So the Bible says that we as believers can set our foundation
on the rock, or we can set our foundation on the sand, that when
the storms of life come, we will be washed away.
And we see that the person who sets himself upon the rock, as it
says there, is those who hear what God says and obeys.
Therefore whosoever hear these sayings of mine and doeth them, I
will liken him unto a wise man which built his house upon the rock.
And so there we see the foundation in Psalm 40 is the same
foundation that we see in Matthew 7.
The rock, the foundation, the surety of a relationship with God.
And so when we try our own path, what does it lead to?
It leads to destruction, it leads to demise, it leads to brokenness,
it leads to despair.
But when we put our foundation in Jesus Christ, it doesn't matter
what storms come because he's pulled us out of the miry clay, he's
taken us out of the horrible pit and he's put our feet upon a
solid rock and he establishes our goings.
Then we look at verse three and it says, and he hath put a new
song in my mouth.
And so God wants a personal relationship with us when he saves
us.
He saves us out of sin and he sustains us.
But the beauty is, is that while he is sustaining us, he gives
us new life, he gives us new desire, he gives us a new song.
And I love how David put it there.
He says, and he hath put a new song in my mouth.
When we're saved, we're changed.
We're transformed.
The things that we said before are not the things that we should
say now.
The things that we gloried in before, the things that we desired
before are not the things that we should desire now.
That new song in our mouth is talking about praising God for what
he has done for us.
There's things that we in our flesh desire.
There's things in our flesh that we go after.
But he says no.
As a believer, as someone who's been saved and sustained, there
should be a new song in our mouth.
We change the way we talk, we change the way we act, we change
the way we respond because of what he has done for us.
And so as Second Corinthians, chapter five tells us that we are
new creations because he lives in us.
And so what we praise and fear is what we truly trust in.
So what you praise in your life is what you're trusting in.
What you respect in your life is what you.
You trust in.
It's where your faith is placed.
So if your faith is placed in the world, guess what?
You're going to have the song of the world.
If your faith is placed in your.
Your treasures, your finances, your song is going to be in your
treasure and your finances.
Whatever is in our heart is what's going to be our.
So now some of you say song I'm supposed to sing.
Well, I do believe the Bible says make a joyful noise.
Doesn't say make a, you know, in tune noise.
Even though we should do our best for the Lord, but we should
have a new song in our life.
It's a good thing to sing out to God and praise Him.
He.
He calls us to do that.
I mean, I. I was giving an analogy today in.
In one of the meetings that we had.
I'll never forget.
It was.
It was just one of those.
You ever had one of those moments in your life that you just
remember?
It's kind of like a.
Like a stamp on.
I don't remember a lot, but there's just certain moments in my
life that I experienced with my family and with the church and
with the world that I'll just never forget.
And it was one day.
Micah had to be like six.
I'm going to embarrass him now.
I'm sorry, buddy.
When I tell a story about you, okay, but he was probably like 6
years old.
And we got home from Wednesday night service, and I was coming home,
it was a long day, and he was getting ready for bed, and I heard
him in.
In his bathroom singing a song.
Like a song that they sing at the Wednesday night service.
And for whatever reason that just gave.
That just.
That, like, touched my heart.
I'm like, he's in there.
No one told him to sing that song.
No one went in there and said, son, you better sing this song.
But God had put a new song in his heart and he was singing that
song.
He was excited.
And I loved it so much that I, like.
He didn't know I was filming him, but I was recording him.
And I have that forever on my phone, like him singing that song.
And there's a couple times where I do that with the kids.
They don't know that, that I'm listening and recording, but I. I
record them singing because I want to remember those moments.
But I learned a lesson from that, that God had put a new song
in the heart of this young child.
And that should be the same way for us that God should.
God gives us a reason to sing.
God gives us a reason to praise.
Sometimes we harden our hearts because of the things in this world
and we lose our joy.
But folks, we have reasons to praise Him.
We wake up in the morning, his mercies are new.
We have reason to praise Him.
We come to church and we have a church family that cares about
us.
We have a church family that we can come to with our prayer requests.
That's a reason to praise.
He gives us salvation.
That's a reason to praise.
And so in verse three, he says, you have put a new song in
my mouth.
Even praise unto our God.
Many shall see it and fear and shall trust in the Lord.
That new song is there, yes, to worship.
But that new song is also to show other people how great God is
and how he can change their life as well.
Some of us don't trust in what God is doing because we don't praise
Him.
We, we don't.
We don't respect Him.
We, as it says there, fear Him.
We lose our joy, we lose our satisfaction because we want some
kind of thing that the world is promising us.
And the Bible says no.
The reason why sometimes we lose our trust in the Lord, our faith
in God, not our salvation, but our trust in him daily is because
we lose sight in what he has done for us.
We're not praising Him.
And so our new identity is in him now.
And we have to start living that way.
We have to start singing that way.
And so the question is, is what is my new song?
What am I praising God for?
What am I praising God for when no one's looking?
It's one thing to praise God when people are looking.
Sometimes easier to do that because we know that, hey, people
are watching us.
But where's that praise when no one's looking.
Where's that time of prayer?
I don't know.
For you, it might be, hey, you know what?
I have a long drive to work in the morning.
My commute.
That's my time where I talk to God.
That's my time when I praise God.
Some of my most memorable, meaningful prayer times were like
when I was driving a long way and no.
No one could hear me except God.
Maybe someone was listening to me on my phone.
I don't know.
But the.
The idea is I would just start praying.
I wouldn't close my eyes when I was driving.
I don't think that's very wise.
But.
But I was praying.
And, man, if someone would have pulled up next to me, they probably
would have thought I was either talking on Bluetooth or I
was talking to myself.
Because I think those are the times in our life where we need to
get alone with God and praise him for the things that he does for
us.
And so when we do this, we are not only praising God, which we should,
but we're a testimony to others.
We see that at the end of verse three.
It says, many shall see it, and when they see it, they fear in
a good way, with awe and respect, and shall trust in the Lord.
So the question would be, if someone followed us around, if someone
witnessed us, would they see someone who had a new song that would
give them hope in the Lord?
Does our life point people to hope?
Does our life point people to satisfaction?
Does our life point people to a transformation in Jesus Christ?
How would someone characterize our testimony?
I know for me, sometimes in my life, when I'm in a spirit of discontentment,
people would characterize me by my complaining because I could
tell them all the things that are wrong with me today and all the
things that could be better.
But what kind of testimony is that for someone who needs Jesus
and we show them?
Hey, you know what?
All I can do is complain instead of praise.
The question would be for us is, are we willing to proclaim it
to those around us?
And so we will see fruit.
If we are living for him and proclaiming his name, God is the
only thing that lasts.
There's a lot of things in our life that we think are important,
but those things are going to pass away.
The Bible says that those things that we do for him, proclamation,
praising, preaching, doing all the things that God has called us
to do, when we do that, those things are going to last for eternity.
That's the kind of fruit that lasts.
And so salvation is the only thing that can't be taken away from
us.
The Bible says that our health can be taken away, our finances could
be taken away.
God forbid this building could be taken away.
I mean, there could be a storm and the walls of this church could
be knocked down.
That doesn't mean our church is gone.
That doesn't mean our salvation is gone.
Because these pews, this church, this podium, this isn't what
is going to last for eternity.
What lasts for eternity is that relationship with Jesus Christ.
The things that we do in sowing the seed for the family of
God, for the kingdom of God.
That's what's going to last.
And so that's our hope.
And so that's what he's talking about here.
He says, you have a new song in your mouth.
Your praise to God is praise to God and a testimony for others.
And then we get to verse four and it says here in verse four, blessed
is that man that maketh the Lord his trust and respect, if not
the proud, nor such as turn aside to lies.
So as God wanting a relationship with us, and as we trust
in that, he saves us and then he sustains us, and then he gives
us a new song and he changes us and he allows us to proclaim his
name.
Then we see in verse four that God gives us joy because he rescues
us from the lies of this world.
Really, if you think about this world and the framework of this
world, it's all based on a lie.
When it comes to the worldly system, the worldly system is get
what you can now.
This is all you have.
So get what you can now.
The one who dies with the most toys wins.
The one dies with the most power wins.
And so the worldly way, the, the system that Satan enacted into
this world is alive.
And so what God does is that as he saves us and he sustains us
and he changes us, he gives us a reason to have joy and he rescues
us from, from the lies of this world.
And so verse four, that that word blessed is happy, joyful.
Joyful is that man that maketh the Lord his trust.
And so the only absolute truth comes from God.
The world is going to throw a bunch of truths out at us.
Well, at least what they call truths which we know are lies.
And I even heard someone recently saying, well, you know what?
Your truth is your truth, and my truth is my truth.
And we can all have our own truths.
The problem is, is what if those truths contradict each other?
What do we do?
Well, there must be an absolute truth.
And what the Bible says here is we find that truth in God.
The blessed is that man that maketh the Lord his trust.
Don't pursue the lies of this world.
The lies are going to be thrown out and the lies are going
to be packaged in a way that seemed very attractive.
Well, the Bible says here that the only absolute truth comes from
God.
And so the one who does not believe the lies and the one who
puts his trust with or her trust in God is going to be the one.
As it says there in verse four.
Blessed is that man that maketh the Lord his trust.
And then what?
And respect if not the proud.
So the world is prideful.
And so what does it say here that the prideful chase the lies
of this world, the humble seek the Lord.
This is a principle that we see throughout the New testament.
James chapter 4, verse 6.
But he giveth more grace wherefore he saith, God resisteth
the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.
So what is he saying here?
He says, you'll find joy by humbling yourselves and trusting
in God.
You'll find demise and despair by buying into the lies of the world
and respecting those that are set in pride.
So it says here, don't respect those that are proud.
Don't respect that prideful way of doing things.
Don't look at the world system and say that's the system that we
need to follow.
Don't give a place to the devil to slip in.
Lies are being thrown at us every single day.
But our faith and trust in God will give us the victory.
Nowadays more than ever, we are bombarded by lies.
Some of you know that all you got to do is turn on your phone and
look at the news.
And sometimes people would even willing admit, I don't even
know what's true these days.
I don't even know if this is a real video or a real picture.
I don't even know.
There's so much confusion in this world today.
So with all that confusion, what do we do?
We go back to the foundation.
We go back to the one who gives us hope.
And it says here, don't respect the proud.
Don't put your trust in the proud, nor such as turn aside to
lies.
And so when we buy into the lies of the enemy, we're giving him
a foothold and we're allowing ourselves to find those lies and
ultimately the outcome of those lies, which James chapter one
tells us what the outcome of that is.
Death and destruction.
So when we buy into the lies of the world, what are we doing?
Well, ultimately what we're doing is we're practicing idolatry,
we're practicing selfishness.
And God hates that only God truly fulfills.
And that's what verse four is all about.
It says, blessed, happy, content is the man that maketh the
Lord his trust.
What about the one who goes the way of the world and buys into
the lies?
Well, that person finds brokenness and despair.
Then we look at verse 5, verse 5, it says this many O Lord my God,
are thy wonderful works which thou has done.
He goes back and thinks about, meditates upon God's miraculous works.
He says, in thy thoughts which are to usward, they cannot be reckoned
up in order unto thee.
If I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be
numbered.
He says essentially this God, you are so great.
You are so wonderful.
If I just tried to praise you for all the things that you have
done for me and how wonderful you are, I wouldn't have enough time.
I wouldn't be able to.
And so he references God in, in a special way.
He says many oh Lord, my God.
Again he refers to that personal relationship that he has
with God.
And he says God has done everything for us.
He's good to us.
We don't deserve any of this.
But because God is good to us, we should be thankful.
And because we are thankful, we serve Him.
And so we are always on his mind.
Even think back to what Romans chapter 5, verse 8 says that in that
while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
And so God knows what we will do.
God knows our failures, God knows our inadequacies.
But yet at the same time he extends his love to us.
And so God cares about us.
He knows our struggles.
He meets us in our need.
And he gives us what no other religion or belief system or institution
can provide.
And that is full satisfaction.
He's our heavenly Father.
He's our friend.
As we talked about this morning, he's our shepherd.
Bible says he's like our brother, our counselor, our helper,
our Savior.
And so verse 5 is this amazing thing that, that he gets to this
place where he almost.
You almost can feel that he's overwhelmed with the goodness of
God.
He's overwhelmed with the grace of God.
He's overwhelmed with the love of God.
And all that can happen is really just pouring pours out of
him this praise to God.
He says it's amazing that you would even think about us.
He says it's.
It's amazing your works because we can't even think about
all of them.
They're Just too grand.
They're too wonderful.
And then we get to verse number six.
He says, sacrifice and offering.
Thou didst not desire mine ears.
Hast thou open burnt offering and sin offering?
Hast thou not required?
You say, what is he talking about here?
Well, the awesome thing about what God has done for us is that
God saves us from the bondage of works.
He says here, God's not concerned with sacrifice and offering
if he doesn't have your heart.
Sacrifice and offering are empty if God doesn't have our heart.
And in this case, the analogy would be our ear, our listening ear
to him.
And.
And so there's a teaching that basically says this, that if.
If we want God's love, if we want God's grace, if we want God's
good favor, you've got to work and work and work and just hope that
God will eventually be proud of us and that God would be happy
with us and that we could reach some kind of point in our life
where God would just be satisfied with our work.
Folks, we can never do enough.
And so what is this saying?
It doesn't mean that God doesn't want our sacrifice.
It doesn't mean that God doesn't want our offering.
But the truth is, is that God doesn't need that.
God wants our heart.
If God has our heart, he has our everything.
He has our sacrifice, he has our offering.
But we know that it's very simple for a person to fall into
the trap of just thinking, I've got my offering today, I've
got my sacrifice today.
I do all my religious checklists, and now God must be happy
with me.
God wants our heart.
And that's really what this is all about.
And so the greatest work of God was that the salvation that he
extended to us was through the work of Jesus Christ and not our
work.
That's what's different than any other religious system in the
world today.
Every religious system says, what can you do to get God?
The Bible teaches, what did God do so that we could obtain a
relationship with him?
And so the offerings that are being talked about here were not
wrong in and of themselves.
But the offerings are not enough.
Because if people think, hey, you know what?
If I just give enough, God will love me more.
If I just give enough, maybe God will shine his grace upon me.
We cannot give enough.
And so the offerings or the works themselves in the bigger picture
are given to find a better standing with God.
If they're given to find a better standing with God, it's done
with the wrong motivation.
Offerings and sacrifices should be an overflow of the delight
and worship of our hearts.
We're to serve God with the same reason.
We don't serve God to get him to love us.
We serve God because He loves us.
We, we don't put our, our offerings in the offering plate or
in the box because we hope that God will some way bless us.
We, we do that because God has already blessed us.
Now are there blessings with giving?
Of course.
Right.
Obviously we understand that like the more we give to God, the
more we can see him working in our life.
But let me tell you, that's not.
God isn't sitting up in heaven with his, with his scales going,
well, okay, so, so, and so gave me this much today, so I'm going
to give him this much grace today.
There is the principle of sowing and reaping.
And we should sow into the work of God and we will reap blessings
and fruit.
But at the end of the day, if we believe that we can earn some
kind of love and status with God, we're going to be in this never
ending pit of works and works.
And I've fallen into that trap myself.
If I can just write one more sermon, if I can have one more family
join the church, if I can just have this ministry working, well,
you know what, then maybe I can be the kind of pastor that God
wants me to be.
And maybe God will love me more.
That's a dangerous, dangerous place to be.
And so he says here, sacrifice and offering, Thou didst not desire
mine ears, have thou opened?
So, so what does he, what is he talking about here in this case?
What is he talking about his ears being open?
Well, it's this understanding that God wants us to listen to him.
God wants that relationship with him to obey his voice.
God wants our heart.
And the way that he gets our heart is through his word.
And so instead of saying, okay, God, let me give you all these
things that I need to do and then hopefully I can reach you.
No, it's reaching out him and allowing him to guide us.
And so it's obeying his voice, it's giving him our ears, and it's
giving him our heart.
And so if we give him our heart submission, he'll have our
lives.
If we try to reach God's favor with an empty show of works, we're
going to eventually fail.
And so when we turn our heart over to him, he changes it and he
shows us new desires, he gives us a new mission, he gives us new
goals, and so he rescues us from the burden of performance.
Because our salvation is based in faith and faith alone.
So based on what he did for us.
And so our performance follows true faith because our faith is in
him and that gives us our identity in Him.
And so our service is based in that and not.
Not ultimately proving our love to Him.
And so what I would say is this.
Our love for him will be manifested by works.
But works don't necessarily mean that we're loving him because
it goes back to our motivation.
And so the good news is that this frees us.
It's not freedom from serving, but it's freedom to serve him.
Because you know you can't fail when you're on God's side.
So it's understanding that true perspective.
So ultimately, what David's saying is like, thank you, Lord.
It's not just a list of rules.
Thank you.
It's a personal relationship that changes, changes our hearts.
And that's sometimes what we can fall into the trap of trying
to change people.
I know for me, I have fallen into that trap a lot.
I've looked at somebody and I said, okay, if they can just stop
doing what they're doing, you know, let me just grab them and shake
some sense into them.
Stop doing what you're doing.
And I try to be the Holy Spirit for them.
That's.
That's not true change.
It could be temporary external change.
Like if I say, hey, like, I don't want anyone coming into this
church like this, or, or if you do, we're going to just kick
you out.
You can't come in the front door.
So people might change because they're just trying to externally
change so that they can be here.
But biblically speaking, Biblically speaking, the Bible says
that true fruit first.
Corinthians, chapter 3.
Does fruit come from Paul?
No.
Doesn't come from Apollos.
The Bible says, who are they?
They're just ministers of the Gospel.
The Bible says, God gives the increase.
God gives the change.
God gives the growth.
And this is hard for me because I grew up in a system that
said, okay, we've got to change these people, so we got to
do everything we can to change them.
But biblically speaking, what.
What happens here is this.
We point people to the depths of God's grace and his love.
And so change.
Biblical change.
Biblical fruit.
Biblical growth comes from the Holy Spirit convicting and changing,
comforting teaching, guiding someone from the inside, which will
eventually be manifested with change on the outside.
But if we want to see people change, what do we do?
We point them to the Truth.
We give them an example of the truth.
We love them, we encourage them, we challenge them, we correct
them if need be.
But the ultimate change will happen through the conviction and
the change of the Holy Spirit.
Sometimes there's a lot we put too much pressure on ourselves.
I mean, let's be honest, some of you have been praying for someone
to get saved for a long time and you put pressure on yourself.
What, what could I have said differently?
How could I have done better?
Well, as long as you're doing your best to show them the truth
of Jesus Christ, you've done your part, keep praying, you don't
give up.
But ultimately it's the change that God brings to their life.
So the beauty of what is being taught here in Psalm 40 is that the
pressure is not on us because we can't handle that pressure.
Ultimately, it's given over to God.
And God does the work and changing people's lives.
And that sometimes takes a long time.
Not in the timing that we want, always.
But one of the most freeing things that I've experienced in ministry,
saying, you know what?
I've told that person the truth.
I love them in Christ, I exhort them, I challenge them, and
I want to see God working in their life and pray for them.
And so that's what David's talking about here.
God wants our heart.
Then we look at verse seven, we'll look at verses seven and eight
and then we'll come to a conclusion.
Here this evening it says, then said, I lo.
I come in the volume of the book.
It is written of me.
I delight to do thy will, O my God.
Yea, Thy law is within my heart.
And so what we see here in verse 6 is that freedom from the
bondage of works, what true salvation by faith looks like.
And then we see that service doesn't come because we're forced
to serve.
Service comes through a changed heart.
We have that new desire to serve him and to sacrifice for him.
And so it's enjoying doing things for him.
We get to do this.
Not I have to do this, but I get to do this for God.
If things, if the things of God are not enjoyable to us.
If service.
Let me, let me say this very carefully here.
If service, worship, prayer, Bible study, fellowship within the
church.
If, if we have lost joy in that, those things are not enjoyable
anymore, it's time to re evaluate our hearts and our minds.
It doesn't necessarily mean that we're living in public sin,
but what that means is that there is something going on that's
not Healthy if I do not find joy in all these things that God
has said we find joy in.
Okay, so, so what does that mean?
That means this.
It could possibly just be a misunderstanding.
It could be that I'm burnt out because I have the wrong motivation,
or I've been.
I've been misunderstanding the way that I'm supposed to do this.
But the Bible clearly teaches that serving him, worshiping him,
being with other believers, reading his word, praying, these
should all be things that God expects us to have joy in.
God has not called us to have miserable lives.
He's actually called us to have abundant grace in our life,
to life, to have life and life more abundantly.
Psalm 139, verse 23.
Obviously some of you know this passage of scripture.
When I read it, you'll know it.
The psalmist says, search me, O God, and know my heart.
Try me and know my thoughts, and see if there be any wicked way
in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
There might be a time in our life where we need to say, lord,
search me, like, why do I not have joy in your word anymore?
Why do I not have joy in worship anymore?
Could it be a lot of things?
But when God will reveal that to us, we have to be then willing
and ready to say, lord, I'm going to change this so that I can
find that joy again.
Some people teach that the life of a Christian needs to be miserable
and joyless.
But nothing could be further from the truth.
Jesus came to give us life and life more abundantly.
He came to give us joy.
And so spiritual maturity reveals to us that we don't serve
God because our salvation hinges on it, but we serve him because
we love Him.
I'm thankful that God has not made us a robot.
But.
But God changes our desires.
And so the good news then becomes that obedience is his delight,
our obedience is his delight.
We prove our love to him through our obedience.
And so what God.
What God asked us to do is.
It's.
It's not hard, it's not impossible when we do it in him,
but when we do it in our own strength, it's.
It is impossible to do the things that God has called us to
do.
And there's so much more that we could talk about when it comes
to this.
But what does he say here in 7 and 8?
He just says this.
God will change our delights, as I will delight to do thy will.
Oh, my God.
Yea, Thy law is within my heart.
And so this idea that he's trying to get across is that, Lord,
I know I don't have to do this, but Lord, I want to do this.
Lord, I delight in doing your will.
I delight in pleasing you.
It gives me great joy to be a part of your work.
We're going to talk more about this later on in the study.
But basically what happens is that in David's time, animal sacrifice
was really how they could demonstrate animal sacrifice was
the way that they demonstrated this covering or this atonement of
sin.
And so animal sacrifice under the old covenant would cover sin.
The Hebrew word for atonement is kofar, which literally means to
cover.
But animal sacrifice could never take away sin, never completely.
Only Jesus, the perfect sacrifice in the new covenant, takes
away our sin.
And so we even see in Hebrews chapter 10 this wonderful reminder
that the blood of bull and goats cannot completely save us from
our sin.
That was only a shadowy picture of what is to come fulfilled
in Jesus Christ.
And so, even though David might have not completely understood
what he was talking about, what he is saying is this.
There's going to be a time when all these sacrifices are needed.
But ultimately there's only one sacrifice that will be given
and no longer a sacrifice will ever need to be given again.
God does not expect us to be sacrificing animals over and over
and over again because that's not going to do anything anymore.
Because Jesus offered that once for all sacrifice, so no more
animal sacrifices needed.
Why?
Because Jesus is that perfect great shepherd, but he's also the
Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
And so Jesus's obedience to God and the cross gives us an opportunity
to know that we now have a new hope, we have a new victory.
And, and that is living in confidence in what he has done.
And so at the end of verse eight, we just see that now David
is going to delight to do God's will.
And the law of God, the truth of God is written on his heart.
And I think for us, that's what we have to do.
We have to come back and find that joy.
The joy of service, the joy of fellowship, the joy of worship, the
joy of Bible study.
I, I know sometimes when I was, when I was a young man, I had
a Sunday school teacher that made us vow.
We, we literally got up and made like a promise.
He says, I want you guys all.
I think I was in seventh or eighth grade, I remember it.
He said, I want everyone to make a promise to me that you'll
read the Bible every day of your life.
And he says, and you're making a promise before God, and you're
making a promise before me, and you got to stay consistent with
this.
I was like, okay.
And I. I signed on the paper.
I was like, I'm gonna do it.
Because emotionally, in that moment, we just came off of this
revival, and I'm like, I'm gonna read my Bible every single
day, and I'm not gonna miss.
And for the first couple weeks, it was like I was digging
in.
I was reading passages of scripture.
I was enjoying it.
And then life started to happen, and distractions started
to happen, and school started to happen.
And I remember what it was like.
I was like, late at night, my parents like, all right, it's time
to go to bed.
I'm like, I haven't read my Bible today.
So you know what I would do?
I would go like this, all right?
Ezekiel 27, the word of the Lord came again unto me, saying,
now is.
And I would just read like, one or two verses, and I go, okay,
I read my Bible today.
Now, the truth is, is like, was God pleased with just me flippantly
just going and not really retaining anything?
I was just trying to keep a.
A promise that I had made.
Was there any retention?
No, there wasn't.
Then I'm just going to tell you after time, I'd miss a couple
days, and I'd go, oh, man, I feel so convicted and guilty.
But you know what?
After I missed, like, a few days and got to a couple weeks, you
know, the truth is, I didn't feel so bad.
I didn't feel as bad anymore because I'm like, you know what?
It's okay.
And the truth is, is that God's not sitting up there going,
well, you know, if you don't read your Bible every day, you're
a bad person.
You're.
But it shouldn't be that way.
It shouldn't be like, oh, man, it's just such a burden.
It should be like, this is God's love letter to me, and I get
to read this.
It should be done in joy.
Now, there's going to be times where spiritual disciplines are difficult.
Okay, I. I'm just going to give you a quick analogy, then I'll
be done.
I. I, like, I. I try to run.
I try to jog some of it.
Like, it's not really running, just like, basically fast walk.
Just, Just.
Just where both of my feet are off the ground a little bit.
But sometimes I. I like to get out and do that.
And when I.
When I first did that, I got out on the road and I ran and I ran
probably for like maybe a block.
And I thought I was gonna die.
I thought I was gonna die completely.
The more I did it, the more somewhat enjoyable it got.
It's hard to explain, but then you get out of it for a while.
Sometimes, like, I get busy and I'm not able to do it.
So yesterday I'm like, okay, Micah, we're gonna run.
We're gonna run no matter what.
Today, we're gonna go out and do it.
And Mike's like, okay, dad, we're gonna do it.
And you know when it was?
It was last night and it just started to sprinkle.
I was like, son, do you really want to go out and run?
I was trying to find every reason not to go running.
He's like, no, Dad, I want to run.
I want you.
Let's do this together.
I'm like, okay, son, we're gonna go do this.
And you know what?
Like, when we got out on the road, we started running.
It was just drizzling.
It was nice and cool.
And all of a sudden started getting a little bit harder.
And when you're running, like in a line, like, if you're running
out and back, if you're not running a big circle, if you're running
out, you know, like, as far as you run out, you gotta run back,
right?
So that's in the back of my mind too.
And I'm like, we're getting to a mile, two miles.
And like, so how far are we gonna go, Micah?
And Micah's like, let's try to do a 10K.
That's 6.2 miles.
So I was like, okay, we're gonna try to get out to like three
and a half miles, right?
When we get to three and a half miles, Michael, what happened?
The bottom fell out, right?
Started pouring down rain.
I'm going, man, this is not.
What am I doing out here?
But we did it.
We finished.
And I was afraid that someone was going to see me and running with
my 10 year old son, and they're going to be like reporting
me, like, why do you have your son out in the rain?
I'm like, well, we're kind of stuck right now.
We have to finish.
So we finished.
But, you know, I said to him at the very end of the, the, the
run, I was like, you know what?
I didn't want to do this.
I didn't really enjoy it most of the way, but now I'm really happy.
I did this because it was a memory.
I told Mike, we'll remember this for the rest of our lives.
We're out here running and pouring down rain.
And we did it.
You know, we finished it.
And that's an accomplishment.
And that's sometimes how it is with spiritual discipline.
Sometimes it's difficult to get into it.
Sometimes it's like, man, this is.
This is really hard for me to read my Bible, to pray, to study,
to take time out of my busy schedule.
But then you do it.
The more you do it, the more comfortable it becomes, the more
enjoyable it becomes.
And sometimes it's not even as easy when you're doing it, but there's
a blessing when we get through it.
And actually there is joy in that.
And I would encourage you to think about that.
If it.
Spiritual discipline should not be done out of tradition.
They should not be done out of, like, I've got to do this to
her checklist.
But I would encourage you to just not just because a lot of people
say, well, I don't enjoy reading my Bible, so I'm just not
going to do it.
Right.
You're just saying don't read your Bible.
No, I'm saying we need to learn how to enjoy doing that.
And sometimes it's difficult, sometimes it takes commitment.
But at the end of the day, what does he say here?
He says this.
I want to leave you with this.
I delight to do thy will.
Yea, thy law is within my heart.
So what's the prayer?
It's not, lord, give me the strength to read my Bible every day,
or give me my strength to be at every church service.
It's, lord, give me a new heart that desires that.
And when we desire something, it changes our life.
And so I encourage you to think about the desire that God instills
in us to love the things that he loves.
And I've used reading the Bible as an example.
But it could be a lot of different things.
You know, one of the things that God loves.
God loves unity within the church.
I don't preach about this enough.
I could preach every Sunday on unity, because that's just the truth
of the matter.
God wants us to pursue unity.
It's his will that the church be walking in one flesh, in one direction
sometimes.
Let me tell you all the time, that's not default.
Our human flesh does not seek unity.
So what do we have to do?
We have to actively chase after that and know that that's God's
will.
God's will is what we desire.
It's God's will that people grow.
It's God's will that people come to Christ.
It's God's will that we make disciples.
It's God's will that the church prevails over the gates of
hell.
And so what we do is we just say, lord, we know that's your will.
So we delight in what you delight in.
Next week, we'll come back more and look at the second half
of Psalm 40, and maybe we'll finish early or maybe we'll take
three weeks.
But I encourage you to read Psalm 40 ahead this week and just
get into the.
The thought process of meditating upon the word of God.
Even if it's this, even if it's just taking one verse for this
week and just thinking about that verse, chewing on that verse.
One thing that I. I like to do is I like to write the verse out
physically with my hand and circle different words that stick
out to me.
You have highlighters.
Highlight a word and think about what that word means to you
folks.
You can't study the word too much.
You can't over and, like Alicia sometimes tells me, she's
like, you.
You know, you analyze things a lot, okay?
And I analyze the wrong thing.
Sometimes I'll sit there and watch a football game and be like,
all right, I can't believe they threw that pass.
Or like, I'll analyze, like, me in my life.
But one good thing that we can analyze is the word of God.
That that's something that we should dwell on, that we should dig
deeper into, and that's a healthy place to put our focus on.
Said of all the other things in this world, some of us just.
I don't want to go there.
Some of us look at odd.
Well, I'm gonna go there.
Some of us look at the news of the world, and that's what we analyze,
and that's all we can think about.
And though I think we should be up to date with the things that
are going on in the world, we shouldn't overanalyze things that
are out of our control.
Let's analyze what God has given us in our life and dwell on
that.
And that's gonna give us the fuel to face everything that we're
facing in this world.
So Psalm 40, that's our encouragement here this evening.
Let's go ahead and pray.
I've kept you already longer than I usually do, so let's close,
and then we'll be dismissed.
Lord, I thank you for this time that you've given us, but I
thank you for the opportunity to come together here this evening
to study your word, to look into what you've called us to do
in our lives.
Lord, thank you for the new heart, the new desire that you put
in our lives, Lord, that has been stolen from us for whatever
reason.
Lord, help us to be renewed in our joy of service, our renewed joy
and sacrifice, our renewed joy in doing your will in our lives.
And so thank you for this church.
Thank you for the folks that are here this evening, the folks
that aren't able to be here tonight.
Lord, I just thank you for the love and the grace that you've given
us.
Pray that you keep us safe as we go our separate ways tonight.
Jesus name, Amen.
Thank you again for listening to the Middletown Baptist Church
podcast.
I hope that this sermon has been a blessing for you.
If you would like to find out more information about our church
or this sermon, you can find us at middletownbaptistchurch.org
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You can also email me directly at Josh Massaroiddletownbaptistchurch
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Thank you so much.
God Bless.
Have a wonderful day.