1. (with emphasis) Psa 30:11-12
You turned my wailing into dancing; you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy, that my heart may sing to you and not be silent. O LORD my God, I will give you thanks forever.
2. These words express the joy that I could not suppress. I could not wait to get into the church office. I jumped so high that I though my head would go through the ceiling. I jumped over and over again. "Thank you Lord! Thank you Lord!" It had been a rough two weeks I have shared this time with you before. As a student pastor I was thousands of miles away from home. My worship leadership and preaching was dry and empty. I questioned why I was going into ministry. Each day I cried before God. And then, that 3rd Sunday, after humbling myself before God, He brought life to the service. I felt Him in me and speaking through me. And I was overwhelmed with joy. My wailing, my mourning was turned to dancing.
3. This morning David shares such an experience with us. And as he does I ask you if you have ever shared in his, in my experience. Do you remember when you rejoiced in what God had done for you? If not, as we see what happened to David, may we reflect on what God has and is doing for us. And may we too be filled with a desire to dance before the Lord.
4. The entire psalm is a song of praise and thanksgiving to God. It is also a public sharing of what God has done. A estimony that is shared in public worship. Something I wish we would make a regular part of our worship services.
5. David is joyful and praises God. But he had felt just the opposite. He had been in the pit, in the depths. All was dark and he felt fully discouraged.
6. David’s kingdom had grown. Israel was a mighty and powerful and prosperous nation. As a result he felt secure and said "I will never be shaken." As an act of pride, he took a census of the people. Joab, his commander, knew this was evil & tried to convince David not to do this evil thing.
7. In 1 Chronicles 21, we read that God punished David and his people. He sent a plague and 70,000 people died. David and elders dressed in sackcloth and mourned this loss and asked God to remove this plague before more would die.
8. And God listened and withheld his hand from killing more of the people. In 1 Chronicles 22, we then read how David helps Solomon prepare to build the temple. And it is at the dedication of the plans or materials for building the temple that David presents this psalm.
9. He looks back at what happened. He realizes that his suffering was due to his own sin. He had been praising himself rather than God.
10. In vs. 9 he asks:
"What gain is there in my destruction, in my going down into the pit? Will the dust praise you? Will it proclaim your faithfulness?"
Some suggest this question is sarcastic. For he learned that there was gain in going to the pit. By being humbled, being brought down, he again learned to praise God.
11. How does this apply in our own lives? It means that we will have times of suffering or adversity. But God uses that adversity to lead us to where he wants us to go.
12. C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity compared God’s use of adversity to walking a dog. If the dog gets its leash wrapped around a pole and tries to continue running forward, he will only tighten the leash more. Both the dog and the owner are after the same result, to move ahead, but the owner must resist the dog by pulling him opposite the direction he wants to go. The master, sharing the same intention, but understanding better than the dog where he really wants to go, takes an action precisely opposite to that of the dog’s will. It is in this way that God uses adversity." We want to go a certain way, we don’t understand, and we don’t like it, but the master know better and pulls us the other way.
13. Important thing we need to realize. Suffering and difficult circumstances come to us as a result of sin. This can happen in three ways:
a. Overall, all suffering in the world is a result of man’s fall. If Adam, and through him, we, had not sin at all, there would be no suffering in the world
b. 2nd - suffering can be a direct consequence of a specific sin in our lives. Smoking does lead to lung cancer and suffering. If you are lazy and do not work, you may go hungry. Even if we are forgiven, we still suffer the consequences of what we do.
c. 3rd - suffering can be there to break the overall pride in our lives. As it was with David, as it was with me in Edmonton
14. And so when we are suffering we need to ask ourselves - why? Because of a specific sin? Or is it because of pride in our lives? If we can discover why, we can learn and humble ourselves. Then that suffering may stop.
15. Then as with David, God brings us up from the grave of our misery. God is a merciful God:
vs. 5 - For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favour lasts a lifetime;
16. The sufferings we go through are there for a time so that we can experience the joy of his mercy and salvation . As see read in Revelation, we, who are His people, are not objects of His wrath but objects of His mercy. At the time, we may think God is cruel. Easy to look at what happens to others and say, how can God do that?
17. If a father spanks a child in the behind, is that father good? Most of us would say, yes, depending on why. If a father slaps a child in the face, less of us would think taht he was a good father. What if a father slaps a child in the face for four hours. Most of us would think the man is a bad father. But, what if this young child accidentally took sleeping pills, and the doctor said to keep the child awake by any means possible for the next four hours. Then this is a good father, slapping the child with tears in his eyes.
18. Many times, we judge God like that. We think he’s a bad God, just because bad things happen. But we don’t always know why he is allowing or bringing those bad things.
19. God is good and he is wiser. He is absolutely in control of everything that is going on. We must trust him, even if he’s slapping us in the face, w must know that he’s trying to make us live. God brings us times of wailing and mourning to enable us to live. And as we cry out in our need, as we cry out to God, He hears our prayers and rescues us. And then more than ever before we experience His mercy. And we learn to trust and obey Him
20. A woman visiting in Switzerland came to a sheepfold on one of her daily walks. Venturing in, she saw the shepherd seated on the ground with his flock around him. Nearby, on a pile of straw lay a single sheep, which seemed to be suffering. Looking closely, the woman saw that its leg was broken. Her sympathy went out to the suffering sheep, and she looked up inquiringly to the shepherd as she asked how it happened. "I broke it myself," said the shepherd sadly and then explained, "Of all the sheep in my flock, this was the most wayward. It would not obey y voice and would not follow when I was leading the flock. On more than one occasion, it wandered to the edge of a perilous cliff. And not only was it disobedient itself, but it was leading other sheep astray. "Based on my experience with this kind of sheep, I knew I had no choice, so I broke its leg. The next day I took food and it tried to bite me. After letting it lie alone for a couple of days, I went back and it not only eagerly took the food, but licked my hand and showed every sign of submission and affection. "And now, let me say this. When this sheep is well, it will be a model sheep of my entire flock. No sheep will hear my voice so quickly nor follow so closely. Instead of leading the others away, it will be an example of devotion and obedient. In short, a complete change will come into the life of this wayward sheep. It will have learned obedience through its sufferings."
21. If we experience God’s anger toward our sin, e realize that we cannot blame God for our circumstances, but to see then as consequence for our sin. We must realize these consequences are there to bring us back to Him and to a reliance and dependence on Him.
22. Then we have a whole different attitude toward life. We no longer go about and feel that life is unfair. That others are better off than us and that we deserve to have what they have. We no longer feel that God owes us. Instead we realize that the punishment or adversity or suffering we have is much less than we deserve. And that the blessings of His mercy and grace are much more than we deserve.
23. When we see suffering in another, we so easily say "they did not deserve that." And when something happens to us, we say "what did I do to deserve this." When we have this attitude we walk about with what is called a victim mentality. And there is never any joy. And we do not share joy with others.
24. We even drain joy from out of others. Extreme example. I counselled a lady for a while. Not from the church. She was a large lady, walking slow and she seemed always depressed. She wanted to come just to tell me are her troubles. About how deprived she was. She felt a victim. Life was not fair. I told her that I could not meet with her more than 20-30 minutes. Because drained all my energy from me. She would pull me down. I tried to have her think of the blessings she had received and that God had been merciful to her. But she just could not get it
25. The point is, that when we realize our own shortcomings, God’s mercy and when we add those together and compute that they add to the fact that we are not victims, but conquerors through God’s mercy. Then we are filled with joy and that joy is shared with others.
26. I have probably shared my experience in Edmonton more times with you than I normally share illustrations. Pastors should use new illustrations. But I want to share so much how merciful God was to me. May each of us share these experiences with one another. God humbled me by placing me in a pit. He made me cry out to Him. To see my sin of pride and self-reliance.
27. And then to experience his hands reaching down and around me, pulling me out of my misery.
28. Are you in the pit? Cry out to God, admit you do not deserve help but ask Him to be merciful. "Hear, O LORD, and be merciful to me; O LORD, be my help."
29. And then rejoice. There is a time to mourn, but that time is short. Then comes the time to dance. To leap before the Lord and praise His name.
30. You turned my wailing into dancing; you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy, that my heart may sing to you and not be silent. O LORD my God, I will give you thanks forever.
