TRUSTING IN THE LORD
Psalm 40:1-17
Good News Christian Fellowship
BUCAS, Daraga Albay
October 15, 2006
INTRODUCTION
A. About last’s week message: Great is Thy Faithfulness; Choosing to Trust God.
B. About the word TRUST
1. The word TRUST appears more than one hundred times in the Old Testament
2. Less than thirty times in the New Testament.
C. Definition of TRUST.
1. “Firm belief or confidence in the honesty, integrity, reliability, justice, etc. of another person or things.
D. The Bible exhorts us to have trust.
Read Psalm 37:3; 118:8; Proverbs 3:5
I. TRUSTING IN THE LORD BRINGS DELIVERANCE (40:1-5)
A. Trust Expressed
Verse 1a, “I waited patiently for the Lord…”
Please take not the words “waited patiently.”
King David certainly knew what it meant to wait upon the Lord. You may recall that David was only 16 years old when he was anointed king. However, he did not take the throne until he was 30 years old. So, He had to wait almost 15 years.
When God deals with us in the Gospel, he teaches us to pray. We have to pray for our own soul and that is what David is doing. He is indicating the confident and persistent expectations with which he waited for divine intervention. That’s why you see in the Scriptures, David waiting patiently upon the Lord. He learned the hard way; running from King Saul, being chased, hiding in caves, and being persecute many ways.
In Psalm 27:14 we read, “Wait for the Lord; be strong and let your heart take courage; yes wait for the Lord.” Sometimes it takes a great deal of courage to wait and wait, as you start to think, “If I don’t take advantage of this opportunity now, I’m going to miss it.” Yet God says, “Let your heart take courage; yes, wait for the Lord.”
Hebrew 10:36 reads, “That ye be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises.” This indicates that patience is necessary to inherit the promises. We have to wait until god is disposed to hear us.
Also, notice Psalm 37:4-7: “Delight yourself in the Lord; and He will give you the desire of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord, trust also in Him, and He will do it. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light and your judgment as your noonday. Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him.”
The only way to wait patiently is to rest in Him, and that means you must trust Him to the point you are no longer anxious about anything. You can’t separate waiting upon the Lord and Trusting in the Lord; these two go hand in hand.
We have to wait patiently for God to:
a. “saved us out of horrible pit” – What is pit? It is like an old cistern common in the Bible times. A terrible imprisonment you can’t get out to. David said he was laid in the pit of the grave, and held under the power and with the cords of death.
This “Pit” is anything that causes a sense of helplessness and desperation and threatens to ruin life or take it away. King David is asking God to deliver his soul from destruction – that’s the king’s pit.
Note: In excavation at Gazar, Macalister found a number of skeletons in an ancient cistern, illustrating the fact that cisterns (pit) were used as a means of disposing of people in the Old Testament times.
b. “out of the miry clay.” – God moves us from a sense of desperation to a sense of security. In the pit we have not forgotten God, but our sense of His presence and comfort was not as lively as which He rescues us. In fact, the essence is the RESTORATION of strong feeling of God’s nearness and help.
B. Trust Encouraged – v. 3-5
1. A song of Praise – God gave him a new song in his mouth. There is a great deal of emphasis these daus on music, singing, groups and so forth. It is not that he became the lead singer in some beat gropu somewhere. He is not talking about joining some organization for entertainment. No! He is singing the PRAISES to God! That is all that matters to a Christians - singing the praises to God: the glories of His grace.
Why it is called a ‘new son’? Because he has a new heart and he has a new spirit. God has recreated him so that the filth and the pit, now he is delivered and he is on his way to the glorious kingdom of God. No wonder he has got something to sing about.
II. TRUSTING HIM BRINGS JOY – 40:6-10
A. Joyful Obedience – v. 6-7
What does it mean when he says in verse six, “sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire”? He cannot mean that God in the OT not appoint the sacrificial system, which we know to consist of the blood of bulls and goats. No, no, that is not what it means here.
What Christ means is that although God appointed those bulls and goats in the OT, yet god didn’t regard their blood as being sufficient value to save our souls. Only the blood of Christ is sufficient to do that.
Read Micah 6:6-8
There is a lesson there of course. it means that we must not trust anything, not in anything but ONLY in Christ.. We must instead see Christ in our coming here, in our fellowship and worship. We must see Him as the only Savior.
Psalmist recognizing that a sacrifice, even for sin, is meaningless if there is not a right heart.
B. Joyful Testimony – v.8-10
My dear brothers and sisters, are you remembering to give your testimony? Not every one is called to preach but every Christian is called upon to be a witness and to give a testimony to Christ.
I know it is not easy, but you have to give something to say the world to hear – how God deliver you from the pit.
Others are still in the “pit,” but by God’s grace, you have been brought out of it. Pray that God will help you to be a good witness and a good testimony – giver to those poor sinners who need to hear what God can do.
III. TRUSTING IN HIM BRINGS FAITH – 40:11-17
A. Faith for Deliverance – v. 11-15
You know that throughout the history of the church one of the messages that has confused people is, “If you become a Christian, all your problems will go away. That’s not true. According to Rick Warren, “Life is a series of problems: Either you are in one now, you’re just coming out of one, or you’re getting ready to go into another one.”
Now, undoubtedly, when we are saved we can expect great things, because we have God’s promises. But trouble doesn’t stop there. David understood this.
Verse 12, “For evils have encompassed me without number; my iniquities have overtaken me, till I cannot see; they are more than the hair of my head; my hearts fails me.”
Our Christian life is not always lived on the mountaintop. We have ups and downs. When we are effective for Christ the more we are under the attacks of the enemy.
Now, just because we come under attack does not mean we have to succumb to that attack.
Read Psalm 27:1-3; 5
This is the thing we understand. We are not excluded from the battle. We are simply protected from defeat.
B. Faith for Salvation – v.16-17
How can we maintain the type of relationship with the Lord where we can continually know we are under His protection?
Read verse 16.
We worship Him as God: The Omnipotent; the Omniscient; the Omnipresent, Eternal, Holy’ Just’ Longsuffering, and awesome God.
We confess Him for who He is and remember who we are without Him. Rejoice in the Salvation of the Lord: in himself, the essential Word, in whom there is always ground and reason of joy and gladness; because of his person, blood, righteousness, and sacrifice.
In the midst of trouble, nothing is more comforting than the remembrance of Christ...
Read verse 17.
The Lord is thinking about you. He is waiting patiently to hear from you.
“Trust ye in the LORD forever” BECAUSE HE WILL SAVE HIS PEOPLE (Isa.26:9) God’s name is honored by the salvation of his elect.
Let us be content with whatever God does, trusting him. He is saving his people. He is making his name great and glorious.
Conclusion
No matter what you face in life, you will be able to soar in, through, and over it, and you will become victorious no matter what. That is His promise. When you trust and wait, He shall renew your strength. You will mount up with wings like an eagle and soar over it all. Not only that, but He says you will run and not grow weary, walk and not lose heart. God has provided all the strength, power, and energy that you need.
Trust in the LORD!
He Will Bring Deliverance.
He Will Bring Joy.
He Will Bring Faith.
