Psalm 40

[0:00] If you have a Bible with you, then I want to encourage you to open up to the book of Psalms this morning in the Old Testament. Psalm 41 ends book 1. Psalm 40, though, is beginning to bring us to a sort of peak or climax in these Psalms, which is a reminder to us that even though you can read each individual Psalm by itself, the way that the Psalms have been handed down to us, the way that they've been passed down to us in our Bibles, is intended to help us to read the Psalms in connection with everything around them, so that we don't want to read Psalm 40 in total isolation from what's come before and what has led up to Psalm 40.

[1:09] This first book of the Psalms, these first 41 Psalms, are largely Psalms of David. All of them are in one way or another about David the king, and all of them in one way or another point ahead to the future greater David, King Jesus.

[1:27] And so I want us to keep that in mind. I want us to be able to make connections to things that we've already seen in previous Psalms. So, for instance, as we read the Psalm in a moment, it's going to begin with David's declaration that he has waited and God has then answered his pleas for help.

[1:47] Well, last week, we saw that the main theme of that Psalm was that David was waiting and hoping in God. In fact, for the last two Psalms, there's been a lot of language about David waiting for God's redemption.

[2:01] And now, as we near the end of Book 1, David's going to begin and sing out, I waited for the Lord, but he answered me. And so let's read through this Psalm together.

[2:11] It's a little bit long. It's 17 verses. We'll go ahead and read all of it, though, here at the beginning, and then we'll work our way through it. So if you would, stand to your feet as we read together. We're told that this particular Psalm was written to the choir master and that it is a Psalm of David.

[2:28] He says, Blesses the man who makes the Lord his trust.

[2:58] In sacrifice and offering, you have not delighted.

[3:23] But you have given me an open ear. Burnt offering and sin offering you have not required. And then I said, Behold, I have come in the scroll of the book it is written of me.

[3:38] I delight to do your will, O my God. Your law is within my heart. I have told the glad news of deliverance in the great congregation.

[3:49] Behold, I have not restrained my lips as you know, O Lord. I have not hidden your deliverance within my heart. I have spoken of your faithfulness and your salvation.

[4:00] I have not concealed your steadfast love and your faithfulness from the great congregation. As for you, O Lord, you will not restrain your mercy from me.

[4:11] Your steadfast love and your faithfulness will ever preserve me. For evils have encompassed me beyond number. My iniquities have overtaken me and I cannot see. They are more than the hairs of my head.

[4:24] My heart fails me. Be pleased, O Lord, to deliver me. O Lord, make haste to help me. Let those be put to shame and disappointed altogether who seek to snatch away my life.

[4:36] Let those be turned back and brought to dishonor who delight in my hurt. Let those be appalled because of their shame who say to me, Aha! Aha!

[4:48] But may all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you. May those who love your salvation say continually, Great is the Lord.

[4:58] As for me, I am poor and needy. But the Lord takes thought for me. You are my help and my deliverer. O do not delay, O my God.

[5:11] God, we confess this morning, You are our help. You are our deliverer. And we plead with You, Do not delay. We pray this in Jesus' name.

[5:25] Amen. You guys can take a seat. So as many of you know, Today is Palm Sunday. It is a celebration of the first day of the last week of Jesus' earthly life and ministry.

[5:41] And when we read in the New Testament of the events that unfolded on that particular Sunday, we see Christ riding into the city of Jerusalem, the capital city, on a donkey in fulfillment of the prophecy of Zechariah that the true king of Israel would come into the capital city, would come into Jerusalem, and would indeed be riding on a donkey.

[6:03] That he would come in victory. And yet we who know the gospel story know that even though Jesus rides into Jerusalem to the shouts of praise from the people, mere days later, Jesus would be crucified on a hill just outside of the city of Jerusalem.

[6:24] But it was in that crucifixion, it was in the death of the king himself, that the victory being proclaimed as he rode into the city was actually and really won.

[6:36] That Jesus wins by dying. Jesus delivers by laying down his life because that's the kind of king that Jesus is.

[6:47] Now when we rewind things and we go back into the Old Testament, and when we read these psalms like Psalm 40 and so many of the psalms that have come before Psalm 40, we are oftentimes reading about the life of King David.

[7:04] Reflections of David. Sometimes he is mournful, sometimes he is repentant, sometimes he sings praise, but we are seeing the life of David from David's own lips described and the inner life of David put on the page for us.

[7:22] But really we're seeing more than that. Because the life of David with all of its ups and downs, with all of his successes, and indeed with all of his failures, the life of David is pointing ahead at all times to the life of a greater David.

[7:39] To a greater king who would ride into the city of David and secure a victory by laying down his life. And I say that this morning to remind you that when we're reading through Psalm 40, we're going to see David, we're going to hear David as he speaks and reflects upon God's work in his life and as he looks ahead and hopes in God's future deliverance.

[8:01] We're going to see all of those things, but we cannot forget that ultimately the words of David are pointing beyond David to a greater David.

[8:12] And so let's dive in here and let's see how this Psalm is sort of laid out for us because there's a lot going on in this Psalm and it would be really easy for us to kind of get lost in the details of this Psalm.

[8:24] And I don't want to do that this morning. I want to give you a snapshot of the big picture of the Psalm and then we will camp out on just a few verses found in the middle of the Psalm that I think show us the main point and point the way for us to see how Christ is being pointed to in this Psalm.

[8:42] So first of all, let's look at the layout of the Psalm. In the first few verses, the first five verses, we get David's personal testimony. You see a lot of I's in there. I this, I that.

[8:52] It's David's personal testimony about God's deliverance of him. And then when you move into verses six through eight, which are the center of the Psalm, which are the verses that I want to spend most of our time on this morning, we have David's private reflection on what he learned through both his suffering and God's saving acts in his life.

[9:13] David saw something true. He learned something. So we move from his personal testimony to his private reflection. And then from there, verses nine and 10, we move immediately into this public declaration or public proclamation of what David has learned and of all that God has done in his life.

[9:31] So we're moving from this personal testimony into private reflection and then an outburst of public praise in verses nine and 10. But that, of course, leaves us with the rest of the Psalm.

[9:45] And the rest of the Psalm from verse 11 all the way down through verse 17 is filled with David's prayers and petitions that he offers up in light of what he has learned about God and what God desires and in light of the news that he has proclaimed in verses nine and 10.

[10:06] So we're gonna spend most of our time in the first half of this Psalm walking through what David learned and a lot of time in verses six, seven, and eight so that we can see some connections forward and backward in this Psalm so that we can better understand what is David teaching us?

[10:23] What is the Spirit of God teaching us through David's writings? So let's take a look at what I'm saying, what I'm arguing is the central passage. It's key to us understanding this Psalm verses six through eight.

[10:37] Note what David says. And again, this is his private reflection following his personal testimony of what God has done. He says this, in sacrifice and offering you have not delighted but you have given me an open ear.

[10:56] Burnt offering and sin offering you have not required. And then I said, behold, I have come in the scroll of the book it is written of me. I delight to do your will, oh my God.

[11:09] Your law is within my heart. These words are both pointing back into Israel's history but they are also pointing forward into Israel's history all the way to Christ.

[11:21] So these words are pivotal. These verses are pivotal in our understanding of this Psalm and our understanding of what David himself has learned. But there are some difficult aspects of these verses.

[11:37] To start with, David says that God's not delighted in sacrifice and offering. And he's even gone on as far as to say, burnt offering and sin offering you have not required.

[11:50] But that's strange because David lives under the old covenant. He lives under the Mosaic law. Unlike us, we live under the new covenant and so we are not under the burden of the entire sacrificial system of the Old Testament law and all the food laws and the civil laws and all of those things.

[12:09] But David did live during that period of time. And in fact, the law of Moses does require, command, burnt offerings and sin offerings. So why does David say this?

[12:22] What does he mean by this? Well, I'm convinced that what David is doing here is he is drawing a contrast between himself, between the lessons that he has learned and the failure of his predecessor.

[12:38] Now, if you don't know this, David was not the first king of Israel. He's the first in the line of the promised kings from the line of Judah, but he's not the first king that Israel had.

[12:50] Saul was king before Israel because Israel had demanded a king. They went for a long time without a king and they came to a point where they saw the nations around them, saw that all these other nations had powerful kings that would lead their armies and they cried out and said that they wanted a king.

[13:11] And so God gave them a king, a man named Saul. Now, if you had been an Israelite who was familiar with the Torah, with the law that had already been given to Israel, you would have known there's no way that Saul is going to remain king forever.

[13:29] There's no way that his descendants can maintain this throne throughout our history because Saul is not from the right tribe. The book of Genesis tells us already that the king of Israel would come from the tribe of Judah and Saul is from the tribe of Benjamin.

[13:46] So you already know that something is off with Saul if you know the law. You know that he's not really the king who's going to come whose descendants will rule over Israel for generations.

[13:57] It simply cannot be. But there's more wrong with Saul than just the fact that he's not from the right tribe. And I think David is helping us to see that God's work in his own life and his own heart has set him apart as he is different than Saul.

[14:15] He has gained some wisdom. He has seen things that Saul did not see, that Saul did not understand. And I say that because the language of verses 6 and 7 and 8 contrasts with language in 1 Samuel where Saul makes his biggest mistake and ultimately he does something that will lead to his removal as king, to his loss of the crown so that it will not be passed on to his son.

[14:48] Now just remember this language. In sacrifice and offering you've not delighted. Burn offering and sin offering you have not required. Remember that language and hold your place in Psalm 40 and turn back to the book of 1 Samuel chapter 15.

[15:04] If you don't want to turn back there I'm sure we'll get the words up on the screen. But in 1 Samuel chapter 15 we have an incident with King Saul. God has commanded through Samuel the prophet he has commanded Saul to go out defeat these cities these city states and he says don't take anything.

[15:27] Don't take any spoil from the battle. Destroy everything. And yet Saul did not obey that command. And so when Samuel the prophet arrives on the scene Samuel sees Saul who goes out to greet him thinking that he's done well because he won the battle thinking that he's going to be praised by Samuel and Samuel looks at him and he says what's the sound I hear?

[15:53] I hear sheep the bleeding of sheep off in the distance. Immediately drawing attention to the fact that Saul did not obey God's command.

[16:06] That instead they took some of the sheep and the cattle from the cities that they had destroyed when they weren't supposed to. And so as he confronts Saul Saul attempts to come up with what to me sounds like a pretty good evasion.

[16:22] It sounds like a really good excuse. He says to Samuel look I I know that you're upset about this but first of all I didn't do it the men under my charge did it and secondly they only took these sheep so that they could make a sacrifice to the Lord kind of thanksgiving offering for delivering us.

[16:40] So he's trying to make his own disobedience look like a godly act. Well here is Samuel's response in verse 22.

[16:52] He looks at him and he says has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord.

[17:03] Behold to obey is better than sacrifice and to listen better than the fat of rams for rebellion is as the sin of divination and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry because you have rejected the word of the Lord he has rejected you from being king.

[17:26] Saul thought that by performing outward acts outward ritualistic acts his disobedience would be covered up and ignored.

[17:38] He thought that he could make his own sin look better if he did some sort of overtly outward religious act and Samuel says God would much rather that you have just obeyed him than that you bring and offer to him these sacrifices that are now meaningless.

[17:55] Saul's real problem and he tells us in the story is that he grew tired of waiting. He was waiting and waiting on Samuel to arrive to bless him and his army and to praise him and he grew tired of waiting and so he permitted his men to sacrifice these sheep that he should have never had in the first place.

[18:22] Now when we arrive at Psalm 40 what we see with David is the exact opposite. What does the opening of Psalm 40 tell us?

[18:33] I waited patiently for the Lord. He didn't grow impatient. He didn't move ahead and try to do things his own way try to figure out a better way to do things.

[18:46] He says that he waited patiently on the Lord. He waited for God to do something for God to move and act rather than he himself to try to come up with a plan or do something on his own.

[18:59] Saul grew impatient and disobeyed the word of the Lord. David has learned the lessons of his predecessor so that when he says in sacrifice and offering you have not delighted when he says burnt offering and sin offering you have not required he doesn't mean that in an absolute sense because he's aware of the law.

[19:23] He's aware of all the commands about all the sacrifices that they're supposed to make. What he means is I have found the better thing. I have found the thing that keeps the sacrifices from being made meaningless.

[19:38] And the better thing that he has found is the very thing that Saul refused to do and that is to obey the word of the Lord. Notice what David says there.

[19:50] He says in verse 7, Behold I have come in the scroll of the book it is written of me I delight to do your will oh my God your law is within my heart.

[20:04] Where is it written in the scroll of the book which I think is just a reference to the law to the Mosaic law where is it written that the king would delight in the law of the Lord and delight in doing the will of the Lord.

[20:21] Well it's actually a requirement in the law. For all the kings of Israel they were required to read the law and not just to read it but to write it out so that they memorized it so that they could hide it in their hearts.

[20:38] Every king of Israel was required to do that so that in Deuteronomy chapter 17 we learn of the king's requirements the things that God lays down for the king that he himself is to know the law says in verse 14 when you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you and you possess it and dwell in it and then say I will set a king over me like all the nations that are around me that's what they did right he says then you may indeed set a king over you whom the Lord your God will choose one from among your brothers you shall set as king over you you may not put a foreigner over you who is not your brother only he must not acquire many horses for himself he he can't all these things he cannot do he cannot multiply his wives and then verse 18 when he sits on the throne of his kingdom he shall write for himself in a book a copy of this law approved by the

[21:41] Levitical priests and it shall be with him and he shall read in it all the days of his life that he may learn to fear the Lord his God by keeping all the words of this law and these statutes and doing them so that his heart Saul failed to do that David says that he has learned that lesson learned it partly probably from watching Saul and his failures but also learned it during the period of waiting as he waited on the Lord's deliverance God often teaches us the most important lessons that we are supposed to learn in the midst of our waiting while we are sick and we wait to get better while we are looking for someone to marry we wait and

[22:44] God teaches us he teaches us to be satisfied in him and in him alone he teaches us to seek his face above all else or while you are waiting to get through a particular stage of life that's really difficult maybe you've been beset with illness maybe just been difficulties in your marriage or difficulties with your children or maybe as you approach retirement years they're not turning out the way that you thought they would and you wait for God to do something that's not wasted time that's not pointless David learned this lesson that he reflects upon in these verses in the period of waiting that led up to his redemption his deliverance he learned these lessons that God requires obedience of his people and that he prefers obedience even over outwardly performed religious acts he learned that truth but there's more going on here than just this contrast with Saul and David's learning and putting the law in his heart there's a lot more going on here just in these verses verse 6 says in sacrifice and offering you have not delighted and then the next phrase is translated in different ways in our

[24:06] English versions in the ESV that we're reading from this morning it says but you have given me an open ear some of you have a footnote maybe at the bottom of your Bibles or some of you are reading a different translation it says something else if you were to translate this phrase literally it would say you have dug as in digging you have dug my ear that sounds really strange that's a strange phrase which is why a lot of English translations translate it in a different way it may be that this is just some sort of Hebrew expression that we're not familiar with it's not found anywhere else in the Old Testament but it's entirely possible it's just one of those phrases that when you translate it literally into another language it just doesn't make a whole lot of sense we have a lot of phrases like that in English we say things like it's raining cats and dogs and we all know what that means just a lot of rain but you couldn't say that somewhere else you couldn't make that statement in just any language and expect them to pick up on it and understand exactly what it means we say the early bird gets the worm and we all understand that that means that if you want to succeed and you want to accomplish things you need to be the first there you don't need to be lazy you need to be on the move but in other languages you wouldn't say that there'd be some other idiomatic expression that you would use to say the exact same thing that might sound just as ridiculous it's raining cats and dogs and another language would be it's raining axes that would be a strange thing for us here we don't know what that means but it means something in Swedish it communicates something there are these kinds of expressions like that that if you translate them literally you you really don't understand what's happening and that may be what the that may be the case here it may be just that this expression to dig out an ear means something along the lines of you've caused me to hear or as the ESV says you have opened my ears and I think that that's probably that's probably a good way to render it into

[26:20] English but the problem with that is anytime that you move away from translating something literally to communicate it more clearly in another language you lose a little something you lose the play on words you lose some of the allusions to other things that might be contained in the literal words and while I think that David's main point is that you have taught me to hear in Hebrew hearing is obeying you use the same word oftentimes to hear is to obey so the Shema says hear oh Israel the Lord our God the Lord is one you shall love the Lord your God that's a commandment but it begins with the command to hear which doesn't just mean listen to what I'm saying but it means obey so it very well may be and I think it probably is that the main point the overall point is David has learned to obey he has learned his ears have been opened to hear God's word and respond and that's a supernatural work that only God can do within you you can outwardly hear the word of

[27:24] God decade after decade and yet nothing happens you're never transformed you're never changed which is why Jesus when he speaks some of his parables will often end by saying he who has an ear let him hear in other words he who's been granted the kind of ear by God who can understand and obey this go ahead and do it but for many people he tells his disciples they've not been given ears to hear or eyes to see so that this is a supernatural work that God has to do to enable David to be able to not just listen to God's word but to actually respond in obedience to it so we use the English phrase you have opened my ear you have made me an attentive listener who can now respond in obedience I think that's pretty good but it does miss something there is something lost in translating it that way because everywhere else when you come across this particular word for to dig the literal word in the

[28:32] Old Testament it's a reference to digging in the ground digging a pit digging a grave it's always digging into the mud and the muck and the mire that's what it is it's moving the earth to make something and when David almost draws a word picture of of a a sculptor digging out the shape of the ear digging out the the ear canal for him it's language that takes you all the way back to Genesis chapter two where God forms and fashions and shapes Adam from the mud from the ground so that even though the expression carries the meaning of you've made me an attentive listener who can now respond in obedience when we lose the literal translation we lose some of those connections the connection back to

[29:36] God originally forming and shaping Adam from the dust of the earth so that David understands and knows that he is a sort of second Adam that just as Adam was to be the head of humanity David now king is head over all of Israel as Adam was given commands in the garden David has received commands in the form of God's law and he is expected as king and representative of the nation he is expected to obey but again there's more because these very verses are quoted for us in the New Testament without much reference to David at all but they are applied directly to Christ let me show you that we went back to Deuteronomy went back to 1st Samuel we're going to move ahead hold your place in

[30:38] Psalm 40 and jump way ahead in your Bible to the book of Hebrews Hebrews chapter 10 now Hebrews chapter 10 the theme of this chapter is that Christ himself has come and laid down his life he is both the priest who brings the offering his body is the offering and Christ has come and he has laid his life down and by so doing he has fulfilled all the things that the sacrificial system in the Old Testament we're pointing toward he has fulfilled that he has brought it to its completion so that his sacrifice is actually a sacrifice that removes your sin and your guilt all of the sacrifices of the Old Testament were merely meant to point forward to his sacrifice that's the theme of Hebrews chapter 10 so that we read this in verse 4 it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins those old sacrifices couldn't do it so or the

[31:49] ESV says consequently when Christ came into the world he said now here's our quotation sacrifices and offerings you have not desired but a body you have prepared for me in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure and then I said behold I have come to do your will oh God as it is written of me in the scroll of the book did you notice the change there was a change I don know if you noticed!

[32:25] but there's nothing about an ear either digging it out or opening up instead what he says is sacrifices and offerings you have not desired but a body you have prepared for me now why would the writer of Hebrews change the text why would he do that it's inspired by God why would he do that because as important as the theme of hearing and responding and obedience is in Psalm 40 he's caught on to the connection back to Genesis 2 he's caught it he's seen it he didn't miss it he understood that that's something that's there in Psalm 40 that David wants his readers to see and the writer of Hebrews he saw it and he knew that this helps us to better see how

[33:32] Christ comes and is both a better David and a better Adam you see David learned this lesson but it doesn't mean that he always responded after that in obedience he knew the law he memorized the law he lived a lot of his life in obedience to the law of God but we know the story of David we know that David messes up and as you move on to the last half of this psalm you move into his prayers and petitions he mentions his own sins so for instance he says he says in verse 10 I have not hidden your deliverance within me I have spoken of your faithfulness and salvation God's been faithful in the past then verse 11 you will not in the future restrain your mercy from me with steadfast love and faithfulness you will preserve me for evils have encompassed me but without number my iniquities have overtaken me and I cannot see

[34:33] David sins his iniquities will once again overtake him David is an imperfect king king who yes waited on the Lord is better than Saul waited was delivered by the Lord was crowned as king learned his lesson about the necessity of obedience but didn't always obey that lesson but Jesus has come as a better Adam and a better David and he has not just shown us that obedience is better than sacrifice he has obeyed in our place and become the sacrifice in our place he has done what David could not do he has done what you cannot do you cannot perfectly obey

[35:39] God's commands none of us can we have all failed we're not better than Saul we're not better than David we like them are fallen broken people who sin and disobey God but Jesus has come and he has been obedient in our place so that his obedience counts in the place of our disobedience so that his righteousness takes the place in God's court of our unrighteousness and his sacrifice pays the penalty for all of our sins God there is a greater David and David himself looks forward to and hopes in that greater David and not only that but he shows us how do the benefits that are won by the

[36:43] Lord through this future better David how do these benefits come to God's people he shows us in his personal testimony at the very beginning of the psalm he's praising God verse three he put a new song in my mouth a song of praise to our God and then he expands beyond that many will see many not just him many will see and fear and what will they do they will put their trust in the Lord and then he goes on blessed is the man who makes the Lord his trust what is it that gains you the blessing of God what is it that will enable you like David to sing a new song of praise to trust in the Lord and more specifically to trust in the one that God has sent into the world to obey like we could never obey and to lay his life down for all the times we didn't obey to trust in him is to be delivered but a deliverance greater than anything

[37:56] David experienced in his life in this world David over and over is rescued by God his enemies defeated those who try to stage a coup are eventually brought down and David is restored and he remains on the throne all the way up to his death over and over David is rescued by God and none of those deliverances compare with the deliverance that can be had in Christ not one of them not a single one of them it's a lesson that David wants us to learn blessed is the man who makes the Lord his trust and then we respond in the ways that David responds what do we do with this great knowledge that the greater David has come and he has obeyed God perfectly he has laid down his life for us he promises to save us from our sins when we trust in him what do we do with that well that's where we follow the example of

[39:01] David I think because it begins! with public proclamation he doesn't keep it to himself if if if you've ever been rescued really and truly rescued you know how hard it is to keep that to yourself if you've ever lain in a hospital bed thinking well this is it and then six months later you're walking around just caring about life as normal it's hard to keep that to yourself it's hard not to tell people about about the cardiologist who saved your life it's hard not when you hear someone else has some heart problems say oh you gotta go see this guy he did it right he saved me it's hard not to tell someone that's come down with the same kind of cancer that you had about the oncologist who treated you and walked with you through it it's hard to keep that to yourself David can't keep to himself the have you done that have you spoken of

[40:27] God's faithfulness of the deliverance and salvation that he's brought to you have you told others because I promise you it might be hard to find someone with the exact same cancer diagnosis as you once had or the exact same heart problem that you survived but it is not hard to find people with the same sin problem you're surrounded by them right now you'll be surrounded by them when you go to lunch today you'll be surrounded by them when you gather with your family it's not hard to find people who need to hear about your salvation why hide it away in your heart but be like David and proclaim for all to hear and if that makes you nervous if that sounds really hard be encouraged there are ways to move in that direction because notice what David says at the end of verse 10 he says I have not concealed your steadfast love and your faithfulness from the great congregation as David gathers with

[41:36] God's people David announces the saving work of God how do you build up the courage to share the gospel with your family members or co-workers or total strangers how do you do that well the first thing you do is you start telling other people within the church about what God has done in you and they'll say me too and they'll start to tell you we should be a people who are always reminding one another of the work of salvation that God has done for us and the more we do that amongst ourselves it becomes a natural way that we talk and it's much easier to let that spill over into other conversations if you never share your testimony if you never tell about God's great saving work in your own life to other followers of

[42:37] Jesus you'll never tell those who don't know Christ rejoice and celebrate together there's a reason why in our process of church membership part of that process is that before you become a member you sit down with a pastor and you share your testimony tell us about how God saved you and it doesn't matter whether it's some great grand story about some dark background that you came out of or if it's a very simple story like my own well I mean I heard the gospel when I was a kid it's hard for me to remember not believing it doesn't matter what your testimony!

[43:15] is the point is to share it to say it out loud to other believers for them to celebrate it with you and then you're emboldened to be a powerful witness out beyond the congregation that was David's own experience we have every one of us like David a personal testimony if you're a follower of Christ a personal testimony that points toward the work of Christ laying down his life on your behalf we have that but that does not mean that the rest of our lives will be smooth sailing I think that's the point of the back half of this psalm 11 through 17 we won't spend much time there this morning don't worry I'm not just halfway through preaching okay I know you're hungry but I think that is the main point of the back half of this psalm that that David begins to pray both on his own behalf and on behalf of others and in the midst of that prayer he acknowledges the reality of future problems and future failures we've already seen that he mentions his own sins there he knows that even though he's learned this lesson about the importance of obedience and delighting in God's law that he's not going to be a sinless person moving ahead he's going to need deliverance from his sins but he's also going to need help and deliverance from other people that he and so he prays for those things being a follower of

[44:52] Jesus does not mean that you will experience less suffering in this life you will probably experience more Jesus says if they persecuted me they'll persecute you doesn't mean that but what it means is that in the midst of all of that suffering you still have a reason for rejoicing look at verse 16 after he's prayed and asked God oh help me deliver me from my enemies that are coming and from my own sins that are coming after that he says but may all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you may those who love your salvation say continually great is the Lord I'm poor and needy but the Lord takes thought for me you are my help and my deliverer do not delay oh my God you will in this life as a follower of Jesus experience pain and you will experience moments of delight and joy and deliverance but just because

[46:02] God has rescued you from cancer doesn't mean that you won't have a heart attack later on or just because God rescued your marriage when it looked like it had no hope doesn't mean that you won't struggle with your children or your grandchildren we are not promised a life of ease what we are promised is that the good shepherd will walk through all of it with us and even in the midst of it we will be able to rejoice and be glad!

[46:33] in him let's pray happy