Now, some thought he for the director of music of David Assam. I waited patiently for the Lord. He turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire.
He set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see and fear the Lord and put their trust in him. Blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, who does not look to the proud, to those who turn aside to false gods.
Many Lord my God, are the wonders you have done, the things you have planned for us. One can compare with you where I to speak and tell of your deeds. There would be too many to declare. Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but my ears you have opened.
Burned offerings and sin offerings you did not require. Then I said, here I am, I have come. It is written about me in the straw. I desire to do your will, my God.
Your law is within my heart. I proclaim your saving acts in the greatest simply. I do not seal my lips, Lord, as you know. I do not hide your righteousness in my heart.
I speak of your faithfulness and your saving help. I do not conceal your love and your faithfulness from the greatest simply. You are not withhold your mercy from me, Lord. May your love and faithfulness always protect me.
For troubles without numbers surrounding me, my sins have overtaken me and I cannot see. They are more than the hairs of my head and my heart fails within me. Be pleased to save me, Lord. Come quickly, Lord, to help me.
May all who want to take my life be put to shame and confusion. May all who desire my ruin be turned back into grace. May those who say to me, aha, aha, be appalled at their own shame. But may all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you.
May those who long for your saving help always say, the Lord is great. But as for me, I am poor and needy. May the Lord think of me. You are my help and my deliverer.
You are my God. Do not delay. Not the word of the Lord. It's good to be with you today as we continue our summer series in the new song, Psalms.
It's just as golden. I hope that you've had a good Christmas period. I think it's really helpful for us to start the year to come to a Psalm like Psalm 40. As we look forward to the year ahead and as we consider the key things that we believe about our faith, the things that we're going to hold on to hopefully throughout the year.
Psalm 3, verse 3 of our Psalms today says, He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn, to praise our God. Many will see and hear the Lord and put their trust in Him. And so today we're going to be considering the journey that we are all on as we receive a new song from the Lord in lives that often make it hard for us to hear it. We're going to be looking at the birth of a new song.
We're looking at its expression in our lives and in the lives of God's people. And lastly, we'll be looking at how it is sustained as we walk forwards in faith. It would be really helpful if you keep your Bible open throughout this. And you'll notice that even if I'm not directly quoting from the Psalm, I'm going to be working through it pretty much verse by verse as we go.
So you'll be able to follow along there if you need to reopen your Bible. I'm going to pray now. So that'll give you a short opportunity to do that. Father, we thank you so much for your word and we pray now that by your spirit, you would help us to understand that you would change our hearts, that you would help us to see the new song.
And most of all, we pray that we would come to you for deliverance and guidance and grace time and time again as we seek to know you more. In Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen. Many of you will know that before I was in ministry, I spent a bit of time in the Australian Army, particularly training down at RMC Dunshrun. And when I got towards the end of my training there, something happened to me, which was the first thing I thought of when I read this Psalm.
It was one of the final tests that we had to do was we had to complete a particular obstacle course. Now, one of the catches with this is that there was about a 20 kilometer pack march slash run before you hit the obstacle course. So you're already quite tired by this point. And one of the things that we had to get over the top of was I think it was about an eight foot wall, and this was with your pack on.
Now, I'm bigger now, but I think it's fair to say I was still a pretty beefy guy then. So getting over a wall wasn't my strong suit, and I was wearing a packet weight, a similar amount to me. So I've run, I've jumped, I've attempted to get over the top, and kind of didn't quite hit that point when you roll over, and I fell back down. I tried a few more times and I couldn't get tired and tired and I realized I was, I'm not going to make it over this wall.
And this is quite an important thing for the order of merit where I'm going to be going after my training. And so I was becoming quite concerned. So I got on my strength together, I ran as hard as I could, I kicked up the wall, I realized I wasn't going to make it. And then in that final second, I felt this nudge in the lower part of my body, I'll call it.
And as I roll over the top of the wall, I looked back and I realized that a friend of mine had shoulded me from behind and got me over the top of the wall. Without his help, I don't know what would have happened. I don't think I would have had to run around it in my shame. David starts his psalm, where in many ways I think we all started, and we often feel like we're falling into.
The nature of the psalms means that the direct context is often opaque to us, and that is the case today. But we do know of many times when David fell and when he needed the Lord to raise him from the pit, and when he would reflect on this, and that's where we start. I waited for the Lord. He pulled me out of the pit, he set my feet on a rock.
There's been moments in all of our lives when we have been in the pit. For some of us, it is before we knew Jesus. For many of us, it's different trials and difficulties that we faced in our lives, and for some of us, I imagine what we feel like we are right there right now. As we start the new year together, this is a good psalm for us to consider, as we take a moment first to look back at where we were without our God.
And then we see that his son, we see the birth of a new song, what we have been given now to sing, what has lifted us out, and is what we hold on to, a new story that defines our lives. Because as we all know, we are not a people who are characterised by our struggle. But instead, by our rescuer, the one who has pulled us out of the pit and set our feet on the rock. Not that we always feel that way, but it is a truth that we know and we must be reminded of.
You see, when we talk about being blessed, I think we have a tendency to talk about particular things that have happened to us, particular good things that might happen at a particular time. But that can often mean that when those things aren't happening, we might think that we're not blessed. But here we see that it's by the very nature of what God has done for us, that we are all blessed. Verse 4, he brought us away from our false gods.
He brought us out of helplessness and chasing after the wind. We are blessed because we do not find our rescue in strong leaders or in financial security. But in the Lord, as we realise the wonders of what he has done, I wonder if you can remember that moment in your life when you felt and could feel and think of the wonder when you realise for the first time the wonder of what he has done and that he cannot be compared to anything that we may desire for ourselves. That he has done great things for us, that he has lifted us up from death to life and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves.
That he has fulfilled every promise that he has ever made. That it is not by our work that we were raised out of the pit, but by the work of our God in spite of our tendency, I think, to dig the pit deeper each day. The new song begins with God's initiative to rescue. That we were trapped and we have been saved from the pit.
And so first in the Psalm and the first V5 verses, we look backwards and we remember what has happened. And then the song turns and looks forward to the response. My son Matthew, his first birthday is coming up on January 20th. And me and Danny, largely Danny, have been involved in planning the very celebrations that are going to occur during that time.
And something has become very clear to me throughout this. And that's Matthew's first birthday, while it may be a name about him, and trust me, he likes being the center of attention, so he'll like that. But ultimately, that celebration, it's not about the kit at the first birthday. But we're actually celebrating something that has happened.
It's for the people, it's for the families, for the friends who gather around and celebrate what has occurred. We are a people who naturally, I think, turn to celebration, that are response to things. We seek to celebrate. We just had a whole season of it, yet we are not as good at it when it comes to living out of life of our faith each day and seeking to celebrate what has happened in Jesus.
Now, just like then, in the time of David, we tend to make worship about the things that we do, the actions that we carry out. But in verse 6, we see it's not about the sacrifices themselves, but about the hearts behind them. The true worship is through an internal delight in God's will. Verse 8, he has put his law, his will, in our hearts.
The response is not to carry out acts because we think that we're supposed to, but an internal change of joy and peace and commitment to the relationship that you have been invited into by your Creator. All acts of worship are an expression of this interaction with your God. And there is one clear way that this can be most evident. And we see this from David's response.
Because from this, we see that David's response is bold, public declaration of all that God has done and all that he is. There's no fear, there's no concern. This God has rescued him and deserves to be known by all that he can proclaim it to. Proclamation of who God is is central to what it is to be his people and to live in light of the new song.
And the reason why I think that this is such a key element of what it means to be a follower of Jesus is because it's one of the hardest. Coming to church, singing together, these are wonderful, godly acts of worship. But to tell another person in your life about Jesus, that's a risk. You risk the relationship, you might be risking your credibility in your workplace, or maybe a group that you're part of, it's a hard thing to do.
And it is why I firmly believe that a good sermon, a good Bible study, a good resource, a feeling that you feel powerfully when you sing a particular song, that those things on their own are not enough, at least to sustain it as a practice in the long term. Now, for you to take that risk in your life, you need to be somebody who internally delights in your God, who is convicted of the love of Christ, who has a personal relationship with Jesus that they invest in. That is a person who will proclaim the word of God. And so strangely enough, my call today is not to evangelize.
I would love for you to do that. But instead, it's to look to the year ahead and think about how you can invest in this relationship, how you can respond to the rest of you of God and grow in faith and connection to Him, to grow in conviction so that evangelism is not something that you think you should do, but no, it's something that flows from you naturally, as your internal delight for the Lord, and for Him to be made known, spills out of you. This is the response of saved people, of people who know they God and who seek to serve Him. But David doesn't stop here.
And these last verses, verses 11 to 17, they are why I love this song. David returns to please for God to be there for Him, to continue His mercy, to continue lifting Him up from the pit, continued please, because the new song has come, it has entered our hearts, it has saved us, but we still struggle, don't we? We still face a world that doesn't recognize Jesus as King, we still face a society who often treats us as a problem, the world is still full of disease and suffering, economies reign over people's lives, we still lose people who are important to us. We need help to sustain the new song that we have.
David continues to pray for deliverance from the world, deliverance from his own sin, he isn't suddenly perfect now that he's been pulled out of the pit, he still has struggles, you can read about them in one and two Samuel. Please save me Lord, sustaining the new song isn't about recognizing what God has done and moving on, there is a need to be constantly reminded, do in a sense be saved again and again as we come before our God in our weakness. May you God deal with the world, may you make things right again, may you buy your power, hold on to me Lord, I need you, we need to continually consider our hearts and how we fall, not to shame ourselves, but to remind ourselves of how good our God is and how much we are still in need of his rescue. And so David comes to his vision of the future as he looks forward, but may all who seek you rejoice and be glad, may those who long for your saving help always say the Lord is great.
May we be a people who rejoice and are glad in our Lord for we know what he has done for us, that we may come back to him time and time again though knowing that the journey ahead of us is hard, but it is worth it alongside our God, that the start of the start of this year we look back to what our God has done for us and that then we look forwards knowing that this is a journey we are on and we will need help as we step forward each day. And so do not abandon this help, it is so easy to become complacent in the Christian life, to think that we have it covered for ourselves, but we need to be on the journey with our God and with one another. A friend once said to me that the Christian life is you become more and more confident, it's like a parachuteist who's become so confident in the fact that he's falling slower, that he starts cutting the strings on the parachute that is protecting him. Do not abandon this help, make this a year, it's a bit lame for a new year, so I can think of nothing to say, make this a year that you get to church, that you get to community but that you get to reading your Bible and to praying to your God, because you know that you need him to keep going, to flee from your sins and your temptation, to turn back from the things of the world that you used to trust and to hold on to your God.
And so David ends with a final statement of who he trusts, in verse 17 he says, but as for me I am poor and needy, may the Lord think of me, you are my help and my deliverer, you are my God, do not delay. The new song endures because we keep returning to God in our weakness. Fresh troubles, do not silence it, they deepen it. We grow in faith as God rescues us again and again and we sing the new song as we journey through the life of faith.
And so I want to end today by briefly taking us forward from the Psalms to the New Testament. Because you see Jesus perfectly embodied this Psalm, he delighted to do the Father's will, proclaimed righteousness in the great assembly, entered the deepest pit for us and now interseeds so that our song never ends and the writer of Hebrews luckily agrees with me. Therefore, when Christ came into the world he said, sacrifice and offering you did not desire, he's quoting from Psalm 40. But a body you prepared for me.
With burnt offerings and sin offerings you were not pleased, then I said, here I am. This is Jesus saying this, here I am, it is written about me in the scroll, I have come to do your will, my God. First he said sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not desire, nor were you pleased with them, though they were offered in accordance with the law. Then he said, here I am, I have come to do your will, he sets aside the first to establish the second and by that will we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
Jesus put aside the sacrifices and replaced them with his body, that through him we shall be made holy, Jesus knows the new song, Jesus gives us the new song, he lived it, our God became a man, a human being, and so he knows what the journey is like, our God truly understands, and so today I invite you to sing a new song, to rejoice in it, and to walk with Jesus to sustain it in your life. Let us pray. Father, we thank you so much for your word, we thank you for the new song, we thank you that you have rescued us. But as we look forward to Father, we pray, deliver us, rescue us, hold us close to you, and set us at your side.
In Jesus name I pray, Amen.