A New Song

This morning we're going to return to our summer series on what the Bible teaches about how to be happy.

If you need a sermon outline or would like one, just lift your hand.

Our ushers will be happy to give you one.

Okay, so smile, be happy, come on.

We're in the Lord's presence this morning, come on.

Well, let me ask you a question.

What do you really need in order to be happy?

Think about it.

What are you lacking?

I'll tell you one thing that would make me happy.

I wish someone would invent a senior GPS device.

It would not only tell you how to get to where you're going, but would tell you why you wanted to go there.

You ever been in a room and say why am I here?

Okay, something happens.

You know.

There are lots of things in life that make us happy, really People.

We love, the work we do, the things we have, the experiences we enjoy lots of things.

But in this sermon series that we've been looking at this summer, we've been talking about a happiness that's not of this world and I'm afraid maybe few experience it really A heavenly happiness that God gives us, fills us with.

In the first sermons in this series, I looked at what our response might be when we get to heaven in God's presence, surrounded by his love.

And if you remember, in Revelation 19, we learned that we will be so happy.

We'll be shouting hallelujahs like peals of thunder.

We'll be so moved, we can't help but just sing for joy.

We'll be so glad we won't be able to stay quiet.

We'll be so grateful, we can't stop giving glory to God.

That's the kind of happiness we see in the scripture, as the word of God gives us clues to this heavenly happiness right now, signaled in the Bible by this little phrase blessed is the one, or blessed is the man, or blessed are they.

Those little phrases on the other side of that give us the conditions necessary to experience this kind of heavenly happiness right now.

Experiences what I'm talking about mean that we're filled with joy, just like we would be in heaven, knowing that God is for us, he is with us and he's pleased with us.

Today we're going to look at another one of God's kingdom blessings in Psalm 40.

If you brought your Bible and you want to turn there, go ahead.

Psalm 40.

We're just going to look at the first part of this Psalm today.

Let me read just a few verses and then we'll talk about it the rest of the time.

Psalm, chapter 40, verse 1.

Psalms 40:1

Psalm David rest of the time.

Psalm, chapter 40, verse 1.

Psalms 40:1

Psalm David David says you know, I waited patiently for the Lord and he inclined to me and heard my cry.

He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay.

He set my feet upon a rock, making my footsteps firm.

He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God.

Many will see and fear and will trust in the Lord.

Oh, how blessed is the man who has made the Lord his trust and has not turned to the proud, nor to those who lapse in falsehood, to the proud, nor to those who lapse in falsehood.

Many, o Lord, my God, are the wonders which you have done and your thoughts toward us.

There is none to compare with you.

If I were to declare and speak of them, they would be too numerous to count.

Okay, so today, the blessing God invites us to in this blessed is the man phrase is the blessing of trusting in the Lord.

I know it's easy for us to say, but do we really understand what that means?

So to help us understand this blessing, I have three main points.

First we'll look at the concept of what trusting the Lord means.

Then we'll look, and that will lead us to David's song of blessing, and finally we'll look to see that our trust in the Lord is a trust very well placed.

Let's explain the blessing of trusting in the Lord.

What does it mean?

First, to trust in anything, to trust in something.

Well, let me I like doing this, the Hebrew word, I like trace down words.

What did the original audience think of this word trust?

And this word in Hebrew is the word batak.

I can't pronounce those.

It literally means to throw yourself face down on the ground.

Batak Trust that's an odd word for trusting, isn't it?

Until you think about it, you see when this ancient idiom is used to describe trusting.

It means that you are humbly, in total submission to something.

Your face is on the ground, you're at their mercy, you're all in Nothing held back, and your reliance on them.

Your face is on the ground.

Psalm 40, verse 4 david introduces us to this one by saying how blessed is the man who has made the lord his trust.

Psalms 40:4

Trust.

The hebrew wording also is very interesting.

Here it's david uses a play on words to emphasize this point, this particular point.

See if you can hear the word play in Hebrew.

The word play is Ashrei ashar sham, ashrei ashar sham.

The whole sentence is is here's what it says how blessed is the man whose trust is placed in the Lord.

To emphasize one thing, the word that trusting in the Lord is a choice we make.

We place our trust in the Lord.

It's a very important choice because we can trust in a whole lot of things.

The second thing we learn from what David said about this blessing is that we will experience this blessing just from the word, when our trust is all in.

The second thing we learn from what David said about this blessing is that we will experience this blessing just from the word batak, when our trust is all in All in Nothing held back.

It's God or nothing.

I'm looking to Him to come through.

When he doesn't move the mountains, I'll trust in him All in Two things it's a choice and it's an all-in choice, batak.

So the key is this idea of surrender.

Really, when you put yourself all on the line in the Lord and he answers you like you see what happened to David and you know that was God helping me you will be filled with this sense of joy, heavenly happiness, little taste of heaven, when there's no other explanation and you know God has answered your prayers, amazingly, awesomely, you'll be filled with joy.

But you have to trust Him All in Make a choice.

So, to summarize what David has said, first, about God's blessing, trusting Him.

Here's what we learn.

First, trusting Him is a choice.

We choose to rely on Him.

Our face is on the ground.

There are many other things, you see, we can trust in and rely on besides the Lord.

When he doesn't seem to come through, we can trust ourselves.

I can do this.

We can trust other people.

We can trust the government Wow.

We can trust the stock market.

We can trust a whole lot of things to get us through something that we're having difficulty with.

It could be sinking down in the pit and we'll find something else besides the Lord to trust.

But when we have trouble or difficulty and we choose to trust the Lord, all in making him my trust, he's inviting us to experience what happens as a result this heavenly blessing.

Now we will, to be fair, we will trust in other people and things to help us from time to time.

That's not what I'm talking about.

David is saying no matter what happens.

A special blessing is found when we choose to rely on the Lord and trust in him for what we need, and we know it's him who meets that need.

So choice Second we need to be all in God or nothing, as Proverbs 3, 5, and 6 says.

Trust in the Lord.

If you want to, you know it's a good thing to do no with all your heart, everything, and do not rely on your own understanding.

In all your ways, acknowledge him, he'll make your path straight.

So that leads us understanding this concept of trusting in the Lord.

Batach, my face is on the ground, I choose and I'm all in.

That's the concept he's talking about.

We move to the second main point, which is a song of blessing.

You know the genre.

We're in the context, we're in the Psalms and they're actually songs.

They were Israel and Jesus' hymn book in times of worship.

King David wrote Psalm 40 and a whole lot of other Psalms.

Now here's the interesting thing If you study the Psalms of David, you'll notice a good many of them is David praising God for God answering his prayers out of some trouble, some sort of life-threatening trouble.

Usually Now, when God intervened and answered David's prayers and David experienced this heavenly blessed joy, knowing the Lord is with him, for him and helping him.

You know what he'd do He'd write a song about it.

Oh, man, he'd write a song.

Psalm 40, verses 2 and 3,.

Psalms 40:2

God answers his prayer and you know what David had to write a song.

Psalm 40, verses 2 and 3.

Psalms 40:2

God answers his prayer and you know what David had to write a new song.

He had to write a new one about this.

He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay.

He set my feet on rock, making my steps firm, and he put a new song in my mouth, brand new, a song of praise to our God.

Now, the thing about these new songs he writes is that each new song he writes, he's telling us what he discovered about God and his ways in his life Leading to many of the blessed.

Is the man phrases in the Psalms Hoping we'd catch the same thing, the ways we taste a little bit of heaven?

In Psalm 40, david describes what he did to trust in the Lord and how it resulted in the experience of God's blessing.

And how it resulted in the experience of God's blessing.

Now, to see this unfold, we've got to go back to the beginning of the psalm, where he describes the one and this is, for all of us, the one inseparable condition to this blessing it must be present, why?

Because it means we're really trusting the Lord, not just saying it, we're really trusting in the Lord.

What long, I don't know.

I do not know Could have been a long time.

Are you in a hurry?

When you get that feeling, then just note this you're not really trusting the Lord.

Then he's not in a hurry To help us with this.

I thought about this.

How do I explain this?

Well, let me attempt to share a modern version of David's song in Psalm 40 that I wrote.

Just the lyrics, not the tune.

Praise God, pretend I'm David and I time travel to now to tell you about an unbelievable experience the Lord did in my life.

Here's how it would go.

You know, guys, I was in life-threatening trouble Life threat—I couldn't see my way out.

I prayed to the Lord for His deliverance and I didn't take matters into my own hands own hands.

I trusted in the Lord and waited patiently for Him to do what he needs to do, whatever.

That is the reason I did that.

I waited patiently is because of this.

After all, he knows what I need.

He hears my prayers.

You know he's sovereign over all.

He knows what's best for me.

So I wait for Him to act and I put my complete trust in Him.

You know, when God finally answered my prayers and delivered me, I was so overwhelmed with joy, knowing it was the Lord Himself who swooped down and scooped me up out of trouble.

I'm just so blessed.

I just want to sing and praise and tell others to place their trust in him.

It's a wonderful, joyful experience.

Oh, how blessed is the man who does what I did, places their complete trust in the Lord.

Psalm 40, verse 3,.

Psalms 40:3

David is confident.

You see, when others hear this song, they too will put their trust in the Lord.

Psalm 40, verses 2 and 3,.

Psalms 40:2

He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry cranes, set my feet on a rock, making my footsteps firm.

He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to my God, and you know what Many will see and fear and trust in the Lord because of that.

This is a lesson for all of us.

Take the invitation, but understand what trusting him means.

It's a choice and it's all in and face on the ground, and I'm going to wait patiently.

If you're not waiting patiently, then you're striving in yourself and that's not trusting Him.

Well, to be fair to the Scripture, I have to tell you what's next.

As we'll see in the third point, trusting the Lord will take practice.

It doesn't come naturally to us and it will probably every time test our faith in the Lord.

The prophet Jeremiah, echoes David's words.

In fact, you see this emphasis on trusting the Lord throughout the scriptures.

But Jeremiah, really, I think he's thinking about Psalm 40.

He echoes David's words and he adds a warning with it to make sure our trust is well placed in the Lord.

Let me read it Jeremiah 17, verses 5 to 8.

Jeremiah 17:5–8

Same idea.

Only Jeremiah gives us the contrast to motivate us to put our trust in the Lord.

Thus says the Lord Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the Lord.

He'll be like a bush in the desert.

He will not see when prosperity comes, but will live in stony wastes in the wilderness, a land of salt without inhabitant, very dark description.

But verse 7, blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord and whose trust is the Lord echoing Psalm 40, for he will be like a tree planted by the water that extends its roots by a stream.

He won't fear when heat comes, its leaves will remain gray green and it will not be anxious in a year of drought, nor cease to yield fruit.

Jeremiah warns us to be careful of who or what we're trusting in in this life, because the opposite of God's blessing is a curse.

To be fair to the Scripture, when we place our trust in something other than the Lord, we're turning away from the Lord.

We're placing ourselves under a curse.

I'll explain what that means.

Consider what happened to Adam and Eve when they turned away from God and put their trust in the serpent and wanted to do their own thing.

It's not good.

When they turned away from God and wanted to take matters into their own hands, they were put under a curse.

Likewise, anytime we turn away from the Lord and trust something else, we're putting ourselves under a curse.

What does that mean?

Well, I'll tell you what it doesn't mean.

It doesn't mean we're headed for eternal wrath of hell, not that curse.

Galatians 3 makes it plain For those who have placed their trust in Jesus.

Jesus took that curse for us.

Galatians 3.13,.

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law having become a curse for us.

What does it mean then?

It means this Instead of being under, being under curse means that when we turn away from the Lord, even as a believer, we're going to experience God's present-time displeasure and the temporal wrath of His discipline to correct us as our Heavenly Father.

What all that means is, just like Adam and Eve, being under a temporal curse in this life means that life for us gets harder, more painful, a lot less joyful and happy.

That's a temporal curse, not an eternal one, where God expresses His displeasure in our turning away from him to something else we know better.

Those who choose to ignore and reject God's word and God are under a curse.

New Testament Romans 1, written to believers in Jesus, for the wrath of God, paul says, is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth and unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them and God made it evident to them.

However, again in contrast, as Jeremiah tells us, those who choose to trust in the Lord make the Lord their trust.

They are under God's blessing.

And what's interesting about what Jeremiah says?

He's challenging all of us, weak or strong, to put our trust in the Lord.

Only then is our trust well placed.

The interesting thing about Jeremiah's wording is that he doesn't use any of the normal words for man in the Hebrew Bible, like ish, aner or adam.

He uses the word gebor for man.

Blessed is the gebor who trusts in the Lord.

Verse 7,.

In other words he's saying blessed Gabor means mighty man.

Blessed is the mighty man who trusts in the Lord, who's on his face on the ground.

All in Blessed is that guy on the ground.

All in Blessed is that guy.

You know Jeremiah in that verse is cunning against the normal cultural mores and ideas.

You won't see a mighty man of valor, a warrior on his face relying on someone to help him.

You won't see that.

Usually A Gabor in the Bible is a fiercely independent, self-sufficient warrior and Jeremiah is saying you, listen, gabors.

Jeremiah is saying listen, gabor's, don't turn away from the Lord and put yourself under a curse.

Trust in the Lord.

You'll find heavenly blessing when you humble yourself, get on your face and trust in Him, wait patiently for Him.

Like the analogy actually we saw in Psalm 1 earlier this summer the blessing of delighting in God's Word.

If you see Jeremiah here, he's describing the difference between trusting the Lord and trusting in something else.

And he says thus says the Lord Curses.

The man who trusts in mankind, makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the Lord, he'll be like a bush in a desert.

Reflection of Psalm 1.

He'll not see when prosperity comes.

He'll live in stony, waste places.

It's the land of salt without an end.

Those who don't trust in him will be like a driven, lonely bush in the desert.

In contrast, jeremiah says blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord.

He'll be like a tree planted by water.

Just a reflection of Psalm 1.

Again.

He won't fear, he won't be anxious when life gets hard.

Why?

Because his trust is in the Lord, not himself.

Notice how Jeremiah prefaces these verses in Jeremiah 17, 5.

As he's listening to the Lord, give him these words.

The Lord starts with this.

Thus says the Lord.

Now, I believe God says this to Jeremiah because Jeremiah needs it.

I think God is saying Jeremiah because Jeremiah needs it.

I think God is saying Jeremiah, I'm talking to you.

I'm talking to you right now about this trust thing.

You know why, if you know anything about Jeremiah.

Jeremiah prophesied against Judah all through his ministry If they don't repent and turn around.

God's going to bring a nation in and totally demolish them.

They didn't listen.

It eventually happened.

But they're so upset with Jeremiah through the book of Jeremiah.

They beat him, they throw him in a cistern in the mud.

He's suffering, he cries out to the Lord constantly.

Lord, why did you send me in this awful place?

And at times you read Jeremiah's literally despairing of hope of anything positive coming out of his life.

And then he heard these words from God Jeremiah cursed is the man trusted man blessed.

Is the man make the Lord his trust.

And then, right after that, you hear Jeremiah's prayer Jeremiah 17, 13, 13 to 18.

Oh Lord, hope of Israel, all who forsake you will be put to shame.

Those who turn away on earth will be written down because they forsaken the fountain of living water.

Even the Lord.

Oh Lord, heal me, I'll be healed.

Save me, I'll be saved.

You're, you are, my praise.

You know what he's doing.

He's, he's putting himself on the ground.

He doesn't understand what's going on, but I can tell you, if I had the time, he was convinced.

The Lord knows what he's doing.

He's sovereign.

He has a plan for good.

I can trust him.

Look, they keep saying to me.

Jeremiah says where's the word of the Lord?

Let it come now.

But as for me, lord, I've not hurried away from being a shepherd after you, nor have I longed for the woeful day.

You yourself know that the utterance of my lips was in your presence.

Do not be a terror to me.

You are my refuge in the day of disaster.

Let those who persecute me be put to shame, but as for me, let me not be put to shame.

Let me not turn away from you.

In other words, let them be dismayed.

Don't let me be dismayed.

See, even while undergoing hardship, jeremiah places his trust, his hope, in the Lord, for however long it takes, for the long haul, he says in verse 16, I have not hurried away, I'm staying, I'm trusting David.

Jeremiah tells the story of a man by the name of Bernie Law who was a missionary pilot in the Congo and one day Burley's on a flight into Africa and he flew into a storm.

It seemed to come out of nowhere.

He lost his bearings in all the clouds and everything.

But as he flew along by faith, the clouds seemed to open up a little bit and he kept weaving through them until he saw a little landing strip beneath him and he landed the plane with a sigh of relief, him and he landed the plane with a sigh of relief and suddenly a vehicle came racing up to his plane and a nurse got out, ran up to him saying I don't know where you came from, but I do know that you are an answer to our prayers.

One of our missionaries in the mission statement in a remote part of the jungle has become seriously ill with a very high fever.

The roads are impassable, the bridges are out.

That morning we Christians in the village gathered to pray for help.

You know what God responded?

By sending a storm and brought you here so we could fly him out.

Praise God.

God did this.

Do you think they were blessed?

A little taste of heaven?

Oh yeah, as a result of their prayer, waiting, trusting.

Oh, how blessed is the man who's made the Lord his trust.

You know that trust for everyone begins when we trust in Jesus.

Nothing else to save us from the judgment for our sins before God, to save us from the judgment for our sins before God.

We trust him because the sinless Son of God became flesh so he could die and take our place for that judgment and became a curse for us instead of us.

Now, in return, those who believe in Jesus are given the gift of eternal life and receive forgiveness of sins, the Holy Spirit and the promise of life with God forever.

Wouldn't you trust him for that?

Like any trust, it begins by humbling yourself all in believe in Jesus to receive God's ultimate blessing of eternal life.

Key to every single blessing, let's pray, father.

Thank you for this morning.

We've had a chance to worship you, sing praises to you, lift up the name of Jesus, praises to you.

Lift up the name of Jesus.

Pray, leaving our petitions with you, knowing full well you are more than capable to answer us.

Thank you that Jesus died to take the curse of your eternal wrath for sin on our behalf and, oh Lord, we put our trust in him, jesus, to receive the gift of eternal life.

Thank you that you want us to enjoy the blessings of heaven right now, as we see you work in our lives and answering our prayers and telling us you love us and are with us.

Help us to experience this joyful blessing David describes in Psalm 40.

Help us to trust you for the needs that come crashing into our lives, and would you give us the patience to wait on you evidencing our complete trust in you.

I pray all this in Jesus' name Amen.