God's Great Joy

Preached on 31 October 2004 at

Living Stone Baptist Church

Standish, Maine

[v.1] I will extol thee, O Lord; for thou hast lifted me up, and hast not made my foes to rejoice over me.

[v.2] O Lord my God, I cried unto thee, and thou hast healed me.

[v.3] O Lord, thou hast brought up my soul from the grave: thou hast kept me alive, that I should not go down to the pit.

[v.4] Sing unto the Lord, O ye saints of his, and give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness.

[v.5] For his anger endureth but a moment; in his favour is life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.

- Prayer

- Thanksgiving

- Acknowledgements

Text:

[v.5] For his anger endureth but a moment; in his favour is life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.

Subject: God’s Great Joy

Have you ever felt like giving up ... throwing in the towel? Have you ever felt like every time you turn around ... something else is broke, or late, or something is wrong with something or somebody in your life?

Have you ever laid in the bed at night and your problems have gotten so bad that it even seems like the darkness of the night has even turned its back on you. So, you lie awake in bed wondering will the night ever end.

Well if this is you ... then I want to talk to you this morning about an unspeakable joy that the world didn’t give you and the world can’t take away ... I want to talk to you this morning about God’s Great Joy.

I want to give you 3 WAYS that you can have joy in the midst of your night season.

I. Look Back Over Your Life

Let us examine our text...

[v.1] I will extol [to lift up; to glorify on purpose “intensive” or “intentional” action] thee, O Lord; [why] for thou hast lifted me up, and hast not made my foes to rejoice over me.

You know ... sometimes I sit and think that if I could just stop for a moment. No matter what’s going on, no matter what I’m going through ... no matter how dark the night may seem ... if I could just sit back and think about what God has already done for me. I would have nothing to be sad about.

Well ... I’m a firm believer that if we can just look back over our life.

We too could be like David and have a whole lot to be excited about. Because He has lifted us up out of some circumstances, and up out of some situations ... some situation that we had no business getting ourselves in to. Nevertheless, He delivered us and brought us through.

Watch this...

We see David in our text taking a trip back down memory lane. Reflecting on just how good God had been to him.

You see ... David had great reason to praise God. And I want to give you 5 reason why David praised God and why he reminds us to do so today:

Reason:

# 1 [v.1] God had lifted him up. Notice the past tense ... David is thanking God for what He has already done)

# 2 [v.1] God had not allowed his enemies to triumph over him

# 3 [v.2] God healed his body

# 4 [v.3] God saved his soul

# 5 [v.3] God keep him alive and delivered him from certain defeats in battle

This particular Psalm of Thanksgiving is for the great deliverance that God had worked out in David’s life.

Most of you with study Bible will notice that your captions/headings in your Bible probably states that David wrote this Psalm at the time of the dedication of his house of cedar ... though there is nothing in this psalm that has particular reference to that occasion.

Well, I’m under the persuasion that David did pen this psalm during that dedication but it was in direct response to God restoring his health after a three-day plague God put on him because of his sin of number the people.

I think that we need to stick a pen right here ... and deal with one of the problems that causes the night seasons in our life – and that problem is SIN.

Well ... how did David Sin. Write this scripture in your margins

1 Chronicles 21:1-30 (turn there)

[v.1] And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel.

[v.2] And David said to Joab and to the rulers of the people, Go, number Israel from Beersheba even to Dan; and bring the number of them to me, that I may know it.