Sermon.972
“Hallelujah”
From the pulpit of Bayview Baptist Church, April 29, 2001
Psalm 30
I’m reminded of a wonderful story of a Southern Baptist church who tried and tried to get a man to attend their church, but he just would not attend.
A deacon of the church went to visit this man and said, “Why don’t you come and attend our church?”
The man finally admitted he didn’t have a nice suit to wear.
So the deacon took the man to the shopping mall and he bought him a nice suit, a new shirt, tie, and an expensive pair of shoes.
The next Sunday, the man still didn’t attend the Baptist church; so this time the pastor decided to pay him a visit.
The pastor entered into a conversation with the man and finally he got around to asking him why he didn’t attend their church.
The man said, “When I got dressed up in my new suit, that pretty tie, and those comfortable new shoes, I looked in the mirror, and I looked so good that I decided to attend the Episcopal church.”
Psalm 30 is a psalm in the form of a song that was used at a dedication service of the Temple in Jerusalem in 164 BC.
It’s a song of praise and worship!
The psalms in general are very much a beloved part of Scripture.
For the most part, these short writings do not deal with intense theological matters, but instead, they deal with matters of day-to-day life.
The psalms deal with the practical side of life that confront us both in times of deepest sorrow and times of great joy.
We don’t know for sure when, or why, this particular psalm was written, but we do know who wrote it.
King David wrote the 30th psalm.
Perhaps he had been sick and God raised him up and healed him.
Perhaps he had been in deep despair, and God lifted him up out of the pit of life.
Perhaps this psalm was written by King David after he had been consumed by some personal sin.
One thing is sure! God healed David’s affliction, whatever that affliction was.
I like this psalm because I believe everyone here can identify with it; for God has done the same for you and I many times.
Often, when we consider God acting in our lives, we think of God in terms of working in extraordinary ways like working some miraculous healing in our lives.
Perhaps you have suffered from cancer, and God in His great mercy and kindness healed you.
Perhaps you have been in the deep pit of despair financially, and God lifted you up from the stress and worry your financial troubles brought to your life.
Perhaps you’ve had some trouble with a neighbor or a personal friend, and God helped you to mend the relationship.
Perhaps God has forgiven you of your sin, and now you can move forward in your life, knowing in your heart that you’ve been forgiven and cleansed.
God does work in all of these events in our lives, but God also works in the not-so-spectacular ways.
He might deal with us through ordinary events like reading the Bible, prayer, worship, or through our daily conversation with friends.
I don’t know about you, but I could sing this psalm because it has a great meaning to me.
God hasn’t lifted me out of the many pits I have been in during my life because I’m some special little pet of His.
He hasn’t healed my circumstances because I’m a pastor and a Bible teacher.
Instead, He has always lifted me up because He’s a holy God.
He recognizes my sins, He knows my sorrows, and together we celebrate the joys.
He has saved my by His great mercy and grace, so I can truthfully say that God hasn’t lowered His standards one bit in my life.
I deserve God’s justice, but instead He gives me mercy!
That’s why I can praise Him, because God loves me just because I am me!
You know, we live in a wonderful time today; quiet different than the day when Psalm 30 was written.
It’s during the wonderful times that we live though, that we tend to congratulate ourselves for our own power, our own skills and our own energies.
It seems that we like to make our own religion as we go these days; what I call a Burger King Theology, for when we go to Burger King, we make the hamburger like we want it.
We use God like we would use a spare tire in the trunk of our cars.
We don’t even regularly check the air pressure in the spare tire, and we just assume that our spare tire will be properly inflated the moment we get in a jam and need to use it.
That’s kind of the way we use God, isn’t it?
When sickness, bad luck, or tragedy shatters our life, we suddenly and humbly pray to God for a quick fix.
When we’re in the deepest pit of our sin, we cry out to God to help us find peace with ourselves.
It’s been my experience that God usually comes through for us in our times of great need, and then when the crisis is passed, we quickly return to our old way of life, with our Burger King theology and God is thrown back into the trunk, conveniently placed there until the next time we need Him.
It’s when we forget to praise Him that we have fallen into the pit!
We fall into the pit, God comes to our rescue, we fall into the pit, God comes to our rescue, we fall into the pit over and over again, and God comes to our rescue time and time again!
It’s a vicious cycle.
We can’t bring ourselves out of the pit by our own power because that would be works and deeds instead of faith; and because of the sin of pride, God is the last person we remember to call upon to help us out.
The pit is a place we may have made for ourselves because of sin.
A pit is a dark and gloomy place, that’s eternally deep and miserable.
The pit stands for whatever you’re facing now, or have faced in the past, that has been to some degree what you have considered to be your part of hell on earth.
Nobody likes a pit.
It’s cold, unpleasant, and down right miserable.
I think Psalm 30 was written for us today, so we could remember that we were made for the purpose of praising God.
If God has done something great for us, and certainly each one of us can claim that God has done something great and wonderful for us, then there should be in our hearts an expression which naturally flows out of our hearts back to God.
Some of us have probably received some healing from a serious illness or some great difficulty in life.
Certainly, we have all had our sins forgiven.
Then wouldn’t it be the normal and the right thing to do if we would have the wisdom to recognize that fact, and be thankful to God who has dealt with us in mercy and grace?
This week, I told the Lord the same thing David did.
I said to God, "...O Lord my God, I will give you thanks forever” (verse 12b).
There is nothing I can say to improve this verse.
What David said, I said.
I hope and pray this is what you will say with me as we stand and repeat this verse together this morning for our Benediction:
“O Lord my God, I will give you thanks forever” (print this verse in your church worship bulletin).
Heavenly Father, if there is one here today reading this sermon who has not yet entered into a personal saving relationship with You, I pray this miracle of salvation be present in his or her heart, and You, Dear God, will take up residence in the Holy Temple of his or her heart. Amen.
Rev. Jimmy Davis
Bayview Baptist Church
5300 Two Notch Road
Columbia, SC 29204
Email: BayviewBaptist@aol.com
Telephone: 8030754-8690
