Rescued And Redeeemed Series

Summer in the Psalms 2024

Psalm 40

Pastor Jefferson M. Williams

Chenoa Baptist Church

09-01-2024

Baby Jessica

On October 14, 1987, a little girl fell into a well in her aunt’s backyard in Midland, Texas. Do you remember her name? Her name was Jessica McClure, but she became nationwide as “Baby Jessica.”

For 56 hours, rescue workers frantically tried to figure out how to get her from the well while 18-month-old Jessica could be heard singing “Winnie the Pooh.”

Paramedic Robert O’Donald finally emerged with Jessica.

This rescue led to rejoicing all over the world. I remember it and, if you are my age or older, I bet you remember it as well.

This morning, we will see that David’s rescue from the pit led to not only his personal worship but the worship of his people as well.

Background of Psalm 40

Today, we finish our Summer in Psalms series. This summer, we studied Psalms 1, 14 15, 20, 23, 27, 32, 96, 103, and today Psalm 40.

In Psalm 37-39, we hear David’s cries for God to deliver him from the guilt and shame of past sins.

In Psalm 40, this plea is answered amazingly.

David wrote this psalm to the Chief Musician and it is called a “mizmor,” which means a song written for stringed instruments.

Remember these are songs that Jesus would sing with his family.

We don’t know exactly what was happening when David wrote this. Was it a betrayal? Was it a sickness? Was it when he had to run from his son Absalom?

We don’t know. But he remembers a time when he was as low as you can go and God rescued him.

Turn with me to Psalm 40.

Prayer

Rescued

“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.” (Psalm 40:1-3)

David begins with waiting and as Tom Petty sang, “The Waiting is the Hardest Part.”

We are a microwave society who get road rage when we have to wait in traffic. We get annoyed at the workers and fellow customers when we have to wait in line. We get furious when we have to wait on hold forever.

Sometimes impatience has devastating consequences. 43-year-old Shawn Higgins, who had been drinking, got stuck behind two slow vehicles on a New Jersey road. He gunned the engine and swerved onto the shoulder to pass them. What he didn’t know was that Johnny Gaudreau, 31, the NHL hockey star known as Johnny Hockey his his little brother Matthew Gaudreau, 29, were riding their bikes on the shoulder. Higgins ran over both of them, killing them instantly.

As if that story could be any worse, they were two hours away from being a groomsman at their sister’s wedding.

The Hebrew is very strong. It says, “In waiting, I waited.” Doubling the term conveys the intensity of the activity.

There are several different kinds of waiting. There is the patient endurance waiting that most drive-thru windows force you into and then there is expectant waiting that you experience at a concert.

You enter the arena and there is electricity in the air. You know that the band is somewhere backstage getting ready. Then the lights go down and the crowd begins to roar.

Waiting is often part of God’s program. But waiting is not the same as inactivity. It is an active expectation of God keeping his promises.

Abraham waited 25 years for the child that God had promised.

Jacob waited for 14 years to marry Rachel.

Joseph waited two years in prison.

Job waited for God to reply to his cries of confusion.

Paul waited 14 years before he went to Jerusalem to tell the other apostles what he had been preaching.

Jeremiah wrote these words when surveying the ruins of his beloved Jerusalem:

“The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.” (Lamentations 3:25-26)

And David waited years between being anointed king and finally becoming king.

David remembers waiting with endurance and expectation for the Lord. This is the covenant-making, promise-keeping God.

And this God came near. He inclined, “he bent down,” and listened with a tender heart to David’s cries for help.

He not only leaned in and listened but he lifted David out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire.

The picture of being stuck in a pit is seen in several places in the Scriptures.

Joseph’s brothers threw him into an empty well (Gen 37:24) and Jeremiah was thrown into a well;