Choosing Words of Praise (Psalm 39–41)

Ever notice how trials make your world feel smaller and your words come out hotter? We explore how Psalms 39–41 expand that tight, anxious frame and turn impulsive speech into deliberate praise. David begins by wrestling with the tongue—acknowledging how quickly anger ignites—and then reframes the moment with a sober truth: life is brief, time is flying, and hope belongs in God. That shift doesn’t silence honesty; it disciplines it, so what we say builds wisdom rather than adding noise.

From there, we trace David’s testimony in Psalm 40: waiting, crying out, being lifted from the pit, and standing on solid rock. That rescue places a new song in his mouth, and the personal story becomes a public anthem. We talk about why congregational singing matters, how shared lyrics steady shaky hearts, and how the choir master and the gathered assembly turned private faith into communal courage. When we sing God’s wondrous deeds and unmatched thoughts, we rebuild memory and resist fear together.

We close with the final cadence of Psalm 41, the doxology that ends the first book of the Psalter: Blessed be the Lord from everlasting to everlasting. Amen and amen. That double amen is not filler; it is conviction. Along the way we reflect on the flood of words we speak each day and offer a simple pattern to redeem them—pause when heat rises, retell a rescue, and sing with others often. If you’re ready to trade venting for worship and anxiety for anchored hope, this journey through Psalms 39–41 will help you guard your tongue, lift your voice, and dedicate today’s words to God’s glory. If this encouraged you, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a quick review to help others find it.

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Chapters

• 0:33 Trials And Perspective
• 1:10 The Weight Of Our Daily Words
• 2:00 Psalm 39: Guarding The Tongue
• 3:51 Life Is Brief, Hope In God
• 5:01 Psalm 40: From Pit To Praise
• 7:56 Singing Together Builds Trust
• 7:56 Book One Concludes With Doxology
• 9:55 Dedicate Your Words To Glory
• 11:18 Closing Blessing And Resources

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:34

The trials of this life can warp your perspective. For example, trials might cause you to think that God has lost interest in you or doesn't care about you. Sometimes you need to step back and gain perspective. Specifically, you need to look to God's word for a renewed biblical perspective. And when you do, that puts your focus on seeking God's glory. This is the theme we see running through Psalms 39 through 41, and it's the theme of Stephen's lesson today.

SPEAKER_00: 1:11

I have read that the average person speaks somewhere around 12,000 sentences every day, made up of some 50,000 words. Well, if that were put into print, you would produce a paperback edition of around 150 pages every single day. I gotta tell you, at the end of the day, I doubt any of us are gonna want to sit down and read much of what we said, and we probably said way too much. Somebody once wrote, It takes a baby about two years to learn how to talk, and then about fifty years to learn how to keep quiet. Well, let me just say this. Speech happens to be one of the greatest gifts God has ever given to mankind. We just need to surrender what we say to his control. Now, as we arrive today at Psalm chapter 39, the heading of this Psalm here simply says to Jeduthon. He was one of the men David appointed back in 1 Chronicles 16, verse 41. In fact, that text tells us he was appointed to give thanks to the Lord. Imagine, that's his job description, to remind the king and the people that God was to be praised. Now I don't know how that worked. Perhaps in the morning when David's shaving, he shows up to remind them, praise God, for this new day, or maybe when David arrived at the palace, maybe in meetings throughout the day, he would remind everybody there that even though they're facing challenges and they've got needs, they need to thank the Lord. Imagine your career, your job was to thank the Lord. Well, ours is as well, isn't it? We're to rejoice evermore. The truth is we don't always use our speech that way, do we? Well, David gives us some guidelines here in verse one. He says, I will guard my ways that I might not sin with my tongue. He admits down here in verse three, my heart became hot within me. As I mused, the fire burned, and then I spoke with my tongue. One translation puts it this way The more I thought about it, the hotter I got, igniting a fire of words. Well, you and I know exactly what that means, and you and I know exactly what David is talking about here. Despite his best efforts, he just couldn't hold his tongue any longer. Now Bible scholars believe the context of this statement here is David's anger over disloyal enemies within his kingdom. But in spite of this context, David is praying for a right perspective. It sounds a lot like the book of James, as David is writing here in verse four. Lord, remind me how brief my time on earth will be. Remind me that my days are numbered, how fleeting my life is. That sounds to me like the letter of James where he calls life a vapor, a vapor quickly vanishing away. Kind of reminds me of a little poem I learned years ago that goes like this When I was a child, I laughed and wept, time crept. When I became a full grown man, time ran. When older still I daily grew, time flew. David saying that here in light of how brief life is, it's flying away. And in light of how good God is, frankly, I'm not gonna waste my time. I'm not gonna waste my energy yelling in hot anger at all my enemies, hoping they're gonna change. No, he writes here in verse seven, O Lord, for what do I wait? My hope is in you. Well, now in the next Psalm, Psalm chapter forty, David turns now to praising God for his strength. We're given here the heading that that this psalm of David was given to, quote, the choir master, end quote. Now this is another rather interesting job. Jaduthan's job was to continually thank the Lord. The choir master's job was to put these psalms here to music. You know, I can picture David writing out these lyrics and and then just sort of walking over to the tabernacle where the choir director might have had an office. I imagine David and that choir master talking through these lyrics, maybe determining whether it's going to be in the major or a minor key. David might have explained what he was thinking and the nuances of his feelings. I I can imagine these conversations were very special. These were sacred moments. That's because they both understood they're co-laboring, they're collaborating on this growing collection of hymns. They're going to lead people to trust in, to praise, to pour out their hearts to the true and living God. Well, David hands this transcript to the choir master and says, I want you to put this to music. I want us to sing this sometime soon. Well, this particular song here begins in verse one with a personal testimony. David writes, I waited patiently for the Lord. He inclined to me, heard my cry, he drew me up from the pit of destruction out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure. He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. He writes here in verse 5 You have multiplied, O Lord my God, your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward us. None can compare with you, I will proclaim and tell of them, yet they are more than can be told. In other words, David is saying here, there aren't enough stanzas in in this book of Psalms, in fact, in this psalm, to cover all the goodness and faithfulness of God. But why don't we sing about a few of them? In verse 9, David is saying, Let's get the entire congregation of Israel involved in singing. Down here in verse 10 he's saying, Well, let's make sure that this song reminds the congregation that God is faithful. By the way, what are you doing today when you gather in church and you sing with the congregation? Aren't you reminding yourself in that great assembly of the goodness and faithfulness of God? I gotta tell you, there's nothing quite like it, nothing more encouraging to me, as far as I'm concerned. Now with that, we move on over here into Psalm chapter forty one. I want to tell you this is the last psalm in the first section of the book of Psalms. The book of Psalms was written over a long period of time. We know that David wrote half of them. A man by the name of Asaph wrote some of them. We also know that Moses wrote one of them five hundred years earlier. That well-known 90th Psalm where we're told in verse 12, to number our days so that we can present to God a heart of wisdom. That well-known verse, by the way, is the key verse we've taken for our ministry here at Wisdom International, and this particular program called The Wisdom Journey. We want to develop a heart of wisdom that can only come through God's Word. Now these Psalms originally were collected into five books, combined for us in our Bibles today in one book. Originally, each of these five books or sections, many scholars believe, collected by Ezra in that fashion, they all end with a doxology. Well, now as we come to the end of book one, here in Psalm 41, where David continues the theme of praise and trust, you have in that final verse, verse 13, this great doxology. Here it is. Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting. Amen and amen. Well, that's a double amen here. Somebody's getting excited. Well, the Hebrew word amen means truth. David is actually saying this is the truth. And it's not only true, it's doubly true. The Lord is worthy of praise forever and ever. Oh, that's true. That's doubly true. Amen and amen. Beloved, if you're going to speak fifty thousand words today, make sure you dedicate some of them to the glory of God. Find a reason to praise the Lord. Something great, maybe your salvation, maybe something small, like how beautiful those clouds were in the sky this morning. You know, it might not be our job, our career, so to speak, to give thanks. It might not be our job to write music for the Lord. But it is our joy, it is our job to give thanks, to sing praise to God today. So, like David, let's guard our lips, let's choose our words with care. There's an old prayer from the deep south that's a good one to repeat every so often. It goes like this Lord, fill my mouth with worthwhile stuff and nudge me when I've said enough. Well, I feel the nudge myself that I've said enough today. Until our next wisdom journey together, beloved, may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.

SPEAKER_01: 11:22

Thanks for listening to The Wisdom Journey with Stephen Davey. To learn more about us and access all of our Bible teaching resources, visit wisdomonline.org. Our phone number is 866-482-4253. And you can email us at info at wisdomonline.org. Stephen developed this daily program to help you know what the Bible says, understand what it means, and apply it to your life. So please join us next time to continue the wisdom journey.