Psalm 40 Part 1

Remember the feeling when something finally comes together, after a long stretch of waiting? Maybe it was a job, a relationship, or just a season where nothing seemed to move forward. And in the middle of it, you start asking questions. Why is this taking so long? Did God forget me? But what if that waiting isn’t wasted? Today, Dr.Timothy Brown reminds you that sometimes the very thing you want to rush past is the place where God is shaping you the most. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome to Truth for Transformation with Dr. Timothy Brown. You're about to hear a message from God's Word filled with biblical wisdom, practical insights, and life-changing truths. A message designed to inspire your faith and give encouragement.

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What we know from Jeremy Lynn and his Christian faith is for Jeremy the wait was it was worth it, right? So what are you waiting on God for? What what is something in your life that has you very uncomfortable? You're like, I don't know why. And so I just want to encourage you for the Christian, if you wait on the right thing, if you wait on the right one, if you wait on the Lord, the wait will always be worth it.

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Remember the feeling when something finally comes together after a long stretch of waiting? Maybe it was a job, a relationship, or just a season where nothing seemed to move forward. And in the middle of it, you start asking questions. Why is this taking so long? Did God forget me? But what if that waiting isn't wasted? Today, Dr. Timothy Brown reminds you that sometimes the very thing you want to rush past is the place where God is shaping you the most. Prepare your heart, open your mind, and get ready to embark on a journey of faith with Dr. Timothy Brown in the book of Psalm chapter 40 with today's edition of Truth for Transformation.

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Father, as we continue our series in the summer in the Psalms, we pray your blessing on this time. We know, as Joe mentioned, there's so many that are going through different challenges in life, Lord. And I just want to pray that your blessing would rest upon each person in person, those listening online, that they would experience the blessings of God in their life, that they would experience the peace of God, that they would experience the joy of God. And Father, we also come to you confessing that we need your grace, we need your forgiveness daily. So please forgive us, give us pure hearts. We want to be pure vessels for your service. So, Lord, bless the reading of your word and the proclamation of your word, and we pray that as we walk away, we would be brought closer to the person of Jesus Christ. And in his name we pray. Amen. So go ahead and turn to Psalm 40. We're going to be continuing our series, Summer and the Psalms. As you can tell up here, I got a summer kiddie pool. How many of you have been to the pool recently? It's really fun. Yeah. I was in the lake yesterday, I took Noelle paddleboarding. Anybody ever done paddle boarding? That is so hard. I almost fell over, but she has such balance. It's is it a paddleboard or is it weightboard? It's a paddleboard, right? So you stand up and I recommend trying it. And you know, you may fall in, it's okay. But so in Psalm 40, we find David, and we find him in a precarious spot where he's waiting on the Lord. How many of you have ever got sick and tired of waiting before? All right, so I got a few memes. I love memes, they kind of help illustrate what's happening. How many readers do we have that love reading books? All right. So you read that book, and I want you guys to see this meme. It's really interesting. You finish reading that book, you've waited for in one sitting, and you realize you have to wait two more years for the next one in the series. Anybody been there? All the ones who are laughing are the readers. The rest of us are not, okay? How many of your pet owners have a pet? All right? So for those of you who are dog owners, your dog is there waiting for you all day long, right? That's cool, alright? So, how many of you enjoy doctors' office visits, especially waiting? Right? It's the pre-op that's the worst. Now, we gotta we gotta encourage for all the doctors in the room, I'm sorry, but this is a lie. Just a few more minutes longer, and I'll be right with you. Maybe you should say 30 minutes, maybe an hour, right? Sorry, doctors. And all the patients said, that's right. All right. How many of you enjoy eating out after church on Sunday? You go to restaurants, right? So you have that long church line, and the meal is taking forever. And you know it's not the waitress' fault, it's the cook's fault, right? Sorry, cooks. But you give that waitress that nasty stare, and you're like, where's my food? How many of you have done that? Have you ever noticed that the men usually do that? I hadn't have a single woman confess given that stare, right? All right, the next one. You call business. And how many of you have had businesses not return your calls? And you're like, How do you stay in business? Well, this meme says, My apologies for waiting so long to return your call, and I love this part, and then not even returning it. All right, and how many of you feel like you're dying in the waiting room? You just you it's been so long. Look at this meme. Still waiting, right? Wow. Save the best for last. So today we're going to reframe the wait. You've heard the why behind the what, but could we discover the why behind the wait? What if there was a greater purpose in your wait? Could you wait with a little more patience if you knew the why behind the wait? Could you wait with a little bit more joy and anticipation if you knew the why behind the wait? So I just want you guys to lean into Psalm 40. God's word has the power to change your life because all of us are waiting for something. All of us are waiting for God to do something. That's why you pray, right? It's to connect with God, number one, but also there's things you're praying about. But in your waiting, I want you to know that there's something greater on the other side. So, Psalm 40, we're gonna read verses 1 through 5, and may God bless his word. So David is waiting. Notice how he starts. I waited patiently for the Lord. So we talked about this in Psalm 37, and I said, How many of you are patient waiters? And like two people raised their hand. So I'm gonna ask again, how many of you are patient waiters? All right, one, two, three, four, five, six. I've got more, right? How many of you are impatient waiters? Raise your hand. You know, for us, if we were writing this psalm, which we we didn't, David wrote it, we would say, I waited, kicking and screaming for the Lord. I waited just God help me, this is crazy, right? Like you have this angst. I waited, but David says, I waited patiently. So, David, I want to ask the question what is the why behind the wait? And notice what happens. God inclined to me. He heard my cry. So every prayer that you pray up, God's hearing, he's listening. Notice what happened after the wait was over, verse 2. He brought me up out of a horrible pit. So I just want to pause there on the pit. Are there any good pits? I mean, like, David, why did you have to say horrible pit? Because I don't know about you, but I've never seen a pit that was good, right? Unless it was a pit that had a pot of gold or something, right? Most pits are not good. So David said, God brought me out of a horrible pit. Let's hear about the pit. Out of the miry clay. So it wasn't just mud, it was wet mud, right? So, unless you have a four-wheel drive truck and you like off-roading, most of us don't like playing in wet mud. It's not very good. And notice he brought me out, he set my feet upon a rock. He established my steps, he put a new song in my mouth, praise to her God. Many will see it in fear and will trust in the Lord. Before we go to verse 4, David Guzick, who's a commentator, he said something about this verse that I've never seen before. He says, What is David's new song? Could it be that Psalm 40 was his new song? And I was like, I've never seen that before. I think that's a good possibility. What is his new song? We're reading it. Psalm 40, most likely. Verse 4 Blessed is the man who makes the Lord his trust, and does not respect the proud, nor such as turn aside to lies. Many, O Lord my God, are your wonderful works, which you have done, and your thoughts toward us cannot be recounted to you in order. If I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered. So you read down the Psalm, and I encourage you to read Psalm forty on your own, and you get down to verse 16 at the end. Let all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you. Let such as love your salvation say continually, The Lord be magnified. But notice David's condition. This is how you feel when you're waiting. But I am poor and needy, yet the Lord thinks upon me. You are my help and my deliverer. Do not delay, oh my God. May God bless his word. So I've titled this message, The Wait is Worth It. Someone say the wait is worth it. I want to give you three comforting truths about the uncomfortableness of waiting. When you're waiting, it's very uncomfortable. Imagine yourself waiting in that doctor's room, you're in tri-op, and the doctor's like, I'll be right with you. And you're like, what's going to happen, right? You're going through a surgery, what's going to happen? Imagine yourself in a lawyer's office or a certain situation where it's uncomfortable. You're not sure what's going to happen on the other side of the wait. So I want to give you three truths that will change the way you think about waiting. We're going to talk about the why behind the wait. So the first truth is this the wait is worth it if you are waiting on God. Notice in verse 1, David said, I waited on the Lord. Did you know that if you wait on anyone or anything else, you often get disappointed? Some of you singles out there, you're still waiting for Mr. Wright, and you're settling for Mr. right now. Some of you are waiting for the next job, and you're like, what's happening? I can't, I don't understand. And you're not in your dream job. You're just doing something to pay the bills. And we've all been there at times, right? And if you wait on anything other than the Lord, you can be very disappointed. David says, I waited on the Lord. So what's interesting in the Hebrew, it's kind of fascinating. It's in waiting, I waited. When I waited, there was a longer wait. It's kind of like I knocked on this door, the door opened, but there was another door and another door. And I'm keep, I keep praying, I keep persevering. And it's like, God, when are you going to answer me? I am sick and tired of waiting, most of us would say. But David said, I waited patiently. Well, David, how could you wait patiently? How could you wait in such a way that you can endure the weight? How could you turn your endurance of the weight into the enjoyment in the wait? That's what I want to know. We have some basketball fans in the house. How many of you love basketball? Raise your hand. All right. So there is a guy that hit the scenes in the 2010s, and his name was Jeremy Lynn. Anybody ever heard of Jeremy Lynn? And so some of you know about him, some of you don't, but his backstory is fascinating. He grew up as one of the best high school athletes in the country, but he was cocky, he was arrogant, he didn't want to show up to practice very much, or he didn't give it, you know, he just was so good he didn't have to try very hard. And so he decided to do something that they tell you not to do. During basketball season, he played a pick-up basketball on the streets, which they're like, don't do it, right?

SPEAKER_00 11:49

You've been listening to Pastor Timothy Brown. We'll be right back with the message, but first we'd like to share some exciting news with you. We're releasing Dr. Timothy's new book called Go After Jesus. This book is a fresh approach to discipleship and focuses on your identity in Christ as the launching pad for Christian growth. In Go After Jesus, Pastor Timothy paints the picture of the six identities for every follower of Christ. You are a seeker, a disciple, a friend, a fisherman, a warrior, and a lover. We're currently offering two free chapters of this book as a digital download. To get your free chapters, go to Dr. Timothy's website at drtimothybrown.org. Now let's get back to the rest of the message with Pastor Timothy.

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So in the process, he broke his ankle, which was very reckless to jeopardize your team. So his ankle was broken, but during that time, God put him in the waiting room. God put in a time of waiting, of searching. And Jeremy is a Christian, so it's prayer. And what God did in that time of waiting for his ankle to heal is he developed humility. He developed team attitude. He developed, it's not about me, it's about the team. I shouldn't have played pickup basketball. Fast forward, he gets a scholarship and goes to Harvard University. Wouldn't it be cool? Where did you go to school? Harvard. I mean, that that's that's that sounds good enough, right? In Harvard, he was one of the greatest athletes. He was balling, and so everyone thought he's gonna do great in the NBA, but the NBA draft comes in 2010 and he's undrafted. So here he is, he's praying, he's waiting, he's made it through all this setback with his ankle healing, and he's undrafted. But thankfully, in his waiting, the Golden State Warriors, my former best team, now they're no good anymore, they pick him up, but they don't really play him that much. They cut him. So he's waiting again. The Houston Rockets pick him up, and he gets cut from them. And all of a sudden, the New York Knicks have a little contract. In the NBA, they have like these short contracts. So the story is Jeremy Lynn was so poor and so broke that he was asleep on someone's couch in New York. I mean, New York's so expensive you can't afford rent, right? So he's sleeping on someone's couch, and all of a sudden, all that waiting, they have all these injuries during the New York Knicks season, and they go to Jeremy Lynn and say, Hey, can you can you play? Can you start? And he's like, Boy, can I. So he gets out in the court and he starts shooting the ball and nailing all these shots. He steals, he hustles, and all of a sudden, the New York Knicks that were not good that season, they went on a seven-game winning streak. And all through the nation, this broke out called Lynn's Sanity. How many of you remember that? Lin Sanity. It was about Jeremy Lynn. And what we know from Jeremy Lynn and his Christian faith is for Jeremy, the wait was, it was worth it, right? So what are you waiting on God for? What is something in your life that has you very uncomfortable? You're like, I don't know why. And so I just want to encourage you for the Christian, if you wait on the right thing, if you wait on the right one, if you wait on the Lord, the wait will always be worth it. The second comforting truth in this uncomfortableness of waiting is the wait is worth it if you believe God still answers prayer. How many of you believe in answered prayer? So put yourself in the wait. If you believe that God is hearing you in such a way to answer you, could that reframe the weight? Could that help you understand the why behind the weight? Look at the last part of verse one. And he inclined to me and he heard my cry. So here's the idea that the creator of the universe, I want you to pick picture this. David is in this pit, and things aren't going well for him. We know from history, from his story, that he had to wait some 15 years before he became king of Israel. And he says, as I was praying, the creator of the universe stooped over. I mean, think about that. The Savior leaning into you. The next time you think that God doesn't hear your prayer, we have a Savior who stoops. He leans over, he leans into you to listen, to listen to your prayers. And he's going to answer it in his time, in his ways, but you got to realize you're waiting. You're waiting. Think about the magnitude of this. You serve a God so intimate and so caring that he can listen to all eight billion prayers at once for those who pray to him. We know that not all eight billion people pray to God, but he can listen to all the prayers at the same time and he leans over. This is the creator who breathed and stars were made. This is the one that holds the galaxies in motion. This is the one that speaks and dead people are raised. This is the one that has the power to speak peace to the storm, and all of a sudden there's stillness. He can speak peace to your storm. No matter what you're going through. I just want to give you this truth. If you don't forget everything else, the weight is worth it. So David said he leaned into me. The creator of the universe came and heard my prayer. And this is the if we if we take a beeline to the gospel, and by the way, every passage in the Bible, it all points to Christ. Jesus said, All scripture speaks of me. So where does this point us to Jesus? Well, the Old Testament, who were they waiting on? They were waiting on Jesus, right? And was the wait worth it when he finally came? In the fullness of time, God sent forth his son, born of a virgin, born under the law, so that he might redeem those from the law, so that we could be saved, so that we could walk in this new covenant, so that we could walk in the grace of God. The wait was worth it. So he waited, we waited, we called upon him, and he came. He came to our time, he came to our space. The wait is worth it if you're waiting on God. The wait is worth it if you believe that God answers prayer. So I want to give you, before we go to our third truth, I want to give you three benefits of waiting. These will help you with the why behind the wait. Sometimes God encourages you and sometimes He makes you wait because you need renewal. You need renewal. How many of you have ever felt broken down before? Just like you feel all broken to pieces. And so what we see is in Isaiah 40, 31, those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. So what's the why behind the wait? God's doing some renewal in you because if He gave you what you wanted, right, you're not ready for it. You're not ready. You need renewal. And so I remember in seminary class they had this saying, it never sat well with me. But they talked about even in ministry, you're often broken, and it's the wounded healer healing others. And I was like, I don't think that's very biblical. I think you got to get healed by God and get back out there and help others. But it's what they were trying to say is that we're all broken, and that's true. It's okay not to be okay, but it's not okay to stay that way, right? God wants to heal you, He wants to restore you. It's hard for me to help you if I'm constantly broken down, right? It's like, so God wants to renew and He wants to restore. So not only restoration, but the renewal part. What does it mean to renew? Renewal means to make new again. It's like refresh, it's like hitting the reset button on your computer, rebooting it. In Psalm 23, the same author, David, says, the Lord restores my soul. So what does it mean to restore? It means that things are not the way they should be. So God wants to remake it. It's the creator who wants to breathe new life into you. And so, like I said, it's okay not to be okay. But we're a place where we show grace, but we also show truth. And so sometimes in church it's all about grace, and it's that sounds good, but if nobody's getting changed, where's the truth at? Does that make sense? So, like we come at the foot of the cross broken, and God begins to restore us. He's a God of restoration. But there's another purpose in waiting, and that's retooling. Retooling. Paul told Timothy in 2 Timothy 1, verse 6 and 7, he says, Timothy, stir up the gift that's in you. And you're like, what does that mean? Paul talked about the gift of God that was in the young Timothy, the young pastor. And he said, You got to stir it up, fan into flames, as some translations say. So what happens when a person becomes a believer is God gives you the Holy Spirit to live in you. You have eternal life the moment you believe, but he also gives you at least one spiritual gift. And what happens if you sit on your gift in the South, as we'd like to say, if you sit on your blessed assurance, you know, it's comfortable, but you're not stirring up the gift. So, what what gift has God given you? Sometimes in the waiting room, God's gonna ask you to stir it back up. Maybe you served in the kids' ministry and got burned out. Now it's time to get re-engaged. Maybe you were helping out the senior adult ministry and you've not been engaged, and it's like, all right, it's time to get back. In the waiting of the promise of God, God is doing something. So those are some whys behind the wait. So our third major truth to comfort you in the uncomfortableness of waiting is this the wait is worth it if there's something greater on the other side of your struggle. So we're finally in verse two. Notice what happens in verse two. It says that I was waiting on the Lord, verse one, and verse two, he says, He brought me up out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock and established my steps. So if you'll notice here, I have a kiddie pool. Someone asked, We have another baptism. That would be really hard to. Anyone here. We're not having a baptism, we're having something else. Dakota, where are you at? Come on up. Let's give Dakota a hand. So I'm a visual learner. Any visual learners out there? Alright. So I'm a visual learner. So I'm thinking of Psalm 40, verse 2. And you ever notice that sometimes you're at a pool party? And a pool party is great until it's not so good? Some of you were in a pool party, it's summertime, and all of a sudden the pool turns into a pit. Your pool party turn into a pity party. So what do you do when you find yourself in a pit? Right? You know, it's like life is good until it's not. You're in trial, you're waiting. And so Dakota is in this little kiddie pool, and you notice some pits are confining, right? You're like, I feel caved in, I feel like I can't breathe. This pit is not very fun. This pool party is now a pity party. But what kind of pit is it? Bible readers read there, it says, He brought me out of what kind of pit? It's horrible. Why is it horrible? There's mud in the pit, right?

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Thank you for listening to today's edition of Truth for Transformation with Dr. Timothy Brown. We're in a series called Summer in the Psalms. The Psalms is a very interesting book for many reasons. For one, it has many different authors. King David wrote many of the psalms, but also Asaph and the sons of Korah wrote some of them. Solomon wrote a couple of psalms, and Moses even wrote one. Psalms is a collection of songs gathered together to use in Israel's public worship. It was the hymnal of the time, the original hymnal. There is so much inspiration to be found in this book. We're encouraged to praise God for who he is and what he's done for us. The psalms are an example of how we should thank God for our many blessings. Psalms also show us that we're given permission to bring our grief and pain to God. We get a glimpse into the hearts of God's people and their devotion to God. And when we sing our songs that find their inspiration from the Psalms, we follow in their footsteps. If there's something that has touched your heart from today's message, or if you have a question, please reach out to us. Join us in prayer as we strive to live out God's mission for us. You can find us on social media at Dr. Timothy Brown Ministries, where you can share your thoughts or just say hello. You can learn more about what we do at drtimothybrown.org. That's also where you can contribute financially to our ministry. Your giving fuels the mission. Thanks for joining us on Truth for Transformation.