The Anatomy Of Deliverance (Psalm 40) | Joel Milgate

Join us in this impactful sermon as we delve into the theme of deliverance found within Psalm 40. Through personal experiences and biblical insights, our speaker brings to light the reality of the pits we face in life—whether emotional, spiritual, or circumstantial—and how waiting on God can lead to miraculous rescue and renewal. Discover the actions and attributes of God that lift us out of despair and set our feet on solid ground. This message is perfect for anyone seeking hope, encouragement, and a deeper understanding of God's saving grace. Tune in and be inspired to trust in God's timing and celebrate His deliverance. Be sure to subscribe for more enlightening messages.

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Transcript

 welcome uh and south bay nashville everyone that's here it's great and worship team um thank you yeah thank you and i'm sure everywhere else as well thank you i'm a little bit like i'm not often like don't have words um that's sort of my thing

 Most of the time people are like, you talk too much.

That's my own deal, but I'm just here this morning and I'm a little bit lost for words.

We were here two years ago and it was an awesome church then, but it's a much more awesomer church now.

 And, but this, well, I'm lost for words.

I'm trying to figure out how to say it.

It's just like, there's just a real richness of the presence of the Lord, of the hearts of the team, of the passion of the whole church.

And I'm sure that's the same in our other locations as well, I have no doubt.

It

 It was cool a couple of years ago, but it's really rich.

And yeah, that's not a statement about what was.

It's just a statement about what is.

Maybe I'll find some more words as the day goes on, but well done.

Yeah, yeah.

 To everyone who serves and prays and gives and loves, it wouldn't be that without you.

So thank you.

I'm just sitting down there at the end of worship thinking, can I move here?

I want to worship here every week.

So, yeah.

 I know, Nicole, you're in South Bay there with the kids and Jake, but just thank you for your friendship.

And just so inspired.

Yeah, really inspired.

 I'm sorry for my accent, everyone.

I would change it if I could, but I'm not good at accents.

I'm not Elijah who can do any accent.

But yeah, I'm just really not good at them.

And that means that I'm not good at speaking like New Zealand English, let alone like English or American English.

So I might say words differently.

 Not right.

And please forgive me.

People often ask, like, what's the difference between, like, New Zealand culture and American culture?

And I think it can be summed up in our national birds.

Okay?

Some people know what our national bird is, so they're getting it.

But let me just, like, bring you in on the journey.

Like, your national bird is the bald eagle.

Yeah.

 Like majestic, strong, it soars, it's a predator, it's over.

You know, like this is your national bird.

Now let me tell you about our national bird.

Our national bird is tiny.

It's endangered.

It's nocturnal.

It's scared of the light.

It's...

 It only looks down at the ground and has a long beak and it is flightless.

That's all you need to know about the difference between our cultures, okay?

Yeah, yeah.

I don't know.

I think everyone's old enough that you've been through hard things.

 that you've tasted enough of the brokenness of the world, that you've probably become aware enough of like the inadequacies of self.

But probably you've all had like a particular season or a particular struggle or a particular moment that you just wondered like, will I ever get out of this?

 I've had a few of those moments in my life that really stand out to me.

A few years ago in ministry, I completely burned out.

I didn't think I ever would.

I thought it was bulletproof, but one day I couldn't get out of bed.

I loved my job.

I loved what I got to do, but I was like,

 filled with anxiety, I was having panic attacks, I was suffering depression and I hadn't been that person before and that season was a really long time and I wondered would this ever end?

We went through some really hard things a few years ago with our family and we're in like an elongated court battle.

 And where we were being attacked and we felt like we were being betrayed.

And at every turn, at every prayer request, we thought, it's okay, God will intervene.

Just when we thought it'll get better, but at every turn, our prayers were unanswered and it got worse.

And I just was like, God, will it ever end?

And about June last year, I was in one of those spots.

 We had been senior pastors of the church.

We had led for, I don't know, 12, 13 years.

We had served this church for 20 years.

And we had just finished up as the pastors.

 We felt like the Lord had asked us to lay it down, to transition out, and to move on to something else in the future.

We didn't really know what that was.

It was a leap of faith.

And so we had just finished.

And as much as being obedient is awesome, it came with all of these other things going on.

We were grieving that our time with this church we had loved for almost 20 years wasn't at an end.

 We were grieving, like there's so many good things, but we were grieving, like that's over.

As any journey, like as much as we felt like it was the thing the Lord had asked us to do, there were surrounding circumstances that we didn't choose that were really unpleasant.

 We had felt betrayed by different people.

Some relationships had fallen apart.

I found myself like, I think we made the right decision, but every few days I would lean over to Katie and be like, should we go ask for our jobs back?

I felt stuck.

I couldn't see the future anymore.

I was carrying a lot of weight and darkness.

I don't even have the right words around it.

But

 I was feeling like a failure.

And in my time with the Lord, one of those days in July last year, I came across Psalm 40.

And this is our passage for today.

If you have your Bibles, you're more than welcome to turn there.

I'll give you a few moments.

Psalm 40 in verse 1.

It's around the middle of the Bible.

It's somewhere there-ish if you're just navigating it, you know, if you're new-ish here.

 And Psalm 40 says, I waited patiently for the Lord to help me, and he turned to me and heard my cry.

He lifted me out of the pit of despair, out of the mud and mire, and he set my feet on solid ground.

 He steadied me as I walked along.

He has given me a new song to sing, a hymn of praise to our God.

Many will see what he has done and be amazed.

They will put their trust in the Lord.

Oh, the joys of those who trust in the Lord.

 And sometimes I'm a little bit slow to pick up on what God's trying to show me.

So I had to read it a few times before the pennies sort of dropped.

And I realized this is a psalm of deliverance.

This is a psalm of God's salvation.

I don't just mean the moment you come to know Christ, but of his saving activity in our lives in all of its fullness.

 This is a psalm of God's rescue in our lives.

And as I pondered it, as I read over it many, many times, what struck me is how little of this rescue was the psalmist's actions.

The psalmist is most likely David here.

And how much of it is God's actions?

I don't know if you see this.

It took me a while to get it.

But like, here's what the psalmist did.

He waited patiently and he cried.

 I can do one of those things.

The crying bit.

But here's what God did.

He turned.

He heard.

He lifted.

He set my feet.

He steadied me.

And he gave me a new song.

 We find ourselves in those places, in those seasons, in those sins, in those moments where the only way something's ever gonna change is if God intervenes.

And sometimes God's like so kind and he comes quite early in the peace and he rescues.

And sometimes for whatever reason,

 Probably the formation work of him in our lives.

But for whatever reason, the season extends longer than we would want it to.

And his deliverance doesn't just come in like a flashpoint moment, but comes in his work over the entirety of a season.

And we wake up one day and go, I've been delivered.

I don't know where it happened, but I'm on new ground now.

 Wherever you find yourself today, whether you find yourself in one of those moments or whether you find yourself in one of those seasons or whether maybe this is just a word you can tuck away for the next time you find yourself there, I hope there's something in it for every one of us.

 We will finish today with a time for ministry, a time to receive prayer.

And I am genuinely believing.

I'm not a hype person.

I go like the opposite end.

So if I'm not excited enough, just be excited for me.

But I'm believing.

I am believing today.

And I felt like the Lord pressed a few things on my heart.

I'm believing that some people will be delivered from the crippling anxiety in their life.

 I feel like, I don't know if it's in one of the other locations or if it's here, if it's in the next service, but I think there's some people facing some specific situations that they'll be delivered from.

I think that someone going through something legal, I think there's some other people going through some family stuff.

I don't know what it is.

It's just what I felt like the Lord impressed on me, but the Lord wants to deliver you.

Katie really felt like there's some people who, um,

 It's like they need to be delivered from unbelief.

But a particular unbelief that God's goodness doesn't apply or won't extend to you.

 And of course, I'm believing for people to be delivered from any spiritual oppression going on in their lives.

Absolutely, all of that.

But like, deliverance is a big word in the Bible.

Like, we often think of like, let's get the demons out.

It's that and so much more.

And so today's message is called The Anatomy of Deliverance.

And let's just take a moment to pray.

Lord, we love your word.

 We love your word because it's your word.

And we want your word to have its way in our lives.

But Lord, I'm super aware of my inadequacy.

I'm saying a few things about deliverance that I believe are from your word.

But beyond that, I want people to know your deliverance.

And so come Holy Spirit and have your way.

And at the end of our time together, would there be testimony of your deliverance?

 Would they be equipping to walk through the toughness in life?

And would all that's your word remain and all that is distraction fade away?

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

We've got four kids.

And the oldest got married at the end of last year.

It was awesome.

Yeah, yeah.

And so we had a wedding.

We had it in our backyard.

And he married a doctor.

 I didn't think we were going to produce any doctors, but the next best thing is marrying a doctor, you know.

And so we married a doctor.

They're doing well.

And, you know, we often talk about medical things I like to learn.

And so this whole idea of the anatomy of deliverance, like, sort of comes back to, like,

 the anatomy of our bodies.

The anatomy is like, yes, we're a body, but studying anatomy is studying the different parts that make up the human body, whether it be the muscular system or the nervous system.

And if you're going to be in the healthcare profession, and I'm sure some people are, you cannot be in the healthcare profession without knowing the body's anatomy for what's relevant for your part in the healthcare.

Because

 We're not just a body, we're a complicated mixture of all of this stuff that I don't understand.

And the anatomy of deliverance is like a little bit like that.

Like if the church is going to be a place where people are delivered, we must understand the parts that make up deliverance.

We must really understand the need for deliverance.

We must understand what are our actions and our postures and what are God's actions and God's postures so that we might see people delivered.

 Psalm 40 is a psalm of David, a psalm of deliverance.

It's got some good stuff beyond the verses we read, but we can know that David knew a thing or two about deliverance.

 He had lived experience of God's deliverance.

And I don't know how much of David's story you know.

I love David because David's this very human character in the scriptures.

He's like, you know, I feel like David's someone I can aspire to.

Not perfect, but pursuing the Lord at every turn.

And I'm like, I feel like I can do that.

 Nobody's perfect in the Bible.

Moses feels a little bit harder to aspire to.

But Jesus, obviously, we're aspiring to.

But David knew a thing or two about the need for deliverance.

I think of the times that he faced Goliath.

The times, the time.

The time he faced Goliath.

And whenever he crossed the threshold of no return...

 Yeah, he had his faith.

Yeah, he had his pebbles.

Yeah, he had his sling.

But surely, you know, he was almost wetting himself.

You know, it's like, God, if you don't come through, I'm toast.

And he knew deliverance in that story.

 He was prophesied and anointed to be king.

He was elevated to the king's palace to learn king protocol.

But then his king, who was supposed to be the person to usher him into that role, becomes jealous of him and threatens to kill him.

And so David spends a significant time, likely in his 20s and 30s, running for his life.

 Every month, every week, every day, the real threat that his story could come to an end.

He knew a thing or two about deliverance.

 I think of the story where they were off doing what David thought was best and when he was gone with his men, another group of people came and took all of their possessions and all of their wives and all of the children and all of his men wanted to kill him when they found out.

David knew a thing or two about deliverance.

I think of all of those years in the desert.

 I think of David having climbed.

God finally fulfilled all of the promises that he had for David.

He's finally king.

He's finally in Jerusalem.

The presence of the Lord is finally there.

Like everything is fulfilled.

And then when he should have been at war, he was looking for a lady on a rooftop.

 And then rather than sort of like backing off that sin, he continued down its path and what sin turned into, like sexual sin turned into murder.

And I just think like if he was a man after God's own heart, whenever like he woke up from that, man, he was probably in a dark place.

 I'm so sorry, Lord.

And he probably needed deliverance from his own sense of unworthiness.

I think of the portrayal of his son, Absalom.

And when he has to run from the kingdom he spent so long waiting for.

 only to be back where he began, running for his life with a few friends, just the need for deliverance.

And it strikes me that after he's experienced so much goodness of God and so many desperate moments, that he goes, I waited, I cried out, and he turned and he heard me.

 And he lifted, and he put my feet, and he steadied me as I walked, and he put a new song.

This pattern of deliverance is not a one-time thing.

It's a life thing.

He knows deliverance, and I think we should be very familiar with deliverance.

So a few things about this passage.

 The first is, is it uses this language here.

He says, he's lifted me out of the pit.

 The pit is real.

The pit in the scriptures is like, there's a few times in the language of pit.

And pit is a great metaphor for when you know you need deliverance from God.

So the pit, you can think of Joseph was thrown in a pit by his brothers when they portrayed him, when they were figuring out what to do with him.

Right.

 The most famous pit story is probably that one, but the next most famous is Jeremiah, when he was prophesying some things nobody liked, to shut him up, they threw him in the pit.

And when they say pit, they mean something like this.

This is actually what they believe was Jeremiah's pit.

 A pit was like an underground water tank carved in the stone to store water in dry areas.

And the pit has a whole bunch of things going on.

Because there was water, normally the bottom layer, whether it was dry, it was always muddy, was always mud and mire, and you were stuck.

It was dark.

It didn't matter how hard you tried, you couldn't get out of this pit.

These ladders have been added later.

 They were not a feature back then, you know.

For the archaeologists or whatever, they found the seal of Jeremiah in the pit.

That's why they think it was Jeremiah's pit.

And so pit becomes this metaphor for places we will all find ourselves.

I know I don't need to convince you, but I will remind you.

The pit is real.

Yeah.

 It's a stuck place in our lives.

It's a dark place in our lives.

It feels like mud where you can't get a footing.

It's a bog.

It's like there's lots of effort but not a lot of progress.

It's a place where you can't walk, you can't stand.

 You lose hope.

It's a low place, not a high place of perspective.

It's a low place where you lose your perspective.

Every place you place your foot, it slides.

It's shaky.

It's not sure.

It's uncertain.

It's not solid.

There's no progress.

And normally in the pit, there's no new songs.

There's no creative juices flowing.

It's the pit.

 And the pit is our circumstantial difficulties we might face in our life, but it's more than that.

The pit can be anxiety.

The pit can be depression.

The pit can be a situation that looks like it's going to overwhelm you in your life and overcome you.

You think, I cannot survive this.

The pit is suffering in general, which sadly none of us get to avoid.

The pit is sin.

Sin.

 It doesn't matter how hard you try to get out of your own sin.

There are no climbing out of it.

And look, even if you did avoid all of the rest, the pit is death.

The ultimate pit, none of us get to avoid.

And I often wonder for David, like when he's writing this psalm in Psalm 40, I'm like, how do you end up in this pit?

 Like, was he like Joseph who was thrown in the pit by his brothers?

Was he like Jeremiah thrown in the pit by people who felt threatened by him?

 And what strikes me is that there's no indication of particularly which deliverance David is talking about in his life here.

We don't know if it's about Goliath or about Saul.

We don't know what story this is.

And I think it's because we're not supposed to focus on how we ended up in the pit.

What matters is you have a deliverer that can get you out.

 And I know like we get to these moments and when we are in desperate need of deliverance, all we want is like God, we want like a listening sympathetic ear, right?

Let me tell you my sob story.

And we want like that therapeutic connection.

And I totally get that.

But deliverance doesn't need to know your full backstory, right?

 It's not about how you got there.

It's about that you have a God that can get you out of there.

You have a deliverer.

But there is a very real temptation in the pit we must be aware of.

I know it in myself.

When I get to these stuck places in my life, the first temptation is I want to self-rescue.

I want to...

 try throw a rope up myself.

I want to try climb up the walls.

I want to try build some stairs or construct a ladder.

I want to try harder, think better, discipline myself more, eat healthier, you know, whatever.

It's like, I'm going to get myself out of this pit.

That is one temptation.

The other temptation is, so self-rescue is always going to end up in long-term failure.

 Self-rescue is only going to end in long-term failure.

This is Jesus' whole metaphor when he goes, if you try to clean the house yourself, yes, the demon might flee, but it'll come back and it'll bring all of its friends and it will camp out because that's what happens when you try to do it by your own effort, where there's no replacement of the Spirit of God.

If you try to fix the stuff on your own, it'll bring short-term relief but long-term failure.

 But the other temptation is equally as dangerous, and that's others' rescue.

And others' rescue, when we think, well, my pastor's going to get me out of this, my church is going to get me out of this, my leader's going to get me out of this, my mom's going to get me out of this, whatever it is.

And you know what?

If self-rescue leads to long-term failure, others' rescue always leads to disappointment.

 Because nobody can deliver you except the Lord.

And this matters because like we're in a self-help world, right?

 Whether it be the bookstores, I don't know if you've ever been to one of those.

They exist.

There's a section, and it's the self-help section.

Or whether it's some person on TikTok or Instagram or some podcast, you know, sort of campaigning for their wisdom.

There's no lack of people that want to help you self-rescue.

 There's no lack of doctors that are happy to keep writing prescriptions year after year.

And there's no lack of counselors that are happy to book the 100th appointment.

Even though you've made no progress, they're happy to keep taking your money.

And sadly for so many with all the books, podcasts, five tips for this, prescriptions for that, appointments for this, there is still no deliverance.

 Let's call it what it is.

It reminds me a little bit of like, I'm a surfer and there was a surf spot growing up and sometimes I'd be allowed to borrow my dad's van.

It was a Mitsubishi L300.

It's a piece of junk.

And it was a rear wheel drive.

It had no weight in the back.

But you had to drive across these long sand plains to get to this particular surf spot.

And every now and then with my friends, I would think like, well, let's go do some doughies on the way in the sand.

 Doeys?

Is that a thing?

Like donuts.

Whatever you call that.

Like let's just be silly boys doing dumb things because our frontal lobes haven't developed.

And inevitably driving on the soft sand, being an idiot, leads to the van getting stuck.

 And you're in just the middle of sand.

And so what are you going to do?

Well, we're going to try to get ourselves out of this.

Let's put our foot on the gas.

Let's change it down into another gear.

Let's give this thing a go.

And there's a lot of effort and it looks spectacular and there's sand flying.

But all we're doing is making it worse.

What we needed is another.

One who was able to come with their tractor.

 After we'd walked a few miles to their house to get us free.

And look, my disclaimer is like, I'm not here against medication.

And I'm not here against counselors.

And I'm not here against psychologists.

God can use all of that.

God can actually... Those things are not our deliverers.

God is our deliverer.

And so...

 The whole center point of the psalm is the God who rescues, the God who delivers.

Remember, the person's just waiting patiently and crying out, but God, turn to me.

Isn't that amazing?

When we're in the pits of our life, God does not turn away, but he turns towards.

 Like if you're wondering like what's God's like posture, which ways he's facing, he's facing towards you in the pit.

He's even facing towards you in your sin.

He's facing towards, isn't that the whole story of the sending of Jesus is when we thought we had to earn our way back out of the pit.

He's the one that came into the pit for us.

So he turns towards us.

 He's always turning towards.

He's turning towards our cries.

He's turning towards our pain.

He's turning towards our struggle.

He is there in the midst of them.

He is the God who is with us.

I love it.

He turned to me.

He heard me.

This is what God does.

He hears us.

I think of the different times.

Like I think of like blind Bartimaeus when Jesus is coming by and he's like, son of God, have mercy on me.

And everyone's like, shut up, man.

Like God's busy.

 God's got bigger things to deal with.

Have you seen the state of the nation?

He doesn't have time for your problems right now.

Have you seen what's happening?

Shut up.

But no.

Jesus goes, what's that?

I hear something.

 He pushes his way through.

Bring him to me.

This is our God.

And you might think like, oh, my problems aren't that big of a deal.

Have you ever felt that I should really go ask for prayer, but this isn't really that big of a deal?

If it matters to you, it matters to him.

He hears you.

He hears your cry.

I love that he hears me.

He hears the whispers of my heart.

 He hears the tears that might not make their way out in moisture but are in my soul.

He hears the struggles that I don't even have words to wrap around.

He hears the angst and the anguish and the groans.

He hears.

And then he lifts me out.

You see how you can't get out of that on your own?

You need another.

Another.

 You need one with a rope or one with a mighty hand.

I think of like Peter sinking after just walking on water.

I can identify with that.

If that's you, Jesus, bid me to come to you out on the water.

Like a moment of faith quickly followed by, it's really windy and wavy out here.

I can get on board with that.

But then it says he cries out and it says Jesus reaches out his hand.

 And rescues him and takes him back.

He lifts us out.

He sets our feet.

He steadies us.

Deliverance is his action in our lives.

It's his activity in our lives.

It's not us working harder for him.

It's not us being better for him.

It's him doing it all.

 It's us learning to wait on him and cry to him and be patient enough until he works.

All of the verbs in the psalm are God's.

All of the doing words are God's.

Don't abandon hope.

He's always the God who delivers.

He's just not always the God who delivers when I want him to.

 But he is always the God who delivers.

Don't let the pit stop you from crying and believing.

Don't let the pit cause you, like, it's like, this has been longer than I want, God, so I'm going to try something else.

Don't let the pit put all your eggs in God's basket.

You know?

I was like, I'm a simple preacher.

You get it.

You know, like, just...

 Don't hedge your bets.

Just all in on Jesus.

Now I'm like Las Vegas metaphor.

Just put it all on red.

Just go all in.

But our posture does matter.

The posture matters.

This waited patiently for the Lord.

I'm going to be honest.

I'm not good at that.

 I don't know if you're good at waiting.

I don't understand people who are good at waiting.

I just think they're not trying hard enough.

It's not my personality to wait.

It's my personality to find the fast lane everywhere.

Waiting does not come naturally.

I don't think it comes very natural to our culture in general, but it certainly doesn't come natural to my heart.

 But the discipline of waiting is essential for experiencing the deliverance of the Lord.

Sometimes people come to church, well, it didn't work.

And you're like, it doesn't work like that.

There's something more going on.

And this Hebrew word where it says, I waited patiently for the Lord to help me, is actually waiting, I waited patiently.

 So just in case you thought like, oh no, I'm ready to wait.

No, it's in waiting, I waited.

Like when he was already late, I continued to wait.

This is Isaiah 40.

Those who wait on the Lord will renew their strength.

They will mount up with wings.

 This waiting is like a core biblical idea, not a popular one, but a core one.

But I want to just remind us it's not just about waiting for God to do something.

It's about waiting for him.

We're not waiting for action.

We're waiting for God.

Waiting is relational, not transactional.

 I grew up in a time where cell phones were just being introduced.

Old, you know?

And I remember I had a cell phone.

I remember my first cell phone.

And my parents didn't have cell phones because when cell phones were first coming out, parents didn't see a need for cell phones.

Only teenagers got cell phones.

 And I remember my first phone, it couldn't even send text messages.

I don't know what I was going to do with it, but I had it.

And then things evolved and I was able to get the Nokia 5210.

Yes, you change out those faceplates, you play Snake, it's all that.

You know, like, yes.

But waiting was different back then, pre the phone.

 You know, like back in the day, you know, like waiting was different because like when someone was late, like when I would have to wait after school one day of the week, I had piano lessons.

And rather than catching the bus home, I had to wait for my mom to pick me up from school so that we would go to piano lessons on the way home.

And I remember I would have to wait.

And sometimes she was late.

 And I would just be waiting and everybody's gone.

And poor little Joel's just sitting there.

And there's a car coming down the street and it's like, is that her?

No, that's not our car.

No, that's not our car.

And you just waited.

What are you going to look at the sky and dig around in the dirt?

 I don't know, you know, it's just like, you're just waiting, just waiting.

But you know, I wasn't waiting for the piano lesson.

I was waiting for my mom.

And when we're like, when we're in the pit, we think what we need most is rescue.

But what we need most is our God.

And rescue comes with that package.

 But why I think sometimes he lets us wait a little longer is because he wants to teach us that lesson.

That I'm just, you're not waiting to get out of this.

Wait for me and I'll get you out of this.

And in some ways he lets us wait long enough for that other stuff to fall away.

Right?

 So we're just like, God, I want to be rescued.

God, I want to be rescued to where our prayer changes.

And we just go, God, I just want you.

Even if we just hang out in the pit together, that will be enough for me.

 We must fight in our like instant culture and in our transaction culture and in our like, well, what are you going to do for me?

And what's the deal?

And what's the trade off?

And if I do this, you'll do that.

We must fight all of that to be like deliverance isn't that.

It's waiting for a God to come and meet us in our situations.

And when he comes, he can't help but change them all.

Amen.

 Jesus went into the pit.

Jesus came into the pit of our human existence.

And if that wasn't enough, he came into the pit of a servant role.

If that wasn't enough, he was in the pit of being whipped to death.

The pit of a crown of thorns.

 The pit of the cross.

Just when you thought it couldn't get any deeper and darker, the pit of burial.

And it tells us that he descended into the pit of hell.

He went all the way down into every single pit of human existence.

And he came all the way back up.

He's the only one that didn't need someone else to rescue him from the pit.

 He's the pit rescuer.

And if in that sort of like, if he can conquer the pit of sin, the pit of suffering, the pit of death, if he can rescue us from any pit.

You know why I have faith that God will be my deliverer no matter what I face?

Because he's cosmically fulfilled the pit.

 If he can deal with that pit, he can deal with any pit.

And the psalm finishes, and we will receive prayer shortly.

The psalm finishes with a new path, a new song, a new witness, and a new joy.

There comes a time to walk and get moving.

 There comes a time to sing new songs before you could only cry out to the Lord, but now there is a new song on our lips.

There comes a time to tell others of your pit rescue.

And there comes a new disposition when you get out of the pit.

 God doesn't just save us from something.

He saves us to something.

He doesn't just rescue us from the pit so we can go back and walk in exactly the same way that got us into the pit in the first place.

He sets our feet and he steadies us as we walk.

He saves us.

He rescues us from our pit into our destiny, into purpose, into purity, into community, into his church.

 You get rescued from the pit.

That's the beginning.

That's not the end game.

I love that he gives us a new song.

You know, praise always marks those who are delivered.

I don't know if we started with the song everywhere in the locations today, but we started with the song of deliverance today here.

Deliverance is supposed to produce a worship in our lives that others can join in on.

 What starts as a private testimony is always supposed to become a public witness with God's people.

And look, I know you guys know this, but new songs are not supposed to be self-generated like expressions of creativity and self, the story of rescue.

Worship's different from the other arts.

It's supposed to come from a story, not come from an expression.

 And then there's new witness.

This ultimately gets fulfilled in the church, right?

As all of our deliverance stories.

What's God saved you from?

 What's God been doing in your life?

What pits has he pulled you out of recently?

And we bring that together and we bring it together in song and we bring it together in testimony.

What starts individual becomes communal and it in itself becomes a witness.

Yes, should we go tell our story?

We absolutely should, but we are here telling our story.

 We are here witnessing as we sing our deliverance songs and we pray our deliverance prayers.

And look, people aren't ultimately won over for Christ because of good arguments.

They're won over by the story.

Look, man, I don't know, but it's real.

 Look, I don't know, but I was in this pit of addiction, and I tried everything, bro, I promise you.

But one day, God showed up in my life.

So, June last year, I was in my pit.

I found the psalm.

I stopped trying to change how I felt, and I just waited.

Waited.

 And cried out.

And I don't know when it happened.

There were a few moments in the journey.

But God pulled me from my pit.

He pulled me from my pit of worry.

My pit of failure.

My pit of depression.

My pit of just heaviness.

And now this year.

In this moment.

I'm loving life more than I've ever loved life.

 I get to work with churches and pastors all over the world.

I get to serve in a fantastic church.

I get to spend more time with my family and raising the few kids we have left at home.

I'm more happier than I've ever been.

I'm more filled with joy than I've ever been.

I'm more peaceful than I've ever been because God is faithful to deliver us from every pit.

So if you're in a pit,

 Let's wait.

Let's cry out.

Let's believe for God to either come and intervene and deliver you today or give you the strength to keep waiting and to keep crying out until your deliverance is timed.

 If you've been rescued from a pit, let's sing our song.

Let's fill our churches with praise that there might be a spirit of deliverance in the room.

And if you do not know Jesus, know that he went into the pit for you so that he could pull you out of the pit in your life.

Across all of our locations, let's pray as we prepare for God to minister to us.

 Heavenly Father, we are so thankful for you.

And we are thankful for your son, Jesus.

And we are thankful for his deliverance in our lives.

And Lord, we bring every request that is in every room before you, Lord.

And we pray that there might be deliverance in the house today, Lord.

Lord, would you come and deliver us from every need, from every anxiety, from every situation, from every challenge, Lord.

May your deliverance

 Be at work here among us today.

Lord, we invite you.

Come and have your way.

And all of God's people said, Amen.

Amen.