This is not unlike what happens when we sing the Psalms. And we make a habit of that. Because the psalmist gives voice to our own experience. The psalmist has his own experience, and we join him in that, and in fact, in the experience of Christ. The details of our stories certainly differ, but we can relate to the sentiment and the feelings of the artist. We relate to the feelings of the psalmist. In fact, art and song and poetry form us spiritually. I don't know if you actually believe that. Art forms us spiritually. It speaks to our soul. It speaks to who we are. And because it does that, it is a very good thing to spend time with the Psalms. So we might be properly formed and instructed by the spirit speaking in his word. If all we get into our hearts is secular, worldly poetry, it will change how we think. It will change how we feel. It will alter our worldview. Art and poetry are powerful. And so we find that in the Psalms. They are powerful poetry, and they are even more so because it's the inspired word of God. So let me invite you to turn now in your Bibles to Psalm 30. In the summer months here at Covenant Fellowship, we spend time in the Psalms. And we are at Psalm 30 today. Psalm 30, it's found on page 585. And as I read, you can follow along. You can listen. But I'd like you to allow the Psalm to speak to you. Do you relate? How do you feel when you hear these things? Do you say, yeah, I know that experience. I know how he's feeling. This is what we hear. I will extol you, O Lord, for you have drawn me up and have not let my foes rejoice over me. O Lord, my God, I cried to you for help, and you have healed me. O Lord, you have brought up my soul from Sheol. You restored me to life from among those who go down to the pit. Sing praises to the Lord, O you his saints, and give thanks to his holy name. For his anger is but for a moment, and his favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning. As for me, I said in my prosperity, I shall never be moved. By your favor, O Lord, you made my mountain stand strong. You hid your face. I was dismayed. To you, O Lord, I cry, and to the Lord I plead for mercy. What profit is there in my death? If I go down to the pit, will the dust praise you? Will it tell of your faithfulness? Hear, O Lord, and be merciful to me. O Lord, be my helper. You have turned for me my mourning into dancing. You have loosed my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness, that my glory may sing your praise and not be silent. Oh Lord, my God, I will give thanks to you forever. Psalm 30. It encourages us to praise God together for his mercy. And we who have received and experienced his mercy know what that is, and it leads us to praise. Now, as with so many of the Psalms, this flows out of a personal testimony. The Psalmist throughout is I, I, I. There's a moment when he calls on us, but for the most part, it's a personal testimony, the details of which we're not certain. If you look at the small heading at the very beginning of the psalm, a psalm of David, a song at the dedication of the temple, it literally reads a song at the dedication of the house. And our ESV infers that this is the Lord's house. And so it translates it temple. There are other translations and commentators who take this to be the house of David, because David was not there for the dedication of the temple. Now, whether he wrote this psalm ahead of time to be used then, there is some debate, but the detail is not that important. The detail is not so important. Regardless of the historic occasion, the singer begins with this wonderful affirmation, I will extol you. Now, extol is not a word we typically use. I teach adults at Geneva, and I teach high school. I don't think I've ever seen a student use this word. in any essay, any term paper. In fact, I don't think we use this word, to extol. It means to highly praise, or to praise enthusiastically. We do it. We just don't happen to maybe use the word. And I've made this reference before. We bring a championship home to this city, the Steelers or the Pirates or the Penguins. We know what it is to extol. We highly praise our teams. But here the psalmist says, I will extol you, O Lord, because you have saved me. There is nothing half-hearted here. The psalmist has been delivered from death. And I wonder how often we have half-heartedly entered into our worship. There's no room for that. We have been delivered from death. How can you give praise to God? How can we give praise to God half-heartedly for that? We must extol our Lord. enthusiastically praise, highly praise him. The psalmist says he's been drawn up. The picture here is like water out of the well. He has been drawn up out of harm's way, and he has been healed. Evidently, the psalmist feared for his life. He's been brought up from Sheol, or the grave. His life has been restored. Now again, if you go into the Samuel and Kings, the historical books and chronicles, we don't find David ever being sick and near death. Which again makes it difficult to place this psalm. Is this David's personal experience? Is he writing on behalf of another? Is he simply being carried along by the spirit and writing a psalm useful for others? Not exactly sure the grounding of it, but we don't have any evidence that David was ever sick. Doesn't mean that it's not true that he wasn't in that case. But we don't have any evidence that he was. We do have evidence, however, that Hezekiah was near death. In 2 Kings 20, Hezekiah is sick unto death. And he cries out to the Lord for help. In fact, Isaiah comes to the king and says, set your house in order. You're going to die. And Hezekiah prays to the Lord. And before Isaiah has even left the palace, the word comes to Isaiah, he goes back to Hezekiah, and he says, the Lord has heard your prayer. He'll grant you 15 more years of life. Did a similar thing happen to David? We don't know. Has it happened to you? Maybe you were sick and near death. being afraid of dying. Or maybe you've had a loved one or a near friend, close friend who has had that experience. You know what the emotions are like. And when healing comes, you know there's a response of praise that's overwhelming. That's been the psalmist's experience. Near death, sick even unto death, And then he's been healed. Well, the Bible tells us to rejoice with those who rejoice. And in verse 4, the psalmist does just that. Sing praises to the Lord, O you his saints, and give thanks to his holy name. He invites us into his experience to give thanks. His experience that he has had is true for God's people generally. The Lord's anger is momentary compared to his favor. The psalmist says here that weeping comes like an overnight guest. That's the word. Weeping will lodge just overnight. And in the morning, what do you find? You find that weeping has gone and joy has shown up. That's the picture. And he says, this is common to us all. Weeping lasts but a moment. Joy in the Lord's favor a lifetime long. And this is certainly true when we take the psalm and we put it into the large history of redemption. When we take the long view, in John 16, Jesus is with his disciples. And he tells them that they will be sorrowful, and the world will rejoice. And then he says this, your sorrow will be turned into joy. To what was he referring? Oh, it was the crucifixion. You will have sorrow. Jesus was on his way to the cross, and he tells his disciples he's been trying to warn them and get them ready. And then your sorrow will be turned to joy. He's been telling them, I'm going to be handed over to the Gentiles, and they will crucify me. And on the third day, I will rise again. They don't get it. Even when the women tell them that he's been raised from the dead, they don't get it. Jesus meets two disciples on the road to Emmaus, and they talk together, and they don't get it. Until their eyes are opened, they perceive Jesus, who he is, and he disappears. And they rush back to Jerusalem with this great news. The one who is dead is now alive. He has turned our mourning into dancing. Weeping tarries for the night, but joy comes in the morning. So Paul, writing in Romans 13, says that the night is almost gone. The time of tears is almost gone. The day is almost here. We're living in those moments. The night is far spent. The day is almost here. And so Paul then writing to the Corinthians can say that the present momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal glory. We will look back on our life here as momentary overnight tears being replaced in the day of eternity with joy. You have that perspective. Do you know that the day is almost here? And for some of us, it's closer than for others. We don't know when we are going to enter into eternity. Are you ready? Are you anticipating that? The psalmist is. Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes in the morning. And the psalmist's testimony then will prove to be ours. This is our common story. Weeping now, the fall is real. And we struggle with it in this day and age. We see it in injustice. We see it in our political situations. We see it in economic situations. We see it in the church. We see it in the family. But the tears don't get the last word. The day is almost over. Or the night is almost over. The day is almost here. But we still live here. That is true. We share this common story. We also share in a common temptation. And the psalmist gives us a little more detail of his story. And it's part of the detail from which we can take warning, because he says, I said in my prosperity, here's where the quotes are important, I shall never be moved. Success, prosperity, had made the psalmist proud. That was Uzziah's experience. King Uzziah, in the latter part of his life, in 2 Chronicles 26, became proud. And he took to himself as king the duty to offer incense. He thought he was king. He can do this. I'm not limited. There are no limitations on my power. And he went into the temple to do something that was not lawful for him to do. The priests tried to resist him. He kind of dismissed them, and he offered incense, and God smote him with leprosy. His pride had led to his downfall. Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel 4 is out looking kind of over the city and says, is this not great Babylon that I have built? And in a moment, his sanity is taken from him and he's driven out into the wilderness for a number of years until he learns humility. Jesus tells a parable of the rich fool in Luke chapter 12, where the man has all kinds of goods and resources and wealth stored up. And he says, you've done well by yourself. You have many goods stored up for the future. Take your ease. And if you know the parable, God speaks to him and says, you fool. This very night, your life is required of you, and then who will get what you have stored up? So is the one who is rich in this world, but poor towards God. This is David in 1 Chronicles 21, who decides to number the people in all Israel and Judah. Why? Because he's full of himself. Well, how big is my army? How many people do I have? He's just full of himself. And Joab understands that there's something wrong here, and he resists David. Don't do this. No, do it. Don't do it. In fact, we're told in one of the narratives that Joab actually ignores a couple of the tribes because what David has told him to do is the wrong thing to do. You're not going to count them. Each of these thought that he had arrived. And with their success had come this self-confidence. But each, like the psalmist, had forgotten God. They'd forgotten God. They'd forgotten that all of life is of grace. And they, and we with them, are tempted to trust in our accomplishments and our skill by which we have achieved rather than trusting in the giver of the gift. They fell into the very temptation that Moses had warned against in Deuteronomy chapter eight that we read earlier. Take heed lest you forget. And these forgot. And I have to ask us, have we forgotten God? In your professional accomplishments, have you forgotten God? In your academic achievements, have you forgotten God? What is it of which you are most content? What are you proud about in your own life? Have you given thanks? Let's not say accomplishment is bad. Accomplishment is good. But it comes from the hand of God, and we acknowledge that it comes from the hand of God. And so we do well to always remember the Lord, to remember and to give thanks. Because while the psalmist forgot God, he was certainly reminded. We're told here that God hit his face and that oh so secure mountain shook to its foundation. The psalmist's ease became sudden alarm and dismay. And now we understood it is all of grace. It is all of grace. So it is, by your favor, O Lord, you made my mountains stand strong. It is all of grace. And it's the same for us. We prosper by the grace of God. We succeed by the grace of God. And God reminded him of that by hiding his face, giving him dismay instead of prosperity. And it drove him back to the Lord. The psalmist sought the Lord, pled for mercy, even reasoned with God. We're back now to Psalm 6, what we sang earlier. What will you gain by my death? How will my death glorify you? Spurgeon put it this way, that the choir won't be the same without this singer. That's what he's arguing. I can't praise you from death. You will lose a witness. Save my life. And because God is merciful and compassionate, the psalmist was heard and healed and helped. So it is for us. Because the Lord is merciful and compassionate, He will heal us. He will hear us and heal us and help us as we need it, according to His grace. So we have a common confession, a common story. We face common temptations in the world. And we together experience the uncommon trade that comes at the end of the psalm. So turn over the page if you've got your Bible open, the Pew Bible, it's on the next page, where we read, you have turned for me my mourning into dancing. You have loosed my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness that my glory may sing your praise and not be silent. At the end of the psalm, We find the psalmist dancing and singing for joy. He's been delivered. His dirge has now become dancing, his grief, gladness, his silence, singing. Do you know that? Do you know that kind of joy? Do you know that kind of gladness? Now earlier in the psalm, the psalmist had moved from confidence to alarm. The Lord hit his face, and he's dismayed. And now there's the reversal. He goes from confidence to alarm, and now from alarm back to confidence in the grace of God. God delights in mercy. God enjoys showing compassion. He revels in doing good. And so he has shown mercy to the psalmist, and he has raised him up, drawn him up and healed him. You might say, how can he do this? How can he do this? He does this because Jesus Christ, God's son, has come into the world to set things right. The guilt of our pride has been laid on him. He takes our mourning, and He takes our sorrow, and He takes our silence, and these are buried with Him in the grave. And we, like the psalmist, can be drawn up from Sheol, from the grave, because Jesus entered death on our behalf. God does not just wink at these things and just simply dismiss them. Jesus has taken them upon Himself that we might be saved. So by faith, His righteousness becomes ours, and our guilt becomes His. And that is the most uncommon of all trades. 2 Corinthians 5.21, He made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become in Him the righteousness of God. That's how He turns mourning into dancing. That's how He can turn grief into gladness, silence to singing, because He's taken those things upon Himself. So now, by faith in Him, we are new creation. And what's more, we've even been drawn up from the pit and seated with Christ in the heavenly realms. You think of yourself positionally that way? That's a bit of Psalm 11's perspective. The Lord is over all, right, and we're seated with him in the heavenly realms. This is who we are in Christ Jesus. How can we keep from singing? When we really think of that, brought from death to life, how can we keep from singing? How can we keep from dancing? How can we be silent? See, God's ways are not our ways. These reversals are kind of the way of the kingdom. So the Lord tells us, do you want to save your life? Lose it. You want to save your life? Lose it, Jesus says. Lose it for me and for the sake of the kingdom. You want to become great? Become least. Become servant of all. You want to be first? Be last. Want to become rich? Be generous. Give it away. Life comes by death. Glory by a cross. Strength is found in weakness. God chooses the weak and the foolish to confound the wise and the strong. Such is the gospel. It's good news. And the gospel alone is what will enable us to turn from sadness and silence to singing, from grief to gladness, from mourning to dancing, it's good news. Or to repent and believe and receive the gift of eternal life. So Psalm 30 encourages us not to boast in our achievements, not to trust in our accomplishments or our skill or our wisdom, but rather to acknowledge the Lord, to acknowledge His grace. In fact, to admit that all of life is grace and to give thanks. And even in the hard times, we can do that because we know the answer's in the back of the book. Even in that night of tears, we can count it joy because we know that the tears only last in the night. And we know the night is far spent. And we know that in the morning, gladness will come. And that gives us hope, and it gives us joy. And it gives us a reason to sing. And as we sing, then, we join our voice to the voice of Christ. But at the end of that upper room discourse, when he's been trying to encourage his disciples, when he tells them, your sorrow will be turned to joy, at the end of their meeting, they sing. And they go out to the garden. So we join our voice to that of our Savior in singing Psalm 30, as we do in all of the Psalms. But even more, we join our voice to the voice of the Father. Zephaniah 3.17 says that God rejoices over us with singing. In our singing, do you hear the voice of God? Do you hear it? Do you hear the voice of our Savior? This is a psalm, not just of David's experience, and not just of our experiences, but of Jesus' experience. Though he wasn't delivered from death, he was delivered through death. And he was actually drawn up out of the grave, not just away from it, but through it. And because of his resurrection, therefore, there is hope and confidence in our own if we trust in Jesus. So let's sing Psalm 30. Psalm 30, selection B. Let's exalt and trust the Lord. Let's stand together and sing this as our confession, that he has done this for us, our mourning has been turned to dancing. Psalm 30, selection B.