Psalm 40, and we're going to finish it up tonight, Lord willing. Open to that middle of your Bible and find the 40th Psalm. This is David showing us how in the loneliness of the pit times in our life, the pits when we're just feeling all alone because we're defeated, or all alone because of some besetting sin in our life, or all alone because of the circumstances that that we're single or we're away from home or we're, you know, whatever. And we just feel all alone. This psalm tells us how to flee to Christ for refuge. And if you weren't taking notes this morning, let me show you again the outline of the whole psalm. The first three verses is David, and this shows how he gets out. Remember what Mark was just singing about. The 13th psalm is when he hits the very bottom. Remember, the picture in my mind is David is just with his face down in the mud in the 13th Psalm and feels abandoned. Psalm 40, he's pushed up and the mud's still on his face, but he's looking around. And he's on his way out. And then he records in this 40th Psalm the pathway the Lord leads him on. And if you were ever in the loneliness of the pits of life, the first three verses tell us the first step out is to remember God's work in your life. And if you marked him in your Bible, this is what he remembered. In the first verse, that God inclined, he or God inclined to me. Remember in the 13th Psalm, he says, Lord, how long for you? You move toward me. And the Lord moved toward him and inclined toward him. and heard Him, and that's heard as we saw with a response. Verse 2, He brought me up. And any time that there's any lasting change in our life, it's not our hard work, our efforts, our human whatever, because that always amounts to nothing. God does not like human effort in spiritual events in our life. He wants us to accept and receive His grace so that, look at this, He brings me up. You see, if it's us turning over a new leaf, if it's us making a resolution and trying harder, then it's in the energy of the flesh. And the arm of the flesh amounts to nothing. It doesn't make lasting change. People make resolutions that appear to be changed, but there's no lasting change apart from Christ. So the third thing he says, he, verse 2, brought me up. This is him remembering God's work in his life. and he doesn't like sin, it's horrible, it's miry clay. Then the next, he set my feet on the rock, and that's an allusion back, do you remember from Deuteronomy that he is the rock? Deuteronomy 32.4. His way is perfect. The rock is Christ. So see, this is such a tying together of the Old and New Testament. He was talking about the rock that took care of Israel, and we know from 1 Corinthians 10 that rock is Christ. And so that's why this whole series you can read David's words and see he's talking about how to find refuge in Christ for Christ is in all the scriptures then also That second verse at the end says he established my my steps He's the one that showed me where to go and verse 3. He put this new song. He reprogrammed me and and now I'm headed the right way. So the first step out of the pits is to remember God's work in our lives David remembered God's work in his life and we need to think back over and how we were saved, and then you need to in your mind think of, especially when things are hard, the last time you cried out to God and He responded. And just remember those. And when you remember, as Peter said, what is Peter's theme in his little epistles? I want to stir you up by way of remembrance. I want to stir your minds up and I want to remind you how faithful God has been. So David remembered God's work. Then the second section of this psalm is in verses four and five. He not only remembers, but he acts on it. He reaffirms that he's going to trust in the Lord. It's a verbal reaffirmation, saying, I'm going to trust in you, Lord, I'm going to go forward. It is actually taking the thoughts and saying, this is what I'm going to do. I am going to trust in you. And this is how he puts it in verse four. Blessed is that man who makes the Lord his trust. How do we know that's what he thought? Because he said it. Because he wrote it down. Because he declared it. It would have been wonderful if he just thought it. But he wrote this down. He affirmed his trust in the Lord. And he talks about that. David verbally says he trusts in God. And sometimes, as we ended this morning, I told you that we need to break the spiritual silence that we feel. See, what David found out when he lifted his face up from the muddy pit and looked up at the Lord, he found out that the Lord had been there all the time. And in our lives, when we feel God is not there, and we feel out of touch with Him, we need to break the spiritual silence by verbally speaking to Him, saying, Lord, thank you for how you saved me. Lord, thank you for what you have done. You inclined, and you gave me, and you set my feet. All those different aspects of God's work we saw in those first verses. But then, David here speaks. Look at this. It says at the end of verse 5, He says, if I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered. He says, once I get started thinking about how much I can trust in you. He says, I just can't. I can't get them all out, there's just too many. We ended this morning by reading together on the screens this beautiful hymn. I want to read to you just for you to remember that last stanza, because this is the ultimate reaffirmation of trust. Especially, the world that we're living in, we already know the ending, it's darkening. It's getting more and more in the arms of the evil one. If you look at the pulse of the society, it can be seen in the movies. The movies are getting increasingly darker, more occultic. more satanic, more just vehemently evil, and just blazingly evil. And that causes a dampening of spiritual life among Christians, especially those exposed to that, and also of the culture around us. That's why with abortion and euthanasia and all the other, now we have the over-the-counter, morning-after abortifacient pill. that's going to be available. You can go to Walgreens and live like a harlot or like a whatever a male harlot would be and live like just an immoral person and just go to Walgreens and take your five dollars and get a pill and kill that little life so you don't have to bother with it and it's going to be over-the-counter. No prescription needed, no questions asked. That's where we're getting in America. And that's why Revelation says that in the last days they will not repent of their fornications, because they're seeing it so much in all the media and they're living it themselves and addicted to it. Now we're going to give them a pill. So there's no recourse for that. They can just find a pill to get rid of venereal disease and AIDS and everyone can have a party all the time. Right. And that's where the devil's heading us. Well, how do we reaffirm our trust? Behold him there, the risen lamb. My perfect, spotless righteousness." Just to behold Christ as He is, the risen Lamb, perfect, spotless, and salvation, the two facets, the two parts of salvation is, He became sin for me, my sins go on Him, that I might be made the righteousness of God. The imputed righteousness of Christ is what we have to remind ourselves of, and that's what this hymn is about. The perfect, spotless, Righteousness, the great unchangeable I am, the King of glory and of grace. One in Himself I cannot die. My soul is purchased by His blood. My life is hid with Christ on high." Colossians 3.1, nice little allusion to that verse. With Christ, my Savior and my God. David reaffirmed his trust, just as we can, with the words of this songwriter. And as we remember the Scriptures, And that's how we start coming out of this pit. Well, let's make it to some new ground. Look at verse six of Psalm 40. And this is where it gets very exciting because in our minds, we kind of understand this dig the ear thing out that he's talking about, but actually we don't unless we examine the scriptures. Let me read verses six through eight with you. Sacrifice an offering you did not desire. Now to put that in 21st century terms, it would be saying church membership and tithing you don't want. 99% of all churchgoers would go, what? I thought that's what it's all about. Be a member and give. To the Jews, sacrifice and offering was what they thought it was all about. It's not what we do. It's what He does. And so what God really wants is not this external stuff, this sacrifice and offering. That's not what He's after. My ears you have opened. He says what you want is on the inside. You want access to my soul, to my heart of hearts. Burn offerings and sin offerings you did not require. And that just would, to the average Jew, it would just shock them that he would say that because that was the system. No, he says, no, no. Then I said, verse seven, behold, I come in the scroll of the book it's written of me. I delight to do your will. You see, it's an internal. It's not an external, keep this rule, do this mechanic. Get into this new, you know, regimen in your life. No, it's an internal transformation that when I wake up tomorrow morning, I don't have to look on the wall and say, oh, you're supposed to read your Bible. I want to. I long to commune with the Lord. I long to sing to him. I long to pray. I long to to seek him and find him with all my heart. It's because it's written on the inside. And I, David said, and I agree with him in verse eight, I delight to do your will. Now, listen. This is the heart of the psalm. This is the key. Six, seven and eight is the key of the pathway up. First, we remember what God has done in our life and then we reaffirm our trust in him. But this center is what makes it last in our lives. And what David is saying is he renewed his submission to God. Now, I want to talk with you tonight about how to renew your submission to God. Inviting God to open our ears is the key to submission with God. This is a dual picture. When David said right in the middle of that sixth verse, my ears you have opened, there's two pictures he's talking about. The word literally means you've dug ears for me. And digging is a word for clearing away debris as well as deeply inscribing. The Hebrew word has two senses. One is digging like getting your shovel and going like this. Another way is when they would, remember like the writings of the hieroglyphics in Egypt, they would dig the letters into stone, they would inscribe them, they would dig them into the stone. So that's the same word for when they would set up a monument and write in it, that word dig means to deeply inscribe words, or it means to shovel out both things. And that metaphor, that picture, word picture is very spiritually impactful. These are the two steps to submission. And he's naming both of them. Number one, for us to submit to God, we've got to clear out any hindrance that's in the way. We've got to just dig through anything that's keeping us from God. And you've got to dig it out and get it out of the way, the debris. That's one half of submission. The second half is that we have to submit to his permanent markings on our life, of his ownership. That's what it's talking about in the New Testament, about him writing on our heart. We are written by the Spirit. We're the epistles of God inscribed by the Holy Spirit. He puts his ownership on us by writing his truth on our hearts. Now, let me explain this by turning back with me to Genesis 50. OK, go back to Genesis. Let's do a little word study of the word dug. And I want you to see these ears that God has dug for him. Genesis 50 and verse five. Because the first meaning of this Hebrew word is literally to dig out. And notice the other times it's used. The Holy Spirit chooses words when he inspires these writers. He chose the words they wrote. We believe in verbal inspiration, that God chose the words through his servants, but he chose each word. Each word is inspired, not just the thoughts, not just the big picture, but each word God guided for Romanoi, he bore them along to choose the exact words that God wanted them to have. Here's a word that God had David use. That's an Old Testament word that we can track. Genesis 15, verse 5, My father made me swear, saying, Behold, I am dying in the grave which I have dug for myself in the land of Canaan. There's that word, dig. And it means to when this grave that Jacob dug, that Joseph heard him talk about, that he dug for himself a grave in Canaan. There you shall bury me. Now therefore, please go up and bury my father, and I will come back. So this word is like a grave. It is digging things out so that there is room for something to go in. Now, the something was the most precious thing, the body of his father. He wanted to place his father in that place. And so God sometimes digs out of our life to put precious things in. And that's the picture of this word. A grave was where they laid what was dearest to them on earth. And God, through excruciating times, makes room in our lives to deposit something special. That's one meaning of this word. Now keep going to the right to Numbers 21. Numbers 21 and verse 18, because it's not just digging out debris to place a treasure in that this word speaks of, but in Numbers 21 and the 18th verse of that 21st chapter, here is another aspect. Not only is digging like digging a repository for a treasure, something special like the treasures of Egypt, King Tut, you know, they dug that grave out and packed it full of gold. That's one side of this. Here's the other side. The well, the leaders sank, dug by the nation's nobles. So the well, and there's that Hebrew word dug, by the lawgiver with their staves, and from the wilderness they went to Matanah. That's the other use of this word. It's not just digging out debris, like digging through rock and soil to make a grape, but it's also digging a well not to deposit something in. but for something to come out. See, a well is when you dig down and get everything out of the way so what's there will start flowing. And that's another aspect of this because it's a time when God takes everything out of my life, painful as it was, and in those lonely times, that's when the water of God's presence and his refreshment flow into our lives. So when he's saying, ears you've dug for me, he's talking about in these lonely times God has sometimes dug everything out of his life and put treasure in. Other times he's dug everything out of his life so that in could flow the refreshment that the Lord only gives in those desperate times. So those two metaphors are pictures of clearing things out of the way so that the water can flow in and so that there's room for treasures. And David says, that's what you did for me. Now, what a way to look at hard times. What a way to look at pit times. Say, God, in this pit time, you're digging through my life and you're digging through so that you can deposit in me. As 2 Corinthians 1 says, Paul says that the comfort we receive in our affliction, we're able to comfort others. When do you get that comfort in the affliction? That's the treasure. Or, he says, this is a time when you flow into my life. When I'm weak, that's when your strength flows in, kind of like a well just welling up with the fullness. What a way to look at hard times, is what David is telling us. God is tunneling a well of water to refresh me. God is making room to bury into my life greater treasures. But that's not all that David shares with us from this time in the pits. There's another exciting picture. The second way David uses this word is to look back Exodus 21. Now I want you to turn there. You're in Numbers 21. Go back to Exodus 21. Because this one really communicated to me as I, this week, just kept reading through this ancient mosaic. I mean, you talk about something buried in the middle of the Old Testament. This is one of those, you know, buried treasures. Starting in verse 1, the slave in the ancient Mosaic law, who worked his term of service, and it was time for him to be set free and to release and start on his own, would be provided with enough materials to just get started on his own, kind of reestablish his own little household. But if he didn't want to leave his master's house, they did this ancient ritual that's in the first six verses. Let me read it with you. Now, these are the judgments which you'll set before them, Exodus 21. If you buy a Hebrew servant, he shall serve just six years. And in the seventh, he shall go free and pay nothing. If he comes in by himself, he'll go out by himself. If he comes in married, his wife will go out with him. If his master has given him a wife and she has borne him sons and daughters, the wife and her children shall be her masters and he'll go out by himself. But if the servant plainly says, I love my master, my wife, my children, I will not go out free. Now look at this curious, strange, but very, very communicating Submission picture starting in verse six. Then his master shall bring him to the judges and he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost and his master shall pierce his ear with an awl and he shall serve him forever. Three points of this lifetime submission. Number one, bring him to the judges. That means it was a public event. Number two, bore his ear through. Basically what they did, it's kind of like at the mall where you get your ears pierced. they just take and pull the earlobe and get this all and go and they put a hole you talk about a piercing I mean we're talking about big you know just put this hole through the ear and you know what that is that's painful the last thing it says is and you will serve him forever that speaks of being permanent now think of those why is that little ritual captured in the scriptures because that verse right there that says, piercing his ear with an awl, that's the same Hebrew word for digging. And it says in Psalm 40 and verse 6, my ears you've dug, my ears you've pierced through with this awl. So it's not only talking about the first two ideas of digging out the debris of the grave and the well and making room for something to come in. This also speaks of a public, permanent, painful commitment. for service. Now, how does that translate into our spiritual lives? For us on this side of the cross, here is a moving picture of what God wants from us. He invites us to become His bond slaves, His servants for life. Isn't that what Paul says he is so often? Paul was a Jew, and he knew this picture. He talks about being marked. He talks about being God's permanent bond slave. He understood this. He knew Jesus Christ, who came to say, I come to do your will, that you have bored or dug my ears. So think of the beauty here. God invites us to become his bond servants for life. If we're willing and so desire, we declare that publicly like Paul does so often. I want to serve the Lord all my days. And then we make painful choices in life to limit our flesh, to discipline our life, to invest in the world to come instead of merely in this world. And when we make that offering of our lives, That's what Paul's talking about in Romans 12, 1 and 2. I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God. that you come and say, I want to serve you all my days. And so you go to the judges, you publicly say, I want to serve you. And so the Lord says, OK, you want to serve me? I'm going to make this painful. You must, and the grace of God that brings salvation teaches us to deny ungodliness. You're going to have to make some painful choices to be my servant. You're going to have to die to these areas. You're going to have to mortify, because my servants can't have those areas out of control in their life. And then he says, if you will present yourself to me, you and I become permanent bond slaves. It's a wonderful picture. Romans 12, 1 and 2, by the mercies of God that you present, that's an aorist definitive, remain in the state of your body is a living sacrifice that is holy and acceptable. Verse 2, do not be conformed, that's an imperative, that's a command. The commandment for a servant is a resistance to being squashed into the world's mold. We have to feel uncomfortable with the direction this world is going. We have to feel uncomfortable with the sounds and sights and thrills of this world because they are prompted by the flesh and we should be uncomfortable. Not with the people. We should love them and be comfortable. Christ was a friend of sinners, but with the direction. Galatians 2.20 is another tremendous Reminder this I've been crucified with Christ and is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me and The life which I now live in the flesh. We never get rid of the flesh till we get to heaven But how do we live in the flesh? We live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me What is David's third step out? He says I want to renew my submission to God. How do I do that? I let him dig through the debris in my life. I say, Lord, take anything out of my life that's in the way of your blessing. And then I come to him and I make a public, a painful, and a permanent decision that I am going to serve the Lord all my life. And I'm going to choose to avoid what displeases him, And I'm going to cultivate what pleases him and what honors him. And that's what David was talking about. Just for a second with you, don't lose your Bibles, but turn to 372, probably my favorite hymn in the hymn book. At least it is tonight. I have many favorite hymns, but this is one of my favorites, but I just don't, we're not going to sing it. I just want to remind you of what Thomas Obadiah Chisholm said, because this is the plea of his heart of submission to God. living for Jesus, 372, a life that is true, striving to please Him in all that I do. See, when you're a bondservant, you want to do what pleases Him. Yielding allegiance, glad-hearted and free, saying, bore my ear, mark me, clear out whatever needs to be cleared out. This is the pathway of blessing for me. And then look at his prayer of committal. O Jesus, Lord and Savior, I give myself to Thee, For thou and thine atonement didst give thyself for me. I own no other master." Do you hear this chapter 21 of Exodus? You're the one I want to serve all my days. Bore my ear through. And I am giving myself to thee. There's no other master. My heart shall be thy throne. My life I give from this point on. See the permanence of it? Henceforth to live, O Christ, for thee alone. What did David say his pathway out of the pits was? Renewing his submission to the Lord. Let me, in the last minute, just show you the next one, and we'll just have to pick up here on our way to Psalm 70 next time. Go back to Psalm 40, and this is where we're going to end and begin. David starts repeating truths about God, starting in verse 9. And this week, when you're reading the Bible, don't read it just as facts. Look for those truths about God and then personalize those truths. And I'll just show you what he did, and then maybe you can practice it for 168 hours until we come back again next week. But he says, I have proclaimed the good news of righteousness in the Great Assembly, verse 9. Indeed, I don't restrain my lips. I can't stop talking, O Lord. You know it. I have not hidden Your salvation. He says, that's another truth about you. Your salvation. of your righteousness in my heart. I've declared your faithfulness in your salvation. I have not concealed your loving kindness, your truth from the great assembly." And David looked back over his life of loneliness and desperation and sorrow and just saw God's truth written all over it. He saw that God was righteous in the precious years when he was a fugitive. God is righteous in the years when he was just having everything as king. God was righteous. God was faithful. God was loving, kindness in his life. And God was his salvation. And David, we need to repeat those truths about the Lord like he did. And when you read the scriptures this week, repeat truths about God. Go on a mining hunt. Look for truth about God. Pause and say, God, you are worthy. Lord, you are the rock I will flee to. You are the refuge that I cling to. You have saved me. I'll remember your hand in my life. You have lifted me up out of the miry clay. I will hate sin. You have bored an ear for me. I will make that lifelong choice to be your servant. That's the pathway out. And then we'll see next time, David learned to rejoice in God, and intercede for others. And what an opportunity it is for us to not just think about how hard we're having it, but when we're truly submitted to God in the pits, instead of being downed by that, we use that as a springboard to say, Lord, there's somebody else out there that's struggling like me, somebody else that's going through what I'm going through, and I'm going to use this time to understand what they're going through, and I'm going to pray for them. One of the great church movements was started years back by Ray Steadman at Palo Alto at his little church in San Francisco. You know what he used to do? That was in the height of the flower child people, and hate Ashberry in San Francisco. He had a church with a lot of former drug addicts, a lot of former street people. And you know, when someone would get saved, he would go like this. He'd say, hey, Bill, you just got saved. You're an alcoholic, weren't you? And he'd point to somebody and say, you used to be an alcoholic. Why don't you come stand by him? Next person gets saved, and they were formerly a street person. They say, you used to be a street person. Come on up and stand next to them. And this body-life idea was learning to intercede for others because we know what they're going through. That's the way out. It's not saying, God, remove the pit from my life. It's saying, Lord, let me testify of your faithfulness. Let me remember how you saved me. Let me remember that you are faithful and repeat truth about you. I'm going to rejoice here in this pit. And I'm not just going to rejoice. As long as you leave me here, I'm going to intercede for everybody around me that's going through the same thing. And that pathway out of the pit was what David captured in the 40th Psalm. It kind of makes the hard times in our life be the good times, because God makes me prosper in the time of my affliction. Let's bow together. Father, I pray that the 40th Psalm would be written on our hearts that we would remember how You saved us, that we would repeat the truth about Your great salvation, that we would rejoice, that we would renew our submission to You, and that we would use this time to intercede for others who are struggling like we are. O Lord, teach us these truths. Help us to look for Your Word and personalize it and say, You are my rock, my fortress. You are the one who makes me rejoice and be fruitful in the place of my adversity. And Father, I pray that Your Word would come alive in our lives this week, that we would do what we were challenged tonight, that we would be outreaching, that we would be sharing Your Word, taking tracks, giving verbal witnesses, opening our homes like Sam challenged us to, to have these evangelistic Bible studies, and then going even as we send another dear couple off tonight to Russia, how we pray that you will use our lives for your glory. In Jesus' name, Amen.