This morning we are continuing with our Advent meditations on the psalms that speak about the first coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. And today we are thinking about Psalm 40, Psalm 40. So do please turn there with me if you would in your Bibles, or if you are using one of our church Bibles you can find that on page 468, 468 in the church Bibles.
Do you know those optical illusions where, if you look at it one way you see an old lady’s face, wrinkled and wizened, and then you sort of close your eyes and tilt your head and suddenly you see a young woman holding a parasol over one shoulder? You know the optical illusion I’m talking about where there’s two pictures in the one picture? Psalm 40 is a bit like that. God has painted two portraits in Psalm 40. We need to see them both if we are going to apply its teaching to our hearts appropriately. On the one hand, of course, there is King David, the original author of the psalm, telling us about past deliverance and present struggles. And there is a kind of immediate relevance for us in following David’s thinking. He is, after all, a man just like us and we relate to that. We see his struggles and we see our own in them. But we mustn’t leave it there. When we’ve done all of that, we need to take another look at Psalm 40 and spot the second portrait that God has painted there for us. As we heard a few minutes ago, the writer of Hebrews chapter 10 saw that second portrait clearly in this psalm. Didn’t he? He saw that Psalm 40 is a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ in His first advent, in His first coming. And it’s only when we see both portraits, when we learn from both speakers of Psalm 40 – David and Jesus – that we’ll grasp the full relevance and power of its teaching for us. When we do that, we are going to see that Psalm 40 offers us some vital resources for living as a Christian at Christmas, which, let’s face it, is sometimes a lot harder than it looks.
In particular, I want you to see four things with me in Psalm 40. Four directions to help us survive and thrive in the festive season. Let me just list them for you here and then I’ll unpack them in a few moments’ time when we’ve read the passage. Are you ready for them? Number one, direction number one, we need to learn to live back-to-front lives; learn to live back-to-front lives. Direction number two, never try to run on empty. Learn to live back-to-front lives, never try to run on empty. Direction number three, do not sugarcoat your crisis. Do not sugarcoat your crisis. And then direction number four, always face the direction of travel. Always face the direction of travel. Okay, did you get all of those? Learn to live back-to-front lives, never try to run on empty, don’t sugarcoat your crisis, and always face the direction of travel. I hope that’s sufficiently obscure for you, at least perhaps to hold your interest for a few more moments before we unpack some of that. We need to read the passage. Before we do that, let’s pause and pray again. Let’s pray.
O Lord, would You open our hearts please to receive the implanted Word. We want to meet with Christ. Deal with us by Your Word and Spirit. Take hold of us. Show us ourselves in the light of Your Word and then help us to see Jesus in that same Word and to flee for refuge to Him. For we ask this in His name, amen.
Psalm 40. This is the Word of God, beginning in verse 1:
“To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David.
I waited patiently for the Lord; he inclined to me and heard my cry. He drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure. He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many will see and fear, and put their trust in the Lord.
Blessed is the man who makes the Lord his trust, who does not turn to the proud, to those who go astray after a lie! You have multiplied, O Lord my God, your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward us; none can compare with you! I will proclaim and tell of them, yet they are more than can be told.
In sacrifice and offering you have not delighted, but you have given me an open ear. Burnt offering and sin offering you have not required. Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come; in the scroll of the book it is written of me: I delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart.’
I have told the glad news of deliverance in the great congregation; behold, I have not restrained my lips, as you know, O Lord. I have not hidden your deliverance within my heart; I have spoken of your faithfulness and your salvation; I have not concealed your steadfast love and your faithfulness from the great congregation.
As for you, O Lord, you will not restrain your mercy from me; your steadfast love and your faithfulness will ever preserve me! For evils have encompassed me beyond number; my iniquities have overtaken me, and I cannot see; they are more than the hairs of my head; my heart fails me.
Be pleased, O Lord, to deliver me! O Lord, make haste to help me! Let those be put to shame and disappointed altogether who seek to snatch away my life; let those be turned back and brought to dishonor who delight in my hurt! Let those be appalled because of their shame who say to me, ‘Aha, Aha!’
But may all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you; may those who love your salvation say continually, ‘Great is the Lord!’ As for me, I am poor and needy, but the Lord takes thought for me. You are my help and my deliverer; do not delay, O my God!”
Amen, and we praise God for His holy, inerrant Word.
Learn to Live Back-to-Front Lives
One of the unusual things that is often pointed out about Psalm 40 is that the whole psalm is backwards. The whole psalm is backwards. Most of the psalms, with a few exceptions, most of the psalms start in the depths, you know, with the psalmist crying to God amidst suffering or sorrow or sin in desperation. And then, as the Lord begins to answer prayer, the tone changes and soon cries for deliverance give way to songs of praise so that the whole psalm eventually resolves. There is a declaration at the end of the psalm of divine blessing and the crisis is passed and the psalmist rejoices.
But that’s not Psalm 40. Psalm 40 is back-to-front. It starts, did you notice, with David remembering a past crisis. He is waiting patiently for the Lord, in verse 1, and the Lord has answered him. And really the whole first half of the psalm is a psalm of thanksgiving for the past deliverance of God. But then in verse 11 – did you notice this as we read it together – with the reminders of previous blessing still ringing in his ears, David now turns to face his present circumstances. And they are far from happy. Look at David’s language. Verse 11, “As for you, you will not restrain your mercy from me.” David is aware now, in his present circumstances, he needs mercy. “Evils have encompassed me beyond number,” he says in verse 12. “People are trying to snatch away my life,” verse 14. His enemies are gloating over him, crying, “Aha, Aha!” as if they had finally caught him in their trap, verse 15. He is, verse 17, “poor and needy.” It’s a pretty grim picture, isn’t it? That’s where the psalm ends. There’s no resolution. Things are not fixed. It is not better.
Now I’ll grant you, that’s not the most Christmasy of messages. It’s all back-to-front, isn’t it? We want heartwarming tales of all the sad things coming untrue at Christmastime. But you know, it’s actually the realism of the pattern that we find in Psalm 40 that makes it so very helpful, because whatever the expected facade of Christmastime cheer we might otherwise be expected to display, the truth is, all too often our lives are every bit as back-to-front as this psalm. Aren’t they? Like David, we can look back and remember seasons when God heard our prayers and answered us. And we remember the times when we felt as though we were riding high on the heights full of joy in God’s deliverance. But that was then and this is now – past blessing has given away, perhaps, to present sorrow or present struggle or maybe even to present sin. So Psalm 40, while hardly the epitome of saccharine, sweet, Christmas sentiment, actually speaks to the real Christmas experience of more than a few of us. Doesn’t it? Behind the smiles and the brave faces, there is a lot of hurt and a lot of need and a lot of waiting for God to deliver us.
But I want you to see that the back-to-front pattern and character of Psalm 40 does more than simply mirror the sad pattern many of us are very familiar with in our own lives. The back-to-front pattern of Psalm 40 also teaches us a sacred principle that helps us deal with the realities of our lives. We are being called to a back-to-front way of living. That’s the first thing I want you to see here. A call to a back-to-front life.
What do I mean by a back-to-front life? Well there’s a reason why Psalm 40 starts in a psalm of thanksgiving for past deliverance before it faces present distress. We tend to start the other way around, don’t we? We tend to start with our problems and then we go looking for a solution. But David, in Psalm 40, starts in the reverse order of what God has already done and then he brings his problems into that context. The principle here, I think, is easy enough to see, just as easy to forget. We need to put our present crises, whatever they may be, into the context of past grace and remember what God is really like, what God has already done, how God has answered prayer and heard our cries and drawn near to us again and again and again. Nothing bolsters faith for today’s trouble or tomorrow’s pain like the clear remembrance of yesterday’s mercy. Let me say that again. Nothing bolsters face for today’s trouble or tomorrow’s pain like the clear remembrance of yesterday’s mercy. We need to learn to live back-to-front lives, the other way around than our usual pattern. Start with gratitude for yesterday’s grace, for what God has done for your soul already in His Son, before you try to face today’s trouble or tomorrow’s pain. Learn to live back-to-front lives.
Never Try to Run on Empty
There’s a second direction for living as Christian at Christmastime here. Psalm 40 reminds us, in the second place, never to try to run on empty. Never try to run on empty. In verses 1 and 2, David says, “I waited patiently for the LORD.” The Hebrew literally says, “Waiting, I waited for the LORD.” We might say, “I waited and I waited and I waited some more. I continually looked to God for rescue until the rescue came at last. I waited for the LORD and eventually the rescue did come.” Look at what he says. “He inclined to me.” The heart of God inclines to us. “He heard my cry. He drew me out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure.” God delivered David from the pit of destruction. That’s a picture of death. And a miry bog is a picture of being stuck and unable to rescue yourself. Helplessness – that was David’s predicament.
And how did the situation change for him? What happened to David? Notice the subject of almost all the verbs in verses 1 to 3. Look at verses 1 to 3. Who is the primary actor? “I waited patiently for the LORD. He inclined to me and heard my cry. He drew me up from the pit of destruction. He set my feet upon a rock. He put a new song in my mouth.” All the initiative is God’s. David was heading for the pit of destruction. He was stuck fast in the miry bog. He was, as our membership vows here at First Presbyterian Church put it – “Without hope, save in His sovereign mercy.” So waiting, he waited on the Lord and the Lord acted. Sovereign mercy inclined toward him and heard him and drew him up and set him on a rock and made him sing. God saved David. God did it. David didn’t fix it. God delivered him.
And here’s my point. Please don’t miss this. It’s only after that, in consequence of all of that, that verses 3 through 10 happen, and we must not reverse the order. Look at verses 3 through 10. In verse 3, David erupts into adoration. “He put a new song in my mouth.” In verses 4 and 5 and then again in verses 9 and 10, there’s proclamation. Not only is he singing to God, he is preaching to the world about the good news. So for example, verse 5. “You have multiplied your wondrous deeds. I will proclaim and tell of them, yet there are more than can be told.” Verse 9, “I have told the glad news of deliverance in the great congregation.” Verse 10, “I have spoken of your faithfulness and your salvation.” So adoration, then proclamation, and then right in the middle of it all, verses 6 through 8, there is consecration. Verse 8, “I delight to do your will, O my God. Your law is within my heart.”
Adoration, proclamation, consecration – what is all of that? It’s just the pattern of life of a faithful child of God. It is an admirable summary of the whole duty of a Christian. We are all called, every one of us – you and me – to adoration, proclamation, and consecration, to praise and preaching and purity. We are all called to look up to God in worship, look out toward the world in witness, and to look in in pursuit of a holy walk. That’s just the pattern of an ordinary Christian’s life. But no matter how ordinary such a life ought to be for us – hear me say this very carefully – you must not attempt the feat in your own strength. It simply can’t be done.
When I was in seminary in Scotland – I see Guy and Jennifer Richard here, and they were with me, actually, when all of this was happening. I lived in Stockbridge in Edinburgh and across the landing from us there was another couple, an older couple, Malcolm and Katie McClain, who we grew to love very dearly. And one night, Malcolm and I and some other seminary friends were hanging out when Malcolm got a text one his phone and left the room abruptly. We didn’t see him again until the next morning. It turns out that his wife, Katie, had been in the car and had been oblivious to the fuel indicator warning light blinking at her on the dash with the inevitable result that she was stranded in the middle of nowhere and Malcolm had to drop everything and go get her. I can see a few knowing smiles. Some of you like to fly three sheets to the wind and drive around with that same fuel engine warning light blinking at you on the dash. Some of you did not get quite as far as you thought you might.
Well Psalm 40 is teaching us never to try to run the Christian life on empty. Don’t try it. Don’t try it. It can’t be done. Never try to run the Christian life on empty. And empty – let’s be clear – is our native condition. Empty. We are powerless, helpless, dead in trespasses and sins, Paul says in Ephesians 2. You can’t worship or witness or work acceptably for God under your own steam. You just can’t do it. You must have the divine initiative. The theologians like to say, “The indicatives of grace must always precede and be the foundation for the imperatives of God.” So before you say, “I will sing Your praise. I will proclaim Your wondrous deeds. I have hidden Your law within my heart,” you must first say, “He inclined to me and heard me. He drew me up from the pit of destruction. He set my feet on solid rock and made my steps secure. He saved me! In His free, sovereign grace, He has intervened.”
Can you say that this morning? Let me ask you, “Have you been running on fumes lately?” Maybe the fuel indicator light has been flashing for some time. You’ve been trying to live the Christian life under your own steam, and maybe, just maybe you’ve begun to learn the hard way that it just can’t be done. Grace must always come first. Grace must always come first. Have you lost sight of that principle, I wonder. We need to learn to live back-to-front lives. We need to know we must never try to run on empty. Fill up on the unending supplies of God’s free grace toward you in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. You can never exhaust that supply.
Don’t Sugarcoat Your Crisis
And then notice in verses 11 through 17, the third direction Psalm 40 offers us. Learn to live back-to-front, never try to run on empty, and now in the third place, don’t sugarcoat your crisis. Don’t sugarcoat your crisis. We are awfully good at doing that in Mississippi, aren’t we? We can smile sweetly and fake it all day long. But that just won’t do when it comes to dealing with the living God. And David at least knows that full well. And so he starts – do you see this in verse 11 – by admitting that he needs mercy. And then he tells us why he needs mercy. Verse 12. Look at verse 12, “Evils have encompassed me beyond number. My iniquities have overtaken me and I cannot see. They are more than the hairs of my head and my heart fails me.” The first part of David’s crisis is clearly internal. It has to do with his own sin. Notice what he tells us about his sin. It is predatory in its character. “My iniquities have overtaken me. It’s like I’ve been fleeing from my iniquities and they have finally run me down like hunting dogs chasing wounded prey.” Do you ever feel that way? You’ve been running from your besetting sins, perhaps, and sometimes it just feels like they hunt you down?
That’s what happened to David with the consequence – notice in verse 12 – he says he can’t see. Sin has a way of blinding us. Doesn’t it? Even obscuring our sense of the smile of God. It can leave us wondering if we haven’t been deserted at last and left all alone in the dark. And did you notice how, as David confesses his sin, he doesn’t minimize its extent in any way. Does he? “They are more than the hairs of my head.” Now let’s be honest, we’ve all felt the temptation, haven’t we, when it comes to our own shortcomings, to minimize just how wrong we’ve been, usually by pointing out someone else’s failures. “Yes, yes, I admit it, but if only you knew about this person or this circumstance you wouldn’t really be wagging your finger quite so forcefully under my nose. Would you?” But look, you can’t fake it with God. You’ve got to confess all the way down to the bottom of it all.
To sum up his experience, David says at the end, “My heart fails me.” It’s been devastating in its impact on David – his internal crisis. Do you see it? And also an external crisis too. Verses 14 through 17, people are seeking his life. They delight in his hurt. They say, “Aha, Aha!” as they try to trap him and corner him. He is poor and needy, verse 17. David is in big trouble, big trouble. Spiritually in the sight of God, practically interpersonally in his daily life. He’s in big trouble. But the crucial thing to see here is that whatever the scale, the enormity of the crisis, he brings it all to God nonetheless. He brings it all to God, all of it, because he knows that’s the only way forward. It’s the only way forward. Not evasion, not accusation, not excuses, not minimization, not what-about-ism. David owns it all and brings it all to God and he’s only able to do that, isn’t he, because he has already spent time reminding his heart what kind of God it is that he is turning to. What his character is. What he’s like. He is the God who inclines to me already and who hears me when I cry. He is the God who saves. The God who saves. That’s what He’s like. And so David runs to Him instead of from Him.
Listen to me, if you are running away from God today, it’s because you do not appreciate as you need to, as you ought to, how deeply His heart already inclines toward you. In your sin and your need, His heart inclines toward you. He wants you to come to Him. There is a welcome for you whenever you do. You don’t need to sugarcoat your crisis. He has abounding grace to lavish upon you in it. You can come clean. You can confess all the way to the bottom of it all when you know this is what God is like. This is what He is really like. You don’t need to hide anymore.
Always Face the Direction of Travel
“Well alright, learn to live back-to-front lives, don’t try to run on empty, don’t sugarcoat your crisis. That’s all well and good, pastor, but I thought you said this was an Advent psalm. It doesn’t seem terribly Christmasy to me. Thanks for pointing that out.” But not so fast. If you look back at verses 6 to 8, I want you to see one last principle that makes the Advent connection explicit for us. And actually, without this last principle, none of the others work. So we’ve got to get a hold of this one. Learn to live back-to-front lives, never try to run on empty, don’t sugarcoat a crisis, and now finally, always face the direction of travel. I hate riding on trains in Britain. I love riding on trains, but I hate facing the wrong way. I like to face the direction of travel.
I was teaching my younger son to drive and we were practicing reverse, and he’s looking out the windshield and we are going this way! And I’m shrieking, “No! Face the direction of travel! Calamity will ensue! Face the direction of travel!” As we heard earlier in our New Testament reading, a version of Psalm 40 verses 6 through 8 is quoted for us in Hebrews chapter 10 and I wonder if you heard there the Advent connection. Hebrews 10:5, “When Christ came into the world, He said…” So it’s talking about the first coming of Jesus as Advent – see, there it is. This is an Advent Psalm. “When Christ came into the world, He said…” and then he quotes our psalm, “In sacrifice and offering you have not delighted. A body you have prepared for me. Burnt offering and sin offering you have not required. Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come to do your will, O God, as it is written of me in the scroll of the book.’”
You see what Hebrews is telling us. Who is the speaker in Psalm 40? Yes, David, for sure. But Hebrews says beyond David, the speaker is Jesus Christ Himself. Jesus speaks Psalm 40. The New Testament says Psalm 40 is Jesus’ cry, Jesus’ prayer, Jesus’ song; talking about Himself. He is the one who has waited on the Lord and was delivered from the pit of destruction in verses 1 through 3. Jesus is the one who has come to do the will of God according to the Word of God written in the scroll of the book in verses 6 through 8. Jesus is the one who was overtaken by sin, of course not His own but mine and yours; made sin for us, who knew no sin. And evils encompassed Jesus beyond number, verses 11 and 12. Enemies surrounded Him and taunted Him as He hung between two thieves at Calvary saying, “Aha, Aha!” The passage in Hebrews actually goes on to say that God prepared a body for Jesus, in the womb of the virgin that first Christmas, so that, with this purpose in view, He could set aside forever the bloody sacrifices that took place every day in the Old Testament temple and bring them to an end, fulfilling them all in the sacrifice of His own body on the cross in our place. Now do you see the connection according to Hebrews 10? At the heart of Psalm 40 is the incarnation and the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ. Christmas happened so that Jesus could say the words of Psalm 40 and descend into the darkest crisis of Calvary so that when we pray, you pray Psalm 40, you can be sure God has made full provision for you in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, who has already been down in the depths ahead of you and has abounding grace for you when you find Him there.
So Psalm 40 preaches Jesus to us, and if you want to be more like Him in adoration and proclamation and consecration, you must face the direction of travel. If He is the destination, you must look where Psalm 40 points you. You must look to Him. You must fix your eyes not on yourself, not even on your sin, not on your crisis, but only and always on your Savior. You must look to Christ. Learn to live back-to-front lives. Remember past grace first before you try to face present trials or future trouble. You can strengthen your faith for tomorrow’s crises by remembering yesterday’s abundant grace. The best thing God ever did for you was to send His Son to rescue you. Remember the Gospel, strengthen faith, and march into tomorrow with your head held high.
Learn to live back-to-front lives. Never try to run on empty. Fill up on the grace of God in the gift of Jesus Christ. He is all you need. He is. And don’t sugarcoat your crisis. You know you really can come to Him. You don’t have to run from Him when you know what kind of God He is – what He’s like, what He’s done – what He has given; having so loved you that He would give His only begotten Son in your place and for you. You can come running to Him. You don’t have to hide anymore. And you must, above all else, learn to face the direction of travel. If Jesus is the one you want, if likeness to Christ is the destination, you must fix your eyes on Him. That’s where Psalm 40 points us, and that really is what Advent is about. It is about looking to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.
Let’s look to Him together now. Let us pray.
Our Father, how we adore You for the Lord Jesus Christ who is all our world-weary, sin-sick hearts ever need. Please forgive us for running frantically this way and that, trying to palliate and trying to appease and satisfy our restless souls when You have offered us the greatest gift in Christ, who alone can answer to our deepest need. Help us, please, to face the direction of travel. Help us to rivet our gaze upon Him, for we ask this in His holy name, amen.