Synopsis of Sermon 05.12.24

Delivered by Bishop Joseph W. Walker, III

Psalm 40:1-3 KJV
1 I waited patiently for the Lord; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry. 2 He brought me up also out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings. 3 And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God: many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the Lord.

I.         INTRODUCTION 

1. Life is the best teacher. Some of us have gone through so much, we have enough credit hours to say that we have a degree in adversity. As you experience life, your perspective changes. You don’t see circumstances the way you used to.
2. For every season we go through, there is a lesson. Low seasons can stretch you like nothing else. It puts a demand on your faith.
3. Today David chronicles the pit as a horrible pit. The pit is translated from the word, Sheol, the same word where we get the words Hades or Hell. In essence, referring to the horrible pit, David is saying he is in a living hell.
4. Our pit doesn’t have to be just physical. It can be spiritual, financial, emotional, and even mental. The pit reminds us that we will experience low places in our lives.
5. Just because you’re in a low place, doesn’t mean you have to stay low. When your perspective changes, you can still see God working in these low seasons.
6. When you read the Psalms, you have to realize that they are songs. They were songs that were about what was being experienced at that time. David pins this Psalm today, out of an experience that he had gone through.
7. David picked this particular experience to write about, but David had a lot of experiences he could have pulled from. Remember David defeated Goliath the giant? David experienced betrayal from his own son too. He even experienced jealousy from Saul who turned on him. David also receives moral favor from God, over his indiscretions with Bathsheba. David saw that God was a forgiving God.
8. David had a lot of reasons to pin this Psalm. Know that God will bring you out of your low place. The scripture today starts out by saying David waited patiently on the Lord.

II.         I’M SPIRITUALLY PATIENT 

• David is saying that even his wait needs to learn to wait.  Psalm 27:14 NKJV says 14 Wait[a] on the Lord; Be of good courage, And He shall strengthen your heart; Wait, I say, on the Lord!, Job 14:14 NKJV says 14 If a man dies, shall he live again? All the days of my hard service I will wait, Till my change comes.
• When you wait, you have to wait right, you can’t wait with anxiety.
• David said he waited patiently on the Lord. In other words, David was saying he trusted God in his low place. While we are waiting, we must continue to serve. David served while he was waiting on God.

A.  Sometimes You Have To Serve While Struggling 

1. The waiter in a restaurant has developed the capacity to serve you. No matter how busy he or she is, they continue to serve you. Likewise, we are going to have to serve God in the midst of all that we are going through.
2. Can you continue doing what God asked you to do, while he is delays you? You have to still be what God called you to be, despite what you might be going through.
3. We serve the Lord with gladness and come before His presence with thanksgiving!

B.  Your Cry Has Not Gone Unnoticed 

1. David says while waiting patiently, he also cried out to God and God heard him. Know that your cry has not gone unnoticed.
2. When a child cries in a public place, somebody will probably say, “Someone ought to go check on the baby” or “Will somebody do something to make that baby stop crying?”. You start out being concerned about the baby, but later it turns to being annoyed.  
3. If it is your child, there’s a whole different response. You have the ability to interpret gibberish. You know the cry of your child over any other baby. By the cry of her child, a mother knows exactly what her baby wants.
   1. How’s does she interrupt the cry? It is because of their connection. Just like this, God interprets our cries. Romans 8:26 NKJV says 26 Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession [a]for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. When we don’t know what to pray, the Holy Spirit makes intercessions for us.
4. Know that God hears you. God not only hears you, but He also has a plan for you!

III.         HE SAVED ME FROM THE PIT 

• We don’t appreciate salvation until getting into a situation where we can’t save ourselves.

A.  The Enemy Designed Your Pit To Be Permanent 

1. The enemy wants you to be imprisoned by your pit. No matter how deep your pit is, God makes plans for your deliverance.
2. You must see the hand of God in the midst of your situation.
3. What is miry clay mentioned in the scripture? It is slippery clay. Every time David tried to come out, he slipped right back into his situation. We often are just like David. We’re almost out of our situation and something comes, and you slip right back into it.

B.  Only God Could Get You Out Of This 

1. Sometimes your pit is just a setup to show you that you can’t do it on your own. Man’s extremity is God’s opportunity.
2. When God shows up, he shows up to bring you out of it. God came to see about you!
3. God is bringing you out of your situation even while you are reading this. If God brought Daniel out of Lion’s den, God can bring you out!  If God can deliver the 3 Hebrew boys out of the fiery furnace, He can bring you out!! We thank God not after we come out. We thank God even when we can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel.
4. God doesn’t just bring you out. He established David’s going. That means God cares how you look when you come out.
5. When you’ve been in a situation, it is hard to trust a new place. It’s like being in a bad relationship and you go into a new one, looking for something horrible to happen.

IV.         HE STABLALIZED MY PATH 

• God is about to put you in a stable place.

A.  I’m Standing On A Solid Foundation 

1. God is intentional by placing you somewhere solid. God is going to stabilize you. The rock is a foundation of your faith.
2. The Word is a lamp unto my feet a light unto my path. It is a solid foundation. God is stabilizing everything in your life.
3. After you come out stable:

B.  I’m Only Going Where He’s Leading 

• God established David’s going. The real metric of your maturity is you don’t want to go places that don’t have value.

3. Don’t Move In Your Feelings, Move By Faith – You can’t trust your feelings. You have to move by faith, not your feelings.
   1. Your feelings are subject to change.
4. Don’t Let Your Friends Have More Influence Than Your Father – Your friend circle can lead you down the wrong path.
   1. Have you ever had the courage to go solo and be all by yourself?
5. Don’t Let The Temporary Fun Cause You To Forfeit Your Future – It might be fun on the front end, but it might be fatal for your future.
   1. We are not going anywhere unless God leads us there!

V.         MY SONG IS PUBLIC 

• He put a new song in his mouth. Songs in the Bible wasn’t just music. Songs in the Bible were stories about a moment. A song should always remind us of a moment.
• In Exodus 14, the Children of Israel were delivered from Egypt. In Exodus 15, they sang a song of their deliverance.
• When you hear your song, the words will take you back. When you hear your song, you want people to know this is your jam.
• If the song is not just a song, it is an experience.

A.  He Gave Me Another Reason To Bless Him 

1. God gives you a pit, so that you can get a new song and a brand-new praise!!
2. The Pit gives:
3. New Insight – My perspective is different.
   1. New Intimacy – I see God different.
   1. New Intensity – My praise is different.
4. The intensity of your praise is counterbalanced by your pit. If your cry was intense in the pit, then your praise needs to be just as intense, when you come out!
5. Story: Bishop was at his Daughter’s Field Day event. He noticed that people started chanting, “We can’t hear you”. The reason for this was to get the crowd engaged and as a result, give the team more motivation to win.
   1. We can learn from this action. Our praise will encourage someone and motivate them to keep on trying, even though things may seem hard.

B.  Your Praise Has Power To Persuade 

1. The pit is not always about you. It sometimes is about who you are attached to. It teaches them that they don’t have to be depressed about what they are going through.
2. Paul and Silas praised God at midnight. When they sang praises to God, everyone’s chains came off, not just theirs. This praise is for everyone!
3. One thing we have learned, if we praise God while we are in the pit, God will come and see about us!!