My kids EAT wrong. In LOTS of ways. Now INTERESTINGly, MANY of their frustrating eating habits are arguably SUPPORTED by the science. For instance, Elijah likes to take a bite of food, and then run 4 or 5 laps around the kitchen island before returning for ANOTHER bite, such that it takes him about half an hour to get through one slice of pizza. But health experts tell us it’s actually BETTER to eat slowly because it gives your stomach time to let your brain know when you’re actually full. PLUS eating slowly, ESPECIALLY combined with running LAPS, aids in digestion.

My kids also don’t like to eat very MUCH for dinner, oftentimes because they’ve been SNACKING throughout the afternoon. Which drives us crazy, but once again, the experts tell us it’s actually BETTER to eat 5 or 6 SMALL portions throughout the day, instead of 3 BIG ones (provided, of course, that the snacks are HEALTHY ones…).

And it goes without saying that my kids’ food PREFERENCES are frustrating… they wanna pick the peas and carrots out of their pot pie… out of their fried rice… But then again, can ya really BLAME them? Of COURSE they enjoy the macaroni & cheese on their plate more than the green beans… I enjoy the mac & cheese more! But here’s what I DON’T do; I DON’T scarf down all the mac & cheese before I’ve even taken a BITE of the green BEANS. I try and tell them: “You’ve gotta RATION the good stuff, and then you use it to MITIGATE the taste of the green BEANS; bite of mac n cheese… bite of green beans…

And therein lies their MOST frustrating eating habit of all, and the reason for this lengthy ILLUSTRATION: my kids RUSH through the foods they enjoy, while LINGERING on the foods they HATE. Two-thirds of the meal will be GONE within 3 minutes of saying the blessing, but then they’ll spend THIRTY minutes nibbling on 5 florets of broccoli. I’ve tried COACHING them: “Just hold your nose, and POUND the broccoli – two big bites; 60 seconds, then you’re DONE, and you CHASE it with the mac & cheese. Moreover, and here’s the crux of it: you don’t want to HURRY through the very BEST part of the meal; slow down and SAVOR it.

Friends, that’s exactly what King DAVID wants to teach US to do this morning, in Psalm 40, when it comes to our SALVATION. If you have been SAVED – if you have come to realize your sinfulness before God and thus your need for forgiveness, if you’ve heard and believed the good news of Jesus Christ’s sacrificial death and his life-securing resurrection for you, and if you have turned from your sins to trust and follow Jesus as your Lord and Savior, then according to the Bible, God’s word, you have been SAVED. Your salvation is an objective, spiritual reality (the most important fact ABOUT you!) that now defines who you are (you’ve been “born again”; you are “a child of GOD”!) and that reality cannot be undone (you can’t be UN-”born again”) – and praise God FOR it!

However, the Lord wants more for us than simply being saved; He is inviting us this morning to SAVOR our salvation. Listen: it’s WAY better than mac ‘n cheese! As a matter of fact: it is infinitely better than the SWEETEST pleasures that this world has to offer us.

So how DO we learn to “savor our salvation”? What does it MEAN, what does it look like practically, to delight DAILY in our deliverance?

David offers us SIX ways to SAVOR our salvation here. Let’s read and consider them now together; I invite you to STAND… Psalm 40; hear the word of the Lord:
“To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David.
40:1 I waited patiently for the Lord;
he inclined to me and heard my cry.
2 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.
3 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.
4 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!
5 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.
6 In sacrifice and offering you have not delighted,
but you have given me an open ear.[a]
Burnt offering and sin offering
you have not required.
7 Then I said, “Behold, I have come;
in the scroll of the book it is written of me:
8 I delight to do your will, O my God;
your law is within my heart.”
9 I have told the glad news of deliverance[b]
in the great congregation;
behold, I have not restrained my lips,
as you know, O Lord.
10 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.
11 As for you, O Lord, you will not restrain
your mercy from me;
your steadfast love and your faithfulness will
ever preserve me!
12 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.
13 Be pleased, O Lord, to deliver me!
O Lord, make haste to help me!
14 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!
15 Let those be appalled because of their shame
who say to me, “Aha, Aha!”
16 But may all who seek you
rejoice and be glad in you;
may those who love your salvation
say continually, “Great is the Lord!”
17 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!”
This is the word of God…

Six ways or expressions or MEANS of SAVORING our salvation:

1 – We SAVOR it by REMEMBERING our salvation (vv1-2), by remembering THE LORD’S salvation. I keep saying “OUR” salvation, but unfortunately that can be MISLEADING due to the ambiguity of the English language; it is “OUR” salvation only if and because we’re the ones who RECEIVED it; but it is more precisely “the LORD’S” salvation by virtue of the fact that He’s the One who ACCOMPLISHED it. Look back at vv1 & 2: how active was DAVID in the work of HIS salvation?

He WAITED… and he CRIED.

In other words, roughly as active as a BABY. Imagine a terrible car accident, parents in the front seats immediately KILLED, but their newborn in the back carseat survives, and cries and cries, waits and waits, and eventually is discovered and rescued, does the headline the next day read: “Newborn HERO RESCUES Self by Waiting and Crying”? I don’t THINK so. Who gets the CREDIT? Who did the RESCUING? Whose SALVATION WAS it?

THE LORD “heard”; the LORD “INCLINED” to me; the LORD “drew me UP from the pit”; David doesn’t even bother mentioning, “I grabbed his HAND”; “I had to hold on real TIGHT”; pat himself on the back…

No; “you were DEAD in your sins”, Ephesians 2 says, “having no hope and (utterly) without God in this world” (vv1, 12); ‘You didn’t even have a PRAYER, the apostle Paul says; I mean, LITERALLY; THINK about it with me for a second: can DEAD people PRAY? Explain THAT one to me!
No, this is where if we wanted to take David’s language really LITERALLY here, and apply it to our spiritual regeneration, God’s RESCUING us from the “pit”, the “miry bog” of our own SIN, we would have to object and explain, “SORRY, David, but actually I was DEAD! I was unable to even “wait” or “cry out” to Him, much LESS grab his hand real tight on the way up outta the pit; I was a CORPSE! But he PULLED me out… didn’t just perform CPR to RESUSCITATE me; no, the Lord had to RESURRECT me! Cut out my heart of stone; give me a heart of FLESH, instead, that beats for HIM now; He gave me an ENTIRELY new IDENTITY; I was a “child of WRATH”, enslaved to my SIN; NOW I’m a “child of GOD”, and a servant of the SON, Jesus Christ, who LOVED me and gave himself FOR me; “I’ve been CRUCIFIED with Christ; It is no longer WILL who lives, but Christ who lives IN me” (Gal 2:20). I’m now a “NEW CREATION in CHRIST JESUS; take a look: the old ‘me’ is dead and gone; the NEW has come.” (2 Cor 5:17)

No more pit for ME; I’m standing on the ROCK. Again, not because I’m so wise or virtuous and deserve the credit, but because “GOD lifted me out”, HE cleaned me off, and “HE set my feet (here) on the rock, making my steps secure.” Thanks be to the LORD! He ALONE deserves ALL of the glory and PRAISE.

And that’s exactly what David is DOING here, at the very OUTSET of this psalm: he is REMEMBERING GOD’S work of deliverance in his life; all the verbs are past tense: “I waited… he inclined… he heard… he drew… he set…” (notice, again: a lot more third person “HE”s than first person “I”s; GOD is the hero of our salvation). But they’re all past tense because the SOURCE of David’s present-day HOPE… in God’s future-day SALVATION… from David’s present-day DISTRESS… is God’s PAST-tense DELIVERANCE. Did you get that? Let me say it again, cuz this is too important to miss (and I’ll go ahead and PERSONALIZE it for US):
*We can have real HOPE today…
*That the Lord WILL most ASSUREDLY DELIVER us… some day, in the not-too-distant FUTURE…
*From any and ALL of our PRESENT-day pains and problems…
*BECAUSE… the REASON for our confident hope, DESPITE our inability to actually SEE the light at the end of this really long, really dark tunnel, now in the present… our hope is nevertheless ROOTED in God’s PAST FAITHFULNESS, His PAST work of delivering us from our GREATEST danger of all, our SIN.
Or as the apostle PAUL put it, through the inspiration of the Holy SPIRIT, WAY more clearly and concisely and GLORIOUSLY than I just did: “If God is for us, what could possibly stand against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also WITH him graciously give us all things? ” (Rom 8:31-32)
If God gave His SON to save you from your SIN, you don’t think He can handle your DIVORCE?
Your JOB loss?
Your FINANCIAL problems?
Your RELATIONSHIP problems? Your big family FALL-out?
What CAN’T He handle – what WON’T He handle, on your behalf, if it is truly, INDEED, for your good, for the BEST; not YOUR best, but HIS best; “my thoughts are not YOUR thoughts,” Lord; I know that “as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are [YOUR] ways higher than [MY] ways” (Isa 55:8-9) – and I trust that “[You] who did not spare [Your] own Son but gave him up for [ME, that you will now], also WITH him graciously give [me] all things” good and profitable for me, even HARD things I struggle to SEE as good and THANK you for.

But can I be really frank with you this morning: some of you here this morning are REQUESTING the Lord’s help, His deliverance from some present, temporal trial in your life, and you have NO business expecting Him to work on your behalf, because you have NOT yet been rescued from your greatest, most urgent, most ETERNAL problem of ALL – your SIN! – and therefore, according to God’s own WORD, the Bible, you are still an “ENEMY of God”, you’re a “son (or daughter) of disobedience”, a “child of WRATH”, and that means you have NO right to expect anything from God OTHER than hellfire and brimstone. Cuz He is NOT your LOVING FATHER (yet!); all He is to you is your JUST JUDGE.

But friends, ALL of that can change this morning – this MINUTE! – if you will but REPENT – turn AWAY from your SINS – and BELIEVE – trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior; before you can SAVOR salvation, you have to first RECEIVE it! You can do that right NOW; the Bible promises that, ““everyone who calls on the name of the Lord (JESUS) will be saved… if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and you believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. ” (Rom 10:9-13)

You can’t REMEMBER what hasn’t HAPPENED for you. But once it HAS – OH!! The JOY! Of SAVORING our SALVATION through our REMEMBRANCE.
If you are happily MARRIED, one of your favorite things in the WORLD oughta be attending WEDDINGS. Why? Cuz it REMINDS you, it takes you right back to the happiest moment of YOUR life, when YOU were standing there at the altar, about to make the second best decision of YOUR life. That’s what watching BAPTISMS is like for us believers.
But they’re SPORARIC (unfortunately, here at West HILLS at least; we need more of us so EXUBERANT about our OWN salvation that we’re shouting the gospel from the ROOFTOPS, for OTHERS to hear and believe and be set free; that’s point #4 we’re coming BACK to…). But we don’t have to wait for BAPTISMS to remember our salvation; Christ invites us to remember his saving work EVERY Sunday at His TABLE, the Lord’s SUPPER: “Do this in REMEMBRANCE of me.”
But we don’t even have to wait til SUNDAYS to remember it EITHER, do we? Listen, we just finished the book of Deuteronomy this June; if God instructed His people to remember, to MEDITATE on, to teach one another and SAVOR His Old Testament LAW – “these commandments shall be on your heart. 7 You shall… talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down [at NIGHT], and when you rise [first thing in the MORNING]” (6:6-7) – if that’s the LAW!! …and if the LAW was just a “SHADOW” of the GLORIOUS things to COME, Hebrews 10:1 says; the NEW covenant, the “new and infinitely BETTER” promises that WE now enjoy, in CHRIST – how much MORE ought we to MEDITATE now on the GOSPEL – the greatest news of who Jesus IS and what He’s DONE for us – and SAVOR it, DAILY?!

Church: may we not let a DAY go BY without pausing to BASK in the WONDER and the JOY of our salvation.

And that brings us to David’s SECOND mode of savoring now:

2- We REJOICE IN the Lord’s salvation. (3-5)

What was David’s very first RESPONSE to God’s rescue? To his HAVING BEEN “drawn out of the pit”?
“He put a new song in my mouth,
a song of praise to [my] God.”

Actually, he says, “to OUR God” in v3, because David says, “Many will see and fear, and put their trust in the Lord” if I’VE got anything to do with it, any INFLUENCE in their lives. You better believe that I’M gonna keep belting out God’s praises at the top of my LUNGS for ALL to hear! I just got too much JOY; I can’t CONTAIN it!

“You have multiplied,” v5, “ your wondrous deeds and (even just) your thoughts toward us, O Lord” – “what is man that you’re (even) mindful of” us, God (Ps 8:4); that you even spare a THOUGHT for us?! Much LESS, that you’d care SO much as to number the hairs on our HEADS… that you’d send JESUS to DIE for us!

“None can compare with YOU!”, David rejoices; “I will proclaim and tell of [your wondrous deeds]… and yet [, he realizes in v5,] they are [infinitely] MORE than could [EVER] be told.”
You remember how the apostle JOHN ended his gospel account? Last verse of John’s Gospel: “Now there are also many OTHER things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written” (21:25)!! ‘I gave ya 21 LONG chapters, and I’m all outta parchment over here. You can bring me more, but where’s it gonna END? There IS no end to His “WONDROUS deeds… MULTIPLIED toward us”.

“When we’ve been there [in Heaven for] 10,000 years…
[REJOICING in the Lord’s salvation]
We’ve no LESS days to sing God’s praise
Than when we FIRST begun.” (“Amazing Grace”)
Church: it’s not even a drop in the BUCKET of all the praises that our God DESERVES!

Now, I actually wanna quickly add ANOTHER “R” of savoring salvation right here in the MIDDLE, between David’s “new song of praise” and his “proclaiming God’s wondrous deeds”; what’s he doing in v4? More than “rejoicing”, David’s exhorting us to RELY on the Lord for salvation:
“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!”

Friend: where is YOUR trust? Don’t be like the PROUD – the PRIDE-ful make THEMSELVES their trust; YOU make for a SMALL, sad ‘savior’!
“Don’t be like IDOLATERS, those who “go astray” and trust in IDOLS, put their hope in the FALSE “gods” of this world, cheap SUBSTITUTES. They seek their joy and fulfillment in WORK, FAMILY, MONEY, SEX, SUBSTANCES, COMFORT, POWER, CONTROL, EDUCATION, BEAUTY, YOUTH, SCIENCE, RELIGION – “but NONE of them are WORTHY of your trust,” David warns us: “it’s a “LIE”! They may give you some FLEETING pleasure, but they will NEVER satisfy you in any lasting sense.

“NO”, he assures us, “Happy INSTEAD is the one who makes
the Lord his trust”.
“All who take refuge in you rejoice,” Psalm 5:11 declares; they will “ever sing for joy”.

3- We RESPOND TO the Lord’s salvation, SPECIFICALLY, now in vv6-8, with OBEDIENCE. (6-8) The proper response to having been saved by the Lord is OBEDIENCE.

“In sacrifice and offering you have not delighted,” David says of the Lord,
“But [RATHER] you have given me an open ear.” You’ve opened my ears to HEAR your WORD and RESPOND by OBEYING.
“Burnt offering and sin offering
you have not required”. Wait a minute; we studied LEVITICUS together not that long ago here, and I’m pretty sure God DID require these offerings in the Old Testament, until Christ came; has David just forgotten his BIBLE? What’s he getting at here?

Think about it: WHEN did the Lord require such sacrifices? When we SINNED! When we SCREWED UP; FAILED to open our ears to His word and obey. THEN you had to bring a “sin offering”. But God would’ve preferred that His people just OBEY Him and never need to bring ANY of those offerings.
“I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice,” the Lord declares in Hosea 6:6, “the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.”

““Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices,
as in obeying the voice of the Lord?”, 1 Samuel 15:22,
Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice,
and to listen than the fat of rams.”

““With what shall I come before the Lord,” the prophet MICAH mused,
…Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
…Will the Lord be pleased with[a] thousands of rams,
with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
[NO…] He has told you, O man, what is good;
and what the Lord DOES require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,[b]
and to walk humbly with your God” (6:6-8).

Just OBEY Him, and you can spare a WHOLE lotta animals’ lives. It’s SIMPLE.

…or IS it? How do we make sense of v7? Why does David, IMMEDIATELY after reminding us to open our ears, listen and OBEY, why does he now exclaim, ““Behold, I have come;
in the scroll of the book it is written of me: [that] I delight to do your will, O God”?

It’s like he’s saying, “I won’t offer you SACRIFICES, God; I’ll offer you MYSELF! – “Behold, I have COME”, to offer my whole heart, mind, soul and strength, like you commanded, like you DESERVE, Lord”.
That’s NOBLE of him. But DID David offer God all that? Did he “DELIGHT” to do God’s will”?
Sometimes. And other times, David delighted to steal and sleep with another man’s wife, and then KILL the poor guy to try and cover up his guilt and shame.
No, David definitely didn’t bring enough of himself, his obedience, to not need sacrifices and offerings.
Moreover, what “scroll” of which “BOOK” could DAVID have possibly been referring to in v7?! While the Torah – the first FIVE books of the Bible – DID exist in his day, it doesn’t say ANYTHING prophetic about DAVID’s coming, David’s obedience.

No, friends, David is the one speaking prophetically here, of One who was still yet to come. But now he HAS, as the New Testament author of Hebrews explains so clearly for us:

“When Christ came into the world, he said,
“Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired…” and then he quotes vv6-8, of Psalm 40. This is a MESSIANIC psalm! These are the words of JESUS on David’s lips, 1,000 years before “a BODY” was even “prepared” for him.

HE is the One foretold HERE in the “scroll of the book” of PSALMS.
The One who would “come”, who is supremely WORTHY of our “BEHOLDING”.
Sure, David was MOSTLY “a man after God’s own heart” (1 Sam 13:14), but only Jesus truly, consistently “DELIGHTED” in doing His Father’s will; he calls obeying the Lord his “food” in John 4:34.
Only Jesus truly had God’s LAW firmly fixed within his heart (v8); Psalm 119 says we “hide God’s word in our hearts that we might not SIN AGAINST Him” (v11). Only JESUS did THAT; REFUSED to sin against the Lord.
Which is WHY, returning to Hebrews 10 now, only JESUS was able to “do AWAY” with all those offerings and sacrifices once and for ALL: because He PERFECTLY obeyed the Father’s will, and “by that will,” Hebrews 10:10 declares, “we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.”
Jesus LIVED the life that you and I SHOULD have but FAILED to, so he could DIE the DEATH that we deserve, sacrificially, in our place, to pay the punishment for our DIS-obedience.

This is the GOSPEL, friends. The “divine exchange”: Christ took our sin and death, to give US his righteousness and LIFE, ETERNAL life.

And all he “requires” of US is the obedience of FAITH: “this is the will of my Father,” Jesus said, “that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life” (Jn 6:40).
You wanna OBEY? do God’s “will”? Here it is, according to Jesus:

 BEHOLD… BELIEVE… BE SAVED!

Friends: THAT is our proper RESPONSE to the salvation that God has worked for us through His Son Jesus Christ: Behold, Believe, and be SAVED.

And then FOURTHLY, (#4-) We RECOUNT the Lord’s salvation. (9-10)
“I have told the glad news of my deliverance
in the great congregation”, David exults.
Or as v9 could just as accurately be translated:
“I have PREACHED the GOSPEL of my SALVATION.”

How about YOU, Christian; are YOU preaching it? Or do you “restrain your lips”?
Do you SHOUT it from the ROOFTOPS?! Or do you “HIDE” the glorious news of what God has done for you through the gift of His son Jesus – do you BURY it down in your heart, like the unfaithful servant in Jesus’s parable, who buried his “talent” in the ground, failing to REINVEST IT – to MULTIPLY it – out of FEAR?
Will we “speak [boldly and JOYFULLY] of God’s FAITHFULNESS and His salvation”, v10; or will we “CONCEAL His steadfast love” from others, who so DESPERATELY need it?

The WORLD tries to CONVINCE us that it’s NOT “good news”, so we should just keep our MOUTHS shut.
The world says that either there IS no God to save us…
Or maybe there IS a God, but we don’t NEED SAVING! “There’s no such thing as “SIN”; “You just do you, and God will accept you no matter what”.

But friends: is THAT really ‘good news’?! That either there IS no God – we’re born, we suffer, we die, we’re forgotten; with NO meaning or purpose or hope – OR… the world’s ALTERNATIVE is to just FLATTEN morality; if God’s gonna ACCEPT us all anyway, then why does it MATTER how we live here at ALL? You SURE you want a world like that… Where God accepts EVERYONE?!
“Well, maybe not EVERYONE; maybe people like HITLER still end up in Hell…”
“Oh, so MURDERERS… kinda like King DAVID? Who was (by the way, on the WHOLE), a lot more righteous than anyone I know. And by what STANDARD are you judging MURDER as any WORSE than any OTHER offense? Jesus said if you get ANGRY with your brother, you’ve committed MURDER in your heart (Mt 5:21-22). So where do you draw the line, of which sins God WON’T simply “accept”?

Friends: GOD has drawn the line, and here it IS: you can be PERFECT – perfectly sin-LESS – because anything less has no place in HEAVEN, no business being anywhere NEAR a “holy, holy, holy” GOD…
OR… you be FORGIVEN, by trusting in a perfect SAVIOR, Jesus.

But Christian: don’t let ANYONE try and convince you that it’s NOT good news; the gospel is the GREATEST news imaginable.
That a God that glorious…
Loved sinners this wretched…
SO much, that He sent a SAVIOR this MERCIFUL…
To make forgiveness this SIMPLE?! Just TRUST Him, and we’re SAVED?!

May we PROCLAIM the “glad news” of our deliverance to all who will listen (and even those who WON’T).
May we NOT restrain our lips, HIDE his salvation, CONCEAL his steadfast love.
The news is simply too good NOT to share! And by DOING so, we get to SAVOR our OWN salvation all the MORE. We re-LIVE the goodness of the news, as we re-TELL it. As we re-CALL the pit that WE were in, when Christ found US, and pulled US out, what He saved us FROM… AND what He has saved us FOR: HOLINESS… HEAVEN… and best of all, God has saved us for HIMSELF. We were once estranged from the Creator and Lover of our souls, but through CHRIST, we have been reconciled to our heavenly Father, and now we get to enjoy – we SAVOR – his favor and his fellowship forever.

And they can too. But they won’t be saved if they haven’t believed; and they can’t believe if they haven’t heard; and Church: they cannot HEAR if we’re not PREACHING.
“I will PREACH the GOSPEL of my DELIVERANCE.”

5- God invites us to REQUEST His rescue. (12-16)

We discussed this earlier, so I’ll be brief here, but again:
God’s deliverance in the PAST…
fills David with hope in the PRESENT…
That God WILL come through for him AGAIN in the FUTURE.

We don’t know the EXACT occasion for David’s distress here, but apparently he was facing enemies from WITHOUT and within. Those who “sought to snatch his LIFE away”, v14, who “DELIGHTED in his HURT”. But just as THREATENING, David acknowledges in v12, was his OWN sin: “my iniquities have overtaken me… they are more than the hairs of my head; my heart fails me.”

Friends, what do we DO, in the face of such deadly perils, the world, the devil, our own FLESH and SIN?!

We CRY OUT for RESCUE: “Be pleased, O Lord, to deliver me!
O Lord, make haste to help me!”.
And when we do, friends, God PROMISES to come THROUGH: “EVERYONE who calls on the name of the LORD will be SAVED” (Rom 10:13).

So we can be CONFIDENT, with David, that “all who seek” Him, v16, will “ rejoice and be glad in you,” Lord. We don’t just REQUEST his deliverance; we REJOICE and RELISH it: “may those who love your salvation
say continually, “Great is the Lord!””. Church: we’ve been SAVED to SAVOR and to SING his praises CONTINUALLY!

And if God saved you from your SIN… from DEATH… from HELL!… then what CAN’T He save you from? What WON’T He? Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. His ways aren’t our ways, and His TIMING is ours either. But here’s what He DOES promise us: “Many are the afflictions of the righteous,
but the Lord delivers him out of them all” (Ps 34:19).
“In this world you will have troubles,” Jesus warned us, “But take heart”, he assures us, “I have overcome the world.”” (Jn 16:33). And we TOO will overcome, Church, not by OUR strength, but “by the blood of the LAMB and the word of our TESTIMONY” of HIS gracious deliverance (Rev 12:11).

Lastly, we savor our salvation by (#6) RESTING IN it. (11, 17)
RESTING in the knowledge, the blessed ASSURANCE that the Lord “will not restrain [His] mercy from [us],” v11; No, “your steadfast love and faithfulness will ever preserve me!”.

We REST in the TRUTH, the BEAUTIFUL, comforting truth, that though “I am poor and needy”, v17, “the Lord takes thought for me”.
And sent His Son JESUS to be “my help and my deliverer”.

May we REST in HIM this morning. Let’s pray…