Creating a Thankful People Through Deliverance

Outline

3 reasons you can be thankful through seasons of sorrow

I. Because the Lord Can Rescue from Sickness and Circumstances (vv. 1-3)

Psalm 30:1-3 - I will exalt You, Lord, for You have lifted me up, and have not let my enemies rejoice over me. Lord my God, I cried to You for help, and You healed me. Lord, You have brought up my soul from Sheol; You have kept me alive, that I would not go down to the pit.

II. Because God’s Disposition Is Favor Rather Anger Toward Us (v.4-5)

A. God’s deliverance moves us to sing with others

Psalm 30:4 - Sing praise to the Lord, you His godly ones, and praise the mention of His holiness.

B. Because God’s Fatherly discipline is momentary

Psalm 30:5a - For His anger is but for a moment…

C. Because God’s favor lasts a lifetime

Psalm 30:5b - His favor is for a lifetime; weeping may last for the night, but a shout of joy comes in the morning.

III. Because God’s Kindness Changes Your Sadness for Joy (v.6-12)

A. Beware the sorrow of self-sufficiency (vv. 6-7)

Psalm 30:6-7 - Now as for me, I said in my prosperity, “I will never be moved.” O Lord, by Your favor You have made my mountain to stand strong; You hid Your face, I was dismayed.

B. Be grateful that the Lord hears your prayers and forgives the broken hearted (vv. 8-10)

Psalm 30:8-10 - To You, O Lord, I called, and to the Lord I made supplication: What profit is there in my blood, if I go down to the pit? Will the dust praise You? Will it declare Your faithfulness? Hear, O Lord, and be gracious to me; O Lord, be my helper.

C. Give thanks that you can be clothed with gladness from God

Psalm 30:11-12 - You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; You have loosed my sackcloth and girded me with gladness, that my soul may sing praise to You and not be silent.
O Lord my God, I will give thanks to You forever.

Isaiah 61:1-3 - The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted… to comfort all who mourn, to grant those who mourn in Zion, giving them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a spirit of fainting.

Thank you worship team for leading us in singing to our good and faithful God.

What a joy it is to come in to the Lord’s house, praise Him together, and be able to say, “be still my soul” knowing that we can attain that quiet soul because of Christ’s grace and mercy towards us.

Last week, Pastor Brent shared with us the aspects in life that create a noisy soul and how Psalm 131 helps us to see that a thankful soul is a quiet soul.

But this morning I’d like for us to look deeper into the times that our soul is noisy as can be and we cannot seem to quiet it down?

Those times when life’s circumstances seem to be unbearable…

What of the times where we question whether God is on our side, whether we will see blessings?

These are questions we all want to ask when times are hard, and circumstances are not what we expected.

• A spouse says, “I need their words of encouragement and respect, but instead I feel like I give and invest 500 and they give back one…”

• It’s not fair, why am I not being blessed with the marriage that I want?

• A family loses their child to miscarriage, “Why am I not being blessed to be able to see and raise this child until they are adults?

Do you believe that God’s deliverance can cause us to be thankful even in times like these, times of sadness and loss?

This morning we’ll be referring to Psalm 30 to help us become a thankful people even in times of sorrow.

So please turn to Psalm 30, that’s pages 403 and 404 in the front section of the Bible under the chair in front of you.

- Now, before we read the Psalm, I think it will be helpful to give a bit of the background…

- We do not get a lot of background to this Psalm but Bible students believe that this Psalm of David is making reference to a poor choice he made right at the end of his life…where he numbered the people of Israel…you can read about that in both 2 Samuel 24 and 1 Chron 21…

- That was step a king took to assess his military might…and in this case what and why David did it was sinful…

- through a prophet, God came to him and gave him three choices…7 years of famine, 3 months fleeing from his enemies, or 3 days of pestilence…

-David’s response was…

- 2 Samuel 24:14 - “I am in great distress. Let us now fall into the hand of the Lord for His mercies are great, but do not let me fall into the hand of man.”

- so there was a plague of judgement on Israel because of David’s sin and many died from the plague…but David prayed and the Lord withheld his judgement.

-now, with that background in mind…please listen carefully to the worship song David wrote because of this experience…

READ PSALM 30

¹I will extol You, O Lord, for You have lifted me up, And have not let my enemies rejoice over me.

²O Lord my God, I cried to You for help, and You healed me.

³O Lord, You have brought up my soul from Sheol; You have kept me alive, that I would not go down to the pit.

⁴Sing praise to the Lord, you His godly ones, And give thanks to His holy name.

⁵For His anger is but for a moment, His favor is for a lifetime; Weeping may last for the night, But a shout of joy comes in the morning.

⁶Now as for me, I said in my prosperity, “I will never be moved.”

⁷O Lord, by Your favor You have made my mountain to stand strong; You hid Your face, I was dismayed.

⁸To You, O Lord, I called, And to the Lord I made supplication:

⁹“What profit is there in my blood, if I go down to the pit? Will the dust praise You? Will it declare Your faithfulness?

¹⁰“Hear, O Lord, and be gracious to me; O Lord, be my helper.”

¹¹You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; You have loosed my sackcloth and girded me with gladness,

¹²That my soul may sing praise to You and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks to You forever.

This morning as part of our annual theme of Growing in Gospel Gratitude we will be talking about how the Lord is Creating a Thankful People Through Deliverance.

God wants us to see Three reasons you can be thankful through seasons of sorrow.

Some seasons in life are sadder than others, and that cloud of heaviness seems to follow you wherever you go.

Even in our church family there are many families walking through deep valleys.

Whether it’s the loss of a loved one.

Challenging situations for family members.

Serious cancer diagnosis.

I am sure that we can all think of someone that we know, or even are the ones that have gone through something like that.

Yet, we know that when sickness or difficult circumstances come, we can still be thankful…

I. Because the Lord can rescue from sickness and circumstances (v.1-3)

Physical sickness can put us in a place so we can no longer depend on ourselves.

We are so weak. You feel like you can’t eat, open your eyes, move…

We are helpless and we must look to others who will lift us up and carry us to bed or carry us to the bathroom.

David gives thanks and worships the Lord because he has found the best helper…

“I will exalt You, Lord, for You have lifted me up,
And have not let my enemies rejoice over me.
Lord my God,
I cried to You for help, and You healed me.

Lord, You have brought up my soul from Sheol;
You have kept me alive, that I would not go down to the pit.” (v.1-3)

David describes his affliction like a near death experience. He was helpless so he had to cry out to God for help and God chose to heal him.

David praises God for his physical healing from his near-death experience, like a bucket of water being drawn up from a well, the Lord brought up David and rescued him from the watery realm of the dead, Sheol.

I chose my words carefully. This Psalm reveals that God CAN if he so chooses to deliver us from circumstances and sickness during this life, and when he chooses, we can praise and thank the Lord.

God does not choose to always deliver from the momentary sicknesses and circumstances of this life. For example, even in 2 Samuel 24, we read that 70,000 people died from the plague that God sent on Israel, but David was delivered when he cried to the Lord, even when consequences for David were because of his sin.

So just because God chooses to deliver someone from challenges or sickness in life is not necessarily because that person is better or has more faith than another.

We know that our God is in the heavens and does as he pleases. We should be thankful for whatever the outcome.

But when God chooses to deliver us, we should be overwhelmed with thankfulness and praise for momentary physical healing just as David.

And how much more can we be thankful for the ultimate deliverance that God provides for his people.

We know with certainty that because Christ experienced death and was lifted from the realm of the dead, conquering death by his power, that we can be thankful that whoever believes in Jesus Christ will be lifted with Christ in the heavenly places.

For Christians, we can always be thankful for the deliverance that God provides. If he chooses not to provide a momentary deliverance from the sickness or circumstances during this life, we are promised final or ultimate rescue and deliverance from sin and death through Christ.

In Christ we find the ultimate rescue…

In Christ we find ultimate deliverance…

Because no matter what we are facing in this life we know that we will be delivered from it on that final day!

So, ultimately, we can see that, as we face these difficult circumstances, and as we seek deliverance, God’s anger is not towards us.

II. Because God’s disposition is favor rather anger toward us (v.4-5)

Let me ask you, in times of struggle, who do you turn to?

When that relationship doesn’t seem to work out the way you had hoped…

When that job that you really wanted didn’t send you an offer…

Or when your spouse seems to be lacking effort in changing the newborn’s diapers…

Do you allow that bitterness to creep in and distort your view of God?

Do you avoid God?

There’s times when we avoid God thinking that He is angry towards us and we decide to turn to someone or something else thinking that we will find comfort, peace, or a helping hand.

Let me encourage you to listen to what David says…

Verse 5 tells us that God’s favor is for a lifetime, and, in contrast, His anger is for a moment.

Why don’t we turn to God, then? Let’s be like David and seek God for deliverance.

And when God chooses to deliver us…

God’s deliverance moves us to sing with others.

When David considers the personal kindness that the Lord showed him in healing his sickness and delivering him, he wants to sing…

I’m not going to sugar-coat this… Sometimes it is difficult to sing or praise God when you have gone through such suffering and hurt, but God’s sweet kindness should lead us to sing praises to Him.

It is when God delivers us from this suffering and shows His favor to us that should make us sing so much more.

Although the journey was tough, the joy breaks through.

And David cannot thank God enough, so he calls his friends and family to praise and thank the Lord with him.

He wants all God’s people to get together and praise the Lord.

“Sing praise to the Lord, you His godly ones,
And praise the mention of His holiness.” (v.4)

Regularly praising the Lord for all the victories and ways we are seeing his favor and kindness toward us as his people is very important.

It strengthens your faith for future trials.

And it also helps you have a right view of God’s character. It’s easy for us to miss all the little moments of favor and God’s goodness toward his people.

Don’t let sickness and circumstances shrink your view of God to the limits of your life.

When we see all that God is doing in each of our lives…

That question, “Why am I not being blessed?” doesn’t hold much weight anymore.

I am blessed in all sorts of ways. God is abundantly kind to his people.

Each Sunday morning, as we gather to worship our God, we experience the blessing of having a loving and caring church family that God has provided.

We also get to experience the joy of celebrating the blessings of our church family that we may not know of when we gather once a year during the Stewardship Celebration.

• Our church family has a stewardship celebration right before Thanksgiving every year. This year it is Sunday November 20^th, it is a night to remember everything we have, every good and perfect gift is from above, and to worship together and praise God for God’s favor toward our church family as we hear testimonies and worship. It’s good for us not to forget. I urge you to be at that event!

We can experience this because Jesus took the complete wrath and anger of God on the cross in my place, so that the favor of God would come to me by faith.

If you do not see God’s favor in your life, let me remind you of this…

It is by God’s favor and kindness alone that we are saved!

That is enough to rejoice in!

This gives us the proper perspective of challenging circumstances and sickness…

when we think that God must be angry at me and that His kindness with me is running out…

We can be thankful…

Because God’s Fatherly discipline is momentary.

Through David’s life God wants to give us perspective.

You and I are tempted to believe that our pain is permanent and God’s disposition is angry toward his people.

For God’s people, His disposition is not anger.

God says that His anger is like the blink of an eye.

Let me remind you what verse 5 says,

“For His anger is but for a moment, (v. 5a)

In today’s society, we sometimes expect things to be quick…

We want fast food… microwavable meals… 5 minute oil changes…

And we forget that God chooses to put us in a microwave when it comes to disciplining His children.

We must have an eternal perspective. Living by faith in God involves us trusting in God who sees our sickness, circumstances, and sin correctly.

Paul says in 2 Cor 4:17: For our momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison.

Paul encourages the church to have a Christ-centered perspective…

• Momentary!…but I am tempted to think this is going to last forever.

• Light!…but I am tempted to think this it’s too heavy, I’m unable to bear it.

• Glory! beyond all comparison…but we think about the present shame, and humiliation and compare this with what I see around me.

• But we must focus not on what we see… that is temporal… but what we can’t see… that is eternal.

The writer of Hebrews describes God’s loving fatherly discipline in similar terms to emphasize the brevity of discipline….

Hebrews 12:11 - ¹¹ For the moment, all discipline seems not to be pleasant, but painful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterward it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.

Or like the Prophet Isaiah mentions how:

“For a brief moment I forsook you,
But with great compassion I will gather you. Isaiah 54:7

We can be thankful during times of loving discipline from the Lord they are momentary…

We can also be thankful…

Because God’s favor is a lifetime

“His favor is for a lifetime;

Weeping may last for the night,
But a shout of joy comes in the morning.” (v. 5b)

There is a time for mourning our sin against God, but the Lord wants to remind us of the sure mercies of Christ.

As Ecclesiastes says…

A time to weep and a time to laugh;
A time to mourn and a time to dance.

Mourning can stop in the morning, because God offers us his forgiveness backed by the blood of Jesus Christ, a once for all sufficient sacrifice to cleanse us and cover us.

The image of weeping associated with God’s discipline is temporarily staying for the night. It’s a guest. Momentary.

I give weeping the guestroom in my house but weeping for past sin is not a permanent resident in my house.

For a Christian, suffering may be present in our lives.

Again, I will not sugar-coat this…

There are times in which we will find ourselves suffering and, yes, mourning and weeping is a necessary part of repentance, but it is not forever because we are filled with joy and gratitude for the good news of Jesus Christ.

Let us not forget that all things work together for the good of those who love God and are called by Him. (Rom. 8)

That includes our suffering, weeping, and mourning.

But our God is a forgiving God. His ways are not our ways, and his thoughts are not our thoughts…he abundantly forgives.

Tomorrow is a new day and God’s mercies are new each morning. God’s lovingkindness is chasing after me as his child.

We might be tempted to wallow in sin and allow our past sins to stay longer and cause you to mourn longer than God intends.

Instead of giving weeping for sin the guest room, you allow mourning for sin to dwell in the master suite of your heart instead of Jesus Christ.

Rather than living your life centered around Christ and his word. You are centered around you and your sin.

Our sin is not greater than Christ’s power, he died once and for all for the sins of the world so that forgiveness is possible. Believe Him.

We can run to Jesus in the night, confessing our sin and in prayer pour out our tears into God’s lap with our sorrows and in the morning at daybreak you can shout with joy like the Psalmist because God provides his answer…

Psalm 103:12 – As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

Maybe you are experiencing some loving discipline from God in your life for sin and you are struggling to know what to do and where to go from here.

• Can I encourage you to reach out to the body of Christ for help?

• Counseling

• Mentoring

• Point man groups

Realize that you do not have to try to figure things out on your own.

There is help and guidance available from Godly people that want you to succeed in your walk with Christ.

What do you think of when you read these words?...

A shout of joy comes in the morning…

When you get out of bed and realize that the back pain is still there… a consequence of the Fall…

When you turn to your spouse and suddenly remember that thing they did or did not do… a consequence of the Fall…

When you think of the way that you sinned against your Creator the day before… a consequence of the Fall…

Does that bring you joy? Of course not!

How horrible it is for us to wake up in the morning still mourning for sin and living like the favor and kindness that God makes possible through Jesus never happened.

The only way to experience this kind of joy that David is talking about is through genuine repentance, believing in Jesus Christ, and forsaking your sin.

Proverbs 28:13 – He who conceals his transgression will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will find compassion.

When we experience seasons of sadness associated with our sin, we can be thankful that God’s disposition toward his people is favor rather than anger.

If you are struggling with understanding or believing this, lets look at the final reason that we can be thankful…

III. Because God’s kindness changes your sadness for joy (v.6-12)

This is the part of the song that David laments the problem we all struggle with…

He laments his pride. It’s a warning to…

A. Beware the sorrow of self-sufficiency.

When we believe the lie that we are self-made instead of God-made.

Independent of God instead of dependent on God

We should be prepared for the Lord to lovingly humble us and discipline us.

This is why David proclaims…

^“Now as for me, I said in my prosperity,
“I will never be moved.”
O Lord, by Your favor You have made my mountain to stand strong;
You hid Your face, I was dismayed.” (v.6-7)

We can relate to this experience. When great success makes us feel untouchable, fearless, and unwavering.

In verse 7 we are reminded it was God’s kindness that established David and gave him security and blessing.

Now, David provides a warning in verse 7…“You hid Your face, I was dismayed.”

Notice, God removes his kindness and blessing “hides his face temporarily” and David is dismayed. David is now the fearful one compared to earlier in verse 6 that he was boasting as the fearless one.

There is unique joy and thankfulness that we experience as Christians when we are living dependently on the Lord as you see the Lord work through the church, others, and answered prayers.

And there is a unique sorrow that the self-sufficient experience, when they come to realize that there are certain circumstances that they don’t have the power or control to fix with all their effort and money at their disposal, and they try to turn to themselves but see themselves not have what is needed.

Remember Pastor Brent’s sermon…

This is when we think that fear, anxiety, and worry tied to what we believe provide us with security. When in reality they are causing us to be ungrateful and dependent on ourselves.

Like David, we might be depending too much on our work performance, our family, our health for stability.

And God disciplines us in love to lead us to depend more on the Lord instead of other sources of strength for stability.

We should be thankful for this because God wants to provide a better foundation for gratitude.

When God removes the false security that David was depending on, David turns to God and sees only the Lord is worthy to trust and depend on.

The Lord is his helper.

And we are grateful that He is our helper.

Therefore…

B. Be grateful that the Lord hears your prayers and forgives the broken hearted.

To You, O Lord, I called,
And to the Lord I made supplication:
“What profit is there in my blood, if I go down to the pit?
Will the dust praise You? Will it declare Your faithfulness?

“Hear, O Lord, and be gracious to me;
O Lord, be my helper.” (v. 8-10)

We can be thankful our God is gracious.

He is a helper to the weak.

He is a God who draws near to the broken hearted.

He is a God who lifts up those crushed in Spirit.

Does your prayer life reflect this view of God?

Do you fear coming before God?

There is no sin or suffering that you have that is too big for God to handle.

Pray to the Lord, cast your cares on him because he cares for you.

And lastly,

C. Give thanks that you can be clothed with gladness from God.

This song ends with joy and thanksgiving. God completely changed David from sadness to gladness.

Mourning for suffering and sin is exchanged with joy that comes from God because of his grace.

God’s favor toward us can help us get off the ground from bending our bodies in sorrow to swaying our hips and spinning with joy.

^“You have turned for me my mourning into dancing;
You have loosed my sackcloth and girded me with gladness,
^“That my soul may sing praise to You and not be silent.
O Lord my God, I will give thanks to You forever.” (v.11-12)

David also describes God’s deliverance is like changing clothes.

David is clothed with gladness in place of grief because he is a recipient of God’s favor…

Brothers and sisters, we know that we are all clothed in something better than a tuxedo or ballroom dress…

It is not something that you rent temporarily or something that has to be returned after wearing it once…

It is not something that only covers our exterior…

It is the joy of being made new and dressed in the righteousness of Christ.

That is eternal and cannot be taken away!

Galatians 3:27 – For all of you were baptized into Christ have clothed yourself with Christ.

This kind of gratitude and joy only comes from experiencing the grace of our God.

We have been focusing on Gospel Gratitude this year.

David models thankfulness that God brings because of his deliverance.

This is the joy that God promised to his people because of the good news of the coming of the Messiah.

Remember what Isaiah wrote about our Savior…in Isaiah 61:1-3

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
Because the Lord has anointed me
To bring good news to the afflicted;
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
…. To comfort all who mourn,
To grant those who mourn in Zion,
Giving them a garland instead of ashes,
The oil of gladness instead of mourning,
The mantle of praise instead of a spirit of fainting.

David said ^“That my soul may sing praise to You and not be silent.”

The Lord’s deliverance did not make David silent toward God even though he experienced loving discipline.

Similarly Jesus promised his disciples that they will weep and lament…but joy is coming…

John 16:20-21 - Truly, truly, I say to you, that you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice; you will grieve, but your grief will be turned into joy… Therefore you too have grief now; but I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you.

Can we shout out…

O Lord my God, we will give thanks to You forever. Even in seasons of sickness, difficult circumstances, and discipline

1) Because you are a God who can rescue,

2) you are disposed toward us with favor, and

3) you change our sadness for joy.

As the worship team comes back up to lead us to practice this very joy that we are talking about by shouting out with joy and singing together that our God has the victory…

And that it is through that victory that we can sing that Jesus is mine and I am His and nothing can separate us from Him.