This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

(upbeat music) Welcome to day five, our last day this week of looking through
Psalm 36 to 40, Psalm 40 today. Psalm 40 is an interesting Psalm. It begins by
saying, "I waited patiently.

" And it ends by saying, "Do not delay. " Isn't that perfect for how you and I
deal with life? I waited patiently for you, God, but do not delay.

And I want to say to you that it's not that one was right and one was wrong with
David. The truth is there are times when we need both of these attitudes in our
lives. There are times when you need to stop spinning your wheels and wait until
God tells you to act.

Sometimes we're just trying to get it done ourselves. We're spinning our wheels
and we're getting a lot done, it seems like, but the truth is we didn't wait
until God told us what to do. So we're doing the wrong thing.

So I waited patiently. Sometimes we need that in our lives. But other times we
need to stop dragging our feet and do what God's telling us to do, do not delay.

God has already told us what to do, but we're over here saying, "God, I'm
waiting on you. " And God's saying, "No, really, "I'm waiting on you in this
case. "I've told you what to do.

" You need to begin to act. You stop spinning your wheels and you wait until God
tells you to act. And you stop dragging your feet and you do what God's telling
you to do.

Those may sound like opposites, but I want to tell you out of this Psalm that the
life of faith is doing both of those at the same time, waiting and acting at the
same time. Now, some of us are better at waiting. Others are better at acting.

My question is, how do you get better at both? How do you get better at this
balance of waiting and acting and knowing when to wait and knowing when to act?
Because I'm not great at it yet.

I still got a lot to learn about this. But by God's grace, I'm getting a little
better at it. And by God's grace, I believe you can get a little better at it.

None of us are going to ever be perfect at this thing of balancing when do you wait
and when do you act. Even Moses, if you look at the story of the Red Sea, he was
telling the people to wait for God to act when God was telling them to march
towards the Red Sea. Even his greater leader, Moses, got it wrong sometimes.

So we're never going to get this perfect, but I believe we can get it better. I
believe we can be better at waiting on God when we need to be waiting,
listening, but also acting when God has told us to act, being more immediate in
serving him. If we're to do that, there are three things that this Psalm talks
about that we need to balance the waiting and the acting in our lives.

First of all, you need a new security. You need a new kind of security in your
life. The Psalm begins in verse two.

It says, "He lifted me out of a slimy pit, "out of the mud and mire. "He set my
feet on a rock, "and he gave me a firm place to stand. " The slimy pit.

I wonder what the pit is in your life. It could be your own sin. It could be the
ways that you've been hurt.

It could be the ways that life hasn't worked out. It could be something that you
did to yourself or others did to you. Whatever that pit is, you need a rock to
stand on.

Without that security, if we don't have a rock to stand on, we end up standing
on the circumstances of the moment, or we end up standing on the opinion of the
crowd, and they're never going to be able to tell us when to wait and when to act.
Your circumstances can't tell you. The people around you can't tell you.

You need a security that comes from God. You need a rock to stand on. Without
that security, you will end up acting when you should be waiting and waiting
when you should be acting.

So you stand in the security of God's love. In verse 11, David talks about that
security. He says, "Do not withhold your mercy from me, O Lord.

"May your love and your truth always protect me. " God's love and God's truth
are part of that rock of security in your life. And when you're standing on
God's love and God's truth, you're going to know more often, this is the time to
wait.

I need to listen to God right now, or this is the time to act. He's telling me
to move ahead right now. You need a new security.

You need a second thing. You need a new song. You need a new song that can come
only from God.

In verse three, he put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our Lord.
Many will see it and fear and put their trust in the Lord. There are six
specific Psalms that speak about this new song of our Savior, and this is one of
them.

As you're singing this new song, that means you're thinking about the new things
that God wants to do in your life. And the first three verses reminded us that
God lifts us out of the past because of the new things that he wants to do in
our lives. But then here in verse three, he says he put a new song in my mouth.

Now notice, he put that song in my mouth. God wants to give you a song. He wants
to give you a joy.

You have to have security in order to know when to wait and when to act, but you
also have to have a depth of joy. You also have to have this depth of
relationship, joyful relationship with God that recognizes he loves me no matter
what. He's working in my life for his good.

And out of that new song, out of the emotion, the energy of that emotion, you're
going to better know when to wait and when to act. It's a good picture because
waiting and acting is more like a song than a formula. If you think you can get
one plus one equals wait, one plus four equals act, you're never going to get that.

It's not mathematical, it is more like a song. God's singing it into your heart.
And through that song, through that melody that he's singing right now, you're
just hearing, okay, it's time to slow down or it's a time to act immediately
because God sees the need.

In verse five, we're told that one of the keys to singing in this new song is
remembering what God has done. Verse five says, "Many, O Lord my God, are the
wonders you have done. The things you plan for us, no one can recount to you.

Were I to speak and tell of them, they would be too many to declare. " When you
recognize the greatness of what God has done in your life, it helps you to
recognize what God wants to do next in your life. So sometimes when you're not
sure whether to wait, you sing in your heart what God has done before.

You remind yourself of how God has worked before. Not the failures, but the
successes. That's how you're singing it.

If I were to speak and tell of them, they'd be too many to declare. Now I would
say to you that part of the new song we're talking about is singing songs.
Letting other people know by your singing what God is doing in your life.

So if you've been in church and not singing, one of the keys to understanding
what God wants to do next in your life, one of my prescriptions for you is sing
the songs this next week 'cause it will touch your emotions in a way that
nothing else can and help you to understand what God is doing in this season of
your life like nothing else can many times. Even when things are not going
right, God is there to write this new song in your life. He always has a new
song for your life and you sing it to Him recognizing that.

You need a new song, you need a new security, there's a third thing that you
need. You need a new desire. Psalm 40 verses seven and eight.

And then I said, here I am. I have come, it is written about me in the scroll. I
desire to do your will, oh my God.

Your law is within my heart. So in order to know when to wait and when to act,
you have to know what God wants. In order to know what God wants, it begins with
the prayer, we think it begins with the prayer, God, what do you want?

It doesn't. To know what God wants, it begins with the prayer, God, not my will,
but your will be done. God, I want what you want.

To know what God wants, you first have to pray, God, I want what you want. If
you hold things with a closed hand before God, God, here's what I want, I'm
going to get it. Then you're never going to know whether to wait or whether to act.

But if you hold things with an open hand before God, God, it's yours. You can
take out what you want, you can put in what you want. With that open hand, it is
much easier to discern whether to wait or whether to act.

Now, it's interesting as you look at David, as he talks about desire, his desire
was to proclaim God's character. In verses nine and 10, I proclaim righteousness
in the great assembly, he says. I do not seal my lips as you know, O Lord.

I do not hide your righteousness in my heart. I speak of your faithfulness and
salvation. I do not conceal your love and your truth from the great assembly.

David's desire was to let people see who God really is, see God's character. And
God desires that in your life, in the waiting and in the acting, God wants to
proclaim his greatness through your life. Sometimes he proclaims it as you wait,
and you see him show up and do things that are far above and beyond what you
ever expected.

And sometimes he proclaims his greatness as you act, and you see him show up and
motivate you and use your gifts to do far greater things than he expected.
Whether it's waiting or acting, the key is God's greatness is being shown. Now,
I like what G.

Campbell Morgan has said about this. Listen to this quote. He said, "Waiting for
God is not laziness.

Waiting for God is not going to sleep. Waiting for God is not the abandonment of
effort. Waiting for God means, first, activity under command.

Second, readiness for any new command that may come. And third, the ability to
do nothing until that command is given. " That's a pretty good prescription for
prayer.

So let's talk to God about that right now. And God, we come before you and we
just say, that's the way that we want to wait and act. God, we want our activity
to be under your command.

We don't want to do what we desire. We want to do what you desire. So we say
right now, not our will, but your will be done.

And God, we want to be ready for any new command that might come. We've been
doing this for you or doing that for you. Maybe you have a new thing for us to
do.

Open our hearts to that, God. And God, third, we want to have that ability to do
nothing until the command is given. Sometimes when we have to wait, you know, we
want to run ahead.

You've seen us run ahead. And when we do, you love us. But in that moment, God,
I pray you'd bring us back to that place of waiting on your command and then
acting on what you've given to us.

We just say today, Lord, one more time, your will be done. In Jesus' name, amen.
Join us next week.

We're going to continue to look at God's word together and drive time devotions.