Psalm 40, A Song for the Waiting. Pam Larson, February 24, 2021

Psalm 40 … A Song for the Waiting

Because God’s faithfulness and steadfast love is rock solid, remember His past grace, praise Him and point others to trust in Him, and prayerfully wait with confident hope for more grace in the future.

1. Past grace 

• Waited: God’s merciful rescue (1-3) (5 consecutive past actions)

2. Our responses (some present tense, some past)

• Praising: A New Song (3)
  
• Trusting: God’s multiplied blessings (4-5) 
• Obeying: Our response to God (6-10)
• Proclaiming and declaring: (9-10)

    3. Present plea/prayer (11-17)

• Preserving: His appeal to God’s character. (11)
  
• Admitting: His failure (12)
  
• Pleading: His cries for God’s help (13-15)

The rock bottom foundation of our forgiveness and our fearlessness and our joy is the commitment that God has to his own great name. First, he is committed to act for his own name’s sake. And then, for that reason, he is committed to act for his people. (John Piper)

4. Future waiting with confident hope (16-17)

“God’s grace is ever cascading over the waterfall of the present from the inexhaustible river of grace coming to us from the future into the ever-increasing reservoir of grace in the past. In the next five minutes, you will receive sustaining grace flowing to you from the future, and you will accumulate another five minutes’ worth of grace in the reservoir of the past.” (John Piper)