Middlebelt Baptist Church
January 11, 2026
  • Song

      • Psalm 100:1–5NLT

  • Chasing After You
  • O Come to the Altar

      • Psalm 40:1–3NASB95

  • Fill Me Up / Overflow

      • 2 Corinthians 6:2bESV

  • Psalm 40:1–3 CSB
    1 I waited patiently for the Lord, and he turned to me and heard my cry for help. 2 He brought me up from a desolate pit, out of the muddy clay, and set my feet on a rock, making my steps secure. 3 He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see and fear, and they will trust in the Lord.

    Intro:

    2 Reasons folks fall in the pit
    Spiritual Warfare
    Personal or Collective Sin
    This week we are going to talk about falling in the pit as you experience trials from being a child of God! Next week we are going to talk about falling into the pit because of individual or collective sins
    In 2016 when I was hired I asked the interview team “what is the state of the church” are you in the ICU or are you on life support. They all answered emphatically “we are on life support”
    After being hired the Lord started to take some of the most involved people in our church home to be with him.
    MBC in the last 7 years have had 35 funerals which is about 20-25% of our church body. It would be more if I took it back to my first year at MBC. A lot of these folks were critical to the spiritual success of MBC. We have lost several more families to attrition. Just leaving for different reason. Those loses take their toll, because these are people that have become closer than family in some cases.
    We weathered a Global Pandemic that effected churches all over the world.
    And that’s where we are. Individually when I scanned the room several members have lost multiple family members in the last several years. Members have experienced deep lost.
    Saints in 2022 until recently my family personally was under attack.
    Saints these things take a toll. When enough of these things happen at the same time during the same season they can slow you down to a halt. Where from one day to the next you are just in survival mode. Listen to the OT saints describes this!!!
    Job 6:1–4 CSB
    1 Then Job answered: 2 If only my grief could be weighed and my devastation placed with it on the scales. 3 For then it would outweigh the sand of the seas! That is why my words are rash. 4 Surely the arrows of the Almighty have pierced me; my spirit drinks their poison. God’s terrors are arrayed against me.
    Deuteronomy 34:5–8 CSB
    5 So Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, according to the Lord’s word. 6 He buried him in the valley in the land of Moab facing Beth-peor, and no one to this day knows where his grave is. 7 Moses was one hundred twenty years old when he died; his eyes were not weak, and his vitality had not left him. 8 The Israelites wept for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days. Then the days of weeping and mourning for Moses came to an end.
    Psalm 13:2 CSB
    2 How long will I store up anxious concerns within me, agony in my mind every day? How long will my enemy dominate me?
    Psalm 69:1–3 CSB
    1 Save me, God, for the water has risen to my neck. 2 I have sunk in deep mud, and there is no footing; I have come into deep water, and a flood sweeps over me. 3 I am weary from my crying; my throat is parched. My eyes fail, looking for my God.
    Psalm 69:29 CSB
    29 But as for me—poor and in pain— let your salvation protect me, God.
    Psalm 102:7–9 CSB
    7 I stay awake; I am like a solitary bird on a roof. 8 My enemies taunt me all day long; they ridicule and use my name as a curse. 9 I eat ashes like bread and mingle my drinks with tears
    Psalm 109:22 CSB
    22 For I am suffering and needy; my heart is wounded within me
    Even our Lord fell into some deep emotional pain: in Matthew 26:38
    Matthew 26:38 CSB
    38 He said to them, “I am deeply grieved to the point of death. Remain here and stay awake with me.”
    Always: Moving from surviving to thriving happens when we continue to reach/pray and depend of God. When we are surviving God is stretching our faith!

    I. He Hears

    Psalm 40:1 CSB
    1 I waited patiently for the Lord, and he turned to me and heard my cry for help
    (EXP)(1) “I waited patiently” David describes his process. David tells us in his pain and despair he waited on God. This “waiting on God” conveys the idea of a consistent long-term rest on the promise of God despite your personal situation not changing. This waiting also conveys that during the waiting David was praying and still living a holy life. David understood although I am in a rough situation and my life is in despair I still need to maintain my faithfulness to God.
    Principle: God’s silence is not a license to sin or take over the wheel of your life.
    (1) “and he turned to me” That word “turn” means to stretch, bend down, or incline. The NASB uses the term “inclined” David is trying to describe metaphorically what it looks like when you been praying for something living in despair and depression beginning to believe that God has forgotten you or that he does not care about you are going through. David says at just the right time God will bend down and give you all of his attention, as if it is only you and him in the room.
    A profound loss of hope is a central feature and often considered a root cause or major factor in anxiety, despair, and depression, as it involves believing the future is bleak and nothing will improve, leading to paralysis, low motivation and a sense of being trapped.
    (1) David in this phrase is offering “Hope” God’s silence feels like “apathy” but God’s silence from a sanctification point of view is God training process. The only way to grow faith is to put pressure on it. Faith is like pizza dough it needs to be stretched. They way God stretches faith is through his silence.
    Principle: God is acutely aware of your situation even when there seems to be no spiritual activity going on in your life.
    This metaphor David uses is that of a father bending to and coming closer to hear the quiet voice of his little child, so that he can meet the need.
    Its one thing to hear, but it is another to act

    II. He Rescues

    Psalm 40:2 CSB
    2 He brought me up from a desolate pit, out of the muddy clay, and set my feet on a rock, making my steps secure.
    (EXP)(2) “He brought me up from a desolate pit” David is using this language again metaphorically because in the narratives we have David was never stuck in a literal “pit”. David life kind be put into 4 stages:
    Stage I-Calling and Killing of Goliath(Joy & Victory)
    Stage II. Running from Saul(Survival mode)
    Stage III. Coronation and Establishment of the Kingdom
    Stage IV. Sin with Bathsheba & Destruction of his lineage.
    Death
    (2) This 40th Psalm is the closing of the first set of the Psalm. Most believe this is a Psalm describing the ending of Stage II and the beginning of stage III. Saul has Died David does not need to run anymore.
    1 Samuel 27:1–3 CSB
    1 David said to himself, “One of these days I’ll be swept away by Saul. There is nothing better for me than to escape immediately to the land of the Philistines. Then Saul will give up searching for me everywhere in Israel, and I’ll escape from him.” 2 So David set out with his six hundred men and went over to Achish son of Maoch, the king of Gath. 3 David and his men stayed with Achish in Gath. Each man had his family with him, and David had his two wives: Ahinoam of Jezreel and Abigail of Carmel, Nabal’s widow.
    (2) David is describing being relieve of the constant threat of being hunted by the King of Israel, Saul. The pain the despair the hurt. You need to remember David is being hunted by his father-in-law. David after whipping Goliath was given Saul’s daughter Michal.
    (2) David has been under tremendous physical, emotional and spiritual duress. He describe this duress like that of being in a “desolate pit” desolate means alone. David says I feel like I am alone in a pit. If that wasn’t enough he then says inside the pit it felt like I was “sinking in muddy clay” David says I lost my footing, it always feels like I am slipping, sinking or falling. The death’s, betrayal’s, the pain is causing me to feel like I am in quick sand!
    When you are at this point it is very hard to get things accomplished in your life, it’s hard to focus on your purpose, it’s hard to take steps forward. Often you are just trying to get your footing from day-to-day. There are season in your life “when you are trying to survive. You are holding on for you life!” Sometimes this is individual, sometimes it effect a whole family, sometimes it effects a whole church. We will call this collective despair, and depression.
    David was not alone he had a band of soldiers with him about 500 strong. They all were going through the same things as David because they were all fugitives.
    Principle: During times of despair when you are holding on for dear life it is feels like from day to day you are just surviving is often when your faith is being developed the most. In the physical world you may not have accomplished a lot but spiritually you have grown tremendously. EXAMPLE: Job when from respected aristocrat to beggar outside the city gates. All he could do from day to day is scrap his boils. No work, no fellowship, no new projects just sit outside the city gates and scrap his sores. Yet spiritually he was being developed.
    What does God do for David as he feels himself sinking?
    Psalm 40:2 CSB
    2 He brought me up from a desolate pit, out of the muddy clay, and set my feet on a rock, making my steps secure.
    (2) “He set my feet on a rock, making my steps secure” Oh saints this what we all long for stability. God gave him stability. David said he stopped my from sinking. David said he took me out of the mud. David said he put my on a rock. David said he then reestablished my pathway! David says I know where I’m going now!! My steps are secure. When you are steps are secure you can move mountains.
    How does God secure our steps?
    God could just give you a word in church that encourages you to know he is with you and you leave church confident though your situation has not changed.
    God could send you financial blessing that gives you some hope
    God could open up the door for a job
    God could get you submit to therapy and through that release the chains of depression and despair from your mind so that you can be free!!!!.
    For some of us our depression and despair is related to offenses committed against us that we have not been able to forgive and that has thrown us into the miry clay of bitterness.
    God why is life so hard especially for the believer? It seems as if the closer you get to God the cost of following him rises?
    Glad you asked this question

    III. He Uses

    Psalm 40:3 CSB
    3 He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see and fear, and they will trust in the Lord.
    (EXP)(3) “He put a new song in my mouth” David says prior to this I could not write any music. I just sat at a table with a pen and paper but nothing came out, but when the Lord go hold of me. He started singing again. I started shouting again. I started dancing again! What come out was “a hymn of praise to our God” He gave me understanding. He help me to see the bigger picture!!!
    What’s the bigger picture?
    (3) “Many will see and fear, and they will trust in the Lord” Our Faith is most visible when it is stretched! Look at the Lord. The Lord has an objective the outweighs our despair, depression and our pain. That is his own glory. That might sound selfish. And that would be for any of us, because we aren’t God. God has the right to satisfy himself through our struggles. What brings God satisfaction but to see others come to the knowledge of him.
    (3) Every trial we go through individually and corporately is redemptive in nature. God is using it for his glory and to advance his agenda!!!!
    Saints listen to Paul in 2 Corinthians 1:3-6
    2 Corinthians 1:3–6 CSB
    3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort. 4 He comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any kind of affliction, through the comfort we ourselves receive from God. 5 For just as the sufferings of Christ overflow to us, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. 6 If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation. If we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings that we suffer.
    Paul says God meets us in our affliction so that we could be touch with the comfort that we are to now extend to someone else!!!
    For what purpose?
    (6) For your comfort and salvation!
    You see how this connects to David in Psalm 40 he says “Many will see how the Lord pulled me out of the pit!” and secured my footsteps. Then they would see God in the process and God’s kingdom would be extended!
    Open the doors of the church

      • Psalm 40:1–3NLT

      • Job 6:1–4NLT

      • Deuteronomy 34:5–8NLT

      • Psalm 13:2NLT

      • Psalm 69:1–3NLT

      • Psalm 69:29NLT

      • Psalm 102:7–9NLT

      • Psalm 109:22NLT

      • Matthew 26:38NLT

      • Psalm 40:1NLT

      • Psalm 40:2NLT

      • 1 Samuel 27:1–3NLT

      • Psalm 40:2NLT

      • Psalm 40:3NLT

      • 2 Corinthians 1:3–6NLT

Middlebelt Baptist Church
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