Sovereign Grace Baptist Church

Free Grace Media

Of Princeton, New Jersey

 

AuthorClay Curtis
TitleWhy the Lord Waited
Bible TextPsalm 40:1-17
Synopsis If the LORD has made you truly call upon him, as you patiently wait on the LORD, the LORD will hear and do all these things for you because the Lord Jesus patiently waited and was heard. Listen
Date09-Dec-2018
Article Type Sermon Notes
PDF Format pdf
Word Format doc
Audio HI-FI Listen: Why the Lord Waited (32 kbps)
Audio CD Quality Listen: Why the Lord Waited (128 kbps)
Length 41 min.
 

Series: Psalms
Title: Why the LORD Waited
Text: Psalm 40: 1-17
Date: November 4, 2018
Place: SGBC, NJ

Is there a sinner present who truly has a heart to cry unto the LORD?  I can assure you from God’s word in Psalm 40 that God will hear and save you.  Whether you are a sinner calling on the LORD for the first time or whether you are sinner born of God calling on the LORD to strengthen you in trial, I assure you that if you cry unto him with a true heart, the LORD will hear.  The reason we know the LORD will hear is because the LORD heard Christ when he cried.

Psalm 40 are the words of our Lord Jesus Christ.  We recognize verses 6-8 as being those of our Lord Jesus Christ, “Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire; mine ears hast thou opened: burnt offering and sin offering hast thou not required. Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart”  (Heb 10: 5-10). The Hebrew writer tells us these are the words of Christ.  Now, listen to what our Lord Jesus declares that he experienced when he served God in this earth as our Substitute.

Psalm 40: 1: I waited patiently for the LORD; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry. 2: He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings. 3: And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God: many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the LORD.  

Proposition: If the LORD has made you truly call upon him, as you patiently wait on the LORD, the LORD will hear and do all these things for you because the Lord Jesus patiently waited and was heard.

Subject: Why the Lord Waited

 

Divisions: 1) Why Christ was patiently waiting 2) What Christ manifested by patiently waiting 3) What our Substitute endured as he patiently waited 4) What he accomplished by patiently waiting 5) His word to you who believe

WHY CHRIST PATIENTLY WAITED

Psalm 40: 1: I waited patiently for the LORD….6: Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire; mine ears hast thou opened: burnt offering and sin offering hast thou not required. 7: Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me, 8: I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart.

The Son of God was sent forth by God his Father as the Head of his sinful people.  Christ came forth to do the will of God.  He came forth to be God’s obedient servant as he represented his people.  Therefore, “patiently waiting” upon the LORD was necessary for Christ to do the will of God.

Due to our fall into sin, not one of God’s elect has ever done the will of God from a holy heart, without sin.  If we wait, which we never do without sin, then we wait impatiently.  One of the chief sins of our heart is not being content with God’s timing.  In our hearts, we do not wait.  We are full of discontent.  It is our sinful nature to want things to come in our timing rather than God’s.  If God has made us honest we will admit this is true.

Therefore, it was necessary that the Son of God take flesh like unto his brethren and do the will of God on our behalf.  Patiently waiting” upon God his Father was not only necessary, it was the very character of our Lord Jesus as he walked this earth.  His “patient waiting” on the LORD God his Father shows us that he fully obeyed the Father, perfectly believing and trusting the Father to do what was just.  And Christ trusted the Father to do it at the right time, his time. 

Christ “patiently waited” in the sure hope and firm expectation of his Father’s help and assistance.  He never once murmured with discontent in his heart, not even while he suffered on the cross!  The perfect Lord Jesus was never impatient in heart.  He waited in faith, in hope, in resignation, and in confidence that God would help him and deliver him in God’s time.

Brethren, how amazing that the Son of God loved his Father and loved his brethren so much that he took flesh like ours to serve God on our behalf!  Think on this.  He was willingly brought into such severe trial that our Substitute had to cry out to God in faith then “patiently wait” to receive the Father’s help the same as his helpless people cry and then wait on the LORD.  He willingly put himself in that place of his people.  And it was necessary for Christ to wait, without sin, that he might fulfill the will of God. 

In order that he might be the perfect obedient servant in whom his people are made perfectly obedient, Christ had to “patiently wait” on God his Father with no sin of impatience or discontent.  By the which will”—by Christ’s will fulfilling God the Father’s will—"we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” (Heb 10:10).

Brethren let us ask for more grace that we might “patiently wait” upon the LORD.  His time is the right time.  May God give us grace to say from a pure heart, “My times are in thy hand: deliver me from the hand of mine enemies, and from them that persecute me.”  And knowing our times are in his hand, let us “patiently wait” upon the LORD to save us in his time rather than our time.

WHAT CHRIST MANIFEST BY PATIENTLY WAITING

Psalm 40: 9: I have preached righteousness in the great congregation: lo, I have not refrained my lips, O LORD, thou knowest. 10: I have not hid thy righteousness within my heart; I have declared thy faithfulness and thy salvation: I have not concealed thy lovingkindness and thy truth from the great congregation.

The Son of God manifest, in his body, the invisible God.  He came to manifest God’s faithfulness and lovingkindness, as well as God’s righteousness and truth.  In Christ is the fulness of the Godhead bodily. 

God’s faithfulness could never be manifest by impatience.  God’s lovingkindess could not have been manifest had Christ been impatient with his disciples who, when he was accused and suffering, ran away rather than stand with him.  Mercy and truth could not have kissed in harmony, declaring God just and Justifier, had Christ impatiently come down off the cross one second before justice was satisfied.  Our sins could never have been expiated and God propitiated had not our Substitute “patiently waited” upon God until justice was satisfied.  Only perfect obedience could satisfy the Law of God.  Only perfect “patient waiting” could put away our sins.

Therefore, our Savior never resisted the Father’s will.  He prayed “Not as I will but as thou wilt.”  He never impatiently resisted the crown of thorns or the lashings or the nails driven into his body—not even when he bore being forsaken of God. 

WHAT CHRIST ENDURED AS HE PATIENTLY WAITED

Psalm 40: 11: Withhold not thou thy tender mercies from me, O LORD: let thy lovingkindness and thy truth continually preserve me. 12: For innumerable evils have compassed me about: mine iniquities have taken hold upon me, so that I am not able to look up; they are more than the hairs of mine head: therefore my heart faileth me.

 

Believer, have your iniquities ever caused  you to not be able to look up?  Christ was touched with the feeling of our infirmities, yet he never sinned.  He knows the conscious feeling of our iniquities as well as God’s chastening hand.  Yet, through both, he “patiently waited” without sin.

In the garden of Gethsemane, God’s obedient servant experienced the weakness of our flesh.  He sweat great drops of blood as he faced being made sin for us.  Yet, he “patiently waited.  He endured soul agony in the garden, resisting sin unto blood, crying, “Not my will but thine be done!”

At the hands of men “innumerable evils compassed him about.”  He endured the trial of cruel mockings before Herod and Pilate.  Our Substitute bore them spitting in his face, plucking out the hairs of his beard, and lashing him with whips filled with bone as they scourged him.  Yet he “patiently waited.  The Spirit of God says “as a lamb before her shearers is dumb so he opened not his mouth.”

Oh, then he manifest the greatest of all patience in waiting when the LORD laid on him the iniquities of all his people so that holy justice forsook him on the cross. Christ experienced the weakness of our flesh in those three hours of darkness.  Having become the one sin-bearer to whom the law looked, the one Head representing all his sinful elect members, he said, "mine iniquities have taken hold upon me, so that I am not able to look up; therefore my heart faileth me.”  This was that “horrible pit and miry clay” our Savior was cast into and endured.  Yet, through all these evils, Christ “patiently waited” without a trace of the sin of discontent or impatience. 

WHAT CHRIST ACCOMPLISHED BY PATIENTLY WAITING

Psalm 40: 13: Be pleased, O LORD, to deliver me: O LORD, make haste to help me. 14: Let them be ashamed and confounded together that seek after my soul to destroy it; let them be driven backward and put to shame that wish me evil. 15: Let them be desolate for a reward of their shame that say unto me, Aha, aha. 16: Let all those that seek thee rejoice and be glad in thee: let such as love thy salvation say continually, The LORD be magnified.

Only in Christ crucified do we behold sinless patience in the unparalleled obedience with which our Savior established the law of God for his people.

 Due to his perfect obedience unto death, God the Father gave Christ Jesus his Son what he asked for.  Since he honored the law and justified his people, God was willing to give the GodMan everything he asked for when he asked that his enemies (which are our enemies) be put down.  The Father gave him his petition that his people rejoice and be glad in the LORD.  Christ accomplished conquering all our enemies by “patiently waiting” upon the LORD in perfect obedience, therefore God gives Christ his petition to “let such as love thy salvation say continually, the LORD be magnified.” 

By “patiently waiting” until God’s law was magnified, and his people justified, the Lord Jesus Christ accomplished the salvation of his people so that all his people shall receive that which Christ intercedes for: all God’s elect shall be made to seek him, all shall be made to rejoice and be glad in the LORD; all his people shall be brought to love his salvation; and all his people shall be made to “say continually, The LORD be magnified.”  This Christ accomplished for us by “patiently waiting” upon the LORD.

 

HIS MESSAGE TO US

Psalm 40: 17: But I am poor and needy; yet the Lord thinketh upon me: thou art my help and my deliverer; make no tarrying, O my God.  

Psalm 40: 1: I waited patiently for the LORD; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry. 2: He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings. 3: And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God: many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the LORD.

 

Psalm 40: 4: Blessed is that man that maketh the LORD his trust, and respecteth not the proud, nor such as turn aside to lies.  5: Many, O LORD my God, are thy wonderful works which thou hast done, and thy thoughts which are to us-ward: they cannot be reckoned up in order unto thee: if I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered.

Christ’s state on the cross while forsaken of God for bearing all the sins of all his people was that he was “poor and needy.”   No one has ever been so poor and needy as our forsaken Substitute as he hung between his people and his God.  As he hung there representing his people, Christ gave the Father perfect confession as he said, “But I am poor and needy.”  He gave the Father perfect faith and perfect praise with this confidence, “Yet the Lord thinketh upon me: thou art my help and my deliverer; make no tarrying, O my God.”

Now, if we would hear Christ’s message to you and I who believe, we must go back to the first verse of the Psalm.  Beginning in verse 1, we hear Christ declare what he did and what God the Father did for him as he hung poor and needy on the cross.

What did Christ do?  He said, “I waited patiently for the LORD.”  He honored and glorified God his Father with perfect resignation to the LORD’s will.  As he did so, Christ prayed and supplicated God with the words of this Psalm. 

And what did God the Father do for Christ? “And he inclined unto me, and heard my cry.”  We have the new testament commentary on this verse in Hebrews 5:7-9:

Hebrews 5: 7: Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared; 8: Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered; 9  And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him;

Christ was heard by the Father.  Though a Son, Christ learned—experienced and perfected—obedience by that which he suffered.  Now Christ is the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him.  He obeyed the Father by patiently waiting on his Father in faith.  Now, he teaches you and I to obey him by patiently waiting on him by faith, casting all our care upon him who cares for all his people.  Our perfection in righteousness before God is by and in Christ who is the Author and Finisher of our faith.

Christ declares what God the Father did for him when the Father heard his cry, “He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings.” We see it when in Gethsemane, the LORD sent an angel strengthening him.  Then we see it on the third day when the LORD raised Christ from the dead to newness of life and he walked out of the tomb.  But above all, we see it in how God has raised the glorified GodMan to sit at God’s right hand, and his people in him.  All of this was given our Savior because he “patiently waited” in perfect faith and fidelity to God until justice was satisfied!

Christ said the Father also did something else, “And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God.”  Right now, through the gospel, Christ is in the midst of the great congregation, teaching us to sing this new song, even praise unto our God.  As it is written, “I will declare thy name unto my brethren, in the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee” (Heb 2: 12). Christ puts this new song in the mouth of all his redeemed through the Holy Spirit in the new birth when he brings us to faith in Christ.  He puts this new song in our mouth each time we hear the gospel preached and Christ makes is effectual in our hearts.

Christ declares “many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the LORD.”  He shall make all his people see; he shall give all his redeemed a new heart of reverence; and each one shall trust in the LORD by his gift of faith.  All of this is due to our Savior “patiently waiting” upon the LORD. 

So here is our Master’s message to his people"Blessed is that man that maketh the LORD his trust, and respecteth not the proud, nor such as turn aside to lies.”

Brethren, our Redeemer’s work is done.  He is seated at God’s right hand on the firm ground of his accomplished redemption.  He can never suffer again.  He forever reigns in glory.  And all who he brings to rest in him are seated there in him, never again to suffer, forever reigning with him.  If you would be happy then put all your trust in Christ Jesus and pay no mind to those who trust in man.  Christ’s message to you and I who believe by his grace is patiently wait upon the LORD.

Hebrews 11: 1: Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, 2: Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3: For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds. 4: Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin.” (Heb 11: 1-4)

Since the works God has worked for us in Christ are wonderful to the eye of faith and we behold that all God’s thoughts toward us are thoughts of peace, all who wait on the LORD glorify God, crying with joy, “Many, O LORD my God, are thy wonderful works which thou hast done, and thy thoughts which are to us-ward: they cannot be reckoned up in order unto thee: if I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered.”

Amen!