Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia | Text: Psalm 40 | Date: June 2, 2024 | Speaker: Fred Zaspel

Today, Psalm 40. I don’t think sermon titles are all that important, but for some reason I always try to get a sermon title that captures the psalm, and this one I really struggled with, and I’ve titled it three or four times now. But whatever we will call it, we could call it something like, In What Does God Delight? Or we might call this psalm A Sacrifice of Praise. But in this psalm, David gives a song of individual grateful praise to God, and then a petition for God’s help. And in a particular kind of way, he points us ahead to the Lord Jesus, as we will see. This is a psalm of David, as you see there.

Psalm 40, I’ll read through the entire psalm. I’ll begin with verse 1:

“I waited patiently for the Lord. He inclined to me and heard my cry. He drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure. He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many will see and fear and put their trust in the Lord. Blessed is the man who makes the Lord his trust, who does not turn to the proud, to those who go astray after a lie. You have multiplied, O Lord my God, your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward us. None can compare with you. I will proclaim and tell of them, yet they are more than can be told. In sacrifice and offerings you have not delighted, but you have given me an open ear. Burnt offering and sin offering you have not required. Then said I, behold, I have come. In the scroll of the book it is written of me. I delight to do your will, O my God. Your law is within my heart. I have told the glad news of deliverance in the great congregation. Behold, I have not restrained my lips, as you know, O Lord. I have not hidden your deliverance within my heart. I have spoken of your faithfulness and your salvation. I have not concealed your steadfast love and your faithfulness from the great congregation. As for you, O Lord, you will not restrain your mercy from me. Your steadfast love and your faithfulness will ever preserve me. For evils have compassed me beyond number. My iniquities have overtaken me and I cannot see. They are more than the hairs of my head. My heart fails me. Be pleased, O Lord, to deliver me. O Lord, make haste to help me. Let those be put to shame and disappointed altogether who seek to snatch away my life. Let those be turned back and brought to dishonor who delight in my hurt. Let those be appalled because of their shame who say to me, Aha! Aha! But may all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you. May those who love your salvation say continually, Great is the Lord! As for me, I am poor and needy, but the Lord takes thought for me. You are my help and my deliverer. Do not delay, O my God.”

Psalm 40 is, in essence, two psalms. That is, it’s a combination of two psalm forms that we’ve been seeing. This is a psalm of grateful praise, but it’s also a petition and lament psalm put together now. We have both of these. Other psalms, by the way, combine the two psalm forms. This one is one that does that.

Praise For Deliverance

So in verses 1 to 8, we have what we have called an individual song of grateful praise. You’ll see that if you look at verses 1 to 4, David addresses the congregation. He gives a report of God’s deliverance in his time of need. Verse 3, he says that God has given me a new song to sing. That’s a new song of grateful praise for some intervention that God has given in answer to David’s prayer.

And in these verses here, David reflects on his need. He reports with praise that God has intervened, he has answered as requested, and he has given David deliverance. And so, verse 4, he exhorts the people to trust God, and they will also find him faithful: “Blessed is the man who makes the Lord his trust, who does not turn to the proud, to those who go astray after a lie.”

And then in verses 5 to 8, he addresses God—verse 5 with praise, and then verses 6 to 8 with his sacrifice of praise for his recent deliverance. We’ll work through this in a minute, but all of these are the standard components of an individual song of grateful praise. He has made a request at some point previous that we’re not told what it was. He has cried out to God for help. God has given that help, and now he writes this psalm in grateful praise for what God has done for him. These are called Thanksgiving Psalms or Psalms of Acknowledgement, where he acknowledged what God has done in words of praise.

Now then, in verse 11, there’s a shift. Here we have an expression of trust or confidence. That’s the “As for you, O Lord, you will not restrain your mercy from me.” This is the mark of a petition lament psalm. Remember, the lament psalms—at the heart of those is a petition asking God for help. And in that, there’s always this component of an expression of trust in God that he will help. We have that in verse 11. Verse 12, we have the lament: “Evils have compassed me beyond number.” Verse 13, we have the petition: “Be pleased, O Lord, to deliver me.” And then verses 16 and 17, we have the expression of hope and praise and confidence. He hopes to give praise to God after a new deliverance has come.

So in verses 1 to 17, we have these two main sections: 1 to 8, praise for deliverance—he looks to the past to see what God has done and give him praise for it. And then verses 9 to 17, he gives a plea for deliverance that God will come now in the present and help him yet again. So in that sense, these are two psalms brought together as one.

All right then, verses 1 to 4, David gives his report of his past deliverance, his testimony of what God has done. “I waited patiently for the Lord. He inclined to me and heard my cry. He drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure. He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many will see and fear and put their trust in the Lord. Blessed is the man who makes the Lord his trust, who does not turn to the proud, to those who go astray after a lie.”

So here’s his grateful praise for God’s past deliverance. He has cried out to God. He doesn’t give us the details of it, but he has cried out to God at some point in the past, and he waited. Verse 1, he waited patiently for the Lord. He inclined to his cry. He has brought the deliverance. Verse 2, drew him up from the pit of destruction. And now, verse 3, he has a new song to sing, a new song of praise, bringing his praise to God up to date, as it were, for praising God for this most recent deliverance.

So what’s the setting of this psalm? Well, we’re not told exactly. All we’re given is general terms. Evidently, this danger that he was facing, that he’s reflecting on, was something that was life-threatening. In verse 2, he calls it the pit of destruction, the miry bog. Obviously, these are poetic expressions, figurative language, but it was some very desperate kind of situation. And then, the end of verse 2, he tells us that deliverance was a wonderful kind of deliverance, because now he’s not only delivered him, but he set his feet on a rock, making his steps secure. And then according to verse 1 where he says, “I waited patiently for the Lord,” evidently this period of threat and danger was an extended period of some kind.

And that’s what we know then about the setting. So many have suggested this was written in reflection on his flight from King Saul. Fits it well. It could well be that. Some have suggested that this was written now at the time of his flight from Jerusalem under the attempted coup by his son Absalom. So he’s reflecting on his previous deliverance from Saul and now the later part of the psalm when he is asking for deliverance, it’s with that in view. It could be that. We’re not given specifics. That does fit it well. But in any case here, he has reported that God has come to him as he called, and he has brought deliverance.

And so, verse 3, now he sings a new song, a song of grateful praise. As we’ve seen before in the Psalms, it was important for David always to bring our praise up to date. We ought to reflect in our songs of praise the recent works of God as well. According to verse 3, the end of the verse, this song of praise is designed also to encourage others to trust in God. “Many will see and fear and put their trust in the Lord.” That is, others will hear of my song, hear my song of deliverance, and be persuaded by that to trust the Lord themselves, be encouraged that because God has delivered me, he will deliver his people, and he is worthy of trust. In fact, verse 4, he tells us that he’s convinced that what God has done for him, he will do for others who trust him as well. “Blessed is the man who makes the Lord his trust.”

So David writes to give praise to God for a deliverance that he has given. He intends by this to encourage others to give their trust to God as he has and says, in effect, God has delivered me and I want to praise him so that others will hear it and in turn trust him also. Now, I don’t think it’s over-reading these verses too much, at least, to say that it sounds a lot like your testimony and mine. This is essentially what we sing with our hearts open to the recognition of our sin and the danger that was facing us of God’s judgment. We sing now, “I waited patiently for the Lord. He inclined to me and heard my cry. He drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure. He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God.” And our message to others is, verse 4, “Blessed is the man who makes the Lord his trust.”

Well, David is looking back on that, offering praise and encouraging others then to trust as he has, and God vindicated that trust in bringing deliverance. Now in verse 5, verses 5 to 8, David turns from the congregation to address God himself. Verse 5, David summarizes his grateful praise: “You have multiplied, O Lord my God, your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward us. None can compare with you.” You’ve multiplied your wondrous deeds. You’ve done more than I’ve ever imagined.

Two Pledges

And then at the end of verse 5 and then through verse 8, David makes two pledges. Two pledges to God in response to God’s deliverance. First of all, “I will proclaim and tell of them, yet they are more than can be told.” And then, “In sacrifice and offerings you have not delighted, but you have given me an open ear. Burnt offerings and sin offerings you have not required. Then I said, behold, I have come. In the scroll of the book it is written of me. I delight to do your will, O my God. Your law is within my heart.”

So at the end of verse 5 now, he says, “I will proclaim God’s faithfulness to the congregation. I’ll proclaim and tell of them,” he says, “yet they are more than can be told.” And the reference here is what we’ve seen so often with regard to these individual songs of grateful praise. In the Mosaic law, there was provided for these occasions that you could come to the house of God, offer a sacrifice of praise, and it was a community event, and there’d be a community meal, and God’s people would be singing then these songs together in praise of God. So this was an event when public praise—this is why it’s called a Psalm of Acknowledgement or a Psalm of individual grateful praise—they are hearing of God’s deliverance, and he is proclaiming it to the congregation and all of them here.

Now, one part of that ritual, when you go to the house of God, offer the sacrifices, have the meal, one part of that was that offering of sacrifices and the communal meal, and he refers to all of that in verses 6 to 8. And here David vows to offer a sacrifice of praise. It was typical of this event, offering your sacrifice of praise, but here David speaks of it with a kind of twist. Let’s read it again, verse 6: “In sacrifices and offerings you have not delighted, but you have given me an open ear. Burnt offering and sin offering you have not required. Then I said, behold, I have come. In the scroll of the book it is written of me. I delight to do your will, oh my God. Your law is within my heart.”

Now the sacrifice and offering that he mentions in verse six, that’s the thank offering that was offered according to Moses’ law. It’s accompanied by a communal meal. We find that in other Psalms mentioned rather frequently. What’s the twist here is, though, that in this case, David says God does not delight in this sacrifice, this sacrifice and offering. Instead, verse 6, instead of the sacrifice and offering, God has given me an open ear. Clear? Obvious what that means? Not really. If the Hebrew will help you at all here, the Hebrew literally reads, “my ear you have dug.” That help? The idea is that God has cleaned out David’s ear, as it were, so that David now hears him. Okay, so it’s a metaphor. Hearing God.

We use expressions something like this. If you’re wanting to influence someone, you’ll talk first of all to someone who has his ear. That’s the idea. Or if it’s your children and you’re giving them a command, you’ll tell them what to do and you’ll say, “now do you hear me?” You’re not really asking if they need to go to the doctor, have their hearing checked. You’re asking if they got it and they’re going to do what you have said, right? That’s the metaphor that David is using here. To change the metaphor, we might say, God has given me a willing heart. That’s the idea.

Now the idea then is that he has opened my ear so that I hear him. Interestingly, the Septuagint translators—that is the translators back a couple of hundred years before Jesus who rendered the Hebrew into Greek—they translated this a little bit differently, but they understood the metaphor correctly, and so they translated this, “a body you have prepared for me.” And that’s the translation that we find in the book of Hebrews, chapter 10, that we’ll see a little bit later.

In other words, David is saying here, “you don’t want a sacrifice or a meal offering, what you want is me.” And this is servant language. “I’ve come to do your will. It’s written in your law. You’ve put it in my heart. You have my ear. I want to serve you.” So in his grateful praise, in this case, David says, for what God has done, there will be no sacrifice, no communal meal, no, to celebrate the deliverance in that way. Instead, I pledge myself to the service of God just as the law requires. And so, verses 7 and 8: “I said, Behold, I have come. In the scroll of the book it is written of me. I delight to do your will, O my God. Your law is in my heart.”

In this case, David says, there’ll be no sacrifice offered. Instead, I pledge to give myself fully into obedient service of the Lord God. And so from here on, David says, I pledge that I will live for him out of a heart full of thanks and praise for the deliverance that he’s given. Now, once you see that, this is not far at all from what we find in the New Testament in Romans chapter 12, verses 1 and 2. You remember the apostle Paul has expounded the glories of justification by faith and the freeness of God’s grace in Christ and our sin imputed to him and his righteousness imputed to us, Christ giving himself to be the propitiation for our sins, and he expounds at a glorious length with all of the wonderful assurance that it entails, all the way through chapter 11 and then chapter 12: “Therefore, therefore, because of all of that that God has done, I beseech you, give your bodies a living sacrifice to God.”

He may well have had this thank offering in mind when he wrote those words. Present your bodies to God in sacrifice, a living sacrifice that’s acceptable to Him. And in fact, this is in essence exactly what each of us has professed in our baptism. When we came to Christ, we went under the waters of baptism, saying that that old life is gone, and now I live unto Christ. I belong to Him. And this simply adds the note of thanksgiving praise with it. In grateful praise for the deliverance that Christ has given to me, I will give myself in faithful service to Him.

A Plea For Deliverance

Now then, in verses 9 and 10, David affirms now that he has given his public praise, just as he vowed to do, and here he transitions to the petition lament psalm. Verse 9: “I’ve told the glad news of deliverance in the great congregation. Behold, I have not restrained my lips, as you know, O Lord, I have not hidden your deliverance within my heart. I’ve spoken of your faithfulness and your salvation. I have not concealed your steadfast love and your faithfulness from the great congregation. I’ve proclaimed your praise for what you have done for me. I’ve proclaimed it to the entire congregation.”

Then verses 11 and 12, he affirms now his trust and his confidence. This is characteristic again of the petition lament psalms. Verse 11: “As for you, O Lord, you will not restrain your mercy from me; your steadfast love and your faithfulness will ever preserve me.” So as you have delivered me in the past, so he says, I’m confident that you will deliver me again. It’s important to see the flow of thought here. He’s offered God praise for the deliverance he has given, and now he turns a corner and says, you won’t withhold your mercy from me; as you’ve delivered me in the past, so you will deliver me again.

And then he explains, and here’s his lament in verse 12: “For evils have encompassed me beyond number. My iniquities have overtaken me, and I cannot see. They are more than the hairs of my head. My heart fails me.” Now notice the second couplet here, “my iniquities have overtaken me.” I think the way to understand this better is not my sins, but the sins against me is the sense of this. And so these three couplets all are basically parallel in verse 12. The sins against me have overtaken me and I cannot see. And then third, they are more than the hairs of my head. My heart fails me. So it’s characteristic of the laments. I’m overwhelmed. I’m helpless. I can’t do anything. There are more evils against me than I can count and I can’t do anything. I’m helpless.

Now with that then, notice an expression that’s made here twice in these verses. We have it in verse 9 and in verse 11. And that’s this expression, “not restrained.” Wonderful use of it here. In verse 9, the end of the verse: “I have not restrained my lips.” That is, I’ve not restrained my lips from giving you praise for the deliverance that you’ve given to me. I’ve not restrained my lips from praising. Then verse 11: “You will not restrain your mercy from me in this new distress either.” I’ve not stopped praising, you won’t stop delivering. That’s the thinking here.

Now it’s clear then why, if you haven’t seen it yet, you see it now, it’s clear why David combines this petition lament psalm with his psalm of individual grateful praise. In verses 1 to 8, he wants to affirm God’s faithfulness and give God praise for what he has done for him in the past. And with that in mind now, in verses 9 and following, he wants to make petition to God for a new need of deliverance in a new danger that has come. And he appeals back to God’s faithfulness in the past and says, because he has been faithful to me, I have every confidence that he will be faithful to bring deliverance once again.

That brings us then to verses 13 to 17, where he gives us his petition specifically. And again, he’s asking for deliverance. Verse 13: “Be pleased, O Lord, to deliver me. O Lord, make haste to help me. Let those be put to shame and disappointed altogether who seek to snatch away my life. Let those be turned back and brought to dishonor who delight in my heart. Let those be appalled because of their shame who say to me, Aha! Aha, look what’s happened to him. He deserved it.” That’s that kind of a tone.

And then verses 16 and 17, he has this note of trust and confidence. A hope that both he and all who trust the Lord will proclaim his praise. Verse 16: “But may all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you. May those who love your salvation say continually, ‘Great is the Lord.’ As for me, I’m poor and needy. But the Lord takes thought from me. You are my hope and my deliverer. Do not delay, O my God.”

Now just as a side note of interest, if you would like, Psalm 70—if you would like to look over to that—David takes, isolates verses 13 to 17 from Psalm 40, takes them out, and now we have an individual psalm, a separate psalm, Psalm 70, which is almost verbatim from these verses. You’ll notice Psalm 70 is a—the superscript tells us that it’s a psalm of petition. So again, we’re not given any specifics. We don’t know the exact setting, but there’s some kind of danger that David has been in. He gives God praise for deliverance from it, and now there’s a new danger that he is facing, and he asks God to deliver him once again. So he moves from testimony and praise to petition.

Now notice in verses 11 and 17, the context, David’s two-fold perspective here. The context, of course, is suffering—verse 12, “evils have encompassed me beyond number.” But notice his two-fold perspective, verse 11: “As for you, O Lord, you will not restrain your mercy from me, for your steadfast love and your faithfulness ever preserve me.” Then verse 17, “As for me”—so verse 11, “as for you, O Lord, you will not restrain your mercy.” Verse 17, “As for me, I am poor and needy, but the Lord takes thought for me. You are my help and my deliverer. Do not delay, O my God.”

So David sees himself not just in suffering and in danger, and he does not see himself in simple isolation. He sees himself as belonging to God. “As for me, I’m poor and needy. I’m helpless. I don’t have a thing I can do.” But as for you, you take thought of me, and you will not restrain your mercies from me. So David now is drawing encouragement from what he knows to be true about God, and he humbly rests in God’s faithful care. God will do everything that he has promised, just as he has in the past.

This is, of course, exactly what every believer is responsible to do. We find ourselves in suffering. Our perspective is not just to focus on our own difficulties and our own problems. We are to pull back and think like Christians and say, “I belong to God, and God will fulfill every promise, and he will be faithful as he always has. He has committed himself to me,” and we are to encourage our hearts in what we know to be true about God. Verse 17, “As for me, I’m helpless.” Verse 11, “As for you, O Lord, you will not restrain your mercy.”

So once again, David serves as a model in suffering. For all that has gone wrong around David and for all of the danger that he faces, he doesn’t forget that he belongs to God. And so he doesn’t fall apart and there’s no crisis of faith. But instead, during this danger, David doubles down on his resolve to be faithful and to wait trustingly on God. He recalls God’s past mercies and he appeals to him for further help in this situation. So there’s the psalm. I have been in a situation of despair, terrible danger. I asked God for help. He brought deliverance. And now I have faced danger again, and because of what I have learned about God in the past, I am confident that he will help in the future. And for his deliverance, I resolve to give myself as a living sacrifice of praise to God and living faithfully for him. And that’s the psalm.

But of course, there’s more. You’d expect a preacher to say that. Verses six through eight require more attention. And this is what’s cited for us in the New Testament. Verse six: “In sacrifice and offering you have not delighted, but you have given me an open ear. Burnt offering and sin offering you have not required? Then said I, behold, I have come. In the scroll of the book it is written of me. I delight to do your will, O my God. Your law is within my heart.”

So in place of verse six, in place of sacrifice and offering, David offers himself in faithful obedience to God. There’s usually a thank offering, and he may have done that. He may be speaking with a comparative negative here. He may have actually gone with the sacrifice, but here he’s saying in response to it what I will give. Instead of this thankful offering, I will give myself the faithful service to God. And notice the language, verse 8, “in sacrifice and offering you have not delighted, instead I’ll give you obedience.” Does that ring a bell? Sacrifice and offering God does not delight—ring a bell, but he expects you to be obedient.

That’s 1 Samuel 15, isn’t it? Remember Saul was unfaithful and disobedient and finally Samuel comes to him and he wraps him up for his disobedience and finally now Saul is going to be rejected. And Saul points to his sacrifices, “look what are these sacrifices I’ve made.” And then Samuel says in response, in sacrifice and offering God does not take delight. What he wants is obedience. David is making reference to that here and he’s saying in essence what Saul was not, I will be. He was unfaithful. In light of this new deliverance that God has given me, I am resolved now more than ever to be faithful in my service to him, no matter what.

But verse 6 says more than that, especially the second part of the verse. Sacrifice and offerings—there we have the thank offerings that were given ceremonially. But in the last part of the verse, he says that his faithfulness that he will give to God is also in place of burnt offerings and sin offerings. “Burnt offering and sin offering you have not required.” Well, yes he has. Hasn’t he? David says, “I’m going to give myself, and because I’m going to give myself to God in faithful service to him, in this case, burnt offering and sin offerings are not required.”

Now, at that point, you are to think like the gospel-informed Christians that you are, and think, does that add up? If David gives himself to God in faithful service, is it true that burnt offering and sin offerings are no longer required? Could David’s life given in service to God ever compensate for a sin offering and a burnt offering? Is David saying that his living for God faithfully nullifies or erases the need for sin offering? Guilt offering? These were the offerings that were offered on the annual day of atonement to make atonement for Israel’s sins. So is David saying too much here? Since when—put it this way—since when does pledging to live faithfully to God erase the need for sacrifice for sin?

Sin still requires atonement. There’s still the justice of God to contend with, and you could turn over a new leaf today. And if you live faithfully from here out, without exception, you still would not have answered for the sin that you’re accountable for. And God’s justice still requires that it be answered. In fact, we look at these verses 6 to 8 and you wonder if David is even saying something more than that. Is David insinuating that the sacrifices, even the burnt offering and the sin offering, are somehow in themselves insufficient, that more and something else is required? Well, of course, you know I’m setting you up. The answer, of course—you’re in church. The answer is Jesus.

I think I’ve told you before, probably more than once, that story of the boy in Sunday school class, and the teacher is giving an illustration and saying that, “all right, now I want you to tell me what I’m thinking about. I’m thinking about something. It’s very small. It’s furry. It has gray. It has a furry tail. It climbs trees. What is it?” The boy raises his hand. “I’m sure the answer is Jesus, but it sure sounds like a squirrel.”

In church, the answer’s always Jesus, and the answer is Jesus here, and you should see it, and actually, you should turn to it yourself. Look at Hebrews chapter 10, and we’ll find that the writer here cites Psalm 40 with reference to Jesus. Now in Hebrews 9 and 10, we’re dealing with this marvelous section here where he is expounding for us the superiority of the new covenant and the superiority of the sacrifice of Christ over the sacrifices of the old covenant. The old ones were copies. They were prophetic in a sense. They foretold what Christ would do. They foreshadowed the realities that came in Christ.

We come to chapter 10. And here he deals specifically with the inadequacy of the Mosaic sacrifice. And as I read through these verses, picture this thoughtful worshiper under the Old Covenant and how he’s thinking about the offerings and the sacrifices that are being made. Hebrews 10 verse 1: “For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sins? But in these sacrifices, there’s a reminder of sins every year, for it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.”

All right, verse 1, the law—that is the law of these sacrifices—these are a shadow of good things to come. They’re prospective. They’re just a shadow. They have a prospective function. Verse 1, these are not the true form of the realities that are to come in Christ. Verses 1 and 2, he pictures this worshiper as offering these sacrifices, but doing it thoughtfully. And he thinks, “if I have to offer this sacrifice this year, and then again next year, and then again next year, and then again next year, and then again next year, and next year, and I keep offering these sacrifices over and over and over again, at some point you’ve got to think, does it really work? Does it really take away sin? And if it does, why does it have to be repeated?”

And that’s why he says this marvelous expression in verse 3: “In these sacrifices, there’s a reminder of sin every year.” You go back and offer a sacrifice and what are you reminded of? Well, if you’re thinking, you’re thinking, “I’ve got sin and I have to have atonement. I have sinned and I have to find atonement. I’ve sinned and there must be atonement.” And then he draws the conclusion in verse 4: “it’s impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sin.” It would never be an adequate substitute.

And then verses 5 and following, he draws the line to Jesus: “Consequently, or therefore, when Christ came into the world, he said, sacrifices and offerings you have not desired. This is Psalm 40, verse 6. Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me. In burnt offerings and in sin offerings you have taken no pleasure. Then I said, behold, I have come to do your will, O God, as it is written of me in the scroll of the book. When he said above, you have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings, these are offered according to the law. Then he added, Behold, I have come to do your will. Then he draws the conclusion, he does away with the first in order to establish the second.”

Now the first thing of interest here, very important, notice here in these verses that the writer of the book of Hebrews places the words of David in Psalm 40 on the lips of Jesus. Verse 5, “when Christ came into the world, he said,” Psalm 40 verse 6, “sacrifice and offerings you’ve not desired.” Verse 7, “then I, Christ, then I, Jesus said, behold I have come to do your will, O God, as it is written of me.” So he takes the words of David, puts them on the lips of Jesus when he comes in his incarnation, he says these words.

In other words, the writer of Hebrews here reads David in Psalm 40 and David pledges his pledge to live faithfully for God—anticipates Christ who gave himself to the service of God in an ultimate sense. In his pledging himself to faithful service to God, David was, in fact, a model for all of us. He says, “I’ll live faithfully for Christ and for all that he’s done for us.” That’s the mark of every Christian. It’s what we all do. But on a deeper level, the writer of Hebrews is telling us it represents and points us to Jesus. It is Jesus who, in the ultimate sense, gave himself to God and that in place of sin offerings.

God the Son in his incarnation, in effect, said to the Father, “you have my ear. A body you’ve prepared for me, I will live faithfully for you. In me you will find one who does your will perfectly.” So he came and he lived for God. He did God’s will perfectly. And so for Jesus, burnt offerings and sin offerings are not required. But for us, it certainly is required. No amount of self-transformation will ever do. Sin offering is required. And this is the whole meaning of the cross. Christ went to the cross, the perfect substitute, living faithfully before God for all of his entire life, offers himself to God in place of his people as a substitute for them, enduring the wrath of God against sin in their place, and bearing our curse and making atonement then for our sins.

And so verse 9 he tells us, in conclusion, he’s done away with the first and established the second. So now in keeping with his argument here in chapter 10 of Hebrews, in those old sacrifices they would come and every year there’s a reminder of sin, reminder of sin over and again. Christ offers himself once for all. And we come, by contrast, to the Lord’s table all over and over and over again, over and again, but each time it’s not a reminder of sin. It’s a reminder of atonement that’s been made once for all.

The sacrificial system of the old covenant was an extended drama pointing a way, pointing ahead to Jesus. And ultimately, then, the reason that God does not delight in burnt offerings and sin offerings is because they were just provisional in the first place. What He delights in is Jesus. And that, of course, is the message of the church that we take to the world. We have to go to the church with this very same message and say, “you have not on your very best day earned any acceptance before God at all. But God has sent his son. In him, he takes great delight. And he’s promised that if we will come through him, who has stood in the place of sinners, he will have us.”

And so we come to Christ in faith. And what do we do in response? Response, what we do is we give ourselves in grateful praise to live for Him faithfully. Amen. Let’s pray.