HopeUC Secunderabad

From The Pit To Praise

• HopeUC Secunderabad

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When life feels like miry clay and every step sinks deeper, Psalm 40 offers a handhold—and we walk through it together with candor and hope. We start with David’s honest cry from the pit and trace how patient, active waiting leads to rescue, stability, and a new song. The image of God “inclining” to us—bending down to hear—reshapes how we see prayer in delay. Rescue isn’t the last note; praise is. And that praise is meant to be heard.

If this message lifted you from the mud or helped you find your song again, share it with a friend, subscribe for more, and leave a review to help others discover the hope you found. What’s your “pit to praise” moment? We’d love to hear it.

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Hope Unlimited Church is an independent, Spirit-filled church with multiple campuses in India, serving young professionals and families from all parts of India in a modern, dynamic metropolitan church setting.
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SPEAKER_00:

Be a bit free. Okay, that's what I'm gonna say. Be a bit free. Uh you don't have to maybe stand or do anything like that, but be a bit more free than you are feeling right now. And be freer if you are already feeling free. From everything that I was thinking of, what I could come and share today, I looked at the word of God and I turned to songs. I know we sing songs, we praise the Lord with it, we worship God through it, but the songs that are there in the Word of God also speak volume. It speaks truth, it speaks so much for us to be able to learn from. And so that's what I did. I turned to the book of Psalms, because basically those are songs. And then I open to chapter 40, and that's what we'll be looking at today. Psalm 40, and we'll look at the whole psalm for that. And with everything in mind, I put today's sermon title as this From the Pit to Praise. From the Pit to Praised. Now, just a heads up, in case you do not have a notebook, but you do want sermon notes, we have them on the U version. You could scan the QR code, which is on screen if you want to follow there. It's always good to write notes, but the app has you covered there, you can take notes over there as well. Now, without further ado, let's look at what Psalm 40 is about. You know, Psalm 40, when David had written this down, it was a psalm of testimony. It was a song that was a testimony. You know, one that is of deliverance, one that is of obedience, and one that is of faith. That's what this psalm was about. And we saw and we heard today, and we hear it almost every week, the story of hope that comes up on screen. You know, I have a habit that if I go into communion at church, it is just after that video is played and shared out. And so I always tell everybody if you have a testimony to share and to thank God for what he has done in your life, please come forward, talk to us. Because you never know how what you share about thanking God could make a difference in somebody else's life. And that's what the psalm is also doing. You know, David, when he wrote this down, he had begun with a cry, a cry out from a pit, but it ended with a confident declaration of God's help. So it is very personal, and it is also very prophetic. It shows us the kind of life that is pleasing to God, what we should do as believers towards God. It shows us that we should wait. You know, in life we all have problems, and sometimes waiting is a difficult part in those moments. Because, you know, we are in a generation where because of our smartphones, we have answers instantly. I remember talking to a bunch of young people, and then we were talking, and I said, see, the thing is we all want instant answers, and that's what we're getting. We just open our phones, you go to Google, or now with AI, everything is there. We don't wait. We don't make the move we're supposed to do. For those studying, they don't do the research anymore. It is all through AI. For those looking to do anything now, in fact, everybody goes to ChatGPT. It's become that type of a situation. But this psalm tells us that it is one where David was waiting. It is one that is of obedience and the fruit of it as well, and is one that proclaims so much. And that's what we're going to be looking at. So we look at this psalm in three parts, and we'll see what the Holy Spirit wants us to know, wants us to hear today. And look at let's look at the first part, okay? Psalm 40, verses 1, 2, and 3. For this part, I've given us a heading called From the Pit to the Platform. From the pit to the platform. And I'll read out the passage, okay? It says this. I waited patiently for the Lord, and he inclined to me and heard my cry. He also brought me up out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my steps. He has put a new song in my mouth, Praise to our God. Many will see it and fear, and will trust in the Lord. And then I was looking at the many different versions, and I came across the message version, which is a bit more modernized, a bit more used to what we speak like. And it says this I waited and waited and waited for God. At last he looked. Finally, he listened. He lifted me up, he lifted me out of the ditch, pulled me from deep mud, he stood me on a solid rock to make sure I wouldn't slip. He taught me how to sing the latest God song, a praise song to our God. More and more people are seeing this. They entered a mystery, abandoning themselves to God. You know, church, this psalm begins with David's testimony of rescue, of rescue from what he's calling a horrible pit, a miry clear. And you know, let's put it this way David was already in that part of his life where he was running from people. They wanted to kill him, they wanted to do harm to him. There wasn't anything really good apart from the few people who were with him who were moving in that direction. This brings back memories to me from my childhood as well, primarily because of the pit. I remember when I was a when I was a child, my sister had her appendix and she needed to take that out. It had burst. And my mother had gone to the hospital. So that was something around 2 in the afternoon. And then she didn't come home for a very, very long time. And from the afternoon it went to evening and evening into night, and it was dark, and there was no sign of my mom. And we didn't have mobile phones, we were not in a situation where we could afford one, so we couldn't call. It was just the landline. And so eventually what happened was she came home. It was 8:30 at night. And my mother, as I as I heard a knock on the door and I opened and I saw it was her, she was dirty and muddy, and she was crying. So she came in the house, she calmed down, she went and bathed, and then she came out, and then she said, because it was monsoon season, as she was walking and it was raining really, really hard, she slipped and fell into a hole in the ground because they were doing some construction work. And my mom, she was a bit on the heavier side, so you know, when she fell in there, she couldn't climb out at all. And that was filling up with water, and she was just stuck. Some people tried to come and help, they were not able to take her out. They had to wait for a long time for the correct type of help to come out. That's what happened. So this psalm, especially this part, it reminds me of that. It takes me back to what happened in my house, in my family, in my life, when I think about it. And you know, the pit that David writes about, it was physical danger that he was going through. It was not anything out of the ordinary in that sense, if you ask. He was running for his life at that moment. He was in deep despair. He didn't know where to turn or where to go in those moments. And, you know, David was human, just as we are. It must have been many times in those moments that he found himself in a place of spiritual darkness. It comes up, it creeps up, especially when we find ourselves being very vulnerable, very to that point where we don't know what to do. We kind of give in to that. But while he was in that pit, David waited patiently for the Lord. That's what he did. You know, the original word in Hebrew that was used here is kava kava. Which, when you translate it, it means I waited. Yes, I waited. And that's what we see in the message translation. It's that's what I waited and waited and waited. Kava, kava. It shows what? It shows that there's no passiveness in that stillness of what he was doing. But it was an act of faith. Well, let's put it this way: just a show of hands, okay? How many of you have had to go out to do some document work where you needed to go to an office of some kind or the other, and you had to be reliant on those people? People have gone, ID cards and anything else, okay? And then you went there and then you had to wait. How many of y'all have experienced that? Okay? We have no option in that. That is passive waiting. We have to wait there. However, what David did was an active faith waiting, which is to say, he didn't just sit still and do nothing. It is not him sitting aimlessly, but he was looking around very attentively. He had a trust that endured the delay that came in his life. You know, church, I don't know how many of y'all are going through something in your life where you have prepared for something and you are ready for it, and you've put the work needed towards that something, and there has been a delay. It has not come. That moment has not come, and you are waiting and you're waiting, and you might be even, you know, talking to God in your prayer and saying, When? When, God, when? You know, when in those moments when we're waiting like that, again, it's we should not be sitting aimlessly, we should be attentive to what is happening. It's like a watchman being at the door and he's alert to who's coming in, who is going out, what is happening. Or a better example is one, if we look or we think of a ship at its stop point, they have the crow's nest, is what they call it. There's a sailor that sits there and they look around. They have to have very good eyesight. My eyesight is not that great. I can't read some of the things that are written on the screen at the back. But they have to have very sharp eyesight to see what's happening at the horizon. And it's not just one direction that they're looking at. The crow's nest is a round circular platform in which they look every place to see if there's anything that the ship needs to be aware and alert for while they're going, and the sea is vast. It can become very boring, very fast, and some people may really get impatient with those moments. But that's the thing. In our season of waiting, what are you doing? Are you just sitting and giving in to that delay, to that helpless feeling that you have, or in that delay, you're trusting God and you're looking around for what He is sending your way. Might not be the answer you're looking for at that moment, but what he's sending it your way, because that's what's needed for you at that time. You know, that is a posture of expectation and hope when we do that. That's what it is. And I like it whenever this word hope is there. When I'm coming up to share the word of the Lord, I'm very happy that our church is called what it's called: hope unlimited. It's not a limited hope that we have. We don't restrict God because of a limited hope. But it is unlimited hope that comes from the living God that we serve, that we call our Savior and Lord. You know, we've heard of these stories, right, where people have gone hiking and then you went into caves or mines and it collapsed around them. They could not do anything, right? They had to wait. Just like my mom, when she was in that situation, she had to wait. And when you are trapped in that, you can't climb out. They waited for the rescuer to come above and reach down to them, reach out. And that's what David was like in that situation. He was helpless, he was running, but he was hopeful, and he was waiting for the only one. And I say one over here with a capital O, which is about the true and living God. He was waiting for the only one who could reach down and lift him up. You know that first verse which says, I waited patiently for the Lord and he inclined to me. The Lord inclining to David here quite literally means to bend down and hear his cry. You know, when you think of parents, and I don't know how many parents are here, new parents or parents whose kids have already grown up. Or if you're an auntie or an uncle and you see your niece or nephew around, and you see when they want to say something to you, they call out, right? They're like mommy or daddy or whatever they call you. You either lift them up or you bend down to them to listen to what they have to say. That's what David is writing here. The Lord bent down and he heard his cry when he called out to him. God had pulled David out from the mud and he set his feet upon a rock which was stable. It gave him stability. Where once David was in sinking sand, he now stood firm. And this is a very moral thing. It's quite emotional also. But it is also about spiritual restoration. It is not just about morals, ethics, or emotions, but it is about spiritual restoration. You know, in all of these things, to know the right course of action after you've gone through that whole confusion that you're experiencing. That's what you should be putting yourself and understanding here. You know, and right after that, God put a new song in the mouth of David. Deliverance always leads to praise, and it's not complete until the deliverer is glorified. Now, before communion, the pastor said, right, how many of us remember that day when we accepted our Lord? So many of us were delivered from our sins that day. And here's the thing deliverance always leads to praise. Each of you, when y'all accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior, you've had that word of praise in your mouth. And it is never complete until that glory is given to God, who picked you out of that mud, who picked you out of that quicksand, picked you out of the dirt and filth you were living in. And he placed you on a solid rock. Many will see it and fear and will trust the Lord, is what the psalmist said over here, what David said. You know, let's look at it this way: John chapter 4, verse 39. Alright, we look and we read of the Samaritan woman's testimony that led others to believe. It's written in that passage many of the Samaritans of that city believed in him because of the word of the woman who testified. And what did she say? He told me all that I ever did. As simple as that. He didn't do anything great. Often, when we think of testimonies, we always think it should be magnificent, it should be great, it should be so good that people will be moved. But here's the thing you know, sometimes the smallest and the most simple testimonies do wonders. He told me all that I ever did. And then we also see in Acts chapter 9, verse 42, this is where Peter had raised Tabitha. You know, she had passed, and then he had raised her from the dead. And it's written, it became known throughout all Jopa, and many believed on the Lord. These are testimonies through which people came to know the Lord, through which people accepted him. Our praise becomes another person's faith. That's what it builds on. That's what our praise does church. Let's look at the second thing. The second part of this psalm. We're looking at Psalm 40, verses 4 to 8. And over here, written, from ritual to relationship. Ritual to relationship. And it says here, How blessed is the man who has made the Lord his trust and has not turned to the proud, nor to those who lapse into falsehood. Many, O Lord my God, are the wonders which you have done and your thoughts towards us. There is none to compare with you, and if I would declare and speak of them, they would be too numerous to count. Sacrifice and meal offering you have not desired. My ears you have opened, burnt offering and sin offering you have not required. Then I said, Behold, I 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. Your law is within my heart. And right here we see David now is moving from the testimony of deliverance that he already wrote and spoke about to the blessing of obedience. You know, many times when we were small, we were told to be obedient to mom and dad, to be obedient to our elders. And if we were kind of rebellious, it was difficult for us to do that. You know, David declares that true blessings belong to those who trust in the Lord, not in the proud or in the worldly lives. True blessings belong to those who trust in the Lord. How often is it that we are looking to God at the end of everything and not the beginning? We end up letting our ego come before everything else, that I don't need help, I will do it on my own accord, or we let worldly lies or just plain human logic take that forefront rather than God coming before us and trusting in Him. How many of us struggle to get onto our knees when we are going to go through something? Or at the beginning, sometimes you have that gut feeling, that instinct inside telling you, I'm going to go through something tough. How many of us in those moments, if you have gone through that, have actually fallen on your knees? How many of us have just bowed to the Lord in submission? Truly, in those moments? How many of us even just lay ourselves flat in a form of submission to God? That Lord, you have complete authority. I'm not even going to kneel down, I'm just going to go flat because that is how great you are. I trust in what you do. You know, many people cling to worldly powers and philosophies that are around the world. We live in a country that's full of philosophies. I come from a state that is very well known for people who like to debate and talk a lot about things. But those who do that, they are deceived because they don't trust in the word of God and they trust in these philosophies and the powers that are there in the world, people of authority, rather than the true authority that comes from the true and living God. You know, to commit fully to God is to reject every other false hope that is there. True hope is from Jesus, true hope is from God and no one else. No matter who tells you what, they may be able to break their promise. But our Lord, he does not. When he promises, that is a yes, that is an amen. How many of us are going to God in those moments? And that is where we see David turning his attention to God. That is why we see him writing these things. And after all of that, we see David writing about the wonders of God. He writes this many are the wonders you have done and your thought towards us. You know, it's too much and too many to count if we actually think about it. If you have been saved, for each of us who have a unique story in our life, which is not the same for anybody, similar to some extent, maybe, but it's not the same, my friends. How God saved you, how you received your salvation is unique to you. Some have great stories to tell about what God did to bring them, some have a simple one. Some people have just heard the voice of God in their heart saying, Come. And they accepted that. And they accepted Jesus. And some people have gone through some of the worst experiences just because they accepted Jesus or that whole journey towards that. But they came. It's too many when we think about the salvation that comes from him. And then he writes of his mercy. David writes of God's mercy upon his life. You know, we go through so many things in life, and everyone has a sin, each person has a sin that they struggle with. We all know what that is when it comes to ourselves. But God looks down in mercy and still loves you, still loves me. In those moments when we put our ego ahead of everything else, and when we are surrounded by situations where we don't yield, God's mercy is still upon us in those moments as well. That is what God is. That is who God is. And God has a plan for you. He has a purpose that is individually unique to you. Everyone sitting here. It is not so different. It's unique to you. That is his purpose for your life. When you accept that calling and you lean in towards him and you trust him, is where you will see. When you go on to read the Psalm, we see that David reveals something much more deeper about relationship with our Lord. He says, This sacrifice and meal offering you have not desired. Burnt offering and sin offering you have not required. You know, what David is writing is not about a rejection of the sacrificial system, but it is a revelation of God's heart. God never desired rituals without any relationship. Let's put it this way. How many of us come to church Sunday after Sunday because our family has been taking us to church on a Sunday? We have been taken to church since we were kids on a Sunday. For anybody who has just come to know the Lord recently, you start doing that because, hey, this is what Christians do. No. You may come over here, you may sit in church, but that is because you're doing what you feel is supposed to be done. Why you come here is what God is looking for. He looks at your heart, why you are coming to his house to be seated over here. That is what is important. He doesn't desire ritual without any form of relationship. What God desires is obedience, which is born out of love for him. That is what he desires. And the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings. And the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings. And then we have 1 Samuel chapter 15, verse 22, which says this, to obey is better than sacrifice. And we know why this was written. Saul took matters into his own hand. And he went and disobeyed. And then he had a lot of excuses to tell to Samuel when Samuel confronted him. And that is what led to Samuel saying this to obey is better than sacrifice. In Hebrew, that particular one about open over here would be kara ozen, which literally means that line literally means you have dug my ears. And then if you want to translate it nicely to make it more simple, because that may sound very crude, it means to dig open or dug open. Basically, it is as simple as this it's as if God opened David's ears to hear and obey his word. That's what David is writing. My ears you have opened. Hearing and obedience is intertwined with each other. It cannot be. Now, when I say hear, it doesn't mean like how you're listening right now. Hearing can also be within when the Holy Spirit talks to you. When you're about to do something and the Holy Spirit is telling you something either to do or not to do, and you do maybe the opposite, that is being disobedient to the will of God to what the Holy Spirit is telling you. But in listening and hearing to what the Holy Spirit says, that is obedience. Obedience because of the love we have for God as to why we go forward to do that. So hearing and obedience are intertwined, and that is so important. Then David goes on to say this behold, I come. In the scroll of the book, it is written of me. What is written over here is about an act of surrender. Here I am, Lord, is what he is saying. And this we find in other people when we read the Bible as well. Let's look at Isaiah chapter 6, verse 8. Right over there, Isaiah says, Here I am, send me. Because he was called forward. In Luke chapter 1, verse 38. Mary, the mother of Jesus, says, Behold, I am the servant of the Lord. When she got to know of the news that she would bear Jesus, she surrenders. And then speaking of our Lord, Luke chapter 22, verse 42, we find Jesus saying this, not my will, but yours be done. In this, we see our Lord Himself submitting as an act of surrender, knowing what is coming for him. Not my will, but yours be done. The writer of the book of Hebrews, he connects the passage that he wrote in Hebrews chapter 10, verse 10, directly to Jesus. And he writes this in that passage. Hebrews 10, 10 says, And by that will we have been made holy to the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Because Jesus said, Not my will, but yours be done. And that is why the writer of the Hebrew book wrote this. The passage that we're going through today. You know, where David wrote as a psalm, I delight to do your will. Jesus lived it perfectly. That's what he did. He lived it perfectly. The law written on David's heart was embodied in the life and living of Jesus Christ, who we call Lord and Savior. You know, a child, when they are small, they may take something and they give it to their mom or their dad. Right? They love their mom and dad. They want to give something. Sometimes it's nothing great. Maybe just a simple piece of paper, but they want to give it to mom and dad because they love them so much. I want to give it. But then as the child grows older, becomes a teenager, they go through various phases in life, okay? And then they grow older and become an adult, they get busy with things. They do things that, oh, dad's birthday is coming up, mom's birthday is coming up, or their anniversary is coming up, let's give something to them. It kind of becomes like a thing to do for them because I must, in many cases. But you know what a parent would say is this you bring me gifts, but I what I really want is your time. You bring these gifts to me, but what I really want is your time. That's what I want. And that is the message of this passage, this particular portion that we're looking at right now. God does not want our offerings because we're giving it like that. What he wants is our heart. That's what he desires. And when we give God our heart, our time is with God. What we do is for God, and the obedience is towards God, not anyone else. Let's look at the final thing, the final passage uh portion. Psalm 40, verses 9 to 17, where I've written, from proclamation to dependence, from proclamation to dependence, God sustains the faithful witness. Let me read this out. Verses 9 and 10 says, I have proclaimed glad tidings of righteousness in the great congregation. Behold, I will not restrain my lips, O Lord, you know. I have not hidden your righteousness within my heart. I have spoken of your faithfulness and your salvation. I have not concealed your loving kindness and your fruit from the great congregation. David over here in those passages is very, very boldly testifying God. He is not hiding what God has done. His salvation is not a private affair that is supposed to be known to him and him alone. But what he has done over here is made it a very public declaration. And just to remind all of us, David was not an unknown person. By this point of time, he had really risen to a very high rank in the army. And now, because the anointing was upon him, he was running away because Saul wanted to kill him. The country knew David, and he wrote this. Thousands upon thousands had heard him say this. But here's the best thing. You know, when I was thinking about this, it's not just the thousands who were alive then. You and I who have the Bible to this day, and when we read his word, we read his declaration, we read his testimony, and that number goes up into the millions. I don't know if billion yet, but definitely millions. That is the testimony David is writing. Yeah, he's testifying boldly, he's not hiding anything. Faith grows in community. Church, we are a community-based church, and I really like that. You know, so what we do when we speak of God's faithfulness in our lives and what he's done for us, other people in the community are strengthened. Other people who are not part of the community but see our community get curious and they want to know. What is wrong in these moments is to be silent. To be silent is to rob God of the glory that belongs to Him because of what He has done for you, because of His love and mercy for us. And so silence is not the right thing in this moment. We are to be bold, we are to go and declare of what God has done. Every one of us have something, like I said, big or small, to thank God for. Hey, if you can't think of anything particular, we have breath. We live. And that is a thank you to the Lord as well, because we have that. You know, Jesus told the man that he healed in Luke chapter 8, verse 39. He said this: return to your own house and tell what great things God has done for you. Tell of what great things God has done for you. Testimony completes deliverance. And deliverance is on so many levels, it's not just one thing. The difficulties you go through, the bondages that you have been locked in, and all the struggle. And God takes you out of that, He has delivered you from it. And testimony completes that. It is the right thing to do, and it is what we see the Lord telling this man who he healed as well. But even after this great praise that David is giving, because he is a human being, he's thanked God for everything, he has said that I am going to be obedient. He has already spoken about the troubles that he had. Right after that, in verse 12, Psalm 40, verse 12, David faces new troubles. And he writes this for evils beyond number have surrounded me, my iniquities have overtaken me, my heart has failed me. And this is a very honest confession that David is making over here. You know, even after all the past victories that he's had, new battles arise. Let me ask this. Each of us have gone through some struggle or the other, right? The older you are, you have seen much more. And the moment one thing ends, that doesn't mean now it's all good. Something new comes up for every one of us. There's always a new battle that we are going to face. But here's the greatest thing, right? We don't face those battles alone. God fights those battles for us. What we do is walk forward in faith. That is what we do, each of us. We bear his banner. God is our banner. His name is Jehovah Nissi. He is the banner that we carry forward. The same David who sang of deliverance, now he's crying out for mercy again. You know, faith, when I think of that, I think this. Faith is not an absence of struggling. That's not what it is. But it is the assurance of God's continued help in our lives. And how we exercise that faith makes so much of a difference. God didn't ask for a great amount of faith. A mustard seed. We live in India. I don't know when y'all make papu. How many of y'all put mustard seeds? Right? That one small dana. That is what is required. That is what is required. It is the assurance of God's continued help in those moments. And then David writes this in verse 13. He pleads and he writes, Be pleased, O Lord, to deliver me. Make haste, O Lord, to help me. He asks that those who seek to harm him be put to shame. And those who seek God may rejoice and say continually, as in verse 16, it's written, The Lord be magnified. You know, he's going through so many things and he's writing these. But he says in all of that, that those who are looking to God and looking for God would rejoice and say, The Lord be magnified. And he closes his psalm in verse 17 very humbly but very confidently as well, where he writes this Since I am afflicted and needy, let the Lord be mindful of me. You are my help and my deliverer. Do not delay. Oh my God. Let's think of it this way: somebody who is drowning in the ocean or the sea or a river, for example, okay, is rescued. However, because the life they live requires them to go back into the waters to swim every single day to make their livelihood, they don't stop swimming, they don't stop going to the water, they keep going. Them drowning didn't deter them. You know, past deliverance for what has happened to us does not exempt us from future dependence. And this is what I mean to say over here. A lot of us, as we are young, especially going towards the end of college, we want to be independent. Right? I'm gonna go out, get a job, I'm gonna work now. Nobody can tell me anything. But the word of God says something completely different. We should always be dependent on Him. And just because we were delivered from whatever troubles we've had in the past does not mean now I am independent. God, I don't need you. No. Because we were delivered, our future still needs dependence on God. And every new challenge that we will face is an opportunity to experience the faithful hand of God upon our lives. Because we depend on Him. That's what we will face. You know, Psalm 40, to round things up, shows three movements of what mature faith looks like. Three movements. The first one, as I said, from the pit to praise. God rescues those who patiently wait on him. Second being, from ritual to relationship. God delights in the obedience that we take towards Him and surrender, but not as an outward formality. It has to be from the heart, it has to have true meaning. And the third one, from proclamation to dependence, our testimonies should be public. Our hearts should remain humble before God. With all of this, how can we put this into practice? What I'm gonna say is very simple. Each of us know this. In a heart of hearts, we know this because the Holy Spirit speaks to us and talks to us. But it's this what we can do is wait and trust. You know, even when we're feeling trapped in that pit that we are in, each of us individually, we keep waiting and keep trusting. The Lord will bend down, He will incline, He will listen and take you out of that. Second would be walk in obedience. Let your heart say, Here I am, Lord. Don't give God empty sacrifices. You know the word sacrifice has a lot of weight to it, a lot of meaning and depth to it. When you sacrifice something, it's gone. You don't take it back, you don't get it back. It's not a return gift, okay? It's gone. That's what sacrifices. So don't give God empty sacrifices. Give him your will, your free will, so that he can use you. And finally, be a bold witness. Okay, be a bold witness. Your testimony, what you speak in thanks and praise to God, can be the key to someone else's faith. Someone else's faith may be born through your sharing of praise to the Lord for what he has done for you. I'll ask the worship team to come up at this time. But I want to close with this. I want us to pay attention to this as they get ready to lead us into a song at this moment. You know, David's psalm began in the mud, but it ended on the rock. It began in the mud, but it ended on the rock. And that is a journey every believer who trusts in God will go through. But it's God's faithfulness that will place us on the rock. Let your life be that song that others may see fear and trust in the Lord. When they look at you, they will know something is different. Because God delivered you. And because he delivered you, don't be silent. Make a joyful noise. Praise the Lord for that. Verse 16, Psalm 40 said this, right? Let all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you. Let those who love your salvation say continually, The Lord be magnified. The Lord be magnified. Deliverance is not complete until the deliverer is glorified. So let your testimony ring out, let it be a shout, so that the world around you would see, and they would then say, Along with you, the Lord be magnified.