This sermon from Psalms 40 is centered on the theme 'In Christ even sorrow has a song.' It emphasizes the power of God's Word to bring hope, vision, and strength, and the transformative impact of having a new song of praise in times of despair. The message highlights the importance of shifting our focus from circumstances to God's promises, trusting in His deliverance, and allowing Him to establish our steps on a solid foundation.

Psalm 40 please if you'll turn there. Psalm 40, message is called, In Christ even sorrow has a song. Even sorrow has a song. And Father I thank you God with all my heart. Oh Jesus how good you have been. How faithful you are. How wonderful it is Lord to know that we can come into this house or any house at any time and open the word of God and your word is alive and it will speak to us. It will defeat our enemies. It will give us hope and vision, strength for the future. I thank you for the anointing of your Holy Spirit today in this sanctuary that will make this word alive in each of our hearts. I ask you Father in Jesus name to deliver those that are oppressed. Lift up those that are cast down. Set free those that are bound and held captive. Give sight to those who can't see a way out of their situation. Oh God let it be something miraculous, supernatural. In the same way you brought a hundred and twenty out of an upper room and took them out of the hopelessness of their physical condition and brought them into something of life that astounded the hearts of those who saw it. Do the same Lord through us as your people in this generation. Help us Lord God to shift our affections from our circumstances to your promises. Lord we thank you for this. God Almighty thank you for your anointing. Give us ears to hear. We ask it in Jesus name. Psalm 40 beginning at verse 1 reading to verse 5. David says 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 and he's put a new song in my mouth. Praise to our God. Many will see it and fear and will trust in the Lord. Blessed is the man who makes the Lord his trust and does not respect the proud nor such as turn aside to lies. Many O Lord my God are your wonderful works which you have done and your thoughts towards us cannot be recounted to you in order. If I would declare and speak of them they are more than can be numbered. Sadness is a part of life. Difficult times come to everybody. I don't care. You can stand there and confess anything you want. When difficulty comes to your home it comes to your home. Comes to your heart it comes to your heart. Sorrow, sickness, the loss of jobs. Sometimes just an overwhelming feeling of despair and you can't even put your finger on it. You don't know where it came from but it just came. You woke up with it one morning. Maybe somebody said something and it so got a hold of your heart you can't shake it and you're starting to believe that a lie that was spoken is actually the truth and you're wondering if that is the case and perhaps you are going to amount to nothing as somebody may have told you somewhere along the line or you'll always be prone to certain kinds of behavior and you'll never get free. Scripture doesn't explicitly tell us. I mean David had a lot of difficult times in his life. He was chased. He had to fight Goliath. He was scorned by his brothers. He was pursued by a madman of a king. He made mistakes on his journey as well. He even got to the point where his own men wanted to kill him. He doesn't tell us specifically. There's probably a lot of conjecture about what his trouble was but he describes it as a horrible place. You ever been there? I've been there. I don't recall seeing all of you but some of you I think I've met you along the way. But I've been there. I've been in a place that in the natural is a horrible place. That's a great word because it describes it. But he talks about crying out to God and God brought him out. Now the deliverance is not always immediate. We'd like it to be. We'd like it to be that we go in the prayer closet Monday at 9 and at 9.15 we're delivered and our enemies are vanquished and prosperity has come and health has returned. And not to say God can't do that but for his reasons and his alone sometimes it doesn't work that way. Sometimes deliverance comes but it takes a long time. I have no doubt Joseph cried out for 13 years. Oh God I thought I was going to be in a place of ruling and reigning and and have provision to give to people and such like and here I am betrayed and sold off and falsely accused and left and forgotten. But David said the Lord heard me and he brought me out of the horrible place and set my feet upon a rock and established my steps. Now that rock is not always a physical place. Sometimes it's a spiritual place that God brings us to. Most times it is. Our physical circumstance may not change that much but our spiritual circumstance changes and it produces something in us that this world knows nothing about. It's a new song he says. He put in a new song in my mouth. It's a song that's deeper than anything I've ever sung before. David could say I've sung happy songs, I've sung sad songs, I've sung hopeful songs but never a song like this. This is a new song, deeper, more profound, more powerful than actually I could sing in my own strength and it's a song that others who don't know God even in their best efforts cannot sing it. There's no way that people outside of the kingdom of God can sing this song I'm talking about today. They can't. And David says many will see it and fear. I love that. He doesn't say many will hear it. He said many will see it. It's a song you can see before you hear it. It's a song that will cause others to stand back and consider its source. In other words where do these people get this song from? How can you sing this song in the circumstance that you're going through? Now it's not just words, it's not just a tune, it's something that radiates from your whole being. It's not just a tune. You know it's not like you're just depressed and suddenly you just pull out a little tape player to say listen I'm gonna sing a song now. It's deeper. It's ingrained in you. It's a song that only those whose feet are standing on a solid place that's not visible to the natural eye can sing. It's a song that radiates from your whole entire being. You know we're the temple of the Holy Spirit. You know that right? That God himself in the person of the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Godhead actually resides inside of our physical bodies. If you're a genuine believer in Christ you are the temple and God himself is inside that temple. Now the rain might be beating on that temple. The wind might be blowing against that temple. An outside earthquake might be trying to shake that temple. People might even be outside cursing that temple. But inside that temple there's a band and that band is playing loud and on key. There's an internal choir inside this temple. It's on their feet. The Spirit of God is inside of your life and inside of my life witnessing to the glory of heaven, the glory of God. And the congregation is shouting in a glory moment. We had a few of those today. The whole congregation inside. You ever experience that when you're outside is is a storm but you're inside is a choir and you can't explain it. You don't have to explain it. You just enjoy it. Just let God do what God wants to do inside of your life. Sometimes you and I might be going through deep sorrow but inside of us when we pass by others it's like a sacred concert and a holy parade going on at the same time. Something in us. I remember one time at work I was going through a very very difficult time. I don't have time to explain the difficulty but suffice to say one of my co-workers knew I was going through it. And one day I walked into the office and he said what is it that I see in you? In other words he was saying you seem to have this inner calm. You seem to have this ability to go through with this. There's something there. Well what he was seeing is a song that only God can plant in the heart. It's a song of trust. A song of confidence. A song that has a future. A song that says though the world may sweep around me with its dazzle and its dreams yet I envy not its vanities and pride for my soul looks up to heaven where the golden sunlight gleams and I'm living on the hallelujah side. Thank God. Many will see that song and David said that they will fear and when you look at that word in the original Hebrew it's a twofold type of fear. The number one is those who observe it are filled with an awe. It's a reverential awe. They stand back and they're perplexed in measure and say how is it possible that these people can be carried by this song in what should be a fearful or a sorrowful time? And what is a sorrowful time? But there's something in them that causes them not to lose heart or hope. It's a song that's deeper than words and it's not created by circumstance. They're going through the same thing that we're going through. As Paul says we struggle and we have to experience death but yet we are not as those who are without hope. We have this internal assurance of God in our hearts that all will be well. That he is still in control. He still sits on the throne and on the other hand the same observer is filled with a sense of dread that their own life is incomplete without God in it. I don't know about you but I want to sing this song all the days of my life. It's so far beyond an argument. It's something that radiates from inside this physical temple where people look and say it's amazing that God carries you and how he carries you. But then it produces also in them a sense of wow if that's what God does then I don't have God in my life. Remember in the book of Acts chapter 2 120 people who are really marginalized, who really are not the movers and shakers in society, who have been technically defeated in the eyes of a lot of the populace. Their Savior's been crucified. Their whole movement as it was seems to have gone down the drain but suddenly a hundred and twenty of them come out of this upper room and they're prophesying and realistically it's it's an interior song that they're singing of faith in God of confidence. The circumstances haven't changed but the thoughts of God that have been released inside of them are coming out of their mouths as and people are looking at them and saying how is this possible? How could they be doing this? How could they be singing this? I know they weren't singing but it's the type of a song. How could they be speaking these things? How could they be standing with such confidence in such a dismal time? When all hell seems against them all Rome is marginalizing them and mocking them and yet here they come out of this upper room and there's such a glory on them. Acts 2 37 says when they heard this they were cut to the heart and they said to Peter and the rest of the Apostles men and brethren what shall we do? Then Peter said to them repent and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. You will have this power. This song that David talks about will be born inside of your life but it requires a turning from sin. A turning from that which is wrong in the sight of God. You can't get this song if you're living in mixture. It requires a conscious decision to say I'm going God's way. I'm going to do what God's Word says I should do. I'm going to be what God's Word says I'm going to be. I'm not going to try to live in sin and have the blessings of the kingdom of God at the same time it doesn't work. Praise God. Peter said make that conscious decision to turn from that which is wrong. Don't do wrong. Don't live in wrong. Don't embrace wrong as if it's right and think somehow you can have the power and the glory of both kingdoms. You can't and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins. In other words identify with Him. Publicly go down in those waters of baptism and say I am dying to my old way of living and I am trusting when I come up out of this water that just as Jesus was raised from the dead on the third day I too will be taken out of a place of death and powerlessness and I will be brought out of this miry clay and this horrible pit. My feet will be placed upon a rock and I will be brought into a place where my life will bring glory to the name of Jesus Christ. I pledge in my heart as best as I can to walk in obedience to a holy God and to let Him be God inside my life and to let Him lead me for the rest of my days. Peter said if you repent be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. This incredible power that these people saw that day on a hundred and twenty ordinary people will become yours. This gift to be able to praise God in public and lift up your voice to Him. This gift that causes your whole being to radiate of the presence of God. Your eyes, your hands, your feet, your voice, your direction of your life even though you're not in the best of circumstances and that really is what characterized the people of this day. It was a difficult moment in history. Christ had been crucified as far as the society was concerned. These people had no future as far as most were concerned. Many had just gone back to their old forms of religion. It was a feast time and many of the people there at Jerusalem were very religious. They were going back to their old forms of religion until they saw this song. This incredible glory of God. Don't live without it. Why would you live without it? If this could be yours today why would you argue yourself out of it? It's amazing. It's amazing as Christian people how we talk ourselves under the blessings of God. When they're laid out for whosoever will can have this song. Now David talks about this song being introduced to his heart and what had been a terrible time in his life. He says he brought me up out of a horrible pit and out of the miry clay. It was a season when he could have turned aside to lies because he says in verse 4, blessed is that man who makes the Lord his trust and does not respect the proud nor such as turn aside to lies. There were things that he wrote himself in the Psalms that if he had fully embraced it without moving to the side of trusting in God it could have swallowed him. Psalm 22 verse 1 for example he wrote my God my God why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me and from the words of my groaning? And you know folks said to say that's where a lot of people's song ends. They embrace this that isn't true. It's a momentary experience but they're really not forsaken but they embrace the fact that they are and end up walking away from God. I had somebody tell me a while back I'm not serving him what's he ever done for me? The person who once knew the Lord but yielded to this lie in a time of difficulty. Why have you forsaken me? I cry out to you and you haven't answered me. Why are you so far from the words of my groaning? Or in Psalm 73 the psalmist says surely I've cleansed my heart in vain and washed my hands in innocence for all day long I've been plagued and chastened every morning. The psalmist in Psalm 73 is looking around himself and he sees seemingly the wicked are prospering and they look happy in the streets no matter what they're doing and yet he feels he's under such a weight and such a difficulty and a lie comes into his heart and he says it's all been for nothing. It's been for nothing that I have tried to walk a righteous life. It's been for nothing that I have tried to do right with my hands. All it has brought to me is this constant plaguing in the sense that I'm under somebody's displeasure every morning and he could have bought the lie and it could have been something that swallowed his life and there are people here today that the devil's right on your doorstep trying to get you to believe this. Trying to get you to believe that somehow the whole thing is a fraud or you got a hold of the short end of the sticker it just doesn't work for you it works for everybody else but not for you and he said I was close to believing this until I went into the house of God and then I had a realization come into my heart oh God they're not as well off as I thought they were. The psalmist says they live in slippery places in other words they're on a slope that's heading down into an eternity without God and they have no idea where they are. David said in Psalm 40 verse 5 I started remembering the things that you've spoken to me and you promised to me. He says many O Lord are your wonderful works which you've done and your thoughts towards us cannot be recounted to you in order and if I would declare and speak of them there more than can be numbered. Got back to focusing on the promises of God and not on his struggles and his difficulties and that folks is what determines what kind of song you're gonna sing. Determines what kind of life you're going to live and what kind of an influence you're going to have in your own family among your friends and your co-workers in your neighborhood. You can turn aside to lies and become an embittered person with an embittered song or you can go back to the Word of God and say Lord I believe you. I believe that your promises are true. I believe that I sit at the right hand of God. I believe I believe that all things work together for good to those who love God and are the called according to his purposes. I believe that God with all my heart and though I don't understand it even as David once said though my family is not the way I would like it to be yet still I will trust in him. Yet still I choose to believe God in the midst of my difficulty. It was a year 2001 when we came here in 1994. The ministry purchased us a home in Morristown, New Jersey. It wasn't an older home. It was only 12 years old at the time and we moved there and we had no idea, nobody did, that the house was infested with mold. By the time it was discovered the persons who went in said there was no visible wood left in the attic. It was all black with mold and it was mold called stachybotrys. It's toxic. It can actually kill you and so from the year 1994 to 2001 I got progressively sicker all the time to the point where walking down the street I would always see these black flecks in front of me because I couldn't breathe properly and you can see this morning I still cough. It's become, it's a thorn in my lungs may I call it that. And for the second time in our lives when it was discovered we lost all of our clothing, our furniture, our pictures, books, everything we had we accumulated since our house burned down in Canada. We lost it all again because we're so, I'm so allergic to it now that if I'm exposed to it, really my nose will bleed. That's as bad as it can get and so I can't be near any of this this kind of stuff and the breathing situation got so bad that I had to breathe in an oxygen tank every morning. We moved to and it was, we were actually moving when the towers were struck here in New York City and so shortly after that I would be going into my office to have my devotions in the morning and I had an oxygen tank in the corner and I'd have to put the mask on my face and breathe into it for about 15 or so minutes and because the headaches were massive. The seven years, the first several years here at the church and particularly from 1994 to 1997 were hard years, were formative years and because of some of the things that happened here some of my children were struggling in their trust of God and their faith in God and that was weighing very heavy on my heart and so realistically I had every reason to be sad and so after my devotions a lot of times I would sit down on my desk and I would start to write poetry. I hadn't done it for years really and as David did I would start to rethink the promises of God that he'd made to me and just write them down. I was writing them down as poems and strangely enough as I would write them down I'd start to hear a tune with it and I didn't have a tape recorder so I would generally call my secretary and I would tell her just don't answer the phone and I would I would sing it into her voicemail. So there were several of these songs that I wrote during that time and once in a while I would sing one when I could sing I would sing one here and Pastor David Wilkerson said I I insist that you record those songs and so I did and it became a CD that's called Cry at Times. That CD has gone in many places throughout the world and it has helped a lot of people. I still get letters from people who are being helped by it. It's fed others but one letter in particular that came to me was a letter from a lady whose husband told her one day that he decided he wanted a divorce after many years of being together as believers in Christ and and she was so devastated by this situation she decided to commit suicide. She got the pills and got the motel the hotel room and was driving there and reached down as she's driving to go to this hotel room or motel room to commit suicide and just put the radio on but the radio was on CD and Cry at Times was in the player. I guess her husband had put it there and there was a song that was playing and she said in her letter she cried for three days and listened to put the song on repeat and just kept listening to it over and over and over and over again and she said the song took me back to the early years where I first knew God and I trusted him and I believed in him. My circumstances were overwhelming they were despairing they had taken away my desire to live but because of this song she said I turned around and went home to find my husband wringing his hands and saying I've God's touched me and I want our marriage to work and want us to get back together so I'd like to I'd like to take a moment and sing this song for you it's called If You've Lost Your Heavens Soul If you've lost your heavens soul it's so hard to carry on when tomorrow looks as sad as yesterday just remember Jesus came he keeps saying just the same if you will listen when you go to him and pray when Jesus came to live in you he carried heaven's sweetest tune with words I love you and forever I will stay when days are cold and darkness strong things might seem lost but not for long his song within you cannot ever pass away his song within you cannot ever pass away the darkest storm cannot be tamed the comfort of his sweet refrain words of assurance invite our hearts to sing along above the roar of sorrow's pain the voice of Jesus comes again when you are meekest be assured that I am strong when Jesus came to live in you he carried heaven's sweetest tune with words I love you and forever I will stay when days are cold and darkness strong things might seem lost but not for long his song within you cannot ever pass away his song within you cannot ever pass away there is a song on earth we sing the words can change with what life brings not so with heaven's song Christ sings for you today the words are steadfast they are true and they were written just for you to give you comfort and to show you there's a way when Jesus came to live in you he carried heaven's sweetest tune with words I love you and forever I will stay when days are cold and darkness strong things might seem lost but not for long his song within you cannot ever pass away his song within you cannot ever pass away let's sing that chorus together now when Jesus came to live in you he carried heaven's sweetest tune with words I love you and forever I will stay when days are cold and darkness strong things might seem lost but not for long his song within you cannot ever pass away his song within you cannot ever pass away Hallelujah I'd just like to give an altar call today for those that are sad you've lost your heaven's song somehow you've just believed the lie that your situation was hopeless your situation is not hopeless you've believed the lie that somehow your situation is hopeless somehow you cried out to God and he hasn't heard you and you can honestly say like David I am in a horrible place but it's out of that place that David eventually saw himself drawn back to God and drawn there with a new song you know I gotta tell you folks I've been here 21 years now and for about 15 of those years I've sighed more than I've breathed it's been not easy at times I wouldn't trade a day of it for anything because it's produced something in me that's deeper than study study is good but it's produced something deeper than study it's produced a confidence in God and a compassion for people and things that I don't even have a name for but God produced them a willingness to follow him and trust him even when your eyes can't see and don't understand where he's leading but I've learned something it's no longer just a theology with me it's a song in my heart he is faithful he cannot fail he will not fail you've put yourself in his hands Paul learned it at the end of Paul's life he ended up in jail and there would be no shortage of people saying wow what a waste of a life no shortage of voices saying wow you preach this incredible kingdom and look at you you loser you're in jail and all you've got is a pen and some parchment and an opportunity to write to a few friends is that how your ministry is going to end? and hundreds of millions of people have come into the kingdom of God because he was able to pen these words I believe I believe that all things work together for good to those who love God all things and are the called according to his purpose all things not just a few of them or the ones I like but all things work together for good whether I'm in a feast at a I'm in a beautiful banquet hall at a table or in jail eating a piece of bread all things work together for good to those who love God and so for those that feel like you're in a horrible place this morning I just want to invite you in a moment to join me at the front of this auditorium and those that are in North Jersey as well and those that are visiting with us today online let God touch your heart with faith oh you'll be singing you'll be singing a new song you may not be out of your situation yet but you'll be standing on a rock in the midst of it and it won't overpower you and you won't be destroyed by it let's stand if that's you and God speak in your heart come please just join me we'll take a moment to sing together and I'm going to ask the Lord to give you a new song today everyone who's struggling and trying and crying inside and believing somehow that God's not going to be faithful to you come just come let's take a moment to worship thank you Jesus you know the new song comes when we just trust Him just trust Him it's not so much that we get out of our situation He will take us out eventually when the work is done but till then He promises to give us a song and put our feet on a solid place a solid foundation and many will see it because they're in the same place and they can't sing the song you sang that's why they see it it's the mercy of God that has you in the neighborhood you're in it's the mercy of God that has you on the job or in the unemployment line you're in it's the mercy of God that has you in the community you live in it's the mercy of God that puts you where you are so that you can sing that song of confidence that others may see it and fear and trust in the Lord mercy it's the mercy of God what He does is on a foundation of mercy everything He does and He does it for reasons we don't understand would you stretch your hands out Father I pray and we pray as a church for those that are experiencing sorrow difficulties that in some cases are not humanly possible to get through but thank you God that you don't call us to humanly get through it that you promise that you will never leave us or forsake us and you tell us that all things as bad as they might seem will turn to a testimony of your presence and your glory and your keeping power and so Lord we choose today we choose to pick back up our song we choose to worship you we choose to say you are good and your mercy endures forever we choose to declare you to be faithful we make a conscious choice today to say Lord you are faithful you will not you cannot forsake your people you have bound the honor of your name in with us in keeping us and so God help me now help all of us to sing the song of salvation that you've given to us no matter where we are no matter our circumstance give us the grace to sing that song and to give you glory Father thank you Lord for breaking the back of despair today the bonds of lies God we thank you for these things Lord you yourself said you take away sorrow and replace it with the oil of joy for that spirit of heaviness and so God thank you Lord I thank you by faith that my brothers and sisters at this altar will not be the same after this this moment of meeting with you they will pick up their song sheet strike up the band inside the temple of the Holy Ghost that they are and let heaven's choir begin to sing and just join that song inside of them that cannot fade away it cannot be taken from us the world didn't give it and the world can't take it away Hallelujah