Today we are in Psalm 30. The Jews considered it such an important Psalm that it was used at the dedication of the Temple. It describes the heights and depths of life, along with the assurance of God’s never-ending favor upon us. And it contains some of the most eloquent and exuberant praise in all of scripture! “I will extol you, O Lord! For you have lifted me up.” “Weeping may last the night but JOY comes in the morning!”  “You have turned for me, my mourning into dancing!” I consider this Psalm one of my best friends, and I hope you will come to love it too.  

The dictionary definition of drama is a situation that is highly emotional or turbulent. That’s life! Life is like the weather or seasons. It is NEVER the same. Whatever it is today, it won’t be that tomorrow. Our feelings change. Our circumstances change. Those changes are unsettling, sometimes shocking. Sometimes they knock us off our feet completely.  

In Psalm 30 David shows us how he trusted God through the turbulence of his own life.  David assures us God WILL get us through it all and restore our joy, no matter how dark things get. Mourning and tears are never the end of the story for God’s people. 

These are well known truths!  Probably no one here will disagree. But too often, we don’t live with that hope and confidence, when life gets upside down. This Psalm will strengthen us to do that. 

David begins this Psalm with unrestrained, exuberant praise.  Verse 1 “I will exalt You, O LORD, for You have lifted me up and have not allowed my foes to rejoice over me. O LORD my God, I cried to You for help, and You healed me. O LORD, You pulled me up from Sheol; You spared me from descending into the Pit. Sing to the LORD, O you His saints, and praise His holy name!”

THAT’s where David’s heart is, when he writes this. He has come “out the other end” of something dark and hard and depressing. He had fallen out of prosperity. He’d been weeping through the night. He may have been near death, physically.  His enemies were glad about all this. But he’d come out of all that. God had changed things around. And He wrote this song to extol the Lord!

But David doesn’t just want to praise God by himself!  He calls for all believers to sing to the Lord and to praise the Lord with him. “Sing to the Lord all you His saints and praise His name.” This is one of the most important messages of the Psalms!  The Psalms are an exhortation to praise and worship the Lord TOGETHER, with joy, with singing, and with shouts of praise.  

I was raised in a church where there was not much exuberance in worship. Something within me always wanted to express my joy in God, more than that.  I wanted to feel, AND to express the joy I read about in the Psalm. When David clapped, or shouted, or sang for joy, or lifted his hands to the Lord, I wanted to do that. And I’m thankful for the freedom to do that. CS Lewis said, “The most valuable thing the Psalms do for me is to express the same delight in God which made David dance”.  The Psalms do that for me too.  I owe so much of my daily joy in God to this book! 

After David came out of this period of mourning and weeping, he declares this precious truth about God. *Verse 5 “His anger is fleeting, but His favor lasts a lifetime. Weeping may stay the night, but joy comes in the morning.” 

God’s anger (or God’s discipline), those times we DON’T experience His favor, those times are fleeting or momentary! The BIG story for us is always God’s loving-kindness and favor! They will be with us to the end. Psalm 23 “Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life”. 

Weeping is never the end of our story. Joy WILL come!  Many times I’ve woken up at night with fear, or been discouraged with myself or some situation.  And then without anything changing, I wake up, and things seem brighter and hopeful. David said this is a way that God works in our lives.  God WILL bring an end to our tears and  you can be sure that joy will come.

This brings stability to our souls. We learn to NOT over react to our problems and our feelings. “Hope in God; FOR I SHALL AGAIN praise him.” You must believe the tears will soon be over and that you’ll be praising God again. So Put your hope in GOD, and wait for that to happen. 

Luther’s recommended cure for depression was to eat and drink and talk and laugh with others, and read comforting verses of scripture. Roland Bainton, called this Luther’s indirect method. Rather than absorb yourself with your despair and how to get out of it, just ignore the darkness and get on with life.  Roland Bainton said, “To give up the argument is of itself an act of faith... an expression of confidence in the restorative power of God, who operates in the subconscious while man occupies himself with extraneous things.” 

Cindy was very seldom, depressed or discouraged. But when she was, her strategy was to clean house. (She did that when she was happy too!) It’s an act of faith that God will restore your soul.  “Joy will come in the morning.”  

*Then David gives us the “story behind the story” of his fall into weeping and despair.  Verse 6, "In my prosperity I said, “I will never be shaken.” O LORD, You favored me; You made my mountain stand strong.

We don’t know the specifics. But David had been in circumstances of prosperity, success, blessing, health.  Life was good. He was on top. AND... he gave the Lord credit for it. “YOU favored me; YOU made my mountain stand strong. 

If things are going very well FOR you right now, in your work, your marriage, your family, or your finances, that’s the mercy and goodness of God.  And “God delights in the prosperity of His servant.” He delights to do you good! 

But David allowed a foolish thought to grow in his heart.  Verse 6 “In my prosperity, I said, ‘I will never be shaken’.” He began to think his prosperity was permanent.  He put his security in that. You may have gone through a time in your life where things were going good, really good!  And it’s easy to think that’s the way life is always going to be. And you put your trust in that. 

Sometimes people even see other people struggling, and falsely think that would never happen to me! We can make that dangerous leap from gratitude for the Lord’s blessings, to presuming we are invulnerable to trials and testing.  And almost without knowing it our joy and security can become rooted in our ease, or success.  

*But out of the blue, something totally unexpected can happen to you, or to your spouse, or to one of your children. Your job or your finances can disintegrate, or your health can fail. Suddenly it can seem like the Lord hid from you! Like His favor evaporated. That’s how David felt. “O LORD, You favored me; You made my mountain stand strong. (But) When You hid Your face, I was dismayed. NLT “Then you turned away from me and I was shattered!”

In a moment, in a single day, or in just a few weeks, your picture perfect life can suddenly NOT be so picture perfect.  

We don’t have time to dive into all the reasons for the changeableness of life. But mainly it’s due to the fall, our fall into sin. And so our lives have been subjected to futility, imperfection, brokenness.  And we feel the impact of that brokenness, more or less at different times. And sometimes things can really go terribly wrong, and shatter our world.

When life crashes. When your world changes... How do you hang on? How do you survive the turmoil, the changes? 

*David tells us what he did. Verse 8 “To You, O LORD, I called, and I begged my Lord for mercy.”  Back in verse 2 he said, "O LORD my God, I cried to You for help,  Ultimately, like David, we go to the Lord to solve the troubles of our heart and life! We look to Him as the source of healing, and help, and return to happiness.

When Peter started sinking in the waters of the Sea of Galilee. He said, Lord save me!  Psalm 119:86 is the shortest prayer in the Bible.  “Help me!”  

THAT is a great prayer! You don’t have to tell the Lord HOW to save you or fix your life. You cry! And God hears you! David called and the Lord healed him and lifted him up! That's what God does!  

*Then in verse 9 David tells us about the logic he used in his prayer. He felt his life was over so he told the Lord, “What gain is there in my bloodshed, in my descent to the Pit? Will the dust praise You? Will it proclaim Your faithfulness?”  

We have more information in Christ. We know we will praise God after we die, in resurrected bodies forever. But I think we can still appreciate his logic with the Lord. If you let me die, you will lose a song writer. You will not have me to sing your praises.  If you leave me in despair who will proclaim your faithfulness.  

David knew how much the Lord delighted in his worship, so he knew this would be a powerful plea to Him. 

This should challenge us! Would we be able to use this argument with the Lord?  Are we singing His praises, now while we are alive, in such a way that the Lord would miss hearing OUR praise if something happened to us.  And do we want the Lord to lift us back up so we can continue to praise him?  Is thay why we want him to help us? 

***Then David reaches the high point of his story in verse 11,12. “You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; you have loosed my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness, that my heart may sing Your praises and not be silent. O LORD my God, I will give thanks forever.”

In those days, in times of mourning, they wore sackcloth. Sackcloth was a course, uncomfortable, black cloth. And it was a sign of mourning, repentance, or ruin. David said the Lord removed his sackcloth, then dressed him up with joy. He said the Lord lifted me out of the lethargy of my sorrow and depression, and He has put me back on my feet and even has me dancing! 

Sabrina and Grant’s wedding was such a godly ceremony. And afterwards there was such joyful dancing. There was the lake, the lights, the music, and so many godly young people, happy and dancing. It was euphoric. And I felt the Lord was much pleased. He delights in our joy!  

Our hearts can only stand so much mourning. There has got to be some dancing in our lives. One of the most beautiful wonders of THIS life is when God turns our mourning to dancing. And God does that for us! He is the God who makes us dance!  He is love, He is holy, He is awesome. But he is also the God who makes us happy! He is the God who lifts us out of the mirey clay and sets upon a rock, and makes us dance again.  

Life has tribulation and suffering. But there is also great joy in God. A lot of the time! And our kids need to see that in us, and in the church. Others need to see that we enjoy God, that we find happiness in God. That's one of the ways we proclaim the excellencies, the goodness of God! 

Then David ends by saying that God lifted him up for a reason. The Lord girded me with gladness "SO THAT my soul may sing praise to You and NOT be silent."  

James Ward has a song based on Psalm 30. He ends it, "You go me singin' and dancin' Lord, I cannot be silent, I cannot be silent...". Something IS missing in our praise if we do not say it outloud, or sing it outloud or shout it outloud. It's not too much to say that God saved you so you would NOT be silent! 

CS Lewis, in his book on the Psalms, said, he had a problem with all the commands to praise God. He said it was because..."I had never noticed that ALL enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise unless . . . shyness or the fear of others is deliberately brought in, to check it." (IE we all automatically express praise for what we love and enjoy!) And "We delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but (it) completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation."  God wants you to praise Him because it completes your joy!  Your joy isn't full without it! 

Referring to this quote, Sam Storms said, "our satisfaction in God is incomplete until expressed in praise of him.  Lewis enabled me to recognize that not only was it permissible to enjoy God in worship, it was absolutely essential if I was truly to honor him. 

**This Psalm is important because it IS OUR experience in life. It shows us life changes. We rise and fall. There are times of weeping and mourning!  (There is nothing wrong with you when that happens – it's life!) But the Lord always brings the joy that comes in the morning.  There always dancing after sorrow and mourning. There is always favor that lasts a lifetime. ...And someday, for us, it will be ONLY dancing, only garments of praise, all mourning and tears will be gone.  

Margaret Becker describes heaven as..

Love that will not end
Hope that will not dim

Mercy lights the sky..
Tears have all run dry

I see us...We are laughing, we are dancing
I see us...We are singing To the One who made it so..
Surely that is Heaven 

Life for us ends in joy and dancing and God's favor in all the ages to come. He Himself will clothe us with gladness for all of eternity.  And the very last thing that David says in this Psalm is something that should characterize our lives, "O LORD my God, I will give thanks forever."