Psalms: Songs of Ascent

Psalm 130, a song of ascents. Out of the depths I cry to you, Lord. Lord hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy.

If you Lord kept a record of sins. Lord who could stand. But with you there is forgiveness. So that we can with reverence serve you. I wait for the Lord.

My whole being waits And in his word, I put my hope. I wait for the lord. More than watchmen wait for the morning. More than watchmen wait for the morning. Israel.

Put your hope in the lord. For with the lord is unfailing love and with him is full redemption. He himself will redeem Israel from all their sins. Abri. Thanks Chris, and hello everyone.

Good evening. Good evening. My name is Abre. I am 1 of the members here in Cornerstone Church. Someone asked me this afternoon how long have been here, people keep asking me this question.

And I am officially part of the furniture been here for 11 years which gosh. Time flies. Right? Time flies. Do keep your bibles open to the passage.

We'll be referring to it as we go along This is part of the Sermon series that we've been doing in what's called the songs of ascent in the Psalms. In fact, this is the last 1 santimes. But this this people think that these psalms were sung as pilgrims made their way to Jerusalem. So they wore up the the mountain to Jerusalem to the temple where God dwelt with his people. That's why they call the songs of ascent.

And this particular song is is a favorite was a favorite of the great theologian John Owen, if you know who that is. And also Martin Luther, the great reformer, who actually summarized this passage, this the the Samis. He says this, This Psalm confesses that no 1 is righteous before God on account of his own works and merits but only through grace and by faith in the promise of God. With his word of promise, he supports and comforts himself when struggling in the depths of sin and hell. That is pretty much my sermon.

Should I be closing prayer? No. You can't really do it better than Luther, but but we will work our way through this Psalm and see what God has to say for us. So let's pray as we start. Our heavenly father, we thank you for your word and we thank you that your word shows us more of who you are.

So please lord, would you do that tonight? Help us to be receptive to what you have to say to us. We ask in your name. Our men. What is hope?

There you go. What is hope? Hello. Hope is, well, 1 thing is not for sure is that it's not just wishful thinking, you know, the odds are totally stacked against us and we just will just wish that something good comes out of the situation. And it's not positive thinking.

It's not, you know, if I really think positively, you know, like Oprah Winfrey says, the universe will conspire somehow to give you that thing that you want. But it's it's not it's this is not what hope is, certainly not in the bible. But what is hope, biblical hope as the bible defines it? That's really what this entire sermon is about. It's it's about hope.

What what does the Bible tell us about hope? And in particular, what does this Psalm tell us about hope? Biblical hope, unlike these other definitions of hope, actually focuses our attention on God and away from us. That's a key thing. So I had to go after looking through the psalm to to kind of define what I thought the psalm was saying about hope and what hope is.

So this is my my definition. Hope is using the character, the deeds or the actions and promises of the Lord to focus our imaginations on our future redemption. So it's using the character, the deeds, and promises of the Lord to focus our imaginations on our future redemption. And so if you see, you can look down a psalm there there there are kind of the psalm is 8 verses. There are 4 pairs of verses.

So we're gonna take them in pairs. And handily, I have 4 points to go with all those with those pairs of verses. So let's get into the passage. So if you look with me versus 1 and 2, out of the depths Lord out of the depths I cry to you Lord. Lord hear my voice.

Let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy. My first point is this hope in the depths. Now this Psalm starts starts in quite a bleak way. He's crying out from the depths. And for for ancient Israelites who certainly the 1 who wrote this psalm, the depths are very unfamiliar place because they are an agrarian culture.

So they farm the land, they breed animals and they don't really go anywhere near the sea. So for them, the depths are really kind of the waters, in fact, like the bottom of the ocean really. And the depths kind of symbolize chaos and death and evil it's not really where anyone wants to be. And if you remember, we said these are the songs of a sense. So people would travel wherever you came from, you would travel up amounts into Jerusalem, and then you go up another mound to the temple where God dwells with his people.

So if God dwells on high, the depths really are as far away from God as anyone we want to be. And that's what the Psalm is Samas is telling us. His sin is what separates him from God and he feels it. He feels our distance from God. And I wonder if perhaps tonight's maybe that's the case for you.

You know, you you might be feeling that sense of separation because you have sin. Maybe a sin that you you thought you would never do again. That's that's the that's the picture that Thomas is painting for us. But the thing is that as Christians, in a sense, we shouldn't really be surprised that we feel that sense of separation. Wonder reason is that we are the bible tells us, we're carrying around a dying flesh.

Although Although the Holy Spirit tells us to do 1 thing, our flesh is always pulling us in the other direction, telling us to do another thing. The flesh is kind of like a reluctant traveler. And you just can't really shake it off. He was like that annoying sibling who let's face it. Everyone wanted to kind of leave at home.

Your parents included, but but, you know, you just couldn't do it. If you're if you're shaking your head saying, I don't remember that. You lovingly, you you might be that sibling. So it's it's the flesh is this reluctant traveler. It is with us our entire lives, all our days, always fighting against us.

So we know that we should choose truth, be people of truth, but yet we lie sometimes to protect ourselves. We know that we should be faithful to God like he is faithful to us, but we sometimes are ashamed of the gospel. We know that we should love our enemies, but sometimes we gloat when they when they lose. And the apostle Paul talks about this in Romans chapter 7. It's a great chapter because he shows you that he wants to do good but his flesh is pulling him away.

The good that he wants to do, he doesn't. And the the bad that he doesn't wanna do, he actually ends up doing. And this is exactly what the Psalm is feeling as well. The sin kind of pulls us, it separates us from God. But also there's also another sense that when actually when we get closer to God, as Christians We see our sins even more clearly than we did when we first became Christians.

Because you see God is perfect and he's holy. So when we see ourselves in light of him, we see how terrible that we are. It's it's like it's like thinking that you've got a white t shirt and then you stand next to someone who actually does and you go, oh, or or even worse, even more devastating. You think you have white teeth and then you you put on a white t shirt and then you go, oh, But even worse even more than that, God is perfect. He is holy.

So when we look at ourselves, the more clearly see him the the more clearly we see ourselves and we lament like the psalmist. And it's it's hard. It's painful. But in a sense this is actually appropriate if we are seeing God more clearly. But you see the Psalmus feels this pain, but what does he do about his pain?

Well again in verse 1, out of the depths I cry to you, Lord. So he doesn't try like a 12 step program. I'll do this this this and this and I will I will make it, you know, be more holy. No. It said, he cries to the lord.

And that shows that he shows us dependence on the lord. He prays to the lord. And I don't know about you, but prayer often is the hardest thing to do especially when you're in that sort of situation. So maybe, you know, do take advantage of Tom's offer of the books and and get more into that we can get more into praying. We should be responding like the psalmist.

But sometimes, it is actually the the furthest thing from our lips to cry out to him. But the Samus is crying out because he has hope in the lord. How do we know that he has hope in the lord? Well, firstly, he's not attempting to rescue himself. He's crying out for mercy.

He's crying out for a rescuer. Do you see there? And he's crying out to the only person who's actually willing and able to help. But why does he believe that any kind of rescue is coming? Well, Again, if you look down with me at verse 1, he says, out of the depths I cry to you, Lord, and Lord is capital, l o r d.

Now, the original Hebrew word is Yowei, that's God's personal name, the name that he gave his people, the name that kind of symbolizes his covenants with his people. His promise to his people telling them I will be faithful to you. I will show you grace and show you mercy. The Thomas is reminding himself and saying to God, this is you. This is this is your character.

This is who you are. You are faithful to your people. So he's crying out to the 1 who know he knows can help him. So what does this mean for us today? Well, If this picture of crying recalls any images in your mind for me, it's I went straight to the cross because in his his greatest moments of anguish, our Lord Jesus cried out, my God, my God.

Why have you forsaken me? And we know at that point he he died. He cried out on our behalf. He took our punishments. Through his death, the punishment that we deserve.

So because he cried after them from the depths, when we cry out, our prayers are answered. God is listening. So we should cry out. We should cry out and cry out in hope. Because we know who our Savior is.

We know his character. If you look down with me again versus 3 and 4, it says, if you Lord kept a record of sins, Lord, who can stand? But with you, there is forgiveness so that we can, with reverence, serve you. My second point tonight is hope in judgment hope in judgment. Again, I've said the the pilgrims ascended the this this hill to Jerusalem and then again another kind of mound to the temple So this this kind of upward movement to to enter the presence of God, to worship him.

And this picture of standing is is related to the priesthood. So the priests would stand in God's presence to represent the people before God and to worship him and to serve him. And in order for the priests to do that, they had to be clean. They had to be holy. They had to be ritually clean.

And and that picture of cleanliness is really a picture of holiness, the kind of 1 and the same thing reading. And it would be dangerous for them if they hadn't been cleansed to stand in God's presence because, well, you just couldn't. You might end up dead. And the Psalmish knows that this is also true for him. This is what he's trying to express to us.

So he asks the rhetorical question in in verse 3 If you Lord kept a record of sins Lord, who could stand? Who could stand? Well, no 1 really. Like we've seen The the closer we get to God, the more we see our sins, no 1 can stand. And again, the the rise of Paul in Romans chapter 3, he he mentions as he he says that no 1 is righteous, not even 1.

And that truth can be painful because we feel our sinfulness. And for some of us, we might even feel unworthy to be around God's people sometimes. You know, maybe there's people out on on on the livestream watching there. Maybe you also feel this way. That you feel your sinfulness and you just don't you just don't think that you could be around God's people.

Who could stand? Well, there was only 1 person who could stand in God's presence. There was only 1 person who was holy and sinless. There was only 1 real priest who could represent his people to God. And that's Jesus.

And because he represents us, we can stand in God's presence without the fear of judgment. You see, in his death, Jesus entered the depths of our punishment so that we wouldn't have to. And then in his resurrection, he brought us into the heights of the presence of God. And because he's cleansers that we are forgiven. Jesus Jesus has won that forgiveness for us.

He's brought us into his presence and so in hope, we can stand. We can stand in God's presence without the fear of being cast out into the depth. And again, we know who our savior is because we know what he has done for us. We know his deeds. He is 1 forgiveness for us.

He looked down again with me verses 5 and 6 He says, I wait for the Lord. My whole being waits And in his word, I put my hope. I wait for the Lord, more than watchmen waits for the morning, more than watchmen waits for the morning. My third point is hope in waiting hope in waiting. I don't know about you, but I do feel the hope waiting is actually kind of a theme of life.

We're we're always waiting, waiting for something. We don't control the world. Right? We we we have to wait for the weather to change. We have to Some some some of us are waiting for a better day and, you know, some of us are waiting for our time to come Some of us are waiting maybe for this sermon to end, but we we wait.

This is this is just the nature of being a human being. Because we're not in control of everything. Now Sophie and I and my wife are waiting for our first child. And we waste expectantly. We we project our mind into into the future and think, you know, what's he going to be like?

What's our There's a boy gonna be like? What will he like? What will he not like? What will he eats and not eat? Will he like the fact that I've already signed them up to basketball training camps?

You know? I don't know but but we do wait expectantly to see what he is gonna be like. We cast our minds forward. And that's exactly what the Tsamas is doing here. But how does he wait?

How does the Tsamas wait? Again, look down with me. In verse 5, he says, I wait for the Lord. My whole being waits. That's that's a really intense way of putting in my whole being like everything in my every fiber of my being is waiting for the Lord.

The image really of that captures is you can just imagine a man in the desert who's on the verge of dying of thirst. And he sees often a distance and oasis. Every single cell in his body is going to be crying out for that water. That is how the Tsamis is wasting for the Lord. It's painful.

It's it's it's in fact desperate really. But but he waits expectantly. He waits seeing satisfaction coming. But what exactly is he waiting for? Again, let's go down to verse 5.

He says, I wait for the Lord My whole being waits and in his word, I put my hope in his word. This word that he is waiting for, this word from God is quite simple. It's I forgive you. It's God's forgiveness. That's what he's waiting for.

His wasting is painful but it is not hopeless. So if in the first sort of a couple of verses, he kind of builds this picture of this physical separation between him and God, you know, being in the depths and God is in the heights. Here he paints a picture of separation and time. This is where he is and this is where he wants to be. So he kind of shows you just how far away he feels from God.

He's waiting for God's forgiveness. And then he builds this image again of waiting even further. So if we go down to verses verse 6, he says, I wait for the Lord more than watchmen waits the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning. Now, again, the picture of a watchman is you can picture a soldier looking over a city at night. And they for them, you know, nighttime is watching for something to happen.

Well, hopefully nothing happens. Mhmm. And they're they're watching and waiting. And the nice is really kind of symbolizes fear, It symbolizes danger, and so they are eager for the morning to come because then, that's that means relief, that means safety. So the nighttime is a time of hire less, morning is safety and relief.

And notice that he uses the picture of morning at the dawn, because the the dawn doesn't come about by his own doing. It's it's the way God has made the world. I remember when I was probably about 4 years old, I am I think I think someone had told me that you shouldn't look directly into the sun. That probably says a lot about the kind of child I was. Maybe the kind of child we might have.

But I I am I remember this morning, come up and walk up walk up the door and look up at the sun. And I thought, okay, interesting, jumped into the car, and I remember looking out the back window and seeing the sun there. We drive along for a little bit, look out the window again. Sun is still there. Interesting.

We get to we get to the nursery, come out the car, look it up again, the sun is still there. Aha, I thought. My 4 year old mind deduced something or this is in induction I think is this is. I thought it must be that the sun follows me around wherever I go. What else could actually explain that?

That that must be it. That's what I thought. Now, someone thankfully explained to me that is not how God's world works. The sun does not follow me around. We do not revolve The sun doesn't revolve around us.

We know how the dawn works. You're all intelligent people. I don't have to explain it to you. We know how it works. But this is the this is the world that God created.

You know, whether I Doesn't matter what I do, the sun is going to rise tomorrow morning and it doesn't depend on me. And that's the picture that he the Psalm is portraying about God's time for forgiving people, forgiving his people. Forgiveness will come. And it will come in the Lord's time. And you see the Somaces at this point of desperation like we said, like a man in the desert almost dying of thirst, but his forgiveness will come.

His answer will come. And so what the Samus is telling us is actually quite amazing. He's saying As surely as the sun rose today, you are forgiven if you are a child of God. You are forgiven. So Chris, did the sunrise this morning?

Yep. You can be sure that you are forgiven in Christ. Tom, this is not right rise yesterday morning? I believe so. Well, you can be sure that you are forgiven in Christ.

Anja, did the sun rise on Friday morning. You can be sure that you are forgiven in Christ. God's forgiveness is is is all in his time and he has promised forgiveness to his people. So if you are a Christian and you are feeling that sense of separation, God has forgiven you. It's his it's a done deal.

It has happened. And perhaps if you're not a Christian here, well, my advice is do what the Summers is doing. Waste wait for the morning. God will forgive. He will bring his grace and mercy.

Just keep coming keep coming and listening to sermons and speaking with people. So we should rest in this truth. Jesus is God's word of forgiveness come to us. He brought forgiveness to us to those who hope in him. So again, the pain that there is pain in waiting, and it's is real.

And it's not pleasant, but his forgiveness is sure. So our hope is sure and so we can waste expectantly. We know our Savior and we know what he has promised for us to us. He looked down with me at the last couple of verses verse 7. Israel puts your hope in the lord.

For with the lord is unfailing love and with him is full redemption. He himself will redeem Israel from all their sins. Redemption is is an interesting word. You you see time and time again in the bible, and then it paints a picture of actually slavery, which may sound odd to some people. But in in all testament times, certainly around the time this was written, people's, you know, some a person, for instance, mice get into death that he can't pay.

And so he might sell himself into slavery to pay off those debts. And so, to be redeemed really is for someone to come along and pay your debts for you to free you. To buy you back, to buy your freedom. So in order for that to happen, you need a redeemer, you need someone who's willing and to pay. So red redemption implies that there is slavery there and he the Psalm is showing us that he that there's this sense of slavery to sin.

And he's looking forward, it doesn't it doesn't even verse 8 He says he himself will redeem Israel from all their sins. He's looking forward to the day when he would be freed from sins. But what's about us? What does what does this mean for us? Well, we know that we were brought back from slavery to sin by the Lord Jesus and his sacrifice for us.

So again, in the book of Romans, Romans chapter 6, we won't be turning to that, but if you read that chapter. It's it's a great chapter because he the the the apostle Paul is telling us that we were slaves Sins. If you're a Christian, you were slaves to sin and now God has freed you and made you to slaves to righteousness. God has freed you. So so contrary to whatever you might be feeling perhaps maybe again feeling separated from God.

He Because of your sin, he has actually freed you from sin in terms of his consequences on your life. So even if you feel quite low, quite bad, it's no less true that you have been freed. That fight, that reluctance traveler is always with you, but you are free from sin. And then again look down with me in verse 7 and he says Israel put your hope in the Lord. For with the Lord is unfailing love, and with him is full redemption.

Now some versions of the of the Bible translate the word full as as abundance or plentiful redemption. There's more redemption than you can handle kind of thing. It's it's more than what's needed. Basically, what they're saying is that his redemption outweighs our sins. So we sung we sung earlier, didn't we?

Our sins, they are many butts. But what? Mercy is more. Exactly. His mercy is more.

It outweighs his mercy outweighs our sins. So brothers and sisters bear that in mind especially when we feel that pain from our sins, his mercy is more. We turn our gaze back to the Lord our Savior. And his redemption is more than just kind of you know, clearing our account and bringing them back up to 0. You know, we might have been negative, you know, negative 30, but now he's brought it up to 0, but it's more than that.

Again in verse 7, he says Israel puts your hope in the lord for with the lord is unfailing love. See, love for God is not simply a feeling. It's actually an action. You know, he We know the famous verse, John 3 16, for God to love the world world. Oh God love the world in this way.

He gave us Jesus, his most precious possession. But he gave us the most precious thing that he had. It's kind of like the the picture is kind of like this. So in back in Jesus' day, slaves would have been sold for 30 pieces of silver. Give or take.

Imagine the king coming with 30 pieces of silver buying a slave's freedom. So his account is back to 0. But then he says, as the slaves walking your way in this freedom, he says, no, but come back. I'm I'm actually going to adopt you into my family. You are now royalty effectively.

But even more than that, I'm actually going to give you everything. All everything I own, mine, this all of this is yours, your inheritance, everything. That is the picture of God's redemption. His redemption outweighs our sins. Whatever we lost when Adam fell, we have gained more in Christ and his faithfulness.

So what does this mean for us? Well, as Christians, we focus our imaginations on the future and our ultimate redemption. We feel the pain now, but we know that there is a day where that's coming where we won't sin anymore. And we will be like Christ. I'm an architect and largely, what I do, if I put it in a nutshell is I come up with images in my mind of what's of how a client might want to live you know or work or whatever it might be.

And over time, I build up the detail in that image, giving more and more and more and more detail. Enough for someone to then take that and then actually build this and then the client goes, oh, now I see what you meant. Oh, this is nice. I enjoyed that and so on and so forth. And as we come to church, we hear God's word being preached, we go to home group, we discuss things with 1 another.

We build up a picture of who God is. It gets it gets more and more refined, more and more detailed. You could be a Christian for 1 year or 70 years, And you still you read the gospel and you get more out of it every single time, more out of the bible. We get an even more detailed picture of who he is, more clear picture. So even even though sin kind of drags us down to the depths, hoping God lifts us up to the heights where God is, where we will we will be with him 1 day.

So that is our hope, that is biblical hope. It's not wishful thinking, it's not positive thinking. Go back to my definition, see how you think this fits. Hope is using the character, the deeds, and the promises of the Lord. To focus our imaginations on our future redemption.

This is where we're going to. So what's it that we face now? We look at that in the light of who God is and what he has done for us. I have an extract from a book called The ValueVision. It's a it's a it's a book of prayers, puritan prayers, And the very first prayer in his book has lots of imagery that relates very much to the to this psalm.

And so I thought to close the 7, I can I will pray this prayer over us? So let's pray. Lord, high and holy, meek and lowly. You've brought us to the value of vision where we live in the depths but we see you in the heights. Hemmed in by mountains of sin, we behold your glory.

Let us learn by paradox that the way down is the way up that to be low is to be high, that the broken heart is the healed heart, that the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit. That the repenting soul is the victorious soul, that to have nothing is to possess awe, that to bear the cross is to wear the crown that a give is to receive, that the valley is the place of vision. Lord, in the daytime stars can be seen from the deepest wells and the deeper the wells, the brighter your stars shine. Let us find your light in our darkness. Your life in our death.

Your joy in our sorrow, your grace in our sin your riches in our poverty and your glory in our valley. Our men.