Psalm 130
Living the Blessed Life Series, Part 7
Lord’s Day, October 18, 2020
First Christian Church, Owensville, IN
Bart W. Newton, Preaching Minister
To hear an audio recording of this sermon, click on the following: “My Soul Waits for the Lord”.
• I have the privilege of leading middle and high school youth. One of the topics that a youth in our middle/high school youth group requested we discuss this school year is how to know you are forgiven.
• An awareness of guilt and unconfessed sin brings disorientation to our lives doesn’t it?
• For the past several weeks we’ve considered some of the Psalms that came out of disorienting circumstances. These are called psalms of lament.
• Over the previous three Lord’s Days, we’ve seen how Psalm 13 is a general psalm of lament (complaint); Psalm 55 is a psalm of cursing and vengeance; and Psalm 17 is a psalm of innocence or protest of innocence.
• Today, with Psalm 130 we’re going to learn about psalms of confession (and forgiveness).
• Other examples of Psalms of confession include Psalms 6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, and 143.
Psalm 130: A Song of Ascents.
1 Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD!
2 O Lord, hear my voice!
Let your ears be attentive
to the voice of my pleas for mercy!
3 If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities,
O Lord, who could stand?
4 But with you there is forgiveness,
that you may be feared.
5 I wait for the LORD, my soul waits,
and in his word I hope;
6 my soul waits for the Lord
more than watchmen for the morning,
more than watchmen for the morning.
7 O Israel, hope in the LORD!
For with the LORD there is steadfast love,
and with him is plentiful redemption.
8 And he will redeem Israel
from all his iniquities.
A Song of Ascents. (After it was put to music it might have been sung by individuals and groups as they ascended to Jerusalem for the great festivals or other occasions.)
A Great Need for God’s Mercy (vv. 1-2).
1 Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord!
• V. 1, NLT: From the depths of despair, O Lord,
I call for your help.
2 O Lord, hear my voice!
Let your ears be attentive
to the voice of my pleas for mercy!
• Psalm 24:3: Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord?
And who shall stand in his holy place?
• At this point, the psalmist would answer, “I cannot unless I experience the mercy of God!”
• But even out of the depths has a great…
A Great Confidence in the God who Forgives Those Who Repent (vv. 3-4).
3 If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities,
O Lord, who could stand?
• V. 3, NLT: 3 Lord, if you kept a record of our sins,
who, O Lord, could ever survive?
• Forgiveness is necessary for survival!
• “The psalmist knows that no human being can stand before a holy God such as Yahweh with anything other than his or her sins. This sad state of affairs for the human being is that, unless God forgives, there is no hope—none whatsoever!”—Walter D. Zorn, Psalms, V. 2, p. 436
• But, the psalmist is aware of God’s attribute of being forgiving, being full aware of the words of God which Moses heard in…
• Exodus 34:6-7a: 6 The Lord passed in front of him and proclaimed:
The Lord—the Lord is a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in faithful love and truth, 7 maintaining faithful love to a thousand generations, forgiving iniquity, rebellion, and sin. (CSB)
• We hear this echoed in another confessional psalm: Psalm 51:1: Be gracious to me, God,
according to your faithful love;
according to your abundant compassion,
blot out my rebellion. (CSB)
• And so with confidence he declares in v. 4:
4 But with you there is forgiveness,…
• On many occasions while sharing the Good News with individuals I’ve witnessed tears of joy flow down the cheeks of many as soon as they realized they could be forgiven completely of their sins. Tears were at the beginning of my own conversion experience as a young teenager at church camp. My tears began from a conviction of sin and turned to tears of joy from knowing God would forgive me of my sins as I turned to Him in repentance, confessed faith in Him as the Son of the Living God, my Lord and Savior and within the week was buried with Christ in baptism for the forgiveness of my sins, received the Holy Spirit, and was raised to a new way of life.
• But is this forgiveness just so one can experience a clear conscience? No! It is…
… that you may be feared.
• Literally: “’For with you is the forgiveness; therefore, you are being feared.’” (Zorn, p. 436)
• V. 4, NLT: But with you there is forgiveness,
so that you may be revered.
• Psalm 51:2-4: 2 Completely wash away my guilt
and cleanse me from my sin.
3 For I am conscious of my rebellion,
and my sin is always before me.
4 Against you—you alone—I have sinned
and done this evil in your sight. (CSB)
• “’…none fear the Lord like those who have experienced his forgiving love.’”---C.H. Spurgeon (Wilcock, The Message of Psalms. p. 239)
• It is because we’ve received God’s forgiveness that one turns to God in awe and reverential fear.
• The Bible teaches that to fear God is to hate evil.
• We are to learn to love what God loves and hate what God hates.
• For confession to be real confession it must include repentance.
• Romans 2:4: Or do you despise the riches of his kindness, restraint, and patience, not recognizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance? (CSB)
• Repentance is a transfer of allegiance from sin and self to God.
• And so with the confession comes…
A Great Expectation of a Word from God (vv. 5-6).
5 I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
and in his word I hope;
• V. 5,NLT: I am counting on the Lord;
yes, I am counting on him.
I have put my hope in his word.
• “I am counting on God speaking to me.”
• For this we must give attention to Scripture. God speaks through His Spirit, circumstances, events, and people, but at the foundation of all those is His Word. He will not go against it; He will affirm it.
6 my soul waits for the Lord
more than watchmen for the morning,
more than watchmen for the morning.
• V. 6: I long for the Lord
more than sentries long for the dawn,
yes, more than sentries long for the dawn. NLT)
• Several years ago I went backpack camping by myself on some farm ground. Just as I got settled down and relaxed enough to sleep in my one-man tent, I heard a “SNORT!” A deer snorted outside my tent. Now I knew there were no animals at that time that were going to eat me, I began to long for the morning light! It seemed so far away, but I knew it would eventually come!
• As sure as the sun rises, the Lord will forgive the person who waits for Him with expectation.
• The psalmist knows what that covenant word from the Lord will bring— joy!
• Psalm 32:1-2: 1 How joyful is the one
whose transgression is forgiven,
whose sin is covered!
2 How joyful is a person whom
the Lord does not charge with iniquity
and in whose spirit is no deceit! (CSB)
• “[The psalmist’s depths] speaks to our heart’s need more than most, for indeed we cannot stand before God with any record of our sins in his hands. We are absolutely helpless and totally dependent upon his grace, mercy, and forgiveness if we are to survive, either individually or corporately. We can only put our hope in God, and wait—wait for his covenant love and loyalty to come through and bring us ‘full redemption. Is there any other way?”—Walter D. Zorn, Psalms, Vol 2, DPNIVC, p. 438
A Great Communal Redemption from Sin for God’s People (vv. 7-8).
• The faithful Israelite never saw himself apart from the community of God’s people. His or her identity was bound up in the group.
7 O Israel, hope in the Lord!
For with the Lord there is steadfast love,
and with him is plentiful redemption.
• Steadfast love, abundant redemption, forgiveness are with the Lord and are to be shared by His children!
• When a member of the Lord’s body sins, the whole church experiences some suffering. When a church member confesses sin and turns from it, the whole church experiences some healing.
• Many evangelicals are critical of how Catholics practice confession of sin. While we might disagree with some of their methodology, at least they are trying.
• The New Testament says there is a proper place for it:
• James 5:16: Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. (ESV)
• you = you all—as in the entire church.
• There are times that even though we’ve confessed our sin to God and received forgiveness, we don’t feel free of it. Confessing one’s sins privately to a mature, trustworthy Christian often brings the feeling of liberation that corresponds to the reality of the forgiveness God has provided. That is good for the whole church!
8 And he will redeem Israel
from all his iniquities.
• “Is not this the clear prophecy of the coming of our Lord Jesus the first time? And may we not now regard it as the promise of his second and more glorious coming for the redemption of the body? For this our soul doth wait: yea, our heart and our flesh cry out for it with joyful expectation.” –C.H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, V. 2, p. 121
• The angel to Joseph: Matthew 1:21: She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” (ESV)
• In the church era under the New Covenant, Israel is now a spiritual Israel made up of both Jews who give allegiance to Jesus and Gentiles who do the same. This is the Israel of God.:
• Galatians 6:14a,15-16: 14a But it’s unthinkable that I could ever brag about anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ…15 Certainly, it doesn’t matter whether a person is circumcised or not. Rather, what matters is being a new creation. 16 Peace and mercy will come to rest on all those who conform to this principle. They are the Israel of God (GW).
• Titus 2:11-14: 11 For the grace of God has been revealed, bringing salvation to all people. 12 And we are instructed to turn from godless living and sinful pleasures. We should live in this evil world with wisdom, righteousness, and devotion to God, 13 while we look forward with hope to that wonderful day when the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, will be revealed. 14 He gave his life to free us from every kind of sin, to cleanse us, and to make us his very own people, totally committed to doing good deeds. (NLT)
• “More seldom than we expect, the prayer for the forgiveness of sins meets us in the Psalms…The seven so-called repentance Psalms (6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, 143)…lead us into the total depth of the recognition of sin before God. They lead us to the confession of guilt and direct our complete confidence to the forgiving grace of God…In every case all hope is fixed on free forgiveness, as it has been offered to us and promised by God in his word about Jesus Christ for all times.” –Dietrich Bonheoffer, Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible, pp. 50-51.
• To the repentant Christian: 1 John 1:9: God is faithful and reliable. If we confess our sins, he forgives them and cleanses us from everything we’ve done wrong. (GW)