Psalm 130: Hope in the Lord

Speaker: Hello and welcome to the Wednesday in the Word podcast. I'm Krisan Marotta. Today Libby Taggart will be speaking on Psalm 130. You can find Moycox on the Psalms on our website at wednesdayintheword.com. Thank you for joining us. Speaker 1: So I have a story. I don't know that it's particularly a tale that I want to tell you about. It's about a prisoner who is awaiting his sentence. So this wretched, shackled prisoner trembled with fear as he stood before the imposing bench of the toughest, fairest judge in the district. You have been found guilty, the judge solemnly announced. Courtroom observers held their breath, waiting for what they were sure to come. Without a doubt, the man was guilty. The evidence was clear. The judge had no choice but to pronounce a death sentence. There were no appeals for the horrendous crime, no stays of execution allowed. Suddenly, to everyone's shock, the judge did something unprecedented in legal history. He said to the prisoner, justice must be served. You are guilty. You are totally unlovable. Nevertheless, I love you. I love you in spite of yourself. And because of my love for you, I have decided to take your place. I will take your punishment for you. I will die in your place. You are a free man. You can go now. The judge's gavel pounded. The courtroom was silent. After a stunned moment, the courtroom guards unlocked the prisoner's handcuffs and leg irons, removed the judge's robe, and placed the irons on his wrist and ankles. As the judge was led away to death row, the shocked prisoner numbly walked out of the courtroom door to freedom with tears of gratitude running down his cheeks. Now, this, of course, is an allegory about our merciful and gracious God, highlighting two of his many attributes, mercy and grace, which we shall also highlight as we study Psalm 130 today. Psalm 130 is an individual lament, and it's one of seven penitential or repentance psalms, and it is one in a grouping of pilgrim psalms or songs of ascent. The Hebrew word for psalms means songs of praise, which could be a little confusing as we study the psalms, because there are more laments in the Psalms than there are songs of praise. However, as we move through the Psalms, praise overtakes lament until at the end of the book, particularly the last seven psalms, there is a virtual fireworks of praise, as one commentator puts it. Therefore, the book of Psalms moves us from mourning to joy. Psalm 126, 5. Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy. In Psalm 130, the psalmist is lamenting and crying out to the Lord in his distress. He is repenting. He is agreeing with God about his sin. As a song of ascent, it could have been sung by Hebrew pilgrims as they went up to Jerusalem for a festival. Or it could have been sung by pilgrims as they ascended the Temple Mount for worship and sacrifice. Or it could have been sung by the Jewish people as they came home from exile. Not only was there movement by the pilgrim up to Jerusalem, but there is also movement in this psalm. The psalmist moves from the depths of his soul to the heights of his sure hope of waiting on God. This psalm can be a model for us in our prayers and laments as we see suffering acknowledged, expressed, and taken to God, and sin dealt with honestly and not hidden. In it, we see the gospel's view of suffering, in which we enter the depths, bringing us to the heart of things, near to where Christ was on the cross. Now this is not what our culture demands or thinks of as normative. To it there is to be no suffering, no problems, but rather we are to be perpetually healthy and constantly happy. Our culture doesn't recognize that the cross is for suffering sinners. And finally, in this psalm, we encounter our God of mercy and grace, in whom we find hope, the anchor of our soul. So let's read Psalm 130, and I'm calling it hope in the Lord. Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord, O Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my pleas for mercy. If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared. I wait for the Lord. My soul waits, and in his word I hope. My soul waits for the Lord more than watchman for the morning, more than watchman for the morning. O Israel, hope in the Lord, for with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with him is plentiful redemption, and he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities. Romans eight, twenty four and twenty five. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. As we study our Psalm today, we're going to look out look at first the hope of God's forgiveness or mercy. And second, the hope of God's grace. And third, we'll look at how we live in the hope of God's mercy and grace. The hope of God's forgiveness or mercy, verses one through four. Now so that we're all on the same page, let's define divine mercy. It's God's goodness confronting human guilt and suffering. God's goodness confronting human guilt and suffering. Therefore, it's God not punishing us as our sins deserve. In other words, we get what we don't deserve, mercy, which is shown in these verses as forgiveness. Verses one and two. O Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my pleas for mercy. I grew up in Northwest Florida, spending much of my time playing in the white, sugar fine sands and swimming in the blue-green waters of the beautiful Gulf of Mexico. We had big round black tubes that we would use to ride the float on or ride the waves into the shore. Kind of like a boogie board now. Once when I was young, I was riding my inner tube into the shore and it flipped over, trapping me under it. The stem on the inner tube that's used to put the air in, it was sticking in my eye. And as I was swept back and forth by the waves near the shore on the sand with the tube in my eye, I couldn't get out from under it. And I remember having my eyes open and seeing my air bubbles going up and thinking I couldn't get out from under this tube. And I also remember thinking that I was going to drown. And there was a real possibility that I would have if my father hadn't seen me struggling and came and pulled me out from under the inner tube and out of the water. It was a frightening experience, and it's one that I remember sixty plus years later. Now I wasn't able to cry out as the psalmist was, but I know the experience of believing that I was going to drown unless someone helped me. The psalmist is in a pit of terrible despair, and he cannot escape. Metaphorically, he cries to the Lord from the depths of the sea, speaking as if he's drowning. He has weighed all the options and sees no way out of his situation. It's hopeless. He's being pulled deeper and deeper down because of his sin and the consequences surrounding him because of his sin. He's drowning in guilt and shame, and he cannot rescue himself. So his only solution is to turn to the only one who can help him. He turns to Yahweh, his Adonai, in repentance, seeking mercy, asking for forgiveness. Remember when we see Lord in all caps, it means Yahweh, the great I Am, God's covenant name, referring to his covenant that he made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He would be their God, and they would be his people. The other name used in these verses for God is Adonai, Lord, with just a capital L, and this means master or someone with authority. From the depths of guilty despair, the psalmist cries out twice to God, not because he thinks God won't hear, but because he's pleading for mercy, humbling himself to the only one who is able to rescue him. This is no time for pride. He's crying out in hope to a God in whom there is forgiveness. Verses three and four. If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness that you may be feared. The word iniquities is used in this Psalm in verses three and eight. In the Old Testament, the literal definition of iniquity is the conscious choice to bend or twist something physical, or in the moral sense, the choice to pervert or distort something that is true. It's used to mean much more than the guilt we feel when we sin. It includes the idea of circumstance circumstantial consequences that we suffer due to sinful choices. This is what Paul called the wages of sin, which is death, Romans 6.23. Therefore, when we're sinning, we choose to sin. Do you keep records mental or written of wrongs committed against you by friends, family, or maybe even your husband? Do I? It's a good question. We learn from verse three that God does not keep a record of our iniquity. He doesn't keep a record in some kind of ledger, nor will he sigh when we come to him over and over again with the same sins and rebellions and say, Oh, it's you again. What do you want me to do about it? If he were a record-keeping God, no one could stand before his throne with that kind of scrutiny and examination. And if he were, we probably wouldn't even bother to come to him because we would think it was futile. We learn from verse 4, though, that we don't need to worry about that because we have a loving, forgiving Father who waits for us and wants us to come to him with everything sin, rebellion, our guilt, and our shame. In the Old Testament, forgiveness is never used to describe how we forgive one another. It's used to describe only how God forgives us. And how does He forgive us? Through repentance. When we turn away from sin and toward God and His ways, we are repenting. When we are walking one way and are convicted of our sin, and we turn and walk the other way, we are repenting. When we agree with God about our sin, we are repenting. Repenting is more than a feeling, it is action coming from a broken and contrite heart, as David mentions in Psalm 51. When we truly repent, God responds with a forgiveness that is complete and unconditional, and at the same time totally undeserved. Forgiveness or mercy means unmerited pardon as the prisoner in the allegory, which is so amazing that it's hard for us to even comprehend because we're too limited as human beings. God pardons or forgives us from our daily sins when we repent. And for Christians, God forgave our life of rebellion, sin, and self-will when we came to Him in faith. He clothed us in righteousness and made us a new creation. And this was all made possible by the death of Jesus on the cross. We also learn from verse 4 that the result of forgiveness is fear of the Lord. Now when I read this, I thought, what kind of sense does that make? I mean, we could understand fearing God if He didn't forgive. But why fear God since He does forgive? The Hebrew word for fear, as you probably know, is not to be afraid of God, but to be in awe of Him. One way of looking at it is we can be afraid of God because He's so powerful, but we love Him because He's so good. Or being a bit afraid of someone we love, or having a holy awe and reverence of God and who He is, a reverence that implies relationship with someone we want to worship and serve. Proverbs 813. The fear of the Lord is hatred of evil. When we see our sin for what it is, we agree with God about our sin and we turn to Him for mercy. John Stott's comment on verse 4 is that it contains a beautiful balance because its first part brings assurance to the despairing, while its second part sounds a warning to the presumptuous. Another commentator notes The forgiveness of God that delivers from the depths of despair, guilt, and anxiety is not an end in itself, but it makes it possible for us to fulfill the chief goal of our lives, to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. The psalmist now moves us from forgiveness or mercy to grace in the next four verses. So our second section, the hope of God's grace, verses five through eight. Let's define divine grace. It's God's goodness confronting human demerit or sin. God's goodness confronting human demerit or sin. Grace is not getting what we do deserve, and it's anything and everything we receive beyond mercy. Now there's common grace, which is meant for all mankind, and saving grace meant for God's elect, which is the kind of grace these verses address. Verses five and six. I wait for the Lord. My soul waits, and in his word I hope. My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchman for the morning. The Psalmist is waiting, hoping and watching. He moves from the depths to hope in waiting on God. Twice he says that his soul waits on the Lord. He's dependent on God and God alone for forgiveness, believing that it will come. He's not trusting in his own righteousness or works. He knows he's a sinner, and that there's no hope for him apart from God's grace. He's patient while he expectantly waits for the Lord to deliver him. He waits for God's timing and will rather than his own. And he's waiting. While he's waiting, he puts his hope in the word of the Lord. Psalm thirty seven A Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him. Isaiah fifty five, eight and nine, for my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. God is smarter than we are. The psalmist hope comes from God's word in the promises found there, and not in any merit on his part. Psalm eighty nine thirty four. I will not violate my covenant or alter the word that went forth from my lips. Just as the Psalmist could have a sure hope in God's Word, we can as well. The Scriptures, the Old and New Testaments, are the inspired Word of God, meaning that in the original documents they are God breathed, 2 Timothy 3 16. They are the infallible Word of God, meaning that they cannot contain error. They are the inerrant word of God, meaning that they do not contain error. Scripture cannot contain errors because it is holy the inspired word of God. As the watchmen of Israel stood on the walls and watched through the night for dangers that might bring harm to the city, they watched, being certain that the morning would come, and with the morning, safety from intruders and danger. This line is repeated, indicating that the psalmist waiting for the Lord is in the Even more expectant than the watchman's waiting had been for the morning. His waiting for the Lord is a hope that will not fail, a sure hope that he will indeed experience the forgiveness of the Lord. His hope is in the Lord, his grace and his word, not in his own merit or works. Martin Luther said, if anyone wants to amount to something before God, they must insist on grace, not merit. John Calvin agrees, asking for God's forgiveness without the benefit of our performance is the act of saving faith. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. Ephesians two, eight and nine. Verses seven and eight. O Israel, hope in the Lord, for with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with him is plentiful redemption, and he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities. The Psalmist is no longer praying, but he's turned his attention to those around him and encourages, or rather commands, Israel, all the people of God, to hope in, depend on, and trust in the Lord. From the experience of the one, the Psalmist, all of God's people can expect the same mercy and grace. He tells God's people that there is steadfast love with Him. In Him is plentiful redemption, and He will redeem His people. The psalmist is looking forward to the coming Messiah. The key word here is steadfast love. The Hebrew word for this is Hesed, H E S E D, meaning God's loving kindness, his covenant love and loyalty. It's the love resulting from God's intimate covenant relationship with his people, as we talked about in the first section. And it's based on commitment, an oath which God has sworn, and a relationship which God has initiated. Israel's hope and our hope are not based on our commitment to God, but on his loyal, committed love to us. It's based on our God who initiates covenant love. He will not break his word. Therefore, the people to whom the psalmist spoke could be assured that for the rest of their lives they would experience God's hesed love, and the same is true for all who belong to him by faith. In the second half of verse 7, the psalmist tells Israel and all who belong to him that we hope in a God in whom there is plentiful or limitless redemption. It's all sufficient. Redemption implies action. It's the transference of ownership from one person to another after payment of a purchase price. And throughout the Bible, it is always God who pays the price for redemption. We have been bought with a price, and we know that the price was paid by Christ as he shed his blood on the cross. He redeemed us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into his kingdom of light. And he did this by the means of grace demonstrated and accomplished on the cross. And this answers once and for all whether God is committed to giving us hope. He's already paid the price for our sins, and we know how. By his grace on the cross, in his shed blood, and this redemption is enough for all. It's enough for you, and it's enough for me. It is plentiful. Because of this, we can be assured that God not only forgives our sins, past, present, and future, but he is committed to eventually eradicating the original sin that dwells within us through the lifelong process of sanctification, that is the Holy Spirit living in us, making us more and more into the image of Christ. In verse 8, the Psalmist tells Israel that if they are in covenant with Yahweh, he will redeem them from all of their iniquities, their sins, their rebellion. Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. Romans 520. Verse eight also tells us that our hope is in a God who provides abundant salvation, which doesn't just stop at the moment of faith, but goes on as long as we live, because God is working through the Son in the Holy Spirit to complete our sanctification so that we might be presented to our Heavenly Father, His Church in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that we might be holy and without blemish. Ephesians 5 27. The Psalmist trusted in God's forgiveness and mercy. He waited for the Spirit to work in his soul, and he hoped in the saving grace of the coming Messiah. Now our third section. Let's talk about how we should live in the hope of God's mercy and grace. God has many attributes, mercy and grace being two of them. And all of the divine attributes are something that God is, such as the Father of mercies or the God of all grace, rather than of something he has. The attributes are uncreated. They have always been. They are infinite, they cannot be measured. God is all one, meaning that he never measures anything in himself against anything else in himself. Nothing in God is greater than anything else in God. Now that's not to say that some of God's attributes might be needed more at some time and bestowed more at various times, such as mercy or grace. But God in his being has had, does have, and always will have the same amount of mercy or grace, for example, or any of his other attributes. All of the divine attributes are bestowed by God according to his sovereign will. Mercy and grace both flow out of the goodness of God. However, God would still be good and loving if he never showed mercy or grace. He is not obligated to bestow these, but in his mercy and grace to us, he has purposed to be good to his people in a special way. We said that mercy is God's goodness confronting human guilt, and that grace is God's goodness confronting human demerit or sin. Mercy is mentioned four times more in the Old Testament than in the New Testament, but it's just as great in each, because the God of the Bible is immutable. He never changes. He is a merciful and compassionate God throughout Scripture. The Old Testament meanings of mercy are to stoop in kindness to an inferior, to have pity upon, to be actively compassionate. And the key here is active. In the New Testament, the Greek words have in view misery and its relief because of sin, pardon for offenders, and it's an attitude toward mankind and the world in general. Now there's much more that can be said about divine mercy and grace, but those are studies in themselves. Today we're going to talk about just one aspect of divine mercy, and that's God's sovereign mercy to his elect. And then we'll talk about one aspect of divine grace, and that's God's saving grace, and how we live in light of this. First, God's sovereign mercy to his elect. Consider the fact that there's never been a day in our lives when we have not experienced the mercy of God. God's merciful and compassionate character gives sinners such as us hope, but it cannot stop there. As we have received mercy, so we are to show mercy. How do we do that? Number one, we must pray that God would help us show mercy. This may sound too simple. However, prayer is powerful, and God will answer our prayers, particularly ones that align themselves with his will, such as a desire to have a heart of compassion that helps us to show mercy. Number two, we must turn to his word and search the scriptures to learn who is to be shown mercy. I have no doubt that each of you in various ways, every day, show mercy to those whom God has brought into your lives. Throughout Scripture, we're told to show mercy to the poor, the widow, the orphan or fatherless, and the sojourner. They are needy, without help, and vulnerable. And we can be their helper, their friend or advocate, a listening ear, or someone who meets physical, spiritual, or emotional needs? We find this in the laws Moses gave to the Israelites in Deuteronomy 15, 11, and in James 1.27, written to Christians, and many other references in Scripture. Number three, is there someone who has wronged us? Someone we need to forgive, someone who we harbor resentment against? Can we show them mercy and forgive them? Remember the parable of the unforgiving servant in Matthew 18? The servant owed the king twenty years of wages, an incalculable amount, which was impossible for him to repay. The servant begged his master to have patience that he would repay the debt, which was impossible. As you know, the king had mercy and forgave the debt instead of seizing the servant's property and throwing him into prison. This man had no understanding of the great mercy he had just received. He finds a fellow servant who owes him only a hundred days' wages and begins to choke him and demands to be paid. He learned nothing about the extravagance of the mercy shown to him. It was free, so great it couldn't be measured, and it gave him hope for the future. But thinking only of himself, he failed to show mercy. When we think of the mercy that God has showered on us and will continue to shower on us, how can we do anything less than to show that kind of mercy to others? Think of it. God has forgiven every sin we have committed and will ever commit when we repent. When we fully grasp this, the extravagance of God's mercy shown to us, can we do anything less than forgive someone who has wronged us? We must forgive them and in doing so show them mercy. When we do, we remove the burden of carrying a grudge. We rid ourselves of an unforgiving attitude and are obedient to God's commands to be merciful. Then and only then we experience not only the joy of receiving God's mercy ourselves, but the joy that we shall experience from showing mercy to others. Second, God's saving grace meant for his elect. Grace is mentioned three times more in the New Testament than the Old Testament, because as J.I. Packer wrote, it is a word of central importance, the key word of Christianity. Grace is what the New Testament is all about. Its God is the God of all grace. Its Holy Spirit is the Spirit of grace, and all the hopes it sets forth rest upon the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. Through saving grace, God is blessing us despite the fact that we don't deserve it. He's extending kindness to the unworthy. God doesn't owe us anything, and we deserve nothing. Grace is anything and everything we receive beyond mercy. It's what God is like all the time, kind and benevolent. However, this never diminishes the divine attribute of justice and the judgment against sin that flows from it. Sin is serious. It is a matter of life and death for mankind. And it's the reason Christ had to die. Sin separates us from God. Divine mercy meets us in our misery because of sin. But we need more than that. We need God's goodness in the form of His saving grace because of our demerit and guilt. We are without hope except for the free gift of divine grace. I'm going to mention four characteristics of divine grace. It's eternal and infinite. It had no beginning and cannot be measured. It's free. It cannot be bought, earned, or merited. It's sovereign. God bestows and imparts it to whom he pleases. And it is through Jesus Christ, since before the foundation of the world, Revelation 13, eight, the Lamb who was slain before the foundation of the world. Grace is the only way to be saved, past, present, and future. And grace always comes by Jesus. AW Tozer writes, Grace did not come when Christ was born in a manger, was baptized, was anointed by the Spirit, when he died on the cross, when he rose from the dead, or went to the Father. Grace came from the ancient beginnings through the eternal Son and was manifest on the cross of Calvary. It has always been operative since the beginning. The thought and reality of divine grace should fill us with overwhelming awe as we consider the salvation that it brings and the cost of that salvation. How then shall we live in light of God's saving grace? We believe it. We praise God for His grace in our lives and the salvation it brings. We teach it, we sing about it, we extend it to others, and we live lives of gratitude daily. A number of years ago, I participated in a study called How People Change and Helping People Change. And during the course of that study, I was convicted of my sin of judging others rather than extending to them the grace that I have received in Christ. When we think about our demerit and the grace God has freely bestowed on us, how can we not extend that to others? Oh, to grace, say this with me if you'd like, how great a debtor daily I am constrained to be. Let that grace now, like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to thee. Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love, take my heart, O take and seal it. Seal it for thy courts above. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Hebrews 4 16. Because of the mercy and grace given to us, we respond by falling on our knees in worship and thanksgiving to our merciful and gracious God. Let's pray to him. Father, we praise you that you are the merciful and gracious God, that this mercy and grace is so extravagant that Jesus, you died on the cross and shed your blood for us. Thank you, Lord, that you have called us to yourself by faith, that you have given us that gift of faith, and that we belong to you. We thank you, Lord, that we have hope because of who you are, and that you've given us your Holy Spirit to live within us, to remind us of that hope, and that you've given us your word, where we see it on every page. Father, thank you for this song, for the truths that we've learned. We pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus, our risen Lord. Amen.