The Promise of Forgiveness
I. TEXT:
Psalm 130 (KJV)
A song of degrees
1 Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord.
2 Lord, hear my voice: let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications.
3 If thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?
4 But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared.
5 I wait for the Lord, my soul doth wait, and in his word do I hope.
6 My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning: I say, more than they that watch for the morning.
7 Let Israel hope in the Lord: for with the Lord there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption.
8 And he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities.
II. INTRODUCTION:
Psalm 130 is a part of the pilgrim songs (Pss. 120-134). The pilgrim songs are a part of the hallel psalms (Pss. 120-136). All fifteen of the psalms have the heading "ascents." The KJV translates this as "A song of degrees." There are multiple other translations and various interpretations as to what this heading means. The traditional view is that these psalms were a collection of songs written for or by the Jews who were scattered around the ANE world making their way to the Jewish homeland to worship at the temple during the yearly religious festivals. The reason that they were songs of ascent is that no matter what direction you come from, the journey to Jerusalem is always an uphill climb.
The journey of life is at times a struggle and what is worth having often takes work. The apostle Paul said that his Christian life was one characterized by forgetting what was behind and pressing forward into the upward call of God in Christ Jesus (Phil 3:14). The first of the pilgrim Psalms (Ps. 120) mentions the difficulty of worshipping the LORD with military opposition. There are moments in our lives where all we want is peace, but the world around us is intent on fighting. Tension has characterized life in the land of Israel for ages. Both then and now there are times when the only recourse to what we face day after day is prayer. The pilgrim songs are prayers.
Psalm 130 is a lament but also a song of confidence. God has a way of turning our morning into dancing, our sorrow into joy, our tests into testimonies, and our trials into triumphs. It may be an uphill climb, but singing our complaints to Him can transform any of them!
Psalm 130 is also one of the penitential Psalms (Pss. 6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 143) because of its emphasis on forgiveness. You can hear it echoed when you read Paul's epistles as he talks about God's willingness to forgive. The lament and plea for forgiveness are both individual and corporate. The decision to trust in the faithfulness of God is also something that the psalm portrays as individual and community-wide among the pilgrims. We all need repentance and confession and we find it in the community of faith together, we find it as we enter the gates to worship together. The pilgrims cried out to God alone and together. So must we. If "we" confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive "us" our sins and to cleanse "us" from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). Jesus taught us to pray, "Forgive 'us' our debts as 'we' forgive our debtors" (Luke 11:4).
"The psalm falls into four sections of two verses each. The first two verses record the psalmist's cry to the LORD out of trouble. The next two verses express his confidence that there is forgiveness for sins, indicating that the dilemma was probably due to sin." (Allen P. Ross, A commentary on the Psalms: Volume 3, pg. 710)
All our problems ultimately have their root in sin, whether it is the sin of someone else or our own sin. The pleasure of sin is only seasonal. It always results in chaos and decay. We sow the wind and reap a whirlwind. We sow to the flesh and reap corruption. Adam and Eve gave us Paradise for an apple. Esau gave up his birthright for a bowl of beans. The sword never left David's household because of his sin against Bathsheba, Uriah, Israel, and the LORD. When they asked the old preacher what he had to say about sin, he replied "I'm again' it!" But, thanks be to God that that is not the entire story! There is forgiveness of sins!
"The third section tells of the psalmist's eager waiting for an oracle telling him he is forgiven. And the final two verses is a call for the people to hope in the LORD because someday he will redeem them from all their sins. The psalm is saying that the present (and repeated) cycle, for the remedy of sin--forgiveness and deliverance--is a harbinger of the final and complete deliverance from all sin." (Ross, pg. 711)
We will break the psalm down into four sections and look at its message for us this evening.
III. EXPOSITION:
1. Believers cry out to God in times of trouble
Psalm 130:1-2 (KJV)
1 Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord.
2 Lord, hear my voice: let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications.
The psalmist cries out to the LORD asking Him to answer his prayer. The old song says "what a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer." Prayer cannot be the spare wheel that we put on only in times of trouble but must be the steering wheel that directs us on the right path throughout the journey. However, even for the most disciplined and spiritual among us, there will be moments when you get off track and find yourself stuck and crying out from the depths! Prayer is also a tool that we can use to make a course correction! We can use prayer to make U-turns; that's what repentance is. It is confession and forsaking of sin.
The psalmist cries out from "the depths." The word has to do with water, the sea, or chaos. From the opening verses of the Bible, we see the watery depths attempting to dominate and overwhelm creation, but the God of the Bible is always there moving and hovering and overcoming and subduing the watery chaos. The psalmist is drowning like Peter who got his eyes off of Jesus as he journeyed towards Jesus and started sinking! Peter forget the point and started looking around at the things that would have consumed his life. Job said this of the Almighty, "He alone stretches out the heavens and treads on the waves of the sea" Job 9:9 NIV). Jesus came walking on the sea to His disciples dominating what would have destroyed them.
Peter's prayer was simple as he sank, "Lord, save me" (Matthew 14:30). And Jesus reached out His Hand and did just that. Both the psalmist and Peter knew Who to call on when sin overwhelmed them! The psalmist's plea was that the LORD would allow His Ear to be attentive to his prayer. It is a petition for grace. The prayers of the psalmist are frequent and intense -- "the voice of my supplications." There are moments when we do have to pray longer and more intensely, but the reason we pray is that we know that there is a listening God!
2. Believers have confidence that God forgives sin
Psalm 130:3-4 (KJV)
3 If thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?
4 But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared.
Here the psalmist asks a rhetorical question. If God were to keep a meticulous record of iniquities, or actually mark the sins down themselves and not remove them, no one could hope to escape judgment and condemnation. The shortened form of the covenant Name for God, Yah is set against the phrase "should mark iniquities." The psalmist recognized that God is completely sovereign and that His Law is Holy to the Highest degree. He understood that God knows our secret thoughts and desires. God knows things about us that we do not even know. His judgment is according to the truth. He can see what no x-ray, cat scan, or MRI ever could. He is Pure Light. There is nothing about us that he does not know. He knows our uprising and down-sitting, there is not a single word we can speak that He does not already know that we will speak. If he kept a record of our iniquities no one could stand before His Divine court. Keep reading!
But... so many powerful things turn on such little words. This word marks a realization for the psalmist. God is not a God Who is waiting to bash us in the head when we mess up! "there is forgiveness with thee..." God is willing to wipe it all away. And he does so in a moment! All it takes is the confession of our sins! Let it go and move on...
Some people live their entire lives wrestling with regret about things that God has long forgotten! We beat up on ourselves and try to atone for things that God has cast behind His back and thrown into the sea of forgetfulness. There is a sign there that says no fishing, but one of our greatest sins is breaking that law. The LORD said through the prophet Isaiah, "Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." (Isaiah 1:18 KJV)
God forgives that he may be feared. He wants a relationship with us and He wants us to get it right. Let it go and move on...
I remember driving home from a long day of working on elevators a number of years ago. I stopped at Walgreens to grab the requisite chocolate, Hallmark card, and flowers for my wife. As I pulled out of the parking lot and onto the street my mind was not on what I was doing. I was thinking about work and my wife and who knows what else. I was in a hurry to get home. At about that time I saw red and blue lights flashing behind me and knew immediately what was happening. I was driving over the speed limit and I was in a school zone. I pulled over. When the officer approached my vehicle, I immediately confessed my guilt and the reality that I deserved a ticket. Who knows what might have happened. He gave me a warning and sent me on my way. After that, I was intentional about the way I drove through the area and paid attention to the time of day. The officer extended grace to me. There is forgiveness with God that He may be feared! Grace is room to grow and the power to grow. God forgives our sins with the intention that we will grow in our walk with Him!
He loves you just the way you are, but He loves you too much to leave you that way!
Can I just add this, you are not the police for everyone else's walk with God. Yes, there should be accountability, and we should love one another enough to do things the way that they should be done. But, you are not the judge, jury, and executioner when it comes to someone else's relationship with God. We ALL need to learn a greater degree of forgiveness.
Paul said it like this, "Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you" (Ephesians 4:32 NIV). And, "Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you" (Colossians 3:13 NIV).
Forgiveness frees the penitent person from fear of judgment! Forgive! God doesn't bring it up again. We have to get to the place where we have so completely forgiven that the person we are in a relationship with does not worry that we are going to bring it up again. That is how God treats us!
3. Believers wait patiently for the LORD's Word
Psalm 130:5-6 (KJV)
5 I wait for the Lord, my soul doth wait, and in his word do I hope.
6 My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning: I say, more than they that watch for the morning.
The psalmist waits with everything that is within him and everything that he is. This is parallel to the reality that he hopes. Christian "hope" is not the hope of the world, but a hope that waits with the expectation that the good things that God has promised will arrive. Job took this hope so far that he said, "Though He slays me, yet will I hope in Him" (Job 13:15). It is never too late for God.
The old song says, "Isn't it great, when He's four days late, He's still on time." Mary and Martha believed that Jesus could heal their brother Lazarus. They believed that one day in the eschaton that there would be a general resurrection and that Lazarus would live again, but Jesus wanted them to believe in the in-between places where they thought all hope was gone. (see John 11)
"Waiting on the LORD, or hoping in the LORD, calls for constant vigilance, eager preparation, and no relaxation of efforts until the hope is realized" (Ross, pg. 715). Hope is not lazy! Hope works! Hope builds a room for a miracle. Hope prays to God, but rows for shore. Hope does all to stand and then when all it can do is stand, it stands in the power of God's might having taken the whole armor of God! They that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint (Isaiah 40:31). Waiting does not mean a lack of progress. Dear, God I am doing what I can while I wait to do what only you can!
Notice that the object of the psalmist's hope is God's Word. We can stand on the promises of God's Word. He offers forgiveness and we can accept it. After David had repented of his grievous sin Nathan said, "The LORD has put away your sin" (2 Samuel 12:13). The psalmist was hoping and waiting for an oracle of forgiveness. Isaiah spoke to the exiles in Babylon "Speak comfortably to Jerusalem: cry unto her...that her iniquity is pardoned! (Isaiah 40:2).
The psalmist is waiting and hoping for what forgiveness brings, a relief from the crisis that sin has thrown him into, that sin has thrown them into.
Can you hear the pilgrims entering Jerusalem singing this psalm on the feast days? God, here we are, we are waiting on you, hoping for you to make it all right. We should take a moment to pray for the country of Ukraine, right now. God, we are waiting on you, hoping in you. God make it right for our neighbors in Ukraine. God, intervene for them. There are those there who are hoping in your word! We hope with them!
The psalmist says he waits like those who wait for the morning. The watchman would wait and watch all night for the sun to rise. The priests in Jerusalem would wait for the first glimmer of the sun so that they could offer the morning sacrifice. That sacrifice rolled their sins ahead, but could never take away sin. Their waiting was focused. But, when the fulness of time came the Sun of Righteousness arose with healing in His Wings (Galatians 4:4; Malachi 4:2)! We don't have to wait! There is immediate access to the Presence of God through the finished work of Calvary (Hebrews 4:16)! We live in the Light of God's Love perpetually and His Blood is continually cleansing us (1 John 1:7)! We are baptized in His Name and filled with His Spirit!
Yet, we like all of the people of God experience the tension between the already and the not yet. In the in-between place of His first coming and second, coming we are like amphibians living in two worlds. We have a hope that enters beyond the veil of the physical world and enters into the holiest place. We taste the Holy Spirit and the good things of the world to come. We experience the change before the change. We enter mystically into the Spirit, but we also have to walk in shoe leather in a world that seems dominated by the Christians' chief enemies, the world, the flesh, and the devil.
Paul deals with this waiting/hoping tension in Romans 8. He says that we know that "We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time" (Romans 8:22 NIV). It is obvious, look at Ukraine. Look at the past few years. It is as though we are night watchmen waiting for the morning. And "we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose" (Romans 8:28 NIV). We believe that by faith. We know like Mary and Martha that one day Lazarus is going to rise again, but in the middle of these two verses Paul says, "...we know not what we should pray for as we ought..." (Romans 8:26 KJV). Sometimes in the middle of life, in the in-between places, we need a little help because of the unknowns. It is not the knows that keep us up at night, it is the unknowns! And so we wait! BUt, we wait with expectation because we have received the Spirit! And it is the Holy Spirit that helps our weaknesses! The Spirit Himself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered! We are not alone in our waiting!
The sun is going to come up! The Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God, and if children then heirs! If God spared not His own Son but delivered Him up for us all, how shall he not also with Him freely give us all things!? If God has forgiven us, who can condemn us. He is the One who justifies us! Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures! We can believe for the morning!
4. Believers can expect complete redemption
Psalm 130:7-8 (KJV)
7 Let Israel hope in the Lord: for with the Lord there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption.
8 And he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities.
The last section of the psalm addresses the entire nation of Israel. He says that this hope is not for one individual, but for everyone. Israel was the covenant people of God as the true Israel of God is today.
The reason the psalmist says that those who are in a relationship with the LORD can hope and wait expectantly for the morning to come is two-fold. (1) with the LORD there is "mercy" and (2) with the LORD there is plenteous redemption. The word for mercy means God's loyal covenant love. It means His kindness to those who He has chosen to live in relationship with. It was God who elected to have a relationship with Israel. They did not choose Him, He chose them. God chose you, He chose us! And because of that, He has decided that He would be kind and loving toward us. He is full of mercy. Paul calls Him "The Father of mercies, and The God of all Comfort" (2 Corinthians 1:3). The reason he redeemed us is that He is rich in mercy (Ephesians 2:4)!
You can hope in the coming result of being forgiven of all your sins because God is a covenant-keeping God! He has not dealt with us after our sins or rewarded us according to our iniquities, but like a Father shows compassion on his children so the LORD shows compassion on those who fear Him (Psalm 103:13-14). God started a work in your life and He intends to finish it! When He started, He knew you were weak and frail! But, He knew that His mercy was enough!
On the night when Jesus was betrayed Jesus had a conversation with Peter that went something like this, "Peter, before the next twenty-four hours is up, you are going to deny me again and again. You're going to mess up." Peter said, "No way! Not me! I would never do that!" Jesus said, "Peter, satan has desired to have you that he might sift you as wheat. He wants to see what you're really made of." Sometimes there are moments in our lives where we face things we never thought we would. Guess what, that Omniscient God we talked about at the beginning of this sermon already knew that we would be facing what we are facing right now. So, he tells Peter, "You are going to go through this, but don't worry I have prayed for you that your faith does not fail. And when you come out of this thing, you will be able to strengthen your fellow believers." (See Luke 22:31-34). My mercy has it covered!
And with the LORD, the pilgrims walking uphill to Jerusalem sing, "there is plenteous redemption." God has plenty of redemption. He started the work in your life and He has enough to finish it! Before the world began God planned that all His Fulness would dwell within a Genuine Humanity. That He would live and die and rise again for you and for me! Upon a life, I did not live and death I did not die I rest my whole eternity! Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe, sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow!
He shall redeem Israel from all His iniquities. Paul says in Galatians that we, who are baptized in Jesus's Name and filled with His Spirit are the Israel of God (Galatians 6:16). He has enough to finish the job. Will you trust Him to do so?
IV. Conclusion and Exhortation:
Malachi 7:19 (NKJV)
"He will again have compassion on us, And will subdue our iniquities. You will cast all our sins Into the depths of the sea."
There are things we face sometimes that are beyond our ability to wrestle. But, in Christ, God has conquered it all. If we will place our trust in the faithfulness of JESUS. If we will be buried in His Name in baptism, He promises to come alongside us on the uphill climb to Jerusalem by filling us with His Spirit! (Acts 2:38)
"Because the LORD forgives sin he will one day remove all sin and its effects" (Ross, pg. 718). We can live in hope of the future. We can sing this pilgrim song as we move towards the coming day when the sun will rise!
