WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.679
 Please be seated.

00:00:01.679 --> 00:00:06.759
 And just for a few moments, we're going to look back at the psalm on page 518 if you've

00:00:06.759 --> 00:00:15.359
 got the Bible, and it's part of our theme of summer psalms, or just individually looking

00:00:15.359 --> 00:00:19.240
 at no particular order, no particular choices that we're making.

00:00:19.240 --> 00:00:24.760
 We're just looking at some of the different psalms from the Old Testament.

00:00:24.760 --> 00:00:31.560
 Now scanning around this evening, I'm hoping that there wasn't probably not that many here

00:00:31.560 --> 00:00:32.560
 this evening.

00:00:32.560 --> 00:00:36.600
 In fact, I can maybe count in one or two hands who were in church the last time I preached

00:00:36.600 --> 00:00:40.679
 from the psalm, which is good, I'm glad.

00:00:40.679 --> 00:00:45.200
 But the last time I preached from the psalm, I called it, Singing the Blues.

00:00:45.200 --> 00:00:48.000
 And that was a good title.

00:00:48.000 --> 00:00:54.719
 And this evening we called it From the Depths, because it's the same theme that comes through.

00:00:54.719 --> 00:01:03.879
 And the great thing about this psalm, or psalms like this, are they experiential.

00:01:03.879 --> 00:01:06.079
 They speak into our personal experience.

00:01:06.079 --> 00:01:16.239
 They help us to verbalize and understand and quantify the battles and the struggles of

00:01:16.239 --> 00:01:19.079
 faith and their soul songs.

00:01:19.079 --> 00:01:20.560
 That's what they are.

00:01:20.560 --> 00:01:21.640
 And that's really great.

00:01:21.640 --> 00:01:23.879
 We need more of that in our lives.

00:01:23.879 --> 00:01:31.519
 We need more soul singing and more understanding of the expressions that sometimes we might

00:01:31.519 --> 00:01:39.039
 be fearful of verbalizing, or I don't think it's legitimate for us to do so before God.

00:01:39.039 --> 00:01:47.159
 And the psalms are great for that, because they allow our doubts and our unspoken fears

00:01:47.159 --> 00:01:54.679
 and our failures that very much if you're a Christian, mark your Christian life.

00:01:54.679 --> 00:01:58.200
 Then it certainly marked my Christian life.

00:01:58.200 --> 00:02:05.359
 And it allows us to take these experiences and it reminds us of what we're to do with

00:02:05.359 --> 00:02:12.039
 them as we take them to the living God and express them and speak His own truth back

00:02:12.039 --> 00:02:16.319
 to Himself and to us.

00:02:16.319 --> 00:02:19.879
 And that's why I think it's very important that we continue to understand psalms and

00:02:19.879 --> 00:02:27.400
 sing them and use them, because praise must also embrace our tears.

00:02:27.400 --> 00:02:32.359
 They must embrace the sadness that we go through in life.

00:02:32.359 --> 00:02:42.759
 I think the singing of hymns and spiritual songs for us provide a balance sometimes.

00:02:42.759 --> 00:02:47.879
 But what they don't do or seldom do, or maybe are doing a little bit more now than they

00:02:47.879 --> 00:02:54.919
 certainly didn't used to, is they found a lot of hymns find it difficult to express

00:02:54.919 --> 00:03:01.639
 deep failure and deep doubt and deep sin.

00:03:01.639 --> 00:03:05.959
 And the psalms are great for that.

00:03:05.960 --> 00:03:13.680
 And we can often be slow in expressing pain, the soul can sometimes be missing from our

00:03:13.680 --> 00:03:14.680
 praise.

00:03:14.680 --> 00:03:22.240
 We think praise always needs to be happy, but praise can be incredibly painfully tearful

00:03:22.240 --> 00:03:24.439
 and repentant.

00:03:24.439 --> 00:03:31.840
 And you see that soul, you see that soul in African American music, gospel, rhythm and

00:03:31.840 --> 00:03:32.840
 jazz.

00:03:32.840 --> 00:03:42.759
 And often the greatest songs often express not happy experiences, but suffering and loss

00:03:42.759 --> 00:03:45.280
 and guilt and failure.

00:03:45.280 --> 00:03:52.759
 We see a lot in traditional Scottish songs, Massacre of Glencoe.

00:03:52.759 --> 00:03:58.080
 Loch Lomond will dance round the dance floor at a wedding and sing Loch Lomond.

00:03:58.080 --> 00:03:59.759
 It's not a happy song.

00:03:59.759 --> 00:04:06.319
 It's a song of sorrow and loss and unrequited love.

00:04:06.319 --> 00:04:11.519
 And there's tremendous pathos in song in these ways.

00:04:11.519 --> 00:04:20.599
 And it's important for us to express in song and learn from the psalms how to express our

00:04:20.599 --> 00:04:25.719
 own guilt and our own failure and our own need of Christ.

00:04:25.720 --> 00:04:31.120
 It's as much worship as exaltation and praise and it binds us together.

00:04:31.120 --> 00:04:38.640
 I've said this often here, nothing original, but you know how powerful singing can be at

00:04:38.640 --> 00:04:40.600
 a funeral.

00:04:40.600 --> 00:04:47.840
 Sometimes the most powerful sense of emotion and unity and togetherness will be a time of

00:04:47.839 --> 00:04:56.199
 great sorrow if you can actually manage to sing through the emotion of the event.

00:04:56.199 --> 00:05:02.560
 There's amazing power and amazing healing actually in that.

00:05:02.560 --> 00:05:04.919
 And these psalms are great.

00:05:04.919 --> 00:05:07.039
 They're Monday morning psalms.

00:05:07.039 --> 00:05:12.319
 They're psalms for the life that we go into week to week.

00:05:12.319 --> 00:05:20.519
 They speak into our suffering and particularly here the psalms speaks into a sense of guilt

00:05:20.519 --> 00:05:24.560
 and sin.

00:05:24.560 --> 00:05:30.360
 And repentance, often too rare I think in our spiritual experience.

00:05:30.360 --> 00:05:36.839
 We may be underestimate the value and the significance and the healing from a life of

00:05:36.839 --> 00:05:40.319
 repentance constantly coming back.

00:05:40.319 --> 00:05:45.839
 With His light, as His light shines and His truth shines, you know, could you read that

00:05:45.839 --> 00:05:53.000
 passage that we read in Colossians without a sense of inadequacy and repentance?

00:05:53.000 --> 00:05:59.159
 At the lack of love and compassion and forgiveness that we often show in our lives and we call

00:05:59.159 --> 00:06:05.600
 out to the living God who receives our pleas and forgives us.

00:06:05.600 --> 00:06:10.160
 But this is, as it says, it's a...well, it doesn't...it says it's a song of a sense, but

00:06:10.160 --> 00:06:14.720
 it's generally regarded also as one of the seven penitential psalms, one of the psalms

00:06:14.720 --> 00:06:23.439
 that particularly express individual sense of need, forgiveness and repentance.

00:06:23.439 --> 00:06:24.680
 And it's very important.

00:06:24.680 --> 00:06:29.720
 It's regarded as a psalm that reaches into the very core, the very foundation of our faith

00:06:29.720 --> 00:06:31.680
 and our relationship with God.

00:06:31.680 --> 00:06:37.040
 If you look at a psalm like this, if I look at a psalm like this and we can't empathize

00:06:37.040 --> 00:06:46.639
 with the spiritual expressions that come in, if we can't see and associate with them, then

00:06:46.639 --> 00:06:53.840
 we should question our relationship, what our relationship with God is like and why there

00:06:53.839 --> 00:07:02.799
 isn't this element in it and maybe it will cause us to again consider where we are with

00:07:02.799 --> 00:07:10.639
 God and what He looks for in our relationship with Him.

00:07:10.639 --> 00:07:14.759
 But as it says in its own introduction, it is also one of the songs of a sense.

00:07:14.759 --> 00:07:18.959
 So it's one...we looked at these psalms before, psalms for the journey, psalms that would

00:07:18.959 --> 00:07:23.759
 be sung by the people of Israel as they went up to one of the three festivals of the year

00:07:23.759 --> 00:07:25.919
 in Jerusalem on their journeys.

00:07:25.919 --> 00:07:26.919
 They would sing.

00:07:26.919 --> 00:07:28.479
 It's a great thing to sing on a journey.

00:07:28.479 --> 00:07:34.120
 You remember it in the car, all the kids in the back singing, wheels of the bus.

00:07:34.120 --> 00:07:35.439
 And we sing and we sing on a journey.

00:07:35.439 --> 00:07:40.359
 It passes the time and they use these songs to learn more about their God, learn more

00:07:40.359 --> 00:07:46.319
 about the history of their God and the history of their people as they went up to celebrate,

00:07:46.319 --> 00:07:48.479
 as they went up to festival.

00:07:48.480 --> 00:07:53.080
 But it's different from the other songs of a sense.

00:07:53.080 --> 00:07:55.680
 It's intensely personal.

00:07:55.680 --> 00:08:02.319
 Most of the other songs are very corporate, very collegiate, but this is an intensely

00:08:02.319 --> 00:08:09.080
 personal psalm which is great because it reminds us that even in the Old Testament there was

00:08:09.080 --> 00:08:14.680
 this real personal element to a relationship with God.

00:08:14.680 --> 00:08:24.439
 It wasn't simply a corporate faith of a people, but there was this intensely personal reality

00:08:24.439 --> 00:08:29.240
 as part of the Old Testament worship.

00:08:29.240 --> 00:08:38.440
 And as they near Jerusalem and as they worship together, there was this reminder of their

00:08:38.440 --> 00:08:43.360
 own personal responsibility before the living God, of their own need for Him, their own need

00:08:43.360 --> 00:08:47.159
 for forgiveness and grace and mercy.

00:08:47.159 --> 00:08:55.919
 And we don't know the experience behind this psalm when it was written, and that's kind

00:08:55.919 --> 00:09:04.759
 of good because it gives a generic value for people of faith through the centuries.

00:09:04.759 --> 00:09:18.080
 But it does reflect an intense personal relationship between the individual believer and his living

00:09:18.080 --> 00:09:19.080
 God.

00:09:19.080 --> 00:09:22.439
 It's tremendous at that level.

00:09:22.439 --> 00:09:23.439
 It's like there's...

00:09:23.439 --> 00:09:24.439
 Okay, there are a journey.

00:09:24.439 --> 00:09:28.759
 There's lots of people around them, but as they read this or think this or sing this

00:09:28.759 --> 00:09:31.319
 psalm, it's like there's nobody else in the world.

00:09:31.319 --> 00:09:33.759
 It's you and your God.

00:09:33.759 --> 00:09:40.240
 And that's how it needs to be often in our lives, doesn't matter where we are, who we

00:09:40.240 --> 00:09:41.759
 are, it's between you.

00:09:41.759 --> 00:09:47.480
 You need to eyeball to eyeball with the living God, the reality of that relationship which

00:09:47.480 --> 00:09:55.799
 I'm so out of the way of preaching twice on a Sunday that you'll find I'll be repeating

00:09:55.799 --> 00:10:03.439
 what I said this morning, and they'll be overlaps because I'm failed and fallen.

00:10:03.440 --> 00:10:11.280
 But interestingly, there's also the great fusion of truth that I didn't realize I would

00:10:11.280 --> 00:10:16.560
 be doing the verse tomorrow, and I didn't plan to... for it to dovetail with this psalm

00:10:16.560 --> 00:10:17.560
 this evening.

00:10:17.560 --> 00:10:23.000
 But it's very similar to what we were talking about this morning in terms of that individual,

00:10:23.000 --> 00:10:29.400
 personal, silent relationship with God where we spend time in this company.

00:10:29.399 --> 00:10:33.759
 Christ is here bearing His soul, and aren't we grateful for that?

00:10:33.759 --> 00:10:40.720
 Aren't we grateful for the real testament greats and the new testament greats who actually

00:10:40.720 --> 00:10:46.600
 bore their soul and who expressed guilt often David?

00:10:46.600 --> 00:10:51.799
 Aren't we grateful for David and grateful for Paul for the way that they exposed their

00:10:51.799 --> 00:11:00.479
 souls, this intensely personal reality before the kingdom and the world of believers right

00:11:00.479 --> 00:11:05.759
 through the centuries for our benefit that God, the Spirit, allowed that to be the case.

00:11:05.759 --> 00:11:10.159
 And the psalmist here bears His soul, and it's a privilege for us to read that because

00:11:10.159 --> 00:11:12.399
 it matters.

00:11:12.399 --> 00:11:18.000
 It matters because we're giving access into the individual holy of holies in that relationship

00:11:18.000 --> 00:11:23.000
 with God that should reflect our own individual walk with the living God.

00:11:23.000 --> 00:11:28.480
 And so we find here that the psalmist says, out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord, O

00:11:28.480 --> 00:11:36.519
 Lord, hear my voice, let your ears be attentive to the voice of my plea, please, for mercy.

00:11:36.519 --> 00:11:41.519
 That's all that matters to the psalmist, that God hears them.

00:11:41.519 --> 00:11:43.720
 Hear me, O Lord, be attentive.

00:11:43.720 --> 00:11:44.720
 Listen.

00:11:44.720 --> 00:11:48.960
 God, I need you to listen to hear what is going on.

00:11:48.960 --> 00:11:51.279
 I'm not interested in the other people on the journey.

00:11:51.279 --> 00:11:54.120
 I'm not interested in the other people around me.

00:11:54.120 --> 00:12:00.160
 It's that famous, it's that famous inscription of David to God that, against you, you only

00:12:00.160 --> 00:12:01.759
 have a sinned.

00:12:01.759 --> 00:12:06.480
 And it's that recognition that it is to God that we are accountable and it's to God that

00:12:06.480 --> 00:12:07.480
 we speak.

00:12:07.480 --> 00:12:11.040
 And so the best church relationship won't do it for you.

00:12:11.039 --> 00:12:15.519
 The best book that you read won't do it for you.

00:12:15.519 --> 00:12:21.519
 It's the spiritual disciplines of you and I being in God's presence, praying out our

00:12:21.519 --> 00:12:29.959
 soul to Him and God Himself, hearing our voice and us pleading that this God hears us.

00:12:29.959 --> 00:12:36.959
 There's a boldness, there's a desperation, there's an absolute living reality about what

00:12:36.959 --> 00:12:37.959
 He's saying.

00:12:37.959 --> 00:12:40.679
 And He's saying, O Lord, hear my voice.

00:12:40.679 --> 00:12:42.199
 Hear the voice of my pleas.

00:12:42.199 --> 00:12:45.120
 You know, that's a very powerful thing.

00:12:45.120 --> 00:12:47.519
 He's desperately longing for God's attention.

00:12:47.519 --> 00:12:53.639
 Lord, can you sense the tone that I'm speaking to you with, the inflection, the intonation

00:12:53.639 --> 00:12:55.239
 behind the pleas?

00:12:55.239 --> 00:12:56.239
 Can you hear my voice?

00:12:56.239 --> 00:13:03.159
 You know, our voice expresses so much of the seriousness or the depth of what we're

00:13:03.159 --> 00:13:09.120
 saying and He wants God to hear His voice, the cry.

00:13:09.120 --> 00:13:13.560
 And the cry behind the cry, it's great.

00:13:13.560 --> 00:13:20.919
 So legitimizing for us an encouraging vulnerability and soul expression and doing it individually

00:13:20.919 --> 00:13:27.200
 but as part of the community, saying this is how we should be as a community, as individuals

00:13:27.200 --> 00:13:34.560
 before God and we should recognize that that is part of who we are in our corporate faith.

00:13:34.559 --> 00:13:41.039
 Similarly we have this relationship with soul expression, it's the reality of vulnerability.

00:13:41.039 --> 00:13:48.599
 God is no real time for stolicism and for the stiff upper lip and for the constant sense

00:13:48.599 --> 00:13:51.719
 of, yeah, everything's okay with me, I'm going fine.

00:13:51.719 --> 00:13:57.479
 He wants and He encourages throughout His Word that great sense of vulnerability, that

00:13:57.479 --> 00:14:00.519
 great sense of openness before Him.

00:14:00.519 --> 00:14:05.720
 And that should be part of, that should be reflected in the believing community.

00:14:05.720 --> 00:14:14.799
 So it's this great intensely personal cry to the living God which should mark our own

00:14:14.799 --> 00:14:18.679
 relationship with God, should be intensely personal.

00:14:18.679 --> 00:14:23.799
 Should be things you will say with God and to God that nobody else in the universe would

00:14:23.799 --> 00:14:27.960
 hear you have that relationship with Him because He knows everything.

00:14:27.960 --> 00:14:30.920
 He understands that He knows exactly where we're coming from.

00:14:30.920 --> 00:14:36.480
 It's heart-rending this particular Psalm, out of the depths I cry to you Lord.

00:14:36.480 --> 00:14:45.080
 This is someone who's often said that here the depths for the Jewish believer was a place

00:14:45.080 --> 00:14:47.400
 of real, the depths of water.

00:14:47.400 --> 00:14:53.759
 It was a place of danger and separation and chaos and fear, a bad place.

00:14:53.759 --> 00:15:01.480
 And He's really using it as an illustration of a place of spiritual darkness and foreboding.

00:15:01.480 --> 00:15:06.879
 Now we know that life can plunge us into many depths, whether it be illness, maybe somewhere

00:15:06.879 --> 00:15:10.480
 facing that this evening or poverty or depression.

00:15:10.480 --> 00:15:16.679
 But this is distinctly spiritual.

00:15:16.679 --> 00:15:19.759
 This is about the condition of the Samist's heart.

00:15:19.759 --> 00:15:28.559
 I don't think it's about an outward circumstance or a physical ailment or anything like that.

00:15:28.559 --> 00:15:32.679
 It's more about someone who's come to recognise their position before the living God, their

00:15:32.679 --> 00:15:35.240
 sinners, before the living God.

00:15:35.240 --> 00:15:41.679
 If you, O Lord, should mark iniquity, O Lord, who could stand?

00:15:41.679 --> 00:15:47.319
 And that's a very important part of the life of faith that we're encouraged to have.

00:15:47.320 --> 00:15:54.879
 Is to deal with the depths of our own heart and to recognise how unworthy we are before

00:15:54.879 --> 00:16:00.200
 the living God, how far short we fall of His glory.

00:16:00.200 --> 00:16:01.600
 And that's very important.

00:16:01.600 --> 00:16:04.340
 I'll come to that in a minute.

00:16:04.340 --> 00:16:11.440
 Because if we are faced with guilt or faithlessness, we open God's Word and maybe you read Colossians

00:16:11.440 --> 00:16:15.160
 this evening and you thought, or some other part of Scripture.

00:16:15.159 --> 00:16:19.000
 And you acknowledge, I'm very far from the living God.

00:16:19.000 --> 00:16:20.799
 I'm very far from His standards.

00:16:20.799 --> 00:16:23.480
 I'm very far from His love.

00:16:23.480 --> 00:16:28.000
 And I don't love other people even minutely like He calls me to.

00:16:28.000 --> 00:16:34.159
 And if there's that sense of guilt and faithlessness, we can run from that.

00:16:34.159 --> 00:16:35.159
 We can smother it.

00:16:35.159 --> 00:16:41.439
 We can simply close our Bibles and say, wow, I'm as good as the next person.

00:16:41.440 --> 00:16:46.440
 And if that's how we respond to the conviction that God's Word brings into our hearts, we'll

00:16:46.440 --> 00:16:51.000
 never know His healing, His closeness and growth.

00:16:51.000 --> 00:16:54.760
 We'll never know that transformation we were speaking about this morning, because it all

00:16:54.760 --> 00:16:56.260
 involves that.

00:16:56.260 --> 00:17:03.520
 It involves the intensity of a personal relationship with a God who's transforming and renewing

00:17:03.520 --> 00:17:04.519
 us.

00:17:04.519 --> 00:17:11.759
 It's about recognizing we're redeemed and forgiven forensically that we stand innocent

00:17:11.759 --> 00:17:18.240
 before the living God, as far as our guilt is concerned, but that He is doing a transformative

00:17:18.240 --> 00:17:19.839
 work within us.

00:17:19.839 --> 00:17:23.720
 And He calls us to a life of repentance.

00:17:23.720 --> 00:17:31.599
 It's unpopular and it's not mentioned enough today, but it's a great way to live that He

00:17:31.599 --> 00:17:37.839
 calls us to, C.S. Lewis puts it very well, paradoxically, not paradoxically, he puts

00:17:37.839 --> 00:17:42.799
 it well, but he puts the reality of this well, which is a paradox.

00:17:42.799 --> 00:17:47.480
 When a man is getting better, when a person is getting better, he understands more and

00:17:47.480 --> 00:17:50.119
 more clearly the evil that is still in him.

00:17:50.119 --> 00:17:57.119
 When a man is getting worse, he understands his own badness less and less.

00:17:57.119 --> 00:17:59.119
 That's a great...

00:17:59.119 --> 00:18:01.879
 That didn't be a clear trajectory.

00:18:01.879 --> 00:18:12.559
 Many times in my life when I'm getting worse and I simply don't understand my badness and

00:18:12.559 --> 00:18:14.159
 I understand it less and less.

00:18:14.159 --> 00:18:20.559
 But there are other times when I'm more aware of his light shining into the darkness and

00:18:20.559 --> 00:18:24.799
 the cleansing and the renewal and the transformation that he brings.

00:18:24.799 --> 00:18:30.599
 That is paradoxical, but it's a beautiful paradox.

00:18:30.599 --> 00:18:34.079
 Deep places beget deep devotion.

00:18:34.079 --> 00:18:37.960
 Spurgeon cites James Vaughan and I'm sorry, I don't actually know who James Vaughan is,

00:18:37.960 --> 00:18:43.159
 but I'm sure he was a good man if Spurgeon's quoting him.

00:18:43.159 --> 00:18:49.839
 But he says, everyone who prays, everyone prays sorry, but very few cry and he speaks

00:18:49.839 --> 00:18:57.159
 about this verse, but those who do cry to God, the majority would say, I owe it to the

00:18:57.159 --> 00:19:02.159
 debts, I learned it there.

00:19:02.159 --> 00:19:06.599
 And that's a great truth for us that there speaks people who get it.

00:19:06.599 --> 00:19:12.279
 I think legalists and moralists who fail, they just run away.

00:19:12.279 --> 00:19:15.559
 They run away because their God is too small to forgive them.

00:19:15.559 --> 00:19:17.119
 Their God is harsh and demanding.

00:19:17.119 --> 00:19:20.679
 They've never understood grace.

00:19:20.679 --> 00:19:26.119
 But even if you've done something that overwhelms you with guilt and despair, as you cry out

00:19:26.119 --> 00:19:32.079
 to the Lord for mercy, you will come from that and say, I owe it to these debts.

00:19:32.079 --> 00:19:38.239
 I see the breadth and the height and the length and the depth of His grace and His mercy because

00:19:38.239 --> 00:19:45.439
 it's subsumed, it's overcome my guilt and it's redeemed and forgiven me.

00:19:45.440 --> 00:19:52.960
 And that is a wonderful experience to know the mercy of God.

00:19:52.960 --> 00:19:58.640
 So it's a heart-rending cry that we have here in the Psalm, and it's also the kind of clashing

00:19:58.640 --> 00:20:08.600
 and embracing of two worlds that are, they don't often clash today in our experience.

00:20:08.600 --> 00:20:14.279
 First is unquestionable guilt, and the second is unimaginable redemption.

00:20:14.279 --> 00:20:19.160
 These two beautiful things come together, and it's the embracing of two worlds in many

00:20:19.160 --> 00:20:20.160
 ways.

00:20:20.160 --> 00:20:25.039
 Unquestionable guilt, if you, oh Lord, should mark iniquity, who can stand?

00:20:25.039 --> 00:20:32.440
 It's this reality that if God was to keep watch over the wrong things we do and say,

00:20:32.440 --> 00:20:37.039
 we would have absolutely no opportunity of standing.

00:20:37.039 --> 00:20:40.399
 There's unquestionable guilt, there's no hope.

00:20:40.400 --> 00:20:47.400
 As we come to God's Word, as we see how He reveals Himself, the depth of His love, the

00:20:47.400 --> 00:20:52.640
 depth of His commitment to us, the depth of His character, His otherness, His purity,

00:20:52.640 --> 00:21:00.320
 His justice, His generosity, and our accountability we see and we understand our own ugliness

00:21:00.320 --> 00:21:07.840
 spiritually, the darkness of our motives and of our heart, the selfishness and the lovelessness

00:21:07.839 --> 00:21:12.119
 of Him and the lovelessness of one another.

00:21:12.119 --> 00:21:17.399
 And it's searching, and it's unseen.

00:21:17.399 --> 00:21:24.319
 We can be the nicest people, and we can comparatively be better than most people.

00:21:24.319 --> 00:21:35.039
 But this is, as we compare ourselves to the character of a pure, infinite, holy, perfectly

00:21:35.039 --> 00:21:39.119
 just, perfectly loving God.

00:21:39.119 --> 00:21:49.240
 I can't even put them into words, and I don't know, none of us know the purity and glory

00:21:49.240 --> 00:21:50.319
 of His perfection.

00:21:50.319 --> 00:21:58.799
 But we do sense times when we recognize our own guilt before the Holy God, the judge of

00:21:58.799 --> 00:22:04.279
 all the earth, before Him we will stand, and it evokes a weighty cry.

00:22:04.279 --> 00:22:15.399
 And I think that weighty cry is missing from a lot of our Christian living, that cry of

00:22:15.399 --> 00:22:16.720
 who can stand?

00:22:16.720 --> 00:22:18.920
 Who can stand before this God?

00:22:18.920 --> 00:22:23.639
 I think often we think, meh, I can probably stand.

00:22:23.639 --> 00:22:25.440
 I can probably walk before Him.

00:22:25.440 --> 00:22:27.440
 I'm not so bad.

00:22:27.440 --> 00:22:36.039
 And we don't truly appreciate that it took the sovereign, infinite, triune God to become

00:22:36.039 --> 00:22:43.360
 flesh, to enter the womb of Mary, to live for thirty years in perfection, and to be

00:22:43.360 --> 00:22:48.080
 nailed to a brutal cross in the face of a wrath of hell.

00:22:48.080 --> 00:22:51.880
 The only way that we could be redeemed, it took that much?

00:22:51.880 --> 00:22:54.759
 He didn't just write a check?

00:22:54.759 --> 00:22:57.519
 He didn't just wave His fingers on His hand from heaven?

00:22:57.519 --> 00:22:58.839
 See, it's okay, you're forgiven.

00:22:58.839 --> 00:23:07.680
 It took this Holy God to walk in this ugly world and to die and to no resurrection.

00:23:07.680 --> 00:23:10.359
 So there's unquestionable guilt that's spoken of here.

00:23:10.359 --> 00:23:11.960
 Who can stand before Him?

00:23:11.960 --> 00:23:14.559
 But then there's this great truth of forgiveness.

00:23:14.559 --> 00:23:18.359
 But with you there is forgiveness that you may be feared or worshiped.

00:23:18.359 --> 00:23:21.759
 It's an unimaginable mercy of God.

00:23:21.759 --> 00:23:25.440
 That's the great beauty of the gospel.

00:23:25.440 --> 00:23:32.879
 It's the great recognition that we have that Jesus Christ takes the price and He offers

00:23:32.879 --> 00:23:39.000
 us His mercy, offers us a return to relationship with Him.

00:23:39.000 --> 00:23:44.160
 As we saw this morning, it doesn't just affect our lives here, but it affects our eternal

00:23:44.160 --> 00:23:48.920
 destination and the future provision that He's made for us.

00:23:48.920 --> 00:23:55.800
 And that's the reality of enjoying and experiencing mercy, which transforms how you speak to your

00:23:55.800 --> 00:23:56.800
 colleagues tomorrow.

00:23:56.800 --> 00:24:01.800
 It's going to transform how you speak or think about when your car breaks down on the A9.

00:24:01.800 --> 00:24:06.920
 It's going to transform when you get news about terminal illness.

00:24:06.920 --> 00:24:14.200
 It's going to transform when you let someone you love down badly and cheat on them.

00:24:14.200 --> 00:24:19.279
 It's going to transform how you respond and how you deal with that because of recipients

00:24:19.279 --> 00:24:22.840
 of mercy.

00:24:22.840 --> 00:24:23.840
 Recipients of mercy.

00:24:23.840 --> 00:24:28.600
 And that transforms how we deal not only with life, but with one another.

00:24:28.600 --> 00:24:31.039
 As we say, to the children.

00:24:31.039 --> 00:24:34.080
 So only as we understand them, what should we have been forgiven?

00:24:34.080 --> 00:24:36.000
 Do we look at people in a different light?

00:24:36.000 --> 00:24:41.039
 If you're looking down on people, if you can't be bothered with people, if you judge people,

00:24:41.039 --> 00:24:44.839
 it's because we don't understand our own hearts.

00:24:44.839 --> 00:24:51.159
 That's why when we're taking the place of God and we take that place of judgment, it's

00:24:51.159 --> 00:24:53.559
 because we've never understood our own hearts.

00:24:53.559 --> 00:24:59.319
 And the new reality for us as we experience that mercy is the willingness to wait on the

00:24:59.319 --> 00:25:00.319
 Lord.

00:25:00.319 --> 00:25:04.639
 Five times, He goes on to say, and speak to His own soul.

00:25:04.639 --> 00:25:06.879
 It's a great thing to do.

00:25:06.880 --> 00:25:11.160
 If you're not listening to broadcasts and if you're in silence, you're allowed to speak

00:25:11.160 --> 00:25:12.160
 to your own soul.

00:25:12.160 --> 00:25:13.160
 That's a great thing to do.

00:25:13.160 --> 00:25:16.360
 If you weren't here this morning, you don't know what I'm talking about.

00:25:16.360 --> 00:25:20.440
 But take that time of silence and speak to your own soul.

00:25:20.440 --> 00:25:21.440
 It's great.

00:25:21.440 --> 00:25:22.680
 The Psalms are always speaking to themselves.

00:25:22.680 --> 00:25:30.600
 Speak to your own soul, speak into it and encourage your soul to wait on the Lord in

00:25:30.600 --> 00:25:36.400
 that obedient relationship because it speaks about this picture of the more than the watchman,

00:25:36.400 --> 00:25:37.400
 wait for morning.

00:25:37.400 --> 00:25:43.040
 And it's repeated for emphasis, a recognition that there's darkness.

00:25:43.040 --> 00:25:44.680
 We go through darkness.

00:25:44.680 --> 00:25:46.519
 The darkness of the night can be a rotten time.

00:25:46.519 --> 00:25:51.080
 If you can't sleep at night, for whatever reason, the morning can sometimes feel a long

00:25:51.080 --> 00:25:52.080
 way away.

00:25:52.080 --> 00:25:56.440
 And the night can seem very long, but the morning comes.

00:25:56.440 --> 00:26:02.840
 And there's that same picture here that we're to have that perspective and recognize that

00:26:02.839 --> 00:26:08.000
 the morning with the light of the morning brings a different picture onto what we've

00:26:08.000 --> 00:26:11.919
 been thinking and considering during the night.

00:26:11.919 --> 00:26:19.679
 And we're to trust God through these times and to obediently wait on Him.

00:26:19.679 --> 00:26:26.799
 And then as we conclude, the Psalms takes that personal experience.

00:26:26.799 --> 00:26:34.680
 And as it were, snaps out of that personal walk where it's only Him and God on the journey.

00:26:34.680 --> 00:26:39.720
 And He looks round and says, oh, Israel, hope in the Lord, for with the Lord there is steadfast

00:26:39.720 --> 00:26:41.639
 love and with Him is plenteous redemption.

00:26:41.639 --> 00:26:45.119
 He will redeem Israel from all his iniquities.

00:26:45.119 --> 00:26:53.399
 And there's that movement from personal relationship and personal redemption and forgiveness that

00:26:53.400 --> 00:26:58.720
 is shared with the covenant communities back on the road.

00:26:58.720 --> 00:27:05.240
 And we're called to take our individual Christian lives and never to simply glory in that, but

00:27:05.240 --> 00:27:15.759
 to take our testimony and to share it and to pass that on to others around us.

00:27:15.759 --> 00:27:19.240
 And to say, this is what God has done for me.

00:27:19.240 --> 00:27:21.120
 You too can hope in Him.

00:27:21.119 --> 00:27:26.319
 So we pass through one another and we share our spiritual experiences with one another.

00:27:26.319 --> 00:27:28.919
 You say, look the Lord, He can be trusted.

00:27:28.919 --> 00:27:29.919
 You know that?

00:27:29.919 --> 00:27:34.599
 He's taken me through the darkness of the night and you can trust Him as well.

00:27:34.599 --> 00:27:35.599
 Morning will come.

00:27:35.599 --> 00:27:36.599
 I hope.

00:27:36.599 --> 00:27:41.439
 When I went into ministry 35, I think I've said this recently, 35 or 36 years ago, I

00:27:41.439 --> 00:27:45.879
 met an old, no, no, sorry, that's a different story.

00:27:45.879 --> 00:27:49.799
 I was in that, I'd been in the ministry for quite a long time and I went for advice to

00:27:49.799 --> 00:27:54.839
 an older pastor over some difficulties that I was going through.

00:27:54.839 --> 00:28:00.159
 And I said, Derek always remember, he said, it will pass.

00:28:00.159 --> 00:28:01.960
 It will pass, the difficulties will pass.

00:28:01.960 --> 00:28:03.919
 It's a very simple piece of advice.

00:28:03.919 --> 00:28:09.279
 It's not very profound, but there are many times that I've remembered that.

00:28:09.279 --> 00:28:14.480
 In the difficulties and darkness, it's like waiting for the Lord for the morning to come.

00:28:14.480 --> 00:28:16.240
 He says, it will pass.

00:28:16.240 --> 00:28:17.240
 It will pass.

00:28:17.240 --> 00:28:24.240
 And we remember that because of His steadfast love, His covenant love, His hessed love,

00:28:24.240 --> 00:28:28.880
 which is sealed at the cross.

00:28:28.880 --> 00:28:33.680
 And when He says, look, you have my word, it's etched in my blood.

00:28:33.680 --> 00:28:36.160
 I can't do any more for you.

00:28:36.160 --> 00:28:38.160
 You're doubting my love.

00:28:38.160 --> 00:28:39.160
 You're doubting my forgiveness.

00:28:39.160 --> 00:28:41.799
 I've given you my Son.

00:28:41.799 --> 00:28:43.799
 I can't do any more.

00:28:43.799 --> 00:28:44.799
 It's sealed.

00:28:44.799 --> 00:28:51.720
 It's a settled reason and will of the Trinity that you know forgiveness.

00:28:51.720 --> 00:28:55.039
 And that that has been paid for, paid in full.

00:28:55.039 --> 00:28:57.159
 Remember that, paid in full.

00:28:57.159 --> 00:29:01.159
 You don't need to keep jumping back and jumping through hoops for the living God.

00:29:01.159 --> 00:29:03.279
 He says, paid in full.

00:29:03.279 --> 00:29:05.399
 That is why we trust in His mercy.

00:29:05.399 --> 00:29:11.639
 And we know and can be assured of His forgiveness.

00:29:11.640 --> 00:29:16.560
 Not with you, there is forgiveness and in verse 8, He goes on to say again, He will

00:29:16.560 --> 00:29:19.320
 redeem Israel from all his iniquities.

00:29:19.320 --> 00:29:22.000
 That's a great message.

00:29:22.000 --> 00:29:26.880
 It's a message that people that are not Christians need to hear.

00:29:26.880 --> 00:29:30.200
 More than anything, and they need to hear it because it's real to us.

00:29:30.200 --> 00:29:36.680
 It's not just a kind of theoretical theological reality for us.

00:29:36.680 --> 00:29:42.840
 But because we have undergone and gone through as Christians the same journey as the Sammists

00:29:42.840 --> 00:29:43.840
 here.

00:29:43.840 --> 00:29:49.840
 That we can say that with confidence as we share it with others.

00:29:49.840 --> 00:29:51.400
 That in, you will meet people this week.

00:29:51.400 --> 00:29:56.560
 I'm guaranteed you'll meet people this week who are in despair, who are full of guilt,

00:29:56.560 --> 00:30:01.200
 who are empty, who are lost, looking for belonging.

00:30:01.200 --> 00:30:03.000
 Don't know what to do with life.

00:30:03.000 --> 00:30:06.160
 Don't know how to deal with the mistakes they've made.

00:30:06.160 --> 00:30:08.960
 Don't understand the sense of guilt.

00:30:08.960 --> 00:30:11.560
 And we need to tap into that.

00:30:11.560 --> 00:30:16.040
 But we will only ever be able to do that if it's real to us.

00:30:16.040 --> 00:30:18.640
 And if we've known that and experienced ourselves.

00:30:18.640 --> 00:30:24.680
 And so that is my prayer for myself and for you that we are people who begin to live out

00:30:24.680 --> 00:30:28.519
 the experience of the Samm for ourselves and learn from it.

00:30:28.519 --> 00:30:33.080
 And pray that God will apply it to our own hearts and that we go back again and again

00:30:33.079 --> 00:30:41.240
 to His Word, which is the only place where we can compare ourselves with Him and where

00:30:41.240 --> 00:30:44.519
 our conviction and our repentance will come from.

00:30:44.519 --> 00:30:46.519
 Let's pray.

00:30:46.519 --> 00:30:51.359
 Father God, help us to go to You and to go to Your Word.

00:30:51.359 --> 00:30:58.359
 We know that when the Bible is closed that we fail to see ourselves as You see us.

00:30:58.359 --> 00:31:06.719
 And we skip around in the shallows of life and lose out much of the blessing and live

00:31:06.719 --> 00:31:11.240
 with a weak and crumbling faith so often.

00:31:11.240 --> 00:31:17.240
 So give us the courage Lord to allow the light of Your Word to shine into the deepest corners,

00:31:17.240 --> 00:31:23.879
 the darkest corners of our hearts to expose the motives that are so often self-centered

00:31:23.880 --> 00:31:39.480
 and loveless for God and full of disordered love for ourselves and proud and so many impure

00:31:39.480 --> 00:31:48.720
 motives that Lord we allow Your Word to take, it expose and for Your amazing mercy to forgive.

00:31:48.720 --> 00:31:54.319
 And as we know that we know cleansing and healing and wholeness and there's much more

00:31:54.319 --> 00:31:57.960
 room for the Holy Spirit in such a heart.

00:31:57.960 --> 00:32:06.039
 So enable us to be believers that mirror the personal testimony of the psalmist in Psalm

00:32:06.039 --> 00:32:11.839
 130 increasingly and go before us and speak into our hearts for Jesus' sake.

00:32:11.839 --> 00:32:21.839
 Amen.