WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.200 Okay, so we're going to look back just for a few minutes this evening at Sam 130. 00:00:05.200 --> 00:00:07.240 It's a very well known Sam to many of us here. 00:00:07.240 --> 00:00:11.759 We've particularly maybe if we've grown up in the free church, it's one that we've sung 00:00:11.759 --> 00:00:16.080 many times and we know very well. 00:00:16.080 --> 00:00:21.240 So the best title I've had for a sermon for ages called Singing the Blues and it's not 00:00:21.240 --> 00:00:22.240 mine. 00:00:22.240 --> 00:00:27.480 Okay, I have to admit I know that they're sacking ministers these days for nicking other people's 00:00:27.480 --> 00:00:32.119 titles and sermons online so I don't want to get sacked at this point. 00:00:32.119 --> 00:00:36.759 So I'm confessing and I'm acknowledging that it's not my title, it's actually the title 00:00:36.759 --> 00:00:43.120 of Reverend Derek Thomas who's a minister in America in a place called First Prez in 00:00:43.120 --> 00:00:49.039 Columbia but who's previously in the church that Corey is now in First Prez in Jackson. 00:00:49.039 --> 00:00:54.840 He's a Welshman who's gone out to America and is a theologian and a preacher out there 00:00:54.840 --> 00:00:59.440 and he's got a brilliant article sermon, I think it's a sermon that's been put in 00:00:59.440 --> 00:01:03.120 towards on this Sam and he entitled it's Singing the Blues. 00:01:03.120 --> 00:01:04.120 It's a great title. 00:01:04.120 --> 00:01:08.880 It's a great title because it absolutely says what this Sam is about. 00:01:08.880 --> 00:01:10.800 It's about singing the blues. 00:01:10.800 --> 00:01:16.359 It reminds, it's just, it's a fantastic reminder of the value of the Sam's. 00:01:16.359 --> 00:01:24.080 Sam's are experimental soul songs if we can talk about them in that way. 00:01:24.079 --> 00:01:28.079 In the Sam's you'll find things that you don't find anywhere else in song really because 00:01:28.079 --> 00:01:33.920 they legitimize to God the unspoken doubts and fears and failures that we all know in 00:01:33.920 --> 00:01:36.120 our lives and that we don't know what to do with it. 00:01:36.120 --> 00:01:41.280 It kind of puts them into words and lets us bring them up to God in prayer and in praise. 00:01:41.280 --> 00:01:46.640 And praise as we have it here, praise must embrace our tears. 00:01:46.640 --> 00:01:52.400 It's very important that our praise embraces tears and is allowed to reflect sadness as 00:01:52.400 --> 00:01:54.240 well, you know. 00:01:54.240 --> 00:01:58.960 It's great that we sing hymns and spiritual songs here and it's a great balance to get 00:01:58.960 --> 00:02:04.000 the New Testament angle and slate on everything. 00:02:04.000 --> 00:02:06.719 And I do think they're changing even. 00:02:06.719 --> 00:02:10.879 They tended to be very praisey often. 00:02:10.879 --> 00:02:11.879 But I think that's changing. 00:02:11.879 --> 00:02:18.000 I think you get more soul experience in the songs that we are able to sing today. 00:02:18.000 --> 00:02:24.800 And it's, but I do think they're slower in expressing pain because it's harder to do, 00:02:24.800 --> 00:02:25.800 obviously. 00:02:25.800 --> 00:02:30.199 And sometimes the soul is missing that you can get from a Sam. 00:02:30.199 --> 00:02:33.759 You know, soul is a very popular genre in music. 00:02:33.759 --> 00:02:34.759 And it's significant. 00:02:34.759 --> 00:02:40.479 It's really African American music, gospel, fused, I guess, with rhythm and jazz. 00:02:40.479 --> 00:02:46.400 But it often comes from that background of pain and suffering and loss and sometimes 00:02:46.400 --> 00:02:48.640 guilt and failure. 00:02:48.640 --> 00:02:52.560 And it expresses very powerfully that. 00:02:52.560 --> 00:03:00.040 And it's important that we express our blues, that we express our pain and our guilt and 00:03:00.040 --> 00:03:01.040 our sorrow. 00:03:01.040 --> 00:03:06.920 And it's as much worship, we must remember this, it's as much worship as exaltation and 00:03:06.920 --> 00:03:14.439 as praise, as in, you know, clear and focused praise on God for all his goodness. 00:03:14.439 --> 00:03:15.599 It's something that binds us together. 00:03:15.599 --> 00:03:19.960 You know, I've said this quite often here before, I think, that you know that a powerful 00:03:19.960 --> 00:03:26.359 song at a funeral can be the most powerful experience we have as we grieve together in 00:03:26.359 --> 00:03:27.359 song. 00:03:27.359 --> 00:03:33.799 There's a great power and a great oneness as we come together in song like that. 00:03:33.799 --> 00:03:39.599 And this is one of what I would call, a bit like it's a Monday morning Sam. 00:03:39.599 --> 00:03:44.879 It's a great Sam for a Monday morning because it speaks about suffering and it speaks about 00:03:44.879 --> 00:03:46.199 our helplessness. 00:03:46.199 --> 00:03:52.599 This Sam very particularly speaks about our helplessness and guilt and sin. 00:03:52.599 --> 00:03:54.719 And the penitential Sam's generally do. 00:03:54.719 --> 00:04:02.359 It's one of seven really focused, sad, penitential, can't think of a better word than that, for 00:04:02.359 --> 00:04:05.439 it, but something that reaches the very core. 00:04:05.439 --> 00:04:10.519 Now we know not all suffering is related to sin directly at that level. 00:04:10.520 --> 00:04:18.600 But this Sam is very much related to confession before God, reaches the very core, the very 00:04:18.600 --> 00:04:22.639 foundation of our faith and our relationship with God. 00:04:22.639 --> 00:04:29.040 If you can't empathize with this Sam and its sentiments, then there is something serious 00:04:29.040 --> 00:04:30.040 along. 00:04:30.040 --> 00:04:36.160 If I can't sympathize with the sentiments of the Sam, there's something far wrong without 00:04:36.160 --> 00:04:40.160 understanding of ourselves before God. 00:04:40.160 --> 00:04:43.640 So just spend a few minutes looking at it. 00:04:43.640 --> 00:04:47.600 In many ways it's not like any of the other songs of ascent we've been looking at. 00:04:47.600 --> 00:04:51.520 There's been quite a familiarity in all of them thus far. 00:04:51.520 --> 00:04:52.520 This one's slightly different. 00:04:52.520 --> 00:04:55.960 You might have guessed already what makes it different. 00:04:55.960 --> 00:04:56.960 I don't know. 00:04:56.960 --> 00:04:57.960 I'm not going to ask you. 00:04:57.960 --> 00:05:05.440 But it's much more, all of them do have a personal element, but this is much more personal 00:05:05.440 --> 00:05:07.640 than the other songs of ascent. 00:05:07.640 --> 00:05:09.040 It's intensely personal. 00:05:09.040 --> 00:05:14.400 Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord, hear my voice. 00:05:14.400 --> 00:05:20.560 And it goes on and on in this extremely personal, intensely personal way. 00:05:20.560 --> 00:05:25.920 And I wonder whether, and this is only conjecture, but as they near Jerusalem, as they were climbing 00:05:25.920 --> 00:05:30.400 up towards Jerusalem and they were going to worship the Holy God that we were singing 00:05:30.400 --> 00:05:37.240 about, Sam like this was a reminder to them of themselves and of the holiness of their 00:05:37.240 --> 00:05:43.079 God and would help them maybe to recollect times when they felt guilt and also received 00:05:43.079 --> 00:05:45.240 forgiveness from the living God. 00:05:45.240 --> 00:05:52.480 But it's almost like there's nobody else in the whole world except the Sammest and 00:05:52.480 --> 00:05:53.720 God here. 00:05:53.720 --> 00:05:57.360 The Sammest is opening up his soul, bearing his soul. 00:05:57.360 --> 00:06:02.199 It's like his whole soul has just been unzipped and opened up for us to see. 00:06:02.199 --> 00:06:05.600 And we're privileged to read that because it matters. 00:06:05.600 --> 00:06:14.400 We're given access into an individual's holy of holies, that place that we shouldn't 00:06:14.400 --> 00:06:19.160 really be, a place that is entirely personal. 00:06:19.160 --> 00:06:21.879 And he's saying, look, Lord, hear my voice. 00:06:21.879 --> 00:06:27.439 You're here to be attentive to the voice of my pleas for mercy. 00:06:27.439 --> 00:06:28.439 Hear. 00:06:28.439 --> 00:06:34.600 He's pleading to God that God, you know, it's God who he wants to hear his pleas. 00:06:34.600 --> 00:06:35.600 No one else matters. 00:06:35.600 --> 00:06:39.800 It's very similar in a sense to Sam 51 where he says it's against you. 00:06:39.800 --> 00:06:41.040 You only have a sin now. 00:06:41.040 --> 00:06:44.360 David had sinned against a lot more than just God. 00:06:44.360 --> 00:06:51.520 He had committed grave sins against many people that brought the response of that Sam. 00:06:51.520 --> 00:06:58.680 But at that moment of spiritual intensity, he recognized it's you, Lord God. 00:06:58.680 --> 00:07:01.720 I'm eyeball to eyeball with you. 00:07:01.720 --> 00:07:07.240 And really what we're being reminded of is that the best church in the world won't do 00:07:07.240 --> 00:07:08.840 it for you. 00:07:08.840 --> 00:07:10.800 Will not give you this experience. 00:07:10.800 --> 00:07:17.320 The most moving, powerful spiritual experience of being in a corporate time of worship will 00:07:17.320 --> 00:07:19.160 not do it for you. 00:07:19.160 --> 00:07:23.240 This is somebody who has come eyeball to eyeball with God. 00:07:23.240 --> 00:07:26.280 And it's what we, I guess we've been talking a little bit recently about the importance 00:07:26.280 --> 00:07:30.520 of the spiritual disciplines, the reading and the praying and being in the presence. 00:07:30.519 --> 00:07:37.359 It's God's presence, personal presence that you can't, it's not once removed. 00:07:37.359 --> 00:07:40.319 You can't just come along to church and click on a God's presence. 00:07:40.319 --> 00:07:44.959 Say that's, this is my God bit today and I'll get from other people and then I'll go home. 00:07:44.959 --> 00:07:49.839 This is our intense individual relationship with God. 00:07:49.839 --> 00:07:57.039 And he's saying to God, listen God, hear me, hear the desperation of my cry, my longing 00:07:57.039 --> 00:07:58.539 for your attention. 00:07:58.539 --> 00:07:59.839 It's interesting he says there. 00:07:59.839 --> 00:08:02.839 Hear the voice of my plea for mercy. 00:08:02.839 --> 00:08:07.479 And that's kind of, it's like he's saying, don't just hear what I'm saying, Lord. 00:08:07.479 --> 00:08:08.759 Hear the voice of it. 00:08:08.759 --> 00:08:10.359 Do you get the difference? 00:08:10.359 --> 00:08:18.519 It's like, hear the tone, the inflection, the intonation behind the plea. 00:08:18.519 --> 00:08:25.239 Hear that what I'm, what the voice of I'm saying, not just the words, but the suffering 00:08:25.240 --> 00:08:30.600 and the reality and the cry behind the cry as it were. 00:08:30.600 --> 00:08:34.519 And that's what we have intense, something intensely personal that would then go on to 00:08:34.519 --> 00:08:36.240 be sung corporately. 00:08:36.240 --> 00:08:38.560 And it's, it's heart-rending. 00:08:38.560 --> 00:08:40.840 It's a heart-rending something begins in a hurry. 00:08:40.840 --> 00:08:47.200 Out of the depths I cry to you, oh Lord, hear my voice, let your ears be attentive to the 00:08:47.200 --> 00:08:48.360 voice. 00:08:48.360 --> 00:08:50.879 If you should mark iniquity, who can stand? 00:08:50.879 --> 00:08:56.480 So this is someone who's calling out to the Lord from the depths. 00:08:56.480 --> 00:09:01.439 Now you know, you'll have heard it many times here when we speak about the Psalms, the Old 00:09:01.439 --> 00:09:05.080 Testament in particular, the Jewish people, they hated the depths. 00:09:05.080 --> 00:09:07.159 They hated the, they hated water. 00:09:07.159 --> 00:09:10.360 They weren't a water-loving people. 00:09:10.360 --> 00:09:11.860 They weren't islanders. 00:09:11.860 --> 00:09:13.720 You know, they didn't like water. 00:09:13.720 --> 00:09:19.919 And the deep for them was connected with chaos and with sin and with darkness and with fear 00:09:19.919 --> 00:09:21.839 and with insecurity. 00:09:21.839 --> 00:09:26.879 And when someone says he calls from the depths, he's in a bad place. 00:09:26.879 --> 00:09:36.039 He's in a place of danger and separation, spiritual, foreboding, darkness, badness. 00:09:36.039 --> 00:09:43.360 I wonder if you can associate with that in your own Christian life. 00:09:43.360 --> 00:09:48.959 It's almost like we're here witnessing this cry. 00:09:48.960 --> 00:09:55.280 And it's like witnessing, I hope it's a right, let's see, it's like witnessing the 00:09:55.280 --> 00:09:56.879 breakup of a relationship. 00:09:56.879 --> 00:10:00.920 It's not actually a breakup. 00:10:00.920 --> 00:10:04.519 Or someone confessing to cheating on their partner. 00:10:04.519 --> 00:10:05.519 And you're witnessing that. 00:10:05.519 --> 00:10:07.120 You're hearing that. 00:10:07.120 --> 00:10:10.879 You almost feel, well, I don't really feel I should be here. 00:10:10.879 --> 00:10:16.360 It's that kind of sacredness that we're in a place that we shouldn't really be. 00:10:16.360 --> 00:10:24.039 And the Samist here is expressing that he can't stand in the presence of God in that 00:10:24.039 --> 00:10:26.240 way. 00:10:26.240 --> 00:10:31.159 And life can plunge the Samist and can plunge us into many different depths, depths of illness 00:10:31.159 --> 00:10:32.919 or poverty or depression. 00:10:32.919 --> 00:10:37.519 But this, and all of these things may be linked, but this is distinctly spiritual. 00:10:37.519 --> 00:10:44.560 This is about the Samist recognizing the condition of his heart before God. 00:10:44.559 --> 00:10:50.000 Who can stand if you mark, if you should mark iniquities, if you take note of the things 00:10:50.000 --> 00:10:51.000 we've done wrong? 00:10:51.000 --> 00:10:57.919 You know, it's impossible to stand iniquities being a kind of description of deviating from 00:10:57.919 --> 00:11:02.479 God's path, going away from what is the right path. 00:11:02.479 --> 00:11:08.199 And he says, if you're to mark that, if you're to take a get, no, none of us can stand. 00:11:08.199 --> 00:11:13.399 And I can't stand today before the living God, knowing his Holiness. 00:11:13.399 --> 00:11:14.679 We sung that song. 00:11:14.679 --> 00:11:15.840 You're a holy God. 00:11:15.840 --> 00:11:22.799 And there's that sense of knowing that that drives us to him, as we shall go on to see 00:11:22.799 --> 00:11:26.199 for his great forgiveness. 00:11:26.199 --> 00:11:30.559 But the Sam is then saying that it's right and it's good to deal with the depths. 00:11:30.559 --> 00:11:37.199 Faith, good illustration, here we have faith is dealing with the depths, not avoiding the 00:11:37.199 --> 00:11:38.199 depths. 00:11:38.199 --> 00:11:40.600 So which isn't often what we do, isn't it? 00:11:40.600 --> 00:11:45.440 Our response to guilt or faithlessness is to run. 00:11:45.440 --> 00:11:47.279 Run away from God. 00:11:47.279 --> 00:11:52.080 Run away, close Him off, just put cotton wool in our ears. 00:11:52.080 --> 00:11:57.360 And yet he says, no, the way of faith is not avoiding the depths, but is taking them to 00:11:57.360 --> 00:11:59.759 him and asking for forgiveness. 00:11:59.759 --> 00:12:03.680 Because there we know growth and there we know healing and there we know closeness. 00:12:03.680 --> 00:12:08.160 That is the key to a living, ongoing relationship of faith with the living God. 00:12:08.159 --> 00:12:13.759 C.S. Lewis puts it beautifully, when a man is getting better, he understands more and 00:12:13.759 --> 00:12:18.719 more clearly the evil that is still in him. 00:12:18.719 --> 00:12:24.559 When a man is getting worse, he understands his own badness less and less. 00:12:24.559 --> 00:12:30.799 You see, the light of the living God exposes the darkness. 00:12:30.799 --> 00:12:35.079 And the more we let His light shine in, the darker we appear. 00:12:35.080 --> 00:12:39.879 And it's a cycle of going back to Him for cleansing. 00:12:39.879 --> 00:12:45.800 There's another quote that Spurgeon cites from a guy called James Vaughan, who I don't 00:12:45.800 --> 00:12:48.120 know who he is, but I'm sure he was a great godly man. 00:12:48.120 --> 00:12:50.120 If Spurgeon quotes him, he probably is. 00:12:50.120 --> 00:12:54.840 Deep places beget deep devotion. 00:12:54.840 --> 00:12:58.720 Everyone prays, but very few cry. 00:12:58.720 --> 00:13:03.680 But of those who do cry to God, the majority would say, this is brilliant, this is absolutely 00:13:03.679 --> 00:13:05.519 brilliant, this is gold. 00:13:05.519 --> 00:13:08.079 I owe it to the depths. 00:13:08.079 --> 00:13:09.799 I owe it to the depths. 00:13:09.799 --> 00:13:13.439 I learned it there. 00:13:13.439 --> 00:13:17.719 And that isn't that, those of us who have been in the depths, isn't that what we can 00:13:17.719 --> 00:13:18.919 say? 00:13:18.919 --> 00:13:20.639 We can say, I owe it to the depths. 00:13:20.639 --> 00:13:26.839 The depths have been what has brought me closer, has stripped back the pride and the self-sufficiency 00:13:26.839 --> 00:13:29.439 and the stupidity that's so often in our hearts. 00:13:29.440 --> 00:13:36.400 And we can say, I owe it, I owe it to the depths when we come out the other side. 00:13:36.400 --> 00:13:39.840 Deep places beget deep devotion. 00:13:39.840 --> 00:13:42.120 And that's a great thing. 00:13:42.120 --> 00:13:46.680 So even if you have done something awful that overwhelms you with guilt and despair, dismay 00:13:46.680 --> 00:13:50.640 or spurgencies, cry out to the Lord for mercy. 00:13:50.640 --> 00:13:55.880 So we want, we look for cushioned Christianity, we look for everything to be soft and malleable 00:13:55.879 --> 00:14:01.720 and like marshmallow, but it's in the tough times, it's in the darkness that we've often 00:14:01.720 --> 00:14:08.399 find that our faith grows and our character and our life in Christ grows. 00:14:08.399 --> 00:14:15.600 These are people who get it, who understand grace and forgiveness and their own hearts 00:14:15.600 --> 00:14:18.439 before a holy God. 00:14:18.439 --> 00:14:25.519 Legalists, moralists, people who, you know, try their best and think they're good in their 00:14:25.519 --> 00:14:31.439 own strength, they're legalists who try and tick boxes about obeying God and criticise 00:14:31.439 --> 00:14:33.199 others who don't. 00:14:33.199 --> 00:14:37.360 When they fail, they run away. 00:14:37.360 --> 00:14:41.799 They run away from God, legalists and moralists, because their God is harsh and their God is 00:14:41.799 --> 00:14:42.799 demanding. 00:14:42.799 --> 00:14:50.120 They don't understand His grace and they don't understand that His holiness was nailed to 00:14:50.120 --> 00:14:53.319 a tree. 00:14:53.320 --> 00:14:58.240 So it's heart-rending and it's the clashing and embracing of two worlds. 00:14:58.240 --> 00:14:59.240 That's really what we have here. 00:14:59.240 --> 00:15:01.040 It's the clashing and embracing of two worlds. 00:15:01.040 --> 00:15:09.080 So you've got a holy God and you've got a sinful person and someone who recognises their 00:15:09.080 --> 00:15:10.080 own sin. 00:15:10.080 --> 00:15:14.240 There is unquestionable guilt expressed by the psalmist. 00:15:14.240 --> 00:15:17.480 Oh Lord, should you mark iniquity? 00:15:17.480 --> 00:15:19.080 Oh Lord, who could stand? 00:15:19.080 --> 00:15:20.080 Who can stand? 00:15:20.080 --> 00:15:28.400 There's unquestionable guilt in this psalmist experience in comparison with the God who 00:15:28.400 --> 00:15:30.000 has come to know. 00:15:30.000 --> 00:15:37.800 There's an otherness, a purity, a justice, a generosity, a love and a responsibility that 00:15:37.800 --> 00:15:45.720 we have to love Him perfectly and love others perfectly that we just can't do. 00:15:45.720 --> 00:15:52.360 And there's a sheer ugliness and darkness in our motives and our hearts before Him. 00:15:52.360 --> 00:15:56.240 It's horrible and it's ugliness deserving of death. 00:15:56.240 --> 00:15:59.480 There's unquestionable guilt. 00:15:59.480 --> 00:16:07.600 And I think that it is missing in our lives today in as much as our distance from God 00:16:07.600 --> 00:16:09.480 is gaping. 00:16:09.480 --> 00:16:16.920 So the further we are from God, the less likely we are to have any concept of guilt. 00:16:16.920 --> 00:16:19.080 And it's a very unpopular concept. 00:16:19.080 --> 00:16:22.440 We don't like to speak about it, we don't like to preach about it, we don't like to 00:16:22.440 --> 00:16:31.080 talk about it because we are told we live in a world where guilt is a nasty bad thing. 00:16:31.080 --> 00:16:34.879 Whereas it's only a nasty and bad thing if it's not genuine. 00:16:34.879 --> 00:16:38.360 And it's only a nasty and bad thing if we don't deal with it. 00:16:38.360 --> 00:16:41.360 And that's not the end of the Psalm. 00:16:41.360 --> 00:16:46.080 There is unquestionable guilt as these two worlds clash. 00:16:46.080 --> 00:16:48.360 But there is unimaginable redemption. 00:16:48.360 --> 00:16:58.800 That is what's absolutely key and significant and important in the Psalm. 00:16:58.800 --> 00:17:04.400 Verse 2, Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my pleas for mercy. 00:17:04.400 --> 00:17:11.480 And then in verse 4, But with you there is forgiveness that you may be feared. 00:17:11.480 --> 00:17:18.480 Very interesting response to the mercy and forgiveness is worship, fear of the Lord. 00:17:18.480 --> 00:17:19.680 Maybe not what we would expect. 00:17:19.680 --> 00:17:23.200 There's unimaginable redemption. 00:17:23.200 --> 00:17:31.560 It's the vital part of the Psalm that repentance is hugely significant and it's hugely significant 00:17:31.559 --> 00:17:36.879 in our own experience of the living God and can often be too little apart. 00:17:36.879 --> 00:17:40.240 Maybe sometimes we talk about repentance as being at the beginning of our Christian lives 00:17:40.240 --> 00:17:41.720 and then we move on from it. 00:17:41.720 --> 00:17:47.919 But it's as crucial as eating corn flakes in the morning as our day-to-day living is 00:17:47.919 --> 00:17:54.039 that we're constantly recognizing, refreshing and being renewed in His repentance and love. 00:17:54.039 --> 00:18:01.960 It's hard for our hearts to conceptualize the awfulness and depths of hell and darkness. 00:18:01.960 --> 00:18:11.119 And yet this holy God takes what I deserve on the cross, the forsakenness of the cross, 00:18:11.119 --> 00:18:12.440 its darkness. 00:18:12.440 --> 00:18:17.119 We should say, I put Him there. 00:18:17.119 --> 00:18:20.399 It was me who put Him there. 00:18:20.400 --> 00:18:27.040 We entered into that event as if we were standing there and we see the cost. 00:18:27.040 --> 00:18:33.440 And yet at the same time we see the look of love and the peace of realization that as 00:18:33.440 --> 00:18:39.920 far as He's done it, voluntarily, He spoke yesterday at the wedding about love and sacrificial 00:18:39.920 --> 00:18:47.759 love and that is the key to understanding salvation, that God willingly went to the 00:18:47.759 --> 00:18:54.359 cross to provide us with the forgiveness and the mercy that this psalmist knows as well 00:18:54.359 --> 00:18:56.160 as his guilt. 00:18:56.160 --> 00:18:59.200 So he knows marvelous forgiveness. 00:18:59.200 --> 00:19:02.519 We don't know the background to this psalm. 00:19:02.519 --> 00:19:10.279 But there's unimaginable, unquestionable guilt, but there's also great assurance of the mercy 00:19:10.279 --> 00:19:13.279 and the forgiveness of the God that he knows as His covenant God is. 00:19:13.279 --> 00:19:15.319 His God is Lord. 00:19:15.319 --> 00:19:22.359 And then he comes then to a new reality in the psalm where he says, I wait for the Lord, 00:19:22.359 --> 00:19:23.359 my soul waits. 00:19:23.359 --> 00:19:28.200 And in His word I hope my soul waits for the Lord more than for watchmen for the morning, 00:19:28.200 --> 00:19:30.000 more than watchmen for the morning. 00:19:30.000 --> 00:19:36.839 And this forgiveness leads to a new trust and a new waiting. 00:19:36.839 --> 00:19:43.559 And it's five times the word wait or it's words that are connected with it are used 00:19:43.559 --> 00:19:45.919 in these couple of verses. 00:19:45.919 --> 00:19:51.599 And so there's a hope for him and it's a really, really good picture. 00:19:51.599 --> 00:19:57.480 It's a hope of being in the darkness but knowing that the morning will come. 00:19:57.480 --> 00:20:00.759 Now I'm sure you'll have experienced that. 00:20:00.759 --> 00:20:07.679 Maybe when you're not well, maybe you've got a severe pain, maybe it's seatic pain or 00:20:07.679 --> 00:20:08.679 something. 00:20:08.679 --> 00:20:10.079 It doesn't matter what you do, you can't sleep. 00:20:10.079 --> 00:20:17.919 And the darkness seems, the night time seems to go on and on and it seems so long and isolated 00:20:17.919 --> 00:20:19.759 and lonely and your thoughts are all bizarre. 00:20:19.759 --> 00:20:22.359 And your thoughts bizarre during the night. 00:20:22.359 --> 00:20:28.720 Sometimes it's a kind of semi conscious of sleep thoughts that are weird and your perspective 00:20:28.720 --> 00:20:33.359 is all wrong and you're thinking out of line and you're not, you're not thinking straight 00:20:33.359 --> 00:20:40.639 and it just seems so difficult to be in the darkness but you know morning comes. 00:20:40.639 --> 00:20:48.319 And that is a real, a physical truth that's very, very comforting that even in the length 00:20:48.319 --> 00:20:53.679 and the darkness of the night for us sometimes morning always comes. 00:20:53.679 --> 00:20:58.439 And spiritually sometimes we can feel a little bit in that place of darkness. 00:20:58.440 --> 00:21:04.320 Things out of perspective were restless and yet he's asking us to wait in these conditions, 00:21:04.320 --> 00:21:10.880 wait when we're in that, wait and trust in him, rely on him because the morning will 00:21:10.880 --> 00:21:17.640 come when we experience and know things differently, when we know a sweetness of his sovereignty 00:21:17.640 --> 00:21:19.000 at work in our lives. 00:21:19.000 --> 00:21:23.840 And this is all about trusting in him. 00:21:23.839 --> 00:21:29.480 The morning, the tiredness, the weariness, the confusion sometimes of the watchman as 00:21:29.480 --> 00:21:35.240 he came to the end of his watch, waiting for the morning when things would be different. 00:21:35.240 --> 00:21:42.279 So there's renewed hope, unimaginable redemption, unquestionable guilt. 00:21:42.279 --> 00:21:47.439 And lastly we see that he takes that and makes it a shared testimony. 00:21:47.439 --> 00:21:52.199 He doesn't just keep, the Sam isn't just about himself, it's something that he wants. 00:21:52.200 --> 00:21:57.880 His experiences of being in the dark, of feeling as guilty as it's possible to humanly 00:21:57.880 --> 00:22:05.440 feel and to be redeemed and renewed and forgiven and trust in his God who never lets him down. 00:22:05.440 --> 00:22:07.480 He wants to share that testimony. 00:22:07.480 --> 00:22:12.120 And so he says, oh Israel, open the Lord for with the Lord there is steadfast love and 00:22:12.120 --> 00:22:13.680 with him is plentious redemption. 00:22:13.680 --> 00:22:16.519 He will redeem Israel from all his inequities. 00:22:16.519 --> 00:22:21.960 It repeats again and again the redemption, the freedom he wants his friends, he wants 00:22:21.960 --> 00:22:28.960 his testimony to be known as he knows, well maybe he didn't know but God knew it would 00:22:28.960 --> 00:22:33.720 be a Sam that would be sung in community as they were walking up towards Jerusalem and 00:22:33.720 --> 00:22:39.960 it's a community reality that needs to be shared and a testimony that needs to be shared 00:22:39.960 --> 00:22:41.120 with others. 00:22:41.120 --> 00:22:46.480 We are never simply isolate Christians. 00:22:46.480 --> 00:22:52.360 We glory an individual attention but in such a way that amazes us in order to share it 00:22:52.360 --> 00:22:54.160 with others. 00:22:54.160 --> 00:23:01.279 And so this testimony of the Samist is one of hope that God can be trusted, hope in the 00:23:01.279 --> 00:23:07.920 Lord, morning always comes for the believer and ultimately there's an ultimate reality 00:23:07.920 --> 00:23:10.000 there of course for us. 00:23:10.000 --> 00:23:13.160 But it's steadfast love that we are sharing with others. 00:23:13.160 --> 00:23:16.600 That is covenant word, a covenant word and a covenant love. 00:23:16.600 --> 00:23:23.400 He said, God has said to you and said to me, you have my word. 00:23:23.400 --> 00:23:24.920 You have my word. 00:23:24.920 --> 00:23:29.880 I will, it's the same word that created the universe and He says, I give you my word. 00:23:29.880 --> 00:23:36.320 I say, I will never leave you or forsake you and we are the focus of His resolute will 00:23:36.320 --> 00:23:39.920 and it's not a simple capricious emotional attachment. 00:23:39.920 --> 00:23:43.080 This word is sealed in His blood. 00:23:43.080 --> 00:23:45.680 It's the settled reason of the Trinity. 00:23:45.680 --> 00:23:52.400 Father, Son and Holy Spirit that says, you are mine and I have a steadfast love focused 00:23:52.400 --> 00:23:54.600 on you. 00:23:54.600 --> 00:23:57.560 And that's a shared testimony that we want to share with others. 00:23:57.560 --> 00:24:02.200 Also it's about that great forgiveness in verse 4 and verse 8. 00:24:02.200 --> 00:24:04.160 Redemption, what a message. 00:24:04.160 --> 00:24:07.519 What a message of redemption we have. 00:24:07.519 --> 00:24:13.319 It taps, I think, into the deep seated guilt that drives many people to despair in the 00:24:13.319 --> 00:24:14.319 world in which we live. 00:24:14.319 --> 00:24:20.160 The people you know, the people I know who may have absolutely no Christian background, 00:24:20.160 --> 00:24:24.599 interest, knowledge or anything. 00:24:24.599 --> 00:24:30.960 This Sam taps into their experience and we are to share it within the church and outside 00:24:30.960 --> 00:24:33.799 of the church in our lives. 00:24:33.799 --> 00:24:36.960 This testimony of the forgiving, gracious love of God. 00:24:36.960 --> 00:24:40.440 I wonder what our testimony is. 00:24:40.440 --> 00:24:42.759 This is a great template, Sam, for our testimony. 00:24:42.759 --> 00:24:48.920 It's a little bit of a mirror into our souls and it's important that we recognize who we 00:24:48.920 --> 00:24:52.440 are before this holy God and what He has done for us. 00:24:52.440 --> 00:24:58.960 I'm going to finish by rightly acknowledging Derek Thomas again because he finished his 00:24:58.960 --> 00:25:08.720 sermon on this Sam with a quote from a great book by a guy called Jonathan Aitken, who 00:25:08.720 --> 00:25:14.400 was the former Tory MP, Cabinet Minister who served seven months in prison for perjury. 00:25:14.400 --> 00:25:19.759 He became a Christian when he was in prison and he wrote about the value of this Sam because 00:25:19.759 --> 00:25:21.400 he wrote a book on the Sam's. 00:25:21.400 --> 00:25:25.039 It's called Sam's for People Under Pressure. 00:25:25.039 --> 00:25:31.599 He wrote about the value of this Sam in that book and also for, not just for him, but for 00:25:31.599 --> 00:25:32.599 others. 00:25:32.599 --> 00:25:37.319 I'm just going to finish with, it's quite a long quote but it's very interesting. 00:25:37.319 --> 00:25:39.680 I'm not going to do the Cockney accent. 00:25:39.680 --> 00:25:43.159 There's a Cockney accent in the middle of this but I'm not going to do it because I 00:25:43.159 --> 00:25:47.599 can only do about five words in Cockney and then I can go into Welsh and different things 00:25:47.599 --> 00:25:50.279 and it will just take away from the whole thing. 00:25:50.279 --> 00:25:54.000 There was an incident right at the end of my prison sentence that served as a good illustration 00:25:54.000 --> 00:25:59.680 of the universality of the appeal of this Sam. 00:25:59.680 --> 00:26:04.000 My friends in our prayer group, as it began to be known, asked me to give a validictory 00:26:04.000 --> 00:26:08.000 talk when Sam 130, two weeks before my release date. 00:26:08.000 --> 00:26:12.640 The event was advertised on various notice boards and as a result the attendance swelled 00:26:12.640 --> 00:26:15.359 beyond the usual Christian suspects. 00:26:15.359 --> 00:26:19.359 Indeed there was a general astonishment that just before I got up to speak we were joined 00:26:19.359 --> 00:26:24.479 in the prison chapel by no lesser personage than the Big Face. 00:26:24.479 --> 00:26:29.439 Every prison has among its inmates a head honcho called the Big Face. 00:26:29.439 --> 00:26:33.879 The term originally derived from the time when notorious criminals had their faces plastered 00:26:33.879 --> 00:26:35.439 on wanted posters. 00:26:35.439 --> 00:26:40.399 Nowadays, it was for the most feared and ferocious prisoner in the jail. 00:26:40.399 --> 00:26:45.799 Our Big Face was an old style gangland boss coming towards the end of a lifer's tariff 00:26:45.799 --> 00:26:51.839 for a string of revenge killings, as the old Wild West saying has it, he was not a man 00:26:51.839 --> 00:26:54.639 to go to the well with. 00:26:54.639 --> 00:26:59.759 As unexpected arrival at our fellowship group made several people distinctly nervous, not 00:26:59.759 --> 00:27:01.879 least the speaker. 00:27:01.879 --> 00:27:05.879 I began my address by saying that this Sam had made a great impact on me throughout my 00:27:05.879 --> 00:27:06.879 prison journey. 00:27:06.879 --> 00:27:10.279 I had come to believe that it might have a great message for anyone suffering in the 00:27:10.279 --> 00:27:11.279 depths. 00:27:11.279 --> 00:27:15.519 I mentioned that it was not only my favourite Sam, it also happened to be the favourite 00:27:15.519 --> 00:27:19.519 Sam of Augustine, Luther and Calvin. 00:27:19.519 --> 00:27:22.639 The Big Face nodded gravely at this. 00:27:22.639 --> 00:27:26.839 Towards the end of my exegesis I noticed that the Big Face was visibly moved. 00:27:26.839 --> 00:27:33.000 Tears were trickling down his cheeks as he listened in deep concentration. 00:27:33.000 --> 00:27:37.599 As I finished with a prayer he joined in with a booming amen. 00:27:37.599 --> 00:27:40.519 A few moments later he drew me aside. 00:27:40.519 --> 00:27:48.639 John, he says, I'm not. That Sam there was beautiful, real beautiful, got me in the heart 00:27:48.639 --> 00:27:49.639 it did. 00:27:49.639 --> 00:27:54.879 And I want to ask you a favour, do you think you could come over to my cell on a wind tomorrow 00:27:54.879 --> 00:27:57.440 night and say your piece over again? 00:27:57.440 --> 00:28:02.319 I've got a couple of my best mates that would mean a real lot to you. 00:28:02.319 --> 00:28:05.839 I may have looked a little anxious at the prospect of spending an evening in the company 00:28:05.839 --> 00:28:10.200 of the Big Face and two of his closest associates. 00:28:10.200 --> 00:28:15.799 Sensing my hesitation he enlarged his invitation and John, he said, to make you feel comfortable, 00:28:15.799 --> 00:28:18.519 why don't you bring a couple of your mates along with you? 00:28:18.519 --> 00:28:23.960 I mean, how about bringing those geezers you said like the Sam so much, Augustus and what's 00:28:23.960 --> 00:28:26.200 his name? 00:28:26.200 --> 00:28:29.960 If they're friends of yours on the B-wing. 00:28:29.960 --> 00:28:35.920 Although I was unable to produce Augustine, Calvin and Luther as my companions, Sam 130 00:28:35.920 --> 00:28:40.000 went down well second time round in the Big Face's cell. 00:28:40.000 --> 00:28:44.920 Although this surprised me at the time, the more I come to know the Sam's, the less they 00:28:44.920 --> 00:28:50.960 surprise me in their power to speak to a wide variety of people and situations, how I wish 00:28:50.960 --> 00:28:56.039 I'd discovered their spiritual riches earlier in life. 00:28:56.039 --> 00:29:00.599 I hope that's a prayer and a longing that we also have. 00:29:00.599 --> 00:29:12.599 Amen.