Episode Transcript
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This is the word of the Lord, a song of a sense. Out
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of the depths. I have cried
to you, oh Lord, Lord,
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hear my voice. Let your ears
be attentive to the voice of my supplications.
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If you, Lord, should Mark
Iniquity. So, Lord, who
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could stand? But there is forgiveness
with you, that you may be feared.
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I wait for the Lord, my
soul waits, and in his word
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do I hope. My soul waits
for the Lord more than those who watch
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for the morning. Yes, more
than those who watch for the morning.
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Oh Israel, hope in the Lord, for with the Lord there is mercy
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and with him is abundant redemption,
and he shall redeem Israel from all his
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iniquities. Thus far, this reading
of God's holy word, the grass withers
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in the flower fades, but the
word of our Lord endears forever. Please
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be seated. Well the the Westminster
larger catechism, which is one of the
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two catechisms of our church. You
know we have two. We have the
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confession of faith and then we have
the shorter catechism, we have the larger
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catechism. No one really pays attention
to the larger catechism anymore. Most people
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don't pay attention into the shorter just
totally random anecdote, I suppose. When
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I was in seminary I had a
professor by the name of Derek Thomason of
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yell, may have heard of him, and to grant to pass one of
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his classes. We all had to
memorize the shorter catechism verbatim, without air,
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which was pretty hard and and some
of the students complain. Not Me
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because I was afraid of looking stupid, but some of the students complained and
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it came to Dr Thomas's attention that
there was complaining about having to memorize the
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gatechism and he mentioned this before class
with this wonderful Welsh accent of his,
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and he said that it had become
to his attention that some of us did
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not want to memorize it are we
thought it was too hard to memorize it
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verbatim and without air. And he
pointed out that when the Westminster divines met
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at Westminster Assembly, at most of
the Minster Ablet Abbey for the assembly,
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that that they wrote to catechisms.
One the larger was for adults and people
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of sound mind, he pointed out, of the other he said it was
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pointed out that that the larger catechism
might be too difficult for people. So
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he said that what they decided was
that they we needed to have a shorter
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catechism, a little when it would
be easy for children, embeciles and those
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of Lesser Intelligence. And so he
said to us, he said. So
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I ask you, brothers, which
are you? Imbeciles? Children, are
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those of Lesser Intelligence and, of
course, the all the complaining stop.
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But Ah, a shame can do
that to you, I suppose. But
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I wanted to quote from the larger
catechism this evening. The larger catechism says
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this about the Lord's supper, which
were coming to celebrate this evening. The
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Lord's supper is a sacrament of the
New Testament, wherein, by giving and
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receiving bread and wine, according to
the appointment of Jesus Christ, his death
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is showed forth and they that worthily
communicate feed upon his body and blood to
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their spiritual nourishment and growth and grace, have their union and communion with him
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confirmed, testify and renew their thankfulness
and engagement to God and their mutual love
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and fellowship with each other as members
of the same mystical body. Now that
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is a mouthful to say and it's
more than an earful to hear, I
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think. But what the catechism has
to say about the Lord's supper is important.
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It's important not because knowing it or
accepting what the catechism teaches makes us
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special in any way, but because
the catechism teaches us what it is that
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we're doing when we come to the
Lord's Table Week by week, when we
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come to the sacrament of communion,
we do very truly and very wondrously,
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though mysteriously, we really do commune
with God and a special and a powerful
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way, and as we do that, I think that it's important for us
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from time to time to consider different
aspects of what it is that we do
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when we commune with the Lord through
the sacraments. And so what I wanted
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us to do this evening is just
have something of a meditation in this hundred
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and Thirty Psalm. I'd like us
to see how this prayer of the Psalmist
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can help inform our approach to the
table. I often ask myself how may
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I best approach the Lord's Table,
and I've found that meditating on this psalm
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has been of some great benefit to
me, and so I hope that this
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meditation on it will be a benefit
to you as well. So this psalm
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is what's called a song of a
sense, it's the very first part of
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the first verse. There and the
songs of ascent, our Psalms one hundred
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and twenty through one hundred and thirty
four, and what these were designed for
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was that the people of Israel would
sing these songs in their order every years
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they went up from wherever it was
that they lived to Jerusalem for the feasts
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and most especially they would sing these
psalms of assent as they went up for
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the pass over each year, which
the Passover was the Old Testament sacrament,
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that's the version of our New Testament
sacrament of communion. From all over the
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Kingdom and ultimately from all over the
world, God's people sang these songs that
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they went up to from their homes
to the temple to meet with the Lord
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so that they could celebrate there what
he had done for them and delivering them
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and blessing them. And so there's
sort of a parallel, because if you
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sang these psalms on your way to
celebrate the Passover, then by Extension Psalms
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one hundred and twenty through one hundred
and thirty four. Have something to tell
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us as we come to the Lord's
table. Now, David, I assume
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it's David. We don't really know, but it's a good assumption that David
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begins this psalm with a cry of
desperation. In the first verse he says,
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out of the depths I have cried
to you. Oh Lord, Lord,
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hear my voice. Let your ears
be attentive to the voice of my
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supplications. Now he begins the Psalm
with a very vivid image, and the
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image there, out of the depths, I have cried to you, is
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it's an image from the sea and
the way that David puts it, there
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two word pictures come to mind for
me that are similar but a little different.
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In the first thought that comes to
mind for me is the image of
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a man who's been cast overboard or
whose ships sunk and he's drowning at sea,
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and you can imagine in the waves
passing over him he comes up for
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air, gasping, only to be
submerged again and he's growing weaker and weaker
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as he's fighting against the tide,
the waves trying to stay afloat and all
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the while desperately trying to get the
attention of someone on the shore who might
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be able to help him. Now
the PSALMISTS indicates that his prayers have been
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like that to God. If this
is the image that David's going for here,
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then he's telling us that his life, likes ours so very often,
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feels seems out of control. Things
are out of control, things are too
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much for him. The cares of
this world are swamping him and he doesn't
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see any way to find help.
His only records is to cry out to
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the Lord from for deliverance from his
struggles. The other sort of similar image
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that comes to mind for me is
that of a castaway. In this way
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that I picture it you, I
don't picture the fellow swimming, but just
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out there in the sea, bobbing
on the life raft or something. Now,
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this is the image that he's going
for, then David is telling us
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that, like the castaway, he
feels far from home, far from the
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safety of shore, far from where
he wants to be. Out there alone
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in the sea, he's without any
comfort, he's without any joy. His
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life is not what he wants it
to be and so he cries out to
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the Lord to be rescued, to
be saved from his wandering, to be
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brought home to safety. But I
want you to notice that he doesn't just
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speak to God here. He says
he cries out to the Lord. His
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prayer isn't just idle Chit Chat.
This isn't the sort of prayer that we
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so often have when we're doing it
perfunctorially, we're doing it out of obedience
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or because it's good for us.
This isn't the sort of conversation you would
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have with someone over coffee or chatting
with a stranger. Next you want a
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plane. His prayer is of life
and death importance to him. This is
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serious to the PSALMIST, and for
him to cry out to the Lord like
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this requires, I think, two
things. First, it requires him to
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see that his dilemma really is serious. Either it's of the life threatening or
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terrifying variety, like it would be
if you were drowning, or his life
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is just way out of kilter.
His life is not what he wants,
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it's not what he hopes it would
be and he sees no way to fix
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it. He's stuff uck. So
it requires that he see that his dilemma
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is serious and it requires him,
moreover, to be convinced that the one
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to whom he cries out can and
will deliver him. I mean, think
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about it. If you were a
drowning man at sea and you knew that
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there was a boat next door,
but it was crude by by an entire
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crew of blind, deaf mutes,
all of your screaming and all of your
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crying and all of your waving wouldn't
do anything for you. They could not
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see you, they could not hear
you, they could not help you.
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David, however, cries out to
God, who hears us, who sees
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us, who cares about us and
who both can and will deliver us.
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So how does David Know for sure
that God hears, sees and cares?
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Well, he tells us in the
next two verses. Now we know that
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God will always hear us and deliver
us and act with compassion toward us.
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And you know that he will because
we have a restored relationship with him.
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This morning I quoted the shorter catechism, vert question nineteen, and it says
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that all mankind, by their fall
lost communion with God, are under his
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wrath and curse and so made liable
to all miseries in this life, death
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itself and the pains of hell forever. But in the face of that awful
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judgment that we bring upon ourselves,
versus three and four give us good news.
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He says, if you, Lord, Should Mark Iniquities, oh Lord,
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who could stand? But there is
forgiveness with you, that you may
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be feared. He says that the
Lord doesn't Mark Our iniquities. You know,
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I think both in my personal experience
of my existential crisis, crises,
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crises sees, there been a lot
of them, as well as observing other
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people I've I've noted that what often
undermines our faith, what makes our prayers
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weak and makes us insecure in our
relationship with the Lord, is this feeling
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that there is something standing between us
and God. We get this idea that
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he somehow has this list of sins
and transgressions, this list of reasons to
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punish US or not to love us
or to hold us off. But the
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good news here is that all of
those things are gone. They're all gone.
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All of our sins have been nailed
to the Cross with Christ and we
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bear them, know, more like
Christian in pilgrim's progress. We were weighed
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down by this load of guilt and
Sin. But David reminds us that the
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Lord doesn't mark, that is,
he doesn't keep a record of our sins.
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We think about that. You and
I, unless you're a sociopath,
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you worry about this from time to
time. I know you do. But
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the reality is that, though you
have a laundry list of your failures and
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all the reasons that God shouldn't love
you, the Lord, God omnipotent,
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has no such list. So,
if I may put this rather bluntly,
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who are you to come down on
you when the lord has vindicated you?
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You should repent of yourself loathing now. Just go home and feel bad about
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that, but no longer see.
What he's telling us is that, since
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we're no longer weighed down by our
guilt or our shame or our burdens,
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now we can stand tall with confidence
before our father, knowing that there is
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nothing that he has against us.
And if you look at the fourth verse,
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He says that he forgives us.
What he's getting at is that the
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Lord restores us to himself as if
nothing had ever happened. I know that
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you come across people in your life, who will tell you that they forgive
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you, but they still remember you, know they do. You do this
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to other people. I forgive him, but I'll never forget that. People
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see us in light of our past. But by contrast, the Lord truly
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forgives Jesus. Took every reason for
separation, he took all of our past
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sins and our failures and he took
the punishment for them in his body on
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Calvary's cross. And having done that, he has now clothed us with his
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very righteousness. He has as just
as Joseph's father did, as it were.
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He's clothed us in his cloak of
many colors and he presents us to
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his father as his friends. And
the father sees us in Christ just as
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he sees the son himself, spotless, holy, blameless and wonderful. This
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is how the Lord Sees You,
and David tells us that the Lord does
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this. He says that you may
be feared. Now what this means is
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that God's restoring us to himself allows
us to fear him, as we ought
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to do. But always remember that
that that word, fear can just as
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well be translated as reverence. Or
all this fear isn't a terrified fear.
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This isn't the fear of an angry
person or a cold person. This is
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the sort of fear that a meek, loving child might have for his very
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strong and holy yet very loving father. Now, the child of such a
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parent wouldn't want to go against his
father's will. He wouldn't want to hurt
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or or anger his father by sinning
against him. That child knows that it
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is better, it's infinitely more happy
and safe and good to be held in
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his father's loving arms then it would, ever, be to damage that relationship
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or to run away like prodigal from
his father's care. Even so, when
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God has so lovingly and sacrificially restored
us to a right relationship with himself,
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a godly fear is that which reminds
ourselves why would I want to slap him
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against the face and run away from
him? A godly fear reminds us that
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it's far better to live by his
rules in his house and enjoy his love
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and care forever. All right,
so far the PSALMIST has told us how
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he cries out to God, and
he's told us why he cries out to
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God. And now, in the
next two verses we see the follows up
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on this cry and he shows us
his own heart as he prays. He
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says this. I wait for the
Lord, my soul waits. And in
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his word, do I hope?
My soul waits for the Lord more than
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those who watch for the morning.
Yes, more than those who watch for
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the morning. Now again David gives
us some really vivid word pictures here.
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First he says that he waits for
the Lord more than those who watch for
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the morning. And as I thought
about this, it occurs to me that
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there are a couple of ways that
someone might wait for the morning to come.
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You might wait patiently through the night
for the morning to come because you
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know that the morning comes every day, unless you live in Alaska, this
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time year, I suppose, but
that's we don't. We live in Arizona.
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So you wait patiently because you have
a trust. You have a confidence
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that allows you to wait patiently.
You know it's going to come, it's
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just a matter of time. By
contrast, we might wait through the night
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anxiously and impatiently. Now, we
might wait with an anxious impatience for the
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morning to come because we're so eager
for it to come. Maybe the night
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has been cold and long, or
you're grieving some sadness or something, and
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so you wait for the dawn with
an eager expectation. Now, one of
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the reasons I like this psalm is
it always takes me back to when I
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was seventeen. I had an experience. When I was seventeen, I was
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in the boy scouts and I experienced
both of these sorts of waiting at the
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same time. Now we've had our
summer camp up in Pastin, up on
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the Moggian rim. I imagine most
of us have been there, and there
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was this one orienteering award called the
Eagle Eye, and the thing about the
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eagle eye was they wouldn't let you
go until it was like your last or
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next to last summer because of the
liability issues. And to earn this award
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you had to go out into the
woods alone right before sundown and you weren't
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supposed to come back to sun up. And what you would do is you'd
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take a handful of supplies, a
compass and some very vague directions, like,
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at the starting point, take a
bearing of thirty five degrees and go
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a hundred yards. At that point
you'll see a ponderosa pine with a face
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on it, like in ourly face
Moo. Go about twenty six degrees and
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for ten yards and then you'll find
this. And once you get to this
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bare left, and it was like
random, just sort of vague direction,
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you're on the woods all by yourself. It's night and the point of the
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whole exercise was you were supposed to
go out there and find a small box
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that was hidden in the woods and
you had to return to camp by six
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o'clock in the morning and then you
would get this award. It was sort
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of a you know, like let
me show everybody how cool I am,
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that I can do this, and
they only sent you out when there was
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a weather report calling for clear skies, and so there were. But I
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had only been out for maybe an
hour, maybe two at the most,
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when the skies started to grow dark
and those big, you know boiling thunderclouds
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that come up over the mountains in
the summer started piling up on the on
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the mogian mountain or Mogian rim,
and it's raging thunderstorm. Started, just
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raging thunderstorm. But I was almost
to the box. I thought, Oh,
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I can make it to the box. I have a flashlight, but
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what I didn't know is that one
of the boys in my troop the batteries
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in his light were going bad,
so he just snagged mine and left me
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with like ninety percent dead batteries.
So I was like all right, I
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can do this. I switched my
flashlight on, I got going a little
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ways and and just it died on
me. So I decided to pitch a
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lean to because I knew how to
do that, and I was just going
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to hunker down to the storm passed
and Sun came up, I'd find the
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box and I'd run back to camp. But the weather just kept getting worse
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and worse and worse and worse,
and so I decided I have no choice
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but to go back. So I
was walking back in the you know,
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the depths of night, in a
raging thunderstorm, with no flashlight, and
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you won't be surprised to know that
I stumbled and fell and rolled all the
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way down as steep muddy ravine and
sprained my ankle. As my legs swelled
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up, I realized that I was
just going to have to stay there.
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So I had about eight nine hours
till the sun came up. And I
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just sat there shivering in a wet
sleeping bag with a swollen ankle, knowing
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I had failed. But you see, that night is I waited for the
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sun or to come up, and
is that storm just poured and poured him
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poured. I was able to wait
patiently and with confidence because I knew that
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the dawn always comes after the night. But because I was so miserable and
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cold and Wet, I waited for
the morning with an eager expectation that makes
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a five yearold at Christmas look like
nothing. I was so eager for it
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to come. And here in our
Psalm, David waits in both of these
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ways too. In verse four,
he says that he waits for the Lord.
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I wait for the Lord. My
soul waits, he says. But
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See, his waiting year isn't like
well, I'll play with my phone.
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It's not that kind of waiting.
It's not that kind of waiting that we
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have. Are those sorts of prayers
we offer when you know it's just sort
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of like playing Frisbee with one person
you know, or I've heard someone describe
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it as your prayers float up to
the ceiling and fall back down like no
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one's listening, but you know you're
supposed to pray. It's not like that.
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He's not going through the motions.
David tells us that he waits patiently
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and confidently because, as he says, in his word, do I hope,
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in God's Word, David had seen
that our God is a promise keeping
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God. He is the God who
has restored us to a relationship with himself
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and who promises to always give us
what we need and what is good for
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us at every single moment. It's
right there. And then, in verse
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six, he tells us my soul
waits for the Lord. In other words,
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David waits with his deepest, innermost
part of himself. He's waiting expectantly,
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like a child waiting for presents on
his birthday. He's waiting eagerly because
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he knows the answer to his cries
are coming, because he knows who his
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God is. But notice that the
psalmist doesn't tell us what he waits for
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exactly. He just tells us he
waits for the Lord. He isn't looking
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for relief from distress necessarily, and
we know that his eager waiting isn't to
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be forgiven. He's already got that. Instead, he tells us that,
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because he is forgiven, he waits
for the Lord's comfort and he waits for
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the Lord's presence. He waits for
the Lord to comfort him and bring him
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relief, either through fixing his problems
or through giving him a sense of joy
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in the journey to go through it
with peace. Because, you know,
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sometimes you don't need a solution to
your problem. Sometimes you just need God's
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grace to bear it with joy and
patience. But either way we see that
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the Lord always blesses us when we
cry out to him, as David does
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here now. Having told us about
how he cries out to God and why
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he cries out to God and how
he waits upon the Lord, David now
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turns to us in the last two
verses and he tells us that, in
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whatever place we may find ourselves,
whether we are drowning in the cares of
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life or just cast away from joy
and peace that we long for, he
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turns to us and he urges us
to hope in the Lord. He says,
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Oh assrail, hope in the Lord, for with the Lord there is
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mercy and with him is abundant redemption, and he shall redeem as reel from
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all his iniquities. I think it's
kind of remarkable from our perspective today to
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find David telling us to hope in
the Lord. You know, when in
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David's Day, when the Psalm was
written, he only had a few books
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of the Bible that we have today. He had the five books of Moses,
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a few psalms, maybe the book
of job maybe a couple low others,
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maybe not. And yet look at
the confidence, hope and joy that
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he had in our God. Compared
to him then, now today, in
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the shadow of the Cross and with
the fullness of the revelation of scripture,
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we have every reason to be even
more hopeful than David. In the first
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part of verse seven he says with
the Lord there is mercy. When we
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talked about this this morning, mercy
is loving kindness. It's his giving us
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what we do not deserve and not
giving us what we do deserve. It's
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his taking away the punishment for our
sins and giving us the Covenant and the
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promises of his never failing love.
His mercy is giving us what we don't
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deserve. And in the second part
of verse seven he says with him there
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is abundant redemption. Now, our
redemption is just a ransom. A ransonens
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is something that substituted for something else, usually a price paid to rescue a
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hostage, right, or something like
that. Well, our redemption is Jesus
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is, having taken from us every
bit of our guilt and shame and in
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giveing us his very own standing with
his father. And he concludes in Verse
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Eight by saying this, and he
shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities.
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Now, just if I can clarify
something, you are Israel. The baptized
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Christian who is trusting in Christ,
is a member of the household of Israel
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and an air of all the promises
of the Lord. And so, whatever
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it is that's weighing you down this
evening, whatever is burdening you as you
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approach the Lord's table, you have
this firm, objective, rock solid promise.
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Jesus has redeemed you, Jesus is
redeeming you, and Jesus will redeem
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you from all of your brokenness,
from all of your spiritual impoverishment, from
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all of your sufferings. And as
we come to the Lord's table this evening,
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we see that we have every reason
to hope in the Lord. He
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says with him is abundant redemption.
Jesus says that this read is his body,
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which was given for us. Jesus
is our ransom, he is our
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redemption. In his body and by
his stripes, he paid the penalty for
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all of our sins so that we
bear them no more. And he says,
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with the Lord, there is mercy. Jesus said that this Cup is
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the new covenant in his blood,
because he shed his blood for us,
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because he has washed US wider than
snow in his blood and because he has
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covered us in his blood. We
stand before our father in heaven as though
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nothing had ever come between us,
because there is no more wall of separation.
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This sacrament testifies to us why we
can cry out to God, this
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sacrament testifies to us why we can
be confident before the Lord, and this
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sacrament testifies to us why we can
wait upon the Lord, our God,
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with all hope. And for my
part, I think that that is good
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news. Amen, let's pray.
