My Soul Waits For the Lord

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Good morning, good morning, good morning.

Grace, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

It is such a good morning to be here with you all and to see all of you guys face to face.

In case you were expecting Pastor Rick and you didn't get the memo that it was going to be me instead, my name is Eli Alexander, and I'm one of the pastors here at CCW.

And it's always my greatest privilege when Pastor Rick gives me the chance to preach the week after VBS.

It's not stressful at all.

I'm just kidding.

I will take any chance to preach, and if if you need any further example of how much Pastor Joe and I love to preach, Pastor Joe, on the coattails of a mission trip, came in and preached that Sunday.

He didn't even get a week.

He preached that Sunday.

So we we love to get the opportunity as your pastors to preach to you, and we love Pastor Rick's preaching and teaching, of course, but we love to exercise the gift that we have and the passion that we have, the calling that we have to preach and to pastor a local church.

So before we dive specifically into our text, there are a few points of pastoral prayer privilege that I'd like us to take in praying for some of our brothers and sisters who are serving abroad right now.

Last week we prayed for our uh wonderful missions coordinator, director, Miss Deedra Brown, as she took a team to Brazil, including a youth, uh, Miss Leah Leitner's own Broxton.

Broxton is there in Brazil.

And if the uh schedule is up to date that I received in my email, Broxton was leading games at essentially a VBS or a backyard Bible school yesterday.

So we want to pray for Broxton.

We want to pray for Deedra as they serve in this way.

And then, even more personal privilege I'm gonna take, we're gonna pray for my wife Kirby.

Kirby left for Ecuador yesterday for a medical mission trip with some of her classmates from Samford.

And so if I seem nervous, it's because I hadn't heard from her until about 15 minutes before I got up here.

I didn't know if she'd gotten there or anything.

So I promise I'm excited to be here with you guys.

But it was very nerve-wracking uh having not heard from her.

But she made it there safely.

She's going to church this morning.

She got a great night's sleep, and she's excited to help serve those who have not had any sort of medical care in Ecuador.

So I want to take some time to pray for them.

And then I also want to pray uh for some of our dear brothers and sisters in the church, uh, Jeff Acton and Paula Acton.

Uh, our brother Jeff lost his mother early this morning.

And so we want to pray for Jeff.

We want to pray for his peace.

We want to pray as he leads his family through this grief.

We want to pray for God to be near to them, close to them, and a very real comfort to them during this time.

So if y'all wouldn't mind, please bow your heads and let's pray together.

Heavenly Father, we come to you today grateful.

Grateful for the uh mercies that you have shown us this morning.

As we remember the mercies that you gave us yesterday and the day before that, and the day before that, that brought us here together as your church this Lord's Day morning.

God, we praise you for the privilege of being able to send out from among us those that have your word on their heart as they go to Brazil, as they go to Ecuador to share the good news and meet the physical needs of those who have needs.

So, God, we lift up to you, Deedra and her team.

We lift up to you, Broxton, God, we lift up Kirby to you, knowing that their lives are safe within your hands.

And so, God, we commit them to you as your servants as they go forward and share your good news with others, and we thank you for them.

We also lift up the Acton family.

We lift up our brother Jeff and his wife Paula, who serve us so faithfully.

Thank you for all that they mean to us.

Thank you for all the ways that they serve us.

Because God, ultimately, they are serving you.

And so, God, in this season, I pray that you would make us a people that serves them.

Be near to them in their time of need.

God, compel us to grieve with them as they grieve.

Compel us to care for them as they need care.

And God, we ask, knowing that you are able and willing to do so, that you be close to them, that you be real and present to them in this time of grief.

Love them so that they may love others.

God, as we dive into your word, I pray that you will hide me behind the cross and let your word go forward.

I pray that your word would cut deep into our hearts so that we could know you as our Savior.

God, I commit this time that we have together to you, and I pray all of these things in Jesus' name.

Amen.

So, in case this is your first time visiting us, first of all, thank you for being here.

I'm so grateful that you would choose to visit on a Sunday that you didn't know there was a guest preacher preaching, but you're here, and so I'm so thankful you didn't turn around and get back in your car and leave.

I promise.

Pastor Rick will be back, and uh he will take wonderful care of you, and we'll love to meet you.

But visitors, if you're here, we're going through the book of Psalms.

It's our summer songs series.

And so I want to provide some context, a little bit of a foundation of what we're doing in the Psalms, what are the Psalms, and why the Psalms.

So the Psalms are the poetic literature in the Bible.

They're considered poetic literature in the Bible, and its contents are often called the Bible's hymn book.

These psalms are literally songs, and the original audience would often indeed sing these psalms.

They'd sing them to one another, they'd sing them as a form of personal worship, they'd sing them as they congregated together, and so we're actually gonna get the cool opportunity to do that same thing at the end of service today.

The psalm that we are in today is Psalm 130, and this psalm has been set to music uh by numerous new modern hymn writers that are out and about, and so we're gonna sing this psalm together as our invitation at the end of service today, which I'm I'm certainly thrilled for.

I know Pastor Joe's thrilled for it too.

He's been, he's been, I think he fought Benji off uh to sing that one today.

But I'm so excited to sing that one with you.

But to give more specific context on our passage, if you want to go ahead and turn there if you aren't already, we're in Psalm 130.

If I say Psalm 130, I'm still meaning 130.

Don't go flipping back to going back to chapter 1.

I don't even know if there's 30.

I know there's not 30 now that I'm thinking about it.

There's not 30 verses there, so don't go to chapter 1.

I'm not talking about chapter 1, verse 30, because it doesn't exist.

We're talking about Psalm chapter 130.

Psalms 130 · chapter mention

And if you have your copy of God's word, you can turn there.

Psalm 130 is considered a song of ascent or a pilgrim psalm.

Why is that?

Well, it was written for the pilgrim worshipers, the is the worshipers of Israel that were ascending to Jerusalem.

These are the songs of ascent as the worshipers from Israel would ascend to Jerusalem during the feast seasons of celebration.

And so that's what these songs are for.

So if you are there by now, hopefully, you are in Psalm chapter 130, and it says this.

Psalms 130 · chapter mention

It says, Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord.

O Lord, hear my voice.

Let your ear be attentive to the voice of my pleas for mercy.

If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?

But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared.

I wait for the Lord.

My soul waits, and in his word I hope.

My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning.

More than watchmen for the morning.

Oh, Israel, hope in the Lord, for with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with him is plentiful redemption, and he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities.

After we read this passage, we see that this psalm really starts out as a psalm of lament or a penitent psalm.

We see the first little stanza, the first couplet, the first two verses, we see our author in complete and total distress.

Our author is in bad shape.

Remember, it's out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord.

O Lord, hear my voice.

Let your ear be attentive to me, the voice of my pleas for mercy.

It conveys a deep remorse for sin and a need for redemption.

And it's also coupled with God's grace and God's salvation.

We see that range of emotions.

Remember, misery at the beginning, the first two verses, we see misery bleed into confession.

We see confession lead us to hope.

We see hope, and the result of that hope is assurance.

We see assurance by the end.

So to condense what the psalmist is saying into a single sentence, or to provide the main point of the text in sort of a single phrase, that point would be I am sinful.

God is merciful and we are a forgiven people.

Like I mentioned just a second ago, you may have noticed that the structure is poetic.

It's got the stanzas, which are in couplet form.

So one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two.

Eight verses set in couplets.

So we're gonna take these sort of couplet by couplet and unpack what this text has for us.

So in the first couplet, our first point in your notes today is the default position.

The default position.

The default position of our author shows us that he's in despair.

He's in a rough spot.

So point one A is that he is in a desperate posture.

You can refer back to verse one with me.

It says, Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord, O Lord, hear my voice.

The depths are not some minor affliction.

The depths aren't the psalmist overreacting.

The depths are the depths, the pits, we might say in the south.

I'm in the pits.

You know?

We are in the depths here at the beginning.

We see the author starting in a point, a posture of despair, of desperation.

We find the psalmist hopeless in the deepest pit or a sea of despair crying for help.

The depths is the place where our psalmist is trapped and he can't get out by himself.

He's trapped and he can't get out by himself.

He's calling out for help.

If he could do it himself, he wouldn't be calling out for this help, for this mercy, his pleas for mercy.

So he needs help.

And when I was reading this passage and I was thinking about depths, and I was thinking about crying out, I thought back to a time when I was seven years old and we were living in South Carolina and we had a neighborhood pool, and it was the best thing ever to have a neighborhood pool.

And I almost drowned in this neighborhood pool.

And that was not very cool of that neighborhood pool to do that to me.

But you might be thinking, oh, Eli didn't pass his swim test, and you know, he got in too deep, but that wasn't the case at all.

I was a great swimmer, and I was actually just pretty dumb.

What had happened was we were in the kitty pool, which had this super cool mushroom fountain in the middle of it.

And my seven-year-old brain, the way that you know science and liquid dynamics worked in my mind, told me that if I took this big rubber-made bucket that we kept all our toys in and I put it over my head and I crouched down in the baby pool, and I had all my friends push on top of it, it would push all the water out, and it would be like a submarine.

That's what I was telling myself.

Are you s have you caught the error yet?

So, yeah, pretty big error.

So we get situated right under this awesome, super loud water feature in the middle of the kiddie pool, and I get under there, and I get up five or six buddies, and I sit down and we put it on top of me, and they shove that thing down.

And pretty instantly, I recognize that the water was not going the way that I thought it was.

It was not going out, but it in fact was coming into my sweet little domicile that I had set up for myself.

And so, very quickly, that bucket was suctioned to the bottom of the kiddie pool.

I thought my friends were sitting on top of it, but it was just the force of that water, of that vacuum that it created, and on top of that, the mushroom fountain was pouring down on top of the bucket, so it is just drumming, just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

And the water's coming up, and the water's coming up.

And it got to a point where I'm screaming, crying out for help.

I can only assume that no one could hear me the way that that fountain was drumming on this drum.

And it got to a point where if I looked straight ahead and my mouth was under water, and if I looked up, my mouth was on the roof of this bucket that I was under.

I was in a desperate spot.

I was in a desperate spot.

You might guess by my being here today that eventually I summoned the strength.

No, absolutely not.

It took a team of wild stallions, aka five or six moms, to come over and pry this bucket from the bottom of the kiddie pool and get me loose.

Like I said, I wasn't in the deep end, I wasn't in the depths, literally speaking, but that bucket might as well have been at the bottom of the sea.

There was no chance that I was going to get myself out, save myself from these depths.

I was crying out for help.

I needed help.

I was trapped under that bucket.

Like I said, I thought my friends were, I immediately got out, my parents took that off, and I immediately started yelling at my friends, why were you sitting on that bucket?

And by then they'd all made it to the big pool, and they were like, hey, the parents kicked us out of the kitty pool while they rescued your dumb self.

So we had, we weren't sitting on top of the bucket, and mom finally explained the science to me, and that's why my dream of being a scientist at that age quickly died.

Um but I was trapped.

I was trapped with no source of rescue to come from within.

In our text, our psalmist is trapped, and he's crying out for help from the only one who could save him.

He's crying out to the only one who could save him.

Oh Lord, oh Lord, hear my voice, the voice of my pleas for mercy.

Pleas for mercy.

What is the psalmist trapped in and needing rescue from?

He's trapped.

We see him begging for help.

We see him crying out for mercy.

What is he trapped in?

This brings us to point 1b, which is the deepest need.

The deepest need.

The deepest need of our psalmist is found at the end of verse 2.

Let your ear be attentive to the voice of my emphasis here, please for mercy.

For his greatest need to be met.

The psalmist, the writer of the psalm, needs mercy.

Understanding this point of the psalm is crucial in order to correctly interpret this scripture.

The author is not in some sort of external jam where he's struggling against some adversary or some circumstance that he's facing.

Remember, these are trying times.

He's not just minorly afflicted by a stub tail or anything like that.

He's in the depths, but it's not a tussle that he's having with somebody else.

That being said, hear me say that just because this text isn't about external circumstances, that don't hear me say that God doesn't care about your external circumstances or your external trials.

In fact, in the Psalms, there are a number of texts that deal specifically with external trials.

We see David going up against numerous adversaries and crying out to the Lord to save him from these external factors, but this text is internal.

We're dealing with problems in-house in this first couplet.

And so in a little bit we're actually going to look at Psalm 62, which has very similar language, but is indeed flipped.

It's external circumstances, but we'll see a lot of the core words used are the same.

The psalmist is drowning in the depths of his own sin, his iniquities, as verse 3 will put it in just a moment, and he's begging for forgiveness.

So, what application can we extract from this first couplet?

How does this become real for me?

How does it become real for you?

How does this affect my day-to-day?

This couplet, and let me be clear, the Psalms are very varied in general.

Some are very proverbial, like the book of Proverbs, and just give wise quips and anecdotes.

Some have commands, express commands to obey the Lord, to do this, and it's speaking to a group.

But in this first couplet, we don't have a specific command directed at you and at me.

It doesn't say you must do this, but we can still draw application from it.

We all have a deep need for our sin to be forgiven.

And we all have a reason to cry out for mercy.

Just because the verse doesn't say, Joe, you need to cry out for mercy, that doesn't mean that we shouldn't cry out for mercy.

We have a need that we are going to find out.

This isn't just an isolated event where this one psalmist is a terrible sinner and everyone else is alright.

He needs to cry out for mercy, but everyone else, thumbs up, you're all good.

That's not what this is saying.

So we should cry out for mercy.

Next, or are we convicted?

We convicted by our own sin.

That's our next application.

Have we cozied up with our pet sin, our little sin, our sin when no one's around, our sin that's socially acceptable?

Have we cosied up to that sin and as a result, have we turned away from daily time with the Lord?

Have we turned away from gathering together with the body of believers?

This is exactly what we must not do.

I love this from Charles Spurgeon in my studies, what he said on this text.

He said, It little matters where we are if we can pray.

But prayer is never more real and acceptable than when it rises out of the worst places.

Deep places beget deep devotion.

Depths of earnestness are stirred by depths of tribulation.

Diamonds sparkle most amid the darkness.

The more distressed we are, the more excellent is the faith which trusts bravely in the Lord, and therefore appeals to him and to him alone.

When you're in your deepest, darkest place, which this text is telling us.

Your deepest, darkest place, I don't care what the world throws at you.

I don't care the circumstances, I don't care the finances, I don't care the family situation.

Our deepest and our darkest depth is the sin within ourselves.

It's the sin within ourselves.

And yet, when we are in our deepest and our darkest and our worst place, we have to go to the Lord.

We have to go to Him.

The enemies of heaven want nothing more than for you to sin against a holy God and then try to run away from Him.

To try to hide from Him.

It's the pattern we see in Scripture.

We see it in Genesis when Adam and Eve fall, when they sin, they try to hide in the garden, try to cover themselves with clothing that they made and try to hide from a holy God.

Which brings me to my second point.

We're going to zoom in on the next couplet, which is the root cause.

The root cause of the psalmist's anguish is his sin.

The root cause of the psalmist's anguish is his sin.

Which brings us to point two A.

This is a worldwide pandemic.

A worldwide pandemic.

Anyone have any experience with a pandemic?

Anybody?

All right.

I'm not gonna get political on talking about the pandemic, but we can all remember what it was like when the lockdown happened.

Some of us were washing groceries, some of us were trying to act like nothing happened.

Some of us proposed to their then girlfriend in the front yard on the septic tank covers because his dad had COVID.

Anyone else or is that just me?

That was me.

Yeah.

Yeah, that was that was me.

So this is a worldwide pandemic.

Whether you thought it was the worst thing to ever happen, or whether you thought it was no big deal, it doesn't matter.

We were all affected and afflicted by this.

I remember when the news started saying the pandemic is about to be downgraded to an epidemic.

And I was like, sounds even worse.

Epidemic sounds like a scarier word, but is that good?

Found out I didn't know what the difference between a pandemic and epidemic was.

So I looked it up, and a pandemic is a global, worldwide phenomenon affecting everybody.

No corner untouched, no stone unturned, everyone affected.

Epidemic is a geographically located outbreak of something.

We see that our sin is a worldwide pandemic.

No one, you nor I, can escape the clutches of sin on our heart.

Not a single one of us.

Not a single one of us.

Since Adam and Eve first sinned, not a single one of us.

Romans 5, verse 12, if you want to write it down, says, Sin came into the world through one man and death through sin.

Romans 5:12

And so death spread to all men because all sinned.

Sin is a pandemic and a worldwide phenomenon.

We also see why the psalmist is so concerned about his need for mercy that we talked about earlier, because Romans just told us that the price of sin is death.

The price of sin is death.

We see the urgency now.

Like we understand the urgency when Eli's trapped under a bucket, banging on it to try to get out so he doesn't drown.

We see the urgency now.

When death is at the door, and something that is innate within you, your sin is the cause, we've got a big problem.

We of ourselves cannot fix it.

We need rescue.

We need a savior.

Like I said, we're in the second couplet now of Psalm 130.

And it zooms out from just the psalmist and it includes every single one now.

Remember, verse one was about the psalmist.

He's saying, I, I, I.

We can still glean some information from him, but that was about the psalmist.

He's talking about himself.

But we just entered the picture.

Are you ready for your big scene?

Here we go.

Verse 3 says this.

Verse 3, if you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?

If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?

If you turn that question that the psalmist is asking into a statement, he's saying, God, if you keep an exact record of wrong, no one can stand.

Here's our big entrance, church.

We're the sinners that can't stand in front of a holy God on our own.

We, just like the psalmist, need the same mercy.

Should be following the same pattern of crying out for mercy as the psalmist does here.

This stands out as the most important couplet of the psalm for a number of reasons.

Literary speaking, it uses a rhetorical question, which is a very powerful rhetorical device, which we were just read.

And it stands out compared to the other couplets.

The other couplets use another really great literary tool.

They use repetition.

And so the first stanza or couplet we see, hear me, hear me, hear me, hear me.

And the third stanza we'll hear in just a moment, I wait, I wait on the Lord.

And then the last one we say, with God, with him, with him, there is steadfast love.

With him, there is bountiful redemption.

But literary devices aren't the most significant thing about this text, but they point to it.

They point to the core of the passage's message because of the answer that the psalmist gives to his rhetorical question.

In verse 4, we find our sin problems to be a perfect antidote.

A perfect antidote.

To be or not to be.

I realize that could have sounded confusing.

Point two, letter B, is a perfect antidote.

Read verse 4 with me.

But with you, there is forgiveness that you may be feared.

With you, there is forgiveness that you may be feared.

Up to this point, the first three verses are frantic.

I'm crying out, I need your help.

Hear my cry.

If you don't hear me, what can anybody do?

We're frantic up to this point.

And then the conjunction but is a very powerful transition word.

And it changes everything for this text.

It's the pivot point of the psalm.

The problem that was introduced, our sin, our sin problem, now finds its solution.

The problem of sin finds its solution in the forgiveness of God.

This point has so much for us to take as far as application.

It echoes the problem of sin.

Like we mentioned earlier.

It reminds us that not only is the psalmist a sinner, but indeed we are sinners as well.

Remember the rhetorical question says, who can stand?

Which essentially means none of us can stand.

That includes you and me.

We have to confess our sins to God.

We cannot stand before Him with righteous deeds and think that we've done enough to stand before a holy God.

We must confess our sins, our iniquities to God.

Moving on, we aren't left in our despair, which is great news.

We've discovered we're sinners, horrible news, but we're not left to despair.

We are led to the forgiveness of God.

How miraculous.

When we are at fault, it takes the hand of God to reach out and extend forgiveness.

Pay the price for our wrongdoing.

That's what God does.

He extends forgiveness to us, even in the midst of our complete and total depravity.

We were once sinners and enemies of God in desperate need, yet he extends us mercy.

We must respond to his grace.

We confess our sin.

We must respond to his grace.

He extends it.

We don't have to go knock on the door.

He extends his mercy.

He extends his grace.

For us, we must respond to it.

And finally, the end of the verse says this but with you there is forgiveness, emphasis here, that you may be feared.

We respond by fearing the Lord, by worshiping or revering the Lord for all that he has done.

Remember, it's no small feat to take us from death into life.

It's no small feat to take us from sin into forgiveness.

We worship him because he has done a major thing.

He has done a major thing.

I describe the second stanza as a transition or a pivot point, but it brings us to point three, transitions us to something, which is a new tone.

A new tone.

We see a new tone moving forward from the second stanza.

Starting with 3A.

Personal hope in God's word.

Personal hope in God's word.

Look at verses five and six.

I wait for the Lord.

My soul waits.

And in his word, I hope.

My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning.

When I first read this passage and began to study it, my first question was, what's the guy waiting for?

What's he waiting on?

If we remember God's attribute that's been on display thus far in the psalm, it's his forgiveness.

The author of the psalm is waiting earnestly.

Remember, my soul waits.

How many times have you done anything with your soul?

Hopefully you've trusted in Jesus with your soul.

That's a big deal.

Maybe you've lost a loved one.

You've mourned from your soul.

That was a big deal.

And here, the psalmist is waiting on the Lord with his soul.

His deepest, innermost being is waiting for what?

For the forgiveness of God, his salvation from his sin.

This is especially fascinating when you remember that this is an Old Testament text.

When you remember that this is pre-Jesus coming to earth, this is pre-Jesus born in a manger, died on a cross, rose from the dead.

This is all before that.

The source of our psalmist's hope, the author's hope, was the word of God.

The word of God in the Old Testament, he relied on the sacrificial system, believing in God's forgiveness by faith that he would be forgiven and that his very soul would be saved.

Could you imagine?

When I was talking to Pastor Rick about this, he was like, could you imagine what it'd be like?

Could you imagine what it'd be like to wait in order to atone for your sins with your sacrifice?

And you'd have to wait, and you'd have to travel, and you'd have to go, and you'd have to spill the blood of what was seen as spotless to atone for your sin.

This waiting, this literal waiting.

I couldn't imagine.

But this man, this psalmist, is relying on God, waiting on God for the forgiveness and the salvation of his very soul.

Having said that, we have to stop here and acknowledge that we are on the New Testament side of things.

We are New Testament Christians living as Jesus, living after Jesus' life on earth.

Jesus is introduced to us in John's Gospel, chapter one, as the Word of God.

Remember, our hope, our personal hope is in God's Word.

Jesus is introduced in John's Gospel as God's word.

He is our hope for salvation now.

It's not a sacrificial system that we must rely upon, that we must wait for.

We aren't a people of waiting for something that is unknown or that we hope for any longer, believing in the word by faith alone.

We have seen the glory of Jesus on earth.

We have God's word that tells of God's word that came and lived a perfect life, died on the cross for our sins.

We aren't a people of waiting aimlessly.

We are a people of faith and a people of hope in what God has done through Jesus for the forgiveness of our sins.

Our text has clearly outlined the Lord as the source of our forgiveness.

But sin being our deepest depth, that doesn't mean that life is without depths.

I alluded to this earlier, but I want to invite you, if you've got maybe two Bible dividers, or if you can use a thumb and your Bible ribbon, to turn to Psalm chapter 62.

Psalms 62 · chapter mention

Turn to Psalm chapter 62.

Psalms 62 · chapter mention

This is a psalm of David.

We don't have the actual author of Psalm 130, but Psalm 62, we know that this is a psalm of David.

And here he is facing external factors that are causing him strife.

And I want you to consider what we've heard from our text so far in light of what we're about to read right here in verses 5 and 6, or excuse me, 5 through 8.

It says, chapter 62, verse 5, For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence.

For my hope is from Him.

He only is my rock and my salvation.

My fortress, I shall not be shaken.

On God rests my salvation and my glory.

My mighty rock, my refuge is God.

Trust in him at all times, O people.

Pour out your heart before him.

God is a refuge for us.

Have you found the application pattern for us?

We've seen internal strife, internal conflict, our own sin, Psalm 130.

We see external conflict.

The context of this psalm, David is dealing with outside circumstances afflicting him.

But the response is the same.

For your sin, for your innermost wrong, wait on the Lord.

Are there external circumstances that are coming at you from all sides that are afflicting you in your day, keeping you up at night, affecting your finances, affecting how you love and interact with others?

What's the response?

Wait on the Lord.

Trust in the Lord.

Which brings us to the final couplet, which includes more good news and more important things to consider as well.

Point three B is assurance for all the people.

Assurance for all the people.

Remember, we've seen, it's very important to distinguish when the psalmist is describing himself, I'm doing this, I'm doing this, I'm doing this, and when a group of people comes into the bigger picture.

So this transition includes all the people.

In this couplet, the author is now directly addressing his audience.

Once again, remember this audience is singing.

They're singing to one another.

And his audience is Israel.

His audience is God's people.

God's people are the one that the assurance is for.

The hope, the hope that is the product of waiting on the Lord leads us to assurance.

We can be assured as we affirm together the forgiveness of God, the redemption of God.

And so the hope and waiting in the last couplet leads to assurance as the congregation affirms God's love and redemption to one another.

In case there was any doubt that forgiveness was the central theme, and that the Lord's core action in this text is forgiveness, the last verse is a bookend to the way the chapter starts.

If you want to return back to Psalm 130 or if you never left.

Remember, the beginning is my sin, my iniquities.

I need mercy.

And then the end, the psalmist opens it up to all of Israel.

All of God's people.

And he says, God will.

There's the assurance, God will redeem Israel from all his iniquities.

The forgiveness that you need, when you are God's people, it is for you.

There is not a single person that belongs to God whom his forgiveness is not for.

If you are a child of God, his forgiveness is yours.

The invitation is there.

Join him.

Join God's people.

Whether you're a Christian or you're not a Christian, the main point of this sermon is the same.

Confess your sins to God.

Hope in Him and tell everyone.

Christians, on this side of our salvation journey, after we have been saved by Jesus Christ, we must still run to Him when we sin.

We must cry out for His mercy.

If you are a Christian, you've done it once before.

Don't stop.

Cry out to the loving Savior that has saved you and will save you till you see Him in eternity.

Cry out for the mercy of God.

We know that it's our sin that placed Jesus on the cross.

We must cry out to Him when we sin.

As a result, we should tell everybody.

The forgiveness that we've experienced, like the psalmist turns from just Himself, just me, just my lament, just my prayers, just my awaiting.

He turns and He tells the people, remember, people, you are a forgiven people.

God has saved you from all of your iniquities.

We must invite others, those far from God, to join us, to accept his forgiveness, to respond to his grace.

And that means that leads if if you're visiting today or if you've been visiting for quite a while, and you're far from Jesus, you have no relationship with Jesus, you have no faith in Jesus as your Savior.

We've talked, we have to cry out for God's mercy.

You need to know about God's Son, Jesus, who was 100% God and 100% man.

He came to this earth and lived a perfect life that because of sin, you or I could never do.

Jesus would ultimately die on the cross and pay the price for your sins.

Being God three days later, he rose from the dead, securing resurrection for all who trust in him.

Forgiveness secured.

Would you say here today, for the first time, I hope in the Lord for my forgiveness, for my salvation.

If that's you, would you confess your sins to God?

Run to him.

It doesn't matter what you've done, how far you've gone, the repentant heart that runs to the Father through Jesus the Son will be forgiven.

Will be forgiven.

Would you confess your sins to God and then turn from them?

Turn from them and run away from them towards your Savior.

We're about to enter into a time of invitation where the altar will be open for those who would like to pray.

If anybody would like to know more about this gospel, this good news of Jesus, our prayer team's going to be here.

I'm going to be here.

And like I said at the beginning, we're going to sing this psalm set to music.

We're going to sing this together.

Remember, God's people, you in among the room that are God's people, we sing this affirming God's forgiveness for us and for one another.

Be encouraged.

Be encouraged as you trust, hope, and wait on the Lord for your forgiveness.

We're excited you joined us for today's message.

Our heart is to connect with others in our community, to grow with one another, and build a bigger kingdom.

If you accepted Jesus today, we want to hear about it.

Take a moment and text CCW Connect to 94,000.

Thank you again for joining us on the CCW podcast.

We hope you'll make plans to join us in person on Sundays.