A sermon preached at Covenant Presbyterian Church of Fort Smith, Arkansas on November 20, 2022.
Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD!
O Lord, hear my voice!
Let your ears 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.
O 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 (Psalm 130).[1]
As God spoke creation into existence, so it was. From the dust he formed man (adam), breathing life into him and from him to us. We are all children of Adam. Scripture says, “And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good” (Gen. 1:31). God is the Creator and giver of all good things (Jas. 1:17), not so Adam. God gave “life and breath and everything” (Acts 17:25); Adam gave death. As Paul explains, “just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men . . .” (Rom. 5:12). The catastrophe that was the Fall gave the gift that keeps on giving: death. But the death sentence received is not executed instantaneously. God’s gift of life sustains, yet sin remains, its curse, its consequences.
It is then against the bleak, black backdrop of sin that the gospel shines brightly: “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith” (Rom. 3:23-25a). By grace through faith, we receive forgiveness, pardon, redemption, life. The good news of the gospel is not that sin is any less serious or that God is more accepting of it, but that there is forgiveness of sin and redemption from its reign, divine relationship restored, eternal life guaranteed, hope for living today and tomorrow. But as beautiful as the gospel is, it does not negate our sorrow over sin or the evidential consequences of it in the world in which we live. If the penitential psalms teach us anything, it is that the child of God is not “inright, outright, upright, downright / Happy all the time.”[2] On the contrary, sometimes we weep from the depths of woe.
Penitential psalms, such as this one, teach us not to run from the Lord but to him in lament. In his brilliant book, Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy, Mark Vroegop defines lament as “a prayer in pain that leads to trust . . . a path to praise as we are led through our brokenness and disappointment . . . the path from heartbreak to hope.”[3] Lamenting does not mean wallowing in our pain or being despairingly consumed with sin in our world. Rather, it develops in us an awareness of suffering, a sensitivity to sin, and a means to express it, “a language for godly sorrow and a reason to hope again.”[4]
Perhaps this sermon is for you. Perhaps it’s your marriage, your children, your grandchildren; perhaps it’s your job, your finances, your needs; perhaps it’s a particular, repetitive sin you struggle with; or, perhaps it’s just the weight of living in a world plagued with sin. I don’t know, but I do know that this sermon is for all of us, for at some point, whether sorrow or sin, we must learn to lament. Sometimes all we can pray is what we need to pray,
Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD!
O Lord, hear my voice!
Let your ears be attentive
to the voice of my pleas for mercy!
Fear who forgives
The psalmist does not describe the details of his “depths.” I presume they are figurative, but they could be literal, or perhaps both. I am reminded of Jonah’s prayer from the depths of the sea:
The waters closed in over me to take my life;
the deep surrounded me;
Weeds were wrapped about my head
at the roots of the mountains.
I went down to the land
whose bars closed upon me forever;
yet you brought up my life from the pit,
O LORD my God (Jon. 2:5-6).
Surely, in the depths of the sea, Jonah felt alienated from the Lord, only to find the Lord’s divine intervention and provision. While we may feel alienated from God sometimes, in reality he is with us even in the depths.
The psalmist knows this, revealed in his cry: “O LORD! O Lord, hear my voice!” His cry is first to the “LORD” (Yahweh), the great “I AM” and covenant God of his chosen people. He couples this with the “Lord” (Adonai), connoting God’s singular, sovereign power. He who is the one, true God is indeed sovereign over life and death.
Employing anthropomorphic language, the psalmist pleas for God to lend an ear, to listen attentively, to hear his voice, his pleas for mercy. Amidst such dire language we might presume a hopelessness, but this is far from the truth. Our prayers of lamentation must not presume that the Lord is fickle but faithful, “gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love” (Joel 2:13). The psalmist teaches us it is right to cry out, not to persuade a capricious god, but because the Lord hears the voice of his child, desiring that we cast our cares on him, because he cares for us (1 Pet. 5:7).
As this is the case, let me ask: What keeps you from crying out to the Lord? One possible problem, perhaps even unexpressed, is a wrong perspective of our relationship with the Lord. We may readily agree that he is our heavenly Father, but do we always believe that his goal is our eternal good? The psalmist helps correct this in an unexpected way: connecting forgiveness with the “fear of the Lord.” When we think of fear, we typically think of fearfulness, a kind of worldly fear of scary things, but there is a difference between this fleshly fear and fearing God.
For example, in Exodus 20 when Israel was gathered at the base of Mount Sinai, the Lord’s descending presence was announced with lightning, thunder, smoke, and the curious blasting of a trumpet (Ex. 20:18). To say that Israel was afraid is an understatement, expressed in their cry, not to the Lord but to Moses, “You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, lest we die” (Ex. 20:19). But listen closely to how Moses responded to them: “Do not fear, for God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin” (Ex. 20:20). Did you catch the distinction between “Do not fear” and “the fear of him”? Those who rightly fear God will fear him in the right way, not in a fleshly way but in a worshipful way.
We hear this clearly in this psalm:
If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities,
O Lord, who could stand?
But with you there is forgiveness,
that you may be feared.
He does not say, “But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be loved,” or “But with you there is judgment, that you may be feared.”[5] Fear is not set against love, or goodness, or paired with judgment, or punishment. No, godly fear is paired with forgiveness. But why?
God is indeed holy and cannot sin (Hab. 1:13), and in his perfect justice he must punish sin. He does not accommodate sin nor accept it. No sinner can stand before holy God, unless God acts redemptively. And so he has, forgiving us by his grace through faith. In the cross of Christ our sins were atoned for (past, present, and future). Indeed, “For our sake [God] made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21).
For Christ’s sake, our iniquities are not “marked”:
For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his steadfast love toward those
who fear him;
as far as the east is from the west,
so far does he remove our transgressions
from us (Ps. 103:11-12).
Apart from the cross of Christ, we could not approach God. Apart from forgiveness, we would be terrified. But in Christ, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 Jn. 1:9). Our standing before God is not in our self-righteousness but the righteousness of Christ, who cleanses us of our sin, and cares for us as his children. To him who forgives, we cry out, not to a cosmic tyrant but to our heavenly Father:
As a father shows compassion to his children,
so the LORD shows compassion to those who fear him.
For he knows our frame;
he remembers that we are dust (Ps. 103:13-14).
Wait on who watches
Despite the forgiveness we have in Christ, it is easy to allow sin to lead us to doubt. So insidious is sin that as it seeps in and seeks out our vulnerabilities. We may start to wonder if the Lord does hear our cry for mercy. We may start to think that forgiveness is only for the faithful, rather than the fallen. And under the weight of sin, we may feel hopeless.
Against the lies of our sinful flesh, the psalmist pushes back with hope:
I wait for the LORD, my soul waits
An in his word I hope;
my soul waits for the Lord
more than watchmen for the morning,
more than watchmen for the morning.
The Hebrew verb translated “wait” is akin to “hope,” connoting trust in the Lord’s provision. But it does not dismiss the psalmist’s cry (verses five and six form an inclusio with verses one and two). You can hear the psalmist’s need in the repetition within this strophe, or stanza: I am waiting, waiting, waiting, like watchmen… This is passionate waiting, a soul-deep waiting, and all-encompassing waiting. And we don’t do this well.
We welcome the Lord’s help, but we want it now. What we often forget is that what the Lord provides may very well be the waiting. Jeremiah says,
The LORD is good to those who wait for him,
to the soul who seeks him.
It is good that one should wait quietly
for the salvation of the LORD (Lam. 3:25-26).
Waiting leads us to depend upon the Lord and his timing too.
What helps us in our waiting? The psalmist directs us to God’s Word, a confessed hope in his precepts and promises. Consider that this penitential psalm was sung on the ascent to Jerusalem to worship the Lord. Who sings psalms of lament when going to the house of worship? We do. Mark Vroegop says, “You might think lament is the opposite of praise. It isn’t. Instead, lament is a path to praise as we are led through our brokenness and disappointment.”[6] In psalms such as this one, we find words of longing, dependence, and assurance.
Consider committing psalms like this one to memory that you may meditate upon it and then incorporate it into your own prayers of waiting upon the Lord. Not only will you be drawing from an inspired source, but you are in a sense asking the Lord to speak for you. I think sometimes just having the right words to pray can be hope-inducing.
Psalms like this one also teach us to pray with anticipation,
more than watchmen for the morning,
more than watchmen for the morning.
The psalmist’s metaphor is perfect: In prayer we wait with more anticipation than the night watchman watches for morning light. And it is with this anticipation that we prayerfully petition the Lord, remembering, “You do not have, because you do not ask” (Jas. 4:2b). Our sovereign God has chosen to work through the prayers of his people, so pray boldly, pray with specificity, and pray frequently, presenting your pleas to the Lord who hears your prayers.
Revere who redeems
Hoping in God’s Word and faithfully petitioning him in prayer should lead us to a redemptive reverence. With him there is forgiveness that he may be feared, not that he may be forgotten. And one of the Lord’s ways of reminding us is in the necessity of corporate worship. As we gather each Lord’s Day to worship him with reverence and awe (Heb. 12:28), we remember the reason for which we were created, to glorify God and enjoy him forever[7]; we consider the magnitude of our redemption and rejoice; and, in our very assembly on the first day of the week, we celebrate the reality of Christ’s resurrection. All of this we do, and we do not do it alone.
There is a reason the psalmist cries to his covenant-faithful Lord, confesses to the Lord, waits for the Lord, and then turns to the church and calls,
O 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.
Yes, there is a time for private, solitary lament, but lamentation must not lead to isolation. We were created and redeemed for fellowship with God and one another. Even when we don’t feel like it, there is a powerful presence in the assembling of the Lord’s people in worship.
But it’s also the substance of our liturgy that helps lead us in lamentation. We are called to worship, whether we feel like it or not, for the Lord knows that a heavy heart is lifted as we lift up the Lord in praise. Even from the depths, we sing, ascending in worship to the throne room of grace. We confess our sins and hearing the gospel’s pardon, the forgiveness and redemption we have in Christ. We pray, not alone but together, and we sing, not solos but as a choir. And the Word in which we hope is read, sung, preached, and received, as the Lord not only hears his children but speaks to us. And we are sent out from our assembly together with a benediction, reminding us no matter how deep our woes, the Lord gives us enduring hope.
In this, we are reminded of God’s steadfast love for his people. We rejoice that our redemption in Christ is so plentiful that it covers the sins of our past, present, and future. For, we are a people who have received the gift of God’s grace in Christ, who has redeemed us from all our iniquities, and he is the God who hears our cries, answers our prayers, sustains us moment by moment, and gives us hope, even in the depths of woe.
[1] Unless referenced otherwise, all Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2001).
[2] “Happy All the Time,” Lyrics of Song, accessed November 23, 2022, http://www.lyricsofsongs.net/a/289-action-bible-songs-cedarmont-kids/1344-happy-all-the-time-lyrics.html.
[3] Mark Vroegop, Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy: Discovering the Grace of Lament (Wheaton: Crossway, 2019), 28.
[4] Ibid., 168.
[5] Michael Reeves, “What is the fear of God,” Ligonier, accessed November 23, 2022, https://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/what-is-the-fear-of-god.
[6] Mark Vroegop, Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy: Discovering the Grace of Lament (Wheaton: Crossway, 2019), 28.
[7] “Q. 1. What is the chief end of man? A. Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.” “The Shorter Catechism,” The Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms (Lawrenceville: PCA Christian Education and Publications, 2007), 355.
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