Cedar Springs Presbyterian Church
Out of the Depths (Isaiah 43:1-2a, 4a; Colossians 1:13-14) Psalm 130 We will never finish singing the glories of the grace of We marvel at such love, for sinners like us. We love singing of the deep, deep love of Jesus, because it helps our hearts glory in the splendour of the substitutionary sacrifice provided on our behalf, that makes us righteous and perfect for all eternity. How important and vital I believe this word is for us today. Whether we are hearing it for the first time, or for the thousandth, we can never hear too much of the Way out of Sin and Into the Arms of a Savior - how a Forgiven Soul finds Fresh Mercy in a Gracious God – The way to be lifted from the Depths of Despair and set on the Heights of Hope. There are four rungs, four steps on this ladder: There are only a few things more terrifying than a raging sea. It evokes a primal fear in us. And in the Scriptures, the image of a raging sea is a literary device that's used to bring us in, and to help us engage emotionally with the Scriptures. The writers of Scripture saw the sea as something immeasurably great and vast, something healthy to fear and respect, something that was terrifying and awesome. As the writers used the image of the sea to engage our imagination and cultivate a sense of awe and fear, they ultimately sought to awaken in us an accurate emotional awareness of God; to have right feelings for him. To not only have sound doctrine - and think right thoughts of God - but to have hearts that are tuned in so clearly to the Scriptures that our very feelings match up with what the Bible says is the way he feels, about himself, and us, his Son, his world, sin, grace, forgiveness, mercy, justice, the poor, the weak, the widow, the foreigner… The men who penned the words of Scripture, led by the Spirit, want us to think great thoughts of our Great God, but they would at the same time have us feel in every bone and sinew profound affection and gratitude for our Savior and King. God, throughout the 1600 years it took to write the Bible, often used the power of the sea to impress upon his people his might, and to evoke a sense of reverence for his majesty, and greatness, and power, and force. But he mainly used the sea – in all its chaos – to show his kindness and love, and ultimately his saving power. Job, out of his distress and despair, said, Jonah, after his disastrous sin, writes: Only God can still the seas. So isn’t it remarkable that the gospels report Jesus doing the same thing? Matthew said the sleeping Savior …rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. And the men marveled, saying, “What sort of man is this, that even winds and sea obey him?” (Matthew 8:23-27 ESV) I suggest that like the psalmist you Cry to God – …because where sin abounds, God’s grace abounds all the more (Rom 5:20). Cry out to him, because his mercy triumphs over judgment (James 2.13). Cry to him, because there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Rom 8.1). Cry to him, because "God, being rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved you, even when you were dead in your trespasses, made you alive together with Christ" (Eph 2:4). But there was one occasion where I saw him weep, where I remember men like brothers surrounding him to console him. It was when I, as a boy, yielded to the Lordship of Christ in my life. My heart burned that Sunday morning with such intensity that I was left with no other choice but to get out of seat, walk that long center aisle between the folding chairs, get on my knees and bury my face in my hands before the Lord. It was there that I first obeyed my heavenly Father, yielding and submitting to him. And when I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw / was my Dad // weeping … other men embracing him, because they knew it was like his son had been born all over again. The joy was so fresh. Read Verses 3 & 4 In fact, Moses, in Psalm 90 says: Job, in whom the Lord found no fault, said to God: “If I sin, you watch me Jeremiah records God saying: “For my eyes are on all their ways. They are not hidden from me, nor is their iniquity concealed from my eyes” (16:17). The writer of Hebrews in the New Testament writes, 4:13 And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account. Peter says, "...if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one's deeds, conduct yourselves with fear...., (1 Peter 1:17 ESV) So what are we to make of our text? Does God mark sin or not? If he does, he might as well leave us drowning in it. Like Billy Joel sang, “I’d rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints.” Our present-day actions have eternal consequences. Jesus said, “...when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you." With what? Joy! You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. (Psalm 16:11 ESV) Looking at the second part of this section we read "With you there is forgiveness that you may be feared." Look for a moment at the Book of Nahum, pg 782, in your pew Bibles. Reading from ch.1 v.2... "keeps wrath for his enemies" Who were his enemies? Romans 5:10 says we were! v.3-6. Now who wants to stand before a God like that?! The Song of the Lamb recorded in Revelation 15 - GREAT AND MARVELOUS ARE YOUR DEEDS O LORD ALMIGHTY! JUST AND TRUE ARE YOUR WAYS, O KING OF THE NATIONS! WHO WILL NOT FEAR YOU???? But the problem is that this God has been all but dropped from modern evangelical Christianity. He has been discarded, dismissed. Vanished. And the puny, inadequate, unbiblical view of our great God has led to puny Christian living. (That's why what we sing is so much more important than how we sing it. Substance over style.) So it is appropriate, at times, to be literally afraid of God. “…into the depths of the sea.” He did this once and for all through his Son Jesus. As our Mediator Jesus received the wrath reserved for us. And this produces a different kind of fear. For those who have tasted God's grace and forgiveness, this fear is not a paralyzing terror; but a fear of dishonoring him; a life-altering fear of his fatherly displeasure which translates into a life of reverence and awe for him. Read vv. 5-6 Repetition in the Scripture is always meaningful. In biblical literature, it often serves to express fervency and earnestness. It heightens our awareness, draws our drowsy minds and emotions to attention, and brings weightiness to the text. When Isaiah heard the seraphim crying out to one another, he didn’t just hear “Holy is the Lord.” He heard: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; The psalmist has confessed his sin, but now he's waiting. But there’s a heaviness to his waiting. He's not waiting in line at Kroger. His is an urgent waiting. It's a restless waiting. A relentless waiting. It's a "Will my wife come out of surgery OK?" kind of waiting. It's David on his knees, fasting and praying that God would spare his son kind of waiting. The watchmen he talks about, cold and wet in the dews of the night waited anxiously for the first red streak in the eastern sky. They knew the sun would rise, but only in its own time. The same goes for us and God. Our prayers and petitions and desires and supplications and confessions we bring to him -- sometimes with tears and sweat. But then we wait. And sometimes we keep waiting. But God's delays / are / not / denials (Thomas Manton). The Day is sure to dawn. Though weeping may tarry for the night, joy comes in the morning (Ps 30:5). inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you (1 Peter 1:4) His promise that if you delight yourself in him he will give you the desires of your heart (Ps 37.4) And yes, his promise that in this world there will be tribulation, but be of good cheer - he has overcome the world (Jn 16:33) And this present tense promise from the mouth of the Savior, that he has overcome the world and all that it has to promise: sorrow, sin, shame, hurt and pain, bitterness / hopelessness, & empty, passing pleasures that leave you numb – this command to be of good cheer, to be happy in the Lord – is the last rung on the Psalmist’s rescue ladder to bring us out of the depths. He is telling us that there is clarity and confidence for our future. As we will sing at the end of the service today: What reason have I to doubt, Why should I dwell in fear, When all I have known is grace? My future in Christ is clear! The plentiful redemption of God not only delivers us out of the Depths, it sets us on the Heights. It brings us out of the dungeon of our despair, and puts us in possession of a palace (Sir Richard Baker). There's no longer any fear of punishment or judgment, for love casts out all of that kind of fear. Forgiveness can now be experienced and extolled and enjoyed, not just accepted and acknowledged at a cognitive level with no impact on the heart; but celebrated, rejoiced in, sung about at the tops of rescued lungs, lungs now breathing the sweet air of heaven; so draw deeply this morning of the life-giving oxygen of forgiveness. Come out of the depths. Our God is Mighty to Save! The stars can be seen from the deepest wells, the brighter your stars shine; © West Breedlove, all rights reserved
But sometimes we don’t feel like we’re in the ocean of the deep, deep love of Jesus. We know we are in deep...but it is not in his love. And the current we’re in is not leading us homeward to his glorious rest. It's dragging us out, and drowning us.
That's where we find our Psalmist today. Drowning in the depths. Specifically, the depths of sin.
When a person is drowning, they sometimes look like they're climbing an invisible ladder in the water. For those who feel like they are drowning from the effects of sin, God has given us this psalm, whose text is like rungs on ladder of grace thrown out to us, to save us from our despair.
1) The Cry, which Caught God's Ear
2) The Confession, which Brought God's Cleansing
3) The Conduct, which Created Room for God
4) The Confidence, which brought Clarity for the Future
Read: verses 1-2
By his power he stilled the sea (Job 26:12 ESV)
David, a murderer and adulterer, but a man after God's own heart, testified:
You rule the raging of the sea;
when its waves rise, you still them. (Psalm 89:9 ESV)
“I called out to the LORD, out of my distress,
and he answered me;
out of the belly of Sheol I cried,
and you heard my voice.
For you cast me into the deep,
into the heart of the seas,
and the flood surrounded me;
all your waves and your billows
passed over me. (Jonah 2:2-3 ESV)
The men in these accounts were profoundly aware of the two great realities of life: the reality of the power of sin and the reality of an even more powerful Savior. When surrounded with sin, what did they do? What did the psalmist do? He cried to God. Out of the depths I cry to you O Lord!
Rod Huckaby and I were talking the other day about how capturing sin is like capping an oil pipe a mile deep in the ocean. There’s just no quick fix. And while you are fixated on finding a solution, everything precious to you is suffering. So what does a Christian do when you're in these depths?
So come to God today, and bring your tears.
Now due to nature or by nurture, some of you, especially among the men, are not the kind of person who cries. That's fine. My dad is not a crier. I don't know, maybe it's because his dad died when he was 12 and his mom left him when he was in high school. Maybe there are just few things left in life to cry about. He's tender; he's just not a weeper.
The Teacher in Ecclesiastes says, For everything there is a season. And there is a season to weep. When your child yields to the Lordship of Christ, that is a time to cry godly tears of joy. And when you are in the depths of sin, that is the time to cry godly tears of repentance that God will keep in a bottle.
Your tears are precious to God. Cry to him.
Here we find his confession and his cleansing.
***interesting***
Verse 3 - If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?
But when I read this verse, I think, "Wait a minute. Doesn't God mark our iniquities?"
"You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence."
and do not acquit me of my iniquity.” (Job 10:14 ESV)
But I think the best way to understand what this text is saying -- when held to the light of whole counsel of God's word -- is that, although we are justified by faith (Rom 5:1), and no longer guilty before God because of the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ on our behalf - and although we are no longer to fear any condemnation on that final Day (Rom 8:1, 33)...still, nevertheless, God will judge our works. Period. Every deed. Every careless word (Mt 12:36) – whether you speak it or email it or put it on Facebook. He will one day judge it. Along with every thought. And we will be rewarded accordingly (mt 6, 10).
Don’t misunderstand. I’m not here to remind you of what God has forgotten. Satan is the accuser of the brethren. I’m just saying that you have more than just forgiveness to experience.
So today, if you are keenly aware of sin...if sin like cement blocks is chained around your ankles, pulling you under... Cry out of those depths to God - from the depths of your sin, out of the depths of your soul -and Confess - simply confess and receive his cleansing. Let this sea of despair be calmed into a sanctuary of delight.
The subject of fearing God has been sadly dismissed in modern day Christianity. The discipline of learning the fear of the Lord has become a quaint relic of religion that can't quite fit into the contemporary Christian landscape/culture where Jesus Is My Homeboy, or my boyfriend, or whatever.
The psalmist is expressing in a poetically nuanced way just what Jesus said point blank:
Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.
(Matthew 10:28 ESV)
It doesn't get more black and white than that.
Now turn in your Bibles one page back to the book of Micah. Look at the last few verses of the book.
vv 18, 19.
But for those who reject the free offer of the Gospel, paralyzing fear, terror & dread is exactly what this means.
And since our Psalmist is exhibit A for the type of fear that comes from forgiveness, let's follow him on his path out of the depths of despair into the heights of hope:
After crying out to God, and confessing known sin, he now creates room for God to move into his situation.
the whole earth is full of his glory!” (Isaiah 6:3 ESV)
And what is God telling us through this?
I think he wants us to understand that though we may have immediate knowledge of the fact of our forgiveness, sometimes the experiential side - the relief and joy of forgiveness - comes later.
So while you're in this position before God, this posture of waiting, God through the Psalmist is saying to you: "hope in my word". And what is his word but his great and precious promises?
His promise to save to the uttermost;
His promise to never leave you or forsake you (Gen 28:15);
His promise to give you his Spirit (Acts 2:17)
His promise to grant you all things pertaining to life and godliness,
His promise to make you a partaker of his own divine nature (2 Peter 1:3-4 ESV)
His promise to make you his beloved child,
His promise, when he appears, to make you like him, because you shall see him as he is. (1 John 3:2)
His promise at his coming to bring you to an
He writes: read 7-8
Lord, high and holy, meek and lowly,
You have brought me to the valley of vision,
where I live in the depths but see you in the heights;
hemmed in by mountains of sin I behold your glory.
Let me learn by paradox
that the way down is the way up,
that to be low is to be high,
that the broken heart is the healed heart,
that the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit,
that the repenting soul is the victorious soul,
that to have nothing is to posses all,
that to bear the cross is to wear the crown,
that to give is to receive,
that the valley is the place of vision.
Lord, in the daytime
and the deeper the wells
Let me find your light in my darkness,
your life in my death,
your joy in my sorrow,
your grace in my sin,
your riches in my poverty,
your glory in my valley.