To be able to stand before the Lord with a clean conscience now and with confidence on the last day is the greatest gift that could ever be given. Let me say that again. To be able to stand before the Lord with a clean conscience now and with confidence on the last day is the greatest gift that could ever be given. Our assurance of pardon this morning came from a pivotal moment in the nativity story, when the angel comes to Mary, and he's explaining who this baby would be. And in Matthew 121, he says this, he says, you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. Why did Jesus come ultimately? Why did he come? He came to be a ransom. to be the payment for sins, to save not just anyone, His people, and not just from anything, but from their sins. There are many problems that God's people have faced all throughout the ages. Distress, sickness, fear, terrors, disunity, and yet, sin was the greatest, because that was the thing that separated them from God. And only Christ can save us from what is inescapable, death. Death comes to us all. And only Christ can save you from that which is eternal. And only Christ can save you from the sin that dwells within you. And this, friends, is the heart of the Christmas story. And all these truths are found within Psalm 130 this morning. Hundreds of years before even Jesus was born. We see all the beauties of the gospel in this short, prayerful Psalm 130. So I invite you, please open up your Bibles to Psalm 130 as we read the word of the Lord this morning. Psalm 130. A song of ascents. 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 watchman 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. This is the word of God. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the gift of your word this morning, which tells us of our need for salvation, but also provides that need through Christ. Lord, we know that the grass withers and the flower fades, but your word abides forever. So teach us to listen, help us to pay attention. I pray that you would open our hearts to what is spoken here. And I pray that you would give us ears to hear the words of truth this morning. And I ask this all in the name of our Savior, Jesus. Amen. So this short psalm this morning, as we continue the study of the Christmas and the psalms, it's easily broken up into three different sections. The first four verses talk about the plea of the psalmist. He's pleading to the Lord. And then the next two verses talk about his patience, the manner, the way that he is giving this plea to God. And then the last two verses focus on God's promise. plea, patience, promise. Hope you can remember that. So let's look at the plea of the psalmist in these first four verses. This is a prayer. One reason why I've loved us singing every psalm that I've preached on is because we can't quite grasp the importance of the psalms without singing them. Because to ancient Israel, they would have had tunes in mind when they read these, which is why I love having these tunes stuck in our hearts, so that we can sing these in our hearts as the prayers that they're meant to be. So this prayer, like all prayers to the Lord, begins from a place of need or distress. Why would you pray to God if you were not in need? Why would you pray to the Lord if you were not in distress? And this is how the psalmist begins. He says, out of the depths I cried to you, O Lord, from the depths. And you might be thinking, that's really vague. What are the depths? So let's talk about this. What are some examples of what might be troubling the psalmist? Sometimes these situations of distress, they might be things that are not your own choices, things that you didn't, you really had no part in them coming upon your life. A sudden illness, maybe the surprising death of a loved one, maybe the loss of a job, or something evil that someone else has done to you. In short, this could be anything that is out of your control, anything that just simply comes from God's providence. I think a good example of this is in the ninth chapter of John. Remember when Jesus heals the man who was born blind? And the Pharisees came to him and said, Lord, who sinned? Who did something bad that this man was born blind? And Jesus said, no one. He was born this way for the glory of God. So that's one type of situation of distress, the providential hand of the Lord. And yet, as we all know, there's many more situations than just that in life. Sometimes, maybe even most of the time, these situations of distress are the ones that we've ended up in because of our own sins, our own mistakes. Could be you're struggling to live with a body that you've misused in the past. Perhaps you're dealing with the fallout of poor financial decisions in the past, or poor sexual decisions in the past. You're trying to mend a relationship that's been broken for decades. It's not easy. Or dealing with just mistakes you made when you were younger, or reestablishing a faith with God that you've left dormant for decades. In short, this other category is things that you can be blamed for. In essence, it might be your fault. It's a lot like the crippled man that Jesus heals in John chapter 5. If you remember, Jesus heals this man and then as he's leaving, he says, go now and sin no more so that nothing worse may happen to you. So we have these two categories of reasons for distress, reasons to call out to the Lord. And I think essentially every struggle in life can be put into one of these two categories. Some distress is simply by God's providence and some distress is from your own mistakes and failures. You might be wondering, Jack, why are you making this distinction? Let's go back to the psalm. Which one is he talking about? All he says is out of the depths. He doesn't say. is not clear right here. So I think it could be either. It could be both. And this language that we find in this first verse is common to the Psalms. Crying from the Lord from some sort of distress, a dark night of the soul, a deep trouble, need, a burdensome distress. And I make this distinction because I think a lot of times our hearts can have a tendency to make a dichotomy. that the scriptures don't often make, which is, well, these situations that are just God's providence, he'll save me from, but the situations that are due to my sin, I'm out of luck. And that's not true. That is a lie. It is a dangerous logic to say in your heart, I'm in this situation from my own mistakes, and my own failures, and my own sins. God has mercy to handle all of those situations of providence, but he's not gracious enough to rescue me from my own failures. That is a lie. Let us learn from this godly cry at the beginning of this psalm. that it is a sign of mature and strong faith to cry out to God from any distress in life, any distress in life. Think of this through the lens of a parent with a young child. Obviously, young children get into all sorts of messes. Some of them are just providential. Some of them are because they touched the stove when you told them not to touch the stove. My point is, when your young child cries out, help me, you will go. and help the child. How much more does your Heavenly Father long for you, like the psalmist, to cry out for help in whatever distress is in your life? Because God is merciful, and he wants to hear our cries for help. So let us notice from the very beginning of the psalm. We cannot properly understand the words in the psalms if we don't see ourselves in those words. And friends, this is why you must study the Psalms. Because if you are a Christian, these words are your words. Because Jesus is the Word of God, and Jesus dwells within you. These words are our words. And notice, the psalmist, he continues his prayer. He says, not just, my cry came to you from the depths. He says, Lord, be attentive to me. Listen to me. Pay attention to me. Have you ever been in a conversation with someone and you're just, you're looking at them and you can kind of tell their eyes are glazing over or you know, they're thinking about the next thing they're gonna say and you're like, stop, pay attention to me. Not that God ever does that, but it's almost like the psalmist has that kind of fervor in his talk. He's like, God, listen to me right now. I need you. True faith in the living God is a tenacious thing. I'm reminded of the blind man on the road to Jericho When Jesus was coming along it says this blind man He heard that Christ was near and he started crying out son of David have mercy upon me And everyone around him were like shut up. We have to we have somewhere to go. What did he do? He started crying out all the louder son of David have mercy upon me That's true faith A faith that when it is challenged, it runs to the foot of God all the stronger. So what is the substance of this plea? What is the psalmist asking for specifically? He says, be attentive to the pleas for mercy. He is asking for mercy. Notice, he's not asking here for help. He's asking for mercy. And my question is, why is this? Why is he asking the Lord for mercy? I think to help us understand why he's asking specifically for mercy, let me give an illustration of just the Christmas season in general. One difficulty I think that comes from living in the Christmas season as we know it in America is that this is a time when everyone gives gifts. It's just a part of the culture. Everyone does it. It's happening everywhere in every family between most people. And so in this season, the line between justice and mercy is really blurry. It's kind of hard to discern. Because it can happen in a loving household where children grow up and they're like, I get presents every year. This is just, this is owed to me. This is my due. I get presents every Christmas. And this can happen between friends as well. And not saying that we should stop giving presents on Christmas, that's not what I'm saying. But we do need to avoid this danger of letting the lines of justice and mercy become really muddy. Because I don't want you all to let gift-giving just become some rote and systematic thing that you do, because Christmas is meant to be a time for mercy. Giving gifts to one another in situations where it's not mandatory. It's not necessitated because that's what mercy is. It is not under compulsion. So let's return to the psalm. What should we learn from this mindset? The godly person recognizes that his plea for rescue, whatever the situation, ultimately is a plea for mercy. It is something that is not owed to him, something that is not necessarily deserved. Remember those two situations I talked about in the beginning, like every type of distress you could ever face is either from God's providential hand or possibly due to your failures and your own sins. And so in this situation, we learn that the psalmist is admitting that even in his distress, even if it is something due to his own sin, It is still less than he deserves ultimately, which is why he's asking for mercy. This is endlessly applicable to every single one of you here. Why? Perhaps you've lost a home before. Perhaps you've lost power for several hours in the past couple days. You know, not that that's happened. Perhaps you had no hot water for a day or two. Perhaps your car got spray-painted by some random person. Perhaps there's a lot of interpersonal strife in your family. Whatever it may be, the example we see here on the psalmist is him thinking, this terrible situation from which I call to the Lord to help is still less than I deserve. It's still less than I deserve. So if I'm asking the Lord for any kind of help, I'm asking for his mercy. This is like the person on Christmas Day who opens the gift that you didn't ask for. You open the gift that, to be honest, you didn't really want. But the more you thought about it, you're like, I didn't really deserve any gifts, so I can be happy about this one. That's the mindset the psalmist has here. As Christians, everything you receive, is from God's fatherly hand, everything. And this mindset continues into verse three, except from a slightly different angle. Read with me, this is a powerful verse. If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? The psalmist, in effect here, is saying the same exact thing, except from the opposite angle. In verse two, the psalmist was saying, Lord, please give me mercy. And in this verse, he's saying, Lord, do not give me justice. Let me say that again. In the previous verse, he's saying, God, give me mercy. In this verse, he's saying, God, do not give me justice. Why is he saying this? This language here of mark iniquities, it carries the idea of a courtroom with a judge. A strict judge keeping tallies, marking everything that's good and everything that's wrong. And he's thinking of the question, what if God, the one who sees all things, the one who knows all things, kept a perfect record of every single wrong that you've ever thought, said, or did, and brought it into your face? We would be undone. On the flip side, what if the Lord kept a list of every single good thing that you should have done but failed to do and brought it to your face? You would be undone. Lord, who could stand? It's just as Ecclesiastes chapter seven said earlier in the service, surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins. So this prayer by the psalmist is saying, under the harsh judgment of God, the eyes of the Almighty, who could stand, who could survive, and no one. There is no perfect Christian in the sight of God. No perfect Christian. And the thing that I could not get out of my mind when I was preparing for this was the old adage about Santa Claus, right? He's making a list, he's checking it twice, he's gonna find out who's naughty and nice, and all of you children here, You'd be glad to remember that Santa is a jolly, good, merciful old fellow, right? Because if he really kept the list of every single bad thing you've ever done, would you make the nice list? No, we rely on Santa's mercy and his kindness. And yet we know that God is infinitely merciful and kind to his people. And so it's almost like he's letting every single one of his prayers and thoughts be filtered through this question. What do I actually deserve? What do I actually deserve? And this is a question that we all would do well to mimic in our prayers, because sometimes reminding ourselves of true justice helps us appreciate mercy. And what better way to illustrate this than the best Christmas movie ever, which is It's a Wonderful Life, right? Right, yeah? Yeah, to me it is. It's a Wonderful Life is an amazing movie, and if you've seen it, You remember, how in the end of the story does George Bailey come to the point of appreciating all the good things he already has? By seeing what life would be like if he didn't. And that's kind of the mindset that the Christian should have when praying to the Lord for help. So before I end this section, it's the longest of the three sections, just to let you know, notice with me the assurance that this psalmist has, that forgiveness is found in God. Because that's how he ends. He says, but with you there is forgiveness. There are many gifts to be found in this world and there will be many gifts to open today. To be right with God is the greatest of them all. So let's move to verses five through six, the patience of the psalmist. Verses five through six. The previous four verses showed the content of the plea. What is he asking for? Whereas these two verses show the manner, the attitude, the heart behind his plea. So let us learn well from this. He's incredibly patient. Incredibly diligence. Notice with me even the repetition. He says, I wait for the Lord. My soul waits for the Lord. And then in verse six, my soul waits for the Lord. And you could even translate the word hope in verse five as I wait for the Lord. It's over and over and over and over. This repetition from the psalmist. What was he waiting for? An answer? Like before, we don't know specifically what he's waiting for from God. Perhaps Israel was in a tough battle. He's waiting for God's answer for salvation. Perhaps there was a lot of inner disunity in the kingdom, and the psalmist is waiting for God to restore the good unity. But ultimately, this person, the psalmist, is awaiting the promise of God. The promise of redemption, a Messiah, a Redeemer. Because in the Old Testament, the believers back then had many assurances that God loved them. Many assurances. They saw his love in the sacrifices. The blood symbolized to them that the Lord is merciful. They knew that God was kind to them because they were in the land. That was a sign of the Lord's love to them, that they stayed in Israel. They also knew that the Lord was with them because of the temple. They can look to the temple and trust God is with us. And yet, how was this messianic, eternal destruction of sins to be accomplished? The psalmist here does not know. He does not know how this would happen. Because God is both just and merciful. He can't just say, you know what, let bygones be bygones. Your sins, I'm going to forget about them. No, God is just. He cannot leave sins unpaid for. If you and I just waltzed into his presence, we would be undone. He is holy. He is just. And yet he's merciful. And the psalmist knows that, that God will redeem Israel from all her iniquities. And so the psalmist is graciously waiting for an answer that he has no idea what it will look like. And friends, is this not deeply applicable to us who wait for Christ to return? Wait for Jesus to come back? We know Christ came in the flesh in the past, and yet we await a day that we do not know exactly what it will look like, and we don't even know when it will be. So as we read these words about patience, they are deeply applicable to us. as we wait for our Savior to come home. And I love, look again at verse six, the repetition there. He says, my soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning. In ancient times, they didn't have spotlights to keep the city lit all night long. They didn't have automatic doors that you could open with a key card at 3 a.m. No, every city had watchmen stationed their post at the gate of the city. And when it was 5 a.m. and dark and cold, you are looking for the sun. You are waiting for your shift to be taken over so you can rest. That's why the psalmist repeats this. God, I wait for you more than watchmen for the morning. And if you recall the magical feeling of being a child on Christmas Day, you know when you go downstairs and it's still dark, the Christmas tree is twinkling, all the presents are sitting there, and you're waiting for mom and dad to get up. You're like, God, come on. Why has it got to take this long? That kind of eager anticipation of waiting for the Lord to work. May this be an application to all of our prayers of patience. I don't know what all of you have been praying for lately. It could be any number of things. The Lord's help in some kind of distress, some kind of worry, some kind of trouble, help with your children, help with your health. I don't know. Maybe you're praying earnestly for Christ to return. In any of these, may the patience in this psalm be an encouragement and a challenge. The Lord is gracious to you. And yet, trust his methods. His ways are higher than your ways. His ways are better than our ways. So let us now look at these last two verses. The promise of God in verses seven and eight. This psalmist doesn't just keep to himself. He doesn't just pray by himself and leave it at that. No, he turns to his friends, and he encourages them, and he challenges them to focus their thoughts upon God. And he gives three reasons for this, but before I get to the reasons, I just wanna, I wanna say this to our church this morning. I hope for this to be the way that we all communicate with one another. The way we see in this psalm, the way he says, oh Israel, hope in God. that is an imperative, that's a command. And I want us to be marked by this level of candor and honesty, because as Christians, we should be honest with one another about our sins, about our struggles, about our annoyances, our grievances, our sufferings, our hopes, but we should never stop there. Like this psalmist, we should end those conversations with a hope in God, He is steadfast in love. Do not sit there wallowing in your worry. End with the trust in the Lord. And that is hard to do in conversation. It doesn't feel natural all the time, especially when you think people might not want to hear it. And I want to encourage and challenge us all here. Be the person. Be the person to end the conversation on the goodness of the Lord. that doesn't negate all of the hardships, but it does change the way that you view them. So let's look at these three reasons that the psalmist says, hope in God, oh Israel. Reason number one, look in verse seven. He says, for with the Lord there is steadfast love. Steadfast love is with the Lord. Remember, I talked about this word last week, chesed, the word for God's covenant faithfulness, only talked about with the Lord in the Old Testament. So the first reason that the psalmist commands his friends to hope in God is because he is unchanging. He is the same yesterday, today, and forevermore. He keeps his promises. God is consistent. He's never left his people, and he will never leave his people now. whatever your distress is, or whatever your sin that you struggle with, hope in God. He will not forsake his child. Second reason, the bottom of verse seven, he says, with him, with the Lord, is plentiful redemption. The second reason that the psalmist commands us all to hope in God is because God is rich in mercy. As one who preaches God's word, It is my job to convince you that you are sinners before a holy God. But that's not the entirety of my job. The entirety of the job is to convince you that you are a sinner, but also to convince you that God is ready and willing to forgive you of that sin. That God is rich in mercy, even for sins such as yours. Because those who acknowledge their sinfulness, which is a lot of people to some extent, yet doubt in the grace of God to cover them, they'll never turn to the Lord. They think he's an angry judge, and there's a place for that. And yet here, he is saying, to be one of God's people is to benefit from God's plentious redemption. And that's a part of the gospel. And here, especially in the modern West, we can get uncomfortable with the idea that we have the ability to be blessed with big Christmases, especially compared to the rest of the world. And yes, there is a huge importance in teaching children that mom and dad are not stingy with grace. Mom and dad are not stingy with love. We are rich in love. There are many ways to do this. I'm not advocating a particular way of doing Christmas, but I'm saying it is a perpetual struggle for children to remember that mom and dad love me and they will not cast me out. If that's the case for children, how much more is it for us with our Heavenly Father that we need constant and consistent reminders of His rich mercy, His rich love? Our Heavenly Father is not stingy with grace. He's not stingy with grace. And reason number three why you must hope in God. This beautiful verse, verse eight, and God will redeem Israel from all his iniquities. No doubt you hear the words of the angel to Mary echoed in this verse. What did the angel say? The angel said, his name shall be Jesus. Why? For he will save his people from their sins. Friends, that comes directly from Psalm 130. The Lord will redeem Israel from all his iniquities. And in order for there to be redemption, there must be a ransom. There must be a price. There must be an exchange, a buying back. And this Christmas, the gift that we remember more than anything is that Jesus is that ransom from God. He is all of the payment that you and I owe to the Father for our sins. Just like the Lord bought back Israel from Egypt in bondage, in the gospel, he buys you back from the reign of sin in your life. Friends, many gifts will be given today. The greatest gift, and I hope that you can see it this way, the greatest gift of God is having a clean conscience before him now and confidence before him on the last day. It's the greatest gift of God, and if you desire that, it's all found in Jesus Christ. All found in Jesus Christ, who died on the cross to forgive us of our sin, to make us right before the Father. All found in Jesus Christ. So as I close, I just want three kind of broad applications that sum up everything in this psalm. Three broad applications. First of all, there's Christmas Day. Love your family and your friends well. Love your family and your friends well. The one who's been forgiven much loves much. You all have been forgiven much, so love much this day. Love the time with your family. Number two, I challenge you to work on your prayers. Model your prayers off of what you see in the psalmist. Cry to God in your need, but also remember his justice and mercy. and rest in the fact that plentiful redemption is found in him. Number three, lastly, enjoy this Christmas. Enjoy this Christmas. When we rightly remember everything about Christ in Christmas, that doesn't mean we stop celebrating. If anything, it means we celebrate all the more. If your heart is fully satisfied in God's greatest gift, every gift you receive today will be that much sweeter. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, I thank you for the gift of your Son, Jesus Christ, who truly is the ransom for our iniquities, the payment for our sins, the pathway to a good and clean conscience, and confidence on the last day before your throne. Father, I pray that we may all treasure Christ this morning, glory in the gospel, and have a very Merry Christmas. I ask this all in the name of Jesus. Amen.