Good morning. I invite you to turn in the word of God to Psalm 130, and we're going to read the entire Psalm, but as we have been doing, we will give our attention to just a few verses. Psalm 130, a song of a sense. Out of the depths I have cried to you, O Lord. Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications. If you, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with you that you may be feared. I wait for the Lord. My soul waits, and in his word I do hope. My soul waits for the Lord more than those who watch for the morning. Yes, more than those who watch for the morning. O Israel, hope in the Lord. For with the Lord there is mercy, and with him is abundant redemption. And he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities. Amen. This is the word of God. Well, brothers and sisters, this is a hope giving song that is one of its purposes, because at the end of the song, the psalmist turns to the people of God and says, hope in the Lord. We are to come away with a sense and a conviction, a firm conviction that with the Lord, there is abundant redemption. and that Christ is going to redeem his people from all their iniquities. That's the point here. And so I hope that you will grow in hope as we consider each of these verses. And the verses I want to focus on briefly this morning are verses five and six, where the psalmist, after contemplating the forgiveness of God for sin, he says, I wait for the Lord. My soul waits. And then he gives this illustration of the watchman waiting for the morning Now, so why is he speaking about this here? What is he waiting for is a good question to answer. What is it that the psalmist is waiting on God to do? Well, in light of the fact that in verse one, he says that he is in the depths. He says, out of the depths I have cried to you, O Lord. I think what he's asking God to do is to bring him out of the depths, whatever that will include. And we've talked about what that can include for each of us, certainly One of the focuses of the psalm is the depths that are produced by our own sin. We dig our own holes. Sometimes we dig them very deeply by our own sin. And then there's the outward afflictions of life. Sometimes they're a consequence of our sin. Sometimes they're not a direct consequence of our sin. But all of this mixes together. We have sin, we have afflictions, we might have enemies after our soul. We do have enemies after our soul. And so all this mixes together and we think, I feel that I am in the depths. Lord, bring me out of the depths. That's what he's waiting on God to do. Now, let's think about what it means to wait on God in the context of confession of sin, especially. We could talk about trials and other things, but I want to narrow it to that just for the moment, even though I don't think the psalmist necessarily is just talking about that. But when we confess our sins to God, what are we waiting on? Are we waiting for God to forgive us? Is there a three to four week lag time between our confession and the forgiveness of God? Well, praise be to God, there isn't. The scriptures say that if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, right? Otherwise, we couldn't read the promise of pardon. We would have to say, we will read this in four weeks after God has approved your petition for forgiveness. So we don't believe that, right? So what is it that the psalmist is waiting on? Well, here's a few possible categories, and we could probably add to this list. Perhaps the psalmist is waiting on the Lord to restore the joy of his salvation. David prayed for that after he had sinned. It wasn't instantaneous that the joy of his salvation was restored to him. It took some time as he had sinned so grievously against the Lord. And he's saying, Lord, I want the joy of my salvation back. Would you restore that? He may be waiting on that. We may be waiting for the Lord to deliver us from afflictions that perhaps we brought upon ourselves. Perhaps the consequences of sin weigh heavy upon us and we're saying, Lord, I wait for you to bring me through this. I am in a patient, humble frame, trusting that you will do this. We may be waiting upon the Lord to finish some round of loving discipline upon us. And that's good. We need to be patient. We may be waiting for the Lord to pour out blessings upon us that we have long desired. Maybe there's something that we've prayed for that is good, and yet we haven't seen it come to pass as we so desire, and so we are waiting on God. We're trusting that he will hear our prayers. We may be waiting for some outward trial to be removed from our life because we're groaning under the affliction, and maybe we're even sinning in response to the affliction. But we're humble, we're patient, And what I think this teaches us is if we think about it in connection with confession of sin, sometimes I think we maybe have too trivial a view of sin as well as too trivial a view of confession. Do we think of confession as this easy, painless, impersonal, and instantaneous transaction? It's 10 second prayer, everything's patched up as if nothing ever happened. Well, certainly it is in terms of the forgiveness of sins through Christ. It is as if nothing, it is that our sins are cleansed. We are white in the righteousness of Jesus Christ. And yet there may be other effects from our sin that continue for a time. And so the psalmist, as he contemplates the forgiveness of God, he recognizes that there's still things that he's waiting, waiting for the Lord to do. Now, what is it that gives us confidence that the Lord will be merciful to us? Well, notice what he says in verse five. In his word, I do hope. That is the ground of your confidence, brothers and sisters, that God will be merciful to those that confess their sins as they come in the name of Christ. He will be merciful to all those who draw near through Christ. That is the confidence that we have. Now let's look at the illustration that he gives us. to think about what this teaches us about waiting. My soul waits for the Lord more than those who watch for the morning. Yes, more than those who watch for the morning. So imagine that you're on the century night watch. It's 3 a.m. You're in the dead center of the night. What are you longing for? You want the sun to come up. You want this night watch to end. And perhaps some of you find yourselves in this place, whether you're contemplating an affliction or whether you're contemplating some besetting sin that you struggle with, you're waiting upon the Lord to bring you through and to bring you out of the night watches and into the glory of the sun coming up, the sun of God's favor and blessings in your life. Now, what does this teach us about waiting? Well, the first, I think, is that it tells us that those who wait upon the Lord are extremely eager and desirous for God to come through on his promises. They're extremely eager. They want that sun to come up more than anything else. And there's a second thing I think implied in this picture. And what do we know about sunrises? They always come up. The sun always rises. It's not going to fail to come up. God promised in the covenant with Noah, the sun's going to come up. And so I think the conviction here is both expressed in this earnest desire for God's promises to come to pass, expressed through prayer, and a conviction that God is going to answer. The sun's going to come up for those who wait upon the Lord. If you are waiting on the Lord to come through on the promises of his word, know that the word of God says that to those who fear God's name, Malachi 4 says, the son of righteousness shall arise with healing in his wings. It's going to happen for those who wait upon the Lord. So brothers and sisters, as we take time to confess our sins now, I want you to know and to believe with full conviction that with the Lord there is mercy and with him is abundant redemption. Let's pray in light of that. Our merciful father, we confess to you that we are a needy people living in a fallen world. There are trials that are outside of us and there are sins within us. And at times we feel that we are in the depths, just as the psalmist was. And we ask, Lord, that you would have mercy upon us. We wait for your redemption, Lord, with hopeful expectation that you are merciful to the broken and the contrite who draw near through Christ. And we do ask now that you would forgive us all our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness and teach us in light of this song to be a people that are faith filled and patient. waiting on the Lord, waiting upon you to bring forth your blessings that you have promised to those who confess their sins. And now we take a moment to each confess our own sins to the Lord.