We are looking at intimacy with God through the Psalms, and especially the Psalms of Ascent, which are those Psalms that the children of Israel used to sing as they went to the temple. So if we were looking at the progress, Leading to today, Psalm 127 was the Lord builds the house. Psalm 128 was the Lord blesses the house. Psalm 129 was, what we looked at last week, was the Lord protects the house. And if I had to go in progression, and by the way, these do go in progression, 130 would be the Lord runs the house. Right? It's one thing for the Lord to build it, for the Lord to bless it, for the Lord to protect it, but now you gotta let Him run it. And this is the hard part, because this is a daily thing. Are you running your life, or is the Lord running your life? Are you waiting on God's time, or are you demanding it in your time? That's what we're going to see here in the psalmist. Patience in adversity. Just out of curiosity, anybody in here ever gone through adversity? I'm just curious. Did it require patience? Yes, because most of the time God does not settle up immediately when we pray, when we're going through a difficult time. You can ask, they're not here today I don't think, you can ask Nate and Julie who are going through something really difficult with Noah. Praying, asking the church to pray, but they're walking through it. And as I read Psalm 130 and I looked at all the commentaries and all the Bible studies and the study Bibles, I realized a lot of people skipped over 130, as if 130 didn't say too much. And it's a shame because it says a whole lot. As a matter of fact, it said so much that Martin Luther, the great reformer, looked at this as one of the key verses of Scripture to study. Psalm 130. And the reason why he gave is because Psalm 130 is the beautiful balance of God's truth where the psalmist says one thing and then says another thing that seems to be maybe not even relative, but yet they both go together and make one single truth. What you see in Psalm 130 is like an A side and a B side. What you see in Psalm 130 is like you're looking at a mountain that is truth. But if you're looking at it from this side, this perspective, you would describe it one way. But if you went to the backside of the mountain and looked at it, you would describe it entirely different. And here's what I want to say to you. Every truth in the Bible is like that. For instance, if all you want to emphasize is the mercy of God and the love of God, but you don't want to emphasize the justice of God and the wrath of God, you're going to be in error. If you come over here and all you're about is the wrath and judgment of God, but you refuse to recognize the mercy and love of God, you are an heir. What is the church called to do? Recognize both! And I can almost look at every heresy and every heir that the church commits, and it's because they're looking at one side of the mountain. And they refuse to look at both sides. They refuse to say, behold the kindness and the severity of God. They want to refuse to look at the fact that we are righteous, but we're also sinful. I can show you a whole plethora of teachers that all they want to teach about is your righteousness. But they don't want to teach about your sinfulness. I can show you a whole bunch of teachers, all they want to teach about is your sinfulness. And they don't want to touch on the righteousness. Are we that immature? And so give me all the teachers that are all about hellfire and brimstone and I'll put them on my iPod and I'll listen to them every day. Give me all the preachers that all want to talk about His righteousness and my holiness and I'll listen to them every day. And then I'll come around like a lopsided Christian. Psalm 130 is good for this. It's always juxtaposing two truths. So here's the way it starts. Out of the depths, I have cried unto thee, O Lord. The depth here is the depth of our human experience. Depression, darkness of our soul. We're going through the worst time of our life and everything seems to be falling apart. That is the depth. What do you do? You cry to the highest God of heaven. Do you understand this? The lowest cries to the highest. So from my lowest point, I surrender to God's highest. Out of the depths, this is what the depth is right here. You ever feel like this, that you're going under? This scripture here does a real good job with that idea of depth and what it represents. Deliver me from sinking in the mire. Let me be delivered from my enemies. There's that enemy idea. And from what? The deep water. You ever feel like, I'm going under, God. I'm going down. Yeah, that's side A. The flip side of that is I can cry out to God in the highest and He can lift me out of this and He can take me up to the highest. Right? Humility. Prayer really is humility because prayer is basically crying out to God, I can't do this anymore. It's like the cave of Abdullam. Everybody ever hear of the cave of Abdullam? It's where David went when he was in a dark time in his life. He was running for the Philistines, or running from Saul, and he went there as kind of like a fortress of solitude. It was like a place where he just went. And in this place, the cave of Abdullam, is where he met God and where he transferred responsibility for his life to God. Basically saying this, God, you're in control of me. I thought I was responsible to protect myself against Saul. You're responsible to protect me against Saul. I thought I had a fight against the Philistines. You fight against the Philistines. As a matter of fact, if you don't do it, I'm going to surely perish. This is the place of our life where we quit trying to make God's plans and promises come to pass. And we surrender to let God bring it to pass, his own plan. Have you all been guilty of this? Where you're fighting it. God says, just come to the cave of Adol and just let it go. As a matter of fact, I'm convinced of this. This is your closet, by the way. This is what you got going in your life. And you look at your closet and you go, I got nothing. I got nothing. And guess whose closet this is? This is God's closet. And he says, I get everything. But let me just say this. As long as you think that's good enough, you'll never go here. But once your closets are bare, and this is what God does in your life, he brings you to the bottom in which you got nothing. You're going under, you're drowning. And only at that point you go, God, please. And God says, what took you so long? Why didn't you come? I got all this. You got that. So the Cave of Adullam is a place where you realize this is all you got. And hopefully, you're smart enough to go, I'm going to trade this in for something better. I'm in my depth, but I can cry out to God in the highest. Next thing he says, listen, if thou, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who should stand? God, if you look down from heaven and you mark every one of my sins, we're all in a heap of trouble. But then he says, but there is forgiveness with thee that thou mayest fear. We don't like the, at least our modern American church for whatever reason wants to get rid of the fear of God, I don't understand it. Listen, behold both. Behold your iniquity and behold forgiveness. And if you can't behold both, you're in trouble. Always look at the depth of your sin in the light of the depth of God's mercy. I've heard a lot of Christian teaching that once you get saved, your heart is good. Really? Jeremiah says, the heart is deceitful above all things, and is desperately sick, and who can understand it? And you go, well, pastors, that's Jeremiah, and that's the Old Testament. What did Jesus say about the heart? He says, out of the heart perceives evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemy. These are defiling us. But you say, pastor, but once I get set, no. Listen to the apostle Paul. He described himself as what? A wretched man. I'm not a wretched man, brother, I'm the righteous. No, come on, stop now. Did he say he was a wretched man, or did he say, I am? I am. Well, let me give you a couple more from this theologian. Here's the way he felt about his life. He says, I know that nothing good dwells in me. Y'all know nothing good dwells in you. But he has to clarify that, and he has to say, that is in my flesh. Why? Because I have a desire to do what is right. But, he says, but I don't have the ability to carry it out. Who carries out what is right in us? There's only one right, and that's God, and that's the Spirit. And that's why you can't live out the Christian life in your flesh, you cannot. If you're not filled with the Spirit, there's no way you can live this thing out. And if you wanna acknowledge the evilness of your heart, you're in trouble. Paul goes on to say, for I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Notice he says, I keep on doing this. I keep on fighting this. I keep on battling this. And I keep on doing this. If you've got this crazy impression that somehow you're going to pray a prayer, and you're going to be totally righteous, and you're never going to, you're crazy. Because that in itself is a sin. It's called self-righteousness. Listen, Paul describes himself this way. Jesus came into this world to save sinners. And then he says, whom I am, what? I'm the foremost. mainly because Paul had so much light, so when he sinned, he was sinning against all of his light. In Ephesians 3, 9 it says, though I am the very least of all the saints, tell me this is not a humble opinion. So yes, embrace the fact that we and our iniquity cannot stand, but also embrace the fact that there is forgiveness. Do you understand how this works? God says, you're nothing, I'm everything. Come to me as nothing and I will give you everything. Come to me as something and I'll give you nothing. This is what Isaiah says. This is God speaking about people who want to get close. Listen, he says, Thus says the Lord, heaven is my throne, the earth is my footstool. What is the house that you will build for me? What is the place of my rest? He's talking about the temple there. He says, for all these things my hand has made. So these things came into being. In other words, you didn't make anything for me, all that stuff I made. But here's what he says about who he's going to listen to, who he's going to receive, who he's going to forgive. Listen to what he says here. But this is the one whom I'm going to look to, he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word. This hasn't changed. You want God to shut the door on you, you come to him with all your righteousness. Because Jesus actually told a parable about somebody who did. Two men went up to pray. Do you remember how the Pharisee prayed? I thank God I am righteous. I thank God I'm not like these other sinners. And God says, I just shut the door. I'm gonna listen to the other guy who all he can say is have mercy on me, I'm a sinner. I'm gonna listen to the prodigal who comes home and says, I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me a servant. And by the way, this is the mindset you have to have, the same mindset Paul tells Jesus had, and that is though he existed in the form of God, he did not think equality with God a thing to be grasped, but he became a servant. In other words, he had the mind of a slave, but he had the heart of a son. Are you listening to me? I know I'm the righteousness of God. I know I'm a son of God. But I also know I'm a slave to God and I battle with my sin nature every day. So John says, listen, just confess your sins. He's faithful and just to forgive you of all your sins and cleanse you from all of your unrighteousness. In other words, John says, you're unrighteous. And you say, no, no. John would say this. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar and the word isn't in us. Do you understand this? If you don't acknowledge your unrighteousness before heaven, you are calling God a liar. For how far are you away from the holiness of heaven? Isaiah says of God, my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are my ways your ways. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts. So even when you get saved, really, when you get saved and you have the mind of Christ even in you, do you really think that your mind has risen to the heights of the distance of God? Do you really think your ways are identical to the holy God in all things? So what is the hope of man, as the psalmist says, if God looks down on us and just sees our sinfulness, he's going to back away immediately, unless, and this is what I like, Isaiah balanced off by Psalm 103, because the same distance that God's ways and thoughts are above are, listen, the psalmist says, for as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward us. I'm this far away from the holiness of God, but guess what fills in the gap? His love and mercy. So now I'm with him, even though I am sinful. One of the best definitions of what the gospel actually is was said by Tim Keller, just passed away recently. I love this definition of the gospel. Listen to what he says here. I am more sinful and flawed than I dare believe, while at the same time, I am more accepted and loved than I ever dare hope. I love that. You are more sinful and you are more flawed than you can even dare to believe. As a matter of fact, if God showed you how far away you are, you probably couldn't even function. But yet, in that condition, God says, I'm going to show you how much I love you. Because I'm going to love you in spite of the fact that you're a sinner. So finally, the close here is this. Well, we're going to get to the close here after we quickly go through this, hopefully. This is 5 and 6. Two things. I wait for the Lord, my soul. He says, I wait for the Lord, my soul waits in his word, I hope. One of the few times in Scripture something is said twice, like back to back. He says, my soul waits for the Lord more than the watchman for the morning, more than the watchman for the morning. He is saying that it's the plan of God for the Christian just to wait on God. But it's also the plan of God for the Christian to wait on God in a very particular type of way. Waiting is not passive, it's very active. You are to wait with eager expectations. Matter of fact, this word wait in the Hebrew literally means to be bound together or be twisted together. I'm twisted up in God while I'm waiting for God. I'm twisted up in God while I'm waiting for God. I'm twisted up in God while I'm waiting for God. And how are you to wait for God? You are to wait for Him like the watchman waits for the morning. How does the watchman wait for the morning? He watches, but let me ask you this, is the sunrise coming? Yes. He's watching an eager expectation of something that is going to happen. His waiting is with expectation. And every time we're in adversity, wait on God with eager expectation because the Bible tells us that everything that God plans for us, it awaits an appointed time. Habakkuk. For still the vision waits in appointed time. It hastens to an end. It will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it. You have a day in which God says, that's it, that's the end of your adversity. That's the end of the trial. I'm gonna lift you above that. But you gotta let me run the house. Y'all understand this. You've gotta wait on me. I love this. God in you, intertwined together waiting for the sun to come up. I gotcha. Daylight's coming. One of the most exciting times of my life when I was a kid is my grandparents would go away in the summer to New Jersey and they would stay about a month and they would buy us tons and tons of gifts while they were away. And so we had a second Christmas sometime in the middle of summer and so my mother would say, they're coming back today. And you know what me and my brothers would do? We would wait at the window. But we would do more than that. We'd run out on the street, watch the street, run out on the street, watch the street. Our waiting was not passive, it was active. Because we knew that car was coming. That car's coming. We've been told. And guess what? Your help is coming. Whatever your darkness is, whatever your trial is, whatever your adversity is, it's coming. But stop running the house. Submit it to God. Last two verses. and he will redeem Israel of all of his iniquities. Israel had all kinds of iniquities. Now, the minute we confess our sins to God, God forgives us of our sins, cleanses us from all unrighteousness. So what does this mean that we have to wait for our iniquities? Almost every theologian I looked at on this particular verse said, the iniquities he's speaking about are the consequences of our sin. You can confess your sins, you can be forgiven of your sins, but if your sin did some bad things, there may be consequences that you have to wait it out. And you might have to come to God and say, God, how much longer do I have to bear the consequences of my sin? So there is the consequences of our sin. And then there is finally the redemption where my redemption overcomes my consequences. Have you ever had this experience where God's redemption actually overcame your consequences? See, he says here, plentiful is my redemption. This word plentiful literally means something that becomes great or many. It's the same word that is used when the locusts covered the earth and covered the sky. So in other words, this word plenteous means millions or billions. God has enough redemption to cover millions and billions of iniquities. And when he covers them, they are covered. Right? The idea of something that is redeemed, it is that whatever the price you had to pay for those sins, somebody paid it for you and now there's no more consequences. It's like you forgetting to pay your taxes and getting the tax bill and going, my goodness, I forgot for 10 years. And somebody comes along and says, I'll take care of that. That's redemption. And this is what God offers every sinner with all of their sins. He says, listen, if you'll just come, somebody has paid the price for all of your sins and he will give you his righteousness in exchange for your sin. What can I do with this? Jesus paid the price of every sin, every one of our sins on that cross. And then he says, now there are no more consequences. for your sin when it comes to eternity. You're not gonna stand before a judge and be judged whether you're going to heaven or hell. You'll only be judged on rewards. So wait. for God to deliver us in your trials. Even if those trials were caused by dark sins, let that humble you, let that cause you in the darkest times of your life to cry to God, and then you wait for that total redemption in which God releases you from all the consequences of that sin. Thanks for listening to this message from River Mountain Church. If you'd like some more information, visit our website, rivermountainchurch.org.