Good evening and greetings in Christ's name. It's good to be back with you again. Please open your Bibles to Psalm 130. Psalm 130. And listen as I read to you the word of God. 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 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. Let's bow together and pray. God, who hears and answers prayer, We ask you now to draw near to us by your grace and use this means that you have appointed for the good of our souls and for your eternal glory. Draw near to us and help us. Give me clarity of thought and expression and encourage all of us as we hear the word of God, we pray in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, amen. On the evening of April the 1st, 2018, Two and a half years ago, three and a half years ago, 13-year-old Jesse Hernandez was jumping on a wooden plank at a decommissioned Los Angeles sanitation facility. When the plank gave way, Jesse fell 25 feet down into the underground sewer system. Imagine what that fall must have been like. I wonder, did he reach out suddenly and try to catch himself on the edge of the opening where there would have been rotted wood? Was he wounded when he did this, were his hands scraped? As he fell, did he scream? What was the sound that echoed through the pipe? And when he hit the water in the sewer, was he sickened by the odor? You see, Jesse Hernandez was in grave danger. He was trapped in a labyrinth of four foot wide underground tunnels. He was being carried by water flowing at 15 miles per hour and he was in darkness. The tunnel was full of raw sewage and there was Jesse in the midst. He spent 12 hours in that sewer system until he was rescued nearly a half mile away the next morning. a half mile from where he fell. And after his rescue, he said, I was just praying to God to help me and to not die. And I'm sure that this was not a momentary prayer, but it was a prayer that was accompanied by shouts to his rescuers. In fact, I would imagine that it was an all-consuming plea that lasted for 12 hours through the night. It's as if Jesse were crying out, out of the depths, I cried to you, O Lord. O Lord, hear my prayer. Now, Jesse's experience is a recent picture in real life terms of our psalm and of the psalmist. What does our psalmist do in a similar predicament? Well, Psalm 130 is the 11th of the 15 songs of ascent. These were songs that pilgrims sang on their way up to Jerusalem. Most of these songs of ascent call the singers to look upwards. We read phrases in them such as, I lift up my eyes to the hills, or as the mountains surround Jerusalem. At the same time, some of the psalms of ascent speak of lowliness. We read phrases such as, we're in contempt, were objects of scorn. The next psalm, Psalm 131, is a psalm of humility. Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor my eyes lofty, neither do I concern myself with great matters, nor were things too profound for me. So on the one hand, the Songs of Ascent call us to look up. On the other hand, they are a confession of humility, of weakness, of lowliness. Now our psalm is like these, in that it expresses descent out of the depths, even while the climbers are ascending to the city. You have to try to picture this. They're going up, and they're crying to God to lift them out of the depths. It's a humble lament, seeking after God. If you or I were to fall into a sewer system, as did Jesse, We'd be in great physical danger, perhaps even leading to death. But paradoxically, what we find in this psalm is that the psalmist is actually in a good situation because his circumstances send him to his only hope. And his only hope is in the Lord, his God. The language that is used here is familiar language in the Old Testament. It's the language of watery danger, of chaos, a very common picture. And it is intended to bring to our minds a sense of spiritual despondency. The figure calls to mind a person in a hopeless situation, such as Jesse Hernandez faced, deep in old sewer pipes, near to drowning in the darkness, not knowing when rescue would come. And I can imagine that you and I would cry out as loudly as we possibly could, even in the roar of that moving water, for as long as we could, hoping for rescue in that deep and dark place. Now, there's something very interesting about these 15 songs of ascents, as they're called in our Bibles. As we said, they were sung by pilgrims on the long uphill climb to Jerusalem, in obedience to the Lord's command to attend the great feasts that were held annually in the holy city. And ultimately, their destination was the temple in Jerusalem, the center and the heart of Old Testament faith. Now, if you do a little bit of geographic searching, you'll find that from the Jordan River up to Jerusalem as the crow flies is about 21 miles But it's also almost 4,000 feet of altitude gain. The Jordan River flows into the Dead Sea. It's one of the lowest places on the face of the earth. And Jerusalem is up on top of mountains. So there's at least 21 mile path. I assume it's much longer than that because it's not a direct line. It has to wind its way up the mountains. is a long and demanding climb. And I wonder, could it be done in one day? Could you go from the Jordan River or Jericho, which is just beyond the Jordan, all the way up to Jerusalem in one day? Now while the travelers were ascending, they would look up and they would seek the first glimpse of the city and ultimately of the temple. They knew that God symbolically dwelt there And they look forward to hearing words of blessing that were spoken by the priests. The most important was the Aaronic Blessing found in Numbers 6, 22 through 27, which I didn't know, but I was really pleased to see that you chose that as the benediction for tonight. It fits perfectly. When I saw that on the paper, I thought, the Lord is here. Listen to these words from Numbers 6. You can turn there if you want to, Numbers 6, 22 through 27. The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, thus you shall bless the people of Israel. You shall say to them these words. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious or merciful to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. And then Moses said, pardon me, so shall they put my name upon the people of Israel. and I will bless them. The name of the Lord Yahweh or in the older versions Jehovah is to be spoken to the people and placed upon them. Now the name of God is actually very important in our psalm. I want to reread it to you but I want to do so slightly differently. Follow along, but listen to how I read this psalm to you. I want to read it to you in terms of the Hebrew words that are used here to speak about God as we seek after him. It goes like this. Out of the depths I cry to you, O Yahweh. O Adonai, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my pleas for mercy. If you, Yahweh, should mark iniquities, O Adonai, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness that you may be feared. I wait for Yahweh, my soul waits, and in his word I hope. My soul waits for Adonai, more than watchman for the morning, more than watchman for the morning. O Israel, hope in Yahweh, for with Yahweh is steadfast love, and with him is plentiful redemption. and he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities." Did you hear how there's a variation of names as we read through Psalm 130? Our English translations are not necessarily extremely helpful in this. You have to pay attention actually to how the words are printed. When Lord is printed in all uppercase letters, that's the clue to tell us Yahweh is in the background in the Hebrew. When Lord is printed with lowercase letters, that tells us that Adonai is the word in the background. It might be good for them to use Lord and master or something else to distinguish between them because they are two different terms. But what we see here in Psalm 130 is important. There are three couplets. with Yahweh and Adonai. Yahweh is a name. It's the name by which God presents himself to his people. Adonai is a title. It's a title that sometimes is used in the Old Testament even to refer to humans. A human lord can be called Adonai, though the term is also given up to God. Yahweh is the name of God and it's used in all 15 of the songs of ascents. That is, the Lord's name in these psalms is placed on God's people. Now in our psalm we have these three couplets Yahweh Adonai, Yahweh Adonai, Yahweh Adonai, but did you notice at the end that the concluding pair is not like that. Twice at the end we have Yahweh. Because what happens in the psalm is a series of truths that lead to a great promise. And the promise is Yahweh saves. This God of Israel, this Lord who reveals himself as I am, is the one who saves. And so the psalmist is able to confess this even by speaking the name of the Lord. Yahweh Adonai, Yahweh Adonai, Yahweh Adonai, Yahweh Yahweh. It's wonderful to see how this is done. This is intended to say that these people were his and he was theirs. That's what it means to place his name upon them. Now what's really interesting is that in the Hebrew of Numbers 6, 26, there are 15 words in the blessing. And there are 15 songs of ascent where the name of the Lord is placed upon God's people. One scholar, in a careful paper in which he examined the Songs of Ascent, has suggested that they are structured around the Aaronic Blessing. And that makes perfect sense. If you take a step back and look at the 15 Songs of Ascent and think about what the Aaronic Blessing is about, you can see that they work out many of the aspects of that blessing. Think about this. The goal of this long uphill journey was to meet with God. to demonstrate love to him and receive assurances of his love. It wasn't just a difficult journey up a hill to obey a religious command, but it was a journey up a hill to meet with God, and there in meeting with God to receive from him his blessing. The songs of ascent are anticipations of the blessings of worship in Jerusalem. This scholar, his name is Leon Liebreich, explored the intersection of the Aaronic Blessing and the Songs of Ascent. He puts it like this, it can be demonstrated that this entire group of Psalms is related directly or indirectly to four key words in the Priestly Blessing. And he suggests that the four words in this Priestly Blessing are these, to bless, to keep, To be gracious or merciful, the same Hebrew word can be translated either way. So bless, keep, be merciful, and peace or shalom. Those are the four key concepts in the Aaronic blessing. Now let's look at this a little bit more closely because it helps us to understand what's happening in Psalm 130. The phrase, the Lord bless you, is linked to Zion in Psalm 128.5. the Lord bless you out of Zion. In Psalm 133.3 It is like the dew of Hermon descending from the mountains of Zion, for there the Lord commanded the blessing, life evermore." Zion is his dwelling place in Psalm 132, and David's royal residence in Psalm 122 and 132.11. The ark is there, and of course the temple, and these are mentioned in some of these Psalms. The priests are present in Jerusalem. In this way, the blessing is experienced at Zion. You see, the destination of the pilgrims. So the Lord bless you is a promise that when we come into the presence of God, the place where he meets with us, his blessing is there upon his people. The blessing of the Lord is equated with life, with sustenance, with work, with the home and family, and especially children. The latter are also subject of the second part of Psalm 127. The second word that we notice is keeper. The Lord bless you and keep you. Look at Psalm 121 because it is, as Lieberg says, to all intents and purposes, an exposition. of what it means that the Lord keeps us. A song of ascents, I will lift up my eyes to the hills from whence comes my help. My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth. He will not allow your foot to be moved. He who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, he who keeps Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is your keeper. The Lord is your shade at your right hand. The sun shall not strike you by day nor the moon by night. The Lord shall preserve you from all evil. He shall preserve your soul. The Lord shall preserve your going out and your coming in from this time forth and even forevermore. What a wonderful song to be singing as you're marching up the hill on the way to the temple where you expect to meet with God. A promise that is given to you that the Lord is the one, the God of heaven and earth, who keeps you, who provides for you, who sustains you. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord be gracious to you or show mercy to you. That's the third term. And we find this in Psalm 123. Have mercy on us, O Lord, have mercy on us. And we see it especially in our Psalm 130, which we'll come back to in a moment. So we have bless and we have keep and we have mercy. And then the fourth concept in the Aaronic blessing is peace or shalom, which doesn't simply mean the cessation of hostilities. But it means wellness in all of its fullness. May God come to you and bless you in his presence in this way. And it's found, for the sake of time, in Psalm 122, 125, 128. And ultimately, it is perfectly described to us in 133, verse 1. Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. That's what peace is all about, when brothers come together. Now, you see, if we took the time to look at all of these and work them out in detail, we could notice how intimately these 15 Psalms are connected to Aaron's blessing, benediction. But for us, the focus is on mercy, mercy that is sought and mercy that is received in the midst of a dark and difficult situation. As horrible as the sewers of Los Angeles may be, The psalmist situation here is far more urgent. This psalm is not about rescue from earthly peril. And in one sense, it's not even about rescue from spiritual danger. Rather, it's about God's mercy to those who are in the greatest hazard of all. And that hazard is the menacing of the soul that results from sin. That's what this is about. The greatest danger we could ever face, and God's mercy upon that reality. As the psalmist contemplates this, and as the pilgrims on their way up to Jerusalem together sing this song, there is earnestness in the words. They toil uphill. Now, that's a long climb. 21 miles, at least, and 4,000 feet. I went down into the Grand Canyon several years ago with a friend. It was relatively easy to go down. It was extremely difficult to come back up. I kind of wished it had been the opposite, that you could go up and then come down, because it was a long haul to come back up out of Grand Canyon. That's only an earthly illustration of what these pilgrims faced. They toiled uphill. knowing that rest would come in the presence of God when they came to Jerusalem. That was the blessing. That was the benefit of coming to the end. You see, there's a sense of urgency in the psalm. Even the repetition is important. 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 plea for mercy. Does the Lord need reminders of the psalmist's trouble? Has the Lord forgotten him? Does the Lord not see him? Can he not hear? Of course not. But the psalmist's urgency requires these repeated cries over and over. And my friends, that ought to be true of us as well. Why is it that the psalmist must cry out? Well, it's not because he stumbled into danger. but rather it's because he put himself there by his own sin. Now strangely, that's the case with Jesse Hernandez as well. The news tells us or the news reports when it happened told us that this abandoned decommissioned sanitation plant was surrounded by fences. And I wonder because I haven't seen any indication of how he made his way through the fence. Did he climb over? Did he find a place where it was broken and open? Did he go underneath? Maybe animals had made their way underneath? We don't know. But somehow he went where he shouldn't have gone and he put himself into grave risk. A 13-year-old boy jumping on rotted wood on the top of a sewer. That's what he did. He shouldn't have been there. And the result of being there was grave danger. You see, the psalmist here has become keenly aware of his own sin. He sees his sin before God, and he's crushed by its guilt. Not just feelings of guilt, but he's crushed by the knowledge that he has violated God's law, and as a result, he has incurred the wrath of God. He knows that when he stands before the law of God, he's truly guilty for the actions that he has taken. Now, we don't have in the heading of this psalm any indication of its author. Maybe it was David. In several of the Psalms of Ascent, we are told that it was a Psalm of David. 122, 124, 131, 133. Those are all Psalms of David. If it is David's, it could be one of those moments when he realizes the reality of his sin. But it also might be another Old Testament figure we simply don't know. And in a sense, that's good for us because it allows this psalm to become particularly applicable to us all in our circumstances. We can't dismiss it by saying, well, that's David in his circumstances saying such and such. No, it's open to all of us. It's available to us to employ. What the psalmist does is call on Yahweh his Adonai, the Lord his Lord, and curiously and counterintuitively he finds himself in a good situation because his knowledge of sin, of his own sin, And his honesty with its nature as a violation of God's holiness brings him to despair with no place to go and nowhere to hide, alone with death lurking nearby. And so what does he do? He looks upward, and he calls to God in the midst of his trouble. You see, it's the right action here in the face of the awareness of the depths of sin to cry out to the Lord for help. Now, look at verses 3 and 4. If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness that you may be feared." There the psalmist tells us why he is in this circumstance. It's not simply because he remembers his sin, although the crushing weight of it is indeed great, but rather he finds himself in this condition, ready to cry out to God, because of what he knows of God. Verses 3 and 4 turn our attention not to the psalmist, but to God. If you, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? The psalmist knows that the Lord is a righteous judge, a perfect remembrancer. He is one who knows all of our sins, external, that which we perform with our body, and internal, which no one else perhaps can see, but we know that we have polluted our minds and our thoughts by what has been present in them. We often consider ourselves and excuse ourselves. We underplay our actions. We're like little children, who at the end of the day, when their parents sit down with them and say, have you been a good girl today? Have you been a good boy today? What's the typical answer that that little child will give? Oh, yes, Daddy. I've been a good girl. I've been a good boy. But a little probing from Daddy demonstrates that she really hasn't been a good girl, and he really hasn't been a good boy, and each one of them has violated some of the commandments of the household during the day. The psalmist asked the question, if you, oh Lord, should mark iniquity. Just think about the commandments of the moral law. Let's just go that far. You shall have no other God before me. You shall not make a graven image. You must keep my name holy. Remember the Sabbath day. Honor your father and your mother. You shall not kill. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness. You shall not covet. Who of us, which of us in this room, keeps these commandments flawlessly? You know what, if we're honest, we have to say we all break all of these commandments. And if the Lord should mark our iniquities, could we stand? Could we be brought into his presence? Knowing that we have violated his holy law, could we stand? In fact, True conviction of sin is a terrible reality. Standing before God is the most awful scene that any of us can possibly imagine, if we do so without a mediator. To stand before Him who knows all, who sees all, who knows us better than we know ourselves, nothing could be worse. And the psalmist tells us that no one is able to stand before God. You see, it's his knowledge of God. It's his theology, which brings him to this place because he knows that this is true about the Lord God. But he doesn't leave us there. The same God before whom no one is able to stand is the God who is full of forgiveness, and pardon, and remission, and acceptance. The God who freely permits access to himself. Think about this. The multitude of the psalmist transgressions are forgiven and they are removed. And this becomes for him the promise that delivers him from these spiritual deaths. It's the rescue team that takes him out of the well just at the point of death. And the goal of it is the fear of God. He says, with you there is forgiveness that you may be feared. He receives this forgiveness as a pronouncement of God so that he might love him, show him honor and reverence and thankfulness. To move from the shivering cold damp rottenness of the sewer to thankfulness for rescue and new life. I remember seeing the news reports of this young man, Jesse Hernandez, after he was rescued, spending 12 hours in the L.A. cesspits, how relieved he was to be once again up on firm ground and away from the odor and the stink, but also the threat of death that he faced. I remember one of the things that was said about him was that they had to be very careful in the way that they washed him because He was in a toxic environment. This was waste. And he was in the midst of it, and was covered by it, having spent 12 hours there. And now he's up on dry land, and he's been cleansed, and he can stand before a TV camera and speak about the fact that he had cried out to God for help and for rescue. You see, the psalmist wants us to realize that God is to be feared for two reasons. On the one hand, if he should mark iniquity, no one can stand before him. You can't. I can't. We're all sinners. But on the other hand, God is to be feared because he grants forgiveness to everyone who calls upon him and asks for forgiveness through Jesus Christ our Lord. He's terrible in his judgment, and he is gracious in the forgiveness that he grants. So I ask you, what about you? Have you ever contemplated the fact that you will stand before God? It's easy for us in this room with many people here present to sort of dismiss that fact, but I have to tell you that one day you will. You will stand before God. What will that experience be like for you? Even now, though you may not realize it, you live in his presence. In every thought, each word, all your actions are seen and known by him, so that when you stand before him, you cannot run and you cannot hide. He knows better than you what your sins are like. In the words of Hebrews chapter 12, it is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. My friend, I want you to think about that. You will one day stand before God. Are you ready for that day? It will come. I am not a prophet, but I can tell you that it will come because the word of God tells you that it will come and you will stand there. Are you ready for that day? Do you fear God? Do you fear him in judgment? Do you fear him in loving reverence because you've been forgiven? Have you found forgiveness for your life of sin and live in thankfulness for the abundance of mercy that the Lord has extended to you? You see, the one who has been forgiven much will love much. And our psalmist understands this point. And I hope that you do also. And so the psalmist becomes very confident while verses three and four are in anticipation of rescue. You know, in the story of Jesse Hernandez, It's really fascinating to read about how they found him and what he did. What brought him, after 12 hours in the sewers, finally to be rescued? Well, he tells the story. And he says, at some point, while he's floating along in the midst of all this waste, he was able to see some light that came through a grate above him. And somehow he was able to stop, I assume using his hands and his legs, and to stay in that place, assuming that because there was light, that might be a place where he could be reached and rescued. And indeed, that was exactly the fact. He may have been in a bad place and put himself in a bad situation, but he had a certain amount of wits about him. to help the rescuers identify him. Now, he's found at least a half a mile away from where he entered the system. He's been floating all night. The psalmist here knows that someone will come to take him out of the depths, just as Jesse did. You see, verses 5 and 6 are about confidence. They take the promise of deliverance to calm the soul in its danger. Patience. 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. I used to work as a security guard when I was in school. And I'll tell you, those long shifts that begin at 12 a.m. and end at 830 in the morning, and it's dark and cold outside in Illinois, you can't wait for the morning to come. It can't come soon enough. Patience teaches us dependence upon the Lord. And here, the psalmist tells us that the object of his waiting is the Lord himself. It's the one who forgives sin, the one who gives hope, The word of promise is a lifeline to the psalmist. It's the only resource that he has. But he is able to say rescue will come and sin will be forgiven. Jesse Hernandez didn't know if he stopped there, if anyone would hear him in the great that was about 25 feet above him. The psalmist had more confidence because he knew who God was and he could trust in the Lord. Do you remember Bunyan's story of Christian in Doubting Castle? I'm sure some of you boys and girls know the story of the pilgrim's progress. Do you remember when he was held prisoner in Doubting Castle? What was it that brought freedom from giant despair? Remember? It was the key of promise, wasn't it? He suddenly remembered that he had a key of promise. Bunyan was right, and the psalmist here presents that to us. It's the promise of God. that he will accept those who cry out to him for forgiveness. That is the means by which he ultimately is delivered. So it's interesting that in the Psalms, you probably have noticed this as you've read them, frequently we are told that the Lord rescues people in the morning. And that's apparently what the psalmist expects. In fact, that's when Jesse Hernandez was rescued as well. The watchmen on the city walls look for danger, look for attacks from enemies. This is repeated twice. We can imagine those long hours of darkness and silence at night, often full of terror and fear. Children are afraid at night. Adults hear noises and wonder what's happening. Thieves work at night. Wild beasts hunt at night. The hours of darkness cannot be hurried. All that you can do is wait. But in this waiting and in this watching, there is a promise. In this word, I will hope the Lord will deliver me because the psalmist knows that the Lord keeps his promise always, always without fail. And so he moves forward in verses seven and eight to speak words of great comfort. And though these are the words of the psalmist, they're words that point us to our Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ. He learned his lesson. Oh, 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. Thought of as a whole, Israel cannot stand before the Lord because of iniquities. But the Lord will redeem Israel. And so the psalmist says, hope in the Lord, place your confident trust in him. Remember who he is. He's eternal. He's immutable. He's faithful. He's tender. He's loving. And he never forgets his promise. He always keeps it. His love is steadfast, unwavering, consistent, genuine. And divine. He provides plentiful redemption from the worst of our sins and from the plague of our consciences. He redeems us by his own action in sending Jesus Christ that his wrath might be satisfied and his grace might be manifest to us. You see, the psalmist here realizes that deliverance is not a result of self-salvation. He doesn't pull himself out of the figurative pit but rather deliverance is the action of God alone. God is the one who gives his son to rescue us from the wrath that is rightly due to our sins. Now notice here that the psalmist thinks about God and the truths about him. It's theology that delivers the psalmist from danger. It's his awareness of God. This eternal, immutable, everywhere present God, who is faithful to his word of promise, and who will redeem his people from all their transgressions, from their real guilt, from their violations of his holy will, they are truly forgiven by the judge of the universe. Of course, we know that this is done only through the person and work of our Lord Jesus Christ. The psalmist looked forward to the coming of Jesus. We look backwards to the redemption that is complete and accomplished in his life, death and resurrection. His ascension now to the right hand of the father, the one who lived a life of perfect righteousness and died in order to satisfy the demands of God's law against us. And so we read this psalm by faith and we hope in his word, knowing that we may receive the forgiveness of sins through Christ. We can say with the psalmist that our God is great and holy and he's tender and loving through his son, Jesus Christ. So I ask you once again, do you trust him? If you fear the Lord because you know the depth of your own sin, my friend, this is really good news for you. God forgives the sins of everyone who comes to Him through Jesus Christ. It doesn't matter what your sin is, if you come to Him through Christ, He will forgive you, He will receive you. So, will you come to Him? Will you trust in Him? Why would you wait? Do you doubt? I go back to what I said before, are you prepared to meet God? You know, it used to be When pastors would visit people in the hospital, the question that they would ask is, are you prepared to meet God? Chaplains in hospitals don't want you to ask that anymore, because it puts fear into the heart of the people who are lying on the bed. But that is the question we ought to ask, because the reason that they're in the hospital oftentimes is that they are in danger, and they may be closer to meeting God than they know. Are you prepared to meet God? You will. And when you do, if you come by faith in Jesus Christ, you'll be welcomed into his presence forever and ever. You see, believers, you are pilgrims on the way. You are climbing to Zion. And this psalm is full of promise because it lifts your eyes heavenward. It reminds you of the greatness and the good and goodness of the mercy of God. The Lord does bless us and keep us and shows his mercy and gives us peace both now and forever. You see, the depths can become a place of hope, a place to lift up our eyes, just like Jesse Hernandez looked up and saw light. But what we see is far greater. because it's an eternal rescue. We may cry out to God from the depths and be certain that he hears us. And so, are you in the depths? If you find yourself in the depths, my friend, this psalm is for you. It's a psalm of promise and hope that calls you to look up and to trust in the God of heaven and earth. Amen. Let's pray. O Lord, thank you for this song of ascents, which calls us to look up and to trust in you. We ask you by your spirit to do that good work in our lives and make us disciples who gladly trust in their Lord, even in the midst of the greatest danger, because you are a God of mercy and kindness and grace and forgiveness. So hear us and help us, we ask in Jesus' name. Amen.