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Real Prayers for Real LifePart 4 of 9

The Psalmist – Waiting (Psalm 130)

Richard Millar
Psalms 130
26 July 2026
32 min

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0:00 Morning, everyone. Thank you again to Suzanne and the band, and indeed to all who work so tirelessly, many behind the scenes, just to ensure that services like this take place. A friend of mine who was a youth pastor at the time at a church that shall remain nameless to protect the guilty, was asked by his sister to babysit their wee boy. What could go wrong with asking a youth pastor to carry out such a task? Anyway, he agreed. So before his sister and her husband headed out for the evening, she explained to her brother that the wee boy was at the stage where they were teaching him to say please and thank you. When he asked for something, if he didn't say it, they were to say, what's the little word? And she wanted that to continue for the evening.

1:06 Some hours later, they returned home and all was well. Wee boy was tucked up in bed asleep and the house was tidy. They thanked her brother and off he went. The next morning at breakfast, at one point, the wee boy said, I want some toast. His mother replied, What's the little word? Back came the answer, Now. I want some toast now. Yes, her brother had spent the evening reteaching the child.

1:42 You know, we laugh, and yet haven't we all become the now generation? If our online orders don't arrive the next day, we get annoyed. And indeed, you can now get your DIY materials sprinted across to you in about 20 minutes, or your groceries whooshed to you in about half an hour. We want everything to be instant. We want it now. So as we continue our summer series of Real Prayers for Real Life, perhaps it will be good for us to consider a prayer this morning where the author is waiting on God. If you've a Bible with you, please turn with me to Psalms 130. I'm going to read that for us and it'll be on the screen behind me.

2:35 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.

3:16 For with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with him is plentiful redemption. And he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities. Now this Psalms is one of a collection of 15 Psalms, known as the Psalms of Ascent. The collection is Psalms 120 to 134. And they would have been sung by ancient Jewish pilgrims. as they travelled uphill to Jerusalem for annual festivals, hence the name. See that was a demanding journey with a steep climb and these Psalms helped to keep the pilgrims focused and encouraged. And it is my prayer that that will be our experience also as we consider this Psalms together this morning.

4:11 The only five of the Psalms identify their author, and the one we are considering this morning has an unknown earthly author, but of course has the same heavenly author as all the rest of scripture. We're going to consider the Psalms in four parts. Each part looks at two of the eight verses. First of all, a cry from the depths, which led to confession and forgiveness. then waiting in hope before finally a rallying cry. Let's get going. Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord. We all too readily know what it feels like to be in the depths of life because we've been there, haven't we?

5:02 And maybe you're there right now this morning. The loss of loved ones, broken relationships, serious illness, hopes dashed by a turn of events. Well, this is where we find the Psalms, in the depths. I don't know if you've ever been somewhere deep below the surface of the earth. Maybe it's scuba diving or many floors down in a basement or in the depths of a cave. It's an eerie place. I think it's the silence that gets to you. Because the depths silence everything they surround.

5:45 But in this case, they couldn't close the mouth of the Lord's servant. It was from the abyss that he cried to the Lord. Despite everything that was going on in the Psalms' life, prayer was alive. Even though it seemed as though things were closing in on him, and above it all, rose his cry of faith. Oh, prayer is never more real than when it rises out of us being in the worst places. You see, deep places produce earnest prayer. The more distressed we are, what a testimony it is to the greatness of our faith when we trust bravely in the Lord. The depths of our distress moves the depths of our being so that our cry to the Lord comes from the bottom of our hearts.

6:47 Notice that the psalmist doesn't turn to anyone or anything else, only to the one true living God, because he knows that even the deep places are in God's hand. Friend, if you're in the depths this morning, Take comfort from knowing that you are still in God's hand. When you don't know where to turn, when you aren't sure what you should do next, or maybe aren't even able to do the things you know you should be doing, be comfortable that you can pray, even in the worst of times. Because when you cry out of the depths, as we're shortly going to see, you shall soon be singing in the heights. Now what does the psalmist ask the Lord for? To be heard. O Lord, hear my voice. We cannot be content if we aren't heard and listened to.

7:50 So often, people just want someone to listen to them, even if they don't get what they want. But we can be happy when the Lord hears our prayers, and then we leave the answering of those prayers to His infinite wisdom. Imagine if the Lord made us an absolute promise to always answer our prayers by giving us exactly what we ask for. It would be a curse, because it would mean I'd have to always get it right. Now most of us can look back at prayers that went seemingly unanswered, or were answered in a way we didn't expect, or with timing that was different from what we wanted. And now, with the benefit of hindsight, we can see how the way the Lord answered our prayers was perfect and was far, far better than what we had asked for. You see, God isn't some sort of cosmic genie, watching the events of this world unfold from afar, only getting involved when we summon Him and then to grant our every wish. Although that is how some people seem to think of him.

9:07 Now, Romans 8.28 reminds us that for those who love God, all things work together for good. Now, we have no problem believing that when we get the promotion or when we get over illness. But what about when we lose a loved one or when the treatment isn't working? Paul still says all things work together for good. He doesn't have a list of exceptions. You see, we have a God who orders the events of this world and whose plans cannot be thwarted. What a comfort that is. So like the psalmist, be content that your prayers are heard and leave the answering up to our wise God.

9:58 Now when we look at the end of verse two, The psalmist is pleading for mercy. Now we know the cause of him being in the depths. It is because of his sin. As we read verse three, don't you get a sense of the unworthiness that he feels? He knows the holiness of our God in the depths of his sin. He has this picture of God recording all of his sins in a book. meaning that if he was face to face before God, he would just fall to the ground before him. He couldn't stand before one so holy, since anything that he had to offer, his righteousness, was like filthy rags.

10:48 His good works couldn't save him. And this is all true. God does see our every thought, our every word, our every action, and he does record where we fail to live up to the demands of his law. You know, as I have lived my life as a Christian, I have become more and more aware of my sinfulness. As the Lord shines the light of his word into the depths of my life, even the things I thought were good have been shown to be impure. You know, maybe I've wrestled with a particular sin and have overcome it. Only they end up being proud of the achievement, thinking it was all my doing. Or when I do something for someone else, an act of kindness or service, what's my attitude been?

11:42 Have I done it willingly and sacrificially, or with some element of resentment? And even if all of that is sorted and my attitude is pure, To what extent has my motivation been sinless? Am I partly doing it to get the praise of others instead of completely for God's glory? Oh, when we really reflect upon our lives and ask the Lord to show us our sin, we will soon echo the apostle Paul's words in Romans 7. He writes, I do not do the good I want. but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. We'll end up in the depths and cry out with Paul, O wretched man that I am. But we do need to be careful about why we feel wretched about our sin.

12:41 Is it because of a fear of punishment or the earthly consequences of our sin? Maybe it's going to cost us our freedom our job or relationship, or it'll need money to repair the damage. See, that's not repentance. That's just regret and remorse. And even non-Christians experience that. Contrast that to the Psalmist here who feels bad about his sin because of the offense that it is to God. That's why our sin should weigh heavily upon us. But praise God that this psalm doesn't stop there.

13:24 At verse 4, we get one of the great buts of the grace of God in the Bible. Have you got the picture so far? Here's a man who feels the weight of his sin, who is confessing it and pleading for mercy, who understands his position before this holy God. A man who realizes that he deserves nothing except God's wrath and condemnation. And then we get bought. But what? What's he say to console himself? But I was good.

14:02 But I went to church. But I read my Bible. But I always put money in the offering box on the way out each Sunday. I'm sure he did. But that's not what we read here. We read this. but with you there is forgiveness. Free, full, sovereign pardon is in God's hand to give and in His hand alone.

14:29 We can't earn it by our good works. We can't suck up to God to curry His favour. But because His nature is mercy, because He has provided a sacrifice for sin in His own dear Son, And because he delights in exercising pardon, there is forgiveness for all who come to him, confessing their sins. Now, although forgiveness is for the Lord alone to give, there's never been a man or a woman who has come to the Lord in genuine faith and been refused forgiveness. Have I asked you this morning, how do you know you're forgiven? Wonder what you'd say? I prayed the sinner's prayer, or I raised my hand at the end of a gospel crusade, or I grew up in a Christian home, or I've never known anything else. Now, there might be value with some of those things, and they are the experience of many here, but our assurance of salvation can never come from anything we have done.

15:42 No. Instead, it comes from what God has done for us at the cross, from Him being merciful to. us, and then from His working in our lives to make us more and more in the likeness of His Son. If your sin bothers you this morning because you've grieved the Lord, then like the Psalmist, that should bring you assurance that you are His. Now the result of this forgiveness is that we will fear Him. This isn't a dread of punishment. It's a worshipful, reverent, respectful fear. When we've experienced His grace, His forgiveness and pardon, when we consider the enormity of our sin that has been atoned for, oh, how it leads us to gratitude, a holy affection for the Lord, and a desire to live in holiness out of a fear of grieving Him.

16:50 But as we move on, we see that the Psalmist is waiting. Do you see the intensity of his waiting? His whole being is in it, and he repeats, My soul waits. My soul waits. Friends, when the Lord asks us to wait, do so with our whole hearts. He is worth waiting for. But you see, this isn't idleness. Our waiting is an active thing designed to be beneficial to us.

17:24 Our waiting teaches us to trust. It tests our faith. It builds patience in us, trains us to submit to the Lord's will. And oh, how much sweeter is the blessing when it arrives. You know, in the bigger picture of life, The Lord's people have always been a waiting people. They waited for the promised Messiah, and we are waiting too, waiting for Him to come again. We waited to know that we are forgiven, and now we wait whilst He moulds us to be more and more like Christ. But waiting is hard, isn't it?

18:09 We want our troubles to be over and life to return to normal. We want our prayers to be answered now and think that we know how they should be answered. Don't you love the realism of the Bible? The psalmist also longs for the Lord to answer him, more so than watchmen long for the morning to come and end their shift. But this isn't a waiting with fingers crossed, hoping for the best, yet fearing the worst. The psalmist places his hope in God's word precisely because it is that. His word, the word of one who never lies, who never speaks in vain, whose promises will come to pass. When we are waiting on God, we should do the same.

19:06 Did you notice that common theme? through all the story bearers in our recent series, how it was God's Word that sustained people, brought comfort, provided hope and fueled their prayers. When we turn to God, we become stronger and more confident in God because of our waiting. We wait for the Lord, hope in His Word and watch for the morning. So often, When we're in the depths, we want answers to our prayers. Are things going to get better or worse? Will God grant what I've earnestly prayed for or will God's answer be no? We want to know which outcome to put our hope in.

19:56 But as we keep praying, we learn that our hope isn't in an outcome. No, our hope is in God alone. As we wait, Can we be still and know that He is God when all we want to do is fix the situation? Can we live with uncertainty, trusting that God is at work in what appears to us to be silence? Can we be satisfied in God alone without demanding the outcome we want? You see, the Psalms are songs of hope. Not hope that our situation will change immediately or even at all in this life, but hope in the God who makes all things new, who cares fiercely and tenderly for us, and one day will show us all that He did in our waiting. Then our hope will never disappoint, because it is not hope in an outcome.

21:06 but in the living God himself. Let me illustrate this for you, albeit with a trivial example. A few years ago, I was sitting on my train in Green Island Station, heading to work, frustrated that the train was running late, meaning that I might miss the start of a meeting. I sat praying that the train would soon depart. But out of the window, I saw another man running down the platform, red-faced from the exertion, just managing to board the train before it left. The man sat down opposite to me, and as he tried to regain his breath, he said, Thank God I had been praying that the train would be delayed. Two men praying for opposite things. How can God answer both prayers?

22:03 If the two of us only asked God for the outcome we wanted, well then yes, one of us was going to be disappointed. But instead, if we ask God for the outcome, but beyond that, ask that we would be able to trust God in any situation, then both will see their prayers answered. We should ask God for specific things, but trust Him in the answer. By the way, yes, I did end up being late. And when I got into work, I discovered that the meeting had been cancelled. Now, I don't want to trivialize what can be a painful experience. I know that many of you are going through really testing times of waiting on God at the moment. And I don't want to give the impression that the waiting is easy, know that the answers always come quickly.

23:06 We wait patiently for God, more than watchmen wait for the morning, and He will always come to us as surely as the dawn. When you peer out into the darkness of the night, what happens? At first you can see nothing. Then as the sun starts to rise, You start to see the outline of things, but no detail. But the image just keeps getting brighter and better before finally, in the daylight, everything is clearly seen. Friends, when we are waiting in the night, we pray and we keep on praying, not so that God will eventually hear us. No, we pray and we keep on praying so that we will hear God. Because then, then joy comes in the morning.

24:11 And that brings us to the climax of the prayer. The psalmist cried from the depths, confessed his sins and found forgiveness by placing his hope in God. This is no longer a cry from the depths but a song sung from the heights. And now he wants all his fellow Israelites to do the same. He tells them why they can place their hope in the Lord. This is no God whose love comes and goes the way that it can with us when we blow hot and cold in our affections for someone or something. This is a God of steadfast love or unfailing love, depending on your translation. When the Lord sets his love upon us, it isn't withdrawn as soon as we do something wrong.

25:08 Isn't that what the psalmist has just been reminded of again? And this isn't a God who is stingy with his redemption. It is plentiful. It is enough to cover all of our sins. past, present and future. Don't accept the lie that when you become a Christian, only your sins up to that point are forgiven. Now we need to tread carefully here. As we've just seen the Psalms do, we are still to keep on confessing our sin and placing our hope in the Lord.

25:45 But we'll not be condemned to hell if we forget to mention one of them. Indeed, we will have many sins that we don't even notice or remember. We confess our sins so that we don't remain in the depths, but instead once again know the joy of the Lord's salvation. In that confessing, we acknowledge our dependence on his mercy and grace. Now similarly, knowing that our sins past, present and future are forgiven, isn't the license to live as we please. If our sins aren't bothering us, and there isn't evidence over time of increasing holiness in our lives, then we have no grounds for assurance of salvation. But for the person who is truly being saved, then this is a joyous truth. I am redeemed from all of my sins.

26:49 The price has been paid by Christ on my behalf, and I no longer bear the penalty for my transgressions. No wonder the Psalmist wants to shout about it and rally his fellow Israelites. You ever witnessed the infectious joy of a new convert when the burden of guilt and shame has been removed? They want everyone else to know about Christ and experience the same. Because when you know that that has been dealt with, what else matters? You know, maybe some of us who have been Christians for years need to preach the gospel to ourselves once again, to have a new appreciation of grace, to regain something of that joy. that we will want to shout the good news of the gospel from the rooftops and share it with everyone around us. But could it be this morning that you are feeling the weight of your sin and you're in the depths?

28:03 Maybe you're experiencing that for the first time. Or perhaps, although you became a Christian many years ago, you're fallen into a pattern of sin. Stop reading your Bible, stop praying, drifted away from the Lord, and in many ways that no longer bothered you until this morning. You see, could it be that the Lord was waiting here for you this morning to confront you with your sin? You're in the depths. You might even feel that you're too far gone, too wicked a sinner for God, too much. of a failure. There seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel.

28:49 It seems to be the end of everything. We then learn from the psalmist this morning, this is a God whose redemption is plentiful, more than enough to deal with your every sin. A God who delights in showing mercy. a God of steadfast love who will never leave us nor forsake us. You see, this morning, the Psalmist shows you and me that we can find grace, we can know forgiveness, and then be lifted from the depths like he was. Because if it takes the depths to bring you in repentance to Christ, this morning, well then instead of that being the end of everything, it is but a glorious beginning. Let's bow together in prayer, shall we? Oh Lord God, when we are reminded again this morning of your holiness, your perfection, and that you require the same of us, how could we approach you, let alone stand before you?

30:19 Knowing that you see our every action, our every thought, our words even before they're formed in our lips could drive us to despair. But we praise you that with you there is forgiveness. We are thankful that when we confess our sin, you are faithful and just to forgive us our sin. and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. We're thankful that you can do so because of Christ's sacrifice on our behalf, paying the price we should be paying, taking the punishment that should be ours. As we now wait for that glorious day of his return, help us to do so wholeheartedly, trusting you, placing our hope in your word, and then as your redeemed people proclaiming to those around us that you are a God of steadfast love, a God of plentiful redemption, and a God who delights in showing mercy to all who place their faith in you. And we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

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The talk explores Psalm 130, a Psalm of Ascent, focusing on themes of prayer, sin, forgiveness, hope, and redemption. It begins with an illustration of modern impatience, contrasting it with the Psalmist's earnest cry from the depths. The speaker discusses the Psalmist's confession of sin and plea for mercy, emphasising God's forgiveness and the assurance it brings. The talk highlights the importance of waiting in hope and trusting God's word, culminating in a joyful proclamation of God's steadfast love and plentiful redemption. The message concludes with an application urging repentance, assurance, and renewed joy in salvation.

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