Waiting on Hesed

Intro

If you have your Bibles, let’s turn those to the 130th Psalm.

It’s so good to be back in this pulpit. I have really missed you church! And I just want to say thank you to both Pastor Simmie and Pastor Kyle for filling in for me just to give me a little break. I love you guys so much and you both did fantastic.

But believe me church, there is no place I would rather be on a Sunday morning than right here.

Simmie and Kyle opened us up in the Psalms. Yes, we will be spending a few weeks this Summer going through some of the Psalm. No, we are not going through all 150 Psalms. That would take a few years.

And today, I actually want to start a little five week series in some key Psalms that have really meant a lot to me in recent weeks.

I am calling this 5 week sermon series “Out of the Depths.”

Here’s the truth,

Every single one of us has experienced the depths of life.

Maybe you've been there. Maybe you're there right now and nobody in your life knows it. Maybe you walked in here this morning with a smile on your face and a weight on your chest that you haven't told anybody about.

I want you to know — this series is for you.

You see, the Psalms are unlike any other book in the Bible. Most of the Bible is God speaking to us. But the Psalms — the Psalms are us speaking to God. Every human emotion you have ever felt is somewhere in these pages. Joy. Grief. Anger. Confusion. Exhaustion. Hope. It's all in here.

And what that tells me is that God is not surprised by any of it.

And one of my absolute favorite things about the Psalms, and one of the things that I really want you to take out of this study is this:

You can be honest with God.

In fact, you should be honest with God. Not just on the good days… but also on the bad days.

And I want to be very honest with you this morning because I think this can truly be helpful.

You have a broken pastor.

[Pause]

You see, in church culture, there is this idea that pastors are the super Christians. That we are the professionals that do all of the quote/unquote “Ministry.” But the truth is, pastors are just people with real struggles and with brokenness like anyone else.

But here’s the truth, all of us are broken.

Just in different ways.

And that is the beauty of the church.

We are not a museum displaying people saints.

The church is a hospital where anyone and everyone is expected to come with their brokenness to see the Great Physician. Amen?

The last few weeks have been some of the hardest of my life.

I'm not going to put all of that on you this morning — but I want you to know that I didn't come to these psalms as a scholar looking for a sermon series.

I came to them because I needed them.

And what I found there changed me.

The Cry from the Depths

Psalm 130:1 “Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord!”

Psalm 130:2 “O Lord, hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my pleas for mercy!”

Forgiveness That Humbles

Psalm 130:3 “If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?”

Psalm 130:4 “But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared.”

My Soul Waits

Psalm 130:5 “I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope;”

Psalm 130:6 “my soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning.”

Waiting on Hesed

Psalm 130:7 “O Israel, hope in the Lord! For with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with him is plentiful redemption.”

Psalm 130:8 “And he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities.”