Exhortation:
Our call to worship today is Psalm 130, which we’ll hear in its entirety. One of the benefits of the Psalms is that, in addition to teaching propositional truths, the Psalms demonstrate the experiential, emotional life of the believer that accompanies those truths. We’re not just heads, we’re heads attached to hearts. We have minds that process truths and doctrines but then we also have a corresponding emotional experience that feels things like sorrow, fear, hope, longing, and joy.
I invite you to take note of these things as we hear Psalm 130 read. The Psalmist begins in a place of deep sorrow, invoked by the awareness of his own sin and need for mercy. But he doesn’t JUST emote. He grounds his emotions in the truths that he knows about Yahweh – He is the God revealed to Moses, who is “merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness… forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty” (Exodus 34:6–7 ESV). He remembers and rehearses these truths, which turn his sorrow into hope, and hope into praise.
Let that be true for us today – that we too would rehearse the truths of the gospel and be renewed, restored, strengthened in the Lord. Let’s hear the words of the Psalmist and let them shape our own worship this morning.
Call to Worship from Psalm 130
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.
(Psalm 130 ESV)