- Hey, good morning, and welcome to Bridgewater. If I've not gotten a chance to meet you yet, my name is Tim, I'm one of the pastors here. And we are so glad that you're here. Whether you're joining us here in Montrose, online, or Hancock, we are excited. Speaking of Hancock, this weekend marks the one year anniversary of our Hancock location. (audience applauding) Yeah. God is doing some incredible things last month they averaged 75 people. That is awesome. God is doing some incredible things in all of our locations, isn't he? Well, I have the privilege of pastoring our Conklin campus, and I recognize that many of you might not know me very well, so let me introduce you to my family. Here's a picture of my family. There's my wife and kids. (audience laughing) Chewbacca is not a part of our family, but for some reason he wanted a picture with us, so maybe he's a fan of Bridgewater Pastors, not sure. Well, today we are kicking off a new series called Your Story. And so while I'm here in Montrose, our other campus pastors are rotating through all of the campuses telling their stories, which means if you happen to be visiting from another campus and you go back to your home campus, you might hear one of these sermons again, but like, hey, I thought I heard that already, I was like, yeah, you did, we are preaching different sermons, and we're just rotating through, and so by the end of the five week series, you will have heard all of the stories from the campus pastors, and it'll be a fun time. And so today I get to share with you my story. And growing up, I did not grow up in the church. In fact, as a young kid, I was a hot mess. In fact, I'm not sure how my parents put up with me at all, I don't ever remember hearing about Jesus, unless it was a cuss word, I never heard about things about faith, or the Bible, or Jesus, or the cross. And I just, I faced a lot of challenges as a kid. In fact, when I was nine, I remember my parents got divorced and that brought on a lot of anger, anger towards them, anger towards others. In fact, I was angry at everybody. In fact, I received a black belt in sarcasm. And I left a trail of wounded people wherever I went. In fact, I think most of my teachers in elementary school couldn't stand me. I know one of them couldn't wait 'til I left. And then in seventh grade, a bunch of my friends and I, we started skateboarding, and that's all we did. We'd get home from school, and we'd grab our skateboards, and we'd go off and we'd skate in all these different parking lots, and we'd wax up all these curbs, these nice yellow painted curbs, and we'd scrape all the paint off by skateboarding on them. And these business owners despised us. In fact, many of them called the police on us. We were banned from those stores, banned from parking lots. So we took our skateboards and we built our own ramps, put those ramps in the streets, and our neighbors didn't like that. They also called the police on us. You're seeing a pattern in my life. Skateboarding, police, I fought a lot, even as a young middle schooler, I even drank some, and I was just a hot mess. And I remember in seventh grade, a new kid moved in across the street. His name was Josh. And Josh was the first person that I met who said he was a Christian, and his life actually lined up with what he talked about. Josh began inviting me to church, inviting me to youth group, inviting me to fellowship of Christian athletes. I loved hanging out with Josh, but I wanted nothing to do with his Jesus. And I continued to live my life for me. My goal was to do as little schoolwork as possible and have as much fun as possible. And I did that seventh grade, eighth grade, ninth grade. I determined life was all about me. I continued to get in trouble. I fought a lot, I got suspended a few times. And I was making a complete mess of my life. And eventually, I found myself at rock bottom. And I bet there's many of us in this room who have found ourselves at rock bottom. In ninth grade, I felt completely hopeless. I felt alone, I was angry. I felt like life was pointless. In fact, I didn't even think that I was a good person. And I thought, okay, if there in fact is a God, there's no way he could accept me or forgive me at all. I was overwhelmed with life, I hated life. So what do you do when you find yourself at rock bottom? Well, today I wanna share with you Psalm 130. So if you have a Bible, go to Psalm 130. If you don't have a Bible, we're gonna put it on the screen. While you're turning, let me give you a little bit of the background. You see, Psalm 130 is part of a bigger group of Psalms, which is the Psalms of ascent. Think road trip Psalms. So when you go on a road trip, you got your playlist. These are the songs we're gonna listen to and sing about as we go on a long trip. These are the anthem songs that Israel would sing because three times a year, they would make a journey up to Jerusalem. So these are Psalms of ascent because they are also ascending up, not because Jerusalem was necessarily north, but it was up the mountain. So no matter where you were coming from, you were ascending up in elevation. And so they would sing these songs to reorient themselves to God, who God was and what God was doing in their lives. And although they are heading up the mountaintop, this Psalm doesn't start there. It actually begins at rock bottom. So let's start with verse one. The Psalmist writes this. From the depths of despair, O Lord, a call for your help. I mean, this is a person who has hit rock bottom. He is completely overwhelmed with sin. I don't know if you've ever come face to face with your sin and your guilt, but here they are. And so to those of you who have sinned in a way that feels unredeemable, to those who have a stain in your past, you feel like every time you walk in the room, everybody's looking at you and thinking about that thing. Maybe it was the divorce that you went through. You're still trying to justify it in your mind, but you've lost your kids. Or maybe a relationship went sideways and now you've blown up a relationship with your parents. Maybe you got fired from a job because you did something unethical. And you feel unredeemable. Maybe you even spent time in jail for that thing. Maybe it's the pornography habit that your spouse discovered. Or maybe it's the pornography habit your spouse hasn't discovered. Whatever may be in your past, Psalm 130 is for you. And the Psalmist says, "It's out of the depths of despair. "I am crying out. "I'm at rock bottom. "This is like a plea for 9-1-1, right? "There's something you and I need to be reminded of. "There is complete forgiveness in God. "There is a full pardon. "God does not treat us the way that our sins deserve." Pause button, but people often do. People often do and you can't control that, but with God there is full forgiveness. It's not, "Oh, good, God has forgiven me." Then, "I'm good to go." But the Psalmist is saying, "I am coming from rock bottom. "I am crying out to you from the depths of despair." It's like when things just keep coming at you. It's that thing at work. It's the relationship strain. It's the thing going on with your kids. It's the worry, it's the fear. It's that financial thing. And things keep piling up. And you feel like you are drowning. It's out of the depths that this psalmist cries out to. And you know what? When you're drowning, you better cry out to someone who can actually do something about it. And the psalmist is crying out to the creator of the universe. He says, "Out of the depths of the despair, "Oh Lord, Yahweh, I am calling for your help." Now Jericho, let me show you the difference between Jericho and Jerusalem. Jericho is literally the lowest point on earth. Jericho is 800 feet, 800, 46 feet below sea level. It's literally the lowest point on earth, not counting the dead sea. And these psalms of ascent, they are going up to Jerusalem, starting at the lowest point. You can possibly go. And they are going up almost 2,500 feet in elevation. And so this is really a picture, a physical picture of where they're going. But it's also a spiritual metaphor. They are going up to the mountains out there, going up crying out from the bottoms of despair. The lowest point ever, in fact, the New Testament would call this repentance. If this is your starting point, man, there is good news in Psalm 130. Let's take a look at verse two. He says, "Here my cry, O Lord, "pay attention to my prayer." Here's how the NIV would say it. "Let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy." And do I need mercy? Mercy is granting favor. It's not getting what you deserve, hypothetically. If you were pulled over by a police officer 'cause you were speeding, you would deserve a ticket, right? But in the rare chance, a rare case, the officer gets you off with a warning. That would be mercy, right? You deserve something much worse and you get something that you didn't deserve. In fact, it was better than you deserve. And so when God gives you what you don't deserve and he shows you grace, he shows you mercy, right, the psalmist is saying, "Look, I'm not arguing with you. "I'm not coming with a bunch of excuses. "I'm owning what I've done, but I'm begging you. "I'm crying out for mercy." And so this psalmist continues on in verse three and he says, "Lord, if you kept a record of our sins, "who O Lord could survive? "Who could ever survive?" I mean, when God grants you mercy, it gives you forgiveness, there's no record anymore. It's not like he forgot. It's like, no, what are you talking about? And the psalmist is saying, okay, if you brought up everything that I have done, just Tim Sullivan, we're not talking about millions. We're not even talking about billions. We're talking about a number that can't even, you can't even fathom of sins and wrongdoings and the psalmist is saying, okay, God, if you actually kept a record of all of that, I wouldn't even be able to stand let alone survive. And the good news is, when you ask Jesus to be the leader of your life and the forgiver of your sins, he goes, no record, clean. You are white as snow, it's gone. It doesn't have a file with your name on it with all of the things. There's no thumb drive, there's no hard drive, there's nothing he has removed it. In fact, the psalm 103, verse 12 tells us this. He says, he has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west. Now, if you go north and you walked to the North Pole, now I know you can't actually walk to the North Pole, but pretend you can, as soon as you walked past the North Pole, you would be immediately going south. Now, there is no East Pole and there is no West Pole, okay? East and West never find each other. They will always be forever separated. And so when God says he has removed your sin and my sin as far as the east is from the West, they are forever separated and that is good news. It's good news for someone who is coming from the rock bottom, from the depths of despair who feels like they are unredeemable, he takes your sin and he removes it. Instead of keeping a record of your sins, here's what God does, look at verse four, but you offer forgiveness that we might learn to fear you. That's the good news, that's incredible, right? There is forgiveness. No matter who you are, no matter what's happened in your life, no matter what you've done, no matter what's happened to you, the major chord of this psalm is forgiveness. That you can cry out to him from the depths of despair and find mercy and you can find forgiveness. God invites you to come to him no matter where you're coming from, no matter what's happened, no matter what you're going through right now, no matter what just blew up in your life over the weekend, he says, I want you to come, walk into my presence because there's forgiveness. Let me tell you the difference between religion and the gospel. Religion says, I messed up. My dad is going to kill me. The gospel says, I messed up. I need to call my dad. He is the one you can run to and he wants to hear from you. He wants to deep and meaningful relationship with each of you and you can run to God no matter what because there is complete forgiveness in God. If you're taking notes, this is the one point, okay? So don't miss this. There is complete forgiveness. It's not 50%, not 90, not 99.9999%, it's complete. He removes your sin and my sin as far as the East is from the West. And then the psalmist says this in verse five. He says, I'm counting. I'm counting on the Lord. Yes, I'm counting on him. I have put my hope in his word. He says, you can wait on the Lord. You can wait on him. This type of waiting really requires trust from you and I. And if God can forgive me, if God can remove my sins as far as the East is from the West, then I can trust him. And then he says this in verse six. I wait on the Lord. Verse six. I wait on the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning, right? If you've ever worked third shift, you know what it's like waiting for morning to come around. And so what they would do in Israel is they had these watch towers. And so if you owned some property, you owned a vineyard, you didn't want people to steal your crops or some of your animals, you would put a family member or you'd hire somebody, put them in that watch tower, and they would work third shift. And they would watch all of your property and they'd make sure nobody was coming and stealing stuff making sure nothing bad happened. And I imagine they'd be waiting for the sun to rise. And every day the sun would be faithful to come out again. And they'd be waiting and they'd be eagerly waiting. Just like if you were working third shift, I can't wait for the sun to come up. I'm ready for my shift to be over. The Psalmist says, "I wait for the Lord." Just like a watchman waits for the morning. The Psalmist is waiting and he has a competent expectation that God is gonna show up even in your hot mess. And then verse seven he says, "Oh Israel, hope in the Lord." Why? "For with the Lord, there is unfailing love, "his redemption overflows." Like that's incredible. But here's what I want you to do. What if you put your name in there? What if it said, "Tim, Tim, put your hope in the Lord? "For with the Lord, there is unfailing love, "his redemption overflows." But what if when you read this or you prayed this, you actually put your name in it and it looked like this? Put your name in there. Whatever your name is, put your hope in the Lord. When you read this, when you pray this, put your name in that passage. Here's why. "For with the Lord, there is unfailing love "and redemption for the unredeemable overflows." And then the Psalmist says this, "He himself will redeem Israel." You could keep on doing, put in your name in there, right? "With himself will redeem me, will redeem you, "will redeem Israel from every kind of sin." Notice the progression in this Psalm? He starts off really personal. "Out of the depths, I cry out." Right, he starts off really personal and then he goes to public encouragement. Okay, Israel. Okay, everybody who's reading this, everybody who's singing this on their road trip, what if we began to put our hope in God, knowing? I don't feel redeemable, but he has actually given me complete forgiveness. Out of the depths, I'm crying out for you. Have you ever noticed that when you go through something, sometimes God will bring somebody else in your life who's then going through a similar thing, right? You were going through that thing five years ago and now circle comes back around and now you meet somebody and they're going through it and you're able to interact with them? So the thing I've noticed is God will often allow us to go through all of these experiences and then he will allow you, he will redeem your story so that you can share it with somebody else. God can take your mess even at rock bottom and make it a message of hope. And I believe that God wants to redeem your story and use it for his kingdom. At the end of my ninth grade year, Josh continued to share the gospel with me. I remember it, we were sitting in his driveway, we had just finished playing basketball. As you can tell from my height, basketball is not really my game. We were probably playing horse, you know, just kind of bouncing it off the concrete, throwing it off the roof and such. And just finished up, we're sitting talking again, all of a sudden, he's talking about Jesus again and sharing the gospel with me again. All of a sudden, boom, it clicked. For the first time I realized, yeah, I had no hope but Jesus could be my hope. And I prayed and I asked Jesus to be the leader of my life and the forgiver of my sins and I surrendered everything. And it radically transformed my life. God showed up when I never expected him to, all because a seventh grader was willing to walk across the room, willing to walk across the street and share the gospel. I know that God wants to redeem your story and use it for his kingdom. So my question for you is, who needs to hear your story of redemption? Who do you need to share it with? Is it somebody in your small group? Maybe if you're a high schooler, is it a teacher? Is it a coach? Maybe it's somebody that you work out with at the gym. Who needs to hear from your lips, put your hope in God? Because there is complete forgiveness. You can run to him. And maybe you've been coming here for a number of weeks or maybe it's your first week. You're kind of checking out this Christianity thing. And you've never placed your hope in God. What's stopping you? If complete forgiveness is available, why not do that today? And if you've already asked Jesus to be the leader of your life and the forgiver of your sins, know this, rest in the fact that there is complete forgiveness in God. So because there's complete forgiveness of God, let me share with you one challenge. I wanna challenge you to do something this week, all right? Would you do that? I want you to write your own personal Psalm based on Psalms 130. I want you to make it your own. Get out your journal, your notepad or a notes app on your phone and just go verse by verse. Start with where you are. If you happen to be at rock bottom, then start with the depths of despair. Okay, God, here's what's going on in my life. Here's where I feel unredeemable. Here's where I feel like there's a giant stain on my past and cry out for mercy. Put that in your own words. Okay, God, I'm not arguing with you. I got no excuses. I'm owning all of my stuff. But God, please give me mercy and just work through that reflect on their forgiveness that you've already received and just go line by line by line and make that your own. As you head out this week, remember, you have complete forgiveness. In a moment, I'm gonna pray and we're gonna go into our next song. And if you want somebody to pray for you or with you, you can make your way up here and there's gonna be a few individuals who would love to pray with you. Let me pray. God, we recognize there's some things that have happened in our lives. Things we wish we could erase, things we wish we could take back, things that feel unredeemable. And yet, as the Psalmist writes, you have removed all of our sins as far as the East is from the West. And you've reminded us that it's out of the depths of despair, we can walk into your presence and we can ask, you can find mercy. Mr. God, this week would you help us to be mindful of the complete forgiveness we have found in you? St. Christ name, we pray, amen. - Thanks, Tim, could you stand and sing with us? (gentle music) ♪ You came from heaven's throne ♪ ♪ The queen did with our sorrow ♪ ♪ To trade the dead, you know ♪ ♪ Your suffering, God, our freedom ♪ (upbeat music)
