Repentance through Singing in Corporate Worship

I'd like to ask you to open your Bibles with me to Psalm 130. Psalm 130, this afternoon. It's a real honor and privilege to be able to open the Word of God with you today. I want to thank Scott Brown for the invitation to be here this weekend. My wife, Becky, and our three children are here with me, and we just so appreciate the work of NCFIC.

We've been focusing our attention in this conference on the need for continual repentance among God's people. And the focus of my message this afternoon is on repentance through singing in corporate worship. The question before us this afternoon really is this. Is there really any value in singing repentance? We know we need to live lives of repentance.

We know that we need to pray repentance to the Lord. But do we really need to sing repentance? And should this really be a part of our corporate worship? I mean, shouldn't worship be all about praise? Why would we want to interrupt that for a time of repentance?

I recently edited and published a new hymnal, and after we published the hymnal, I had an email from a pastor who said that he had just finished preaching on the topic of repentance, and he was searching for a hymn that would fit that subject, and he looked through his entire hymnal and he couldn't find a single hymn. And so he was thrilled to find a hymnal. We have a whole section in our hymnal dedicated to the subject of repentance and faith. I just got another email just yesterday from a former student of mine who's a minister of music, with the same, it's the same thing. He was looking for hymns of repentance, couldn't find any out there, and finally found them in our hymnal.

These hymnals, though, are really reflective of our churches. It's unfortunate that corporate repentance is missing from many church worship services, let alone the singing of repentance. So why should we sing repentance in our corporate worship? Well, in order to address this topic, I can think of no better way to do that than by looking at a God-inspired song of repentance. And that's exactly what this psalm, Psalm 130, is.

So I'd like to spend a few moments this afternoon looking together at Psalm 130. Let's read the Psalm. The Psalmist writes a song of a sense. 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 have a word of prayer and we'll look at this text together. Our Father, I ask that you would open our hearts and our minds this afternoon, that we may be able to grasp the nature of true biblical repentance through this song that you have inspired. We ask this for your glory in the name of Christ.

Amen. I would like to look at this song this afternoon in a couple of different ways as we discuss the importance of repentance through singing and corporate worship. First, I want to take a fairly quick walk through the basic message of the psalm, but then I want to go a little bit deeper and look at what the psalmist is trying to do with the psalm as a work of art, as a song. And in so doing, I hope that we'll be able to better understand the significance and power of using songs to express repentance toward God in the context of corporate worship. Psalm 130 is one of seven songs in the collection that church history has called penitential psalms, which is another way of saying songs of repentance.

Probably the most well-known of these is David's Song of Confession in Psalm 51, which we'll hear more about a little later this evening. But Psalm 6, Psalm 32, Psalm 38, Psalm 51, Psalm 102, Psalm 143, and this Psalm, Psalm 130, are the seven songs of repentance. These penitential Psalms include all of the necessary elements of heartfelt confession to the Lord. This psalm in particular has four stanzas. The first two verses, verses three and four, five and six and seven and eight.

And each of these stanzas progressively express true repentance to God. In the first stanza, verses one through two, The psalmist begins with a cry of desperation. He's expressing his deep need for God. He finds himself in a desperate situation and so he cries out to the only one that can help him. He begs God for help.

He begs God for mercy. And so what is this terrible situation in which the psalmist finds himself? Well, he tells us in the second stanza, beginning in verse 3, the situation out of which he cries to the Lord for mercy is that he is a sinner, fully deserving of the judgment of God. He knows that he's a sinner. He knows that the wrath of God hangs over him.

He knows that if the Lord would take note of his sinful condition, then he would not be able to stand under the just wrath of God. And so he confesses his sinful condition before the Lord, he confesses that he would not stand if the Lord would mark his iniquities, he confesses that he deserves God's wrath. And yet the stanza doesn't stop there, does it? In the second half of the stanza in verse four, the Psalmist proclaims that despite his sinfulness, despite the fact that he would not be able to stand under the judgment of God, in God there is forgiveness. God does show mercy to those who approach him in this way with hearts of true repentance and true faith.

And so, in the third stanza, verses five and six, the psalmist rests in that realization and he simply trusts the Lord. He places his full hope and his confidence in God, his steadfast confidence in God's ability and willingness to forgive sin. And yet this is not simply an expression of individual repentance. This psalm is meant to be used in the context of the community of faith. As the opening inscription indicates, Psalm 130 is a song of ascent.

That is, it was a psalm sung as Jews would travel toward Jerusalem for one of the required major feasts. And not only that, Portions of Psalm 130, interestingly, were included as part of Solomon's prayer of dedication at the temple. 2 Chronicles chapter 6, verses 40 through 42 are composed from verses 2 and 8 of Psalm 130. This shows us that this this Psalm is not just an expression of personal repentance, it is an expression that is meant to be used in the context of the corporate worship of God's people. And this point is made very clear in the final stanza of this Psalm, verses seven and eight.

After crying out to the Lord for mercy, after confessing his sin and finding hope and assurance in the forgiveness promised to him by God, The psalmist turns his attention to the corporate body. He admonishes the whole congregation, hope in the Lord. With the Lord there is steadfast love, and with him is plentiful redemption. He will redeem all of his people from their iniquities. You see this this penitential Psalm is not a cry of someone who is without hope.

This is not a cry like the prophets of Baal who limped around the altar trying to get the attention of their God. This is not the cry of a helpless individual pleading for mercy from a distant, unconcerned, desperate of a deity. This is a cry for mercy from someone who has already been promised mercy. This is a cry for help from someone who knows that with the Lord there is steadfast love. This is a gospel song.

It's interesting, when Martin Luther was asked what his favorite Psalms were, he replied that his favorite Psalms were the Pauline Psalms. And when they pressed him further and said, well, what are these Pauline Psalms? He answered Psalm 31, or excuse me, Psalm 32, Psalm 51, Psalm 130, and Psalm 143, four penitential Psalms. Luther said that he believed that these penitential Psalms, Psalm 130 among them, contain truths that best reflected the gospel as Paul articulated it in his New Testament epistles. These are Pauline Psalms.

This song clearly expresses the reality of our sin, God's judgment of sin, and the forgiveness that is possible for those who repent and believe. Forgiveness that is based upon the sacrificial atonement of the Son of God. This is a gospel song. So this is just a quick overview of the contents of this song. That is a song of repentance, it's a song of corporate worship, and it is a gospel song.

But notice the common word in each of those descriptions of this song. This is a song. This is not like other portions of scripture that are merely prose, didactic literature. And because this is a poem that is meant to be sung, we can't just look at the contents of the psalm. In other words, we can't treat this psalm just like a Pauline epistle.

This is a work of art. This is a poem. And so because of this, we need to take a step further and look at what this poem is doing artistically, what this poem is doing aesthetically. And in so doing, in this process, I think that we'll be able to better see why God intends for us today to express repentance through poetry set to music, why he wants us to sing songs of repentance. You see, a song like Psalm 130 is not simply given to us to express information The purpose of this song is not Simply to tell us that we are sinners and to tell us that we deserve God's judgment but that we can find forgiveness in God.

The song does tell us these things, but as a song, as a work of art, this Psalm does more than simply teach us doctrine about sin and forgiveness. A song like Psalm 130 allows the author to express aspects of the experience of biblical repentance that are deeper than just didactic statements of fact. A song allows us as readers to experience for ourselves the realities of the image that the poet paints in ways that would not have been possible if the poet had simply described the experience of repentance in a sort of detached fashion. When we read a poem, we are entering the world that the poet artistically created. We walk with him through the experience that he relates in the poem, as if we are experiencing it for ourselves, and then we are able to experience what the poet has created for us in his artistic composition.

This is true for all art, by the way. It's true for poetry, it's true for music, it's true for literature, it's true for painting. All art pre-interprets experience. The artist creates a world into which we can enter and experience the message that he has for us. This is why when we evaluate the meaning of art, like for instance what we sing in the context of corporate worship, we need to evaluate more than just what the art says, we also need to discern what the art does.

So Psalm 130 is an artistic composition. It's a song that allows us to enter experientially what the author experienced as he repented of his sin and trusted in God. And because this is God's inspired word, This psalm does so in a way that what we experience in the art is a God-centered interpretation of that experience. It is exactly what God wants us to experience when we draw near to him in repentance. That's the power of a song of repentance.

Martin Luther's comments about this very psalm I think well illustrate this point. Luther said this about the opening lines of Psalm 130. He said, These are noble, passionate, and very profound words of a truly penitent heart that is most deeply moved in its distress. In fact, this cannot be understood except by those who have felt and experienced it. We are all in deep and great misery, but we do not all feel our condition.

Luther's right, isn't he? We don't all feel our need for repentance like we should. And in fact, someone who hasn't felt that need can't even understand what it's like to feel our need of repentance. And this is where songs of repentance can come in. A good song of repentance can help us to know experientially what true repentance should be like, not only through what the song says, but also through what the song does artistically.

And so what does Psalm 130 do artistically? I'd like to point out to you what the psalmist is doing here, poetically, and in so doing, I hope that you will both experience what true repentance is through this song, and also recognize the great value in expressing repentance toward God, not only through just basic words, which we should, but also through singing songs of repentance in corporate worship. First, songs often make use of artistic metaphors to create an image. A metaphor is a representative symbol. It's a picture that's not literally true, but it communicates a truth in a deeper way than it would otherwise.

Of course, the most obvious metaphor in this psalm is the one in the opening lines, out of the depths. This phrase paints a picture. It captures our imaginations. It draws us into the world that the poet is painting. The depths here signifies something like a deep pit or deep waters in which we are drowning.

The author's not, of course, literally in a pit. He's not literally drowning in a deep body of water, but he is using this artistic metaphor that creates an image of how we should feel about our sin. I mean, imagine that you were in Houston when the hurricane hit. And you're in your home, and gradually the water creeps under your doors and you're stuck in a room, and the water begins to rise. And it reaches your knees, and it reaches your waist, and then it's up to your chest, and it's up to your neck.

That's the picture the poet is painting here. What kind of desperation would you feel in that situation? What would your cries for help look like? That's how the psalmist wants us to feel about our sin. It creeps in slowly under the doors of our lives, and at first it might not seem like such a big deal.

But as unconfessed sin continues to rise, pretty soon it's up to our knees, and then we're up to our waists, and then we're up to our neck, and then we're in big trouble. And when that happens, God wants us to cry out to him in desperation. 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.

Psalm 69 expresses something similar when the psalmist cries, Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck. I sink in the deep mire where there is no foothold. I have come into deep waters and the flood sweeps over me. I am weary with my crying out. My throat is parched.

My eyes grow dim with waiting for my God. Deliver me from the sinking in the mire. That's the picture the poet is painting here. So the author here is creating a poetic experience of desperation that he wants us to enter in as we consider our sin. And he's not just telling us that we should feel desperate about our sin.

He is showing us artistically through the use of this metaphor. That's what a good song does. The Psalmist expresses similar themes in the third stanza, verses five and six. This third stanza, like the first one, is communicating a kind of desperation because of sin. But this time it's a hope-filled desperation because we trust in the promises of God.

The poet helps us to feel this kind of desperation through another poetic device. This time he uses lots of repetition. This is a poetic device that songwriters often use in order to express something that can't be expressed just through basic didactic statements. Notice how many times in this short space that the author uses the concept of waiting or hoping, which are similar ideas. He says, I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope, my soul waits for the Lord.

And actually that final occurrence of waits in verse 6 isn't even there in the Hebrew. There's no verb in that sentence. It literally reads my soul for the Lord. The poet is leaving it out on purpose to make us fill it in ourselves, which only makes us to feel more desperate. I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope, my soul waits for the Lord.

That's what he's trying to communicate to us artistically. And then he adds two more lines that are completely repetitive and actually in the Hebrew, they read more than the watchman for the morning, watchman for the morning. This is like when your two-year-old desperately wants to get your attention. Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, Mom, Mom! That's what the poet is painting here.

The songwriter is saying that the reality of your sin should cause you to desperately cry out to the Lord for mercy and forgiveness. That's true biblical repentance. Repentance is not simply recognizing our sinfulness. Anyone can do that. Repentance is being horrified by our sin, feeling the heavy weight of our sin, and desperately crying out to the Lord for mercy.

Now again, the author could have just said that. The author could have said, my sin is bad and I need forgiveness, God please forgive me. But songs do more than just say something to us. Songs do something to us. This psalm doesn't just tell us what true repentance is like.

This psalm leads us to feel what true repentance should feel like. And it does that through using metaphors, through using repetition of words and phrases, through leaving out a verb and making us fill it in ourselves. The psalmist further paints this picture with that last metaphor he uses in those last two lines. My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning. The watchman here pictures a guard who's been standing at his post all night and he's just longing for the morning to come.

I mean, imagine that you've got the night post, you're a guard and you begin at midnight and you're doing okay, But then it gets to about 4 a.m. And then it's 4.01 a.m. And then 4.02, and your eyelids are growing heavy, and There's nothing to watch, there's nobody doing anything, you're just standing there, and you are desperately longing for that morning to come. That's the picture here. But this is also a confident waiting.

The watchman knows morning is coming. He's assured of that. He's not just hoping it's coming, he knows it's coming. And in the same way, we have confidence that God will forgive those who repent of their sins. We long for that, we desperately wait for that, but we know it's coming.

We have hope and confidence in that. So the purpose of the first and third stanzas of this song is to communicate to us the kind of desperation for the Lord that should accompany true repentance. We should not feel comfortable about our sin, we should feel desperate, we should cry out to the Lord forgiveness and then we should wait longingly for him. But then in the middle of those two stanzas of desperation and waiting, the second stanza of this song, verses three and four, reveals to us both the reason the Psalmist's sin leaves him in a condition of desperation and the solution to his situation. But again, The psalmist doesn't just tell us, the psalmist shows us artistically through a metaphor.

If you, oh Lord, should mark iniquities, oh Lord, who could stand? The poet here is creating a picture of God as a judge who's sitting on his bench, keeping record of each and every sin that we commit. And justice requires that punishment be served for each offense. If God were to operate in that way, no one would be able to stand. Again, the psalmist is not just telling us, he is showing us artistically through this metaphor.

He wants us to feel the weight of our sin. He knows that repentance is not just an intellectual assent to the reality of our sin. Anyone can do that. True repentance necessarily involves a change of heart. As Luther said, True repentance requires that we feel the misery of our sin and that we come to abhor our sin.

That's the heart reaction the psalmist wants us to have and that's what makes this song so powerful. Yet for a child of God, there's a solution to our desperate condition. But with you there is forgiveness. Here is the gospel. Here is grace.

Here is mercy. Here is God's kindness toward us. But this is not cheap grace. This is grace, as the Psalmist says, so that you may be feared. The Psalmist knows that God's people are often tempted to take God's grace for granted.

We're often tempted to see God's grace as cheap and fail to recognize what it cost for God to forgive his people. We often grow comfortable in our sin because we think that since we are God's people and since he has made unconditional promises to us, then we no longer need to repent. We no longer need to confess our sin. We no longer need to fear God, or so we think. But the psalmist wants us to fear because we are sinners, and because in God there is forgiveness.

This is why the psalmist spends so much time in this song creating an artistic picture of our desperate condition in sin and the just punishment that we deserve. Because it is only when we truly feel the weight of our condition without God that true repentance can occur. It's only when we turn away from our sin in disgust and cry out to the Lord that we truly repent. And it is only when we truly repent in that way that we can have full confidence and hope in the grace and mercy and forgiveness of God. And the psalmist beautifully expresses a progression from repentant desperation to hope and confidence and God's mercy in this song.

And he does it through a third poetic device, and that is careful word choice. A really good song isn't written in 20 minutes. A really good songwriter carefully crafts his song and carefully chooses his words in order to communicate very specific ideas. And this psalm is no different. In this song, the author communicates this progression of thought simply with the names for God that he chooses to use in progression of these stanzas.

And I want you to see this. Notice the use of the word Lord in verses one and two. The psalmist says, out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord, O Lord, hear my voice. Now in English, We see two words and we translate them both with the word Lord, but in Hebrew they're actually different terms. And of course the original audience would have seen this.

The first word is the word Yahweh. You can tell that by the all caps, Lord, probably in your edition of the Scriptures. This, of course, is the unique covenant name for God. This is the name that signifies that the Psalmist knows God's promises made to him. He knows that he is one of God's chosen people.

He knows that God's promises and his chesed, his steadfast love, his loyal covenantal love will endure forever. He knows that. But the second title for God that he uses is not Yahweh, but rather it is Adonai. This is a broader title for God that emphasizes not his covenant faithfulness and love for his people, but rather his sovereignty and his rule over all things. It's a title that expresses a deep reverence and respect for God, but in a way, it's a sort of more distant title for God, rather than the covenantal title of Yahweh.

And the author repeats this back and forth reference to God as Yahweh and as Adonai in the second and third stanzas as well. If you, oh Yahweh, should mark iniquities, oh Adonai, who could stand? That in verse five, I wait for Yahweh. And verse six, my soul waits for Adonai. It's as if in these three stanzas of repentance, The songwriter is saying, I know that I am one of God's chosen people, I know that God has made promises to me, I know that God's steadfast love toward me will endure forever, but I also know that God is the sovereign ruler of all things, and that he is just, and that he is holy, and that he cannot tolerate sin, and if he judges me for my sin I will not stand.

He knows both of these things. In these stanzas he goes back and forth, Yahweh, Adonai, Yahweh, Adonai, Yahweh, Adonai. But then look at the fourth stanza beginning at verse seven. O Israel, hope in Yahweh, for with Yahweh, There is hesed, there is steadfast love. You see, the songwriter has carefully and clearly created an artistic progression of thought here through careful word choice that his original audience would have felt as they sung this song.

When we sin, we should not take God's love and mercy for granted. We should not feel comfortable. We should feel desperation. We should recognize that the sovereign, holy, just Adonai will judge sin. But as a child of God who is repentant, we will not stay in that condition of desperation.

A child of God knows that In Yahweh, there is forgiveness. In Yahweh, there is steadfast love. In Him, there is plentiful redemption. And so we can have full and complete confidence. God will keep His covenant with us.

God will redeem his people from all of their iniquities. Through the use of metaphor and repetition and careful word choice and names for God, the songwriter of Psalm 130 moves us artistically from a feeling of repentant desperation to a feeling of complete hope and confidence in the forgiveness of God's steadfast love. The song doesn't just tell us these things, the song shows us these things artistically. And this is why we sing. We don't sing only to say right things, although hopefully everything that we say in our songs is right.

And we don't sing only just to teach us truth, although everything we sing should teach truth, we sing so that we can express and experience truth in ways that are not possible otherwise. That's the power of art. This is why God inspired much of his word as artistic literature. It communicates aspects of his truth that can be expressed only through the use of artistic expressions. Since God is a spirit and does not have a body like man, since he is infinite, eternal, and totally other than us, he has chosen particular aesthetic forms to communicate truths about himself that would not have been possible with mere prose.

This is why scripture uses all sorts of poetic devices. Some of them are here in Psalm 130, some of them are in other Psalms and in other artistic portions of scripture. These are tools that the poet uses to communicate truth in ways that prose cannot. This is why scripture calls God a king and a shepherd and a rock and a fortress. God is not literally those things, but the scripture uses these things to metaphorically and artistically communicate something about the nature of God that wouldn't be possible otherwise.

This is why the scripture uses parallelism and alliteration and allegory and so many other artistic devices. These aesthetic forms are essential to the truth itself. They're not ancillary. They're not just there to make it pretty. They're part of the truth because God's inspired word is exactly the best way that truth could be presented.

And this is the power of singing songs of repentance. Let me give you an example of this. 1 John 1.9 commands us as Christians to regularly confess our sins to God as part of our progressive sanctification. It really encompasses and summarizes Psalm 130. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

This is a simple, straightforward, clear statement of the need for repentance, and we should preach this and teach this to our families and to our churches. But what if you preach this need for repentance and someone asks you, well, what exactly does that look like? Well, you might explain to them the nature of true repentance like we've been talking about this week, but they might still press you and they might say, well, how do I know that I've truly repented? Or what does true repentance feel like? Or what's the difference between worldly sorrow and a godly sorrow that leads to repentance?

What's the difference? And you might be able to explain it, although it would take a whole lot of explanation. It'd be very difficult to explain that with just words alone. But you could express the nature of true repentance fairly easily with a song, like Psalm 130. A poem that uses artistic language to paint a picture helps us to communicate what would otherwise be very difficult.

It helps us to enable people to experience for themselves what true repentance should feel like. Now up to this point, of course, we've only talked about the poetic parts of a song, but Psalm 130 wasn't read, Psalm 130 was sung. So I wanna just briefly touch on the subject of music. Of course, there's so much we could talk about here. We don't have time to address every issue.

I've written three books on the subject and devoted my life to teaching on this very issue. But I want to at least introduce you to this subject and hopefully get you thinking in the right direction. Clearly, the music, the melody, the harmony, the rhythm, doesn't make clear statements like words do. So what's the purpose of music then? Why was Psalm 130 meant to be sung and not just read?

Well we've already talked about the fact that artistic aspects of poetry, the metaphors and the repetition and the word choices, they communicate to the heart. They don't just say something, they do something to us, to our imaginations and to our hearts. And this is very similar to how music works. Music doesn't say something to us in the same way that words do. Music shows us something.

Music is the language of our hearts, just like poetry communicates through verbal metaphors, music communicates through emotional metaphors. It communicates by mimicking our emotions. Music sounds the way emotions feel. And this is why many people refer to music as the universal language. No matter who you are, what culture you're from, where you've lived, all people feel happiness the same way and sadness and joy and grief and desperation and hope, and music can represent those kinds of moods and emotions by mimicking the way those moods and emotions feel through the rise and fall of the melody and the rhythm and the harmony.

And in this way, music can further communicate to our hearts and our imaginations more than just words can. Music can actually communicate emotional messages with more precision than just words. In other words, music can communicate the difference between godly sorrow and worldly sorrow when it would take a whole lot of words to do the same thing. And because music can do this, God has given us music as a tool to shape and teach our hearts. This is why Colossians 3.16 says, to teach and admonish one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.

We can use these songs to teach our minds most certainly, but even more than that, we use these songs to teach our hearts. So singing in corporate worship is not about entertainment, it's not about our enjoyment, it's not about stimulating emotion. Singing in corporate worship is a formative tool in which we communicate truth and shape the hearts and imaginations of the people in our congregations. So back to the question someone might ask you of 1 John 1-9, what does godly repentance feel like? Well, a carefully chosen song of repentance can show us what repentance should feel like.

And when you're living in a state of unconfessed sin, or you're taking for granted the forgiveness of God, A song of repentance may be just what you need to shake you out of your lethargy. Or even better than that, regularly participating in repentance through singing and corporate worship, week after week after week, will help shape you into someone who lives a life of regular repentance. Before we can praise God in corporate worship, we must corporately repent. We must acknowledge our unworthiness to be in God's presence, and the fact that we are only there as forgiven people by the blood of Christ. You see, that's why Psalm 130 was one of the Psalms of ascent.

Repentance through singing was a regular part of the corporate worship life of ancient Israel. As the people made their way toward the temple in Jerusalem, as they approached the presence of a holy and just God, they would sing these psalms of ascent, several of which are songs of repentance. These things shaped the people's hearts so that when they arrived at the temple, they fully recognized their unworthiness to be there and the fact that it is only by God's grace and mercy that they're able to draw near to the presence of God at all. This kind of practice continued into the early church. Early Christian worship always included a song of repentance.

Kyrie eleison, Lord have mercy, a phrase right out of the Greek New Testament. And that practice continued into the Middle Ages, and it continued even into the Reformation. For example, John Calvin wanted each worship service to begin with corporate repentance. Calvin said this, Seeing that in every sacred assembly, we stand in the view of God and angels, in what way should our service begin but in acknowledging our own unworthiness? In short, by this key, a door of prayer is open privately for each and publicly for all.

Calvin regularly began each of his services by reading the 10 Commandments, and after each commandment, the congregation would sing, Kyrie eleison, Lord have mercy, acknowledging their sinfulness. He believed that in repenting each week, the people in his congregation would be formed into people who lived repentance. Martin Luther also kept this song in his worship. He insisted that the worship services be in the language of the people in German, but he kept the Greek Kyrie, comes right from the New Testament. But then Luther also wrote other songs of repentance in German.

I wanna show you one of those as we close this afternoon. One of those those hymns that he wrote was actually a paraphrase of Psalm 130. Aus Tiefer naught, out of the depths. This was Luther's German version of Psalm 130, and it's been translated into English, and it's sung even today. Luther wrote both the text and the tune to this song.

He recognized the power of singing songs of repentance and worship, And so he translated this inspired song of repentance from Psalm 130, and he composed a tune that fit the German language well and that expressed truths of repentance and expressed what repentance should feel like so that his people would be shaped into those who lived lives of true repentance. And I wanna teach you this song as we close this afternoon. This song of repentance by Martin Luther. And I want you to feel what Martin Luther believed true repentance feels like. So I've got the hymn here up on the screen.

I even have the musical notation. If you read music, it might help you, or even if you don't, you can see the rise and fall. I'm gonna sing one line, and then have you sing the line after me. We'll learn this fairly easy tune together, all right? Out of the depths I cry to thee.

My turn. Lord hear me, I implore thee. Try it. Lord hear me, I implore thee. And we have the same melody.

Listen. Bend down thy gracious ear to me. Try it. Bend down thy gracious ear to me. My prayer let come before thee.

My turn. If thou remember every sin, If not but just reward we win, Could we abide thy presence? I want to pause just for a moment and make a comment about this tune that Luther composed. Luther composed this tune following a common form that was used in German folk music. You may have heard before someone say that Luther used bar tunes when he composed his hymns.

This is an example of a bar tune. But a German bar tune has nothing to do with taverns. A German bar tune was a folk tune in which the first part repeats musically. Did you notice that in the song? We sang two lines and then you had the same melody again, and then you had a different melody.

So it's A, A, and then B. That's a bar tune. So the next time someone tells you that Luther used bar tunes that has nothing to do with using drinking songs. It's a common German folk melody. All right, let's try the second stanza.

Now that you know it, let's see if we can sing it together. Thy Love and grace alone avail, To blot out my transgression. The best and holiest deeds must fail To break since red oppression Before the none can boasting stand But all must fear thy strict demand, And Live alone by mercy. Notice that Luther and Catherine Winkworth, who translated this into English, retained many of the images from Psalm 130 in their translation of this song. They recognize the power of these images to shape our imaginations of what repentance is like.

And also notice that Luther, in writing this melody, he knew the power of music. Luther said this, music is a glorious gift of God, and next to theology I would not exchange my small musical talent for anything it esteemed great. We should accustom the youth continually to this art, for it produces fine and accomplished people. He later said, this is the reason why the prophets did not make use of any art except music, so that they held theology and music most tightly connected and proclaimed the truth through psalms and songs. And Luther knew that he needed to write a melody that expressed his moods and emotions that fit with the theme of this text, repentance.

He didn't write a melody for this song like he wrote for a mighty fortress as our God. That melody, he wrote that melody too. That melody is stately and majestic, which fits that text. This tune expresses reverence, acknowledgement of guilt and fear of God, while at the same time expressing a rest and a sweet confidence in God's forgiveness and steadfast love. And it does that by mimicking how those emotions feel.

Luther knew that regularly singing songs of repentance like this and others in corporate worship would help to shape people. It would help to create a rhythm of repentance for life. Let's sing the final stanza of this song. Therefore my hope is in the Lord and not in my own merit. It rests upon his faithful word to them of contrite spirit that he is merciful and just.

Full and just. This is my comfort and my trust. And help I wait with patience. Let's pray together. Father, help us today to commit to regularly repenting through singing in our families and in our corporate worship so that we can be shaped into a people who live lives of repentance.

We thank you for giving us these inspired songs of repentance. We thank you for saints of old like Luther and Calvin and others who wrote other hymns of repentance for us to sing. And I pray that you would raise up in our midst others who would add to this body of great hymnody and further communicate what true repentance is theologically and what it is emotionally through good songs of repentance. This we pray in the name of Christ. Amen.

Amen.