Psalms 130:1-5 Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord. Lord, hear my voice: let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications. If thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared. I wait for the Lord, my soul doth wait, and in his word do I hope.
	As we continue this evening, let us allow the Holy Spirit the freedom to do that which is well-pleasing to God in our lives and in our fellowship. I make this seemingly obvious statement, knowing full well that while our mouths may say to the Lord, “by whatever means, by whatever avenue, by whatever is required for you to be glorified in our lives”; our beings are not always in it whole-heartedly. Often, we are focussed not so much on what the Lord desires as to what we desire and what we would have for the week ahead. We have our plans and our concerns for the immediate and tend to put God off for the eventual. - I think this sad statement needs to be repeated for emphasis, because it is so true in so many of us. We have our plans and our concerns for the immediate and tend to put God off for the eventual. This stems from the fact that we either refuse to give Christ complete Lordship in our beings, our entire beings, or we fail to fully recognize what the Lordship of Christ means on a day-to-day basis. We want control. It becomes a matter of our way instead of God’s way. We know, or at least we think we know, what we need to get through the daily grind of work, or school, or family chores and responsibilities each day. We have our long-term focus on God, but keep our short term focus on how best we can survive the day or the week.
	Our focus is the key to everything in our lives, long-term, short-term, moment by moment. If any aspect is focussed on ourselves rather than on Christ, we are usurping the rightful place of Christ in our lives. We are withholding from Him all that belongs to Him. 	This brings to mind the parable of Christ as related in Mathew Chapter 25 of the three servants, each given money to invest. The first two servants invested and brought back to the master the principal plus interest. The third servant, given but one talent, buried it and then returned only that meager portion to the Lord. Our lives are similarly compared to the instances of this parable. We are blessed with the fullness of the Lord. Some seem to receive great bounties of the Lord, and others but meager portions. Yet, the fact is that we have all received the fullness of Christ. The difference is in the manner in which we allow His Lordship to reign within. If He has full access to every aspect of our being, the growth in Him is full and vibrant. If, however, we hold back, we bury His Lordship into the backyard of our lives. We seek after our ways and purposes, rather than after His glory being manifested on this earth. We try to make ourselves capable of living without an utter reliance upon Him, and then we bring to Him the meagerness of our lives with an expectation of reward for putting Him off, for not trusting Him.
	When it comes to the things of God, there is no putting Him off. If we do not seek after Him of our own volition, we could well miss His entire plan and purpose for our lives. I am not talking of salvation, or of anything that would cause us to not be a Christian. Thankfully, that is not at the forefront of the matter at hand. We are saved because of Christ’s redemptive work and not because of anything that we have done to earn or to deserve it. Knowing that, we are satisfied that our elementary spiritual knowledge has been set into place. What we are after, at least what I hope that we are seeking, after all these years of studying the Word of God, and experiencing what He has put into place in our fellowship, is that full knowledge of God in Christ Jesus that does not settle for the meager portions of spiritual life. Lord willing, we are all seeking after the meat of spiritual maturity in Christ Jesus Our Lord and desiring to go on into all the fullness that is found in Him alone. 
	We concluded our previous discussion with the statement that Christ alone needs to be our focal point if we are desirous after a greater knowledge of Him. We can not look to ourselves or to our circumstances and certainly not to our own understanding. If we do, we are like the Children of Israel who chose not to enter into the Promised Land because they were not comfortable relying solely upon God to lead them in the way that they should go. They wanted some authority and some say in the matter. They wanted to be in control of the course upon which they were embarking. They were so set in their own ways that they didn’t even want to hear directly from God. They told Moses to tell God to talk to them through Moses. They couldn’t bear the voice and the presence of God, because they weren’t able to stand before God in their sinfulness. They demanded that God withdraw from them despite the fact that God had made every provision for an open relationship with Him through an avenue of forgiveness. It was a means that ultimately pointed to the need for a far greater sacrifice that would stand the test of the eternal ages, the sacrifice of His very own, only begotten Son, His Beloved. In Christ, the debt that was required for the sins of the world were paid, and forgiveness was evidenced in the very Being of God. Christ encapsulated all that the essence of God’s Holiness required in opening a living relationship with God and man.
	Before us is the great wonder of God’s work of forgiveness. It is with that aspect of what is now true in Christ, unto the complete glory of God. God is to be wholly blessed, throughout all of creation for the great work that He has accomplished in us, by His amazing work of grace. His whole heart has been laid before us, if we will but look to Him to be our everything. This is the key function of forgiveness. Consider the call of the Psalmist, unto God in our text this evening. Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord. Lord, hear my voice: let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications. If thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? But there is forgiveness with thee... The psalmist has been taken to the depths of his inner being. He has been brought face-to-face with the reality of what he has become by his own hands. There is a knowledge that has been opened into the corruption and depravity of what lies within his soul and being, and it has made him desirous after God for forgiveness. He cries from the depth of his being for God to but hear his plaintiff voice. He knows that God cannot bear sin, that the presence and fellowship with God is barred when sin is within the being. Having tasted communion with God, the Psalmist now pleads for the forgiveness of God in order to once again be allowed to partake of the joy of God’s presence. 
	Think about how God has effectively worked in our lives, each of our lives before Him. He brings us to the point that we are fully aware of who we are without Him. Have you ever noticed that we tend to get an eyeful of our own depravity, and then call out to God to save us from ourselves? We ask God to not hold anything against us, because we couldn’t help what we did. We seek after God to hear us, feeling that we are in a vacuum and that with shouting and tears and pleadings, our prayers will be more forcefully delivered unto God. None of this is the case, but it is how we feel. We think that God could not possibly be interested in us because we are so full of wickedness and deceit before His gaze of penetrating holiness. 
	What we forget, in that vision of our old humanity, is that it is no longer true of us. We are looking at what was, before Christ, and not seeing what the reality of Christ now means within us. The prophet Ezekiel knew of the coming of this truth, Eze.18:21-22 But if the wicked will turn from all his sins that he hath committed, and keep all my statutes, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live, he shall not die. All his transgressions that he hath committed, they shall not be mentioned unto him: in his righteousness that he hath done he shall live. The prophet spoke in terms of what He saw in God in that day. The Law of God was the spoken Word, given for the guidance and the redemption of the Children of Israel. They had no other means of knowing God and finding redemption before Him. By keeping the focus of all their efforts on God’s Word, His Law, they were enabled to find that avenue which pleased God for their lives. However, God has now instituted a far greater means for us to live. His Word became flesh and dwelt among us, as John points out. The Son of God, Jesus Christ fulfilled every jot and tittle of the Law in order to make a way unto the very heart of God for us. It is a living way, not in terms of fulfilling laws and minute aspects of judicial precepts that draw away and distract from the true Word of God. Rather, we now join the chorus of the psalmist in celebrating the Word made flesh I wait for the Lord, my soul doth wait, and in his word do I hope. As much as the Law meant to the true Children of Israel, so much more do our hearts rejoice before God for the forgiveness that is ours in Christ. 
	It is a joy to read the Word of God as He makes known what is now true of all of us who believe in Him. Rom. 6:6-11 Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin. Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him; Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. The anguish of our old nature before God is no more, now that we are in Christ. There is no more having to plead with God to listen to our petitions. Rather, what is now true of us in our being alive in Christ, needs to be established as our very vision, just as it is God’s vision of us. He no longer sees defiled humanity, He sees Christ Jesus in us. We are clothed, not in our self-pity but in Christ’s righteousness, of which all eternity will rejoice. No longer do we bring sacrifices of animals, as an insubstantial means of finding God’s forgiveness, but rather, we approach God in the everlasting forgiveness purchased for us at the cost of the very life of the only begotten Son, Christ.
	Has it ever become a reality in us that the forgiveness of God in Jesus Christ is so full, so complete, so comprehensive that it is the very basis of the new life that we have in Jesus Christ? It is a characteristic that cannot be separated from our life in Christ. Everything we are, everything we have, every aspect of our being is now in place because God has forgiven us all our debts by virtue of Jesus Christ, Who now lives His life in us. By His uprightness, we now live on this earth, and are to show forth, in life, the very characteristics of the One Who now indwells us. Recalling our passage from Ezekiel in his righteousness that he hath done he shall live. We are to live, not in any imagined righteousness of ourselves, but in His righteousness, the Righteousness of the One Who purchased our forgiveness once and for always. 
	Eph. 4:22-24 That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; and be renewed in the spirit of your mind; and that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.
	There is a principle that is now at work in us, in Christ. We are to show forth His characteristics of Being. Our lives are to manifest glory unto the One Who so loved us unto Himself. In nowise am I even implying that we are to become as little christs or little gods, full of our own perfection. That is what the old man was after, and that is why the old man, that old nature is in the grave - dead, now and forever! Rather, our beings should give God glory by manifesting Christ and Him only in all that we say and do. This brings us full circle to that with which we began our discussion this evening. We have no right to try to hold out anything from God. We have no place of trying to manage any of our daily walk apart from Him. When we do, we are denying Him, and serving that residue of our old nature which tried to find life without Christ, and it will never find anything but death and destruction. The old man set his heart on becoming a god, being independent from God in order to promote self-interests over all things. That is the course that showed the need for the forgiveness of God to redeem us unto Himself, and that is the reason that forgiveness is still operating within our relationship with God. He has forgiven us everything in Christ. That is done! That is accomplished! That is final! The situation, in terms of our perspective is, however, that we need to come to God on the constant basis of Christ’s effective forgiveness. As He operates to show us the better way, the perfect way, the righteous way in Christ, we need to listen and to obey. At those times of our disobedience, it is of utmost importance to be able to go before the Lord and ask for His forgiveness and for His cleansing to continue His perfect work in us. After all, it is His perfect work, and none of our own. As we are daily being brought into situations that require us to choose to glorify Him, it is of utmost comfort to know that if we err, the effectual forgiveness of Christ is operating within us.
	This does not give us the liberty to get into the cycle of sinning as we wish, and then going to the Lord, then sinning, then repenting, etc. Rather, because God has so effectively loved us unto Himself, and made us completely new in Christ, our very nature should now abhor the sin that infests this realm. Our new nature should become focussed solely on Christ, and Him only as we read in Col. 3:1-4 If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.
	As we are hid in Him, and focussed on that which pleases Him only, so we find the forgiveness of Christ essential in our new beings. It sets aside those errors and restrains us from sin. Because we are forgiven, we find ourselves in the constant presence of the most Holy God. Our earthly desires are being completely eradicated, and we now should be seeking after the things of God, those elements in our new life that will bring pleasure and glory to God on high. Having been forgiven, we realize the full aspects of the sacrifice of Christ to redeem us unto Himself, and we now would do anything to make that loving forgiveness fruitful throughout creation. 
	There is no place for flaunting our position in Christ, by virtue of our being forgiven. Rather, we should desire to have all of the created beings give glory and honor and worship and adoration to our God for the great love wherewith He has loved us. The most effectual means by which that glory will be forthcoming to our God is as the whole of creation sees it reflected in our lives. We are the vessels through whom the great work of God will be manifested, not to our glory, but to His eternal adoration. On that basis, with that knowledge, we can not be other than what the Apostle Paul writes in Gal 2:20  I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. 
	Our lives are to be living sacrifices unto the One Who has redeemed us through His nature of Love in forgiving us all our trespasses. That is a theme that we will, Lord willing, take up in our next consideration together.	
	Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord. Lord, hear my voice: let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications. If thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared. I wait for the Lord, my soul doth wait, and in his word do I hope.

	Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, To the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen. (Jude 24+25)