This sermon was preached at Deer Creek Church, on August 9th, 2026. The text is Psalm 129. You can watch the sermon using the link above, or listen to the sermon below. This is an edited summary.
This morning, we are continuing our Summer study through the Psalms of ascent, which are a collection of 15 prayers the people of God would sing together as they traveled to the holy city of Jerusalem. The Psalms are beautifully unique, and serve a specific function in our lives as Christians.
Human beings, particularly children, learn through imitation. They need a model to show them how to live. Every parent understands that this is part of being human, and growing. We have to be shown how to live. My mother, for as long as I can remember, has laughed in a very specific way. She throws her head back and just laughs straight into the sky. It’s wonderful. When I was a teenager, I realized that I do the same.
More seriously, we learn how to handle our emotions, think about our world, relate to other people, and build a list of values by watching the models that go before us. You didn’t realize it, but every conversation you had with your parents was teaching you what it meant to be human, and more specifically, what it meant to be a son, or daughter.
This is precisely where the Psalms come in. As Christians, we are God’s sons and daughters. And these prayers are the conversations that show us what it means to call him Father. The reformer John Calvin once called the Psalms “an anatomy of all parts of the soul,” explaining that within their pages “there is not an emotion of which anyone can be conscious that is not here represented as in a mirror.” They show us what it means to know and relate to God in every possible circumstance.
This morning, in our particular psalm, the circumstance is grim. It is the prayer of someone suffering under the intense affliction of a hostile world. More specifically, it is the prayer of one who has been living through a season of pain and affliction that feels as though it has lasted a lifetime.
You know these seasons well. Perhaps you are in one. You know what it feels like to live through a storm that never seems to end, a deep valley, darkened by suffering and pain. And if you haven’t, the truth is a season like this will come at some point.
So the question is this: how are we to live through such times? How are we to navigate through the dark periods of life; and more importantly, how are we to relate to God through it all? Brothers and Sisters, allow this psalm to show you. In showing us how to relate to God during times of incredible suffering and adversity, the psalmist does three things, each of which will guide our time this morning.
- Address.
- Turn.
- Petition.
The Address
The Psalmist begins his prayer by addressing the current state of his life through cries of anguish.
Greatly have they afflicted me from my youth – let Israel now say – Greatly they have afflicted me from my youth, yet they have not prevailed against me.
This prayer begins with an admission, a lament, that at least from the perspective of the psalmist life has been full of great affliction for as long as he can remember. As a child, there was pain that has not ceased into adulthood. The word “greatly” here also carries this idea of frequency. It could just as easily be translated “often,” or “constantly” they have afflicted me from my youth.
Then in verse two we see a defiant ray of sunlight. In the midst of this affliction, the Psalmist says yet they have not prevailed against me. The apostle Paul echoes this elsewhere in Scripture saying that he was “persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed.” It’s an address of his harsh reality.
But this glimmer of strength from the psalmist is short-lived. In the next verse he introduces a chilling image to demonstrate exactly what he is talking about. The plowers plowed upon my back; they made long their furrows.
When farming, you must prepare soil for crops by plowing small trenches, called furrows, for seeds to be buried in. A plow was usually a double-pronged device, almost like a pitchfork, that would be dragged through the soil to make these furrows, driven by a donkey or an ox. This is the image used to depict the psalmist’s suffering. The enemy, represented by a plowman, is dragging iron plows across his back, opening up furrows of pain. You can feel it. This is his reality.
Now, do you see what the psalmist is doing? In these first three verses, he is addressing (and lamenting) the state of his life. He is laying what he feels out onto the table, before God, holding nothing back. There is one dose of optimism, the fact he has not been broken, but otherwise the psalmist honestly presents a bleak reality. He doesn’t sugarcoat it, or hide it. It’s simply there.
Now, even here there is something crucial for us to understand about our own relationship with God. It is simple, but easy to miss. Addressing and lamenting reality is a legitimate part of prayer. It is not off-limits.
Some of you in this room, at one point internalized this idea that you need to hide the reality of your life from God. We often receive these ideas from parents, and they easily transfer to our relationship with the Creator. Some of us hide from the unpleasant facts of reality by pretending that they do not exist. We refuse to admit to ourselves, and to God, what life actually looks like. We are obsessed with what we think our lives should be.
We would never say it, but we doubt that God accepts our honesty. We avoid this kind of prayer because deep down we don’t want to be seen as complainers, or even worse, as failures. “God would roll his eyes if I prayed like that,” We think.
Vulnerable moment. In the early days of my marriage I realized just how bad I was at addressing the raw facts of reality with God. As tends to be the case when two sinful people get married, issues eventually come to the surface, or flaws in my character start to show through. And Faith, my wife, did the right thing in pointing those things out to me. The problem was I had such a hard time hearing what she had to say. Why? Because I was obsessed with how I thought life was supposed to be: good! I could not bear to face the reality of my own shortcomings. I quickly realized that this is exactly how I behaved with God as well. I struggled praying about the hard parts of my life simply because I did not want to admit they were there.
But, you see? The psalmist begins his prayer by laying the good, the bad and the ugly out onto the table. Being honest with God is not complaining. It’s not a burden or a problem. You don’t need to make yourself pretty. You can stand before your Father and say “my life is not as I would like it to be.”
The psalmist does not stop there. He addresses his reality, and then makes a turn.
The Turn
Everything changes in verse four. The psalmist has clearly identified the pains of his life, acknowledging them for what they are, and here he makes a sudden turn. What does the psalmist do when faced with reality? He runs to the character of God. The LORD is righteous; he has cut the cords of the wicked.
God is righteous! We use this word so often we sometimes forget what it means. To be righteous is to be fundamentally just. God stands for what is true, and acts as a trustworthy and consistent judge.
The LORD has cut the cords of the wicked. This builds on the imagery of a plowman running over the psalmist’s back. The plow would be fixed to an animal with cord, and driven over the ground. The psalmist is saying: those cords, allowing the evil doers to split my back, have been broken. They have lost control.
Now, notice two things. First, the psalmist declares that the LORD has done this. He is not asking God to do it in the future. He is clinging to something that has already been accomplished in the past, and continues to be true in the present.
Second, God has cut the cords of the wicked. The psalmist is not saying “you have destroyed the wicked, so all my problems are going away at this very moment.” No. God has not wiped the wicked, or evil itself off the face of the earth. But their demise has begun. The psalmist is not clinging to the fact God has vanquished evil once and for all. He clings to the fact God has thwarted evil by removing their ultimate control and power. Evil is, to use the same analogy, falling away.
Imagine a sunrise. The sun comes over the horizon, and light spills out into the world. And yet we all know that for some time, until the sun reaches a certain point in the sky, shadows remain on the earth. This is what the psalmist is clinging to. God has cut the cords. The sun has risen, and even though shadows remain for some time, the evil is falling away.
So what does this mean for us? The psalmist addresses his reality, but does not stop there. He turns to God and his character. His healing balm is nothing less than the righteousness of God.
You and I live in a world that will tell you there are many good ways to handle your pain and make it through the suffering of life. Life is hard? Work harder. Work less. Get over it. Give into it. Prioritize pleasure. Give up all pleasure. Distract. Numb yourself. Cut the evildoer out. Go on a nice vacation. Manifest. Meditate. Spend lots of money. Each of these avenues looks promising enough. But you walk down their path just to get to the end still hurting, and you wonder, “maybe the one just to the right will do the trick,” and it never does.
Contrary to our therapeutic worldviews, the “solution” to your suffering is not to be found within yourself, or some offering of the culture. You don’t need to find yourself. Allow the psalmist to show you the true way. The true comfort you are searching for is found in the character of the one true God. From here, the psalmist takes one final step.
The Petition
The psalmist addresses his reality, and then turns from it to God’s righteous character. Turning to God’s character, he clings to it through petition.
May all who hate Zion be put to shame and turned backward! Let them be like the grass on the housetops, which withers before it grows up, with which the reaper does not fill his hand nor the binder of sheaves his arms, nor do those who pass by say, “the blessing of the LORD be upon you! We bless you in the name of the LORD!”
This portion of the prayer expresses a wish. He is asking God to deal justly with those who are afflicting him. He is essentially praying for two things: God, make my enemies useless, and devoid of blessing.
Let them be like the grass on the housetops! In their culture, homes were often covered with sod to help keep things cool during the Summer. The grass that grew on top of the houses was quickly rendered useless as it baked in the sun. The psalmist is saying: God, make my enemies like that. He follows this by asking that they would be passed by, spared from blessing. The psalmist does not take up a sword, swearing and cursing until his enemies are vanquished. What does he do? He looks at God, his righteousness, and prays: “God, you are the judge, so vindicate me!”
When you are in danger as a child, do you take matters into your own hands? No, you intuitively recognize that you need your Father! You call out for him. You wait until he comes to do what needs to be done. Why? Because you know that he has the power and the authority that you do not.
This rubs against our modern, American sensibilities. Contrary to a vengeful world, Christians depend upon God’s righteous action. Now this is very challenging for us. Why? Because we live in a world that praises those who take matters into their own hands. We are taught to revere those who will not be crossed.
You’ve heard it, “let them walk all over you, and you’re never getting promoted.” “Put them in their rightful place.” You’ve felt it. “I can’t let them get away with this.” “I won’t just sit here and let my life fall apart.” “I can’t be weak and in need of saving.” We struggle with this idea so much because it requires us to give up control, and depend entirely on God, who is unseen. We fail to wait for God’s justice because we fear the one who has hurt us will, in the end, get away with it. Our disposition to this idea indicates who it is we really trust: either ourselves, or God.
And yet, look at the psalmist. May the LORD shame them, may the LORD remove blessing from them. Not me.
The Cross
So then, how am I to know that God will really take care of me in the end? How do you know that justice will actually be maintained? Remember the key to verse four. The LORD has cut the cords of the wicked. What is the psalmist referring to? The Israelite pilgrims singing this psalm understood this phrase in part; but we understand it in full. Brothers and Sisters, the best way to see whether or not God is truly righteous is by looking to what he has done in sending his own son, Jesus, to hang on a cross.
The only way for God to be both perfectly righteous and loving is through Jesus dying on the cross. Loving, in that Jesus goes to the cross to offer salvation to a world that did not deserve it, and was on the path to hell. When Jesus dies on the cross, he purchases our forgiveness. Our cleansing. And yet on the cross, God is righteous, because sin is well and truly paid for. Sin brought a curse upon our heads, separating us from God in the very beginning. Jesus said “I will open the way back to the Father. And I will pay the price for sin.”
But if God just snapped his fingers and made sin disappear – he would not be just. Evil must be punished. That is what righteousness is! Don’t you see? When Jesus went to the cross for you, he satisfied the justice of God in himself!
What could be a greater assurance than this? God sent his only begotten son to bear our sin and uphold his own standard of righteousness. If God died on the cross to righteously pay for your sin then, do you think he will fail to vindicate you now, or when he returns?
Some abstract God, floating on a cloud? He might be hard to trust. But not the God who became flesh and died for you. He is real. He is trustworthy. He will bring justice. Only when we understand the forgiveness we have in Christ will we be able to cling to the truth: “The LORD is righteous; he has cut the cords of the wicked.”
