Good morning. Please turn to Psalm 130, and we're going to continue in this psalm with our focus today on verse three. We'll read the entire psalm, though, to have all of it before us. Psalm 130, a song of a sense. Out of the depths I have cried to you, O Lord. Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications. If you, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with you that you may be feared. I wait for the Lord. My soul waits, and in his word I do hope. My soul waits for the Lord more than those who watch for the morning. Yes, more than those who watch for the morning. O Israel, hope in the Lord, for with the Lord there is mercy, and with him is abundant redemption, and he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities. Amen. This is God's word. Well, as we return to the psalm, we are seeking to shape our prayers and our thoughts concerning confession and concerning our Lord and his mercy. According to these kinds of psalms, this is a confessional psalm. And last time we were in the psalm, we looked at verses one and two, where the psalm is cried out from the depths. He had become into a very low position because of his sins and perhaps other circumstances as well. And as we come to verse three, the psalmist asks a rhetorical question with a very clear answer from scripture. If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? And we know the answer that the word of God gives us to that question. And the answer is that no one could stand if God was to mark iniquities. And as we observed last time, it is the case in our lives when we go through challenging situations that a lot of these things mix together in our experience. There's the trials from outside of us. There may be those enemies that are opposing us. There certainly are always enemies in terms of the spiritual realm opposing us. And then there's our sins within us. And all of these things mix together and bring us down into the depths But above all, what is most concerning to the psalmist is his own sin. And that is instructive for us, as he is concerned that if God was to mark iniquities, if God was to hold him accountable and to bring him to judgment, he would not be able to stand. And if I was to paraphrase the idea of verse three, to put it in my own words, this is how I came up with in terms of the sense of the verse, of verse three. If you, oh Lord, brought me to the bar of judgment and charged me as guilty, I would have no defense. I would have to plead guilty. And you and your just judgment would have to sentence me to punishment. I think that's the sense of verse three. And why does the psalmist say this? Why does he include this in his prayer for God's mercy? I think that's a good question. Why does he speak of how if God were to judge him that he would not be able to stand. Here's how I would answer that. The cry of the sinner under the conviction of the Holy Spirit of God does not view sin as a trivial thing. Instead, the cry of a sinner who has experienced God's conviction of sin by the Holy Spirit, as well as a belief in God's mercy, takes sin very seriously. Last time I quoted William Plumer and what he said about sin and I thought it was worth saying again. He said, no man ever hated or dreaded sin excessively. Every sigh and groan from earth or hell, every cry rung from distress of conscience is the fruit of sin. Sin has digged every grave, built every prison, even hell itself. And so the cry of the believer asking for God's mercy understands that sin is a very serious thing. He recognizes that sin deserves God's wrath in the present life and in the life to come. That's what he, that's how he views sin. And we can contrast that perspective with an ungodly, irreverent, even blasphemous perspective that many have concerning sin when they view sin as a very trivial thing. It's not very important in their minds. Sometimes you'll hear people have these phrases where they say something like, of course God will forgive me. That's his job, right? That's just what he's supposed to do. That kind of flippant, irreverent statement treats God as if he were a divine vending machine where you put your coins in and you get confession. You put your confession in and you get mercy and comes out. You just get your forgiveness. It's like a soda can that just comes out and it's not a big deal. But what about what about this consideration? What if God didn't forgive you? That's what I think the psalmist is asking in verse three. What if God held me accountable for my own sins? What if God sent you to hell forever for the violation of his holy law? Does that consideration fill you with a sense of holy fear? Do you understand that this is your position apart from the mercy of God? Do you know that it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God? That's what the Bible says. And so verse three is to sober us to the reality of our position. We come to God not in this, this proud sense in which we think sin is a trivial thing. And we say, Oh, if you must forgive me, I guess that would be appreciated. If you forgave me of my sin, it's just not really that big of a deal to me. That's not the position of the psalmist. He comes recognizing that he deserves the judgment of God. He has that same spiritual sense as David does in Psalm 143. When David prays to God, he says in verse two of Psalm 143, do not enter into judgment with your servant. For in your sight, no one living is righteous. He says, Lord, do not do not enter into judgment with me. I could not stand. We come recognizing when we confess our sins that if God was to mark iniquities, if God was to say, I will not forgive you, we would have no other plea but guilty and condemned. But thanks be to God, there is a way of forgiveness. That's what verse four says. There is this very fearful consideration in verse three that we could not stand if God was to mark iniquities. But what is the next verse? But with you, there is forgiveness that you may be feared. And so we can't stand in and of ourselves. We cannot stand in our own righteousness, but the word of God does declare a place in which we can stand. And that is in the righteousness of Jesus Christ alone. Romans chapter five tells us, how do you stand in the judgment? Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand. and rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. So none of us can come to God and ask for forgiveness and expect to be forgiven except by the righteousness of Jesus Christ alone. We cannot stand in the judgment unless we are standing in the grace of God. And so it's in this firm foundation, Christ our solid rock, that we come to confess our sins today. And we should never lose the spiritual sensitivity that the psalmist has in verse three. It is important that as we confess our sins that we do so with a reverent fear of the living God. We come knowing that he is a just and righteous God and that we stand by mercy alone. And so today, as you confess your sins, you come saying the same thing. You say, Lord, I come before you as a sinner, one justly deserving of your judgment. I ask that you would forgive my sins through the redemption that is in Christ's blood. Do not hold this sin to my account any longer. So come with that confidence, brothers and sisters, and let us take this time now to confess our sins to God, knowing that we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. Let's pray. Our merciful heavenly Father, we acknowledge that no one living is righteous before you. And we ask that you would not enter into judgment with your servants. We confess that if you were to mark our iniquities and hold us to account, We could not stand. We could give no defense. We could only say guilty as charged. But we thank you that with you there is forgiveness that you may be feared. And we thank you that you have given us a place to stand in your grace. And this gives us confidence. It gives us hope. We rejoice. We boast even in the hope of the glory of God. And we thank you that we can come through Christ, our advocate, and know that we have forgiveness. And now we take a moment to confess our own sins to the Lord.