We read the holy and inspired word of God tonight from Psalm 51. Psalm 51. God's Word in Psalm 51. Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness, according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies. Blot out my transgressions. Wash me throughly from mine iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight, that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest. Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean. Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me to hear joy and gladness, that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice. Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from Thy presence, and take not Thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation, and uphold me with Thy free spirit. Then will I teach transgressors Thy ways, and sinners shall be converted unto Thee. Deliver me from blood guiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation, and my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness. O Lord, open thou my lips, and my mouth shall show forth thy praise. For thou desirest not sacrifice, else would I give it. Thou delightest not in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise. Do good and thy good pleasure unto Zion. Build thou the walls of Jerusalem. Then shalt thou be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offering and whole burnt offering. Then shall they offer bullocks upon thine altar. The text for our sermon tonight is verses 3 and 4. For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against thee, thee only, have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight, that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest. Beloved in the Lord Jesus Christ, Psalm 51 is one of the most well-known and deeply moving of all of the psalms. Even the little children are familiar with the background and the context in which this psalm was written. David had sent his armies out to fight, but David himself had remained back at his palace. One night as he's on the roof of the palace, he looks out over the city and he sees a beautiful woman, Bathsheba, bathing. His heart is filled with lust. He exercises no control of self or self-denial. He determines who she is. She's Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah, one of his faithful soldiers. He has the men bring her to him. He commits adultery with her. And then later when he finds out that she's pregnant, he arranges matters in order to get rid of her husband, Uriah, in an attempt to cover up his sin. And he continued impenitent in that sin for many, many months. Until finally, God sent his prophet and the word that the prophet brought broke David. Worked in his heart a broken and a contrite spirit and inspired by the Holy Spirit then he writes the words of Psalm 51 expressing sorrow for sin and making confession of that to God. David's confession here is intensely personal. David stands alone before the face of God here as he confesses his sin. In fact, so personal is this psalm that for a moment we might feel as if we're intruding on something very private. David speaking to his God. However, God inspired David to write this psalm and to have this made known to the people of Israel and the Old Testament and the church of all ages. So that the church reads this, sings this as a part of her worship. The point of that is that God uses David's experience and what he writes here under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to serve as a warning to us and as a guide to us in our own personal confession of sin before God. And to consider a part of Psalm 51 is very appropriate then as a way of preparing us to partake of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper next Sunday. Lord's Day 30 of our Heidelberg Catechism says that the supper is for those who are truly sorry for their sins. We read from the Lord's Supper form that one part of true self-examination is to consider each one ourselves, our sins against God, the curse that's due to us for them, so that each one of us personally may abhor and humble ourselves before the face of God. We learn. God's word here, the true nature of sorrow for sin and confession of sin and of genuine repentance. Sort of God is not only though. Intended to. Make us know the truths of sorrow and confession. The purpose of this Word of God is that we live this. Not just know it, but we put it into practice in our own lives personally. So that personally, I groan in David's groaning. My tears of grief are added to David's tears of grief. And the rebuke and the warning of David is my own rebuke and my warning. And that the joy that David knows is also the joy that you and I know personally in the forgiveness of our sins. Consider God's Word tonight under the theme, Against Thee Only Have I Sinned. First, let's consider the knowledge of sin. Secondly, the confession of sin. And then thirdly, the justification of God. One of the things that were taught here in our text. Is that the true nature of? Confession and. Repentance. Includes a deep. Sorrow and awareness of our sins. That's verse three, especially David says, for I acknowledge my transgressions and my sin is ever before me. Well, David writes that here that was not always the case for him. There was a period of time where David did not really know and acknowledge his sins. They were not before his eyes like they should have been. That period of time was at least a period of nine months. We know that because from the time that David had committed the sin of adultery with Bathsheba. Until David was brought to repentance. Was when? After that child conceived in adultery was born, so at a minimum, David had continued impenitent in this sin for a period of nine months. David describes in the sister Psalm to Psalm 51, Psalm 32, what his experience was during that period. He says in Psalm 32. When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long for day and night, thy hand was heavy upon me. My moisture is turned into the drought of summer. Perhaps at first when David had committed those sins, his conscience pricked him. But he ignored that and he dulled the conscience and its accusation. And David tried to cover up and to hide those sins. He tried to take those sins and put them behind his back so he didn't think about them. And that they were hidden away. Perhaps he made justification of himself in those sins saying that this is something that any man would have done if they were in the position that he was in. Or to say that this is something that other kings of other nations did all of the time. David truly did not know his sins. That can be the case in our lives as well. What we learn in David's fall into sin is not that there was something strange or entirely unique about David, but we learn there the reality of our own sinful natures. While we're redeemed in the blood of Jesus Christ and we've been regenerated by the Holy Spirit, we still have sinful natures, indwelling sin that corrupts and pollutes and whereby we're very easily led astray. Canons of Dort and had five Article 4 explain and summarize that teaching of God's Word when it says that converts believers, God's people converts are not always so influenced and actuated by the Spirit of God. It's not in some particular instances, sinfully to deviate from the guidance of divine grace so as to be seduced by and comply with the loss of the flax. That's the daily reality for us as children of God. We're so prone to sin that that is true of us every day of our life. And what's more, on account of our sinful natures, we can be blind to those sins. Jeremiah 17 verse 9 says the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? We can so be deceived by our sinful natures as to be somewhat ignorant to the sins that we commit and either not know even that we've sinned these sins or in knowing them, try and cover them up. To justify ourselves in our behavior. to make excuses for what we've done, to put the blame onto some extenuating circumstances as if this explains why we've sinned and made it inevitable. There's the temptation for all of us to become comfortable in sin. So that when first we've sinned, that pricks our conscience. But we dull that conscience and we ignore our conscience so that it doesn't prick us and accuse us like it once did. That can be true of any sin in the Christian's life. It can be a sin of adultery. It can be a sin like pornography. It can be sins of pride. Of selfishness. Sinful anger and impatience. Bitterness toward God and God's way for us in our life. Worldliness. Any of the sins that beset us. God in His mercy doesn't allow us as His children to go on and on in these sins without end. Though it's possible for us to fall into sin and like David to continue even in sin for a time. God in his mercy draws us back and restores us. The manner in which God did that with David was his word through the prophet Nathan. We're familiar with that part of the history as well. Nathan comes to David and comes to David with a parable, with a story. There's a rich man who has many, many sheep, and there's his neighbor, a poor man, who has one poor little ewe lamb that's like a daughter to him. And when the rich man has a visitor and he's going to feed that visitor rather than taking one of the many sheep out of his own fold, he goes to the poor man's house, steals his precious ewe lamb, and serves that to the guest. And when David hears that, he's in an uproar. He can't believe this injustice. He wants that man to pay back what he's stolen fourfold and then be put to death. And then Nathan says to him, David, you are the man. By that word of God through Nathan, God breaks David. From his pride and his stubbornness, God breaks him with a broken and a contrite spirit. So does God work in our lives. Though we sin daily and we can even fall very deeply into sin. Blind ourselves to sin, dull our our consciences. God does not allow us to go on and on to everlasting ruin, but in his mercy and his grace he restores us. God may be pleased to do so through others of his people as he did with David and Nathan. God might use our spouse. Call us out with respect to a certain sin in our lives. God uses parents in the lives of their children. He may use children in the lives of the parents to call them out. God may use office bearers in the church or friends, family, fellow church members. Lovingly, humbly, to set before us the reality of our sins. God may use his word. God might use a particular sermon. God might use a particular passage of his word that we've read to lead us to repentance. God might work through prayer, through a week of careful self-examination of lives in the light of God's Word. God might use the circumstances of our lives. God might use a trial and some hardship in our life. God might use the consequences that come upon us on account of our sin when it seems as if we finally hit rock bottom. Finally, lovingly, open our eyes to see the reality of our sins. Augustine once said about David and Nathan that God used Nathan to take those sins that David had been trying to put behind his back and to bring them around and to put them right before David's eyes. God does that with us as well. Those sins that we try and stuff behind our back and to cover over and to ignore. God graciously sets them before our eyes. And that's an act of mercy on God's part. It's painful. It's humbling. But that's an act of mercy In doing that, God is pleased by His Holy Spirit to work within us a genuine, deep sorrow and awareness of our sins. That's what David is describing here in verse 3. He says, literally, therefore, I know my transgressions. The word can carry the idea of acknowledge, but the basic idea is, first of all, to know. And that's not just the cognizance of sin. David undoubtedly never forgot that he'd committed adultery and he'd been guilty of murder. He knew that in an intellectual sense. The trouble is he didn't know it. In a real deep spiritual sense, and that's the idea here David says, now I know it. And that sin is right there before my eyes. I tried to stuff it behind my back and ignore it and make excuses for it, but now God has put it right in front of my eyes. And I know it. Undoubtedly, he never forgot it. I don't know that for sure, but David does say here, my sin is ever before me. When he walked upon the roof of his palace, He remembered the sin he had been guilty of there and when he gave instructions to his generals to order in direct battle, he remembered what kind of orders he gave to murder Uriah. A conscience once dulled, weakened on account of his sins is now sensitive, painfully sensitive to sin. And he knows his sin with the deep, sincere knowledge that is sorrow of sin. So also is God in His mercy pleased to work that kind of sorrow in our hearts as well. This sorrow is What 2 Corinthians 7 is speaking of when it talks about the godly sorrow that worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of. The sincere sorrow of heart that knows sin. It's not the case that we remember every one of our sins so that every sin is always at every moment before our eyes and we can never forget about it. There are many, many sins in our lives that are forgiven, thankfully forgotten by us. There may be some that we'll never forget. Painful sins of our youth We can never entirely put away out of our mind, though they are forgiven. Certainly not right of us constantly to bring these things up. In order to wallow in doubt as if. We're not forgiven of them. We do need to know that those sins are covered in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, and yet the memory of them rightly has a sanctifying place in our life. It humbles us. And the knowledge of how greatly we've sinned against God has a sanctifying effect in that it makes us more careful and more on guard and watchful in that particular area of our life, knowing how deeply I've fallen into that. In that respect we can say these sins are ever before my eyes. There's a sense in which that's true of all of our sins where God leads us to repentance and He takes those sins that we try to stuff behind our back and justify and make excuses for and try to ignore and He puts them right before our eyes. He works in our heart knowledge of sin. Not just intellectual knowledge. Yes, I remember that and what happened. But real knowledge of sin. So that I know this deeply. And grieve over it. With a deep sincere sorrow. This is an essential part of genuine repentance. First of all, that we know our sin. And know it with the knowledge of sincere sorrow of heart. As we examine ourselves in this upcoming week. We are to examine ourselves in this respect. Do we know our sins? This question better. Do I know my sins? Or am I trying to stuff them out of sight, justify, make excuses, claim some mitigating circumstance? Or do I know them? And are those sins ever before my eyes? David's knowledge of his sin led him to confess that sin before the face of God. That's the nature of our text. David is praying to God, I acknowledge my transgressions. The word has at its root the idea, know them, but it then also carries the idea of acknowledging, confessing them. And then verse 4 will look at that more closely in just a moment, but he's speaking to God there against thee. He says, have I sinned? David here is making open confession of his sin. Before God. It's an important aspect of daily Christian life. The fact that every day we carry with us that sinful flesh, the fact that every single day we sin against God means that every single day we need to confess our sins before God. We can and ought to do that communally, together, as we in a general way make confession of our sin against God in the church and in our families. But confession is also a very personal thing, so that we need, like David, to stand alone before the face of God and make confession of our sin against Him. Not only to make a general confession of sin, it's necessary to, we don't remember all of the particular sins we've committed throughout a day, though we know we've failed, But there's also appropriately a time to make specific confession of specific sins against God. So that like David as he confesses his sins there, we stand before the face of God. I acknowledge my sin against Thee. My sins are ever before my eyes against Thee that I sin. David makes confession of his sin, gets to the very heart of what sorrow over sin and confession and repentance really are. And that's the striking aspect of our text and one of the key things that we're to learn here when David in his confession in verse 4 says against thee, thee only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight. The difficult part of that Confession is not that David says he sins against God. The difficult part of that is when he says against thee only have I sinned. Because the fact of the matter is David had sinned against so many other people. He sinned against Bathsheba. He sinned against Uriah. He sinned against his own wife and his own family. And as the king of Israel, he sinned against the whole of the nation. And it may seem at first when David says this, against thee, the only God have I sinned, that he's minimizing the guilt of his sin against his neighbor. As if that's something inconsequential. That's not the idea, that's not the point of God's Word and David's confession here. By saying that he'd sinned against God only, David is not minimizing the seriousness of his sin against others, and it was necessary for David to make confession to those he'd sinned against who were still living. But the point of that Is that David is acknowledging what is at the very heart and the center of his sorrow over sin and his confession and his repentance and at the very heart. It was sin against God and therefore grief of heart that he had sinned against God. While he was grieved that he'd sinned against all of these others, first of all, what filled him with such grief is that he'd sinned against his God. David confesses here in sinning against God that he'd done this. In God's sight done this evil in thy sight. His concern. ultimately is not that now his sin is exposed before the eyes of the whole of the nation. But that he'd done this in the sight of God. He tried to cover it up from everyone's sight. He tried to put it out from before his own eyes. But now he knows done this evil in thy sight. No one else may have known about it or just a very few. But God was always present and God was always watching as the witness to what David had done. And it's that that fills his heart with such sorrow and grief. There's an important lesson. For us to learn in that about the nature of sorrow and repentance over sin. We cannot truly. Know our sins and grieve over them like we ought to until we reckon with this that our sin is sin against God. Yes, often. Our sins against God are also sins against our neighbor. We sin against our spouses. Parents sin against their children. Children sin against their parents. We sin against one another in the church, in our good Christian schools. Sin against others in the workplace, our employees or our employer or our co-workers. When we sin against one another, we ought to make confession of those sins to each other. Matthew 5 verses 23 and 24, Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath awed against thee, leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way first. Be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift. James 5 verse 16, Confess your faults one to another, and pray for one another, that ye may be healed. When we sin against one another, genuine repentance will show itself in a willingness to make confession of that sin to each other. And while that's a painful thing to sin against another, and it's a necessary thing to make confession, ultimately our sorrow over sin is first of all that we've sinned against God. There's a striking example of that in the Old Testament in the history of Joseph. Joseph is working in the house of Potiphar and Potiphar's wife is trying to tempt him into sin. As Joseph is running away from her, he says in Genesis 39 verse 9, How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God? It's not, how can I do this great wickedness and sin against Potiphar, my master? How can I do this great wickedness and sin against my God? Often when we sin, our concern is first of all for ourselves. What does this mean for me? How am I affected by this? We also, and rightly so, have a concern for others whom we've hurt. We're concerned about the consequences of our sin, what that sin's gonna mean for our relationship to this other person, how they're hurting. A true sorrow over sin begins with grief of heart that we have sinned against God. How could I have done this great wickedness and sinned against my God? Sinned against the Holy God in my unholiness. I've broken the law of the sovereign judge. I've used this body to sin against the Creator of it. I've sinned against my Father who loves me and made me to be one of His children. I've sinned against the Son who offered Himself as a sacrifice for me at the cross. I've sinned against the Holy Spirit who dwells within me and sanctifies me and is my comforter against Thee, Thee only. I sinned and done this evil in thy sight. In this respect also, we have to examine ourselves. And all of the sins that you and I fall into, whether it's anger, or pride, or selfishness, or worldliness, or lust, What is our concern? What grieves us about those sins? Do we think about ourselves? What this means for us? What consequences we bear? Or is our concern that we've sinned against our God and our Father? Is it that that so troubles and so breaks the heart of you and me as children of God? This is how we're to view sin. This is the confession of sin that we're to make as we stand before the face of God. I know my sin and acknowledge it. It's before my eyes ever. Against Thee, Thee only, God and Father, I sinned and done this evil in Thy sight. The inspired psalmist indicates here as well what is the ultimate purpose of such sorrow and confession. And it's quite striking what the Word of God says there. That's the last part of verse 4. That thou mightest be justified when thou speakest and be clear when thou judgest. The ultimate purpose is not David's own forgiveness and sense of peace. The ultimate purpose is the justification of God. Now the justification of God stands in contrast to the justification of self. Martin Luther once said that to justify God is to condemn self. And to try to justify ourselves is to condemn God. The opposite of the justification of God is the justification of self. David was tempted to do that for the span of nine months. To justify himself, justify his behavior, make an excuse. Try and explain it in such a way that he can soften the accusations of his conscience. But to justify self is to condemn God. We also are so prone to that. When we sin, and then when we're confronted and called out on that, our initial, immediate reaction on account of our sinful nature is, justify self. Immediately we become a lawyer on our own defense. We're going to make excuses for what we've done. We're going to try and cover it up. We're going to try and minimize how bad it is. We're going to try and shove the blame off onto someone else or something else. But to justify self is to condemn God. When we stand before the face of God and we humbly confess our sin, against Thee, Thee only have I sinned. The ultimate purpose and end of that is the justification of God. In confessing sin, we are saying God is the witness. No one else might know about it, but God, I did all of this before Thy sight. Confess sin humbly and truly is to acknowledge that God is the righteous judge. That we deserve his just judgment. That even for one sin, one small sin, we're deserving of everlasting wrath and condemnation and a curse to be poured out upon us. And to confess sin is to say that's just I deserve that. Everything that comes to me as a result and a consequence of my sin, I deserve it all worse. To acknowledge that with respect to God, I am entirely in the wrong. And that with respect to me, God is entirely in the right. This is the Godward focus of genuine repentance and sorrow over sin. And that carries through throughout. I've sinned against God. That's at the heart of it. And God is just. Let God be justified, vindicated when He speaks, be clear, be blameless when He judges. Where does that leave us then? Word of God teaches us to know sin, to sorrow over sin, and to confess that to God, to acknowledge the perfect justice of God in our own Condemnation. And the question then, is that the end and is there no hope? The Word of God in teaching us to see our sin for what it is and to look ultimately to the justification of God is to leave us entirely without escape except or the mercy of God. All we can do is cast ourselves on the mercy of God. That's what David did. Verses 1 and 2. Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Thy lovingkindness, according unto the multitude of Thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. In the versification of this psalm, we sing, Speechless I thy mercy trust. Speechless. Speechless. I don't have anything to say. I don't have any justification of myself to present. There's no explaining this away. There's no covering it up. Speechless. By faith we simply cast ourselves on the mercy of God. I've sinned. I know that. It's against Thee, Thee only that I've sinned. Have mercy. Our God is a merciful God. He's just. He's merciful. And he's pleased. To vindicate himself. And to give honor to his name. In the forgiveness of the sins of his people. It's not that God's forgiveness and His mercy is putting away of His justice and ignoring of the fact that He is to be justified. God ever remains perfectly just and in His justice must punish sin. He did that. Our sins against Him could not go unpunished in God's justice. They had to be punished. And in His mercy, He gave His Son to bear that punishment for us. It's in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ that we see both the justice and the mercy of God revealed. And they go hand in hand. One with another in perfect harmony. So that God justly and mercifully forgives us of our sins. It's not only mercy that explains the forgiveness of our sins. It's also justice. God is perfectly justified in forgiving us of our sins because in His justice, He's given the Lord Jesus Christ to pay for those sins. And in perfect justice, God, on the basis of what Jesus Christ has accomplished in His death and resurrection, says to us, you're forgiven. How we love, then, the mercy of God and His perfect justice and righteousness. And together in the Lord Jesus Christ, they are the foundation of our salvation. And the only ground on which we rest and we trust by faith. God calls us daily to confess our sin, to turn from it in sorrow and repentance. But it's not even our sorrow and repentance upon which we rest and we trust for our forgiveness. We don't come to God even dependent upon our sorrowing over sin as if that makes us deserving of God's forgiveness. Both sin confessed and sin unconfessed is deserving of God's wrath and justice. In faith, we rest entirely On the justice and the mercy of God. Revealed in the work of the Lord Jesus Christ and for the sake of Jesus Christ, then we have the utmost assurance that our sins are forgiven. It's the precious truth of the Gospel that we need to hear all the time. The precious truth of the gospel proclaimed to us as believers here tonight for the sake of Jesus Christ. All those great and heinous sins against God. Forgiven and blotted out in the mercy of God. That's what's sealed to us next Sunday in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper as well. What we hear now every Sunday through the preaching of the gospel is what will be sealed to us at the table as we eat and drink. So that we're confirmed and we're strengthened that the Lord Jesus Christ offered His body to the cross to pay for our sins. And that for His sake, we know the blessedness Sins forgiven. Amen. Let's pray. Father, who art in heaven, thy word. Painfully. Mercifully. Probes. Pricks. and cuts asunder to the very heart. We're thankful for Thy exposing of our sins to us. And we pray do that. Make us see them and know them more and more. And lead us truly to sorrow over our sins. We confess that even our sorrow over sin is not what it ought to be. It's so often corrupted and polluted by other sinful motives. We pray that Thou wilt work in us so that our sorrow is of a godly sort. So that we grieve having sinned against Thee, our God. Speechless, we trust in Thy mercy. In faith, we rest alone in the work of the crucified and the risen Savior. And for His sake, Father, blot out our transgressions, cleanse us, and purge us. We pray this in Jesus' name, Amen.