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Reflections on Repentance Midweek Series Wednesday, March 12, 2025
“Recognizing Against Whom We Sin”
Our midweek sermon series this year is focusing on Psalm 51, a penitential psalm by King David, when God’s prophet Nathan rebuked him for his adultery with Bathsheba and the murder of her husband, Uriah. Today we focus our attention on verses 3 and 4 of the Psalm:
For I admit my rebellious acts. My sin is always in front of me.
4 Against you, you only, have I sinned, and I have done this evil in your eyes. So you are justified when you sentence me. You are blameless when you judge.
Did David get it wrong?
It seems like such a strange thing to say that he only sinned against God. Because of his actions, Bathsheba lost her husband, carried a baby to term, lost the baby shortly after birth, and quite clearly had her life completely upended. It seems apparent that David sinned against her as he abused his power and position and as he thought nothing of her except what she could offer to him.
Did David get it wrong when he wrote that he had sinned against God alone? Hadn’t he sinned against Uriah the Hittite, too? Can you imagine the terror Uriah faced as he was bravely fighting from the front lines when suddenly all his fellow soldiers were well behind him and out of position to offer him any help or safety? It may have been only a moment before Uriah perished, untold years of his life snatched away by the decree of his Commander-In-Chief.
Did David get it wrong when in his Psalm he leaves out any mention of Bathsheba or Uriah or the nation of Israel who had a right to expect better from their king? He mentions no one and considers no one who may have been offended by or misled by his sinful actions. He says to God, “Against you, you only, have I sinned, and I have done this evil in your eyes.”
That’s a hard question for us, because we know how it feels when someone sins against us. We know the pain that it can cause when someone betrays us or mistreats us, when someone uses us for their own purposes without caring for our needs and concerns. “I can’t believe she would share my private conversations.” “He’s just so selfish.” We know the damage that can be done to relationships, damage that is hard to undo. It takes a lot to reestablish trust. It takes a long time to come close to someone again if they have hurt us before. And sometimes, there is no repairing the relationship that has been destroyed by sin.
In fact, our experience with sin can easily color how we think about any sin. A sin that doesn’t affect me much must not be a very big sin. At least, a sin that doesn’t have many negative consequences for me must not be all that bad. I have a sliding scale when it comes to how politicians behave based on whether they are “on my side” or not. I have a sliding scale about the sins of those around me based on how well I know them and how close they are to me. And I let a lot slide when I haven’t been hurt, even if I know that someone close to me his hurting someone else.
And then there are the sins that I have to admit to as well. If I had a bad day and took it out on someone, I need to patch up that relationship. If I didn’t think before I spoke, I may need to speak an apology. If I harmed someone, I may have to make it up in some way. So I have a lot of sins in my mind that can be taken care of between me and the victim. If I try a little harder and I do a little better, I should be in pretty good shape.
When David says, “Against you, you only, have I sinned,” he takes away all of the measuring and all of the sliding scales. He isn’t focused on the interpersonal, as important as that is. He isn’t focused on the hurt that he caused, as real as that was. He is focused on the one thing that matters most, the one relationship that matters most. He broke his relationship with God when he sinned and when he remained on the sinful path. He hid and covered. He denied and deflected. But then he came face to face with what righteous anger is. He was livid at the rich man in Nathan’s story, who stole his neighbor’s
ewe lamb. And when the surprise ending was revealed, David stood in the place of that rich man. He had come to understand. As the king he listened to the story that didn’t affect him one bit, yet he expected justice. God sits exalted over all things earthly, but also brought focused attention to this one series of sins and their consequences.
Was David wrong? Most certainly not. The Holy Spirit of God inspired David to write these words at this time in his life. That’s why the words are worth our careful attention. And the focus did not need to be on the interpersonal or the earthly effects. The focus needed to be on God. “Against you, you only, have I sinned.”
As we reflect on our need for repentance, we find ourselves in the same place. We may prefer to think about relationships that have been affected by sin. We might rather consider how we can make up for the harm we have inflicted, repair relationships that we have strained. The good we do might in some measure make up for the sin we have committed against them. And maybe people will give us a bit of a pass when they know our circumstances: it was a moment of weakness. I was focused on something else. I didn’t mean to hurt you.
It does not work that way with the holy God who created us and the universe we live in. He demands perfection. His justice demands it. David rightly admits, So you are justified when you sentence me. You are blameless when you judge. There is no sliding scale. There is no rationalizing or explaining away what we have done. God sees. God knows. We fail. God remains blameless as he judges us. He has every right to cast us away from him to the eternal suffering of hell.
We cannot fix things by doing better or trying harder. There is no way for us to restore the relationship that we have destroyed. There is no use comparing ourselves to others, ranking sins, or trying to bargain. God is absolutely just in his demands, in his judgments, and in his sentences.
By themselves, David’s words here sound like despair. But these words are not alone. They are spoken in the context of a Psalm that talks about mercy and compassion from the start. Mercy and compassion do not stand in opposition to God’s justice. All these characteristics that we think of as different and unique come together in the essence of God himself. So even though it seems to us that mercy and compassion cannot be correlated with justice and righteousness, they always have been in God’s plan of salvation. Only God can truly judge our sin, and only God can truly forgive our sin.
He forgives by bringing together his perfect justice and perfect compassion in Jesus. Jesus is a true human being who lived under all the expectations of God and his will and who perfectly lived up to the standard. No moments of weakness. No accidental wrongs. No covering up or trying to fix what he broke. Instead, he was working to fix what we broke. He was living in the place of a King David, in the place of me, of you, of a world of sinners just like us. God’s perfect justice had no claim against him, but in mercy and compassion for us, the punishment we deserve fell on him. Mercy and justice meet at the cross. We sing, “O dearest Jesus, what law have you broken?” And the answer is none. He did not deserve any of it. We did. But he took it for us to satisfy the perfect justice of God. And we see abundantly his mercy and compassion.
So the words of David in the this Psalm guide our repentance. Repentance does not mean, “I am sorry, but let me explain.” It does not mean, “I am sorry and here’s how I will fix it.” Repentance sounds like this: For I admit my rebellious acts. My sin is always in front of me.
Did David get it wrong? Of course not. The Holy Spirit worked through him to give us a wonderful testimony to God’s justice and mercy. We recognize the one against whom we have sinned. We say along with David,
For I admit my rebellious acts. My sin is always in front of me. Against you, you only, have I sinned, and I have done this evil in your eyes. So you are justified when you sentence me. You are blameless when you judge.