Show Notes
2 Samuel 11-12:15
Pastor Christopher Chelpka
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Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, as we come to the reading and preaching of your word, we ask that you would bless it to us. Please convict our hearts where conviction needs to be made, reassure our hearts where reassurance, where we need your reassurance and your comfort.
[00:00:17] Lord, we ask that you would help us to see ourselves as we truly are.
[00:00:23] As for those of us who are in Christ, help us to remember that and to hold fast to that, to confess and repent of our sins and put our and have complete confidence in your intercession, in your sacrifice for us, in your standing in our place.
[00:00:42] And for those of us who are not repentant, Lord, who are not following you, we ask that you would convict hearts and change them, that through the preaching of your word, people would be born anew and that we would celebrate together the work of God.
[00:01:04] We ask not only for ourselves, but that the light of the gospel, the power of God, would go out throughout all the world today and forever.
[00:01:15] We ask, Lord, especially for today, that in the places where you are establishing your new works, new churches, you would be with missionaries and evangelists in all the places that they are, that you would strengthen them, encourage them and help them to shine brightly with the good news of Jesus Christ.
[00:01:38] We pray all this in Jesus name. Amen.
[00:01:41] You may be seated.
[00:01:51] All right, let's turn to 2 Samuel now, as we continue hearing this portion of God's word, 2 Samuel 11.
[00:02:05] And I'm going to read chapter 11 and then into chapter 12 to verse 15.
[00:02:30] This is a longer passage, but I don't think it's too hard to follow if you pay attention.
[00:02:36] And it doesn't require a lot of paying attention either.
[00:02:40] In this sense, it's captivating. This is the kind of thing you can and people have made movies out of and scenes and written things.
[00:02:50] It's dramatic, it's tragic, it's terrible, and it's grasping.
[00:03:01] We see ourselves in this story in various ways.
[00:03:10] The pace slows down here in the history of God's work and his kingdom zooms in on this particular moment.
[00:03:21] And we see that a king, God's good king, God's righteous king, he seemed to be in many ways close to perfect. Not perfect. He had his faults, but really good.
[00:03:34] And now we see the horrors of sin that remain in David and in all of our hearts until the Lord sanctifies us completely.
[00:03:46] Let's give our attention now to 2 Samuel, chapter 11 through 1215.
[00:03:56] In the spring of the year, the time when the kings go out to battle, David sent Joab and his servants with him and all Israel. And they ravaged the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem.
[00:04:09] It happened late one afternoon when David arose from his couch and was walking on the roof of the king's house that he saw from the roof a woman bathing. And the woman was very beautiful.
[00:04:22] And David sent and inquired about the woman.
[00:04:26] And one said, is not this Bathsheba the daughter of Eliam the wife of Uriah the Hittite?
[00:04:33] So David sent messengers and took her.
[00:04:36] And she came to him, and he lay with her.
[00:04:40] Now she had been purifying herself from her uncleanness.
[00:04:46] Then she returned to her house and the woman conceived. And she sent and told David pregnant.
[00:04:56] So David sent word to Joab, send me Uriah the Hittite. And Joab sent Uriah to David. When Uriah came to David, David asked how Joab was doing and how the people were doing and how the war was going.
[00:05:09] Then David said to Uriah, go down to your house. Wash your feet. And Uriah went out of the king's house and there followed him, a present from the king.
[00:05:18] But Uriah slept at the door of the king's house with all the servants of the Lord and did not go down to his house.
[00:05:25] When they told David, Uriah did not go down to his house. David said to Uriah, have you not come from a journey? Why did you not go down to your house?
[00:05:33] Uriah said to David, the Ark and Israel and Judah dwell in booths. And my lord Joab and the servants of my Lord are camping in the open field.
[00:05:43] Shall I go to my house to eat and to drink and to lie with my wife?
[00:05:48] As you live and as your soul lives, I will not do this thing.
[00:05:53] Then David said to Uriah, remain here today also, and tomorrow I will send you back.
[00:05:58] So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next.
[00:06:02] And David invited him. And he ate in his presence and drank so that he made him drunk.
[00:06:07] And in the evening he went out to lie on his couch with the servants of his Lord. And but he did not go down to his house.
[00:06:16] In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it by the hand of Uriah.
[00:06:23] In the letter he wrote set Uriah in the forefront of the hardest fighting and then draw back from him that he may be struck down and die.
[00:06:36] And as Joab was besieging the city, he assigned Uriah to the place where he knew there were valiant men.
[00:06:42] And the men of the city came out and fought with Joab. And some of the Servants of David among the people fell.
[00:06:47] Uriah the Hittite also died.
[00:06:50] Then Joab sent and told David all the news about the fighting. And he instructed the messenger, when you have finished telling all the news about the fighting to the king, then if the king's anger rises and if he says to you, why did you go so near the city to fight?
[00:07:08] Did you not know that they would shoot from the wall?
[00:07:11] Who killed Abimelech, the son of Jerubbasheth? Did not a woman cast an upper millstone on him from the wall so that he died in the bez?
[00:07:21] Why did you go so near the wall? Then you shall say, your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also.
[00:07:29] So the messenger went and came and told David all that Joab had sent him to tell.
[00:07:34] The messenger said to David, the men gained an advantage over us and came out against us in the field. But we drove them back to the entrance of the gate. Then the archers shot at your servants from the wall. Some of the king's servants are dead. And your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also.
[00:07:50] David said to the messenger, thus shall you say to Joab, do not let this matter displease you, for the sword devours now one and now another.
[00:07:59] Strengthen your attack against the city and overthrow it and encourage him.
[00:08:06] When the wife of Uriah heard that Uriah her husband, was dead, she lamented over her husband.
[00:08:11] And when the mourning was over, David sent and brought her to his house. And she became his wife and bore him a son.
[00:08:18] But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord.
[00:08:23] And the Lord sent Nathan to David. He came to him and said there were two men in a certain city, the one rich and the other poor. The rich man had very many flocks and herds. But the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb. Ewe lamb which he had bought.
[00:08:42] And he brought it up, and it grew up with him and with his children. It used to eat of his morsel and drink from his cup and lie in his arms. It was like a daughter to him.
[00:08:53] Now there came a traveler to the rich man. And he was unwilling to take one of his own flock or herd to prepare for a guest who had come to him. But he took the poor man's lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him.
[00:09:06] Then David's anger was greatly kindled against the man and said to Nathan, as the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die. And he shall restore the Lamb fourfold because he did this thing. And because he had no pity, Nathan said to David, you are the man.
[00:09:26] Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel. I anointed you king over Israel. I delivered you out of the house of Saul, and I gave you your master's house and your master's wives into your arms and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah. And if this were too little, I would add to you as much more.
[00:09:43] Why have you despised the word of the Lord to do what is evil in his sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and have taken his wife to be your wife and. And have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites.
[00:09:57] Now, therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house because you have displeased me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.
[00:10:05] Thus says the Lord. Behold, I will raise up evil against you out of your own house. And I will take your wives from before your eyes and give them to your neighbor. And he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this, son, for you did it secretly. But I will do this thing before all Israel and before the sun.
[00:10:24] David said to Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord.
[00:10:28] And Nathan said to David, the Lord also has put away your sin.
[00:10:33] You shall not die nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the Lord. The child who is born to you shall die.
[00:10:43] Then Nathan went to his house.
[00:10:46] May God bless his word. To us, This is a very dramatic fall, isn't it?
[00:11:00] David has been a man after God's own heart and not fake.
[00:11:06] He struggled to be sure. And we could go back and point at instances where the Lord was not pleased, where David was forgetful, where David slipped, where David wasn't wise, where he was held back by others. But on the whole, David has been spectacular in terms of his wisdom, in terms of his judgment, in terms of his courage, and most importantly, in terms of his faith.
[00:11:35] Over and over, we have seen a man who has been devoted to the Lord, a man who is devoted to following the Lord, a man who is devoted to praising the Lord and seeing not just this and that moment, but his whole life in light of what God is doing, in light of God's plans.
[00:11:56] And then we come to these chapters 11 and 12.
[00:12:04] And here we see David's flesh is still at war against the Spirit of God that is in him.
[00:12:16] And you saw what happens. You heard what happens.
[00:12:20] He's walking on the roof of his house. He looks down. He sees Bathsheba. She's bathing.
[00:12:27] And Instead of at that moment turning away and moving on to other things, he decides to think about it.
[00:12:37] He desires her.
[00:12:40] He starts asking questions.
[00:12:42] In verse three, we see that he sends and inquires about the woman.
[00:12:47] Even in the answer that he's given in verse three, this should have been another warning to him, another obstacle to his sin.
[00:12:59] He is reminded that she is Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, one of David's, likely related to one of David's mighty warriors, the wife of Uriah the Hittite, also one of David's mighty warriors, one of the 30.
[00:13:14] These are the people who give their lives to protect him, to take care of him.
[00:13:21] This is his elite fighting force.
[00:13:24] Men that he knows, men that he commands, Men who are at this moment risking their life in his name and in the name of the Lord.
[00:13:36] Another moment, another reason, another obstacle to stop, to turn the other way, to repent of the things that are going on in his heart. But instead of repenting, instead of stopping, instead of returning to the Lord and asking for protection, for help in a moment of temptation, he presses further.
[00:14:02] He sends his messengers, he commands other people, involves them in this, takes her, they bring her to him and he lays with her.
[00:14:11] It mentions next that she had been purifying herself.
[00:14:15] The point of this is to tell us that there is no possibility for Ariah to be the father.
[00:14:22] So when he lies with Bathsheba and she becomes pregnant, there's only one person that this could be.
[00:14:32] Now, David, knowing that, decides then to cover up his sin. At every single moment along this path, there's an opportunity to turn, there's an opportunity to change. An opportunity to repent and not make things worse. But as you'll see, our sin in us makes things worse.
[00:14:53] Especially when we double down on it, when we don't seek the Lord in it.
[00:14:58] So what does he do? He tries to cover it up.
[00:15:02] He tries to cover it up. And he tries to cover it up by getting Uriah to come back home, lay with his wife, and then we just all move on, right?
[00:15:12] She knows, he knows. Maybe there's a servant or two knows. But if everybody stays quiet, we can. The child will be born, everyone will think it's arise and they'll move on.
[00:15:25] David sins in this plan and David is frustrated. More obstacles the Lord puts in his way. More moments and opportunities for him to not go further into his sin and into this tragedy.
[00:15:44] What happens?
[00:15:45] Uriah is honorable.
[00:15:48] Uriah is duty bound. Uriah is thinking about his calling and his responsibility, especially to the others, his other warriors, his other fighters.
[00:16:01] Uriah, from David's perspective, frustratingly does the right thing.
[00:16:07] He's trying to cover this up. And Uriah won't do the easiest thing like go to your own house, be with your wife, wash your feet, enjoy yourself.
[00:16:19] You're home. You got commanded by the king to come home. But Ariah, no, no, no. I want to sleep with the servants.
[00:16:28] You can imagine David sweating bullets.
[00:16:32] How can he convince a man to do this thing without making it obvious that's what he's trying to do? So he says, all right, all right, stay here, stay here.
[00:16:41] I'll send you back tomorrow. Just as you want.
[00:16:44] Notice, he tries to cover it up, too by saying that he wants reports from the field. Right? Tell me how this is going. Tell me how that's going. It must have been a little weird. It felt a little off. Maybe Uriah sensed something. It's hard to say.
[00:16:58] Nevertheless, Uriah stays. And then David says before he sends him out back, he invites him and he allows him to eat in his presence. This is verse 13.
[00:17:08] He makes him drunk and then he sends him home, basically, again. And Uriah still doesn't go home.
[00:17:17] So then David, instead of bringing Uriah to him and saying, brother, I have sinned greatly against you and against the Lord and against your wife and against all Israel.
[00:17:34] Instead of doing that, he writes a letter, probably seals it so that Ariah can't read it, and he puts a death sentence, the written death command, the death sentence, in Uriah's own hand.
[00:17:57] And the letter says in verse 15, put Uriah in front of the battle, put him in the hardest places. And then at the moment of the fighting, when it's happening, he tells Joab to draw his men back so that Uriah will be exposed and then, of course, will die naturally in war.
[00:18:19] Well, Joab, which tells us something about his character which we'll think about as we go on. Joab gives a thumbs up, says, okay, and does exactly that. Except Joab sees that David's plan is kind of dumb and it's going to be really obvious what's happened. Also, Joab probably doesn't want to get accused of being a bad leader and exposing his, you know, his best men in this way. And so he allows terribly other men to also die. It's not only Uriah that dies in this, this, but other men. He leaves some others up there so that not only Ariah, but a few others die, so it looks more real. And these men die and it's done.
[00:19:07] Uriah is dead, murdered.
[00:19:10] By David with, as the Lord calls it, the sword of the Ammonites.
[00:19:16] Interesting things throughout these chapters about responsibility.
[00:19:21] Anyway, what happens next? What happens next is that the Lord then tells, or Joab then sends messengers to tell David what has happened. But Joab knows that he kind of disobeyed what David said.
[00:19:36] And he's worried that David's going to get really mad.
[00:19:40] And so he tells the messengers, tells the messengers, when David, if David gets really mad, just throw on at the end, Uriah the Hittite is also dead and you'll be fine.
[00:19:52] So again, it's a whole, this cover up. There's strangeness around the edges. You can detect around the edges that there is something off is happening if you were on the outside.
[00:20:05] But it's all very clever, all very hidden.
[00:20:11] And so Uriah is dead and David, the messengers deliver the message. They kind of cut, cut to the quick and just say it all at once.
[00:20:22] And David says this in verse 25 to Joab, back through the messengers, do not let this matter displease you.
[00:20:33] Should it displease Joab?
[00:20:36] Absolutely. It should wreck him. It should keep him awake at night, it should make his heart hurt, it should make his body hurt. And the same will happen with David and happens with all of us when we don't confess our sins.
[00:20:53] In Psalm 32, which I read the beginning of earlier, it continues this way in verse three.
[00:21:00] For when I kept silent, not confessing sin, when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long.
[00:21:10] For day and night your hand was heavy upon me. My strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.
[00:21:17] This is what happens when we don't confess our sins.
[00:21:22] It wrecks us, body and soul.
[00:21:28] We try to say things and we try to tell each other things like don't let it displease you.
[00:21:34] Don't worry about it. Cover it up. Try to feel good about this. And David gives this, this reason. He says, verse 25, do not let this matter displease you, for the sword devours now one and now another, right? He tries to.
[00:21:57] He basically gives Joab the lie to tell himself something that's not true about what actually happened. What actually happened is Joab and David sent Uriah to his death.
[00:22:12] But then they try to tell themselves, ah, you know, battle, people die. It's what happens.
[00:22:21] No, that's the COVID up.
[00:22:23] That's not the truth. But he's trying to tell him. Tell yourself the lie.
[00:22:29] He's reinforcing the lie.
[00:22:31] Don't let it Displease you, move on.
[00:22:36] Think about the truth.
[00:22:39] In fact, strengthen your attack against the city and overthrow it. Encourage him. You've got a job to do. Get back to work.
[00:22:46] This kind of thing.
[00:22:49] And then, of course, when Bathsheba's mourning is over, David sends brings her to his house. She becomes his wife, bears him a son. Right, because she's his wife now and all is covered.
[00:23:07] Joab's not going to tell. The messengers don't know. Uriah's dead.
[00:23:13] Bathsheba is the wife of David very quickly. So no one will guess what had happened.
[00:23:22] And it's all good.
[00:23:23] We can move on.
[00:23:25] Except for a few things.
[00:23:28] Number one, what we read in Psalm 32, sin doesn't just sit there, it destroys us.
[00:23:37] The guilt, the shame. As we know that the Lord sees what he sees in us.
[00:23:45] And as the Lord's hand is upon us.
[00:23:48] And that leads us to the second thing. The Lord knows all.
[00:23:53] And as chapter 11 ends, the thing that David had done displeased the Lord.
[00:23:59] Now, this is not displeased. Like, I don't prefer chocolate over vanilla.
[00:24:05] This is.
[00:24:06] The Lord is angry.
[00:24:08] The Lord is mad.
[00:24:12] The Lord is perhaps sad as he sees all of the evil that has been committed, all the terror that has been done. The Lord is displeased.
[00:24:29] He sees Bathsheba. He desires her. He takes her. He murders. He covers it up. He destroys all kinds of lives, all kinds of families. And there will be consequences for generations to come because of what has happened. Because he just wanted what he wanted.
[00:24:46] I want what I want.
[00:24:50] So how does the Lord respond?
[00:24:53] He sends Nathan, the prophet to David. And he sends with him this parable, parable about the rich man and the poor man. One with lots of animals and one with just this one little lamb. The rich man takes from the poor man what was not his, even though he had plenty.
[00:25:17] And David gets mad.
[00:25:22] He says, may fourfold happen to this man.
[00:25:29] This is verse five. David's anger was greatly kindled against the man. And he said to David, as the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die.
[00:25:37] He shall restore the Lamb fourfold because he did this thing and because he had no pity.
[00:25:46] No pity. And then, of course, Nathan famously says, you are the man.
[00:25:58] In the Epistle of Romans, the apostle Paul says, do you who are able to judge other people think that you will somehow escape the judgment and the wrath of God?
[00:26:13] This is a perfect example of this. David, just like all of us, is extremely capable of seeing right and wrong, of discerning good from evil and rightly getting mad about it. David should be upset about this story, right?
[00:26:28] He should condemn this man. He should seek that the that that justice happen.
[00:26:35] David is able to judge.
[00:26:37] But because of that, does that mean that he will escape the judgment of God?
[00:26:43] It's kind of a crazy thing, Paul points out. We who go around all the time pointing our fingers at other people somehow think that we can hide our sins.
[00:26:52] We'll just cover it up, move on.
[00:26:56] When the Lord sees all and his judgment is perfect, never exaggerated, never, not quite enough perfect, every time, in every way. A perfect, perfectly righteous God.
[00:27:15] That's why he goes to David. That's why Nathan says, you are the man.
[00:27:20] And God points out the riches that he had given David. I anointed you king over Israel. I delivered you out of the hand of Saul. Verse 8. I gave you your master's house, your master's wives, into your arms and gave you the house of Israel and Judah.
[00:27:35] And if this were too little, I would add to you as much more. Why have you despised the word of the Lord?
[00:27:43] This is how we need to think about our sin.
[00:27:46] When we sin, it's not just, well, I really wanted it. We are despising the word of the Lord, who has given us everything graciously.
[00:27:59] We are giving the middle finger to God.
[00:28:03] We are throwing dirt and mud in his face and saying, I don't care. I want to do what I want to do.
[00:28:16] That's what David did when he struck down Uriah the Hittite, when he took his wife, when he killed these others, when he covered it up, when he brought all these other people into this plot.
[00:28:31] And the Lord is not just going to tell him this.
[00:28:35] There are going to be consequences.
[00:28:39] Verse 10. Now therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house.
[00:28:44] There will be violence, there will be destruction, there will be trouble.
[00:28:51] Similar things. A kind of justice will happen which we'll consider as we go on later in 2 Samuel to David, things that he hid and covered and did, the Lord will do openly and in judgment over David.
[00:29:05] And this child will die.
[00:29:11] So beloved, in all of this we see that even great people of faith convolve very far.
[00:29:22] We can see that people that are committed to the Lord, that love the Lord, whose hearts are devoted to the Lord, who have done amazing and wonderful things. Things can fall and fall very hard because of sin, because of wanting things that they want that the Lord has said no to.
[00:29:49] I wanted it.
[00:29:51] I wanted it really bad.
[00:29:55] I felt like I just couldn't hold back these Things are not excusable.
[00:30:02] They're not reasons that say, oh, well, okay, since you wanted it really bad, therefore you can despise the God who made you and create all kinds of destruction in your life and the life of other peoples because you wanted it.
[00:30:18] We're so foolish when we tell ourselves these things.
[00:30:22] We're so foolish in the way that we make plans, in the way that we press on. You can, and I would encourage you to do it, go back and as we did today, you know, map out the story, map out all the different decision points and imagine different alternative futures.
[00:30:38] What would have happened if at this point David had repented? Or this point or this point, or this point, or this point, or this point?
[00:30:47] Anywhere along that line, it would have been better.
[00:30:51] And you know what?
[00:30:52] Praise God, he did repent.
[00:30:55] We don't have it here yet. We're coming to it and we'll think about it. We're going to spend some time in Psalm 51, not today, but in another Sunday where we'll look at David's expression of repentance.
[00:31:08] It'd be really, really wonderful to spend time there.
[00:31:12] David does repent, and that's a wonderful thing.
[00:31:15] We can also imagine other alternative futures. What if David hadn't repented at this point?
[00:31:21] What if he had killed Nathan the prophet? What if he had gone further and done all kinds of worse things? What would have happened at that point?
[00:31:28] All that to say, the Lord holds out for us his grace all throughout our sinning, until of course, he doesn't and we die and there's no more time?
[00:31:46] Or until he comes again and judges all the earth with perfect equity? And at that point in our deaths, the judgment of the Lord, we have to ask ourselves, do we want to stand on our own righteousness and be held accountable for all of our sins, sins like this?
[00:32:07] Or do we want to have the righteousness of God stand in the forgiveness of God?
[00:32:16] Remember what we read earlier.
[00:32:18] Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven.
[00:32:22] If you want happiness, if you want fulfillment, if you want all the good things and even pleasure.
[00:32:29] The psalms tell us that at the right hand of the Lord there are pleasures forevermore.
[00:32:35] Godly, holy, wonderful, pleasure, pleasure, delightfulness, joy.
[00:32:43] Things that you can't even imagine how good it is.
[00:32:47] This hunger that God puts inside of us for love and protection, comfort, for vulnerability, for openness, for unity, for communion and fellowship. All of these things will be perfectly fulfilled and we will enjoy forever. And he gives it to us freely. We are blessed. And that happens when he forgives us.
[00:33:11] When we double down on our sin and we don't confess and we don't put our faith in him, then we only get what we deserve, the wrath of God and the wages of sin, which are death.
[00:33:27] Here we see that even great people of faith can fall very hard. But we also see that God does not leave.
[00:33:39] In this passage, we see both the justice of God, the God who sees, the God who is angry at sin, the God who will not allow his king, the king over his people to just continue on in this kind of violence and sexual immorality. He holds him to account. Praise be to God who protects his people.
[00:34:03] And we also see a God who comes graciously.
[00:34:08] A loyal soldier has been betrayed and killed.
[00:34:12] A child will die.
[00:34:15] A sword will never depart from David's house. There will be a legacy of problems and dysfunction in David's family.
[00:34:24] But at the same time, we see the Lord not leaving David. First. He comes to David.
[00:34:34] When the Lord comes to you and speaks to you about the sins in your life through the Word, through the preaching of the Word, through a friend who says, brother, sister, you are the man.
[00:34:50] This is a moment. It's hard, but it's a moment for joy as well. Thanks be to God who did not leave me in my sin.
[00:34:59] Thanks be to God who did not just allow me to continue on. Continue on. Thanks be to God who enters in and speaks in our lives and shows and reveals what's going on.
[00:35:12] It does not feel good to have our sins uncovered in one way. It hurts. It. It's embarrassing, it's nasty.
[00:35:22] And yet at the same time, it's the beginning of healing, isn't it?
[00:35:27] When God comes into our lives, when prophets speak into our lives, when we hear the word of God, this is when things begin to open up.
[00:35:36] This is when we begin to be honest and we have opportunities to be honest about who we are, about what's going on. And not only to hear, but God's word of condemnation for our sin, but also his promises for forgiveness.
[00:35:53] God, of course, is merciful to David. He does not. He forgives him for his sin, and he does not put him to death, which is the penalty for adultery.
[00:36:07] He does not put him to death. He allows him to continue on his throne. He causes a son to be born, eventually Solomon, through Bathsheba, who becomes a great and wise king and who rules in Israel.
[00:36:22] God will continue to work through David, continue to work in David's life. He will work in his own personal soul, as we'll see when we get to Psalm 51, where David pours out his heart before the Lord. David repents of his sin and seeks to find the joy of the salvation of the Lord again. And does find it.
[00:36:44] As bad as this is, and it's bad. David is restored.
[00:36:50] David will be healed, David will be lifted up and God will continue to work through David.
[00:36:59] This is not just because of God's promises to David, but because of his promises to Abraham, to Isaac, and promises going long, long ago.
[00:37:09] Promises which continue to us and are fulfilled in Jesus.
[00:37:14] God provides for us a better king than David and provides us that in Jesus Christ.
[00:37:22] Isaiah 53, 5 says that he was crushed for our iniquities.
[00:37:29] Jesus was.
[00:37:31] The Bible says that Jesus died for sins once and for all. The righteous, for the unrighteous.
[00:37:40] Why? Peter says to bring you to God.
[00:37:44] God sends his only son into the world to die for our sins, to take our place so that we can be healed, so that we have the opportunity to turn to God in repentance.
[00:37:56] This is not the end of the story. And whenever our sins are exposed, whenever we come to see the things that are going on inside of us which are not pure, which are not holy, which are despicable and embarrassing, we must not despair.
[00:38:14] Because God has spoken not only the word of the law, but he has also spoken the word of the Gospel, which says, I have given my own son for the unrighteous in order to bring you to God.
[00:38:29] Put your faith in him and your sins will be forgiven and you will be saved.
[00:38:36] When we forget this doctrine, when we forget that God saves us and graciously saves us in our unrighteousness, in our sin, we do all kinds of bad things. We downplay our sin, for one. We turn moral failures like this into mistakes, things we're trying to work through and process instead of repent of.
[00:39:00] We become people who refuse to name evil as evil when it's in ourselves.
[00:39:09] We become entitled, prideful, good things are happening, our cover ups are successful, and we start thinking of ourselves as sort of above it all.
[00:39:20] We think of ourselves as being able to live according to our own will and our own law and our own ways.
[00:39:26] And in all this, what are we doing when it comes to God just going farther and farther and farther away from him and from all the blessing that is from being in him.
[00:39:40] And Satan accuses us in the midst of all this, right, you are unlovable.
[00:39:47] God hates you.
[00:39:48] God will never love you again.
[00:39:52] He no longer cares about you. You might as well just give up. You might as well, just give in. Give yourself over to sin. It's easier.
[00:39:59] You don't have to struggle anymore. You can just enjoy it.
[00:40:04] And we get further and further from the Lord more and more enslaved to our sins. That's what happens when we forget the doctrines of grace.
[00:40:14] That's when we forget the promise of God to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
[00:40:26] We can pour our sins down before the Lord at the cross because of who he is, because of his faithfulness, because of his goodness, because of his promise to forgive.
[00:40:40] And the Lord isn't like us. He doesn't make these false promises and do these bad things and cover stuff up and have this plan over here and that over the plan. He. He just does what he does, and he does it perfectly. And so when God says, I give you my son, if you put your faith in him, you will be saved. Know that you will be saved.
[00:41:02] When we cover up our sin, it costs us ultimately everything.
[00:41:09] But when we give our sin over to God, we get mercy, forgiveness, and new life.
[00:41:18] Which is why as believers, we can all say, and such were some of us, idolaters, adulterers, sexually immoral of all kinds, revilers.
[00:41:32] Paul and others offer other lists.
[00:41:36] We were a mess, and in some ways we still are.
[00:41:41] But now the difference is, as Christians, we know the path of faith.
[00:41:48] We know the Lord Jesus, we know what he's done, and we know that we are new creations and that the Spirit of God will not lose in his battle over our flesh.
[00:42:00] And so whenever we sin, we can turn again, as David will do to the Lord, and find healing and find forgiveness and find joy.
[00:42:12] God sees and he pursues. David.
[00:42:17] Hebrews 12:6 says, the Lord disciplines the one he loves.
[00:42:24] If you are being convicted of your sin, if you are receiving a certain amount of discipline because of sin, remember that God loves you.
[00:42:34] He's like that shepherd leaving the 99 to go rescue the One. And that pursuit is his call to you.
[00:42:43] That if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us of all unrighteousness.
[00:42:52] There may be consequences that we have to endure. There may be difficulties and problems and ripple effects for years to come, but God will use it.
[00:43:02] We can take our discipline well. We can take it in faith, knowing who the Lord is and what he will do.
[00:43:10] And one of the things among the many things he does with the ripple effects that we have from past sins is he reminds us, as he does with David, forever and ever, that his salvation is his salvation, that we have no boast before God, that we belong to him because he has done this work, that we are new creations because he has done this work which only strengthens our faith more, which only causes us to turn to him more and praise his name more, and humble ourselves more and say it was all Him.
[00:43:47] That's a good thing. That's a good place to be in. That's a good life to live.
[00:43:53] Jesus is our king and he has died for his people.
[00:43:59] So to conclude things which we need to do, let us remember that sin is worse than we think.
[00:44:05] You think it's this bad? It's this bad. You think it's this bad? It's this bad.
[00:44:09] It's worse than anything because we're always minimizing our guilt. We're expecting cheap grace, easy forgiveness.
[00:44:22] But what we see instead is that God pursues us and it is not cheap.
[00:44:29] It comes at the cost of his own Son, which teaches us the nature of our sins, but also reminds us of the surety of God's grace.
[00:44:39] God has accomplished what he has promised to do. Jesus has taken the penalty that we deserve, that. That you deserve, that I deserve.
[00:44:48] And so we are forgiven.
[00:44:54] Let's do less covering, more confessing, more trusting in Jesus Christ, our lovely, perfect, never abusive, always wonderful King.
[00:45:12] Let's pray.
[00:45:14] Oh, Jesus, thank you for not harming us.
[00:45:17] Thank you for not ruling over us in ways that are aggressive and tyrannous, in ways that do not take your power and use it for sinful ends.
[00:45:29] Thank you instead for always using your perfect rule for righteousness sake.
[00:45:36] Thank you for bringing us into your kingdom. Thank you for delivering us out of the slavery of. Of sin.
[00:45:44] Thank you for revealing our hearts, Lord. It breaks our hearts when we think about the sin that is in us, the sins that we've committed in the past, the sins that are in our lives even this week.
[00:46:00] Lord, we ask that you would break our hearts, that we might not cling to our sin, but. But instead flee to you.
[00:46:09] Lord, we ask that you would help us to no longer deceive ourselves and let us also not be deceived by the accuser who would tell us that we can do what we want when we want it, and who would also tell us that you are not to be trusted.
[00:46:32] Oh, what a liar he is, Lord.
[00:46:36] Lord, he accuses us all the time and he tells us that we do not belong to you, that we aren't loved by you, that we aren't truly forgiven, that we won't truly be saved.
[00:46:51] He accuses us and he wants to make us afraid of death. When Jesus has taken away the power of death, when Jesus has made us new creatures and new life. Help us to see ourselves as we truly are.
[00:47:06] Help us to see ourselves as a people who are forgiven, who live our lives in Christ and can live freely and joyfully.
[00:47:16] Lord, help us to also be honest with one another about our sins, about our struggles, the times when we fall, so that we might not walk down paths of sin.
[00:47:28] Let us learn how to be people who confess quickly and openly and freely, trusting in the forgiveness that you offer.
[00:47:37] Help us to not minimize these things, but rejoice in your salvation.
[00:47:44] And Lord, where we are hiding, where we are not confessing, where we are harming and hurting other people so that we can get what we want.
[00:47:54] Lord, we ask that you would bring conviction, that you would bring hope and healing and joy.
[00:48:02] And as we experience the joy of your salvation, as we experience the joy of being known by you and loved by you, as we experience the removal of shame and the forgiveness of our sins, let us be a people who arise, shake off our guilty fears and and rejoice in every way that you are our King.
[00:48:27] We praise your name in Jesus name. Amen.
