When a King Stumbles: On David & Bathseba | Nathan Lawson | Life of David Part 8

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Your next step. Well, a couple of weeks ago, I was helping Mark,

our discipleship minister here, change the tie rod ends on his Ford Escape.

And it's one of those vehicles that reminds me why I would not buy a vehicle

from the north, like all that salt and all that rust and you're getting under it, it's under there.

And I'm changing it. And I maybe went a little overboard on,

I had three different safety stands it was on to be careful because it's not

the first time I've changed a tie rod end.

The first time was my mother-in-law's car. It was a Chevy Impala.

And I had it up and we're changing. And the video had clearly said,

like, lightly tap with a hammer to release the tie rod end.

And so, you know, you do that, nothing happens. I mean, this is like Jericho.

You're following the instructions and nothing's happening. You're waiting for

that seventh time, and you're hitting it. And I might be building up some steam and frustration.

And at some point, I may have struck it in such a way that I don't know if it

was the e-brake or the scissor jack that I had it on by itself, but it gave out.

The car rolls backwards, and it falls down. And then I go back to my mother-in-law,

who fortunately knows nothing about cars.

You know, upon examination, these rotors probably need to be serviced anyway

and replaced having examined them.

The rotor's all bent up and there's a huge dent in the sidewalk.

You see, the thing about it is, is there are two ways to get wisdom, right?

One way is you just learn by painful experience. You're like,

okay, next time at a family gathering, we won't say that.

Like we won't buy that. Like we're not going to put that on the yard,

whatever it is. Like you're learned it the painful way.

Like it's good idea to make sure the car is properly secured before repeatedly

striking it with a sledgehammer, like just throwing that out there.

Like you can learn it through experience or you can learn it from the example of others.

You can look at some of the tragedies that others have gone through and say,

boy, that is going to be a lesson that I'm going to take to heart without having

to go through the difficulties.

And I feel like the story today we're going to look at, because this summer

we've been following the life of King David, who's a shepherd,

a warrior, and now finally king.

And this is gonna be one of those stories that it's really best to learn the

lesson from David's life rather than going through this kind of heartache on your own.

Now to kind of back up and remember where we've been, that we've kind of been

following through David from the time he was just knee high to a grasshopper,

like he's just a kid in a field scrawny.

When King Saul was on the throne and we watched the fall of the house of Saul,

how Saul got angrier and angrier and more and more paranoid.

And David was meant to be a man after God's own heart.

We saw David as a young, zealous man coming out there on the back.

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Iath falls and David sees victory. We see his loyalty tested when Saul is falsely

accusing him, but David chooses a life of integrity and to be loyal to Saul,

even when Saul doesn't deserve it.

We saw a little bit of a chink in the armor, though, with this story of Abigail,

where David gets super offended by something Nabal says, and he's ready to go

hurt an entire village of innocent people.

And Abigail's able to intervene and kind of speak wisdom, But it's really the

beginning of something you're going to see in David's life is that David does

not treat women very well in his life.

It just it doesn't like he takes Abigail as his wife, but he also has other wives already.

And God specifically says in Deuteronomy, when you get a leader,

if you have a king, do not let them multiply wives. It only leads to heartache and trouble.

And David is already starting to violate that. Now, as he moved forward,

of course, we talked about that week where David finally, after more than a

decade of wandering around, finally becomes king.

And now he goes and he puts down all the rebellion from Saul's relatives and Ishboth Sheth.

And then finally, we saw when that was completed that Mark talked about how

David wants at the very center of the life of God's people, he wanted worship

to be there. So he has the Ark of the Covenant move from where it was to this capital city.

And David even takes off his royal robe, saying, I'm not leading this in here

as king, but as someone who is worshiping God alongside everyone else.

And David really models for us a life of worship. And that leads us to today's story.

Because in today's story, David, on the surface, seems to have achieved everything he hoped for.

He has the anointing finally of God's chosen king finally come to pass. he's king.

He's kicked out the Jebusites. He's defeated Ammonites and the Malachites and

any other kites or is it's or all those other people that he's supposed to like

David has had victory after victory.

And now he is in Jerusalem and we pick it up at this first verse.

Here's we're going to be. You're going to be in second Samuel chapter, chapter 11, verse one.

If you want to go ahead and turn there and follow along, it's going to say in

the springtime, when Kings go off to war. David sent Joab with the king's men

and the whole Israelite army.

Now, I want to say up front, I realize in English that sounds a little bit strange.

You know, in king time, when kings go out to war, some people plant tomatoes,

other people go to war. It's just what you do when it's April,

shower, spring, siege craft.

Like, I don't know, maybe that's not how you think about it.

And that's because the word war here probably doesn't mean what it connotates to you.

This is really the idea that kings would have to go around and kind of establish.

They're not going to be open season in Israel. We're not going to allow raids

into the villages. We have to have a strong edge so that otherwise,

right when spring is coming, new

animals are being born, things are being expanded and starting to grow.

And if you didn't have a strong presence, this is really as much of a police

force as it is a military force to protect the edges from the enemy encroaching closer to it.

And David, throughout his life, has been that voice, the one out there in the

wilderness, fighting against these enemies so that Israel is enjoying unprecedented prosperity.

When you're in a time where people are stealing cattle and sheep and all the

bread that you make, it's hard to get ahead.

But with David making the borders safe, now the whole nation is becoming more prosperous.

But at this moment, when there are still battles left to be fought,

there are still villages to be defended, enemies to be pushed out that have

encroached in, like they're still a call for.

And David has a group of loyal men who have been with him in the desert,

who he trusts, Joab and his other mighty men.

And he says, you know, I mean, I don't really need to go personally.

Now, if David had a good reason for staying home, there's nothing wrong with that.

Like the delegate things out so he can cover two things at once.

Part of a great leader is delegating and developing this loyal and competent leaders in his stead.

But as far as we can tell in this text, there is no good reason for David not

to go other than he is starting to get comfortable.

Because he sends out his army and it was, at least we can tell,

but it says here again, David remained in Jerusalem.

So it both says David sent and David remained. And anytime a text like this

repeats the same idea twice unnecessarily, that does emphasize that this is

an important precursor to the story.

That we want to open up and recognize that David is lost in comfort.

That there's something that can happen when things are going well for us.

We're not fighting anything.

We're not fighting deadlines. You don't have papers to turn in.

You don't have a thing, your presentation, you're trying to prepare.

You're not moving up in your field. You have reached that level of success that

looks a lot like a plateau.

And you're in that moment. And most of us, if you kind of think about the dumb

choices that we've made in our life, at least as a guy, and certainly growing

up, boredom was a precursor to all kinds of property getting destroyed.

I'll just say that right there. Like whether it was a water balloon launcher

or backyards getting lit on fire, I can say the precursor is always the same.

Well, we were kind of bored and somebody suggested and then there's flames.

Like that's what's going to happen in the sequence of things.

And that doesn't really go away as you get older.

Because as you get more comfortable, it is easy to begin to drift from your purpose.

And when you're not living with purpose, you simply don't have the drive and

the discipline to choose one option over another to kind of keep yourself focused.

And it's easy to say, well, I'm just going to watch this.

And how many times if you think about things that you watched or drank or did,

how many of them were not in the evening when you were tired and watching movies and kind of exhausted?

And then when you're at that low point of drifting, that's when temptation loomed large.

And that's exactly what happens here to David. Let's pull up the next verse one evening.

David got up from his bed and walked around the roof of his palace and from

the roof saw a woman bathing and the woman was very beautiful.

Let's leave that up for just a second.

Notice how it says, one evening, David got up from his bed.

Now, like, not reading too much into it here, but if you're getting up at 4.30

in the afternoon for no good reason, that's already not a good sign.

Like, David is not exactly firing on all cylinders at this point.

I'm stretching out four o'clock, hitting it early today. So it's evening time

when David gets out of bed.

He is walking on his roof, and he sees Bathsheba.

I'm going to say a couple of things here that are important to set up this text

the way I think that Samuel wants us to read this text.

And that is that I heard growing up that Bathsheba was bathing on the roof,

except for that's not what it says.

It says that David is on the roof. In fact, David would be the highest house

in Jerusalem there, what will later be called Mount Zion.

His palace is right next to it. He's the highest vantage point.

He's the one walking on the roof when he sees Bathsheba.

And as far as we know, she could just be in her courtyard or he's looking through

her window because he can see in all the houses.

Because this text is going to go out of its way to repeatedly say that all of

the blame for the sin that's about to take place squarely falls on David's shoulder.

Now, we're going to unpack it slowly this morning, but I just want to say up

front that this isn't a case, although there are other places in the Bible where

people have mutually make bad choices, and that's always possible.

That's not what's going on here. When David has his men go and get Bathsheba,

it's going to say he sent messengers and they took Bathsheba.

Not invited, not wooed, not tried to talk her into it and she gave in. He grabbed her.

And within a little bit, we're going to talk about a prophet who comes to confront

David. and he's going to give a story about what this is like.

And in that story, there's going to be an innocent lamb who was stolen by a rich person and killed.

Now, the whole idea when you're reading that story is, again,

it's not the lamb is partially to blame. In fact, the lamb here is a victim.

Using modern terminology, I'm going to go along with John Piper and many other

commentators who said the correct description here is that David rapes Bathsheba.

Like, there's just no other way to say it. That's what the text says over and

over again, is that he took, he grabbed, he killed, and he harmed.

And the reason we just got to kind of own that is because that is exactly the

trend we're going to see from Saul and from other kings. This temptation of

those in power to hurt those under them.

And even though throughout history, there have been a temptation for leaders

and spiritual people to say, well, David was mostly guilty. But I mean.

Bathsheba, you know, well, she was bathing on a roof, which it doesn't actually say.

Or maybe she lured him in a little bit. You know, those women, that temptress.

And there can be a tendency for people in power to at least partially blame the woman.

But everything about this story is going to say David took, grabbed, and did it to Bathsheba.

And she is a victim in this text as well.

Now, David is in this state where he sees this beautiful woman bathing and already

things are being set up that it's not looking good.

And he sent his messenger to find out about her.

Already things are going downhill.

David's already has multiple wives at home, and yet his eyes are wandering that

he's already dissatisfied with his own life.

And as you'll know, at least maybe in your own life or leaders you've seen,

there's never going to be enough to satisfy if we can't learn to be content

with what God has already given us.

David already has wives at home. David already has success. David already has wealth.

And yet there is something about his life that still lacks satisfaction.

So he's already started to look around and he says, who's that?

Well, the messenger goes and brings back this word.

Well, says the man, she is Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite.

This is the nicest possible way for the messenger to remind David that this is not just an object.

It's not just a beautiful woman, something to stare at and to objectify.

This is a person who is somebody's daughter.

This is somebody's wife. This is a child of God made in his image.

There's something that happens when we're talking about sexual sin that we can

depersonalize, right? The images that we see or that the movies that are created

and it's easy to just say, well, I'm sure it's fine and I'm sure they were all super into it.

But when you look behind it and you say, that is somebody's child.

That is a parent whose heart is broken because their child got in such a desperate

financial place that they were going to do that.

It's hard to continue in sin when you see people the way God sees them.

And this messenger is saying to David, you know, she's somebody's daughter.

That's not even a phrase that gets used a lot in Hebrew.

Women are not often introduced by their father's name. And yet right here,

that's exactly what we see.

But David, of course, even though these two individuals are not just random,

but both are people that serve in David's army.

Like these are people who've been loyal to David, who fought alongside of him,

even during his Jesse James era out in the wilderness, fighting against the

Philistines. They were there with him.

And this guy is basically trying to plead with David in a way that would,

for a servant to a king, the most culturally appropriate. David, this is Bathsheba.

She's connected with people, but David can't see it.

You see, there's something that happens when desire begins to steer the ship

and that when desire steers, discernment disappears.

And that is meant to rhyme so that you'll remember it. When desire is allowed

to kind of take the wheel, we're not really open to thinking through it very clearly.

We're easily pushed around. This is why every advertiser out there will say,

just take it for a test drive first. Then we can talk numbers.

They want you to kind of get your heart wrapped up in it. Then we'll deal with

those pesky things like, can you afford it?

We want you to be around here first, because once desire gets its hold of something,

we kind of move from reasons to rationalization.

And I don't think it's I think as a culture, this is probably the most dangerous

lie that we live in is just saying, hey, you can't help these things.

You're at work. You know, you you fall in love with somebody else.

It's almost outside of your will. And they kind of imply that that the best

way to live life is to kind of follow your heart and to be true to yourself.

And as a good example that perhaps would be an excellent way to learn how to

drive let's look at a clip where that's exactly the philosophy of how to tap

into a real race car driver mentality let's check out this clip of ricky bobby

teaching us about how to drive properly,

it's absolutely crazy i mean this is borderline reckless don't you get it you

don't drive with your eyes you drive with your heart this is just dumb i can't

see a thing you gotta feel the road You gotta let it live inside you.

Are you feeling anything now? I'm feeling a little bit. Are you?

What are you feeling? Tell me what you're feeling. I'm feeling the worn wood as well.

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Now, it's absurd when you see someone else do it, but that is literally the

message on like half of TikTok right now.

Like you can't listen to your eyes and reason about everything.

You got to trust your heart.

Like, just go for it. That is a terrible advice because desire is easily manipulated.

It's easy to rationalize. No one's going to be hurt. No one's going to find out about it.

You can imagine the script in David's head. You know, after all I've done for

this country, I mean, I mean, it's the least they could.

No one's going to find out anyway, honestly. like how long has he been away really?

I mean, if you think, I mean, I'm not doing anything half as bad as what Saul did.

Like this is way less than that. And you could see this reasoning in his mind

that begins to say, in fact, I'm owed this.

You see, once desire gets a hold of something, it can quickly manufacture things

that at least on the surface have this skin of plausibility.

And one of the things sin begins to do is it begins to downplay the consequences.

Oh, it won't be that bad. Sin always downgrades the concept.

I wouldn't even worry about it. And you end up accepting a horrible trade.

I remember there was a time when one of the times when Pokemon cards,

I think they're back in right now, or, but this was one of the times when they

were kind of peaking several years ago.

And we were at this school group where these kids had gathered.

And this one younger kid came who had this notebook filled with really nice Pokemon on cards.

I mean, they were just fancy. Him and his dad had been collecting it for years.

His dad was into it, and so they were all nice.

But this kid came in, and he was desperate for the older kids to like him.

And so when he goes into those tables to trade, you can imagine what's going to happen.

He's desperate to be affirmed and to be liked, and he's a little bit anxious.

And so he's agreeing to the worst possible trades you can imagine.

Like he's accepting, you know, for those of you into Pokemon,

like he's taking GX cards and trading them for essentially like electric energy.

Like, I mean, just absolute junk. And he comes back home and his dad's looking down.

And this kid's almost in tears because he's trying to think,

what led me to accept such a terrible trade?

Now, we had to call the parents and try to go back and fix this stuff for them.

And it was a little bit rough.

But if you think about it, if you list out the things that sin is going to cost

you, and you begin to say, this is the strain you could put your marriage under.

This is the loss of respect you'll have from your kids. This is what's going

to happen with your career at work. You could put your job in jeopardy.

This could set you back a decade in your career.

And you start listing it out and saying, so that's all the cost.

And for the benefit, it's going to be about 20 minutes of enjoyment.

Is that a good trade? And the rational part of you would say,

I would never agree to that.

But sin has a way of distorting our vision.

And so David is going to do what David's heart already decided he wanted to do.

David is not in love with Bathsheba. It is impossible to love somebody you do not know.

You cannot love somebody who you have never met before.

And David has not met Bathsheba. David has fallen in lust with Bathsheba.

He just wants her to use her. And that's what happens next.

David sent messengers to get her. Let's pull up that verse, verse four.

The word here in Hebrew is that David sent messengers and he took her, he grabbed her.

Perhaps harsh words, which are the same kind of language used when people would

steal something or grab something to get possession of it. Now,

here's what it's gonna say next.

She came to him and he slept with her, parentheses.

Now she was purifying herself from her monthly uncleanliness.

This might seem like an unusual aside. I just want to point out why this is here.

That in the law of the Old Testament, a woman had to wait seven days after her last cycle.

Don't get too squeamish, guys, but seven days after her last cycle.

And here's why that matters.

If you are about 14 days in, which this will put you at exactly at that,

you are at your highest chance of getting pregnant, even now.

That is, if you were trying to have a kid, that's what they would tell you to

do. You wait about 14 days or about halfway way through a cycle.

They knew that then just as much as we know that now.

We're not somehow like have secrets of how reproduction works that they weren't aware of at the time.

They're putting that here saying, this is a known consequence.

This is very likely to result in a pregnancy.

And so what's about to happen is not an unforeseen consequence.

But David isn't worried about consequence. She went back home and the woman

conceived and sent word to David saying, I'm pregnant.

Now, David has a very difficult choice. Now that sin has made that offer saying

it won't cost you anything, there won't be any consequences.

But now that it's happened, sin not only undersells the price tag,

but it makes you pay triple in shame.

Because now David is looking around saying it is going to be,

if this gets out, this could undermine my credibility.

This could destroy my standing with the army.

And David has a choice on how he's going to react with now that this has happen?

What if the news gets out?

And I think a lot of us kind of fall into the trap of believing that,

you know, confession is only going to make it worse.

I mean, it's going to make the other person feel bad. It's going to make my kids not respect me.

You know, my fellow employees won't be able to confide in me.

If I come clean, I mean, I would, but it's for them.

I'm not going to tell it, but it's for them because I'm protecting their heart.

I just don't want to make things worse than that. And it has a way of kind of twisting.

The enemy has a way of convincing you that, you know, covering up is in everyone's best interest.

From the very beginning, when Adam and Eve sinned, and then they go and hide

from God, that desire to say, I don't want to face the consequences of my actions.

It's the best move here is to cover it up. And David decides that a cover up

is what he needs to do. And so here's what he does.

Here's what he's going to say next as we kind of pull up this verse.

Here's what he's going to do. It's verse five.

The woman conceived and sent word to David saying, I'm impregnant.

So David sent his word to Joab saying, send me Uriah the Hittite.

And when Uriah came to him, David asked him how Joab and how Joab was and how

the soldiers were and how the war is going. This whole thing is awkward.

Like he wrote a letter to Joab who could have just told him in a letter how it was going.

And he said, no, no, send me one of your best soldiers, one of your top ones

to go back. And I'm sure Joab is like, you know, we're sort of fighting a little bit of a war here.

So like sending him out isn't convenient, but he comes and David's like,

I just wanted to hear it straight from a friend's mouth. How's it going?

And the guy's like, good, I guess. Like, we're fighting people.

And there's this awkward moment where then David says, you know what,

Uriah? Ugh, you and I go way back. I tell you what.

You just need to go down to your house and wash your feet.

You don't have to be a language expert to know that David is using a euphemism

that is not concerned with foot hygiene. I'll just tell you that.

This is talking about what you imagine it's talking about.

You can try that around your kids if you need a code word. Hey,

honey, how about we consider washing feet sometime?

Like, you can just throw that out there. They won't know what you're talking about either.

And he goes down there. And so he says, why don't you just go back to your house?

You know, come on. We've been out in the woods for way too long.

We got to go back and enjoy the blessings and the bounty that God has given us in this time.

And Uriah won't do it. That's because in the Israelite army,

it was believed you had to abstain from sexual practices because while you were

a soldier, you were not to be indulging in the flesh because that could lead

to people taking advantage in the villages that they ran into.

And they wanted to walk in with an atmosphere of self-control.

And so it was said that when you set yourself apart for war,

you do that until it's done.

Then you go home. And so he says, I'm not going to do that.

I'm right now. I got friends who are dying on the battlefield.

Like, I can't do that. So he goes and he prays. You see, Uriah knows his purpose.

In the battlefield and at home on vacation and at rest, he says,

this is what God wants me to do right now.

And I cannot exchange my calling for momentary happiness. I can't do that to my friends.

And so David's like, of all the guys who won't take a hint. Okay, fine.

I tell you what, let's come back up to the palace. Let's get out some bottles

of wine and we'll talk the old stories.

Ah, you remember that time I had that crazy and the Philistines and I was all

nuts and there was that king. Those were good memories.

Keep the wine coming until Uriah gets drunk. And then he says,

now we'll send him on his way. Finally.

And he doesn't tell us why, but Uriah doesn't make it back to his house,

whether it's too much to drink. and so he passes out en route.

I don't know, but he doesn't sleep with his wife then either.

And so now David has to decide what he's going to do.

The thing about it is, it's not just his reputation and his integrity.

Uriah is one of his mighty men listed in 2 Samuel 3, verse 39.

2 Samuel 3:39

He's one of the elite listed out who is both competent and experienced.

And if word gets around that one of David's generals. David has betrayed him.

Every other warrior who's fighting for David is going to be saying,

well, I can't go out and fight for David. He may take my wife.

He may take my family. He may take my property. I mean, we can't trust a guy like that.

His whole grip on this loyal group of people could fall apart.

His army could fall apart. And with it, the whole kingdom and his plans were all going to fall apart.

This could ruin everything. And so he decides the only solution is I have to get rid of Uriah.

So he writes a note that tells Joab, here's what he says.

In the morning, David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah.

And in the note, here's what he said to Joab, that general, put Uriah out in

the front of the, where the fighting is the furious, then withdraw from him.

So he will be struck down and die.

And that's exactly what happens. The thing about it is, is David is so confident

in Uriah's integrity that he knows Uriah won't even open the letter and read

it because he won't violate a king's seal.

That's how much David trusts in his integrity to cover up his own lies and his own scandal.

And Uriah is killed. And after a time of mourning, Bathsheba comes to stay with him.

Cover up will always cost more than confession.

Any cost that you imagine for sin, I can promise you, it will always exact more

than you were willing to pay. I didn't know it was going to be this harmful.

I didn't know the effects were going to be so strong on my marriage.

I had no idea that just looking at these things was going to make it so difficult

for me to have intimacy later in life.

I had no idea that just making this one compromise would make it difficult for

me to have financial integrity later.

Sin will always cost you more than you realize, but the reverse is true.

That the fear we have of confession is far overblown. that many times when we

have gone through confession, and if you have had times in your life,

just stop right now and think, when I had to confess something,

what happened afterwards?

Did it not make the situation better? Did it not help to restore things?

Did it not help bring things back to peace? Did you not feel it easier to sleep at night?

Confession does not make it worse. Confession is the only path to healing. But David doesn't do it.

So what happens next? After the time of mourning, David brings her up to his

house and she becomes pregnant and has a son. But the Bible wants to be clear.

This did not please the Lord. This is not good.

This is not a story told about how to lift up how great someone is.

This story is told so you would see the kind of things that makes God angry.

You see, what we're going to see in this story is the fact that a king is not

the king. That Israel has a long history of saying that every king is subject to a higher authority.

Every leader needs to be held accountable to a higher set of standards.

And the moment kings start to say, how dare you question me?

How dare you accuse me? The moment kings start to have that posture,

the nation heads into trouble.

That when someone starts to believe like Saul, that someone who confronts me

because my own ethics are not living up to the standards that I should be at

the time, begins to say, this is just a trick to force me out of office.

You're just an assassin. You're just trying to remove me from power.

And the moment that that narrative starts, it leads to heartache.

And those kings of Israel who have a prophet walk in their door and say,

what you did was not right.

And the kings that say, you're right. I repent.

Those are the kingdoms that are brought back toward peace and justice.

There have been way too many leaders in Christian circles over the last decade

who were lifted up as noteworthy, as noble.

People like Ravi Zacharias, who I listened to on the radio,

his program, Let My People Think, and read the books and went to college campuses

and tried to argue with atheists about why you should take Christianity seriously,

only to find out that he had an entire network of inappropriate abuse with various

women and just all these horrible things.

And what's even more problematic is there were people around him who had been

making comments that were dismissed because there's a tendency in all of us

to mistakenly assume that our loyalty to a leader means we can never hold them

accountable for their decisions.

And we have got to be the kind of Christian community that when even when it

comes to my life, or it comes to a pastor's life in this church,

or it comes to a writer that we respect, that we're in a deep enough relationship

with them, that we have people around them like Nathan that can say,

I love what you're doing at Northside. I think it's great.

You're growing the kingdom, but this was not right.

And the only appropriate response is to apologize and to repent.

A king is not the king.

So what happens next is God sends a prophet after this baby is born.

Now, in the Old Testament, it took approximately nine months for a woman to

have a baby and to give birth to it. So that's your biblical scholarship for the day.

This is about a year later, if you're wondering on the math.

This is about a year later.

So it's a while. This isn't like right away. When Nathan shows up and David's

not immediately, David's assuming, I got away with it.

He's done. I mean, it was bad. It was tragic, but I mean, come on,

the nation's at peace. It's a year later. Everything's fine. We cried.

We gave him military honors, whatever we're doing. It's all done.

And a year later, there's a knock on the palace door and in walks the prophet

Nathan. And here's what it says.

The Lord sent Nathan to David. This is chapter 12, verse one.

Isaiah 12 · chapter mention

He came to him and said, there were two men in a certain town,

one rich and the other poor.

And the rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle,

but the poor man had none except a little ewe, that is a female lamb that he

bought and he raised it and he grew up with him and his children.

It shared his food. It drank from his cup. It slept in his arm.

He bought sweaters for the sheep on Etsy. Like he did the whole thing.

He loved this thing. It was like a daughter to him.

Some of you know people that this is their attitude with their dog.

And they could at least look at this part of the Bible saying,

I get it. Like, like this is, this, this is not a sheep.

This guy's keeping for a future Christmas dinner.

This is a part of the family. This is described in ways that say this is like a pet.

And here's what happens next. A traveler came to this rich man,

but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep and cattle to prepare

the meal for the traveler who had come to him.

Instead, he took that female lamb that belonged to the poor man,

and he prepared it as a meal.

He killed it just so that the guys who were coming could eat it.

David is furious. I mean, we all are.

This whole story, I mean, it's just everything we hate in a story and in society.

Some rich guy, just because he's rich, thinks he has the right to just come

over and take something that doesn't belong to him, knowing that he has friends

in powerful places and nothing will happen.

It's just not right. We hate that attitude of wealth, that entitlement.

And there's a part of us that here's this rich guy looking around that all of

he has and says, no, I'm taking that one. It's outrageous.

There's a part of us that hates this story, right? Because this is the story

of a guy who is not happy with the fact that he could have done anything with

all of his own lambs. He had plenty.

He had more than enough. Why in the world would you have to hurt somebody else?

You have a whole amount of sheep at home, but your lack of ability to be content

with what you were given caused you to think it was fine to destroy somebody else?

I mean, this whole story makes us, it makes us furious.

Because to the rich man, this is just a meal to satisfy his appetite.

One evening of being hungry, and I don't care what happens. But to the poor

man, this is a member of his family.

This is someone that he loved and he cared about.

And you broke it. And that's why on this board is a tear.

Because this story is designed to say that what David did is take something

precious, something that was loved and cherished, and he used it to satisfy a momentary impulse.

Because he was king? The very kingship that God gave him?

David's mad. He doesn't even know it yet. He's furious. He's upset.

How could this happen? Kill this man and fine him triple a billion dollars.

Let it be done. And Nathan looks David in the eyes and said, you are that man.

I hate those moments when the Bible turns a mirror back around on us.

And we're so mad about the evil in the world and the selfishness out there,

only to have moments where the Bible confronts us with what we did.

And there are hurt people because of it.

And there are people that it's possible because sometimes the actions and the

selfishness that we participated in, there are people who are hurt.

When we have power and influence and wealth, And both in the things we do and

things we fail to do, this story comes back to confront us at times we are that person.

But I think this story is also in here because this is the lowest moment in David's life.

When Kings writes, the chronicler in the book of Kings writes a summary of David's

life and says in 1 Kings that David honored God in all that he did and obeyed

his commandments, except remember what he did to Uriah.

Because every time the story of David is told, this one will be told with it.

It will live in his legacy and you're gonna see it next week in the lives of

his children. It will not end because of what he chose to do in this moment.

At the same time, his repentant attitude is gonna display for us that even at

our most broken, we are not beyond the reach of grace and repair.

That because of the way David is gonna respond to the confrontation of Nathan,

not with the paranoia of Saul, but with a broken heart that he writes out in Psalm 51,

where David says that I have been sinful surely from birth, from my mother's

wound against you, God, and you only have I sinned.

And as you read that Psalm, you realize that David never once says, but they did this.

But I grew up in a family that I was a terrible example.

He doesn't once blame someone else. He doesn't once trivialize it or put anything on Bathsheba.

He said everything about this is because I was broken in here and I didn't honor the creator.

And there's only one person who can offer me the kinds of forgiveness that is going to fix it.

And so he makes this his path to restoration. He says in Psalms 51 verse 10,

Psalms 51:10

God created me a pure heart.

God, renew in me a steadfast spirit. God, I am begging for your forgiveness

and I am begging that you not only forgive me, but help me to have the kind

of heart that does not wander away and sees clearly the consequences of my actions.

David will not do this again.

His heart will be broken. He will lament on the ground for days because the

child that Bathsheba is going to bear, God in his judgment is going to cause that child to die.

God does not want anything about this relationship to have even the semblance

of God brought good from it anyway.

God wants to say everything about this is everything that's wrong with people in power.

And the only correct response was David is to throw himself on the ground and

say, I have sinned and fallen short.

But what I love about that psalm is the prophet Nathan looks at him and says,

but because of his response, forgiveness is possible.

And God does keep a relationship with David.

And even though David is now not, as we know, David is now not the king we had hoped for,

a thousand years later, there will come a king from the line of David who, unlike David,

does not choose selfishness or power or indulgence, but instead pours himself

out like a lamb who is innocent and sacrificed so that you can know that no

matter where you are in this story, Whether you like in this story,

maybe you were the victim,

you were the one that was hurt by people, you were supposed to take care of

you, that you can hear in this story that God offers healing and restoration.

Or if you have been the one who has fallen short again and again,

in just a moment, we're gonna gather around this table and we're gonna make that our prayer.

God, create in me a clean heart. Renew a right spirit in me,

the same God that will take his own son and we'll take this cup to represent

his body, which was broken, so that even in our lowest moments,

even when David has done the most atrocious thing,

murdering a friend and harming other people, God would say, it's terrible, it's awful.

But even so, forgiveness is still possible. That wherever you are in this thing,

this meal that we're about to share is a reminder that this story is here not

to tell us that David is perfect to emulate,

but instead that David points us to a perfect king who forgives and cares for all of us.

We're going to take this cup that represents that we are welcomed into God's family.

And that no matter where you come from and what your background,

we can say, starting today, God, I'm going to lean into confession and not cover up.

Because I know I've been forgiven, God, I can stop making it worse by putting off dealing with it.

Instead, I can now speak freely saying, God, help me to be the kind of person

that puts it back together.

I'm going to be down here at the cross and Mark's going to be over here on this side.

We would love to pray with you and talk to you about your next step of faith.

If God is putting that on your heart this morning, and you've never yet made

a decision, whether it's to join the church or to accept Jesus,

we'd love to pray with you.

But in all of us, let us pray as we gather around this table today. Let's pray.

God, as we hear this story, God, our hearts are broken because we are surrounded

by a world where so many people have been hurt.

God, by the selfish choices of those around them. And even more worrying,

God, I know that people have been hurt in my life because of my choices.

So God, I lean right now on your forgiveness, But more importantly,

God, I trust in your promise that you want to do a new work in me,

that you want to create a clean heart in me that I can not only be forgiven,

but God, I can begin to bring healing and life to my relationships and people

around me, that I can draw closer to you, that God, you desire to wash us and

we will be clean, whiter than snow.

So God, as we taste this communion, let us lean into forgiveness.

Let us boldly speak with confession. And God, let us be a voice for healing. In your son's name.

Music.