The Gospel According to Samuel: Create in Me a Clean Heart (2 Samuel 12:1-15)

Hello, friends.

This is Pastor Creighton.

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Today we continue our sermon series, The Gospel According to Samuel.

Have mercy upon me, O God, according to your steadfast love, according to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions.

Let us pray.

Father, would you work within us such that you create clean hearts and that you renew right spirits within us.

Father, keep us in the grip of grace always.

Amen.

Please be seated.

I suppose where I'd like to begin this morning is by quoting a sentence from Martin Luther.

Because when in doubt, quote a sentence from Martin Luther.

You've probably heard of his 95 Theses.

And this is thesis number one.

When our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ, said repent, he intended that the entire life of believers should be repentance.

This refers to Jesus' teaching in Matthew chapter 4, verse 17.

Matthew 4:17

See, repentance in Hebrew and in Greek literally means a turning away.

Repentance recognizes where we've done wrong, where we've harmed others, where we've sown devastating seeds, where we've fallen short of the glory of God, or believed empty promises of the world, the flesh, and or the devil.

And repentance wants to turn away from all these things and seek after the life that God promised.

After all, Jesus wants our joy to be full.

See, repentance is not an empty ritual, a magic formula of saying the right words, like it was maybe in Luther's day.

That's what he's responding to.

But repentance is not a one-and-done moment, not according to Luther.

The entire life of a Christian is characterized by repentance.

Repentance, you could say, is the Christian life from start to finish.

Professor Stephen Nichols writes, true repentance, or that which God requires, is a heart change followed by a life of obedience.

So in other words, repentance, true repentance, genuine repentance, cries out to God, create in me a clean heart, purify me where I'm corrupted, cleanse me where I'm soiled from sin.

This is what Luther understands, because it's what David understands.

See, we don't meet David in a repentant place at the beginning of chapter 12 in our reading this morning, but we find him there by verse 15.

And David's own repentance in this chapter shows us what genuine repentance means.

It shows us that genuine repentance sees our sin for what it is, it takes responsibility for the sins we've committed, and it humbly confesses our sin to Almighty God.

See, I think this is important.

And what we read in 2 Samuel chapter 12 is important because it leaves us with little doubt.

2 Samuel 12 · chapter mention

God cares deeply about how his people conduct their lives, and especially those who are called to exercise authority.

God cares about whether or not we act in such a way as to despise his word and commandments.

Now, this story is brutal and sobering.

We see sin on display in all of its ugliness and destructiveness.

Yet God's word does not leave us without good news, even here.

Here we see a God who forgives sinners who genuinely repent.

And we see a God who takes the initiative to move toward the sinner in grace.

So let's catch up.

Chapter 12.

Last Sunday we saw King David with this same prophet Nathan in 2 Samuel chapter 7.

2 Samuel 7 · chapter mention

David expressed his desire to build God a house, to build him a temple.

But through Nathan, God instead promises David that he actually would be building David a house.

He'd be building David a dynasty that will last forever.

See, God shows his gracious favor, commitment, and steadfast love.

It's perpetual, it's unceasing, it's indefectible.

God is moving forward his kingdom plan for his people through David's line.

And this is how the people of Israel, God's people, will fulfill their calling to be a royal priesthood that blesses the world.

So in chapters eight through ten, King David wins more military victories and further secures Israel's peace.

And then we arrive at chapter 11, which we need to be familiar with if we're going to fully grasp our reading today in chapter 12.

Chapter 11 begins, verse 1.

But David remained at Jerusalem.

So notice David is at home, not leading his troops.

This passage is somewhat ambiguous about his motives here, but I think it's clear enough that he's chosen leisure over leadership, and it makes occasion for sin.

From his palace, verses 2 to 5, David sees a beautiful woman bathing, who he'll come to learn is the wife of Uriah, Bathsheba.

Uriah is one of his top military commanders.

And so at this point, perhaps we need to clear the air a little bit because sometimes it's necessary around this passage.

See, there's no suggestion in the text from chapter 11 that Bathsheba was in any way trying to entice or seduce David.

So why is she bathing on the roof?

Well, it's not uncommon in an ancient Near Eastern Palestinian home with no indoor plumbing.

The roof would provide privacy enough for someone to bathe should they try and peek a glance from the ground.

It would be obscured.

But not if someone was leering at her from above, say from a cedar palace.

So I say this because sometimes we extract from this text a really cheap Sunday school lesson.

Young ladies, don't be attempting Bathsheba to otherwise good-natured Davids.

See, God's word does speak to the cultivating the virtue of modesty, but not from here.

Bathsheba is not the one with whom God finds fault.

David is.

We shouldn't find fault with Bathsheba either.

See, it's David inflamed with lust who exploits his God-given power and authority and calls Bathsheba to his palace, and he sleeps with her.

And doesn't this seem eerily familiar to headlines we've seen in the last few years?

See, for David, there's soon a problem.

Verse 5, Bathsheba tells David, I'm pregnant.

And this illegitimate pregnancy threatens everything for David.

Perhaps in his imagination, he sees this pregnancy taking the very throne from him.

So David acts quickly to cover it up and delete his recent history.

His first attempt to cover it up calls Uriah back from the battlefield for an unnecessary report on how the war is going.

And he tells Uriah afterwards to go home to his wife, thinking Uriah would enjoy a sweet reunion with him, and all will be covered up.

But Uriah does the honorable thing.

He refuses to enjoy the comforts of home while his soldiers are still on the battlefield.

Quite unlike David.

David's first cover-up attempt is frustrated, so he tries a second.

David sends Uriah back to the front line, carrying sealed orders, which get Uriah, which gets Uriah killed on the battlefield.

So David now marries Bathsheba, verses 26 and 27, and his heir would now appear to be legitimate.

And it's at this point in the narrative we can almost hear David saying, Phew, I got away with it.

But as chapter 11 gives way to chapter 12, we read this in verse 27.

But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord.

Literally, the Hebrew reads, The thing that David had done was evil in the Lord's sight.

David's sin did not go unseen, and it will not go unanswered for.

David's sin is a vivid and gut-wrenching illustration of what James talks about in his epistle when he writes, Each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.

Then desire, when it conceives, or when it has conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown, brings forth death.

So, chapter twelve, perhaps a year later, once again God sends Nathan the prophet to speak his word to David.

This is where we see what genuine repentance is all about.

Genuine repentance, first off, means seeing our sin for what it is, because we might otherwise be blind.

So Nathan tells David a parable.

Only David doesn't know a par it's a parable.

It could well be Nathan reporting the news to him, but this is a parable about a rich man who has in abundance, and a poor man who has next to nothing, save for a precious, beloved lamb of his.

And when this rich man is entertaining a guest, he is unwilling even to liquidate just one of his assets.

So he snatches this lamb from the grip of this poor man, flexes his power and authority pitilessly.

So David in verse 5 blurts out in the middle of the story.

He doesn't even know what the conclusion of the story is going to be.

David can't hold himself back.

David in his anger was greatly kindled against this man.

He said to Nathan, As the Lord lives, this man who has done this deserves to die.

And he shall restore the lamb fourfold because he's done this thing, and because he had no pity.

So what Nathan and the reader know is what David in his sin fails to see.

He is guilty for much the same sin.

See, I wonder how often I'm guilty for the very sins that burn my blood and cause me to point the finger at others.

See, this is the sinister thing about sin.

Not just that we commit sin, but we are so often blind and self-justifying and rationalizing about our own sin.

We will point the finger at others and call down the axe upon their head without looking in the mirror.

The prophet Jeremiah writes, The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick.

Who can understand it?

That's the remarkable thing about sin.

We can be so self-deceiving.

This is David in this moment.

So our Lord tells us, Judge not that you be not judged.

For with the judgment you pronounce, you will be judged, and with the measure you used, it will be measured against you.

So does that mean we don't say what David did is objectively wrong?

Of course not.

But we ourselves cannot consider ourselves privileged to condemn others on a whim such that we make ourselves superior to them.

Instead, we are challenged to consider in what ways do I myself consider the very sin I or commit the very sin I condemn?

I see pride in others, am I prideful?

I see arrogance in others, am I arrogant?

Am I idolatrous?

Am I deceitful?

Am I selfish?

Am I fearful?

See, genuine repentance begins by seeing our sin for what it is.

It means we have to first look in the mirror and take some inventory.

But genuine repentance that sees sin for what it is gives way to a genuine repentance that takes responsibility for our sin.

See, Nathan hits David over the head with what hasn't yet dawned on him.

Verse 7, you are the man, David.

Like the rich man in his parable, God has given generously and abundantly to David, and Nathan lists God's generosity to the king in verses seven to eight.

This being the case, Nathan asks, Why have you despised the word of the Lord to do what is evil in his sight?

And Nathan lists the ways that David has acted contemptuously towards the Lord's commands.

So therefore, in God's justice there will be consequences.

David, you have committed great violence, great violence will be committed against you.

You have torn a family apart, your family will be torn against itself.

You have committed the secret act of adultery, now another man will sleep with your wives.

And yes, it is wives, because this is the ancient Near East, but that's another sermon.

You did this in secret, David.

All this will be done in the open.

And all of this does come to pass for David.

His sons Amnon, Absalom, and Adnijah will all die violent deaths by the sword.

Absalom will try and overthrow David, kill his father, which means David is once again on the run in the wilderness from 2 Samuel chapter 15 to 19.

2 Samuel 15 · chapter mention

And Absalom does, in fact, publicly lie with David's concubines in chapter 16.

David may yet prove to be Israel's typologically ideal king, pointing towards a greater king to come.

But after chapter 12, after this reading, David is a broken man whose kingdom never recovers the rest it enjoyed in chapter 7.

By God's word here in chapter 12, David knows that he is guilty as charged.

But notice what David doesn't do.

David doesn't try to weasel his way out, try to rationalize, try to self-justify.

This was a Saul move.

See, when Samuel called Saul out on his partial obedience, which is really disobedience, in 1 Samuel 15, Saul offered excuses.

Well, I've obeyed the voice of the Lord, but it's the people who went and snatched the spoil.

See, David, as his actions demonstrate, is willing to take responsibility for his sin and submit to its consequences.

In this, David shows his genuinely repentant heart.

Have you ever heard the phrase, you're not sorry?

You're just sorry you got caught.

David is genuinely, sincerely sorry as he's confronted with the reality and devastation that his sin has wrought.

So the question is for us when we acknowledge our sins, are we willing to take responsibility for them?

See, each Sunday we confess our sins in the words of the general confession, and we hear words of absolution, words of forgiveness and reassurance.

And I'm struck this week by one particular phrase in our absolution.

The Almighty and Merciful Lord grant you amendment of life.

Do our eyes glaze over that phrase?

Amendment of life is a life of obedient responsibility, acknowledging the destructive consequences of our sin and endeavoring to bring about goodness and flourishing where sin has otherwise wrought devastation and harm.

Perhaps amends looks like saying, I'm sorry, or I was wrong.

Perhaps we ought to pay back what we owe, or trust God with a certain outcome, or pray for someone we are otherwise resentful towards, or speak words of honesty where we know we have been dishonest.

See, it's not that God is stingy with his grace and forgiveness, therefore we prove our worthiness through our amendment of life.

It's that truly repentant sinners who know how desperate they are for God's forgiveness, respond to such generous divine grace as forgiveness, such that they are genuinely moved to accept responsibility and to seek out a better way to live.

God's grace is always a transforming grace.

It cannot be otherwise.

Genuine repentance for us and for David means taking responsibility for our sin.

And because genuine repentance looks like seeing sin for what it is and taking responsibility for it, genuine repentance means humbly confessing our sins to God, crying out for mercy.

David says to Nathan, verse 13, I have sinned against the Lord.

Is this what we expect David to say?

Maybe we expect David to grovel.

He says, God is in heaven, you are on earth, therefore let your words be few.

See, like prayer, I wonder if the genuineness of repentance isn't necessarily measured by its lengthiness, but rather by its sincerity.

David means what he says.

He knows he's condemned, both by God's word for his sin and his own word, because after all, didn't David said that the pitiless rich man deserves to die?

David does give full and further expression to his repentance.

I suspect that after Nathan returns home in verse 15, David went weeping over to his desk and wrote Psalm 51, which is our Psalm this morning.

Scripture tells us that Psalm 51 is a psalm of David regarding the time Nathan the prophet came to him after David had committed adultery with Bathsheba.

David writes, I know my transgression, and my sin is ever before me.

Against you, you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment.

David's not sugarcoating anything.

He gets how seriously he has sinned.

And it's a strange phrase, you only.

Did you catch that?

Surely David hasn't only sinned against the Lord.

There is a whole stretch of scorched earth behind David.

This isn't a denial that David has sinned against others, but rather it's recognizing the fact that every sin we commit is first and foremost a transgression against God's own law.

1 John chapter 3 writes this: Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness.

1 John 3 · chapter mention

Sin is lawlessness.

Sin is transgression.

Sin is disobeying God's law for us.

So David humbly makes his confession to Almighty God.

I have sinned.

He knows what he deserves, and the only recourse he has is to cry out for God's mercy.

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love, according to your chesed, your covenant love, according to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions.

See, David's hope is not that he can do enough to earn God's favor again, it's that God's character is steadfast and merciful towards him.

And Nathan said to David, The Lord has put away all your sin.

You shall not die.

These are the words we read in the rite of reconciliation of the penitent.

You can pull out our prayer book.

And you can see that for yourself.

Having made a private confession, we are told the Lord has put away your sin.

Our God is a God who puts away the sins of the genuinely repentant.

That's why the psalmist writes in Psalm 103 as far as the East is from the West, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.

How far is that?

Inconceivably far.

As far as the East is from the West.

And I know we might think we live on a circular planet, so that comes back around.

It's not what we're talking about.

God removes them completely.

One scholar writes this.

Oh man.

He says, I think even the church has lost the marvel of such forgiveness.

We have by and large, we have by and large the vending machine view of forgiveness rather than the miracle view.

We pop in our penitence token, and out comes the assurance of pardon.

He goes on to say, we've lost the goosebumps on our soul.

Having a God who passes over rebellion, like Micah writes about.

Having a God that passes over rebellion should make us shudder with joy.

Do you think that's true?

Do you think that the church so quickly loses the view of how miraculous God's forgiveness is to sinners?

See, if it's true, each Sunday we should be shuddering with joy as sinners who encounter the amazing grace of our covenant God.

See, it's in the context of our repentance that God moves towards us and puts away our sins.

All this doesn't mean that the consequences of David's sin are removed from him.

David will yet face what's, uh, will yet face them, and what's more, death will result from this sin.

His son, we're told, will die.

Verse 14.

But David is held in the grip of God's awesome and costly grace.

So too with us.

The consequences of our sin may not be removed from us, but we are held in the grip of God's grace.

And this, saints, is good news for us.

Not only that God has put away our sins, but that he's been pursuing sinners this whole time.

See, the gospel doesn't just come into view in verse 13 when Nathan says to David that the Lord's put away your sins.

The gospel has been in view this whole time, since verse 1.

Did you notice?

The Lord sent Nathan to David.

Who's taking the initiative here?

David's repentance is of the Lord's making, for it has been God, by his word, who has been pursuing David the sinner, to bring about renewal and restoration.

So too does God, by his living word, pursue us sinners.

He is still a God of steadfast love and abundant mercy, who blots out transgressions, and the cross is proof.

Whereas all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, God sent his living word Jesus to take our sin upon himself and put it to death so that we may be renewed, we may have restored life in his name.

David's sin resulted in the death of his son.

Our sin resulted in the death of David's greatest heir, and God's own son, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Christ's joy was the joy of reconciling sinners with their holy God, bringing new life where sin has left death and devastation.

So where we are otherwise condemned, Christ by his Holy Spirit works within us genuine repentance that sees sin for what it is, takes responsibility, and humbly confesses with an assurance that our Heavenly Father has paid for our sin by his costly grace.

So, saints, when our Lord and Master Jesus Christ says repent, he intended that the entire life of believers should be repentance.

Repent, Christian, and shudder with joy.

Our sins they are many.

His mercy is more.

Amen.

Thank you for listening today.

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