Unsung Heroes | Nathan's Boldness (July 22nd, 2018) - Mike Armstrong

If you have a copy of God's word, if you would turn it to 2 Samuel chapter 12, we're again through the uh going through some of the Old Testament, some of uh these unsung heroes of the Old Testament, not to give glory to man exactly, but to just look at some of the characteristics of some of these guys that uh we don't talk about a lot, we don't think about a lot, we don't read about a lot, but there's a lot of really great things that we can learn uh from some of these guys.

2 Samuel 12 · chapter mention

Last week, of course, it was Manasseh, and uh looking forward to uh kind of combing through uh this chapter as well.

And before we get to that and read it and everything, uh we got any um we got any coffee snobs in the house?

Anybody?

Yes, I see some hands for sure.

Um I find that like the more kind of the longer that I drink coffee as the years go by, uh, the more kind of fussy I get about it.

And I think also it's a bit of John Shinn's influence on me as well.

He's discipling me in that way.

And uh I find I'm getting kind of just kind of that way.

Now, typically I just like my coffee black.

Now, I'm not like bragging about that and claiming any type of toughness or anything, but I just like coffee black, or I've been kind of into the bulletproof coffee thing for a little while as well.

Look it up if you don't know what I'm talking about.

Uh, but in terms of beans, okay, bean quality, I I prefer uh dark or bolder roasts.

I love that kind of woodsy, kind of nuttier, kind of again, darker, bold roast.

I love the bold punch of that kind of flavor.

There's nothing better to me than brewing a cup or seven cups of nice, rich, bold coffee in the morning.

Now, boldness is not just a coffee thing.

Okay, it's also a Christian thing.

God calls Christ's followers, he calls you and I to a certain level of boldness, doesn't he?

Right, when it comes to how we live, uh how we trust him in our day-to-day happenings, right?

We should be, we should be bold, right?

We should be bold in things like prayer, right?

Trusting and believing that the that the Lord will act and he will act according to his promises.

We should be bold when it comes to our witness or in evangelism, not not shrinking back, not being too worried about what people think or how that's gonna go, even.

Fear really shouldn't be a part of the life of a believer.

We should be bold.

We should be bold when it comes to kind of attacking our sin.

Like, why, think about it, why let sin kind of have its heyday in us?

Why give in to sin?

Why go down that road when we have the Holy Spirit in us, right, who is our our power and gives us the desire and the motivation?

Why play with sin when we've got that?

Why play with sin when we've got the you know, the amazing assurance and security of Christ's love now and forevermore?

Why would we go into other idols to try and find and glean some kind of enjoyment or pleasure out of that when we've got it all in Jesus Christ?

Right?

Christians have a lot to be bold about.

A lot, a lot of reason to be bold every single day.

Okay, but listen, there are also times, okay, specific instances when uh an increased measure of boldness might be required.

The prophet Nathan, as we're gonna look at here today, he exemplifies this characteristic for us.

And perhaps you have been in situations, likely you have, or maybe you're even in one right now, where you know that the the circumstance, it's it's kind of calling you to step up and be bold in the Lord Jesus Christ and say that thing or or or or act in a certain way, or take that leap of faith, and again, be bold.

So will you.

Or will you wilt, and will you miss the opportunity to be used powerfully, you know, by God in a great way for his glory.

All right, so this is where we're going here today.

We're gonna pray, and then we're gonna jump in.

So join me as we do that, Lord.

Uh today we gather ourselves before you and and Lord, we uh recognize that in in many, many cases we get this whole boldness thing wrong.

We're either kind of arrogant and and loud mouthed and kind of shooting from the hip, and we call that boldness, or or we're the other way.

I think many times it's very easy to just kind of do nothing, be nothing, say nothing, and be real soft.

And Lord, opportunities to be bold and stand for Christ uh comes and goes.

And so, Lord, I I pray that you would help us today to understand what biblical boldness is all about.

Lord, I pray that as we look at the the character of Nathan, Lord, I pray that we would learn from this and and we would see that you know, through our relationship with Jesus Christ, we have every reason to be bold, Lord, and our boldness really comes from you.

And so, God, help us in this.

I I pray.

I pray that you would use this church.

You would you would create us to be a church bold in the gospel, bold in faith.

We pray all these things in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

All right, well, when the time comes, I will be bold.

That's what the outline in your notes starts with here.

Now, to be clear, okay, this isn't exactly suggesting that there are times where it's okay to be a sissy, right?

Like there are times to be bold, therefore there are times to be cowardly and be real spineless.

That's not what we're saying here at all.

But it is to say that there will be, you know, times and from time to time God will thrust you and I into a certain situation and a certain circumstance that necessitate this elevated level of spiritual courage and backbone and faith and action where God will call you and I, he'll do that to again step up through the power of the Spirit and act.

Right?

Do something for Him, through Him, with Him.

Now you might be wondering, okay, how?

Right?

How do we do this?

What does this really look like?

Well, here's the first thing Through the guidance and wisdom of the Lord.

That's really what boldness looks like, at least part of it.

Now, to kind of set the stage for you here, we're gonna be picking up this story here in 2 Samuel chapter 12.

2 Samuel 12 · chapter mention

Um, and really it's it's kind of halfway through a story here, and some of you would be familiar with this.

It's the story of David and Bathsheba.

And so what had just happened in chapter 11 is uh Israel was was out to war, and David was the king over Israel at this time, and and what happened, what he shouldn't have done was he hung back at home.

Right?

He should have been out there leading the charge and rallying the troops and rah-rah, all of that.

Um, as Israel's leader, he should have been there.

But he wasn't, and he hung back in idle hands, as they say.

And long story short, he meets this woman, a married woman named Bathsheba, and one thing leads to the next, and uh she he finds out that she is pregnant.

Okay, and so uh what ends up happening is he ends up calling Bathsheba's husband uh back home, okay, from the war.

He's at war, he's being the kind of man and soldier that he should be.

And so he calls back Uriah and and tries to kind of set this whole thing up where he kind of makes it look like Uriah slept with Bathsheba and got her pregnant.

But here's the thing Uriah is far too honorable for that.

And he kind of takes the position of, well, you know, my my brothers are out at battle and they don't get to come home and be with their wives, so who am I to do that?

And so he actually uh stays uh in the kind of in the king's chambers with the servants there and doesn't go in.

And so David, his mind's right like, how am I gonna fix this?

And the whole thing starts to spiral and it gets worse and worse.

And so the next day, I believe it is, David decides, I'm gonna get Uriah drunk, and that way he'll stumble back home and that'll take care of itself.

And Uriah, even then, he doesn't, he stays away from home.

And so David, in his mind, he's uh he thinks he's kind of forced to uh send Uriah to the front of the lines.

Because you know it's always those guys that go down.

And so sure enough, uh, that's what happens.

Uriah dies in battle, and the word gets back uh to David, and he thinks that he's kind of gotten away with all of this.

And that kind of brings us to the last couple of verses here, verse 26 of chapter 11.

It says, When the wife of Uriah, it's Bathsheba, of course, heard that Uriah, her husband, was dead, she lamented over her husband.

And when the pouring, uh sorry, the mourning was over, David sent and brought her to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son.

But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord.

Now let's pick it up in chapter 12, verse 1.

And it says there, and the Lord sent Nathan to David.

You know, first of all, we need to know that Nathan, he was a prophet.

Okay, he was a prophet of the Lord, and so it wouldn't have been, you know, super out of the blue for something like this to happen for Nathan.

But notice here, notice the word there sent, right?

The Lord sends uh Nathan to David.

It's the Lord who guides Nathan and creates this whole situation and and spurs Nathan on to go and confront David.

So so Nathan's boldness, which we're gonna see here in just a second, it's it's not some kind of like self-motivated thing for Nathan, right?

It's it's not something that you know, Nathan kind of hears word of this and and and his you know flesh kind of manufactures this kind of you know, he's upset.

He doesn't get himself all riled up and you know, seeing red and driven to go give David a piece of his mind.

That's that's not what it is.

This isn't coming from Nathan, uh, not at its core.

You know, he's he's spirit-filled here, isn't he?

He he's led by God himself, he's guided and he and he willingly goes to David as the Lord directs him to.

Okay, now keep going part way down through verse one.

Nathan, it says that he came to him and said to him, Now catch this now, this is just so genius.

Okay, notice the way how Nathan just gets David to recognize the severity of his sins.

He actually tells him a parable.

Okay?

Here's what he says He says, There were 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, which he had bought.

And he brought it up, and it grew up with him and with his children, and it used to eat of his morsel and drink from his cup and lie in his arms, and it was like a daughter to him.

Okay, so animal lovers are loving this guy.

Right?

They're obviously very close.

And then verse 4.

Now there came a traveler to the rich man, and he, the rich man, was unwilling to take one of his own flock or herd to prepare for the 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.

Okay, pretty gutless right there.

But here's David's reaction.

Then David's anger was greatly kindled against the man, and he 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.

And so you and I probably know, kind of know where this is going.

You're like, hook, line, and sinker, right?

Like Nathan has him exactly where he needs to be.

He set him up, right?

This is for a for a very rude awakening.

But again, this isn't Nathan's own doing.

This is through the guidance and then the wisdom of the Lord, right?

The Lord is setting this up.

Nathan, he hasn't gone rogue agent here, right?

He's not acting on behalf of his own intentions or his own frustrations or being overbearing and pushy in any way.

That's that's not what biblical boldness is.

Not at all.

Nathan's simply doing, again, what the guy what the Lord has has directed him to do.

And he's he's doing this with just ingenious discernment and wisdom and precision here.

It's very clever and wise.

Now, on that note, I I think that at least part of the reason why you and I tend to shy away from being bold when the situation presents itself and the time calls for it, or or else, instead of shying away, we sort of adopt a bull in a china shop approach and end up wreaking more havoc and creating even more issues uh than they're needed uh to be.

But I think the reason or part of the reasons for the kind of these two approaches that we take is that we don't really know what Christ-like biblical boldness uh really is.

I I don't think we we we really get it.

And of course, as we continue to go through this, we're gonna continue to see, you know, we're gonna unpack the layers here of what this you know biblical boldness looks like, but I but I think it's I think it's really helpful for you and I to understand what boldness is not.

Because we you and I we live in a time now, 2018, you know, where we see the world's version of boldness aplenty.

Right?

You might better describe the world's version of boldness as idiotic brashness.

Right?

That might be it.

You know, under the guise of boldness and kind of pretending that it's boldness, and under the guise of, you know, the person just showing some nerve and they're stepping up and they're getting in someone's face, whatever, whatever happen, whatever have you have you.

Right?

We see this kind of thing on online, right, a little bit.

Right?

How many of us have like quit Facebook because we just can't handle the nonsense of people spouting off and and and and spewing and being ridiculous and probably in their minds thinking it's it's boldness, right?

I gotta take a stand, I gotta say something here, and they're slamming the church, or they're slamming the government, or they're slamming people who let them down, or whatever it might be.

We see it online for sure.

We see it probably at work.

People stepping up.

I know tell my boss a thing or two.

Or it's it's the leadership at your workplace trying to throw their authority around and be super tough and put people in their place, and it's bold, and this is how you know how we have to run this company, and this is what it's about.

I think we see it in our families too, sometimes.

And some of this can go very unnoticed and hidden from uh the general public, and husbands and wives, wives can be harsh with each other, we can be very harsh with our kids, and sometimes we think our kid our kids need a hard word.

And hey, do our kids ever need a hard word?

Yeah, of course they do.

And we think we're being bold for Christ and putting them in their place, but maybe again it's it's harsh.

Right?

And so we've kind of we've had this worldly idea of boldness modeled very, very poorly for us.

And we've often engaged in it in very poor ways as well.

And I think what it does for us is it kind of leaves us sort of confused.

It leaves us in in maybe even in some pain about this, or or or even scaring us off from ever wanting to, you know, be like my father was to me, or be that kind of boss like I used to have, or be like that person who can't handle themselves on social media.

I don't ever want to be like that.

And so what boldness again truly is, it remains this like elusive concept for us.

All right, so again, you can jot these things down if you want.

Here's what to steer clear from.

Here's what boldness is not.

Okay, seven things.

First one here reckless action.

Reckless, reckless action.

Okay, our our boldness should be should be calculated, should it not be?

It should be very measured and careful and very clear and and specific, and it should be well-timed.

It's not about just reckless action for the sake of saying something, doing something.

That's not what boldness is, neither is it constant aggression.

Constant aggression.

Okay, Jesus was bold.

Would we agree with that?

He was bold, he even turned some tables over, didn't he?

He fashioned some whips and or he at least did that once, and he drove people out of a church and he got in people's face.

Absolutely.

But listen, he wasn't the constantly in your face guy.

Right?

We you know, we have people like this come to mind probably as we're talking about this.

The guy's like super aggressive constantly.

He can't ever stop, he can't help himself.

In our boldness, we should also have, I think, like a Christ-like blend of patience, maybe just a bit.

Uh kindness, gentleness.

You can be bold and still be gentle.

Jesus was bold and yet he was still meek.

How about a little bit of dose of humility to go with that?

Okay, so reckless action, no.

Constant aggression, uh-uh.

How about this one?

Self-righteous hypocrisy.

Okay, sometimes the most preachy people out there are the biggest hypocrites.

You ever discovered that?

You ever discovered that about yourself?

Right, as the preachy guy right now in this moment, right?

I think about this kind of thing.

And it kind of freaks me out to think that I've got to stand before you each and every week and uh, you know, hold you to God's standard and bring that before you.

And I absolutely sweat bullets about that a lot and recognize the standard that I'm gonna be called to for that.

Okay, if it's self-righteous hypocrisy, okay, that's not boldness.

It's not boldness if you're doing the very thing that you're rallying against.

That's called a double standard.

It's called sin.

How about this one?

Boldness is also not half-baked in careless advice.

Sometimes people think in the heat of the moment something needs to be said, and no one's else, no one else is speaking up, so I'm just gonna I'm just gonna say something, I'm gonna do something because I can't possibly sit still and be patient or wait or you know, be prayerful about any of this.

So I'm just gonna say something.

Okay, boldness isn't just saying anything that comes to mind.

I spend a lot of time in in coffee shops reading and studying, and I happen to find it to be the place where I write my sermons best after I've done a lot of that studying, and I put my earbuds in, and I've got some music going, and I've you know got my bold coffee beside me, and I'm drinking lots of that, right?

And every once in a while I happen to overhear conversations and I hear advice that people give each other, and it fits this perfectly half-baked, careless, and it's not good, and it's sometimes it makes me shudder.

That's that's not what boldness is.

If you don't know what to say, don't say anything.

And pray for the wisdom and the right words to say.

How about this one?

Number five, unbridled outrage.

Okay, there is this connected, or some of these kind of connected and overlap?

Absolutely.

But unbridled outrage is that overbearing loud guy.

Okay, you're not you're not bulled if that's you, you're more of a like a foolish blowhard.

Right?

The overbearing loud guy is it's it's too much.

We see a lot of that in our world today.

It's the outrage police about every little thing.

It's not politically correct over here, and so I'm gonna lose my mind, and it's gonna be trending on Twitter, and unbridled outrage isn't boldness, it's often foolishness.

The sixth one nitpicky criticism.

That's not what boldness is.

I think we see a lot of this in marriages, don't we?

It's that constant drip, drip, drip, just nitpicky.

Every little thing.

We see this in in in people, we see this in the church.

The church should be better than this.

I get it.

We could be.

It's just it's nitpicky, it's it's a constant criticism.

Listen, that doesn't that doesn't help, that doesn't build up.

It tears down.

You're not being bold, you're not being helpful, you're being annoying.

It's also not this seventh one here.

Boldness is not defeating an opponent.

I think sometimes we get kind of into these battles and sometimes these arguments, and maybe you've had that with somebody before, and it's a debate over some theological position.

It's about, you know, either decisions you've made as a family or as a as a person, as a Christ follower, or some decision you've made, and you know, you kind of feel like it turns into an argument real quick, and you're trying to win, and you're trying to set that person in their place, and they've said something back to you, and you didn't like that, you never really considered that before, and so now you're upset, and so you're just trying to shut that person down.

Listen, boldness isn't that.

Boldness is for the purpose of seeing other people restored.

If you have to say something, it's doing it gently but clearly to see that person back into a right place with Christ and with others.

So listen, if you're seeing these things in your life, if you're doing these things, you're you're not you're not being bold.

And if you thought that you were, repent of that.

Turn away from that, confess that before the Lord.

And anybody that you've hurt or that you've pushed or you've rubbed the wrong way, go to that person too and apologize to them.

True biblical, Christ-like boldness.

Listen, it is always, always harnessed by the direction, the guidance, the and the wisdom of the Lord.

Nathan, he exudes this so well.

And he does even more, and here we're gonna see it here in the second thing.

Okay, when the time comes, I will be bold with full conviction about what's right.

Full conviction.

Okay, so so David, he's just heard this parallel or parable, I should say, from Nathan, and he's like ready to lose it, right?

He's like ready to destroy this guy, and he thinks it's a true story, and he has no idea what's coming here.

And then verse 7, Nathan just, well, he drops the bomb, right?

He says to David, You are the man.

You're that guy, man.

And then he says, Thus says the Lord, here's the Lord's message for David.

He said, I anointed you king over Israel.

I delivered you out of the hand of Saul, and I gave you your master's house and your master's wives into your arms.

He's referring there to the kingdom of Saul being given to David.

He said, And I gave you the house of Israel and of Judah, and if this were too little, I would add to you as much more.

And then he says, 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 have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites.

Now therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house.

A reference to, you'll always be in some kind of conflict.

He says, Because you have despised me, and you have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.

And then verse 11.

And he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this son.

And actually, we know that this literally happened in chapter 16, verse 22.

We see that it's David's own son Absalom, who takes one of his concubines and commits an egregious act in public in sight.

So this actually starts happening pretty quickly and unraveling for him.

And then he says, For you did it in it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel and before the sun.

Then here's David's response here.

Here's the the king handles this bold rebuke, verse 13.

David said to Nathan, I have sinned.

I've sinned against the Lord.

And Nathan said to David, this is amazing, the Lord has also put away your sin.

You shall not die.

How incredible is that.

This grace and this mercy, the forgiveness, right?

That's that's immediately extended to David.

You know, because he he humbles him there.

We saw a similar response last week from Manasseh, right?

Keep going.

It says, Nevertheless, because of this deed that you have utterly scorned the Lord, the child who is born to you shall die.

So Nathan's done and says that he went to his house.

Okay, so you see this amazing forgiveness and this mercy that God extends to David, but at the same time, David absolutely has to live with the consequences of his sin, doesn't he?

He does.

God says that that the son that is born to Bathsheba and himself is going to die.

And then on top of that, his actions lead to the absolute unraveling of his own family.

It's so, so sad.

And you can read all about that in the following chapters of this.

I would encourage you to do that.

And it just reminds me, two of my favorite quotes.

I believe I've shared these with you before, but I'll say them again.

First one sin will take you further than you're willing to go, keep you longer than you're willing to stay, and cost you more than you're willing to pay.

And then this one as well.

Choose to sin, choose to suffer.

Right?

David absolutely lives these things out.

He learns this the hard way.

Now try and try and put yourself in Nathan's shoes here for just a second.

I mean, I know that this passage is generally about um David and Israel and all of that, but of course, we're looking at this from the angle of Nathan here, and I mean he doesn't hold back, does he?

Right?

He doesn't do that.

He he delivers God's words to a man who needed uh some realigning, right, to the to say the least.

Okay, but of course, this think about it, this wasn't just any old man.

Right?

This was the king, right?

This is the king of Israel.

And this was at a time where where people died for saying the wrong kind of thing and and stepping out of line in the king's presence.

Right?

Prophets being being killed for delivering the word of the Lord uh to a king.

It wasn't exactly uncommon back in these days.

So there was a lot of of risk here for Nathan.

Right?

He could have pulled his punches, right?

He could have done that, he could have made excuses like Moses did.

Right?

God's like Moses, I want you to go and and and rescue my people.

He's like, no, no, not me.

Send somebody else.

He could have he could have done that.

Right?

He could have fled.

He could have pulled a Jonah and and jumped on a ship to Tarshish and said, no, forget it, I'm not going to this guy.

This is the king.

This guy could have my he could have my head.

But he doesn't do any of that.

He doesn't.

He goes.

And he's bold and he delivers the hard word.

Why?

Like, why does he do this?

How is is is Nathan able to go and do this?

I can tell you it's one word.

Conviction.

Conviction.

You and I, we're not given insight here into the passage, and we don't know exactly what Nathan would have been feeling as as the Lord shares and says, like, go, I'm gonna send you to go talk to the king.

And and as he's you know walking up the stairs to the palace, and he knows that he's about to be ushered in.

We don't know what his what his thought process is is like here.

I mean, maybe he was like, maybe he was a grizzled veteran of a prophet.

And he's like, no worries, I got this.

Like, I've been through this kind of thing before.

More likely, he was nervous.

Right?

He was rattled and he's probably freaking out.

But again, at the end of the day, he does what is necessary.

Why?

Well, because it was the right thing to do.

And he knew it.

He was a man of conviction.

Now, a good question for us as a church, for you.

Do you hold deep convictions about what the Lord says is right or wrong?

Are you a man or woman of conviction?

Listen, when you when you open up God's word and you study that and you're you're pouring over the scriptures, or when you hear a sermon proclaimed and preached, do you sense your heart as that truth is going up?

Do you sense your heart is like melding to that, it's it's bonding to that truth, it's becoming one with that truth to the point of uh uh where it determines how you how you think and and how you act and how you feel and how you behave?

I said, are there things that you quite simply will not do in this life because God's word forbids it?

I cannot, must not go there.

Are there things in this life that that you are compelled to act upon because God's word commands it?

Are you filled with conviction?

Are you filled with boldness about these things?

Listen, conviction is the soil in which boldness grows.

Too many uh Christians, professing Christians, are are so wishy-washy and and and soft and in how we think and how we act and conduct ourselves and carry ourselves.

Why?

Because we're not rooted in this book, right?

Because the truth and the word of God has has not permeated that level of what we want and and what how we think it should be and what I want to do, and and all of those things were not driven by conviction.

It's not rooted in God's word and in his nature and in his character.

So listen, if you've been unwilling in in certain situations to boldly stand for what's true, for what's right, if you've been unwilling to confront that person that you know is not in a good place, but they need to hear it anyways.

Or maybe for you, you've been kind of unclear.

You sort of worked up the nerve and you went and said it, but you you softened the corners on it, you only went halfway, or maybe you backed out when you should have pressed forward and pressed in on that and struck that nerve that said what needed to be said.

Right?

If that's you, if that's any of us, we've probably all been there at some point.

Perhaps it's because there's there's no real conviction about what's right.

Listen, the Lord is uh is building a church here.

I really believe this.

Uh full of men and women of conviction.

That's what the world needs.

Do you realize that?

Now listen, not Christians spouting off like a bunch of idiots our own personal preference online and bringing a bad name to the name of Jesus Christ.

Not that at all.

It's not obnoxious Christianity, it's not hypocritical, you know, preachiness.

It's not that.

And on the other side, it's the world certainly doesn't need more nice Christians who keep their mouths shut because we're too weak to do what's right.

There's no biblical conviction there.

What the Lord's building is a church that's so sold out to the things of the Lord and what's true that we're we're willing to go into the hard places.

We're willing to say what needs to be said, do what needs to be done, take that step of faith.

Are we nervous in those moments?

Are we are we somewhat fearful?

Absolutely, certainly.

Okay, but courageous enough in the Lord to move forward.

Listen, that that very thing that God wants to do in that person's life that you have been praying for, or that family in your neighborhood, or it's that situation at work, or in our country, or in our church.

Listen, he might be tapping you on the shoulder to carry that out.

I think sometimes we pray and then kind of pat ourselves in the back.

Well, I'm praying.

Well, yeah, maybe you're the one that needs to act.

Maybe you need to say something, do something.

Will you be so bold?

Listen, why wouldn't you be?

Why wouldn't any of us be?

Christ and the gospel shows us that it's worth it to be bold.

Right?

We have the unmerited favor of God resting on us now.

I think in a message like this of boldness and and trusting in the Lord and marching forward and being used by Him for His glory and all of that, and what does it start to do?

It starts to unearth our the way that we're people pleasers.

Right?

It's the fear of man.

I've said this before you uh before, but I've really struggled with this.

And I still tend to.

I'm a recovering people pleaser.

And I think oftentimes I forget that the gospel shows me that it's worth it to be bold.

I don't need to really care at the end of the day whether or not that person likes me or doesn't.

Do you know that sometimes I have to remind myself I don't care if you, as our church, likes me or not?

This might sound a little bit funny, but my job is not to be your friend.

My job is to communicate truth and disciple you and point you towards Jesus Christ in the scriptures.

If we can be friends while we do that, awesome, right?

Bonus, I want to be.

But I have to remind myself of that because I can easily be soft and the gospel shows me that I've got everything that I need in Jesus Christ.

Guess what?

The same gospel tells you the same thing.

You've got it all.

We've got the Holy Spirit power in us.

We've got a future that's secured.

Our future can't be taken away.

Sure, some of our rights and freedoms and all of that in our country in this day and age, those things can be stripped away.

But at the end of the day, what can anyone really do to us?

We've got God on our side.

We should be bold and fierce as lions.

That's what this church should be about.

That's what every church should be about.

Allow the promises of Christ and your salvation and the reality and the awesomeness of all of that fill you with a godly conviction about what is true, what is right, and what is wrong, and what is good, and what the Lord would have for you and for others.

Allow that to lead you to boldness.

Last thing here.

When the time comes, I will be bold, leaving the results in God's hands.

Take a look at verse 15 here, part way down.

Okay, it says, And the Lord afflicted the child that Uriah's wife bore to David, and he became sick.

And so what God promised here comes true, it happens.

So David therefore sought God on behalf of the child, and David fasted and went in and lay all night on the ground, and the elders of his house stood beside him to raise him from the ground, but he would not, nor did he eat food with them.

And on the seventh day, so a week later, the child dies.

And the servants of David were afraid to tell him that the child was dead.

For they said, Behold, the child was yet alive, we spoke to him, and he did not listen to us.

How then can we say to him the child is dead?

He may do himself some harm.

And so they're they're fearful and they think that, you know, David's not gonna be able to handle this awful news, and he might bring himself to some self-harm here.

Then verse 19, take a look.

But when David saw that his servants were whispering together, they were huddled together, David understood that the child was dead.

And David said to his servants, Is the child dead?

And they said, He is dead.

Then David arose from the earth and washed and anointed himself and changed his clothes.

And he went into the house of the Lord and he worshipped.

So what he's doing here is he's showing that he's showing us he's he's he's back into a good place with the Lord again.

His sin has been repented of, and he's even able to worship the Lord through a tremendously chaotic and heartbreaking situation that again he's caused.

A lot of great things we can glean out of that, but keep going.

He then went to his own house, and when he asked, they set food before him and he ate.

Then the servants said to him, they kind of don't get it.

They say, What is what is this thing that you've done?

You fasted and wept for the child while he was alive, but when the child died, you you arose and ate food, right?

And so they don't get it.

They're like, this seems a little bit backwards here.

And of course, they probably didn't have the insight that David had.

David knew that the child was going to die, and so he prayed and he sought the Lord and was hoping to change the Lord's mind.

And the Lord allowed the consequence to be carried out to its to its full end here, and so David is you know trying to move on as as best as he can here.

And so keep going here.

He said, Well, the child was still alive, I fasted and wept.

For I said, Who knows whether the Lord will be gracious to me that my child may live?

But now that he's dead, why should I fast?

Can I bring him back again?

I shall go to him, but he will not return to me.

That's a verse that many Christians who have had the awful heartache of losing a child have found a lot of hope in over the years.

And looking at that and saying, Oh, my child is in heaven, and someday I'll get to see him or her.

Now, verse 24 says, Then David comforted his wife Bathsheba, and went into her and lay with her, and she bore a son, and he called his name Solomon.

Okay, so now they have Solomon together, and we know that of course Solomon goes on to become uh a great king in the life of Israel's history.

Again, despite this awful, horrific kind of situation here, this black mark on David's record, God still brings good even out of the ashes of all of this.

Isn't that amazing?

Keep going.

It says, and the Lord loved him.

That's Solomon, and sent a message by Nathan the prophet.

Okay, so interestingly enough, still using Nathan here in this.

And so he, that's Nathan, called his name Jedediah because of the Lord.

Jedediah meaning beloved of the Lord.

So we had kind of an extra, it's kind of a special name for Solomon there.

Now I think again, one of the biggest reasons that that you and I sometimes aren't very bold when the time comes to be bold is I think we don't really know how this is gonna shake out.

Right?

You're in a situation and you know, I don't know.

Like I, you know, I sense that I have to go have a hard conversation with somebody, and I don't know how's this person gonna react?

Right?

How are they going to respond?

Are they gonna hate me?

Are they gonna blow up and and snap?

Are they gonna are they gonna end the relationship that we have?

Are they gonna do even more damage?

Are they gonna slander me?

Is this gonna get out online if it's a work situation?

Maybe there could be financial ramifications from all of this.

Are they are they gonna do some serious, are they gonna do some serious damage to me socially or emotionally?

Right?

We don't we don't often know how things are gonna work out.

God doesn't give us all of those those answers, does he?

We just don't know.

And again, I'm sure Nathan kind of wondered about this as he was making his way to go talk to David.

You know, he he didn't know how this was gonna go.

He really didn't.

But what does he do?

He takes courage, of course, and and he's bold despite all these unknowns.

He just he just leaves results in the hands of God.

He trusts the Lord.

The Lord is big, the Lord is good, if he's directing this, I guess I can trust him with the part that I can't see.

And so, really, it's the same question for us.

Do you and I do we do we trust God enough to do likewise?

Do we trust the Lord to go in the direction that he is pushing us in?

If you and I, if we refuse to to act and and and to move and obey or or respond until we know exactly how every single thing is is gonna work out.

And and we've played over and over again in our minds all the different variables and you know.

If we don't act unless all the risk has been removed, and I feel 100% comfortable about this in my spirit.

It now, then listen.

Quite simply, we're never gonna accomplish anything for the Lord.

Do you understand that?

You're probably not going to feel a hundred percent comfortable in moments where you're called to be bold.

Even with the Lord directing and guiding it all the way.

Right?

He doesn't promise us ever that he's gonna give us all the details.

But guess what?

We're to be bold anyways.

Trust him with those results that you can't see.

Trust that he's put you in this situation to use you in a person's life or in a situation or to do good in you and to continue to sanctify you and strengthen your faith and your trust.

So, hey, if you sense that God is leading you to be bold for Him, and as I'm talking about this, you're like, great.

Right?

Now I'm feeling real uncomfortable.

Because I've been kind of sensing this throughout the last couple of days or the last couple of weeks, and now I'm feeling uncomfortable and I'm trying to kind of quiet the Holy Spirit there.

If you're sensing that, or listen, we're all gonna be in that kind of situation at some point, but you're wondering, like, how do how do I really move forward here?

How do I handle this properly?

I kind of know what boldness is not, and I'm starting to see what it is, but what would be my next steps?

Well, do this.

First of all, I would say pray.

Pray.

If you sense that the Lord is pushing you to do something or encouraging you to do something, pray.

Ask the Lord, is this of you, God?

I don't want to move ahead and cause more harm than good by doing something because my flesh has been riled up and I'm upset about this situation, so I'm gonna go in guns blazing, but it's not filled with the Holy Spirit.

Lord, is this you or is this more me?

Pray.

How about this one?

Bounce it off someone godly.

Listen, I'm I'm thinking about, like, I feel like I need to make this move, and it's maybe it's a it's not just calling somebody out like Nathan did, but maybe it's a it's some kind of work opportunity or it's a it's a ministry opportunity for you and you as a family or something like that.

And you know, what do I do?

And I sense the Lord kind of stretching us here.

And look, I've talked to people who have been, you know, just in the regular secular workforce and have been thinking through, like, well, am I being called to ministry?

How do I how do I know this?

And this is not at all what I was originally thinking a few years ago, but I sense the Lord stirring in this uh this in me.

Listen, you can go talk to somebody about this.

But let me tell you this this is also handled horribly a lot of the time.

Well, I feel like I need to go talk to this person about their sin, and so I'm gonna tell 15 people about it.

Right?

And I'm even gonna pretend that, oh, I'm just getting accountability, and I'm just trying to get a little bit of their wisdom.

No, you're not.

You're slandering people, you're being foolish, you're telling people that have nothing really great to offer you.

Okay, I'm saying, be careful about this.

Understanding as well that we don't always have the luxury of time to, you know, take a week or take a month or take several months and pray.

We don't always have the luxury of being able to go have, you know, a sit-down coffee or meal with somebody and glean their thoughts about this before I take a step.

Sometimes God will call you just right in the heat of a moment to say something.

It's like a quick prayer.

Like, Lord, help me in this.

I've been in plenty of those kind of situations.

Lord, I don't want to say anything that would not be your words.

But as much as we can, let's pray.

Let's bounce it off someone godly.

Again, don't expect God to give you all the details either.

You have to kind of have that expectation.

I expect that I'm not gonna have all the details and know exactly how this is gonna go.

Right?

The situation calls for trust, not all the answers.

How about this one?

Come up with a game plan.

Well, I think I gotta be bold, so I'm not gonna think it through.

I'm just gonna go and kind of shoot from the hip a little bit.

That might not go real great.

Right, have a game plan.

Am I gonna sit the person down?

We're gonna have a coffee.

I'm gonna bring some accountability with me if that's a wise thing to do.

Right?

I'm not just gonna like quit my job and enroll in seminary.

No, like think about that a little bit, right?

Come up with a game plan.

Don't overthink it for years.

Don't underthink it either.

If you're still kind of wondering how to move forward, at some point you just gotta act.

You just gotta do it.

All right, again, I feel uncomfortable and I'm nervous and I'm just go do it.

The Lord will be with you.

And here's kind of just the last thing that I was thinking about this week.

Expect a great result.

If you sense the Lord is in this and I need to talk to the person and I need to confront or I need to say this, expect that the Lord will do something great.

Here's what I will say about that though.

It may not happen immediately.

Expect a great result eventually.

That great result may not be exactly what you would like to see.

The person may snap.

The person might say, forget it, I'm out of here, I'm done with you.

And they may never come back around.

But maybe the Lord will use that to strengthen and challenge you.

Maybe the Lord will use that in this person's life eventually.

Maybe just not right away.

Listen, church, be bold.

That's what the Lord's calling us to here.

Let's be like Nathan.

Let's be wise about this.

Let's recognize that the Lord is with us.

Let's trust all of these details leading up to it and after with the Lord.

Let's be men and women of conviction.

Let's go for this.