f I had to give this sermon a title- It would be: WE FALL DOWN AND WE GET UP
Today’s Scriptures 2 Sam 11 & 12, ps 51, 1 Jn 1: 8-9
Before I preach this message today-I want you to know I am NOT sinless NOR are you-But as we mature “in Christ”- We will sin less and less
2 Sam 11
In this chapter we read the account of King David and Bathsheba. Now King David is a man after God’s own heart.
After we go through about 27 chapters of Scripture most of you ( if you are still awake) will probably ask why is David a man after God’s own heart and how in this world can that be true?
1 It was the spring, the time when Kings went off to war. David stayed at the palace while Joab and the Israelite army-destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. (Rob-Ah)
What did our parents and grand parents used to tell us? Idle hands are the Devil’s workshop.
When we are not using our time productively, and become bored we can get into all kinds of trouble, can’t we?
When did I get in the most trouble ? Always when school was out. It did not take very long either. It usually happened on the first or second day of Summer vacation-but after that- My Mom, loaded me down with so many chores to do and she did not allow me to go outside and play until those chores were done.
My Mama would worn me if I got in trouble again the chores would double and they had better have been done with excellence or I would do them all over again. One speck of food on a piece of silverware or a dish-meant that I would re-wash everything in all the cabinets and drawers.
In retrospect, I know that discipline did not hurt me-it shaped me!
So David cannot sleep, he has done nothing to tire himself out so he gets up and walks around the palace roof. I hunt from an elevated tree stand because I can see much more the higher I climb. David can see from the roof-what he cannot see from inside the palace. Well, he sees a woman bathing. Her name is Bathsheba and she is someone else's wife.
This is the point where David should have taken custody of his eyes and gone back inside. But he doesn’t!
Next comes a thought that David should have taken captive to the obedience of Christ and ended the temptation, but he doesn’t. He sends someone to find out about her.
The text tells us she is the wife of Uriah the Hittite. Uriah is off with Joab fighting the king’s battles- he is in the king’s service, a member of David’s Royal Guard ,and not even an Israelite-but a Hittite, a Caananite. One could assume he had probably adopted the Israelite’s faith.
That information alone should have caused David to put the brakes on his fleshly desires. I mean afterall he had wives and concubines in the palace (those are included when you inherit the palace). But he doesn’t put the brakes on. He steps on the gas pedal!
So now he sends for her, lays with her and she is pregnant. Can it get any worse?
Yes, and it does-upon that news he sends for Uriah to come home from the fighting, hoping he can trick Uriah to spending the night with Bathsheba deceiving him into thinking that he is the Father of the baby in her womb.
When Uriah came to him, David makes “small talk” and asked him how Joab was, how the soldiers were and how the war was going. 8 Then David said to Uriah, “Go down to your house and wash your feet.” (or go on home to your house and chill with your wife)
So Uriah left the palace, and a gift from the king was sent after him. (Probably a new wine skin full of strong wine and some delicious food) 9 But Uriah slept at the entrance to the palace with all his master’s servants and did not go down to his house.
10 David was told, “Uriah did not go home.” So he asked Uriah, “Haven’t you just come from a military campaign? Why didn’t you go home?”
11 Uriah said to David, “The ark and Israel and Judah are staying in tents, and my commander Joab and my lord’s men are camped in the open country. How could I go to my house to eat and drink and make love to my wife? As surely as you live, I will not do such a thing!” David should have been convicted by Uriah’s righteousness. Because it is such a sharp contrast to David’s staying at home dallying. To Dally is-To consider or occupy oneself with something in a careless or unsurious fashion; toy with. or flirt. But guess what?- He is NOT convicted!
There is a story in Genesis 38 about Judah and Tamar which could be a sermon in itself
Short story long Tamar is Judah’s daughter in law – his sons are wicked and after they marry Tamar they die, because God kills them (sometimes judgment can come immediately).
The law required that the brother of the deceased marry Tamar to continue her first husband’s line, but Judah is afraid if he marries Tamar to the last son he will die like the other two. So he doesn’t force his son to marry Tamar.
Any now it is time to shear the sheep and Tamar gets wind that Judah is headed down to Timnah.
In ancient Hebrew tradition, sheep-shearing became a spring festival to celebrate a sheep-herder’s plenty. It became a significant celebration in the Old Testament characterized by feasting, and heavy drinking.
So Tamar takes off her widow clothes covers herself with a veil to disguise herself, and then sat down on the road to Timnah disguised as a Pagan shrine prostitute. Judah sees her and offers her a goat for sex and takes the bait. But Judah did not have a goat with him so he leaves her with his signet ring or seal and his staff as security until he can send the goat to her. However, when Judah’s servant btings the goat- there is no prostitute to be found and he is told there has never been a shrine prostitute there.
About three months later Judah was told, “Your daughter-in-law Tamar is guilty of prostitution, and as a result she is now pregnant.”
Judah said, “Bring her out and have her burned to death!”
But she has his ring and the staff that he gave her as a pledge to send the goat- Judah is caught one might say “in the goat trap or snare”!
But praise God-for Judah has a Godly sorrow that leads to his repentance!
So Tamar doesn’t get burned to death and Judah says these words:
“For she is more righteous than I.”
One would certainly think that David at this point like Judah would have come under some conviction to repent, but NO he does not and he does not adhere to the wisdom of the old adage
“IT is never to late to do the right thing”
So David continues to cover up what he has done and continues his scheming-
12 Then David said to Uriah, “Stay here one more day, and tomorrow I will send you back.” So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next. 13 At David’s invitation, he ate and drank with him, and David made him drunk. But in the evening Uriah went out to sleep on his mat among his master’s servants; he did not go home.
David’s Plan “A” to conceal his sin has failed miserably. THIS is why sin is like yeast-because if we do not stop it- it continues to increase and spread (like the venom from a rattlesnake bite) and now it is going to escalate into placing Uriah in harm’s way.
David sends orders to Joab to place Uriah out in front where the fighting is fiercest. Then withdraw from him so he will be struck down and die.” AND DIE HE DID! Mission accomplished.
26 When Uriah’s wife heard that her husband was dead, she mourned for him. 27 After the time of mourning was over, David had her brought to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son. But the thing David had done displeased the Lord. Why? Because He has violated 40% of God’s commandments-Yes, the 6th, 7th 9th and 10th !
Under the Levitical law they both should have been stoned to death or like Tamar and Judah burned to death, but either way dead! (Lev. 20:10)
This was an abuse of power that displeased the Lord. He was placed as a shepherd to the Lord’s people. David betrayed God and God’s children!
Listen there is not any place we can hide from God- He is omnipresent that means HE is everywhere and sees everything. He is omniscient which means HE knows everything!
So There is NO cover-up that we can scheme up-that God cannot see through or know All about!”
2 SAM 12:
2 The Lord sent Nathan to David. When he came to him, he said, “There were two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor. 2 The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle, 3 but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb he had bought. He raised it, and it grew up with him and his children. It shared his food, drank from his cup and even slept in his arms. It was like a daughter to him.
4 “Now a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveler who had come to him. Instead, he took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come to him.”
5 David burned with anger against the man and said to Nathan, “As surely as the Lord lives, the man who did this must die! 6 He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity.”
7 Then Nathan said to David, “You are the man!
This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul. 8 gave your master’s house to you, and your master’s wives into your arms. I gave you all Israel and Judah. And if all this had been too little, I would have given you even more. 9Why did you despise the word of the Lord by doing what is evil in his eyes? You struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and took his wife to be your own. You killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. 10 Now, therefore, the sword will never depart from your house, because you despised me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own.’
13Then David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.” Nathan replied “ The Lord has taken away your sin. You are not going to die”
The wages of sin is death-something each and everyone of us deserve. Oh yes Nathan reads David the list of consequences for his sin that he will have to live with-but God-has removed from him the blood stains of his sins, he has washed David white as snow.
How does David after such a moral failure NOW become a man after God’s own heart?
How can he even be forgiven, for adultery, murder, bearing false witness and covetedness?
He was forgiven the same way we can be forgiven!!!
A Deep Breath and a Turn by Eugene Peterson
There is an interesting history of the word repentance. The word in Hebrew means originally “to take a deep breath and sigh.” A deep feeling of sorrow, of remorse. Repentance at the root, at the very beginning, seems to have the idea that you realize that you have done something wrong and you feel badly about it. And you feel it deeply; it gets down deep inside you, and you groan or sigh or you breathe deeply.
All of us know how that works. We know that part of repentance. We know the part that has to do with our feelings. The interesting thing is that use of the word didn’t last long in the Bible. Very quickly the writers began to substitute another word for the same action, and this other word meant “return” or “turn around and go or in the Christians case to come home”
Not a word of feeling at all, but a word of action. Under the influence of the prophets, repentance became not something you felt but something you did. And it’s essential you get that through your head if you are going to understand what the Bible means about repentance. You don’t repent by taking a deep breath and then feel better.
You repent only when you turn around and go back or toward God. It doesn’t make any difference how you feel. You can have the feeling, or you don’t have to have the feeling. What’s essential is that you do something. The call to repentance is not a call to feel the remorse of your sins. It’s a call to turn around so that God can do something about them.
Eugene H. Peterson, A Month of Sundays, The Crown Publishing Group, 2019, pp. 51-53.
1. David finally acknowledges his sin before God.
He writes the 32nd and 51st Psalm and in it we find what makes David’s a man after God’s own heart:
Now after admitting his sin he asks God to:
1 Be gracious to me, God, according to Your faithfulness;
According to the greatness of Your compassion, wipe out my wrongdoings.
2 Wash me thoroughly from my guilt
And cleanse me from my sin.
3 For I know my wrongdoings,
And my sin is constantly before me.
4 Against You, You only, I have sinned
And done what is evil in Your sight,
So that You are justified when You speak
And blameless when You judge.
5 Behold, I was brought forth in guilt,
And in sin my mother conceived me.
6 Behold, You desire truth in the innermost being,
And in secret You will make wisdom known to me.
7 Purify me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
Cleanse me, and I will be whiter than snow.
8 Let me hear joy and gladness,
Let the bones You have broken rejoice.
9 Hide Your face from my sins
And wipe out all my guilty deeds.
10 Create in me a clean heart, God,
And renew a steadfast spirit within me.
11 Do not cast me away from Your presence,
And do not take Your Holy Spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of Your salvation,
And sustain me with a willing spirit.
13 Then I will teach wrongdoers Your ways,
And sinners will be converted to You.
Or Psalm 32:
How blessed is he whose wrongdoing is forgiven,
Whose sin is covered!
2 How blessed is a person whose guilt the Lord does not take into account,
And in whose spirit there is no deceit!
5 I acknowledged my sin to You,
And I did not hide my guilt;
I said, “I will confess my wrongdoings to the Lord”;
And You forgave the guilt of my sin.
CONCLUSION
V5 We were all conceived in sin. We were all born to sinful parents.
You heard me say last week we live in a sea of “sinful humanity”
We are born into a sinful community
Our sin against a Holy God is like yeast (it spreads) and IT AFFECTS other people-people we love and people who are close to us, but all sin is against God we either perpetrate that sin or we are the victims of it. God does not ask us to avenge that sin but to forgive sin. That is what our job is to forgive sin and leave the vengence to the Lord.
SO THEN “HOW SHALL WE LIVE?” WHAT DO WE DO WHEN WE FALL DOWN? AS WE HAVE STUMBLED INTO SINNING!
THANK God that He has given us a solution and that solution is this:
1. We must acknowledge our sin before God-agreeing with Him that we have sinned and then we must repent of the sin-that is we turn away from it-We do not wish to be a slave to it. All of us are slaves-we are either slaves to the sin that binds us and destroys us and others or we are slaves to Jesus Christ where we are free from bondage.
2.May we Live a life like Enoch who walked so close to God that he did not leave any room between him and God for sin to enter in. Or Good, Better, Best live a life like Jesus who although being God never relied on His Diety to overcome His flesh. He lived a sinless life because He was obedient to the Father even to the point of death, even death on a cross.
Remember we are NOT just forgiven, but we have been made a forgiven people-we must live as such.
3. V13 Then teach sinners about God, so they may have the hope of eternity and be converted.
5. And Lastly memorize these words from:
1 JN 8 If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.
Can we live a sinless life?
WE must make a choice every single day to serve God by living a selfless life serving Him and serving others bringing Glory and Honor to God in Heaven. Satan is bound. He has no power over us> How can that be? Because Christians -we have the Holy Spirit living in us and He who is in us is greater than he who is in the world.
OR We Live Serving ourselves and then the Devil is our Daddy. We cannot live both ways with one foot in the world and one foot in the church or we become Lukewarm and I am sure by now we all know what that means
