INTRODUCTION
• SLIDE #1
• STORY OF WHEN I WAS A BOY WITH THE MUD AND THE SHED AND TONY.
• That mud was calling my NAME!
• The allure, the draw, the desire. The attraction. Sin can really pull us in. You may not have mudded up the neighbors shed, but we can all identify with my situation in three ways.
• First, we have something inside of us that wants to do wrong (THE DESIRE TO THROW THE MUD AT THE SHED). Second, our lack of goodness affects others (I GOT TONY IN TROUBLE ALSO). Third, there are always consequences to our choices (CLEAN THE SHED).
• We see all these things at work in The Story.
• David has it all, God has been so good to him. David has the Midas touch, he never loses a battle, and he expands the Kingdom when he finally takes the helm of the whole nation.
• It is good to be David. He is at rest and we learn from 2 Samuel 11 that David lets down his guard and as a result makes tragic choices that cause a crucial shift in David’s life, family and Kingdom.
• It begins innocently enough, as many sins begin.
• SLIDE #2
• 2 Samuel 11:1–2 (NIV) 1 In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king’s men and the whole Israelite army. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem. 2 One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful,
• SLIDE #3
• A moment of weakness can lead down a pathway of bad decisions.
SERMON
I. Sin doesn’t end with the initial act.
(David commits sins and tries to cover them up.)
• How many times have we done something we knew we should not have done and in order to cover it up, we did things that were even worse than the initial act?
• Sin usually does not end with the initial act as we see in the case of David.
• Boy if the saying IDLE HANDS ARE THE DEVILS WORKSHOP (which is not a biblical quote, but does have roots in the Bible) were ever true it was true with David’s situation.
• David’s sin starts out with a seemingly innocent decision.
• In verse 1 we see that David was really in the wrong place, he should have been off to war, leading his army, but instead he chose to send out Joab.
• Then one evening when David was having trouble sleeping, he made the fateful trip on to the rooftop.
• He sees this smoking hot woman taking a bath. Now, seeing the naked women was not so much the problem, I mean it does not appear that he went on the rooftop to see what he viewed, but what he did with the situation made the issue a real problem!
• SLIDE #4
• 2 Samuel 11:3 (NIV) and David sent someone to find out about her. The man said, “She is Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite.”
• He just could not walk away, it was like me, mud, sticks, and a nicely painted wooden shed for a target!
• David did not resist, he was the King, why would he have to resist, and then he takes the next step.
• SLIDE #5
• 2 Samuel 11:4 (NIV) Then David sent messengers to get her. She came to him, and he slept with her. (Now she was purifying herself from her monthly uncleanness.) Then she went back home.
• That is bad, David is in the wrong place, then he followed it up with the wrong reaction, then the wrong action, then he will make things worse with the wrong reaction!
• Well, that was fun and it is over, right?
• SLIDE #6
• 2 Samuel 11:5 (NIV) 5 The woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, “I am pregnant.”
• Oops! NOW WHAT! David is the King, this cannot happen! So David comes up with a plan, he does not want to get caught! BTW, Do you think God knows what is happening?
• In Verses 6-14 David comes us with a plan, he is going to have Joab send Uriah home and David is going to get Uriah to sleep with Bathsheba! She is hot, should be no problem right?
• Well, there was a problem. Unlike David, Uriah is a man of integrity and refuses to sleep with his wife as long as his companions are in the field of battle!
• SO now it will go from bad to worse, David hatches plan “B”. He cannot get caught so he did what he thought he needed to do.
• SLIDE #7
• 2 Samuel 11:14–15 (NIV) 14 In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah. 15 In it he wrote, “Put Uriah out in front where the fighting is fiercest. Then withdraw from him so he will be struck down and die.”
• David arranges to have Uriah killed in battle and then David marries Bathsheba!
• David thinks everything is back to normal. His sins are covered up. But God loves David too much to let things appear normal!
• SLIDE #8
II. Sin finds a way to be exposed.
• Sin just cannot allow itself to be hidden, it needs to be seen in public so it can take credit for the destruction it causes.
• I believe a lot of criminals get caught because they just have to let someone know what they did.
• Well, David is thinking the coast is clear, but God wants David to know he has not gotten away with anything!
• (David’s sins are exposed by God through Nathan the prophet.)
• Nathan, a prophet, hears from God and speaks what God tells him!
• In chapter 12 of 2 Samuel Nathan goes to David in private and exposes the scandalous activities of David.
• He tells the story of a rich man taking a poor man’s prized lamb. David is incensed by what the rich man did to the poor man’s lamb.
• In David’s indignation at the injustice, he tells Nathan all the bad things that should happen to the rich, then wait for it, wait for it……
• SLIDE #9
• 2 Samuel 12:7–8 (NIV) 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 I 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.
• David is busted! By the way, when you look at what Nathan tells David, he constantly asked David why he despised God. God took David’s sin personally as He does with all sin.
• In the New Testament, David is celebrated and Saul is not, even though David’s sins of adultery and murder appear more severe than Saul’s sins of not waiting for Samuel to perform the sacrifice, and not killing all the Amalekites.
• The explanation lies in their response after they were confronted. Saul rationalizes, and David confesses.
• Psalm 51:1-12 was written by David after Nathan confronted David.
• SLIDE #10
• Psalm 51:1–12 (NIV) 1 Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight; so you are right in your verdict and justified when you judge. Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me. Yet you desired faithfulness even in the womb; you taught me wisdom in that secret place. Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice. Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquity. Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.
• Those are not the words of a man who is just sorry he got busted, these are the words of a broken repentant heat!
• SLIDE #11
III. Sin has consequences.
(The consequences of David’s sin reach both his personal and Professional life.)
• Even though David was repentant, he still had to pay the consequences for his sins.
• In his personal life there would be dire consequences!
• The child Bathsheba conceived would die, but in a glimpse of God’s forgiveness and grace, Solomon would later be born.
• The sword would never leave David’s house, or in other words he would have tons of family problem. One daughter was raped by her brother, another son, Absalom would later kill the brother.
• Later Absalom would rebel against David.
• David would face public humiliation and Absalom would be the one who eventually does that.
• In David’s professional life there would be consequences also!
• David flees in exile when Absalom rebels and takes the throne.
• Later Absalom dies and David’s other son, Adonijah would provoke the next major rebellion!
• How many times do consequences make us bitter? Within all this turmoil, David bears the consequences with dignity and David’s relationship with the God of love and Grace is restored!
• SLIDE #12
• 1 Chronicles 29:10–13 (NIV) David praised the LORD in the presence of the whole assembly, saying, “Praise be to you, LORD, the God of our father Israel, from everlasting to everlasting. Yours, LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendor, for everything in heaven and earth is yours. Yours, LORD, is the kingdom; you are exalted as head over all. Wealth and honor come from you; you are the ruler of all things. In your hands are strength and power to exalt and give strength to all. Now, our God, we give you thanks, and praise your glorious name.
CONCLUSION
• The story of David’s sin serves as a lesson for us! A lesson about the power of the grace and love of God. What David did was reprehensible! And if God were going to “hate” someone or have it in for someone, it would seem like David would be a good candidate.
• But God being who He is was ready, willing, and able to love and forgive David. No matter what you have done, God wants to do the same for you!
• When we sin, and we most definitely will, we MUST… admit our sins to God… live with the consequences with dignity.., and experience the forgiving, restoring grace of God!
• We confronted by sin, let’s not be like Saul and make excuses, when confronted, let’s confess and repent!
• Do not be afraid of God, He loves you and will help you navigate through any consequences that come. God will still love you and will still restore you!
