Greeting words. David: Messy Spirituality Jeff Jones, Senior Pastor A Long Way Down the Wrong Road March 9/11, 2012 2 Samuel 11 Today in our series on David: Messy Spirituality we are going to see just how messy things can get. In this series, we are seeing that though we might think of the life of a truly godly person looking like this: Slide: ) (Chart) [TV] It is in fact much closer to this: Slide: ) (Chart) [TV] And when a person s heart response is a certain way, God uses all the ups and downs and sideways to transform and pull that person closer to himself. Years ago I was speaking at a church leader event at a camp in rural Arkansas, so I flew into Little Rock and then started the drive with a group of fellow pastors. This was before GPS and iphones, and as you might guess, we got hopelessly lost. So, we pulled over at this little dilapidated gas station, and this old guy was sitting out front in a rusty chair chewing tobacco and spitting into a cup. We explained where we were trying to go, and then he looked at us and said, If you are trying to go there, then why are you here? You shouldn t have come here if you wanted to go there. We said, Yep, we know. But can you help us? I can help you, but you shouldn t have come way over here. Then he started into his directions, and as he did I was trying to choke down laughter. I had to pull away, because he started in: Go back the way you came a ways until you see a cemetery and then keep going and you ll see a barn with a big street light. Turn right at the road after that barn It kept going like that, and by God s help we did eventually find the place. But at various times in my life since then when I realize that I have veered off course in my Christian life or done something stupid in leadership, I ve heard his words echo in my head: If you are trying to go there, you shouldn t be here. Well, David was a man after God s own heart, but he is going to take a major detour and in the process it shows us how any of us can easily end up somewhere we never thought we d be. As we approach our story in 2 Samuel 11 (turn there), David is riding high, doing wonderfully well. So far, he has been as close to perfect a leader Israel ever had as King. From the Goliath event as a teenager, to serving Saul after his being anointed king and how well he handled the Saul issues he faced, to his early years as king. In the chapters leading up to 11, he receives a covenant from God securing his family on the throne, followed by a series of military victories that increase the size of the nation and greatly increase his wealth and power. The nation is secure, growing, and the economy booming. David is wealthy and powerful, popular, charismatic and attractive. 1
David has all that he could ever want: a great place to be, but also a dangerous place to be. He has risen so high, setting him up for a fall. And that is a warning to us because when life is going well, when we have all that we need and more, when we are wealthy and successful and powerful it s the most brutal test of all. Slide: ) The danger of the drift [TV] (unsure of placement of this slide) When my kids were little, I visited some friends who are missionaries in inner-city Chicago, in a gang-controlled area full of drugs, prostitution, and violence. I was staying at their house, and remarked how impressed I was that they live there where they work and are raising their family there. I said, Boy, it has to be hard to raise a family here. I m really impressed with your commitment to the mission. Ralph looked at me and said, Jeff, that s the way I feel about you that you would work and raise your kids in a place like Plano is an amazing step of faith to me. Raising kids to be godly here is pretty easy, because sin is so obvious, and so obviously destructive. All my kids have to do is look outside and they can see how wise it is to know and obey God. But in a place like Plano, sin is way too subtle. It is wrapped in success and wealth and looks pretty darn attractive. I m really impressed that you would raise your kids there, because that would be way harder. He s right. Jesus taught that it is really hard for people who are wealthy and powerful, who have more than they need, to be godly. That s why today s story is so important for us to understand. David was riding high and doing well, but as he got more and more successful and powerful, we start to see cracks in his spiritual foundation. As the story starts, we already see danger signs for the man after God s own heart. Slide: ) ENTITLED [TV] In his success, a sense of entitlement creeps in and begins to take over his heart. Wealth and power do that, make us get sloppy with the rules. As we see in the chapters leading up to the story, David takes on a harem like the other kings around him but completely against the Old Testament law. He is bending the rules because he can bend the rules. He is the king, and he feels entitled. Slide: ) ISOLATED [TV] Wealth and power isolates. Getting the big chair is a lonely and dangerous place to be, and David puts himself in a dangerous situation. Let s read about it, as we start the story in 11:1: Slide: ) 2 Samuel 11:1 (NIV) [CG & TV] 2
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. David doesn t go out with his troops this time. He stays back at the palace, and he has time on his hands. As we ll see in the story, he has time to take naps and lounge around on his roof. Wealth and power isolate, and isolation is a dangerous place to be. Slide: ) INFLATED [TV] We ll also see that David lets power inflate him, as he is now the big shot, and he acts like it. That s the reason for the harem, and throughout this narrative, we are going to see David not do things but send people to do things. Slide: ) SEND [TV] 11 times in the narrative we are about to read, he sends for people to do things for him. He is above doing. He is the sender. HE sends and people jump. He is in complete control, or so he thinks. With that, we are ready to get on with the story: Slide: ) 2 Samuel 11:2-3 (NIV) [CG & TV] 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, and David sent someone to find out about her. The man said, Isn t this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite? That was a warning light. He is saying, Isn t she married to one of the officers in your army? But David feels powerful and entitled, and he wants her. The way the Hebrew is written, she wasn t just beautiful, she was crazy beautiful. He sees her, and wants her, and he is going to run whatever red lights he has to in order to get her. So, we read on: Slide: ) 2 Samuel 11:4 (NIV) [CG & TV] Then David sent messengers to get her. She came to him, and he slept with her. (She had purified herself from her uncleanness.) Then she went back home. He sees her, wants her, and because he could he sends for her, takes her, and sleeps with her. Then she goes home. David thought the story would end there, but it is never that easy and for David things are about to get really complicated. He is thinking, No harm, no foul. But sin is never that easy. Up to this point, David has been in complete control. That s about to change. 3
Slide: ) 2 Samuel 11:5 (NIV) [CG & TV] The woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, I am pregnant. Now who is doing the sending? Not David. This time, Bathsheba. She sends word, and the word is, I m pregnant. That would spell trouble for David. David is in Camelot, and this scandal could compromise that. And this is the real hinge, the turning point of the story. What is the man after God s own heart going to do now? We know what he should do. We know the only wise thing to do, and that is of course to come clean, to take responsibility, to bring the sin out into the open and take responsibility for it. But that is hard to do. When hidden sin starts peaking out into the open with complications or consequences, what do we do? When people begin to smell out our deception or sin what do we do? Life would be so much easier if we did the godly thing, take responsibility and bring it out into the open confess right then and repent then do whatever we can to help make the situation as good as it can be. But the other choice in the moment often makes a whole lot more sense cover it up. Because at that moment, it seems like nothing could be worse than people knowing that you stole some money, that you told a lie, that you have a problem with pornography, that you are having an affair easier in the moment to cover up the sin. David chooses the cover up, still trying to maintain control. He goes back to sending. He comes up with what feels like a plan that will work. He just needs to get Uriah to come home for some R&R, and sleep with his wife. Even though she is probably a couple of months pregnant and the math doesn t work out perfectly close enough: Slide: ) 2 Samuel 11:6-8 (NIV) [CG & TV] So David sent this word to Joab: Send me Uriah the Hittite. And Joab sent him to David. When Uriah came to him, David asked him how Joab was, how the soldiers were and how the war was going. Then David said to Uriah, "Go down to your house and wash your feet." So Uriah left the palace, and a gift from the king was sent after him. OK, so get this. David sends him off to Bathsheba and says, Go wash your feet, which has nothing to do with his feet. It was a euphemism, another way to say, Go sleep with your wife. And he even sends a gift, a little romantic gift pack probably some great food, wine, candles, chocolate-covered strawberries, maybe even a Barry White CD. Go ahead and give me some Barry White. Slide: ) (Barry White music clip) Oh, yeah. You get the picture? Uriah sleeps with Bathsheba, months later he assumes the baby is his again, no harm, no foul. But David s plan doesn t work out so well: 4
Slide: ) 2 Samuel 11:9-10 [CG & TV] But Uriah slept at the entrance to the palace with all his master s servants and did not go down to his house. When David was told, Uriah did not go home, he called for him (he sent for him?). Uriah comes and David says, What s the deal? Why didn t you go home to be with your wife? And he replies that he just couldn t, that he couldn t go to his comfortable home and be with his beautiful wife when his troops are out dying on the battlefield. Wow. A noble guy, and this had to give David at least a brief pause. Another red light. What is David going to do? Maybe now he will see Uriah s nobility and do the right thing, confess and repent. But he doesn t. He continues the cover-up: Slide: ) 2 Samuel 11:12-13b (NIV) [CG & TV] Then David said to him, Stay here one more day, and tomorrow I will send you back. So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next. At David s invitation, he ate and drank with him, and David made him drunk. Can you believe all this is in the Bible? And this is the man after God s own heart? He decides to get Uriah drunk, thinking that he will lose his restraint and after being away for months from his wife, go enjoy some quality time. But once again, Uriah chooses not to go home. And now David is stuck. What is he going to do? A huge red light here. No good options except to come clean. But he comes up with one that sounds better to him than coming clean, and we see how far David is going to fall. He sends Uriah back to the battle with a note for his commander, Joab: Slide: ) 2 Samuel 11:15 (NIV) [CG & TV] In it he wrote, "Put Uriah in the front line where the fighting is fiercest. Then withdraw from him so he will be struck down and die." Can you believe it? This is not only evil. It s stupid. But that s what sin does. It makes us stupid, especially when in cover up mode. Here s the plan: Everyone go attack, and then pull back and leave Uriah. People aren t going to understand why, and Uriah is going to pull back when the rest do. So, Joab improvises because he knows what David really wants. It just means multiple innocent people will die as a group does the stupid act of rushing against the wall where they will be hit with arrows. And that s what happens. Joab sends word that Uriah is dead, along with a few others, and David simply sends back a glib statement, Don t feel bad, these things happen in war. David has sunk really far. Back home: 5
Slide: ) 2 Samuel 11:26-27 (NIV) [CG & TV] When Uriah's wife heard that her husband was dead, she mourned for him. 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. What a story. The summary from God s perspective is that what David had done was truly evil, but David is blind to all that. He is king, and he uses his power to cover up his sin, and he gets what he wants. He gets Bathsheba, and he has rationalized so much for so long, he is so twisted around in his thinking that he is blind to the reality of all that he has done. Slide: ) The power of hidden sin [TV] (unsure of placement of this slide) And that is what hidden, unchecked sin does in our lives. Here it is in principle form: Slide: ) [TV] Hidden sin kills good judgment, causing a downward spiral in your life. If you asked David at the beginning if he would ever become an adulterer and multiple murderer, of course he would say no. But that s the power of hidden sin. We start rationalizing, and once that starts we end up somewhere we never thought possible. That story I see repeated over and over again. Sin just makes people stupid, and some of you are there right now. One day you will wake up and realize that, but you know even as I speak that you are there. You can keep the spiral going, or stop it now. It will stop eventually, and the longer it goes the worse it gets. We choose deception, let s say to cheat on a test, and cover it up that starts a pattern of deception in our lives that continues to spiral. People dabble with internet porn, and the spiral starts its work and someone is addicted, or acts out in some crazy way they never would have thought possible. That is why hidden sin is so dangerous. And from one of David s psalms, we learn what was going on in David s heart and life during this time of cover-up and it is the same that will happen to you and me, leading to our next principle: Slide: ) [TV] Hidden sin eats away at your soul, eroding your relationship with God. Slide: Psalm 32:1-4 (NIV) [CG & TV] Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the LORD does not count against him and in whose spirit is no deceit. When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day 6
and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer. You want to know what was going on in David s life during the cover up? There it is. That sin and its guilt ate away at his soul, and eroded his relationship with God. That s what hidden sin does. The last place we want to be is somewhere like here, in church, around people who are seeking to follow God. When we are hiding sin, we also have to cover over our guilt. Some do it through sinning more, others through drinking too much, others through staying busy but all the time, that sin is like acid that eats away at our souls. Eventually, the next principle is also true: Slide: ) [TV] Hidden sin will destroy everything good in your life, unless God intervenes. Sin is destructive, 100% of the time. Hidden sin is like acid, and it will destroy you if left unchecked. That s why in Romans 1, where God is talking about judging people who reject his grace, he says that he just turns them over to their sin. The worst kind of judgment God can do is to turn someone over to their sin, to just let sin take its course and work its destruction. Nothing is worse than that. The great news is that God has promised those of us who are his, that have a relationship with Jesus Christ, that he will not let us destroy ourselves that he will intervene. This isn t often pleasant, but he promises that he will. One way that can happen is his discipline in our lives. Slide: ) Hebrews 12:10-11 (NIV) [CG & TV] Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. God is a good father, and he will intervene but that doesn t mean it is pleasant. 1 Corinthians 12 is another example, where Paul says that God has disciplined some, even taken some people home to be with God, so that sin doesn t cause their ultimate destruction. God will eventually intervene, but that is not a great option, and the longer we go the more sin destroys what is good in our lives. Before severe discipline, if we don t repent on our own, God will typically use other people in our lives who are godly to confront us. We are indeed told to do so, to look out for each other s lives, and to confront sin when we see it to not let someone get stupid to get in their face and speak truth. That s what happens in David s life. God uses a friend to try to get his attention. 7
Slide: ) 2 Samuel 12:1a (NIV) [CG & TV] The LORD sent Nathan to David. to confront him. Notice who is doing the sending now. God has entered the story, the one who is in complete control. He is giving David a big opportunity. Proverbs says that a wise man listens to correction but a fool blows it off, and this gets us to a new stage for David. David is a believer, so God intervenes, and we are going to see if he is a fool or not. Nathan sucks David in by telling him he wants to tell a story, and David says, I like stories! He gets some popcorn and sits back to hear the tale. The story is about a very rich man and a poor man who live in the same village. The rich man has many sheep and cattle, but the poor man has only one little sheep that he cares for like his own daughter. It is all he has. But one day a traveler comes to visit, and the rich man, instead of taking one of his many sheep, decides to take away the sheep treasured by the poor man to kill and eat with this traveling friend. When David hears the story, he shouts out, That man should be killed for what he did! And Nathan says one of the most poignant and bold verses in the whole Bible, Slide: 2 Samuel 12:7 (NIV) [CG & TV] Then Nathan said to David, You are the man! You are that man! You took what was treasured by a good man, his wife, to be your own, and you took his life. God gave you everything, but it wasn t enough. You had to go take what was not yours, and even take his life. Now David is at another red light. He can either run it, which would be fairly easy to do. All he has to do is kill Nathan. He is the king. But this time, he finally comes to his senses, and in verse 13 David responds: Slide: ) 2 Samuel 12:13a (NIV) [CG & TV] Then David said to Nathan, I have sinned against the LORD. David stops the spiral, and changes the whole course of his life. He realizes that he really has become that man, and that this hidden sin is going to destroy him if he doesn t do something. There is only one way to do so with hidden sin, you have to bring it out into the open, which means to confess and repent to bring that hidden sin out into the open where it can be dealt with. David did. He confessed his sin. God forgave David, though there were still huge consequences for his sin. That s what we will talk about next week. But God did forgive him, and in the end he was still the man after God s own heart. You remember that psalm we read earlier about how hidden sin was eating away at him? Let me read you the next phrase: 8
Slide: ) Psalm 32:5 (NIV) [CG& TV] Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the LORD " and you forgave the guilt of my sin. which helps us to understand the first verses of the psalm again: Slide: ) Psalm 32:1-2 (NIV) [CG & TV] Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the LORD does not count against him and in whose spirit is no deceit. David was finally free from that acid of hidden sin in his soul. Once again he could know joy, intimacy with God, and enjoy the freedom that only God s forgiveness can bring. David would learn how destructive hidden sin truly is. The only way to deal with it is to bring it out into the open, out into the light. 1 John 1:9 says: Slide: ) 1 John 1:9 (NIV) [CG & TV] If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. What a great promise, that if we confess, he will forgive no qualifications on that. He doesn t say, Unless it is really bad or only if you grovel at my feet or do penance for what you have done. He just says he will forgive. The Bible also tells us to bring it out into the open with another Christian friend, someone we can trust. Slide: ) James 5:16 (NIV) [CG & TV] Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. When we confess our sins to one another, it breaks the power of that sin in our life, it brings it out into the open, and that friend can pray for us, can challenge us, can look for that sin starting to pop up into our lives again and name it. The point is to bring it out into the open. But that can be scary. When you are hiding sin, even though you know how destructive it might be, it is very easy to think that the worst thing that could possibly happen would be for that sin to come out into the open but so not true! It is the best thing! But better to bring it into the open yourself, and then deal with it. Right now, I want you to get really honest with yourself. Where are you in this story? It is easy in this culture to play loose with sin, because we are a wealthy, self-entitled culture. 9
The more wealthy and powerful you are, the easier it is to get what you want and rationalize it. It is easy to play loose with sin, because we feel more in control and selfentitled. That s what makes our life here in a place like North Dallas so dangerous. Are you playing loose with sin? Or, are you past that? Are you rationalizing a sinful path or relationship or decision? Are you allowing sin to make you stupid? I ve seen friends here at Chase Oaks rationalize everything from porn, to affairs, to extra-marital sex, to fraud, all kinds of deceit and become really good at rationalizing. Is that where you are? Or, are you in cover-up mode? Wherever you are, understand that you are going down the spiral, and it is not going to end well. What you must do is what David eventually did even though very late in his case he came clean. I want to give you an opportunity to come clean. Don t let it go any further. We are about to pray, and spend some time with God, and I want you to be really honest with yourself and God for these next minutes. God knows anyway. Are there hidden sins in your life that are at work in your soul? Look at the stages in David s life and identify if there is a sin area in your life and you are at one of these stages, one of these red lights? Would you be willing to bring it out into the light right now, and turn from it? That s all repent means, is to turn the other way, from that sin toward God, from that darkness toward the light. And God will help you. If you confess your sins to him, he promises that he will forgive and if you are open he can help you begin to root that sin out of your life. Take time with God right now, and talk with him. Slide: ) [TV] (Quote will be added somewhere towards the end of the sermon) Penitent soul! Dare to believe in the instantaneous forgiveness of sins. You have only to utter the confession, to find it interrupted with the outbreak of the Father s love. As soon as the words of penitence leave your lips, they are met by the hurrying assurances of a love which, while it hates sin, has never ceased to yearn over the prodigal. Sin is dark, dangerous, damnable: but it cannot staunch the love of God; it cannot change the love that is not of yesterday, but dates from eternity itself. The only thing that can really hurt the soul is to keep its confession pent up within itself. If only with stuttering, broken utterance it dares to cry, Be merciful to me, the sinner, for the sake of the blood that was shed, it instantly becomes white as snow on alpine peaks, pure as the waters of mid-ocean ---F B Meyer 10