Today, I’m continuing our Lenten leapfrogging through the Old Testament. We started with Noah. After the flood, God promised never to destroy the earth, and he put a rainbow in the sky to remind us. Then we jumped ahead to Abraham, and saw how God made a covenant with Abraham that he would be the father of a nation, and that he would be their God and they would be his people. Then we leaped ahead to Moses, and saw how God gave Moses the Ten Commandments. Then, we jumped ahead a few years to a time when the Israelites, wandering in the wilderness, were being bitten by poisonous snakes, and God told Moses to make a bronze snake and put it on a pole, and when the people looked at it they would be healed. Many years later, Jesus likened his coming crucifixion to the snake on the pole. Jesus said, “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.”(John 3:14-15)Through all of these stories, the message is that God is revealing himself and reaching out to the people because he wants to have a relationship with them. God is still reaching out to us today, because he loves us and wants to have a relationship with us. Today, we are jumping another five hundred years or so to the time of King David, roughly 1000 BC. After the Israelites had wandered in the wilderness under the leadership of Moses for forty years, they entered into the Promised Land, which today is The prophet Samuel anointed Saul to be the first king. Saul started out as a good king, but as time went by, he strayed away from God. Samuel anointed a young man, David, to be the second king. You can read the stories of Samuel, Saul, and David in I and 2 Samuel. David was a good king, and he sought to follow after God. But there was a time when he failed miserably, and that is our story for today. I’ll be reading from 2 Samuel, chapters 11 and 12. 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
David had been a great warrior, but this time he would send Joab as commander of the army, and he would stay at home in his palace. That turned out to be his downfall. Maybe in the same way, when we get lazy and sit on the sidelines, that’s when we get ourselves into trouble. At any rate, David couldn’t sleep.
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, 3 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?" 4 Then David sent messengers to get her. She came to him, and he slept with her…. Then she went back home. 5 The woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, "I am pregnant."
David had thought nothing would come of his little fling. But now, Bathsheba was pregnant, and her husband, Uriah, who was out on the battlefield, would surely find out. So David came up with a plan.
6 So David sent this word to Joab: "Send me Uriah the Hittite." And Joab sent him to David. 7 When Uriah came to him, David 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." So Uriah left the palace, and a gift from the king was sent after him. 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 When David was told, "Uriah did not go home," he asked him, "Haven't you just come from a distance? Why didn't you go home?"
11 Uriah said to David, "The ark and
Imagine what is going through David’s head now. His plan is ruined because Uriah is a man of such great honor, and he doesn’t want to give himself privileges while his fellow warriors are out in the battlefield. So David tries again.
12 Then David said to him, "Stay here one more day, and tomorrow I will send you back." So Uriah remained in
14 In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah.
15 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 this? David has made every effort to get Uriah to relax his principles and go to his wife, even to the point of getting him drunk. But Uriah knows the noble thing to do, even when the king has plied him with drink. And now, David is desperate. He knows he will be greatly shamed if it becomes known that he has slept with Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba. So he writes a letter calling for Uriah’s death, and has Uriah deliver the letter!
16 So while Joab had the city under siege, he put Uriah at a place where he knew the strongest defenders were. 17 When the men of the city came out and fought against Joab, some of the men in David's army fell; moreover, Uriah the Hittite died.
18 Joab sent David a full account of the battle….
23 The messenger said to David, "The men overpowered us and came out against us in the open, but we drove them back to the entrance to the city gate. 24 Then the archers shot arrows at your servants from the wall, and some of the king's men died. Moreover, your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead." ….
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.
Now, David apparently thought he had gotten away with what he had done, but God decided to speak to David through his prophet, Nathan.
1 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 deserves to 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
11 "This is what the LORD says: 'Out of your own household I am going to bring calamity upon you. Before your very eyes I will take your wives and give them to one who is close to you, and he will lie with your wives in broad daylight. 12 You did it in secret, but I will do this thing in broad daylight before all
13 Then 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….”
God did punish David, even though he forgave him. What David did might seem to be unforgivable. How many of the Ten Commandments did he break? He committed adultery, he lied, and he murdered a man who was both innocent and noble. He coveted what was not his and stole from another man. But in spite of his grievous sin David did love God, and God chose to forgive him.
I’m not sure exactly how it all started. Maybe David was getting a little bit too used to the luxuries of the palace, and that was the reason he decided not to go to battle. Maybe being king had gone to his head, and he had begun to think that whatever he wanted should be his. Sometimes powerful people begin to think the rules don’t apply to them. We see that in the news, fairly often.
Still, David was a man who loved God. He wrote many of the psalms we still have, and as we read them, our hearts are drawn to God. Think of Psalm 23, and how many times it has comforted each one of us. That is one of David’s psalms.
But David was a sinner, and he desperately needed God’s forgiveness. If David, who loved God, could sin so grievously, who are we to think that we could be without sin? The Bible says that every one of us has sinned. In fact, we sin on a regular basis. Maybe not in quite such spectacular ways as David did, but we certainly sin. I think for many of us, the sin that must sadden God’s heart is our hardness of heart towards one another.
God saw our sinfulness, and he sent his Son, Jesus, to save us from our sins. Jesus invites us to come to him and ask for forgiveness for our sins. When we pray and ask him to forgive us, he cleanses us from our sin. God forgives our sin so that we can have a relationship with him. That’s what it means to be a Christian. Not to be a good person or a person who goes to church, but a person who has been forgiven, and has a relationship with Jesus Christ.
God wants us to recognize our own sin and to confess our sins. So it is a good thing for us to examine our lives and ask God to show us where we have failed.
After his miserable failure, David confessed his sin to God, and he wrote a beautiful, eloquent psalm. The introduction to Psalm 51 says,
For the director of music. A psalm of David. When the prophet Nathan came to him after David had committed adultery with Bathsheba. We are going to take a moment of silence, so that we can search our hearts, and ask God if we have sins we need to confess. Then, I am going to read Psalm 51, this beautiful psalm of contrition that David wrote, as our closing prayer. I invite you to use David’s words to confess your own sins.
Prayer:
1 Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion
blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash away all my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin.
3 For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is always before me.
4 Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you are proved right when you speak
and justified when you judge.
5 Surely I was sinful at birth,
sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
6 Surely you desire truth in the inner parts;
you teach me wisdom in the inmost place.
7 Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
8 Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones you have crushed rejoice.
9 Hide your face from my sins
and blot out all my iniquity.
10 Create in me a pure heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
11 Do not cast me from your presence
or take your Holy Spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation
and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.
13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
and sinners will turn back to you.
14 Save me from bloodguilt, O God,
the God who saves me,
and my tongue will sing of your righteousness.
15 O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth will declare your praise.
16 You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it;
you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.
17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart,
O God, you will not despise.
Through all of these stories, the message is that God is revealing himself and reaching out to the people because he wants to have a relationship with them. God is still reaching out to us today, because he loves us and wants to have a relationship with us. Today, we are jumping another five hundred years or so to the time of King David, roughly 1000 BC. After the Israelites had wandered in the wilderness under the leadership of Moses for forty years, they entered into the Promised Land, which today is The prophet Samuel anointed Saul to be the first king. Saul started out as a good king, but as time went by, he strayed away from God. Samuel anointed a young man, David, to be the second king. You can read the stories of Samuel, Saul, and David in I and 2 Samuel. David was a good king, and he sought to follow after God. But there was a time when he failed miserably, and that is our story for today. I’ll be reading from 2 Samuel, chapters 11 and 12. 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
David had been a great warrior, but this time he would send Joab as commander of the army, and he would stay at home in his palace. That turned out to be his downfall. Maybe in the same way, when we get lazy and sit on the sidelines, that’s when we get ourselves into trouble. At any rate, David couldn’t sleep.
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, 3 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?" 4 Then David sent messengers to get her. She came to him, and he slept with her…. Then she went back home. 5 The woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, "I am pregnant."
David had thought nothing would come of his little fling. But now, Bathsheba was pregnant, and her husband, Uriah, who was out on the battlefield, would surely find out. So David came up with a plan.
6 So David sent this word to Joab: "Send me Uriah the Hittite." And Joab sent him to David. 7 When Uriah came to him, David 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." So Uriah left the palace, and a gift from the king was sent after him. 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 When David was told, "Uriah did not go home," he asked him, "Haven't you just come from a distance? Why didn't you go home?"
11 Uriah said to David, "The ark and
Imagine what is going through David’s head now. His plan is ruined because Uriah is a man of such great honor, and he doesn’t want to give himself privileges while his fellow warriors are out in the battlefield. So David tries again.
12 Then David said to him, "Stay here one more day, and tomorrow I will send you back." So Uriah remained in
14 In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah.
15 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 this? David has made every effort to get Uriah to relax his principles and go to his wife, even to the point of getting him drunk. But Uriah knows the noble thing to do, even when the king has plied him with drink. And now, David is desperate. He knows he will be greatly shamed if it becomes known that he has slept with Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba. So he writes a letter calling for Uriah’s death, and has Uriah deliver the letter!
16 So while Joab had the city under siege, he put Uriah at a place where he knew the strongest defenders were. 17 When the men of the city came out and fought against Joab, some of the men in David's army fell; moreover, Uriah the Hittite died.
18 Joab sent David a full account of the battle….
23 The messenger said to David, "The men overpowered us and came out against us in the open, but we drove them back to the entrance to the city gate. 24 Then the archers shot arrows at your servants from the wall, and some of the king's men died. Moreover, your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead." ….
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.
Now, David apparently thought he had gotten away with what he had done, but God decided to speak to David through his prophet, Nathan.
1 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 deserves to 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
11 "This is what the LORD says: 'Out of your own household I am going to bring calamity upon you. Before your very eyes I will take your wives and give them to one who is close to you, and he will lie with your wives in broad daylight. 12 You did it in secret, but I will do this thing in broad daylight before all
13 Then 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….”
God did punish David, even though he forgave him. What David did might seem to be unforgivable. How many of the Ten Commandments did he break? He committed adultery, he lied, and he murdered a man who was both innocent and noble. He coveted what was not his and stole from another man. But in spite of his grievous sin David did love God, and God chose to forgive him.
I’m not sure exactly how it all started. Maybe David was getting a little bit too used to the luxuries of the palace, and that was the reason he decided not to go to battle. Maybe being king had gone to his head, and he had begun to think that whatever he wanted should be his. Sometimes powerful people begin to think the rules don’t apply to them. We see that in the news, fairly often.
Still, David was a man who loved God. He wrote many of the psalms we still have, and as we read them, our hearts are drawn to God. Think of Psalm 23, and how many times it has comforted each one of us. That is one of David’s psalms.
But David was a sinner, and he desperately needed God’s forgiveness. If David, who loved God, could sin so grievously, who are we to think that we could be without sin? The Bible says that every one of us has sinned. In fact, we sin on a regular basis. Maybe not in quite such spectacular ways as David did, but we certainly sin. I think for many of us, the sin that must sadden God’s heart is our hardness of heart towards one another.
God saw our sinfulness, and he sent his Son, Jesus, to save us from our sins. Jesus invites us to come to him and ask for forgiveness for our sins. When we pray and ask him to forgive us, he cleanses us from our sin. God forgives our sin so that we can have a relationship with him. That’s what it means to be a Christian. Not to be a good person or a person who goes to church, but a person who has been forgiven, and has a relationship with Jesus Christ.
God wants us to recognize our own sin and to confess our sins. So it is a good thing for us to examine our lives and ask God to show us where we have failed.
After his miserable failure, David confessed his sin to God, and he wrote a beautiful, eloquent psalm. The introduction to Psalm 51 says,
For the director of music. A psalm of David. When the prophet Nathan came to him after David had committed adultery with Bathsheba. We are going to take a moment of silence, so that we can search our hearts, and ask God if we have sins we need to confess. Then, I am going to read Psalm 51, this beautiful psalm of contrition that David wrote, as our closing prayer. I invite you to use David’s words to confess your own sins.
Prayer:
1 Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion
blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash away all my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin.
3 For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is always before me.
4 Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you are proved right when you speak
and justified when you judge.
5 Surely I was sinful at birth,
sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
6 Surely you desire truth in the inner parts;
you teach me wisdom in the inmost place.
7 Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
8 Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones you have crushed rejoice.
9 Hide your face from my sins
and blot out all my iniquity.
10 Create in me a pure heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
11 Do not cast me from your presence
or take your Holy Spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation
and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.
13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
and sinners will turn back to you.
14 Save me from bloodguilt, O God,
the God who saves me,
and my tongue will sing of your righteousness.
15 O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth will declare your praise.
16 You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it;
you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.
17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart,
O God, you will not despise.
After the Israelites had wandered in the wilderness under the leadership of Moses for forty years, they entered into the Promised Land, which today is The prophet Samuel anointed Saul to be the first king. Saul started out as a good king, but as time went by, he strayed away from God. Samuel anointed a young man, David, to be the second king. You can read the stories of Samuel, Saul, and David in I and 2 Samuel. David was a good king, and he sought to follow after God. But there was a time when he failed miserably, and that is our story for today. I’ll be reading from 2 Samuel, chapters 11 and 12. 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
David had been a great warrior, but this time he would send Joab as commander of the army, and he would stay at home in his palace. That turned out to be his downfall. Maybe in the same way, when we get lazy and sit on the sidelines, that’s when we get ourselves into trouble. At any rate, David couldn’t sleep.
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, 3 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?" 4 Then David sent messengers to get her. She came to him, and he slept with her…. Then she went back home. 5 The woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, "I am pregnant."
David had thought nothing would come of his little fling. But now, Bathsheba was pregnant, and her husband, Uriah, who was out on the battlefield, would surely find out. So David came up with a plan.
6 So David sent this word to Joab: "Send me Uriah the Hittite." And Joab sent him to David. 7 When Uriah came to him, David 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." So Uriah left the palace, and a gift from the king was sent after him. 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 When David was told, "Uriah did not go home," he asked him, "Haven't you just come from a distance? Why didn't you go home?"
11 Uriah said to David, "The ark and
Imagine what is going through David’s head now. His plan is ruined because Uriah is a man of such great honor, and he doesn’t want to give himself privileges while his fellow warriors are out in the battlefield. So David tries again.
12 Then David said to him, "Stay here one more day, and tomorrow I will send you back." So Uriah remained in
14 In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah.
15 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 this? David has made every effort to get Uriah to relax his principles and go to his wife, even to the point of getting him drunk. But Uriah knows the noble thing to do, even when the king has plied him with drink. And now, David is desperate. He knows he will be greatly shamed if it becomes known that he has slept with Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba. So he writes a letter calling for Uriah’s death, and has Uriah deliver the letter!
16 So while Joab had the city under siege, he put Uriah at a place where he knew the strongest defenders were. 17 When the men of the city came out and fought against Joab, some of the men in David's army fell; moreover, Uriah the Hittite died.
18 Joab sent David a full account of the battle….
23 The messenger said to David, "The men overpowered us and came out against us in the open, but we drove them back to the entrance to the city gate. 24 Then the archers shot arrows at your servants from the wall, and some of the king's men died. Moreover, your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead." ….
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.
Now, David apparently thought he had gotten away with what he had done, but God decided to speak to David through his prophet, Nathan.
1 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 deserves to 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
11 "This is what the LORD says: 'Out of your own household I am going to bring calamity upon you. Before your very eyes I will take your wives and give them to one who is close to you, and he will lie with your wives in broad daylight. 12 You did it in secret, but I will do this thing in broad daylight before all
13 Then 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….”
God did punish David, even though he forgave him. What David did might seem to be unforgivable. How many of the Ten Commandments did he break? He committed adultery, he lied, and he murdered a man who was both innocent and noble. He coveted what was not his and stole from another man. But in spite of his grievous sin David did love God, and God chose to forgive him.
I’m not sure exactly how it all started. Maybe David was getting a little bit too used to the luxuries of the palace, and that was the reason he decided not to go to battle. Maybe being king had gone to his head, and he had begun to think that whatever he wanted should be his. Sometimes powerful people begin to think the rules don’t apply to them. We see that in the news, fairly often.
Still, David was a man who loved God. He wrote many of the psalms we still have, and as we read them, our hearts are drawn to God. Think of Psalm 23, and how many times it has comforted each one of us. That is one of David’s psalms.
But David was a sinner, and he desperately needed God’s forgiveness. If David, who loved God, could sin so grievously, who are we to think that we could be without sin? The Bible says that every one of us has sinned. In fact, we sin on a regular basis. Maybe not in quite such spectacular ways as David did, but we certainly sin. I think for many of us, the sin that must sadden God’s heart is our hardness of heart towards one another.
God saw our sinfulness, and he sent his Son, Jesus, to save us from our sins. Jesus invites us to come to him and ask for forgiveness for our sins. When we pray and ask him to forgive us, he cleanses us from our sin. God forgives our sin so that we can have a relationship with him. That’s what it means to be a Christian. Not to be a good person or a person who goes to church, but a person who has been forgiven, and has a relationship with Jesus Christ.
God wants us to recognize our own sin and to confess our sins. So it is a good thing for us to examine our lives and ask God to show us where we have failed.
After his miserable failure, David confessed his sin to God, and he wrote a beautiful, eloquent psalm. The introduction to Psalm 51 says,
For the director of music. A psalm of David. When the prophet Nathan came to him after David had committed adultery with Bathsheba. We are going to take a moment of silence, so that we can search our hearts, and ask God if we have sins we need to confess. Then, I am going to read Psalm 51, this beautiful psalm of contrition that David wrote, as our closing prayer. I invite you to use David’s words to confess your own sins.
Prayer:
1 Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion
blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash away all my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin.
3 For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is always before me.
4 Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you are proved right when you speak
and justified when you judge.
5 Surely I was sinful at birth,
sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
6 Surely you desire truth in the inner parts;
you teach me wisdom in the inmost place.
7 Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
8 Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones you have crushed rejoice.
9 Hide your face from my sins
and blot out all my iniquity.
10 Create in me a pure heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
11 Do not cast me from your presence
or take your Holy Spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation
and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.
13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
and sinners will turn back to you.
14 Save me from bloodguilt, O God,
the God who saves me,
and my tongue will sing of your righteousness.
15 O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth will declare your praise.
16 You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it;
you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.
17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart,
O God, you will not despise.
David was a good king, and he sought to follow after God. But there was a time when he failed miserably, and that is our story for today. I’ll be reading from 2 Samuel, chapters 11 and 12. 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
David had been a great warrior, but this time he would send Joab as commander of the army, and he would stay at home in his palace. That turned out to be his downfall. Maybe in the same way, when we get lazy and sit on the sidelines, that’s when we get ourselves into trouble. At any rate, David couldn’t sleep.
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, 3 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?" 4 Then David sent messengers to get her. She came to him, and he slept with her…. Then she went back home. 5 The woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, "I am pregnant."
David had thought nothing would come of his little fling. But now, Bathsheba was pregnant, and her husband, Uriah, who was out on the battlefield, would surely find out. So David came up with a plan.
6 So David sent this word to Joab: "Send me Uriah the Hittite." And Joab sent him to David. 7 When Uriah came to him, David 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." So Uriah left the palace, and a gift from the king was sent after him. 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 When David was told, "Uriah did not go home," he asked him, "Haven't you just come from a distance? Why didn't you go home?"
11 Uriah said to David, "The ark and
Imagine what is going through David’s head now. His plan is ruined because Uriah is a man of such great honor, and he doesn’t want to give himself privileges while his fellow warriors are out in the battlefield. So David tries again.
12 Then David said to him, "Stay here one more day, and tomorrow I will send you back." So Uriah remained in
14 In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah.
15 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 this? David has made every effort to get Uriah to relax his principles and go to his wife, even to the point of getting him drunk. But Uriah knows the noble thing to do, even when the king has plied him with drink. And now, David is desperate. He knows he will be greatly shamed if it becomes known that he has slept with Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba. So he writes a letter calling for Uriah’s death, and has Uriah deliver the letter!
16 So while Joab had the city under siege, he put Uriah at a place where he knew the strongest defenders were. 17 When the men of the city came out and fought against Joab, some of the men in David's army fell; moreover, Uriah the Hittite died.
18 Joab sent David a full account of the battle….
23 The messenger said to David, "The men overpowered us and came out against us in the open, but we drove them back to the entrance to the city gate. 24 Then the archers shot arrows at your servants from the wall, and some of the king's men died. Moreover, your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead." ….
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.
Now, David apparently thought he had gotten away with what he had done, but God decided to speak to David through his prophet, Nathan.
1 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 deserves to 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
11 "This is what the LORD says: 'Out of your own household I am going to bring calamity upon you. Before your very eyes I will take your wives and give them to one who is close to you, and he will lie with your wives in broad daylight. 12 You did it in secret, but I will do this thing in broad daylight before all
13 Then 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….”
God did punish David, even though he forgave him. What David did might seem to be unforgivable. How many of the Ten Commandments did he break? He committed adultery, he lied, and he murdered a man who was both innocent and noble. He coveted what was not his and stole from another man. But in spite of his grievous sin David did love God, and God chose to forgive him.
I’m not sure exactly how it all started. Maybe David was getting a little bit too used to the luxuries of the palace, and that was the reason he decided not to go to battle. Maybe being king had gone to his head, and he had begun to think that whatever he wanted should be his. Sometimes powerful people begin to think the rules don’t apply to them. We see that in the news, fairly often.
Still, David was a man who loved God. He wrote many of the psalms we still have, and as we read them, our hearts are drawn to God. Think of Psalm 23, and how many times it has comforted each one of us. That is one of David’s psalms.
But David was a sinner, and he desperately needed God’s forgiveness. If David, who loved God, could sin so grievously, who are we to think that we could be without sin? The Bible says that every one of us has sinned. In fact, we sin on a regular basis. Maybe not in quite such spectacular ways as David did, but we certainly sin. I think for many of us, the sin that must sadden God’s heart is our hardness of heart towards one another.
God saw our sinfulness, and he sent his Son, Jesus, to save us from our sins. Jesus invites us to come to him and ask for forgiveness for our sins. When we pray and ask him to forgive us, he cleanses us from our sin. God forgives our sin so that we can have a relationship with him. That’s what it means to be a Christian. Not to be a good person or a person who goes to church, but a person who has been forgiven, and has a relationship with Jesus Christ.
God wants us to recognize our own sin and to confess our sins. So it is a good thing for us to examine our lives and ask God to show us where we have failed.
After his miserable failure, David confessed his sin to God, and he wrote a beautiful, eloquent psalm. The introduction to Psalm 51 says,
For the director of music. A psalm of David. When the prophet Nathan came to him after David had committed adultery with Bathsheba. We are going to take a moment of silence, so that we can search our hearts, and ask God if we have sins we need to confess. Then, I am going to read Psalm 51, this beautiful psalm of contrition that David wrote, as our closing prayer. I invite you to use David’s words to confess your own sins.
Prayer:
1 Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion
blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash away all my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin.
3 For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is always before me.
4 Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you are proved right when you speak
and justified when you judge.
5 Surely I was sinful at birth,
sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
6 Surely you desire truth in the inner parts;
you teach me wisdom in the inmost place.
7 Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
8 Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones you have crushed rejoice.
9 Hide your face from my sins
and blot out all my iniquity.
10 Create in me a pure heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
11 Do not cast me from your presence
or take your Holy Spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation
and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.
13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
and sinners will turn back to you.
14 Save me from bloodguilt, O God,
the God who saves me,
and my tongue will sing of your righteousness.
15 O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth will declare your praise.
16 You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it;
you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.
17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart,
O God, you will not despise.
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
David had been a great warrior, but this time he would send Joab as commander of the army, and he would stay at home in his palace. That turned out to be his downfall. Maybe in the same way, when we get lazy and sit on the sidelines, that’s when we get ourselves into trouble. At any rate, David couldn’t sleep.
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, 3 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?" 4 Then David sent messengers to get her. She came to him, and he slept with her…. Then she went back home. 5 The woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, "I am pregnant."
David had thought nothing would come of his little fling. But now, Bathsheba was pregnant, and her husband, Uriah, who was out on the battlefield, would surely find out. So David came up with a plan.
6 So David sent this word to Joab: "Send me Uriah the Hittite." And Joab sent him to David. 7 When Uriah came to him, David 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." So Uriah left the palace, and a gift from the king was sent after him. 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 When David was told, "Uriah did not go home," he asked him, "Haven't you just come from a distance? Why didn't you go home?"
11 Uriah said to David, "The ark and
Imagine what is going through David’s head now. His plan is ruined because Uriah is a man of such great honor, and he doesn’t want to give himself privileges while his fellow warriors are out in the battlefield. So David tries again.
12 Then David said to him, "Stay here one more day, and tomorrow I will send you back." So Uriah remained in
14 In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah.
15 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 this? David has made every effort to get Uriah to relax his principles and go to his wife, even to the point of getting him drunk. But Uriah knows the noble thing to do, even when the king has plied him with drink. And now, David is desperate. He knows he will be greatly shamed if it becomes known that he has slept with Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba. So he writes a letter calling for Uriah’s death, and has Uriah deliver the letter!
16 So while Joab had the city under siege, he put Uriah at a place where he knew the strongest defenders were. 17 When the men of the city came out and fought against Joab, some of the men in David's army fell; moreover, Uriah the Hittite died.
18 Joab sent David a full account of the battle….
23 The messenger said to David, "The men overpowered us and came out against us in the open, but we drove them back to the entrance to the city gate. 24 Then the archers shot arrows at your servants from the wall, and some of the king's men died. Moreover, your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead." ….
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.
Now, David apparently thought he had gotten away with what he had done, but God decided to speak to David through his prophet, Nathan.
1 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 deserves to 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
11 "This is what the LORD says: 'Out of your own household I am going to bring calamity upon you. Before your very eyes I will take your wives and give them to one who is close to you, and he will lie with your wives in broad daylight. 12 You did it in secret, but I will do this thing in broad daylight before all
13 Then 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….”
God did punish David, even though he forgave him. What David did might seem to be unforgivable. How many of the Ten Commandments did he break? He committed adultery, he lied, and he murdered a man who was both innocent and noble. He coveted what was not his and stole from another man. But in spite of his grievous sin David did love God, and God chose to forgive him.
I’m not sure exactly how it all started. Maybe David was getting a little bit too used to the luxuries of the palace, and that was the reason he decided not to go to battle. Maybe being king had gone to his head, and he had begun to think that whatever he wanted should be his. Sometimes powerful people begin to think the rules don’t apply to them. We see that in the news, fairly often.
Still, David was a man who loved God. He wrote many of the psalms we still have, and as we read them, our hearts are drawn to God. Think of Psalm 23, and how many times it has comforted each one of us. That is one of David’s psalms.
But David was a sinner, and he desperately needed God’s forgiveness. If David, who loved God, could sin so grievously, who are we to think that we could be without sin? The Bible says that every one of us has sinned. In fact, we sin on a regular basis. Maybe not in quite such spectacular ways as David did, but we certainly sin. I think for many of us, the sin that must sadden God’s heart is our hardness of heart towards one another.
God saw our sinfulness, and he sent his Son, Jesus, to save us from our sins. Jesus invites us to come to him and ask for forgiveness for our sins. When we pray and ask him to forgive us, he cleanses us from our sin. God forgives our sin so that we can have a relationship with him. That’s what it means to be a Christian. Not to be a good person or a person who goes to church, but a person who has been forgiven, and has a relationship with Jesus Christ.
God wants us to recognize our own sin and to confess our sins. So it is a good thing for us to examine our lives and ask God to show us where we have failed.
After his miserable failure, David confessed his sin to God, and he wrote a beautiful, eloquent psalm. The introduction to Psalm 51 says,
For the director of music. A psalm of David. When the prophet Nathan came to him after David had committed adultery with Bathsheba. We are going to take a moment of silence, so that we can search our hearts, and ask God if we have sins we need to confess. Then, I am going to read Psalm 51, this beautiful psalm of contrition that David wrote, as our closing prayer. I invite you to use David’s words to confess your own sins.
Prayer:
1 Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion
blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash away all my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin.
3 For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is always before me.
4 Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you are proved right when you speak
and justified when you judge.
5 Surely I was sinful at birth,
sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
6 Surely you desire truth in the inner parts;
you teach me wisdom in the inmost place.
7 Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
8 Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones you have crushed rejoice.
9 Hide your face from my sins
and blot out all my iniquity.
10 Create in me a pure heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
11 Do not cast me from your presence
or take your Holy Spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation
and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.
13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
and sinners will turn back to you.
14 Save me from bloodguilt, O God,
the God who saves me,
and my tongue will sing of your righteousness.
15 O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth will declare your praise.
16 You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it;
you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.
17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart,
O God, you will not despise.
Nathan replied, "The LORD has taken away your sin. You are not going to die….”
We are going to take a moment of silence, so that we can search our hearts, and ask God if we have sins we need to confess. Then, I am going to read Psalm 51, this beautiful psalm of contrition that David wrote, as our closing prayer. I invite you to use David’s words to confess your own sins.
Prayer:
1 Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion
blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash away all my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin.
3 For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is always before me.
4 Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you are proved right when you speak
and justified when you judge.
5 Surely I was sinful at birth,
sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
6 Surely you desire truth in the inner parts;
you teach me wisdom in the inmost place.
7 Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
8 Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones you have crushed rejoice.
9 Hide your face from my sins
and blot out all my iniquity.
10 Create in me a pure heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
11 Do not cast me from your presence
or take your Holy Spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation
and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.
13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
and sinners will turn back to you.
14 Save me from bloodguilt, O God,
the God who saves me,
and my tongue will sing of your righteousness.
15 O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth will declare your praise.
16 You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it;
you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.
17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart,
O God, you will not despise.
1 Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion
blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash away all my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin.
3 For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is always before me.
4 Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you are proved right when you speak
and justified when you judge.
5 Surely I was sinful at birth,
sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
6 Surely you desire truth in the inner parts;
you teach me wisdom in the inmost place.
7 Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
8 Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones you have crushed rejoice.
9 Hide your face from my sins
and blot out all my iniquity.
10 Create in me a pure heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
11 Do not cast me from your presence
or take your Holy Spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation
and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.
13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
and sinners will turn back to you.
14 Save me from bloodguilt, O God,
the God who saves me,
and my tongue will sing of your righteousness.
15 O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth will declare your praise.
16 You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it;
you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.
17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart,
O God, you will not despise.
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