David the King part 4

David’s Leadership

2 weeks ago we discussed David and Bathsheba.

This was David’s greatest failure.

Killing a man.

Taking his wife.

having a child with her in an adulterous relationship.

What is one of your greatest failures?

Man when I was a youth pastor for a few months at a different church, I had texted one of my leaders and received a frustrating response.

He normally played guitar and led worship on Wednesdays, but at the last minute he cancelled on me.

In frustration, I texted one of my friends to vent about him, but instead, I accidently texted him.

His name is Ben also btw.

The result was embarrassing and sad.

I hurt a guy who was helping me and as a result he never helped me again.

I damaged the relationship because I was gossiping and speaking harmfully against a good man.

This was Not my greatest failure, not even close, but it was a failure that resulted in a damaged relationship.

I asked for forgiveness from Ben and I did everything possible to restore the relationship, but unfortunately, there was just too much brokenness.

For David, I’m thankful He repented.

David heard from Nathan that he had made a horrific mistake.

He understood he deserved death.

2 Samuel 12:5 “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!”

2 Samuel 12:13 “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.”

This is an important distinction.

What defines a man is not the sin he has committed, but the response of his heart towards the evil He has allowed in his life.

What defines you, is not your mistakes, but how you allow God to restore you after your mistakes.

Because of David’s humility, his response, and his identity in God, God said about David through Luke.

Acts 13:22 “22 After removing Saul, he made David their king. God testified concerning him: ‘I have found David son of Jesse, a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do.’”

David?

A man after God’s own heart?

That sounds crazy.

But David was a model king.

His son Solomon is even compared to David in 1 Kings 11:6.

1 Kings 11:6 “6 So Solomon did evil in the eyes of the Lord; he did not follow the Lord completely, as David his father had done.”

Why is David the model king?

His heart was truly after God, he didn’t stay in his failure.

Did he fail, yes.

Should we cancel David because of his failure?

Some think so

But after great sin, David threw himself completely on the mercy of Jesus

He walked with God through the pain and chaos of his son’s death

He leaned on God through all his ups and downs

He relied on God’s grace

He kept worshipping God

He wrote songs and praises to God through the difficulties.

During the time of the judges, we saw that downward spiral of sin.

During the time of Saul, we also saw a downward spiral of sin.

David easily could have slid (and to some extent he did) down this spiral of sin.

but David remained faithful to God. That was the key.

He humbled himself to reject his way and instead he followed Yahweh…

Yeah…

He rejected his self-righteousness and accepted Christ’s righteousness.

Here’s another layer to David’s story this morning…

In David’s time, it was common practice for kings of pagan nations to secure their political positions by assassinating their rivals.

In other words, Saul’s attempts to kill David in 1 Samuel make sense when you consider he viewed David as a political rival.

Rather than trust God and his timing, Saul trusted himself and lived independently from God.

David however lived counter culturally.

Many of David’s writings in the psalms show his trust in God.

Through the times where Saul was trying to murder him.

To the tumultuous time he tried to ruin his life and the lives of those around him with his adulterous relationship with Bathsheba…

David’s Psalms show us his trust in God in these times of struggle.

Alot of times too, David doesn’t focus on the problem, he focuses on God.

He doesn’t blame his problems, his choices, or the mistakes of those around him as the problems in his life…

He owns the problems, gives them to God and then writes about who God is, what God’s character is like, why God is over all things, and why we should trust and place our hope in God.

It’s for reasons like that that David was a man after God’s own heart.

We all could repeat the mistakes of David....

But few will repeat the humility and responsibility David shows by throwing himself completely on the mercy of Jesus.

Are you doing that?

Are you going to God with your struggles?

Or are you canceling yourself because you think your sin is too great for God?

God will never cancel you…

So there are 3 lessons about Sanctification we can learn from David’s life.

What is Sanctification?

To be made holy, set apart.

It’s the life you live after you are saved that is thrown to the mercy of Jesus.

Romans 12:1–2 “1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

Just because you become a Christian, doesn’t mean you mind thinks immediately how God would desire us to think, which is how he thinks.

So it takes time and honestly, just living life with Jesus to think and do as He does.

That has nothing to do with identity, if you are a believer, your identity is secure in Christ. Your spirit is made new.

But again, your mind, may not feel that way.

It takes time.

The things of earth become strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.

It doesn’t happen over night.

So here’s the 3 lessons we can learn from David about sanctification.

How to be restored after we sin.

A. Convinced of our sin.

Admitting you did sin is still important.

We are crazy to just say “Oh I never sin anymore.”

Your identity is not a sinner anymore. Period.

But that is separate from saying, “I never sin anymore...” You do.

We should be convinced when we sin, that we did.

B. Convicted of our sin.

When we are convicted, we simply agree with God.

C. Trust Jesus that He covered our sin.

I trust that what Jesus did on the cross is enough.

I can’t out-do Jesus.

Satan loves to make us think we need to do something more than Jesus has already done.

David heard from Nathan, he was convinced of his sin, convicted of his sin, and trusted God’s mercy was enough to cover his sin.

That’s a good model for us to follow as well.

A second lesson we can learn from David is:

2. How to have faith and confidence in God.

God is a promise keeper and we have a choice to do three things with his promises.

Ignore them… never even get to know His promises.

Know them, but not trust them.

Know them and trust them.

David, despite all his mistakes, trusted in God’s redemption in his life.

Romans 8:1 “1 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,”

2 Corinthians 5:17 “17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!”

We too can rest knowing we are justified before God.

We are declared righteous and we are righteous in Christ.

We are justified.

David also grew through this horrible experience to trust, obey, and be loyal to God.

This process is called Sanctification.

In our time under the new covenant, we should never think we can’t find grace or that God has given up on us.

Even under the old covenant, God gave grace to David and because of God’s grace, David sought forgiveness.

What about me? What about you?

Hebrews 11:1 “1 Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.”

We can have confidence and assurance that Jesus has forgiven us and He will never give up on us.

Because of His presence, we can have confidence and faith.

3. How to guard against big sins in our life.

Deuteronomy 17:18–20 “18 When he takes the throne of his kingdom, he is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of this law, taken from that of the Levitical priests. 19 It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to revere the Lord his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decrees 20 and not consider himself better than his fellow Israelites and turn from the law to the right or to the left. Then he and his descendants will reign a long time over his kingdom in Israel.”

David’s big sin in his life was the result of ignoring what God had for him.

Big sins don’t just happen, they are the result of many “small” sins happening over and over.

Additionally, reading your Bible every day doesn’t just happen, it is the result of disciplining ourselves to pursue Jesus daily.

Are you walking with Jesus?

There is no substitute in life to walking with Jesus.

No replacement, nothing.

It’s Jesus + Nothing that gives us hope and security in life.

Is he your hope and security today?