When Sin Meets Grace

Notes
Transcript
We’re going to do something radical this morning. For the first Sunday of the New Year, we’re going to hop back into 2 Samuel where we left off before “Christmas in Isaiah.”
We’ve got a lot of ground to cover, but there’s some good news: we’re going to read a lot of Bible this morning. What’s better than that? What the Bible has to say to us is better than anything I can say, far superior to any comments I can make.
The most important thing we do on a Sunday is hear from God via His Holy Word. Nothing compares. Nothing is as significant.
There are only going to be a few verses up on the screen this morning, not every word we’re going to read, so it will behoove you have a copy of the Bible open in front of you this morning as we read through/think about these two chapters.
We’re in 2 Samuel 11-12 this morning (it stars on page 482 in the red pew Bible in front of you).
We’ve been following the life of David, as he became the king of Israel after King Saul was killed.
David is a pretty good guy, and a mostly good king. But he’s not perfect.
As we turn from 2 Samuel 10 to 2 Samuel 11 we’ll see that he’s a sinner, like all the rest of us.
The danger is looking up to David to the point we put him on a pedestal, making him our hero or the hero of the story.
A twin danger is looking down our noses at him, thinking David’s sin is somehow worse than ours. Thinking that we’re better than him.
He isn’t worse than us; we’re not better than him. He’s not the hero of the story. He’s a sinner. He’s just like us.
Let’s read the first 5 verses and get the setting in mind:
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, 3 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.” 4 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. 5 The woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, “I am pregnant.”
These verses set the scene for the rest of this chapter and the next. The account of David and Bathsheba is familiar. Psalm 51 is an accompanying song/lament of David which David wrote at the end of this saga.
It’s David’s sin that stands at the forefront. If there was a heading for the first 5 verses, it could simply read “Sin.”
It’s a lot like the first sin in the Garden. Adam and Eve are tempted. They see. They take. They do what they want, even though they knew they shouldn’t.
David “saw her bathing on the roof, her beauty and the moonlight overthrew” him. He saw something he liked. He sent for her. And he slept with her.
There’s soon going to be outward evidence of David’s sin, his wrongdoing. Word’s going to spread.
You see, David saw the fruit of the tree. He took. He did what he wanted, even though he knew he shouldn’t.
Sin is followed by outright deceit. David tries to hide his sin, to cover it up. It’s pretty clever, actually. It would have worked, too, if not for Bathsheba’s husband:
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 David was told, “Uriah did not go home.” So he asked Uriah, “Haven’t you just come from a military campaign? Why didn’t you go home?”
11 Uriah said to David, “The ark and Israel and Judah are staying in tents, and my commander Joab and my lord’s men are camped in the open country. How could I go to my house to eat and drink and make love to my wife? As surely as you live, I will not do such a thing!”
David thinks that Uriah will take the opportunity to go home and enjoy time with his wife, Bathsheba. But Uriah wouldn’t take a vacation while the ark [of the LORD] and all the other men are on duty. He wouldn’t do it.
David’s sin made it so he had to deceive Uriah; really it’s an attempt to deceive everyone. Bathsheba’s pregnancy would become evident, and, if the plan went the way David wanted it to, people could say, “Oh, yeah. Uriah came home that one weekend.”
David’s attempt at deception didn’t work the first go-around, but he thinks, “Eh, let’s try it again. Run it back.”
12 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. 13 At David’s invitation, he ate and drank with him, and David made him drunk. But in the evening Uriah went out to sleep on his mat among his master’s servants; he did not go home.
He even tried getting Uriah drunk! Maybe that will do the trick. Loyal, service-minded Uriah wouldn’t abandon his post to go home to his wife. But maybe Drunk Uriah will.
David’s deceit fails again. Again, Uriah stays among the servants of his master. He did not go home.
Sin is followed by deceit. Deceit doesn’t work out. So David ramps it up.
This—make no mistake—is a true story. But it’s also a parable. This is what sin does in each of us.
We sin. And then try to hide it. And then sin some more in the attempted cover-up.
Deceit follows sin. And more sin follows.
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 has Uriah—the man whose wife he slept with—take his own death warrant, signed and sealed, and deliver it to the commander of the army.
This works out just the way David wanted it to:
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. 19 He instructed the messenger: “When you have finished giving the king this account of the battle, 20 the king’s anger may flare up, and he may ask you, ‘Why did you get so close to the city to fight? Didn’t you know they would shoot arrows from the wall? 21 Who killed Abimelek son of Jerub-Besheth? Didn’t a woman drop an upper millstone on him from the wall, so that he died in Thebez? Why did you get so close to the wall?’ If he asks you this, then say to him, ‘Moreover, your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead.’ ”
22 The messenger set out, and when he arrived he told David everything Joab had sent him to say. 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 of 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.”
This is what David’s been wanting to hear. He would have been fine if Uriah went home at the king’s urging and slept with Bathsheba. That would have worked to cover it up.
But David’s just fine with hearing the report: “Uriah the Hittite is dead.”
Whatever it takes. Sin, deceit, and now murder. David murdered Uriah.
David’s calloused relief is recorded in verse 25:
25 David told the messenger, “Say this to Joab: ‘Don’t let this upset you; the sword devours one as well as another. Press the attack against the city and destroy it.’ Say this to encourage Joab.”
“Don’t be upset. People die by the sword all the time,” says David. Calloused. And proud of himself. His little plan worked out.
Uriah’s dead. David’s relieved. Bathsheba’s sad, but, for David, everything’s good:
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.
Well, almost everything is good for David. All that David cares about, anyhow.
The thing is this: That phrase at the end of verse 27—do you see it? That’s all that actually matters.
2 Samuel 11:27
But the thing David had done displeased the Lord.
Just a few verses back, we read that David was concerned that Joab would be upset. David doesn’t want the commander of his army to be “displeased” by a few troop losses, so he tells him (literally), “Don’t let this matter displease you.”
The bigger issue, by far, is the LORD’s displeasure; the matter David did was evil in the eyes of the LORD.” It’s displeasing to Him.
So it is for David’s sin here.
And for our sin. Each one of our sins = evil in the eyes of the LORD, displeasing to Him.
You may think, “Well, my sin doesn’t rise to that level. David did things I have never done and will never do.”
Jesus would beg to differ.
In His Sermon on the Mount, Jesus re-frames these sins for us, first murder and then adultery:
Matthew 5:21–22
21 “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ 22 But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment.
Matthew 5:27–28
27 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ 28 But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
David’s a sinner. And so are we.
Murderers and adulterers, all of us. We have done what is displeasing to the LORD, evil in His eyes.
If you don’t see that, or can’t see that, you don’t understand yourself or your sin at all.
It’s clear in 2 Samuel 11 that David is the prime mover. It’s all his action.
He sees a beautiful woman and decides he must have her. He sends his servants to find out about her, sends for her, has sex with her. And then, when she sends news that she’s pregnant, David sends for her husband and tries to send him home so he’ll sleep with his wife to cover for David.
When Uriah won’t, David sends a letter to Joab to have Joab, the commander of the army send Uriah to the front lines. David sends Uriah to his death.
And he’s happy about it. Relieved. All’s well that ends well, from David’s perspective anyhow.
But the only perspective that matters is the LORD’s. That’s the bottom line. And in 2 Samuel 11, it really is the bottom line—the last line in the chapter.
Nothing is said about the LORD in the chapter until you get to this point. It’s all David. This has been his doing. All of this happening at his urging.
But the LORD is displeased. And He will not stay silent; the LORD and His word dominate the next chapter. The LORD sends His prophet, Nathan to David. Those are the opening words of Ch. 12.
The LORD sent Nathan to David. Without those words, we would have a bleak and entirely hopeless story.
The word “send/sent” showed up all over 2 Samuel 11 (11 times the word appears). David sending for Bathsheba, sending for Uriah, sending Uriah to the frontlines of battle.
David sends, Bathsheba sends, Joab sends.
Here, it’s the LORD who sends. The LORD has taken action.
Most of us know the end of the story; we’re vaguely familiar or we’ve read this before. But we need to focus on what’s happening here.
“…we must not run ahead too soon; we need to dally on those opening words for they speak of the vigilance of grace.
[These words] show us that grace pursues and exposes the sinner in his sin. They teach us that the LORD will not allow His servant to remain comfortable in sin, but will ruthlessly expose his sin lest he settle down in it.
You may succeed in unfaithfulness; but the LORD will come after you…[It’s] not that God’s pursuing grace is enjoyable. But what if grace did not pursue? What if the LORD Yahweh abandoned us when we succeed at sin?”
-Dale Ralph Davis
The LORD pursues David. The LORD’s grace is after him. How do we know this? It’s right there in the first few words of 2 Samuel 12: The LORD sent Nathan to David.
And Nathan presents David with this scenario:
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.”
A fairly benign story. It’s not a person the rich man took, just a sheep. But David responds strongly:
5 David burned with anger against the man and said to Nathan, “As surely as the Lord lives, the man who did this must die! 6 He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity.”
David’s response to this is strong, guttural even. David wants death, and if not death, then restitution—he must pay for this lamb four times over.
A comparatively small offense to what David has done, and yet David rightly wants some consequence. He’s ticked at this hypothetical thief.
Nathan had David right where he and the LORD wanted him. Nathan responds with the charge, and then follows it up with the LORD’s assessment:
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. 9 Why did you despise the word of the Lord by doing what is evil in his eyes? You struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and took his wife to be your own. You killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. 10 Now, therefore, the sword will never depart from your house, because you despised me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own.’
11 “This is what the Lord says: ‘Out of your own household I am going to bring calamity on you. Before your very eyes I will take your wives and give them to one who is close to you, and he will sleep with your wives in broad daylight. 12 You did it in secret, but I will do this thing in broad daylight before all Israel.’ ”
Nathan’s scenario and David’s response was a clever way to make David judge himself and his own actions. This isn’t Nathan; this is the genius of God’s grace, making it so that David would have to shine a light on his own darkness.
God’s grace is amazing. And it’s unbelievably smart. The LORD was determined to bring David to repentance—what chance did David have against grace like that?
The LORD’s assessment, the LORD’s word to David here itemizes his grace to David. The LORD lists it out for him. He says: I anointed, I delivered, I gave you this, I gave you that, I would have given you even more.
This is the LORD highlighting the stupidity of David’s sin. David had it all; he was loaded with blessings. He truly was the “rich man” in Nathan’s scenario. No need to take a man’s wife and then the man’s life.
Verse 9 is a big question from the LORD to David:
2 Samuel 12:9
9 Why did you despise the word of the Lord by doing what is evil in his eyes?
David was clearly wrong. By the LORD’s assessment, and even by David’s own assessment of the lamb thief. He sinned against the LORD and ruined people in the process.
And for that, there’s judgment (vv. 10-12). This calamity from David’s own household is the theme of 2 Samuel 13-20—long consequences ahead for David and his house, because of David’s sin, because David despised the word of the LORD.
He treated the LORD as if He didn’t matter. The LORD says to David in the middle of verse 10: You despised me.
This—the confrontation and calamity—is part of God’s grace, believe it or not.
Here’s how Davis puts it: ‘Grace is not niceness; otherwise grace would no longer be grace. We forget the words of the hymn— ‘Twas grace that taught my heart to fear’ —Grace is not merely favor; it’s also the fury that precedes the favor.”
The law tells us, and David, what David deserves. David deserves death (Leviticus 20:10 and Deuteronomy 22:22). The law tells us what David deserves, but grace shows us what David receives.
In response to the word of the LORD, David confesses
2 Samuel 12:13
13 Then David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.”
David confesses. It doesn’t sound like much. We might think there should be more. It’s only 2 words in Hebrew, David’s confession. It doesn’t seem like much, or enough, but David receives assurance of pardon from the LORD’s prophet.
2 Samuel 12:13
Nathan replied, “The Lord has taken away your sin. You are not going to die.
A German translation of the Bible with commentary throughout referred to as the Berleburg Bible says this about David’s confession:
The words are very few, just as in the case of the publican in the Gospel of Luke (Luke 18:13 “‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’”).
But that is a good sign of a thoroughly broken spirit.… There is no excuse, no cloaking, no diminishing of the sin. There is no searching for a loophole, … no pretext put forward, no human weakness pleaded. He acknowledges his guilt openly, candidly, and without [untruth].
David is not sinless, clearly. But he is here utterly submissive to the accusing word of God.
The forgiveness David receives is not what the law called for. It’s wholly gracious. Undeserved.
The LORD has taken away your sin. That’s what Nathan tells David, because it’s true. It’s what the LORD has done, all on His own.
There may be nothing more beautiful and stunning than that right there. This is grace.
Grace.
Grace: God’s something-for-nothing-when-we-don’t-deserve-anything.
That’s not the end of the story, there’s plenty more to it—it will continue on for chapters and chapters, really.
Notice the consequence that comes to David and Bathsheba. Consequence followed by some redemption and more of God’s grace:
14 But because by doing this you have shown utter contempt for the Lord, the son born to you will die.”
15 After Nathan had gone home, the Lord struck the child that Uriah’s wife had borne to David, and he became ill. 16 David pleaded with God for the child. He fasted and spent the nights lying in sackcloth on the ground. 17 The elders of his household stood beside him to get him up from the ground, but he refused, and he would not eat any food with them.
18 On the seventh day the child died. David’s attendants were afraid to tell him that the child was dead, for they thought, “While the child was still living, he wouldn’t listen to us when we spoke to him. How can we now tell him the child is dead? He may do something desperate.”
19 David noticed that his attendants were whispering among themselves, and he realized the child was dead. “Is the child dead?” he asked.
“Yes,” they replied, “he is dead.”
20 Then David got up from the ground. After he had washed, put on lotions and changed his clothes, he went into the house of the Lord and worshiped. Then he went to his own house, and at his request they served him food, and he ate.
21 His attendants asked him, “Why are you acting this way? While the child was alive, you fasted and wept, but now that the child is dead, you get up and eat!”
22 He answered, “While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept. I thought, ‘Who knows? The Lord may be gracious to me and let the child live.’ 23 But now that he is dead, why should I go on fasting? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me.”
24 Then David comforted his wife Bathsheba, and he went to her and made love to her. She gave birth to a son, and they named him Solomon. The Lord loved him; 25 and because the Lord loved him, he sent word through Nathan the prophet to name him Jedidiah.
The LORD forgives the guilt of sin, but there are still consequences for sin.
The defilement of sin has been cleansed.
But the discipline of sin continues.
For David, the LORD’s forgiveness is both amazing and costly. The child would die. It’s as if the child would die in David’s place, as if the child is David’s substitute.
We know a similar grace, a similar forgiveness that is both free and costly.
In Christ, as all of our sins have been forgiven, but only because another ‘son of David’ has been our substitute.
Jesus died our death, taking our place. Our forgiveness cost the LORD God His one and only Son.
Colossians 2:13–14 … He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross.
David sinned, he deceived, he murdered.
But David’s sin was no match for the grace of God.
It’s not that David deserved mercy or favor. He didn’t. But David came to understand God’s grace. He came to be gripped by grace, to have a sense of God’s grace. He learned what it was to be overwhelmed by grace.
We have all sinned, deceived. We’re no different than David. We need to hear, to realize, to understand that our sin is no match for God’s grace.
When sin meets grace, grace wins.
We see sin here. But our focus should be on the grace of God.
Grace: God’s something-for-nothing-when-we-don’t-deserve-anything.
David learned to think about the LORD as gracious.
David came to realize that his sin—no matter how grievous—is no match for the LORD’s grace.
David learned to think about God’s grace.
David began to walk in God’s grace.
May we do the same.