Summer in the Psalms (Week 3)
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Background
Background
Welcome back to our series, Summer in the Psalms. Our first week together we looked at one of the most common Psalms, , talking about how we see God’s goodness in the Lord as our Shepherd and as our Host. Last week, we looked at a Psalm of passion and desire, . We specifically focused on
4 One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.
SLIDE: Heads, Hearts, Hands
We looked at how the things of our life, specifically the areas of our thoughts, our emotions, and how these both effect our work, what we do with our hands. I felt like the Lord was speaking to many of us that day, myself included.
If you missed any of these message, I would encourage you to catch them anywhere Podcast are available. I believe you will be blessed by God’s Word and what we believe He is saying to us here at Emmanuel and beyond.
Today, I want us to continue to build on where we have been in this series. We are going to look at a very different Psalm. We mentioned that many of the Psalms express raw emotions, a good portion of them being laments. As we look at Scripture today you are going to hear one that expresses extreme remorse, even guilt.
This Psalm helps me in understanding what the Lord will allow
ELABORATE: throughout the years, movies have been made, plays depicted, even books written to cover the racy story today’s Psalm was borne from.
STORY: You might remember the situation, even some of the details. It goes a little like this. () It was Spring time, the typical season for Kings to go into battle. The rainy season in the Middle East has come to an end, assuring both passage along dry roads as well as food for folks and animals. We read that Israel is wrecking havoc among the Ammonites. I mean they are kicking butt and taking names.
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.
“But David remained in Jerusalem.”
It was the middle of the day, afternoon the Bible tells us, and David is walking around on the rooftop. When he looks down he sees a woman bathing herself, and she was hot! David sent servants to bring her to him. They commit adultery, and she ends up pregnant.
Folks were reminding David who this was. Uriah’s wife. And I believe David knew Uriah by the way he interacted with him when he came back to Jerusalem. Uriah was off fighting in the battle when David has him sent to the palace. David pretends to care how things are going, then sends him to spend the night in his own bed before heading back to war.
David is hoping he can cleverly cover his tracks by deceiving Uriah. Uriah will sleep with his wife tonight, then think the baby is his. No one will be the wiser. But Uriah refuses to indulge in pleasure while his fellow brothers are sleeping on dirt, fighting for their nation.
David tries to have him over the next day for some Super Bowl hors d’oeuvres and drinks. Trying to get Uriah drunk so he will go back home this second night and sleep with his wife, but again Uriah posts up on the door step refusing personal comforts to stand in solidarity with his brothers in battle.
The 3rd day, David send Uriah back to his commander, Joab, with a letter in HIS HAND.
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.”
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.
2 sam 11:14-
Are you catching how crooked this entire situation is right now
This is King David, in the lineage of Christ, a type of the Messiah.
The same individual who wrote “who may ascend the hill of the Lord? he who has a clean hand and a clean heart.” “better is one day in your courts, better is one day in your house, than a thousand elsewhere.” “one thing I ask, this is what I seek, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord.”
1. This is King David, in the lineage of Christ, a type of the Messiah.
2. The same individual who wrote “who may ascend the hill of the Lord? he who has a clean hand and a clean heart.” “better is one day in your courts, better is one day in your house, than a thousand elsewhere.” “one thing I ask, this is what I seek, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord.”
This is the young boy who was anointed as a teen to be Israel’s King. This is the young man who was so confident in his God that a 9’ Philistine taunting his God didn’t keep him from using his sling to slay a giant. David had seen some stuff. He had been some places. But now we find him in some messed up places.
Is this really the same David that is recorded about?
This is the young boy who was anointed as a teen to be Israel’s King. This is the young man who was so confident in his God that a 9’ Philistine taunting his God didn’t keep him from using his sling to slay a giant. David had seen some stuff. He had been some places. But now we find him in some messed up places.
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.’
While sin and temptation can find us any place at any time, we specifically see that David was in the wrong place at the wrong time. NO GOOD was going to come from that. Something was already going on in his heart that had waxed and waned his devotion and commitment to the Lord. David is VULNERABLE and when opportunity presents itself he doesn’t have the guardrails to keep his heart inbounds.
Jesus would say:
28 But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
David, like many of us, is unravelling in the aftermath of his sin.
STORY: have you ever found yourself in a place you never thought you would be? You said thing you never thought you would say? You did things you never thought you would do? But in a pinnacle of circumstances you have morally bottomed out. How did you find your way back? Or maybe you are still journeying through the emotional remnants of the aftermath.
You may have heard me mention it before, but last January I hit a new all-time low or so I thought. I was emotionally spent. Things with my parents in ministry/family transition were difficult and messy the year before. I had internalized a lot of that instead of opening up to folks that could help and carry those burdens with me. (DID YOU KNOW that God has designed us and the Body of Christ for these very reason? Pride comes before a fall, but walking humbly with our God and discerning His Body is what brings us healthy and healing.) After finding out how expensive a Christian therapists was I thought I could just handle it on my own. But I couldn’t. I finally schedule a visit in March of last year. I went a few times, and it seemed to really help. To hear myself verbalize what I was walking through. To have someone, even by my own presence, hold me accountability to being the best version of myself.
A few months go by, and old habits have crept in to internalizing stress, unhealthy management, and literally another bottom was hit. BUT this time, the fallout could have been way worse. It could have cost me my life, my kids, their lives…it was a new low. It was a wake up call for me. (ARE YOU OK WITH ME BEING THIS HONEST?) You need a pastor who will live with integrity, follow the recommendations for good leaders, but also can be transparent with their live in process. For me, things had to change drastically. And they did. BUT FOR THE GRACE OF GOD, I am standing here before you today. On multiple levels. Have you experienced that kind of grace that has not only saved you but preserved you?
David finally appears to have covered his tracks. His sin has been concealed, or so he thinks. Report comes back from Joab about the “failed attempts” in advancing against the Ammonites. Even Uriah has died. The servant reporting includes everything he was told to, with a little extra detail, but conveys the bit of info that Joab knew David was wanting to hear. It had to appear unsuspicious, fit in with what he was talking about.
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.”
“Some of the king’s servants are dea, and you
We almost to .
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“And the Lord sent Nathan to David.”
I read this again this week and just began to weep. Has the Lord ever loved you enough to send you a Nathan? The person may have been a different gender, with a different name. Your Nathan may have been a spiritual awakening, a set of circumstances, a new low, a car wreck, a hospitalization, a situation that brought you to the end of your self, no more hiding behind guilt and shame, and severe turning toward God’s truth.
Nathan uses an analogy, a metaphor if you will to describe what David has done. It wasn’t about what Nathan said, it was more about God knowing what David would respond to. The story was exactly what David needed to hear in order to expose his own struggle within.
If Saul lost the kingdom through having “rejected the word of the LORD” (1 Sa 15:23), David is judged because he has decided to “despise the word of the LORD” (v. 9).
Despising God’s Word, His written commands as well as His Word that became flesh (Christ) in our lives WILL LEAD to our demise.
As it turns out, three of David’s sons will prove themselves “unfit to rule by recapitulating, each in his turn, their father’s sin.… Just as David willfully takes Bathsheba for himself (2 Sam. 11:2–4), so Amnon forces Tamar (2 Sam. 13:8–14), Absalom enters the royal harem (2 Sam. 16:22), and Adonijah tries to claim his deceased father’s concubine (1 Kings 2:13–17)” (McCarter, “ ‘Plots, True or False,’ ” 359).
David may have slain the physical Philistine giant but because he never dealt with this area of spiritual waywardness in his heart that spiritual giant of lust and sexual prowess effected his very sons.
But what was David’s response when confronted with his sin? He is exposed, no longer hiding or concealing it.
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.’ ”
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.
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.
We see in this passage a few things:
The climax of the confrontation. “You are the man.”
Look what I have done for you. vs. 8
Look what you did. vs. 9
Consequences and punishment. vs. 10-12
Even his consequences are infused with grace. David had declared his own death sentence to Nathan’s analogy, but Nathan says, “The Lord has taken away your sin. You are not going to die.”
I believe that was born during these next verses in (vs. 15-23). It may have been penned at that time, but I do believe it was at least born inside of David if not actually written.
David refused food and cries out to God for mercy. He refuses his servants attempts to help him to his feet, to get him anything to eat. He will not until the 7th day, when he realizes that the baby has died.
For the director of music. A psalm of David. When the prophet Nathan came to him after David had committed adultery with Bathsheba.
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 you are right in your verdict and justified when you judge.
5 Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
6 Yet you desired faithfulness even in the womb; you taught me wisdom in that secret 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, so that sinners will turn back to you.
14 Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God, you who are God my Savior, and my tongue will sing of your righteousness.
15 Open my lips, Lord, 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 My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise.
18 May it please you to prosper Zion, to build up the walls of Jerusalem.
19 Then you will delight in the sacrifices of the righteous, in burnt offerings offered whole; then bulls will be offered on your altar.
1 Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions.
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.
David has traveled through the process of the evil desire within him being conceived and giving birth to sin. Now he is seeing the full results, the ramifications of his sin, DEATH.
15 Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.
He is pleading for God’s mercy. No longer hiding or seeking to conceal. He is fully exposed. Through running from his guilt and shame, he wasn’t too far gone. He still had a heart that was willing to cry out to God for mercy and forgiveness.
It isn’t until we are exposed for our sinfulness that we can fully experience Him for His righteousness.
We see David’s heart not only in the Psalms of devotion and worship, but also in the Psalms of lamentation and contrition. It is a heart of repentance. That when confronted he is quick to repent. He deepest desire exposed, and not for evil but that the good God that he desires greater would take this evil away and create in him a clean heart. His greatest desire, his One Thing still comes out in these darkest of moments.
11 Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me.
David still desires nothing more than God’s presence. He just really messed up. God, above all else, don’t take Your presence from me.
How could David be considered a man after God’s own heart?
It sure wasn’t because he exemplified Christ in his perfection. I believe it was because of David’s ability to repent. I believe that because David was still teachable, able to admit his wrong, confess his sin, and REPENT that God could still consider him someone after His heart.
I don’t get everything right. I mess up with my wife. I mess up with my kids. I am not a perfect leader. But I hope at the end of the day, I have a heart that is willing to say to God on my darkest of days, “Do not cast me away from your presence oh God! Do not take your Holy Spirit from me!”
ELABORATE: So many of us have a CRISIS RELATIONSHIP with Jesus. We come to Him when things are in crisis. When everything has hit the fan, we get in church. When things are fallen apart, we seek him the most. Our relationship has to grow beyond crisis management with Jesus. We have to decide this is what we want.
A. W. Tozer said, “He is either Lord of all, or not Lord at all.” Today, draw the line in the sand in different areas of your heart. Don’t go back. Burn the bridges. Leave yourself no outs. Abandon negative places, people, and things that keep pulling you back to those moments of crisis in your life.
Today, there is forgiveness.
Today, His arm of salvation is not too short to save.
Today, you can turn to the One who makes all things new.
Today, His arms are wide open; His grace abounds.
Today, if you hear His voice do not harden your hearts.
PRAY
NOTE: Not always immediate change in circumstances even after heartfelt repentance.
Emergency Relationship with Jesus