Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / December 22, 2024 | Picture Perfect - David

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December 22, 2024 | Picture Perfect - David · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Morning.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Good to be with you.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Don't get to see a lot of your faces in person most of the time, so um that's a that's a good thing for me.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um some people it might not be, but for me it's a good thing.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um I want to welcome you.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: If you are new with us this morning, we're starting a new series called Picture Perfect.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: And if you were at the light show, uh this should be something that sort of flows, hopefully, naturally from that.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: The gospel presentation video that we had there, uh the video right in the middle, where we had our um smush together TVC family of a couple different people, um, Lindy and Keaton and and the kids.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um they were talking about uh the blessings, really, of what it is to know Jesus Christ, even when it feels like our life can be falling apart.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: And um, if you're like our family, during this time of year, our refrigerator is uh covered, smothered is a better word, and the Christmas cards that people are sending out.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh this is the one that the Krause House is sending out that got sent out like a day ago.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not arriving by Christmas, but this is ours.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, when you look at Christmas cards and you see them, it's it's perfect images, right?
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's the best sort of version, and um, it's the picture that you want people to see and think of when they hear about your family.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, some people, you know, it's their stories, it's their kid, you know, scored the winning goal or um did so well at school or accomplished this big thing.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, we got a promotion network, whatever it is, it's it's normally just a great time to talk about all the wonderful things that are going on.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um but my wife is a photographer, and so I have seen multiple times the pictures that don't get picked, right, for the Christmas cards and other things, you know, the pimples, the stray hair, all of the stuff going on.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: Frequently, this is more of our household.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's not the Christmas card.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: This is when he didn't like his Halloween costume that we had given.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: He warmed up to it eventually.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: That wasn't him all the time.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: But, you know, it's it's a reminder, right, that um the pictures that we have on our our refrigerator or our walls or that we see on social media too during this time of year and otherwise, um, it doesn't reflect reality, right?
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's sort of the best version that we can present.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: And that's not a bad thing.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying we should, I'm not gonna send out a Christmas card with him crying.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but nevertheless, I think sometimes we can get it in our heads that this is their reality, those that we see, this must be their life all the time.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: Everything looks so perfect, everything looks right, and there can also be pressure, pressure to sort of project that image to the world around us when we know that we're struggling deeply.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that, or I shouldn't think, I know, that this series in part is supposed to just kind of break down some of those walls and say, look, we are all struggling and nobody has a perfect life.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so we're gonna look at a couple characters from the Bible during this short series saying that even if you're not really well acquainted with the Bible, that there are some that just kind of like stand above the rest that are so popular that you probably know their names, and that if you look at their sort of resume, it stands out.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: They've done amazing, wonderful, great things for the Lord.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: And yet each and every one of them does not just have an imperfect life, but had deep, uh significant struggles.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: And that if we can sort of understand that God still uses imperfect people and sometimes deeply flawed people to carry out his perfect plan, I think it helps us sort of think through our own struggles and what uh we need to focus on moving forward.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: So this morning we're going to look at King David.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: If you're not familiar with King David, here's a little primer.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: He was born roughly 3,000 years ago.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: He uh gained fame, is probably his most important story, or most important, most well-known story, is uh his battle versus the giant Goliath, the Philistine giant that he defeated with a sling and some stones from the river.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: He was the second king of Israel.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: He took over after a guy named Saul, um, who he Saul was a big fan of David for a period of time, but eventually Saul tried to kill David.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: So a huge part of David's life, about seven years, was being on the run from somebody who was trying to kill him before he eventually became king.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: David ruled for 40 years, though, and ultimately he is the ancestor of Jesus.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: We find that out in the Gospels that um the line of Jesus, um, sort of the human line there, runs through King David.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're just, again, if you're just talking about like important people in the Bible, David's name is mentioned more than Jesus, and he is in over like half of the books of the Bible.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: His name comes up because over and over again we find out that he was a courageous king.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: He was somebody who led most of the time with great integrity.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: He had an intense and deep faith in the Lord, so much so that God said that he was a man.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: David was a man after God's own heart, which is a pretty wild statement for the king of the universe to make, that somebody had his heart.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: David also was not just a great king, but somebody who helped to bring God's plan forward into the nation and ultimately made a covenant with God, a promise that the Lord made to him that David would always have a descendant sitting on the throne of Israel, which ultimately lasted until it was fulfilled in Jesus.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: So David was an extremely important figure in the Bible, well known, and did many, many fantastic things, but David also had some really, really bad moments, too.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: His Christmas card looks pretty good, but behind the scenes there was some deep sin, dysfunction, and conflict that often reigned in his household while he was reigning over the nation of Israel.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: And yet, this is kind of the point, and yet God still used him to do many good and great things.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so this sermon isn't really about David as much as it is looking at somebody who did have those struggles that uh for many people would feel nearly impossible to try and move through.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, adultery, murder, um, some unbelievable stories that happened with his children and tragedies there.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: And yet what David did in those valleys and how he walked through them gives us not just like a blueprint, as if this is some sort of strategy, but helps us understand when we are walking through those valleys how it is that we can reach out to the Lord and see that he is still using imperfect people like us.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna start this morning.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: We have uh two, if you want to say like failures, two things that we're gonna look at with David.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: And the first is probably his most well-known failure, which is his sin with a woman named Bathsheba.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: Great name, by the way.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: Any of you are looking to name your children.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: Bath, fantastic nickname as well.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: 2 Samuel 11.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we're not gonna read the whole story here.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm kind of giving you the snippets.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: It says one evening David got up from his bed and strolled around on the roof of the palace.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: This is in Jerusalem.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: From the roof he saw a woman bathing, a very beautiful woman.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: So David sent someone to inquire about her, and he said, Isn't this Bathsheba, daughter of Eliam, and wife of Uriah the Hethite?
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: David sent messengers to get her, and when she came to him, he slept with her.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: The woman conceived and sent word to inform David, I am pregnant.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: So David, his first horrible decision, and it actually does get worse, is that he used his position of power as king to sleep with this woman.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: And he sort of summons her, right?
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: Sleeps with her, and then sends her away.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: And uh thinking that would sort of be the end of it, even though that is terrible within itself.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: David had um many wives, which is not something that God says he should have been doing.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, just because this is in the Bible doesn't mean uh that God was thumbs up on the way that David was living his life.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: There was a lot of personal, relational things that David was doing that God says are not the best, and not even the best, that they cause destruction and harm.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so David uh commits adultery, he um violates Bathsheba and her husband Uriah's marriage covenant, he uses his position of power to do this.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: But then when she comes back and says that she's pregnant, that kicks off a sort of nether series of events that causes even more harm.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: David sent orders to Joab because during this period of time David is in Jerusalem, while Uriah and Joab, who's the commander of the army, are away fighting.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: David should have been with them, but instead he was in Jerusalem.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: So he sends orders to Joab, send me Uriah the Hephite.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: So Joab sent Uriah to David, sends him out of the battlefield and back to the capital.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: When Uriah came to him, David asked how Joab and the troops were doing and how the war was going.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: He just carries on like casual conversation.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: And then David writes a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: In the letter he wrote, put Uriah on the front of the fiercest fighting, then withdraw from him so that he is struck down and dies.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: When Joab was besieging the city, he put Uriah in the place where he knew the best enemy soldiers were.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: Then the men of the city came out and attacked Joab, and some of the men from David's soldiers fell in battle.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uriah the Heathite also died.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: So we have David, who is sinned with Bathsheba.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: She's now pregnant, and he retrieves Uriah, who I skipped over this part of the story, you can find it in 2 Samuel 11.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: But Uriah ends up being this like faithful soldier who loves the king and doesn't want to leave his side.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: It makes the story even harder to read, to see that Uriah was this great guy.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: And as he comes back, David sort of basically sends his death sentence with him back to Joab.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: And then not only does it cause the death of Uriah, but it causes the death of other soldiers in David's army.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: He sacrifices the lives of quite a number of people and ultimately military strategy and all of these things just to kill this guy.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: But notice that he's doing it in a way that it would be covered up, right?
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: He's doing this in secret.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: He wants it to be, though we might question what Joab was thinking when he's just like, yes, make the worst possible decision you can by going and right on the front lines.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: Nevertheless, the idea was that Uriah was supposed to die without anybody knowing.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: And when that happens, David gets that news.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: He brings Bathsheba into his palace, she becomes like his seventh or eighth wife, and then they have more kids after this.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: Now, you and I, we understand why this is terrible, right?
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: Why this is abhorrent.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: But um God also understood that it was a terrible thing to do.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: And God did not leave David unpunished for what happened.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: There's actually a whole fallout, a cascading series of events that happened because of this sin.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: The first, and perhaps one of the most tragic, is that the death of the child between David and Bathsheba is part of God's judgment for his sin.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: But beyond that, there is naturally the whole series of events that happens with Bathsheba herself.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure you would not want to be married to the man who had just killed your husband.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: We know that she obviously grieved for Uriah.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: The prophet Nathan comes in.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: This is sort of the big priest at the time, if you will.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: That's not the perfect description of him, but he was speaking on God's behalf.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: And up to this point, until Nathan comes into the royal palace to talk with David, nobody in the nation really knew what had happened.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: Sure, there was a small group of people who had seen things going on.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: There were certain servants who had sent for Bathsheba, yada yada.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: But the nation did not know.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: Nathan comes in and he makes this whole thing public.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: God says, David, the whole world is going to know basically what you have done with this woman.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, your family is going to know.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: Your people are going to lose trust in you.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: Your ability to lead with morals and say that you have my hand upon you and you are ruling with justice, that is now in jeopardy because of the decision that you've made.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: His legacy as a king was forever tarnished.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: And we know because he wrote about them that David harbored feelings of immense regret and shame for his actions, and ultimately because he caused the death of multiple innocent people.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: But that is not all.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: There's one other thing I want to look at with you, which is how this began to affect his family.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: Because, see, David, like I mentioned, uh, had other wives, and so he had other children, and uh many of them were adult age.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so we see in 2 Samuel 13 that there's uh three children that are going to get involved in this story as well.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: Some time passed.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: David's son Absalom had a beautiful sister named Tamar, and David's son Amnon was infatuated with her.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: So David, his firstborn son to his first wife, was named Amnon.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: Amnon had some half-siblings, naturally, and Absalom and Tamar were full-blood siblings.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: So they had the same mother.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: Amnon had a different mother.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so, as a context for this, you have to understand like what happens to the royal household, what happens to the children when they see their father doing this, when they see that it is okay, at least for a while, for their father to um go out and continue to just take whatever he wants, um, to hurt whoever he wants, and to try and cover it up, right?
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: And ultimately, though God does bring judgment, that would affect anybody to see their father do that.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so these children um are involved in this story, and as you see at the end there, it says Amnon was infatuated.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: Some other translations would say he lusted after his sister.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: And what ends up taking place in this rather long story is that Amnon uh creates a plan.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: He schemes to make a um a scenario where his sister Tamar would be vulnerable and alone and would come into his bedchamber.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so he has this, he hatches this plan.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: And by the way, um we think that Absalom and Amnon around were probably in their late teens or early twenties.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: Tamar would have been younger, we don't know how much.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um but tragically, sadly, right, this plan finds its success in that ultimately Amnon rapes his sister Tamar.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: And that is terrible.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: Understatement of the year.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but what is also terrible is that it puts Tamar in this position where she not only has to struggle with that um immense feeling of um shame and destruction upon her life and tragedy, but now because of the culture that she's in, this is going to affect how she would be married and her ability to have children in the future, and just even as a child of the king, the expectations that had been placed upon her, she was basically her life was completely altered.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: This action that he committed against her, this heinous deed, was something that would be nearly impossible for her to recover from in the same way, just even in society.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so we might expect that somebody would take her in, but shockingly, it's Absalom, her brother, who provides for her.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so the question as you're reading the story is like, what is David doing during all of this?
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: What is his reaction?
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: When King David heard about all these things, he was furious, he was mad, but he's the king of Israel.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: And his daughter was just deeply hurt, and his son was the one who did it.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: And we find out from the story that David did nothing.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: Absalom was the one who took her in.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: Absalom was the one who eventually decided to pursue justice for his sister Tamar, and David sitting on his throne with all the power to do whatever he wants, did nothing.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine how Tamar feels, right?
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: Sitting in the home of her brother Absalom.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: And it ultimately takes years before Absalom hatches this plan for sort of vigilante justice, right?
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: He says, My father isn't going to do anything.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, we also think about what was what were David's thoughts in these moments, right?
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, he's like, Am I going to punish my son for the same sin that I committed?
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: He saw his father do the same thing.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so we might even use the phrase that the chickens are kind of coming home to roost.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: But Absalom hatches this plan.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't say anything to Amnon, either good or bad, because he hated Amnon since he disgraced his sister Tamar.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: Two years later, Absalom's sheep shearers were at Baal Hazor near Ephraim, and Absalom invited all the king's sons.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: So Absalom has this plan.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: He's inviting all the, it's a boys' trip, okay?
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: Sheep shearing is for the boys.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: And they were going to have this party.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and Absalom's like, let's bring all the, let's bring all the guys.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, big thing.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: And David's like, why do you want to bring everybody on this sheep shearing trip?
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, I don't know.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: We just want to have a good time.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so uh he brings along Amnon as one of the people, and just as Amnon had hatched this plan, Absalom hatches a plan, and while they are away, he kills Amnon.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: Bringing, in one sense, justice to his sister Tamar, but everybody reading the story understands that this is ultimately not how things are supposed to go.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: This is not how you bring justice.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: This should have been on the king.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and ult and as much as emotions understandably would be involved here, Amnon should not have died for his crimes.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um there was much that should have been done and much intervention, and in particular on David's part, but Absalom was also in the wrong here.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so what does David do?
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: After Absalom had fled to Gesher, he knows that he has done something wrong, and so he he goes to his uh basically his maternal grandfather's region, his home, his mother's uh princess from another region.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: So he flees, and after he had been there three years, King David longed to go to him, for David had finished grieving over Amnon's death.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: And once again, you're just like, What are we doing, David?
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you've you've um hurt Bathsheba, you've killed her husband, and many other innocent people.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: Now your child has been hurt, your other child has been killed, and your third child is on the run and is certainly an enemy of the state, or will be very soon.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: And what are you doing?
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, you're gr David, David, David.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: And the final part of this story, and pla kind of where our look at David's sad part of his life ends, is that eventually Absalom uses the same things we're talking about, the passivity of David, his um his sort of weakness on the throne during this time, his um public sin and scandal, and ultimately ultimately Absalom is going to try and overthrow David's throne to the point that he creates civil war within Israel, and then which finally leads to Absalom's death.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so you can plot a pretty clear sort of line that starts with David seeing Bathsheba bathing and calling for her all the way to multiple deaths and civil war in Israel.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's very unlikely that any of us have ever committed the types of sins that would create, you know, such destruction.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if any of us have brought about civil war.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: But there are probably many of us, myself included, who have brought about mistakes, sins, things that we hate from our past, that have brought about the type of civil war in our own lives or our families.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: There are probably a lot of things in our past that we are ashamed of, things that we fe still to this day feel guilt about.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: And we know that David felt the same way.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: This was not something that he just glanced over.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: This wasn't something that he just sort of moved past and he just sort of wiped his hands of it.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: We know because David wrote most of the Psalms, which, if you're not familiar, are um the basically songs of worship for the temple.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: And David wrote uh the majority of them.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: He was a songwriter as well.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: And that in some of these poems and songs, David shared how he felt about what he had done.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: David was not somebody who neglected his relationship with the Lord.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: But before we look at that, I do just want to say one other item, which is especially if you're not familiar with David.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: This is the valley.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: This is the worst part of his life.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: And it can be really tempting to hear all of these things that he has done, the destruction that he has caused, and to just go, man, what a terrible person.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: But you know what?
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: I'd really hope that somebody doesn't judge me for the worst things that I've done.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: That they would not define me by my greatest mistakes.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: And though the other good and great things that David did as king do not wipe away the harm and the pain that he brought about, it does put them in context.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: Because what is true about King David is that he was the greatest king in Israel.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: And until Jesus comes along, David is sort of the example for what it means to follow after God.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: Because even though David did these terrible things, he was also somebody who desired to continue to carry out the Lord's will to the best of his ability.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: And that when he transgressed against God, when he recognized that he had made mistakes, it broke his heart.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: That is one of the core elements that we can use to sort of identify within ourselves.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like, when are we starting to go astray?
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: When is it that we have sort of lost the path?
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's when our rebellion against God doesn't register in our mind any longer.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: And we just go, well, he doesn't care or it doesn't matter.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: For David, he knew that God always cared and it always mattered.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: And David also had a special relationship with God that made it so that God verbally expressed these things to him.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: We can read in Scripture like you and I, we can read in the Bible and be like, well, I know what I did, that's not God's best for me.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: David had God telling him directly that what he had done was terrible and heinous.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's sort of a different level of communication that I don't know many of us could handle.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: I couldn't.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: But David was, this is his valley.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: And the news for all of us is that he did not stay in the valley.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so the question becomes, what did he do to move out of the valley?
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: What did he do after all of these things?
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: And the answer is that he went to the Lord and he asked for forgiveness.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: In Psalm 51, David speaks to God.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Be gracious to me, God, according to your faithful love, according to your abundant compassion, blot out my rebellion, completely wash away my guilt, and cleanse me from my sin.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: For I am conscious of my rebellion.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's like I know what I've done, and my sin is always before me.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: Against you, you alone, I have sinned and done this evil in your sight.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: So you are right when you pass sentence, you are blameless when you judge.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: If you have your Bibles with you, you would see also at the beginning of Psalm 51, it's normally sometimes there's context.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: We know when David wrote these Psalms, and Psalm 51 comes after he has been confronted about his sin with Bathsheba.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so everything that he is writing is in reflection on what we just talked about.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, Be gracious to me, God, according to your faithful love.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: David understands that he worships a God who desires to have a relationship with him, who loves him despite his mistakes, and that the faithful and unconditional love of God is something that is still available to him and extended to him despite all of the things that he has done.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: Even still, God loves David.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so David is recognizing that.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: But notice also that that is not the end of David's statement, right?
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: It is not just something about, God, I know you love me.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: Looking forward to, you know, like let's let's move forward here together.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: Like, God, thank you for empowering me to move past this.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's like David says, you are right to pass sentence.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: You are blameless when you judge.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: He knows he also follows a God and has been placed on the throne by a God and was created by a God who is a righteous judge.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: Part of that identity for the God that we worship and the God that we love is that he cannot overlook sin.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's a no-no.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: He cannot just turn a blind eye to sin.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: That's not what happens here.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: David has presented a situation.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: He goes, I know you love me, and I also know you're going to judge me for my sin, which is in fact what happens to him.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: And David says that is perfectly in line with your character, Lord, that you have unconditional love and perfect righteous judgment upon me.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: So he says, You are right when you pass sentence, you are blameless when you judge.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: So how is it then?
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: Here's a great question: how is it even possible then that David can hold these two things together?
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: Say, You both love me and you are going to judge me for my sin.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: How could he go to that God and say, Please forgive me?
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: And the answer is because of Jesus.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: And though David doesn't fully understand 1,000 years before Jesus exactly how all of this is going to work out, he knows that God has the power to forgive him.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: God has the power to forgive him not because he overlooks his sin, but because God provides the sacrifice for that sin.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: And for you and I, as we think about Jesus and the cross, and in fact all that Christmas represents, right?
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, it's a baby in a manger, but so much more.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's about what it means that God came, became human, took on human flesh, lived the perfect life, and died on the cross, a punishment that he did not deserve, to be a sacrifice for the entire world, both everybody who came after and everybody who came before.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: When David was going through all of this and he was praying that the Lord would forgive him, he is basing his faith upon the idea that God is going to fulfill the promises that he has already made to David that one day this Savior, this Messiah would come.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: David says, basically, God, I don't know exactly how the equation works in heaven, but I know that you can forgive me because you love me and you have sacrificed for me.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: And for us, this exact same thing is true.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: We can go to the Lord and we can ask for forgiveness because Jesus has become the sacrifice for us.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: It is the only possible way that it works out that the loving God can have a relationship with people who have broken that relationship because of their sin.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: The valley that David, the distance that David had created between him and the Lord by all of the sins that he had committed, the ones we've looked at and all the others, was something that David could not overcome by just being a good king.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: There was no amount of like perfect decisions and righteous ruling, and I'm gonna make up for it, that overcomes what he did.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: The only way that that was possible, the only way that he can write Psalm 51 is by understanding that God had to handle the forgiveness.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so when we see that this broken relationship was restored, we then have to ask the question, okay, well, how does David respond?
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: And as we go on in Psalm 51, we see that David is not going to just stay in this pit of despair.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: He's not, it's not so much saying that he is, you know, I can't let this hold me back.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: But he says, God, only because of your grace and your mercy can I move forward.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: And he is going to take advantage of that and begin to worship God.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Save me from the guilt of bloodshed, God, God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing of your righteousness.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, open my lips and my mouth will declare your praise.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: You do not want to sacrifice, or I would give it.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: We'll talk about that in a second.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: You are not pleased with a burnt offering.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: The sacrifice pleasing to God is a broken spirit.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: You will not despise a broken and humbled heart, God.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: What does God want from us?
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: It is not that we just promise to do better.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_00: That is not his answer for our problems.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: That's not the answer for our that God does not just want a people who go, you know what, I've messed up and I'm just going to try better next time.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: To a righteous judge, we've already failed.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: We're deserving of judgment.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: What God wants from us is a heart that says, I have messed up and I am sorry.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry that I've done this.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_00: I shouldn't have.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_00: What was I thinking?
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_00: How could I cause so much destruction?
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: Why would I choose to do this?
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, I was not just in the wrong, but I rebelled against you when I did it.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: As David said earlier, he says, I've sinned against you, Lord, you alone.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: He obviously sinned against Bathsheba and Uriah and others.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: But he says, When we follow like all rivers lead to the ocean, eventually it is God.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: He is the one that we sin against.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: And David says, Lord, what you want from me is a broken heart.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: A heart not broken in the way that, you know, happens when somebody breaks up with us or something like that.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: But a heart that is broken and contrite and humble before this righteous judge and perfect love.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: It says, I do not deserve it, but yet I freely accept the gift that you have given to me.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, you do will not despise a broken and humbled heart.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: I think the way that David handles this stands in such stark contrast to the way so many people I see in the news, celebrities, pop culture, whatever, like moving past scandal has become a PR campaign.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's like they've they've messed up and they've hurt somebody and they've done something terrible or something from their past has come out.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_00: And the question is not so much like how can I truly pursue forgiveness or really um come out of this a changed person, but it's like, how long do I have to wait until I can do my next movie?
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_00: How long do I have to wait until I can release my next album?
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe actually the advertising around those things can be part of my return.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: You know, this is my my um my comeback tour.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: This is my like all of these things, it's just like this is not what the Lord desires for any of us is to just try and think about what is perception?
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: Or how do I feel?
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: The bigger question at hand is how does God think about the mistakes that we have made and what are we supposed to do about it?
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_00: Because what is true over and over again is God uses imperfect people for his perfect plan.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: And God used David in mighty ways, despite what he had done.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: And God wants to use you as a part of his perfect plan as well, even though you and I are imperfect.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to take this story here, and I just want to distill it down into a couple things, a few things that I think we can use to remind ourselves about God through this story of David.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_00: The first is that it is a reminder of God's unconditional love.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: There are many reminders about how much God loves us, how deeply he loves us, how it is something that we cannot fathom or imagine.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but there's a big difference, I think, between when you talk about God's unconditional love when things are going great, and then when you see a story like David's, and you go, man, in the in like one of the worst moments, you could even say in the Bible, when you talk about the fall of such a great leader, what does it mean that God still comes alongside David and says, David, you know what, there is going to be some punishment here for what's happened.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: There are things that have to take place.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_00: But I love you.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_00: I have not left you, I'm still with you in this whole thing.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's a reminder of the love that God extends to us, and that in our worst moments, that those are some of the best places where we can understand fully the love of our Savior.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_00: When we hear the Bible tell us that Jesus, or rather, that God so loved the world that he sent his one and only Son, you one of the ways to think about that well-known passage is that God so loved the world, he so loved people who were in rebellion against him and needed a savior.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_00: The book of Romans says that while we were still enemies, Christ died for us.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_00: That the greatest expression of God's love for us is not when he is happy with what we are doing, but it is the fact that Jesus died for people to have a restored relationship with their creator.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_00: Number two, it's a reminder of God's complete forgiveness through Jesus.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_00: This isn't the same as unconditional love, because there are a lot of us who know in our heads that we can be forgiven through Christ, and yet feel as if there is still something that we need to make penance for, or there's still something that we must carry as baggage.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't want to be naive because obviously with David, like there were still uh there was fallout from his sin.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's not that everything, you know, just became okay and God wrapped a bow around it.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like there was that cascade of events that ultimately caused so much destruction.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: But when we are talking about David's relationship with the Lord, as he said in Psalm 51, he said, Lord, really I have sinned against you first and foremost, and then other people second.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_00: That relationship is something that is completely restored when we accept Christ as our Savior.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so, to put that in a different way, um, whatever it is in your past or might come in the future that you are so burdened by that it feels like you can't shake it, you need to understand all of it is covered by the grace of Jesus Christ.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_00: There's not still parts of it that you have to work towards forgiveness on, it is all covered by the blood of the cross.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_00: Third is God's power to heal broken lives.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_00: There is so much that was left unsaid in those stories in 2 Samuel.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_00: We were looking at the worst parts, and they are, and they were bad.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_00: But what we also see is God's redeeming of so much brokenness into something that ends up becoming beautiful.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_00: If you can imagine it, um David and Bathsheba end up having multiple children together after the one that they lost.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_00: And one of those children is Solomon, who ends up becoming the king after David.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so God, this is one tiny, big, but tiny example where God takes this thing that was born out of destruction and he begins to work through it.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_00: You can think, if you're familiar, of the story in Genesis of Joseph.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, he's the guy who had the multicolored coat from his dad.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_00: And Joseph, who's sold into slavery and has to deal with all of these terrible things because of his brothers.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_00: At the very end of Genesis, um, his brothers are trying to apologize to him for what they've done to him, their sin against him.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_00: And he has one of my favorite lines in the Bible.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_00: He says, What you intended for bad, God intended for good.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_00: God has the power, even still in the midst of our destruction, which is kind of like a wildfire that burns everything down, and then you see the new grass shooting up.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_00: God has the power to heal broken lives.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_00: Fourth and finally is the use of imperfect people in his perfect plan.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_00: I just think it's worth bearing reminder, this is why we're doing this whole series called Picture Perfect, is because whether you want to think as kind of silly, silly of an example as Christmas cards, or just the much more real thought that many of us have that, you know, I am damaged goods.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_00: How could God ever use me as a part of his plan?
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_00: Why would he ever want to use me?
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_00: What purpose could he possibly have?
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_00: God has an answer to all of those things.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_00: He wants to use you, he has a plan for you, he has a purpose for your life.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_00: But there is also this aspect that we've looked at with David that says, like, we need to draw close to God.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_00: We need to accept the forgiveness of Christ.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_00: We need to see that he does have this plan for us and this purpose for us that is bigger than our failures, and that those are all things that we can overcome by the grace of God.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_00: So in the next two weeks, we're going to be continuing this series, Picture Perfect, as we look at two other individuals who, for various reasons, are imperfect, and we're going to see that God continues to use them.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_00: But the focus this morning is on failure.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_00: Failure and pain and feeling like you have messed up so bad that there is no way moving forward.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_00: And the answer is that you absolutely can move forward, but you have to walk through this cross.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_00: The path of restoration and getting to where you want to go, it does not take a detour around Jesus.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_00: The only way to find the type of forgiveness and fulfillment and peace that David ultimately was able to find in his relationship with God is because he submitted with a broken heart to his God.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you are at a place where you can submit to the Lord, go before him and say, I have messed up and I am sorry, whether you have been a Christian for a long time or that is something you don't know anything about, this is the step towards renewal because you worship a God or should worship a God who does not want to punish you, but wants to forgive you and have a beautiful relationship with you.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_00: If you have more questions about that, if you want to accept Christ, talk with somebody about it, come and speak with me when we're done here.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_00: But I want to go ahead and pray for all of us as we close here and that we would just take this message to heart.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_00: There's restoration in Jesus.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, we come before you today.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_00: God, we thank you.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_00: We thank you for Jesus and what it means that no matter what we've done, no matter how far we've fallen, whether in the past or even just right now, Lord, that you have given us a path towards redemption, towards fulfillment, towards peace, towards forgiveness, God.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, by trusting in Christ, Lord, you tell us that you wipe away all of our sins.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_00: Not some of them, God, all of them.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_00: We thank you for that.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I thank you that you continue to remind us of that truth and that in fact you give us examples of people like King David, who made such terrible mistakes, like we do, to see that even still, Lord, you are in the business of redeeming people and bringing them to you in restoration.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_00: God, we pray that you would help us to understand that.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_00: One of the difficult things about this truth is that it can be hard to feel sometimes the way that you have told us we should feel if we have trusted in Christ.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_00: By the power of your Spirit, would you lift that weight off of our shoulders, Lord?
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_00: Those feelings of shame, those feelings of guilt that need to be let go.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_00: God, that we would always remember that you are a righteous judge that does punish sin, that we should not seek it out, but God, that you are working through us even still, and that you use imperfect people to carry out your perfect plan.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's in Jesus' name we pray.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.