Forgiveness Promised

Imagine if your worst moment, your worst day was recorded for all to see. The shame, the embarrassment, the fear of the anger others and neighbors would have. How many friends do you think would stop talking to you if your worst moment was recorded? What would you lose? We need to imagine this because we need to be able to walk in David's shoes here for a moment. We looked at chapter 11 last week. David was not doing his duty. That's a key context. In the time of year that kings normally go out to battle, David stayed home and since he was home, he was looking around and he saw a beautiful woman and he coveted her. He then took her, committed adultery, She became pregnant and so in order to continue on in this sin, even though he should have repented at this point, he covers it up. He deceives and he deceives and he deceives and Uriah the Hittite, the foreigner, he has more honor than David when he's drunk. He will not go to his wife. And so he murders him. This was recorded for 3,000 years. that we could read it, study it, talk about it. David had it at his worst. So if you look at chapter 11, just look at how it ends. The last statement is the most important. But the thing that David had done, that is all of those sins, this whole event, it displeased the Lord. What David has done has displeased the Lord. So what's next? What will God do? Will he reject David like he rejected Saul? Is David's sin not worse or the same as Saul and then he rejects him? What do we do? Be honest, my gut instinct is to smite him with a mighty smiting. He's sinned against the Lord. He's taken away his wife if I'm Uriah. If I can speak from the grave if I'm Uriah's brother. The anger. What should God do? What does God do? God calls David to confess his sin so he can be forgiven. Last week the sermon was about the sin. We just organized it around the commandments of the Lord that David broke. coveting, adultery, theft, lying, murder. This week it's still about sin, but it's about how God calls David to respond to sin. One simple summary statement for the message this morning. God confronts our sin to invite us to confess and be forgiven. God confronts our sin. He cannot embrace it, he cannot endorse it. There's only one thing God can do. Well, two, he can either judge sin or he can confront sin. He confronts our sin so that he can invite us to confess it, to be forgiven. So that's three points. Sin confronted, sin confronted, sin confessed, and sin's consequences. We've been walking with David for some time, we saw him called. Because God saw his heart, that's gonna be important. He wasn't the tallest brother, he wasn't the oldest brother, he was the youngest brother. He was the one that his father didn't even bring to the feasts. But God saw his heart, he had a heart after God, and we'll have to wrestle with what that means given Bathsheba and Uriah. We've seen him become king. We've seen him say, God, I want to build you a house. God said, no, you can't build me a house, but I will build for you a house. I will give my love to you and your people forever. You will have a son who will sit on the throne forever. We then saw David show Mephibosheth, loving kindness, inviting a foreigner, an enemy, into his own house to eat at his own table. And then David commits all these sins. This whole section is actually one unit. If you notice the beginning of chapter 11, Israel is at battle with Rabbah. And then at the end of chapter 12, we go back to that same town and the battle is won. It's a unit here. We've broken it into two sections. This is David's fall. Let's look at the first point. Sin confronted, sin confronted. What does God do in response to David's sin? Verse 12, and the Lord sent Nathan to David. This is important. This is helpful. God could have thundered judgment. God could have written it up in a cloud. God could have made it more clear in so many ways, but instead God used another human being. God used Nathan. Nathan's helpful because Nathan's the one who actually corrected David that you're not gonna build God a house, God's gonna build you a house. He's a prophet of God. He's an instrument of God. Now, let's just take Nathan for a moment. He's not our primary character, obviously, but what if God told you to go confront somebody who just murdered in order to cover up a sin? Not only that, he's the king, right? Go tell the person with the most power and has shown that he's willing to use that power in the most wicked way. I want you to go confront him for what he did. We see demonstration of faith right here. Nathan is demonstrating a faith in God to be faithful in the same way we as human beings are actually still called to be faithful in confronting. There's really nothing like this. What Nathan gets to experience, nothing like watching somebody else, whenever we're talking about sin and grace abounds, and to see them melt there before God and confess. Well, how does Nathan do it? He comes to him, and he tells him a story. Okay, there was two men in a city. One was rich, the other was poor. The poor man had one ewe lamb, the rich had many, and then a traveler comes, and the rich man takes the one lamb of the poor man, and he prepares that for the feast. Why does he tell him a story like this? I think we can actually see this as a clever way to confront David. He gives him an objective story that David would relate to personally. David was a shepherd. He would understand the affection and connection that a man would have with his sheep. And so there's a bit of a pulling at the heartstrings of David. There's also something helpful that whenever you're especially confronting someone like this who's in such clear self-deception, he's giving them an objective example to consider. He's giving him a story to look at from the outside because he clearly has, he's lacking the ability at this point to give good, honest introspection. I believe this is a gentle way for David to hear this rebuke. Verse five, how does David respond? Hearing that a poor man's one lamb was taken for the rich man to give a feast to another person. Verse five, David is angry. It was kindled. And he says, this man deserves to die. He should be restored fourfold. Because he did this and had no pity. There's three things that stand out. David says the man deserves to die. That's a real harsh judgment. He's shoving his sword fourfold, that's just a biblical principle. And he has no pity when he does this. What Nathan has done is help David realize this wicked thing of taking, that word is intentional, David took Bathsheba. This taking another man's property, taking and using your authority and power for abuse, it's wrong, he's helping David see that. And David makes a judgment, not knowing he makes a judgment on himself. Nathan says to David, four words, you are the man. You are the man. This is that moment when the shingles that have been blinding fall off. physically get punched in the gut, all of a sudden you realize what you've done. What's interesting is this isn't the first time David's heard this declaration. In 1 Samuel 16, when God was looking for the next king that he would appoint, David heard, you are the man. Goliath, David heard, you are the man. Jonathan himself told David, you are going to be the man God puts on the throne. Every time David has heard this, it's in an affirmation. You are the one God has clearly called to lead his people, and now he hears it, but in a different way. The person you're angry against, David, the person who deserves to die, the person who should be restoring, the person who had no pity, you are that man. David could see the sin of the person in the story so clearly, and now, by God's grace, he hopefully sees his sin so clearly. We can go back to Psalm 19, a section I didn't read for the pastoral prayer. David asked a question, who can discern his errors? Keep me from presumptuous sins. Do not let them have dominion over me. We hear that in this story. We can hear David recognizing, How did I not see this? It's so difficult for me to see my own sins. It's so difficult for me not to be dominated and serving my presumptuous sins. As we step back and consider the weightiness and the gut punch David receives here, this is a gracious moment from God. God pinpointing and clarifying our sin is one of the most gracious things God can do. One of the harshest and most difficult judgments God can give is to simply hand us over to our sin. We see this in Romans 1. Because they would not worship God, because they would not honor God, he handed them over to their sin. and because they exchanged natural things for unnatural things, continuing to worship themselves rather than God, he handed them over to their sin. One of the most damning condemnations, one of the most painful judgments is God giving us over to our sin. One of the greatest blessings is God confronting our sin. God is being gracious. He does not want David to continue in this sin, so therefore he sends Nathan so that David can see, I am that man. What follows has three parts. Nathan has been sent to help David see that he is that man. That's the first mission accomplished. Now he has three declarations. He reminds David of what God has done, that's verses seven and eight. He then tells David what he has done, that's verses nine and 10, and then what God will do. What God has done, what David has done, what God will do. Verse seven, David, you are that man. Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, I anointed you king over Israel and I delivered you out of the hand of Saul. I gave you your master's house and your master's wives under your arms and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah. And if this were too little, I would have added to you as much more. We see there God reminding him just a few things he's done, and he's done this before in chapter seven. I've done this, I've done this. Verse eight's difficult. When God says I've given you the wives of Saul, I don't believe God is saying I'm actually commending that. God actually told David not to take many wives. That's one of the problems that he and his sons are going to face. I believe what he's pointing out here is the fact that he has received all of the inheritance of Saul. He has taken so many wives. Why would you take the one man's wife? The end of verse eight though. If this were too little, I would add to you as much more. Can we just sit here for a moment? God will not bless sin. He will not continue to add blessing and blessing if we're gonna keep in rebellion and rebelling. David has a physical kingdom. Its boundaries are secure. He has peace. David has children. He has a full quiver. David has peace. God would have given him more. But God cannot bless disobedience. It's the truth we learn from the book of Judges. God will not bless disobedience because he's a good God. He doesn't want to enable our sin. It's true today. Sin displeases God. That's a key takeaway from this entire event. Sin displeases God. Do we ever wonder how much more God would add to us if we would actually repent of sin and be obedient? How much more God would restore us in joy if we would repent of sin and follow in obedience? We have every blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, but enjoying those blessings, that's what we hinder ourselves from when we choose sin. It's amazing here. God says, I would add to you more. The next section tells David what he's done in rhetorical question fashion. Notice what he says. Why have you despised the word of the Lord? To do what is evil in his sight, you struck down Uriah the Hittite with a sword. Now David didn't hold the sword, but he is the one who declared the command to Joab to send to the front line to be killed. You've taken his wife to be your wife and have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. Now therefore the sword will never depart from your house. Notice there, you despise the word of the Lord. Verse 10, because you've despised me and taken the wife of your wife. Notice how God connects himself to his word. You despise the word of the Lord and he despised me. Those are the same actions, it's the same problem. When you hear the word of God and you reject it, you're despising him. Yes, he took a man's wife. Yes, he took a man's life. But his primary sin, as we will hear from Psalm 51, is against God. God is the creator, he's the king, he has all authority, he's to be revered. David has despised him. Something is true, we need to understand this. For us to love God means we love his law. For us to love God is to love his law. If we despise his law, we despise him. Jesus taught this very clearly. If you love me, you will keep my commandments. Christian, I fear we're too often too much like David. Did David clearly say, today I'm gonna wake up and I'm gonna hate God? Did David wake up and say, you know, these laws of God are too binding, I'm gonna throw them all off? I don't think so. I think when facing temptation, when in the midst of that confusion and the overwhelming feeling of temptation, of sin, he started to figure out loopholes. He figured out a way to justify his rebellion. That's what we do in the deceptive cleverness of our own minds. We look for loopholes. We can see other people's sin very clearly, but we look for loopholes to figure out how we can justify how we're not going to obey. We gotta recognize the love of Christ is binding. We are forgiven, and now we are called to love him by keeping his commandments. It is a gracious thing to be confronted in your sin. It is a glorious gift of God to be confronted in the way that David is confronted here. Now we look at David's response. Our second point, sin confessed. Sin confessed. David, you are the man, you've despised the word of the Lord, you have despised God himself. How should David respond? Verse 13, David said to Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. Notice what's missing there. There's no qualifiers. There's no but. There's no exemption, there's no blame shifting. That's why Saul was rejected. He would not just simply say, I've sinned against the Lord. He blame shifts, he blames the people. He tries to excuse his sin. This is a simple declaration. I have sinned against the Lord. Children, this morning, this is your verse. Just memorize that, store it away. For that day when Lord willing, you would feel the weight of sin, for that day, one moment, when you would feel the weight of guilt, when you would feel the weight of sin pressing in, convicted of the heart, this is what you get to say. It is just those few words. I've sinned against the Lord. It's important we memorize that kind of statement. It's important we see he's not like Adam. He's not gonna blame shift. That's a typical human condition. He's not gonna find a loophole. He's not gonna have excuses. It's just a sweet, simple confession. Now I believe it's actually paraphrased, because we know from Psalm 51 he's gonna say a lot more. These are the words that lead to him hearing your sin is put away from you. Notice Nathan has gone to confront him in confrontation. A true Christian confrontation has one end in mind, invite confession. Christian confrontation that does not invite confession and reconciliation and restoration is not Christian confrontation. It's too easy to want to just condemn somebody for their sin, to put them there and keep them there and make sure they feel all the weight of it. Or just not say anything because that's uncomfortable. Now this is the truth of Christ. He helps us see our sin. to call us out of it. When God blesses us with the opportunity to see our sin, he's calling us out of it, to confess, so that we might be forgiven. Now, let's just consider here, what happens next? I have sinned against the Lord, and Nathan says to David, there's a great affirmation. Whenever there's a confession of sin, there should be an affirmation of pardon. The Lord has put away your sin. You shall not die. Remember, David has already rightly said he deserves to die. Mercy is given. He will not die. Why would he not die? This sin has been put away from him. Sin, the sin of coveting, lying, thieving, adultering, murder, it's put away from him. As far as the east is from the west, it is nowhere near David anymore. Where'd it go? Is this just a magical declaration from God that says, poof, sin doesn't exist anymore? Is it erased? It cannot be erased. God would not be just. God cannot just say, that sin doesn't exist anymore. Because he would not be a good God. He would not be a just God. God must punish sin in the way sin deserves to be punished. So what happened to the sin? Romans 3 tells us that in former times, God passed over sins in his divine forbearance. What we hear there is Abraham who believed God, Moses who believed God, David who believed God, they were truly forgiven, but it hadn't been completed yet. In God's divine forbearance, he was passing over that sin. But then Christ comes, and in Christ we see the Lamb of God who takes away the sin by taking it upon himself. When Nathan tells David, your sin's been put away from you, what happens there in eternity and in the divine order, God is not just taking the sin away from David's account, he's putting it on Jesus' account. There's a transfer of the sin and the judgment from David's account to Jesus' account. So that when Christ came to die and he said it is finished, that's when David's forgiveness was final. completed because God had been in his divine forbearance passing over sin brother and sister when we believe in Jesus we look back and we can see when Christ died and said it's finished that's when he paid it all for all our sin In that moment of saying I have sinned against the Lord, I believe Jesus died for my sins, that's when we are declared forgiven. God has never punished someone for sin they did not commit except for Jesus. There's no human being that's gonna be punished for sin they did not do. When we face God apart from Christ on our own, we will have to give an account, we will be punished for every sin we have committed in thought, word, and deed. Unless you believe in Jesus Christ, God's Son who became like us in every way, yet without sin. so that he would actually take the penalty of sin on him, so that our sin would be put away from us, and be put on him, and then God's wrath would be satisfied. He is both just, he's punished sin, and the justifier. If we think about what God is doing for David, we see the actions of David. He looked at her, he took her, He lied, he murdered. God sees more. God sees the inner man. God doesn't look upon appearances, God sees our hearts. God sees our thoughts. God in 1 Samuel 16 said, I am choosing this young man, David, because I see his heart. He's a man after my own heart. Was God blind to something? I think God, in 1 Samuel 16, when David was a young man called out of the sheepfold to be declared the next king of Israel, God saw the lust that was lurking within. God saw the deception. God saw the anger. God saw all the sin. God knew it was gonna happen, but what God saw in David was a man who, whenever confronted, will respond to God with thanks. What we see in Saul is a man who continues to make excuses. This is hard. Because God sees us as we are. And this is the good news. God forgives us for every sin and thought and word and deed, knowing everything we've done. This is amazing forgiveness. These things that David has done are despicable. They're displeasing. God forgives absolutely and fully putting our sins away from us and putting them on Christ if we confess. Let's make sure we understand this well. In our contemporary world, The police officer, Derek Chauvin. Everyone in the world saw what he did. We should be angry. He put his leg on another man's throat and casually had his hand in his pocket, choking out another man with the authority of a police officer. Be sure God is displeased with this. Be sure that those actions demonstrate a despising of God's law, and a despising of God himself, and God is displeased. At the same time, Derek, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus Christ has died for your sin, Church, think of your worst enemy. Think of the worst deed. That's the one that's pressing right now, but no one is outside of God's forgiveness. If you confess your sin, no matter how public, no matter how displeasing it is, God forgives. Think about how simple that is on our side. I have sinned against the Lord. That's all he says. Seems simple. I wanna be careful here. This is not cheap grace. The only way we can confess, no matter what our sin is, the only way we can confess and say, I have sinned against the Lord and be forgiven is because it was a costly sacrifice. Christ came, was beaten, was mocked, he suffered, The whole act of dying on a cross is you actually, you stop breathing. He gives up his last breath and he declares it is finished and that's how we're forgiven. God the Father lays all our sin on God the Son and he's judged for us. It is as easy as simply saying, I have sinned against the Lord, Jesus forgive me, Please do not ever believe that is cheap. As we think about what forgiveness means, as Christians we celebrate forgiveness when we take the Lord's Supper together. That's what I'm really missing in our normal practices because of the virus. We take communion because we look around and we say, I am coming to Christ and the blood of his new covenant, I am coming to Christ and taking the bread that represents his body broken and I'm taking it with all of you because I want to affirm you and I want your affirmation that we're all forgiven. Dr. Derek Chauvin, would you take communion with him if he confessed his sin? I gotta be honest, when I think about what he's done, when I look at his sin, it'd be hard. When I look at my sin on the cross, it's necessary. We have to hold out hope that every kind of sinner can be forgiven or we have to just declare no one's sin can be forgiven. Every human being is made in the image of God. Everyone born after Adam is born in sin. God will judge us all for the sins we commit. Unless we confess those sins, we can then be forgiven. If we turn to 1 John 1, 8, 9, a passage that's worthy of meditation later. When we are in sin, We need to be clear that if we confess our sin, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us of all unrighteousness. 1 John 1.9, if we confess, he will cleanse us. We also need to be aware of 1 John 1.8. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. We need to be aware, we could be like David, and we may see everybody else's sin, but we don't see our own. We need to pray, God, help us to see our hidden sins. God, who can see our hidden sins? You do, and you can reveal them so that we can confess them and we can be forgiven. This is the wonderful, unique truth about Christianity. You can confess your sins and be forgiven. If you go to a judge and you confess your sin, what's he gonna say? Condemned, here's your sentence. If you go to your neighbor and you confess your sin, what's gonna happen? Probably some shunning and gossip. If you confess your sin to Jesus, what do you hear? You're forgiven, go in peace. What if someone confessed sin to you? What would you say? Is anything short than in Christ you are forgiven, you are not representing Christ? Go in peace, Christ has forgiven you. How dangerous is the place to look up to God and say, God, thank you for not making me like, you fill in the blank. Go to Luke 18, nine to 14 later. It's worthy of your meditation. If we were to in any way pray, God, thank you that I'm not like so and so. However you're tempted to fill in that blank. What a blessed place to be. The tax collector who cannot even look up to God and just says, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. God, be merciful to me, a sinner. That's the prayer God invites and forgives. Our last point, the consequences of sin. This is complicated because we've just talked about how God forgives and he puts away sin. And what we're talking about there is in forever in your eternal life, whenever you die and you face God, that sin will not be on your account. Christ has died for it. That doesn't mean that there's ongoing consequences for the sins we commit. We can be forgiven by confessing, but that doesn't mean all the consequences are erased. If you actually think about what David's done here is he's put God's covenant in jeopardy. The dangerous thing about God's covenant is he's giving it to sinful people who rebel against him. David, by rebelling in this way, has put God's covenant in jeopardy by introducing sin as the head of that covenant. Praise God he is able to even use our sin for his good. God promised David peace in chapter seven. God promised David a son will be on the throne forever. God keeps those promises. Notice the promises that God gives to David in verse 10. Now therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house. God's going to keep his boundaries. God is going to let David's boundaries be secure. He's going to keep the enemy at bay, but worse, God's going to let strife come from within, and we're gonna look at that next week and the weeks following. He declares to him, What you did in secret with Uriah's wife, I'm actually gonna do something public. One of your neighbors is gonna lie with your wife. Actually one of his own sons does this. There's consequences. Another consequence is the son dies that Bathsheba is pregnant with. David, knowing the God of grace, if we're to continue looking at the passage, he fasts and he prays that God would actually still show grace to this child, and God doesn't. And notice God, the child dies, but David isn't angry. David accepts the just consequence. David also is assured that he will see him one day in heaven. Now, we could wrestle with what that means about children and the consequences, Another day. Today I wanna be clear. God can forgive you and does forgive you if you confess whatever sin you confess. That doesn't mean there's not consequences. A few examples that hopefully make sense of this. If you're gonna do drugs your whole life and then pray for God, will you forgive me? Yes, you're forgiven. But there's damage done. If you look at pornography, can you confess that sin and be forgiven? Absolutely, but the training you've done to your mind and your heart for the things that you delight in, there's damage done. You become self-indulgent and perverse. Can you be sanctified of that? Yes, but there's gonna be ongoing consequences. If you seethe in anger and bitterness, can you be forgiven? Absolutely. Those roots of bitterness are painful to pull out. If you're constantly a liar or a gossip, can you be forgiven? Yes, but your friends are gonna be hesitant to trust you. There are consequences even when forgiven. We see this because God continues to discipline those he loves. I do wanna remind us of the gospel connection here that we looked at last week. It's a sad chapter that ends with David weeping and then giving a statement of hope that this child will be with me, I'll see him again, and then just this very short declaration in 24 and 25. David comforted his wife Bathsheba, and went into her and lay with her, and she bore a son, and she called his name Solomon, and the Lord loved him. We see there 2 Samuel 7 coming to fruition. The Lord is loving him. He's being called to the next king. Sent a message by Nathan the prophet, so he called his name Jedidiah because of the Lord. This was last week, but it's worth remembering this whole episode of horrible sin. David taking another man's wife. David now marrying her because he murdered her husband. This is the genealogy of Jesus. The savior of sin, The savior for sinners, the whole story is developed by people who reject him and sinners who need saving. This time we know David and Solomon are not the saviors. They need saving. We see there because this is included in the genealogy. God is not hindered by our sin. God overcomes our sin. David's worst moment. has just been made public, written by God for all of the world afterward to know and remember. When you think of David, there's probably three things. King, Goliath, Bathsheba. God confronts him in kindness, God confronts him and invites him to confession. Let's pause here for a moment. If our worst moment was publicly portrayed, let's just say the worst thing you thought this morning was just put up here on a screen. It'd be embarrassing. We're sinners who can't control our sin. We're sinners who constantly are being persuaded to believe a lie. It's really just amazing how wicked we are and how patient God is. how gracious God is. David here is a mirror. We're sinners just like him. David is also a model of confession. We can be confronted and be forgiven just like David is by praying, I have sinned against the Lord. But as we conclude, I wanna look back at Psalm 51, the text read earlier. I just want us to see a few things here. David's prayer is for mercy. According to God's steadfast love, he knows God is full of love towards him and so he's asking him, because of who God is, to blot out his transgressions. And notice this important emphasis in verses two and three. This is the plea. Wash me from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. I know my transgression and my sin is ever before me. The my, my sin, my transgression, my iniquity. David's taking full responsibility for his sin. David is not confessing somebody else's sin. David can take responsibility for his sin and bring it before the Lord and ask Him to be cleansed and asking Him to be forgiven. Let me warn you, if you're regularly confessing somebody else's sin, that's producing bitterness. If you're regularly confessing someone else's sin, that is creating bitterness. If you're just so focused and cannot get past what somebody else has done, especially to you, it's going to only promote bitterness. But confessing your sin to the God of grace, that restores joy, that cleanses the heart, We contribute our sin, we confess our sin, we receive the clean heart. Look at the request, verse seven. Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness. Let the bones that you have broken rejoice. Hide your face from my sins. Blot out my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart. Renew a right sphere within me. Cast me not away from your presence. Take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation. And uphold me with a willing spirit. All asking the same thing. Wash me. Cleanse me. I confess my sin and I ask for forgiveness. As we conclude. It's not cheap grace. It cost Christ, who cried out, why, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? It's not cheap, but it's a free offering. You can confess your sin. I've sinned against the Lord. God, be merciful to me, a sinner. He invites us to confess so that we can be forgiven and be restored. Will you pray with me? Father, we thank you, Lord, that you