Well, hey everybody, I'm Adam Schell, the pastor of Albert Heitzen. Welcome to our sermon podcast. And I just want to start out by thanking you for spending part of your day with us. And if you're blessed during our time together today, let me invite you to come and worship with us live on Sunday mornings at 10.30 a.m.
Eastern Time. You can worship with us live on our church website at mhbcleuable.com slash live. Or if you're in the Louisville, Kentucky area, we would love to have you come and join us in person. With that, let's get right into this episode, sermon.
It's like I told you a little bit earlier on in the service. We are starting a new series of sermons today called Lessons from David. And as you have probably figured out what that means, since it's over the next couple of weeks, we're gonna be taking a closer look at events from David's life to see what we can learn to help us in our lives. But right out of the gate, I think it's important for us to kind of admit that there are times when we think about who David was and the things that happened in his life that it doesn't feel like we have much in common with.
Yeah. So it's hard to believe that we can actually learn anything from David's life that can help us in our lives. And that's because for most of us, when we think about David, we think about all of the things that he did that make him a hero of our faith. So when we think about David, we think about the way that he walked on to the battlefield to fight Goliath with nothing but a slingshot and a few smooth stones.
Or we think about the way that the prophet Samuel, anointed David to become Israel's next king when David was just a shepherd boy, who was only real responsibility, who had been watching over his father's sheep. Or we think about the way that the book of 1st Samuel simply refers to David as being a man after God's own heart. So when we think about David, we know that David is an example of what it means for us to live out our faith. But deep down inside, most of us think that we could never have the same kind of faith that David had.
Because David is a hero of our faith, and us, we're just regular people. But one thing that we can easily forget when it comes to our heroes is that even though we hold someone in high regard, they can still have low moments. Even though we hold someone in high regard, they can still have low moments. And that's definitely the case for King David.
In David's life, he has some incredibly high moments in his life that most of us couldn't even begin to dream of. But he also has some incredibly low moments that most of us couldn't have in our worst moments. And as we get started in the series, we're going to be taking a closer look at some of the events that play out in David's life. I want to start out by talking about one of those low moments.
I actually want to start out by talking about the lowest moment in King David's life, which just happens to happen when he is still at his height of power. It's Israel's king. Now we find this particular account in 2 Samuel chapter 11. But instead of having you turn your Bible there with me right now, I just want to recap for you what happens in this chapter.
In 2 Samuel chapter 11 begins, we're told that all of this story is going to unfold in springtime when the kings go off to war. And David, who is Israel's king at this point in time, doesn't go off to war. Instead, David shirks his responsibilities so that he can stay home in Jerusalem while he sends another man named Joe after command his army. And while David is home in Jerusalem, one night he wanders up onto the rooftop of his palace, where he sees a woman named Bathsheba, baby.
Now, I want to stop right here for just a second because we in the church have a horrible history of sanitizing the story and turning it into something that it isn't. So I want us to be clear about what really happens in the story today. And I want to start out by saying that when David sees Bathsheba bathing, she is not out there bathing so that she can attempt to seduce the king. That's not what is happening in the story at all.
No, but Bathsheba is doing as she is ritually purifying herself. It's a law of Moses says she has to do so that she can go back and worship God at the tabernacle. So in the story, Bathsheba doesn't do anything wrong, but David certainly does. And it starts with David simply standing there and watching Bathsheba as she bathes from his rooftop.
And it continues from there when he has had enough of watching Bathsheba, he sends one of his servants down to bring Bathsheba to him. What you have to understand here is Bathsheba doesn't really have any choice when the servant shows up at her door. It's not like she's been on some dating app where she gets to pick if she's going to swipe left or right depending on if she wants to meet up with David. This is the king of Israel, the most powerful person in the entire kingdom and he has ordered her to show up.
So she has no choice in the matter whatsoever. And then when she arrives at the palace, David uses his position of power so that he can sleep with her. So this isn't some affair that David has with Bathsheba like we usually talk about it. In America in 2025, we would say that this isn't an affair, it's a case of assault.
And as hard as it is to believe, the story only gets worse from there. Because after David uses his position of power so that he can sleep with Bathsheba, they find out that Bathsheba is pregnant. But Bathsheba's husband has been off to war, fighting in Israel's army. So everybody's going to know that something inappropriate has gone on.
So in order to cover up what he has done, David has Uriah sent back home, hoping that Uri will go and sleep with his wife. While he is home so that it will look like Bathsheba is pregnant with Uriah's baby. But Uriah is an honorable man. Uriah won't even go into his own house, let alone into his own bed with his wife while his fellow soldiers are off fighting in battle.
So David has to come up with another plan. And David's plan is that he's going to send Uriah back to the battlefields. But this time he is going to have Uriah put on the front lines. And while Uriah is on the front lines of the battle, David is going to have the rest of his soldiers pulled back so that Uriah will be killed.
In this one episode, King David breaks like half of the Ten Commandments. In this one episode, David covets his neighbor's wife. He commits adultery. He has Uriah killed.
He lies to cover up the whole thing. And three of the things that he did at least were capital offenses according to Israel's law. By having Uriah killed, by sleeping with another man's wife, by lying about the whole thing, David could have been sentenced to death. But none of those things happen today.
And said David continues on like nothing ever happened at all. He continues to rule over Israel just like he had been doing beforehand. He actually marries Bathsheba to not only cover up his affair, but also to make it look like he is a good guy doing the right thing by providing for the wife of one of the soldiers, one of his soldiers that died in battle. And he just keeps living like nothing ever happened.
And this is where the prophet Nathan shows up in the story. And what I want us to really look at today is what Nathan has to say to David. So if you've got a Bible close by your Bible app on your phone, I'd encourage you to go ahead and open it to 2nd Samuel 12. This is where Nathan's part of the story picks up.
And I want you to listen to what Nathan has to say to King David. So what we read in 2nd Samuel 12, we'll start reading in verse 1. We're told, so the Lord sent Nathan to David. When Nathan arrived, he said, there were two men in the same city, one rich and one poor.
The rich man had a lot of sheep and cattle, but the poor man had nothing. Just one small u-lam that he had bought. He raised that lamb and it grew up with him and his children. It would eat from his food and drink from his cup, even sleep in his arms.
It was like a daughter to him. Noah, a traveler came to visit the rich man, but he wasn't willing to take anything from his own flock or hurt to prepare for the guest who had arrived. Instead, the rich man took the poor man's u-lam and prepared it for the visitor. David got very angry at the man and he said to Nathan, as surely as the Lord lives, the one who did this is as good as dead.
He must restore the u-lam seven times over because he did this and because he had no compassion. Alright, so in the story, Nathan shows up at King David's palace and he tells David a story about two men. One rich man, one poor man. And the rich man has everything that he could possibly need while the poor man only has one thing.
He has this u-lam that he has raised since it was born and he loves this lamb like it was his own daughter. Well, a traveler comes and visits the rich man and according to the law of Moses, according to Israel's law, this rich man has to show this traveler hospitality. Part of showing that man's hospitality is providing him a meal. But instead of going to one of his own herds, one of his own flocks to get a sheep, to slaughter, to prepare a meal for this traveler, the rich man seals the one thing the poor man had.
He stole that poor man's sheep, but that man loved like a daughter. And did you hear how David responded to the story? The story tells us that David got very angry at the man and the translation that I just read. He got very angry with the man.
But let me tell you that is a gross understatement of how David felt in this moment. The Hebrew word that we translated in this passage just got very angry actually literally means that he was so mad his nostril started to flare. And you know that somebody is mad when their nostrils start to flare. Seriously, if you ever get something mad and their nostrils start to flare run because you're in trouble.
That's how mad David was in this moment. It's nostril's start to flare. He was furious with what this rich man had done. He said what the rich man did to be punished with death.
Of course, all of us, we get the irony of what happened inside of the story. We see that David is so angry that his nostrils have started to flare over what this rich man did when this rich man stole another man's sheep and slaughtered it to feed a guest. While David was the one who had slaughtered another man so that he could steal his wife. David thought that this rich man who sold a sheep deserved to die when David himself was the one who had committed capital offenses.
We see the irony, but David has no idea. David has been so overwhelmed by his own power, by his own desires that he doesn't even get the point of Nathan's story at all. Until we reached the point of the story when David has demanded to know who this rich man was so that he could punish him and Nathan responds to David by saying, You are that man. You are that man.
And that statement had to hit David like it was a ton of bricks because when Nathan says to David, you are that man. It changes the way that David has always felt about himself. When Nathan says to David, you are that man. David for the first time, perhaps in his entire life has to realize he's not the hero of the story.
I mean, remember, this is David we're talking about. This is the David who fought the lie with when no one else in all of Israel was brave enough to stand up to him. This was the David who had been set apart and an anointed to be Israel's king when he was 14 or 15 years old. David had always been the hero of the story and he was prepared to be the hero of the story again.
He wanted to rush in to make sure that the poor man was taken care of in the rich man got what he deserved. But when Nathan says, no, you are that man David. For the first time in his life, David realizes he's the villain of his story. He's the one who's messed up.
He's the one who's failed. And when this statement hits him like a ton of bricks, the only thing that David is able to say in response to it according to 2 Samuel chapter 12 is I've sinned against the Lord. I've sinned against the Lord. But those five words I've sinned against the Lord, they can't even begin to give us a glimpse into what was actually happening in David's mind after Nathan confronts him about everything that he's done.
So we don't really know from this passage how David was feeling, what he was thinking in this moment. So let me ask you, if you found yourself in the same position that David was in, how would you feel in that moment? I think a lot of us would get so fixated on all the bad things that we had done that we would start a downward spiral from there. All we would be able to think about is all the mistakes that we had made.
All we'd be able to think about was all the people that we had hurt. And it would just keep driving us down further and further and further into our own despair. So we thought about the bad things that we had done. We'd start convincing ourselves that we're so awful as people that there's no way we should be forgiven for what we've done.
We convinced ourselves that we had hurt so many people so badly that there's no way that even God himself could love us. We'd get so blinded by what we've done that we couldn't see past our failures. We would be so blinded by what we had done that we would be unable to see past our failures. And that may be exactly how you feel today.
That may be exactly how you feel right now. You may have done some things in your life that are so bad that they are the only things that you can think about. You may have done some things in your life that feel so wrong that you believe that you could not possibly be forgiven for what you've done. You may have hurt so many people along the way that you have convinced yourself that not even God could love you.
You may be in the process of going through that downward spiral spiral right now. And if that's where you are, I want you to really pay attention to what I'm going to tell you next. Because even though 2 Samuel 12 doesn't give us a lot of a window into what is going on in David's mind after his confrontation with Nathan, there is a passage in the Bible that does. And that passage is Psalm 51.
So again, if you've got a Bible, you can open it up to Psalm 51 and you can follow along as we take a closer look at it. And as you find Psalm 51, you're going to notice something that we see in the Psalms a little bit different than other places in the Bible. Before we get to verse 1 in this Psalm, there's a superscription to this Psalm. There's a heading above it that is included in this passage of that.
Heading is going to read something along the lines of a Psalm of David when the prophet Nathan came to him just after he had been with Bathsheba. So what that superscription tells us is that this Psalm is directly connected to the story that we've been talking about in 2 Samuel 11 and 2 Samuel 12. So I want us to see what is said inside of this Psalm. But before we do, there's a couple of things you have to keep in mind.
Even though the story is directly connected, even though the Psalm is directly connected to the story that we just read, we don't know for sure if this was actually written by David or if this is a Psalm that was simply attributed to David. Because that would have happened. He was the king of Israel when these were being written so people would have attributed their Psalms to him. But even if David did not write this Psalm himself, as we read, we're going to see that this is something that David definitely could have written after everything that he did with Bathsheba and Uriah.
And honestly, it's something that he probably should have written after everything that he did. And as we start reading in verse 1, I want you to pay attention. I want you to count, if you can. The number of times that this Psalm uses words like wrongdoings or guilt or sin.
Look for those three words as we read this passage. We're starting reading in Psalm 51 verse 1 where the Psalmist writes, Have mercy on me, God. According to your faithful love, wipe away my wrongdoings according to your great compassion. Wash me completely clean of my guilt.
Purify me from my sin because I know my wrongdoings. My sin is always right in front of me. I've sinned against you and you alone. I've committed evil in your sight.
That's why you were justified when you ringer your verdict. Completely correct when you issue your judgment. Yes, I was born in guilt and sin from the moment my mother conceived me. Did you notice how many times the Psalm uses words like wrongdoings in guilt and sin?
In the five verses that we just read, those words were used at least nine different times. And this gives us a window into what the author of the Psalm is thinking. What he is feeling in this moment. It shows us that the author of the Psalm is being honest about the mistakes that they made.
They admit that they deserve whatever verdict it is that God wants to ringer against them. So in the Psalm, at the beginning of the Psalm, King David is being honest about his failures. And that's a step that we all have to take when we mess up. When we fail, when we as David put it in 2 Samuel 12, if sinned against the Lord.
When we have messed up, when we have failed, when we have sinned against the Lord, we can't try to cover it up. We can't deny that it ever happened. We can't ignore the problem that we've created. And so we have to be honest about it.
We have to be honest about the mess that we made, the way that we failed, the how we have sinned against the Lord. And we have to accept the consequences of our choices and our behavior. But the problem that we often run into when we reach this point, when we're willing to admit that we have messed up, that we have failed, that we have sinned against the Lord, is we get stuck there. We get stuck in our guilt and we keep replaying the things that we have done that are wrong that have hurt other people in our minds over and over again.
They become the only things that we are able to focus on. So we go into that downward spiral where we convince ourselves that we are horrible people that do not need to be forgiven, that cannot be forgiven, and that not even God can love. But when we start that spiral, we need to remember what Nathan says to David in 2 Samuel, chapter 12, right after David is admitted that he has sinned against God. This is what Nathan tells David.
And 2 Samuel, chapter 12, verse 13, Nathan tells him, the Lord has removed your sin. Read those words off of the screen for yourself. The Lord has removed your sin. Let those words sink in for you, because that statement, the Lord has removed your sin is something that sticks with David.
Because as we keep reading in Psalm 51, the entire focus and tenor of this psalm completely changes. So going back to Psalm 51, starting in verse 6, this is what we read. The Psalmist writes, and yes, you want truth in the most hidden places, you teach me wisdom in the most secret space. Purify me with hiss up and I will be clean, wash me, and I will be wider than snow.
Let me hear joy and celebration again with a bones you crush every joys once more. Hide your face from my sin, wipe away all my guilty deeds, but create a clean heart for me, God, put a new faithful spirit deep inside of me. Please don't throw me out of your presence. Please don't take your Holy Spirit away from me.
Return the joy of your salvation to me and sustain me with a willing spirit. So be here, the shift between these verses, and verses 1 through 5 in Psalm 51, those verses are solely focused on the mistakes that have been made. They're focused on the failures that have happened. They're focused on the sin that has been committed.
But once we get to verse 6, everything starts to change. Instead of focusing on the sin and the mistakes, what we're now focusing on is forgiveness. We're focusing on forgiveness, and the psalmist is no longer consumed by the wrong that he has done, but by God's ability to take what was wrong and make it right. Now, I want to be crystal clear at this point in the sermon, because nothing that Nathan said to David, nothing that David possibly writes inside of the song, does anything to diminish what David did in 2 Samuel, chapter 11.
It does not change what he did to Bathsheba or Uriah. It does not change, it does not diminish the fact that David broke half of the 10 commandments and committed at least three capital offenses. It does not change the fact that he used his position of power to sleep with Bathsheba, and then he used his position of power to have her husband killed. What David did is despicable, it is horrible, and it should be preached against inside of our churches instead of sanitizing the story altogether.
But what Nathan said to David in 2 Samuel, chapter 12, it does show us something important, a lesson that we can all learn from this story, and that lesson is that God's grace is greater than our sin. God's grace is greater than our sin, and if that was true for David after everything that David had done, I better believe it's true for you too. And as we read that second part of Psalm 51, you can hear how grateful David is that in spite of everything that he has done, that God's grace is still greater than his sin. You can hear how grateful David is that God can still forgive him and transform him in spite of everything that he did, because David knows what he did.
He denied it at first, but Nathan showed him that he was that man. He knows what he's done, he knows what he deserves, but because of Nathan, David also knows what he gets, and what he gets from God is grace, a grace that is greater than all his sins. When you and I fail, we can be consumed by our guilt, and we can become so consumed by our guilt that we no longer see God's grace. But when we remember that God's grace is bigger than even our worst mistakes, when we trust in God's ability to forgive us, we should have that same gratitude that David has at the end of Psalm 51.
This means that we don't have to be thankful for our failures, but we can be thankful in our failures. We don't have to be thankful for the mistakes we've made, for the ways that we failed, for the ways that we have sinned against the Lord. But we can be thankful that in our mistakes, in our failures, in our sin, that God doesn't give up on us, that God extends his grace to us. So if you're carrying that way of failure today, we all know how heavy it can be.
If you're carrying that way of failure, you can learn from David, and that starts of being honest with yourself, accepting, admitting the fact that you have messed up, that you have failed, that you have sinned against the Lord and the people that you have hurt, and also accepting the consequences of whatever your choices or actions are. Because God's grace doesn't mean that there aren't consequences for your behaviors, but don't get stuck there. Don't get stuck in the mistakes. Don't get stuck in the failures.
Don't get stuck in the sin. Ask God to forgive you, and be grateful that God will show you grace. Because God's love isn't dependent on your perfection. God's grace and God's love is dependent on God's character.
And that's something that we can be thankful for every day of the year, in every situation we face, even when we fail. Let's pray together. God, as we come to you in this time of prayer, you know that every single one of us has messed up. Every single one of us has made mistakes.
Every single one of us has failed and sinned against you and hurt other people, God. God, sometimes we're so blinded by our own selfishness that we can't see the way that we've heard other people. So God, if we have failed and we haven't realized that yet, I pray that you open our eyes to it, show us what we have done, show us the way that we have heard other people, God, and help us to accept our behavior and the consequences for what we've done. But God, don't let us get stuck there.
Don't let us go down that downward spiral where we become so obsessed with the things that we've done, the people that we've heard, the mistakes that we've made, that we can't see the light anymore. Because God, if you extend your grace to people like David and things that he has done, then your grace extends to us too. And God, your grace is sufficient for whatever it is, whatever mistakes we've made. So let us admit our mistakes, let us admit our sin, let us confess it to you.
But let us also receive your forgiveness and receive your grace. We've got none of us are perfect, but you still love us. You still care for us. You can still use our lives.
So forgive us, heal us, and let us continue to follow you. We pray this all in Jesus name. Amen.