The Fall of David

Good morning, Summit Church at all of the different campuses, nine different campuses of the Summit Church across the Triangle, including our brothers that are at Wake Correctional Facility.

We love you guys. With them, you would make the 10th campus of the Summit Church that all meets here in the Triangle. We are one church that meets in many different locations, but one body of people with one mission. If you've got your Bible this weekend, I'd love for you to take it out and open it to 2 Samuel 11. This weekend, I'm going to walk you through one of the most tragic stories in the Bible. There are multiple things that are at work in this story. The story is going to serve as a significant pivot point in the plot, if you will, of the whole story of the Bible. If you're new with us, we are taking a year to go through kind of the high points of the Bible story to get our minds around the whole story. This particular story is a major movement in the development of the plot, showing us why it's not an earthly solution to our problems that we need.

It's not an earthly king that can help us, but along the way, it is going to give us a very pressing warning about a very practical issue. Just remember, it's like I told you a couple of weeks ago, whenever you read a story like this one in the Old Testament, the way that you interpret it is not Bible character you. That's a wrong way to interpret it. You always interpret it Bible character Jesus you.

Don't cut out the middleman. That may be a good philosophy for business, but it's not a good philosophy for Bible interpretation. What this story is trying to show you is that every earthly leader is going to let us down. That salvation for us is not going to come riding in on the wings of Air Force One.

We need something different. But this story also shows us the dangers of sexual sin. Sexual sin destroys more people's relationship with God than probably any other single thing. If you don't have a relationship with God, a lot of times it's sexual sin that keeps you from considering a relationship with God.

If you do have a relationship with God, it's sexual sin that destroys it, including one of the greatest men who ever lived, a man that God described as a man after his own heart. Now, really quickly, like your campus pastor said, we always encourage you if you have children to take advantage of the awesome stuff that happens every weekend at Summit Kids. But today, I really want to encourage you to consider taking advantage of that. I am not going to be intentionally risque, but there are just some things about the story itself that might dip from moment to moment into the PG 13 realm.

And I do not want to force you as a parent to have these conversations if you don't feel like you're ready for him yet. So now might be the time for you to stage an emergency bathroom run and then on the way back, drop your kids off of the Summit Kids area. If they're 13 or over, they should be fine. In fact, they might end up having to explain a few things to you when the service is over.

But I think they'll be okay. Second Samuel chapter 11, verse one. In the spring of the year, that time when the kings go out to battle, David sent Joab, who was his commander in chief and his servants with him and all of Israel out to battle. But David remained behind at Jerusalem. The first thing you got to notice here is that David was disengaged from the battle. For maybe the first time in David's life, he is not personally leading the people out into the battle.

He's going to send somebody else and he is going to stay at home. David, the warrior, in other words, is transformed into David the relaxer. For a lot of people, this is where sexual temptation begins. Their lives lack purpose and the allure of sex promises a fulfillment, a distraction, an excitement, an attention, an adventure that they desperately crave. Their lives are just boring and predictable. Maybe they're a housewife or maybe they're somebody that's just, they just feel like their job's not going anywhere.

This promises something that is going to get them out of their boredom. Verse two. It just so happened that late one afternoon when David arose from his couch and was walking on the roof of the king's house, that he saw from the roof a woman who was bathing. The woman was very beautiful.

The Hebrew word there for beautiful is tobe, which literally means in Hebrew fine. Now the Bible does not typically rate women. It doesn't say, well, she was hot and she was not so hot. So the fact that it says that Bathsheba was not just fine, but very fine means that she was some kind of hot.

Here's the second thing that you notice. David had put himself in a place where he could be tempted. He's walking on the roof alone. He's doing the Old Testament version of browsing the internet alone at night. He points, he clicks, he clicks again, and then he dwells.

These feelings begin to overpower him. So David, verse three, sent and inquired about the woman. One said, is this not Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?

Now this is really important because the author very subtly points out something in that verse that David is unaware of, or at least he's forgotten. That is that this is somebody's daughter. It's somebody's wife. It might be somebody's mother.

Why is he doing that? Why does the author point that out? Because you see sexual sin almost always objectifies somebody. You begin to think of them only as an object of your pleasure and you forget that you're dealing with somebody's life, usually multiple people's lives. This person is somebody's daughter, somebody's mother, somebody's wife, somebody's future wife.

This man that you're messing around with is some little girl's daddy. Most crimes I have told you begin with dehumanizing somebody. We hear about these Nazi crimes and we're like, how could educated people in the 20th century of all things, how could they actually do that to other people? The answer sociologists say is very simple.

The Nazis quit thinking of the Jews as humans. Well, see, that's what happens in sex. You think of somebody in terms of what kind of pleasure they can provide you and you forget that you're dealing with a real person like somebody you love with real relationships. Some of you have been on the other side of this. You've been hurt.

Somebody used you. Somebody didn't take into account what the sexual sin that they were committing with that person you love, what it was going to do to your family or your kids. I will tell you probably the single thing that keeps me away from pornography more than any other thing is just thinking that every image is some daddy's little girl.

Behind every pornographic image is a broken hearted father. Verse four, then she returned to her house and the woman conceived. She said and told David, I'm pregnant. At this point, David starts a pretty complicated cover up. He sends words to Joab, his army commander, and then Joab, he says to Joab, have Uriah come home.

I like to have somebody brief me on the battle. So Uriah comes back and he starts explaining to David what's going on. And David's like, yeah, whatever. You know, hey man, you look really tired. Why don't you go home and just enjoy a night with your wife? Aren't you married Uriah? Oh yeah, you are.

Why don't you just go and spend some time with her? So verse eight, David gives Uriah an Old Testament version of an aphrodisiac and sends him home thinking that he and Bathsheba will get busy and then everybody will assume that the baby is Uriah's baby. But here's where the real drama begins. Uriah refuses to go home. He says, verse 11, all my brother soldiers are out sleeping in tents in harm's way in the Ark of the Covenant out there. And I'm going to go home and just enjoy a great night with my wife.

That doesn't feel right. So instead of going home to sleep with his wife, he sleeps in a big room with all the palace guards that night. Now imagine how convicting that was for David.

Here you got a guy who's so loyal to the rest of the army that he's not even going to go home and enjoy a legitimate night of pleasure. So David hatches plan B. He invites Uriah. He says, hey, one more day.

I got some more questions to ask you. Come back up for dinner and get Uriah to dinner. And he just gets Uriah hammered thinking that drunk guys tend to lose their nobility. So Uriah, who is noble, yes, but also loves a good corona, gets hammered that night. But as he's going home, he passes out in his front yard and spends the night there. He's so drunk, he just passes out, which is kind of shameful, I guess. But I mean, the point is everybody sees him face down in his yard so they know he didn't go in and sleep with his wife.

Everybody knows that. So David hatches plan C. By this time, he's desperate. He writes a note to Joab that says, take Uriah, put him at the very front of the battle. And when you charge the line, I want you to pull back and I want you to leave Uriah out there all by himself. He writes this on a little scroll, he seals it, he puts it in Uriah's hand and has Uriah take it to Joab. Uriah literally carries his own death warrant in his hand. He hands it to Joab. Joab opens it, follows the instructions and Uriah is killed. By the way, I noticed in our Bible reading this week, if you're reading the Bible along with us, that it wasn't just Uriah that got killed. It was a whole squadron. What Joab did is he pulled back on the whole squadron that he was a part of.

We're talking 20 or 30 guys that got slaughtered. Y'all, this is David. This is David, the man after God's own heart, the mighty protector of Israel, the guy who wrote Psalm 23, the guy who was brave enough to fight Goliath and nobody else would. Now he's killing groups of people to cover up his moment of pleasure. Well, after Uriah dies, David takes Bathsheba for his wife and brings her into his house and she bears the child and everybody assumes that she got pregnant on their honeymoon and David just brushes the whole thing under the rug and it's the perfect crime, right? He's gotten away with it and we don't hear anything else about it, right?

Not hardly. Second Samuel 11 ends with these chilling words, but the thing that David had done displeased the Lord. Chapter 11 is going to mark a turning point in David's life.

David, up until this point, at least as a king, has enjoyed a pretty charmed life. We're going to begin to watch as his family starts to fall apart. This newborn son that he and Bathsheba have is going to die. Another one of David's sons is going to rape his half sister and then is going to be killed by one of his brothers.

And then another one of David's sons is going to lead a rebellion against David and is himself killed. So let me just stop here before we go on and draw out three really important truths for you. Number one, sexual sin will absolutely destroy your life. I read a book one time where a guy listed out all the things that he thought would happen to him if he committed adultery.

It was so moving to me that I made my own list. I have a Microsoft Word file where I just have this and every once in a while I look at things that I think would probably happen if I committed adultery. Number one, I would cause untold hurt to my wife Veronica and would likely have to endure the loss of her respect and her trust and very well may forfeit my relationship with her altogether. I would cause all kinds of confusion to Charis and Ali and Raya and Adan, my four children who may never understand why I would trade my relationship with them for a cheap thrill.

My relationship to them, yes, there can be healing, but it would never quite be the same. I would bring shame on my mother and my father. I'd bring shame and endless judgment on the girl that I committed adultery with.

She'd never be able to go anywhere, at least in this city, without people saying, Oh, you know who that is? I would bring shame on you and my church family. I would give just more fodder to the professors at UNC and Duke and NC State as just another reason for them to mock the gospel and say, that's why it's not true at all. I would follow in the footsteps of men I know, whose ministries were incredible, but whose immorality forfeited that ministry and causes me not to shutter with horror.

Most importantly, I would grieve my Lord and Savior and one day I'd have to look him in the face and explain to him why, why after all the goodness that he put in my life after all the beauty that he put around me why I just had to have something else. Notice men especially that this sin begins with a version of pornography. Sociologists point out that pornography trains your heart and your mind. It trains you to objectify the opposite sex. That's why the guy points out, the author points out, this is not just somebody for pleasure. This is somebody's daughter, somebody's wife.

I read a book several years ago called Hooked. It's not written by Christians, or at least the guys don't identify as Christians. It's a couple of medical scientists who were trying to discover what happened to the brain when you looked at pornography or when you just had multiple sexual partners throughout your life. Now again, these are not pastors looking for an illustration.

These are medical scientists who are just studying the brain and here's what they discovered. And I quote, the individual who goes from sex partner to sex partner, whether it's on a screen or whether it's actually in real life, is causing his or her brain to mold in such a way that eventually accepts that sexual pattern as normal. The pattern of changing sex partners therefore damages their ability to bond in a committed relationship at all.

The kind of what he calls attachment damage, the inability to really attach to somebody else caused by repeated sexual encounters is in many respects more devastating than an unwanted pregnancy or an STD. The authors then use the metaphor of duct tape, which you've probably heard before, to illustrate this. They say if you take duct tape and you wrap it around somebody's arm, then you rip the duct tape off. With the duct tape is going to come pieces of that person's arm.

The hair out of their arm is going to come with it. But you take that same piece of duct tape and wrap it around somebody else's arm. It's still going to stick a lot, but it's not as much as it did in the first one. You do that a hundred times and by the hundredth time that tape has lost its ability to adhere to anything.

It's lost its stickiness. And they say that's what's happening to the human heart and soul through these repeated sexual encounters. It's losing its ability to cohere, to be able to enter into this lifelong fulfilling sexual relationship. Again, these are not pastors. These are just scientists.

Here's what they conclude. You can no more try out sex than you can try out birth. The very act of sex produces a new reality that cannot be undone. Pornography, they say, has the same effect. Pornography destroys your own capacity for sexual fulfillment. Every time you look at pornography, you train your soul, even if you don't believe it here, you train your soul to believe three things. Number one, a real body isn't good enough.

I need this airbrushed CGI thing. Only one body is not good enough. And then number three, your spouse's body isn't good enough. Because no woman, no matter how beautiful she is, can live up to what you see in porn. Naomi Wolf, who is not a Christian, by a long shot, a super radical left-wing hyper feminist writing for the New York Times, she says, for most men, real naked women are just bad porn. No man has ever gorged himself on porn and then put it behind him after marriage because his wife met all of his porn fantasies. Instead, the opposite happens.

The opposite happens. Man, let me tell you, if you have pornography, if you've got that in your life, I'm telling you, yes, it's a sin against God, but for the sake of your relationship with all future women, you need to get rid of it today. Let me just speak as a dad for a minute. If you are not willing to address this, then you ought to at least be man enough to tell that girl you're dating or your fiance that you are not going to deal with this before you bring this into their marriage. So at least she has the option to opt out now before you rip her heart out later. You ought to at least have the courage to say, this is not something I really want to deal with.

I'll just destroy you later with it to give her a chance to pull out. By the way, I keep applying this to men, but it works in both genders. Sometimes for women, this takes different forms.

Sometimes it's trashy romance novels, Fifty Shades of Gross or Fifty Shades of Gonorrhea or whatever that series is called. But sometimes it's in images just like it is for men. Studies show that this is a problem for both men and women.

It's not just an exclusively male problem. Y'all, sex, gun, life, God's way is life giving. I've explained it was supposed to be a total opening to the soul. It was a picture of you opening your soul up and giving yourself entirely to somebody. There was a fusion of the bodies.

When you think just about it, there's a fusion of the bodies that become one. That was supposed to be matched by a oneness in every other area, emotional, spiritual, financial. It was this picture of whole life oneness. It was supposed to be a renewal of the marriage vow. Every time you had sex, you're renewing the marriage vow. I give myself holy and completely to you without reservation. I give it all to you. People come to me and they say, well, we want to go to Hawaii and renew our marriage vows.

I'm like, there's a lot easier and cheaper way for you to do that. It's what it's supposed to be. It's a beautiful picture of the gospel itself. I've told you before that the human heart wants to be known and loved completely. Known and loved. I've explained that to be known, but not loved feels like rejection. To be loved but not really known is kind of sentimental.

What you have this desire for is for somebody to know you, all of you, and see all of you, and love you anyway. You get a glimpse of that in sex because it's supposed to be marriage. It's this picture of the gospel. It is life-giving when it's done in God's way. But when it's done outside of God's way, instead of becoming life-giving, it becomes life-destroying. That which has the greatest power for good also has the greatest power to destroy.

Right? That's why it literally disintegrates the person. Think about that word disintegrates. It tears apart your oneness because physical oneness is over here and soul oneness is not quite there yet.

What has the power to bless has the power to destroy. It's why I've always described it to you like fire. If I ask you, do you want fire in your house?

Your answer is, depends on where you put it. Fire in the fireplace is awesome. Fire in the couch, not so awesome.

Right? Fire has the ability to bless and has the ability to destroy. You see, our culture right now basically thinks of sex as a victimless crime. Woody Allen's a good example. Sex without love, he says, is an empty experience.

But as empty experiences go, it's one of the best. But sex turns out it's not a victimless crime and it turns out that you're actually the first victim. You see, I'm telling you, a lot of young people I know, a lot of high school students and college students don't want to wait for sex until they get married because they're afraid they're going to miss out on something. God tells you to wait for sex until you get married precisely because he doesn't want you to miss out on something. And I know right now in our culture, a lot of young people, I've talked to a lot of high school college students who are just like, well, this is impossible. Maybe it was possible 50 years ago, but not today.

That's not true. I always tell them two things when they say that. I say, first of all, I realized I'm not close to your age anymore, but my wife and I were virgins when we got married. And they're always like, well, you were a, you're a pastor. I'm like, I wasn't then. I was just a normal college student. And then God gave us the ability to do it.

You can do it. And there's lots of people today that do that. The second thing I always tell them even more important is the most fully alive, fully masculine man that ever walked the face of the earth died as a virgin. He was 33 years old. He's the one who taught us about the abundant life. Every time you pray, you pray to a 33 year old male virgin. So do not tell me that you can't live a fulfilled life and not have that as a part of your life.

Jesus was more alive than any of us. And that was something that he in his life was not able to participate in or chose not to participate in. So the first thing this story shows us is that there are some real significant things that go along with this.

And sexual sin can absolutely destroy your life. Number two, it shows us we got to stay engaged in the battle. You need to stay engaged in the battle. For many of you, the problem is not a lustful body. The problem is a bored soul. Your first application of this message is not just to avoid the sexual temptation. The problem is some of you are on the sidelines and you're bored.

Right? You come in like a spectator. You sit in church. You're not a spiritual leader in your family.

You're not a leader here. And so because you're not engaged in God's mission, your life lacks a purpose that the enemy is all too willing to fill in that gap. You need to get involved in the church. You need to get involved in the mission. You need to volunteer. You need to begin to lead. You need to begin to serve. You need to get into a group.

Men, I will tell you from personal experience that the attractions of sex lose a lot of their power when you are actively engaged as the spiritual leader in your family. And that's why you're so susceptible because you're not a spiritual leader and you're not living the life of courage and ministry that God has designed you to live. It is a lot more difficult for you to take your pants off when you're in a battle than when you're lounging around the couch. Don't believe me?

Try taking off your pants in the middle of a rugby match. It's possible. It's possible, but it's a lot more difficult. Let that be a metaphor unto you.

All right? Again, for many of you, the problem is not a lustful body. The problem is a bored, wandering, purposeless soul.

You need to get engaged in the battle. Number three, the story shows us that you need to keep yourself away from temptation. Keep yourself away from temptation.

Listen to this. It is easier to avoid temptation than it is to resist it. I am a child of the 1980s. I was not born in the 1980s, but I grew up in the 1980s. And like a lot of children in the 1980s, I learned a lot of my most valuable life lessons from Mr. Miyagi on the Karate Kid. And one of the ones that's always stuck with me is him explaining to Danielson how it is you can avoid a punch. Daniel wants to know the counter-maneuvers to avoid the punch and he says the easiest way to avoid a punch is not be in a place where you get in a fight. That's the easiest way. The easiest way to counter a punch is to not be in a place where you can get in a fight. It is easier to avoid temptation than it is to resist it.

Years ago, I read this statement by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was the German pastor who resisted the Nazi regime and actually let a spy ring and ultimately was executed by the Nazis for that. But he said this and I thought it perfectly described my own path toward temptation. Listen really closely. In our members, in our body, there's the slumbering inclination toward desire that arises both suddenly and fiercely. With irresistible power, out of nowhere, desire seizes mastery of the flesh.

Have you ever felt that? It just comes out of nowhere. All at once, a secret smoldering fire is kindled that just wasn't there before.

The flesh burns and is in flames. In this moment, God becomes quite unreal to us. Satan does not here fill us with a hatred of God. He fills us with a forgetfulness of God.

Here I am as a pastor and then God is what I'm supposed to think about all the time and I just not even think about it at all. The lust thus aroused envelops the mind and the will and the deepest darkness. You lose your way. It is here that everything in me rises up against the Word of God.

Therefore, Bonhoeffer says, the Bible teaches that in times of temptation to our flesh, there is only one command. Flee. Flee youthful lust. Flee worldly temptation. If you're feeling under pressure and on the verge of something, an emotion is welling up within you.

What does the Bible say? Run. Run. No human being has within them the strength to resist such overpowering emotions.

This from a man who stared down the Nazi regime and would die as a martyr. And what he's saying is I can't do it. You can't do it. And if you're going to count on yourself to be able to resist temptation, you're a fool. You need to avoid temptation, not resist it. Which is why I do not spend time alone with girls who are not my wife or my daughters. Is that because I don't think I can handle it?

No. It's because I don't think that I can handle it. How's that? I just don't think I can relate.

Here's what it is. I have concluded that if I do not spend time alone with girls who are not my wife, then I will not have sex with them. How brilliant is that? The stakes are just too high. I don't play Russian roulette with my family. I don't keep loaded revolvers sitting around on the table at our house. Is that a sin to have a loaded revolver sitting on a table?

Maybe it's not technically a sin, but what kind of loving dad would do that? I don't keep a panther in my backyard that may or may not eat one of my children. The stakes are just too high.

I'm not going to play Russian roulette with my family. For some of you, you need some radical measures. And I'm not trying to tell you what they are. I'm not trying to come up with a bunch of artificial rules. But for some of you, in fact, some of you, it's so extreme, you ought to take the internet out of your house or you need to get some kind of accountability on it. Some of you, you need to give up your smartphone. Oh, that's kind of radical. Jesus said, it'd be better for you to pluck out your eye.

All right. So he's taken a little step farther. I'm just telling you to get rid of your smartphone.

He's telling you to get rid of your eyes. So let's get back to the story. Second Samuel chapter 12, we're about a year, second Samuel 12, we're about a year after David's affair with Bathsheba. We know it's been about a year because the child has just been born. And back in those days, it took nine months between sex and when the baby was born.

So I learned that in seminary. So one day a prophet named Nathan, about nine months into this, asked if he can see David. And he says to David, David, I heard something recently that really bothered me. And I thought that you should know about it. Now, remember at this point, David thinks that nobody knows about his sin, except for he and Bathsheba.

It's been the perfect cover up. So David's not even nervous at all. Nathan says to David, David, there was these two men in a city here in Israel. One was rich and the other was poor. The rich man had many flocks and herds, but the poor man had nothing except this one tiny little lamb, which he bought with his own money. And he grew up with them and with his children. It was like a pet to him. He used to eat from their table and drink from his cup and lie in his arms.

And it was like a daughter to him, which is a little creepy, but you get the point. Nathan goes on, verse four, this rich guy who had more sheep than he knew what to do with, had some relatives from out of town show up for a visit. But instead of preparing for them, one of his many sheep, he went and stole the sheep, this little lamb from this poor guy, just because he could get away with it.

And just because the poor guy was too powerless to be able to stop him. Verse five, then David's anger was greatly kindled against the rich man. And he said, and Nathan, as the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die. And he shall restore that lamb fourfold because he did this thing and because he had no compassion. Nathan looks at David and says in the most direct application point from a sermon ever, thou art the man. Have you ever said, man, I thought the preacher was talking right to me. David's the only guy in the room. He's like, he's talking right to me. And Nathan says, I am talking to you.

The conviction was inescapable. David's actions inexcusable. David has just condemned himself to death out of his own mouth. And Nathan says to David, verse seven, thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, I anointed you as king over Israel when you were nothing but a shepherd boy, and delivered you out of the hand of Saul. I gave you the power to slay Goliath. And if that had been too little, I would have given you so much more.

All you have to do is ask. Why have you despised the commandment of the Lord to do what is evil in his sight? David said to Nathan, I sinned against the Lord. And Nathan said to David, the Lord has put away your sin. You shall not die. By the way, what if you're Uriah's mother and you're reading this? You're just going to put it away? Nevertheless, because by this deed, you've utterly scorned the Lord.

I'll answer that question in a minute. You will not. Nevertheless, because of this deed, you've utterly scorned the Lord. The child who is born to you shall die because you have despised me and taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife. Therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house. Behold, I'll raise up evil against you out of your own house.

Listen to this. You can get forgiveness of sin, but sin still has consequences. The child died. Uriah died. David's trust with the people was broken. David's family was permanently scarred suffering deep emotional and family trauma from this point on with brothers literally killing one another.

Write this down. You can be forgiven, but you can't unsin. You can be forgiven, but you can't unsin. And a lot of people confuse forgiveness and consequences. You can be fully and completely forgiven. David was. I'm gonna show you that a minute.

Nathan said so. David's going to be made completely right with God. He no longer has to carry around the guilt and the condemnation, but the effects remain.

And honestly, y'all, I struggle a little bit in explaining this to you. I'm conflicted because I know some of you are on this side of sexual sin. And I'm not trying to overwhelm you and I'm not trying to discourage you as if there's no hope because we have a God who is amazing in his ability to heal and amazing in his ability to resurrect. But also want those of you who are on this side of it to see that yes, you can get forgiveness. Yes, we have a healing God, but you can't unsin.

If you murder somebody, you can get forgiveness, but that's not going to bring that person back to their family. And the same way with sexual sin, you can get forgiveness, but sin leaves damages in your life and the life of others that don't just automatically disappear. And yes, I want you to point you to the forgiveness and the healing of Jesus. But I also want you to see the weightiness that some of our actions have on ourselves and others.

This is not a trifling thing. But let me get to number four, exposing your sin begins the healing process. Exposing your sin is what begins the healing process for a year. David sat on this. In Psalm 51, a song that David wrote about the experience, he explained that it ate away at his insides like a cancer.

You know, but here was the thing. Listen, God had said to David four chapters before he did this, four chapters before second Samuel 716, David, your house and your kingdom will endure forever, and your throne will be established forever. God said that to David knowing full well what David was about to do.

But you let that sink in for a minute. God had determined to work for good in David's life forever, already knowing what David would do. God's promise to work for good had not changed. But God's work can't commence in David's life until David repents. God has put a promise over your life.

And that promise says that he will work all things for good and he can take even your mistakes and begin to weave them for triumph and healing. But it can't start until you repent. If you cover your sins, Proverbs says, you will not prosper. But the one that confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy. Y'all listen, the question is not do you sin? Everybody sins. The question is what do you do after you sin? Because what you do after you sin makes the difference between life and death. You see around here the summit church, we often say it this way, the gospel is this, if you cover your sin, you cover your sin, Jesus will expose it in judgment. If you expose your sin and repentance, Jesus will cover it in grace. You might as well just expose it.

You might as well come clean with it to God, whomever you are because because that's when the healing process can begin and not until you do will he begin to work that way in your life. We all this story leaves us with two questions, two big questions. The first one, if even David fails, what hope is there for salvation on the earth? David is the greatest king to ever arise in Israel, the giant killer, the protector. But if even David can't be trusted, what hope is there for humans?

Here's the second question. If even David, a giant killer, a man after God's own heart, if even he could not escape physical temptation, what hope is there for any of us? You think that when you read it?

That's what I think when I read it. I'm like, even David couldn't make it. How in the world am I going to make it? How am I going to be a successful father?

How am I going to make it through life without falling this way? Well, remarkably, the answers to both those last two questions are found at the same place. Number five, only God can provide the king that we need. Only God himself can provide the king that we need.

The people in this story are left bewildered. Even David, David, our hope, he failed us. And so this story, like all Old Testament stories, points beyond itself.

We need a savior that is greater than David. Even today, we still find ourselves looking to political solutions for our biggest needs. So politicians promise prosperity or education is the answer to our problems. Perhaps one bright spot in this otherwise dismal political season is that some of us may be realizing for the first time that salvation is not going to be found either in the Democrat or the Republican party. Because we look at the two candidates that are out there and we say, we are straight out of options. But even if you take the best that Republicans have ever had to offer and the best that Democrats have ever had to offer, if you're a Republican, I guess, Lincoln or Reagan, if you're a Democrat, let's say Roosevelt or Kennedy or Obama, and you say, let's have the best that are out there. What you're going to see is that salvation is never going to come to the to the United States riding on the wings of Air Force One.

Never. Salvation comes a different way. We need a different kind of king, a king that will not serve himself and a king who will not use his power to exploit us. And this coming king that we need is strangely prefigured in this story, not through David, but through Uriah. Think about Uriah for a minute.

Uriah is innocent. He's selfless. He is heroic to the end. He is absolutely loyal to David and to his fellow Israelites.

He won't even bring himself to enjoy a night of legitimate pleasure if his countrymen are in harm's way. He's faithful to the end when he's placed on the front line and the worst part of the battle and he's told to charge. He does so. The only reason Uriah dies is because at every stage of this story, he is faithful and obedient. He dies not because of his own sin. He dies for David's sin. Like Jesus. Jesus was loyal to us.

He put our needs above his own. He was faithful to the end and because of that he died for our sins against him. Uriah gives us a picture of the steadfast love of God that God had promised to David, a love that would never depart from him. Yes, David made a bad mistake.

And yes, there would be plenty of bad consequences. But the steadfast love of God would never depart from David. And God would ultimately take the death penalty for David's sin. You see when Nathan looks at David and says, you're not going to die because of this sin. He's not just putting the sin under the rug.

He's not just saying, Oh, it's no big deal. He's saying you don't have to die because Jesus is going to die in your place. You see, there's one crucial difference though, between Uriah and Jesus.

Uriah had no idea what David had done to him. Jesus knew everything that we'd done to him. And he went eagerly to death anyway, so that he could take it for us because of his love for us.

Which leads me to the last thing, number six. We overcome sin, as we're captivated by the beauty of this coming King. You see, you look at David, you say, well, if David couldn't make it, how in the world can I make it? David was susceptible to Bathsheba's beauty because his soul was bored and hungry. It's when your heart is empty, that you become unable to resist Bathsheba's beauty. The way to resist Bathsheba's beauty is to be captivated by a greater beauty.

That's the only way. What are the illustrations I always use when I make this point? And I think it's an important point. The illustration I always use is this. Six years ago, I was invited by some of our UNC students to come and do a Bible study. So a group of guys asked me to do it at their fraternity. So I said, what do you want the Bible study to be on? Just for your fraternity? They said, we want it to be on sexual temptation.

I said, that's a shocker. So I prepared the Bible study on sexual temptation. I showed up at their fraternity house and I'm leading this Bible study. And in the midst of this Bible study, I explained to them that they could turn sexual desire on and off like a light switch. Now, these are 19 year old guys.

You should have seen the look on their faces. He said, say it again. I said, yeah, you can turn off sexual desire like a light switch. He said, bro, how old are you? I said, um, I'm 37. He said, uh, he said, you know, we heard that your body changes when you get older, but we had no idea. Like he goes, there's no possible way. You can't turn sexual desire off like a light switch. I said, yes, you can.

At 19 years old, you can. I'll prove it to you. He said, they said, you're out of your mind. I said, all right. All right. So here you are, you're in, you know, your girlfriend's apartment, you guys are alone.

The lights are low. One thing starts leading to another. I don't know what y'all call that anymore. Um, I'm not cool any longer.

I don't know the lingo, but when I was in college, it had something to do with a baseball diamond. Um, and so you're working your way around the bases or whatever you call it now. And you, you cross the point of no return. The point where, I mean, the passion is just awakened.

The train has left the station. They're all nod their heads. Like, that's what we're talking about right there. Once you get to that point, there ain't no turning back. I'm like, okay, so the moment is there. The passion is, is alive. I'm like, yeah.

All right. Right at that moment, in that very moment, right at that moment, into the room, walks that girl's Navy seal father who just returned from a tour of duty in Afghanistan off like a light switch. And they were like, Oh yeah, good point. I said, no, what happened in that moment? Did you just lose all your attraction to girls?

No, it's still there. It's just that your attraction for her as strong as that felt was suddenly outweighed by a, a stronger desire, shall we say, a desire to stay alive, to keep all the limbs of your body attached to your body that suddenly outweighed this desire for this girl. And so this attraction over here got outweighed by a stronger attraction, a stronger desire. See the problem I told them, and I tell you is not that your sexual desires are so strong. The problem is that your love for God is so weak and you're trying to avoid sin without growing in this passion and love for God.

And that's why you can do it. The Puritans used to call it on the expulsive power of a new affection, which is a really wordy way of saying that there's this desire in you that gets so big for God, that it brings all these lesser passions like food or sex or money or whatever you put in the blank there. Suddenly they come underneath the lordship of Christ because your passion for Him has grown to the point that it controls your life.

You say, well, JD, that's great. How do you develop that kind of passion for God? You just, you know, press a button or you give some money or memorize a verse. It doesn't come that way.

You see, that's where the story all kind of comes together. The way you develop that kind of passion for God, the way you develop that kind of passion for God is when you begin to see that Jesus was the real King, the truer and better David, who served not himself, he served you. Even when you didn't deserve it, unlike David, he didn't please himself even when he was entitled to it. He sacrificed himself for you. He didn't use his power to make you die for him. He used his power to die for you. You see, that love begins to captivate your heart to the point that you gain the power.

You gain the motivation to say no to sin. So the Apostle John, when he's talking about overcoming sin, he says it this way, Behold, behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us that we should be called the children of God. Now we are the children of God. Now we are the children of God, but it does not yet appear what we are. But here's what we know. Watch this. When he appears, we'll be like him, because we'll see him just like he is.

Watch. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself, like he is pure. Why does this person purify themselves? Is it because they're afraid they're going to get caught? Is it because they want to be a better person or a better husband?

No. They purify themselves because they're so excited about seeing Jesus that they want their hearts to be prepared for him. And so they say no to the lesser passion of sex because of the higher passion they have and the love of Jesus Christ.

It is not a resolution. It's not even pulling out the internet out of your house that is going to cure your empty soul. What cures your empty soul is the love of Jesus that gives you the ability to say no to the lesser lust of the flesh.

So don't start with what you need to do for God. You start with the message of what God has done for you, which is what we see when Jesus actually dealt with somebody in the midst of the sin of adultery. In John chapter eight, a woman gets brought to him who's caught in the very act of adultery.

You probably know this story. In those days, you could be killed for that you'd be stoned. It's all these guys, all these Pharisees got the rocks in their hands and they're going to stone her. They bring her to Jesus.

What should we do? Jesus makes that famous statement, let him who was without sin among you cast the first stone. They all stare at each other awkwardly drop the rocks and go home. And then it's just Jesus and the woman.

Right? Now remember what he said, let him who was without sin among you cast the first stone. Here's the irony. He is without sin. He can cast the stone. But he looks at this woman and he says, neither do I condemn you. Go and said no more. I've told you that I think about what he said to me. The odd thing is the order that he puts those two phrases in.

Because instinctively, I would always switch him. I would always say, if you go and send no more, then I won't condemn you. I'm going to give you a second chance.

Don't screw it up. We're going to forgive the past and we're going to say you get to turn over a new leaf and let's hope you do better this time. If you go and send no more then you won't be condemned. But Jesus, listen to this. Jesus put her forgiveness before change, because he knew she'd never had the power to change until she felt the beauty of forgiveness.

You see that? The reason this woman had gone to adulterers is because her heart was starving for love. And Jesus knew she could never break that cycle until she found a love that was greater than what she searched for in the arms of adulterers. You see, God's acceptance, listen to this, God's acceptance is the power that liberates us from sin. It's not the reward for us having liberated ourselves. Which is why our message to the teenage girl who lost her virginity this year is not, hey, you should be ashamed.

Or hey, you're going to get an STD or hey, you're going to screw up your life. Our message to that teenage girl is you have a Heavenly Father who never stopped loving you, not in your darkest decisions, not when you were running away from him. He pursued after you. He saw what you did. He never stopped loving you. He never will stop loving you. And that's 10,000 times better than any guy who's going to use you for his body, some dirtbag who just wants to use you. Why don't you come to his love? And then you won't be captive to all these guys who just show you attention. And our message to the man who is messed up in pornography is not just, oh, you're messing up your family.

You are messing up your family. But our message to you is this. You got a Heavenly Father who forgave David, and who began to work for good in David's life and turned David into a spiritual leader and gave him a house that will last forever. And that's what God wants to give you. So why don't you behold what manner of love the Father has given unto you. And why don't you embrace it because that'll give you the power to be free from sin. He breaks the power of canceled sin and sets the prisoner free. As you realize your sin is canceled, your life is filled with this incredible power. Jesus last words to you on the cross were not go fix yourself. There it is finished.

It's finished. And when you see that sin has been canceled, it releases you into the power that will overcome sexual temptation and any temptation. It starts with the love and the acceptance of the cross that you receive as a gift. Why don't you buy your heads with me at all of our campuses if you will. I realize this finds you probably all over the map. Some of you here that like I mentioned, you're on this side of sexual sin. And there's time for you just to repent. You just need to confess it right now. Maybe you've been hurt by sexual sin and you need to expose that to God.

But listen here, listen. The Puritans used to say this, for every one look you take at your sin, take 10 looks at the cross of Jesus. So don't fixate on your sin.

Don't keep looking at it. Look now to the cross and the resurrection and what Jesus grace and what his power can do. For every one look you take your at your sin take 10 looks at Jesus Christ. I just want to leave you to let the Holy Spirit work on your heart minister to you. For you to listen to him and follow what he is telling you to do. And then in just a minute, our worship pastors will come and they'll lead us.