Broken

Today on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Lead pastor of the Summit Church in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina.

I'm your host, Molly Bidevich. Let me ask you, what does true repentance look like? Is it tears and weeping? Is it simply stopping the sin?

Or is it much more? Today, Pastor J.D. helps us unpack 2 Samuel 12, in which David is confronted about his sin against Bathsheba and Uriah. Following the prophet Nathan's rebuke, David ultimately pens Psalm 51. It is in this Psalm that we observe the components of true confession and repentance, which lead ultimately and joyfully to restoration. If you're desperately looking for the path back to God, David gives us an amazing roadmap. So let's jump into 2 Samuel chapter 12 now.

2 Samuel chapter 12. Just about everybody that I know has been watching the trial of Alec Murdock. If you happen to be one of the 10 people in here who has not seen anything about this. Alec Murdock is an attorney from a small town in South Carolina, whose family goes back in that town for generations. They basically built the town, the Murdock family. But as this trial reveals, Alec Murdock has also been a vicious criminal. Using his family's connections to cover up his crimes for years. All kinds of evidence has come out involving massive death from people that he was supposedly helping, robbing, murdering friends, and even family members. Perhaps what is most intriguing though about this, and maybe you'd even say most disturbing, is the difference between how Mr. Murdock presents publicly and then what you're finding out about his private life. In fact, just this past week, last week, the judge pled with him to admit, in the face of overwhelming evidence, to admit to his crimes and he just wouldn't do it. He wouldn't do it.

He wants to maintain the illusion of the polite, respectable, gentle father who just cares for his family and just wants to do the right thing. It's been like a case study in how difficult it is for some people to confess to sin. And sure, very few of us are ever gonna have to confess to a string of crimes like Alec Murdock's. Hopefully none of us will have to confess to anything like that. But all of us, all of us had that moment when we are confronted with our sin and we gotta decide what to do. You gonna minimize it?

You gonna whitewash it? You gonna deflect it? You gonna blame your actions on others?

Listen, I'm not exaggerating when I say that what you do in that moment makes the difference between life and death. Everybody sins. It's what you do in response to the confrontation and the conviction of sin that makes the difference between, literally, life and death. As 2 Samuel 12 opens, we are a little less than a year after David's very grievous sin with Bathsheba. We know that because Bathsheba has just given birth to the baby and back in those days, it took nine months between conception and when a baby was born. That's why you pay me to know obscure Bible facts like that one. The prophet Nathan, whom you might remember is like the nation's pastor, requests an audience with David. So chapter 12, he comes in and he says, David, listen, I heard something that happened in your kingdom that really bothered me.

And I wanted to share it with you and I wanted to get your thoughts. Now, just as a reminder, David had seen Bathsheba bathing. He'd lusted after her. He'd sent messengers to bring her to him so that he could sleep with her.

And then he commenced a massive cover-up operation that involved murdering her husband and then taking her as his wife and then lying to the nation about it for a year. So here's what Nathan says to David. He says, David, there were two men, verse one, in a certain city here in Israel, but one was rich and the other was poor. The rich man had very many flocks and herds, but the poor man had nothing but one little tiny lamb, just one little lamb, which he'd bought with his own money. And that little lamb had grown up in his house and with his children. It was like a pet to them. It used to eat from their table and drink from his cup and lie in his arms.

It was like a child to him, like a daughter to him. He goes on, verse four, he says, One night, David, this rich guy who had more sheep than he knew what to do with, he had some relatives stop in unexpectedly to visit and he wanted to serve them some dinner. But instead of him using, this rich guy using one of his many, many sheep, he went into his poor neighbor's yard and he stole that one little pet lamb just because he could.

And just because nobody had the power to stop him. Verse five, when David heard this, his anger was greatly kindled against this rich man. And he said to Nathan, as the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die. And he shall restore the lamb fourfold because he did this thing and because he had no compassion. Nathan then looks at David and says, in the most powerful sermon ever given, it says, You are that man.

David has condemned himself to death with his own mouth. Nathan then says, verse seven, Thus says the Lord the God of Israel to you. I anointed you, David king over Israel, and I delivered you out of the hand of Saul.

And if that had been too little, I also would have given you much more. Why have you despised the commandment of the Lord to do what is evil in his sight? David said to Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. And Nathan said to David, The Lord has put away your sin. You shall not die.

Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the Lord, the child who is born to you shall die. In this very condensed story, there's a lot more to it. We'll see that in a minute than just what these little bare facts that we get here. But what you see in there is David's path toward repentance. There's four stages to it.

There is confrontation. Something brings your sin before your face. In David's case, it happens through Nathan. For you, it might happen in a rebuke from a friend or a teacher or a boss. Maybe it comes through a message that you hear me or one of the other pastors preach here at church.

Or maybe it's just the Holy Spirit working on your conscience. For some of you, that day of confrontation is going to be today. From confrontation, David goes to confession. David's confession here includes several vital elements that all true confession must include. You don't see them all here in 2 Samuel 12. You're going to see it in another passage I'm going to take you to that opens this up for us.

We'll look at that in a moment. From confrontation and confession, we go to reassurance. After seeing David repent and seeing evidence of his repentance, Nathan assures David that God has not taken his love from him. David will not die.

He has not been canceled. God still has a plan for him. Reassurance is an important step in the restoration process. But a lot of times, a lot of times I'm going to show you we rush too quickly to it.

And I'll build that out for you here in a moment. But finally, we got confrontation, confession, reassurance, then we have restoration. Nathan tells David, you will not die. And though there's going to be consequences from your sin, David, in his case, the child is going to die.

Your rule and your household will never quite be the same. Nathan assures him, though, that even though there's consequences for his sin, God still has a lot of good things left for him. Plans to use him for good. His life is not over. He is still God's son and God is working all things for good, even this in David's life. As we always like to say around here, if you're not dead, God's not done. This is the path that God wants to take you on. Wants to take you on that path of confrontation to confession to reassurance to restoration. But a lot of us want to get to that reassurance and restoration stage without really dealing with the confession part. So for the majority of our time together this weekend, I want us to press into Psalm 51, which is the song, the poem, that David wrote during this experience.

It's a look into the anatomy of that second stage, confession. Psalm 51, if you've got your Bible, hold your place in 2 Samuel 12, but flip over to Psalm 51. David, in the superscript to this psalm, tells us exactly why he wrote it.

By the way, this is not added in there by the translators. This was in the original Hebrew. This is David telling you why he wrote this psalm.

A psalm of David, he says, when Nathan the prophet went to him after he'd gone into Bathsheba. David in this psalm is going to demonstrate several components that separate true confessions from false ones. You see, according to Paul in 2 Corinthians, there is a kind of confession of sin that looks sincere, but does not lead to spiritual life.

It only leads to more spiritual death. Sometimes these confessions look really good on the outside. They even often involve tears, Paul says, but they don't lead to life. What David in this psalm is going to give you is four components of a true confession. Four components of a true confession. Component number one is in verse three. David says, I know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me. Underline that word, my, if you underline things in your Bible. Component number one is I am personally responsible for my sin. True confession does not seek to justify, to minimize, or deflect what you did in any way. David does not mention how hard it is to be king, how nobody ever thought about his needs, how nobody understands the pressures that he's been under, nor does David point out his past accomplishments, or how up until this point he's been an amazing king, way better than Saul or any of the other kings Israel has ever had.

No. David says, I have sinned. Nothing excuses it, and I got nobody to blame for but me. Our director of counseling here, Dr. Brad Hambrick, says that real apologies will always avoid the words if, but, or maybe.

If it is something that hurts you. If means you haven't really owned up to the wrong yet. You're still focused on how they responded and whether or not that's the right response. But, well, I did that, but, then insert whatever reason it wasn't so bad or why the other person, you really provoked it. Maybe, maybe, maybe I wasn't thinking of you like I should as if it's still uncertain whether what you did was wrong.

These are all indications that the apology is not real. And I see some of you writing these things down so that you can use them against your spouse later. Don't do that.

Okay. That's not what this is about. Think about how often you divert or lessen the blame for your bad actions.

David don't do any of that. He says, I know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me. Listen, there may be factors that influence your sin. Others may have indeed wronged you, maybe even first.

You might have been greatly affected by the home you grew up in and that was no fault of your own. You may have felt extreme pressure from others to do what you did. But at the end of the day, your sins, your choices were your own. So many times I've seen somebody confronted in their sin here only to have them eventually blame somebody else. In fact, there have been a handful of times at this church that we've had to confront somebody who was cheating on their spouse or had sexually manipulated somebody. And you know, we as lovingly as we know how to do it and as humbly as we know how to do it, we confront them. Only later to have them write me a letter focused on how we didn't do the confrontation just right. And you know, I am sure we could have done it better.

And none of us want to be doing that. Our hearts are broken and we were trying to take care of the family. And a lot of times when they write these letters, it's pretty clear that they're still not at all focused on the people they've hurt or what they've done wrong. They're still trying to posture themselves as the victim and focus on where everybody else fell short.

And like I said, I'm pretty sure that we fell short. But the point is, if you truly repent, your focus is not on their shortcomings. Your focus is on your sin, not on what others did or did not do. Thanks for joining us today for Summit Life with Pastor JD Greer. I wanted to take a moment to make sure you knew about our newest featured resource that we're sending to all of our gospel partners and monthly financial supporters. It's called Exalting Jesus in First and Second Samuel. And it's part of a well-known commentary series called Christ Centered Exposition. Pastor JD co-wrote it with Heath Thomas, and it offers a comprehensive yet readable and practical explanation of what you're digesting in the text. And each chapter in this book is presented kind of like a sermon, making it perfect for preparing a message or a Bible study, but also for devotional reading.

Perhaps most importantly, it includes a section called Reflect and Discuss to help in both a small group setting or personal time. We're excited to offer yet another great resource to help you grow in your understanding of these rich books of the Bible. And we'd love to send it to you today with your gift of $35 or more to support this ministry.

To give, call us now at 866-335-5220 or visit us online at jdgreer.com. Now let's get back to today's teaching. Once again, here's Pastor JD. I think of these pastors who have an affair, destroy their families, betray the trust of their congregations, besmirch the name of Christ, and then have the audacity to write a book and go on a lecture circuit later about how unkindly they were treated and how the church just doesn't understand how to show grace. I get it.

I get it. Maybe that's true, but I always want to say to them, you're not the one to deliver that message. Your focus ought to be on your own sin.

Why don't you keep your mouth shut and focus on that for a while? How you manipulated your flock and violated their trust. In many cases, especially involving leaders in the church, true repentance means you don't seek to get back into public ministry, at least not for a long, long time.

A lot of times the best way to demonstrate your changed heart is to labor in obscurity. If you have really repented, you're going to be more concerned about what those you sinned against, what kind of healing they need and what the process looks like for them. Then you are going to be finding a vocational outlet for your amazing spiritual gifts. Component number one is I am personally responsible for my sin. Nobody else is to blame but me. Component number two, verse four, against you and you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight. Component number two, my sin was first and foremost against God. Against you and you only have I sinned.

Now, who doesn't read this and say against God only? I mean, seriously, sexual abuse, murder, those are pretty big sins against Bathsheba and Uriah, not to mention the trust of the nation that he violated. Is David trivializing those things? Is he just like, oh, those are no big deal?

No, no, no, not at all. This is Hebrew poetry. And in Hebrew poetry, sometimes they use a superlative to make a point. And the point that he's making is that as bad as his sin was toward Uriah and Bathsheba and others, it was even worse against God. And in so doing, David demonstrates an important component in confession that we often overlook, the Godward dimensions of our sin. My sin was first and foremost, not against Uriah and Bathsheba, it was first and foremost against you, God.

I want you to let this sink in, OK? David's sin on a human level was bad. I mean, it was more than bad.

It was horrendous. And yet David says that even those horrendous things pale in comparison to the wickedness that he has committed against God. Think about that. Sexual abuse, betrayal, murder, lying in office, those are sins of the highest order. And yet David says that the worst of it is what I did to God. How evil must our sin be in God's eyes? A lot of people struggle with the concept of hell because they think it's too severe a punishment for the sins that we commit against each other. You do some bad stuff here during your life, suffer eternity in hell later.

It seems like the punishment doesn't fit the crime. But the severity of hell comes not because of the severity of our sins against each other, it comes because of the wickedness of those sins against God. So I just ask you again, how evil must our sin be in God's eyes for David to look at the things he's done and say, the main problem was what it was to you. The prophet Jeremiah summarizes it this way. Jeremiah 2.13, my people have committed two sins. When you commit a sin, there's two components to it.

They have forsaken me. That's component one, the spring of living water. Component two, they have dug for themselves their own cisterns, which are basically holes in the ground that are lined with rocks and bricks that are trying to hold rainwater.

But they are broken and they can't hold water. In other words, sin is twofold. First, we reject God. I reject God who is supposed to be my trust and my fountain and my refuge and my joy and that leaves this gigantic vacuum in my heart and then I replace God.

Where he used to be, I replaced that with something else. David asked himself, why was God not enough for me? Why did I not really trust God? Why did I need the feeling of power that I got from manipulating Bathsheba?

Why did I crave her beauty? My soul was empty because I was disconnected from you. That was my first sin. I rejected you. I took matters into my own hands because I didn't trust you.

I took what did not belong to me because I didn't trust that you would take care of me. My sins, before they broke out horizontally, my sins were vertical. David is overwhelmed with this truth at this point. You can see that in the way he writes that verse, against you and you only. That repetition of you, you in Hebrew indicates the intensity of emotion. You, God, you, after all you've given me, after you took me from the pasture and made me king and delivered me from Saul and conquered all my enemies and made me all those incredible promises, after all that, I forsook you. I see people get emotional over what their sin did to somebody else. I see them get emotional with regret over how you hurt somebody else or you get emotional over what your sin says about you, feelings of frustration and guilt and self-loathing and personal failure. But when was the last time you got emotional about what your sin did to God?

After all the goodness and kindness that he's put into your life, after all his faithfulness, after dying on a cross to save me from my sins, I walk away from you without even a thought? You see, until you're most upset at what your sin has done to God, you'll never really change. At least not toward God you won't change. Until in your sin you see the hammer used to crucify Jesus. Until you see your sin as a declaration toward God, you're not enough.

I don't trust you. Until you see that, you'll never really change. Component number three, verse five. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. Confession, component three. My sin goes down to the core of who I am. My sin goes down to the core of who I am.

Like I said a minute ago, a lot of people want to reduce the seriousness of their sin by blaming those sins and factors outside of their control. Well, I got caught in a weak moment. I was with the wrong crowd. I made some poor choices.

They were like, no, no, no. My sin came from the depth of who I am. What I did in that moment was consistent with things I have buried in the depths of my heart. What I did was not something that came out of nowhere. No, it was down there in the core of who I am. Sin is not just what I did.

Sin is who I am. You ever had one of those moments where something slips out of your mouth that totally embarrasses you? Outbursts of anger. Something snippy or unfair that you say about somebody. Maybe a demeaning joke.

Maybe it's the verbalization of lust. And then later you feel really bad or you feel embarrassed about what you said. And so you go back to the person you said it to to apologize. What do you usually say?

You say something like, I'm sorry. I didn't mean that. That's not really me.

Yeah, but here's the thing. In the moment, it was you. At the moment you said it, you meant it. You'd never felt an emotion more sincerely in your life.

And if what happened was not really you, then where exactly did it come from? Maybe a better explanation is that as we grow up, we get better at filtering what's down there so it doesn't embarrass us as often. But just because we don't verbalize something doesn't mean it isn't inside of us. Or think of it as this way. Imagine if somebody developed an app on our phone so that whatever came into your mind displayed on my screen.

How awful would that be? True repentance recognizes that your sin comes from the core of who you are. Sin is not just what I did. Sin is who I am. Sin is always messy, and it always leads us into brokenness. But today's teaching gives us a glimpse into what true repentance looks like, which is so incredibly important in the life of any Christian. This is Summit Life with J.D.

Greer. OK, so J.D., most of us associate the Old Testament with Jewish history and the New Testament with Christian history. But what you're saying in our latest featured resource, a commentary of 1 and 2 Samuel, is that you can see Jesus in these Old Testament stories, too.

Yeah, I mean, exactly. We can find Jesus and the gospel in literally every single book of the Bible, even when his name is never used. One of my great joys as a pastor is to take these stories and just say, where is this pointing us to Jesus? I may never fight Goliath the way David did. I may never walk through the Red Sea the way that Moses did. But the same savior who ministered to them in their brokenness and used them in their brokenness is the same savior that went into the grave and walked out for me. And all these things point to him.

The resources that were given out, this commentary in 1 and 2 Samuel will show you all those pictures that are there in 1 and 2 Samuel. It was such a rich study for me. I'm delighted to be able to share it with you. I'm the author and editor of this. I co-wrote it with a friend as a way of saying thank you for being a gospel partner or for your gift to us. Then we will give it to you.

So check it out. J.D. Greer dot com. We believe this commentary is a powerful and important way to help you see the gospel of Jesus in these Old Testament passages.

In fact, it's part of a larger commentary series called Christ Centered Exposition designed to help us see how the entire Bible points back to Jesus. To get your copy of this volume, co-written by Pastor J.D., give your gift of $35 or more to support this ministry by calling 866-335-5220. That's 866-335-5220 or give online at J.D. Greer dot com. I'm Molly Vidovitch, and I hope you'll join us tomorrow for the final steps of a repentant heart. We'll see you Friday on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by J.D. Greer Ministries.