4.11.38 8.16.2020 David teaches us How to Ruin our life! 2 Samuel 11
When a Hero Comes to Town • Sermon • Submitted
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A roof-top view of failure...
A roof-top view of failure...
Entice: If the wages of sin is death...most of us spend much of our lives working hard to earn them; both before and after we experience God's saving grace. True, during our lives we meet many "good" people. If we really kept score most of us agree that if everyone really got what they deserved...punishment awaits many of us.
Engage: We all wish to suppress sin-But if you wait to deal with deeds-if you fail to address attitudes you will always be too late. If you really want a recipe for ruining your life; if you really want directions for self-destruction our hero David gives us a speculator example of how unlimited reflection, leads to uninhibited action resulting in a life coming undone.
Expand: 2 Samuel 11 is a true story which gives color and depth to something James says in his epistle.
14 But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.
If you try to restrain your "doing" without retraining your thinking you are bound to fail as David did.
Excite: I don't know exactly how David got from being "a man after God's own heart" to a being man who raped his friend's wife, murdered him and began a downward spiral which nearly wrecked everything. However, when we look closely at what happens in 2 Samuel 11 it becomes clear that the actions against Bathsheba and Uriah were the culmination of an internal process of thinking, reflecting, justifying, scheming, planning. Then he acted.
Explore: We ruin our lives by allowing sinful desires to metastasize into sinful attitudes which ultimately lead to sinful actions.
Explore: We ruin our lives by allowing sinful desires to metastasize into sinful attitudes which ultimately lead to sinful actions.
Explain: David “heroically” demonstrates several characteristics of this downhill slide
1. Entitlement
1. Entitlement
=I deserve it.
=I deserve it.
1 In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, David sent Joab, and his servants with him, and all Israel. And they ravaged the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem.
2 It happened, 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 bathing; and the woman was very beautiful.
3 And David sent and inquired about the woman. And one said, “Is not this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?”
4 So David sent messengers and took her, and she came to him, and he lay with her. (Now she had been purifying herself from her uncleanness.) Then she returned to her house.
5 And the woman conceived, and she sent and told David, “I am pregnant.”
David’s sense of entitlement his kingly “rights”, his deserving entitlement is demonstrated clearly… he was
1.1 Arrogant!
1.1 Arrogant!
1.2 Available!
1.2 Available!
1.3 Able!
1.3 Able!
2. Evasion
2. Evasion
=I can deny it.
=I can deny it.
6 So David sent word to Joab, “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” And Joab sent Uriah to David.
7 When Uriah came to him, David asked how Joab was doing and how the people were doing and how the war was going.
8 Then David said to Uriah, “Go down to your house and wash your feet.” And Uriah went out of the king’s house, and there followed him a present from the king.
9 But Uriah slept at the door of the king’s house with all the servants of his lord, and did not go down to his house.
10 When they told David, “Uriah did not go down to his house,” David said to Uriah, “Have you not come from a journey? Why did you not go down to your house?”
11 Uriah said to David, “The ark and Israel and Judah dwell in booths, and my lord Joab and the servants of my lord are camping in the open field. Shall I then go to my house, to eat and to drink and to lie with my wife? As you live, and as your soul lives, I will not do this thing.”
12 Then David said to Uriah, “Remain here today also, and tomorrow I will send you back.” So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next.
13 And David invited him, and he ate in his presence and drank, so that he made him drunk. And in the evening he went out to lie on his couch with the servants of his lord, but he did not go down to his house.
2.1 Personal Betrayal.
2.1 Personal Betrayal.
2.2 Community Corruption.
2.2 Community Corruption.
3. Elimination
3. Elimination
=I can destroy the evidence.
=I can destroy the evidence.
14 In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it by the hand of Uriah.
15 In the letter he wrote, “Set Uriah in the forefront of the hardest fighting, and then draw back from him, that he may be struck down, and die.”
16 And as Joab was besieging the city, he assigned Uriah to the place where he knew there were valiant men.
17 And the men of the city came out and fought with Joab, and some of the servants of David among the people fell. Uriah the Hittite also died.
18 Then Joab sent and told David all the news about the fighting.
19 And he instructed the messenger, “When you have finished telling all the news about the fighting to the king,
20 then, if the king’s anger rises, and if he says to you, ‘Why did you go so near the city to fight? Did you not know that they would shoot from the wall?
21 Who killed Abimelech the son of Jerubbesheth? Did not a woman cast an upper millstone on him from the wall, so that he died at Thebez? Why did you go so near the wall?’ then you shall say, ‘Your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also.’ ”
22 So the messenger went and came and told David all that Joab had sent him to tell.
3.1 Attacking the innocent.
3.1 Attacking the innocent.
3.2 Compromising Subordinates.
3.2 Compromising Subordinates.
4. Excuses
4. Excuses
=I can deflect attention.
=I can deflect attention.
It's not my fault
It's not my fault
22 So the messenger went and came and told David all that Joab had sent him to tell.
23 The messenger said to David, “The men gained an advantage over us and came out against us in the field, but we drove them back to the entrance of the gate.
24 Then the archers shot at your servants from the wall. Some of the king’s servants are dead, and your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also.”
25 David said to the messenger, “Thus shall you say to Joab, ‘Do not let this matter displease you, for the sword devours now one and now another. Strengthen your attack against the city and overthrow it.’ And encourage him.”
4.1 “Bad things happen…”
4.1 “Bad things happen…”
4.2 I can explain it.
4.2 I can explain it.
5. Erase it
5. Erase it
=Nothing to see here!
=Nothing to see here!
26 When the wife of Uriah heard that Uriah her husband was dead, she lamented over her husband.
27 And when the mourning was over, David sent and brought her to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son. But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord.
5.1 Let time pass.
5.1 Let time pass.
5.2 Reap the “rewards”
5.2 Reap the “rewards”
Down hill From Here
Down hill From Here
And the slide began there. Next week we will address in detail the process of repentance that David went through. We will talk about the consequences of his sin. I think that we should spend some time this week reflecting upon this sordid tale and how we replay it in our own lives. I know I do. I know that both before and after my own conversion I have thought and done exactly as David thought and did.
We like sermons where everything is resolved at the end and we go our way with smiles on our face ready to be happy go lucky, living the dream during the coming week. Maybe there are times when our approach should be penitent, and reflective, and attentive. Maybe we need to remember the nightmare if we are to profitably "live the dream". When we look at David, our hero, our role model crash and burn-maybe we should process his fall for a while and then think about God's saving grace.
Jesus came to renew our minds. Jesus came to absolve us of our actions. Jesus came to deliver us from our deeds. Are you ready to allow the Son of David to bring you the peace of forgiveness?