Then the Lord sent Nathan to David, and he came to him and said, there were two men in one city, one rich, the other poor. The rich man had a great many flocks and herds, but the poor man had nothing, except one little U-lam, which he bought and nourished and he grew up together with him and his children. It would eat of his bread and drink of his cup and lie in his bosom and it was like a daughter to him. Now a traveler came to the rich man, he was unwilling to take from his own flock or his own herd, to prepare for the wayfarer who had come to him, rather he took the poor man's U-lam and prepared it for the man who had come to him. Then David's anger burned greatly against the man and he said to Nathan, as the Lord lived, surely the man who has done this deserved to die, and he must make restitution for the lamb for full because he did this thing and had no compassion. Nathan then said to David, you are the man. Thus says the Lord God of Israel, as I who annoyed you king over Israel, and as I who delivered you from the hand of Saul, I gave you your master's house and wives into your care, I gave you the house of Israel and Judah, and if that had been too little I would have added to you many more things like these. Why have you despised the word of the Lord by doing evil in his sight? You have struck down your raya, the hit site with the sword, have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with the sword of the sons of Ammon. Now therefore the sword will never depart from your house because you have despised me and have taken the wife of your raya to be your wife. Thus says the Lord, I will raise up evil against you from your own household. I will even take your wives before your eyes and give them to your companion and he shall lie with your wives in broad daylight. You did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel and under the sun. And then David said to Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. Nathan said, the Lord also has taken away your sin. You shall not die. However, because by this deed you have given occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, the child also that is born to you shall surely die. This child does die once you see David's response in verse 20. The David arose from the ground, washed, anointed himself, changed his clothes, and he came into the house of the Lord and worshiped. Now, verse 24, then David comforted his wife, Bathsheba, and went into her and lay with her and she gave birth to a son and he named him Solomon. Now the Lord loved him and sent words through Nathan the prophet and he named him Jedadaya for the Lord's sake. May God bless this reading of this holy word. Please be seated. Now, it's no surprise to you, but at Seven Rivers Church, we don't do children's sermons. You know what the children's sermon is? We like the little urchins to come up and sit on those steps and the pastor gets down and he has some little object less than and some little bag they reach into and there's neat little things happening. Kids will rat out their parents sometimes. You know, a kid will raise his hands and said, my dad drinks beer and everybody laughs. And we don't do children's sermons. We don't do children's church for other than the very youngest. Why is that? Because we believe in the perspicuity of the word of God. There, there you have it. We believe that the Bible is clear and relatively simple and that even the simple mind can grasp the basic tenets of the Bible, right? No, that was mean. We believe that that's a good thing for the family to be together. We also believe that children's sermons are not particularly helpful in general and we believe that the minds of young children with the blessing, sitting under the preaching of God's word, with the power of the Holy Spirit, with the blessing of the guidance of their parents, that they absorb and learn and are affected far more than we might give them credit for. We think it's a good thing for children to hear the preaching of the word that it awakens a curiosity in them about the great truths about our God's. Matter of fact, last week after I preached on sexuality a number of you told me that a curiosity was awakened in your children and I just want to say you're welcome. Having said all that, we're going to do a children's sermon this morning. We're going to invite all the children age four to 104 to just lean forward and we're going to read together a book that I used to read my children when they were young. They run away, bunny. How many of you read this book? They run away? Well, my goodness. Once you guys schooled, there we go. Once there was a little bunny who wanted to run away. So he said to his mother, I am running away. If you run away, said his mother, I will run after you or my little bunny. If you run after me, said the little bunny, I will become a fish in a trout stream and I will swim away from you. Well, if you become a fish in a trout stream, said his mother, I'll become a fisherman and I will fish for you. If you become a fisherman, said the little bunny, I will become a rock on the high mountain, high above you. And if you become a rock on the high mountain above me, said, Mom, I will be a mountain climber and I will climb to where you are. If you become a mountain climber, I will be a crocus and a hidden garden. If you become a crocus and a hidden garden, I'll be a gardener and I will find you. Well, if you're a gardener and find me, I'll be a bird and I'll fly away. If you become a bird and fly away from me, I'll be a tree that you'll fly to. If you become a tree, I'll become a little sailboat and I'll sail away from you. If you become a sailboat, then I will become the wind and blow you where I want you to go. If you become the wind and blow me, I'll join a circus and fly away on a flying trapeze. If you go flying on a flying trapeze, I'll be a tightrope walker and I will walk across the air to you. If you become a tightrope walker, I'll become a little boy and I'll run into a house. If you become a little boy and run into a house, I will become your mother and catch you in my arms and hug you. Shucks said the bunny. I might just as well say where I am. There is a love that will not let you go. Why is it we run away from the very thing we want? Why do we run away from home when home is what we craze? But do we run away? There is someone who comes after us because there is a love that will never let you go. Take your sermon outline, would you? We'll look at this love and the life of David. We want to see God's love as it's expressed in loving confrontation. The restart of grace of God's runaways begins with loving confrontation. God confronts the runaway. We want to see God's love in four ways first, I want you to see how God takes the initiative with David. There is no evidence in the passage that on the top of David's to-do list was get right with God. We do know this, that when you're not right with God, when we are alienated from God, it's a terrible place to be. When we know that we've sinned and our sin has made a breach between us and God, there's a rot in our soul. David speaks of it actually in Psalm 32. He says, when I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night by hand was heavy on me, give yourself that hand of God, heavy on you. My vitality was drained away as with the fever, heat of summer. David's not rushing to make it right with God. So what does chapter 12 verse 1 say? The Lord did what? The Lord sent Nathan. The Lord took the initiative. The Lord went after David. When Adam and Eve sinned in the garden, when they commit the big one, do you think they say, wow, we have brushed it all, we have the best deal going. We lived in paradise, we threw it all away. Let's go to God and get it right, right away. That's not what the Bible said they did, is it? What they do? They hid, they covered themselves, they denied, they didn't face it. Who is left to take the initiative? If God didn't come and get us, we wouldn't go home. Sheep I told you, don't have very high IQs. We run away from home when it's the very thing we want. We defy God, but we come anyway. When the Bible says they heard the sound of God coming in the garden, we could consider the most glorious thing that's ever announced in all the Bible. When God could have just obliterated Adam and even said that to him, maybe we'll start over right now. He went to them. David's a murderer. David's an adulterer. God sends Nathan to David. God goes after those who run away. Now Jesus came into the world to watch, to seek, and to save, that which is was an amazing thing. The kindness of God is evident in his taking the initiative. We don't go to him. Some many years ago, it was a gentleman in this church who was teaching Sunday schools and things like that. One night I remember my wife said to me, you know, so I'm so, he, the way he's dressing now, the way he's changed his hair and everything. I think he's having an affair. I remember thinking, oh, the great Karnak, you know, where in the world I said to you, he trapped in a grocery store checkout line and picked up one of those magazines 12 ways to tell if he's cheating on you, you know, I've never even considered such a thing. I've never even seen any evidence for that.
The next morning, somebody called me at the office and I'm really concerned about somebody in our church, some of the things I've seen and heard, and same, same person. Before that day was over, a third person called and they said, my son works in, in this guy's office and one of it, he opens the mail to the job and well he's read some stuff that, in this guy's having an affair, I thought you ought to know, three, three, three times. One 24-hour period is something I've never had the faintest idea or suspicion or thought or anything. I called the cell up and he sat down to talk and I told him, it's come to my attention that you're engaged in an immoral relationship and he didn't say it's true, you know what he said? How do you know? And I said, God told me, and he did, that God told me, God brings things to light. God pursues the center, the center thinks we hide, but see the love of God and his taking the initiative is going after us. Second, once you see the approach of God, the love of God, in this loving confrontation with David, the approach he takes, it's not a frontal approach because he wants David to see it and so he uses our proclivity to spot, I mean we see with 2020 visions, the sins of others don't we? We are, we have cataracts, we are blind to the sins of ourselves, we can't see ourselves at all. So God's condescends to help David to see, he sends Nathan, and Nathan tells David a story and Nathan comes to the king and says, sir, there is a matter of injustice that needs your attention. He said, there was a rich man, he had so many flats, so many herds, and in the same town there was a poor man, one little female lamb, that's all he had, but it's more than that. It's not just that he had one lamb, this lamb was his daughter, this lamb was his treasure, this lamb was raised with his children, this lamb ate at their table, this lamb lies in his bosom, this lamb knows the security of the master's love. Well, a guest came into town to the rich man's house, he needed lunch for the guest, he went to the poor man's house, and that he took that little lamb from that family, slaughtered her and fed her to his guest, and David is livid, he's outraged. This will not stand in my kingdom, this is a kingdom of justice and righteousness. Nobody's going to abuse power like that in my kingdom. This man should die, and Nathan drops the bomb, right? That man is Uriah, that poor man, that little lamb is Bathsheba, and David has to the rich man, that would be you, you are that man, consider the love of God, David sees with clarity,
the unrighteousness of this act, God will open, I didn't remember the story of DL Moody, I used to pick up urchins and bring them to church, and round them up in the neighborhood, and make them clean up and come to church, and one little boy refused, and he said, go wash your face, and the boy, it's not dirty, go wash your face, boy, it's not dirty, there's a DL Moody, just pick them up by the scrap of the neck, and held them up to the mirror, and so that's your face, boy, yes or, that's face 30, yes or, go wash your face, God will pick us up, he'll show us, he will show us, he will make us see who we are, and it's a great loving, it's the love of God manifested, that he will show us who we are, he will confront us. Third, I want you to see the love of God in the provision of a pastor. Can you imagine that in David's kingdom, his entourage is largely filled with men who will tell him whatever he
wants to hear, these are men who will drink his bathwater if he asks, you know what courage it would take to tell the king the truth, what usually happens when you tell the sovereign something he doesn't want to hear, to kill the messenger, right? But God provides a pastor for David, God provides one who speaks the truth, the gloves come off now, he starts with a story, but then Nathan says what, read verse seven and following, what does Nathan say to David, God was good to you, pal, you're nothing, you're Jesse's youngest son, you had nothing, you're a little shepherd boy, that's all you were, God blessed you out of obscurity, he protected you from Saul, he gave you Saul's kingdom, he gave you Israel and Judy, he gave you everything you have, and he would have given you more, and you're nothing but a greedy ingrate, you are proud and you are arrogant, and you have forgotten who from whench you came and who brought you up, it is a great gift when God gives you someone who will tell you the truth, it could be a friend, it could be a spouse, it's a great gift when he gives you a pastor, I know that it's a calling, one of the things that weighs heavy on the shoulders of someone who wears the mantle of pastor is that they must tell the truth, pastors want to be like, like everyone else, and the responsibility before God is whether that person is a big donor to the church, whether that person holds an important position in the church, whether that person gives you tickets to the Tampa Bay Bucks game, whether that person has been nice to your family, whether that person's your wife's friends, whether that person is your children's friends, whatever it is, if God appoints you to tell them the truth, you tell them the truth, whether they like it or not, whether they like you or not, whether they leave the church or not, the Bible says, obey your leaders and submit to them so they keep watch over your souls as those will give an account. Lesson do this with joy and not with grief. I remember I told you before about Peter Cartwright, a Methodist circuit writing pastor who was known for his fiery preaching and it was told him one large day that President Andrew Jackson was president, and that he might just want to tone down his rhetoric with someone distinguished. And Peter Cartwright stood up and greeted Andrew Jackson. He talked about what a momentous thing it was for the church to have such an honored guest and then he said, now what to make one thing clear, unless Andrew Jackson, too, repents of his sins, he will go straight to hell. The minister, the pastor, answers to the Lord Jesus Christ. He does not, you know, in the Olympics always well when the United States marches in and the opening ceremony with the flag and tradition says that when the person carrying the flag to the United States, they never do what. They don't dip the flag to the monarch, to the leader, to the country. They dip the flag to no one. Those who carry the mantle of pastor and carry the flag of the Lord Jesus Christ, they don't cower in fear to anyone. It's a great blessing and God provides a pastor for, see the love of God to David and that his discipline has real teeth to it with David. He is going to teach David. He is not going to pull a back. David's sin merits serious sanction. What does Mason say to David? You are offended by the sword, but with the sword for the life of your eye, the sword will visit your household. You took another man's wife, another man will take your wife. You sin privately under the cloak of darkness. Your sin will be punished publicly, you will be humiliated publicly for all the nations to see, and finally, and grievously, you produce the child illegitimately. You will not have that child. These are sanctions with real teeth. The Bible says, whom the Lord loves, he what? He chases. Foolishness is bound up in the heart of the child and the rod of discipline drives it far from him. Foolishness is bound up in our heart, isn't it? You have already said that we have a validity to run away from the very thing we want. That's called foolishness. It's foolish to drink out of cisterns that have no water. This is the propensity of our hearts, and you have got his committed to spank his children. Not because he is wrathful against his children, not because he seeks retribution, but because he loves them, he seeks reprimations and restoration. God loves us enough to confront us with our sin and open our eyes to see the truth. It is a great thing when God does that. I can tell you, through the years, I've got a sent messenger to me. Remember coming to realize that I often had disdain for people that didn't meet my standard. But you see, since I was a Christian, I thought that one of the great accomplishments of my Christian life is that I kept that disdain internal, and outwardly I treated them so well. And then God sent me one person after another telling me they were feeling the disdain I had for them. I wonder how I sprung a leak, you know, kind of culminated when someone in the church came to me and said, you know, at my place of employment, at my bank, I heard them talking about their customer that they liked the least, the biggest jerk. And this person said, and pastor, they were talking about you. I'd never say a soft word. I'd never raise my voice. I'd never say anything in anger. I didn't complain. I just thought they were in it. And I thought, surely the joy inside I felt they were utterly in it outside I treated them with nothing but kind of completely blind that what these people all felt was my arrogance and my disdain. Let me tell you something, God sent messengers, one after another, one after another, one after another. I realized that I was wearing a mask. I thought I was masking inside what I truly felt about people. The truth is everybody could see exactly who I was but who. But me, it is a great, you think I want to live my life that way, you think I want to get to the end of my life and have, you know what, you never got it. You know what, you used people, the greatest gift of God, the ripple way of that mask and said, I'm going to make you new, I'm going to give you a new heart. Second, I want you to see the true repentance, David responds with true repentance. What does David say to Nathan? He could have said, off with your head, but he said, I've sinned, I've sinned, whether it's true repentance, then it is so rare that when we find it, we know that God's there, grace is the only thing that yield true repentance. I want to say a few words about true repentance clearly, it's personal, it's personal. David says, it's me, wash me, cleanse me, make me new, it's about me. I'm starting to understand what a monster I am that we are corrupt and that we are deeply flawed and that to the depths of our being, we need renewal. We are not the people who have been sinned against, we are the sinners, we are not the people who have been damaged, we are the damageers, created me a clean heart, oh God, all the way to the depths of my being, there's a rottenness. Now, what are we really good at? Not saying it's me, but we are really, we are good at seeing sin in others. We can get so worked up, I read a letter to the editor this week, written by a man about a city official in Inverness, I need it to drift, you want to clip it out and send it to a man of road and say, is that really the way you want to talk to other people? Is that really who you want to be? I only have to say three words to get most of you worked up into a ladder. William Jefferson, Clinton, there ought to be three words that get ready for tease, worked up until rather Raymond Allen Courtee, and I just went to the movie Open Range, Kevin Costner and Robert DeValle are the good guys and in the movie there's a showdown down at the Corral and there's the good guys in the street and there's the bad guys and the bad guys are so bad and Robert DeValle is shocked and he's laying in the side and he's got just enough strength to reload this big old shotgun double barrel to twin cannon kind of thing he's got and he sees the shadow of one of the bad guys walked by the outside of the building and he blows off the side of the building and knocks the guy across the street, he wanted to jump out of your seat and say, oh that's so good. We love it when the bad guys get it until we start to realize we're the bad guy, true pensions just start to get worked up over my sin, think about things you write and say and feel about other people and wonder why you don't feel that way about yourself that you are the biggest sinner in your world. True pensions start to realize it's about me, true pensions realize that as our sin is against God, it's an offense to a living God, it's a striking God, anything you do that is a sin is a striking God, David says against V and V only have I sinned, we need against God and God only, he took a man's wife and killed the man, that's nothing compared to the striking God. True pensions, there begins to be a grief about sin, you begin to snow the stench of sin and you turn away from it and understand that there's a turn away from sin and it turns to Christ that is a part of our conversion but this act of repentance is something we do every day, it's a way we live, it's a way of a life, it's a repentance state that God is opening my eyes to see and again I can say you're looking at somebody who is the most generic repenter there ever was, I grew up in the church so I knew I'm guilty of every sin, I broke in every one of this increments and any time you would have stopped me and said you're a sinner, I would have said yes I am the worst sinner, I did not love the poor enough, I did not love my wife enough, I did not share the gospel enough, I have not generous enough, inside of course I knew that I did all those things better than you and if you ask me at the end of any day name your sins, I would have just been generic is entirely different things to say the way that I cut off that staff member when they were talking was a sign of my arrogance and my rhythm and my always thinking that and my always having to project it that I've got all the answers and the way that I failed to complement my wife when she took that extra step of supporting me and speaking a good word to me the chance to speak life into her and build her up and I just absorbed it as if I deserved her compliment and if it wasn't a real act of grace and tenderness in her part I totally missed it, it's a completely different thing to come to the end of the day and have God open your eyes to see specifically the way that your offensive true repentance and now let me say one last thing true repentance is when when you accept the sanction see people think that if I cry and I say I'm sorry then that's it was it for David the sanctions applied didn't they it's son died the sword visit his family when you accept the sanction the consequence of your sin with a soft car then we're on to true repentance aren't we look at it in the church when you discipline somebody very often they'll say that's right I did it sometimes they'll even cry when they said I did it and then when you say okay and here's the consequences of that then you face people who are angry bitter how dare you other people doing the same thing and they get away with it why do you single me out I don't you know it's not that you're pointing out my sin it's the way that you do it listen I've never confronted anybody perfectly and I never will I've never disciplined my children or anyone else with a perfectly pure heart the way that anyone ever confronts you ever loved you ever disciplined you ever will never be right but the soft and contrite heart says I have never received the punishment I really deserve I have never been banished from the presence of God that's what my that's what I deserve the guy who commits adultery the apologizes and even those affected for giving him but his wife made divorce him he may forgive him and divorce him because adultery is a great offense against the marriage and Jesus says it may well result in divorce she may not return to that marriage if he's angry about that he doesn't get it that's the consequence of your sin and when she gets the kid and when the judge gives her money and when this happens and that happens the soft heart says what I think I violated the law of God and I have never received what I really deserve there's no sanction I've ever tasted that comes close to what I deserve pretence brothers and sisters how about you give a soft heart towards God because there is a love that will never let you go and that's the end of this passage it's a beautiful end to the passage the restoration of David the grace of restoration David has felt the heavy hand of God on him do you know what it's like to live with God against you some of you may be there right now to every day feel like you're walking into the wind to every day of your life feel like you're waiting upstream that God's against you nothing's going your way then to experience restoration you know sometimes the Bible is so simple God resists the proud there it God resists the proud the person who is too proud to submit their will at him you will have God resisting you who wants to live a life against man called me up yesterday morning and seven in the morning and he said I want peace with God a peace with God I don't want to be against God I want to know that we're going with he's with me the Bible says the David confesses he repents and God takes away his pen the Bible says that he doesn't kill David he spares his life he spares his kingdom if we read the rest of the chapter we would read that David goes back to leading the army and he leads Israel to victory again and best of all we read what that David invests he but this relationship begun illicitly with adultery and murder God puts his blessing even on that relationship and they bear a child and they name that child what Solomon which means peace Jedadaya which means a beloved of the Lord it says the Lord loves that baby
the Lord loves that baby restoration reconciliation with God the sweet kiss of knowing the gods for you he's with you I have a friend in ministry who
did something stupid wasn't a sexual sin wasn't a financial impropriety but he was dishonest and misrepresented something and so he was suspended for a couple months from ministry as he should have them and but his wife decided that she didn't want to live with somebody suffering that disgrace and so she took off with another man ultimately she divorced him the divorce she was it was very bitter she ended up with the children he lost everything every time I call him every couple months and keep up with him he has you know he lost his house he lost his job he lost his ministry he lost his reputation he lost his wife he lost his kids he lost his money he lost everything he got a job in a real estate and he even told me he said the people in my real estate office say to me we have never seen anybody have such a hard time as you we've never seen the things that happen to you that are and that aren't even your fault I mean they they would say these non Christians that he worked with in real estate would say to him we don't think God likes you the hand of God laid heavy on him there's a lot of breaking that needed to be done in his life it took years call me the other day he said somebody called him up and gave him a new job it's going to pay pretty good his kids are coming to live with him he said that the wind has the the windows have fallen open and the wind is blowing again in his life he's moving back to a town where he started a church and it grew up to a thousand people and the pastor that new pastor that church in the congregation won him they're so bad and they want to love on him and welcome him into their community he's got a church he's got a job he's got his kids he's got a life he said it's it's the restoration of God it's so sweet it says when the prodigal came home and he had been so rotten that the father not only rushed out him surprised enough but the father kissed him you know that kiss you know the kiss of being far from God and yet welcomed home and even as you feel the weight of your sin even as you feel you know the evil one telling you you're a loser you just you all you do is run away from home your heart is not for God you just feel his kiss he kisses you again and again and again do you know that brothers and sisters do you know that there is a love that will not let you go you can murder you can commit adultery and there's a love that will not let you go let's pray