This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

This is day two of week eight of our look through 1st and 2nd Samuel. This is
the day we need after yesterday. Yesterday we left David in his sin, but now
we're going to see what he did right.

It doesn't make the sin right. It doesn't mean it wasn't a sin, but you and I
can respond to our sin in such a way that we recognize the forgiveness of
Christ, that we recognize our relationship with God. There is no sin.

There is no sin that he will not forgive. What did David do right about what he
did wrong? Well, number one, he had the right people in his life.

The first thing he did right about his sin was before he even sinned. He had the
right people in his life, people who would not be afraid to tell him when they
knew that he had sinned. Listen to what happens in his relationship with Nathan
the prophet.

The Bible says in verse one of chapter 12, "So the Lord sent Nathan the prophet
to tell David this story. There were two men in a certain town. One was rich and
one was poor.

The rich man owned a great many sheep and cattle. The poor man owned nothing but
one little lamb that he had bought. He raised that little lamb and it grew up
with his children.

It ate from the man's own plate and drank from his cup. He cuddled it in his
arms like a baby daughter. One day a guest arrived at the home of the rich man,
but instead of killing an animal from his own flock or herd, he took the poor
man's lamb and he killed it and he prepared it for his guest.

David was furious. "As surely as the Lord lives," he vowed, "any man who would
do such a thing deserves to die. He must repay four lambs to the poor man for
the one he stole and for having no pity.

" Then Nathan said to David, "You are that man, the Lord. The God of Israel
says, 'I anointed you, King of Israel, and saved you from the power of Saul. I
gave you your master's house and his wives and the kingdoms of Israel and Judah.

And if that had not been enough, I would have given you much, much more. Why
then have you despised the word of the Lord and done this horrible deed? For you
have murdered Uriah the Hittite with the sword of the Ammonites and you've
stolen his wife.

From this time on, your family will live by the sword because you have despised
me by taking Uriah's wife to be your own. This is what the Lord says, 'Because
of what you've done, I will cause your own household to rebel against you. I
will give your wives to another man before your very eyes.

He will go to bed with them in public view. You did it secretly, but I will make
this happen to you openly in the sight of all Israel. '" David hears the truth
from Nathan.

David had chosen the right friends to be in his life. Now in a moment, we're
going to see that David responds with confession to the accusation that Nathan
brings, but Nathan didn't know how he would respond. It took great courage to
bring this kind of an accusation before a king.

David could have just as easily chosen to take Nathan's life. Nathan was not
only clear about the sin, he was clear about the consequences. The sword won't
depart from your household.

Evil is going to come from your own children. We're going to find in a moment
that there's the consequence of the child that came out of this adultery. That
child was going to die.

So Nathan's a very honest man, great, great courage. What kind of people do you
need in your life so that you can be sure that they will come and tell you the
truth even when the truth is hard to tell? You look at Nathan and you see four
things.

You see, you want to have people who love you. Nathan was not just a prophet. He
was a prophet in David's family, his household, his kingdom.

He had a love for David and what God had done in David's life. You also want to
have people that you trust. If they love you but you don't trust them when they
come to you, then it's not going to make any difference at all.

You want to have people that you trust. And David trusted Nathan when he came to
him. You need people in your life who have the courage of their convictions.

If people are always agreeing with you, if they're always saying the easy thing,
if they're never saying the difficult thing, then you know they don't have that
courage. Who do you look for that has the courage of their convictions? You see
it in the character of their own life.

They will have courage to have conviction even when it hurts them. Not just when
it hurts you, but even when it hurts them. And you also want to have people out
of this courage of their convictions who will tell you the difficult thing.

Who do you have in your life like this? If you have no one in your life like
this, then you are not doing the right thing, being ready for the temptations
that inevitably come into our lives. Praise God that David had Nathan.

And Nathan tells him this story about the man who steals the sheep from a poor
man. And out of this, he's calling David to do a second thing. Second thing you
do is you do a heart check.

When you see that maybe something is wrong, I'm not feeling right here Lord, I'm
feeling conviction about this, I heard a sermon, someone said something to me, I
did this, I didn't feel right about it at the time, but I've made it seem better
in my mind since then, but still it's lingering in the back of my mind. You do a
heart check. You pray the prayer that David prayed in Psalm 139 verses 23 and
24.

God examine me and know my heart, test me, and know my anxious thoughts, he
prayed. See if there's any bad thing in me, any hurtful way in me, and lead me
on the road to everlasting life. It's a very simple prayer.

Examine me, let God do the check up, test me, be willing to answer the tough
questions, see me, admit your sin before God, lead me, express your willingness
to follow him. Do a heart check. Come to a heart check moment.

David did, it seems as we read this story, it only took a few moments for him.
Maybe he'd already been thinking about it, already been praying about it.
Whatever happened, he immediately comes, and the third thing, right thing that
he did about what he did wrong is he confessed.

He confessed his sin. In verse 13, "Then David confessed to Nathan, 'I have
sinned against the Lord. ' And Nathan replied, 'Yes, but the Lord has forgiven
you, and you won't die for this sin.

'" Why don't you keep a connection with the Lord, a spiritual passion alive in
your life in the light of your sin? Hiding your sin drains your passion. David
talks in the Psalms, he says, "It's as if my bones were melting within me.

I had no strength left. But humble confession restores your passion. " In fact,
we have written out for us in the Bible, in Psalm 51, David's confession, how he
confessed to the Lord.

I'm going to read a few verses out of Psalm 51. Verse 1, David prays, "Have
mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love. According to your great
compassion, blot out my transgressions.

Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin, for I know my
transgressions, and my sin is always before me. Against you, you only have I
sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you're proved right when you
speak and justified when you judge. " In verse 10, "Create in me a clean, pure
heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.

Do not cast me from your presence, or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to
me the joy of your salvation, and grant me a willing spirit to sustain me. "
David comes to this moment of recognizing he'd sinned, and he confesses his sin.

And God forgives. Because of what Jesus has done for us on the cross, God
forgives. By the way, that death on the cross applied to David as much as it
applies to you and I.

David didn't know the name of Jesus yet, but the only reason any of us can be
forgiven is because Jesus paid the debt. So when you recognize that there's a
sin in your life, maybe you're recognizing it right now as we're talking through
this, just say, "God, I confess it. " If we confess our sins, he's faithful, he
can be trusted to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all
unrighteousness.

You can trust him to forgive you. That's why Jesus came. That's why Jesus died.

He confessed his sin. A fourth thing that David did right is he accepted the
consequences for his sin. In verse 14, Nathan says, "Nevertheless, because
you've shown utter contempt for the Lord by doing this, your child will die.

" After Nathan returned to his home, the Lord sent a deadly illness to the child
of David and Uriah's wife. What a horrible consequence he had to face. Now the
child, because of God's grace, the child would be in heaven forever, would not
have the opportunity to live life out on this earth, but that child went to be
with God in heaven forever.

In fact, David later is going to talk about returning to him even though he
can't return to me, seeing him in heaven. But he lost out on the opportunity to
live the life that God had given him in this world and the parents lost out on
seeing this child. But David accepted those consequences.

He didn't confess his sin and then expect that there would be no consequences.
Sometimes we want the love of Christ to mean that there are no earthly
consequences for our sin. Now, there is something right about no consequences.

There are no eternal consequences for our sin. Those have been taken care of in
Christ. But on this earth, we often do suffer the consequences of our sin.

Those we love suffer the consequences for our sin. And I know so many of us, we
confess to the Lord and then when a consequence happened, we wonder, did God
really forgive me? Of course he forgave you.

The eternal consequences are gone, but the consequences on this earth are
allowed. Don't think that he doesn't love you because you're facing those
consequences. David accepted the consequences for his sin.

Instead of getting mad at God, he prayed, he asked God, could these not happen?
He prayed and he prayed, but he accepted them when they happened. This is why
love is so important when dealing with sin.

Love covers a multitude of sins and we need to know that there are people in our
lives that love us as the Lord love us to cover our sins. And then there's a
fifth thing that David did. He trusted that God still had a plan for his life.

He's a sinner. He's committed a sin, a destructive sin, but he trusted that God
still had a plan for his life. In verse 22, David is talking about what he did
after the child died.

He tells his people, "I fasted and wept while the child was alive, for I said
perhaps the Lord will be gracious to me and let the child live. But why should I
fast when he is dead? Can I bring him back again?

I will go to him one day, but he cannot return to me. " And then David comforted
Bathsheba, his wife, and slept with her. And she became pregnant and gave birth
to a son and they named him Solomon.

The Lord loved the child and sent word through Nathan the prophet that they
should name him Jedediah, which means beloved of the Lord as the Lord had
commanded. God is still at work in both of their lives. He's still at work in an
amazing way.

They have another child and this child is Solomon. Solomon's going to become the
next king of Israel. I wouldn't have written the story this way.

They committed sin with each other. They committed adultery. Why should the next
king come out of this relationship?

It should come out of some other relationship. But God's still working his plan
even in the midst of this, even in the midst of their sin. God's still working
his plan.

That doesn't make the sin not a sin. That doesn't mean that there are no
consequences, but it does show the grace and the power of God. If you think that
the sin in your life means that God no longer has a plan for your life, you have
missed the whole New Testament.

You've missed the whole message of the cross and the resurrection of Christ. Yes
we've sinned. Yes we need forgiveness.

And yes, God still has a plan for your life. Let's pray together. Father, we
confess our sin and we thank you for your forgiveness.

We thank you that even as we face earthly consequences for our sin, we can know
that there'll come a day when there'll be no more tears or crying or mourning or
pain or any such thing. All the earthly consequences for sin, they'll be gone.
We face eternal joy with you.

And we thank you that there is no sin that can cause you to stop loving us.
There is no sin that can cause you to not have a plan for us. So Lord, help us
to trust you in all things, our greatest successes, our greatest failures, even
our greatest sins to trust you as the God who loves us, who we can follow
through it all.

In Jesus name we pray, amen. Tomorrow we're going to look together at David's
battles with his son, Absalom. Amen.