Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - How to Make It Right With God | David in 22 | 2 Samuel 12

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to 10 minute Bible Talks where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work. I'm Keith Simon. And I'm Patrick Miller. Right now we're working through the story of David's life in First and Second Samuel. Today we're in Second Samuel chapter 12 and we're going to wrestle with a really practical question. And that is how do you respond when you become aware of sin in your life? And I say it's practical because every day we become a very day. aware of sin. It might be through another person or through a set of circumstances or just our own

Starting point is 00:00:40 conscience convicting us, but we become aware of sin and then we have to respond in some way. And if you're like me, my first response is not usually my best response. Because one of my first responses is just to deny things. Well, I didn't do that. That's not what I said. You misunderstood. Or to excuse it. You know, my allergies were bad. I was tired. The kids were up all night. It was a stressful day at work. In other words, I'm not accountable for what I did because I've got a good excuse or to hide it, hide my sin. I remember when I was a kid, I spilled Kool-Aid on a cushion, a seat cushion, and one of my mom's chairs. And what I did is I just turned the cushion over and I hope that she would never find out. Or I would just ignore my sin. You know, life goes on and I'll just ignore it and

Starting point is 00:01:31 hopefully it'll be okay. Now, the Bible says that, when we become aware of sin, the right response is to repent of it. Now, repent is a big, biblical, important word. And we can't dive into the whole thing today, but it means to turn around, to change one's direction. So to repent of sin is to turn from sin. And the first thing you do to turn from sin is just to admit it, confess it, be honest about it. You might remember. You might remember that when Saul sinned back in 1st Samuel 15, he did all the things that we do. He denied that he sinned. He blamed other people for it. He rationalized. He justified. He kind of admitted that he sinned finally. But in a way that was less than forthright and seemed like he was more about

Starting point is 00:02:26 managing his reputation and what other people thought of him than really being honest about his sin. but one thing Saul didn't do was repent, to admit it and to turn from it. Now we've seen that David has committed a great sin, a serious sin with Bethsheba. And the question is, what will he do? How will he respond? Will he go down the path of Saul? Or will he genuinely repent of his sin and continue to follow after God? forgiveness was built into the Old Testament relationship between God and his people.

Starting point is 00:03:06 God is a forgiving God. God is a gracious God. God wants us to turn from our sin and to turn back to him. When we left David, he was acting very much like a typical ancient Near East king. He had sinned by rebelling against God and by taking Bathsheba in a way that was sinful and inappropriate that sinned against her and sin against God. And we just have to ask the question, where is all this headed? Is David going to end up like Saul? Well, in 2 Samuel 12, the prophet Nathan is in a very difficult situation. How do you confront the king about his rebellion?

Starting point is 00:03:50 It's a difficult situation because if you confront the king, he can easily respond in anger and have you the prophet, or banished from the royal court or whatever consequence he wants. And so in 2 Samuel 12, Nathan the Prophet is in a really difficult situation. How do you confront the King about his rebellion? It's difficult because the king can easily respond in anger, have the Prophet killed or banished from the court or whatever consequence the king chooses. But Nathan the Prophet is both bold and wise.

Starting point is 00:04:26 He's wise because he confronts David by making up a story. You might think of it as a parable about a rich man who took advantage of a poor man. And when he tells David this story, David gets sucked into it and he looks at the story objectively. And David says the rich man was in the wrong and should be punished for taking advantage of the poor man. Now that's when Nathan got bold because he told David, you are the rich man. You are the one who have used your power to take advantage of other people. And we all need friends like Nathan, people who love us enough to ask us hard questions, who love us enough to say hard things to us, who love us enough to confront us in our sin.

Starting point is 00:05:17 Unfortunately, I think too many of us have people around us who are afraid to say something hard to us. because they're afraid of our response. They don't want to hurt our feelings. They don't want to jeopardize the relationship. But Nathan loves David so much that he's willing to say something really difficult to him. Proverbs 276 says, Wounds from a friend can be trusted,

Starting point is 00:05:45 but an enemy multiplies kisses. Your enemy is the one who is always telling you what you want to hear. Your friend is sometimes wounding you. you in the hope of helping you. Now, unfortunately, a few of us have those kind of deep relationships, right? Where we are willing to say hard things to each other. And part of why we're unwilling to say hard things to each other is because we don't

Starting point is 00:06:12 have an openness to be confronted ourselves. So it takes two. It takes one who's willing to say something hard because this person really loves you and cares about you. but also it takes you and I being approachable so that when somebody says something, we don't defend ourselves and we don't attack them and we don't deflect and we don't excuse. But we say, look, this is my friend. And my friend is saying something hard to me.

Starting point is 00:06:40 And instead of ignoring it or denying it, I just need to listen. And sometimes the best thing we can do is just say, let me think about it. Let me pray about it. We don't always have to agree immediately with them. it's even possible that they're wrong, that they think they've see something that they don't. But it seems like if we have a friend who's willing to say something hard to us, at a minimum, we should say, let me go and think and pray about that and get back to you. Now, here's the really cool part. David listens to Nathan.

Starting point is 00:07:12 So David doesn't shut Nathan out. He doesn't punish Nathan. He doesn't deny or deflect or any of those other blame shift, any of those other things. instead he sees his sin and then David makes a very short confession. He simply says, I have sinned against the Lord. Now, in that short confession, I think what the author is trying to tell us is that David doesn't go on to say, well, I sin against the Lord, but, or not really, he doesn't rationalize or blame shift or all that.

Starting point is 00:07:43 He repents. He admits that he'd sinned against God. He was sorrowful over the sin, not just that he'd been. caught, right? There's a difference. Sometimes I'm sorry I was caught sinning. That's not David here. He is sorrowful over the sin that he committed against God, against Bashiba, against Uriah, against the people of Israel. So when you have real repentance, not only do you turn from it, do you admit it, do you acknowledge you? I did this, I blew it, I've sinned against God, I want to turn from it, but you cast yourself on the mercy and grace of God.

Starting point is 00:08:21 I think a trap we fall into is we try to pay God back. Like, I screwed up God, but I'll make it right. But we can never make it right. To try to pay God back shows that you don't believe that Christ's death was enough for your sin. We can't pay God back. We cast ourselves on the mercy and grace of God, and then we ask God to change us. And we just say, God, I ask you to change me, to grow me up in my faith. replace pride with humility, to replace complaining with contentment, to replace lying with

Starting point is 00:08:54 truth telling. Whatever it is, we ask God to change us and to make us into the people that he wants us to be. Now, here's the deal. All of us sin far more than we even realize. It's God's grace to us to not show us all of our sin at one time. If any of us saw all over sin at one time, it would just be way too overwhelming. We wouldn't even know what to do. We'd be like sucking our thumb in the fetal position in the corner, right? So God shows us our sin in a way that allows us to deal with it and to repent of it and to cast ourselves on His grace and mercy.

Starting point is 00:09:34 He shows us at his time, and that's good and gracious of him. So you let conscience be your guide. You let your conscience, and as you become aware of sin, maybe again, through another person or kind of your own inner conviction that that was wrong, you deal with it. One of the things that I pray is, God, I pray that you'd shine your light into my heart and reveal sin that you want me to deal with today. Shine your light, your truth into my heart, and just show me what you want me to deal with today. And then, God, I ask for the grace to repent, to turn from it.

Starting point is 00:10:15 that sin. Agree with God. Thank God that Jesus died to pay for your sin. Ask him for the grace to turn from it and to be the person that God wants you to be. That's how we should deal with sin when we become aware of it in our life. Thanks for listening. If you've enjoyed this content, please subscribe and give us a rating. That helps others find this podcast more easily.

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Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - How to Make It Right With God | David in 22 | 2 Samuel 12

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