How the Mighty Fall - 5/17/26

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Transcript

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Morning, friends. There are a handful of phone calls in my life I will never forget. One of those uh happened years ago for me. I I got a call from a friend. We will call him Sam. And it was a simple question. Can you meet me at Starbucks? I could tell from the tone in his voice, it was urgent, something was wrong. This was not like Sam. So I raced down the hill to meet him. And on the way, I'm thinking to myself, like, what is going on? Suicidal thoughts? Like, is he is a prescription drug addiction? Not an affair. Not Sam. And I walked into the Starbucks and his face was colorless. And it turns out that morning, five big black SUVs had pulled into his driveway very, very early because Sam had embezzled a large amount of money from his employer. And Sam's life was about to be changed forever. And the reason this story sticks with me so very much is because, honest to goodness, like Sam is the and was the last person I had picked for that. Like I just couldn't, respected leader in the church, godly guy serving so many ways, was and still is incredible dad, husband. He was literally the last guy I was picking out of a lineup. And we're continuing this morning in the story of 2 Samuel. We've been following the life of David for some time. And David is this incredible man after God's own heart, as we know, right? I mean, here's the guy who miraculously slew the giant Goliath to save the nation of Israel. Here's the guy who was picked last, the little shepherd boy, despised by his brothers, that God raised up to become the shepherd king of Israel. This guy wrote some of the most beautiful poetry and prayers that the world has ever known, and it's about to go south like really, really fast. We're gonna meet a woman named Bathsheba, probably as familiar as the name Goliath when we think about David, and David's life is gonna take a big turn. A lot of you know the story, but as we enter the story today, there's two questions that I'm really thinking about. And I've been thinking about all week as we've looked at this, or I've looked at this passage. How did this happen and why did this happen? And I'm hoping in the process to ask some penetrating questions of our hearts today, too. So let's jump into the story. We are in 2 Samuel chapter 11, verse 1. In the spring, when kings march out to war, David sent Joab with his officers and all Israel. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah, but David remained in Jerusalem. One evening, David got up from his bed and strolled around on the roof of the palace. It's kind of weird. This is not like teenage David. This is King David waking up at 6 p.m. Right? And he like didn't, it's not like he overslept his alarm, he didn't set an alarm. He didn't go into work, he phoned it in that day. Like this is springtime when farmers plant their crops, when shepherds take their sheep out to the pasture, when kings and generals go off to fight battles for their people, and David is staying at home, not doing any of those things. And so what is this? Like, what's going on here? What are we to make of it? And over the years I've heard this passage preached a lot. Perhaps some of you have too. And the way I usually hear it preached is this massive, colossal moral, spiritual failure David's about to have was precipitated by the sin of laziness. Like, I think a sermon title has to be Laziness, the Road to Lust. Pretty sure I've heard that one before. But honestly, guys, I'm not buying it. I'm just not. Like, think about the David we know. That's not the David we know. I mean, when he was a young shepherd, right, he's killing lions and bears. Oh my! He's like leading men into war. He's unifying a whole nation. I mean, this is not a lazy man. So I think there's something we're overlooking. A couple of months ago, I was uh preaching the seventh chapter of 2 Samuel, and we saw something interesting. I pointed to something then. David had received rest on every side. He had brought the ark to Jerusalem, he'd unified the nation, and there's a lot of good we see there. David's got this idea, he's like, I'm gonna build a temple for God. But there was one thing we did notice in that passage I pointed out to you. David is prayerless. Like, usually when David makes a big decision, he asks God. This time he doesn't ask God. I kind of wonder about that. And as we walk through the passage, we saw not just prayerlessness, but a certain restlessness. But his good buddy Nathan, the prophet, the man of God, kind of gets him on the right course. Here we see something very different. David has no Nathan, he's not just prayerless, he is completely alone. And I think that is extremely significant. And I just want to tell you what I think is going on here. At this point, David is not a disobedient man, he is a disconnected man. He's disconnected. David doesn't fall because he was unusually wicked. David will fall because he is unusually alone. And I think that has some very profound truths for us to think about in our own lives as well. And I want to just tell you the thread I want us to be thinking about as we walk through this. A disconnected heart creates a distorted world. It distorts, it twists, it takes good things and makes them a horrible caricature of what they were meant to be. You know, this last month we talked a lot about what's been called the loneliness epidemic. And I think it's a good term, and it points to some things I think a lot of us recognize, like that loneliness is a sort of sickness in our in our souls, in our culture, and that it has serious consequences for our times. But what I think we see here is not just David feeling lonely, this is David choosing isolation. Do you see the difference? Because there is a dramatic difference, and the results will also be dramatic. It's not good for man to be alone. Pastor Curtis shared that with us. It reminded me of a quote I heard years ago, like my sophomore year in college, my first philosophy class, Christian philosopher named Blaise Pascal, 400 years ago, he said this, and it's one of the truest things I think I've ever heard. I have discovered that all the unhappiness of men arises from one single fact that they cannot stay quietly in their own room. All you teenage kids need to be paying attention out there. Let me just make sure. No, all of us need to be paying attention to that. And I and I want to point something out here. Like, solitude is different than being alone. Okay? Like, solitude is not a bad thing. It's a hard thing, but it's a good thing. Jesus, as we're reminded throughout the Gospels again and again, often withdrew to quiet places, not to escape annoying people. Well, maybe a little bit, but but not so much that, not to pursue some solo like um self-improvement project like so many of us are involved in, but to be with God and to remember and recognize that God is with him. Not to be alone so much as to be quiet. Quiet and connected to the God who is always there. But David has forgotten all that. He's chosen isolation, and it is in this precarious position that we find him as the story continues. Says next, that from the roof he saw a woman bathing, a very beautiful woman. So David sent someone to inquire about her, and he said, Isn't this Bathsheba, daughter of Eliam and wife of Uriah the Hephaite? Johnny, leave that verse up for a second. I want you to recognize something that's a little confusing here and very important. David sent the servant. He's a king, he sends people, they move around, do what he says, and it is the servant who comes back and says this. This isn't David speaking. This is the servant saying, wait a minute, isn't this Bathsheba? And he's reminding us, the readers, and he's reminding David of something that's hugely important. We don't live in a disconnected world, we live in a connected world. This woman has a name. This woman is loved. She has a dad and a family. His name's Eliam, and she has a husband, and his name is Uriah. We live in a connected world, and our choices matter because people love us and look to us, and we love people and we look to them. We live in a connected world, and when we forget that, as we'll see, it has dire consequences. One other thing there, that name Uriah, you should register something. It's a connection you might not make. Um, but in the book of 1 Chronicles, which kind of retells the story of David, there's an interesting detail there about this guy, Uriah. It's not just the fact that he is Bathsheba's husband, he was one of David's mighty men, one of his 30 closest friends, his most trusted soldiers who walked with him for probably a decade through the desert as Saul was seeking David's life, as we've been reading all about. This man, Uriah, probably saved David's life on more than one occasion. He was a tried, true friend. And the fact that his house was right next to David means that they were close friends, because that's how it worked in a kingdom like that. So this isn't just some nobody. David is about to do something horrible to one of his best friends. Continuing on, verse 4, David sent messengers to get her, and when she came to him, he slept with her. It's such a short sentence, and there is so much here. For one thing, do you notice? We know her name is Bathsheba. David knows her name as Bathsheba, but she's now her and she. She is a person without a face and without a name. David has made her into an object. He's a king. He sends someone to get her. They don't have a choice. She comes, because that's how it worked in a kingdom. And he slept with her, and the world falls apart. That little sentence, he slept with her, and the world falls apart. David had, I believe, at this point, seven wives and countless concubines. We've talked about this before. God did not approve of that or ordain that, but that was how it worked in the ancient Near East. And I only bring that up to make the point. David had plenty of options, okay? But he chooses another man, his best, one of his closest friends' wives. I also want to point out just that brief statement, he slept with her. It reminds me so much of Genesis chapter 3. That's the chapter where sin enters the world. Our spiritual father and mother, Adam and Eve, and it's similar because there's just a little sentence that unravels everything. And they ate the fruit. And they ate it. It sounds so simple. No big deal. But it's so similar. They looked, it looked good, they took it because they wanted it, and the world came apart. It's a pattern. It's a pattern in our lives. We see something, we want something, we don't stop, we don't pray, we don't ask the friends because we know they'll tell us that it's not a good idea, and we take, and in short sentences, he ate, he took, he slept. Things fall apart. Story continues. I am gonna trip over this thing at some point. Now she had just been purifying herself from her uncleanness. Afterwards, she returned home. The woman conceived and sent word to inform David that I am pregnant. Sometimes the Bible includes details, and we're like, that's kind of weird. Maybe even a little TMI. Like, why do we need to know some of these details about her monthly period, etc.? It's actually extremely important. I want you to understand what's going on here. She had been purifying herself. That is when she was on the roof cleaning, taking a bath. Now we know something very important. Three things, actually, that are very important. One, this leaves no doubt about who's the father of the child. David is the father of the child, in case you missed it. Secondly, she is purifying because she is pure. That's what it's kind of insinuating, setting up for us. She's obeying the Levitical law in every detail of her life, which is a bit ironic because David is gonna like flaunt the biggest and most basic Ten Commandments. He's gonna break basically every one of them. But here's a woman who is trying to follow God in every area of her life. And it also explains why she was on the roof. Because the Levitical law said that after a woman's monthly period, she must immerse herself in water to clean herself. Now you can imagine, like when we think of taking a shower, taking a bath, we have indoor plumbing, we have a bathtub, a shower stall, whatever else. They probably like had a wet cloth that they wiped themselves off with, and once a month, go out and complete immersion. She needs to be recognized here, is the innocent victim here. We all got that, right? She's the one who is being violated, and she's the innocent party, and she is now pregnant. So we see the situation for what it is. The author wants to make sure that's the case, but more importantly, we are beginning to see David's heart for what it is. And I want you to see this the first deadly effect of being disconnected. Disconnecting distorts enjoyment and trades it for pleasure. Now, those words enjoyment and pleasure, they might sound like synonyms to you, like they're exactly the same thing. And let's be clear: both enjoyment and pleasure are good gifts from God. But I want you to just consider a couple basic differences of the two things, pleasure and enjoyment. Pleasure is essentially a product that you consume. It's momentary, it requires no relationship with God, with others, with even your deepest self. It's fleeting generally, and you can have pleasure in complete isolation. Enjoyment, on the other hand, is a gift that you receive. Built into enjoyment is a sense of gratitude, of connection, of an awareness that someone else besides me matters and is involved in this process of enjoyment. It orients you outside of yourself, toward the giver and toward the others that you want to share the good thing with. In other words, enjoyment always brings some level of pleasure, but pleasure does not automatically provide enjoyment. Are you tracking? The Bible makes this so clear. Love the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes. Do not skip over it, please. Because the book of Ecclesiastes is about a man who literally has everything he wants. He has the power to get everything he wants. He does everything you can name and imagine. He has it. And he says, This is what's killing me. I have everything I want, and I can't enjoy it at all. Does that maybe resonate a little bit with our modern world for you? It certainly does for me. I want to just share a few verses from the book of Ecclesiastes, one of my favorite books in the Bible. The writer says, When God gives someone wealth and possessions and the ability to enjoy them, to accept their lot and be happy in their toil, this is a gift of God. Enjoyment is a gift of God, and the ability to enjoy things is a gift from God. In other words, without God, we can't truly enjoy anything, at least not for long. He goes on to actually issue a command, the writer of Ecclesiastes. I like this one a lot. I think I'm gonna make it my life first. Go eat your food with gladness and drink your wine with a joyful heart. Enjoy it. For God has already approved what you do. God likes good things and he gives us so many of them. I know the world is broken, and we can talk about the problem of evil, but what about the problem of good? What about the problem of so many good things around us? It points to someone and something, and we have all these good things, and God says, go enjoy them, but recognize it's meant to draw you outside of yourself, not back into yourself. And I just want to say, take a little bit of a dive here, okay? Hang with me because you might say, Steve's been reading a little too much about disconnection. I perhaps have. I've been thinking about it a lot because I do think it's something that we deeply struggle and suffer with. And I want to just give you a few reasons about why I think we choose disconnection so often. And I'm including myself in this equation, okay? Why do we disconnect? Reason number one, because we can. We live and we run to our comfortable, climate-controlled homes that are now 50% bigger than they were 50 years ago, and they are built around what? Screens. That is what they are built for and built around. You may not be surprised to know that Americans now spend nearly two more hours per day at home than we did 20 years ago. And that's far beyond COVID. Okay, so the truth is we can disconnect in ways no previous generation could. This isn't just a problem for ancient Near East kings. Here's another reason I think we disconnect because we prefer comfort to growth. Honestly. Like people are messy. Relationships disappoint us. Even hobbies, sometimes they're just too much work. I don't want to get outside. It's easier to stay at home and look at a screen. I'm not saying screens are the only culprit, but they're a big part of this. You know, I'm not much of a dooms uh scroller myself, but AI has made things a little difficult for me. Because I'm like reading up on what is gonna happen as people prognosticate the future, and I'm wondering like when the robots are gonna show up and kill us all, right? So I've been spending too much time on this. Do you know what actually the biggest concern I have around AI is? And a lot of people are starting to point this out. The biggest problem with AI isn't necessarily that it's gonna steal all our jobs, it's gonna take away what a lot of people are calling friction from our lives. AI is designed to take away all friction, all difficulties, all uncertainty, all questions, simplify everything so we don't have to work at it. Can I suggest that part of enjoyment is work? It's called cultivation. It's like gardens, they take work, but it's worth it. Part of the enjoyment comes with the work. AI is stealing that from us. Reason number three that we disconnect. Because we have more free time. Oh, you guys don't believe me, do you? Right? What do we say when people say, How are you doing, man? So busy, bro. Swamped. What do we do when people say, hey, you want to come hang out next weekend? I can't, man. I'm just so busy. Simple, undeniable fact. In the last 60 years, Americans work eight hours per week less than we did 60 years ago. That time has gone somewhere. Does anybody want to guess where the majority of that time has gone? Screens. Isolation. Us by ourselves. Me time. I am not against vegging out. I'm pretty sure that word is in scripture somewhere. But me time I think we might want to rethink that one. Last reason I want to share, there's so many we could offer because we don't feel we need God. Simply. It's the most destructive one of them all, right? When we need God, when we're desperate, when we're hurting, when things are going sideways, we know we're broken, we often find ourselves praying more. It's not true for everybody, but I bet it's true for a lot of you. You find yourself spending more time with other people who are pursuing God. You read your Bible more. But what do you do? And this is a question I want to leave you with, okay? This is a homework assignment for you for this week. I can't do it all for you, folks. You got to do some work here. Got to give you some friction in your life. What do you do when you feel you don't need God? Because the simple truth is we need him every minute of every hour of every day. And actually, we might make the argument that we need him most when we don't think we need him. I think this story is exhibit A for that. Speaking of the story, let's keep going in the story. We're in verse six. We're gonna pick up our pace a little bit here. Next thing, David sent orders to Joab, send me Uriah the Hethite. So Joab sent Uriah from the front lines to David. When Uriah came to him, David asked, How is Joab and the troops doing and how the war is going? And then Uriah said, or then David said to Uriah, Go down to your house and wash your feet. So Uriah left the palace and a gift. From the king followed him. But Uriah slept at the door of the palace with all his master's servants. He did not go down to his house. And so the cover-up begins. David is a very smart, clever man. That's part of what got him to this point, and he has an idea. It's going to erase everything, all the evidence, and David's going to get off scot-free. And part of that includes David saying, Hey, why don't you just head on home? Here's a nice bottle of Bordeaux. Here's a gift card to Canless. You and the wife just have yourselves a great evening. Then you go back to it. Thanks for coming home, give me a report. And Uriah doesn't go home. He sleeps on the cobblestone entrance to the palace. You can imagine David perhaps getting a little bit frustrated, and we're seeing something just so ugly starting to emerge. Like David has moved from not just a calculated pursuit of his animal pleasures, we're seeing like a diabolical, cold-hearted, extremely impersonal approach to other people and what they do for us and how we use them. And it leads to another point I want you to see about disconnecting, one of the other outgrowths of this desperate situation. Disconnecting distorts power and trades it for pride. Now, again, power is not innately bad. We tend to think of power as an inherently bad thing, as a negative thing, but think of all the good that David has done with the power that God has given him. Pastor White last week just shared with us this beautiful story of Mephibosheth and David's incredible kindness to this man. We've seen David unite Israel. We've seen David, as we've mentioned, like write these incredible prayers. There's a lot of good in the power that he has been given. There's a guy named C.S. Lewis, a lot of you are familiar with his writing, and he talks about how we are seldom just satisfied with mere pleasure for long. Like the basics, like sex and greed. Okay, let's take greed. We're not satisfied to just have $10 million. The person who has $10 million will work themselves silly to get $20 million, not because they need a cent of it, but they just want to prove that they can. Or here's what he says about sex. He says, a proud man will take your girl from you, not because he wants her, but just to prove to himself that he's a better man than you are. That's pride. That's just raw, ugly pride. Power is what pride really enjoys. There is nothing makes a man feel so superior to others as being able to move them about like toy soldiers. And that is exactly what David is doing with Uriah here, moving them like a pawn to achieve his own ends for his own selfish purposes. And I have another question for you. And I really do want to encourage you, at the very least, take some time thinking about this in solitude, maybe journaling, maybe with a friend. Another question: are you using power to love people or to use people? And I know a lot of you will say, I don't have any power. I'm a janitor. You know, I park cars for a living. We all have power. Wyatt's talked about this to us a lot. We all have gifts. We all have some level of influence. What are we doing with those things? Are we using them for God or are we using them for ourselves? It gets really ugly here. Uh, very smart David doing a very diabolical thing. Go ahead. Uh, when it was reported to David, Uriah didn't go home. David questioned Uriah, haven't you just come from a dirt a journey? Why didn't you go home? Bro, you're on leave. Take some R, man. Relax. But Uriah won't do it. Passage goes on. Uriah answered David, the Ark, Israel, and Judah are dwelling in tents. My master Joab and his soldiers are camping in the open field. How can I enter my house to eat and drink and sleep with my wife? As surely as you live and by your life, I will not do it. It's pretty simple what's happening here. He's just pouring salt in David's wounds, right? It's very evident at this point of the story who is the better man. And it's certainly not David's finest moment, but we can't help but admire Uriah. And so David puts the nail in the coffin, so to speak, comes up with his master stroke of genius here. And here's what happens next. The next morning, David wrote a letter to Joab, sent it with Uriah. In the letter he wrote, put Uriah at the front of the fiercest fighting, put him on the front lines, then withdraw from him so that he is struck down and he dies. That's just ugly. That's just low. And think about this. Uriah is going to literally carry his own death warrant unknowingly and hand it to his general who will comply because David is king and his power has become proud. It's ugly, folks. And I hate to say it, but the chapter ends on a pretty ugly, dark note, but not hopeless. Last couple of verses. Uriah is, of course, killed on the front lines. When Uriah's wife heard, when Bathsheba heard that her husband Uriah had died, she mourned for him. When the time of mourning ended, David had her brought to his house. She became his wife and bore him a son. You see what David has done? He has violated an innocent, godly woman, a person named Bathsheba, by the way, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah. He's stolen and murdered her husband, and now he's forced her into a marriage and a pregnancy that she never chose. And like I said, it's pretty bleak, but the chapter ends with one note, and I want you to make sure and see it is a note of hope. Here's the last verse. However, the Lord considered what David had done to be evil. Now you might say, that doesn't sound very hopeful to me. And the most hopeful part, Jack gets to deliver to you next week. But with all of our sin distorted vision, it would be so easy for us to see God showing up at this point and to think, yeah, isn't that just like God? He only shows up when he's about to zap somebody, when he's really mad about something. Where has he been this whole time? But shouldn't we rejoice that God's angry? I'm pretty sure Bathsheba did. Right? When we destroy God's stuff, especially his people, his treasure, he gets mad. And we're glad he does. But if we are emotionally complex beings, I want to assure you there's more going on here than just an angry God who's about to throw a tantrum, which is actually not what happens, you might know. A lot of people think it should. This is a God who's grieving. He's grieving for Bathsheba, he's grieving for Uriah. But do you know what else God is grieving? The man after God's own heart, David himself, is now a distorted, twisted version of himself. Disconnecting distorts you and it distorts me. And there's only one answer it's to reconnect with the God who never leaves, never forsakes, always offers forgiveness at the cost of his own son, the most unjust, diabolical thing that has ever happened. And I want to just close with this note and then we'll pray. I started with the story of my friend Sam. And I remember that night at Starbucks saying to Sam, Sam, how did this happen, man? Like, did you let your guard down? Have you like you looking at porn? Are you are you not spending time in the word? Like, what is going on? I said, Steve, no. None of that. I had the opportunity to talk with Sam again, not too long ago. And I said, is that still kind of how you view it? And he said, No. He said, I now see it a lot differently. He said, I had everything I wanted. Great job, great family, good money, but it wasn't enough. I was restless and unsatisfied. And the worst part of it was when I was leading my life group and I would ask for prayer requests, and everybody was struggling with losing a job or their car breaking down, I was too proud to admit my own emptiness and restlessness. And that's where we need to start, folks. I hope and pray that you have people in your life that you can be honest and open with. I hope your pride won't get in the way. Some of you might not have that. And I'm sorry, that's super hard. But you do have a God who's here now. And you don't have to wait for next week for him to show up with an offer of redemption. He's here right now. Maybe you've made a wreck of your life, a wreck of the lives of people around you, or maybe you're just starting to feel that prayerlessness, that restlessness, that emptiness in your soul. Jesus is here now, ready to connect with each one of us. Lord, thank you that you are here. You are in our midst, as we just sang at the beginning of the service, and we are the sons and daughters of God if we've given ourselves to Jesus, who has given himself completely for us. Jesus, as we are here, some of us have wrought incredible distortion and destruction around us. Some of us just see the cracks in our own heart. And we're asking, Lord, that as you reach out to us, you'd give us the grace to reach out to, to even enjoy the author and the giver of all true joy and enjoyment, who gave everything for us and gives us Himself today. Thank you, Jesus. Move in our hearts, Spirit, we pray in Christ's name. Amen.