Famous Failures - David

Pastor Burcham’s Sermon

Sunday, August 23, 2009

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

He is the boy who would be king. He is the original rags to riches story. He is the little guy who went up against the bully. It’s David. David that we’ve known since the youngest of age. David was the one who went out in the battlefield and went eyeball to kneecap with Goliath. And as Goliath giggled at this little kid coming after him, he was winding up his slingshot and beamed him right in the head and down he went. David. We’ve been talking about famous people of the bible. When you talk about David, you’re at superstar level.

We know so much about David and the things he did and the things that God accomplished through him. If his life story were put to film, it would be an epic. It would be an epic that would transcend all other stories. It’s amazing the things that are told to us in the Old Testament about King David. So certainly, of all the people who we have looked at, David is famous. But David is also what? A failure. In fact, part of his notoriety is his failure.

We know him as David, the Psalm writer. We know him as David, the warrior. We know him as David, the king. But we also know him as David, the adulterer. We also know him as David, the murderer. Like so many other of the Old Testament characters, we sometimes look at them and sort of scratch our head and say, “But we don’t get it. We don’t understand.” I mean, David had so much going for him. Blessing after blessing was heaped upon him. And even God said, “If you wanted more, I’d have given it to you.” So how in the world could this guy who had everything fall so fast and how could he fall so deep? Committing adultery with Bathsheba, having her husband, Uriah, put to death. It just doesn’t make sense.

Well, this morning, we want to dig into David and we want to learn what his true failure was. We want to learn from his failure and, along the way, I suspect we’ll discover some things about ourselves as well.

Let’s start getting to know David a little bit. I know you probably know a lot about him. But let’s dig into him. The first thing that we hear about him comes from 1 Samuel 16. Samuel was a prophet in the Old Testament. He’s the prophet who anointed Israel’s first king, Saul. The people had been crying out. They wanted a king like everybody else. God finally gave it to them in the person of Saul. But at this point in history, Saul wasn’t doing so good. He had taken a turn for the worse. God saw that coming on the horizon.

So He sends Samuel to the house of Jesse and He says, “You’re going to anoint one of Jesse’s sons and he’s going to be the next king of Israel.” And so he goes. Jesse brings all of his sons in and they parade in front of the prophet. That’s where we pick up the story. Jesse had seven sons pass before Samuel but Samuel said to them, “The Lord’s not chosen any of these.” So he asked Jesse, “Are these all the sons that you have?” “There is still the youngest,” Jesse answered, “but he’s tending the sheep.” Samuel said, “Send for him. We will not sit down until he arrives.” Then all of Jesse’s other sons said, “I hope he’s not far, far away.” No, he didn’t really say that. “So he sent and had him brought in. He was ruddy with fine appearance and handsome features. Then the Lord said, ‘Rise and anoint him. He’s the one.’ So Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the presence of his brothers. And from that day on, the spirit of the Lord came upon David in power.”

So what do we know about David? We know that he is the youngest of Jesse’s sons and we know that he’s probably in his early teens because his father didn’t even bring him in for the prophet to see. He figures he’s not even in the running. He just brings in the older sons. That’s why he’s left out with the sheep, so he’s maybe 14, 15, 16 years old. And he’s described as being a good looking guy. That’s not why God chose him but that is one of his attributes. He’s described as being ruddy. I’m not exactly sure what the Old Testament means by that. Some have speculated that perhaps he had red hair. Now think about this for a minute. Middle East? Red hair? That would really distinguish him. They all have jet black hair. So now here’s this redheaded guy. He’d be very striking in appearance when you first saw him. But the most significant thing that we hear about David is in that last line, “And from that day on, the spirit of the Lord came upon David in power.” From that day on, the spirit of the Lord came upon David and the spirit of the Lord stayed with David throughout his entire life and he walked and he acted in the power of God.

Now what are some of the other things we know about David? We know that he was musical. We know that because his first gig was for the king. Saul, at this point, was given to fall into seizures and the only thing that would pull him out of that would be music. And somebody said, “Hey, you know, I know a kid, David, son of Jesse, he’s pretty good with instruments.” So they bring him in. Sure enough, David plays for the king and the seizures would stop. So the king says, “Come on, you stay with me.” He became his armor bearer and then, whenever he fell into a seizure, David would play his instrument. So he was musical.

We know that he was a poet, right? He wrote many of the Psalms that we still have recorded in scripture right here. So alright, he’s musical, he’s good looking and he’s a poet. So he’s kind of an artsy-fartsy kind of guy, right? He’s kind of more on that side. That’s what you’d think.

But wait, wait. There’s more to this guy because there’s that side of him, but he is fearless. I mean fearless this kid is. I’ll give you an example. He’s the armor bearer for Saul. They’re going up against Goliath. Goliath is this mercenary out there. And this guy is just eating up and spitting out Israelite soldiers one after another. Nobody stands a chance against this guy. So David said, “Hey, I’ll go mono-o-mono with him.” Saul kind of chuckles and says, “No, I don’t think so kid. Why don’t you go write some poetry or something?” He says, “No, no. I can.” And he makes a case for it. Listen to the case that he makes. He says, “But David said to Saul, ‘Your servant has been keeping his father’s sheep.’ Saul said, ‘Yeah, I know.’ ‘But when a lion or bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, I went after it, struck it, rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it. Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear.” David’s a manly man. Yeah. He goes after the lion and takes the sheep out of its mouth. I have to tell you if a lion came in while I’m watching the sheep and it runs off with a sheep, you know what I’m going to do? “Bon appetite!” Yeah. No, not David. He runs after it and he snatches it out of his mouth. Now, oddly enough, the lion is not pleased with that and it turns on David. And David says that he killed it with his bare hands. This guy is fearless. He runs after lions and bears? The next thing we know in the story, he’s going up against Goliath. So there’s something about his character that’s being shown to us here.

We know that he’s a warrior. Saul kind of turns on him and things go kind of south on that. So he has to live out in the hill country and he becomes a mercenary, he and a rag-tag army that he puts together are for sale to all of the kings in the area to do some battles for them and to add some defense. And he’s highly successful at all of that. So he’s fearless, he’s a warrior but he’s not just all brawn. He has brains, too.

There’s an account, again from 1 Samuel 21. He’s going into the city of Gath and he thinks things are going to be okay. They kind of seize him and they’re going to take him in front of the king. The king doesn’t like him. David catches wind of that. Listen to this. “David took these words to heart and was very much afraid of Achish, the king of Gath.” So he pretended to be insane in the presence of him and when he was in their hands, he acted like a madman, making marks in the doors of the gate  and letting saliva run down his beard.” Ingenious. Ingenious. He knew that he couldn’t take him. He knew that he couldn’t escape so he acts like he’s insane. Especially at this time of history, they wanted nothing to do with him. The next thing it says is that the king says, “Why did you bring this guy in here? Get rid of him.” And David escapes.

So he’s strong, he’s a warrior but he’s smart, too. He has everything, the complete package. He’s good looking. He has multi talents, musical, poet. He is a warrior. He’s fearless. We know that he’s a great king, that under his reign Israel became a contender in the area. Before, they were just a fly in the ointment. But under David, the borders expanded and they became a force to be reckoned with. It says that God just kept showering him with more and more blessings. So what happened? Don’t you just scratch your head and say, “How could it happen? How could it happen that one night he’s out strolling on his rooftop and the guy could fall like that? That he could actually have Uriah put on the front lines and have him killed?” What really is David’s failure?

David’s failure is this. The moment you think you’re invincible is when you become vulnerable. The moment you think you’re invincible, that you can’t be tempted and that you won’t fall is the moment that you become vulnerable to the attacks of the devil. You see, his failure is that he didn’t think he could fail. He got overconfident in himself. He had a history of unbridled success in his life. Yes, there were some bumps along the way but it was success after success after success and he remained faithful to God throughout all of that time, letting him be a little bit overconfident, saying, “I probably won’t fall to this temptation. I won’t be succumbed by that sin over there.” And the moment you think that you are invincible, that’s when you’re vulnerable.

So the moment he says to himself, “It’s not going to happen to me. I’ll stay faithful to God throughout all of this,” that’s the night he takes a stroll on the rooftop and he sees Bathsheba and he’s overcome with lust. And just like that, he falls prey to the devil. And the thing about this kind of failure is it leads to failure after failure after failure. You see, when you think you’re invincible, when you convince yourself that there are certain sins, there are certain temptations that you’re immune to, that you simply won’t fall prey to, when you finally do fall, you will live in deep, deep denial because it couldn’t happen.

That’s what happened to David. I’m sure David, after a couple of days, said, “I’m just going to forget about it, put it out of my mind. Just a one-night stand. It’s just a little blip in the road. I’m a king, after all, I have a lot of stress. Things just happened.” Yeah. It didn’t work that way, though, did it? Bathsheba turns up pregnant. Oh, boy. So now does he own up to it? Now does he say, “Ah, yeah, I messed up.” No, no, no. Now we’re going to bring Uriah home on furlough. “Yeah, come on home. You’ve been a faithful soldier. Come on home and spend the weekend with the wife.” What are the odds that Uriah would sleep on the front porch? Scripture says that Uriah says, “While my men are out in the fields, will I sleep in my own bed? No, far be it from me.” So he sleeps on the front porch, not once, twice, three times he does this. So what’s he going to do now? Is now finally David going to say, “Alright, that’s it. The gig is up.” No. Now he sends word to Joab, the commander and he says, “Put Uriah on the front line.” He killed Uriah just as much as if he had taken out his own sword and pierced his heart. He put that man to death.

Never in David’s wildest dreams would he have believed that he could do such things. If you’d have asked him before any of this began and told him that was going to happen, never, ever in his wildest dreams would he think that he was capable of doing such things. He had remained faithful to God through so many circumstances in his life but, you see, the moment that he thought he was invincible, that’s when he became vulnerable, vulnerable to the temptations.

St. Paul talks about that. He talks about that in his letter to the Corinthians. He says that we need to learn from the people in the past. We need to learn from the people of the Old Testament. And he says this, “These things have happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us so if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall.” If you think you’re standing firm, be careful so that you don’t fall. The moment you think you’re invincible, you become vulnerable to the attacks of the devil. That’s what happened to David.

And I suspect that’s what happens to you. And that’s what happens to me. Is David’s failure not our failure? You see, the irony of this situation is that when life is going extremely well, when things are falling into place, that’s when we’re the most susceptible. Just about the time that life seems to finally calm down, there’s no controversy, everything’s going well at home, everything’s going well at work. Just about the time that we’re just sort of skating along, that’s when we become susceptible because that’s when we lower our guard.

When things are happening all around us and it seems that our life is falling apart, our guard is pretty high and we’re close to God. And we want to stay faithful to God. And we realize that we could fall in any number of ways but, when life is going well, we lower our guard and, just at the time that we think we’re invincible, that’s when we become vulnerable.

The moment that we say, “Of all the things that I could do, that’s the one thing I’ll never do and there’s no way I could imagine myself falling for that temptation or that sin.” That’s the moment that you become vulnerable. You see, it’s when you’re sitting in the office and you hear about the guy in the other department who is embezzling funds and you shake your head and you say, “How could anybody be that dumb? How could they do that and think they’d get away with it? How bad does your life have to be? That would never happen to me.”

It’s when you go out for dinner with another couple and you find out that mutual friends are having a divorce because one of them was having an affair and you shake your head and say, “Well, that’s at least one thing we never have to worry about. That won’t happen to us.”

It’s when you’re reading in the newspaper about some other guy who got caught with porn on his computer and you shake your head and you say, “What a sicko. That’ll never happen in this household.”

The moment you think you’re invincible, that’s when you become vulnerable. Because that’s when the devil pounces. When you lower your guard and you say, “You know, of all the things that I could do, that one I don’t have to worry about. I could never imagine myself doing that. Not in my wildest dreams would that ever happen to me,” that’s when you fall. That’s what happened to David.

And just like with David, failure leads to failure leads to failure because when you fall in this manner, you will live in such deep denial because you don’t want to admit that you could actually do something like that and that’s when the lies start and that’s when passing the blame on somebody else starts. There isn’t a person yet that hasn’t had an affair that wants to blame their spouse for it. They want to blame somebody else. It’s not their fault. And it will keep leading to failure after failure until you finally learn from your failures.

David did. It took awhile. It took the prophet, Nathan. But David learned from his failure and then something rather simple but amazing happened. David repented and God forgave. It really is that simple but it’s also that phenomenal. David repented and God forgives.

It took awhile to get David to that point of repentance. In fact, I find it quite interesting that, as King David is listening to Nathan spin this story about the rich guy who had everything and the poor guy who had nothing but this one little lamb and about the rich guy taking advantage of the poor guy and how indignant David got and how angry David got. “How reprehensible,” he thinks to himself. “How unthinkable that somebody would. . .” And he never connected the dots. He never applied it to his own life. That’s somebody else. Until Nathan spoke those words, “You’re the man, David. You’re the guy.” There had to be stunned silence at that moment in the king’s court as Nathan wonders whether he’s going to get out of there with his life because he just accused the king and David’s entire life is coming crashing down upon him. The realization is God’s prophet cut his heart, that he wasn’t invincible, that he had faults, that he had sinned in a dramatic way.

But then David repented. The next words are, “Then David said to Nathan, ‘I have sinned against the Lord.’” No excuses from David. No extenuating circumstances from David. “I have sinned against the Lord.” He wrote Psalm 51 in response to Nathan coming to him. Listen to some of the words that David wrote, “For I know my transgressions and my sin is always before me.” It comes crashing in on him. And then he says, “Against you, you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight.” Only against God has he sinned. There’s a wake of victims that he’s left behind, Uriah, Bathsheba, the baby. But it is against God and God only that he has sinned because he has gone against God and when you go against God and it’s just disaster after disaster, look what happened. “Against you only have I sinned.” David repents. He takes full responsibility on himself. In the Psalm he says, “Restore to me the joy of your salvation.” Nathan gave him words for hope for that. Nathan said, “The Lord has taken away your sin. You’re not going to die.”

Just that simple and yet just that phenomenal. David repents. God forgives. You repent and God forgives. It’s just that simple but it’s also just that phenomenal. Sometimes it takes awhile for us to get to that point where God pierces our hearts and we have to say to Him that I’ve sinned and we repent and we turn from our ways to Him, but we repent and God forgives.

This morning, I can’t help but wonder do you need to repent? What I mean by that is have you been holding something back from God? You come week after week, we have our moment of silence where we confess our sins to God but have you held something back? Are you still living in denial about something you did last week, last month, last year, last decade? Something you never could imagine that you would do? Something that’s reprehensible in your mind? So you’ve held it back from God. Can we learn from David? Is it time to repent, to say to God, “Against you and only you God have I sinned,” because when you repent, God forgives.

When we say “Against you and only you God have I sinned,” we hear the words of Nathan who says, “The Lord has taken away your sin.” That doesn’t mean that it disappeared. It doesn’t mean that God just snapped His fingers. When He says, “The Lord has taken away your sin,” He’s taken away your sin and He’s placed it upon someone else. He’s placed it upon his very Son. We read again from Paul’s letter to the Corinthian church, he says, “God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us.” He’s talking about Jesus. “God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us so that in Him, we might become the righteousness of God.” The Lord’s taken away your sin and He’s placed it upon His Son, Jesus. You’re not going to die. You’re not going to die because somebody else died in your place, because that same Son, Jesus, came and lived among us. And our sin was placed upon Him and then the punishment for that sin was placed upon Him. That’s why He hung upon a cross. That’s why He went through the bitter pains of hell itself. He died so we wouldn’t have to die. You’re not going to die. You’re going to live forever in eternity with God in heaven because someone else died in your place because Jesus was willing to hang upon a cross and take all the punishment. It’s so simple but yet it’s so phenomenal. You repent and God forgives.

We want to learn from David’s mistake, his failure. That’s really been the point of this series of messages. First of all, we want to know that it doesn’t matter whether you’re a famous figure in scripture that God has used mightily or you’re just an average person like you and I. But we all fail. We all fail. But we can learn from the failure of David. And the thing we want to learn this morning is that the moment we think we’re invincible is when we become vulnerable which means we never want to let down our guard. We never want to say overconfidently, “I’ll never fall to that sin. I’ll never be tempted to fall in that way.” No, everything is open game. Keep your guard up all the time. Never think of yourself as being invincible but understand that you will fall. This side of heaven, famous or not, we all fail. But then again, learn from David and turn to God in repentance and say, “Against you only God have I sinned.” And hear the words spoken through Nathan. The Lord has taken away your sin. You’re not going to die. Amen.

Copyright 2009 Gloria Dei Lutheran Church