Sermon for Sunday, September 6, 2026 at Unionville Presbyterian Church (BPC)
Old Testament Text:
[Psalm 51:1-19 ESV] 1 To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet went to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba. Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. 2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin! 3 For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. 4 Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment. 5 Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. 6 Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart. 7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. 8 Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have broken rejoice. 9 Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. 10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. 11 Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. 12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit. 13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you. 14 Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness. 15 O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise. 16 For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. 17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. 18 Do good to Zion in your good pleasure; build up the walls of Jerusalem; 19 then will you delight in right sacrifices, in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings; then bulls will be offered on your altar.
New Testament Text:
[James 2:8-13 ESV] 8 If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well. 9 But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. 10 For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it. 11 For he who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” If you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. 12 So speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty. 13 For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.
Gospel Text:
[Matthew 21:33-46 ESV] 33 “Hear another parable. There was a master of a house who planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a winepress in it and built a tower and leased it to tenants, and went into another country. 34 When the season for fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants to get his fruit. 35 And the tenants took his servants and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. 36 Again he sent other servants, more than the first. And they did the same to them. 37 Finally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ 38 But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and have his inheritance.’ 39 And they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. 40 When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” 41 They said to him, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons.” 42 Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures: “‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes’? 43 Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits. 44 And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.” 45 When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they perceived that he was speaking about them. 46 And although they were seeking to arrest him, they feared the crowds, because they held him to be a prophet.
SermonText:
[2 Samuel 12:1-15 ESV] 1 And the LORD sent Nathan to David. He came to him and said to him, “There were two men in a certain city, the one rich and the other poor. 2 The rich man had very many flocks and herds, 3 but the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb, which he had bought. And he brought it up, and it grew up with him and with his children. It used to eat of his morsel and drink from his cup and lie in his arms, and it was like a daughter to him. 4 Now there came a traveler to the rich man, and he was unwilling to take one of his own flock or herd to prepare for the guest who had come to him, but he took the poor man’s lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him.” 5 Then David’s anger was greatly kindled against the man, and he said to Nathan, “As the LORD lives, the man who has done this deserves to die, 6 and he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity.” 7 Nathan said to David, “You are the man! Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you out of the hand of Saul. 8 And I gave you your master’s house and your master’s wives into your arms and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah. And if this were too little, I would add to you as much more. 9 Why have you despised the word of the LORD, to do what is evil in his sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and have taken his wife to be your wife and have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. 10 Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.’ 11 Thus says the LORD, ‘Behold, I will raise up evil against you out of your own house. And I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this sun. 12 For you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel and before the sun.'” 13 David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the LORD.” And Nathan said to David, “The LORD also has put away your sin; you shall not die. 14 Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the LORD, the child who is born to you shall die.” 15 Then Nathan went to his house. And the LORD afflicted the child that Uriah’s wife bore to David, and he became sick.
Introduction:
In the previous chapter of 2nd Samuel, we had the account of David sinning; lusting after Bathsheba with whom he then had an adulterous affair, the coverup of which brought the death of her legitimate husband, Uriah the Hittite. David – the very anointed King, a man after God’s own heart – is an adulterer and a murderer. And so, at the end of that chapter we read, quite naturally, “But the thing David had done DISPLEASED the Lord.”
And “displeasure” is hardly an adequate English term to describe the situation. Other Bibles perhaps get to the root of the meaning better in saying “the thing that David had done was EVIL IN THE SIGHT of the Lord.” He’s not merely “displeased;” not merely “peeved” or “bothered;” “annoyed” at David’s bad choices. No, what David had done was EVIL IN THE SIGHT of the Lord.
Now, in chapter 12 THAT TRUTH will come back to David in a most powerful way. He will learn that “he is the man.”
And you’ll see in the context that this is not a good thing! It is not like it is said “You da man” or “he is the man of the house” in some positive connotation. NO indeed, “he is the man” WHO IS GUILTY OF GREAT EVIL, as any unbiased observer would agree.
I. The story of Nathan the Prophet
This all comes about through the prophet Nathan. What a great role THE PROPHET is in ancient Israel. While David was King, Nathan was a prophet. It is interesting that while there is one king at a time, there can be multiple prophets. Sometimes there are NONE! Between the Old Testament and the New Testament there a period of more than 400 YEARS in which there were no prophets; none between Malachi and John the Baptist.
But when there is a prophet, they had a role; they had a job to do. They communicated messages from God, most often calling for repentance and warning about the wrath to come for those who disobeyed the Lord. AND, prophets EXPOSED SIN! They didn’t lead the country, like the kings, but they could be a CHECK ON THE KING. If the king sinned, the prophets could say so. These prophets were not men of self-aggrandizement; they were not seeking their own glory, but rather usually risking their lives for making such pronouncements as “WOE UPON YOU.” That perhaps is the most frequent word of a prophet “WOE.” (in Hebrew is an expressing usually of dissatisfaction and pain; of great sorrow and distress.) It seems only coincidental that we say WOAH (of another spelling) to horses to have them stop. These are different words, though we might almost see a connection between them. WOE to you, and WOAH, stop what you are doing.
And that was a dangerous role, the role of prophet. Telling people they have sinned and are about to fall off of a cliff, is never a popular thing! And the prophets would cry out “woe” even unto the kings! The prophets were risking their lives in doing so! Consider Jonah walking around Nineveh saying, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.” A person could take that as a threat! A prophet was in great danger.
Imagine having to confront you boss at a job and bringing up some trouble that concerns him. That’s risky. Maybe he will fire you. Well, Nathan’s job – the job of a prophet – is far riskier; for what prophet’s say, they are risking death!
So what does Nathan do in our text?
He comes to David and tells him a story. Perhaps he had similarly brought such things to David in the past, so David didn’t know that this was a parable; he might have assumed it to be a real situation in which his judgement was needed. So Nathan said:
“There were two men in a certain city, the one rich and the other poor.”
And you’re right to think “the rich man is David,” and “the poor man is Uriah.”
“2 The rich man had very many flocks and herds, 3 but the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb, which he had bought.”
And who is the ewe lamb? It is Bathsheba, the wife or Uriah the Hittite.
Yet, when a traveler came by the rich man was unwilling to slaughter one of his own lambs, preferring instead the treasured lamb of the poor man.
It is one thing to steal when you are hungry and have no other options (and that is sin), and it is another thing entirely to steal for the sake of stealing; to steal when it is completely not needed. The Rich man had plenty and yet still he stole.
The INJUSTICE is obvious; it is clear. So much so that when Nathan tells this story, David’s natural reaction is “THE MAN WHO HAS DONE THIS DESERVES TO DIE.”
APPLICATION: Double Standards
Let’s stop here for an application. How easy it is to judge others swiftly, while excusing and even ignoring our own sins! [REPEAT: How easy it is to judge others swiftly, while excusing and even ignoring our own sins!] A “double standard.” A hypocrisy.
It seems that some people are experts on the subject; critical of others; uncritical of self, even defending ones self tooth and nail against any and all accusations. (and its been made far was since the advent of the internet; plenty of places were people voice their criticism … of others, of course. Scarcely do they criticize themselves!
Shouldn’t we be something of the opposite? What if we give charity to others, for we do not know their situation? And what if we admit our faults, because we know that we sinned?
But we have double standards. “HOW DARE THEY do such and such, and yet … I do the same?”
We see the speck in another’s eye, but don’t see the log in our own.
Example:
When you’re talking and the other person is not listening, you feel slighted. Angry.
But when someone else is talking and you’re not listening, its because you have something else on your mind; you are excused!
A double standard.
Rules for thee, not for me!
So we have David’s righteous, just anger at the story.
“As the LORD lives, the man who has done this deserves to die, 6 and he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity.”
David is right in his conclusion, but wrong in his applying it. He thinks it is about someone else. But in his conclusion he has condemned himself.
And HIS ATROCITY EXCEEDS that of the parable. The punishment then due upon David would necessarily be more than he ascribed to the Rich man of the parable.
So the prophet Nathan throws the biggest proverbial PUNCH in about the whole Bible. Are you ready for this. Now, sometimes there’s a one-two punch. Or maybe a stiff jab. Sometimes there is a left hook. But this is an overhand right that lands on the chin. What does Nathan say? He says to David, “YOU are the man.”
“You are the man” … THAT DESERVES TO DIE! That’ll wake you up.
EYES WIDE OPEN! SHOCK. What do you mean? How can it ever be?
From verses 7 to 12, there is a continued speech of Nathan to David. It is not unimportant, but it is overshadowed by that line, “You are the man.” The rest is an explanation. Nathan tells us of all of the important history leading up to that moment.
– God appointed David king over Israel.
– God delivered David out of the hand of Saul.
– God gave David rule over both Israel and Judah.
And yet, David has DESPISED the word of the Lord and done evil.
– He struck down Uriah the Hittite.
– He took Bathsheba as his wife.
So there is adultery and there is murder. But also the sin of DISRESPECT, or of nothing honoring God. Though God had given David so much, David yet broke God’s commandments.
So the prophet Nathan does his duty, calling out sin, even when it is the King’s sin.
And David, what is his response?
II. The Response of David
What is there to say? When you’re guilty, you’re guilty.
And David gives us a good example here in confessing his sins.
David acknowledges his sin simply and truthfully and in sorrow, saying, “I have sinned against the LORD.”
Indeed he has. All sins are against the Lord, and these are “big ones.” Adultery and murder; listed among the 10 Commandments, clearly laid out. And yet, David broke the commandments of God.
He therefore is a sinner. Imperfect, even EVIL in the sight of the Lord.
How can he ever come back from this?!
How can WE ever come back from our sins!?
Indeed, confession and repentance are important.
But how can an evil man do good?
How can a sinner repent?
Forgiveness, grace, repentance, and salvation, as we know are OF THE LORD.
III. Forgiveness of God
So we see that great forgiveness OF GOD in verse 13 as Nathan assures David, “The Lord has put away your sin; you shall not die.”
Some might think David’s response too short. He only says two words in Hebrew! He doesn’t grovel, lament, or tear his clothing. David does “do penance” or have any series of tasks to earn God’s forgiveness. Rather, as John tells us in the New Testament, when we (whether David or you or I), when we sin, we have an advocate with the father, Jesus Christ, the righteous one.
Dale Ralph Davis: Some may consider this confession too brief. After all, David only says two Hebrew words and Nathan gives him an assurance of pardon. Does David get off too easily? Is he only expected to say the right formula? We would prefer him to wallow in his guilt and plead, beg, and agonize over the possibility of pardon. If only he would writhe in obvious misery. We should know better, but we still assume that intensity of repentance contributes to atonement. Simplicity however, marks David’s confession: “I have sinned against the Lord.” And precisely this simplicity makes a commendable rather than a defective.
And how Great is God that He has forgiveness IMMEDIATELY in such a situation.
David is told simply that God has “put away” his sin. That phrase means “to take away, to pass over.” God took David’s sins and took them away from him. As far as David and God were concerned they were gone forever!
How is this possible?! David broke the commandments. David sinned. David even killed a guy! And yet, God in his grace “puts away” the sin of David.
We have to give credit to David for acknowledging his sin, but it is NOT that acknowledgment of sin that saves him. Forgiveness is always from God BECAUSE of Jesus Christ; because of the grace of God. And forgiveness AND repentance follow from the grace of God. Only by God’s grace was David able to recognize his sin. His recognition did not secure him forgiveness; but the forgiveness of God secured his repentance.
And this even the forgiveness of GREAT SIN. Therefore, it is GREAT FORGIVENESS.
What a great Gospel passage this is.
Though WE SIN, our great God FORGIVES the sins of his people.
Even big sins, even breaking the commandments.
So we see that “God’s ways are higher than our ways,” for how many of us would forgive an adulterer or a murderer? Indeed, we can only do so by the grace of God; by the work of the Spirit in us.
And when we confess our sins, God forgives us. Next week we will have communion. And before that in the service we will confess our sins. Only a short time distance between them. Even if you have sinned GREATLY, you confess and then you participate welcomely in communion. God’s grace is so great that it makes some people uncomfortable. But we have a great example from this texts of God’s IMMEDIATE grace, and immediate restoration, and immediate forgiveness.
David deserves death (as he himself has admitted), but is given Grace.
And consider this:
Application: God uses the law to draw in his people.
There is a positive use of the Law for the benefit of God’s people.
Had God LEFT David in his sin, that would not to be grace.
Instead, God confronts David through the prophet Nathan, for David’s benefit.
MH: Though God may suffer his people to fall into sin, he will not suffer them to lie still in it. He sends after us before we seek after him, else we should certainly be lost.
[Isaiah 57:17-18 ESV] 17 Because of the iniquity of his unjust gain I was angry, I struck him; I hid my face and was angry, but he went on backsliding in the way of his own heart. 18 I have seen his ways, but I will heal him; I will lead him and restore comfort to him and his mourners,
IV. The Consequences of Sin
Still there are consequences of sin. Though believers are forever saved in Jesus Christ, sin is our enemy and its wounds are painful.
The wounds will come to David.
And here are the consequences:
– “The sword shall never depart from your house.” There will be no peace. (v. 11)
– God will raise up evil against David out of his own house. (v.11)
– God will give David’s wives to his neighbor. (v. 11)
– And this will be done in broad daylight.
That is all fulfilled in chapter 16 when David’s son Absalom rebells against David, and takes some of his wives in plain sight of all of Israel.
Then there is another consequence noted.
– The son born to David and Bathsheba will die. (v. 14)
This is fulfilled in the same chapter as the son falls ill and dies on the seventh day.
In fact, he will lose 4 children, just as the Rich Man deserves the loss of 4 sheep for the one he took. According to the law in Exodus 22:1, if a person steals a sheep and slaughters or sells it, they must pay back four sheep for every one sheep stolen.
The four children David loses by the way are (1) the unnamed infant son, (2) then Ammon, (3) Absalom, and (4) Adonijah.
.
Sin has consequences. Though believers have forgiveness in Christ, the natural order of the world is not so forgiving. A criminal may come to Christ and know eternal pardon, but will not receive the State’s pardon.
A sinner may be forgiven, but that doesn’t mean he will be trusted. Sin has consequence.
And a sinner may come to know of salvation in Jesus Christ and leave a life of drugs and alcohol, but the effects of those drugs will continue to ravage the body. Sin has consequences.
And these consequences may not only be upon you.
When you sin against another, you impact them as well as yourself.
And the sins of neglect impact others as well.
Exodus 20:5 says that God visits “the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation.” This means that bad choices impact later generations.
And a consequence you may not have considered – in sin you have transgressed God’s law and offended God himself. David in facts says “I have sinned against the Lord.” Not against Bathsheba or against Uriah, but against the Lord.
These are TEMPORAL consequences of sin.
But in God’s mercy do we have hope; and in heaven there are no tears, there is no pain, there are no sins nor consequences of sins.
Conclusion:
We see powerful grace in this text.
The Law says “you are the man.” The law shows your sin.
But the Gospel says “I have put away your sin.” For that sin was placed upon Jesus Christ, the son of God. Praise be to God for the grace we know in Jesus Christ.