"The Stages of Sin" - 2 Samuel 11:1-5

What can you learn from David about the stages of sin during times of temptation?

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Transcript

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Cedar Street Baptist Church, I love you so, so very much. It's my joy to be with you here. I know we've got uh quite a few families out for spring break, so I want to say hi to everybody watching from the beach or the mountains or wherever you may be today. I hope every all the educators in Cameron County are enjoying themselves as they get ready for the final push. But it's just good to be with each of you as we as we journey together our first week after Easter. And we're back in a sermon series that we started a few weeks ago. If you're visiting for the first time, you're in a good place. I'm going to catch you up real quick. We're in the book of 2 Samuel. We've been going chapter by chapter. And uh the title of our sermon series is Faithful and Flawed, as we're looking at the life of David, a man of great faith who ran after God's own heart, but also a man of great flaws who ran after God's amazing grace. We've talked a lot about what we can learn from David so far in the series. We learned how he grieved for the kingdom of God, how he was patient for the promises of God. He taught us what true worship is. When you worship him with everything that you have, you don't care what people think, even if it's your own immediate family. He showed gratitude for God's greatness. Last time we talked in this series, we talked about uh giving and receiving grace and what that looks like. Today's gonna get more personal. It may have been easy to keep David at arm's length the first couple weeks of this series, but today he's gonna drive up in your driveway and meet you right where you are. Today, as we look at 2 Samuel chapter 11, verses 1 through 5, our title is The Stages of Sin. The Stages of Sin. Let me give you some disclosure here just before I start. Um we're not gonna get graphic, but we are gonna talk about intimacy here a little bit. So if you have a child that you don't want to hear those words, you can let them go to children's church even if they're not part of that age. I just want to put that disclaimer out here. We are gonna, you know, be uh real as we look at the scriptures. So I leave it in your hands, parents, before we get started here, uh, that we are gonna talk about David and Bathsheba. If you're new to the scriptures, you're gonna find out quickly what that means. Uh, but I wanted to be upfront about that. So we are gonna talk about sin today. I know when I was the 16 years I've been here and all the times that we had Awana and CS kids, we're always defining for the kids over and over what is sin. And one of the great answers coming up in Iwana, a lot of the kids would say sin is anything you say, think, or do that disobeys the will of God. It's our thoughts, it's our words, it's our actions, and go a little bit deeper, it's our attitudes. And all of us, every single one of us, has a fallen nature. Now, when we're born again, and we go, you know, when we're baptized, we symbolize what being born again is. We're buried with him in the likeness of his death and we're raised to walk in newness of life. Being raised to walk in newness of life doesn't mean that you are going to live perfectly. It means you have been declared righteous and perfect by the blood of Jesus. But you and I have to work that out in a lifetime of repentance and faith and transformation. We have to put to death the deeds of the flesh. We have to sow to the spirit, we have to grow, and that takes a lifetime. And so we wrestle with sin. But here's the most painful part of sin. It always surprises us. Why is it when you're stuck in something sinful, you're surprised of how you got there? You don't recognize that the world, the flesh, and the devil. When I say enemy, I mean it's a three-headed enemy. It's the world, the system of the world, it's the flesh that fallen nature, and it is Satan who is in control of the systems of this world. All right? There's a pattern from the enemy every time you get stuck in sin. And if you don't recognize the pattern, you and I are gonna be chasing our tails the rest of our life. But God is greater than our sin. Greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world. He has given us his word, he has given us his spirit, and he has given us his church to help us to live the overcoming life. But I'm gonna ask you to do something today that may be a little painful, but it'll be productive if you'll be faithful to it. For you and I to recognize the predictable pattern of sin. I want you right now, before we open the word, to think about a very painful, embarrassing sin that you committed in your life and keep that sin in your mind. Now, if you've been forgiven, then it's already washed in the blood. I'm not doing this to condemn or to make you feel guilty. I'm doing this so that you can recognize the patterns that took place when that sin happened, so you can recognize the patterns in the future and stop future sin from taking place. So think about it. Is there a fractured relationship? Is there a life-altering decision? Something that you've done in your life that you knew it was wrong, it caused a lot of damage. Hold that in your mind today and watch the stages and the pattern of sin and watch how it happened in your life the way it does in David's. And the more that you recognize it with God's help, the more that you can live the type of overcoming victorious life where you will not fall in that pattern in the future. God wants us to be awake and aware of the enemy that we face. So we're gonna be looking at the life of King David, and we're gonna see the great downfall of his ministry here in 2 Samuel 11. In fact, we're gonna look for two weeks at this chapter. Today we're gonna look at just the first five verses, but here's our big idea for the note takers in one sentence. This here's what's gonna center us on the first five verses of 2 Samuel 11. David's encounter with Bathsheba reveals the progressive stages of sin every believer must recognize during times of temptation. David's encounter with Bathsheba reveals the progressive stages of sin every believer must recognize during times of temptation. All right, we're gonna get right after this. So if you have a Bible, turn with me to the book of 2 Samuel. Okay, if you're new to the Bible, it's after 1 Samuel, it's before 1 Kings in your Old Testament. If you don't have a Bible, just grab the Pew Bible in front of you or beside you. We're on page 308 in your Pew Bible. And if you would stand at this time, out of the reverence of the reading of God's holy, infallible, inerrant, and fully sufficient word, we are in 2 Samuel chapter 11. We're gonna be looking at the first five verses together, starting in verse 1. Hear God's word to us. It says, In the spring of the year, the time when kings go away, go out to battle, David sent Joab and his servants with him and all Israel, and they ravaged the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem. It happened late one afternoon when David arose from his couch and was walking on the roof of the king's house, that he saw from the roof a woman bathing, and the woman was very beautiful. And David sent and inquired about the woman, and one said, Is not this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite? So David sent messengers and took her, and she came to him, and he lay with her. Now she had been purifying herself from her uncleanness. Then she returned to her house, and the woman conceived, and she sent and told David, I am pregnant. Let's pray. Father, it is easy for us to look at this story and wonder why David would throw away an anointed ministry where you make him king over your people and promised him a house forever. And yet, Lord, if it were us, we would have probably done the same thing. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. The enemy is real, and even a man after God's own heart can have a great fall, and that should sober everybody in this room, including me. But Lord, we look at the sin of David and we recognize that in our lives it happens in a pattern. It doesn't happen in a moment, it happens in stages, and if we don't recognize them, Lord, we're gonna fall prey to the next time it happens. So Lord, I pray right now with all the sin that we have wrestled with, all the sin that you've covered with your grace and your blood, I pray that you would help us just to be aware of the patterns that led us into old sins, that we may recognize them before they become new sins. Help us to grow today, Lord, and recognize the stages of sin that we can walk a path of righteousness. Be with us right now, I pray, in Jesus' name. And God's people said. Amen. All right, now I mentioned this at the beginning of the series. I remember uh Chuck Swindall, one of the great preachers of our country the last 50 years. He's had a great radio ministry. I remember driving around one day, and Chuck Swindah said, Whenever you think of the life of David, think of the pitch of a roof. The first 11 chapters, David's life is on the rise. Everything is going well. He takes over the throne of Israel and of Judah. He brings the Ark of the Covenant back into the city that's going to be named after him. He begins to reign, and you see in chapter 10, he he earns military victory after military victory. The favor of God is on David. He's a man after God's own heart. And you know, unlike a lot of politicians that make promises and take the office and then forget everything they promised, he made big promises and he kept them. We looked in our last passage that he told Jonathan he would always have blessing and favor and grace upon Jonathan's house. And Mephibosheth, who was crippled in his feet, was an outcast in society. David brought him to sit at his own table for the rest of his life. So we see a man of integrity. We see a man after God's own heart. And for 10 chapters, boy, his life is on the rise. And all of you can say there are times in your life that you know that you're growing in God if you're if you're born again. You've seen God do things in your life, and then you find a moment where you are under such temptation that you find yourself in sin and you don't know how you got there. I want to say temptation is not going to stop until all evil of the earth is removed, and we live on a brand new planet with resurrected bodies on a glorified earth, until then you and I will battle temptation. Temptation by itself is not the sin. Temptation is the work of the deceiver to get you to sin. So the issue is not, are you being tempted? Every one of us is being tempted, and pretty much on a daily basis. But when you and I can recognize the patterns of temptation, we can nip it in the bud before it begins the full bloom of the stages of sin. And David found himself in the throes of temptation. But you got to get this the issue wasn't what happened on the roof. The issue was things that happened before he ever got on that rooftop. And the same is true for everyone that has committed a grievous sin. It wasn't in the moment that you committed the sin, it's all the things that took place before you got there that you were prepared to sin and didn't even know it. And so we're going to look at the predictable patterns and progressive stages of sin. Now I want you to notice something as we talk about this. In the beginning of this sermon series, we looked at how David worshiped. It said he worshiped God with his whole being to the point that his wife made fun of him and he said, I do not care what you think. In fact, I'm going to worship in such a way I'll be even more debased in your mind than I am right now. I don't care. I want God to have my everything. This was a man genuinely after God's own heart. And yet, this is a great fall that happens in his life. A painful fall. So there's a couple reminders before we look at the text. First, we need the grace of God in every season of life. Every season. Especially when things are going well and your guards are down. We also need to recognize sin does great damage. Now, God's grace is greater than all our sin. There is no sin that He cannot forgive apart from rejecting Jesus Christ Himself. However, it doesn't mean it doesn't leave damage here on this earth. You can be forgiven, but sin's going to leave a mark. And we need to recognize that when we're in the throes of temptation. The second thing I want to say is that if we're not right in our relationship with God, it's going to affect every other relationship that we have. Something happened from the David that was worshiping God with all of his heart and didn't care what anybody thought to where we get where he's on a rooftop when he should not have even been there to begin with. Something took place where there was a fracture in his relationship with God and it flowed out into his relationship with other people. We're going to look at that. And so we need to think clearly about our own sin. Hold in your mind something that you did in your life that you greatly regret. I'm not saying feel guilty about it. If you've repented, God has forgiven it. I'm not saying it to have guilt. I'm saying it, just hold it here and walk with your life along David's life and see that there's a pattern that is taking place. See that there is a pattern. So let's look at this. I want to jump right in. We're going to look at the condition of sin, the criteria of sin, the conception of sin, the consummation, and the consequence. Here's stage number one, the condition of sin. All right, look at verse one. It says, In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, David sent Joab and his servants with him and all Israel, and they ravaged the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah, and David remained at Jerusalem. All right, couple things in that passage. All right, no word in the Bible is there by accident. Each writer inspired of the Holy Spirit has intention for every statement. So sometimes you see random statements in there, and you wonder, why does it say that? Well, there's a purpose for it. Why does it say here in verse 1 that in the spring of the year, when the time when the kings go out to battle, David was still in Jerusalem? That's the author telling you already, before the sin ever took place, David was not where he was supposed to be. Now, I want to talk about the condition of sin in your life. Okay? Maybe you have heard of this acronym. It's called HALT. HALT. Let's look at this together. This is when your heart is in the worst possible condition it can be in to have a great sin in your life. All right. H-A-L-T. Hungry, angry, lonely, or tired. In any of those four conditions, your heart is soil and you're fertile for the seed of sin to start taking root. All right. Hungry, angry, lonely, and tired. We are physical and spiritual beings. Now, I want to say this. The Bible doesn't tell us exactly what happened from chapter 10 to chapter 11. We know David had great victory. He may have gotten prideful. David, something happened. Where when he should have been away at war, most kings would have been away in the time of the spring in battle with his army, and he stayed home when he should have been out. Something happened. Now, I can't tell you he was hungry. He probably wasn't. A king could have a feast at a moment's notice. Angry, I'm not sure if he was. Lonely, maybe, maybe not, but I'm going to tell you this last one. And I'm going to tell you because I know it's true in my life, and I know it's true in the Psalms and David's life. I bet David was exhausted. And you know why? When you're living in disobedience, it's exhausting. When you're not living for God, that weighs down on your soul in such a way it can be utterly exhausting. If you want to find the most exhausted people on planet earth, it's not non-believers living a non-believer's life. It's a professing, born-again, blood-bought, spirit-filled Christian living for the world. It's exhausting. And here's what David says about it himself in the Psalms. This is what David says in the Psalms, in Psalm 32, verses 3 through 5, about unconfessed sin when he's living in disobedience. He said, For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through all my groaning all the day. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me, my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. The Bible says over and over that your heart is soil. In the parable of the sower in the Gospels, it says that when you sow gospel seeds, your heart has to be the right soil to receive the gospel. Well, it's the same thing with sin. When your heart is fertile soil for sin, when you have not recognized the needs of your body and you're hungry, or you haven't dealt with anger in your life, and that's residual and it's rolling around inside of you, or if you're lonely and kicking rocks, or if you're tired and your defenses are down, your heart is ripe for a seed of sin to be planted. We don't know everything about what David did right there, but we know he was supposed to be away at war and he wasn't. And I'm sure that that disobedience led him to a spiritual malaise where his guards were down as he took the roof. That's stage one. That's the condition, that's where it starts. All right, now think about your sin that we said. Hold your sin right here and think about it. It didn't just start overnight. Something in your past where you began to ignore signs in your life. Maybe there was a relationship in your life and you didn't deal with the anger issues. When you know you had to deal with it, you just kind of deflect it and try to numb it and distract it with something else or someone else. Maybe it is loneliness. And instead of reaching out for God or reaching out for accountability, reaching out for Christian fellowship, you wallowed in that self-pity and you were just ripe for a sin. Or maybe it maybe it's tired. Listen, I learned that I've known this, but even in the past month, I have physically been so tired that I finally pulled my CPAP machine out of the closet and I said, if we're going to wrestle with this, we're going to wrestle with it. I'm going to go down fighting because I realize that sleep is an act of worship. Because when I don't get sleep, I'm not a very good pastor. I'm not a very good father. I'm not a very good servant. You can't ignore that we're physical and spiritual beings. And if you do not take care of your body, you are ripe for a sinful seed to be planted. That's number one, that's the condition. Second, let's look at the criteria. As you look at verse 2, it says, It happened late one afternoon when David arose from his couch and was walking on the roof of the king's house, that he saw from the roof a woman bathing, and the woman was very beautiful. All right, all sin has a criteria, and you know what the criteria is? We know it in the New Testament. The Apostle John says in 1 John 2, verse 16, that all sin begins with a selfish demand for the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. Now, what are those things? The lust of the flesh is pleasure. And pleasure by itself is not wrong. But seeking pleasure outside the will of God, having it on your own terms the way that you want it, that is sin. The lust of the eyes, that's possessions, that's acquiring. Are possessions by themselves sinful? No, God gives good gifts. All things are to be enjoyed if they're consecrated by the word in prayer is what the New Testament says. And yet the desire to say, I must have, that's sin. And then power, the pride of life. This could be control, this could be achievement, this could be seeking honor. Again, most of these things are not sinful by themselves, but when you and I begin to make a God out of these things, they become sin. And that seed takes root in our heart. And David, ignoring the pleasure of God's presence, he was seeking the pleasure of the presence of a married woman. Now, he's on a rooftop that he should not have been. He was probably more exhausted than he typically was, maybe even more bored than he typically was. Boredom is another awful condition to be in if uh if the enemy is after you planting seeds of sin. And he looked at a beautiful woman. Now, is there anything sinful about a beautiful woman? No. Let me say this. I'll try to say this without being awkward. And if the men in this room don't amen me, you're gonna be in trouble. Women are the single most beautiful things on planet Earth. Thank you. You're welcome, by the way. There's no answer. There's no animal as beautiful as a woman. There's no possession as beautiful as a woman. And I want to say there is no man as beautiful as a woman. Men, when you brush your teeth tonight, look at yourself in the mirror. God did not make us beautiful, He made our wives and our daughters beautiful. Women are the most beautiful thing on planet Earth. The beauty of a woman can be intoxicating. But there are times that God allows in the covenant of marriage for that pleasure to be enjoyed, and it's a sacred bond. And anything outside of that covenant bond of marriage is no-no in the kingdom of God. And whether or not that was on his mind, he had the thought, I don't care how, I want it now. That was certainly the lust of the flesh, a desire to have his pleasure fulfilled immediately. And can I say something? When you and I are not living with God and we're not living for God, and we're in sin and we know it, then we become pleasure seekers. Maybe not to the degree that David did, but when you're living in sin and you want to ignore the sin that you're living in, you look for pleasure to numb it. Could be drugs or alcohol. For many people, it could be endless clicks on the internet, just looking for a dopamine hit, over and over and over, watching mindless videos to try to fill your heart and your body with pleasure that you don't have because you're not living in the will of God. Well, David saw something that he wanted, and David in that moment said, I will have it. And so I want to say, with that sin in your life that you're holding and looking at from your past, was there a moment that you said, you know what, this may not be God's will, but I want it, and I'm not going to stop until I get it. It goes from the condition of sin, you're not walking with God, to the criteria of sin. You have something that's not his will, and you say, I don't care if it's his will, I'm going after it. That's the criteria. Now we move to stage three, the conception. Verse three says, And David sent and inquired about the woman, and one said, Is not this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite? Now this is where the sin is conceived. Right here. Now your heart may not be in the right condition, and you've been susceptible to sin, and then you've been tempted. That's going to happen whether you're walking with God or not. You are going to be tempted. But where does sin, where is it conceived? Where does that sin seed take root? Where does it begin? It becomes in the moment that you face temptation and you consent to the temptation. You know that it's wrong, but you take your first step forward toward that sin instead of tearing in the other direction, you take the second look. I remember, and I think, Brother Larry, you're the one that told me this about Michael Guido. Michael Guido had a simple statement for all the years that people came to him for counseling. He said, There's no sin in the first look. All right? Again, for men, we all are mesmerized by beautiful women. The first look at a beautiful woman, it is not sin. The second look is where sin is born. You can take one look and say, God, you're a master creator. Wow. The second look is when your heart can sense to something that is not his will for you. Before she ever showed up on the roof, when he made the decision to take one step forward and find out more about who she is, he said yes to the temptation. And sin was conceived in his heart. Right there, before it ever took place, before she ever took the rooftop. That was the can the conception of sin. James chapter 1, verse 15 says, Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death. When you're tempted and you see the sin and you either say yes or you say, maybe. Let me find out more. Let me dip my toe in the water a little bit. Maybe it's just as bad as yes. Because sin is going to take root. It's going to happen. You want to see it done the right way. Go in the book of Genesis and look at what happened when Joseph was along with Potiphar's wife. You look at how it's supposed to be done the right way. Potiphar's wife is approaching him. From what we can tell, Joseph is not in any committed relationship, so he probably had a great sexual desire, and she approaches him. And what does he do? He doesn't even stop long enough to grab his coat. He took off. He ran the other direction. And even though he ran, he still had to go to prison for something he did not do. Now God made it right in time. And he'll make it right for the person that honors him. Even if it gets worse in the short term, he'll honor it in the long term. I say this with as much love as I can muster up, and you pray for me that I'll be faithful to what I'm preaching, that I won't be the biggest hypocrite in this church. When you are tempted by God, or tempted by Satan, God does not tempt, he tests. There's a big difference. He'll test you for righteousness, but Satan will tempt you for sin. When you are tempted by the enemy, by the evil one, may your first word be no. And may your direction be completely making a 180. When you say maybe, that's when it takes root. You don't even have to say yes, just maybe. And the evil one has you right where he wants you. That's the conception of sin. And think about how you got caught in whatever sin you were at in your life. Maybe you had, I think in my life, some of the greatest sins I've committed are things that I've said that I cannot take back. Words that have deeply wounded people that I care about. And I think about in that moment, that indignation, that burning inside of you, I'm going to tell this person what they need to hear. It may come out as wonderfully crafted sarcasm to get them right where they are. Whatever it is, that desire to stick it to them, that's the temptation. You say yes, or maybe to that temptation, you're going to say something or do something that causes damage. In that moment, you need to say, no. I don't need to talk right now. I don't need to act right now. I need to turn away from this right now. And I need the help of God right now. Sin is not something we can play with because once it conceives, then it causes death. That's number three. Number four, this is the consummation of sin. So sin has already been conceived. Now it's giving birth, and this is the entire process of the labor pains of sin. Verse 4, it says, So David sent messengers and took her, and she came to him and he lay with her. Now she had been purifying herself from her uncleanness. Then she returned to her house. Again, David, in his temptation, had a greater desire for intimacy with a married woman than he did have intimacy with God. He said, in the words of the great theologian Veruca Salt from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, I don't care how, I want it now. In that moment, the full consummation of sin took place. And David had no idea how that would affect, that one moment would affect the rest of his life. We're going to see the next few weeks as we look at that downward spiral. Remember the roof pitch? Right there, when he inquired about Bathsheba, the rest of his life is going to be the downward slope of the roof pitch for the rest of his life. Now, it doesn't mean he was not forgiven. It does not mean that he was not a man after God's own heart. It doesn't mean that God still did not honor him, but he sowed discord in his own home because of his own decisions. And it affected him the rest of his life. In that moment of consummation, we don't ever think about the consequences. We're going to talk about the consequences in a minute. But in that moment, all right, temptation makes you think, I don't care what I have to do, this has got to happen. I have to have this, this person or this possession or this honor or recognition. I have to have it and I will not stop until I get it. That temptation tells you your life is not fulfilled because you don't have this. The Bible says you only will be fulfilled in Jesus Himself. He is what you need. He is what brings joy and fulfillment. In his presence there is fullness of joy, and at his right hand are pleasures forevermore. And in walking in intimacy with Jesus, he does give you great gifts. But if you are not in intimacy with him, your heart's going to be longing for something else. And it will cause great damage in your life. So I ask to that sin you've been holding out thinking about, can you remember the moment where you desired that sin more than you desired Jesus? I remember where I was. I was driving my car listening to a podcast. There's a great preacher and professor of theology named Brian Chappell. He's written a lot of great books. He said one of his students asked him, Why do we still sin? And he said something really simple, and it hurt when I heard it. He just said, in any moment of sin, any moment, whatever you're doing, in that moment you love that sin more than you love Jesus. That hurts. Because I would say in my life, and I would hope for your life as well, you do genuinely love Jesus. It doesn't mean that you and I are perfect, but it means in that moment our heart is swaying. And that's why our relationship with Jesus is going to affect every other relationship in our life. We've got to make that our daily priority. The songs that Jody chose today are picture perfect. When I have Jesus, I have everything I need, but I've got to keep my eyes on him, or I'm going to desire something outside of his will, and I'm going to make that my God. That's what idolatry is, turning a false God into the one true God. So that leads us to our fifth stage. We looked at the condition, the criteria, the conception, the consummation. Now the damage. Stage five, the consequence of sin. Verse five, and the woman conceived and she sent and told David, I am pregnant. Now, we're going to see for the rest of this series the damage, the consequence. We don't see it right away. We see that Bathsheba is pregnant, out of wedlock with another man's baby. And the worst is yet to unfold. It is going to destroy Bathsheba's family. Her husband's going to die because of this. It's going to destroy David's family. His children are going to war against each other. There's going to be lots of bloodshed. It's going to affect the entire nation of Israel. Let me just say this. I say this in love. Your sin will always affect more than just you. Your choices affect the people that you love, and it has a ripple effect further than you ever dare dream. Sometimes as a pastor, when I've had to, and I hate this, it's not my favorite part of my job, but when I've had to visit people who are living in significant unrepentant sin and call them to repentance, their immediate response is like, this is my private life. You stay out of it. No. As your pastor, I'm called to be a shepherd. It doesn't mean I'm a CEO that makes every decision, but it also doesn't mean I'm a chaplain that just prays and goes home. I have to stand before God and account for your soul as your shepherd. And that means sometimes living in sin, I've got to call you and walk with you to turn away from that sin. Because when you live that way, it's going to affect more than just you. It's going to affect your family, and it's going to it's going to affect the covenant church family that you're a part of. And that's why we can't turn a blind eye to these things. But you know, there is good news. There is good news. There is no sin where his grace is not greater. So you hold these two things in tension when you've dealt with serious sin. Number one, if God has forgiven it, then I'm not going to dwell on it anymore. But number two, I'm going to remember the consequences because I don't want to fall into it again. I think those two things are part of the Christian life. We praise God that it's covered in the blood. It's not going to be brought up again at judgment. It's been dealt with if we've confessed and repented. But yet we need to recognize the damage that it does. I remember years ago, if you guys remember Paul Anderson, the world's strongest man that built the youth home in Vidalia, he used to do all these strength demonstrations and then he would share the gospel. Well, one day he took a bunch of the boys from the children's home and they went out in the woods and he took a railroad stake and he drilled it into the trunk of a tree and he said, This is sin. And then he ripped it out and he said, This is what Jesus has done to your sin. And the boys thought the demonstration was over. They went back to the tree a few weeks later. And there was all kinds of insects crawling inside the tree in that hole, and you could see that part of the tree was starting to deteriorate right away, the hole compromised the trunk. And he said, Boys, has the sin been removed? And they said, Yep. Did it leave a mark? You better believe it. We need to remember those two things. We are forgiven if we've confessed and repented. We don't need to live under guilt for things that happened in the past. Satan would love to bring those things back that you'd have guilt today for sins that have been forgiven yesterday. But also remember the consequences that you can avoid future pain because of pain of the past. You know, my mother said this at my high school graduation. She said, Bo, you've gotten everything wrong once, but you've never made the same mistake twice. Well, I hope that's true the rest of my life. I've messed it up upside down three times till Tuesday, but I've tried not to make the same mistake twice. And the only way we can do that is to remember the consequence of when we messed up once. Of the damage that it does. Sin is not to be played with. The wages of sin is death. But the gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord. So let me sum it up, we'll land the plane here. David's failure with sin points us to Christ's victory over sin as our true pathway and power to overcome temptation. I'll say it again. David's failure with sin points us to Christ's victory over sin as our true pathway and power to overcome temptation. You say, Bo, man, sin is so powerful. How am I ever going to overcome it? And I say, by clinging to the hem of the garment of the one who has already overcome it. Jesus was perfect in every way that we failed. He is the second Adam. He did everything that the first Adam failed in, but he was faithful. He went into the wilderness after he was baptized, and he was tempted in every way that Adam was, yet he was successful where the first Adam failed. He was told to turn stones into bread. That's the lust of the flesh. And he said, Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. He was tempted by the lust of the eyes. That's the kingdoms of the world. And he said, I will not bow down and worship you. And then the pride of life, he was tempted with power to test God and throw himself on the mount of the temple where the angels would carry him. And he said, I will not put the Lord my God to the test. Over and over and over, where we failed, Jesus succeeded. So what we need is more Jesus. What we need is to start our day in prayer. Lord, don't let go of me today. And what we need is to practice the presence of Jesus, talking with him as we're doing work, talking with him as we're talking to other people, never letting him out of our sight. When he becomes our desire, the things of the world grow strangely dim. And we remember this in our time of temptation. Hebrews chapter 4, verse 15 says, For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. We have a Savior who never compromised. So when we're struggling, we say, Jesus, help me. And he says, I will help you because I know what temptation is. I mean, stop and think. Jesus died at 33. Do you think he ever saw a beautiful woman? Do you think at any time that he was ever tempted? I mean, in the wilderness, those were legitimate temptations. He was legitimately hungry. He legitimately wanted to be worshipped because he is God. He legitimately wanted to see the power of God, but he would not have the promises of God on his own terms. It was always, nevertheless, not my will but yours be done. And if we're ever going to overcome these temptations because they will not stop until we die, we have got to cling to him. We've got to love him and walk with him. We've got to enjoy him. You know, Jesus or Jody sang, friendship with Jesus. Man, that makes my heart tremble. What a friend we have. Yesterday I was sitting on my porch and I said this out loud, Jesus, your friendship really is everything. Everything I have flows out of that. And you could take away everything else, but if I have that, I have enough. Don't take your eyes off him. Even for a moment. If a man after God's own heart could commit a sin that would ruin the rest of his ministry, then anybody in this room can fall prey to temptation if we take our eyes off Jesus. Those are the stages of sin, but we have a Savior who is greater. In this time of invitation, right now, wherever you are, do business with him. Recognize the issues in your life right now, leave them at his feet and don't let go of him. And he will not let go of you. Let's pray. God, it's so frustrating. It's so frustrating to live in a fallen world where the enemy is relentlessly tempting us with the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life. It's so easy to say, I'll never make it through victorious. But we claim your word today that greater is he who is in us than he who is in the world. Help us to take sin seriously, Lord. Help us. We plead with you. Walk with us, Lord. As Jody's saying, help us to recognize that if we have Jesus, we have everything. Help us to yearn for intimacy with your son. To spend time with him and walk with him and talk with him and be with him and let every relationship flow out of that primary relationship and help us not to take our eyes off him, Lord. Be with us right now, I pray in Jesus' name. Amen.