LIFE LESSONS
DAVID—PART II
COMMUNION SUNDAY
DR. JIM DIXON
2 SAMUEL 12: 1-10
JULY 20, 2003
Lady Godiva lived in England a thousand years ago. She was the wife of Earl Leofric of Mercia. According to legend, Lady Godiva asked her husband to reduce the taxes on the Lord of Coventry. At first, he refused, but she begged him, and so, finally her husband, being a kind of prankster, told her that he would reduce the taxes on the Lord of Coventry but only if she would ride on horseback naked through the streets of Coventry. For some reason, Lady Godiva agreed to do this. She told the people of the town of Coventry to go into their houses, to draw their curtains shut and not to look. She rode her horse naked through the streets of Coventry with her nakedness covered only by her long hair.
The good people of Coventry went into their houses. They closed the curtains. They did not look except for the tailor. One man, the tailor in the city of Coventry, pulled back the curtains so he could get a glimpse of Lady Godiva in her nakedness. According to the legend, when he saw her, he was struck blind. This tailor’s name was Tom, and of course we get the expression “peeping Tom” from this story of Lady Godiva.
David was King of Israel and he was great and he was good. But for one day at least, David was a peeping Tom. That day was in the springtime. David had sent the armies of Israel to war with the Ammonites. David was a warrior king and why he did not go we do not know, but we do know that on that day in the springtime he was at home in his royal palace. He had taken a late afternoon nap. After his nap he arose and went to the rooftop of his royal palace and he looked down. He saw a woman bathing. Perhaps she was on a lower rooftop. The Bible doesn’t tell us. She may have been in an inner courtyard of her residence. She might have been inside her house with the window open and David looking in. We do not know but we know this. David found her beautiful. In his lust, he inquired of her. He was told that her name was Bathsheba and that she was the wife of Uriah, one of David’s military officers. David knew his army was at war and Uriah was at war. In his lust, he summoned Bathsheba and, in his power, he took her. The Bible tells us he committed adultery with her.
That was not the end of David’s sin because David also decided to rid himself of her husband, Uriah. He sent a message to Joab, the commander of his army, and he told Joab to take Uriah and put him on the very front of the battle line in harm’s way and to abandon him there. Thus, Uriah was killed. So, David was guilty, not only of adultery but even of murder. You might be thinking, “Well, why is it? Why is it that David is viewed as great? Why is he considered Israel’s greatest king? Why does the Bible tell us, why did Samuel proclaim that David had a heart after God’s own heart? Why was God’s opinion of David favorable?”
David was not holy. David was a sinner. But as we saw last week, he was great in courage. As we saw last week, he was great in generosity. This week, we shall see that he was great in contrition. In the sight of God, nothing is more beautiful than contrition.
This morning we take a look at contrition as we come to the Lord’s Table. From a biblical perspective, contrition consists of two things. First of all, contrition consists of remorse. If you would be strong in contrition, if you would please God because of your contrition, you must be a person who is capable of remorse and you must be a person who has come to the cross with a heart filled with remorse.
Immediately after Nathan confronted David, the King David was filled with contrition, filled with remorse. In the aftermath, in his remorse, he wrote one of the most beautiful Psalms in the Bible. David wrote the 51st Psalm. If you want to go home and read a Psalm that expresses remorse, if you want to see godly remorse, if you want an example of how you should feel when you’ve sinned, read the 51st Psalm.
In that Psalm, David writes, “Have mercy on me, oh God, according to thy steadfast love. According to your abundant mercy, blot out all of my transgression. Wash me thoroughly from my inequity and cleanse me from my sin for I know my transgressions. My sin is ever before me. Against Thee and Thee only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight so that You are justified in Your sentence and blameless in Your judgement. Behold, I was brought forth in inequity. In sin did my mother conceive me. Behold, You desire purity in the inward person. Therefore, give me wisdom in my secret heart. Purge me with hyssop and I will be clean. Wash me and I will be whiter than snow. Fill me with joy and gladness. Let these bones which You have broken rejoice. Hide Your face from my sin and blot out all of my inequity.” David goes on to say, “For the Lord takes no delight in sacrifice. Were I to make a burnt offering, He would not be pleased, for the sacrifice acceptable to the Lord is a broken heart, a broken and contrite spirit He will not despise.”
David understood that contrition, genuine contrition, is precious in the sight of God. If you’re a Christian, you had some point in your life where you felt remorse and that remorse brought you to the cross and you sought Jesus as your Savior.
Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew, chapter 5, “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Bible scholars and theologians have debated, “What does ‘poor in spirit’ mean?” They know the Greek words, “Ptoches to pneumati,” but what does that phrasing mean? There’s been much scholarly debate and there was much scholarly debate until the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in a cave in Qumran. One of the Dead Sea Scrolls was the War Scroll, and on that scroll, they found these exact words, “Ptoches to pneumati,” “poor in spirit.” Contextually they were able to discover that supremely it mean remorse. Whatever else it means to be poor in spirit, it certainly means this. It means to feel remorse before God.
“Blessed are the poor in spirit,” Jesus said, “for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” You can’t even get into heaven unless you experience remorse.
I majored in psychology when I was in college in my undergraduate work. Part of the requirements in my major was to undergo what they call “practicum,” and I had to work at Camarillo State Mental Hospital in Camarillo, California. There at Camarillo State Mental Hospital for three months, I worked on the schizophrenic ward. I remember there were all kinds of varying people in the schizophrenic ward but there was one man I will never forget because he was constantly banging his head against the wall. If I was down the hallway and I heard a pounding, I knew who it was. If I was in the large great room and I heard a pounding, everyone knew it was this man hitting his head against the wall. I asked the floor psychologist what was wrong with this guy. The psychologist said, “He is riddled with guilt. His guilt is very deep and he seeks every day to atone for his sin by banging his head against the wall.” What a tragic scene.
You understand that you cannot atone for your sin. I cannot atone for my sin. Jesus Christ has atoned for our sin. He does not expect us to atone for our sin, but He does expect us to experience remorse for our sins. He expects remorse.
Many years ago, I was dating Barb. In fact, 32 years ago, when Barb and I were a few months away from being engaged, we were on a date. I had asked her to go to the beach with me in Southern California. I picked her up at her apartment in South Pasadena. I remember that, when I picked her up, she was wearing what back then was called “hot pants.” Hot pants were short pants. I remember that Barb looked really good in them.
I was a student in theological seminary at the time preparing for the ministry. I shouldn’t have noticed that I’m sure but I did. I think I was kind of distracted as we began to drive to the beach. At least I must have been distracted because on the Santa Monica Freeway, we’re driving along and suddenly I look in the rear-view mirror and I see these blinking red lights. This police officer pulls me over. He comes up to my window and he says, “You seem to be having some trouble staying in your lane.” He looked over at Barb and then he looked at me and he smiled. But then he wrote me up a ticket. Of course, I made restitution. I paid the penalty. I paid the ticket. I paid the fine.
That was not my first ticket. I’ve had other ones. That was not my last ticket. I’ve had other ones through the years, but in every case, I make restitution. In every case, I pay the penalty. In every case, I pay the fine. What’s true of me is surely true of you. You’ve had tickets. Some of you have had many tickets, but you make restitution before the governing authorities. In the eyes of the state, you pay the fine; you make restitution. But, you see, before God, we cannot do that because the debt is too great. The sin is too huge. We can’t make restitution.
I have sinned against God in my thought life. I have sinned against God in my attitudes. I have sinned against God in my behavior. My sin is so great when compared to a holy God, I cannot make restitution. I cannot pay the price. But, you see, the glory of the Gospel is this. Jesus Christ paid the price. He made restitution for me and for you. What He expects from us is remorse. It’s remorse that brings us to the cross. It’s remorse that brings us to the Savior. But remorse is only part of contrition. So, we have a second teaching this morning, and that concerns repentance.
Contrition involves remorse, but remorse is not enough. Remorse means you feel bad. Remorse means you feel sorry for what you’ve done, but that’s not enough, because genuine contrition pleasing to God requires repentance. The Greek word for repentance, the biblical word for repentance, is the word, “metanoeo.” Metanoeo literally means, “after thought” or “after mind.” It was a word that was used to describe the changing of your mind. It means, “to change your mind.” It literally means, “to resolve to change.” Of course, if you really have contrition, you’ll not only feel bad about it, you’ll not only feel remorse, but you’ll repent and you’ll change your mind, and you will resolve, by the grace of God, to change.
Of course, the great illustration of repentance biblically is the Parable of the Prodigal Son, where Jesus told us of the man who left his father, took his inheritance and ran to a distant country and lived a profligate life. In the midst of his debauchery, he suddenly experienced contrition and, in his contrition, felt remorse. In his remorse, he repented. He changed his mind. Jesus said he came to his right mind. In changing his mind and coming to his right mind, he turned around and came back to his father and humbled himself, resolving to live a noble life.
This is what contrition means. We look at David and we see his contrition. We understand how precious it is to God. David felt remorse and then he repented. He resolved to change. He knew he would need God’s help to change. He cried out to God and he said, “Create in me a clean heart, oh God. Put a new and right spirit within me.” Psalm 51 again. Then later in the Psalm, we’re told that David said, “Uphold me with a willing spirit,” but that’s an unfortunate rendering by the RSV because in the Hebrew, it really means, “Give to me a willing spirit. Give me a willing spirit so I will WILL to do Your will. I want to change. I want to be different. This is what God expects of us.
There’s a great debate going on in Christian churches today all across America regarding the subject of music. I think the controversy focuses on the subject of hymns, the great hymns of the faith, Christian hymns. Those people who were brought up in the church and a little bit older grew up loving hymns and singing hymns, and most of them still want to have hymns in the church today. Then of course those people who have come to the Church of Christ more recently did not grow up singing hymns. They’re not familiar with most of the hymns and many of them do not really like the hymns.
I’m one of those who grew up in the Church, and I have a great love for the great hymns of the faith. One of my favorite hymns is a hymn called “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessings.” How many of you have sung that song before—“Come Thou Fountain of Every Blessings?” Many of you have. That song was written by Robert Robinson. He wrote it in the 18th century. The year was 1757 when Robert Robinson wrote that great hymn, “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing.” He was only 23 years old at the time. He was in love with Christ, and he was walking with Christ, but in the years that followed his writing of that hymn, he experienced hardship, suffering, unbelievable tragedy, pain, and he rejected his faith. He turned away from Christ. He walked away and he lived a debauched life. For years and for decades, he lived a reprobate life.
He was traveling in Europe one day. He was at a cafe in France. He struck up a conversation there with a woman. He thought her very attractive, and he invited her out on a date. She said, “Instead of going on a date, why don’t you come with me tonight. There’s a group of Christians and we gather on this night every week. Why don’t you come and join us tonight?” He said, “I don’t do that anymore.” But he was so attracted to her that he said, “Okay.” He went, in the city of Paris, to this meeting of Christians. This group that was meeting began with the singing of hymns and songs. To his amazement, they begin by singing the song he had written, “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing.” As they sang that song that he had written decades before, he began to just break. His heart was breaking. For the first time in years, he began to experience remorse and he began to bawl and cry profusely. This woman turned to him and asked, “What’s wrong?” He said, “I wrote that hymn. Decades ago, I wrote that hymn and I’ve wandered away from God.” He said, “I want to come back.” He repented that night as God pursued him and brought him back.
He wrote these words in his diary. “Lord, I’m sorry. I want to change. I want to live for you. I want to come back. Forgive me.” That is contrition expressed in remorse and repentance. He wrote in his diary that he began to experience incredible joy as he once again was brought into a right relationship with God and began to feel the joy of walking with God again.
There’s a tragic mistake in the Christian churches today. In fact, there are really two of them. One mistake is to believe that as Christians we never sin. I’ve met Christians who believe that, that once you’re born again, you never sin, or at least you never sin deliberately. If you’re truly a Christian, you never sin deliberately. Usually, they base this on a misunderstanding of Hebrews, chapter 10, and 1 John, chapter 3 and 1 John, chapter 5. It’s a horrible mistake because Christians do sin. “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves.”
Of course, that’s a tragedy for those who think that they have no sin is they’re self-deceived. They really can’t accept the truth about their own thoughts, their own attitudes or about their own actions, and it produces a life of self-deception and hypocrisy.
The other tragedy is there some Christians who think, “Well, once you’re born again, once you’re regenerated, once you’ve come into the family of God, once you embrace Christ as your Lord and your Savior, you never need to repent again. Once you’ve come to the cross and you repent, you’re done with it. Your sin is forgiven you; past, present and future, and you never need to repent again. In a sense, that’s true, soteriologically. In terms of your salvation, that’s true. All of your sin forever is forgiven you when first you come to Christ. But, you see, there are issues of sanctification which refers to our pursuit of holiness and refers to our walk with God.
With regard to sanctification, we need always to repent, and the Bible makes that clear, that even as Christians, we need to repent. God wants us to have the joy and the peace that comes with knowing we are His and that we belong to Him, but He also wants us to feel remorse when we sin. He also wants us to experience repentance where we resolve to change when we’ve gone astray. He wants us to understand that we’ll only experience this joy and this full happiness when we respond to sin with remorse and repentance.
If you’re involved in anything in your life that you know is wrong, any aspect of your life where you’ve gone astray, you need to feel remorse and you need to resolve to change. You need to be a person of great contrition. This is what is pleasing to God.
Of course, you might be thinking, “Well, you know, I’m not sure that I have remorse. I wish I had remorse, but I don’t really feel sorry.” You might be thinking, “Well, I wish I wanted to change, but I don’t really want to change.” What I’d like to ask you to do today as you come to the Communion Table, is to pray for the power of God’s Holy Spirit to transform you from within; that if you’re going astray, you’ll feel remorse. And if you’re going astray, you’ll resolve to change and to actually seek the Holy Spirit’s transforming power today.
I want to tell you one story as we close. According to most homiletic professors at most schools of theology, the greatest sermon ever preached on American soil, the greatest sermon ever preached in this country, was preached in 1741 in the town of Infield in the state of Connecticut or in the region of what is now Connecticut, Infield, Connecticut. It was a sermon by Jonathan Edwards called “Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God.” It was part of the Great Awakening, the revival that just swept over Colonial America.
Of course, that day in Infield, Connecticut, when Jonathan Edwards spoke, the crowd began to weep. People confessed their sin, and it was a massive outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Jonathan Edwards was a brilliant man, and he was a compassionate man. He rarely preached about the anger of God, rarely preached about the wrath of God. The following year he went to become a missionary to the Indians. Seven years later, he became the President of Princeton University. His picture hangs today in Nassau Hall on the Princeton campus where the First Continental Congress met. A great man, but here’s the amazing thing.
That sermon he preached in Infield, Connecticut in 1741 was the same sermon he had preached the week before in North Hampton, Massachusetts at his own church. Church historians have gone back and they actually have the record—word for word. He had preached the identical sermon the prior week in North Hampton, Massachusetts and nothing happened. There was no weeping. There was no repentance. There was no great awakening. There was no movement of the Spirit of God. The only thing different that next week when he preached in Infield, Connecticut, according to Jonathan Edwards, there was no difference in him. He had the same preparation, the same attitude of heart, and he spoke the same words. The only difference was the Holy Spirit showed up.
Do you understand that? In order for things to happen, the Holy Spirit has to show up. In order for anything to ever happen here on a Sunday morning, the Holy Spirit has to show up. It’s not what I say. It’s His power. He has to show up. For anything to happen in my life, for anything to happen in your life, the Holy Spirit has to show up. Do you ever pray for that? Do you ever pray for the Spirit of God to come upon you? To fill you with remorse and repentance for sin? The amazing thing is that when you pray that prayer, I honestly believe God provides.
You pray that prayer today as you come to this table, and you’ll sense the power of His Spirit come upon you in this day and the days ahead. As you feel remorse and contrition, you’ll begin to experience joy and happiness. As you resolve to change, then all the blessing of God will begin to come upon you. That’s the beauty of this life lesson from David. Let’s come to the Lord with a word of prayer.