Having It All ~ 2 Samuel 11:26-12:10; 12:13-15 ~ Fourth Sunday after Pentecost

What do you think of when you hear the name:

Lance Armstrong.  O.J. Simpson.  Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.  Amanda Bynes.  Mel Gibson.

Do you know them as sports heroes?  Respected government leaders?  Entertainers?

Or do you know them for their dramatic falls from grace?

Thanks largely in part to 24-hour cable news, reality television, and our culture’s general obsession with celebrities, we watch their stars fall. 

Today, God’s Word brings us a 3,000-year-old story of King David—and his fall from grace. 

The drama begins with David sitting on top of the world.  He’s the most powerful king on earth, such that no army can defeat him.  He has all the wealth, power, and prestige he could ever want.  Add to that, King David was “a man after God’s own heart,” such that God blessed and prospered him in everything he did.  But just when his star was at its highest, his fall from grace begins…

Israel is at war with one of its neighbors, but David decides to give himself a vacation instead of going away with his soldiers.  So he’s at home in his palace—and his idle hands prove to be the devil’s playground…  He sees a woman by the name of Bathsheba from his palace window—a married woman whose husband is off fighting on David’s behalf.  He sends his men to get her…the next thing he knows, she’s pregnant with his child.  Desperate to save face, David goes into “damage-control mode.”  He doesn’t want anyone to find out that he’s the father of an illegitimate child.  So David schemes to have Bathsheba’s husband sent to the front lines of battle, where he dies—this way, he can’t deny that the child born to his wife is not his own. 

So David goes from being a man after God’s own heart—to an adulterer—and then a murderer.  And this tragic story has much to teach us about the insatiable power of sin that lives inside of all of us…

David was a man who was used to getting whatever he wanted.  So when David looked upon Bathsheba, he allowed himself to be so consumed by his desire that he didn’t see the error of his own ways.  Did you notice how he reacted to the parable Nathan spoke to him?  When someone else committed the same crime he did, David knew it was wrong.  But today, we learn, that when our desires consume us, we lose our sense of right and wrong—because all that is right is getting what we want, and as much as we want, as quickly as possible…  It is our desires that give birth to sin. 

We may not be kings, queens, sports heroes, or celebrities—but our hearts are full of desires.  Money is probably the first thing that comes to mind—we desire it believing that we can buy happiness and security.  But there are so many other desires in our hearts: for attention or the admiration of others; the desire for others’ approval…  There’s the desire to control other people and control situations so that everything goes our way…  There’s the rebellious desire to live by no one else’s rules but our own.  Whatever the case, the desires blind us to the reality of our own evil.  We exploit the situations, we exploit other people—for our own benefit.  We sin.  We fall from grace.

David’s fall from grace serves as a stern warning to all of us that we will reap what we sow.  All sin has consequences.  But God uses those consequences to discipline us—but God’s discipline is never meted out to make us suffer.  God’s discipline is for our redemption.  God’s discipline breaks us free from sin’s deadly hold.

God is far and away more forgiving than we typically are toward those of fame and power who fall from grace.  The story of David’s fall from grace teaches us how forgiving God really is…

Today, we must acknowledge that sinful desires live in our hearts—for it is from the desires that we sin.  The only answer to the deadly power of sin is that we re-direct all of our desires towards God.  This is the essence of repentance.  It’s a dramatic shift in our thinking and our doing.  It’s a dramatic shift in our understanding of what it means to “have it all.” 

It’s not about always getting your way, amassing unfathomable riches, and having everyone love you and admire you.  You “have it all” (so to speak) when you believe, by faith, that you are unconditionally loved and forgiven by the creator of the world, who holds all things in hand.  You have it all when you can bring all your desires and all your needs and all your hearts before the throne of God, unafraid and unashamed.  You have it all when you believe and trust that God will always care for you, never to leave you or forsake you.

You have it all when you cast your life into the nail-scarred hands of the One who gave his all for you, so that you can live forever as a beloved child of God.

You have it all when God is the object of your desire—because this is one desire that shall be met.