The fight against our sin is not easy, but with Jesus, we already have victory over it.

Yesterday, we wrapped up a 3 week series on the Rise and Fall of David as we discussed David’s Fall. You can listen to the sermon here.

After his defeat over Goliath, David quickly ascended to fame within his country. He survived a manhunt from the presently residing king, Saul and was well loved among the people once he became King. But in 2 Samuel 11-12, a sex scandal rocks David’s kingdom.

David’s affair with Bathsheba and the subsequent murder of Bathsheba’s husband Urriah takes away from his role model status we often give him. The main story of David’s life is God and just as well, God is the main story of your life.

David’s scandal is our scandal. We can’t pretend we are morally better than him when we have all fallen short of God’s standard (Romans 3:23). From this story, we can learn how we must handle temptation and our sin.

Here are 3 take aways from the sermon.

1. Stay engaged in the battle 

David didn’t just stumble upon Bathsheba taking a bath. He knew when women would bath and he knew he had the best advantage point in the whole city. He knew with his status as King, he could get any woman to sleep with him. David, however, should have been at war fighting with his men. He should have been fighting. Instead, he was idle.

We don’t stumble into sin. We sin because we stop engaging in the battle against sin. We often need a refresher course from Ephesians 6 and be reminded that the fight against sin and flesh requires suiting up with God’s armor. When we stop fighting and we are left to our own passions and desires, more often than not, we choose sin over Jesus.

2. Expose your sin

David’s healing from sin didn’t start with the coverup; it started when the Prophet Nathan called him out in 2 Samuel 12. When David realizes the severity of his sin, not on human terms, but that his sin was against God, he confessed and repented.

He didn’t try to blame it on someone else or wait to deal with it, he immediately owned it. He cries out to God for mercy and we see his prayer of confession and repentance in Psalm 51.

Healing from sin does not happen until we own it and expose it. This is much easier said then done. We have to set aside pride in order to pursue holiness. We have to seek help and we need to seek Jesus. The beautiful part about David’s confession – and likewise our confession – is God never turns it down. He restores David and he will restore us. But restoration doesn’t start until we own our sin and confess it.

3. Be captivated by Jesus

Instead of being captivated by sin and it’s temporary satisfactions, we need to be captivated by Jesus and the beauty of the Gospel working in our lives. David found beauty in a woman who he thought would satisfy his soul instead of finding beauty in the King who saved his soul. This is what John is is trying to capture for us in 1 John 3:1-3

“Behold (stand amazed!) what manner of love the Father has bestowed (given as a gift) to us, that we should be called the children of God; and so we are. Beloved, we are God’s children now…and we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.”

Here is what we need to remember and focus on as we deal with our sin: Jesus’s last words on the cross were not “go and fix yourself”, he said “It is finished”. The finished work of Jesus in our lives is what we must stand on in our fight against sin.

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