Godly Sorrow | Sunday, June 28, 2026

Then the Lord sent Nathan to David. And he came to him, and said to him: "There were two men in one city, one rich and the other poor. The rich man had exceedingly many flocks and herds. But the poor man had nothing, except one little ewe lamb which he had bought and nourished... Now a traveler came to the rich man, who refused to take from his own flock... but he took the poor man's lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him." So David's anger was greatly aroused against the man, and he said to Nathan, "As the Lord lives, the man who has done this shall surely die! And he shall restore fourfold for the lamb, because he did this thing and because he had no pity." Then Nathan said to David, "You are the man!... Why have you despised the commandment of the Lord, to do evil in His sight? You have killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword; you have taken his wife to be your wife..." So David said to Nathan, "I have sinned against the Lord." (2 Samuel 12:1–13, condensed)

The Bible refuses to whitewash its greatest king—and in David's worst day we discover why he is still called a man after God's own heart.

Fly on the Wall: A Troubling Story

This week we continue our summer series, Fly on the Wall, where we get to be spectators watching God interact with individuals in Scripture. We've seen God meet Moses in Exodus, and last week Jacob wrestling with God in Genesis 32. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God (2 Timothy 3), so nothing in the Bible is there by accident. These conversations reveal God's character, expose things about ourselves, and teach us how to live.

This week we come to the climax of what may be one of the most bothersome stories in all the Bible. That's a bold statement, but I think you'll understand why as we go. If you read through the Old Testament—and I encourage you to actually do it, Genesis to Revelation, even through Leviticus and 1 Chronicles—you cannot avoid the towering figure of David.

The Man After God's Own Heart

David is one of the most beloved characters in Scripture: the shepherd boy who became king, the great psalmist of Israel who wrote at least 75 of the 150 Psalms. He was the youngest and most overlooked of Jesse's eight sons, out tending sheep when Samuel came to anoint him. He killed the giant Goliath, fled from Saul for more than a decade, united the twelve scattered tribes into one nation, conquered Jerusalem and made it the capital, and stands in the very lineage of Christ, who is called the Son of David.

And yet 1 Samuel and Acts 13 record that he was a man after God's own heart. What a title. But among all the highlights of his life there is one lowlight—the one story David probably wished you would forget. As the Bible teacher Alistair Begg often says, "The best of men are men at best." Even the best of men on their best days are still the worst of sinners. The very fact that this story remains in the Bible points to its divine inspiration, because nationalistic literature would have quietly erased it.

David and Bathsheba: The Low Point

Most people know the story of David and Goliath. I once tried for months to share the gospel with a businessman, and when I told him about David and Goliath, he stopped me: "Wait, that story's in the Bible? I thought they made it up in business school to talk about the little guy overcoming the big guy." But people also know David and Bathsheba—the high high and the low low of a single life. Imagine your worst day recorded for the whole world to read. That is this story.

To understand it, back up to 2 Samuel 11:1: "It happened in the spring of the year, at the time when kings go out to battle, that David sent Joab and his servants... and all Israel... But David remained at Jerusalem." Those five words are key. Spring was the season when Israel's enemies attacked and the king led the armies out. David, once great in battle, sent his generals instead and stayed home.

Point one: idle disengagement is often the first step toward sin. Remaining in Jerusalem was not itself sinful, but disengagement is where temptation comes looking. If you consider your own story, you've probably seen the same thing.

Blowing Past the Exits

One evening David rose from his bed and walked on the roof of his house. From there he saw a woman bathing, very beautiful to behold. He inquired about her, and someone told him: "Is this not Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?" Then David sent messengers and took her, and lay with her.

Staying home was not sin. Walking on the roof was not sin. Even seeing the woman was not sin—but he didn't stop there. Seeing turned to beholding, then coveting, then inquiring, then sending for her. And notice how many warnings God gave him. Bathsheba was the granddaughter of Ahithophel, one of David's chief and wisest advisors. Her husband Uriah the Hittite was one of David's own mighty men of valor, one of the loyal warriors who had fought beside him during the years he fled from Saul. When David heard whose wife she was, that should have been the "no touchy" voice in his head. The exits were there, and he wasn't taking them.

Paul writes that these Old Testament accounts were recorded for our instruction (1 Corinthians 10). "Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape" (1 Corinthians 10:12–13).

Point two: there are always ample exits along the path to sin. God is gracious; He gives us off-ramps. He warned Cain that sin was crouching at his door. James says each of us is tempted when we are drawn away by our own desires and enticed; when desire conceives, it gives birth to sin, and sin fully grown brings death. Scripture says to flee sexual immorality—like Joseph, who ran from Potiphar's wife and left his cloak behind. David did the opposite.

Sin Like Leaven

"And the woman conceived." For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. David likely thought this was a brief indiscretion, best kept quiet—until the message came: "I am with child." Actions have consequences, and when consequences come, we face new choices about how to respond. David responded badly.

He summoned Uriah from the battlefield, hoping the soldier would go home and sleep with his wife, covering the pregnancy. But Uriah had too much integrity: while the ark and the armies were in the field, he refused to go home and enjoy his own bed, sleeping instead at the door of the king's house. David tried again, even getting him drunk—and still Uriah would not go home. So in the morning David wrote a letter, carried by Uriah's own hand, ordering Joab to set Uriah in the front of the fiercest fighting and withdraw, so he would be killed.

Point three: sin, like leaven, has a tendency to expand and explode. A little leaven leavens the whole lump. David coveted his neighbor's wife (the tenth commandment), which became adultery (the seventh), which became murder (the sixth), which became deceit and false witness. When Uriah died and Bathsheba mourned, David brought her into his house and married her—appearing to everyone as the noble king caring for a fallen soldier's widow. "But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord." Covetousness, theft, adultery, murder, lying, dishonor—six commandments broken. No wonder people ask how this man could be after God's own heart.

God Is the First Mover

But look at the very next word: "Then the Lord sent Nathan to David." Don't miss it.

Point four: God is always the first mover in dealing with man's sin. We saw it in Genesis 3—Adam and Eve hid, but God went to them, promised redemption, and clothed them with skins that implied a sacrifice. We saw it with Cain in Genesis 4. Romans 3 declares there is none righteous, none who seeks after God; we have all turned aside. Isaiah 53 says all we like sheep have gone astray. It is not we who pursue God—it is God who seeks us out. "While we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5). Jesus is the good shepherd who leaves the ninety-nine for the one, "for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost" (Luke 19:10).

Nathan came with great wisdom and courage—remember, David had already killed to cover his sin. To a former shepherd he told a story about a stolen lamb. When David's anger blazed against the rich man, Nathan delivered the mic-drop of all mic-drops: "You are the man." Then came God's devastating indictment: "I anointed you king... I delivered you from Saul... I gave you your master's house... and if that had been too little, I would have given you much more. Why have you despised the commandment of the Lord?"

The Difference Between Saul and David

Here is the answer to our question—verse 13: "So David said to Nathan, 'I have sinned against the Lord.'" This is where the difference between Saul and David becomes clear. The wrong way to see it is to imagine David as always righteous and Saul as the failure. No—both are sinners, like every one of us. David's unrighteousness is displayed in full color, and it is truly wicked.

Every person will at some point be confronted with their sin, and in that moment we face a choice about how to respond. Saul, confronted by Samuel in 1 Samuel 15, said the very same words: "I have sinned." But then he added, "because I feared the people and obeyed their voice"—shifting the blame. "Yes, I broke the rules, but everyone else was doing it." I'm sure none of us has ever thought that way.

David said, "I have sinned against the Lord." You might ask, what about Uriah, Bathsheba, Ahithophel? David recognized that all sin, though it wounds others, is ultimately against God, the moral lawgiver.

A Broken and Contrite Heart

We know David's heart was different because of what he wrote afterward in Psalm 51—"A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet went to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba." "Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Your lovingkindness; according to the multitude of Your tender mercies, blot out my transgressions." David is clearly echoing the self-revelation of God from Exodus 34—"merciful and gracious... forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin." He goes on: "I acknowledge my transgressions... Against You, You only, have I sinned and done this evil in Your sight."

This is confession. This is repentance. And David also accepted the consequences. God's grace forgives, but consequences do not always disappear. David had declared the guilty man should "restore fourfold"—and it is striking that four of David's own children were destroyed as fruit of his sin. Where Saul fought against God's consequences for more than a decade, David accepted them. Psalm 51 is why David is a man after God's own heart—not because he was flawless, but because when he sinned he finally confessed, repented, and turned to God for grace.

Grace to the Humble

Point five: God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble. James quotes these words, but they were first penned by David. Because God is gracious, He will send a Nathan or a Samuel to you when you stray. And in that moment I hope you remember this truth. The man or woman after God's own heart is not the one who does everything perfectly—none of us would qualify—but the one who humbles himself before God.

See the grace in the opening words of the New Testament: "Jesse begot David the king, and David the king begot Solomon by her who had been the wife of Uriah" (Matthew 1:6). That is undeserved, unmerited favor—the very lineage of the Messiah runs through David's greatest failure and God's greater grace. "God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive... by grace you have been saved through faith... not of works, lest anyone should boast" (Ephesians 2).

God extends grace to us not so we would hoard it, but so we would carry it to others as His ambassadors. Perhaps today, in your heart, you are far from God—and God says, turn to Me in humble repentance and I will give you grace. And perhaps this week you will stand in Nathan's place, carrying the word of grace to someone else. We live in a world that desperately needs the grace of God, and it is available to anyone who will humbly say, "God, please save me." That is the good news of the gospel.

Closing Prayer

God, thank You for this story. It's one of those accounts that hits us when we read it. Thank You that we get to peek in on it, because under the inspiration of Your Spirit You caused the lowest point in David's life to be recorded—not so we would only see the depths of his depravity, but so You could reveal the greatness of who You are. Thank You that You pursue us when we're far from You. Thank You that when we, like sheep, go astray, You willingly leave the ninety-nine to pursue the one, because You are the good shepherd who came to seek and to save that which was lost. Every one of us is lost or has been lost, and You come with such amazing grace—how sweet the sound that saved a maggot like us. We praise You, Jesus. Help us to be not only recipients of Your grace, but conduits of it to others. In Jesus' name, and all those who agreed said, Amen.