We continue today with our third installment in our series on the Bible’s Biggest Losers, and I hope you are getting as much out of this series as I have in writing it. It’s made me feel good to know a little bit more about the people of the Bible who really messed up big time, and to know that God was still able to use them. Because I’m the kind of person who messes up a lot, so to know that God can still use people who are far from perfect makes me feel better.
So just to recap a little bit, the first week we talked about Adam and Eve and how they were losers because they were disobedient, and yet in the midst of that, God showed them mercy, patience, and forgiveness. Last week we talked about Samson and how we was a loser because of his pride, even though everything he had was from God. And again, God was able to use Samson to do his will, even in the midst of Samson’s pride, and all the while, God was drawing Samson closer to his presence.
So today, if you’ve looked at the title of the sermon, you see we are going to
look at another loser in the Bible: King David. I realized over this last year
that this is a dangerous sermon to preach, because David is one of the most
beloved figures in all of the scriptures. Everyone loves David. We love David
the brave who as a little boy stood before a giant and took him down with a
slingshot. We love David the merciful who did not kill King Saul when he had
the chance to, even though King Saul was trying to kill him. We love David the
victor who conquered the Philistines, the same Philistines that Samson had
fought, and established his throne in
Well, it is precisely because of this high standard that we hold David to that
we find him as one of the biggest losers of the Bible. We first read about
David in 1 Samuel chapter 16, when the prophet Samuel comes and anoints him as
the next chosen king of
David is doing wonderfully. His is obedient to God. He is growing the
Have you ever heard the expression, “You should quit while you’re ahead?” If David would have stopped right there, if his story ended right there, David wouldn’t be on the list of the Bible’s Biggest Losers. But, unfortunately, there is more to the story of David. And it was read for us from 2 Samuel Chapter 11. David’s army is out fighting, but David stayed home. Mistake number 1. He’s out for a walk on his roof checking out his city and he notices a beautiful woman, taking a bath. Instead of closing his eyes or looking the other way, he sends to find out who she is. Mistake number 2. He finds out her name is Bathsheeba, and that she is the wife of Uriah, one of is army commanders. Instead of saying, oh well, she’s already taken, he says, go get her for me, and he takes her back into his bedroom. Mistakes number 3 and 4. A little while later Bathsheeba comes back to David and says, “I’m pregnant.”
Now, it isn’t too late for David to come clean. He’s had some time to think about what he’s done. He can confess and beg forgiveness from Uriah and Bathsheeba. Speaking of Bathsheeba, you know in the previous two stories, with Adam and Eve and with Samson, it seems like the women are always getting the men in trouble, doesn’t it? Well, you can’t blame this one on Bathsheeba. She didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. If the king sends for you, you go or you die. This one falls squarely on the shoulders of David.
But David does not come clean and ask forgiveness. Instead, he invites Uriah to come back up for a quick conjugal visit with his wife to try to cover this up! Mistake number 5. However, Uriah is too loyal to his troops and his vows as a soldier, and he basically says, “My other men don’t get to go be with their wives, so I won’t either.” This ruins David’s plans. So David tries again, and this time he got Uriah drunk first. Mistake number 6. But Uriah still would not go to his wife.
So then David gets really bad and he sends Uriah back to the battle, and he gives him a letter to deliver to Joab, the commander of the army. The letter tells Joab to put Uriah at the front of the fighting so that he will die in battle. In essence, he sent Uriah back to deliver his own death sentence. Mistake number 7. Of course Uriah was killed in the next battle, and David took Bathsheeba as his own wife. Mistake number 8.
David made a lot of mistakes in a short period of time. Everything had been
going so well, and then all of the sudden he crashed and burned. Why? What
happened? Well, there’s a bit of irony to this story. You remember I said that
David had the Ark of the Covenant brought back to
But David did covet his neighbor’s wife. For a little bit of a clearer definition, since we don’t necessarily use the word every day, the word covet means to desire wrongfully, inordinately, and without regard for the rights of others. The problem with coveting is that is brings about a host of other sins with it, and that’s what we see with David. Coveting itself is almost always just the starting point of a sin. Once you start to covet something, other sins follow. For David, he saw Bathsheeba, and he coveted to have her. David knew she was married, but sent for her anyways, and he got her pregnant. Now he’s in more trouble. So he tries to cover it up, and that doesn’t work. And in the end, he has Uriah killed. It all started out innocently enough. He started to covet his neighbor’s wife. But that coveting led to adultery, deception, lying, conspiracy, and eventually murder.
And coveting isn’t always this obvious. It doesn’t always end in murder or adultery. Folks, of all of the ten commandments, coveting is the sneakiest. It can creep into your life without you realizing it. And coveting can be the most dangerous, because it can lead you down a road that you never thought you would go down. Coveting helps you begin to dig a hole, and the next thing you know, you need a ladder to get out of it. And furthermore, coveting is one of the most popular sins in our American society today! Our economy is built on the expectation of businesses that Americans will covet their neighbor’s possessions. We do not have a needs-based economy where businesses cater to the essential needs of the consumer. We have a coveting-based economy where businesses push the ideal of keeping up with the Jones’. And we buy it hook, line, and sinker! We go out and buy everything that we covet, and at the end of the month, a bill or two comes from the credit card company, and we realize that our credit card bill is higher than all our other bills, and the only stuff we’ve bought on the credit card is stuff that we WANT, not stuff that we NEED! It’s stuff that we coveted to have, but we know stealing is wrong, right, so we don’t go and just take stuff from our neighbor. No, instead, we splurge and spend our God-given resources on things that we have coveted to have, and the end result is debt, stress, unfaithful tithing, more stress, and depression. So what do we do to fix that? We dig ourselves in deeper and go shopping and buy stuff to make us feel better. And you start to fight with your spouse. Did you know that arguing over finances, not infidelity, arguing over finances is the number one problem that leads to divorce according to American couples who have been divorced in the last ten years? Finances. And it’s not because we are a poor, impoverished country. It’s because we have a coveting problem. And the hole gets deeper and deeper.
Coveting sneaks in and rears its ugly head all over the place in our lives. And sometimes it takes someone else to point out that we have a problem. It took someone else for David to realize it. In the chapter after David had Uriah killed, because of the infidelity he had committed because of his coveting, God sent a prophet named Nathan to see David. And Nathan told David a parable. He said, “Hey David, suppose there were two men, one rich and the other poor. And the rich man had huge flocks of sheep and the poor man had one little ewe. And suppose the rich man was in need of a sheep for a dinner party he was throwing, so he stole the poor man’s only little sheep and served it for dinner.” And David got angry and said, “That man deserves to die!” Nathan looked him square in the eye and said, “You are the man!” And he pointed out David’s sin of coveting Uriah’s wife, and David confessed his sin. And the child that Bathsheeba was pregnant with died as a punishment for his sin.
See how low the sin of coveting can bring even a mighty king like David? A man after God’s own heart? And he is reduced to being one of the biggest losers of the Bible because of his coveting. Friends, let it not be so with us. Every Sunday during our time of offering I say a prayer that recognizes God as the one who gives us everything we could ever need. And he goes beyond that and blesses us with even more than what we need. Because what do we need? A relationship with God, food, water, air, shelter, family, and friends. But God goes beyond these meager needs and blesses us with more than the minimum needed for survival. He gives us extravagant homes, wonderful food, more than we could eat. Wonderful families and friends and a church family to boot. And a relationship not only with him, but with His son Jesus.
And yet we are not fulfilled. We need more stuff. So we covet more. And eventually our want of more can lead us to a place where the stuff we covet can take the place…of family, friends, and our relationship with God.
But there is a cure for coveting. It’s called…satisfaction. When will we be satisfied? When will we recognize what is most important to us, and start living like it? When will we stop looking at what our rich neighbor has and saying “I wish I had what he has,” and start looking at our poor neighbor and saying, “I wish they had what I have, a relationship with Jesus.”
Now, as in the other stories with Adam and Eve and Samson, there is a happy ending. Yes, David and Bathsheba's child dies. And they mourn the tragic loss that resulted from their sin. But God forgave David and granted David and Bathsheba a second child. His name was Solomon.
Folks if you are in a deep hole that has been dug with a covetous life, today is a great day to put down the shovel you’ve been digging with and grab a ladder. It’s never too late for God to forgive you, and better yet, it’s never too late for God to bless you. But you’ve got to stop the cycle that’s taking you down. You’ve got to realize the hole that coveting has put you in. Because as long as you are letting stuff control your life and as long as the goal of your life is to keep up with the Jones’ and as long as your daily actions revolve around getting more, you are going to have problems. Because Jesus won’t be second place. Jesus needs to be number one.
Don’t let society fool you. Stuff will never bring you happiness. I was watching a TV special the other day on the world’s richest people, and Ted Turner was on there. He’s very generous, and gave away a billion dollars last year alone. But he still is sitting on another 12 billion. When asked why he didn’t give away more, he said he wanted to make sure there was enough left for his retirement. And when asked how much was enough to retire on, he said, “A little more.”
You will never reach enough, until you stop reaching for stuff, and decide that
Jesus is enough. Because when you decide Jesus is enough, and all of your needs
are met, that’s when you are truly blessed, and that’s when satisfaction takes
a hold in your life. Is Jesus enough for you?
Van Buren United
Pastor Dan Metzger