The Freedom of Admitting You're Wrong | Dylan Young | 2 Samuel 11-12

I am really grateful to be in front of you this morning, always gonna consider this a privilege. Thankful that Pastor Robbie would give me the chance to do this and a couple little disclaimers before we get going this morning. We're talking about the story of David and Bathsheba. It's got some topics in there that if you're a parent in the room and you get your kids with you, I don't want you to be blindsided by some of the things we talk about. They're gonna talk about it in the kids wing this morning, same story, do it in a kid-friendly way. I wrote all this with my seven-year-old in mine 'cause he's gonna be in here next time. But I just want you to know where we're getting to some adult topics, if you will. And would you do this for me? I don't know how you normally take notes or read along in your Bible, but if you normally do that on a tablet or on your phone or some sort of screen, I'm asking just for today just to put that away and just listen 'cause I know for me, when I've got any sort of screen out, I'm way more distracted, way less likely to hear from God. So I'm actually just put that up for today, no shame in it. I just want you to listen and see what God might have to say to you in that way. So several years back, Rachel was on one of the exciting trips that we get to take to Walmart to return things.

And she's in the customer service line, right? And there's somebody over to the side at the coin-star machine, they're clanging in their chains, they're trying to get some quiet dollar bills back out of there. And they either didn't care or didn't notice when they dropped a penny. And this penny started rolling, it's rolling towards the cash registers and the good Samaritan in line in front of Rachel. Stepped that a line, went and grabbed the penny and then got back in line and did not return the penny. And yes, you're hanging me correctly, penny. One US cent, the currency we don't make anymore because it's so worthless, this person decided to take from the person to the coin-star machine. And Rachel, this is one of the reasons I love her, she speaks up. She says, "Hey, that was their penny." And the person just kinda says, "Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah." Rachel says, "I think you should give it back." And so this person gets out of line, returns the penny, and then just leaves. Like they can't get back in line at that point, right? Listen, we hear the story like, we're like, what in the world you would never do something like that, right? It's a bizarre story. We can't believe somebody was stooped so low.

But I will say, do we not hear actually stories like that pretty often where we're shocked at how low somebody would go, how petty they would be in a given situation? They're more common than we might think. And especially when it comes from somebody that we feel like we know their character, we know they're a person of honor, we know they have a high seat, a high position, whatever it may be, like King David. And what we're gonna do is we study King David's life this morning. We're gonna get to the low point in his whole story, and we're gonna see what it looks like for him. We need to know how this happens so that we can avoid ending up in the spot he ended up in. We also need to see the freedom that he finds when he finally admits that he's wrong. If you're taking notes and you wanna title, that's your title for this morning, the freedom of admitting you're wrong. So we're gonna focus on second Samuel chapter 11 this morning, but we're gonna go back into first Samuel for a second to give us a running start into, to give us a little bit of character development to get us into that second Samuel chapter 11. And one of the things I love about reading narrative in the Bible, reading the stories, is that it doesn't just give you the straight up, do this, don't do this.

You don't just get these clear, one sentence instructions. You gotta pay attention, you gotta be a good reader to see what God is trying to teach you through the story. There are obvious things, but there are some not so obvious things as well. And maybe you've heard this before, but then the original languages that the Bible's written in, they didn't have exclamation points, they don't underline things or put 'em in bold or italics, nothing like that. So what did they do to emphasize something? How did they get their point across? They would repeat things. So they would repeat a word or a phrase or a storyline. And when you come across one of those things that you realize is repeated, you need to stop and realize, oh, I've just uncovered something. I need to dig a little deeper here to figure out what it is that God's trying to teach me through this repeated theme, okay? So what we're gonna do with David this morning is we look at his story. I want you to see a phrase that is repeated in his life that gives us insight into his story. And then we're gonna see a second word that comes along. And these two words are on a collision course later in the story. That's gonna bring David to a point of decision.

So I'm gonna give you the first one. I will make you work a little bit for the second one. If you would, go back to first Samuel chapter 17. So we're towards the front of your Bible. If you're turning there, the big numbers in your Bible are chapters of little numbers are verses. They just help us stay organized. Where are we in the story at this point? You've heard the story of David in Goliath. We studied it a few weeks ago. David has come to the front lines of the battle where he's bringing his brothers some food. And they think their little brother has some ulterior motive. They just think he's there to come see a show. They wanna see what Goliath looks like. He's there for whatever motive they don't think is pure, okay? So they're questioning him on why he's there. How does little brother David respond? He responds with the phrase, "What have I done?" 17 verse 29, "What have I done now?" Protests to David, "It was just a question." And I want you to notice how we feel in these four different instances. This is a story, we're developing a character. How do we feel towards David in this moment? I'm like, yeah, he's justified. He should be defending himself.

His brothers need to back off. Like all the younger siblings in the room are like, "Amen, please back off, older brothers." I'm just here, I'm just running on a mission from dad, right? I'm not doing anything wrong. Okay, that's how we feel towards David in this first instance. Let's go to the second one of the same phrase. Flip over to chapter 20. At this point, King Saul is trying to kill David. So David's on the run, he's beginning to be on the run. And David is, he comes to Saul's son, Jonathan, who is his friend, and he's trying to figure out why is King Saul after me? Why is he trying to kill me? What does he say to Jonathan right here? In chapter 20, verse 1, David fled from Nahath and Ramah. He came to Jonathan and asked, what have I done? What did I do wrong? Okay, again, we see that phrase. You see that phrase a second time, your ears ought to perk up. You ought to say, okay, we need to pay attention to this. What's going on here? Again, with David, we think, okay, he's justified here. He didn't know anything wrong. He's the one being chased. He's legitimate in proclaiming his innocence here. All right, flip over to chapter 26. In this scenario, David gets to speak to Saul himself. So Saul, who's trying to kill him.

David had the opportunity to kill Saul. We talked about that a few weeks ago. He decides not to. He shows Saul grace in that scenario. Then he gets to speak to Saul. What does he say to him? Chapter 26, verse 18. Then he continued, why is my Lord pursuing his service? He said, why are you coming after me? Why are you chasing me? What have I done? What crime have I committed for claiming his innocence? Again, and again, we think, yeah, we agree. David, you're innocent here. You're good to go. Now's where we get to a little bit of a turning point with the fourth example. So Saul has said he's going to stop chasing David and David doesn't trust him all the way, which makes sense. You would be a little bit hesitant to. So David decides to head out of town. He's gonna go find refuge somewhere else so that he's out of Saul's reach. Where does he go? He goes into Philistine territory. That should sound odd to us. Like the Philistine? Yes, those Philistines. The Philistines who David single handedly defeated when he cut off Goliath's head, right?

I read this and I'm like, why are the Philistines letting him in? Why in the world are they gonna let him stay in their land? Like this is the David that took them out, right? Why is he going and finding refuge there? While he's there, he's raiding other cities and he's lying about what he's doing. And then at one point, we actually see David lining up with the Philistines to face off with the Israelites and we don't get all the insight into what David's motives are there, but it sure looks like he's lining up to fight against Israel. This is an odd scenario. We're like, what is David doing here? What is going on? This doesn't feel like the David we've known all along. Before that battle starts, some of the Philistine leaders say, hey, we can't take this guy into battle. This is David. What if he turns on us in the middle of the battle? You can't go and David gets mad when they tell him he can't go fight with him. And one more time, we see this phrase in chapter 29. They're telling him he can't go into the battle with them. Chapter 29, verse eight, he pleads his innocence again, but what have I done, David replied? He's saying, wow, why don't you let me go? I've been a model citizen. I've done nothing but be good to you since I've been in your land, but what do we know?

He's not squeaky clean here. He's not, but we question his motives. We're like, you've been lying about things. Why are we looking like we're lining up with the Philistines? I don't know how to feel about you right here, David. This feels off. This doesn't feel like the David that we've known all along. And it makes us question like, what is his motivation here? What is going on in David's life? We've reached this turning point in his character development. So what I wanna do is pause that thought right there. Hold that thought. Remember that phrase, what have I done? He's gonna come to a moment in a second where he can bring that phrase up again if he wants to. We're gonna jump ahead to Second Samuel, Chapter 11, to our story that we're focusing on today. In that time that we're skipping, David has become king. Saul is gone. He's dead now. David is on the throne. He's gotten to this position that God promised him all along. And what we're gonna, I wanna read this story. This is where I wanna make you work a little bit. As we read this story of David with Bathsheba, I want you to try to pick out what that repeated thing is that the writer is trying to emphasize, okay?

Second Samuel, Chapter 11, it's not what have I done. That's your clue. You get one clue. Chapter 11, verse one. In the spring, when kings march out to war, He's supposed to be marching out to war. David sent Joab with his officers and all Israel. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabab, but David remained in Jerusalem. One evening, David got up from his bed and strolled around on the roof of the palace. From the roof, he saw a woman bathing, a very beautiful woman. So David sent someone to inquire about her, and he said, "Isn't this Bathsheba daughter of Ileum and the wife of Uriah, that he died?" In verse four, David sent messengers to get her, and when she came to him, he slept with her. Jumped under verse five with me. "The woman conceived and she sent word to inform David, "I'm pregnant, this is a problem." Pause the story for just a second. David's got to come up with a plan here. This is not a good look for the king. And we know this is a problem anyways, but he's got to figure out a way to make this look like this is Uriah's child. So what is plan A? I'm gonna bring Uriah home from the battle. He's out leading our troops.

I'm gonna bring him home. Surely he'll stay with his wife. We can make this look like this is his child, and everything will be covered up. We'll be all good. Verse six. This is plan A. "David sent orders to Joab. "Send me Uriah the heatheite, so Joab sent Uriah to David." And when Uriah came to him, David asked how Joab and the troops were doing, how the war's going, like he's making small talk. He's buttering him up here. Knowing good and well what he's already done. Then he said to Uriah, "Go down to your house. "Wash your feet." So Uriah left the palace, and a gift from the king followed him. But Uriah slept at the door of the palace with all his master servants. He did not go down to his house. This is a problem. When it was reported to David, Uriah didn't go home. David questioned Uriah. "How'd you just come home from a journey? "Why didn't you go home?" All right, pause right there for just a second. Plan A failed. We gotta go to plan B. Uriah's a really good man.

He tells David like, "I'm not going home to enjoy the pleasures of my home. "While my men are out at war, I can't do that. "I got way too much integrity for that. "He's not going in that direction. "What is playing B for David? "He's gonna get him drunk. "See if he can get him to go home at that point. "Jump down to verse 12. "Stay here today also, David said, to Uriah. "And tomorrow, I'll send you back. "So Uriah stayed in Jerusalem that day and the next. "And then David invited Uriah to eat and drink with him, "and David got him drunk. "He went out in the evening to lie down on his cop "with his master's servants, but he did not go home. "Plan B has failed also. "At this point, David realizes, "I'm just gonna have to eliminate Uriah "because I've gotta be able to control the narrative "of this story. "That's the power he has. "He's gotta figure out how to take the power back "in this scenario. "And that's what he decides to do, verse 14. "The next morning, David wrote a letter to Joab "and sent it with Uriah. "And then the letter hero pictured this. "He's handing this letter to Uriah. "What does the letter say?

"Put Uriah at the front of the fiercest fighting, "then withdraw from him so that he is struck down and dies. "And that's exactly what happens. "Like you should read that and feel uncomfortable. "That should bring something up." And you're like, "What has just happened here? "How we're bursting with the question, how? "How does this happen? "This is David. "Like King David, Goliath killing over the top loyal to Saul. "Man after God's own heart, King of Israel, David, "is now an adulterer, if not worse, and a murderer. "Like if this can happen to him, man, this can happen to me. "We've got to figure out what is going on here. "What's the root cause of David finding himself "in this scenario?" Now, clearly there are issues with how he views marriage. He has multiple wives going on and views Bathsheba as just another woman to entertain him. There are problems there with how he views marriage and relationships. I think the author gives us a clue into what the root cause of David's problem is by the word that they repeated nine different times in that 14 verses. Did anybody catch it? What's the word? It's the word scent. Word scent, really small word. You probably didn't think much of it as you read it.

Why don't you go back and look at these different uses of the word scent here and see, what's the picture it's trying to give of what David's doing? I'm gonna put these on the screen for you. In the spring, Kings went out to war, but what did David do? He sent Joab with his officers and all Israel. Verse three. So David sent someone to inquire about her. Verse four, David sent messengers to go get Bathsheba. Verse five, it gets reversed on him here a little bit for a second. The woman conceived and sent word to inform David that she was pregnant. Verse six, we triple up right here. So David sent orders to Joab. Send me Uriah to heed that. So Joab sent Uriah. Verse 12, I will send you back. Verse 14, he sends the letter with Uriah. David has an authority. and just point and tell people what to do. And at some point, it's gone to his head. And he probably started with something really small, probably the equivalent of stealing a penny. But he realized that he liked how it felt. That first time that he asked somebody to go do some assignment, he didn't really feel like doing it. It was his job to do, he didn't feel like doing it. And that person just went and did it. They listened to him. And he realized how much power he had with his voice, with the point of a finger. And he liked it. And at some point it got out of control. And it needs to make us stop and ask the question, what do I do with the authority that I have? How do I handle? Do I view people

as a tool to be used or people am means to an end? Or do I look at people that are under your authority as somebody to be served? Like I have to come up here when I have the authority that comes with this stage, my mindset, Pastor Robbie's mindset, it has to be, how can I serve you today by presenting the word of God to you? You can't let a position go to your head or you don't know what you might do to people. So listen, bosses, supervisors in the room, how do you use your authority over the people in your workplace? How do you speak to them? Are they just a means to make a dollar? Do you actually know them and notice them? Or are they just employees that are on the org chart somewhere? How can you serve your people? How can you use your authority to serve the people who are under you on that organizational chart at work? Husbands, we need to recognize that the authority you have as the husband, over your wife and over your children, over your home, that authority was given to you by God. You did not earn that. It was given to you by God and the challenges for you to be the lead servant in your home. The role of husband is not, "I'm an authority so my wife takes care of the kids and she cooks and does the dishes and does all these things." No, no, no, no, no. You are the lead servant in your home. You were given that authority to set the example, to set the tone for everything that happens in your house. How are you doing that? Parents, have you given these children that are a gift and you have authority over them? How do you use that authority? Do you do whatever you have to do to get your kids to fall in line? Or do you take the time to actually teach your kids and talk them through and be an example for what it looks like to follow Jesus? Well, how do you use your voice in all of those scenarios? Okay, this is the one that comes to mind for me the most that God has to bring to mind the most. I don't want to show you my kids. You look at a picture of it like, "Yaw." They're perfect, right? Four to seven, Boone is five and Scotty, she's getting close to two. Yaw, I look at them and they are such a blessing. And they golly, they feel so perfect, but at the same time, they're kids, right? They're not perfect all the time. They make mistakes and there are times when they don't listen and you have to repeat something for the thousandth time. Nobody warned you about that, by the way. You're going to say something one thousand times and they still won't get it. But that's the job. That's the job of a parent. It's to be the one who's patient to teach and do those things. And way too often, I find myself impatient and frustrated and it comes out

in my tone and how I speak to them. And man, it's so frustrating. Like I thought getting close to eight years into it, I'd be better at it than I am. And still God has to bring it to mind all the time. Listen, in my best moments, I try to be quick to go back and apologize to them when I realize I've been too harsh. And if I could humbly give you a small bit of advice, it would be, if you feel yourself tempted to be harsh, get down on a knee, get down on their level, look at them eye level so that you're not literally looking down on them while you speak. I know that puts me in a better headspace to teach rather than chastise. How are you using your authority as a parent to lead your home? The job is not just to get people in your home to fall in line, it's to show them what it looks like to follow Jesus. Now, maybe you feel like you don't have authority over other people. Maybe you're young in the workplace, whatever the situation is. You don't have authority over other people, but you still have authority over yourself, over your words and your thoughts that you need to have control of. And also, man, there are principles we can learn here from David that are broader than just authority that if you would follow these principles, they're going to show God that you are trustworthy for him to put you in a position of authority one day, three principles for you. The first one is this. You need to... I did this the first service too. Avoid saying, I would never, sorry y'all. Avoid saying I would never. Listen, David, when he was being chased by King Saul, you know there was a moment, if not a whole bunch of them, where he thought, I would never do this to somebody. I would never do this. I would never be chasing, I'm innocent. Why is he chasing me? I'm trying to fight on his behalf. Is that not exactly what Uriah is doing for him? Uriah is David 2.0 in a lot of ways.

I mean, he's out on the front lines. We see the integrity that he has. He is a man trying to go out and serve the King and serve the Kingdom with what he does in the military. And yet David kills him. David does the thing he swore he would never do. Listen, you said I would never about 20 minutes ago when I was talking about stealing a penny. You thought to yourself, I would never do that. And you need to be real careful when we say things like that. 'Cause listen, we don't know outside the grace of God what we're capable of. I mean, if you're real careful when we think I would never do something like that. Second principle is this, when someone is bold enough and loves you enough to speak up, you need to listen. You see, David had a moment back at the beginning of the story that he could have stopped. When he told somebody to go ask about Bathsheba, it's the person who he's talking to who speaks in that moment. And they say, hey, isn't this Bathsheba Uriah's wife? I feel like that's about as bold as he could be with the king, but he's telling David like, hey, this is who this is. Maybe you shouldn't do this. And David decides to push through. Listen, if you got somebody who is bold enough, loves you enough to try to point out something in your life, listen, man, don't ignore that.

It took a lot of courage for them to actually say that thing to you. You should pay attention to it. The third principle is this, don't make permanent decisions based on temporary feelings. Think about this scenario. David has become an adulterer and a murderer because he felt like he wanted a one-night stand. Uriah's dead, the child that they conceived is going to die. And Bathsheba's a widow now because David wanted a one-night stand. Man, when you're in that moment where you're feeling something that you know is off, don't follow your feelings, OK? Don't make decisions in the moment that are going to have permanent consequences. This is a lot that got laid out for David. A lot of really serious consequences because of a momentary feeling, OK? Really, there's a fourth principle here. Notice who's been absent from the story so far. God, we haven't heard him speak up yet in the story, have we? He's about to enter in though. The fourth principle, if there was one, would be this, no matter how much authority you think you have, God has more. God's got more, OK? David probably thinks he's kind of off the hook right now. He's taking care of the problem, your eyes. It's a terrible scenario, but we're moving on from it.

We can move past it. Not quite the case. Look at the last sentence of chapter 11 in the first sentence of chapter 12. If you're not convinced about the word "sent" yet, I think you're going to be in just a second. Use the word "sent" nine times. That's bad writing unless you're trying to prove a point, OK? Look how he uses it right here. However, the Lord considered what David had done to be evil. So the Lord sent Nathan to David. He's let David see what he does with authority. He said, all right, David, you've had your fun with your authority. I'm about to insert mine now. And he sends Nathan the prophet to David. Nathan calls him out on his sin. He does not mince words. He makes it very clear that what he's doing is sin. And all of a sudden, David is back in one of those moments that we talked about earlier, where he's got a choice. Am I going to defend myself? Or am I going to own up to what's happened? And imagine he flashes back to each of those times where he's thrown his hands up in this frustrated innocence, like, what have I done? I haven't done anything wrong. But this time, all he's able to get out is under his breath. He looks down, and he says, what have I done? He goes on in verse 13, he responds, he looks at Nathan.

He says, I have sinned against the Lord. He doesn't defend himself. He doesn't try to spin the story to make him look better. He just admits that he's wrong. And this is probably David's best quality. He's not perfect. He makes mistakes. We all do, right? What David is really good at is being quick to admit that he's wrong. He goes on and writes Psalm 51, which I would highly encourage you to read later. It's this psalm of lament over his sin. He's frustrated. He's heartbroken at what he realizes he has done. That's what confession is, is to agree with God that what you've done is wrong. When you agree with God that what you've done is wrong, that's confession. That's what we're looking for this morning. What I want you to realize is that when you would do just what David has done, you're going to get the same response that David got from God, okay? So listen, that thing that you walked in this morning thinking about, that God put on your mind when I started talking, that you can't stop thinking about right now, if you would confess it and get it out into the open, God will take care of it. Look at how he responds to David right here. What does Nathan say to him? Verse 13, "Still, then, Nathan replied to David, 'And the Lord has taken away your sin.' He takes it away.

He doesn't say he goes and puts it in some storehouse to bring it up later. No, no, it's gone. There may still be consequences for whatever it was that happened. There probably will be. But listen, your relationship with God is repaired. He doesn't think about it anymore. And he doesn't want you to continue thinking about that thing anymore either. See, here's the problem David had in this whole scenario. He kept trying to solve the problem himself. He was trying to fix his own sin problem. We know we can't do that. What happens when you try to make it for your own mistakes? Often we make a bigger mess, right? It just doesn't work that way. See, David goes and he tries to cover up his mistakes with the blood of a really good man in Uriah and it just never works out that way. We can't be good enough to make up for the bad in our lives. That's not the equation that works for us. What does work, though, is how God takes care of your sin. What does he do? He takes the blood of a perfect man in Jesus and he covers up your sin and that takes care of it. It's not anything that you do. It's all about what Jesus has done because, you see, we can't put our hope in somebody on a stage being good enough and a king being good enough because what does King David do? We saw he was starting to pass off some of his responsibilities, right? What was he supposed to be doing at the beginning? He should have been out at war with his people fighting on behalf of his people, but he decided not to. It was the springtime when kings go out to war and he decided not to go this year.

The good news is we have a king in Jesus who does not pass off the responsibility for the springtime war he was called to, right? When do we celebrate Easter? It's in the spring. You see, Jesus had an assignment that he was given to take care of the problem of sin. He waged war against it. He didn't pass off the responsibility to somebody else. No, he went to the cross in the spring and he was buried in the spring and he rose from the dead in the spring and we celebrated in the spring and we call it Easter. We've got a king who does not let us down, who takes on the weight of our sin himself and totally, totally does away with it, so that you don't have to because you never could in the first place. Listen, I get it. We can all relate to David in a lot of ways. You've probably got something in your life that's this nagging sin that you've been, I feel like you've been dealing with forever and just can't get past it or you've got things that you thought you'd be better at by now, but you're just not yet. Maybe it's the new thing that's popped up in your life that you didn't anticipate that's the sin in your life and what the enemy can do with things like that is he can take the sin in your life and make you question whether you actually have a relationship with God. Whether you're actually secure with him, whether you actually have what we would call assurance of your salvation. Listen, I used to be, especially in the high school, I would sit in church every time the pastor would give an invitation at the end to come trust Jesus. What am I doing? I'm going to pray the prayer again, just in case, right? Just in case it wasn't good enough last Sunday, I need to make sure I do it again today so that I secure my eternity with Jesus and at some point it just hit me like that can't be how God works. It's just not how this happens and I had to get to a place with the help of some mentors

to know that I had assurance of my salvation that that was not going to be taken from me. What is it like today thinking about eternity? I never, never question what my eternity looks like. I never question my relationship with Jesus. I'm never, honestly, I never think about it because it's secure. It's there and it's not going to be taken away from me and listen, that's not arrogance. That is what freedom feels like. You don't have to live wondering if you're doing good enough to please God. You don't have to live wondering if you're going to die at just the right moment when you've confessed your sins so that you can find entrance into heaven. You don't have to live that way. That's not freedom at all. That's torture. That is not the way Jesus wants you to live. You can listen if you would admit that you're wrong, if you would admit that they're sin in your life and that you can't fix it, you can find freedom this morning. I want to ask you two questions that are going to help you discern if you're actually living in that freedom that comes from Jesus or not. These are two questions that one of the speakers at our men's conference asks and I think they'll be really good for our whole church to think about. And the first question is this, when you think about your relationship with Jesus, your eternity on a scale of one to ten, one being not very confident, ten being totally 100% confident, how confident are you that if you died today, you would spend eternity with Jesus in heaven. Just think about your number, just to yourself. Now that you got your number, the second question is this, why would you say that number? Well, what's your answer to why you're a four, why you're a seven, why you're a nine? Listen, if you would do me the favor, this will help me know the room a little bit, know our church and know where you're at. Everybody with your eyes still closed, I want to ask you to raise your hand and let me know what number you were. If you were one to three, like you're really not very confident that you would spend eternity in heaven, would you be willing to raise your hand just so I can see it? There's no shame here, let's just honesty in the room. Thank you guys, you can put your hands down. Okay, what about a four to six? You're somewhere in the middle, maybe you're good, maybe you're not. Hands up, listen, you're not alone on any of these numbers.

Thank you guys, you can put your hands down too. What about a seven to nine? You're pretty confident, but you can't get all the way there in your head. There's something that makes you question it still. Thank you guys, lots of hands on that one. You can put your hands down. What about a ten? You know for sure you've got this relationship with Jesus Christ God. I'm so happy you're living in that freedom. You guys can put your heads down. You can look back up at me. Listen, here's the deal, no matter what number you're at, this is not a stair step thing where you've got to go through all the numbers to get to a ten. You can go from a one to a ten right now, okay? All you got to do is put your faith in what Jesus has done. Because I'm going to guess your answer to that question of why had something to do with you? That's something to do with how good or not good you're doing in a particular area. It was, I know Jesus loves me, but I still do this. Y'all, that's not it. What percentage of your sins did Jesus die for? It was not 30%. It was not 70%. It was not 95%. And you get to take care of the other five. No, it's 100. Of your past, present, future sins, his blood is covering them. And you never have to wonder what this is like moving forward, okay? You don't have to wonder whether you're doing well enough. Scripture tells us that this is a gift from God. It is not something that you have earned because of your work so that you can't boast about it. It says you are sealed by the Holy Spirit. When you are sealed, you are in Jesus's hand and nothing is going to take him away from you. And when you approach Jesus like David did with Nathan right here, what you're going to find is that God is faithful and just to forgive you of your sins, you never have to live wondering about it again, okay? I want you to live that way. And it's just not freedom. If you're trying to follow Jesus, but you left wondering if you're good with him, I just want to tell you, you're missing out. You're missing out and you can be that 10, 100% certain today. So here's what we're going to do is we close. I want to pray for you. Here's my challenge to you. If you need to talk somebody through what it looks like to have that true assurance of your salvation, if there's some sin in your life that you feel like holds you back from being that 10 and you want to have that freedom and that certainty that comes with that. Man, when I'm done praying, come right over here to the next steps here. Come talk to somebody. Please come find me. I'm right here, okay? Come talk to me. Come talk to somebody. Listen, if you need to get something off your chest, if you know there is sin in your life that you need to confess,

listen, confess to the person next to you, confess it on the way home if you need to in the car. Come to these steps, confess it to God. Get it out in the open. You can come talk to somebody in next steps also. Get it out in the open. Sin starts to lose its power the moment you vocalize it. How? The thing about this, whatever the thing is that you're thinking about right now, that secret that you have, how good would it feel for you to actually be found out? Knowing there would be consequences. Would it not feel good to have to carry the burden of that secret anymore? Man, take advantage of that today. Let that be how you respond to God this morning because you know he's going to meet you with grace and love, okay? Pray with me. God, thank you so much that we do not have to wonder where we stand with you. That is so loving of you to not be a God who makes us work for it because you know we could never earn our way back to you in the first place. So this morning I pray that wherever there is not freedom in the room, would you erase that? Would you help us to be bold enough to bring things to light? would you help us to receive that with grace and love? I want to pray that as people open their mouths to admit things to you, to admit things to another person, to agree with you that what we've done is sin. Would you cause freedom to fill up this room? Lord, we're so grateful for your love for us. Jesus, we love you. We pray it all in your holy name.