How God Rescues Us From Sin | 2 Samuel 12

Good morning, Watermark. How are we doing today? It is so good to see you. It's great to be with you. If this is your first time ever at Watermark, my name is Timothy Ateek. I'm one of the teaching pastors here, and I'm so glad you made it. Thank you for trusting us with your Sunday. I just want to start by asking, by show of hands, who here has ever experienced an escape room? Anyone ever done an escape room? Okay. Great. So you know what it's like to pay money to be locked up. Just saying it out loud will make you feel crazy.

If you've never done an escape room, you pay money to be put in a room. The door is locked, and you spend an hour basically solving puzzles to hopefully get out. The reality of an escape room is the next decision is always the most important decision. Your next decision is either a step toward freedom or a step toward prolonged captivity. That's the way an escape room works.

In my experience in escape rooms, I'll just tell you this: you don't want me on your team in an escape room. I am dead weight. I remember doing an escape room with the staff of the ministry I was at prior to this. They started the timer and said, "Go," and everyone snapped into action except me. I just stood there, and the hamster on the wheel in my head just locked up. It was like, "Nope. Nope. We don't do stuff like this." I just froze. That's what I do in escape rooms.

But the next decision is always the most important one. It's either a step toward freedom or a step toward prolonged captivity. I tell you that because, this morning, what we're talking about is the escape room of life. The reality is when you fall into sin, either for a moment or for days or weeks or entire seasons, life can feel a lot like an escape room where you are locked up. You're locked up in lies or locked up in shame, and your next decision is a very important decision, because when you fall into sin you're either going to make decisions that move you toward freedom or decisions that prolong your captivity to that sin.

Now, if you do an escape room, at least the ones I've done, there always comes a moment where you're kind of stranded, and when you're stranded, the people who run the escape rooms will get on an intercom and offer to give you a clue. I always need the clue. I'm always grateful for that clue and several other clues they end up giving me along the way. But when it comes to the escape room of life, when we fall into sin, the reality is we don't just need a clue; we need complete rescue.

What we're not going to do today is make this message a bunch of tips and tricks to work your way out of sin. The reality is if you find yourself in sin, you need rescue. You need Jesus Christ to do something in your life, because the message of the gospel is not that we were bad people who just needed to work hard to get good; the message of the gospel is we were dead, and Jesus Christ, by the power of the Spirit, made us alive. That is how we came to know God, and that is how we must continue relating to God. We need Jesus Christ to show up and do a significant work in our lives.

We're stepping back into The Life of David this morning. If you were here last week, you know that in 2 Samuel, chapter 11, we looked at David's greatest failure. This was David finding himself in the escape room of life. What we see is David making one decision after another that doesn't lead to freedom but actually prolongs his captivity. He finds himself locked up in lies, and what David needs is a rescue.

So, what God is going to do in chapter 12 is he is going to move in David's life. As we look at what God does in David's life, what we're going to see is what God wants to do in our lives when we fall into sin. We're going to see how God wants to move each one of us toward freedom. So, if you have a Bible, I want to invite you to join me in 2 Samuel, chapter 12.

What we're going to see in chapter 12 are four things God will do to rescue us from sin, to basically unlock the door to the escape room of life to lead us toward freedom. I'll go ahead and give you these four things now. Here's what we're going to see in the passage. First, we have to deal with the truth that God sees your sin. He sees my sin. That's where we're going to have to start: God sees your sin. Secondly, God will interrupt your sin. Thirdly, God will sober you to your sin. Then, finally, God's extravagant grace will prevail over your sin.

If this is your first time ever at Watermark, here's what we do on Sunday mornings. We just open up the Bible and read the Bible, and then we seek to understand the Bible. We believe this book is the Word of God, that God has gone to great lengths to speak to us. So, what this is not going to be is opinion time with Timothy Ateek, because you don't really need that, but if God has spoken, don't you want to hear from him? I hope you do.

1. God sees your sin. Second Samuel, chapter 11, details the greatest failure in David's life. What was it? He slept with another man's wife, and then he had that woman's husband killed because she got pregnant. David had her husband killed, and he covered it up. If you were to go back and look at chapter 11, you would see that David's sin is marked by him sending.

If you go and look in chapter 11 at all of the times the word sent is mentioned, David sins by sending. Let me show you what I'm talking about, because I'm going somewhere with this. Verse 3 of chapter 11: "And David sent and inquired about the woman." Verse 4: "So David sent messengers and took her, and she came to him, and he lay with her."

Verse 6: "So David sent word to Joab, 'Send me Uriah the Hittite.' And Joab sent Uriah to David." Verse 14: "In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it by the hand of Uriah." Verse 27: "And when the mourning was over, David sent and brought her to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son." All throughout chapter 11, David is sinning by sending.

What's interesting is that God is only mentioned once in 27 verses. Why? Because the author is trying to paint a picture of a mirage where David is in control. It's a mirage that David is in control. He's the authority. He issues the command and people respond. He sends, and as he sends, he sins, but he's in control. He is the authority. That's the mirage that chapter 11 paints.

Then you get to the very last verse of the chapter. I want to read you the last verse of chapter 11 and the very first part of the first verse of chapter 12. Remember, in the original text there are no chapter breaks, so let's read it together and watch what it says. It says, "But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord."That's the first time God shows up in the chapter. Watch this. "And the Lord sent…"

So, chapter 11 is this mirage that David is in control. Chapter 12 unpacks the reality that God is in control, that God sees. In chapter 11, there's this illusion that because God is absent from David's awareness, God must be absent, and he doesn't see what David is doing. We get to chapter 12, and it's the exact opposite. God has seen, and now God is going to respond. That's what chapter 12 is about. It is about God responding to David's sin.

So, this is where we need to start. We have to start with the fact that God sees your sin, he sees my sin, and he will respond to our sin. As I was preparing for this morning, I thought about when my kids were very little. You've experienced this if you have kids. When they're young, they believe that when their face is covered they become invisible. Do you know what I'm talking about? It's amazing.

So, when I would change my kids on the changing table, they might grab a burp cloth that was lying close by, and if they put it over their face, I would go, "Oh my gosh! Where did Jake go? Where did Andrew go?" Then when you pull the burp cloth off their face, it's like, "Oh, there you are!" They laugh, and they're like, "This is amazing. All I have to do is cover my face, and I become invisible. Life is amazing. I am amazing."

What we are seeing here is that David bought into the lie that little kids believe. Little kids believe that just because they can't see their mom or dad, their mom or dad must not be able to see them. David has bought into the lie that just because he can't see God or see God taking action against his sin, God must not be aware. You need to know God sees your sin. Just because you can't see God or see God taking action against your sin doesn't mean he doesn't see your sin or care about your sin.

Just because you might be indifferent to God or indifferent to your sin doesn't mean God is indifferent to you or indifferent to your sin. When you hear me say that, a lot of people in the room might think I'm only talking right now to the people who are in outright rebellion against God. No, I'm actually talking to every person in the room. God sees your sin. If you're a follower of Jesus Christ, let's sweat the small stuff today, because the sin that seems small to us is actually big to God, and he sees it. So we have to start with that.

1. God will interrupt your sin. God will interrupt my sin. Where do I see that in the text? Verse 1. Look at what it says. "And the Lord sent Nathan to David. He came to him and said to him, 'There were two men in a certain city, the one rich and the other poor.'" God is going to interrupt David's sin by sending Nathan, the prophet, to David. Nathan was basically the nation's pastor.

Nathan comes to David, and I love it, because Nathan doesn't just walk in and call David out. He tells him a story. Why? Because God is so intimately acquainted with David, and he knows exactly what David is going to need in order to be brought to a moment of conviction, so he has Nathan tell him a story. Here's how the story goes. Verse 2:

"The rich man had very many flocks and herds, but the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb, which he had bought. And he brought it up, and it grew up with him and with his children. It used to eat of his morsel and drink from his cup and lie in his arms, and it was like a daughter to him. Now there came a traveler to the rich man, and he was unwilling to take one of his own flock or herd to prepare for the guest who had come to him, but he took the poor man's lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him."

That's the story. This is a very simple story. We don't need to sit here and unpack all of these deep theological truths in this story. There was a rich man and a poor man. David is the rich man; Uriah is the poor man. There was a man who had everything; there was a man who had one thing. The man who had everything took the man's one thing. That's it. That is the story.

Now, the genius in the story is the response it provokes in David. Don't miss it. Verses 5-6: "Then David's anger was greatly kindled against the man, and he said to Nathan, 'As the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die, and he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity.'"

Nathan is telling David a story about David, but David doesn't realize Nathan is telling David a story about David. What's amazing is that, actually, according to God's law, the Mosaic law, the man in the story doesn't deserve to die. The punishment for what the man has done is what David states. "He must repay the lamb fourfold." That is the consequence according to the law, but David, who knows the law…

He knows that's the consequence, but David is so burned up, because remember, David is the king. As the king, he's the ultimate judge in the land. David has a high need for justice, so David gets burned up that this man has stolen from this poor guy. David is so angry he's like, "I think that guy should die." What's amazing is, in saying that, David is actually pronouncing his own punishment, what his sin deserves. Now God has David right where he wants him.

So, how does Nathan respond? Verse 7: "Nathan said to David, 'You are the man!'" This isn't a compliment, like, "Man, you're the man." No, no. He's like, "You're the man. You're the guy in the story. You're the rich man who had everything who took the man's one thing. David, you are that guy." This is where God is pulling the burp cloth off of David's face, saying, "There you are! I see you. Your legs have been hanging out the entire time." Another way of putting it is for about nine months, David has been on a really, really long leash, and God now yanks him back.

Several years ago, I went skydiving with David Penuel. We went for a video for Watermark students. It was for the first DTown ever. We had mullet wigs on. We had Fu Manchus duct taped to our faces. It was for the kids, you know. It was for them to know Jesus. Crazy amounts of kids got saved because of this video, truly. It was just amazing. That's not true, but it was worth it.

If you've ever been skydiving, you know for the first minute, you free fall. It's really exciting. It's really enjoyable. But at some point, that free fall needs to be interrupted, because if that free fall isn't interrupted, then that free fall becomes a very costly fall. That free fall can become a lethal fall if it isn't interrupted.

The same is true in life. The free fall of sin can be very exciting and very enjoyable. Sin can be very enjoyable for a moment, for days, for weeks, for months, for entire seasons, but that free fall of sin must be interrupted. Otherwise, that free fall is a lethal fall. Why would I say that? I say that because God tells us explicitly in his Word.

Listen to the words of Proverbs 14:12. If you're in here right now, and you're free-falling in sin, hear these words. It says, "There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death." Do you hear what God is saying? He's saying, "Look. I want to help you see ahead. What you think right now is only enjoyable, only pleasurable… You are on a crash course with brokenness."

So, God in his kindness and in his grace will interrupt your sin. When he interrupts your sin, it's like him pulling the cord to release the parachute. It is God releasing the parachute, and when that parachute gets released in your life, you might experience the whiplash of that. It might hurt for the moment, but it is what will save your life spiritually, relationally. It will save you.

So, how does God interrupt our sin? Well, when God interrupts your sin with his grace, because he loves you, he'll usually do it in one of two ways. You will either get called out or you will get caught. So, God might use people in your life to call you out. That might have already happened this morning in this service. For some of you, when you heard me say, "Let's sweat the small stuff this morning, because the sin that might seem small to you is big to God," that's all you needed to hear. What God just did was he interrupted that sin.

But other times, you're going to need people to look into your life and call you out. This happened to me this past week. Kat and I were flying on Wednesday, so we were up really early. It was a sprint to get our kids off to school and get to the airport. We were running late, and we knew we were going to have to walk, like, 20 gates to get to our departure gate.

So, we're in line at the TSA security. We are standing in line, and in the midst of standing in line, one of the TSA workers comes and tells everyone in the line, "Hey, this security check is now closed, and you all need to get out of line and walk three gates (in the wrong direction) to go through that security checkpoint." And we are running late.

I am so frustrated, so I'm just walking through the airport, and I'm mad. Kat looks at me, and she can see my frustration, because I wear my feelings. She goes, "Hey, TA. Be careful how you look right now." I was like, "Babe, I can't do anything about this. This is just what you married." No, I'm just kidding. She said, "Be careful how you look right now," because I was wearing the frustration. Then she said, "Someone might recognize you."

You know what? Just by her saying, "Be careful how you look right now," I kid you not, there was this moment of crystal clarity where the thought that went through my mind was, "I am not walking in the Spirit at all right now." That's the thought that went through my mind. In that moment, I woke up. It's like I saw clearly. For however much time that morning, I was doing things my way. I was managing my stress my way. I was responding to circumstances that bothered me my way.

So, in that moment, God interrupted my sin, and I was able to get back to a place where I was responding to God. Then I got on the plane and sat down, and the woman next to me said, "Are you TA?" and I was like, "Okay, God. I get it. All right. Makes sense." God will interrupt your sin. He might call you out…on the small things, but also the big things.

I remember years ago, I harbored bitterness toward some people in my life for four years. The bitterness grew like a weed in my soul, and it overtook the health inside of me. It manifested itself in sin in the way I talked about people and thought about these people. I would connect with some of my closest friends on a weekly basis for accountability, and every week, what was I talking about? I was airing my frustration. I was airing my bitterness.

Basically, I was living in sin because my hurt had transitioned to bitterness. Finally, one Friday morning, these two guys looked at me, and they were like, "Well, then you should do something about it." Kind of like, "Enough with this. Enough with you just living in your bitterness." Finally, by them calling me out, that day I took action, and God, in his kindness, brought reconciliation to those relationships. He restored the relationships in a very beautiful way.

I tell you that just to say God might interrupt your sin by using people to call you out. Your Community Group might sit you down and say, "Look. What we see playing out in your life is not of God." My seminary professor refers to this as people stabbing you in the front instead of stabbing you in the back. You want friends who are willing to stab you in the front. Proverbs 27:6 puts it this way: "Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses."

If you want to know who your true friends are, just watch who steps in when you begin to live in sin. Your true friends are the friends who will step in and stab you in the front. They will say, "Look. What is happening right now is not glorifying to God. You've told us that you consider yourself a follower of Jesus Christ. This is not congruent with the life of a follower of Jesus Christ."

But do you know what an enemy does when you sin? An enemy will listen to you sin and celebrate it. An enemy will listen to the fact that you are living in sin and will say nothing. So, God might interrupt your sin, like he did with Nathan. He might send someone into your life to call you out, and if that happens, do not resist it.

The other way God might interrupt your sin is you might get caught. I remember years ago, there was a news article that came out. I don't know if y'all remember this. There's a website that married people can go to to have an affair. That website got hacked so that all of the users of that site, all of their names and information, got published to the Internet. Four hundred pastors', elders', and deacons' names were revealed. Do you know what that was? That was the grace of God in their lives to interrupt their sin.

You might get caught looking at porn. You might get audited by the IRS. Your boss might catch you being dishonest. Your parents might come home way earlier than you thought they would. This is all God's grace in your life. It's God pulling the parachute because he loves you, because you're doing something that's actually stealing from you and causing some kind of death in your life.

1. God will sober you to your sin. When I say that God will sober you to your sin, I'm talking about God allowing you to see the ridiculousness of your sin, that it makes no sense. Look at verse 7.

"Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, 'I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you out of the hand of Saul. And I gave you your master's house and your master's wives into your arms and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah. And if this were too little, I would add to you as much more. Why have you despised the word of the Lord, to do what is evil in his sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and have taken his wife to be your wife and have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites.'"

Do you see God's activity in David's life? Follow the verbs. Look at the verbs. Anytime you're studying the Bible, note the verbs, because the verbs show you the action of the passage. Look at God's activity in David's life. What does he say? "I anointed you. I delivered you. I gave you. I would add to you." God's point is, "David, every day of your life I have been providing for you, and if there was ever a moment in your life where you were lacking, I would have given it to you. I am provider."

Where did David go wrong? It says, "You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and have taken his wife to be your wife…" God is providing for David, and what does David do? He goes outside of God's provision and starts providing for himself. That's what sin is. Sin is simply us going outside of God's provision to seek out provision for ourselves.

God is saying, "Look. I have been lavishing you with my favor every day of your life, and then you go looking for it somewhere else." He's saying, "This is how ridiculous your sin is. I want you to see, David, it doesn't make sense." Hebrews 3:13 refers to this as the deceitfulness of sin. Sin will trick you. Sin will lie to you. Sin will make you believe something that is not true.

I like to think of it as the fog of sin. Have you ever experienced a moment or a season in life where a fog kind of rolls into your mind in such a way that God's work in your life and God's word in your life become irrelevant? What feels right begins to trump what God has said is right, so for a night or for a season in our minds, sin makes perfect sense. Have you ever been in a moment where sin makes perfect sense?

You begin to believe and tell yourself things like, "You know what? I deserve to be happy. I deserve to have my needs satisfied because my spouse isn't satisfying my needs. I work hard and deserve to relieve some stress. Life hurts right now, and I deserve some comfort or a distraction." Sin makes perfect sense in the moment.

But not only that. This is how the deceitfulness of sin works. We only see the positive of sin. At least in the moment, there are no consequences for sin. There's no downside to sin. It's just not that big of a deal. There will be no regrets, only satisfaction. Several years ago, I was working on a church staff with a woman who in her previous career was what's known as a food stylist, which meant her job was to prepare food for TV commercials.

I remember talking to her, and she explained there were times where she would paint food, and she would manipulate it in such a way to make it look as appealing, desirable, and satisfying as possible. I don't know if you're ever watching a commercial and see some food that looks so good to the point you're like, "I want that." You look at it, and you're like, "I want that." You get up and go buy it. You don't think for a second you might spend the rest of the evening in the bathroom because of that food. There's only positive. There's only satisfaction. There will be no regrets.

What God is doing is he starts by saying, "Look. Your sin doesn't make sense. It's ridiculous. I'm providing for you, and you feel like you need to provide for yourself," but then God goes on. He informs David, "Look. You've convinced yourself that sin isn't a big deal and has no consequences. Your sin is actually a huge deal with huge consequences." Verse 10:

"'Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.' Thus says the Lord, 'Behold, I will raise up evil against you out of your own house. And I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this sun. For you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel and before the sun.'"

God is saying, "David, your sin is actually a huge deal with huge consequences." We see it play out in chapters 13-20. Some of you all know it well. Four of David's sons die prematurely. In the next chapter, his daughter gets raped by one of his other sons. One of his sons is going to steal the throne from him. David's life is marked by drama for the rest of his life. The consequences for David's sin were severe.

What is God doing here? God is sobering David up to his sin. He's inviting David to see his sin clearly. God will do that to you. He will sober you up to your sin. What I really want you to see is God's use of the word despise, because it's a repeated word. Anytime you're reading the Bible, take note of what is repeated. We see the word despise used twice. God is sobering David up, and he's informing David of what has actually happened.

Verse 9: "Why have you despised the word of the Lord, to do what is evil in his sight?" Verse 10: "Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised me…" Do you see what God is doing? He's saying, "Look. David, you know the law well. You know it so well that you know the rich man in the story would need to repay the lamb fourfold, but when it came to your own life, you despised my word. You despised my commands, and in despising my commands, David…let's just call it what it is…you were despising me. Period."

To ignore God's commands is actually to ignore God. To reject God's words is to, in fact, reject God himself. So, God is sobering David up, the man after God's own heart. God is saying, "Let's just be clear on what has happened, David. You have despised me." And what is David's response? Verse 13: "David said to Nathan, 'I have sinned against the Lord.'" After nine months of hiding, this is the first time that David confesses.

That word confess in the New Testament is the Greek word homologeo. It literally means to say the same thing as someone else. It's to agree with them. David confesses, "I have sinned against the Lord," and in that moment, he is saying the same thing as God about his sin. He is agreeing with God about his sin. He's saying, "God, I agree with you. My sin makes no sense. You are provider, and I sought to provide for myself. That's crazy. God, I bought into the lie that there are no consequences and it's not a big deal. My sin is a huge deal. I agree with you, God."

He's saying, "God, I agree with you that I, the man after God's own heart, have forgotten God. I have rejected God. I have despised God. I agree with you." See, that's what God's grace does. It sobers us. It helps us see reality clearly. Do you know what I love? I love how short David's response is. It's very short. "I have sinned against the Lord." Period. That's it. That's all that's needed. No other words are needed.

What I love most is there is no but. "I have sinned against the Lord, but…" There are no rationalizations. There are no explanations. There's no attempt to save face. There's no, "God, let me just tell you what was really happening on that night. Here's why I did that, and here's why it would make sense if you would just listen to my side of the story." No. "I have sinned against the Lord." He simply owns it because God has sobered him up to his sin.

Let me encourage you. Maybe this morning God brought you here to sober you up to your sin, and you're seeing it clearly for the first time. Let's not wait. Right there, in the quietness of your own heart, agree with God about your sin. Just use David's words. Say it right now in the quietness of your own heart. "I have sinned against the Lord."

1. God's extravagant grace will prevail over your sin. Look at verses 13-15. "And Nathan said to David, 'The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die. Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the Lord, the child who is born to you shall die.' Then Nathan went to his house."

Now, if you're tuned out, please tune in. Don't miss this. This is beautiful. What you need to understand is, according to the law, David and Bathsheba both deserved to die. Leviticus 20:10 tells us, "If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death."

But watch this. Don't miss it. The death David deserved was incurred by the son of David. Commentator Dale Ralph Davis, who is my favorite commentator on 2 Samuel, invites us to observe the pattern. This is our story. All sin deserves death. Every single one of us is deserving of death…meaning, eternal separation from God in hell…yet the death we deserved was incurred by a different Son of David, Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ, the one who died for our sin, different from the son who died in chapter 12… He rose from the dead, showing himself victorious over our sin. What's truly amazing is that God doesn't just let David and Bathsheba live. After the baby is born who dies due to David and Bathsheba's sin, look at what happens.

Verse 24: "Then David comforted his wife, Bathsheba, and went in to her and lay with her, and she bore a son, and he called his name Solomon. And the Lord loved him…" Are you kidding me? I mean, are you grasping what is happening? The first time David and Bathsheba got together, it's what started this mess.

It was them coming together that led to Uriah dying and now this baby being born who now dies, yet God, in his grace, his extravagant grace, allows David and Bathsheba to come together. They're married this time. And what happens? They get pregnant again, and who is this baby? It's Solomon, who would become the wisest person on the planet, would become the next king of the nation of Israel, and would actually build the house of the Lord.

But not only that. God keeps his promises to David. Do you remember? Back in chapter 7, God makes these promises to David. He tells David, "Hey, I'm going to accomplish my purposes on the earth through your descendants. Kings are going to come from your house. I'm going to establish this kingdom, and someone from your house is going to sit on the throne. It's going to be an everlasting throne and an everlasting kingdom."

Imagine Jews reading 2 Samuel or hearing it told. Imagine getting to chapter 11, knowing God has made these promises that it's going to be through David that the nations are going to be blessed. You get to chapter 11, and God's chosen king fails royally. Imagine the confusion and the concern, like, "Is this it? Are God's plans thwarted in this moment? God's king has failed." Yet God is never put in a straitjacket by our sin. God always accomplishes his purposes.

In his extravagant grace, what does he do? There's a better King. There's a perfect King. A King would come who wouldn't fail, and that King would be the Son of David and the greater David. It's Jesus Christ, who is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, and he has brought God's kingdom to the earth. He is now ruling and reigning in the hearts of all who would put their trust in him, and a day is coming where Jesus is going to establish God's kingdom on the earth in such a way that the rule of God is manifested and all things are made new.

All of that has come through David's line. Why? Because God is able. He's never put in a straitjacket by our sin. So, God, in his extravagant grace, accomplishes all he had promised to David. Do you know what I learn from that? I just learn that to confess isn't the end. Here's what I mean by that. You might be sitting here, and you might sense conviction in your life.

You might be realizing you have found yourself in a world of hurt because of some of your decisions, and something in you might believe this is the end. This is the end of your job. This is the end of your marriage. This is the end, because you have done something so significant that it's only brokenness ahead. I would just put before you this isn't the end; this is the beginning. This is the beginning of freedom and wholeness. I can say that from personal experience.

Several years ago, I was on staff at Watermark as an intern, and I found myself in the escape room of sin. And do you know what I did? I tried to manage my sin and get out of the escape room on my own. It just led to prolonged captivity. Yet God in his kindness saw my sin, and God interrupted my sin, and God sobered me to my sin, and in his extravagant grace, his extravagant grace prevailed over my sin.

If you had told me back then when I was serving at Watermark and had to step down off of staff due to my failure… If you had told me then that a day would come where I would not only be back on staff, but I'd be on this stage teaching God's Word and serving as an elder, I would have told you you're crazy, because I thought that was the end. It wasn't the end; it was the beginning of God doing a new work and leading me to greater freedom in my life.

So, I just want to tell you you don't have to be defined by what you've done. You don't have to be defined by your failure. You can be defined by God's forgiveness, but come. Come clean and allow God to do a new work in your life. You know, when you're in an escape room and the people who own it offer you a clue, your tendency is going to be to want to resist it, because something in you wants to try to figure it out on your own.

Let me just tell you you can't. You don't just need a clue; you need a complete rescue. If you're here today, and you don't have a relationship with Jesus Christ, I just want you to be clear on the good news. We see it in the life of David. This all started with David choosing not to go to war, staying at home, yet Jesus Christ left heaven and came to earth to destroy the works of the Devil.

David called Bathsheba to himself for the purpose of sin, and that sin led to a birth that led to a death. Jesus Christ is calling you to himself, and what is possible from him calling you to himself is a new spiritual birth in your life that won't lead to death but will lead to eternal life with God. Do you know him? If not, would you come to him, and would you put your trust in him today? Let's pray together.

Lord Jesus, would you have your way in our hearts, in our minds? If there's anyone in the room right now who needs to confess to you, I pray they would do that now. I pray they wouldn't wait or push it off or operate in fear, Lord. May we be a people who realize that you see our sin, and maybe this morning you are interrupting our sin and sobering us to our sin. I just want to thank you that your extravagant grace will prevail over our sin. We need you and we love you.

Friends, I just want to invite you. As we sing now, respond to God now.