God, can you forgive even this?

by | Oct 27, 2020 | forgiveness, grace, love, mercy

A broken EXIT sign sits on dry cracked concrete with its cord disconnected from power.

My decision to be involved intimately with this man before acknowledging all the red flags was not without consequences. I ended up spiritually, mentally and emotionally scarred, and that burning red hot brand on my soul kept me in a place of inner self-condemnation and turmoil for several years. I will always have the scar, but I know that God’s mercy, his forgiveness 70 times 7 times, covers even this.

Photo by Kev Seto 

Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.”
Matthew 18:22

 

Off the tracks

 
I was sitting in the sanctuary, which at Trader’s Point Christian Church feels more like an auditorium- except that it’s filled to overflowing with the Holy Spirit. 
 
I was newly engaged to a man I’d just met just six weeks ago, and the sermon was about David and Bathsheba.
 
If you don’t know it, this story shapes the book of Psalms and David’s legacy.
 
David sleeps with Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba, and she becomes pregnant. David calls his army home so Uriah can sleep with Bathsheba and cover up the pregnancy, but Uriah won’t leave his troops to sleep with his wife. So, David puts Uriah, a trusted friend and confidante, on the frontlines of battle and knowingly sends Uriah to his death. It is a great cover up to save face, and David falls deeper into sin as the story unfolds.
 
The point of the sermon was that God’s grace is wide and that God always gives us a chance not to sin. In the story of David and Bathsheba, David made several wrong choices.
1. From a rooftop, David saw Bathsheba bathing and summoned for her
2. David slept with Bathsheba, Uriah’s wife, and she became pregnant
3. David tried to cover up the pregnancy by urging Uriah to sleep with Bathsheba so Uriah would think the baby was his
4. David sent Uriah, his close friend, to death in battle
 
At how many points in my own brief affair with this man sitting next to me had I missed an out?
1. The 236 times he urged me to smoke a cigarette when I don’t smoke
2. The time he urged me to pee in an urban public park
3. The time he urged me to stand on a roof with him naked
4. The time he told me he tried cocaine (not for me!)
 

It felt like I was being primed to make compromises and choices I did not want to make, and this is how I’d become engaged so quickly in the first place.

I’d made choices that were far from my heart and values. There were red flags everywhere.

 
Here’s the thing, friends:  God always gives us an out to keep us from sinning. There’s a inflection point, a warning red caution light and check in our spirits, that says, “No, this isn’t right” over and over until we listen. Stop or go, it is our decision. We can yield the warning, or we can proceed into danger and suffer the consequences later.
 
God’s grace is sufficient and it doesn’t matter what we’ve done:  it’s never too late to come back to him and to confess the mess we’ve made in doing things our way. He’ll be there to help us pick up the pieces and deal with the consequences. But we will be scarred by our sins. In my case, I felt branded with a scarlet letter.
 
I sat there that Sunday, listening, heart beating steady and loud, with a narrow window to get out of this relationship. Like David, I’d had my own rooftop moment of poor choices that led me into sin. God, can you forgive even this?
 
We got lunch after church and this man whom I barely knew told me he hated Christians, though he’d led me to believe he’d previously accepted Christ four times in his life. 
 
Friends, I got the wool pulled over my eyes. In so sincerely hoping for a long awaited partner, I was deceived and I believed so many of Satan’s lies and excused so many red flags. This man offered to give me the world in exchange for God, and I’m alarmed and grieved by how close I came to spiritual death.
 
My decision to be involved intimately with this man before acknowledging all the red flags was not without consequences. I ended up spiritually, mentally and emotionally scarred, and that burning red hot brand on my soul kept me in a place of inner self-condemnation and turmoil for several years. I will always have the scar, but I know that God’s mercy, his forgiveness 70 times 7 times, covers even this (Matt. 18:21-22).
 
Friends, this part of my life story is scary stuff. Staying with this man would have stolen my life path and so many good gifts God has planned for my life. It was an attack from the pit of hell.
 
There are people out there who will try to steal, kill and destroy any good that God is working in our lives, and we need to be so cautious. We have to keep vigilant watch over our hearts (Prov. 4:23) because they can sometimes desire something so much that we will ignore all the red flags and flashing warning lights.
 
I think God wants you to know that even those close to him can sin gravely, and that his mercy is not conditional or predicated upon our actions. He doesn’t require perfection; he simply asks for our repentance. He loves us the same through all of our mistakes, and nothing is too big for him to redeem.
 

I praise God my past is redeemed and I am healed enough to shine a light on this part of my story, and I want to confront the lie that you have to be perfect to be a Christian or to know God. Christianity is so far from striving for some impossible ideal:  Only God himself can achieve perfection. He knew we could never be perfect like him so he sent his perfect son Jesus to pay the bride price for our sins. Jesus has the power to lay down his life and pick it up again and he lays it down for you and me (John 10:17-18).

 

Ultimately, God wants our hearts. He wants our sincere devotion and love. He simply wants us to know him and to love him back. If we make redemption about anything else, we have missed the point of grace. His forgiveness is 70 times 7 times, and it’s never too late for him to redeem our even this.

 

If you are processing any wounding sin, find someone to soundboard with (a friend you trust, a counselor, a pastor or priest) to help you bring it out into the light. The enemy cannot keep us trapped in shame unless our sins remain in darkness. Know that God’s mercy is greater than your sin.

Dear God, Some of us have hearts that cry out to you from a place of brokenness and desperation over our sins. We don’t feel good enough for of deserving of your forgiveness, yet your mercy is wide and unfailing. Free us from any shame we have over our mistakes that taught us something about life, and redeem our messes in your forgiveness 70 times 7 times. We trust you to bring new life out of sin-full dead ends. Help us to bring what hurts out into the light.

In Jesus name,
Amen.

 

 

We encourage you to read through 2 Samuel chapters 11 and 12 to see the consequences of David’s sin and the blessing God brought through it.

Verses for study:
2 Samuel 11  |  David and Bathsheba
In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king’s men and the whole Israelite army. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem.

One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful, and David sent someone to find out about her. The man said, “She is Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite.” Then David sent messengers to get her. She came to him, and he slept with her. (Now she was purifying herself from her monthly uncleanness.) Then she went back home. The woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, “I am pregnant.”

So David sent this word to Joab: “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” And Joab sent him to David.  When Uriah came to him, David asked him how Joab was, how the soldiers were and how the war was going. Then David said to Uriah, “Go down to your house and wash your feet.” So Uriah left the palace, and a gift from the king was sent after him. But Uriah slept at the entrance to the palace with all his master’s servants and did not go down to his house.

David was told, “Uriah did not go home.” So he asked Uriah, “Haven’t you just come from a military campaign? Why didn’t you go home?”

Uriah said to David, “The ark and Israel and Judah are staying in tents, and my commander Joab and my lord’s men are camped in the open country. How could I go to my house to eat and drink and make love to my wife? As surely as you live, I will not do such a thing!”

Then David said to him, “Stay here one more day, and tomorrow I will send you back.” So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next. At David’s invitation, he ate and drank with him, and David made him drunk. But in the evening Uriah went out to sleep on his mat among his master’s servants; he did not go home.

In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah. In it he wrote, “Put Uriah out in front where the fighting is fiercest. Then withdraw from him so he will be struck down and die.”

So while Joab had the city under siege, he put Uriah at a place where he knew the strongest defenders were.

When the men of the city came out and fought against Joab, some of the men in David’s army fell; moreover, Uriah the Hittite died.

Joab sent David a full account of the battle. He instructed the messenger: “When you have finished giving the king this account of the battle, the king’s anger may flare up, and he may ask you, ‘Why did you get so close to the city to fight? Didn’t you know they would shoot arrows from the wall? Who killed Abimelek son of Jerub-Besheth? Didn’t a woman drop an upper millstone on him from the wall, so that he died in Thebez? Why did you get so close to the wall?’ If he asks you this, then say to him, ‘Moreover, your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead.’”

The messenger set out, and when he arrived he told David everything Joab had sent him to say. The messenger said to David, “The men overpowered us and came out against us in the open, but we drove them back to the entrance of the city gate. Then the archers shot arrows at your servants from the wall, and some of the king’s men died. Moreover, your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead.”

David told the messenger, “Say this to Joab: ‘Don’t let this upset you; the sword devours one as well as another. Press the attack against the city and destroy it.’ Say this to encourage Joab.”

When Uriah’s wife heard that her husband was dead, she mourned for him. After the time of mourning was over, David had her brought to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son. But the thing David had done displeased the Lord.

Matthew 18:21-22
Then Peter came to Him and said, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.”

John 10:17-18
The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life–only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.”

Proverbs 4:23 MSG
Keep vigilant watch over your heart;
    that’s where life starts.

Luke 7:49
The other guests began to say among themselves, “Who is this [Jesus] who even forgives sins?”

Lamentations 3:22-23
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
    his mercies never come to an end;
 they are new every morning;