We divide our time working with the youth in Quartzsite into different sets. The first set were those teens who were under the youth pastor before we got here. When we first got here, the youth group was in disarray. The youth pastor had been fired for several reasons, and the intern when we arrived was about to head out. I was told by the teens that they had teen leaders that would help out with the youth group. Developing young leaders is something I believe is important and so, if they wanted to stay on as leaders, I had them fill out an application. Then Marika and I interviewed them and told them what we expected of them. There were six leaders in that first batch, three girls, and three guys.
However, my style of leadership was very different than the previous youth pastor’s. His leadership was taking the teens out to meals and treating them differently from the other teens. My form was to make them work. They had to clean up after the teens, scrub throw up off the ground. Basically do all the nasty parts of youth ministry. The reason for this was so that they would learned that if they wanted to be the leader, they had to serve. The people we elevate to leadership, should be the ones who are our greatest servants.
I also held them to a higher standard than the rest of the teens. The average teen who came into the youth group, might smell of smoke, or cuss, or say inappropriate things. But the leaders had to be different. They should be seeking to be examples of Christ both at church and at school. They were to seek to live holy lives up and above their peers. And that’s were we ran into our first problem.
One day, after picking up teens for youth group, one of the girl leaders was sitting in the front row with one of her friends, gossiping and bashing one of the other girls in youth group. After we arrived at the church, I asked her to stay as the other teens were getting off. With Marika there, I confronted her about being a leader and how it wasn’t okay to gossip and bash other teens. That ended up being her last day in youth group. She never came back. She had agreed to the standard that we had for all of our teen leaders, but chose to break that standard. And when confronted, she decided to leave the youth group entirely.
Being confronted with our sin isn’t something that’s fun, but our response shows where we stand with God. And it’s confrontation that brings us back to our sermon series in the book of Second Samuel, where we’ll be picking it back up in Chapter 12, starting in verse 1. As we pick up our text in Second Samuel 12:1, let’s look back on where we are so far.
Last week we began the second section of Second Samuel, the section we’re calling the Dark Days of David. These dark days began with David’s sin of lust. He stayed behind, while his troops went out to battle. While there, his eyes lingered on a woman, Bathsheba, taking a bath. From there, he slept with her, she became pregnant, and David tried to cover it up by having her husband come home from war to sleep with her. But her husband, Uriah, was seeking to live righteously before the God of Israel, and he chose not to lie with his wife. Because David couldn’t cover his sin this way, he conspired with a wicked man, Joab, and sent Uriah to the frontlines of battle to be killed. After this, David took the women to be his wife. This whole situation displeased God, and today, we’re going to see the confrontation of that displeasure.
We walked away from last week with the understanding that, God is calling us away from all sin, with extreme language, so that we understand that sin is not something to play with.
With this fresh in our minds, we can turn to Second Samuel 12, starting in verse 1.
12 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. 2 The rich man had very many flocks and herds, 3 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. 4 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.” 5 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, 6 and he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity.”
7 Nathan said to David, “You are the man! Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you out of the hand of Saul. 8 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. 9 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. 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.’
11 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. 12 For you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel and before the sun.’” 13 David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.” And Nathan said to David, “The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die. 14 Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the Lord, the child who is born to you shall die.” 15 Then Nathan went to his house.
Today, we’re only zeroing in on the confrontation between David and Nathan. This is the same Nathan that earlier we saw give leeway to David in building the temple, just to come back and reveal that God hadn’t intended that task for David.
From these fourteen and a half verses, I’ve divided them into four parts. This first part is the parable. Nathan describes a situation where an rich man has everything, and a poor man has very little. The ewe lamb is a baby sheep. The closeness of the sheep to its poor master is revealed in the fact that it eats from his hand and lays in his arms. The terminology here reveals that the lamb sleeps upon the master. It’s even described as being, “… like a daughter to him. (v.3)”
For us, the parable is obvious, because we know the behind the scenes situation. David is the rich man with the many lambs, or wives, while the poor man is Uriah, with his one wife. We could sit here and wonder, how David doesn’t know Nathan is talking about him? But this is what sin does to us. When we have justified our unrighteous actions to ourselves, and then are confronted with the obvious problem we have created, it goes right over our head. We’ve convinced ourselves that we’re not in the wrong, so we cannot not see, even the obvious.
This leads into the second part, David rages against the rich man. As David listens, detached from the issue because of the justification of his own sin, David sees the sin of another and is rightly mad. David is right, the rich man has committed sin. He has all that he needs, but there’s still a desire for more. This is what sin does. It always wants a little more. David’s is right that the poor man should be give four times what he lost as compensation, which is a command given by God in Exodus 22:1, where it states, “If a man steals an ox or a sheep, and kills it or sells it, he shall repay five oxen for an ox, and four sheep for a sheep.”
But in part 3, the parable comes home when Nathan states, “You are the man! (v.7)” Nathan brings the parable home to David. The rich man is not some guy out there, whom David can judge from his palace, but the king himself. David can see clearly that the rich man has sinned, yet he cannot see that he himself has sinned. On top of this, David knows what the punishment for such an act is, yet cannot see the need for his own punishment. David has cut himself off from the consequences of his own sin, justifying it in his own mind, though he knows the word of God. This is why Nathan tells him, “Why have you despised the word of the Lord, to do what is evil in his sight? (v.9)”
David knows aspects of God’s word, but he glosses over the parts that would pertain to him, because he wants to be justified in what he has done wrong.
But God won’t let David’s sin slide, and in part four of the interaction, Nathan reveals God’s judgment on David. Though, God will not punish David directly with death, David’s kingdom will be affected. The child that was born from this sinful union will die. The house that was to be established will face turmoil from within. David will sit and watch as his sin germinates and destroys the people around him. And the words of God, “For you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel and before the sun … (v.12)” reveal that what David tried to cover up, God will make known to everyone. And the judgment will be seen by the whole nation.
And though David comes to a realization that he sinned, it’s too late, judgment has been passed. David will see all the good that God has done, begin to crumble. It’s almost a worse punishment to not be directly punished. But rather to see the people around you be hurt because of your disobedience.
This is a simple lesson, God will not allow sin in our lives to go unpunished. People see other people doing wicked things, and will say things like, ‘Why doesn’t God do something about that?’ He is. On May 27th, 2026, Pastor Treva Edwards and his wife were indicted on sex trafficking and forced labor charges. Bishop Jerry Maynard Sr. and two of his children are being sued because they were committing pharmaceutical fraud. Back in November 2024, a youth leader was arrested for child pornography. There are thousands of cases that God has and is revealing, because God will bring evil to light.
I’ve shared before, that at my first intern position as a youth leader, there was a lady music leader who would say almost very week, “Your sins will find you out.” After Marika and I moved from the area, we were told by one of the congregants that she ran off with the pastor. Your sins will find you out, because God won’t allow them to be hidden in the dark. Especially if you claim to be following him.
So what are we to do? How can we avoid being publicly embarrassed by our sin. First, we need to take Jesus’ words in Matthew 7:1-5, “Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.”
We begin by simply taking ourselves before the Lord daily to have him reveal the sin in our lives, confess it, repent of it, and seek him to cleans us from it. All the while being very slow to cast judgment on others until we have a thorough time before the Lord searching us. We cannot be like David who was quick to judge another’s action, when he himself was steeped in his own sin. Next week we’re going to see how David responds to this with his Psalm 51, but for us today, we are being called to a simple step: We go before the Lord with a desire to be shown where we fall short. We cannot hide it, because either we face it now with God, or God will have us face it with the whole world. God is calling us to be truthful with our sin, and willing to have it dealt with.
So my challenge for you this week is simple, for one week, ever time you see the sin of another person, ask “Lord, am I doing that?” If you are, confess, repent, and seek the Holy Spirit to work in you to overcome that sin. Instead of judging other people because of their sin, let us seek the Lord to reveal what we have justified in ourselves that he is displeased with.
Let us be a people who seek the Lord’s renewal and don’t justified what displeases our Savior. Amen.
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