Killing the Giant You Created |06.01.25| Facing Giants pt.3
My daughter was SO EXCITED when she got this new backpack a year ago to start kindergarten. You can see that it’s lived a little life by now, a year later, because it’s been in and out of buses, classrooms, cars, our living room, hung up on hooks, dropped on the floor RIGHT INSIDE the door where it’s a tripping hazard, and it’s carried a LOT of stuff…
It’s hilarious to see her little body running off to the bus in the morning with this huge backpack bouncing behind her. And you can tell how heavy it is by how much it bounces and by how fast she’s able to move.
Because it it’s just got a snack and a pair of gloves in it? No problem, very easy to walk around life carrying that.
But when it was full of books from the library, rocks from the garden, pine cones from the playground…it gets pretty unwieldy.
And that makes me think of the burdens WE carry in life as well.
Too many of us are carrying around things in our hearts that are weighing us down. Past regrets, secret shame, decisions we’ve made that we keep hidden.
Because we haven’t stopped to pull it out into the light. To let it go. To get healed.
Sure, you can carry it around for a while. But if we NEVER bring it into the light…it gets heavier. Until eventually, we can’t move forward. Not spiritually, not relationally, not emotionally.
We’re stuck, weighed down by a giant that grew slowly over time in the dark.
[Scripture Ref]
And that’s exactly the place we find King David in 2 Samuel 11, which can be found on p221 of the OT in the black, seat-back Bibles.
We’re currently in a series looking at the giants we face in life, and how we can find the courage we need to face them.
[4Gs]
And we’ve been talking about how we can preach the good news of the gospel to ourselves to find the strength to overcome the giants in our lives with God’s help.
So we’ve talked about how we can rely on God’s goodness to satisfy our every need, so we don’t need to look elsewhere to find the courage to STEP UP to the challenge in front of us. God is the one we need.
And we’ve talked about how we can trust that God is Great, so we don’t have to be in control or take revenge. Instead, God gives us the courage to HOLD UP before we make a choice we’ll regret later.
But what about when you feel like you’ve already BEEN overcome? You’ve already given in, but you’re hiding it from those you love… How do you find the courage to FESS UP?
So let’s look at this story together in the life of David, the king who had courage in battle, but was a coward in the face of his own failure. And, just a heads up, this episode of David’s life is a downward spiral of awful things, but we’ll also get to see where grace breaks in.
[2 Samuel 11:1-2]
So David is NOT stepping up to fulfill his role as king. He’s NOT going off to war, but instead is sending his men while he stays behind.
And he’s not able to rest. He’s rest-less, and he’s LOOKING for…something. Purpose, comfort, something to take his mind off things. And he sees…her.
Now, David could have stopped this whole trajectory right there. Honest mistake, he didn’t mean it, get out of there, turn to God, go connect with his family…
…but he didn’t. And he didn’t just LOOK. He LINGERED. He noticed that she was beautiful.
[2 Samuel 11:3]
He looked, he lingered, and then he LONGED to know more about her. And the messenger comes back to tell him her name, her father, and her husband.
And I’m like, was the messenger trying to help his boss not do something stupid? Was he making sure that David knew that this wasn’t just some THING. She’s a person with a name.
She’s a daughter. She’s a WIFE. …but that didn’t deter David.
[2 Samuel 11:4]
…I want to make sure to make a note here very intentionally, but also very lightly and aware that we have lots of ages in this room.
Bathsheba was minding her own business when armed guards and messengers from the king came to her house with orders for her to come with them to see the king.
Then she gets there, an ordinary citizen in the presence of the most powerful man in the country, and he is not subtle at all in his intentions.
This wasn’t consensual. This wasn’t a secret affair. This was assault. And then she went home.
[2 Samuel 11:5-10]
“Why didn’t you go home?” Because David had concocted a cover-up. He had MULTIPLE opportunities to stop this whole ordeal. He could have repented from his sin so many times before this moment.
But he shirked his responsibilities as king, as the one who was supposed to defend his subjects against their enemies. Then he added looking and longing. Then he implicated his guards and messengers. Then he took advantage of the power imbalance and took advantage of Bathsheba.
And the weight gets heavier and heavier. And now, instead of coming clean, he’s trying to cover it up by having Bathsheba’s husband come home from the front lines and go home to see his wife. And just MAYBE people will be fooled to think that she is carrying the son of Uriah.
[2 Samuel 11:11]
Good guy Uriah has too much integrity. Uriah the HITTITE — which means he’s actually a foreigner who must have converted to become an Israelite — He respects his country too much, his faith in God too much, his fellow soldiers too much.
He’s not going to TAKE ADVANTAGE of the situation. He would never take advantage of his wife.
Well the next few verses show David making one last ditch effort to sway Uriah by getting him drunk and sending him home. Maybe he’ll go inside. Maybe his story will work then.
But good guy Uriah still has too much integrity and sleeps outside the palace with the servants.
[2 Samuel 11:14-15]
And what happens next makes this awful encounter all the more devastating. David has now implicated his army commander, Joab, who follows orders and puts Uriah where the fighting is fiercest.
As expected, the enemy fights back and Uriah is killed, along with others who became casualties to a dumb military move that Joab would have never done otherwise.
So Joab sends back word of how they lost multiple people that day, including Uriah. And David says this:
[2 Samuel 11:25]
“Oh well, we all have to die sometime.”
[2 Samuel 11:26-27]
So then David completes the cover-up by pretending to be magnanimous, marrying the widow of the fallen soldier so that she’s not left alone. And we’re left to wonder: will David “carry this to his grave” and let this secret giant win?
Because remember, David COULD HAVE confessed early, at the first weight in the bag. But instead, he kept stuffing sin into the dark — letting it grow and grow and grow until it became a giant.
He ignored the opportunities to turn away, and he pushed through with his desire to TAKE Bathsheba.
And that led to murder and multiple other casualties, implicating multiple servants, guards, and his army commander in his evil dealings.
And it involved the brutal assault of a faithfully married woman, that he then married to make it seem like he “fixed” it all.
This episode in David’s life is an ugly, sickening look at an abusive, powerful leader who uses others to get his way. Instead of defending his subjects against their enemies, David abused his subjects and became their enemy.
“But what David had done displeased the Lord…”
[blank]
So the Lord sends the prophet Nathan to confront David. And this isn’t a little job. After all, David has just proven that he’s capable of the worst possible things in order to keep his secret, but there’s Nathan, sent to speak truth to power.
And so he tells a parable to the king about a poor man who had a favorite pet sheep. David used to be a shepherd, so I imagine David was listening intently and was picturing his own life all those years ago.
But as the story goes, there is a rich guy who lives next door, and he has a visitor come for dinner. But instead of killing a goat or a sheep from his own flocks for his visitor, this rich guy heartlessly takes the favorite lamb from the poor shepherd and kills it instead.
And David is on the edge of his seat and loses his mind. “There’s no WAY that guy should be allowed to get away with this! He needs to be brought to justice!”
And then Nathan drops the punchline: “My King…YOU are that man.”
And I want to just pause the narrative here to point out a few things, because God didn’t send Nathan to SHAME David. He didn’t send Nathan to reverse his anointing as king.
We know this because David is still king for many years after this episode. No, God sent Nathan to WAKE David UP.
[2 Samuel 12:13]
And finally, David says, “I have sinned against the Lord.”
FINALLY…David fesses up. And Nathan pronounces mercy from the Lord. David deserved to have all the awful things he did done to him, but the Lord removes that weight.
But, there are still consequences, and David experiences those as well. Because we have to know that our acts of disobedience, our sin, hurts US and it hurts those we love.
But the answer that gets us to experience freedom from the weight of the secret giant that we have allowed to grow in the hidden darkness of our hearts is NOT that we have to prove ourselves or make amends.
We don’t EARN our way into God’s grace.
[God is Gracious]
In fact, the good news that we need to preach to ourselves so that we can find the courage confess is that God is Gracious — so I don’t have to prove myself.
In fact, David’s attempts to try to “make it right” or “cover it up” just got him deeper into evil.
And when we find ourselves adding to the weight in our bag, the answer isn’t to try to prove ourselves with our effort. God isn’t sitting up on his throne with his arms crossed waiting for us to fix ourselves before we come to him.
He’s stretching his arms out to us with grace, asking us to let him heal us. And his grace isn’t permission to continue in our sin. It’s God’s power to help us change.
Because judgment on David would have looked like him dying some awful death, but God sent Nathan as a way to WAKE HIM UP. And that was the turning point for David. And that brings us to the truth that WE need to know.
[Coming clean]
Coming clean takes courage — but it leads to FREEDOM.
Shame and guilt are powerful feelings that try to convince us that they only way forward is by hiding. And the Enemy whispers lies:
“They’ll never forgive you.”
“You’re too far gone.”
“You’re not strong enough to deal with this.”
And the weight will feel too heavy. The secret giant is too big. And we WANT freedom, but we’re not sure where to find the courage to come clean.
But God’s grace is what gives us the courage to be honest. And he actually has created the pathway for forgiveness and healing THROUGH confession. Confession is actually one of the ways that God delivers to us the GIFTS of forgiveness and healing.
[1 John 1:9]
1 John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
“If we confess… God (who is faithful and just), WILL forgive us and cleanse us.”
[James 5:16]
And James 5:16 says, “Therefore confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, so that you may be healed.”
“Confess your sings to one another… pray… so that you may be healed.”
Shame and guilt will try to convince you to stay in the darkness, but forgiveness and healing happens in the light.
[blank]
And this isn’t something we need to try and muster up on our own. God’s grace is already available, we just have to receive it and accept it.
Jesus defeated the power of sin and death, paying the penalty for our sin and disobedience — not so that we could try and MANAGE our sin better or try and “do better” for the rest of our lives…
…No, Jesus defeated sin so that we could be healed from it and step into newness of life, learning how to follow him in every area of our lives and helping others to do the same.
And when we accept God’s grace, and allow it to fuel courageous confession, our vulnerability often inspires someone else’s breakthrough.
Our 2 Samuel passage gives us a very short confession from David, but Psalm 51 is a beautiful, deep, and vulnerable confession of sin that turns to praise of who God is. Just listen to this: (vv1-15)
David wrote his confession as a poetic song, and it has now stood the test of time across almost 3,000 years, inspiring countless others to turn to God in confession for forgiveness and healing.
[Coming clean]
Coming clean takes courage — but it leads to freedom. And it’s the grace of God that gives us the courage to be honest. And when we accept that grace, when we confess, our vulnerability often inspires someone else’s breakthrough.
But when we choose to stay hidden. When we choose to keep our secrets in the dark… secret sin will grow and grow until it owns you.
Even things that start small can turn into a giant you can’t kill on your own.
David has so many opportunities to confess along the way and kill the sin that was threatening him. But the longer he let it go unconfessed, it great and was added to and hurt others until it was this incredibly huge giant that he would never be able to kill.
And it weighed down on him, causing him to keep sinning, keep hurting people, just to keep the secret.
But naming out loud what you’re hiding is the first step towards letting Jesus heal and reshape that part of your life.
[Ask God]
So here’s what I’d like to encourage you to do. Later in the service, we have a moment for confession before we take communion together. And I’d like you to spend that time and ask God, “Where am I hiding?” “What is something I’m keeping in the dark?”
And then bring that into the light through prayer, or bring it into the light through a conversation with someone you trust after church.
And even more than just the opportunity later on in this service, but that’s something you should start EACH DAY with this week. Ask God, “Where is a part of my life where I am hiding?”
Ask him that question each day so that God can continue to bring forgiveness and healing to you. Because naming it out loud is the first step to letting Jesus heal and transform that part of your life.
[Revelation 3:20]
In Rev 3:20, Jesus says, “Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in and eat with you, and you with me.”
“I’m standing at the door and knocking. If ANYONE hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and stay with that person…”
God’s grace is ALREADY being offered. His hands are already outstretched towards you.
He’s literally CALLING for you and knocking on the door of your life.
And he doesn’t need you to quickly clean up your living room and shove everything unclean into your shame-closet before you let him in.
Jesus didn’t die for the curated and fake you. He died for the real you.
[blank]
So ask him to come in and show you where you’re hiding. Let him shine the light of his grace on your sin so that he can begin the work of cleaning and healing you.
And this is an ongoing process, not a one-time prayer. That’s why we practice confession EVERY WEEK. That’s why you need to turn to God in vulnerability EVERY DAY.
Because then God’s grace can do the work of deeper healing, one layer at a time, which then allows us to be transformed to become more and more like Jesus in every area of our lives.
So that we can join Jesus in his work of reaching the One he is sending us to.
And can you just imagine how a life fueled by courageous confession would change everything?
Imagine what your family would be like by the end of summer if you DAILY turned to God to receive his grace and let him heal you of confessed sin and brokenness.
Imagine how you’d see yourself and your family stop being spiritually stuck and stagnant. You’d be filled with joy over daily connection to God and that would be spilling over to deeper connection with each other.
Imagine how you’d feed the weight lift, the FREEDOM from that heavy burden of shame. You wouldn’t be living a double life anymore, where you’re always worried the secret will come out.
Your family wouldn’t be walking on eggshells with each other anymore.
I mean, just IMAGINE the impact our church could make on our community this summer if we were living more free, and therefore more able to share God’s grace with others who NEED it?
Because, I don’t know if you know this statistic, but almost every person you interact with in a given week — 90% of this Sauk Valley area — 9 out of ten people who live here aren’t connected to a church and therefore are probably…
Buried under the weight of huddle guilt and shame
Living a fractured, compartmentalized life, where they act different around different groups to protect what needs to stay hidden.
Living lonely with shallow relationships because they can’t be REAL with anyone
Burning out while trying to keep it all together, exhausted from carrying secrets…and they feel so alone because they don’t know that God is reach out to them with grace.
So IMAGINE how YOU could live in to your part of our mission as a church, being able to live FREE and offer the people around us the one thing that can set them free: Jesus.
Because the good news is that Jesus is better than David ever could be. Because while David used his power to cover sin, Jesus laid down his power to COVER YOUR SIN WITH HIS GRACE.
Jesus didn’t deflect blame — he took yours.
Jesus didn’t manage appearances — he willingly chose the cross for us.
Jesus isn’t scared of the worst parts of you — he stands at the door and knocks and is asking to be let in so that he can lead you OUT of hiding into healing.
Because every giant that we face is an opportunity for God to work in our lives. And every secret giant of guilt that we’ve been hiding is an opportunity for God’s grace to set us free.
Isn’t that good news?