Joshua Grubbs
David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the LORD.” Nathan said to David, “Now the LORD has put away your sin; you shall not die. Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the LORD, the child born to you shall die.”
When I was a kid, I loved to play baseball by myself. Yes, I recognize that’s a funny statement. Cut me a break, I was the only kid my age in the neighborhood! While one boy a baseball team does not make, I spent most of the time tossing the ball up to myself and swinging away. One summer morning I was doing just that when I tipped the ball off my bat and sent it careening backwards… right into the garage window.
The glass shattered, and I remember running into the house and quickly defending myself to my mom, “I didn’t do it on purpose! It was a foul ball!” Mercifully, my grandpa came over and fixed the window before my dad got home. My dad played baseball too, and, surely, he would understand my claims of innocence on account of it being a foul ball that broke the window!
My dad wasn’t mad (more so laughing at my insistence of an “out-of-play” hit shouldn’t count against me) and my grandpa did a great job patching up the window, but over the next few weeks I would occasionally find a piece of wood or some errant glass in the grass or garage. The window was fixed and I was happily hitting fly balls in the backyard again, but signs of the smashed glass remained.
As we see in David’s life, he was assured after his sin that God had forgiven him and put his sin far away. While this is true, and praise God that He has taken away our sin, Nathan doesn’t beat around the bush when he tells David that the child born to David from his conspiracy of adultery, covetousness, and murder will die. David’s sin was wiped away in the eyes of God, but the results of his sin were still yet to be meted out.
I want to be very clear – when we proclaim Christ as Lord and are forgiven by God, we are forgiven! Jesus Himself declares such in John 8:36, “So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.” But the question arises as Paul has articulated it in Romans 6:1-2, “What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may increase? By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it?”
When we lie, we damage our relationships with those around us and trust must be rebuilt. When we succumb to envy or greed, we strip ourselves and our neighbors of the properly ordered joy God has created for material goods. When we respond to one another with anger or derision, we go against the truth that God has created all of us fearfully and wonderfully as His image bearers. The results of our sin and shortcomings extend far beyond what we can see, and the consequences are inevitable.
We are forgiven, but our actions still have consequences. We must be mindful of this truth and now allow ourselves to fall into complacency in our battle against sin. It is ever present, and as 1 Peter 5:8 tells us, “Discipline yourselves; keep alert. Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour.” We won’t be perfect, but as new creations, risen to new life in Christ, we should strive not to allow sin and its consequences to stain our lives, but be washed and “whiter than snow” as the Psalmist says.
At the very least, with God’s help and the Spirit’s power, let’s try not to hit too many foul balls.
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