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Guest (Female): Welcome to PowerPoint with Jack Graham.

Jack Graham: David is not defined by his adultery. That was an exception. David's life should not be characterized as a failure. His life should be characterized as a forgiven man.

Guest (Female): On today's PowerPoint, Dr. Graham brings a message about how the power of Christ in you can truly change your heart. Now, here's Dr. Graham with his message, "Finding Forgiveness."

Jack Graham: You can't discuss David's life without talking about his great sin. David's sin of committing adultery with Bathsheba, his ultimate cover-up, the killing of Bathsheba's husband, Uriah, and the 12 months of living in guilt rather than receiving grace, it practically killed the king. And David's sin, in many ways, damaged his life in a way that he could never escape. But I do not believe, because of David's ultimate response to the sin in his life, that it defines David as an adulterer. When I think of David, I don't think of a man whose life is defined by adultery because the scripture says he was a man after God's own heart.

In fact, turn in your Bibles and we're going to look at several scriptures, but before we go there, go to 1 Kings chapter 15 and look at verse 5. David has ascended to the throne finally after being a fugitive. And so, David ascended to the throne. He is leading, he is guiding the nation, and he did it with the skillfulness of his hand and the integrity of his heart. That's what the Bible says in the book of Psalms. But look at verse 5 of 1 Kings chapter 15. It says, "Because David did what was right in the eyes of the Lord and had not turned aside from anything that he commanded him all the days of his life, except in the matter of Uriah the Hittite."

And of course, the matter of Uriah the Hittite was the matter of his adultery with Uriah's wife and the conception of the child and the cover-up and setting up Uriah to be killed in battle. And the king was blood-guilty of this sin. But here's what you could say about David. He did right in the eyes of the Lord all the days of his life except in this instance, in this grievous sin. This was an exception in David's life and not the rule. And that's the difference in a saved man and a lost man, isn't it? Can a Christian sin? Yes. Can a Christian sin grievously? Yes. But a Christian does not continually practice sin.

Sin does not define the Christian's life. Salvation defines the Christian's life. Jesus defines the Christian's life. We know from passages in the scripture as in 1 Corinthians, for example, that no adulterer will inherit the kingdom of God. That's black ink on white paper. What does that mean? If you ever commit adultery, you can't go to heaven? No. It means that an adulterer, one whose life is defined by adultery, whose pattern of life and of living is adultery and womanizing and so on, that person is not a saved person.

A person who practices continually sin in his or her life is simply giving evidence that that person is not born again, is not living the new life in Jesus Christ. And if your religion hasn't changed your life, you'd better change your religion and come to faith in Jesus Christ because only Jesus can change your life and only Jesus can create purity where there is defilement and sin. So David is not defined by his adultery. That was an exception, a terrible episode in his life. And there were consequences of David's sin all the days of his life. He was never quite the same. He bore the scar tissue of sin for the rest of his days.

He was never quite the same in David's life after this sorry, sensual, sexual episode in his life. We're going to see that David is more defined by his repentance than by his sin, but the consequences of sin remained. There are terrible consequences of committing sin. But what I want to emphasize, having said that, is that David's life should not be characterized as a failure. He was not a failed man. His life should be characterized as a forgiven man. And so, that's why I want you to turn to Psalm 51. What is so appealing about David is the attitude of his heart.

He was a man after God's own heart. And here we see that David had a repentant heart. What is the most valuable thing in heaven and earth? Well, Jesus told us. "What should it profit a man if he should gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" The most valuable thing is the soul because your soul will be living timeless, endless in eternity, either separated from God in hell or with God forever in heaven. Your soul is immortal and eternal. It's the most valuable thing on earth. That's what Jesus said. But you might say the most costly thing on earth is sin.

David discovered that and think for just a few moments about the process of committing sin. Sin isn't typically an explosion in a person's life, but in particular, this is true with sexual sin as in David's case. But it is typically a slow leak in which the seeds of sin have been planted and ultimately they grow. What does Galatians 6:7 say? "Do not be deceived, God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows, he reaps." And somewhere along the way, David began sowing seeds of sin in his life. He began to neglect his spiritual duties and he began to turn his head.

In a day in which rather than being with his troops in the battle, he was loitering about the palace. That's when he saw Bathsheba. That's when he looked. That's when he lusted. That's when he took her, went to bed with her. She conceived and had a baby. He knew he was in trouble, so he tried to hide it. He thought, "Well, I'll send her husband out to the front lines of the battle, get him killed," which he did, and then marry Bathsheba and no one will know. I'm sure David himself could have never imagined he would have failed and fallen like this.

Sin will take you farther than you want to go. It will keep you longer than you want to stay and it will cost you far more than you ever anticipated to pay. And that's what happened to David. So after 12 months of hiding and juking and covering up, God sent Nathan the prophet because God knew. And God sent Nathan the prophet. Nathan the prophet stuck a long bony finger in the king's face and said, "David, you're the man," and confronted him with his sin. And then David repented and he said, "I have sinned against the Lord." Now, what was this sin?

In Psalm 51, this is David's prayer of repentance that was written about this same time when David is repenting of his sin. He said, "Have mercy upon me, O God, according to your loving kindness, according to the multitude of your tender mercies, blot out my transgressions." Note that word 'blot'. "Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin." Now, notice there are three words here which describe sin. One is the word transgression. "Blot out my transgressions." And the word transgression there means rebellion. David, who was the friend of God, David, who was a man after God's own heart, is now a rebel against God.

God had said, "You shall not commit adultery. Thou shalt not kill." And yet, he committed both adultery and murder. So sin is a defiance against God. David had sinned against the nation when he committed this sin. David had sinned against Bathsheba when he committed this sin. David had sinned against Uriah the Hittite, the husband of Bathsheba, when he committed this sin. David sinned against himself because there were terrible consequences of his sin. He sinned against the nation. He sinned against himself. He sinned against his own family. But ultimately, sin is against God.

Guest (Female): You're listening to PowerPoint with Jack Graham and the message, "Finding Forgiveness." July 4th, 2026 will be a day of great celebration for the 250th birthday of our great country. However, there has never been a more important time in our 250 years as a nation where we need God to move in power and heal our land. That's why I'm inviting you to join Dr. Graham in a prayer challenge for our nation. To join, simply text the word CRY to 59789. Again, text CRY to 59789.

Remember that your support of PowerPoint ministries helps people encounter Jesus through clear biblical teaching. Through the support of friends like you, lives are being strengthened, faith is being renewed, and seekers are discovering the hope only found in Christ. Your partnership is so vital that when you give this month, we'll send you Dr. Graham's book, "Life According to Jesus," as our thanks. It's a powerful journey through the gospel of John that shares wisdom from the life of Christ to help you respond to real-world struggles. To give your gift, text APRIL to 59789. Again, text APRIL to 59789. Now, let's get back to today's message, "Finding Forgiveness."

Jack Graham: It was a transgression against a holy God. But then notice, he also describes sin in verse 2 with the word iniquity, which literally means crookedness. So sin is not only defiance, it is also a distortion or a deviation. It deceives and distorts the character. The thing that you could say about David is that he was a man of character, the integrity of his heart. And yet, sin now has taken a straight man, a good man, and made him a crooked man. But then he uses the word sin. He says, "Cleanse me from my sin" down in verse 2.

The word sin there means to miss the mark, to fall short. Romans 3:23, "For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." So sin is a distance. It is a failure. It separates us from God. It keeps us from achieving God's best and God's standard for your life. We can rationalize sin, we can redefine it, you can excuse sin, but it is still sin. And David fell short of the standard of God and he missed the mark. He failed and he went down in flames because of sin. Sin is also a debt. See that word in verse 1? "Blot out my transgression."

'Blot out' is the picture of blotting out a debt, the cost of sin. You pay the price. David was a man who was enjoying the riches of the kingdom, just as we are enjoying the riches of the kingdom of God. You are a child of the King. And yet, David threw away all of this, all of the riches of the king and the kingdom, and he became a debtor. He was spiritually bankrupt because of his sin. Sin is a debt. And then sin is a defilement for he said, "Wash me." Look down in verse 2. "Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity."

David was a man who was clean, but now he's filthy. He's dirty with his sin. His heart was full of filth. And then sin is a disease. "Cleanse me from my sin." And that's a word which literally means to cleanse me from my disease of sin. So get this picture, the picture of sin. It is a debt. It is a defilement. It is a disease. It is a distance between man and God. It is a disturbance, a distortion in the spiritual life. And it is a terrible price to pay for a Christian. So a simple question: David, was it worth it?

There is pleasure in sin for a season. And you could say, "Well, David, it was a sin of passion." David was having a bad day and it was a sin of passion and his testosterone was rocking and rolling and he was a man and he failed. Yes, it was a sin of passion, but it became more than that, didn't it? It was not just a passionate sin, it was a premeditated sin, especially the premeditation of the murder of Uriah the Hittite. And so, you can't really cut David any slack in this, as much as we might want to.

And you really can't cut yourself any slack in this because it is a terrible thing to sin against a holy God. And this is a deterrent for us. There are several things that keep us from sin and one is the holy fear of God, but another should be the holy fear of sin. Because notice what happened to David. He was a friend of God, now he's a fugitive, running from God. He was walking the straight path and now he's crooked. He was meeting his goals and God had set the standard of the kingdom, but now he's a failure and he's fallen short of God's standards, much less his own standards.

He was wealthy spiritually and now he's impoverished. He was clean and now he was dirty. He was spiritually healthy and now he is diseased. So he covers his sin and the pain that resulted is what is so remarkable here. Look in Psalm 51 again down about verse 8. "Make me hear joy and gladness, that the bones you have broken may rejoice. Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from your presence and do not take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and uphold me by your generous spirit."

"Then I will teach transgressors your ways and sinners will be converted to you." He said, "My sin was ever before me." Hide your face from my sins and make me hear joy and gladness again. It affected his eyes, it affected his mind, it affected his ears. "Make me hear joy and gladness again." It affected his bones. Psalm 51:8, physically he was a wreck. It affected his heart. "Create in me a clean heart, O God." So his mind is impacted, his ears, his hands. Look down in verse 14. "Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God, and then my tongue shall sing aloud of your righteousness."

"O Lord, open my lips and my mouth shall praise, set forth your praise." Deliver me from the blood-guiltiness of my hands. His hands were affected, his eyes were affected, his ears were affected, his bones were affected. This man is falling apart, wouldn't you say? And it was all because he was covering up his sin. The Proverbs says, "Whoever covers his sin will not prosper." No way can you sin and win. Spiritually, emotionally, mentally, physically, he suffered. Now, you can suffer without sinning, but you cannot sin without suffering. And David is suffering in ways that he could have never imagined.

You know, sin makes no sense, does it? Particularly this sin. You talk to guys in particular about sexual sin and there's something about this sin that just short-circuits the brain. It's a distortion of the mind and the way we begin to think. And the dumbest thing is a Christian trying to cover up his sin. You know why? Because we're not any good at it. And I'll tell you something else, there's nothing more miserable than a Christian out of fellowship with God. Because he's lost his fellowship, he's lost his joy. He said, "Restore to me the joy of my salvation," that's verse 12.

He's lost his testimony. He's lost his ability to worship God. It's all right here in this passage. His spirit is affected, his fellowship is affected, his joy, his testimony, his worship, his life is in a shambles because he has sinned and he has not repented to this point. So what happened to David? Say, "Well, he must have fallen out of grace." Well, thank God he didn't fall out of grace. He fell into grace. Which is a good time to say that a Christian can lose fellowship with God, but you can never lose your sonship with God.

He wasn't suggesting there that he was losing his salvation, but he didn't want to lose the anointing of the Spirit upon his life. And he felt that that was happening. And so David was just so beaten down by his own sin and the consequences of sin that he falls into the grace of God. And that's what I read in the Bible. People don't fall out of grace, they fall into grace when they're in grace. For the same scripture that says whoever covers his sin will not prosper tells us that whoever confesses and forsakes his sin will prosper.

So David said, "I have sinned against God." And you can see the repentance here. So that brings us to the final chapter here, which is the power of confessing sin. Confession. 1 John 1:9 is a great scripture. "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." Now, what does it mean to confess our sins? It means to be sincere. It's not the attitude which says, "Well, if I sin I'll just confess my sin and go on and live my life."

If you come with confession with that kind of attitude, that what I did didn't matter and I'll just go and maybe do it again, that's not confession. Confession is coming to God and being honest with God and asking Him to forgive us our sin. That was David's attitude. He came with a repentant heart, and repentance is not penance. It's not just paying a penance and then going on and not being changed. Repentance literally means to change. He was broken, but now he is restored. What does the scripture say? A broken and contrite spirit God will not despise. He is truly broken by his sin.

And that's why he's just praying for forgiveness. But look back in Psalm 51, verse 7. "Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow." How are we made whiter than snow? How are we cleansed from our sin? The blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanses us from all sin.

Guest (Female): You're listening to PowerPoint with Jack Graham and the message, "Finding Forgiveness." Let me remind you that your support helps bring the life-changing truth of Jesus Christ to people across the world through PowerPoint Ministries. And this month, we'd love to send you a powerful resource as our way of saying thank you for your gift. It's Dr. Jack Graham's book, "Life According to Jesus." In this transformative journey through the Gospel of John, you'll discover not just what Jesus might do, but what He actually did when facing life's hardest questions.

And we'll be excited to send you this resource because your generosity helps place this kind of biblical teaching into the hands of seekers and believers alike, equipping them to live according to Jesus's example every day. To give your gift, just text APRIL to 59789. Again, that's APRIL to 59789. July 4th, 2026 will be a day of great celebration for the 250th birthday of our great country. However, there has never been a more important time in our 250 years as a nation where we need God to move in power and heal our land. That's why I'm inviting you to join Dr. Graham in a prayer challenge for our nation. To join, simply text the word CRY to 59789. Again, text CRY to 59789. Pastor, what is your PowerPoint for today?

Jack Graham: You never know who's listening and that's what's so amazing really about Christian radio and the opportunity we have each week, each day to bring the message of Christ and of hope and forgiveness to people who desperately need it. And I certainly don't know who's listening or what's going on inside your heart today, but this I know: whenever I address the subject of adultery and retell David's story, people begin to let their secrets go. They get so tired of suppressing the deceit and the deceitfulness and they want nothing more than to know God's cleansing mercy and the fullness of His power and His grace to save.

If I'm talking to you right now, then let me urge you: don't smother or try to suffocate that lie any longer. Don't brush it off and pretend it's not there. There's no one more miserable than a disobedient and defiant Christian. And that's exactly what your disobedience and your defiance brings: misery. Is that you, keeping a secret that you need to tell to God? If you want the release and the relief and yes, the redemption that comes from forgiveness, you need to start with repentance.

So let me encourage you to take a page out of David's journal. Let me read a portion of Psalm 51 again just for you. "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and uphold me with your generous spirit." Today when you get an opportunity, I want you to take a long look at Psalm 51. Do this on your own. Do this for your soul. You will get a sense of David's contrite and repentant attitude and of the grace and the goodness of God to forgive.

I challenge you. Make David's heart and prayer your own. Trust God's forgiveness when you turn from your sin and you will receive restoration from Christ. Repentance is opening up your heart and your life to the forgiveness and the grace of God. Take this step today. Make it your prayer today. This is what a champion does. Do it right now. He is ready to make your life brand new, to take away your misery and to restore the joy of your salvation.

Guest (Female): And that is today's PowerPoint. And join us again next time as Dr. Graham brings a message about how you serve God in your generation. That's next time on PowerPoint with Jack Graham. PowerPoint with Jack Graham is sponsored by PowerPoint Ministries.