Lesson: God Forgave David's Sin (2 Samuel 11-12, Psalm 51)

Title: God’s Forgave David’s Sin
Scripture: 2 Samuel 11-12, Psalm 51
Target Age Group: 3^rd-5^th grade

Lesson Opening

Ask: Does anyone know what the word “restore” means?
Say: When something is restored it means it’s put back together after it’s been broken or messed up in some way. The other day as I was loading my dishwasher at home I dropped one of my favorite dessert plates. It broke into two pieces, and luckily I was able to glue it back together. My plate was restored!
Ask: What if my plate had broken into 500 pieces? Do you think I would have been able to fix it? (Probably not.)
Say: Sometimes our sin is a bit like that dessert plate. When we disobey God we can totally wreck our lives! And it might seem like there’s no way to put things right again. But God is so powerful and so merciful that He is able to restore us when we repent of our sin and ask Him to forgive us.
Say: Our story is about King David and how he sinned against God, but God was able to restore David and forgive him.

Tell the Story

Explain It (Book): This is where you school ‘em!
Say: Our story comes from the book of 2 Samuel. For the last few weeks we’ve been learning about King David.
Ask: Who can tell me something they’ve learned about David in the last few weeks?
Say: We’ve heard all kinds of stories about David and how brave he was and how He trusted God. We might be tempted to think David was a perfect guy who had it all together. But we would be wrong.
Say: During springtime when kings often went out to war, David put a man named Joab in charge of the army, but David stayed home. One night, David was standing on the roof of the palace and across the way he noticed a beautiful woman. David asked his servants about her. They said, “Her name is Bathsheba and she is married to Uriah, a strong warrior in your army.” David sent messengers to Bathsheba to bring her to the palace and she spent the night there.
Say: Sometime later Bathsheba sent a message to David saying “I am pregnant, and you are the father.” David knew that it was wrong for him to have a baby with someone who was married to another man. But instead of confessing his sin, David tried to hide it.
Say: David had Uriah, Bathsheba’s husband brought home from the fighting. He told him to go home and spend time with his wife. That way, everyone would think that Bathsheba’s baby was Uriah’s. But Uriah refused. He said, “It’s not right for me to go home and spend time relaxing when the rest of the army is out fighting.” So instead of going home, Uriah slept at the entrance to the palace with the other servants.
Say: David’s plan wasn’t working! Instead of confessing his sin, he came up with another plan, one much worse than the first. David sent a message with Uriah and told him to give it to Joab, the commander of the army. In the message David told Joab to put Uriah at the center of the battle where the fighting was the most dangerous. That way, Uriah would surely be killed. Joab obeyed David’s order and sure enough, Uriah died during the battle.
Ask: David hid his sin from other people. But do you think he was able to hide it from God?
Say: God knew exactly what David had done, and God was not happy about it. God spoke to the prophet named Nathan and sent Nathan to David to confront him with his sin.
Say: Nathan came to David and instead of coming right out and accusing David, he told him a story. The story was of a rich man who had many animals. There was also a poor man who had only one baby lamb. One day a visitor came to the rich man for dinner, but the rich man didn’t want to kill any of his own animals for the meal. Instead he took the one baby lamb from the poor man and served it to the visitor for dinner.
Say: When David heard the story he was furious. “That rich man deserves to die!” He said. Nathan looked at him and said, “You are the man!” At that moment David knew that he couldn’t hide his sin any longer. He realized what a terrible thing he had done. David knew that he deserved to die for what he had done, but God promised that David wouldn’t die. Instead, Nathan told David that the baby that he and Bathsheba had would die.
Ask: How do you think David will respond to God’s mercy?
Say: Instead of continuing to hide his sin, David finally confessed it to God. He also begged God to forgive him. David wrote Psalm 51 as a prayer to God. Let’s read it together.
Read Psalm 51:1, 10
Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love. According to you great compassion, blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.
Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.
Ask: What did David ask God to do? (Forgive his sin, make his heart pure, to not forsake him)
Connect it (Look): Apply it & Answer “How?”
Say: When we do something wrong our first thought it often to try to hide what we’ve done. But there is no need to try to hide from God. Not because God is like a big bully up in heaven just waiting to bust us for everything we do wrong, but because God loves us so much that He wants to restore us even when we sin.
Ask: Is there anything we can do that is so bad that God would never ever forgive us?
Say: No way! God knows that we are weak and sinful, and our hearts are naturally far from Him, but He loves us anyway. God created us so He could pour out His love in our lives, and He is eager and willing to do that!
Say: Because of our sin, like David, we know that we deserve to die. The Bible says in the book of Romans that the punishment for sin is death. Someone must die to pay for our sins. God loves us so much that He was willing to die for us! Isn’t that incredible? We serve such a loving, glorious God who has offered us a wonderful gift—forgiveness for our sin. And there’s nothing that we have to do to try to earn it! God forgives us when we turn to Jesus and put our faith in Him. When we follow Jesus and repent of our sin, we find freedom from our sin. And just like David prayed, we can ask God to “restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.”
Say: Let’s pray and thank God for His wonderful gift of salvation.
Pray

Review Questions

• What does it mean to restore something? (Fix something that is broken)
• What books of the Bible did our story come from? (2 Samuel, Psalms)
• What did David do instead of confessing his sin? (Tried to hide it)
• Was David able to hide his sin from God? (No!)
• Which prophet told the story of the poor man to David? (Nathan)
• How did David respond when confronted with his sin? (He repented and confessed to God, asking God to forgive him.)
• Is there any sin too great for God to forgive? (No!)
• What does this story teach us about God? (He is merciful and forgiving.)