“Then Nathan said to David, ‘You are the man!'” (2 Samuel 12:7).

“You the man!”

When we hear that, in today’s jargon, that’s a compliment. It means, “Wow! You are really something. You are really great!” When someone says that about you, it’s almost a always a good thing.

Not so much in this context. When Nathan tells David, “You are the man!”, Nathan is confronting David about his sin of raping Bathsheba and murdering her husband Uriah. The person responsible for these horrendous deeds is none other than David.

The rest of the verse lays out the sentence. “Then Nathan said to David, ‘You are the man!’ This is what the LORD, the God of Israel,, says: ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul. I gave your master’s house to you, and your master’s wives into your arms. I gave you all Israel and Judah. And if all this had been too little, I would have given you even more. Why did you despise the word of the LORD by doing what is evil in his eyes? You struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and took his wife to be your own. You killed him with the sword of the Ammonites” (2 Samuel 12:7-9).

“You are the man!”

Just as David was guilty of sin, so are we.

“You are the man!”

Yup. That includes you and me. We are all guilty. We are all deserving of God’s wrath and judgment.

“You are the man!”

Yup. No excuses.

BUT, “You are the man!”

You are the person Jesus died on the cross for.

“You are the man!”

You are the person God could not imagine spending an eternity without.

“You are the man!”

So Jesus died on the cross to die the death we deserve. And Jesus rose again from the dead to give us eternal life.

“You are the man!”

God loves you.

“So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking…You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self…and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:17, 22, 24).

We love affirmation. We hate correction.

Our world is all about affirmation.

• Do you.
• As long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else, go for it.
• You are perfect just the way you are.

That’s so nice.

But the problem is we are not nice. We are not good. And we are certainly not perfect the way we are.

Jesus did not die on the cross to affirm us and to celebrate us just the way we are. If we are perfect just the way we are, we certainly don’t need a savior, and forget about the cross. What a bloody waste!!!

And, that’s just the thing. Jesus did die on the cross. You know why? Because we are not perfect. In fact, we are marching toward eternal death and hell every second, every minute, every day. We don’t need affirmation nor celebration. What we need is transformation and salvation.

Jesus died on the cross not to affirm or celebrate us just the way we are, but to rescue us and transform us from the way we are.

That’s the gospel. That’s the good news. Jesus died the death we deserve, and rose again from the dead so that we can live with the risen Christ.

So, remember: God could not imagine an eternity without you and me in it. So God sent his Son to die on the cross to make a way for sinners to be transformed into sons and daughters of God. God loves us just the way we are AND God loves us too much to leave us the way we are.

And truly great news!

“Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize….Therefore I do not run like someone running aimlessly; I do not fight like a boxer beating the air. No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave” (1 Corinthians 9:24, 26-27).

Suffering. Pain. Hardship.

I don’t like them either.

But, if you’re interested in growth, sometimes suffering, pain, and hardship are absolutely necessary to help us grow. So, the Apostle Paul tells us to get our minds straight about suffering, pain, and hardship. Don’t try to avoid them. Grow through them.

John Ortberg writes:

Imagine you have a child and you are handed a script of her entire life laid out before you. Better yet, you are given an eraser and five minutes to edit out whatever you want. You read that she will have a learning disability in grade school. Reading, which comes easily for some kids, will be laborious for yours. In high school your child will make a great  circle of friends, then one of them will die of cancer. After high school she will get into the college she wanted to attend, but there she will lose a leg in a car crash. Following that, she will go through a difficult depression. A few years later she will get a great job, then lose that job in an economic downturn. She will get married, but then go through the grief of separation.

With this script of your child’s life before you and five minutes to edit it, what would you erase? That is the question psychologist Jonathan Haidt asked in this hypothetical exercise. Wouldn’t you want to take out all the stuff that would cause them pain?

We live in a generation of “helicopter parents” who constantly swoop into their children’s lives to make sure no one is mistreating them and that they experience one unobstructed success after another in school, sports, and relationships. Whoa! If you could wave a wand and erase every failure, disappointment, and suffering, are you sure it would be a good idea? Would that enable your children to grow into the best version of themselves? Is it possible that in some way people actually need adversity and setbacks – maybe even something like trauma – to reach the fullest level of development and growth?

That’s why God didn’t rescue Daniel from the lion’s den, but in it. That’s why God didn’t rescue Shadrach, Meschach, and Abednego from the furnace but in it. Because, there is a growth and a trust that can only be learned through hardship.

So, the next time you find yourself in a difficult situation, instead of praying that God rescues you from that situation, pray for God’s presence and guidance through that difficult situation. And watch what God will do through you.