Perhaps David's biggest and most public 'fall' was when he saw the lovely Bathsheeba bathing by the light of the moon, lust overtook him and reason flew out the window. It is what the song Hallelujah, by Leonard Cohen, is about. "You saw her bathing on the roof; her beauty in the moonlight overthrew you..."

Bathsheeba was already married to one of David's soldiers, Uriah, so that  posed a wee bit of a problem for David. But since David commanded the military, he had Uriah killed by friendly fire, lied about it, then took Bathsheeba as his wife.  God punished David for this by taking the life of their firstborn child (it was stillborn; Solomon was their second babe.)  

The story doesn't stop there: David went on to do both great and well...stupid, not-so-great things, sinful things (sound familiar?)  Each time David sinned however, he ran back to God and wept, knashed his teeth, tore his clothing (all signs of remorse in OT days) and he was sincere in his remorse and grief over his sins and misdeeds.

In fact David penned most of the Psalms, and so many of those are love songs to God, or psalms of thanksgiving and gratefulness, and of how unworthy we are of God's grace adn forgiveness. "Oh Lord, search my heart and cleanse it!" he pleads, in a verse that I daresay resonates with all of us.

So David sinned all his life - yes, like we still do today, and like we've always done. We're all hypocrites who cheat, lie, steal, gossip, kill, covet, dishonor our families, hate, seek revenge, etc.  There is absolutely no excuse for our bad behavior. But there is a reason:  we're human. If we were indeed holy and pure,  the very life of Jesus would be redundant, superflous. God sacrificed His only Son on Calvary to cover all of our sins: past, present and future. 

We should all be like King David, who  repented and was sincere in that sorrow, faithfully accepting God's punishment without resentment.God used those 'teachable moments' and  grew and refined him - guiding, teaching,  correcting, pruning, endlessly loving His servant David.

This is a magnificent example of how God uses our frailties, faults and foibles for His eventual good; He is the One who takes the dirty, tarnished, raw silver that we are, and refines us. Yes,  even when we make the same idiotic mistakes over and over again, banging our heads against the wall in angst. Our sovereign God picks us up, rights our paths and helps us onward and upward. He enables us to slay giants. And when we fall - yet again - in the mud, He washes us clean with His forgiveness and mercy. 

If we were heaven-bound by how 'good' we are, none of us would pass muster. Nope, not one. As Mark Twain once quipped, "If heaven were by merit and not favor, your dog would go in and you would not." We cannot earn redemption; it's a gift. We're forgiven by what is in our hearts, what God has done for us, and by grace that flows from the blood of The Lamb. Our salvation is assured, if only we dare to believe.

So was David a 'good' person? Yes and no. He was human, like the rest of us.  Yet Jesus came from the Davidic line.

Talk about Grace and Goodness personified!      Amen.