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The Devil's Playbook | Week 6 | Pat McCalla · Rewind

Rock Point Church

Pastor Pat McCalla · Sep 19, 2021 · 66 min watch · 2 min read

The Devil's Playbook | Week 6 | Pat McCalla

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In this message

Big Idea
Key points
Application

Scripture in this message

2 Samuel 11
2 Samuel 11:1
2 Samuel 11:2
2 Samuel 11:3
2 Samuel 11:4
2 Samuel 11:5

Big Idea Key points Application

Big Idea

Quoting the message: Sin makes us stupid, end quote. — but Jesus, the warrior king, has already won the battle over sin and its shame.

Using the story of King David's catastrophic moral collapse in 2 Samuel 11, Pastor Pat McCalla argues that sin is never honest, always progressive, and always affects others — and that it makes even the wisest, most godly people act foolishly. The remedy is neither to minimize sin (pretending we are merely 'mistake-makers') nor to minimize Jesus (wallowing in shame and condemnation). Because Jesus is the conquering warrior king of Revelation 19 who has already finished the battle, believers can confess sin freely and run toward Him rather than away from Him.

Key points

1
1Sin begins when we are not where we are supposed to be and not doing what we are supposed to be doing.
2
2Sin progresses from idle curiosity to lustful thought to sinful deed — each step moving further from God.
3
3Sin leads to cover-up rather than repentance, compounding the original wrong and hurting those closest to us.
4
4Sin is never honest, always progressive, and always affects others — like a sinkhole that collapses without warning after eroding unseen for a long time.
5
5We must not minimize sin — the Bible calls us sinners, not mistake-makers, and we need a Savior we cannot replace.
6
6We must not minimize Jesus — because of what He accomplished on the cross, there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus.
7
7Jesus is the conquering warrior king who wages a righteous war and whose victory over sin is not assumed but guaranteed.

Application

Pastor Pat calls everyone to stop living at one of two dangerous extremes. First, stop minimizing sin — own it as sin, not merely a mistake, and confess it honestly before God the way you would name yourself in a game of Clue: 'It was me, with my words, in that moment.' Second, stop minimizing Jesus — refuse the shame and condemnation that His finished work on the cross has already removed. Because Jesus is the warrior king whose robe is dipped in His own blood and whose title is King of all kings, you are not fighting for victory; you are fighting from it. When you fall, run toward Jesus rather than away from Him. And if you have never placed your faith in Him as Savior, today is the day to let your Savior take what you cannot fix yourself.

Take it into your week

Made by Rewind AI from the sermon transcript. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

Scripture in this message

From the transcript
“Second Samuel chapter 11, you can open your Bibles there. Second Samuel chapter 11, as you're opening let me give you a little background”
From the transcript
“We are going to pick it up in verse one. Watch the progression of mistakes in this story. Watch the progression of mistakes. Remember who we're talking about”
From the transcript
“Verse two, watch this. Late one afternoon after his midday rest, so remember he's supposed to be out fighting with his men, but his nap time”
From the transcript
“Verse three, he sent someone to find out who she was. What? What? He sent someone to find out who she was and he was told she's Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite”
From the transcript
“Look, verse four. Then David sent messengers to get her and when she came to the palace, he slept with her. Mistake number four, the thought has now become the deed”
From the transcript
“Keep reading though, look at verse five. Later when Bathsheba discovered that she was pregnant, she sent David a message saying, I'm pregnant”
From the transcript
“Look at verse six. Then David sent word to Joab, remember that's his general, send me, I told you to remember this name, send me Uriah the Hittite”
From the transcript
“Verse seven, keep reading. Sin makes you stupid. When Uriah arrived, David asked him how Joab and the army were getting along and how the war was progressing”
From the transcript
“Second Samuel chapter 23, and you can read it later, but growing up, I sometimes thought that, you know, like a lot of young people, I was like the bible seems kinda boring”
From the transcript
“two Samuel 23 actually lists David's mighty men. They were like the elite fighting force for David. They were the Navy SEALs of his day”
From the transcript
“You can read this in second Samuel 23 later. Another guy, he goes up against this massive Egyptian warrior who has his spear and this guy has a little club”
From the transcript
“Go down the list and read, then it names them at the end of the chapter. Second Samuel chapter 23, it'll say and there was this guy and there was this guy and there was this guy”
From the transcript
“if you kept reading in two Samuel chapter 11, he brings Uriah back, instead of coming clean, he's gonna keep covering up”
From the transcript
“skip down to verse 14 and look what David does. Plan A didn't work, plan B didn't work. So the next morning David wrote a letter to Joab, that's a general”
From the transcript
“Verse 15, look what's in the letter. So the letter instructed Joab, station Uriah on the front lines where the battle is fiercest and then pull back so that he will be killed”
From the transcript
“Skip down to verse 25, word gets back to David now that the deed has been done, and look at David's response. Remember, sin makes you stupid”
From the transcript
“Romans three twenty three, for all have sinned, not all have made mistakes, for all have sinned. Romans six twenty three, for the wages of sin is death”
From the transcript
“Romans three twenty three, for all have sinned, not all have made mistakes, for all have sinned. Romans six twenty three, for the wages of sin is death”
From the transcript
“this is why in the Bible, one John one:nine, it gives us this great promise. If we confess our sins, not our mistakes, we're not mistakers, we're sinners”
From the transcript
“what radically changed was when I began to understand the truth of Romans eight:one. You should memorize this verse, Romans eight:one, so now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus”
From the transcript
“flip over to Revelation 19, I wanna finish with this, Revelation chapter 19. Here's what we're gonna do for the next few minutes as I finish with this, I wanna just brag about who our Jesus is”
From the transcript
“And in Revelation 19, John, the guy two thousand years ago, one of the followers of Jesus, he's allowed to see a vision of the future. And so in Revelation 19, he's seen this vision of when this Jesus comes back”
From the transcript
“look at verse 12, Jesus wins because of who he is. His eyes were like flames of fire, and on his head were many crowns. A name was written on him that no one understood except himself”
From the transcript
“you open up a commentary about Revelation chapter 19, and a lot of commentators, and I've heard preachers do the same thing, they're gonna read this part”
From the transcript
“keep reading, verse 13, oh, love this one. He wore a robe dipped in blood and his title was the word of God”
From the transcript
“Look at verse 14, the armies of heaven dressed in the finest of pure white linen followed him on white horses”
From the transcript
“Look at verse 15, from his mouth came a sharp sword to strike down the nations. He will rule them with an iron rod, he will release the fierce wrath of God the Almighty like juice flowing from a winepress”
From the transcript
“On his robe, oh I love verse 16, on his robe at his thigh was written, was tattooed this title, king of all kings and lord of all lords”
From the transcript
“Sometimes we need the good shepherd Jesus. In John 10, Jesus said, I am the good shepherd. The Jesus that like a shepherd with his flock is gonna protect us, is gonna guide us”

Made by Rewind AI from the sermon transcript. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

7-day devotional

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Every collapse has a starting point, and the Bible doesn't hide it. King David — the man after God's own heart, the slayer of Goliath, the author of so many psalms — found his beginning of the end in a moment of simple absence. It was the season when kings went off to war, and David stayed home. He was not where he was supposed to be, and he was not doing what he was supposed to be doing. Pastor Pat pointed out that this is where sin almost always begins — not in a dramatic, obvious moment of rebellion, but in a quiet drift away from purpose and presence. We don't usually plan to wander. We just stop showing up — to the people who need us, to the rhythms that ground us, to the God who sustains us. There is something worth sitting with in that honesty. Sin rarely announces itself. It takes advantage of the space we leave open. David's story is a mirror, not just a history lesson. The same drift that caught a king can catch any of us. The question worth asking isn't 'How could he?' but 'Where am I not showing up right now?' That small, honest question is the beginning of wisdom — and it points us back toward the One who is always exactly where He is supposed to be.

For reflection

Where in your life right now might you be absent from a responsibility, relationship, or rhythm that God has placed in front of you?

Pray

Pray for awareness of the places in your daily life where drift has quietly begun.

Three verses. That is all it takes for the Bible to walk us from a rooftop glance to a devastating act of adultery. Pastor Pat traced the progression carefully: idle curiosity, a lingering look, an inquiry, a summons, and then the deed itself. No single step felt like a cliff — each one felt like just one more small step. That is precisely what makes this progression so dangerous and so recognizable. Sin is rarely experienced as a great leap into darkness. It is experienced as a series of almost-reasonable choices, each one only slightly further than the last. David didn't decide to destroy his household in a single moment. He decided to look a little longer. Then he decided to ask a question. Then he decided to act. The sinkhole analogy Pastor Pat used is apt here — the ground looks fine right up until it doesn't. What the passage makes clear is that each step moved David further from God, not closer. And once a step is taken, the next one becomes easier to justify. This is not meant to produce fear but clarity. Understanding how sin progresses is one of the most practical gifts Scripture gives us. Naming the small steps honestly — before they compound — is not weakness. It is wisdom, and it is an act of trust in the God who already sees every step.

For reflection

Is there a small compromise or 'just one more look' in your life right now that you have been telling yourself is harmless?

Pray

Pray for honest eyes to see the early steps of a progression before it carries you further than you intended to go.

Once the deed was done, David's instinct was not repentance — it was management. He tried to engineer a cover-up, and when one scheme failed, he arranged another, darker one. By the end of this passage, he had moved from adultery to the calculated death of a loyal soldier, Uriah, who had done nothing wrong. Pastor Pat made a point that should stop us cold: sin rarely stops at the original wrong. It grows, and it pulls others into its wake. Uriah lost his life. Bathsheba lost her husband. The child who would be born would die. None of them chose David's sin, but all of them bore its weight. That is what the pastor meant when he said sin always affects others — it is never a private transaction. The cover-up instinct is deeply human. We reach for it almost automatically because exposure feels worse than the sin itself. But every cover-up David tried only moved him further from the one thing that could have actually helped him: the truth spoken honestly before God. The long way around is always longer than the direct path of confession. And what is remarkable is that the God David was fleeing from was the same God who, centuries later, would send a Son to absorb the full weight of everything David — and we — have ever tried to hide.

For reflection

Is there something in your life right now that you are managing or minimizing rather than bringing honestly before God?

Pray

Pray for the courage to stop covering and start confessing — and for trust that God's response to honesty is grace, not rejection.

Pastor Pat drew a clear line in the sermon: the Bible doesn't call us mistake-makers. It calls us sinners. And that distinction matters enormously. When we soften the language — calling sin a 'slip' or a 'lapse' or just 'not my best moment' — we quietly shrink what we need. If you only made a mistake, you need a correction. But if you are a sinner, you need a Savior. Romans 3:23 is blunt and bracingly equal: everyone has sinned and falls short of God's glory. Not most people. Not people who've had a hard life or made bad choices. Everyone. David was not an exception to this, and neither are we. But there is something freeing hiding inside that hard truth. If everyone falls short, then the ground at the foot of the cross is level. There is no category of person too far gone and no category of person too put-together to need what Jesus offers. The Clue analogy Pastor Pat used is worth carrying with you today — honest confession sounds like, 'It was me, with my words, in that moment.' Not 'mistakes were made.' Not 'I was in a hard season.' Just clear, specific ownership before God, who already knows and is already ready to respond with more grace than we expect. Owning sin fully is not self-destruction. It is the doorway to freedom.

For reflection

What is one specific thing in your life you have been calling a 'mistake' that might need to be brought before God as a sin — owned clearly and without excuse?

Pray

Pray for the honesty and humility to name sin as sin, trusting that God's grace is bigger than your confession.

If yesterday was about not minimizing sin, today is about not minimizing Jesus — and Pastor Pat was just as direct about this danger. Shame and condemnation can feel spiritual. They can feel like appropriate responses to genuine failure. But Romans 8:1 cuts through that feeling with one of the most sweeping statements in the New Testament: there is now no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. Not 'a little less condemnation.' Not 'condemnation minus what you've already confessed.' None. The finished work of the cross is not a partial payment or a probationary arrangement. It is complete. When we wallow in shame after genuine confession, we are not being more serious about sin — we are being less serious about what Jesus actually accomplished. Pastor Pat's word picture of the warrior king is vivid here: the robe dipped in blood is His own. He has already entered the battle and already won it. We are not fighting toward victory; we are living from it. That changes everything about how we respond when we fall. Running toward Jesus rather than away from Him is not presumption — it is exactly the response that His finished work calls for. You are not disqualified by your failure. You are invited, right now, to bring it to the One whose title is King of all kings and who has already made a way.

For reflection

When you have failed recently, has your instinct been to run toward Jesus or away from Him — and what does that tell you about what you believe about His grace?

Pray

Pray for a deep, settled confidence in the completeness of what Jesus accomplished — and for the freedom to run toward Him rather than hide.

The sermon's call to confess honestly before God finds its clearest New Testament form in this single verse. First John 1:9 is not a formula — it is a description of how a relationship with God is meant to work. When we confess, He is faithful and just to forgive. Both of those words matter. Faithful means He will not change His mind or hold back. Just means the forgiveness isn't careless or cheap — it is grounded in what Christ has already accomplished. Together, they make confession safe. Pastor Pat's invitation throughout the sermon was to stop running from God when you fall and start running toward Him. First John 1:9 is the practical expression of that. Confession is not groveling — it is honesty with a God who is already on your side. Notice too what the verse says follows forgiveness: He will cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Not some of it. All of it. That includes the parts you remember and the parts you've forgotten, the public failures and the ones only you and God know about. This is not a license to be careless with sin — but it is a profound assurance that the God you confess to is not waiting to condemn you. He is waiting to cleanse you. That is the kind of God worth running toward, not away from, every single time.

For reflection

Is there a confession you have been putting off — something you know needs to be brought to God but that you've been carrying alone? What is holding you back?

Pray

Pray for the simple, trusting honesty of a child coming to a parent — and for confidence that God's faithfulness to forgive is greater than your reluctance to confess.

The sermon ended here, and so does this week. Everything Pastor Pat said about David's failure, about the honesty of confession, about the completeness of Jesus's work — it all finds its fullest frame in this passage. The rider on the white horse is not a distant ideal or a comforting metaphor. He is the conquering warrior king, eyes blazing, robe dipped in His own blood, bearing the name no one else can carry: King of Kings and Lord of Lords. His victory over sin is not assumed or hoped for. It is guaranteed. Pastor Pat's point was not subtle: you are not fighting for victory — you are fighting from it. The battle is already decided. The cross already happened. The empty tomb already stands. That means every act of honest confession, every moment you choose to run toward Jesus instead of away from Him, every time you refuse to minimize sin or minimize His grace — these are not desperate attempts to earn something. They are a person living from the victory of a King who has already won. David's story was a warning and an invitation. The warrior king of Revelation 19 is the answer to everything David could not fix himself. And He is the same answer for you, today, wherever this week has found you.

For reflection

Looking back over this week, where have you seen God inviting you to run toward Him rather than away — and what would it look like to live this coming week from the victory Jesus has already secured?

Pray

Pray for a settled, daily confidence in the victory of Jesus — and for the courage to live openly from that victory rather than striving toward it.

Made by Rewind AI from the sermon transcript. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

Small-group discussion guide

For leading a group conversation about this message.

Open

Think about a time you watched someone you deeply respected make a stunning, seemingly out-of-nowhere mistake — and how disorienting that felt. This message uses the story of King David to explore how that kind of collapse actually happens, and what we are supposed to do when it happens to us.

Discussion questions

1
In 2 Samuel 11:1, the writer notes that David stayed in Jerusalem at the moment when kings go off to war. Pastor Pat suggested that sin often begins when we are not where we are supposed to be and not doing what we are supposed to be doing. What do you notice in the text about how David ends up on the rooftop — and what does that sequence suggest about how drift tends to start?
2
Walking through 2 Samuel 11:2–4, Pastor Pat traced a path from idle curiosity to a lustful thought to a sinful act. What does that progression reveal about how sin works — and why do you think each step makes the next one easier to justify?
3
After David's sin with Bathsheba, his energy shifted entirely toward cover-up — eventually leading to Uriah's death. What does that spiral in 2 Samuel 11:6–15 show us about why concealment tends to compound the original wrong rather than contain it?
4
Pastor Pat drew a distinction between calling something a 'mistake' and calling it sin — pointing to Romans 3:23 and the idea that owning sin honestly is what opens the door to a Savior. Why do you think that honest naming matters so much, and what gets in the way of people doing it?
5
Romans 8:1 says there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, and Pastor Pat placed that alongside the image of Jesus in Revelation 19 — a conquering warrior king whose victory is already won. How does that picture of Jesus change the way we might think about what to do the moment we fall into sin?
6
Pastor Pat described two dangerous extremes — minimizing sin on one side, minimizing Jesus on the other — and called us to run toward Jesus rather than away from Him. As a group, what might it look like in everyday life to hold both of those truths together: taking sin seriously and taking Jesus's finished work seriously at the same time?

Pray together

Honesty before God about sin, and confidence in the finished victory of Jesus

Made by Rewind AI from the sermon transcript. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

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Continue the series

The Devil's Playbook

Week 6 · 5 messages

Where these passages are preached

2 Samuel 11 2 Samuel 23 Romans 3 Romans 6

Explore related topics

Jesus as Savior Moral Collapse Repentance Shame and Redemption Sin and Confession

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