Transcript
Last week we looked at one of the Bible's greatest scandals, the first half of the David and Bathsheba story. If you were here, you heard Dr. Phil Cary talk about how David’s sin was not just adultery. The adultery led to lying, murder and a cover up. That’s how sin works, one thing leads to another. This week the Lectionary takes us to the rest of the story, and it raises a key question for us to consider: what should we do about sin?
I know what you're thinking, “Oh come on, Whitney! Everybody knows the answer to that one. You shouldn't sin in the first place. And isn't that the problem with Christians, they're always talking about sin, usually the sins of other people not their own?” Those are fair observations, but we shouldn't dismiss the notion of sin just because some people are irritating or even hypocritical.
Overview of Sin
So, before we look at our Old Testament lesson, let’s quickly review what the Bible teaches about sin. The first thing we learn is that sin is universal. The book of Genesis tells us sin entered the world at the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve disobeyed God. I realize some question the idea of original sin. How could what Adam and Eve did have any effect on me all these years later? They say, “I didn't bite that apple.” Let me give you an analogy that may help. Sin is like malware, like a computer virus. You don’t put it into your computer, and you don't even know where it came from. But gradually, once the malware gets in, it corrupts everything. That's what sin is like. If you don't believe me, look at the daily news, or take an honest look at your life, or my life. So, let's just agree, sin is universal; it affects us all.
The second thing we learn from the Bible is that sin is deceptive, and the story of David and Bathsheba is a good example. Maybe you look at David and say, “I'd never do that. Well, maybe just a few white lies here and there, but the rest of it…no way!” But if you say that, you miss the point. Because what makes this account so relevant and even scary is that it highlights the human capacity for self-deception. Let me give you an example.
My Tastykake Deception
About a month ago I was driving around, and I got a hankering for a Tastykake. So, I pulled into Wawa and bought my favorite, the chocolate cupcakes with buttercream filling. I ate the first one, it was great, and I ate the second one, it was even better. Then I looked at the third one and thought, “I really shouldn’t eat this, it’s too much sugar.” So, I decided to take it home. But as I walked into our house, I felt guilty about having an open pack of Tastykakes with two missing. So, I put the remaining Tastykake in the refrigerator and tucked it behind an old jar of salsa.
The next day, my wife Carol was in the kitchen, and I was in the other room when I became aware of a crinkling Tastykake wrapper and thought, “Oh no…!” Then Carol said, in a tongue in cheek voice, “Now I see what's going on here.” I got busted and I didn’t even do anything!
But it gets worse. About two weeks later I got another hankering for Tastykakes, so I went to Wawa and bought a three-pack. I ate the first one, I ate the second one, then I looked at the third one and thought, “I really shouldn't eat this.” But then I thought, “If I take it home, I know Carol will say something. And it’s not right to waste food…” So, I ate the third one and immediately regretted it. It was a sugar bomb. When I got home, I didn’t say anything about the Tastykakes. Instead, I said, “You know, Carol, I'm not feeling too hungry tonight.” That was true! “So, I think it would be OK,” I continued, “if we had a light dinner.” As if suddenly, I'm all concerned about her workload. Think about it; all that self-deception just for Tastykakes! But isn't that like the apostle Paul’s description of our far more serious struggle with sin? In Romans he says, “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” You see, the reality about sin is we know it's malicious malware to our souls, but we click on it anyway.
There's one more thing the Bible tells us about sin. We have an enemy, the devil, and he's trying to take us down. The apostle Peter says he's a roaring lion prowling around, looking for someone to devour. And for now, he controls the algorithm of sin. The bottom line is the Bible teaches that sin is real, deceptive, dangerous, and it affects us all. With that background, we’re now ready to consider our key question: what should we do about sin?
“You are the man!”
To answer it, I want to look at our Old Testament passage in 2 Samuel 11:26—12:13a. Chapter 11 ends, “But the thing David had done displeased the Lord.” It’s like the end of episode 1 in a Netflix series; you know what's coming. Episode 2 begins in chapter 12 when Nathan shows up and shares a prophetic parable about a “little ewe lamb.” A rich man who has everything takes a poor man's precious lamb and slaughters it for dinner. When David hears that he burns with anger and says, “As surely as the Lord lives, the man who did this must die! He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity.” But knowing what we know about David’s recent actions, did you wonder if his moral outrage really was a cover up for a guilty conscience? Perhaps that’s a warning for us? In any case, that’s when Nathan lowers the boom and says, “You are the man!” David’s sin is exposed.
Admonish one another
I believe embedded in this story is the answer to our question and what's interesting is we see it from two perspectives. Let's look at them one at a time. The first perspective is Nathan's and when we look at our question through his eyes it becomes, “What should I do about other people's sins?” That’s because Nathan had to confront David about David sins. I want to be careful here because you may be thinking, “Hold on, Whitney. Are you saying it's my job to tell someone else they've sinned?” After all, our culture tells us we can do whatever we want and “it ain't nobody's business but my own.” But I believe the Bible offers us a different way, and that different way is captured in an old fashion word used several times in the New Testament. The word is: admonish.
You may be thinking, “Wait. Does that mean I’m supposed to go around criticizing everybody and pointing fingers all the time?” No, that’s not what it means. Let’s do a quick word study. The dictionary says admonish means “to express warning or disapproval to someone, especially in a gentle and earnest manner.” That last phrase is important. The word admonish occurs several times in the New Testament and the Greek word for it literally means “to place in one's mind.” So, when you admonish someone, you are putting God's truth in their mind in a gentle and earnest way. In Colossians, for example, the apostle Paul says, “teach and admonish one another with all wisdom.” It means to urge, to instruct, to warn.
So, what do we learn about admonishing from Nathan's example? The first thing is that it's not just being negative or disagreeing. What we see from Nathan is you admonish when there's a clear sin involved; David had sinned and was heading for disaster. That means admonishing is not something that we're going to do every day; there must be a unique set of circumstances, and we must be prompted by God to admonish, as Nathan was.
How did he pull it off? First, Nathan had relational capital; he had previously prophesied great blessing to David's house and that earned him the right to admonish. Second, Nathan was gracious. The story of the little ewe lamb was a very gentle way of introducing a difficult topic; no one responds well to the in-your-face disgrace approach. Finally, Nathan let God do the convicting. Nathan's job was simply to warn the king in love. It was God's responsibility to change David's heart. You see, the intent of admonishing is not condemnation, it's restoring someone you care about to God's right path
The Risk of Admonishing
Let me give you an example of how I've experienced this. I've shared that I used to be a Vice President at Prison Fellowship, and I supervised a number of people. One of my patterns was to gather the team every morning in a circle for prayer. We would chitchat briefly and then pray for each other. One day I shared that I had watched a movie over the weekend, and I encouraged others to check it out. After the prayer time a young staff person named Lorenda came up to me and wanted to talk. She said, “Whitney, how could you watch that movie and why would you encourage us to watch it, too?” I knew why she said that; there was a questionable scene in the movie. By today's standards it was tame, but at the time it was sort of the buzz. Lorenda said, “Whitney, you're the leader here, you shouldn't do that.”
I knew a little of Lorenda’s story because I had interviewed and hired her. She had lived a wild life, but after college she had come to faith, gotten married and was serious about living the Christian life. As we talked, I realized she was taking a risk. I was her boss; I signed her paycheck. But she was more concerned about pointing me in the right direction than she was about protecting her own job. I've never forgotten that. I try to be careful about the media I take in. But today, I'm more careful because Lorenda admonished me.
Confession and Repentance
The second perspective in this passage is David's, and if we look at our question through his eyes it becomes, “What should I do about my sin?” The answer is straightforward: confess. We see that at the end of the passage when David says, “I have sinned against the Lord.” But I wonder if that sounded superficial to you, especially considering how personal and passionate God's message was to him. “I appointed you as king. I delivered you from Saul. I gave you everything and I would have given you even more. Why did you despise me and my word?” In response to that, it almost seems like David says, “Oops, my bad.”
But to get the full sense of what David was feeling at that moment we must look at Psalm 51, which begins with an introductory statement, “A psalm of David. When the prophet Nathan came to him after David had committed adultery with Bathsheba.” It’s a detailed, painful confession, it shows David’s contrite heart and his commitment to go in a new direction. It also includes that famous verse, perhaps you know the song based on it, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” We love to sing that one, but when you know the back story, you realize it's really a song about the pain and joy of forgiven sin. David shows us that when confession (admitting our sin), leads to repentance (changing our ways), it draws us closer to God more so than anything else can. Ironically, we understand that truth best when we've blown it the worst. But as Jesus said, “there's more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.” That's the Good News.
“The joy of thy salvation”
So, what should we do about sin? For starters we should take it seriously, so seriously that we are quick to repent of our own sins, as David shows us. And then we should be caring enough to gently admonish our close friends so they can break free of their sins, as Nathan shows us. Because when we do both of those things well, instead of creating a culture of judgment, we’ll experience what David called “the joy of thy salvation.” And isn't that what your heart is longing for today? Amen.
