Anatomy of Sin

Do Not Sin

1 John 2:1–2 CSB

1 My little children, I am writing you these things so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ the righteous one. 2 He himself is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours, but also for those of the whole world.

John wrote this letter so that those he was writing to would not sin.

He wanted to give them ammunition to fight against sin in their hearts and lives.

That is the heart of a pastor/shepherd, to help those entrusted to his care to have victory over sin.

That is my desire as your pastor, ultimately that you/we would not sin.

That we would have the ammunition, the tools, have victory over the sins that enslave and ensnare us.

Now the 2nd part of the verse almost reads like there is a possibility that one might live without sin, but that isn't John's sentiment.

He admits elsewhere that no one is without sin, but even here he is saying, "when you inevitably sin, brothers and sisters, don't get caught in its snare, its trap.”

“Instead turn to Jesus who is our advocate, who is with us, in us, and over us.”

John is affirming the commonality of our sinful conditions as humans and our undeniable need for a Savior.

It is in Chapter 11 of 2 Samuel where that shared sinful condition shows itself most clearly in the life of David.

Outside of a few weak moments, occasional blunders, and bad decisions, David’s life has been a model of faithfulness and Godliness.

He had really lived up to the title of “A man after God’s Own Heart”.

But as I have said from the beginning of this series, this account of David’s life isn’t something we are intended to follow as if it is the model of a Godly life.

Rather we are to see ourselves in the life of David, the good, the bad, and the ugly.

This particular part is the ugly.

What this season (it was more than just a few days, more like weeks and months) shows us is really an anatomy of sin.

We know anatomy to be the study of the human body. Understanding all the parts and how they come together and function.

This is obviously helpful if you are a DR seeking to diagnose problems that happen in the human body.

Today, we are going to look at this account in David’s life as a study of how sin functions in our hearts, with the goal of us better understanding sin so that we can be better equip to fight against it.

We are going to look at the account in 3 Acts and point out 3 realities about sin in our hearts and lives.

ACT 1: Sin starts DEEPER than we often THINK.

2 Samuel 11:1–4 CSB

1 In the spring when kings march out to war, David sent Joab with his officers and all Israel. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah, but David remained in Jerusalem. 2 One evening David got up from his bed and strolled around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing—a very beautiful woman. 3 So David sent someone to inquire about her, and he said, “Isn’t this Bathsheba, daughter of Eliam and wife of Uriah the Hethite?” 4 David sent messengers to get her, and when she came to him, he slept with her. Now she had just been purifying herself from her uncleanness. Afterward, she returned home.

There is often a lot made of the first verse and its significance to what happens with David in the rest of the chapter.

David staying in Jerusalem while the “kings went out to war” isn’t pointing to David doing something wrong or out of the ordinary.

He had stayed home during battle before (10:7), so this wasn’t him avoiding conflict or putting himself in a bad situation.

I think it is actually detrimental for us to think that David staying home from the battle was somehow the reason he fell into sin.

That logic says that if we stay busy, and don’t put ourselves into a place where we might sin, then perhaps we won’t sin.

Sure, if David had been fighting and not walking on the roof that particular evening, he wouldn’t have seen Bathsheba bathing and the whole thing could have been avoided.

But what that fails to recognize is that David’s eyes didn’t start wandering that evening, nor had his heart been compromised only minutes or hours before.

It wasn’t the circumstances the led David to sin, it was David that led David to sin.

James, the brother of Jesus who wrote the letter named James, helps us understand how sin grows in our hearts.

James 1:13–15 CSB

13 No one undergoing a trial should say, “I am being tempted by God,” since God is not tempted by evil, and he himself doesn’t tempt anyone. 14 But each person is tempted when he is drawn away and enticed by his own evil desire. 15 Then after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and when sin is fully grown, it gives birth to death.

James is talking about trials here in the sense of temptations, not like hard things that happen to us.

He points out the temptation that comes when we face temptations in life, that is to blame other factors for the temptation other than our own desires that are really at the center of it.

I can hear David say a few hours after everything went down, or after he gets word that Bathsheba is pregnant “If I had just gone to battle, this would have never happened.” Or “If she hadn’t been bathing right out in the open like that.” or “If one of my wives had been more available to me then I wouldn’t have been looking.”

Maybe he even said “God must have put her there in order to test me.”

No, James tells us, our temptation doesn’t come from God, others, or our circumstance, it comes from our desires.

James uses the word “evil” not like we use the word evil, but more as a description of a desire that has reached outside of God’s design.

David’s desire for sex and intimacy isn’t evil in and of itself, but it had become evil.

And as we have noted before, it had become evil long before Bathsheba decided to bath outside her house.

David had a history of womanizing.

He had married multiple women and had numerous concubines.

He had used women in the past for his own pleasure, pride, or personal gain.

As James says, David’s desire had been enticed and had drawn him away, it had conceived and given birth to sin.

Now, in one short evening stroll on the rooftop, it had fully grown in and was about to give birth to death.

Our sin starts much deeper than our eyes, or our hands, or our minds.

David had a weakness, a propensity toward a particular sin that revealed the state of his heart that had been neglected for years before.

When he saw Bathsheba bathing, he saw with trained eyes and a compromised heart.

We all have a propensity toward sin that we (like David) either:

Ignore— by explaining it away, denying it exist, or hiding behind a mask of religious jargon or a great cover up plan.

Excusing it— by shifting the blame to something or someone else or justifying it based on our circumstances.

Making light of it— by pointing out all the good we do to outweigh the bad, or by comparing ourselves to others, or by shifting the Word of God to accommodate our sin.

If our goal is to have victory over sin, then the first thing we have to understand is that our sin starts much deeper than we often think.

And we must stop ignoring it.

or stop excusing it

or stop making light of it.

Or it will give birth to death…and may already have.

ACT 2: Sin brings us PLACES we never thought we’d GO.

2 Samuel 11:6–16 CSB

6 David sent orders to Joab: “Send me Uriah the Hethite.” So Joab sent Uriah to David. 7 When Uriah came to him, David asked how Joab and the troops were doing and how the war was going. 8 Then he said to Uriah, “Go down to your house and wash your feet.” So Uriah left the palace, and a gift from the king followed him. 9 But Uriah slept at the door of the palace with all his master’s servants; he did not go down to his house. 10 When it was reported to David, “Uriah didn’t go home,” David questioned Uriah, “Haven’t you just come from a journey? Why didn’t you go home?” 11 Uriah answered David, “The ark, Israel, and Judah are dwelling in tents, and my master Joab and his soldiers are camping in the open field. How can I enter my house to eat and drink and sleep with my wife? As surely as you live and by your life, I will not do this!” 12 “Stay here today also,” David said to Uriah, “and tomorrow I will send you back.” So Uriah stayed in Jerusalem that day and the next. 13 Then David invited Uriah to eat and drink with him, and David got him drunk. He went out in the evening to lie down on his cot with his master’s servants, but he did not go home. 14 The next morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah. 15 In the letter he wrote: Put Uriah at the front of the fiercest fighting, then withdraw from him so that he is struck down and dies. 16 When Joab was besieging the city, he put Uriah in the place where he knew the best enemy soldiers were.

It doesn’t seem like David woke up that morning with the intention of finding a woman to sleep with by the end of the day.

Nor had he planned on her getting pregnant and him having to hatch a whole plan in order to try to cover up his iniquity before the whole thing blew up in his face.

He sure didn’t intend on having that plan lead to him ordering the death of one of his strongest and most loyal soldiers.

We never really plan for sin to take us to the places it often does.

You never intended the occasional surfing through social media pictures to lead you to the websites you now find yourself looking at and the hidden life you have manufactured to cover up your sin.

You never intended the few beers after work to unwind to lead you to a dependence on alcohol that has you hiding and lying in order for no one to know how bad it actually has gotten.

You never intended those make-out sessions with your GF or BF to lead you to give up your purity in a moment of passion.

You never intended your desire to have nice things and enjoy life to lead you to a place of debt and enslaved to the feeling that you might miss out on something if you don’t buy the next new thing or go on the next trip.

You never intended your desire to provide for your family and have a good job to become something that has taken over your life and caused you to neglect your family.

You never intended your tendency to lose your temper to lead you to lose control and say and do things that hurt the people you say you love.

Everyone of us have a story like that, maybe more than one.

We understand that David’s sin started long before that evening on the roof, but his decisions led him deeper into his sin.

It all started with a gaze, and it could have ended there. What if he had been aware of his temptations and weakness?

What if he, like Job, had made a covenant with his eyes (Job 31:1) so when he saw Bathsheba he turned quickly and fled the temptation.

But he kept on gazing and that led him to inquire about who she was. And this should have ended it.

She was the wife of one of David’s best and most loyal soldiers.

Uriah was a Navy Seal, a Green Beret— One of David’s special ops guys.

This information should have caused David to pause and reconsider. How could he even entertain such an idea.

But he did, and his gazing and inquiring led him to pursuing. And he thought it would end there.

But it didn’t, his gazing, his inquiring, and his pursuing had consequences and now he had another choice, another opportunity.

He could have/should have came clean, confessed and dealt with the consequences,

But instead he begins to conspire, to plan, and to implement cover up.

If he can just pull this off, no one will ever have to know (except him, Bathsheba…and God).

Then it will be done...

But it isn’t, Uriah, the one sinned against, ends up being an honorable and righteous man and refuses to dishonor his king or fellow soldiers.

Surely now David will take this opportunity to begin to make things right…but he doesn’t

It is interesting (and sad) to see how sin leads us to places we never thought we would go.

He wrote the letter to Joab, convinced this was the only “right” way, the solution.

Hours later, an innocent, honorable, and righteous man is dead on the battlefield all because a selfish king had become ensnared in sin.

There is a verse in 1 Corinthians that is often terribly misquoted to the point that the true power of the verse is missed.

You have heard it said “God will never give you more than you can handle.” But there isn’t a verse in all of the bible (OT and NT) that says that.

In fact, I would contend that God gives us WAY more than we can handle every day in order that we turn to Him for the guidance, wisdom, and strength to navigate this life.

The passage that this idea comes from is:

1 Corinthians 10:13 CSB

13 No temptation has come upon you except what is common to humanity. But God is faithful; he will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to bear it.

Notice that there is no mention of God not giving us more than we can handle, but rather, that God, in His faithfulness, doesn’t allow us to be tempted to a point we have no choice but to succumb. Rather He always provides us a way out.

What Paul is saying here is that we do not have to be slaves to sin. In Christ, we can have victory and we can have freedom.

David had ways out, but he decided instead that his ways seemed easier and less painful to himself.

The reason sin leads us to places we never intended it to go is not that we had no choice, it is that we chose not to take the exit God had given us.

Some of us are in a place right now where we know God has given us an escape, but the price we have to pay seems way more than we can stomach.

But how deep do we have to go before we see God’s way is SO MUCH BETTER than ours?

Today is an opportunity brothers and sister to begin a new path toward FREEDOM, will you take it?

ACT 3: Sin is always UNLOVING.

2 Samuel 11:18–27 CSB

18 Joab sent someone to report to David all the details of the battle. 19 He commanded the messenger, “When you’ve finished telling the king all the details of the battle—20 if the king’s anger gets stirred up and he asks you, ‘Why did you get so close to the city to fight? Didn’t you realize they would shoot from the top of the wall? 21 At Thebez, who struck Abimelech son of Jerubbesheth? Didn’t a woman drop an upper millstone on him from the top of the wall so that he died? Why did you get so close to the wall?’—then say, ‘Your servant Uriah the Hethite is dead also.’ ” 22 Then the messenger left. When he arrived, he reported to David all that Joab had sent him to tell. 23 The messenger reported to David, “The men gained the advantage over us and came out against us in the field, but we counterattacked right up to the entrance of the city gate. 24 However, the archers shot down on your servants from the top of the wall, and some of the king’s servants died. Your servant Uriah the Hethite is also dead.” 25 David told the messenger, “Say this to Joab: ‘Don’t let this matter upset you because the sword devours all alike. Intensify your fight against the city and demolish it.’ Encourage him.” 26 When Uriah’s wife heard that her husband, Uriah, had died, she mourned for him. 27 When the time of mourning ended, David had her brought to his house. She became his wife and bore him a son. However, the Lord considered what David had done to be evil.

What would lead someone to take advantage of a young, married woman while her husband was away at war? SELFISHNESS

What would lead someone to take the wife of someone who sacrifices himself for you and your kingdom? SELFISHNESS

What would lead someone to come up with an elaborate plan to manipulate people in order to cover up your own evil? SELFISHNESS

What would lead someone to force a brave, honorable leader to murder their friend and comrade without any remorse? SELFISHNESS

What would lead someone to leave a innocent woman a widow all because your pride kept you from admitting fault? SELFISHNESS

Sin, at its roots, is the love of self and lack of love for others. SELFISHNESS

As King, Bathsheba likely had no choice but to give herself to David.

She was just a toy for his pleasure.

Uriah was a man to be manipulated to keep David from having to deal with his sin.

And later his life was worth much less to David than his own pride.

Joab’s loyalty and friendship didn’t matter to David as much as his own face.

You can hear Joab’s pain and frustration in his report, and David’s reply is basically dismissive “Don’t let this get to you Joab, keep on fighting.”

We won’t win the victory over our sin until we recognize how selfish, unloving, and hurtful our sins are to those around us and, most importantly, toward God.

Jesus is asked in Matthew 22 what is the greatest commandment and here is His answer:

Matthew 22:37–40 CSB

37 He said to him, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. 38 This is the greatest and most important command. 39 The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. 40 All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands.”

How do you fight sin? LOVE

Love God and His ways more than you love your sinful desires and inclinations.

And love others more than you love serving your own fleshly desires and pleasures.

That is where victory will come.

Know Your Sin

It is so much deeper in your than you probably even know.

So stop ignoring it.

Stop excusing it

Stop making light of it

And start confessing it.

It will lead you to places you never thought you’d go.

So start praying, seeking, and listening to the Spirit and the Word.

Look for the opportunities for escape and take them.

Don’t get caught in the enslaving cycle of sin.

It is ALWAYS unloving.

So LOOK around and LOOK deep at how selfish you are being.

Let love conquer your sin!

Philippians 2:3–11 CSB

3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility consider others as more important than yourselves. 4 Everyone should look not to his own interests, but rather to the interests of others. 5 Adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus, 6 who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited. 7 Instead he emptied himself by assuming the form of a servant, taking on the likeness of humanity. And when he had come as a man, 8 he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death— even to death on a cross. 9 For this reason God highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow— in heaven and on earth and under the earth— 11 and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

My prayer for all of us today is this

1 John 2:1–2 (Jeremy’s Paraphrase)

1 Brother and Sisters, I am PRAYING and SPEAKING to you these things so that you MAY NOT SIN. But WHEN you do sin, know we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ the righteous one. 2 He himself is the atoning sacrifice for ALL our sins, and not only for ours, but also for those of the whole world. SO LET US TURN TO HIM