LIVING WITH THE CONSEQUENCES OF FORGIVEN SIN

LIVING WITH THE CONSEQUENCES OF FORGIVEN SIN 2 Samuel 12:1-14 With grateful acknowledgement of these sources of direction and inspiration: the Holy Spirit; the Word of God; generous use of Ben Haden, "The Consequences of Forgiven Sin"; Philip Yancey, Finding God in Unexpected Places; John Maxwell, Failing Forward June 29, 2003 [Additional Notes] Given by: Pastor Rich Bersett [Index of Past Messages] Introductory It doesn't look good for David. In our previous episode of The Adventures of David, the King spied the lovely, naked Bathsheba taking a bath and decided to give in to the powerful temptation of lust and power, even though she was married to the noble soldier, Uriah. When it was discovered shortly thereafter that Bathsheba was with child - and there was no way Uriah could be the father - David arranged to have Uriah killed in battle. Uriah died, and a grieving Bathsheba quickly becomes the latest in a succession of royal wives. Last week we considered Psalm 51, believed to be David's record of repentance over this cluster of sins. And it gives us an inspiring and exemplary picture of what it means to repent. But, as he admits in Psalm 32, this repentance did not happen right away. First David tried to hide his sins and ignore them, but God arranged an ancient "intervention," using his trusted prophet, Nathan. Incidentally, it is of more than passing interest that Nathan was a man whom David trusted, too. "The Lord sent Nathan to David. When he came to him, he said, 'There were two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor. The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle, but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb he had bought. He raised it, and it grew up with him and his children. It shared his food, drank from his cup and even slept in his arms. It was like a daughter to him. No a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveler who had come to him. Instead, he took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come to him.' David burned with anger against the man and said to Nathan, 'As surely as the Lord lives, the man who did this deserves to die! He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity.' The 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 the house of 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 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. Now, therefore, the sword will never depart from you house, because you despised me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own." 'This is what the Lord says: "Out of your own household I am going to bring calamity upon you. Before your very eyes I will take your wives and give them to one who is close to you, and he will lie with your wives in broad daylight. You did it in secret, but I will do this thing in broad daylight before all Israel."' The David said to Nathan, 'I have sinned against the Lord.' Nathan replied, 'The Lord has taken away your sin. You are not doing to die. But because by doing this you have made the enemies of the Lord show utter contempt, the son born to you will die.'"   (2 Samuel 12:1-14) "You are the man!" Nathan thundered. In an instant, David was shown for who he really was-his secret sins exposed and his superhero image tarnished. Mr. Perfect was a sexual predator - a sinister, murdering, ungrateful major disgrace. Even if the entire world admired him still, the God who gave him his life knew the bitter truth. David was utterly tainted. And the penalties against him would be severe. His child with Bathsheba would die. David's family life would disintegrate before his sad eyes: rebellious children; one son, Amnon, will rape his step-sister, Tamar, David's daughter; another son, Absalom would cause him tremendous grief, leading an all-out military coup against his father, and humiliating his father by publicly sleeping with his wives. Chapters 12-18 of 2 Samuel graphically record the misery and evil that beset David's house-all of it exactly as the Lord prophesied through Nathan. His personal life and his kingly reign were largely a nightmare from that time on. But I want us to see something significant about David-something we might miss if we casually read these chapters like a Danielle Steele novel. Please notice how David responds to being confronted with his sin by instantly repenting, and then how he lives with the horrible consequences. It is here that we are able to get the true measure of this man, David. Here we begin to understand how, even though the Bible is disarmingly honest about his sins, it still refers to him as "a man after God's own heart." [webmasters note: Acts 13:22] Let's consider a few observations about David's post-Nathan life. Ask the Lord to give you a clear word about your life and how you live with the consequences of forgiven sin. He Admitted His Sin and Repented Early Even though David did not repent until he was found out and confronted, when he was confronted he did not try to weasel, rationalize or deny. He immediately agreed with Nathan, "You're right, I am the man!" There is a certain integrity in coming clean with God just as soon as you realize you have offended Him. "You cannot repent too soon because you do not know how soon it may be too late." Sir Thomas Fuller "When King Frederick II, an eighteenth-century king of Prussia, was visiting a prison in Berlin, the inmates tried to prove to him how they had been unjustly imprisoned. All except one. That one sat quietly in a corner, while all the rest protested their innocence. Seeing him sitting there oblivious to the commotion, the king asked him what he was there for. "Armed robbery, Your Honor." The king asked, "Were you guilty?" "Yes, Sir," he answered. "I entirely deserve my punishment." The king then gave an order to the guard: "Release this guilty man. I don't want him corrupting all these innocent people." Lloyd H. Steffen in The Christian Century The earlier we repent the more quickly we can realize the forgiveness of God and the more quickly we begin to avert further damaging consequences. For years on Saturday afternoon there was a show called The Wide World of Sports. And those of us who remember, that show started every Saturday with a clip of a skier going down a ski jump, and Jim McKay would utter those famous words, "The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat." And as he said those words, "the agony of defeat" that jumper inexplicably went off that ski jump, tumbled head over heels about ten times in a colossal fall. And for years he bore the title of embarrassment as the man who was "the agony of defeat." But here's the rest of the story. That jumper didn't go off that jump accidentally. You see, there had been a delay and what had happened was that the jump had gotten icy and as he got on the jump and started down, he realized he was going too fast. And if he had gone off that jump he would have gone over the landing area and he would have landed on a spot where he could have died. He intentionally made a tough choice: the path I'm on is a bad path. He knew it would be hard and he knew it would be embarrassing and he knew that it might hurt some. But he got off that path and it saved his life! Mark Richison He Submitted to God's Purifying Work Once forgiven by the Lord, we would love to see all the consequences of our sins washed away along with the guilt and condemnation, wouldn't we? Of course we would. But that is not how God works. Granted, sometimes there is an extra-special work of grace and God protects us from reaping the full measure of the consequences. But far more regular is the standard law of God: "Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows." (Galatians 6:7) If I rebel against God by robbing a bank, and then I am truly repentant, God will forgive me of the guilt and eternal consequence of that sin on the basis of what Christ accomplished at the cross; but there are temporal issues that remain. For example, when I face trial for my behavior, and I tell the judge that God has forgiven me, it will not change his mind about handing down a sentence that is commensurate with justice. I've visited with a number of prisoners who asked me to pray for the courts to be merciful and lenient, but I have to tell you, God is not in the habit of doing that. We live with consequences-even we who are redeemed and forgiven through Christ. We may be Christians, but when the sin of divorce rips our home, there are consequences from which God does not protect us. You may be a church member, but, as Jim Baker will tell you, "If you do the crime you do the time." We may have the promise of 1 John 1:9 that, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness," but you still pay the piper in this world. And God does not usually interfere. Let's park here long enough to address the question Why doesn't God interfere? Is it a sign that He doesn't love me, or that His forgiveness of my sin is provisional? Does it mean that I am being forced to pay some "penance" for my sin in order to become forgivable? Or, does God just not care about the misery I am facing as I live with the consequences of my sin? The answer to those questions is emphatically No. God does love you; His care for you is not diminished; His forgiveness of your sin in Christ is complete and unconditional; and you cannot make yourself forgivable-only God's great love and mercy can forgive us. So, why do we have to live with the consequences of our moral failures? If a teenage girl is promiscuous and becomes pregnant, but she repents and gives her life to Christ, why does she still have this baby to raise? Now she can't finish school, the boyfriend is long gone and she is saddled with a minimum wage, part time job and a colic-y baby. Couldn't God just work a miracle of some sort? After all, she's forgiven of her sin! A young man comes to know Christ through the faithful witness of some friends, and is instantly delivered from a homosexual lifestyle. The next week his blood test shows he is HIV-positive. A year later he is dying of AIDS. Couldn't God have intervened and spared this repentant, forgiven child of His all this misery and such an early death? The answer to the question of why we must live with the consequences of forgiven sin is bound up with what David realized. 1. God's purpose for us Romans 8:29 says God predestined us "…to be conformed to the likeness of his Son…" 2 Corinthians 3:18 teaches that we "…are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory…" Colossians 3:10 tells us that we Christians "…have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator." By God's promises, 2 Peter 1:4 says, "…you may participate in the divine nature…" The scripture is abundantly clear-we forgiven, saved, redeemed children of God in Christ are involved in a PROCESS called sanctification, and it is His will that we begin to look more and more like Jesus every day. This is accomplished through the "sanctifying work of His Spirit" in us (2 Thessalonians 2:13; 1 Peter 1:2; Romans 15:16) Here's my point: God is not nearly as interested in our being comfortable as He is in our being Christ-like. The apostle Peter wrote that we Christians suffer grief in all kinds of trials. "These have come so that your faith-of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire-may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed." (1 Peter 1:7) When we fail to live up to our privileged holy state as Christians, we may certainly find God's forgiveness, but He still lets us face the mess we made when we sinned. His purpose for us has not changed. He is still about recreating us in the image of His son. In fact, the process is downshifted into a lower gear when we sin. He simply cannot take away the consequences of our wrong behavior or we would never learn. 2. God's power to use our circumstances for good Even when we have created our own grief and trials through our willful disobedience to God, He uses those difficult circumstances to build Christ-likeness in us. In fact, this is the substance of the promise that God works all things together for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28). "For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all." 2 Cor 4:17 Proverbs gives us a long list of sins that get us into trouble, such as impatience, dishonesty, selfishness, a hot temper, and even talking too much. It also tells us that wisdom will keep us out of trouble. Anytime we ignore God's principles, we eventually suffer the consequences. We always reap what we sow. When we sin, more than ever we need a heart of wisdom, and we get it through correction, or spiritual discipline. "Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? . . .we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live! Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it." (Hebrews 12:7-11) God has given us the freedom to make choices, but we are not free to choose the consequences of those choices. David prayed, "I am surrounded by many troubles ... My sins have caught up with me." (Psalm 40:12) People often confuse the source of their problems, blaming God for the natural consequences of their poor choices or blaming the Devil for circumstances that were actually planned by God. God never tempts us to sin, but he tests our character and faith continually. And, as He did with David, He will allow us to face the consequences of our wrong behavior to help teach us, and make us holy. David Lived Spiritually in (spite of) Sin's Consequences It must have been really tough for David to go through all that he went through in his life. All the trouble in his family among his children and descendants. Some say that the trouble in the mid-east today is residual evidence that the sword has not yet left the house of David. David made the best of what he faced by serving God in the midst of the difficult circumstances he brought on himself. I see something of the approach David took toward these things in the example of how he handled the death of the baby he and Bathsheba conceived. Right after Nathan left, the baby fell sick as prophesied. David pleaded with God for the life of the child (2 Samuel 12:15). He fasted and prayed lying on the ground all night. On the seventh day the child died. 2 Samuel 12:20-23 records that when David learned the baby died, "David got up from the ground. After he had washed, put on lotions and changed his clothes, he went into the house of the Lord and worshiped. Then he went to his own house, and at his request they served him food, and he ate. His servants asked him, 'Why are you acting this way? While the child was alive, you fasted and wept, but now that the child is dead, you get up and eat!' He answered, 'While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept. I thought, "Who knows? The Lord may be gracious to me and let the child live." But now that he is dead, why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me.'" He had been told the baby would not live, but against hope he prayed and sought the Lord for his life. When he died, David acquiesced to God's will and went on. There is a grace in accepting the will of the Lord, even when it is deeply painful, and moving on. David demonstrated that throughout all of the tragedies that he would face. He loved his other sons; he grieved when they sinned and when they died, but his trust and faith in the Lord never wavered. How should we live in the midst of the consequences of forgiven sin? 1. Submit to the sanctifying purposes of God (Romans 5:3-4) Don't fight God, but relax in His purposes. He is bringing about the righteous life He requires in us-sometimes the hard way. Thank Him that He is building character and Christ-likeness in you Character building is a long, slow process. When we spend our energy trying to avoid or escape from the difficulties in life, we short-circuit this process, delay our growth, and actually end up with a worse kind of pain - the worthless type that accompanies denial and avoidance. Jesus never used his supernatural powers to solve a personal problem or relieve his pain. When you grasp the eternal consequences of your character development, you'll pray fewer "Comfort me" prayers (Please help me feel good) and more "Conform me" prayers (Please use this to make me more like you) 2. Pray to come closer to God through Christ Here's one of David's prayers: "It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees" (Psalm 119:71) The physical scare of hospitalization and sickness might scare you Into quitting smoking, or into eating properly. Once a person called me with a prayer request. I told him I'd be happy to pray for him-what was wrong? His TV was broken. Pray for what? Like David weeping over the child, let pain drive you to God. 3. Look for God's preparation for future ministry (2 Corinthians 1:3-4) "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God." I am not suggesting here that God sends you trouble just to prepare you to help someone else who has similar trouble, but it is His way to redemptively USE your experiences to serve others. 4. Look for testimonial opportunities Job lost all his children, his earthly riches and faced a host of grievous problems. What did he say? "The Lord gives and the Lord takes away; blessed be the name of the Lord." [webmasters note: Job 1:21] In all things the name of the Lord is to be praised, "from the rising to the setting of the sun". Watch for ways in which God can advance the gospel in spite of what you are going through (Philippians 1:12) Consider Chuck Colson's history. He fell from trusted White House attach?to a federal prisoner, despised and mistrusted by an entire nation. God got hold of him, he accepted Christ and today he is one of the most admired Christian leaders in the world, responsible for tens of thousands of conversions in and out of this country's prisons. Conclusion Regardless of their source, none of your problems could happen without God's permission. Everything that happens in the life of a child of God is Father-filtered, and he intends to use it for good, even when Satan and others mean it for bad. The source of your problem is no problem for God; he will use it all for your good and your growth if you trust him. And the messed up lives of sinners are no match for the creative, almighty power of God to redeem. If you have sinned and the stigma of your sin has marked your life with evil consequences, proceed into the rest of your life with the confidence that God has not abandoned you to these consequences. In fact, He is redeeming them to His glory and your maturity. Praise God! Go on in His grace to be as David was-a man after God's own heart. James gives us this practical advice about problems: Realize that they come to test your faith and produce in you the quality of endurance. But let the process go on until that endurance is fully developed, and you will find that you have become men of mature character ... with no weak spots. (James 1:3-4)     [Back to Top]