Lent Midweek March 21, 2018
2018 Study of Lust (This is a study sent out in advance of the sermon.)
Lent Midweek
2 Samuel 11-12; Psalm 51
March 21, 2018
“Jesus vs. Lust”
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
I don’t know if you’ve noticed this in all the other vices, but every vice takes something good and corrupts it. So gluttony takes food and drink and misuses them. Anger takes a desire for justice, which is good, and distorts it into something self-serving. Lust is no different. Sexual desire is a good thing. God gave it to us. He gave it for husbands and wives to give their love to one another and also to lead to babies. But lust takes that good thing meant to be for loving our spouse and for creating new life—and makes it all for our own sexual pleasure. It takes a good thing and distorts it.
So King David’s desire should have been for his wife (wives, see below) —to love her. But instead, all he cares about is his own pleasure. So he’s willing to take another man’s wife, Bathsheba, not to love her but to use her for his own pleasure. This very sad account of David and his lust for Bathsheba shows us two things tonight about lust. First, it shows just how destructive lust can be. And secondly, David shows us the only real cure and answer for lust.
We tend to think lust doesn’t really hurt anybody. It’s just between me and God, right? But what a joke that is! The devil’s behind that lie. Lust hurts everybody that we love. How many people were hurt by David’s lust? It’s going to be hard to count them all. Bathsheba was certainly hurt by his lust. And her husband, Uriah, who ends up dead at the end of all this because David had him killed. That means all of Uriah’s family and friends are all hurt by David’s lust. They all have to attend a funeral far too early. And all of Bathsheba’s family as well is devastated by this lust. Because it’s pretty obvious that King David was behind the whole thing.
Then there’s all of David’s family. All of his wives (Of course, he should’ve only had one wife but he had many. Another one of his problems of lust to begin with.) All of his children are affected by his lust. Then there’s every single person that works for King David. They all see it. They all know about it. You’ve got the messengers who went to get her for him. And in David’s case, now you’ve got a whole kingdom affected. What do they think of their king who stole another man’s wife and then had him killed? The rumors certainly were getting around. So you have a whole kingdom and people hurt by the lust of one man, who happened to get some fresh air late one afternoon and saw a beautiful woman.
So lust is all about me and my sexual pleasure—but it ends up hurting everyone else around us. How many people are hurt by just one single affair? The children, the children’s friends, co-workers, relatives, neighbors, etc. The collateral damage is hard to measure. How many people are hurt by one pastor that gets involved with other women? I’m sure you’ve heard those stories. Like Jimmy Swaggart or Ted Haggard or Billy Graham’s grandson, Tullian Tchividjian, who was caught a couple years ago. Millions of people were affected by the lust of those men. And how many people are being affected today by pornography? The damage of that particular lust is far-reaching, ruining countless marriages and countless future families.
A person who wants to stay chaste and pure in our culture is in for quite a battle. Nearly everything that’s advertised to us uses some kind of sex appeal. Very few TV shows or movies today don’t have some type of lust as a big part of the storyline. And our phones today provide instant access to lust of every type.
So in David’s lust we see just how wide a path of destruction lust leaves behind. But thankfully, that’s not all we learn from David. We also learn the cure and answer for lust. We’re so naïve about lust. We think it’s no big deal to get rid of it. That’s what David thought. No big deal. “I’ll just kill her husband and take her for my wife. No one will be the wiser. Problem solved.” But he only made it worse.
Same with us. We think we’ll just act like it never happened. We’ll promise never to do it again. We just won’t watch those movies anymore or read those books anymore. We just won’t think those thoughts anymore. But we only make it worse.
We can’t cure lust. You will never fully cure your lust or get rid of it. Because the roots of lust go very deep. When you look at a picture of a tree of vices that they used to draw in the Middle Ages, lust was always at the very top of the tree. The highest branch. The point was that lust grew out of all the other seven. And you can’t get rid of lust by trying to just saw off the very top branch. You have to attack lust at the roots. And the only way to attack lust at the roots is through Baptism into Jesus. It takes a washing of our hearts to cure lust. And not just one washing. But an everyday washing. Just like you take a shower every day or wash your hands every day. It’s going to take a lot of Jesus-water.
David’s problem wasn’t just lust. It was pride. The root of his problem. Look how he acts when the prophet Nathan comes to him and tells him the story about the rich man who stole the poor man’s one little ewe lamb. What a hypocrite! He’s so full of pride that he can’t even consider that he himself has done something terribly wrong. Not just taking a lamb but taking a wife. That’s really why lust is so deadly. Because it’s root is pride. It’s root is no love for God but only love for ourselves. We don’t care that God has said sexual pleasure is only for our husband or our wife—we want it however we want it.
And the only way to attack pride is to be cut down through repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. So David shows us the way in Psalm 51. Gone is his pride. Now is humble faith. “According to Your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions.” No longer does he think they’re no big deal. Now they need to blotted out. “Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.” This is going to take some hard scrubbing. Scrubbing that only God can do. Scrubbing of the heart and soul through forgiveness. “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” I need a whole new heart, God. A right spirit to replace my wrong spirit.
You can’t cure lust. You can’t fix it. You can’t make it right. Only Jesus can. And He does. Every single day when you live in your Baptism. Every morning your Baptism is a cleansing shower. It washes away the filth and the lewdness and the adultery and the lust. It gives you a clean heart and a right spirit through forgiveness in Jesus Christ.
Jesus attacks our lust at the root. At our pride. Instead of lust, He teaches us to love. To not see other people as objects for our sexual pleasure, but as people loved and redeemed by Jesus. To love our neighbor as ourselves. To love our husband. To love our wife. And to love God—the God who washes away our lust every day in Jesus Christ. If lust is a specially hard vice for you, memorize David’s prayer and use it often, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” He will answer that prayer.
In Jesus’ name. Amen.