I've Sinned. Now What?

It can happen even without our intending it. We’ve had a hard day at work but it’s our wife that we yell at. We’re out having a good time with friends and before too long we’ve had too much to drink. We work closely with someone for years but almost overnight it develops into an affair. We did not intend to do it or set out to do it—but we’ve sinned. Now what?

We can excuse it. We can justify it. We can try to explain it away or cover it up. But none of it helps—not really—not in the way that we need to be helped. What we need is to come face-to-face with our sins. What we need to do is confess them and be forgiven and restored to God.

This is exactly what we see in our text today in the story of David and Bathsheba. Most of us know their story. A woman who was immodest. A man who did not guard his eyes. Two people who gave in to lust and committed adultery. A plan to cover it up that resulted in death. The Bible describes that downward spiral of sin like this:

Each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.

But this story that we have today in our Old Testament lesson is not only about THAT sin of adultery and THOSE people (David and Bathsheba)—it’s about us and about our sins-- and God the Holy Spirit saw fit to have it recorded in the Bible so that when we come to that place of real sin and failure in our own lives-- we can know what God’s attitude is towards us --and what he is doing in our lives in the aftermath of sin to re-make us and restore us as his people. The Bible says:

When the wife of Uriah heard that Uriah her husband was dead, she lamented over her husband. And when the mourning was over, David sent and brought her to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son. But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord.

No one was around when David spotted Bathsheba on that rooftop. His order sending Uriah her husband to the front lines was his to make. Taking the poor widow into his home would have been seen as an act of mercy. The evil behind all of it was hidden to everyone but the Lord—to everyone BUT the Lord. But the Lord saw—and the Lord was displeased—and it is the Lord’s judgment that mattered. So it still is today.

Human beings still try to hide their sins. It has become fashionable to call family wrecking adultery—romantic dalliances. Greed and coveting is called-- ambition. The murder of children is called—a civil right. The wholesale acceptance of sexual perversion in large parts of the church is called—the work of the Holy Spirit.

But the Lord still sees the truth of what is in our hearts and lives-- and it is still the Lord’s judgment that matters. And he has made his will for our lives very clear in the Ten Commandments—the righteous demands of which never change with the times.

We may try to rename our sins—we may try to justify our sins—we may try to hide our sins—but they are not hidden from God and he will not explain them away.

Instead, through the words of Nathan the prophet, we hear God call them what they are.

First of all, they are a denial that God is our Creator and we are his creatures. God had richly blessed David and yet David took what belonged to another. Adam and Even were blessed with a garden to eat from but they wanted the one thing forbidden. God has blessed us with a home and spouse and possessions and yet we covet what belongs to others. When we sin it is an affront to the Creator who has blessed us and set very few parameters around those blessings—and yet we cast them aside.

Second of all, our sins are a despising of God’s Word and ultimately a despising of God himself. David knew the commandments: Thou shalt not covet—Thou shalt not commit adultery—thou shalt not murder—but he did the very things they commanded him not to do-- and his contempt for God’s Word—God counted as contempt for his own person and that which was evil in his sight.

God’s holy Law is not just words on a page—there is a holy, living being who stands behind his word and he does not permit us even in the least to set it aside-and when we do transgress it by our sins—it is he who is offended.

This then is the true picture of human sin—contempt for the Creator’s gifts—contempt for God’s Word—contempt for God himself. And knowing that he is holy and knowing that he cannot abide with sin you would think that he would cast us away forever—but he does not. He seeks after us so that we can recognize what we have done—repent of it—and return to him. To that end and for that purpose, the Bible says that: The Lord sent Nathan to David.

It is God who seeks out sinful man to save him. God is the initiator of our relationship with him. It all begins with God’s love for man. When Adam and Eve sinned against God—their eyes were open and they knew that God was good and that they were evil and they fled from him in fear. It was God who sought them out in love.

That is the story of the Bible from beginning to end—God seeking out sinful man—God calling out to man—God desiring to restore a broken relationship with us.

That is what we see in these verses. David and Bathsheba thought they had concealed their sin. They thought that they had tied up all the loose ends. Nobody knew what they had done—except for God—he knew what they had done-- and he knew what sin had done to their life with him. And so he sent Nathan the prophet to speak his words and restore their broken relationship.

If I were to ask you to sit down with a bible and come up with a picture and a definition of the Holy Ministry you might look at the call and sending of the apostles or turn to the pastoral epistles where the qualifications for the pastor are laid out.

But to define the ministry you could not do better than the verses we have before us today. A man sent by God to speak God’s Word for the purpose of restoring sinners to a right relationship with him.

Nathan was sent by God. He was not a hireling who did what the king commanded—he was above all else, God’s man first. And in his work he had one task that was above all others: to speak God’s Word—not his opinions—not what the king wanted to hear—but to speak God’s Word—to say, as he did: Thus says the Lord.

This part of our story—the sending of Nathan--as small as it is—is critical to understanding how God works in our lives.

Sin breaks our fellowship with God. God wants that fellowship restored. And so he calls and sends men to speak his words: to speak his words of law that reveal and rebuke our sin--but also to speak words of forgiveness that restore us to God. A man who is called by God to this work has no higher responsibility than to say: Thus says the Lord! and it is our responsibility as God’s people to hear it as that—God’s Word.

God has established this office of the Holy Ministry because we need to hear God’s Word spoken from outside of ourselves because we have a terrible ability to hide our sins and justify our sins even to ourselves and it has always been that way.

When Adam and Eve sinned against they fled from God and try to hide their shame.
This exactly what happened to David and Bathsheba—they tried to hide their sins away and in fact, had succeeded so well that they had even hidden them from themselves.

They same thing happens to us. We tell ourselves that our spouse is responsible for our argument and we are innocent. We tell ourselves that the person driving 55 in the passing lane is the reason we got angry and used bad language. We tell ourselves that that Walmart has overcharged me in the past and so I can keep the extra change this time.

We become so good at justifying ourselves and excusing our actions and blaming others that unless God breaks into that self-deception with his Word—we will remain right there—unrepentant and separated from God. But God loves and sends his messengers so that the truth about us might be revealed.

That’s exactly what Nathan did. He told a story about a grave injustice that had happened in David’s kingdom. A rich man had stolen a poor man’s little lamb and used it for himself. Such was David’s spiritual blindness that he didn’t even recognize that Nathan was talking about him. The Bible says that:

David's anger was greatly kindled against the man, and he said to Nathan, “As the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die, and he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity.”

David was absolutely right. The man in the story who robbed and killed deserved to die—it is the sentence demanded by God’s law: the wages of sins is death. But what David didn’t realize was that he had pronounced that sentence upon himself-- such was his self-imposed, spiritual blindness.

We need to take heed-- for we are not immune to that disease that hides the truth about our sin even from ourselves. In conflicted marriages and families it is so easy to point the accusing finger at the other person and ignore our own failures. When we are angry, someone else has not MADE us mad. When we worry and fret it is not God who has failed us—we have simply cast him down from his throne.

Which is exactly why God sends men to speak his Word of law—so that the finger we are all too eager to point at others-- can find its proper object and direction: Nathan said to David, “You are the man! David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.”

There is only one proper response to the accusation of the Law: contrition and confession—sorrow over our sins and sincere repentance. That’s what David did. No excuses or rationalizations or explanations or justifications—just a simple, heart-felt confession of his sins-- and what they did to his relationship with God.

And this is an important point. All sin is ultimately an offense against God. We may have had a fight with our spouse or we may be in the midst of family conflict—but we should have no doubt that it is God himself who is offended—he is the only one who can make things right—and he did. Nathan said to David, “The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die.

We talked earlier about the role of the holy ministry when we have sinned—that the man of God is called by God and sent by God to reveal our sins sin and rebuke them. But that is not an end in itself—it serves another purpose—God’s real purpose—and that is to forgive us and restore us—which is what we see going on here.

God wouldn’t and couldn’t ignore David’s sins and he can’t ignore ours—but he can and has dealt with them. God took them off of us and placed them upon his Son. Jesus is the One who suffered the punishment of the law that says that the wages of sin is death. He paid those wages with his shed blood, suffering, and death—and all forgiveness is spoken and given in his name.

Holy baptism and Holy Absolution and Holy Communion all draw their power to forgive our sins only because they connect us to the crucified and risen Savior. And so when the man of God says I forgive you and I baptize you and take and eat this is my body, take and drink this is my blood—it is Christ’s voice that is heard and his forgiveness that is given—and those whose sins have been taken away by him—have passed from death to life.

When we have sinned and done what is wrong in God’s sight—when guilt weighs heavily upon us—when we wonder, “now what?”--what a comfort it is to know that because our sins have been taken away by Jesus—things are right between us and God—even if we have to deal with the consequences of our actions.

David was restored to God—but there were consequences from what he had done. Nathan told him, by this deed you have utterly scorned the Lord, so the child who is born to you shall die.”

This is a warning that all forgiven sinners must take seriously. When we speak hateful words—their memory continues even after they are forgiven. When we misuse alcohol the physical effects do not magically disappear when we come to faith. If we have an affair and destroy our marriage—we can be forgiven but that does not mean the marriage can be rebuilt. There are terrible consequences to our sins just like there was for David even after he was forgiven and restored as a child of God. This warning is given to us in love by God so that we never regard his forgiveness as a license for more sin.

I’ve sinned. Now what? I confess it to God. I receive God’s forgiveness in Christ. And I resolve with the help of the Holy Spirit never to do it again. Amen.