Lust
1 In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, David sent Joab, and his servants with him, and all Israel. And they ravaged the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem.
2 It happened, late one afternoon, when David arose from his couch and was walking on the roof of the king’s house, that he saw from the roof a woman bathing; and the woman was very beautiful. 3 And David sent and inquired about the woman. And one said, “Is not this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?” 4 So David sent messengers and took her, and she came to him, and he lay with her. (Now she had been purifying herself from her uncleanness.) Then she returned to her house. 5 And the woman conceived, and she sent and told David, “I am pregnant.” 6 So David sent word to Joab, “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” And Joab sent Uriah to David. 7 When Uriah came to him, David asked how Joab was doing and how the people were doing and how the war was going. 8 Then David said to Uriah, “Go down to your house and wash your feet.” And Uriah went out of the king’s house, and there followed him a present from the king. 9 But Uriah slept at the door of the king’s house with all the servants of his lord, and did not go down to his house. 10 When they told David, “Uriah did not go down to his house,” David said to Uriah, “Have you not come from a journey? Why did you not go down to your house?” 11 Uriah said to David, “The ark and Israel and Judah dwell in booths, and my lord Joab and the servants of my lord are camping in the open field. Shall I then go to my house, to eat and to drink and to lie with my wife? As you live, and as your soul lives, I will not do this thing.” 12 Then David said to Uriah, “Remain here today also, and tomorrow I will send you back.” So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next. 13 And David invited him, and he ate in his presence and drank, so that he made him drunk. And in the evening he went out to lie on his couch with the servants of his lord, but he did not go down to his house.14 In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it by the hand of Uriah. 15 In the letter he wrote, “Set Uriah in the forefront of the hardest fighting, and then draw back from him, that he may be struck down, and die.” 16 And as Joab was besieging the city, he assigned Uriah to the place where he knew there were valiant men. 17 And the men of the city came out and fought with Joab, and some of the servants of David among the people fell. Uriah the Hittite also died. 18 Then Joab sent and told David all the news about the fighting. 19 And he instructed the messenger, “When you have finished telling all the news about the fighting to the king, 20 then, if the king’s anger rises, and if he says to you, ‘Why did you go so near the city to fight? Did you not know that they would shoot from the wall? 21 Who killed Abimelech the son of Jerubbesheth? Did not a woman cast an upper millstone on him from the wall, so that he died at Thebez? Why did you go so near the wall?’ then you shall say, ‘Your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also.’ ”22 So the messenger went and came and told David all that Joab had sent him to tell. 23 The messenger said to David, “The men gained an advantage over us and came out against us in the field, but we drove them back to the entrance of the gate. 24 Then the archers shot at your servants from the wall. Some of the king’s servants are dead, and your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also.” 25 David said to the messenger, “Thus shall you say to Joab, ‘Do not let this matter displease you, for the sword devours now one and now another. Strengthen your attack against the city and overthrow it.’ And encourage him.”26 When the wife of Uriah heard that Uriah her husband was dead, she lamented over her husband. 27 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.
Today we are talking about the deadly sin of lust. I have to admit it was about two weeks ago when I started looking ahead to this message and realized, “Oh no, I am going to speak on lust to the whole church. What was I thinking?” I frequently plan series excited about aspects of the series and then later realize there is a hard passage or topic. Like a series on Daniel and then you've got to deal with the vision of beasts coming out of the sea.
I went to a site of a pastor I frequently listen to and saw they were covering a very similar topic. I clicked to listen and realized it was another member of the preaching team and that guy began lamenting getting the short straw. I thought I should have assigned this to Mark!
OK, you can't begin a message on this without some jokes and laughing. But all kidding aside, I don't apologize for teaching on this topic and frankly I can't think of a better place for you to learn about sex than at church. Your other options are school and television and that is destructive. We need to understand this topic and so we cannot avoid it.
Let me say at the beginning I picked this passage because I don't just want to learn about the facts about lust, I want to see it at work in a person's life, its destruction, and also how the grace of God works in the midst of this sin.
Prop: Lust is the twisted desire for sex that places us on a path to destruction, unless we repent and turn to him for healing and cleansing.
Twists: Last Sunday the wind got hold of our pop-up tent and the pressure bent and twisted the metal. It made it unusable. It destroyed it. That is what these sins do to us. They twist and distort God’s design and it leads to destruction.
The Sin of Lust
David sees a woman bathing, notices she is very beautiful, and it doesn’t stop there. He inquires of her and sends for her. It was not that he saw her but that he began to desire her, and desire gave way to action.
Lust is defined today as intense or unbridled sexual desire. Jesus referred to it in
Matt 5:28 “But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”
ἐπιθῡμέω, set one’s heart upon a thing, long for, covet, desire. Lust is going against the command to not covet. Lust is the sexual coveting of another person.
Lust distorts God’s design. Lust does not mean all sexual desire is wrong. There is a holy desire God gives to people for sex. Sex is not bad. It is good. But it is to be in the confines of marriage, which is an enduring union to another that is physical, spiritual, emotional and yes sexual.
Gen 2:23 The man said,
“This is now bone of my bonesand flesh of my flesh;she shall be called ‘woman,’for she was taken out of man.”24 That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh. Distortion happens when something good is twisted beyond its correct function. When an instrument is bent and falls out of tune. We have some beautiful instruments up here, but if you gave one to me and let me tune it then I would distort and destroy what it is supposed to sound like. This is true of instruments and of our desires. We have to bring them in line with God’s purpose.
Lust is the desire for sex separated from any real relationship. A man who is lusting after another woman is not interested in caring for her soul. He is not interested in meeting her emotional, spiritual, or even physical needs. He is only interested in gratifying his desires.
Lust uses people. David uses Bathsheba and sends her home when he is done. There is no care for Bathsheba. It's only what David can use her for.
When God created humanity, he made them male and female, and declared his creation very good (Genesis 1:27, 31). He then formed Eve and brought her to Adam (Genesis 2:18–23). There is something intentional and beautiful about God's design of women. Adam's response to Eve is poetry: “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh!” He recognizes and delights in the woman God has made.
God created woman with beauty, and he created man with the capacity to recognize and delight in that beauty. In fact, the first recorded words of Adam in Scripture are poetry. When he sees Eve, he breaks into a poetic expression of delight. Beauty is not something inherently sinful or shameful. It is part of God's good design. It is good for a woman to cultivate and appreciate beauty, and it is natural for a man to be attracted to it.
Beauty, then, is not something shameful or superficial. It is part of God's good creation. It is good for women to appreciate beauty, cultivate it, and take joy in it. Don't just cover yourself in a burka and hijab. And it is natural for men to recognize and be attracted to feminine beauty. Attraction itself is not the problem. The problem comes when sin twists what God made good. Sin takes the good gift of beauty and turns it into either an idol to worship or an object to consume. For women: Beauty can become an identity to pursue, a source of validation to depend on, or a tool to gain attention and power. Instead of receiving beauty as a gift, a woman can become enslaved to the need to be admired. Instead of honoring God with her beauty she seeks to take advantage of others. For men: Instead of appreciating a woman as a person made in God's image, a man begins to view her as an object for his own gratification. Instead of delighting in beauty, he seeks to possess and consume it.
Covetous desires cause us to bend and twist the gift of sex.
Pervasiveness of Lust. It is everywhere. It seems no product is marketed without sex appeal. Billions of dollars are made each year because of lust. People want love, they want sex, and if they think what you have will help them acquire those then they will buy what you have.
No shortage of people giving in to lust or using lust to make money.
I recently saw a popular podcaster encouraging women to leave their husbands. She said “if you wonder if I should leave this marriage because I wonder if I can really do better, well if you ever wonder if I do better than this, the answer is always yes. You can always do better.” That advice ignores the presence of God in your life.
The things you see on your phone. Flee from it. Don't inquire. Don't seek more info. Maybe it means don't post photos of yourself. Don't dress provocatively.
Don't forget God’s design. Don't forget who you are. David is the king of Israel, the people of God, and he is in charge to provide for and protect the people. He is married. He forgets who he is. He forgets who she is—a helpmate to his trusted friend and loyal follower, and David decides to consume rather than serve.
Lust isn't fundamentally a problem of having too little; it's a problem of being dissatisfied by everything. David had much, but he wanted more. Nothing can satisfy a heart that isn't content in God.
The Deadly Progression of Lust.
A heart that will break God’s commands for lust is a heart that will break God’s commands to hide.
You see the progression of sin in this passage.
Starts out small rather innocently. Call Uriah back. He has been away for a bit. Come back and be with his wife, and all will be well. That doesn't work so let's do it again with lots of wine. Leads to defile a brother.
Uriah is more committed to God’s cause than David is. Uriah is a man of integrity and sacrifice and devotion. When David’s first and second attempts don't work, he remains steadfast in his efforts to fix the problem. Put Uriah at the front of the battle and pull back.
Big sins require big lies to hide. Every time you sin you either get more humble/contrite or more proud/calloused. If you are not responding in repentance you are getting hardened in your rejection of God.
Don’t tell me looking isn't a problem. A woman is taken advantage of, a man is killed, and a family broken. The look opens the door to other sins.
Over the last sixty years in our country over 60 million people have been killed due to abortion. Don't believe the lie that killing another will fix your mistakes.
Don't tell me David wasn't riddled with guilt. Don't tell me he wasn't scared. Don't tell me he wasn't ashamed. He is hiding, covering up, lying, …
It's never just a look. What you feed will grow. You sow to the flesh and you will reap according to the flesh. Don't tolerate a little sin. Don't tolerate a little evil. A little adultery.
Prov 5:3 For the lips of the adulterous woman drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil; ... 5 but her feet go down to death; her steps lead straight to the grave.
Lust goes against God’s design, it wrongs another, and it will lead a person to shame and isolation. How many people are imprisoned on their computer by lust? Too afraid to talk to anyone, too ashamed to come out, the feeling of failure, and so they stay stuck in the sin and darkness.
Adult stores have no windows. You may think it is so people can't see inside. That is partially right, but often it is so people can't see out. They can't see the beauty of the world outside. They are stuck in the darkness.
John Piper: “I remember as I struggled with these things in my teenaged years and in my college years—I knew how I could fight most effectively in those days. And I’ve developed other strategies over the years that have proved very effective. And one way of fighting was simply to get out of the dark places, get out of the lonely rooms, get out of the boxed-in places, get out of the places where it’s just small me and my mind and what I can do with it, and get out where I am just surrounded by color and beauty and bigness and loveliness. Seeking more and more of what doesn't fill. The problem is that the relational fulfillment we long for is never just sexual. We long to be known and loved. Sex removed from the sacred oneness of bone of bone flesh of flesh is like trying to find delight in food without consuming actual food.
Pornography addictions. People hide by themselves and use pornography to comfort themselves, but it never comforts and pushes them further and further inward. Hiding their sin and refusing to come to the light. Lives are ruined because of a glance, a look, a desire, an inquiry…
A 2025 meta-analysis of 41 studies and more than 70,000 participants found a negative relationship between pornography consumption and sexual satisfaction. The more you consume the less satisfied you are of it. Again, this is an association, not proof that pornography alone causes dissatisfaction. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39267458/ The biblical principle is even broader: Sheol and Abaddon are never satisfied, and never satisfied are the eyes of man." — Proverbs 27:20
Flee sexual immorality. Don’t seek to study it, broaden your experiences, explore who you really are. Trust God and trust his design. Walk with him. Don't flirt with it.
The Displeasure of God
27 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.
“The thing David had done displeased the Lord” hangs ominously over all that has been said.
David thinks he has gotten away with his sin. Uriah is gone. He is on a honeymoon. It would be a miserable honeymoon inside those walls. Sometimes you “get away with sin,” but you never really get away with it.
Fruit of the sinful nature. There is a correlation of these fruits with the root sin. Coveting is never just sexual. When it grows it grows roots in sex, pleasure, money, pride, all of these. That capital sin grows in influence and spreads its destruction.
19 Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21 envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
You don't get to pick and choose what sinful fruit goes with your disobedience. Hey, I'm ok with lust if I can just get a little anger as well. So many people give in to lust and sinful relationships and can't figure out why their relationship is filled with enmity, strife, anger, dissension. When you distort God’s design for a musical instrument you are going to get a painful song.
Seen so many times where people have not honored God in sexual purity and there are issues of trust. If you are not going to keep your word to God, how will you keep your word to another person? Often those who didn't honor God when they were supposed to be honoring God in purity have trouble honoring God when they are supposed to be having sex. High percentage of marriages today that are sexless. Each person is self-focused and not thinking loving and caring for the other.
Galatians shows what a big sin sexual immorality is. Those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. Your actions can forfeit your place in God’s kingdom. Don't act like it is not a big deal. It is.
God sends Nathan the prophet to rebuke David. His famous line, “Thou art the man” in the following chapter shows that God saw everything, and that while justice was delayed it was not denied.
The Washing of God
Sexual sin will make you feel dirty. Actress Megan Fox, known for her provocative roles, released a book of poetry a few years ago: “These poems were written in an attempt to excise the illness that had taken root in me because of my silence. I’ve spent my entire life keeping the secrets of men, my body aches from carrying the weight of their sins.” Sexual impurity will make you ache and feel dirty. David felt it.
David found healing with God. Psalm 51 is a song of repentance. It was written to be sung in the church service, and it was written by King David. The background of the psalm is when David committed adultery with Bathsheba. David sinned, was rebuked and found healing with God. Isn't that amazing. And the church was to gather and sing his song.
1 Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your steadfast love;
according to your abundant mercy
blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin!
Once his self-justification and self-deception were broken down he could turn to the Lord. And he prayed for God to change him in the depth of his being. He longed for healing. He longed for a work of the Spirit.
10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. 11 Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Psalm 51:10-11
David knew something was wrong inside of him. He needed a right heart and a clean spirit. He needed the presence of God and his healing hand.
Lust and sin will destroy a person. Make them something they are not. Distort a royal king into a cold calloused murderer. From a faithful husband to a lying cheat, from a man after God’s own heart to a man of sorrows. That is unless they turn to God. Unless they respond to God’s call for repentance.
When you distort an instrument enough, no person can repair it. But God can. His grace is greater.
God's grace triumphs over lust. David gives in to distorted desire, falls into sin, rips a woman from her husband, kills a noble man, and loses a child, and brings judgment on himself. But he is set free from that through repentance and faith. He finds cleansing and renewal.
Bathsheba will conceive another child and his name will be Solomon. He is the one through whom the promise of God is passed. He is in the line of Jesus.
David committed sin and his son died because of his sin. David prays and fasts that the child might live. But he doesn't. The child dies. Punishment for the sin of David. Probably he would rather he died than the child. David has more blood on his hands. David would be familiar from the OT that sin requires blood sacrifice. In the future God will send his own Son to die for what David did.
Jesus committed no sin but suffered for our sin. He dies on the cross for our sins. He redeems us and renews us.
We also have a better understanding of marriage because it is a pattern of what God is doing in the world. He is pursuing his holy bride, his church, his people. Marriage is a reflection of the love God has for his people. He pursues us even when we go astray.
But we must turn to him. When a man proposes to a woman she has a choice to make on whether she will leave all else and cleave to him. To receive the forgiveness in Jesus we must leave all else and hold fast to God.
Have you turned to God for cleansing and restoration or are you still hiding? Are you trying to do it your way? We look back on this event and see how dumb David’s actions are. If you are running from God one day you will look back and see how dumb your actions were, but it may be too late at that point to turn. Now is the time of repentance. Now is the time to experience renewal and restoration.
God is life. God is love. He brings us out of darkness and into his light and that leads to restoration and hope. He is greater than your sin, but you have to determine that having him is greater than having your sin. As long as you love your sins you cannot have God.
Sermon Discussion Questions What is the difference between healthy sexual desire and lust? How does lust twist something God created to be good? Where do you see the progression of lust in David's story—from seeing, to desiring, to acting, to hiding? What are some ways we can interrupt that progression in our own lives? David eventually stopped hiding and asked God to “create in me a clean heart.” What would it look like for you to bring a struggle with lust into the light and seek God's cleansing and restoration?
Who are some people you could invite to church? Who could you invite this next week? What would you say? Talk and pray about this with your small group.
