Sin and It's Effect - 5/31/26

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Transcript

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Good morning. I want to start with just a little experiment here, real quickly. Raise your hand if you like anything true crime. Okay, true crime podcast, TV shows, raise your hand, okay? Raise your hand now if true crime stresses you out. Raise your hand. My people, oh my goodness, there's so many of you. Welcome to Alderwood. So glad that you're here. My wife loves true crime. It took us 10 years for me to learn that you know her idea of a good time is watching on a Friday night a show about a wife murdering her husband. And that not my definition of a good time, but maybe that's yours for you to enjoy. And I'm saying all of this to say that today's story, in many ways, reads like a true crime story. It's a story that involves uh polygamy in many ways. You have uh a man who has eight wives, and so there's your cult documentary aspect to it. And then you have within that, you have, like Jeremy said, sexual assault, you have rape, you have cover-up, you have murder. Okay. Again, this is why we've made a lot of efforts today to make it clear like this is a PG 13, maybe R-rated message, not because I'm trying to be graphic, but because the Bible addresses these things. And we want to teach what the Bible teaches as we're going through 2 Samuel together. And, you know, it's it's important for us to see that. The Bible deals with real things. And I've been asked a few times, I've had people come up to me and they said that Jack, you drew the short straw and having to teach this message today. And initially I agreed, but as I've been thinking about it and processing this message now for a few weeks, I've really actually seen two things. First off, a real profound gratitude for the Bible, because the Bible is a holy book. It is not a pretty book. Okay? The Bible addresses real things that happen to real people in real life. And when it talks about sexual assault, half of women, most likely half of the women in this room, have dealt with sexual assault in some way, some shape, some form. And one in six men, one out of every six man, men in this room have experienced this in some way, shape, or form. In your life, this story exists to show that God sees your pain, he sees your trauma, he is not indifferent to it, and he weeps with you over it. And so for me, there's a tremendous amount of hope in looking in this. That the Bible showing us that God cares deeply. But the second thing, and I've had a lot of people come to me and say, what does this story have to do with David? Like this is totally just an offshoot. Like this seems so random talking about his kids and all the things that happen. And what I want to make the case is that this story is very much a story about David, about him as a father. You see, just to give you a little context where we're at, we're in 2 Samuel 13, if you want to turn your Bibles there. And just a little background for you King David, he is the best king Israel has had. He's an amazing king. He loves the Lord. He's known as a man after God's own heart. But then two weeks ago, we saw that King David then commits adultery, tries to cover it up, and then murders the woman that he slept with's husband. And then last week we see that God addresses him directly and confronts him and confronts him on his sin. And real quickly, I want to define this word sin. If you've been around the church or even culture at large, you hear this idea of sin. In a very technical sense, the definition of sin is to miss the mark. But I have to be honest with you, that definition misses the mark. Okay? If I have a dartboard and I throw it at the bullseye and I just miss, I still get some points. But that's not how sin works. So the working definition of how we're going to be defining sin this morning is this it's a destructive power, pervasive in the world, expressed through what humans do or fail to do. It's shown in acts of commission, sins I commit, and acts of commission, where I fail to act in the way that I should. And we've seen this in our life, and we see this in the life all around us. And it is a pervasive, destructive power in the world. And that's the case in David and his family. David and his family in this chapter are dealing with the direct consequences of what he has done. And by the end of our time this morning, I'm hoping that you're able to see the connection between what we have studied today and King David, the father's sins. And so God confronts David. No excuses, no blame shifting, nothing. He says, I have sinned against the Lord. Full stop. And God forgives him. It's amazing. But as we're going to see today, forgiveness removes our sin, but not its consequences. Forgiveness removes the shame and could even remove the guilt. But it does not end the consequences. When I bring material sin into a material world, there will be material consequences that happen. And David's sin has been brought into the world and it must go somewhere. And we see how it plays in the life of his children. And this morning, our big idea is that sin has corrupted humanity. This destructive, powerful force that we see destroying David and his family, we don't have to look too far to see its play in our own lives and how it has affected us and people around us as well. That sin has corrupted humanity. So the first point I want us to see is that sin distorts our desires. Let's look together in verses 1 and 2. Some time passed. God has confronted David, David confessed to sin, and David has been forgiven. And some time has passed, and David's son, Absalom, had a beautiful sister named Tamar. And David's son Amnon was infatuated with her. Amnon was frustrated to the point of making himself sick over his sister Tamar because she was a virgin, but it seemed impossible to do anything to her. Like there's right here two absolutely disgusting things. He's making himself sick over his sister. Like that just is showing right there the distortion of sin. Now here's the thing: she is his half-sister, and so he's probably trying to excuse it that way, but just making it very clear. It says half-sister, it's still fully gross. Okay? Still fully sin, still fully off limits. But he is sick over her with how infatuated. And secondly, and just as troubling is that it seemed impossible to do anything to her. This is not covenantal love. I just officiated a wedding yesterday, and I talked about this idea that love is sacrificial and what love is. But for him, all he is focused on is the act of sexual attraction that he has towards his sister. In fact, he talks with one of his friends about what he's feeling. He says, I am in love, the Hebrew word ahab with Tamar, my brother Absalom's sister. I am in love. You know, in the Greek, the New Testament is written in Greek, and there's several different words for love. You can be very precise with what it is that you mean by love. But just like in the English language, in the Hebrew language, you're kind of limited. Ahab is the word love, and it's a catch-all word for a lot of ways you can define love: covenantal, sacrificial, life-giving love, but also lust and sexual attraction and sexual desire. And here he's conflating the two things. In the wedding that I was doing yesterday, I was telling this couple that love that we have in the English language, this word for love, where it's talking about the deepest emotional connection, is also the word that I use for my dog, or that I use for golfing, or that I use for my hobbies. And yet it is a failed word because clearly what true love is goes far beyond just experiences. And here, Amnon, he cannot see the difference. Sin has distorted how he views and how he sees love. And sin does the same for us. Sin, it works in our mind. This is why Paul says in Romans 12 that we need to be renewed in our mind, in our thinking, the way we see the world. We need that renewal to happen through the Spirit of God, through the Word of God. And Amnon, he has been distorted in how he views his sister. But it goes deeper because sin also disgraces humanity. Now, something we should know about Amnon, his name means faithful and true. So faithful and true devises a plan. He's gonna lie. Faithful and true is gonna lie to his dad and say, I'm sick. I don't feel very good. Can Tamar come and bring me some food? Because she's the best cook. I love her so much. I just want her to bring food to me so I could feel better, and dad's not thinking anything of it. He says, Okay, faithful and true, I will allow that to happen. And so Tamar brings him food and he grabs her and said, Come sleep with me, my sister. Grabs her, uses force. This act of deception, this man whose name literally means truthful, lies in the way so he could be able to get his sister to sleep with him. But notice Tamara's response, how loving she is to him. She says, Don't, my brother. So the first thing is she says, Remember our relationship. She speaks at a relational level. We are siblings, we are family. But then she continues, Don't disgrace me, for such a thing should never be done in Israel. This is the second level of it. She says, This is illegal. In the book of Leviticus, chapter 18, it says, if a man does this, he must be cut off from the people. In Deuteronomy 27, this is if a man does this, he must be cursed by the people. Don't do this. This is illegal in our country. But lastly, she says, don't commit this outrage. And it's the Hebrew word nebalah. And it literally means an outrage that is so great that it could undo the fabric of a nation. Why would she say that? Because Amnon is the oldest child, and he is going to be the heir to the throne. And if he does this, he will be cut off from the people, he will be cursed by God, he will lose the ability to lead the people. That is a loving sister reminding him of his destiny. That is her speaking truth to him. Do not do this. It is a tragic mistake of what you would do. But like a lot of abusers, he refused to listen to her. And because he was stronger than she was, he disgraced her by raping her. She's a teenager. She's a young, young girl. In this room, I know that there are people who have been harmed by people you thought you can trust. Parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, family members. This is not a hypothetical for you. When you read verses like this, you see someone who uses their strength, who uses their access, who uses your vulnerability, and does what should not be done. And Amnon in this moment is exercising cowardly strength. See, cowardly strength is I take, I destroy, I abuse, I don't care about you, I see no value in you. You are an object to me. As opposed to godly strength, which says, I give, I sacrifice, I set my rights aside. Amnon is only focused on what he can do. He does not listen to her, he does not care about her. Does that sound like someone who truly loves another person? Not to me. He does not truly love his sister. And then the result of this, after this happens, so Amnon hated Tamar with such intensity that the hatred he hated her with was greater than the love that he had loved her with. Get out of here, he said. This is what sin offers us. If you engage in this, if you take this, if you go through, and it doesn't have to be something even as gross as this. Any level, if you take this, I promise this time it will satisfy you. And it never does. It never has. It is the greatest liar and deceiver, and it ultimately leaves us empty to the point where Amnon hates his sister. And the reason why I believe Amnon hated Tamar was because Amnon hated himself. He hated himself. Let me just speak to the Amnons in this room. There are some people in this room who've made real messes of their lives. And can I just say this? Amnon is not able to heal until he actually is able to own what he has done. And the same is true for you and me. Until we're willing, all of us, to look in a mirror for the sins that we've committed and be able to say, this is what I have done. This is what I have made of myself. Until we are willing to get to that place, there is no healing possible. Amnon hates his sister because he hates himself and he is unwilling to recognize the man that he has become. And all of us tomorrow, she's so heartbroken. And she's trying to make sense of this. And she's just trying to grab onto anything that she possibly can. And she says, No, sending me away is much worse than the great wrong you've already done to me. This is her most likely appealing to Deuteronomy 22, where it says, if a man sexually assaults a virgin, he has to marry her, pay her father 50 shekels, and he can never divorce her. Because remember, this is 3,000 years ago. 3,000 years ago, women were not in an egalitarian society like we have today, where they can work, where they can have their own home, where they can provide for themselves and have provision. This is a time where marriage was the place where protection, provision, and potential child uh children were offered to women through marriage. And so for her, she's trying to grab on to anything, but she's not actually able to marry him. The law forbids this. And so this is just trauma speaking, trying to grab a hold of anything she can to make sense of this. But Amnon responds with one of the most disgusting sentences in the entire Bible. He called a servant, waiting on him, get this away from me. Throw her out and bolt the door behind her. His sister, an image bearer of God, in his mind is a this. An object. That is what sin does. It devalues people, it commoditizes people, it makes you think that someone has less value than they actually do. Now we could sit here and say in 2026, this is 3,000 years ago, Jack. This is an ancient time. We're more evolved. Are we? One of the most famous people on social media influencers is this guy, Andrew Tate. He has garnered millions of followers. More young men in the United States, teenagers and 20-year-olds, follow this guy than people who live in LA and Chicago combined. And what he does is he seeps in with the lie of, I'll tell you how to make a lot of money, I'll tell you how to get ripped, I'll tell you how to get women. And the ultimate lie in all of this is he, you will learn that women actually have no value. There's no value to them whatsoever. That they are just objects to control and to dominate. Now, in this room, I know that there's plenty of people in this room who would hear that sentence and say, that's disgusting, that's not me. And I would say, praise God for that. But also recognize that the spirit of Amnon and the spirit of Andrew Tate is the same spirit that drives the porn industry today. Because the porn industry says that person on a screen is not an image bearer, they are a product to consume. That is all they are. They are not made in God's image. They are for you to consume, to fill your sexual desire. And this is not just a man's problem. The largest growing contingency of people consuming pornography today are women. We have to recognize that this is the spirit of Amnon still living in our day today in 2026. A spirit that says an image bearer of God is a this, is an object, is a product meant to fill and satiate my desires. And the result is tragic. Tamara put ashes on her head and tore the long-sleeve robes she was wearing, and she put her hand on her head and went away crying out. So Tamara lived as a desolate woman in the house of her brother Absalom. Because he had done this, she can never marry. She has been defiled. It is now forbidden for her to be able to marry. She is now on an island isolated for the rest of her life. And this is the tragedy of what sin does. Because the consequences of sin is the vulnerable often pay the price for somebody else's sin. The vulnerable. Those who are unable to protect themselves. That's why I wanted to say this to men and women in this room who can relate to Tamar. And I want you to know that God sees you. God understands your pain. He loves you. And we here at Alderwood, we love you. We want to be here to help you. In fact, we have a resource called alderwood.cc slash care at our website. We have all sorts of resources and people who would love and are ready to talk with you. After the service, we're going to have our care team over here in our family room ready to pray with you today. We've been praying and we are ready to have these conversations. One of the best ways to find healing is to be able to bring what's been done to us into the light. Being able and willing to talk about that. And there's hope for tomorrow, but in this moment, there seems like there's none for her. She is a desolate woman. She is isolated. She has been disgraced by Amnon. But the power of sin goes much deeper because sin also delays justice. This is what sin wants. You get David, the dad's finally involved, right? I'm a dad to three girls. Finally, dad is involved. How does he respond? First, with anger. That's a good thing. He's angry at Amnon for what he has done. But then, like so many families, he avoids. And eventually that avoidance turns into apathy. It's the stories that you hear today where it's like, oh, don't talk about Uncle Bob. Don't talk about what happened to Susan. Oh, just forgive. We're family, right? We don't want things to get weird. And we just push things under the rug and just pretend and cover up. And sadly, it's also something that's happened in churches as well. Cover up culture. This idea of not bringing to light what has happened. And David, he's called to execute justice. He's the king. He knows what the law is. And yet he refuses to enact justice against his son. Some scholars believe that the reason why is because David felt such immense guilt over the fact that he had murdered a man, because he had essentially sexually assaulted Bathsheba and taken her against her will and married her and all of these things. So he felt like he had no room himself to enact justice, failing to understand that him showing justice and pursuing justice is not because he himself is just, but because he is reflecting a God who is. He is called to show justice, pursue justice, not because David, in and of himself, is a righteous and just man. We've seen the last several weeks he is not. But he's called to do this, and we are called to do this because we reflect a God who is. And yet David, he delays, he avoids, he's apathetic, he ignores. And all of this delayed justice leads to injustice. When we choose to ignore, when we choose to cover up, when we choose to just pretend like it's not there, all of this is. Injustice. And this is why sin delays justice. But lastly, we see that sin destroys families. This is what sin does. So Absalom, the brother, says, you know what? I've waited two years for justice for my sisters. Nothing's happened. So he gets an idea. See, nowadays, we do like 4th of July barbecues and we hang out with people. Back then, their idea of a good family hangout was sheep shearing. Okay. And I don't get it, but some people say that that's a cool, fun thing to do. So they did that. And uh Absalom says, Hey, let's get all my brothers together. We're gonna share our sheep. We're gonna drink great wine, we're gonna have good food, it's gonna be awesome. And he gives his servants, Absalom, does an instruction. He says, Watch my brother Amnon until he's in a good mood from the wine, until he's drunk. When I order you to strike Amnon, then kill him. And so the wine is flowing, the sheep fur is flying all over the place, everyone's having a good time. And then Absalom says to his servants, Go. And Amnon is drunk, and they kill him right then and there. Now you might be asking, thou statement I said earlier, this is a story about David. You might be saying, How is this a story about David? All we're hearing about is his kids and the dysfunction in his family. And all of this is directly correlated to the sin that David had committed in chapter 11. You see, Nathan in chapter 12, the prophet, confronts David and said, Because of this, there's several consequences that will happen. But two in particular, the sword will never depart your own family. There's going to be friction in your household. And secondly, that your kids and your wives will be put on full public display in a mocking sense in the eyes of the people. And both those things happen here. You see, this is not something that just happened in a vacuum. David committed secret adultery. So Amnon commits sexual assault, which leads to multi-generational trauma. Then you have David murder Uriah, and Absalom murders his brother, and the royal house is now fractured. This is not just a random thing that happens. This is something where we see sin has flown so much down the stream of the family of origin. It has grown so much. It has grown to even greater sins than what David had done. And this is why sin destroys families. In fact, this is something that's been happening since the beginning of time. And death through sin in this way, death spread to all people because all sinned. Adam and Eve brought sin into the world. What happened was Adam and Eve, they were in the garden and they saw the fruit they shouldn't eat. They desired the fruit and they took the fruit. And then just looking at David, David saw Bathsheba, he desired her, and he took her. And even just looking at Amnon, he saw Tamar, desired Tamar, and he took Tamar. And the same is true for us. That we see whatever it is that it is that we struggle with. We desire it and we take it. And in so doing, we are walking in the line of our first father, Adam. And this is why sin has corrupted humanity. Is everyone encouraged yet? This has been a heavy week for me doing sermon prep on this. I'm thankful I had a wedding at least to give me some happiness as I was prepping. But there is good news for us, okay? So we can all take a breath. Because there is good news. Yes, sin has corrupted humanity. And there's no major chords that you see in chapter 13 of 2 Samuel. But there is in the scriptures because while sin has corrupted humanity, Jesus is restoring humanity. Jesus is restoring. Sin has done this past tense. It is part of the story of humanity, the things that we have done and have been done to us. But Jesus is actively restoring humanity. Paul continues in Romans 5, talking about sin entering the world through one man. He said, sin multiplied. Sin got so great. But where sin multiplied, grace multiplied even more. Praise God. Where as powerful as sin has been in our world, as pervasive as it has been seen in our world as we've experienced, as we've done, as we've seen sin working, God's grace, God's love, God's forgiveness, God's power, it's even greater. That's why we can say that Jesus is restoring humanity. Whatever has been done to you, Jesus is the one who heals it. Whatever you have done to someone else, Jesus is the one who forgives it. And one day, all the pain, all the sorrow, all the hardship that we have done and experienced, it will all be gone. Revelation 21, one of my favorite passages says, then I heard a loud voice from the throne. Look, God's dwelling is with humanity, and he will live with them, and they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them and will be their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more. Grief, crying, pain, sexual assault, incest, cover-up, murder will be no more. Because the previous things have passed away. Then the one seated on the throne said, Look, I am making everything new. He also said, Write, because these words are, unlike Amnon, faithful and true. Unlike Amnon, when Jesus makes a promise, it will come to pass because it already is. Jesus is restoring humanity. This is why stories like Rachel Dan Hollander are so powerful. Rachel was a gymnast, and when she was 16 years old, she came forward and said that her doctor, Larry Nasser, had sexually assaulted her. And when she did so, 200 more women came forward. And Dr. Larry Nasser, he was tried in court. He agreed to a plea deal where he pled guilty and he was going to spend and is going to spend the rest of his life in prison for his crimes. And Rachel, because she was the first person to come forward and bring to light what he had done, the court gave her the opportunity to be the last person to speak to him before his sentencing. Now, Rachel is a follower of Jesus. And what she says is so profound and so powerful, and I think very pertinent to what we've been talking about this morning. Let's watch this together. So beautiful, so sweet, as she said. That extends grace, hope, mercy, and forgiveness where none should be found. That's what Jesus offers the Amnons, the Larinassers, and people in this room who've made real messes of their lives. That message is true for you as well. And so, for those who can relate to Amnon, I do want to ask you this. Where do you need Jesus to forgive what you've done to others? We've all sinned. We've all messed up. We've all done things to other people. Small things, big things. And deep down, we all recognize that in doing so, we have harmed more than just objects. We have made people that are made in the image and likeness of God into nothing. We've made them into something that we can just consume, take. And yet the gospel of Christ is so powerful because it extends grace and forgiveness even to Amnon, even to Larry Nasser, and to people who need to experience God's grace and forgiveness. Isaiah 53 says that Jesus, he was beaten, rejected, his body was scorned on a cross. He experienced literal physical pain. The pain that you've experienced, the trauma that you carry in your body, Jesus himself carried it as well. And Isaiah 53 says, it is by his wounds that you are healed. A healing is available to you through Christ. So whether it's forgiveness that you need, whether it's healing you need, Jesus is ready to meet you today. You might be Amnon in the story, you might be Tamar, you might be Absalom, but no matter who you are in the story, there's Jesus willing and ready and waiting for you. Will you go to him today? At the end of the service, we have some folks in our family room over here that would love to pray with you. Like I said earlier, alderwood.cc slash care. It's a resource that we have for people who are carrying real trauma, who need to talk about this. One of the greatest ways to heal is be able to bring it into the light. You don't have to carry this alone. Galatians 6 says that let the church, let's bear one another's burdens. Jesus' grace is being extended to you. Jesus' healing is being given to you. No matter who you are in the story, he's calling you. Will you turn to him now? Let's pray. Father, I thank you for Jesus. I thank you, Lord, that you put stories like this in the Bible because this is real life. Real people going through real hardship. And Father, in this room, I don't want to pretend like there's no one in this room who can who has experienced this. I'm sure there are plenty, and yet your healing power is there, ready to meet them today, through the power of the Spirit of God. I pray, Lord, that no matter who we are in the story, that we would run to Jesus to experience healing, to experience forgiveness, to experience this the true power of redemption, that we do not have to be held down by what has been done to us, but rather we can be defined what has been done for us in Christ. Thank you, Lord, for what you've done in giving us your Son. It's in his name that we pray. Amen.