Broken Heroes #2 - David: The Trap of Sensuality
Description
Dr. Kurt Bjorklund explores David's devastating failure with Bathsheba in 2 Samuel 11, revealing how even those "after God's own heart" can fall into the sensuality trap that trades temporary pleasure for lasting consequences. This powerful message shows how God redeems our broken stories and offers practical steps to recognize and overcome the destructive patterns that ensnare us all.
Summary and Application
King David—the giant-slayer, the psalmist, the man after God's own heart. Yet his greatest legacy might not be his victories, but his spectacular failure. The story of David and Bathsheba in 2 Samuel 11 reveals a sobering truth: even those closest to God can fall into devastating patterns of sensuality that trade temporary pleasure for lasting consequences.
In his recent message on this passage, Kurt challenges us to see sensuality not merely as sexual misconduct, but as a broader pattern that ensnares us all. As he explains, "What sensuality often is, is choosing something that's temporary and feels good in the moment for something and trading it for something that is better long term."
The Broader Definition of Sensuality
Before diving into David's story, Kurt broadens our understanding of sensuality beyond sexuality. Drawing from Galatians 5, he reminds us that "the acts of the flesh" include not just "sexual immorality, impurity, debauchery," but also "hatred, discord, fits of rage, selfish ambitions, dissensions, factions, and envy, drunkenness, and orgies, and the like."
This expanded definition helps us recognize that sensuality touches every area of life—from our anger and materialism to our relationships and ambitions. As Kurt notes, "The problem with sensuality is it's often legitimate desires that are either taken outside the bounds that God has for them or they're taken to an extreme."
The Four-Step Pattern of the Sensuality Trap
Kurt identifies a clear progression in David's downfall that mirrors our own struggles with sensuality:
1. Emptiness
The story begins with David staying home while his men go to war. "In the spring, at the time when the kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king's men and the whole Israelite army... but David remained in Jerusalem" (2 Samuel 11:1). Instead of fulfilling his kingly duties, David was "lounging around Jerusalem" and "stayed in bed throughout the day."
Kurt observes, "What happens is when we're empty in one sense, we look to fill it with something." This emptiness creates a vulnerability that makes us susceptible to poor choices.
2. Encounter
David's moment of temptation came when he "saw a woman bathing and the woman was very beautiful" (2 Samuel 11:2). Rather than looking away, he "sent someone to find out about her" and discovered she was "Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite" (2 Samuel 11:3).
Kurt warns, "Opportunity always finds desire." No matter how well we think we can avoid temptation, encounters will come. The question is how we respond.
3. Exhilaration
While not explicitly described in the text, Kurt explains that indulging our flesh typically provides a temporary high: "What happens typically when we indulge our flesh is there's a moment where it feels good." This momentary pleasure creates what he calls a "dopamine hit" that makes us want to repeat the behavior, wearing down "a well-worn path" of destructive patterns.
4. Expected Consequences
The aftermath was swift and devastating. "The woman conceived and sent word to David saying, 'I am pregnant'" (2 Samuel 11:5). David's attempts to cover up his sin led to increasingly desperate measures, ultimately resulting in the murder of Bathsheba's husband, Uriah.
Kurt reminds us, "You may dodge consequences for a while, but not all consequences are immediate. Not all consequences are obvious or external." The effects of our choices often ripple out in ways we never anticipated.
The Heart After God
What sets David apart isn't his perfection—it's his response to failure. When confronted by the prophet Nathan, David didn't make excuses or shift blame. Instead, he cried out, "Against you and you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight" (Psalm 51:4).
David's prayer in Psalm 51 reveals the heart of repentance: "Create in me a pure heart, oh God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your holy spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit to sustain me."
Kurt explains why David remained "a man after God's own heart" despite his failures: "He's not perfect, but what he is is a man who's willing to acknowledge when he's done wrong and turn back to God."
God's Redemptive Purpose
Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of this story is how God redeemed it. David and Bathsheba's son Solomon became the next king, and through Solomon's lineage came Jesus Christ himself. Kurt marvels at this: "I think of all the people that God could have chosen to have worked through their line to have Jesus born. And here he chooses Solomon of David and Bathsheba to say, 'These are my kind of people.'"
This demonstrates a profound truth: "God loves to take our broken stories and make them beautiful once again." Whether we identify with David as the one who failed or with Bathsheba as the one who was wronged, God specializes in bringing beauty from brokenness.
Beyond Rules to Relationship
Kurt addresses those who might resist God's boundaries, explaining that divine limits aren't arbitrary restrictions but expressions of love: "God is the creator who has made us and he has a right to tell us what things are good and bad, but not just a right—he tells us out of the goodness of who he is, of his character."
Like parents who set boundaries to protect their children, God's commands flow from his desire for our flourishing. As Kurt puts it, "When you understand how you're made, then what God is doing in your life isn't this list of do's and don'ts, but it's his goodness on our behalf."
Practical Application
Kurt's message calls us to honest self-examination and radical dependence on God's grace. The path forward involves acknowledging our failures, seeking God's transformation, and trusting in his redemptive power.
As you reflect on this powerful story, consider these questions:
1. Where have you "gotten comfortable with some sensuality" in your life—what temporary pleasures are you trading for long-term flourishing, and what emptiness might be driving those choices?
2. Like David, are you ready to pray, "God, against you and only you have I sinned, create in me a clean heart," trusting that today can be "the start of new beauty" in your story?
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No referenced material in this message.
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Well, we are taking a few weeks this summer to do a little bit of adult VBS. And what I mean by that is we're simply looking at some of the Bible stories of the Old Testament, specifically the three kings of Israel of the United Kingdom. So we get Saul, who we looked at last week and the issue of comparison, David this week, and then next week we'll talk about Solomon.
David is probably best known for fighting Goliath. You've probably heard that. And then secondly, he's best known for David and Bathsheba. So you heard a little bit of 2nd Samuel 12 and 2nd Samuel 11 that all paint this picture of a story and an account of David.
One of the things that we know about David, according to 1st Samuel 13:14, is that he was a man after God's own heart, meaning that the scripture says very simply that he had a heart for God. One of the things that I like to say when we teach on the Old Testament around here is that the stories are not given to us so that we can simply go in and say, "They did this right, they did this wrong. Now figure out how you should behave."
Even though we can learn lessons from the stories, they're ultimately given to us to see how God works. And part of what's significant about David being said to be a man after God's own heart is that he failed spectacularly with Bathsheba.
In fact, in 2nd Samuel 11, we see the story unfold and we're told that in the season, in the springtime, when the kings went out to war, that David stayed in Jerusalem and that he had stayed in his bed all day long. And he got up and he went out to look around on his roof. There was Bathsheba bathing, and he looked at her and he called for her and he invited her to his palace. Some say that he used the coercive power of his throne to do it.
It's not clear in the text what exactly was all at play, but he certainly knew there was a power imbalance. And he invites her back, he sleeps with her, she gets pregnant, and then she goes back and sends word to him and says, "I'm pregnant."
And so he calls for her husband to come back from the battlefield. When he comes back, David tries to get him drunk and send him home. But because it was considered against the code of honor to be with your wife when all of the men were out in the field, he went to his own house and slept on the doorstep so that he wouldn't go in to his wife. And so David's attempt to cover up this thing didn't work.
And so he sends her husband back to the battlefield carrying a note that says, "Put him at the front of the battle line. And then when everything is the fiercest, withdraw"—basically let him be killed. So not only did he sleep with somebody who wasn't his wife, he murdered her husband, basically, in order to try to cover it up. And yet what Scripture says is he was a man after God's own heart.
Why is that important? Because if you've been a person of faith for any time, there are places where you will fail spectacularly. And God is a God who can still see your heart and say, "You're after my heart," even when you fail in some spectacular way.
Now, you may hear this story and think it's a story that's so far removed from you. "I'm not a king. I can't send somebody to battle and draw them back. And so this doesn't have a lot of bearing on my life." But chances are, you know some people in your life who have made choices that have been detrimental in substantial ways. And so we're going to spend a little time just talking about the sensuality trap.
But I want to help us broaden our thinking because this story deals with sexuality. Our tendency might be that sensuality is always sexuality. And certainly sensuality includes sexuality. But it's much bigger than this.
I read this last week, this portion of Galatians 5, but I think it's significant just to hear how the Bible defines the works of the flesh. And by works we mean the things that we're drawn to, the things that are counter to the things of God, the things that seem appealing but ultimately are hurtful.
Here's what it says: "The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity, debauchery, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, discord, fits of rage, selfish ambitions, dissensions, factions and envy, drunkenness and orgies and the like. And I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God."
And so this section gives us this idea. I don't think it's necessarily an exhaustive list, but what it does is it says there are things in your life, in my life, that you will be drawn to that are destructive. And notice that in that list—and we talked some last week about the jealousy and envy trap that comparison is—but notice that rage is in there, that using substances to excess is in there, that selfishness is in there. In some of the other lists in the New Testament, we see things like greed. We just buy things over and over and over again because we feel like it gives us something.
And what I'd like to do today is just simply help us think about how sensuality can trap us wherever we are in our journey and what to do about it.
As we start this, I want to just say that what sensuality often is, is choosing something that's temporary and feels good in the moment and trading it for something that is better long term.
Let me give you an example of this from something that happened to me recently. I was on a trip and I had not rented a car, so I was using Uber. And I've used Uber like many people have for years, but I don't travel a ton. So I don't use Uber very much. But I have the account, I use it.
And so I was traveling. And as I was traveling, somebody told me that you get rated as an Uber user, not just as an Uber driver. I had no idea. By the way, I want you to know I do have a five-star rating. I haven't used it a ton, but I have a five-star rating.
But now imagine with me that now that I know I have this rating and I get rated every time I take a ride for how polite I am, how well I tip, all of these kinds of things. Now that I know that, imagine that I am in an Uber car and the driver has been smoking a little substance. And so I'm starting to get the odor in my clothes. And I'm thinking that's not going to look good when I get where I'm going. And the car's kind of a mess and they're kind of rude, they're playing some music that I don't care for, and the whole experience is just bad.
All right, so I have this moment where I have a choice. I can say, "Oh, yeah, I'm gonna down rate you and I'm gonna not tip or I'm gonna blow up and say something." In this moment, you can see how irritated I could be.
But what happens when you do that? Now this is a very artificial thing to say. I don't want to get a bad rating. So I'm gonna be polite because I want to keep my five star. I mean, that's kind of goofy.
But here's what sensuality is: It's saying in the moment, "I want to do what I want to do right now more than I want whatever is in the future." And here's what we see when we look at 2 Samuel 11.
It says this in verse 1, and this gives us a prophecy of giving in to sensuality. And I'm just going to say the first step is emptiness. And we see that because it says in verse 1 of 2 Samuel 11: "In the spring, at the time when the kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king's men and the whole Israelite army. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem. One evening, David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing, and the woman was very beautiful."
And the reason I say there's emptiness that often precedes sensuality is instead of going out with his men and fighting—and that may have been his right at this point—he was lounging around Jerusalem. And it says that he basically stayed in bed throughout the day. Some people have assumed that maybe he was sick, but he probably wasn't that sick with what came right after this. And so what he was doing was living his best life. And all of a sudden he gets up and he says, "I need to fill this somehow."
And here's what's really hard about sensuality: often the things that are sensually out of bounds with God are legitimate desires taken to an extreme or put in their inappropriate place. Let me say that again slightly differently. And that is the problem with sensuality is it's often legitimate desires that are either taken outside the bounds that God has for them or they're taken to extremes.
You see, God created David with a desire for sensuality, for sexuality, but there are bounds for that. God gives us a desire for community and for relationship. Sometimes what we do is we will compromise in some area of our lives in order to keep people around us. Or maybe we have a desire to acquire things and have beauty around us. It's a good desire. But sometimes that desire becomes so big that it dictates everything about what we do.
The way that we get angry is because we're trying to protect something that we think is actually really important. And so we're passionate about something and we let it come out in an illegitimate way, and it becomes destructive.
And so what happens is when we're empty, in one sense, we look to fill it with something.
Now, you may argue with the idea that there's anything that's out of bounds and might even be one of the reasons that some of us say, "This is why I don't like church. They're always talking about the rules and the boundaries and all that."
But our belief here is that God is the Creator who has made us. And he has a right to tell us what things are good and bad, but not just a right, but he tells us out of the goodness of who he is, of his character. Because when you understand how you're made and what God is doing in your life, then it isn't this list of do's and don'ts, but it's his goodness on our behalf.
You know this intuitively because when a parent has a child, what do they do? They give them some structure—not because they want them to have no freedom, but precisely because they want them to reach their first birthday alive or because they want them to thrive.
One of the old Puritan writers wrote an idea into one of his writings about how to deal with our sensuality, our sinfulness. And his line was that there's an "expulsive power of a new affection." That what we really need if we want to address our sensuality is to work on the desire level, to say more than what this provides me right here, right now. Back in the Uber car, I want the five-star rating more than I want to tell the Uber driver what my experience is. This is not necessarily the same, but it's that idea that is the first part of the process.
The second thing is an encounter. It says at the end of verse two that there was a woman who was bathing on the roof and she was very beautiful. Verse 3: "And David sent someone to find out about her. The man said, 'She's Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite.' Then David sent messengers to get her and she came to him and he slept with her."
And this is the moment where David moves from thinking about it to acting on it. And sometimes people will have the idea that says, "Jesus says that if you are mad at somebody and call somebody a fool, it's the same as murdering them. And therefore if I lose my mind at somebody, I might as well go ahead and do some harm. Or Jesus said that if you lust, it's the same as sleeping with somebody, so you might as well go ahead."
And I don't think that's a great way to think about it because the consequences of actions are different, even if both are an indulgence of sensuality. And what Scripture is ultimately driving at here is that there will always be an encounter, there will always be an opportunity to gratify the desires of the flesh. To say, "I am going to step into this and I am going to gratify what I want."
I've heard that there's a product that they're calling now "gas station heroin." And so it's an energy drink. So it's outside of the bounds of the FDA and they sell it for about 20 bucks at a gas station. It's supposed to give you a great high, but the problem is you drink one and then you want another. And so people get addicted to it and start spending $100, $200 a day drinking these energy drinks and it crushes them financially.
Well, imagine that you are somebody who says, "Look, I know that that's bad. So, you know, I'm just not going to go to any gas stations because I'm tempted by it." Well, what happens? Opportunity will find you later. You're going to drive by a gas station, you're going to be somewhere where that will be there and it will be easy. And obviously I'm using that as an analogy because opportunity always finds desire.
I mentioned that there was probably a power imbalance between David and Bathsheba. And so not only did he have an opportunity, but he had the power to act and to achieve something. And so he said, "I can do this." Probably, in his mind, he's thinking, "You know what, I can handle it. It's not going to be a big deal."
But what happens when we have an encounter is we start down a path and whatever our rationalization is, we say, "You know what, I deserve this. This is going to be okay. It's not a big deal." And we start down a path with little regard for where that leads.
This leads to a third kind of step in this process, and I'm just going to call it exhilaration. Now, we don't see this written expressly in this text, but what happens typically when we indulge our flesh is there's a moment where it feels good. If you yell at the Uber driver, it might feel good for a moment. When you buy the energy drink, it feels good for a moment. When you tell off somebody, it feels good. When you make that purchase that you've just been saying "I shouldn't," but you do, it feels good in the moment. And this exhilaration is something that is part of the process.
And what's worse about that, as best as I understand this, is when you get a high from doing something, it produces a desire for it again. This is how some people have talked about dopamine and getting a dopamine hit. And what happens is this: when you go somewhere that maybe is a little off the path, it's like you're taking a walk in the woods and every time you go into the woods, you wear that path down a little bit more until it becomes a well-worn path and you just want to keep going down that path over and over and over again.
And so we start with emptiness, then we have an encounter, then we have this exhilaration. And then I would just say ultimately we have the expected consequences. We see this in verse 5 and following. It says this: "The woman conceived and sent word to David saying, 'I am pregnant.'"
And maybe he thought he could dodge this or avoid it. And maybe this is too simplistic for many of us, but here's what's often true, and that is you may dodge consequences for a while, but not all consequences are immediate, not all consequences are obvious or external. What happens is sooner or later something will be the result of sowing to your flesh, of giving into your flesh, instead of saying, "I'm following the spirit of God."
I don't know if you saw this, but this last week there was—this has gone viral online—there was a guy who was at the Coldplay concert with a woman. He was the CEO and she was the head of HR, evidently. And they were like rocking and kind of all together. I thought about doing the video, but you don't need to see it if you haven't seen it. And all of a sudden the lead singer of Coldplay is up there and they're doing the kiss cam and it comes on them and she does the "Whoa." And he ducks off and Chris Martin says, "Whoa. They're either having an affair or they're really shy."
And then when people Google them later, it turns out that the guy was married to somebody else and he's here at this concert with the head of HR. Now maybe there's another explanation, maybe there's something else going on. But they—you could say they weren't the smartest people to go to a concert with 70,000 people. But they probably never thought "this will catch up with us."
And the thing that happens is we keep saying this sensuality in my life is just a little indulgence that doesn't hurt anybody. "It's not a big deal." And by the way, it isn't just when it gets to consummation of an action. Take something like fantasy. It happens with fantasy. And fantasy, by the way, is something that men indulge in and women indulge in. It might be different. Sometimes it's the same, but it might be different.
But what fantasy does is it keeps you from engaging, from interacting with a real person. If you're young and you're single and you're letting yourself indulge, telling yourself that one day you'll get it under control, what's happening is you're substituting pursuing somebody who's real for something that's imaginary.
If you're married, and maybe you don't look at images, but you're reading books that take you far away and you imagine yourself in all kinds of scenarios, what you're doing is you're choosing an imaginary world over a current world and over relating with somebody who's maybe in the next room.
And what happens is we find ways to get that high. But what we're doing is we're simply buying a temporary high at the expense of something that's longer lasting.
One of the reasons that companies extend credit so easily is they know that for many people, the discipline to say, "I will only buy what I have money for" is really difficult. And so they will pay ahead—or not pay ahead, they will borrow ahead and end up saying, "I need this now, even if it costs me more later."
And yet we can sometimes keep buying and buying and buying because it gives us the dopamine hit at the expense of what is in the future. Or we allow bitterness to sit in our hearts because it feels good to hold onto it and say, "I'm not letting that person get the better of me." But what we're doing when we allow that kind of bitterness or anger in our hearts is we're letting it keep us from being in a relational place of harmony.
And so the consequences aren't always obvious, they're not always immediate. But sooner or later it seems like when we allow ourselves to give into our flesh, consequences happen.
And so what happens in this story is that after this whole thing happens, God prompts Nathan the Prophet in 2nd Samuel 12 to go to David and to confront him. And David thinks he's gotten away with this whole thing of sending Uriah to his death, then kind of going about his way.
And what happens is when Nathan comes, he tells him a story. He says, "King, I want you to think about what would happen if there was a man who had one little lamb, one little animal that he was taking care of. And somebody else had a whole field full. And the man with the whole field full came and he took the one from the man with just one. What would you say to that person?"
And David gets all mad and says, "Well, that would be so wrong. He should be punished."
You know what Nathan says? It's in the text. He says, "You are that man. You're that man, David."
Now again, I want to go back to somewhere where I started. Remember that what we're told about David is he's a man after God's own heart. He's not perfect. But what he is is a man who's willing to acknowledge when he's done wrong and turn back to God—to acknowledge when he stepped out of bounds and turn back to God.
And in Psalm 51, we have the account of David's prayer after his sin with Bathsheba. It says this in the title of Psalm 51: "For the director of music, a psalm of David. When the prophet Nathan came to him after David had committed adultery with Bathsheba."
And what we see here are a few things. Verse 4 says, "Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight."
The first thing that David does is he acknowledges that he's done wrong and he doesn't blame anybody else. He doesn't say, "Well, you know, she was on the roof. What was I to do? You know, guys will be guys." I mean, he didn't make any excuses. He says, "God, it's against you and you alone have I sinned."
And then in verses—a couple verses that have been turned into music many times over the years—he says, "Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence, or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me."
And what he's saying here is, "God, would you change me? Would you mold me? Would you make me different?" And so he acknowledges where he's been wrong. And then he says, "God, change me."
And in verse 13, he says this: "Then I will teach transgressors your ways, so that sinners will turn back to you."
He says this in the midst of a public scandal. Now, at this point, and this, by the way, was something that was the start of a turning of a tide in David's life. There were real consequences. But he says, "God, I acknowledge my sin. Will you create in me a new spirit? Will you restore me? And then let me teach others. Help me to go to others."
You know, in terms of having a heart after God, where it starts is coming to God for salvation by saying, "God, I know that I've sinned, and Jesus is the one who has saved me or the one who can save me. So I believe, I trust, I invite him."
But there's also an ongoing fellowship element where when you know that you've stepped out of the bounds, when whatever particular sensuality is for you has become an issue, you say, "God, against you and only you have I sinned. Will you renew my desire for you? Will you fill me so that I'm not empty and I'm not seeking things that ultimately don't take me toward you?"
And what that will do is it will create a kind of depth in your life that will say, "God, I know that there are places where I still blow it, but I come back, I want to relate to you."
And here's the beautiful thing: David and Bathsheba had a son, and the son was named Solomon, who became the next king. And what we read when you read through the pages of Scripture, is that it was through Solomon ultimately that Jesus Christ was born through his lineage.
Now, why does this matter? Think of all the people that God could have chosen to have worked through their family line to have Jesus born through. And here he chooses Solomon of David and Bathsheba to say, "These are my kind of people."
You see, God loves to take our broken stories and make them beautiful once again. Some of us are here and you're feeling something like—maybe even today you're feeling like there's just a spotlight on you because you know that there have been some places in your life where you've made some choices that have been devastating.
I want you to hear that God delights in bringing beauty from our brokenness. And Solomon and the line of Christ is one of the beautiful ways that we see this, because God doesn't just say, "You blew it, therefore you're out and you're done." But he says, "You've blown it. I continue to work in your story and in your life."
Some of you maybe identify more with Bathsheba than with David. You felt the power imbalance of somebody else in your life who has acted in a way towards you that has been dishonorable, that's treated you like a victim. But God delights in even taking brokenness that you had little to do with, nothing to do with, and bringing beauty. And the God that we worship is in the business of saying, "If you will turn back toward me, I will bring beauty from the brokenness that exists in your life."
Now, I know as I said earlier, some of us will say, "Ah, this is why I don't like church. I don't like boundaries. I don't like anything restrictive." But this is God's love for you. And his boundaries are in order to say, "I created you. I know how you'll thrive best." And they're really an invitation to say if you will trust him and turn toward him, even after you've stepped out, you can see new beauty.
And so my invitation today is just to ask you, where have you gotten comfortable with some sensuality in your life? Just saying, "I'll trade—I'll do something temporarily that feels good now at the cost of what's down the road."
And today, are you able to say, "God, against you, only you, have I sinned. Create in me a clean heart." Because if so, today can be the start of new beauty.
God, as we're gathered here, this story can bring up a lot of emotions from a lot of sides for a lot of us. And God, I pray for some of us, we'd be able to just see our need for a savior, maybe for the first time, and trust Jesus today. For others, God, I pray it would be a warning to keep us from a destructive path. For others, I pray it would be an invitation to start again and to turn towards you and to look for your deliverance, your beauty in the midst of what seems broken irreparably.
But wherever we are, God, I pray that you would create in us a new heart, a clean spirit, and that we would encounter you in fullness. And we pray it in Jesus' name. Amen.
Have a great week, everyone.
Disclaimer: This transcript has been cleaned up and formatted using AI assistance. While every effort has been made to maintain accuracy and the speaker's intended meaning, there may be minor variations from the original spoken content.
