Because our Lord lives, certainly we listen to Him.
We pay attention as He speaks from Second Samuel Chapter 7,
continuing on with the passage that Tim was reading.
Moreover, the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you
a house when your days are fulfilled and you lie down with
your Father's. I will raise up your offspring
after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish
His Kingdom. He shall build a house for My
name, and I will establish the throne of His Kingdom forever.
I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son.
And when he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with a rod
of men and with the stripes of the sons of men.
But my steadfast love will not depart from him, as I took it
away from Saul, whom I put away from before you.
And your house and your Kingdom shall be made sure forever
before me, and your throne shall be established forever.
And this is the word of the Lord.
Thanks to be God, the little grass Withers and the flowers
fade, but the word of our Lord it stands forever.
Amen. Please be seated.
Grab your Bibles if you would turn to Second Samuel Chapter 7.
Second Samuel Chapter 7. My guess is that you have either
seen the commercial or can easily imagine it when the dad
gives his daughter, his teenage daughter, a gift and she, with
some excitement, begins to open it and she tears it open.
And then there's that momentary confusion when she pulls out a
set of keys and she looks at it. And then you have that slowly
dawning realization. Keys go with car.
Dad gave me keys, Dad gave me a car.
And then she runs out. Of course, the commercial ends
with her hug in the car in the driveway or something along
those lines. You move from a spot of
confusion, or mild confusion, not really sure what you're
looking at, to this dawning realization that comes and goes,
oh, now I get it. Now I see.
I hope that that's what happens today when we look at this
passage of Scripture, that as I read the text and as we looked
at it initially, my guess is that more than one of you would
think if you took it seriously, they anticipate it.
OK, this is an interesting passage, but I'm not quite sure
what all it has to do with us. And what I hope is, through our
time together here as we look at this passage, that we're slowly
going to evolve. The dawning realization will
come, and I'll be able to watch as you kind of go, oh, now I get
it. Because the reality is that when
you first look at this, at first blush, the text basically says
something along the lines of, hey, God's going to make this
great promise to David. And King David is going to reign
and there's going to be some blessings to David and those
kind of things. And it's easy to look at that
and see it as one of the hundreds of promises that God
gives to his people through the ages and is one of the hundreds
of promises that are contained in the Scriptures.
You look at it and you kind of go, OK, that's great for David.
I can understand that. And yet throughout church
history, throughout Israelite history, the prophets of old,
God's people from the apostles on forward, Jesus himself, all
reference this text as an extraordinarily moment in
redemptive history. This is a key moment in the
story of redemption, the key moment of the story whereby we
become saved, how we are saved. And yet when we basically look
at it, it's easy just to kind of look at it, kind of go blush and
say, OK, I kind of understand it, but I'm not quite sure why
we spent a Sunday preaching on it.
Well, hopefully by the end of this we will grow to see that
May God make it so, Lord, make it so for each of us that we
would understand this passage more fully, more completely.
We pray through Christ our Lord, Amen.
The text begins, of course, with Nathaniel, Nate the prophet
Nathan speaking with David. So David has this interaction.
He has his passion and desire. David has become king doing the
in the intervening months and years, he has become king over
all of the nation of Israel. And Israel is growing both
militarily and economically. It's becoming an established
power in the local community. David is reigning over it, and
he turns Jerusalem into the city, into his capital.
This is where he's going to reign in power through
Jerusalem. And so he establishes himself
there. And one of the things that he
does is as the place becomes more secure economically and
more secure militarily, is that he builds himself a palace.
Now, we don't have a record necessarily of what the palace
looks like, but from what we can gather and from other sources,
we can kind of picture that this is quite a big palace.
David is king. He's a new king.
He's excited about his kingship. He builds himself this marvelous
palace. And as he's living in this
marvelous palace, he looks across the way.
If you were with us last week, we talked a little bit about the
travels of the Ark of the Covenant.
By this time, the ark has made it to Jerusalem, but the ark is
being stored in a tent. It's a glory tent.
It's a big tent. It's a wonderful tent, but it's
still a tent. And David says, hey, I'm living
in this wonderful palace and God is reigning in this, living in
this little tent. And if I am big and important
and I get this palace, God is bigger and more important than
me. God gets this.
He should have a bigger palace. So David goes to his chief
spiritual advisor, Nathan, says, Nathan, I've got this idea.
I want to build God a temple. I want to build him a house or a
temple where God can reside to the ark, again, being the
physical manifestation of God's presence with his people.
I could I want to have this arc the the the arc stored within
this glorious temple. I'm going to make this glorious
temple. And Nathan right off the bat
says, Hey, go and do whatever you want to do until Nathan goes
and checks with God and God says, hey, that's not what I
desire. Just this quick side note, we
often think that if we have a good idea that God will be happy
with it or satisfied with that. The Scriptures belie that idea
very frequently. The idea is, of course, for us
to be living faithfully according to God's scripture,
God's word, not to dictate to Him what we think is best for us
to do. David thought that it made sense
for there to be a temple. God did not think that way.
God did not desire that, even though it appeared to David like
it made all kinds of sense. Very often in life we go through
making decisions based on what we think makes a whole lot of
sense without doing that step that Nathan needed to do, which
was to go and to pray and to see God's face.
Just because it makes sense to you doesn't mean that it makes
sense to God. So God says, hey, don't do this.
Don't build this this temple. Instead, I'm going to establish
your Kingdom. God says to to David, I'm going
to establish your Kingdom. Your Kingdom is going to be
established into eternity. Now, this is an important thing
for David because David, like any king, is nervous about his
role, about the stability of his role.
He's worried about rebels. He's worried about opposition
that he faces. And indeed, as we're going to
see in the weeks to come, David faces significant opposition in
his kingship. He is not a king and rolls on
high and everything is fine for him.
He gets chased off the throne four different times during
during his Kingdom. So his Kingdom is unstable and
to have God come and say, look, when you die, I'm going to raise
up your son as those of us who read the scriptures realize that
that Solomon that I will raise up your son Solomon and he will
sit on your throne. There will be a follower after
you and descendants after him that will continue to sit on
your throne of David. So what what God's reassuring
David on is, look, even though life is tumultuous, even though
there is lots of difficulties all the way around, trust me,
your Kingdom will be established and from your Kingdom will come
other other rulers and other kings, etcetera, etcetera.
So he tells David about this assurance so that he encourages
David. Now to David, you can imagine
this would be incredibly important, very influential, and
if you're really reaching for us today, you can kind of see how
maybe that has some importance in our spiritual life as well.
But by and large, we're looking at the gift with a certain
amount of mild confusion until we start thinking through the
text a little bit Again. This text reveals for us the
intricacies and the depth of God's redemptive plan for our
salvation. The reason why the church is
always held on to this passage, and why the prophets point back
to this passage and why David himself received it as something
special and unique, is not simply because it spoke of David
and his Kingdom, but rather it speaks of the Kingdom of which
you are a part. If you are a follower of Jesus
Christ today, you are part of the Kingdom that God is speaking
about right here, right now as He speaks along this text.
And so hopefully, just like that dawning comprehension comes upon
the teenage girl as she gets her car.
So I hope we're at this dawning comprehension is going to come
on us as we look at this text. We begin right off the bat in
verse 11, B, where God declares that the Lord will make you a
house, where God declares that he will make you a house.
I must be feeling somewhat a little nostalgic these days.
Last week we looked at a passage of scripture and we looked at I
referenced an 80s movie, the Ark of the Covenant.
What is it? Raiders of the Ark.
That's what it was called. And I did have a couple people
afterwards come up to me and say they've never seen the movie,
but I'm positive they were lying.
So today, today the movie reference is also from the 80s
is not quite as iconic. But Crocodile Dundee, people
say, OK, enough of you groans. So you've seen the movie
Crocodile Dundee. So an Australian from the
Outback finds himself in New York City.
And while he's in New York City, he gets mugged.
And so there's a bunch of hooligans around him.
And one of them pulls out a switchblade and pops open the
switchblade and basically says, you know, I've got a knife.
And and Crocodile Dundee says that's not a knife pulls out,
that's a knife and pulls out this big massive hunting knife.
He says that's a knife. OK, David here says I want to
build God you. I want to build you a house.
I'm going to build you a house. And God says that's not a house,
this is a house. And he says to David, no, I'm
going to establish your house. I'm going to stop.
Now what he intends is not a building and not a palace.
What he's saying is I'm going to establish your Kingdom.
I'm going to establish your dynasty forever.
So he has in mind here this picture that where David has in
mind, I'm going to build you a temple, a temporary or a
physical residence for you to live.
God says, no, that's not a house, this is a house.
I'm going to establish you a Kingdom forever and ever and
ever. And this goes to the divine
gift. The first step in understanding
the blessings of this text is that this is about the divine
gift. It's all about God's grace and
not about our works. This text screams that idea for
us. Because David here has in mind
this is what I want to do for God.
This is what I want to do. I want to do this for God.
I'm going to build him a house. I'm going to do these kind of
things. I want to do this for God.
And God says no, it's not about what you do for me, it's what I
do for you. It's what I have done for you.
Over and over again in this passage, we see David wanting to
do something for God, and that's fine, and that's good.
And there is a necessary response to hearing God's Word.
And there's a responsibility that all of us have to act upon
what God tells us to do. All of that is very true, but
that is secondary to the primary emphasis that David is being
taught here through this passage.
It's not about what you do for God.
It's about what God intends to do for you.
It's not about our effort on His behalf, it's about God's effort
on our behalf. I listened to a video of a
Christian preacher teacher this week at some point and he talked
about his relationship with the Lord.
And by and large, the the video was very beneficial, was very
good. I liked hearing it.
But as he talked about it, he always talked in terms of and
then I realized this and then I understood this and then I came
to believe this and then I did this.
And after a while, it really bothered me that he kept talking
about what he was. We phrased everything in terms
of what I did and what I do. And this is a natural bent for
every one of us in this room to think in terms of what I'm doing
and think of terms of what's happening to me.
And it's about me. And it's I, I, I.
And I wish that somebody could have said to this guy, you can
turn everything around. What a difference it will make
to say, this is what the Lord has taught me.
This is the what the Lord's insight has given me.
This is now what I recognize about what the Lord has done in
my life. This is what the Lord is
enabling me to do and to accomplish.
It's not simply a matter of linguistics.
It's not simply a way in which we talk.
It is inherent in the way in which we think that we are
acknowledging that Christ goes before us in all things.
This is not about what we do. It is about what Christ has done
for us. It's about what God does for us.
And so when David here says what I want to do is do all of these
things and he's got this marvelous checklist.
And again, the checklist is great.
It's a wonderful thing. You want to dedicate your life
more to prayer, do so if you want to dedicate your life more
to reading the scriptures, of course, if you want to serve the
church more faithfully, if you want to communicate your love
and care to your neighbor, if you want to be involved in a
ministry that is ministering to those who are broken and needy.
Of course, we need to be doing all of these things, but all of
those things flow from what the Lord has done for us, and we can
never forget that and switch it up.
And so the Lord here takes a great positive desire that David
has. And when you go back and read
this text earlier later today, which I hope that you do, read
those earlier verses that Tim read for us and try to decide if
God is gently rebuking David or if he's really rebuking David.
I tend to think that he's kind of gently rebuking him, saying
that that's nice, that that's what you want to do, You want to
build me a house. But you should pay attention to
what I am doing for you. This passage is about God's
gracious acts towards his people.
It's that first realization when you recognize that this text is
not about David and David's Kingdom.
It's about God and his acting on our behalf, on your behalf, on
each of us who come to know the Lord and Savior, where you first
begin to get an inkling that, hey, these keys belong to a car.
There's something bigger here that we need to recognize and
see. That continues on with the next
step, the next realization, which is about the promise.
The divine promise is about unconditional love,
unconditional love, divine promise.
You can see it references most clearly in verse 14 and 15.
One of the great perks of my job is that I get to see newborn
children. I get to be with newborn kids.
Parent gives gives birth here in the congregation, whereas a lot
of people would be a hindrance. I'm usually able to sneak in and
visit the kid early on and stuff like that and get to pray for
the family. It's one of the great joys that
I get to do is to to see the newborn children.
And I know that there's going to be exceptions to this role.
So don't come up to me and say I know people who were OK.
I know there's exceptions to this role.
But by and large, over and over again, in my experience, people
come up to me afterwards when they've just given birth to a
kid and they're like, I can't believe how in love I am with
this baby. I can't believe how much I feel
the minute the baby was born. This happens to Dad's lot.
Moms, I think, have a run up of nine months or so to get used to
the idea. Dads, it often happens.
At least it certainly was with me.
I was excited about my kids being born.
I was, you know, Kelly's pregnant.
That's wonderful, da, da, da, da, da.
But boy, when they were born, it was one of those things where
immediately your heart is yanked open long before they do
anything to deserve it. As a matter of fact, often while
they're being a pain, they're crying all the time, their
diapers are gross, they're sleepy, they're nursing
problems, all these kind of issues and stuff.
And still there's this immense overwhelming passion and love
for the child. You can picture a little bit of
this imagery, I think that Jesus himself or God himself builds
into in verse 14. I will be to him a father, and
he shall be to me a son. And there's this, this
unconditional. Now the point is not the love,
the point of this illustration is the unconditional nature of
this. Just a sidebar here for a
second. So I'm having a conversation
with some guys earlier this week and we're talking about
unconditional love and stuff like that.
And I mentioned this about parents because it's, you know,
I, I'm, I again, I get to see it often enough how parents just
immediately seem to be unconditionally in love with
their kids no matter what they do.
And I and I had two, two of the individuals I was talking with
say, no, a better illustration is a pet is a dog.
And the uncommitted devotion that a dog has for a master,
that is not a better illustration.
That is just not better illustration.
So I want you to think in terms of a parent immediately falling.
And again, it's not the love here, it's the unconditional
nature of it. It's long before and I don't
know what happens to us. Sure I do.
It's the depravity of our hearts.
It's the brokenness of the world around us.
It's a sinfulness that we all experience where in no time
people learn not an unconditional love, but a
conditional love. God will love me if I do this
and these kind of things. God will love me more if I do
these kinds of things. God will demonstrate his I will
be more love worthy if I do these kind of things.
And the Scripture has proclaims against that over and over and
over again. We are passionately loved by God
simply because look again at the text.
God says I will be to him a father and he will be to me a
son when he commits iniquity. In other words, God knows that
we're broken. God knows that we're going to
commit iniquity. This is not if he commits
iniquity, it's when he commits iniquity.
When when sin happens, what is God's response?
Yes, He will discipline us, but verse 15, I will never take my
steadfast love from Him, the steadfast love of the Lord.
Endorse forever, not endorse forever, as long as we earn it,
it endorse forever and ever and ever.
This is the unconditional love that God pours out upon His
people. This is the unconditional love
that is demonstrated here to King David and the promise that
is given to King David. So we see the divine gift of
grace over works, and then we see the divine law, the divine
promise of unconditional love, and our understanding of this
text grows a little bit. But still this is anchored in
something that happened to David literally 3000 years ago, 3000
years ago. And then we see the divine
fulfillment. The divine fulfillment happens
in verse 16 and onward. Your house and your Kingdom
shall be made sure forever before me.
Your throne shall be forever established.
I wanted to be a good dad. I want to be a good dad.
Dad. I got two kids.
Most of you guys know I've got two children.
They're old now, old, old. They're in their 20s now.
But when they were growing up, I wanted to be a good dad.
I wanted to be the kind of dad that said, look, I'm going to be
home for dinner and I'd be home for dinner, or let's play a game
tonight and we'll play a game tonight, or I'm going to read to
you or let's watch a movie or let's do something.
I wanted to be a dad where when I made a promise to the kids,
the kids could count on it and they could know about it.
And I don't know any dad that doesn't struggle with that,
desperately wants to be faithful like that to his kids.
And yet my job is such the pastoral emergencies come up and
I forced to miss appointments with my kids and where I can't
do things, where I promise to do things and stuff like that.
And my kids learned a lesson. And the lesson was not to doubt
my promises, but to realize that I don't control the future.
I don't have control over the future.
And my kids realize that. My kids grew up realizing that
sometimes Dad couldn't fulfill the promises he made because
something unexpected occurred. And they didn't resent me.
They didn't grow up angry at me. They grew up recognizing that
God controls this world, not Henry Knapp.
The God is irresponsible for what takes place in this world,
not me or my desires or my interest and my my passions.
And so it's easy for us to see a passage of Scripture like this
that promises God's love forever, that promises God's
grace always working in people's lives and say, well, yeah,
that's great for as long as it goes.
If you know biblical history, or if you know Israelite history,
or if you know old now ancient Israelite history, history at
all, modern history, secular history, you know that the
Kingdom of David ran for generations, but it eventually
was wiped out and it was destroyed and the people were
taken into captivity and Israel was abandoned as a land.
And it's easy to look at this promise and say, what happened,
O Lord? And the prophets of old, I kept
pointing back to this promise and say, but God promised it.
And we know something different about God than about Henry
Knapp. Henry can't always guarantee his
promises because I don't control the future.
But what do we know about God that he does control the future,
that he is sovereign over all the things, and that if God does
promise something, that we have confidence that our Lord is
going to fulfill it. And so the prophets kept saying,
but he promised David, he promised him, he promised him.
And then Jesus comes along and Jesus self identifies himself
with this text. He is the Son of David.
He is the one who is rolling in David's place.
He is the one who is the fulfillment of this promise to
David. And so we have the divine gift
of grace over works. We have the divine promise of
unconditional love. Then we have the divine
fulfillment of this promise in Jesus Christ.
And so it is true that every individual that is bound through
Christ to our Lord and Savior is bound in Christ in the Kingdom.
That is, his Christ came as the fulfillment of this passage, a
descendant of David, and then given the fulfillment of this
David that his Kingdom. And Jesus makes it crystal clear
over and over again that his Kingdom is not of this world.
His Kingdom is not a political entity.
His Kingdom is a spiritual entity in our lives and over the
everything in this world. And God's spiritual Kingdom,
Christ's spiritual Kingdom, is that of which everyone of us are
a part of. And we all have that great
promise. OK, Why am I so excited about
this? Because I have been somebody who
has said to you, I forgive you. And then it's needled in the
back of my head over and over again that I don't really
forgive you. I have been one who has received
forgiveness from other people and they haven't really meant
it. And I know they haven't meant it
because when I've sinned against them a second time, they go
back. Oh, yeah, that's just like you
did the last time. It's just like you did the last
time over and over again. Because I am faithless in so
many ways of my life as you are faithless in so many ways of
your life. And we can write that on God.
Once again. God is just like us, only
bigger. No, he's not.
Because we're told in the Scriptures the beautiful line
that even when we are faithless, He will remain faithful because
he cannot deny himself. Our Lord has promised that you,
if you are a follower of Jesus Christ, our Lord has promised
that you are a part of His Kingdom forever.
And there will be no end to that rain.
There will be no end to that forgiveness.
There will be no end to that unconditional love.
There will be no end to that grace.
It was yours now and forevermore because our God reigns
eternally. That's what it means, that
Christ is the fulfillment of His promise.
That's why this promise is so important in redemptive history,
because we are not told just that Jesus will forgive us our
sin. But what about my sins tomorrow?
What about my sins the next day? What about my sins into the
future? God may forgive me my sins
today, but by golly, I've got a whole boatload of them coming
down the Pike. And what are we told?
We are told that I am part of a Kingdom that reigns forever and
ever and will never, ever die, will never cease, is established
forever by God himself, who does not change.
How do you respond to something like that?
Let's listen to how David responded to something like
that. Let's pray together.
Gracious Lord, we are overcome with the thankfulness that you
have given to us in the redemption of our souls, in the
life of everlasting, in the blessings of your promise.
Lord, we desire to experience that unconditional love.
We desire to live in a world that is dominated by Your grace,
not our need for works. We long to be in the Kingdom
that is established by our King, Jesus Christ Lord and Savior
Lord, we desire all of those things, and yet so often we lack
the dawning realization that comes upon us that should cause
us eventually to say good and mercy.
If Jesus is doing all of this for us, then He is also
redeeming us forever and ever and ever.
Lord, we are grateful for that eternal redemption.
Grace us with your mercy and peace.
We pray through Christ our Lord who taught us to pray together,
saying, our Father who aren't in heaven, hallowed be Thy name,
Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in
heaven. Give us this day Our Daily
Bread, and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors, and
lead us not in temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the Kingdom, and the power and the glory forever.
Amen.