The House of God
Unfortunately the audio recording of this sermon by Stuart Holman failed. For the sake of completeness, here are some notes of this sermon.
2 Samuel 7:1-29
Recently in Sydney we hosted the IQ2 forum. For those of us
not smart enough to be up on this, apparently IQ2 stands for Intelligence
Squared. It is a public debate on some of the really big issues that face
mankind. Our topic for the week was whether the world would be better off
without religion.
Would we be better off without religion? I think we probably
would as long as that meant that we really worshipped the one true God,
honouring him for who he actually is—and we all forgot about whether we
were Anglicans or Baptists or Catholics or whatever. But that's not what the
big scholars and atheist debaters were on about. They confuse God with
Religion. They wanted to say that the world would be better off without God.
Forgive me if you are a John Lennon fan, but let's imagine for a few moments a world without God, without
heaven or hell, without a reason to live or die. A world without God is a
colossal accident. Your life and mine is merely a fluke intelligence that comes
and goes without meaning or significance. A human life is not worth anything; it's
not going anywhere and is worth nothing. We live, we die; that's it. Nothing
else. There is no reason to do anything more than seek your own pleasure. Who
cares what happens to anyone else: their life, like yours, is nothing more than
a freak accident in a random universe: it has no value, no purpose. It just is for a little while and then it isn't anymore.
Well fortunately we are not lost and alone in the universe. God
has made himself known to us. We are not left guessing what it's all about. In
fact, God has a purpose for his world. He has a plan for your life. And he is
orchestrating all things, moving history forward, shaping every moment in time to
bring about a reality so wonderful, so staggeringly beautiful that we grasp
only a small part of it now.
God wants you to be all you were created to be; his friend,
his child, his delight. This is the plan being worked out in history. And if
you've got a careful eye, you can see it. You can see it today, and looking
back, in the pages of history.
This is what we see in the bible in our series from the
books of Samuel and Kings, and especially in our passage for today, 2 Sam 7.
This passage centres on a big promise that God makes to
David. But this promise is not just for David. As it comes to fruition and
fulfilment, we find that we are ones who benefit from it. If you are a
Christian, your life is profoundly caught up in the outcome and the blessings
that overflow from this promise. So right now we're going to try to grasp hold
of what this promise is and then to see difference it makes in our lives today.
In our previous talk we saw the beginning of David's reign as Israel's king. David brings The Ark of God to Jerusalem, both celebrating and humbling himself before it. God's presence is now established at the centre of the nation's life and there is peace. So now, in this talk, we look at the high point of David's rule. This single event marks David's significance for Israel and the world.
v 1-7 David wants to build a house for God
As we turn to 2 Samuel 7, with his rule comfortably
established, David wants to build a temple for God. He tells the prophet Nathan
of his plan and since everything else David has wanted to do has been blessed
by God, Nathan says, “Whatever you have in mind, go ahead and do it, for the
LORD is with you.”
But that night, God speaks to Nathan. He says to him, 'Do I
need a temple? Do I even want a temple? Have a look at verses 5-7:
2Sam. 7:5 “Go and tell my servant David, ‘This is what the LORD says: Are you the one to build me a house to
dwell in? 6 I have not
dwelt in a house from the day I brought the Israelites up out of Egypt to this
day. I have been moving from place to place with a tent as my dwelling. 7 Wherever I have moved with
all the Israelites, did I ever say to any of their rulers whom I commanded to
shepherd my people Israel, “Why
have you not built me a house of cedar?” ’
It seems that David's intentions are good, but the plan has
a few problems. First of all, God didn't ask for a temple, he didn't even need
a temple. You see, God is not and cannot be contained by a building. Instead,
he is known by his powerful acts of salvation, by his faithful love and justice.
He is Yahweh, the I am who I am—his
name says it all. A temple brings with it limitation and localisation. It
brings with it the potential to misunderstand God's greatness.
Later on God will call for a temple to be built, but it seems that David is not the man to do it.
God himself will be the one who initiates and directs the construction of a
temple for his name.
v 8-17 God promises to build a house for David
v11b-16 The promise
But rather than rebuke David for wanting to build a house for
God, God says that he will build a house for David. It's a bit like Crocodile
Dundee saying, "that's not a knife, this is a knife." God says, "You want to build a house? I'll build you a house!" Have a look at it with me again, beginning
in the middle of verse 11.
“‘The LORD declares to you that the LORD himself will establish
a house for you: 12 When your days are over and you rest with your fathers, I will raise up your
offspring to succeed you, who will come from your own body, and I will
establish his kingdom. 13 He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the
throne of his kingdom forever. 14 I will be his father, and he will be my son. When he does wrong, I will punish
him with the rod of men, with floggings inflicted by men. 15 But my love will never be
taken away from him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before
you. 16 Your house and
your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established
forever.’”
There is a play on words, isn't there. David wanted to build
a house for God, that is, a temple. But God says that he will build a house for
David, that is, a dynasty, a royal family line. The Queen of England is part of
the House of Windsor. In times before the Windsors, the English monarchy was the House of York
or the House of Tudor. This promise relates to the House of David. Although,
looking carefully at the text, we notice that this promise centres on one
individual. See in verse 12 God says he will raise up David's offspring to
succeed him, "and I will establish his kingdom". The word 'offspring', or literally 'seed', is in the singular. One
person. That's why God says that he will establish his kingdom.
So the promise is not an unbroken succession of kings but a
commitment to one 'son' of David whose kingdom will endure forever. And it's
quite a commitment: he will build a house worthy of God's name, a house for the
purpose of God's glory. And his throne is established forever—I guess you
don't need a dynastic succession of kings when the one great king is king
forever.
It's a staggering promise, isn't it? Every parent or
grandparent wants to boast about their offspring and their achievements: I
wonder how David is feeling right about verse 13.
But now, in verse 14, God's promise just goes stratospheric.
It bursts the bounds of human imagination. God says this about David's son, "I
will be his father, and he will be my son." God will relate to this
'offspring' in a unique way, father to son. This commitment will endure
forever. Yes, this 'offspring' may suffer the floggings inflicted by men but
God's Holy Spirit will always be with him and never taken away.
Later on in this book of Samuel, David, pretty much lying on
his deathbed, refers to this promise as a covenant made by God. He says,
2Sam. 23:5 “Is not my house right with God? Has he not made with me an everlasting covenant, arranged and secured in every
part? Will he not bring to fruition my salvation and grant me my every desire?
In other words, this promise in 2 Sam 7 is binding on God; rock
solid sure and secure. God has said it and he will surely raise up this 'son'
for David. Naturally, we want to ask, 'Who is he?' (Hands down, kiddies!) Before we answer, there is
another question, the answer to which helps us with the 'Who is he?"
question. The prior question is 'Why? Why would God promise this to
David?"
v8-11a The purpose of the promise
The answer is back in verses 8-11. In verses 8 and 9 God
reminds David of all that he has done for him, taking him from following sheep
to leading Israel. He was a nobody but now God will make his name great, like
one of the greatest men on earth. You see, God has plan for David and God has a
plan for Israel—and he is surely fulfilling his own purposes through
them. That's why he says in verse 10:
10 And I will provide a place for my people Israel and will plant them so that
they can have a home of their own and no longer be disturbed.
God is doing all this to fulfil his purposes for his people.
God has a plan for Israel, and it involves bringing blessing to every nation on
earth.
Even to you and I here today.
This world is not a random series of events. It is not a
universe out of control, going nowhere, amounting to nothing until it
ultimately fizzles out. God is the creator of all things, your life and mine; and
he is surely bringing a people to be his own forever. Just as David didn't
understand all the details, we don't yet see all the details; but we do know
where God is taking it all.
God calls all people everywhere to live under his rule now
and forever. God has and will
raise up a ruler from David's line. This One has established a kingdom that
will last forever. As it is today, God's rule is challenged and opposed, but
the time is coming when it will be unchallenged. So this kingdom and this
ruler, is something you and I can't ignore. Either you welcome it and are part
of it now and forever; or you are exclude yourself from it and oppose it now and
forever.
The House that God is building
So who is this 'son of David' to bring this all about? Well
David did have a son who sat on the throne after him. His name was Solomon. And
he was a pretty impressive king. But being honest, he did not live up to
everything that David was promised in chapter 7. It is true that God treated him
like a son. And when Solomon did wrong, God punished him with the rod of men, with
damaging losses of many kinds. But here's the rub: Solomon's kingdom has not
continued on forever. His successors, all from David's line, stayed on the
throne for about 300 years—but then the Babylonians overran them.
Solomon and those after him did not stay true to God. But
that's not to say that God was not true to his word. God did raise up David's
greater son. His name is Jesus. Of course he is not the direct first generation
son of David, but he is in fact the perfect son. He is the Son of God as well
as the Son of David. He rules now and his kingdom is established forever.
Now the idea that a kingdom should continue forever does not
immediately generate a lot of excitement for Australians. That's because we
don't know what it's really like when there is no ruler, where there is no law.
When we have a change of government no one is shot, there is no revolution. But
if you live in a place where there is no government and no respected authority;
you get anarchy. There is chaos; looting, war in the streets. No power, or a
power vacuum, is potentially worse that a corrupt power.
And that's why the promise made to David is so good for us. Jesus, the 'offspring' of David, is the one through whom God rules all things. There is no power vacuum, no failure of leadership. His rule is established forever. We need not fear anarchy.
2 Sam 7 shows God's breath-taking promise and commitment to David, but consider for a moment God's commitment to us. We have been forgiven, reconciled and put right with God. We have been adopted as God's children and filled with his Spirit. We have been given eternal life in Christ. Why? Because God has called a people from every nation, every tribe and every language to be his own. All of this hinges on God's promise, God's power; his authority. And this is assured to us as Jesus rules God's kingdom in a way that will never end.
So in the end, rather than David making a house for God, God has made his home in us. We become the house of God—his dwelling place forever. And now that is exactly what we are: the house of God, the place where God dwells by his Holy Spirit. David began by wanting to build a temple for God but God has built his temple in his people.
v18-29 Responding to the Promise
Our response to all this is important. Did you notice David's
response to God's staggering grace towards him and to the people of Israel? Have
a look at verses 18-19. David is deeply humbled.
2Sam.
7:18 Then King David went in and sat before the LORD, and he
said: “Who am I, O Sovereign LORD,
and what is my family, that you have brought me this far? 19 And as if this were not enough in your
sight, O Sovereign LORD, you have also spoken about the future of the house of
your servant. Is this your usual way of dealing with man, O Sovereign LORD?
David responds with profound humility before the staggering
grace of God.
I wonder if that's your response to all that God has done
for you? Or do you just let it all wash over you? God has purposed for all time
to make you his own; to adopt you as his son or daughter; to share the eternal
rule of Jesus with you. He has forgiven you by crushing his own son in your
place. He who knew no sin, became sin for you. He gave his life as a ransom for
your life. Does that leave you unmoved; that God should do that for you? Surely
we humble ourselves before the staggering grace of God.
That's part of David's response. And did you notice the
other part of it? David sees in this promise a demonstration of the greatness
of God. Have a look at verse 21 and following:
21 For the sake of your word and according to your will, you have done this great
thing and made it known to your servant. 22 “How great you are, O Sovereign LORD!
There is no one like you, and there is no God but you, as we have heard with
our own ears.… Do as you promised, 26 so that your name will be great forever. Then men will
say, ‘The LORD Almighty is God
over Israel!’
God's purposes demonstrate his greatness, so that all will
praise him. God is true to his word. As God fulfils his promise, his name is
great forever. He is revered, honoured and praised. His reputation, his status
is has not equal. He deserves, he is worthy of all the praise we can bring him.
And not only that, we get to enjoy his loving rule forever. We are not lost and alone in the universe: this is all going somewhere. Your life matters. God longs that you would give him your heart once and for all; so that, through you his rule will touch and transform the lives of many others. David had no idea just how great God would make him, and we have little idea just what God will do with each one of us in this life or in the life to come. But it will be good.
God's promise to David assures us that there is no power vacuum, no failure of leadership, no anarchy. Instead, God's purpose will be achieved for all time through the king of his choosing, the Son of God who is the Son of David.
