It's Not What You Did for God 2 Samuel 7:8-16 122114M
King David was discouraged. God had granted him great triumphs and conquests as a king. He had great wealth and lived in luxury.But something still bothered him: After the king was settled in his palace and the Lord had given him rest from all his enemies around him,2 he said to Nathan the prophet, “Here I am, living in a house of cedar, while the ark of God remains in a tent.”David wanted to build a fitting, permanent temple for God. But God revealed something through Nathan to David that changed his entire mindset.
God has granted us blessings too. And what have we accomplished with them? What have we done for God? Have we donated chapels and libraries to Christian schools like some? Have we gone on mission trips to help impoverished bush people in Africa like others? Have we authored influential books and offered motivational speeches like still others? I don't think so. Yet, God reminds us of the very thing he said to King David:
It's Not What You Do for God
1. God called you and delivered you.
2. God built a house for you.
3. God makes you part of his eternal kingdom.
1. King David had accomplished great things, and he did them for God. But David didn't turn himself from a shepherd boy into a king; God did. David didn't earn wealth and influence for himself; God gave it to him. So when David, well-meaning as he was, determined God should have a permanent house instead of a tent, the tabernacle, God told him it wasn't about what he could do for God, but what God was doing for him. God says to you too, it's not what you do for him. As with David, God called you and delivered you.
God called David to be king of his people: 8 “Now then, tell my servant David, ‘This is what the Lord Almighty says: I took you from the pasture, from tending the flock, and appointed you ruler over my people Israel.Remember how God used the Prophet Samuel to reveal David as his choice as the next king of Israel. He didn't look like a king; he was a kid! But God graciously chose him.
And God did deliver David from his enemies: 9 I have been with you wherever you have gone, and I have cut off all your enemies from before you. There was Goliath and the Philistines. There was King Saul who was jealous of David and wanted to kill him. But God would do more for David. He said, Now I will make your name great, like the names of the greatest men on earth.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. Wicked people will not oppress them anymore, as they did at the beginning11 and have done ever since the time I appointed leaders[a] over my people Israel. I will also give you rest from all your enemies.The Israelites had inhabited the land of Canaan, but they weren't so deeply rooted there. There were still enemies who had to be defeated: the Moabites, Arameans, and the Ammonites. God would continue to lead David to victory and establish thekingdom of Israel.
God called us too. In fact, the Bible says For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In lovehe predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will.... He brought us into his kingdom through the washing of Holy Baptism. Then he applied to us personally the innocent life and the payment for sins Jesus made on the cross. God in Jesus defeated our enemies too. Jesus overcame sin by his death for sin on the cross as God's lamb. Jesus overcame the devil by facing his temptations head-on without ever yielding to one of them. Jesus defeated death by victoriously rising from the grave on the third day. Jesus' victory as our King, the greater son of David, is our victory. Paul says, But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Co 15:57).
2. In gratitude for what God had done for him, King David wanted to build a house for God. He had a palace; God had a tent. But God revealed to him what he reveals to you: It's not what you do for God. God built a house for you.
Before there would be any permanent house for God in Israel, God made it clear that he would establish the house of Israel ruled by the house or kingly line of David. “‘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 ancestors, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, your own flesh and blood, and I will establish his kingdom.So there was going to be a successor to the throne. We know that this was King Solomon. He expanded the Kingdom of Israel to boundaries it had never known, and would never know again.
God said it was this son who would do what David himself had intended to do: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 a rod wielded by men, with floggings inflicted by human hands.15 But my love will never be taken away from him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you.
God is talking about the physical Kingdom of Israel. But he is talking about much more. This is the Messianic kingdom. God is revealing that the Savior would come from this kingly line. But in order to be an eternal kingdom, the king would have to be eternal. This king, physically descended from David and Solomon, would be God in the flesh. Regarding this king, Jesus Christ, Paul told the Romans, ...As to his human nature [he] was a descendant of David, and who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord (Ro 1:3-4). His body is God's temple or house, his dwelling among humankind as a human being. And he says that those who believe in him are his body, or temple, or house--his Church. Christ lives on earth even now in us. His promise to establish David's house forever is still being fulfilled even in us!
God built this house for you! You are part of the house of God through faith in Jesus, your Savior. Peter says, You also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ (1 Pe 2:5).God is building his house as he builds you as a Christian. Every time you reflect on your baptism, and how your sins were all washed away, and God entered you as his temple, God is building his house. Every time God says that no matter how dark, no matter how disgusting, no matter how evil your thoughts, words or actions have been, you are forgiven because of Jesus, God is building his house. When the Savior gives you a little bread and wine, and comes to you with the very body that lay in the manger and hung from the cross, and with the very blood that flowed from his wounds on Calvary, God is building his house. And every time another person believes this good news about Jesus, God is building his house. And in that house--in you and me--Jesus lives and reigns! He's fulfilling the promise he made to David!
3. And it's wasn't what he could do for God, and it's not what we can do for God. It's what he has done, still does, and will do for us. And what he does is also this: God makes you part of his eternal kingdom.
That was the bottom line (literally) in our text consisting of God's exchange with David: 16 Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me[b]; your throne will be established forever.’”Only God in the flesh could fulfill this promise. God said he was fulfilling these words in Jesus when his angel announced to Mary: "He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end" (Lk 1:32-33).
God is still building this house or this kingdom some three thousand years after God made his promise to David. It took one thousand years for that eternal king to come the first time, and it's taking more than two thousand years for our king to come again in glory. But he will. He's building his kingdom of grace by adding living stones to his house as long as this world stands; but he will establish his kingdom of glory when he brings those believers to their glorious new home. And you and I will be part of it. God says the kingdom and house that we are part of will endure forever, and he meant it.
In response to these wonderful things God has done, yes, we strive to do great things for him. We want to serve our King, all to his glory and praise. But ultimately, our standing before him doesn't depend on what we do for him. It's what he's done for us: God called us and delivered us from our enemies; he has built us ashis house of living stones, and he makes us part of his eternal kingdom. And all this is true because of Jesus, David's greater Son, whose birth we celebrate this week. Let's rejoice in what God has done! Amen.
2 Samuel 7:8-16
After the king was settled in his palace and the Lord had given him rest from all his enemies around him,2 he said to Nathan the prophet, “Here I am, living in a house of cedar, while the ark of God remains in a tent.”
It's Not What You Do for God
1. God called you and delivered you.
2. God built a house for you.
3. God makes you part of his eternal kingdom.
8 “Now then, tell my servant David, ‘This is what the Lord Almighty says: I took you from the pasture, from tending the flock, and appointed you ruler over my people Israel.
9 I have been with you wherever you have gone, and I have cut off all your enemies from before you.
Now I will make your name great, like the names of the greatest men on earth.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. Wicked people will not oppress them anymore, as they did at the beginning11 and have done ever since the time I appointed leaders[a] over my people Israel. I will also give you rest from all your enemies.
For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In lovehe predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will....
But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Co 15:57).
“‘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 ancestors, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, your own flesh and blood, 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 a rod wielded by men, with floggings inflicted by human hands.15 But my love will never be taken away from him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you.
...As to his human nature [he] was a descendant of David, and who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord (Ro 1:3-4).
You also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ (1 Pe 2:5).
16 Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me[b]; your throne will be established forever.’”
"He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end" (Lk 1:32-33).