Deep Promises; Deeper Hopes

Scripture: 2 Samuel 7: 1-18 and Matthew 1: 1, 17

Sermon: Deep Promises; Deeper Hopes

Topics: Advent, David, covenant, promises

Preached: November 29, 2009

Rev. Michael Abma

Preamble: This is the first in our Advent Series. It is a series taken from Matthew’s genealogy in his first chapter. In the past, we have had an Advent series on the women mentioned in this genealogy. This advent, we will be highlighting some of the men mentioned in this genealogy.

This morning we start with David, a name mentioned more often in this genealogy than any other.

Matthew 1: 1, 17

1An account of the genealogy^* of Jesus the Messiah,^* the son of David, the son of Abraham.

17 So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David to the deportation to Babylon, fourteen generations; and from the deportation to Babylon to the Messiah,^* fourteen generations.

2 Samuel 7: 1-18

7Now when the king was settled in his house, and the Lord had given him rest from all his enemies around him, ²the king said to the prophet Nathan, ‘See now, I am living in a house of cedar, but the ark of God stays in a tent.’ ³Nathan said to the king, ‘Go, do all that you have in mind; for the Lord is with you.’

4 But that same night the word of the Lord came to Nathan: ⁵Go and tell my servant David: Thus says the Lord: Are you the one to build me a house to live in? ⁶I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day, but I have been moving about in a tent and a tabernacle. ⁷Wherever I have moved about among all the people of Israel, did I ever speak a word with any of the tribal leaders^* of Israel, whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, saying, ‘Why have you not built me a house of cedar?’ ⁸Now therefore thus you shall say to my servant David: Thus says the Lord of hosts: I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep to be prince over my people Israel; ⁹and I have been with you wherever you went, and have cut off all your enemies from before you; and I will make for you a great name, like the name of the great ones of the earth. ¹⁰And I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them, so that they may live in their own place, and be disturbed no more; and evildoers shall afflict them no more, as formerly, ¹¹from the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel; and I will give you rest from all your enemies. Moreover, the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house. ¹²When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come forth from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. ¹³He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom for ever. ¹⁴I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me. When he commits iniquity, I will punish him with a rod such as mortals use, with blows inflicted by human beings. ¹⁵But I will not take^* my steadfast love from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you. ¹⁶Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure for ever before me;^* your throne shall be established for ever. ¹⁷In accordance with all these words and with all this vision, Nathan spoke to David.

18 Then King David went in and sat before the Lord, and said, ‘Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house, that you have brought me thus far?

This is the Word of the Lord

Thanks be to God

INTRODUCTION

In 2 Samuel 7, David is at the height of his career as king.

The Philistines have been subdued.

Israel, this loose confederation of tribes, has been consolidated.

The Jebusite city of Jerusalem has become his stronghold.

And David has just brought the Ark of the Covenant into the city with much fanfare and rejoicing – in the previous chapter David is literally dancing and leaping and praising the Lord

Everything was coming together for David.

He felt on top of the world.

Like any good king, he wanted to share his wealth.

And so, out of deep gratitude,

out of deep thanksgiving,

David even wanted to do something for God.

“See now, I am living in a house of cedar – the preferred building material of kings —

but the ark of God stays in a tent.”

So David has a chat with his pastor, Nathan, about his plans.

He tells Nathan that God has been so good to him,

that now he wants to do something nice for God — he want to build a nice house, a nice temple, for the Lord.

And Nathan, being a pastor, loved hearing this.

So much of pastoring involves hearing what people need from God

and praying for what people need from God:

Someone is unemployed – we pray that they will find a job

A marriage is on the rocks – we pray for reconciliation

A person is feeling depressed, down – we pray for hope and meaning

A person is deathly sick — we pray that they will be made well

A person is in big trouble — please pray for a way out

So much of our relationship with God is what we need from God.

It is about how God can help us.

The Jewish storyteller, Isaac Singer, once said,

“I only pray when I’m in trouble….

But I am in trouble all the time….so I pray all the time.”

In a way, that describes David in his early years.

David was always in trouble,

He was always on the run.

David was also a master at asking God for help.

You name it, he asked for it.

But now…..wow, now things were different.

Now things are reversed.

Now David is offering to help God,

to build God a house, a Temple,

a place befitting God’s glory.

And Nathan is almost giddy with pleasure.

To paraphrase the Hebrew: “What a GREAT IDEA. Go for it. The Lord is with you.”

ENTER GOD

But that night, Nathan has trouble sleeping.

And God comes with a new message for David.

God comes with a message that the Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann calls the most crucial theological statement of the Old Testament.^[1]

In a nutshell, God says this:

“David wants to build me a house?

Forget it — I’m going to build him a house

a house, a dynasty, a family tree that will fill the earth.

The Kingdom that I am shaping

isn’t so much about what he can do for me.

It is about what I do through him.”

The promises God makes in this chapter are nothing short of breath-taking.

They are breath-taking in at least three different ways.

UNCONDITIONAL

First of all, God’s promises to David are breath-taking because they are unconditional promises.

Up to this point, God’s promises have almost always been conditional.

God promises to be the God of Abraham and Abraham’s descendants as long as they were pledged to the Lord through the sign of circumcision.

God promises to be Israel’s God, as long as they obeyed the Torah.

God s promises to lead Israel into the Promised Land as long as they trust God.

Again and again, God promises to bless his people, as long as they follow him.

But this promise to David is different.

God is going to make David’s name great.

He is going to provide a home for his people.

And he is going to establish a house – that is a dynasty — for the descendants of David.

There is no “if” in this promise.

No “as long as” in this promise.

It is like God is writing a blank check to David and David’s descendants.

In this promise, God is tying the future of his kingdom,

and the future of his people,

to this particular family tree.

God even goes so far as to say that he would never take his love from David,

and by implication, from the line of David.

We might be tempted to think this is outrageous, foolhardy.

But it is simply God’s way of being outrageously gracious.

PRESENCE OF GOD

There is something else about this promise that we cannot see unless we move back a little, and see it in its context.

Did you notice what the chapter before is about?

What 2 Samuel 6 is about?

It is about the Ark of the Covenant arriving in Jerusalem.

After this, the Ark of the Covenant basically fades from view.

There are still all kinds of rumors and speculation about whether the Ark of the Covenant still exists. There is even a church in Ethiopia that claims to be the keeper of the Ark.^[2]

But within the text of the Bible, the Ark is hardly ever mentioned again.^[3]

Why is that?

Well, what did the Ark of the Covenant represent?

It represented the presence of God among his people.

Now, with this outrageously gracious promise,

the presence of God will shadow David,

and it will shadow the descendants of David.

David and his descendants will live under the wings of this promise

For 20 different kings over 400 hundred years until the exile,

God’s presence with his people will be seen in the line of David.

SOURCE OF MESSIANIC HOPES

This raises a third breath-taking aspect of the promises in this chapter.

Even after 400 years and 20 kings in the line of David,

even after Judah had gone into exile and returned again,

this passage remained the root of their dreams.

This passage remained the source of all their Messianic hopes.

The promise in 2 Samuel 7 ends with these words:

“Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me;

Your throne shall be established forever.”

This deep promise,

planted a deeper hope in the hearts of God’s people for centuries.

When Isaiah wrote,

“Arise, shine, for your light has come….”

He was putting words to the dream of a new David coming to the throne

to re-establish David’s kingdom.

Years later, when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey,

And people sang, “Hosanna to the Son of David,”

They were simply singing an old song of hope

that a new king, a new Son of David

would come to re-establish David’s kingdom,

and sit on David’s throne.

Even as Jesus was about to ascend into heaven,

His disciples asked him,

“Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?”

What they did not quite see or quite understand

was that Jesus was ascending to his throne at the right hand of the Father.

He was ascending to sit on the throne

as the Lamb of God,

the Lion of Judah,

and the Root of David.

What they did not quite see or understand

is that through his death and resurrection

this last king in the line of David

had already begun restoring the kingdom

not only to Israel,

but to the Gentiles of every tribe, language, peoples and nations.

The promises of 2 Samuel 7 are played-out throughout the Old Testament,

to the very end of the New.

Is it any wonder that the Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann calls this chapter in 2 Samuel the most crucial theological statement of the Old Testament.

ADVENT – SEASON OF WAITING & HOPING

So what does David do when he hears this breath-taking promise?

What does this active, alive, king at the height of his powers do?

He sits.

He prays.

He worships God.

He ponders what God is promising to do for him,

and through him

It is so much more than he could ask or imagine

And he can only begin to respond by stammering: “who am I … what is my family tree, that you have brought me this far?”

Advent is a season to sit with David and ponder the deep promises of God.

It is a season to perhaps stop some of our own plans,

put a hold on our own busy lives,

and simply stammer, “who am I….who am I that you have blessed me so?”

to ponder what God has done, is doing, and will do for us.

It is a season to realize the God

is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine.

It is a season to realize that all the outrageously gracious promises to David,

have, through Jesus, found their home in us.

We are now the recipients of the outrageous promise that nothing will ever separate us from the love and favor of God (Rom 8);

We are now the presence of God in the world

For with Christ as the cornerstone,

we have been made the dwelling place of God,

the holy temple of the Lord (Ephesians 2:22);

And we are the ones carrying the Messianic hopes of the world.

We are the ones called to proclaim that

The Son of David has come.

The Son of David will come again.

And the Son of David’s kingdom will be fully restored,

Fully realized,

And righteousness and peace will finally flourish forever.

Advent is a time to ponder

our deepest hopes,

our deepest dreams,

our deepest prayers,

And to realize that God will take them

And in the end, he will accomplish with them

far more than we can ask or imagine.

1. Walter Brueggemann, Commentary on 1 and 2 Samuel: Interpretation Series, Knox Press, p. 259. ↑

2. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church in Axum claims to be the keepers of the Ark of the Covenant, however, no one is allowed to see it. ↑

3. The Ark is mentioned again in 1 Kings 8:11 when it enters the new Temple, and in 2 Chronicles 35:3 when Josiah reforms the Temple. This is its last mention. ↑