Promises Waiting their Full Completion

Scripture: 1 Chronicles 17: 1-14

Sermon: Promises Waiting their Full Completion

Topics: Time-travel, Covenant, Promises, Eschatology

Preached: November 28, 2021

Rev. Mike Abma

Now when David settled in his house, David said to the prophet Nathan, ‘I am living in a house of cedar, but the ark of the covenant of the Lord is under a tent.’ ²Nathan said to David, ‘Do all that you have in mind, for God is with you.’

3 But that same night the word of the Lord came to Nathan, saying: ⁴Go and tell my servant David: Thus says the Lord: You shall not build me a house to live in. ⁵For I have not lived in a house since the day I brought out Israel to this very day, but I have lived in a tent and a tabernacle. ⁶Wherever I have moved about among all Israel, did I ever speak a word with any of the judges of Israel, whom I commanded to shepherd my people, saying, Why have you not built me a house of cedar? ⁷Now 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 ruler over my people Israel; ⁸and I have been with you wherever you went, and have cut off all your enemies before you; and I will make for you a name, like the name of the great ones of the earth. ⁹I 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 wear them down no more, as they did formerly, ¹⁰from the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel; and I will subdue all your enemies.

Moreover, I declare to you that the Lord will build you a house. ¹¹When your days are fulfilled to go to be with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring after you, one of your own sons, and I will establish his kingdom. ¹²He shall build a house for me, and I will establish his throne for ever. ¹³I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me. I will not take my steadfast love from him, as I took it from him who was before you, ¹⁴but I will confirm him in my house and in my kingdom for ever, and his throne shall be established for ever. ¹⁵In accordance with all these words and all this vision, Nathan spoke to David.

This is the Word of the Lord

Thanks be to God

Time Machine to Circa. 2000 BC

Are you ready to do a little time-travelling this morning?

Ready to zoom through centuries, even millennia?

Well, fasten your seatbelts,

because we are zooming all the way back to around 2000 BC.

We look down and see an old man

receiving a deep promise from God.

The promise is that this man’s name will be great,

and that his descendants will be plentiful —

so plentiful that they will be like the stars in the night sky.

All this leaves the old man a little perplexed,

seeing that he is already quite old

and has no children yet.

But ole Abraham, he looks up at the stars,

and looks ahead to the future …..in hope.

Time Machine to Circa 1000 BC

Get ready,

we are going to zoom ahead in time.

We are going to zoom ahead 1000 years

to about the time 1000 BC.

By this time, the descendants of Abraham have, amazingly,

become quite plentiful,

plentiful enough to become a nation,

with a capital city

and a reigning king.

The king is on the downward slope of middle age.

His best years are behind him.

He senses that, and is restless — restless to do something special for God.

He has the bright idea to build God a house.

Even Nathan the prophet thinks it is a pretty good idea.

But then God shows up to Nathan.

God says No.

“Tell David, No.

No, you are not going to build me a house.

No, I am going to build you a house.

The house will be a lasting house.

It will be a kingdom of peace and order.

This will be my house and my kingdom.

Tell David one of his own sons will rule my house and my kingdom.

Tell David one of his own sons will sit on my throne forever.”

Ole David,

he looks at his sons – not the most promising lot –

and wonders how can this be …..yet he too looks ahead with hope.

Time Machine to CIRCA 500 BC

Let’s get back into our time-travelling machine.

Let’s zoom 500 years forward

to around the year 500 BC.

Those old promises to Abraham and David are not looking so good.

The city of Jerusalem is in ruins.

The Temple needs to be rebuilt.

Abraham’s descendants have been diminished.

And there has not been a descendant of David on the throne for almost a century.

Are the people in Jerusalem still believing these old promises?

Are they still dreaming of a future king?

Absolutely.

In fact, it was at around this time that 1-2 Chronicles is written.

1-2 Chronicles was written to keep the Dream alive.

That is why, when they wrote 1-2 Chronicles,

they only included the best of David

they only included the best of his son, Solomon.

In the Book of first-second Chronicles,

Bathsheba never makes an appearance.

In the Book of first-second Chronicles,

Solomon is never described as being led astray

by his many, many wives.

No, in first and second Chronicles,

the reign of David and then Solomon

these reigns are described as the Golden Age –

a Golden Age

when they were ruled by the might of David

and they enjoyed the prosperity of Solomon.

This is the Golden Age they believed would return one day –

once the true Son of David,

the Messiah,

the rightful heir to the throne

finally showed up.

That is why,

In the Jewish Old Testament,

The books of 1-2 Chronicles are their last two books.

That is why,

In the Jewish community

They read 1-2 Chronicles as a prelude

To the eventual kingdom of the Messiah,

The eventual descendant of David

Who will establish a kingdom

Even more powerful than that of David

And more wealthy than that of Solomon.

When they gazed into the future,

this is what they were looking for,

this is what they were longing for.

Time Machine to CIRCA 30 AD

Now let’s get back into our time-machine, and zoom a little over 500 years in the future.

The place is still Jerusalem.

The city is buzzing about a man who had been recently killed by the Romans.

We hear the city talking about this man.

How he was a poor man – not even a hint of Solomon’s riches.

How he seemed to be a weak man – no army, no military savvy, nothing like David.

They describe this man as doing nothing but walking around

in small towns and poor neighborhoods,

and being followed by a bunch of peasants.

They get angry when they recall how some of these peasants

had the audacity to shout things like

“Hosanna to the Son of David” when this man passed by.

What a mockery of the memory of David and Solomon.

Then what appears to be one of those peasants stands up.

He says,

“Listen to me, my fellow Israelites.

We all agree on some basic truths.

We all agree that our ancestor David died,

that he was buried,

that he is still in his tomb.

And we all know the promise our ancestor David

was given.

God promised David that one of his descendants

would sit on his throne forever.

Well good folk of Jerusalem,

I am here to tell you that

The one you handed over to be crucified

is the one God raised from the dead.

The one you rejected,

is the one now sitting on the throne

at the right hand of the Father.

The one you treated as a criminal,

is in fact the King we have been waiting for.

Time Machine to CIRCA 2021

We climb back into our time-machines

and zoom right back to here, right back to now,

over 2000 years later. Year 2021.

Surprisingly,

amazingly,

the number of people alive today

who believe what Peter preached on Pentecost 2000 years ago

numbers in the billions.

These are all people who see Jesus

as the Son of David

as the long-awaited King,

as the one whose throne will last forever,

as the one whose kingdom has begun.

These are the people

who pray for that kingdom to fully come.

Time Machine INTO THE FUTURE…..

But let’s climb into that time-machine one more time.

Let’s fly into the future.

How far do you want to go into the future?

50 years.

100 years.

500 years.

1000 years.

It is perhaps a little easier to imagine getting into a time machine to travel back in time.

I think it is a little more problematic to imagine travelling forward in time – to imagine travelling into the misty unknown.

Thinking about the future causes our anxieties to rise, and our worries to grow.

We cannot help but ask:

What shape will the earth be in?

Will we have messed things up so badly

that life is hardly hanging on?

Will there be any peace?

Will there be any prosperity?

What will the future hold?

And what about the church?

Will people still be reading the Bible?

Will they still believe in the promises?

Will they still consider Jesus their King?

Will they still be longing for his kingdom to fully come?

It is quite easy to despair when we look into the future.

Things can look bleak now.

They can even look bleaker years from now.

Here is the thing I want you to know and understand.

Here is the thing about the promises to David that still hold true today.

The truth is

We may despair about what we are able to accomplish for God

and for his kingdom.

But we should never, ever despair

about what God has accomplished for us,

about what God is doing for us,

about what God will do for us.

CONCLUSION

Last week we talked about brokenness,

about darkness,

about sinfulness.

We heard that everything is tainted, stained, corrupted.

Jesus, the Son of David, came to make all things new,

all things whole, all things pure, all things holy

– all things.

Therefore we look forward in hope:

Forward to that new city – the New Jerusalem,

Forward to that new temple – the new heavens and new earth

Forward to the arrival of that new King – the Lamb upon his throne,

When we look to the end of our Scriptures,

When we look to the last chapter of our Bible

When we look to the last words Jesus our King addresses to us,

What do we hear him say?

We hear him say

I am the offspring of David —

The One rooted in past promises.

I am the bright morning star —

The One who is the focus of all our future hopes.

I am coming soon –

the One who keeps us on our toes in the present,

ready to come face-to-face with our King.

Do not be afraid.

Do not despair.

The winds of promise are blowing in from the past.

The winds of hope are blowing in from the future.

And where the winds of promise and winds of hope meet in the present,

we have love, a love that holds us,

a love that is from

the Alpha and Omega,

the first and the last

the beginning and the End.

AMEN