The Cornerstone of God's House

Because our Lord lives, certainly we listen to Him.

We pay attention as He speaks from Second Samuel Chapter 7,

2 Samuel 7 · chapter mention

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.

2 Samuel 7 · chapter mention

Second Samuel Chapter 7. My guess is that you have either

2 Samuel 7 · chapter mention

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.