1 and 2 Samuel: Living an Altar Life

Well, today we are finishing our series that we have been studying our way through 1st and 2 Samuel.

We're in the very last chapter of 2 Samuel, chapter 24, and we have two dominant images in this chapter.

2 Samuel 24 · chapter mention

We have an image of a census, a counting of people, and we have an image of an altar.

These two images represent two ways we can live life.

The census, the way of worry and control.

I'm incredibly good at that.

And the altar, the way of trust and surrender.

So David orders a census.

Count all the soldiers.

And we get verse 3, 2 Samuel 24, 3 and 4.

But Joab said to the king, May the Lord your God add to the people a hundred times as many as they are, while the eyes of the Lord and the king still see it.

But why does my Lord, the king, delight in this thing?

He's talking about the census.

Why are we counting all the soldiers?

Verse 4.

But the king's word prevailed against Joab and the commanders of the army.

So Joab and the commanders of the army went out from the presence of the king to number the people of Israel.

Point number one is this we seek control and security apart from God.

In verse 3, Joab's resistance, it hints that something's wrong here.

David is shifting from trusting God to human control.

Now, last spring I planted a row of hydrangeas.

Here's a picture of my beautiful limelight hydrangeas.

I planted them right behind my boxwoods, along my garage.

And when I planted them last year, nothing really happened.

I planted them, I watered them.

They just never grew up above the bushes, they never bloomed, nothing.

I got nothing out of it.

I just watered them.

I had to leave them alone.

I had to trust that something would happen in time, which I hated all of that.

I just wanted it to happen right now.

I want it to happen.

But my role was to trust the sun and the soil to work, things I can't do.

Right?

I can work super hard, but I can't raise the sun.

I just can't do it.

I have to trust that.

Now, my tendency when I want something and I want it my timing is to overcontrol, to worry a lot, to keep doing stuff, and usually cause more problems.

Add more fertilizer and burn the plant.

See, this is what is happening with David.

He's growing weary of trust, so he orders a census.

He's growing weary of trusting a process, of trusting timing, of trusting God.

And the point is that there's some things we can control, be responsible for, and there's many things we cannot.

And the theme for David is will I trust God in tight grip, or will I let go, surrender?

Here are a few questions for us, perhaps uh investigative questions for your heart.

What outcome feels so important that I cannot trust God or be at peace without the outcome?

Where am I confusing responsibility with control?

What burden am I carrying that God never asked me to carry?

What would trusting God look like in this situation?

I love and hate those questions.

Right?

They sort of put a finger right in me.

So I have all sorts of things that I want to happen when I want them to happen, things I want to come to fruition.

I don't like the timing of certain things, certain things I want them to, they're just not happening.

I want them to happen.

And I was this week kind of wrestling with this, and it reminded me of the teaching that we visited, Jerry Bridges' teaching on that book, Trusting God, a few weeks ago.

See, I need help when it comes to trust.

What happened this week for me?

Handful of things going on in my mind and heart.

I want them to happen.

They're not happening.

I don't know if they're gonna happen.

And I hear the preachers of my past say, trust God, trust, just trust God.

Great.

Uh I'm not good at that.

Okay, what I'm good at is ignoring the problem or worrying about the problem.

I can do both of those things really well.

That's what I do, even while I'm praying.

I'm just worrying.

I'm not good at trust and surrender.

I need help with that.

And that's where I revisited this teaching.

I needed it.

I'm thinking David needed it, and I'm thinking perhaps you need it.

Here's the teaching from the book, Trusting God.

Jerry Bridges he teaches three attributes of God that help us trust while life is hard.

Help us to trust instead of ordering that census to moving toward control.

Bridges says this God in his love always wills what is best for us.

Great.

In his wisdom, he always knows what is best.

In his sovereignty, he has the power to bring it about.

So let's ponder these three attributes to see how they could empower trust.

All right, trust God, the preacher says.

Trust God, trust.

Okay, how?

Well, this can help us.

The attribute, God's sovereignty.

The question is God in control?

Romans 8, 28.

And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good for those who are called according to his purpose.

The attribute, God's wisdom.

The question, does God know what he's doing?

Does God know what he's doing in my life?

Doesn't always feel like it.

Romans 11, 33.

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways.

So God is wise.

God's love, the question, does God still love me?

Romans 8.32, he who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

So here's how those verses, that truth, works its way into our life for trust.

God's sovereignty means nothing can touch my life that is outside of God's sovereign rule.

Doesn't mean it's gonna be easy, but it does mean it's true.

God's wisdom means when I cannot understand God's ways, I trust God's wisdom.

God's love means God's love is not measured by temporary circumstances.

The cross, objective in history, is the ultimate proof that God loves me.

So we see David turning to a census, moving from trust to control.

Eventually, by the end of the chapter, we'll see him move toward back toward trust, toward that altar, the image we're gonna see.

2 Samuel 24, 10.

But isn't that great in the Christian life voice?

But, right?

You're moving toward worry, you're moving toward control, but God intervenes.

There's an intervention.

Verse 10, but David's heart struck him after he had numbered the people.

And David said to the Lord, I have sinned greatly in what I've done.

But now, O Lord, please take away the iniquity of your servant, for I have done very foolishly.

Point number two is this God is gracious to convict us of our sin.

Have you been there?

You you tight grip, you over control, uh, you act out, you don't trust God, and life gets um suffocating, overwhelming.

And then your heart strikes you.

Right?

The Holy Spirit in you convicts you.

It's like an intervention.

You get home, there's a group of friends in your in your living room to talk to you about your addiction, except this is like the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit have an intervention with you in your heart.

And God is so gracious for these interventions to intervene, to interrupt, to strike our heart.

And the Holy Spirit does not condemn, he convicts us, he strikes our heart.

The difference is condemnation leads to guilt trips and shame cycles.

Conviction leads to repentance, freedom, and growth.

Here's the good news for David and for us.

Even the conviction is proof that God's with you, that he's for you and he loves you.

The conviction itself is proof of his love.

Now, before the altar, we get a very rich theological point.

God is putting judgment on David and the people for David's sin and lack of control.

Here's where we read it 2 Samuel 24, 15 through 17.

So the Lord sent a pestilence on Israel from the morning until the appointed time.

And there died of the people from Dan to Bersheba 70,000 men.

And when the angel stretched out his hand toward Jerusalem to destroy it, the Lord relented from the calamity and said to the angel, who is working destruction among the people, It is enough.

Now stay your hand.

And the angel of the Lord was by the threshing floor of Arnah the Jebusite.

Then David spoke to the Lord when he saw the angel who was striking the people and said, Behold, I have sinned and I have done wickedly, but these sheep, what have they done?

Please let your hand be against me and against my father's house.

Point number three is this judgment is real, and judgment is fully satisfied in Jesus.

See, there's judgment to uphold justice.

If you remove judgment, you don't end up with a loving, safe world.

You end up with a world where evil and injustice never answer for their harm.

We don't want that world.

But we still struggle with judgment and justice.

God is just and he gives judgment.

But I read this and I feel a little bit like David at the end of the passage.

I'm like, this feels a little unfair.

What do these other people do?

Why are they suffering for David's sin?

Why do so many have to die?

God does not dismiss sin.

He deals with it.

And our sin affects other people.

We see that all over the Old Testament.

It's the point, and it's true.

Holy justice held up through judgment toward sin.

Now the New Testament is different.

Judgment is not gone, judgment is absorbed in Jesus.

So God is holy and just, and God is fully loving and fully gracious to us.

Paul teaches this in Romans, Romans 3, 23 through 26.

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith.

This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.

It was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

And Paul's point is this: God satisfies justice in Christ so that grace can be given without compromise or limits.

God is fully just.

That's what we see in the Old Testament.

And in Jesus, that justice is fully satisfied.

Judgment is absorbed, and we receive the grace of God through Jesus.

Now at the end of the chapter, we see David surrender as he goes to build an altar.

David went, he bought a threshing floor, which was a flat, hard piece of land, usually elevated at the top of a mountain.

It's where they would process the grain.

David bought that piece of land to build an altar, 2 Samuel 24, 24 and 25.

But the king said to Arna, No, but I will buy it from you for a price.

So this is David speaking to Arnhem.

He wants to buy this land.

I will not offer the burnt offerings to the Lord my God that cost me nothing.

So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver.

And David built there an altar to the Lord and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings.

So the Lord responded to the plea for the land, and the plague was averted from Israel.

Point number four is this grace has the final word, not judgment.

This threshing floor in verse 24 has a rich history for us.

In 2 Chronicles 3:1, we learn that this was on the Mount of Moriah.

2 Chronicles 3:1

This was the same location where Abraham went to sacrifice Isaac in Genesis 22.

It's the same set of hills where Jesus died on the cross.

So this altar points us to Jesus, where God's justice is fully met, and God's grace flows to us without limits.

See, judgment without grace says things like, you should have done better.

Judgment without grace says, You're not enough.

Prove your worth.

You will pay for that.

It's all judgment.

It's on you, at you.

But Paul wrote in Romans 8:1, there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Romans 8:1

See, God's grace is the unconditional acceptance we have in Christ apart from our performance.

So God's grace to us says things like, you are loved before you improve.

In Christ, you're no longer on trial.

You are free from having to justify yourself.

Your worth is not earned, it's received.

See, God's grace doesn't mean we do nothing.

Rather, it frees us to live a surrendered life filled with altars.

There's a famous river out west called the Madison.

They started making a TV show about it.

I don't know if you've seen the TV show.

It's called the Madison.

So the Madison's a river that's created actually in Yellowstone National Park where the Gibbon and the Firehole converge.

It flows out of the park.

It flows into Montana where some mountains rise up and it cuts through a valley.

In 1959, there was an earthquake and the side of a mountain.

I think we have an image of it.

And the mountain on the left, the side of that whole mountain just collapsed and blocked the Madison.

And Quake Lake was formed.

For five days, no water flowed.

And then finally the water found the lowest point and that river kind of broke over.

But even now today, if you drive out there and drive out, there's a good fishing spot called$3 Bridge just below this lake, you will drive along Quake Lake.

An event happened and there was an effect.

Now, the effect does not cause the event, right?

The event causes the effect.

My point is, is God will do something in your life.

He will strike your heart.

Your heart will be struck.

The mountain slides.

An event will happen and there will be an effect.

That effect does not cause the event.

Don't confuse that.

And don't try to manufacture effects to try to make sure there was an event in your life.

Be open to the event of God's intervention.

That's our role.

Be open to God intervening.

So your heart is struck.

God steps in.

God convicts or he leads.

And you will build an altar, a life of surrender.

Here's the point: the effect, the fruit of the intervention of God's grace to love and father us is a life of surrender.

That's what we see with David.

And the good news for David, for me, for you, is this altar life of trust and surrender does not cause God's love.

It's because of God's love.

If you have a question about the sermon or need prayer, I'll be down front afterward.

Love to talk to you, pray with you.

Let's pray together.

Heavenly Father, we're so thankful that you rescue us from worry and control, even while we are really good at worry and control.

Forgive us for the ways that we do not trust you and turn to our own means.

Would you help us to return to your love, your wisdom, and your sovereignty?

To remember that you love us, you have wisdom beyond our own wisdom, and you're sovereign over all things.

Would you empower us toward trust?

Would you empower us toward surrender?

Not to cause your love, not to manufacture your intervention, but because you've already loved us on the cross, you've already intervened to solve the problem of our sin, to give us your righteousness.

Would we be more in awe of Jesus today, the gift of forgiveness, the gift of righteousness, that we are not alone?

In Christ's name we pray.

Amen.