Heart of Kings - David 23: Miscount

2 Samuel chapter 24 verses 1 through 10.

2 Samuel 24:1–10

Again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, Go number Israel and Judah.

So the king said to Joab, the commander of the army, who is with him, Go through all the tribes of Israel, from Dan to Beersheba, and number the people, that I may know the number of the people.

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 my lord the king still see it.

But why does my lord the king delight in this thing?

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.

They crossed the Jordan and began from Eor, and from the city that is in the middle of the valley, toward Gad and on to Jazer.

Then they came to Gilead and to Hukadish in the land of the Hittites, and they came to Dan, and from Dan they went around to Sidon, and came to the fortress of Tyre and to all the cities of the Hivites and the Canaanites.

And then they went to the Negeb of Judah at Beersheba.

So then when they had gone through all the land, they came to Jerusalem at the end of nine months and twenty days, and Joab gave the sum of the numbering of the people to the king.

In Israel there were eight hundred thousand valiant men who drew the sword, and the men of Judah were five hundred thousand.

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 have done.

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

This is the word of the Lord.

Please be seated.

Good afternoon.

Welcome to Redemption Church Denver.

My name is James Rathman.

I'm the pastor here.

You are uh a part of our evening services now, so uh I want to give kind of a quick recap on where we are.

Uh it's Denver, it's 2019.

Donald Trump, the game show host, is president.

We are, I'm just kidding, not that much where we are.

Uh we are uh in the same building that we've been meeting in for a long time.

Uh, but the building is now owned by another church called the Heights Church.

They meet here at 9 a.m.

on Sunday morning.

Nope, 10 a.m.

on Sunday mornings, but that doesn't matter.

You guys go here.

Uh and so we're sharing the church building.

We're meeting in the evenings at 4:30 p.m., uh, which you all know.

And um we're here for likely another six months and potentially another year.

Here's the situation.

We've got uh six months of free rent in the building, in this building, which is incredible.

Free rent is, if I had a band, our first album would be called Free Rent.

And uh for six months after that, we have the opportunity to re-up the lease for another six months for an extremely low cost.

So here's the approach that we've been talking about as uh an elder board, which is something that we have now.

Uh Redemption Church Denver recently uh inaugurated our first official board of elders, and something that we've been talking about is what posture are we going to take to this season?

And one of the things that we've been thinking is we've been looking at other church buildings uh with the capital that we gained from the sale of this building, and the questions that we've been asking are okay, is would a move make sense?

What type of building do we want to move into where that would make sense for our church in this season?

And as we've been talking, we've sort of realized that may be asking the question backwards.

You know, what if we considered we're a church, Redemption Church Denver, that's just a year or so old?

We've got some capital, we've got a congregation of people that are committed to the church in Denver.

What if we approached this not thinking, okay, what type of building can we get into next, but thinking, what is God calling our church to do in Denver?

What if we prayerfully sought out that type of mission?

I requested that the windows be open, that way I can preach to the world.

You know what?

Cancel church.

I have embarrassed myself.

The here's the approach that we're taking.

We're uh financially, we're great.

We've got half a million dollars from the sale of the building.

That doesn't get you very far in Denver, but it gets us far enough.

We can, we've got an incredible church.

Like looking out, getting to stand up here and look out into the eyes of a bunch of people whose names and lives I've gotten to know, it's unreal.

The capacity and the potential that we have as a church right now is just it's mind-blowing.

And so while we're considering this, we don't want to treat ourselves like a church that just lost a building.

And now we need to replace a building.

That's not what we're here to do.

We're here to serve the gospel in Denver.

And what exactly that will look like over the next six months to a year, I can't answer that question.

Can't answer exactly where it will be, but we know what it will consist in.

It will consist in us worshiping together, in us sharing the gospel in our very lives with each other.

It will consist in us getting to know our neighbors and getting to know our coworkers and being ministers to them and inviting them to church.

It will consist in us rebuking each other and receiving grace from one another, and us pursuing the Lord in Denver.

So I just wanted to say that just uh to let you know, where are we?

What's our plan?

Where are we at?

Our plan is to seek what the Lord has for us together.

And as uh the Board of Elders has been meeting, it's been an incredibly joyful time.

Uh we've been going through a book on gospel-centered eldership, um, and it's just been really orienting our focus towards our next move is not find a building.

Uh that's a part of it.

But that that's part of a bigger story.

So I wanted to say that and start off this morning by saying that just to kind of invite us all into that bigger story together.

Uh, right now, where we're at is a is a great spot.

Um, and we're hoping for more.

So uh with that, uh hoping for more, uh, one of the more things we're hoping for is next week, we are having a barbecue after church.

Uh it so are any of you barbecued out from 4th of July week?

I hope not.

Next week, uh we're going to have a short worship service uh at the same time, 4.30, and that'll wrap up at about 5 15, and then we're gonna have a party uh downstairs on the front lawn um or inside if it's raining like this.

And we will uh have a we'll have barbecue.

Uh there's a it's kind of a potluck also, so we're providing the meat, um, but all of the other things you all will provide.

We will feast together.

Uh it is BYOB, and there's gonna be a bouncy house for kids.

So in case you were thinking we weren't going all out, now you know we are.

It's gonna be a bouncy house.

Okay.

So that's our announcement.

So that's next week.

So mark your calendars.

You're not gonna want to miss that one.

Uh it'll be great to celebrate where we are together.

So let's go ahead and pray, and we'll get into this week's text.

Father, your word is like the rain.

It uh never falls to the earth without watering.

Uh it never returns to you void, it never returns to you without accomplishing exactly what you have sent it out to do.

Father, we sit with open hearts before you and with before your word, and we ask that your word would come to our hearts in an effective way, that your spirit would attend it and apply it to our hearts.

Father, we lift this up in Jesus' name.

Amen.

This is cozy.

This is our, it's raining for the podcast.

This is our last series, this is our last sermon in the Heart of Kings series.

We finally made it.

Uh, it's been about six months moving through 1st and 2nd Samuel, and we moved through three different characters that we focused on.

We looked at the heart of Samuel, uh, the heart of Saul, and then the heart of David.

And we're wrapping up this story with the final chapter of 2 Samuel and David's story today.

Uh that means there's going to be some changes coming up.

So we've got the party the next week, and then we'll have a guest speaker the week after.

And then we're going to move in uh for the remaining five weeks of the summer, and we're going to do a series on the five solas of the Reformation.

So we're going to do a week on each sola.

So that means only in Latin.

And we are uh like Han Sola.

And we are uh going to be covering uh, so those are sola scriptura, a scripture alone, faith alone, grace alone.

You'll get it, you'll get it.

Uh I didn't want to have to quiz myself there.

Uh uh that's gonna be a wonderful series because what we're doing is after moving through so much narrative, we're going to be really zeroing in on doctrine.

We're taking five weeks at the end of the summer to zero in on some of these core doctrines of our faith before we move into our fall series.

So really hope you'll be able to join us for those.

But this is our last series in the Heart of Kings series on David.

And this last sermon really sums up the whole series and kind of these themes that we've seen move through the whole series of Heart of Kings.

And that's that through all of this, all of these shifting political realities of early Israel, that we've seen move from disparate tribes with no organized leadership to disorganized under bad leadership to actually a unified kingdom that then immediately splits again.

In all this complexity, we see the rise and the fall of Israel does not take place in accord with the leaders' political acumen or the strengths of their military or the loyalty of the people that are under them, but the rising and the falling of Israel takes place regarding the disposition of the heart of the king.

It is the king's heart, his disposition towards the Lord that determines where Israel is in the story.

And so today we'll see David, who is established as the king now, he'll make this one final mess up, this one final recorded sin of David.

And in that sin, we'll see the kingdom again start to take this nosedive, and then we'll see David respond in a way that we haven't seen him respond yet.

For the first time, we're going to see the real growth in David's heart, which is that when he send when he sins, he repents.

This is the growth of David.

So that's what we're looking at today.

David once again stops counting on the Lord, and Israel suffers the consequences.

So let's go ahead and get into today's story.

2 Samuel 24, verses 1 through 3.

2 Samuel 24:1–3

It says, Again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, Go number Israel and Judah.

Now, if you were listening, that's a weird verse.

Again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel.

Now it doesn't say particularly what that is, what it is that kindled the anger of the Lord.

But it says, and he, that's God, incited David against them, saying, Go number Israel in Judah.

So the writer of this, for some reason, wants to call our attention at the very beginning of this story to the sin that we'll see David do that somehow is incited by the Lord.

In some way, there's a connection there.

Now that's a strange thing for the Bible to say, and we will address it at the end.

Just wanted to call our attention to it and then leave it hanging.

So, meaning in light of this, so the king said to Joab, the commander of the army who was with him, Go through all the tribes of Israel, from Dan to Beersheba, and number the people, that I may know the number of the people.

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 my Lord the King still see it.

But why does my Lord the King delight in this thing?

So David says, Joab, go number my kingdom.

I want to know how many people are in my kingdom.

And it's clear in the dialogue and in the way that Joab interprets it that he's not numbering it for any sort of practical reason.

He's not counting the cost before he goes to war.

This is a peacetime.

There's no impending war.

He's not numbering it for some administrative reason.

We need to know how many people there are.

That way we can divide up our judges in the land and make sure that everyone is accounted for.

There's no administrative reason behind it.

The only reason that David says that he wants the kingdom numbered is so that he might know it.

David just wants to sit back and know, oh, I've got a million people in my kingdom.

It's just so that David would know it.

And Joab puts his finger on that in their conversation.

You can see it because Joab says, uh Joab uses this phrase.

He says, May God add a hundred times as many people as there are in your kingdom.

And he's basically saying, look, David, no matter what number you get back, this is gonna be an arbitrary number.

What if it were a hundred times as many people in your kingdom, David?

Then would it be satisfying?

Would you then be validated by the number that you read back?

And then Joab uses this word.

He says, Why does my Lord the King delight in this thing?

You see, the sin of David was not in his numbering of the kingdom.

The sin of David is his delighting to know the number.

Now, what is it in David's heart that he's seeking to find by numbering his kingdom?

We can imagine it could be any number of things.

You know, he could think, if I know the amount of people that I have here, then finally I'll feel safe.

I'll feel secure because I'll know that I have more than the kingdoms around me, and I won't have to feel constantly threatened all the time.

Or David is here at the end of his time as king, and he's probably reflecting back on a long time full of a lot of hardship, and he's wondering, did this matter?

Did all the effort that I expended on this kingdom amount to anything?

How could I know that I actually am validated in my role as king?

Maybe if I knew how many people there were, then I would know.

That would give me something to delight in.

See, we could call David this as just some sort of typical insecurity, or perhaps this is even some sort of typical masculine insecurity.

Like I just I just need to know the number, and then I'll know.

Then I'll know I'm a real king, a real man.

But look, we all have a metric.

We all have something that we're using to validate our lives.

And you can tell because there are certain things that when they go wrong in your day, your day is over.

Your day is ruined.

And there are other things that when they go right in your day, it can be as though you're walking on the moon.

You feel so incredible, you've been raised up so high.

And we go for this ride of these roller coasters of what we're hooking our identity to.

Conan O'Brien, he's my favorite late night host.

And he has a podcast now, which is great, because I don't watch late-night TV.

And in it, he is talking about how he's interviewed all of these celebrities.

And he can tell that there are certain people that have hooked their identity to where they are in the stack up of how famous they've become.

And that they become a type of insane person because their life, their whole life, hinges on that metric.

But we do it with all sorts of things.

David could have been doing it with safety and security.

You know, if I know I have this many people, then I'll feel safe.

If I know I have that much saved up, then I'll finally feel safe.

Once that debt is paid off, then I'll finally feel covered.

Once me and my wife stop arguing, or at least argue at a lesser rate, then I'll finally feel comfortable and I'll feel together.

You know, once this business transaction is finally behind us, then I'll finally feel okay.

And so when that thing gets threatened during the day, you tank.

But when that thing starts to look like it'll succeed, you're walking on the moon.

We all have these metrics, these things that we give so much power, and then we go for the ride.

We go for the ride of whether they're doing well or they're doing poorly.

David happened to be a king.

And so the metric that he had is the size of his kingdom.

So he says, How will I validate myself as a king?

I will count the people in my kingdom.

Nine months later, Joab returns and he has the number.

There's 800,000 in Israel, and there's 500,000 in Judah.

Immediately upon hearing the number, David's disappointed.

And his heart strikes him.

Here's what it says in 2 Samuel 24, 10, it says, But David's heart struck him after he had after he had numbered the people.

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

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

Immediately after hearing the number, David's heart strikes him.

You know, if David has a character arc, and there's some that argue he doesn't, there are some commentators that say that David really remains the same type of person throughout the whole story, and the thing to look at is just God's faithfulness.

And look, the thing to look at is God's faithfulness.

But David, I believe, does have a real development in his character in this story, and I think the evidence for it is this verse.

Because what does David do?

He repents.

And do you notice who came and rebuked David for his sin?

No one.

This is the first time in David's story that we see his own heart strike him, and then David of his own accord turn and repent.

With the incident with Bathsheba and Uriah, it's this huge cover-up, and it's not until Nathan the prophet comes and rebukes him that David owns up to it and he repents.

In the incident in which uh uh Tamar is raped, his daughter, David does nothing, and he just tries to ignore it.

And yet in this instance, David's own heart strikes him.

And the very words that Samuel used when he rebuked Saul, David uses on himself.

So Samuel goes to Saul, you remember him, he was a slightly worse king.

And he tells Saul, You have done very foolishly.

But here, David says, of himself.

I have done very foolishly.

If we want to see the difference between David and Saul, the difference is not that one of them did foolishly and the other one didn't do foolishly.

Do you see that?

They both did foolishly.

They were both deeply sinful.

They were both deeply incapable leaders in many ways.

The difference is that David's heart becomes soft.

Soft to the point where he recognizes his own sin of his own accord.

And when he does, he doesn't turn away from the Lord to find something else to justify himself with.

We often think that Christian growth will look like, okay, there's the mature Christian, that's the one who didn't do foolishly.

And then there's the immature Christian, that's the one who does foolishly.

But that's not what we see.

The growth is they were both foolish.

One of them repents to the Lord.

That's David's growth.

That's his growth in his character.

And this may be this is leading into one of the highest points of David's time as king.

This humility that he's demonstrating here shows us something amazing.

But there's another point that I want us to see in this.

And that's David immediately repents after receiving what he thought would validate him and then realizing that it didn't.

You know, this is the type of experience that I think many of us have had where we receive something that we have such high hopes for.

We finally buy the bike that we've been researching, we finally get that weekend away that looks like an Instagram vacation, we finally get married to that person, or we finally move out of that house or into this house or whatever it may be, and we finally get there and we realize life feels unfortunately kind of the same.

Maybe even worse in some ways.

And we realize this thing that we were hoping to really say something about ourselves, it just doesn't.

It's not in there.

But the difference is that when we encounter those moments, when we encounter those experiences of being let down by receiving the thing we'd really hoped for, we rarely draw the conclusion, maybe my heart can only be satisfied in the Lord.

Instead, what we typically think is, you know, I probably just need more of that.

You know, that vacation, it didn't fulfill me in the way that I thought it would.

I probably need more of that.

I one time, I think I've told this story before, but one time uh my wife and I were riding a ski lift at Keystone, and we sat next to the guy who has had the most ski days for like the previous four years.

Uh Vail Resorts does this, the epic mix, some of you may be familiar with it, tracks your ski days.

Uh and we sat next to the guy who had won.

He had the most ski days, he skied the most vertical feet.

And uh, if you wondered how we knew that, it's because the first thing that guy tells you when he sits next to you on a ski lift is that he has the most ski days, he has the most vertical feet.

And so he went on to describe his life to us.

Megan's smiling, you remember this?

Yeah, see?

It's true.

And he's describing like what his life was like.

And he's like, Oh, I was a professor at CU Boulder, and I recently retired, and I divorced my wife, and I don't really have much of a relationship with my kids.

And so I just, I just, you know, I got I'm living the dream.

I just wake up and I I ski every day, and you know, I don't have to ski with anybody, and I don't and we Megan and I got off the lift and I was like, well, that was depressing.

Like, is he the is he the goal?

Is that what we get?

But that's what we typically do.

You know, he thought skiing's good.

You know what makes me feel pretty good?

Skiing.

Two days didn't work, maybe three.

Three days didn't cut it, maybe four.

He never considered maybe I'm not the type of creature that could be satisfied by ski days.

Maybe I'm not the type of creature that could be satisfied by just a next level, by just one more thing, by some other achievement.

Maybe I'm just not built that way.

Maybe I'm the type of creature who is built in such a way that I could only be satisfied by something infinite, by something eternal.

Maybe I'm the type of creature that was built with this deficit, a built-in deficit.

And I don't mean that in a negative way.

I mean like in an like you're intentionally built with a need.

And maybe the need that I'm intentionally built with is to only be satisfied by God.

Most of us would never consider that of ourselves.

We would never think so loftily of the human condition.

Instead, we'd think of ourselves as the type of thing that could probably be satisfied by one more promotion.

That one will that one will do it.

Oh, it's so small.

It's so small.

In C.S.

Lewis's uh book, he wrote this science fiction trilogy, and the last of it is called That Hideous Strength.

And in it, the main character is a man named Mark Studdick.

And Mark Studdek is an academic, he's a sociologist, and he gets invited to be a part of this research institution called The Nice.

And he gets invited by a friend who wasn't really a friend, but he knew he could get him in.

And when he gets in, he just starts chasing it, trying to get into the inner ring of the people who are really making the real decisions in the organization.

And he's ignoring all of these signs of why it's probably not a good thing to be a part of.

And he's twisting himself into all sorts of shapes to try and fit into the mold of what this organization would promote.

He's ignoring, I think I just said this, but he's ignoring bad things.

And he finally makes it into the real inner circle of the organization.

And he realizes it's just as bad as everywhere else.

All the things that he thought would be there that were that he'd finally be able to make the real decisions and he'd finally be able to be a part of these good things, well, they weren't there either.

But the terrifying thing is that once he finally got there, he had no idea who he was.

He was gone.

And so the book kind of climaxes with this breakdown of realizing I've given up everything to get this thing that I thought would validate me, and then now that I have it, I I've lost my soul.

If it validates me, me, what's that?

What what do I even like?

I've just done what it seemed like would work.

I've just done what it seemed like would be pragmatic.

There's no me.

And so he has this kind of breakdown and this revelation, and all of these thoughts start flooding in as he realizes that he's completely sold himself to get something that he thought would validate him.

He says this, he says, he himself did not understand why all this, which was now so clear, had never previously crossed his mind.

He was unaware that such thoughts had often knocked for entrance, but had always been excluded for the very good reason that if they were once entertained, it involved ripping up the whole web of his life, canceling almost every decision his will had ever made, and really beginning over again as though he were an infant.

David is willing to move into that type of real repentance.

Most of us don't repent of the smallest things.

Most of us don't say, you know, I really was just chasing that to validate me, and I really am just chasing this next thing to validate me.

Most of us never start to actually do that repentance.

And the reason is because it would undo, just like he says, it would be canceling almost every decision his will had ever made.

It's admitting I haven't been in control of any of the things I've been doing.

I've just been chasing the carrot that was put in front of me next.

I've just been believing the promise of life that it offered me, even though I knew, I knew that it wouldn't really give me that life.

And so we don't repent because we realize that to repent of that, to repent of the good things that we've done to try and justify ourselves, to repent of even one of those, would be to call into question almost a whole lifetime.

I think the reason that David is willing to do that is because he's experienced a total loss before.

It's because God, in his mercy, didn't allow him to get away with his adultery and his murder.

Instead, he laid it all bare in front of the kingdom.

And so David, at this point in his life, is able is able to say, I have lost everything before, and God really did uphold me.

He saw his kingdom walk away under his own son, and then he lost both of his sons.

And he said, You know what, I can repent now, I can face this loss, I can look and say, you know what I'm like as David?

I I was foolish.

I acted very foolishly towards the Lord because I thought that the number of people in my kingdom would validate me.

You know what, I'm willing to throw all that away.

And I'm gonna repent to who the Lord actually is.

That is repentance.

So a prophet comes to David after he repents.

The prophet's name is Gad, and he gives David these three options.

He says, Look, there are consequences for this sin.

You have decided to not count on the Lord, and the Lord will show you that he is the only thing worth counting on.

And he gives him three options.

God says, Gad, the prophet, speaking on behalf of God, says, uh, you can have three years of famine in your kingdom.

You will be pursued by your enemies for three months, or there will be three days of pestilence.

And this is David's response.

Then it's 2 Samuel 24, 14.

Then David said to Gad, I am in great distress.

Let us fall into the hand of the Lord, for his mercy is great, but let me not fall into the hand of man.

David, even in facing the consequences, the consequences of his sin, he says, Just put me in the hands of the Lord, because I know in the hands of the Lord I will experience his mercy.

I can count on the mercy of the Lord.

I can't count on the mercy of man.

I know what's in man, I'm one of them.

In this, we see that David is going to become the type of king that you would want.

David's gonna act courageously.

He's not going to be an insecure king who's numbering things for himself, who's looking out at his kingdom and saying, You're all here for me, and if you're here, then I will feel validated.

That's a dangerous king to have.

Instead, David is going to become the type of king that you would hope would be the king in Israel, the type of king who says, I'm here for my people.

I'm here to serve this kingdom.

I'm a king and I'm under God, and I trust in God's mercy, and I'm here to serve his purposes for the people.

David and this story, as it continues on, we will see him finally be that type of king.

And I think it's because of this repentance that we see.

So, here's how the story unfolds.

2 Samuel 24, 15 to 16.

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

And there died of the people from Dan to Beersheba 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 was working destruction among the people, It is enough.

Now stay your hand.

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

So God says, Okay, into my hands, then I will send a pestilence.

He sends an angel of the Lord.

You know, if this conjures an image, it should be the image of the Passover, when the angel of the Lord passed over Israel and killed everyone who didn't have blood on their doorposts.

Except for this time, no one has blood.

This is a real act of punishment for the sin that had taken hold in Israel.

And the angel of the Lord is moving through and then stops just before Jerusalem when the Lord commands the angel to stop, and 70,000 men had been killed.

So here is the angel of the Lord.

In Chronicles, it says, which records the same story, it says that it stops just before Jerusalem, and the angel of the Lord is suspended between heaven and earth.

He's visible.

This is a dramatic moment.

Just outside of the capital city, the angel stops his destruction.

David is in Jerusalem, he sees the angel, and he says, What I think is David's most wonderful sentence as a king, his most glorious moment.

2 Samuel 24, 17, it says, 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.

David places himself between the wrath of God and his people.

And he says, Look at my sin, put it on me.

Put this punishment on me where the sin belongs.

Put it on me and my father's house.

I don't count those things of value.

I'm here to be king.

I'm here to serve the people.

I'm here to protect the sheep.

And David puts himself in between them.

And God relents his hand.

But he doesn't turn against David.

Instead, God instructs him to go down to where the site that the angel of the Lord had stopped.

And that's that threshing floor.

It's a great threshing floor.

The threshing floor of Aruanna, the Jebusite.

So David goes down, and the whole royal court is with him.

And they arrive at Aruanna's threshing floor, and this Jebusite is obviously very frightened.

Why is the king visiting me?

And he he says, Look, David, whatever you need, whatever you want to do, just take it.

It's yours.

Take it.

David says, I'm setting up an altar, but I'm not going to sacrifice to the Lord when it costs me nothing.

So instead of taking the land for free, he buys the land from the Jebusite.

So that means this land, which belonged to a non-Israelite, was not technically a part of Jerusalem, is purchased by the king with money and becomes a part of Jerusalem.

And David sets up an altar there.

And this is recorded in Chronicles.

But until that time, the tabernacle, which was constructed by Moses, and the ark, in the place of sacrifice for the city, for the nation of Israel, was in a town called Gibeon.

But this is what David said in 1 Chronicles 22, 1.

It says, Then David said, Here shall be the house of the Lord God, and here the altar of burnt offering for Israel.

That means the reason that the temple will be built in Jerusalem is because David stepped in and he said, Don't punish the sheep.

Instead, put it on me.

Later in Jerusalem, another king will show up.

And he will be just outside the city as well.

And he'll be called the Good Shepherd.

And he'll describe himself as the Good Shepherd.

When he describes himself that way, he'll say, I'm the good shepherd.

You know why?

Because the Good Shepherd lays down his life for his sheep.

That's what the real king does.

And that'll happen in Jerusalem.

The real sacrifice will be made.

The story began with this strange verse.

2 Samuel 24, verse 1, it said, Again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, Go number Israel and Judah.

2 Samuel 24:1

You know, throughout the story, we've seen all sorts of sinful people, and we've seen incredible corruption move through every rank of uh of Israel in its establishment.

A friend, for those of you taking the Gotham curriculum, you'll be reading through a uh a book called The Story of Christian Theology.

And it's just like a brief brief, it's a big book, it's kind of a doorstop.

And it's a church history.

And I've been talking with some folks that have been reading through it now, and they've just been saying, like, when does this end?

Like, at what point does the church become like like, you know, kind of good?

Like this seems like just like this insane corruption in these horrible people throughout the whole story.

And it I want to say, isn't it amazing?

Isn't it amazing that through that type of sin-ridden corrupt people from the very beginning, it's kept going?

That the church has kept marching on.

Doesn't it make you think something else is going on?

You know, if we had a lesser God, I think he'd say, I'm gonna make a glorious people for myself.

And the way that I'm gonna make a glorious people for myself is I'm gonna get the best people, the most self-controlled, the most impressive.

And then when I when I save them, they're just gonna be perfect.

Boom, right away.

And in their perfection, you'll know, oh, they're perfect, so their God must be perfect.

If we had a lesser God, I think you would have done it that way.

But you can picture our God talking to that lesser God, saying, Yeah, you can do it with strong people, I can do it with weak.

You can do it by conquering, I can do it by sacrifice.

You can do it with the wise, give me fools.

You can do it with the proud, I can do it with the humble and contrite.

So God comes to David, he's angry, and he's like, you know what?

There's gonna be sin in David's heart.

But that sin in David's heart is going to cause a catastrophe in Israel.

That catastrophe in Israel is gonna cause David to repent.

In David's repentance, he's going to stop the hand of the angel of the Lord right at this threshing floor just outside of Israel.

And that temp and then that place I'm gonna make become a part of Israel, and I'm gonna build a temple there, and I'm gonna dwell there.

And that temple, by the way, I'm going to let Gentiles from all the nations come and worship me at.

And then later, I'm going to come there myself.

And I'm going to go to Jerusalem and I'm going to offer my hand to them.

And in their and I'm not going to go there after I've made them less wicked.

I'm going to go there at the height of their wickedness.

And how am I going to rescue them?

I'm going to let them kill me.

And they'll be saved.

The gospel is a strange story.

We have to build into our hearts a new understanding of what it really means to grow in faith.

And that understanding is we grow in our dependence on God.

Because if he can weave something so beautiful out of such corruptness, then we would see that our only hope is to turn to him.

And the good news is we can.

The good news is Jesus is the good shepherd.

The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep.

What is our hope?

It is Jesus.

David becomes a great king here at the end.

But he becomes a great king because he realizes that his only hope is God, and he repents of everything else that isn't God.

So with that, let's take one question.

See if perhaps there is one.

No questions today.

We covered it.

Before we move into communion, let us consider that Jesus' broken body and his poured out blood is how he shows us that he is the good shepherd.

That our hope is found not in turning to ourselves or in anything else that we are seeking to validate ourselves, but let us repent of those things and turn in faith towards Christ.

That we might live in incredible freedom.

That we might live as the type of kings that we see David as at the end of this.

One whose glory is found and his ability to lose it for the sake of others.

Let's remember Christ's love towards us and turn to him.

Father, I pray that your gospel would move in our hearts.

The good news that you are king, the announcement that Christ is king, and that you have been ruling over all of history to bring about your redemption.

Lord, let our hope be in you.

Let it not be in our own strength, but let it be in your strength.

Father, let us lay ourselves down that we might see your glory.

Lift this up in Jesus' name.

Amen.