[0:00] whom they will call the Blessed One. Please have a seat.
[0:14] Let me just add my own welcome. Welcome to church this morning, especially if you're new and gathering with us. We pray that you would know God's encouragement.
[0:24] A welcome also to church this evening at 5.30. Some of the themes that we're touching upon this morning, we will think about in the wonderful beginning of John's gospel.
[0:37] We're thinking about the questions that Jesus asked. In John 1, he asked the question, what do you want? One of the most fundamental questions we can ever ask ourselves. Jesus asks it of us.
[0:51] And again, just a welcome, if you are able to join one of our community discipleship groups, a place to enjoy friendship, fellowship around the Bible, to discuss it, to pray together.
[1:05] A great opportunity for us to build strength together, to encourage one another in the middle of the week. Well, now let me invite you now to turn with me to God's words.
[1:16] 2 Samuel chapter 7. This is the last time for now we'll be thinking about aspects of the life of David. And we just sang the psalm to the perfect king, anticipating the Messiah who will come.
[1:33] And in chapter 7 of 2 Samuel, we have the gospel of the promised king in another form. So let's hear God's word. After the king was settled in his palace, and the Lord had given him rest from all his enemies around him, he said to Nathan the prophet, here I am, living in a house of cedar, while the ark of God remains in a tent.
[1:59] Nathan replied to the king, whatever you have in mind, go ahead and do it, for the Lord is with you. But that night the word of the Lord came to Nathan, saying, Go and tell my servant David, this is what the Lord says.
[2:14] Are you the one to build me a house to dwell in? I have not dwelt in a house from the day I brought the Israelites up out of Egypt to this day. I have been moving from place to place with a tent as my dwelling.
[2:26] Wherever I have moved with all the Israelites, did I ever say to any of their rulers, whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, why have you not built me a house of cedar? Now then, tell my servant David, this is what the Lord Almighty says.
[2:41] I took you from the pasture, from tending the flock, and appointed you ruler over my people Israel. I have been with you wherever you have gone, and I have cut off all your enemies from before you.
[2:54] Now I will make your name great, like the names of the greatest men on earth, and I will provide a place for my people Israel, and will plant them so that they can have a home of their own, and no longer be disturbed.
[3:08] Wicked people shall not oppress them anymore, as they did at the beginning, and have done ever since the time I appointed leaders over my people Israel. I will also give you rest from all your enemies.
[3:21] The Lord declares to you that the Lord Himself will establish a house for you. When your days are over and you rest with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, your own flesh and blood, and I will establish His kingdom.
[3:37] He is the one who will build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of His kingdom forever. I will be His father, and He shall be my son.
[3:48] When He does wrong, I will punish Him with a rod wielded by men, with floggings inflicted by human hands, but my love will never be taken away from Him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you.
[4:03] Your house and your kingdom shall endure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever. Nathan reported to David all the words of this entire revelation.
[4:18] Amen. So this morning, we are thinking about promise and fulfillment. And to help us with that, picture a child of the 80s, the first time walking down the street where they see one of those mobile phones.
[4:38] And imagine that child in the 80s saying, one day, one day my child will have one of those, those shiny, wonderful, magnificent pieces of technology. If we fast forward through the decades, and it's now the child's birthday, if he is given the shiny new iPhone, is the promise kept?
[5:03] I think we would all answer yes. You know, back in the 80s, the giant brick was the best that could be imagined at the time, but the promise has been fulfilled in light of new technology, in light of the passing of history.
[5:21] Now this is important because we have a central promise from God given to King David. And from this point in Israel's history, their hope is now centered on the everlasting Messiah King.
[5:38] He's the hope of God's people. So you turn to the Gospels. Remember John the Baptist asking the question about Jesus. Are you the one who is to come? That question matters more than anything else.
[5:52] But see, for most of the Israelites, and that includes in Jesus' day, their expectations were low in terms of how this promise would be fulfilled. This Messiah, he would be a strong king. He would have a settled political kingdom.
[6:05] There might be freedom and peace for the people of God in their land. But we're going to see that God's fulfillment is far bigger than they could ever have dreamed of.
[6:17] And it's a hope and it's a promise of Jesus, the Son of God, who has come to be Messiah King to establish an everlasting kingdom. So 2 Samuel 7 explains to us the significance of Jesus as everlasting king.
[6:36] That right now, Jesus rules and reigns over all. Because we might find ourselves wondering, okay, here is a promise for a king of Israel, for a future king of Israel.
[6:47] What has that got to do with us? We turn to the gospels. Maybe we wonder, why is it that Matthew and Luke, as they tell the story of Jesus, why do they highlight, again and again, Jesus born in David's city?
[7:02] Jesus comes from David's family. Jesus fulfills David's promise. To help us, we're going to need to do some work. We're going to need to pull on some, what we can call, gospel threads.
[7:15] There are themes that are woven throughout the Bible. words, ideas, and themes that direct us both backwards to previous promises.
[7:26] So we'll be thinking a lot about creation and Adam and Eve. We're going to think about promises made to Abraham. But there are also going to be these promises that connect us forward to King Jesus, to the good news of the gospel.
[7:39] Because in this promise made to David, the Spirit gives us eyes to see, we will see the glory of Christ. We will see the hope that He brings, the promise of new beginnings, the grace that He shows to His people.
[8:00] But before we get to that point, we need to recognize the central theme of this passage. And it's the theme of the promised house.
[8:11] David wants to build a house for God. God speaks of building a house for David. His house building is there. So let's work through the text very briefly, thinking first about David's housing crisis.
[8:26] If you look in your Bibles, do you see the crisis there in the first three verses? God has settled the king in his palace and given him rest. God has established David as king, and David's instinct in response, God has given me rest.
[8:45] I want to build a resting place for God. We recognize again that David has a profound concern for God's glory. We already saw it in chapter 6.
[8:57] As he worshiped, as he wanted the ark to be brought to Jerusalem, he wanted to connect his throne with God's throne to show that he was living as God's king under God's rule.
[9:14] And he's still concerned for the glory of God. And so he has this problem, he has this crisis. Verse 2, he explains it to Nathan, the prophet. Here I am, living in a house of cedar.
[9:24] I've got this great big luxurious palace, but God's ark, the symbol of God's presence, the symbol of God's rule, it's in a tent. That doesn't seem right to David.
[9:37] Nathan recognizes David's heart, he recognizes his instinct is right, whatever you have in mind, go ahead and do it, for the Lord is with you, though we'll discover, God says, not yet and not you.
[9:50] That's David's housing crisis, but from that, we discover something of God's housing policy, because in verse 4, the word of the Lord comes.
[10:02] It comes through Nathan. And the response is that there is something that is far more important to God than living in a solid structure, than living in a cedar house.
[10:15] And that more important principle is what we can call the Emmanuel principle. This principle that God desires to live with his people, God with us, God with his people.
[10:30] So in verses 6 and 7, that's what he says, it was true for Israel. During the time of the Exodus and in the wilderness, I have been moving from place to place with a tent as my dwelling.
[10:42] Wherever Israel moved, God moved with them, because most important to him, being with his people. And in fact, he makes it even more personal, because he says this was true for David in his rise to the throne.
[10:57] Look at verse 8. I took you from the pasture and appointed you ruler. I have been with you wherever you have gone. The story of the nation, the story of the king, God with his people.
[11:12] It's one of the great themes and promises that we find throughout the Bible. So this evening, we're going to turn to John chapter 1, verse 14. Jesus, the word of God, the word who became flesh and dwelt among us.
[11:27] And we have seen his glory, the glory of God in the tent of a human body. Well, having explained his housing priority and policy, in verses 11 to 16, we see the house building project.
[11:46] Three details that stand out. First of all, God will say to David, David, you will not build the house for me in the sense of a dwelling place.
[11:58] We discover in verse 12 and 13 that that's going to be Solomon's job and Jesus is going to come and he's going to be the true temple and establish a kingdom that lasts forever.
[12:10] But David is not going to build the house. He's not going to build the dwelling place. But God will build David's house. We'll establish a dynasty. We'll establish a royal family for David.
[12:23] The Lord declares to you that the Lord himself will establish a house for you. There's a principle of grace going on here. That the first thing that needs to happen is that God must first make this promise.
[12:40] God must first establish David's family line as the one through whom the kingdom will rest forever. And from that promise, from that grace, then can come obedience serving, can come the building of the temple through Solomon.
[13:00] So David will not build the house. God will build the house. But we also need to recognize that these two houses, by God's design, will be connected. And we see that there in that it's this, someone from this permanent dynasty, Solomon, David's son, who will build a permanent dwelling place, the temple for the Lord.
[13:23] Speaking to us of God's desire that the throne and the temple be united. God desires that his king establish and be, when we come to Jesus, the true temple, the true meeting place between God and man.
[13:41] But there is this permanent union of the crowds that the Lord God will rule forever through the son he loves. And that son that he loves is Jesus.
[13:55] Two points of application for us at this stage. First, just to remind ourselves that God's glory matters. David was right in his concern for God's glory.
[14:10] His timing was off, but his instinct was right. We actually discover in the later prophets, you could turn to a prophet like Haggai. And Haggai is told by God to deliver a message to the people, a message of judgment.
[14:26] Judgment because the people were living in their luxurious houses, but the temple was lying in ruins. So, they are judged for not having a concern for God's glory, and that was shown in not having a concern for the temple.
[14:42] So, when David wanted to build, it was for him going to be an expression of worship. God is glorious. What value do you and I place on God's glory in our lives, in our day to day, relative to our own luxury, relative to our own concern for our own glory?
[15:08] Because God's glory matters. And secondly, God's building project matters. So, this kingdom promise that we have here is a permanent, eternal promise.
[15:23] This is a promise of God's everlasting king. This is a promise of God's faithful love. Even when, and God's word spoke of this, even when his people mess up, and we see the kings of Israel mess up in sin frequently, this is a promise of an eternal kingdom that even endures beyond the grave.
[15:51] Book of Acts, body of David decayed. Jesus' body didn't see decay. He was raised up and now he has an eternal kingdom. God's building project matters.
[16:04] And it matters because it centers on a perfect king. So, that's where we're going to turn next to the perfect king anticipated in this promise.
[16:17] Some of us, I imagine, will be familiar with the legend of Excalibur, the sword in the stone, the story of how the boy Arthur was revealed as the rightful king of the Britons.
[16:35] If you're not familiar with the story, the previous king died, a king by the name of Pendragon. There was no heir to the throne and so the kingdom was thrown into chaos. The knights of England were rising to get armies to fight with one another to see who would be the king.
[16:52] And then, this mysterious sword in the stone appeared. And there was a test. Whoever can pull the sword from the stone, he is the rightful king.
[17:06] Arthur passed the test and he was crowned and there was peace. For hundreds of years, ever since the promise of 2 Samuel 7, God's people have been searching and longing for the rightful king.
[17:25] Where is the Messiah? Has he come yet? When will he be? Are you the one who is to come? What will be the sign?
[17:37] How will we know when this worthy one appears? Not that he will pull a sword from a stone. The worthy one, the rightful king, will fulfill the amazing promise that we find here in this chapter.
[17:56] And so, what we're going to do is we're going to pull on, as I said, some of those gospel threads, these themes that are woven together, that help the New Testament writers to see the everlasting king is Jesus.
[18:09] They were in no doubt, as they began to preach the book of Acts and as they wrote the New Testament, that Jesus is this promised king. He is good news and a good news beyond anyone's wildest imagination.
[18:24] The first thread to pull on is the thread of hope and it's hope connected to a seed or to the offspring.
[18:36] Hope, of course, is important. It's important for us as people. Hope gets us out of bed. Hope keeps us moving forward. Hope allows us to dream that things will get better.
[18:51] It is a hard thing when we find our hopes are disappointed, when our hopes are crushed. One thing that we discover that we want as people is solid hope.
[19:06] Something or someone we can place our hopes in who will not, which will not disappoint. as we've already said, that for the people of God in the Old Testament, for the nation of Israel, this promise given to David meant that for them, Messiah King is my hope.
[19:28] Hope is now located in a person. And as they lived through dark times, times of division within the kingdom, as they saw their nation invaded, as they went into exile, still hope remained in the Messiah King.
[19:55] And that hope was planted there by God. There's a deliberate word choice here in verse 12. When your days are over and you rest with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, your own flesh and blood, and I will establish his kingdom.
[20:18] That word offspring, sometimes translated seed, is a thread that speaks hope. Because those were words spoken to Abraham, known in the Bible as the father of faith.
[20:34] in Genesis chapter 15, to childless Abraham came the promise that it will be an offspring, it will be a seed from your own body that God will bring blessing, God will speak his promise to the nations of the world.
[20:56] And now we're being told the king, this future king, is the seed, is the offspring who will bring blessing from God to all who will trust in him.
[21:09] If we want to know life with God, the love of God, hope from God, we need to know the offspring. And there's more. Because this word offspring or seed was a word that was spoken to Adam and Eve way back in the Garden of Eden.
[21:29] in Genesis chapter 3, as they were living in a perfect world, perfect garden, perfect peace with one another, perfect life with God, they fell into sin.
[21:40] They were tempted to disobey God, to mistrust God, to do the one thing they were commanded not to do, and so sin came into the world, bringing all the death and the ruin and the chaos that we see in our world today.
[21:56] And even then, Genesis 3, 15, God spoke a word of promise, the promise of a seed who would crush the head of the serpent.
[22:10] The one whose heel would be bruised, but he would crush the head of the serpent, anticipating King Jesus coming on a rescue mission to save sinners by defeating evil.
[22:23] evil. That's why the New Testament authors want to keep highlighting for us, Jesus is from Abraham's family, Jesus is from David's family line.
[22:36] That's why Paul in the book of Galatians will say, Jesus is the seed, because he speaks hope to the world. In the coming of Jesus as everlasting King, there is everlasting hope, hope that extends beyond death.
[22:50] Here is hope that is solid, it is death proof. In Jesus comes the blessing of God. To trust in Jesus means to enjoy life and relationship with God.
[23:04] It means that we enter into a covenant relationship with God, which means that his steadfast love, his faithful love, is now guaranteed to us. And this promise extends to all nations, whoever we are, wherever we're from, is a call to believe and to trust.
[23:26] And in the coming of Jesus, the promised seed, he brings the salvation of God. It's the message of the cross. Colossians chapter 2 speaks of Jesus winning a triumphant victory over sin and darkness at the cross.
[23:47] That by his death and through his resurrection, he has disarmed the power of evil. That for those who are dead in our sins, we are made alive with Christ.
[24:01] For those deserving to be condemned, Jesus took that condemnation. He took the record of all our wrongdoings. It was nailed to the cross.
[24:11] The price is paid in full by faith in him. We have freedom. There is hope in the coming of the perfect king. Here's a second thread that we need to pull on.
[24:25] Verses 10 and 11. It's connected to the idea of new beginnings. I will provide a place for my people, Israel, and will plant them so that they can have a home of their own and no longer be disturbed.
[24:42] End of verse 11. I will also give you rest from all your enemies. In the world that we live in right now, I imagine we all experience in different ways this sort of tension.
[24:57] we see beauty in our world. We see beauty within creation. We see beauty in one another. But we also see brokenness, tragedy, despair.
[25:18] There is this tension where we all have this longing for restoration and governments and organizations and individuals are plowing energy and billions of pounds to try and bring restoration.
[25:33] We have this tension where deep down we also sense something of human weakness. That we can't actually bring in the world we all want as much as we would love to.
[25:48] And so this promise comes as good news. It speaks of a kingdom established by God which brings good news for his people.
[25:59] It speaks of a restored creation. It speaks of God's people living in a world of peace and rest and where God is present.
[26:17] Now we pull on that thread that leads us again back to promises given to Abraham in Genesis chapter 12. Abraham was told to leave his home, his family, to leave everything and to go to the place that God had promised him.
[26:36] The promised land. And in the promised land God's people were to be settled in this place that God had for them knowing that God was with them ruling over them for their good.
[26:54] It's a theme that pulls us all the way back again to the Garden of Eden to life as it was in the beginning creation, life for Adam and Eve.
[27:04] They were planted. They were planted in God's perfect garden. And they were planted in this perfect place and God was there.
[27:15] They were enjoying perfect friendship with their God. In the land, the Garden of Eden, they enjoyed deep rest.
[27:28] In fact, their very first full day as people created in the image of God was a day of rest. To share with God his enjoyment of the perfect world that he had made, to enjoy perfect relationship relationship with God, to live lives of worship.
[27:48] We were made for this rest. Don't we often find ourselves restless, frustrated, longing?
[28:01] Then we hear Jesus say, come to me and I will give you rest. He is inviting us into the life that we were made for.
[28:16] King Jesus, in his victorious work, opens up the way to paradise for us. Remember his words to the thief on the cross?
[28:29] That thief who turned and in his last hours recognized recognized that Jesus had done nothing wrong, that he was righteous and he was a king with a kingdom? As he turned to Jesus and said, remember me when you come into your kingdom?
[28:44] Jesus turned to him and said, today you'll be with me in paradise. Jesus is the way home to God.
[28:57] To enjoy life with God himself, we begin to experience it here, but we look forward the remains for the people of God, a Sabbath rest still to come.
[29:09] We look forward to eternal rest, eternal peace, an eternal sense of being home with our God. And that's the promise of the gospel, that King Jesus who today is ruling and reigning over all things as King of Heaven, one day at the end of history, the time that God appoints, he'll return and he'll make everything new.
[29:31] Sin and evil and death will be destroyed. A kingdom of justice and peace will be established that will last forever for all those who trust in him.
[29:44] New beginnings because of a perfect king. One more thread to pull on. It's the thread that brings us to consider God's grace.
[29:56] The idea of grace runs counter to culture. We have so many invitations and encouragements to make a name for yourself.
[30:08] That relentless call to prove yourself in a relationship in the workplace. And it can be exciting, but it can also be exhausting.
[30:21] It can be a call that can lead us to pride, making a name for ourselves. And if we bring that mentality, that mindset into religion, thinking, I must prove myself so I can save myself, it is death.
[30:41] It's deathly. It's impossible. God is too holy and we are too sinful. The gap is simply too wide. But God's grace comes. God's grace comes here in verse 9.
[30:56] David wanted to do something for God. God says, I have been with you wherever you have gone and now I will make your name great.
[31:08] David, I will make for you a great name. And again, this phrase takes us back. Takes us back to Abraham, takes us back to Genesis 12, actually takes us back one chapter earlier to the Tower of Babel.
[31:24] You read Genesis chapter 11, you come to the Tower of Babel, you find the people on the earth instead of scattering to spread the glory of God to the far reaches of the world, they gather together in defiance of God and in an act of pride and rebellion they build this city then they want to build this tower so that we might make a name for ourselves.
[31:47] God scatters them in judgment but God's gracious response is to speak to Abraham and to call Abraham and to say Abraham, I will make your name great.
[32:05] There's grace and from Abraham's family, blessing to the nations and now we understand that God is raising up a king Abraham's line, David's line, who will bless the nations, who will extend the grace of God.
[32:25] There is grace here in the promise from God himself to David, I will establish a house for you, I will raise up your offspring, I'm going to do it.
[32:40] the God of grace provides the king who will rule and reign forever. The God of grace establishes the kingdom that is everlasting, establishes a king who forever knows God's love because he is the eternal son of God.
[33:01] And the message of the gospels is Jesus is this king declared by the angels as the savior, as the Christ, the anointed one, the Messiah, the Lord, declared by God the father at his baptism to be the beloved son with whom the father is well pleased.
[33:22] And even as we turn to the cross and think about the message of the cross, Jesus, the righteous king, the promised king, who will be flogged, who will be killed, though he has done nothing wrong, in the place of those who have sinned, in the place of lawbreakers.
[33:47] But as 2 Samuel 7 also anticipates, this king will be raised up. And as we read our Bibles, we discover Jesus was raised up.
[33:58] He was raised up from the dead on the third day. His disciples saw him raised up to glory where he now sits on the throne of heaven. And he has been raised up to receive the name that is above every name, that the name of Jesus, every knee should bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.
[34:20] We have this promise from God, who is a God of grace, that he will send a king who is a gift of grace, who extends grace, who says to us, you don't have to try and save yourself or prove yourself, come to me and be saved.
[34:35] Come to me and find forgiveness. Come to me and find rest. Let's close very briefly by thinking about a personal response.
[34:51] God's storyline of salvation weaves together wonderful threads and brings them together in the personal work of Jesus, the promised everlasting king. Come back tonight, we'll think about it some more wonderful theme to help us to see the glory of God.
[35:06] But Jesus fulfills this promise to be God with us. Jesus is the king who rescues. Jesus is the king who will return to restore the world we all want. He is the one who brings salvation and life with God for sinners.
[35:19] He is the one who offers and promises ultimate peace and rest. He is the one who provides the way home to God. 2 Samuel 7 gives the promise. Jesus brings an out-of-this-world fulfillment.
[35:34] It's hope and promise for each one of us today. So how to respond? And what can we learn as David receives this promise? We didn't read these verses, but I'm going to read them now.
[35:47] Three responses, three verses. As David gets this promise, he turns to God in prayer. The first response I think that this calls for is the response of worship.
[36:01] We hear it from David. King David went in and sat before the Lord and he said, Who am I, Sovereign Lord, and what is my family that you've brought me thus far?
[36:14] Let the promises of God about Jesus the king produce a sense of wonder at his mercy and his goodness.
[36:27] That the king of the universe commits himself to tiny people, sinful people like us, to raise us to glory, should provoke the response of worship.
[36:41] Second response, verse 21, David recognizes, For the sake of your word and according to your will you have done this great thing and made it known to your servant.
[36:57] Humility. As we consider the wonder of all that God has done for us, shouldn't it lead us to humility? As we consider ourselves, we think about the state of our hearts and our lives, our weakness, our inability, that we would come with empty hands to the king of grace, to receive forgiveness, to receive salvation, to enter into new life.
[37:28] The last response, I think that these promises of the wonderful king calls for is the response of faith. Listen to David in verse 25, And now, Lord God, keep forever the promise you have made concerning your servant and his house.
[37:51] Do as you promised. David knows that promise is huge, but he also knows that God who promises is faithful, and he will do it.
[38:05] How do you and I today know that God is faithful to keep his promises? Because he sent Jesus to be this king. We see it in his perfect life, we see it in his sacrificial death, we see it in the glory of his resurrection.
[38:22] He is this king. And he calls for believing trust. He calls us to accept God's promises for ourselves.
[38:38] And he calls us to bow, to confess. Jesus is my Lord. Jesus is my king. Let's pray together.
[38:53] Lord, our God, we thank you for the great storyline of salvation woven throughout the pages of the Bible. people.