Let's go ahead and turn together to the book of 2 Samuel, to chapter seven, as we continue to work our way through this Old Testament narrative book. We saw last time that David at this point has brought the ark into Jerusalem, and he has installed it there, But the text doesn't really tell us where he installed it because of course this is before the temple has been erected and this is before the time when they have shifted from the tabernacle over to the temple. And so it naturally flows into the next idea we're going to encounter. And the passage that we're looking at includes a very famous portion of scripture called, it's often referred to as the Davidic covenant. A covenant is essentially a promise. It's a solemn promise, and there are various kinds of covenants. One key idea that you should hold in mind concerning covenants is they don't always have the word covenant stamped into them. You have this particular passage here, which doesn't use the word covenant, but then we find in other texts of scripture, it explicitly refers to this as a covenant made with David and his house. So our view of covenant theology is not restricted only to those places where we find out word. We'll begin our reading at verse one. Now when the king lived in his house, and the Lord had given him rest from all his surrounding enemies, the king said to Nathan the prophet, see now, I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of God dwells in a tent. And Nathan said to the king, go, do all that is in your heart, for the Lord is with you. But that same night, the word of the Lord came to Nathan. Go and tell my servant David, thus says the Lord, would you build me a house to dwell in? I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day. And I've been moving about in a tent for my dwelling. In all places where I have moved with all the people of Israel, did I speak a word with any of the judges of Israel, whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, saying, Why have you not built me a house of cedar? Now therefore, thus you shall say to my servant David, Thus says the Lord of hosts, I took you from the pasture from following the sheep, that you should be prince over my people Israel. And I have been with you wherever you went, and have cut off all your enemies from before you. And I will make for you a great name, like the name of the great ones of the earth. And I will appoint a place for my people Israel, and will plant them so that they may dwell in their own place and be disturbed no more. And violent men shall afflict them no more as formerly, from the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel. and I will give you rest from all your enemies. 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 fathers, 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. When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men, but my steadfast love will not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you. And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever." In accordance with all these words and in accordance with all this vision, Nathan spoke to David. Let's ask the Lord's special blessing. Father, we thank you and we praise you for your word, which you have preserved down to this very evening. Oh, Lord, help us to scratch even at the surface of the awesome promise that you gave not only to David, but by extension to all who believe with him, who have been brought into the household of Jesus Christ. We thank you, Father, for having given to us a house more magnificent, more enduring than anything that human hands could ever contrive. Help us to rejoice in you, in Jesus' name, amen. In a sense, we can say that David's desire was not uncommon, simply in that throughout all of human history, as far back as we can see, rulers of people have expressed this will to build great houses, great monuments to what they regarded as gods. You can find this in every culture. It seems to be built into what human beings are, to have this impulse to dwell with God and to make a house for him. And for anyone younger here, recognize when we find this language of a house, that is how ancient people conceived of these buildings that we tend to call temple. It simply was stylized as a great house for the presence of the God to meet with his people. And of course, ancient people typically did believe that the gods that they worshipped transcended the physical, the visible realm. And they thought that when they would go into these houses, their god would localize its presence or manifest in a special way to meet with them. This idea, of course, preceded all paganism, and it goes back to the garden. It's rooted in something real, that God originally did walk with his people. He met with Adam and Eve. And there's a longing ever since being cast out of that primordial temple to be back in the place with God. You find this all over the world, whether you're looking at the temple at Luxor in Egypt, or the Parthenon, this desire to make something great and befitting of the gods. So in that sense, David's desire is not unusual. However, we're going to see his motives were very different from what you find in natural man, in unbelieving man. And his motives do contain in them things that we ought to imitate as we look at building up the house of the Lord. But much, much more significantly than David's motives in this passage, what the Lord is demonstrating is his lavish generosity according to his covenant in Jesus Christ. He knows that David or anyone can never build the kind of house that would befit the divine glory. No one could, not with anything on this earth. And the Lord says, essentially, I am going to build a house that's not only what I desire, that fits me, but the kind of house I desire is the kind that you are brought into. Now, on the one hand, I recognize for perhaps all of us, certainly most I trust, most of us, we understand this story. God has given to us a house. Christ is building for us the temple. What I put to you is whether this evening you are actively resting in and receiving the promise that God is the one who built up the house. He is the one who is forming block by block, believer by believer, a home for himself in this world. And he wants you to receive it. Now that doesn't mean don't act. David is going to act and he's going to gather up supplies. But he's acting as one who believes upon the promise God is doing this I get to watch and be a part of it. And it's that resting, which in part is really the most glorious thing that David or we can do. Resting in the Lord to do what he says he will do brings him more glory than if we piled up all the treasures of the earth to build him some great big structure and yet did not believe upon him. Faith glorifies the Lord. And the Lord calls us to that faith in this passage. Now, as we look at it, we're going to do so under two main divisions. I'll announce each of them as we come to them. The first is this, let's start by examining David's heart. Examining his heart and exploring in what way is his desire to build for the Lord worthy of imitation? The first thing that we see in verse 18, in fact, if you look a little bit down, is that it wasn't rooted in a selfish desire for glory. Verse 18, you get a sense of his humility. Then King David went in and sat before the Lord and said, who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house that you have brought me thus far? And that's exactly the heart that we should each have. When you recognize the blessings that are given to you in Jesus Christ, and that it's not in response to something you've done. David hasn't built anything for the Lord, he hasn't even started gathering. And yet the Lord blesses him abundantly. David says, who am I? What is my house? Why are you so kind to me? And this is, in the Lord's sight, beautiful. And what we are to aspire to, and that's very different than the world that says, look at me, look at me. Always working on its press, always working on its image. We each have to be aware of that. And pride can take the smallest occasion and warp it into a mirror to reflect back on our greatness in some way. If we're honest with ourselves, if we were to climb a ladder just 10 feet and look down on ourselves, we'd say, we are not that extraordinary. Why must we have the glory? Again, the most glorious thing that you can do is shine light upon who the Lord is and what he has done. And that's how David feels. Not because he was this by nature, but God, in love for his people, raised up David, gave David this kind of heart, a shadow of Christ who was to come, But this shows you what the Lord desires in his people and what he finds ultimately in Christ. You notice that David really has the opposite issue. Instead of wanting glory for himself, he feels uncomfortable with the degree of glory that he is now receiving as the king. And that is a model for anyone who would be in positions of authority, whether that's as a school teacher or whether that is as some leader in a business, as a pastor or a civil servant. A mark of Christian maturity is that there is this tension, this discomfort. I have a duty, I have a responsibility, somebody has to fill this role, but I don't want any glory for myself. You see this in verse three. It says, now when the king lived in his house, and the Lord had given him rest from all his surrounding enemies, the king said to Nathan the prophet, see now, I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of God dwells in a tent. David has this opulent home, and he's got rest, a stable place to return to again and again. God doesn't have that. He's in this place made out of fabric, as it were. That's where he's choosing to meet with them, and covered on the outside with skins of animals. That's just not right, David feels. Now, you might read that and say, Cedar, that doesn't seem so expensive. Isn't a house made of stone so much more great? You have to understand some of the economics of the time and the area that they were located in. Israel abounds with stone. They have plenty of that. And labor could be relatively cheap. They did not abound in high-quality, large trees. And so if you really wanted to display power and wealth, what you did was you hired workers from countries to the north to cut down their large cedars and to float these on the waters near the shore of the Mediterranean Sea and to bring it down to your land and then haul it inland all the way to Jerusalem. This is how you display wealth. Not rock, yes of course they had rock too, but to have paneling. And the prophets talk about that. At one point when God's people have gone astray, one of the rebukes that the Lord gives them through the prophets is to say, you dwell in your paneled houses. while the Lord's house lies in disrepair, while the poor go hungry. You have your nice paneled homes. David feels uncomfortable with the fact that he has this, because on the one hand, he wants to represent the glory of the people, or the glory of the Lord to the people, but on the other hand, why doesn't God have this? Contrast that with King Nebuchadnezzar. If you're familiar with the story at all, in the book of Daniel, Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, looks over his kingdom, and he says, behold, all that I have made. Somehow, we ourselves, I can't speak for you, I can speak for me, I can mow my lawn and say, look at the good life I've given to myself. I'm not saying I live in that frame of mind, but we just have this intrusion, this is a human thing, it's a sin thing. this intrusion of pride that instead of receiving from the Lord for his glory, we immediately say, look what I've provided for myself. Contrast that, in fact, using the words of Matthew Henry, one of the most, I think, helpful commentators who have ever lived. His commentary states, how different were the thoughts of David when he sat in his palace from Nebuchadnezzar's when he walked in his? That proud man thought of nothing but the might of his own power and the honor of his own majesty. This humble soul is full of contrivance, how to glorify God and give honor to him. And then this is the key thing he says, the flesh wants to improve others' estimate of ourselves, but the spirit moves us to magnify others' knowledge of the Lord. Isn't it the case, depending on stage of life especially, We begin for the first time to make slightly more money than it takes just to make ends meet. And how quickly does it come to be that your first thought is, what are the good things I can give to myself, and even some things that will make others recognize that I have arrived? My point is not to say that the Lord does not desire you to have good things. He clearly desired to share good things with Abraham, who was abundantly wealthy, with Job, with David, The book of James says that the Lord has given us all good things to enjoy. And yet, in the order of priorities, David feels a yearning, how can I glorify the Lord through these things? And this is worthy of imitation. What would that look like today? Well, we know that God does not dwell in temples made of human hands. He doesn't need buildings. We need buildings. We are creatures affected by weather, by acoustics. Such things are beneficial to us. But he doesn't need that. First Corinthians chapter three, the apostle compares Christian ministry to the building up of the house. And he describes laying and building upon the foundation that is Jesus Christ. For us, I think that this would look like having an urgent yearning to see God glorified through other lives coming to literally inhabit him. For others to come to faith and then to be sculpted like a stone before that stone goes into its place You're taking off edges here and there. You're forming and fashioning it. And the desire to play a part according to whatever gifts God gives you to help form the people who make up the temple of the Lord. That's the kind of heart that David has and the kind of heart that we should aspire through the Lord's help to imitate. Now, is there anything else worthy of imitation here? I would draw your attention to his humility and his wisdom in seeking confirmation from the prophet Nathan. David is a king, and the custom of many kings throughout the ages is to just say, well, I am the law. I want to do this, so I'm going to do it. But the humility of David, especially when it comes to anything involving corporate worship, is to seek definite knowledge from the Lord. Now, children, at that time in history, the Lord did raise up fairly frequently special men with the ability to speak on his behalf when he gave them words. We see Nathan couldn't just do that any old time. God had to bring the word to him. And at first, Nathan speaks out of what seems like just godly judgment, good intentions, but then the Lord speaks to him. And this brings us to this idea, something that in our tradition we call the regulative principle of worship. What is that? The regulative principle of worship is just an idea that we find reflected, a set of teachings throughout the Bible, that essentially says we ought not to do in our corporate worship anything that the Lord has not commanded us to do. And David reflects that wisdom. He's not, you learned the lesson of Nadab and Abihu, remember, in the Old Testament, who brought strange fire in before the Lord and received sudden and severe judgment. We ought not to bring into worship what he has not called for in the word. Now, of course, that's speaking of elements, not the sorts of things that are just merely a wisdom issue like What temperature should our lighting be? 5,000 Kelvin or 2,700 Kelvin? That is a wisdom issue. But the essential elements of worship, anything that forms the substance of our worship, that we go to the Bible for. Nathan, at first, seems, at least to me, he seems to treat the structure of the temple as a matter of accidental worship. And by that I mean, again, the things that are not essential. That as long as you conform to the basic principles, then it's fine. However, the Lord says essentially, no, I don't want David to do this, and I'm going to give clear instructions, and I'm going to provide somebody with extraordinary skills, and all that comes later. But at this point, I think we can learn from the humility of David. Even a king doesn't just presume that he knows what's best for the worship of God's people, corporately. Even good men like Nathan are fallible, and everybody must be tested against the scripture. And so these are some aspects of David's heart that are worthy of imitation. But then we come at this point to transition to the fact that David's best efforts had a limit to them. If he had tried his absolute best within the normal span of human life, what might he have accomplished? And would it still be standing? And would it have brought about what he really most deeply wanted? The answer is no. No one can provide for God the degree of splendor that he could provide for himself. Nobody can provide for the Lord something that will bring a lasting place of dwelling for all the people of God as well. David could just for a time really do a nice thing, but it'd be a bit like if a child wanted to provide a piece of furniture, a seven-year-old child wants to provide a piece of furniture for his or her parents. There's a lot more charity involved in that parent choosing to sit on that chair and trust. But it pales. It's so easy to measure human accomplishment relative to other human beings and then to think, oh, a great thing was done. In my life, maybe someday I'll get to go to Egypt. I don't really have a strong desire, practically. But it would be special, I think, to see the Great Pyramid at Giza. Maybe some of you have. All the way until the building of the Eiffel Tower in the 1800s, that remained the tallest structure, human structure, in the whole world. And yet the Lord is not impressed with that. At the end of the day, architects put their heads together and they figured out ways to stack stone. But they did not bring salvation. They did not bring relief from sin. They did not grant relief for the people of God. It's a monument, but it's weak. And so in this passage, the far more important idea is that God promises, through Christ, to provide a home for us, a home for David, that far transcends what you could ever hope for. And part of our dwelling on this tonight, again, is to encourage you, to exhort you, rest and receive that promise as the basis for whatever response of gratitude flows out of tonight, because it's Possible, it's not just possible, it's a reality. At different times, Christians tie themselves in knots, worrying over bringing in God's kingdom. Of course we must work, and David would have work to do. But the power and the promise is rooted in what he would do and what he would provide for himself. Now, verses 9 through 16 are the focal point of this second section, which again I said is described as the Davidic covenant, God's promise to David and his household. And it describes a prophecy, basically, that is going to unfold in stages. And it grieves me in one sense that we don't have five sermons to spend just on this, because it'd be worthy of it to talk about the different stages by which this would unfold. Instead, we are going to fly over and take some key ideas here. Look with me at verses 11 and 12. Moreover, the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house. Already you have the sense of mutuality. David says, I want to build the Lord a house, and David is not making plans to move in. David is thinking for the Lord, but the Lord here says, I am going to make you a house. And the word house here has a double meaning because it would refer to both a temple, but that exact same word is used typically as well in the Old Testament to describe the group of people who form a familial relationship, a household. God says, I am going to make you a house. As you come to see in it, it's both. God is going to give residence, but he's also going to give relationships. Verse 12, when your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body and I will establish his kingdom. There must have been some confusion about this. On the one hand, we see that David is being called to faith. He's not going to live to see the things he yearns for. And so you cannot make the witnessing of your aspirations, the condition of faith in God, whether that be for something as simple as hoping for a child of yours to come to faith or hoping that a church will continue. I think about that sometimes with our late brother, Reverend Gross, that he didn't get to live to see the total history of this church or any of the churches he served to know where will they be in 20 years? But we leave in the hands of the Lord the ultimate thing, which is his promise to bring about a kingdom, to establish it. And it must have been somewhat confusing, too, when the Lord says, I will establish his kingdom. Is this suggesting that the kingdom will, for a time, be lost? Because David's kingdom has been established. And that must raise questions about what is the time frame we're talking about? Are there more than one king in view here? The offspring, is it just one person, or is it going to span across many centuries as it comes to be. Verse 13, 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. As it is in many cases of prophecy in the Bible, there's a phenomenon that we sometimes describe as telescoping. Imagine taking a telescope, and you are focused on, we'll say, 100 meters out. and then you adjust it, and now you're focused on 1,000 meters out, and then you adjust it, and now you're focused on a mile out. Prophecies within the span of two verses can focus in on multiple fulfillments of the same verse. We talk about fulfilling. Imagine a cup getting filled more and more up. In Solomon, you have a portion of the revelation of what God is going to do, because Solomon does build a house, and he is the offspring of David, but he doesn't live forever. and he doesn't give the kind of rest that was in view. When you read in the New Testament that this was to fulfill what was written earlier, it's not saying this is the only way or shape or form in which that prophecy was fulfilled, but it's saying this is the fullest sense in which God was bringing to pass the things that he promised. Verse 14, it says, when he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men. with the stripes of the sons of men, but my steadfast love will not depart from him as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you." Well, that can't be talking about Solomon. Solomon never experienced that. He certainly committed iniquity, but he never experienced anything like being beaten with the stripes of men. But if you are familiar with the Old Testament, you'd learn that there was another king, for instance, Manasseh, wicked. wicked, fed his own children to the fire of a false god. And the Lord disciplined him bitterly for it. And yet the Lord brought even Manasseh to repentance and faith. And the Lord preserved the line all the way down to Jesus Christ. And then when Christ comes, and this is why it's such a big deal that he's a descendant of David, that the Lord is being faithful to this promise through so many variables, humanly speaking, so much implausibility, nobody would bet on this family lasting and then getting to Mary and Joseph, and then here comes Jesus. The Lord fulfills it. And then what is the role of Christ? It's not just to establish the kingdom on better terms, everlasting terms, but in himself to bear the very stripes for the sins of all of the kings who went before him. And if the kings, then all, and Christ was born for all. And so it's looking forward to the coming of Jesus Christ. That's not my opinion. That is the testimony of the New Testament. That's the testimony of Hebrews chapter one. I submit it to you for your own study. If you haven't studied Hebrews one, it's explicit. He calls back, the author of Hebrews ties together many different prophecies from Isaiah and Jeremiah and here in particular to say, this is Christ. This is why David, who was the king was willing to say, was willing to refer to this one as his Lord. No father I know of refers to his own children as his Lord. And yet David recognizes by the Spirit that this would be the Messiah. Now look with me at verse five and observe why God wants to provide a house for himself. Go and tell my servant David, thus says the Lord, would you build me a house to dwell in? I can't read this, I realize we shouldn't impose upon the Bible smiling and humor where it may not be, and to make trivial what is in the word. But it's hard for me to read this and not imagine a smile upon the face of the Lord. Would you build me a house to live in? I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day. It'd been over 400 years at this point. But I have been moving about in a tent for my dwelling. In all places where I have moved with all the people of Israel, did I speak a word with any of the judges of Israel, whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, saying, why have you not built me a house of cedar? I'm not asking for this. I'm very happy with you. I love my people, and I don't need those things. As it says in the book of Acts, quoting Isaiah, the most high does not dwell in houses made by hands, as the prophet says. Heaven is my throne. Earth is my footstool. What kind of house will you build for me, says the Lord, or what is the place of my rest? Did not my hand make all these things? What relief to recognize the Lord doesn't want a house because he has any need. He doesn't need it. He didn't need to make history. He didn't need a church. It's not as if he would be endlessly without satisfaction if he didn't have a bride for his son. He is delighted to pour out and to bring in to the fold of his generosity. He's entirely self-sufficient. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have the infinitude of love. So they're not hurting for relationships. So when you think, why does God want to love me? It's because he has something to give me. And anything I have, he put it in me so that I can come to enjoy and experience this. But it's not because of need in the Lord. And that means all the ministry of material is going to come from him, as it says, from him and through him and to him are all things. At times I am anxious. I wonder, you know, what if in the process of trying to plant a church, I'll speak kind of crassly, I don't, I'm not overwhelmed with this, but to put a point on it, you know, what if we gut the church of some of the most key people? Because our West Side has some excellent servants. And it is kind of a synergy of all the different districts combined that makes up what the church is. And what if they go out and then it takes out a portion of the people and a portion of the finances? And what if we harm what we've got here? And what if we implode? It's his house. It's not our house. He says, I'm so glad you want to be a part of doing this, but I'm doing it. It's my house. And the visible things, Use your best wisdom and leave it in my hands. And if the visible things fall through, it's not as if I'm not going to make good on what I've promised. The church is not Phoenix URC. The church is millions and millions and millions of souls on earth and in heaven. And the Lord will not fail to provide a house for himself. And then finally look with me at verse 10. And you'll see there that the promise is to bring us into that rest, into that home. And I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them so that they may dwell in their own place and be disturbed no more. And violent men shall afflict them no more as formerly from the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel. And I'll give you rest from all your enemies. None of the Old Testament kings ever provided anything like that. Even when there was rest from foreign oppression, there was still violence in the streets. The utopias that people imagine, people of a worldly background imagine, still typically involve some amount of oppression and violence. They just imagine that the great majority was gone. What Christ is promising, or what God is promising us through Christ, is there is indeed a day when we will stand in this world, remade, refashioned, and we will have a place that cannot be taken away. Even more positionally, that we are in Jesus Christ forever. It cannot be taken from you. And the Lord calls us to rest in that so that everything we do comes from this position of receiving and gratitude. Here finally, the words of Jesus, in John chapter 14, because naturally, as you move into the New Testament, these promises that were obscured, that were hidden, that were veiled under Old Testament imagery, begin to unfold. John chapter 14, verse one, Jesus says, let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself that where I am, you may be also." I'm willing to wait to find out exactly what he means. When I was younger, I imagined that heaven was basically a better earth in a different dimension. I didn't even know what I really meant by that. That's just how I imagined it. I imagined, like he said, he's making something for us, making a place for us. And I almost imagined like Christ is overseeing this colossal building project with apartment buildings and I didn't know what, but rooms for everybody. And then at the point of his return, I imagined somehow, you know, like putting two sets of Legos together, he was going to build that realm onto this realm. Again, I'm very content to wait and find out. I'm much more persuaded, however, based on my greater familiarity with the Bible at this point, the place that he's bringing us into, that he describes, is essentially into the presence of the Lord. It's spiritual, it's relational. It will have an embodiment upon this world, as surely as Jesus Christ was raised from the dead and ate fish. But the place is really that he is making it acceptable for all of the elect across all the ages, including those who have not yet been born, to be brought into the very presence of God. That's where we want to live. Accept it. That is where you have already entered principally in Christ your faith. Accept it. And our desire for others to participate in this needs to remain centered upon that, the glorification of God through the revelation of his own grace and power. When you go out, when you have this yearning to build up his kingdom, it's, Lord, let me be a part of it, but at the end of the day, like Paul says, I worked harder than others, yet it was not I, it was Christ in me, the hope of glory. May he be that for us. Let's pray. Our Father, we thank you again this evening for your word, which is bread to hungry souls, We ask that you would please continue to feed us with the knowledge of your love and to renew us, Lord. It seems as the years go by, for many of us, we almost feel harder at times in some ways, like we've heard your promises too many times. Oh God, you know how to soften us. Help us to rejoice in the most basic things, in the fact that we are forgiven. Help us not to make a God of our feelings, but to worship the God of the covenant and of the promises that cannot fail. We ask to be a part of the work that you do in the world and to see it with our own eyes in glory. Even so we shall, for in Jesus' name we pray, amen.