1.
Please pray with me. May the words of my mouth and the meditation
of our hearts be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock, and our
Redeemer. Amen. The message from God’s Word is taken from 2
Samuel 7:1-17 (READ TEXT). It’s
entitled, “You Can’t Out-give God,” dear
brothers and sisters in Christ.
2.
David now stood at the height of his
power in this world. By the Lord’s plan, this former shepherd had gone from
tending sheep in the field to being the Shepherd-King of God’s “people” in Israel. God subdued all of
David’s enemies before him. David captured, then donated to the kingdom a new
capital city, Jerusalem. He brought the ark of the covenant to the new capital. Then guilt started bothering David. He said,
“See now, I dwell in a house of cedar,
but the ark of God dwells in a tent” (2 Samuel 7:2). So David was
formulating a plan to fix things. He thought he should build a house, a temple,
for the Lord. The ark of the covenant would have a place to go. Yet in this
text the Lord said: “No, David, it’s just
the other way around. You are not going to build me a house. I am going to
build you a house.” David was discovering that you can’t out-give God.
3.
God remained the real King in Israel
all along. Anything was bad if it led the people off the way the Lord wanted
them to travel, even if the human king was doing it. Make no mistake, the Lord
God was no worldly king. However good David’s motivations may have been for
wanting to build God a house, the Lord determined that it was not about to be
this way. The Lord was not going to allow David to become his landlord.
4.
The Lord always refuses to become a
domesticated God. We use the term “domesticated”
to refer to animals like dogs and cats. We take these critters into our homes
and make them into pets. They’re not wild. They become part of the family. All
through human history, there has been a tendency to try to domesticate God. It grew
noticeably strong in the United States after World War II. During the 1950s,
observers of the cultural and religious scene noted that the average American
tended to look upon God as a cuddly grandfather type in the sky: God as a sort
of nice guy. When God is regarded as totally comforting, never saying no to
anybody about anything, domestication has been taking place. Or at least,
people have been attempting it, treating the deity like a commodity in a box
that they can take out whenever the need arises. People write the agenda
for this deity, not vice-versa . . . or, at any rate, they try.
5.
The attempted domestication of God
continues to this day. Just think about it in your own life: how do you regard
the Lord? Do you want him around only when it suits you? Do you treat him like
a servant, or maybe a tenant? Even though you might not ordinarily think of
putting the matter in such terms, deep down have you been trying not to worship
the Lord your God and serve him only, but rather to domesticate him and have
him serve you only? No one fears a
domesticated god. People do not go out of their way to break any of their own
cherished routines for such a god. No one makes sacrifices for a god like that.
At bottom, a domesticated god can be neither respected nor loved. A god of this
sort gives no help whatsoever when you need it, especially when the real
demands of the God of heaven and earth!—catch up with us.
6.
For the Lord God really can’t be
domesticated. He remains capable of saying no to people. He gave a mild “no” to
David when he asked, “Would you build me
a house to dwell in?” (2 Samuel 7:5). He speaks a great big “no” to all
human sin, to every rebellion against him: that is, to anything that doesn’t
come up to his high standard of being holy, faithful, and perfect. His ultimate
“no” takes the form of being left
without him forever. Yet the God who is
able to say no also knows how to say yes. In the text he was telling David that
things would be the opposite of the way David had in mind, but they would be
better still. David would not build the Lord a house, a temple. Instead, the
Lord would build a house for David; a ruling dynasty.
7.
God’s best intentions for David
would come to fruition after the great king died: “When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will
raise up your offspring after you, who shall come forth 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” (2 Samuel 7:12– 14a). Sometimes, Bible translators
seem reluctant to give these words the full force they carry. The word father
should begin with a capital F, and the word son should have a capital S. This
is a prediction of One who would come after David had died, a descendant of
David and also the very Son of God the Father. In other words, God was
predicting the coming of the Messiah: Jesus Christ. The Lord was in effect
telling David, “I will make your throne
last forever, all right, because I am going to come in human flesh and sit on
this throne myself. When I sit on the throne, it will last forever.”
8.
With this prophecy, God was “narrowing down” the messianic line again.
It had been hundreds of years since the prophecies had gotten more specific. We
have known for a while that the Messiah would come from the line of Abraham,
Isaac, Jacob, and Judah. Now we know that this line would be continued in
David’s family. The Messiah would be the Son, not only of Abraham, but also of
David. The New Testament begins by calling Jesus “the son of David, the son of Abraham” (Matthew 1:1). With this prophecy, God was also answering
the question that Israel had struggled with ever since its people asked for a
king. The question was: Who was going to
be the real king? Would it be God or David? In Christ, the answer was “yes”!
God was going to be King, as only he could, and at the same time a descendant
of David was going to be king. It was not either/or, but both/and.
9.
The text goes on to say, “When he commits iniquity, I will discipline
him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men” (2 Samuel
7:14b). Strange language to refer to the Messiah, but precious language all the
same! To be sure, Jesus never sinned. Indeed, he can’t. He’s the Man who is
also God. However, the Old Testament sometimes talks about the sin of the world
as it was held against the Messiah. Psalm 69, for example, depicts the Messiah
saying that he has to pay back what he did not steal (v. 4). Remember, Jesus
was held guilty by God for the sin of the world, and the Lord God of heaven and
earth is perfectly capable of saying no. On the cross, God was saying no to all
sin as he was saying no to his own Son. He was punishing Christ as if Christ
himself had been personally guilty of all sin, of yours and mine too. This is the
Christ whom God raised from the dead and vindicated. The prophecy in our text
said, “my steadfast love will not depart
from him. . . . Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before
me. Your throne shall be established forever” (2 Samuel 7:15–16).
10.
We rejoice in Christ’s resurrection
this Easter season. His resurrection means that we, too, shall rise on account
of him. God establishes the kingdom of this Christ. He establishes it forever
and includes us in it. Simply put, you can’t out-give God. David found it to be so. He had his own ideas
of what he would do. But God came back with something better than anything
David could have imagined. The Lord said, “You’re
not going to build me a house. I’m going to build you a house.” David would
have the honor of being an ancestor of the Messiah, the Christ. What’s more,
David himself would have a Savior. The promise of the Coming One was reiterated
to David in the strongest terms here. For David, no less than for us, Jesus is
“the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin
of the world” (John 1:29), and he is the Lord and Ruler of all things.
11.
Ascension Day is coming up in two
and a half weeks. One of the great Ascension hymns celebrates with the words: Thou
hast raised our human nature On the clouds to God’s right hand; There we sit in
heavenly places, There we with thee in glory stand. Jesus reigns, adored by
angels; Man with God is on the throne. Mighty Lord, in Thine ascension, We by
faith behold our own. (TLH 218:5) How could we possibly out-give this God?
Yes, we have opportunities to give to the Lord’s work, supporting the work of
this congregation, or supporting our church’s missionaries and institutions of
higher education. There are all sorts of opportunities to give. No matter how
much you give, though, you can’t out- give God. He is always giving more, as
David learned. So many other believers have learned this too. We only give because he has given, and still
gives. We love because he loved us first.
12.
What about the domesticated god you can pull out of the box whenever there is a
need? You most certainly can out-give such a god. You can out- anything the domesticated god, which is nothing more
than a figment of your imagination. The real God frees us from such things. He
has opened for us a fountain of love and mercy that keeps flowing. His
blessings of sins forgiven and peace with God remain ours in and on account of
his Son, Jesus Christ, that good and great Shepherd who laid down his life for
us and took it up again. Hearing the voice of this Shepherd makes us his sheep
and keeps us with him. In Christ we have
everything mentioned in Psalm 23, and more. His goodness and mercy follow the
faithful through all the days of our lives, and we will dwell in the house of
the Lord forever. He builds us a house, and he is going to prepare a place for
us. How can you possibly out-give this
God? Amen. Now the
peace of God that passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds in
Christ Jesus until life everlasting.
Amen.
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