Do you remember what it was like as a child, the few weeks leading up to Christmas? The excitement and anticipation of what Christmas morning would bring? Or maybe you can easily recall the excitement of your children or grandchild in the time leading up to Christmas?
Now, could you imagine if you had to wait 3,000 years for Christmas morning to come? That would be brutal, wouldn’t it?
I feel that same excitement every time I look at the Old Testament and it hints at the coming of Christ. I feel that same anticipation and it’s so fascinating to me to read the Old Testament prophecies of Christ, now knowing how those were fulfilled in the person of Jesus. We have the benefit of hindsight in this situation, but that was something that the Israelites didn’t have. All they had was the future hope of the Messiah.
This morning’s passage is one of those stories in the Old Testament that hints at the then coming Christ. If you have your Bible with you, and hopefully you do, join me in 2 Samuel 7.
This is how 2 Samuel 7 opens, “Now it came about when the king lived in his house, and the Lord had given him rest on every side from all his enemies, that the king said to Nathan the prophet, “See now, I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of God dwells within tent curtains.” (vv. 1-2)
This is one of the passages that really shows David’s heart. God had given him peace and rest. Everything was good in his kingdom, and David looked around at all that he had been given by God and saw how good God had been to him. And David had an epiphany. He saw all the goodness of God, his fine house that he lived in, but then he saw the place where God’s ark dwelled, in the tabernacle, behind cloth curtains, and David thought, “Who am I, that I should have this fine house yet God’s earthly dwelling is a tent?”
He recognized that something was a little backward about their situation, so he sought to make it right. David had it in his mind to build God a great temple, finer than anything ever built. He told the prophet Nathan, which was kind of like asking the Lord, and Nathan told him to go ahead.
But, then look at vv. 4-7, “But in the same night the word of the Lord came to Nathan, saying, “Go and say to My servant David, ‘Thus says the Lord, “Are you the one who should build Me a house to dwell in? For I have not dwelt in a house since the day I brought up the sons of Israel from Egypt, even to this day; but I have been moving about in a tent, even in a tabernacle. Wherever I have gone with all the sons of Israel, did I speak a word with one of the tribes of Israel, which I commanded to shepherd My people Israel, saying, ‘Why have you not built Me a house of cedar?”
God wanted to tell David that really, He doesn’t need a house, and even if He really did, David wasn’t the man for the job. God had other plans for David, and those plans would be not just for David’s life, but would reach far into the centuries to come, and would even be eternal in some ways, and that is what I want to look at today.
In 2 Samuel 7:8-16, God lays out all that he’s going to do for David, “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, to be ruler over My people Israel. I have been with you wherever you have gone and have cut off all your enemies from before you; and I will make you a great name, like the names of the great men who are on the earth. I will also appoint a place for My people Israel and will plant them, that they may live in their own place and not be disturbed again, nor will the wicked afflict them any more as formerly, even from the day that I commanded judges to be over My people Israel; and I will give you rest from all your enemies. The Lord also declares to you that the Lord will make a house for you. When your days are complete and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your descendant after you, who will come forth from you, 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 a father to him and he will be a son to Me; when he commits iniquity, I will correct him with the rod of men and the strokes of the sons of men, but My lovingkindness shall not depart from him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you. Your house and your kingdom shall endure before Me forever; your throne shall be established forever.”
I want to focus on one verse from this section, verse 13, “He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.”
This is the summary of the covenant, the promise God established with David, and its got three parts that this verse highlights: a son (that’s the He), a kingdom, and a throne.
A Son
This promise has lots of levels to it.
On the simplest level, God was promising to David an heir, a son that would take over when David was gone. That son would be SOLOMON, who is the first blank in your bulletin if you want to follow along and take notes. Jewish culture placed an emphasis on a father having sons to carry on the work of the father when the father was gone. We’ve talked about this a few times, and we saw how when God cut off Saul from the throne, God also cut off Saul’s sons from the throne. A high value was placed on sons, and God’s promise to David to give him a son that would carry on the kingdom showed David one thing: how much God loved him.
But this promise of a son is more than just an heir, it’s the promise of a lineage. God was promising to David, descendants; a son, and a grandson, and so on and so on. God was promising a line that would carry the kingdom for some time. With this promise, God again established Israel as a COVENANT nation.
He promised in the long passage that I read that He, God would be the One to pick Israel’s kings, He would be the One to give the people of Israel a place and to provide for them. God once again affirmed to His people that He would be their God and they would be His people, and He was leading them through David’s line.
God told David specifically that David’s house would be established forever, that’s David’s line. Here’s where we get the first glimpse in this passage of the coming Christ. David’s line does indeed continue, even when there were no more kings over Israel. In fact, if you glance at Matthew 1 starting at about verse 6, you can see how God delivered on His promise to David to carry his house into forever. Twenty-eight generations after David came Christ Jesus who would establish David’s house forever.
Isaiah 9 is a passage that we understand is Messianic. That means it talks about the Messiah, the One who would save people. Verse 7 says, “There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace, On the throne of David and over his kingdom, To establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness From then on and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish this.” In Christ, David’s line, his house continues not just through Christ, but for forever. God established his house as an eternal house, never ending.
Why David? Messiah could have come from anyone’s line. Why David? Because God deeply loved David, and David loved the Lord.
Kingdom
This is a second part of the promise God gave to David, and that was to establish an earthly kingdom through David that would turn into an ETERNAL Kingdom. That’s your next blank in your bulletins. We see that through the son promised to David, David’s house will be set up as kings for some time, but David was told that this earthly kingdom will become something more.
There’s not much more to say about the kingdom promised to David’s house, but to just point out what Luke 1:32-33 says about how this came about.
“He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David; and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and His kingdom will have no end.” This is what the angel heralds to Mary at JESUS’ birth. Once again we see that the promise given to David to give David an eternal kingdom ultimately comes true through Christ Jesus.
Throne
The final thing promised to David in this chapter is a throne. The throne, we need to understand, is a place of EXALTATION. That’s your next blank. The throne is where people come to pay homage to the ruler. In the heavenly Kingdom, the throne is where people come to worship the King of kings.
God promised David that He would establish an eternal throne in the eternal kingdom. A place where the person who sat on the throne would receive honor and glory forever.
Again, we know that this takes place through Christ Jesus, as we have the promise of the New Testament and Old Testament, that Jesus will reign on His throne forever.
David reaped the benefits of these promises God made him during his life, but because of David’s love for God and God’s love for David, these promises has benefits that have rippled throughout time!
And because David loved God and saw the love that God had for him, David’s response was to praise and worship God and he prayed a prayer of courage, a prayer that asked God to be faithful to what He had said He was going to do for David. Of course, God was, because of His great love.
Because of God’s love, we reap the benefits of God’s promise to David as well, and it’s something that should fill us with excited anticipation. I just want you to look at the ways that we see this promise still working today.
John 1:12, “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name,” John tells us that because of God’s great love for us, if we accept Christ, receive Him as our Lord and Savior, He gives us the right to be called children of God.
The next blank in your bulletin, I want you to write: I am a CHILD of God. That is what we are because of God’s great love for us. Regardless of what else we might be, regardless of the identities we’ve tried to claim or labels given to us, the Bible tells us that we are children of the Most High. This promise that David received to have a son extends to us, through Christ who is the Son of God we all become children of God.
2 Timothy 2:10-13 says, “For this reason I endure all things for the sake of those who are chosen, so that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus and with it eternal glory. It is a trustworthy statement: For if we died with Him, we will also live with Him; If we endure, we will also reign with Him; If we deny Him, He also will deny us; If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself.”
That kingdom that was promised to David, that would extend into eternity, we know is possible through Christ; and through Christ, if we live for Him, endure in His name, Paul says that we will also reign with Him. That eternal kingdom? We get to be a part of it! The next blank I want you to write is that: I will REIGN with Him. This promise is so much greater than just David’s kingdom, and it’s made possible because of God’s great love.
Finally, we have Revelations 3:20-21, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me. He who overcomes, I will grant to him to sit down with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne.”
For your last blank I want you to wrote: I will sit on His THRONE. That doesn’t seem right, does it? But it’s right there in black and white. It doesn’t mean that He isn’t sitting on His throne. It doesn’t mean that we receive honor or glory or worship or praise or anything else that is due to God and God alone. It doesn’t mean that we are worthy of that throne. It simply means that because of His great love, if we receive Christ, He gives us the right to have a seat in His eternal Kingdom.
God’s love was good to David. God’s love is good for us. He is so, so good to us.
1. What is your go-to response for God’s blessings on your life?
2. What difference should your place in God’s Kingdom make in your every day life? Do you live each day like a child of God? What can you do to draw closer to Him this week?
3. What can you do to help one person move closer to God’s eternal kingdom this week? Pray for them, but put that prayer into action!