SERMON: A Davidic Dynasty

Thank you for subscribing to the Shepherds Church podcast. This is our Lord's Day sermon. We pray that as we declare the word of God, that you would be encouraged, strengthened in your faith, and that you would catch a greater vision of who

Christ is. May you be blessed in the hearing of God's word, and may the Lord be with you.

Today, over the last several weeks, we've been walking through a series that has not merely preached about Christmas, or even just preached

Christmas messages, but we've actually went down and burrowed underneath Christmas to find its covenantal roots.

And what we've been learning is Christmas is not just a sentimental hallmarksy holiday, but the culmination and the climax of everything that God was doing throughout all of history from the beginning of the world, even until now.

What we've seen is that Christmas does not begin in Bethlehem. It does not originate with shepherds, or angels, or stables, or lights, tinsel, and paper.

Christmas begins in covenant. It begins in Eden, where God entered into a relationship with humanity through a federal head.

It repeats itself on the mountains of Ararat, where God restrained his judgment so the world could survive long enough for the

Messiah to come. It's spoken, again, beneath the stars to Abraham in the land of Canaan, where he has promised that his descendants will outnumber them.

It's thundered at the foot of Mount Sinai when the mountain is shaking and the people are terrified that the

Lord is going to consume them. And again, we will see this morning that the Advent Christmas message is a message that crescendos at the covenant with David, who is a kind of Adam 5 .0.

And if you've not been here, or if you do not remember what that means, I do not blame you. We are deep into the waters of covenant theology at this point, and I'm doing my best to make it fun.

But I'm arguing that God initiates relationships with five men in the Old Testament. And these five men represent everyone.

And these five men actually tell the entire story of the Old Testament. And these five men all look and talk and walk and act and fall the same way.

And for ease of terms, the first one's name is Adam. Noah is our second covenant head.

We're calling him Adam 2 .0. Abraham is Adam 3 .0. Israel, as a corporate nation, is

Adam 4 .0. And today we're gonna look at David, the final covenant head, who is

Adam 5 .0. And I'm calling them all Adam because Adam means man. It's very interesting.

In Genesis 1 and 2, man, Adam, is called man.

And woman is called woman. She doesn't even get the name

Eve until Adam names her later after the fall. She's Esha, which means woman.

He's Adam, which means man. So if you went up to him in the garden and said, what's up, man, you'd be saying his name.

But we're calling him Adam not just because of that, but because these five men represent Adam in so many ways.

And because the narrative of Scripture shows us that every single one of them, these are real historical men, but their lives look like Adam.

And their lives are the exact same narratival story arc of redemption as Adam.

They go through the same situations as Adam. They are formed in the same way as Adam. They're put into a garden in the same way as Adam as we will explore.

They're all born in the dust. They all receive the spirit, the breath of God. They're all brought into a garden land.

They're all given stipulations and blessings. They all go to war with the serpent in some way. And all of them fail in the war for the cosmos.

And because of them, all of them bring curses on their progeny. Today, we're gonna look at how

Adam is the fifth reboot in the redemption project. I was watching a

YouTube video this week while I was sick. And it's way over my head.

And it's the matrix movies that nobody likes. It was explaining that in the end of the movie, which no one has watched the end of the third movie because you only watched the first one, but just bear with me.

At the end of the third movie, the architect explains the secret of the matrix is that this is the sixth time that it's already been rebooted.

And your role is only to reboot it again. Zion existed before, it existed again.

It's been destroyed six times. And all of these people who were brought out of the matrix who have hope that they are the ones who are gonna rescue the world are actually just playing a part that the machines have carved out for them.

And that Neo was meant to just play a part of turning the key and rebooting the matrix.

That's my understanding of it. Spoiler alert, it's a 20 year old movie if you haven't seen it. That's like when people tell spoiler alerts of the sixth sense and everybody's like, oh,

I was just getting ready to watch that. No, you weren't. No, you weren't. That's a lie.

But in a similar way, God is now rebooting the redemption project through a man named

David, who's Adam 5 .0, a shepherd boy who was elevated to a mighty king.

And we're gonna do, and we're gonna see today that by him looking like Adam and his covenant playing out like Adam and like Humpty Dumpty, him falling like Adam, that he's going to make way for the greatest king of all.

So if you will turn with me, grab your Bibles. This is the first week in a while that we've done this because I've been, I've read so many passages all over the scriptures that I've told you to leave your

Bibles down. Today, turn with me to 2 Samuel 7, and we're gonna read together. This week, we're gonna read only one passage, but it is gonna be the entire chapter of 2

Samuel 7. And you're gonna get to see the entirety of the

Davidic covenant playing out. Davidic covenant is the covenant God made with David. So if you will join me in 2

Samuel 7 as we observe this covenant, and then we reflect upon it in the moments ahead.

This is the word of the Lord. 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.

Nathan said to the king, go do all that is in your mind for the Lord is with you. 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 a, build me a house to dwell in?

For I have not dwelt in a house since the days 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? 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've 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 I will plant them and they may live in their own place and not be disturbed again, nor will the wicked afflict them anymore 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 strokes of the sons of men, but my loving kindness shall not depart from him as I took it away from Saul, whom

I removed from before you. The house in your kingdom shall endure before me forever.

Your throne shall be established forever. In accordance with all these words and all this vision, so Nathan spoke to David.

Then David the king went in and sat before the Lord and he said, who am I, oh Lord God? And what is my house that you have brought me this far?

And yet this was insignificant in your eyes oh Lord God, for you have spoken also of the house of your servant concerning the distant future.

And this is the custom of man, oh Lord God. Again, what more can David say to you?

For you know your servant, oh Lord God. For the sake of your word and according to your own heart, you have done all this greatness to let your servant know.

For this reason, you are great, oh Lord God. For there is none like you.

There is no God besides you. According to all that we have heard with our ears and what one nation on earth is like your people,

Israel, whom God went to redeem for himself as a people and to make a name for himself and to do a great thing for you and awesome things for your land before your people whom you have redeemed for yourself from Egypt, from nations and their gods.

For you have established for yourself your people, Israel, as your own people forever. And you, oh Lord, have become their

God. Now therefore, oh Lord God, the word that you have spoken concerning your servant and his house, confirm it forever.

And do as you have spoken, that your name may be magnified forever by saying the

Lord of hosts is God of Israel. And may the house of your servant, David, be established before you.

For you, oh Lord of hosts, the God of Israel have made a revelation to your servant saying,

I will build you a house. Therefore, your servant has found courage to pray this prayer to you.

Now, oh Lord God, you are God. And your words are truth. And you have promised this good thing to your servant.

Now therefore, may it please you to bless the house of your servant, that it may continue forever before you.

For you, oh Lord God, have spoken. And with your blessing, may the house of your servant be blessed forever.

Let's pray. Dear Lord, thank you that we get to dive in and examine this great covenant with this man,

David. This little runt of a man, this shepherd boy that you called to be king over your people,

Israel. Lord, I pray that as we pull back the layers of this covenant and of this man, that we would see what you intend us to see.

Lord, I pray that we would hear with deafening clarity, the heavy syllables and the words forever that rang out of 2

Samuel 7. Lord, I pray that we would feel the despair when we see that promise challenged.

And Lord, I pray that we would see the joy when we see it fulfilled. And it's in Jesus' name we pray.

Amen. Now, Adam or David is an Adam 5 .0.

He's the five iteration of this Adam. David is not just a king that God introduces to replace the scoundrel

Saul. The scriptures introduced him as a foray into a new creation.

The evil imposter king had a tragic death and a burial. Just as the new king is rising up right underneath his nostrils, which if you're keeping score, reminds us an awful lot of how

Jesus came into the world, doesn't it? Born under the reign of an imposter king who went mad like Saul, who tried to kill

David like Saul. And that King Herod died a horrific death like Saul as the infant

Jesus was rising into his kingdom. The connections to Christmas are astounding, but that's not the one we're gonna be focused on.

By the time David enters the story of Israel, Israel has its own kind of death spiral that's occurring.

The people have inhabited the land, but they have not inhabited it in a truly godly way.

They've polluted it with all kinds of idolatry in imitation of their ever maddening, tall and handsome king.

And you may recall how Saul never went and collected the Ark of the Covenant.

If you remember the Ark of the Covenant was the golden box with the mercy seat on top of it, where the Lord promised that His presence would dwell upon the earth inside of the tabernacle, inside of the tent of meeting, inside of the

Holy of Holies. This precious commodity where the Spirit of God promised that He would dwell may in a field getting rained on for years and years and years because Eli surrendered it because of the wickedness of his sons and Saul never went and claimed it.

The Philistines took it. If you remember the story, it's one of the great humorous stories of the Bible. The Philistines took it, they put it in the idol of their demon

God and when they woke up the next morning, their demon God had fallen prostrate before the

Ark of the Covenant showing the supremacy of the one true God. They stood their statue back up thinking, wow, he's still powerful.

He's still more powerful than this God, we just have to stand him back up, it's okay. Then next time he falls and his head falls off, which is an astounding and very interesting story.

So the Philistines are like, I don't want this thing and they throw it out in the middle of a field and there it sits and Saul never goes to claim it, the entirety of his reign, which is an astounding thing that the greatest piece of furniture in the

Holy of Holies sat in the middle of a field for the entirety of this Benjamite's rule.

It's an astounding thing. Now in the monumental moment of this context in a young man's life, fresh out of the dusty fields, watching his sheep, the young lad

David was called out of the dust like Adam and called into the palace like Adam.

Do you see the correlation here? He's called out of the dusty parts of the world and it's very interesting that he also receives the breath of God.

I find this so fascinating. Remember Adam is formed out of the dust and God breathes into his nostrils the breath of life and Adam becomes a real living man and then

God takes him and places him into the garden, which is a kind of cosmic temple and palace for the worship of Yahweh and yet this is exactly what's happening to David.

David is a man like Adam who's formed in the dust of the fields and he's taken out of the dust of the fields and he's brought before the prophet

Samuel and the prophet Samuel anoints him with oil and it says that the spirit of God came upon David.

Now, what is that all about? Well, the word spirit, I've said this before, is ruach in Hebrew.

Children, say with me, ruach. Hebrew is a very interesting language and it's not impolite if you're saying

Hebrew. Ruach means breath, but it also means spirit.

So when Adam was formed out of the dust, the ruach of God went into Adam. When David came out of the dusty fields and was anointed by Samuel, the ruach of God came upon him.

The text says that the spirit of the Lord rushed upon David from that moment forward.

The breath of God came upon the dusty man who was formed by God and brought into the garden palace.

He's Adam. Do you see the connection? Adam is dust until God breathes on him.

David is just a shepherd forgotten by his own father when the lineup happened until God breathes on him and he becomes king anointed.

David is not simply chosen, he is like Adam, animated into a new living man. For instance,

Adam, once he's breathed into, he ceases being what he once was and he becomes the royal king of the garden city and then he's placed over that holy realm, given vocation, purpose, calling, authority to guard it, keep it and rule over all the days of his life under the authority of God to the glory of God forever.

David receives the same sort of pattern. Once the spirit rushes upon him, God yanks him out of the fields, places him into the garden palace and give us him the task of being the shepherd over my people

Israel, 2 Samuel 5. Two, Adam is breathed into and placed into the garden temple.

David is breathed into by the spirit of God and placed into the garden palace. The vocation is identical between these two men, except now in David, the scale has multiplied because Adam ruled over an empty garden,

David rules over a filled kingdom. So David's first act as king of this garden city is not to hang out in a hammock and eat grapes.

His first act is a dammock like Adam. His first act is combat.

He steps onto the battle as Adam should have done. And he is as a representative of his people goes to war with the serpentine man named

Goliath. Just as Adam was supposed to go to war with the serpent who came and mocked the living God, Goliath mocks the living

God and David goes to war. And unlike Adam, who cowered behind a woman,

David crushed the serpent man, even chopping off his head, giving a unique perspective on the promise that your seed will crush his head.

David is certainly not the fulfillment of it, but he's a type and an echo of it. And for a moment, it looked like that the

Adamic family had finally succeeded. Have you ever met a family where they always lose and all their hopes and dreams are placed into their child?

And then their child follows in their parents' footsteps and generational sins and patterns happen and the fall happens again and again and again, over and over again.

You see this in alcoholic families where the father who spends his life looking at the bottom of a bottle, prays that it won't infect his sons.

And yet over and over and over again, it does. So for a moment, the family of Adam was cheering, we got one, we got one who's gonna do it.

We got one who's gonna make it. He's gonna be the one that God called him to be. He's gonna be the dirt boy made into the garden king who killed the intruding serpent, but his genetics of Adam caught up with him.

Adam sees, desires the fruit, takes it, eats it and brings upon himself death. David sees the woman, desires her, takes her and brings upon him death.

Adam attempts to cover his sin with leaves. David attempts to cover over his sin with administration.

Adam hears God saying, where are you? And he cowers. David hears the man of God saying, you are the man,

David. And like Adam, he trembled. And like Adam who brought sin into his own house,

David's sin brought death into his own house. Adam loses a son because of his sin.

David loses a newborn son because of his sin. Adam's family fractures and fratricide, meaning that one brother killed another.

Cain killed Abel and because of David's sin, one brother kills another. Amnon is killed by Absalom.

It is the same story again. Adam is forgiven and exiled into a thorn filled world.

David is forgiven, but the sword will never depart from his house. And as the thorns continue to pierce

Adam, the sword will continue to pierce the house of David. The Bible is not painting these connections in crayons.

It's screaming to us that David is a second Adam, a fifth Adam even. He's Adam reformed from the dust, reanimated by the breath of God, recommissioned to guard the sacred space, re -equipped to make war with the pesky serpent, re -enthroned on behalf of God.

And yet, what scripture presses down upon us, most devastatingly clear, is that while David is probably the very best attempt the family of Adam had, he is a man after God's own heart, you know.

Like the four Adams that came before him, his fall too would be fantastic. And he would bring his people into ruin as we shall see.

Five Adams are raised from the dust and five Adams have fallen into ruin. That is the entire story of the entire

Old Testament. And if you doubt me, you can tell it in less than 30 seconds.

Adam was raised up to be fruitful, multiply sin, but he fell short of that. And his sin now filled the earth full of sin so that the

Lord had to punish that. And then God raised up Noah to wash the world clean and yet to start the creation process over.

Noah sinned, he fell, his people fell at the Tower of Babel. Abraham was raised up to be another kind of Adam.

He's blessed, his family's gonna be blessed, the whole world's gonna be blessed through Abraham. Abraham falls, his people end up in slavery in Egypt.

God raises up Israel out of slavery, promises them that they're gonna be a light to the nations, and yet they fall and they become enslaved in cycles of idolatry.

And then God raises up a king. And that king is supposed to lead the people of Israel into freedom and into covenant loyalty.

And from the book of 1 Samuel to the book of Malachi, we see the devastating results of the children of Adam trying to accomplish what a true

Adam was called to do. That's the entire story of the Old Testament through five men.

Now, to understand this even better, we're gonna look at the seven aspects that we've seen in every single covenant. Every covenant has seven aspects.

And that begins with the covenant head. Every covenant has God selecting a man, an

Adam. And then binding the fate of the many to the obedience of the one, which is another way of saying that God always begins by raising up a representative who will represent a people so that if he succeeds, they succeed.

If he wins, they win, but if he falls, they fall. That is the Bible's governing logic.

Adam was raised up to be head over all humanity, Genesis 2 through 3. Noah was raised up to be head over all the world,

Genesis 6 through 9. Abraham was raised up to be head over all the peoples, Genesis 12, 15, and 17. Israel was raised to be head over all the nations,

Exodus 4, 22 through 23. And now in 2 Samuel 7, David is raised up to be head over all of God's people, his true

Israel. Notice what God says, "'Thus says the Lord of hosts, "'I took you from the pasture, "'from following the sheep to be ruler over my people

Israel.'" Notice the grammar here correctly and carefully.

God does not say that I appointed you over a special genetic people. God does not say

I appointed you over 12 tribal allotments called the Israelites. God says,

I appointed you over my people Israel. God is not saying the people who have a green card in Judea.

He's saying the people who are called by his name and love him and worship him, his elect people.

God has given David headship over the elect people of God, my people, the true

Israel. Israel means in Hebrew, the one who wrestles with God, not the one who has their citizenship papers.

So David has given headship over the people who wrestle with God, the king of the nation of kings, the priest over the nation of priests, the ruler over the people of God.

Which of course means so much more than ethnic Israel. You remember Caleb, not an Israelite. Ruth, not an

Israelite. Rahab, not an Israelite. The mixed multitude that came out of Egypt, not an Israelite. And yet all of them were my people

Israel. This is reinforced by a single word in the promise where God says, the

Lord declares to you that the Lord will make a house for you and your house and your kingdom shall endure before me forever.

House here does not mean architecture. David had a cedar house, which at the time was fancy. It doesn't mean palaces, castles, or summer cabanas on the

Mediterranean coast. It means a dynasty. It means a house for David, a line of kingly men who will come from his own loins that he will be head over, who will then be head over all of God's people.

And that's exactly how covenant headship works. What happens to the head falls down to the body.

When David is faithful, the kingdom experiences rest, 2 Samuel 7. When David sins, the sword is not gonna depart from his house.

And in his sons, the future sword wielding sinful kings of Israel, we will see that the sin does not depart from the house of David because the head fell, they all fell.

When God says, when your days are complete and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up a descendant after you and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.

I want you to hear the weight of that promise. God is promising David that David's kingdom will outlive

David. And it's not one generation. It's a forever eternal kingdom that God is promising to David.

Forever does not mean it has a terminus. Forever does not mean that it has an expiration sticker.

Forever means as long as the earth lives, as long as seed time and harvest, as long as sun rises in the morning and moon rises at night, as long as there is oxygen to be breathed on this earth, as long as there are minutes and seconds, as long as there is life,

David's kingdom will be standing, which is astounding.

And we'll have to look at more of that in just a moment. My point is, is that David's head and what's promised to the head will trickle down to all the parts.

David is promised a forever kingdom. So we will see how that plays out in David's progeny.

Number two, every covenant has stipulations that need to be obeyed in order for the covenant to be effective.

For instance, you get into a covenant with a bank. You say, I'm gonna pay you this amount of money for this car. You make the payment.

That's the stipulations. You pay the payment. You make the stipulations. You get the blessing of driving the car.

You don't make the payments. Eventually they come and take your car and you get the curses of the covenant.

Same thing with house covenants. Same thing with marriage covenants. If you continually break your marriage covenant, you should not be surprised when you lose your marriage covenant because there are curses for disobedience and there are blessings for obedience.

And all of those are based on the stipulations. Now in the Davidic covenant, the stipulations are royal and generational.

For instance, in verse 14 of chapter seven of 2 Samuel, I will be a father to him and he will be a son to me.

And when he commits iniquity, I will correct him with the rod of men. That sentence tells us exactly the stipulations that God requires of the line of David, of the sons of David, of the kings that are gonna come from David's loins.

They must rule as a son of God. Did you catch that? It said,

I will be a father to him and he will be a son to me. This is a forever covenant.

So every son of David is gonna be a son of God. Every son of David is gonna be in Hebrew, what is called

Mashiach. Anybody know what Mashiach stands for? Messiah, anointed one.

David's sons are gonna be little M messiahs, Mashiachs, anointed ones, sons of God.

Just like Adam was called firstborn son of God, just like Israel is called firstborn son of God, David is called now son of God.

He must rule under God and the fear of God as a son of God. And the way that this happens in Deuteronomy, it tells us that he is to hand write a copy of the

Torah so that he can read it. That's Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus numbers in Deuteronomy. Now, I live in an era and you live in an era where we do not hand write anything anymore.

And I had a professor in seminary, this was not that long ago, shame to say, who was old school.

This guy had us hand write our entire exam, long form essays, and one of these magical inventions called a notebook.

And by the end of it, I was wishing that my wife could come and bring me an ibuprofen because my hand was throbbing.

And I wrote probably less than 15 or 20 pages. Imagine sitting there tediously, meticulously, handwriting the book of Genesis, 50 chapters of biblical narrative, and then follow that up with Exodus, which 40 chapters, and then

Leviticus. And then imagine the painstaking detail of making sure that you do not forget the long lobe of the liver.

And then numbers, the census material. Did you carry the one?

Did you put the comma in the right place in the number? And then Deuteronomy, which is a restatement, the second generation of the law that came before it.

That's what the king was supposed to write in his little notebook. And he was supposed to have it beside his bed on his nightstand so that he could read the law of God day and night so that he could rejoice in God because he was called to be a son to God.

And God was called to be his father. And like every good father, you want your son to know who you are. The only man in all of Israel who personally owned a copy of the

Bible was the king. And it wasn't because he was rich. It was because God wanted him to know him beyond measure.

If ever the priest dropped their copy of the Old Testament in a pool of water, they always had a backup copy because the king had it.

That's how important the king's role was in the religious life of the people. He was supposed to know God as his father instead of acting like all the kings and all the other nations who, if you read mythology, will tell you that they believed that they were the gods and all the people existed to serve them.

David was very clear on the fact that God is God and he existed to serve

God. That's the first stipulation in the Davidic covenant.

The second one is that he must have a male seed, which is interesting. It means that he must not only have children, but he must have male children.

And male children are a moral obligation in the Davidic covenant. Get that.

Because if David has a kingdom forever, it only passes through the men. So he must have men in order to have a kingdom forever.

Therefore, it's a moral commandment for David to have male children. Imagine David having a

Henry VIII moment where he cannot produce him. It's not going to happen because the

Lord will even help David in bringing forth sons and his offspring and bringing forth sons.

That's why God says, I will raise up your descendants after you and I will establish his kingdom because the

Lord is promising. Listen, you're participating in this, but I'm guaranteeing it.

It's a stipulation, but God is guaranteeing its success. The king is obligated to produce sons.

The Lord God Almighty is promising that he will produce them generation by generation.

This is the stipulation. The second one, at least of the Davidic covenant. The third stipulation is that the king must submit to discipline and reproof.

When he commits iniquity, I will correct him. Who's over top of a king? God. Who is in charge of the discipline of the king?

God. So when the king fails, God disciplines him directly and God explicitly binds himself to reproving, disciplining and striking the kings, whether or not they like it or not.

And he promises that he will not destroy the line by killing it through discipline, but he will preserve the line by purifying it with discipline.

And God's discipline ends up being many times ferocious discipline on these depraved kings.

This is why Psalm 89, the Psalm that we read earlier says without contradiction that God will not remove his loving kindness from the kings of David.

He will visit them, however, with stripes and rods. Did you catch that? That God will, if needed, discipline them with rods and stripes, but he will not remove his loving kindness from the line of David because it is a forever kingdom.

David experiences this firsthand. He sins and God punishes him severely and yet God does not remove his loving kindness from David.

That, those are the three stipulations of the Davidic covenant. With every covenant, if you obey the covenant, there's blessings.

Every covenant includes blessings for obedience. In the Davidic covenant, those blessings are both intentionally

Edenic and also royal. God states them plainly in 2 Samuel 7, 9 through 11.

I have been with you wherever you have gone. Sounds a lot like Adam walking and talking with God in the garden, doesn't it?

And I have cut off all your enemies before you. Sounds a lot like a perfect place of peace, doesn't it?

And I will make you a great name and I will appoint a place for my people and plant them, plant garden, plant garden.

You see, we're not weird for thinking this way. And I will give you rest from all of your enemies.

What's the seventh day of creation? Rest. So David is the second, fifth in fact,

Adam, who's promised the same kind of blessings with you. Fruitful, multiply, God will be with you.

God will cut off your enemies. God will give you a great name. God will give you shalom. God will give you rest.

God will give you peace. All of these things were promised to Adam, a righteous dominion, God living with him, enemies restrained and pushed back to the ends of the earth, authority established globally and the people planted in peace so that they may worship over all the face of the earth.

This is what was promised to Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses and David. But like all four

Adams before him, David also fell. But there's something actually very interesting about the curses of the

Davidic covenant because the Davidic covenant does not contain covenant annulling curses like those found in Sinai.

The people of Israel had curses in Deuteronomy 28 and Leviticus 26, which would signal their total destruction and utter end.

In AD 70, those curses were poured out on the people of Judah. 722

BC, those curses were poured out on the people of Israel. But this Davidic covenant does not have covenant annulling curses because God's already promised that it's a forever kind of covenant.

It is a covenant that will never end. So God says, when he commits iniquity,

I will correct him with the rod of men, but my loving kindness shall not depart from him. This means that there are curses for disobedience.

And if that word curses bothers you, think consequences and covenant terms, curses or consequences, heavy.

Odious consequences. Terrifying sanctions for disobedience, but they will not in the

Davidic covenant be total, permanent or ultimate. Because God is promising discipline, but not divorce.

And in that stands sharp contrast with the Mosaic covenant. Under Moses, the covenant curses are explicit in David or explicit in terminating.

In David, the covenant operates differently because God is going to, by his own loving kindness, never deal falsely against David, Psalm 89, 30 through 33.

The Psalmist explicitly denies that this covenant can fail ever by any means. It cannot, no matter how sinful or wicked

David's progeny is. Now, as we've said before, every covenant has a federal head.

Every covenant has stipulations. Every covenant has blessings. Every covenant has curses. And every covenant also has signs that God offers to his head.

Remember, we don't offer signs to God because we are filthy, feckless, faithless, frivolous and fickle.

Our word means nothing. Our signs, our oaths, our pledges, our pinky promises mean nothing because we are dishonest to the core.

So we do not offer signs to a holy God. God offers signs to us to convince us that he will not fail in his administration of his covenant.

And the Davidic sign is fantastic. The Davidic sign is a throne.

But real quick, I think this is so fascinating. The signs themselves tell the story of the

Bible. Did you know that? The first signs are creational. In Eden, the sign is a tree, which is rooted in the world itself.

After the flood, the sign is a rainbow, which is set in heaven above. These signs are both cosmic, earth and heaven, distant, both eminent and transcendent.

These signs are the creation of heaven and earth. The third sign from Adam comes a bit closer than the distant galaxies and stars.

It comes into the own flesh of the man named Abraham, where he has cut himself so that he may be accounted as a man of faith, so that he may be saved according to his faith.

Israel was counted a people of God through their Sabbaths, which means they were made a nation through their Sabbath obedience.

And these signs tell the story of redemption because God is gonna save for himself a holy nation and give them rest, a

Sabbath unto God, mosaic. He's gonna bring individuals into the faith through circumcision of the heart.

That's Abrahamic sign. He's gonna bring them into a redeemed and restored heaven, which is the

Noahic covenant. And then eventually, he's gonna bring them into a redeemed and restored earth, the Adamic covenant.

Do you see how the signs tell the story of redemption? Nations saved, individuals saved, heaven purified, earth purified, eternity begins.

But before we can get the fullest picture of how all of this works, we have to also look at the sign of David because we haven't spoken about it yet.

It's that he will be a king unto the people of God. The sign of his covenant is a crown and a throne.

God says, your house and your kingdom shall endure before me forever. Your throne shall be established forever, 2

Samuel 7, 16. The crown and the throne is the sign of this penultimate covenant because it will be through the true king that a holy nation comes in.

It will be through this true king that individuals come into real and everlasting faith.

It will be through a true king that heaven is purified and it will be through a true king that earth is made new.

And for the sake of brevity, David ain't it. And if you are a careful observer of my sermon outline,

I'm going to be skipping now point six and seven of the Davidic covenant, which is the meal and the legacy for brevity, for love for you, and because I think we've covered the parts that need to be covered, is that okay?

Okay. The point is, David is head over his entire line and David feels like Adam and David feels like Noah and David feels like Abraham and David feels like Israel.

This unbreakable covenant was launched in the hands of a fallen man. And David is the one who begins the parade into insanity by sinning with Bathsheba in a public and very scandalous fashion.

The king who was meant to guard the kingdom when the men who were away at war stayed behind like a coward and committed sin against his

God. He became the source of disaster within the garden empire that he was commanded to keep watch over for his crime of adultery and for killing

Uriah. God tells him plainly, the sword will not depart from your house and it did not.

Right after this, not long after this, David's son Amnon violates his half sister, which is a disgusting thing.

Absalom out of anger because of David's lack of response kills his brother, runs away in hiding and then eventually performs a coup d 'etat where he publicly shames his own father, violating his father's harem on the rooftop of his father's palace, attempting to seize his father's throne forever.

The forever throne is already being threatened, not even after the first generation is dead.

The kingdom fractures within the palace. The family falls apart. David's house becomes a preview of the disaster prevalent all throughout

Judah. Lust, bloodshed, pride, rebellion, betrayal stacked on top of generation after generation after generation after generation.

After David dies, the pattern continues. And I'm gonna give you a hundred thousand foot view in a speedboat in the sky across Judean history.

Solomon, David's son begins in wisdom and then ends in adultery and idolatry. Rehoboam, Solomon's son rules harshly and foolishly, losing 10 out of the 12 tribes and plunging the kingdom into darkness.

Abijah, Rehoboam's son walks in his father's sins. Asa reforms early, but he finishes totally compromised.

Jehoshaphat seeks the Lord like David yet allies himself with wicked kings and is punished for it. Like a plane that has been plunging to the ground,

Jehoshaphat has this moment where the engines wake back up and the plane begins to steady itself before the descent continues again.

Jehoram, the fourth great -grandson of David, which means that he's five generations after David, murders his brother and leads

Judea into the worship of demon gods. Ahaziah, the fifth great -grandson of David, reigns briefly but dies violently.

Athaliah, the violent Jezebel figure, seizes power and the woman is threatening the eternal kingdom, the eternal throne of David.

And for a moment, it looks like that the Jezebel figure will win, and the evil woman will win, and yet, like a plane in free fall, she is decimated so that the eight -year -old

Josiah could be made king. She killed all the male heirs, thinking that she had ended

God's covenant with David, and yet God kept for himself an eight -year -old. Eight in the

Bible means new creation, lest we forget. And Josiah reigns well until he, at the end of his life, murders the prophet who rebukes him, which usually doesn't bode well.

His son Amaziah obeys partially but then grows arrogant. His son Uzziah rules very long and strong until pride drives him into the temple, thinking that he could withstand the holiness of God, and he dies as a leper.

His son Jotham does what is right, but he continues to allow the people to worship idols, which means he didn't have the backbone to stop them.

His son Ahaz saw his father's cowardice and became one of Judah's darkest kings, sacrificing his own son in the fires of Molech, shutting the temple down and allowing prostitutes and temple cult prostitutes to litter the land of Israel on every empty hill.

And like that sputtering plane, the engine choked out again, and it descended to the earth again.

And yet God in his grace woke up the line of David, and it sputtered and coughed back straight under a man named

Hezekiah, son of the wicked Ahaz, because God has a habit of bringing life out of death.

Hezekiah reforms worship and he trusts the Lord, and for a moment it feels like the line of David has returned.

But even Hezekiah stumbles in his pride, and the seeds of the final collapse of the

Davidic empire are pronounced over him by the prophet Isaiah, saying, these things won't happen in your lifetime, but they're coming.

Manasseh, the 12th great grandson of David, son of Hezekiah, undoes everything that his father did, leaving

Jerusalem filled with blood and devilish idolatry. His son, Ammon, follows him in his wickedness.

Now the plane is nearing the center of the ocean, the pitch black sea where it's gonna be plunged into. God gives the line of David one last loving jolt in Josiah, who raises all of the idols and throws them into the valley of Hinnon and sets them on fire, purifying the nation of its idolatry, but it's too little too late.

After him, the collapse was swift and merciless. Jehohaz, his son, reigned for three months.

Jehoiakim, his replacement, ruled in injustice and died. Jehoiachin, his successor, is carried away by Babylon.

And Zedekiah, the final king of Judah, rebels in childish, petulant arrogance and loses everything.

His eyes dotted out and him walked 700 miles in chains. To Babylon.

And under Zedekiah, the son of David, Jerusalem falls, the temple burns, and the sons of the kings are ended.

And the throne, for the first time, is empty.

He was the last Davidic king to sit upon the throne of David in the Old Testament. I said that this is a forever kind of kingdom.

Just making sure you're still with me. That this is a forever kind of kingdom.

And that God will never allow a son of David not to be on the throne.

And in the exile of Babylon in 586 BC, the throne of David was empty.

In fact, it was probably burned down and turned into a pagan god by Babylon.

So what gives? God made this promise. God said that he would maintain it.

God said that even though they sinned, he would punish them. God said that the kingdom would not ultimately plunge into the water.

But here we see the plane absolutely crashing into the middle of the ocean and sinking down to the watery depths.

And not for a little time either. It's not a six minute little revolution. 600 years.

The throne sat empty. Take into consideration that that's two and a half times longer than America has even been a thing.

God promised a forever kingdom and 600 years it sat rusting, decrepit, and broken.

For six centuries, the son of David ruling Jerusalem was gone. No crown, no throne, no king. From every human perspective,

God had lied. Do you hear it? The gravity? Second Samuel seven, there will never not be a man on the throne of David.

And for 600 years, there was what is going on. And it's here we see that the promise actually wasn't broken.

The promise was given to a different king. Even while David and his line was snapped by their sin, and the prophets kept speaking about a coming

David, a returning David. The prophets keep singing about this restored throne that's coming.

Which shows us the subtlety and the beauty of this promise. For if it were only made to David's son

Solomon and his grandchildren after him, the promise would have been broken. God would have lied and we could have all get home and done whatever we wanted.

But when you realize that the covenant promises to David were not just made to Solomon, but they were made to one of Solomon's long distant relatives.

Then you realize how wonderfully God is in his promise. Notice that David says in second Samuel seven, you have promised me things that are far off.

David himself knew it wasn't his son. David knew that his son would be chastised, his son would be sin, his son was sin, his son would be punished.

But David also knew that there was an ultimacy to this covenant that was far away that would be given to another

David, another King who was better than his son, Solomon, Rehoboam, Ahab and all of them.

When God says, when your days are complete, David, and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your descendant.

He doesn't say your son. I will raise up your descendant after you who will come forth from you and I will establish his kingdom and he shall build a house for my name and I will establish his throne and his kingdom forever.

This is God promising to raise up a better Solomon. Now, of course, Solomon was in a way was the height of the

Davidic empire. Solomon built temple, this beautiful temple and then God rains down fire from heaven and this temple is marvelous and Solomon builds this beautiful palace and the country of Israel is transformed in this beautiful garden and people from all over the world are coming to see the wonders of God.

Even the Queen of Sheba comes to marvel at the beauties of what's happening in the Solomonic empire and yet at the end of his life, he loses it.

So it must be about someone bigger than Solomon, better than Josiah, better than Hezekiah, better than all of them.

And in fact, 28 generations after David, the

Davidic king came. By the sin of David and his sons, their line lay in ruins, but the prophets and even the prophet

Nathan were speaking of another David. When Isaiah speaks of a child who in the government will rest upon his shoulders and the increase of that government will know no end, meaning it'll be big and eternal.

And that the throne of David will be established in this new David and he will reign with justice and righteousness forever.

Isaiah, who knows his history, is not talking about Solomon. He's saying there's a better one that's coming, that we've missed, that we're looking for.

When the prophets talk of a stump, David's legacy, a stump cut down like an oak tree in the middle of a forest, a stump.

Yet there's one coming who will be the shoot that springs forth from the deceased wood.

A branch will rise out of Jesse, it's David's father. And the spirit of the

Lord will rest upon him. Wisdom, understanding, counsel and might, a ruler who will rule

God's people, his true Israel, not just Israelites with dominion forever.

Isaiah 11, one through 10. And just so you are aware, my friends, Isaiah was written after the downfall of Israel, but before the downfall of Judah.

Isaiah is promising that God will raise up a true David who will rule over his true Israel, even though fake Israel has just been executed.

The prophets even dare to name the place where he's gonna come from, which is a bold move, by the way, because if you're gonna start a rival kingdom, you usually don't wanna be doxed.

Like we live in a world today where on Twitter, people are doxed and they freak out about it. Understandably so. I don't want a crazy person outside of my bedroom yelling all kinds of weird sicko things.

And yet here it is in the Bible, from Bethlehem, Ephrathah, this king will come, anybody could have known it.

And it says that his goings forth are from the ancient days and he will shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord and he will be our peace.

Micah 5, 2, 3, 5, he's gonna be God. This king's gonna be God. He's gonna be our peace.

Born in a human body, born God in Bethlehem, the city of David, the true son of David.

Zechariah 10, 4 and 12 says he's gonna strengthen his people. They are going to walk in his name.

He's gonna walk with his people, God and Adam, typology. He's gonna be the cornerstone, the tent peg, the bow battle, and he's gonna make a kingdom that never ends.

He's gonna be the righteous branch, Jeremiah 23, 5. He's gonna be the one shepherd who shepherds his people,

Israel, Ezekiel 34, 23, shepherd. David is a shepherd, this one will be the true good shepherd.

The promises are thick and they keep coming like waves on the seashore, smacking you in the face until the moment comes when the child is born in the quiet stables of Bethlehem.

Born king, born God, born to establish the line of David forever.

Born to ensure the line of David never fails, born to create the everlasting kingdom promised to his father

David. Even the blind men in the passage we read earlier knew it. Son of David, have mercy on us.

And he healed them because he was. This is why

Advent and this is why Christmas is not just some tacky, cliche, plastic holiday.

Teacher says every time the bell rings, the angel gives the message. Gets his wings and I love that movie too. It's my favorite

Christmas movie, I watch it every year. Bad theology, really bad theology.

Christmas is not that, it is a royal day. It is the culmination day, it is the coronation day.

The day that the king of kings and the Lord of lords is born bringing the forever kingdom to the shores of the broken earth.

It's the day when he who would win for himself a holy nation fulfilling the

Mosaic covenant was born. It's the day where he would win the individual hearts of all the families on earth fulfilling the

Abrahamic covenant is born. It's the day where he who would purify the heavens, not with the bow of God's wrath, but with the blood of his own sacrifice would purify the heavens fulfilling the covenant with Noah.

And it's the day where he who would eventually chase away every curse and every stain and every sin was born.

This babe in a manger was born king of the world, is executing his reign over the world.

And in Christmas, what we discover is that we have by God's sheer unadulterated grace become his citizens, his soldiers, his emissaries, his ambassadors, his representatives, his nurses, his mothers, his fathers, his lawyers, his accountants, his kings, queens, princes and princesses.

This Jesus reigns now. When he died, what did he do?

He rose from the grave. And then what did he do? He ascended into heaven.

And then what did he do? He sat down upon a throne. And there has not been a single day since April something,

AD 30, where a son of David has not sat upon the throne. And there will not be a day brother and sister in our future or in our children's future or in our great, great, great, great, great, great grandchildren's future where a true son of David, the son, will not be sitting on that throne.

My encouragement to you is to remember who he is and to remember who you are and to live accordingly.

Let's pray. Lord, we thank you so much that you are king.

Not will be, not might be, but are. There is no power or principality or dominion or throne that can ever rival you.

You own it all. All authority in heaven and earth have now been given to you. Satan himself has been bound.

The principalities destroyed, rendered defenseless.

Your kingdom advancing. You say, I will build my church and the gates of hell will not stand against it. And for 2000 years, you as the true

David have been advancing upon the enemy territory and building up your kingdom.

And you will do so until the whole world is your holy nation and fulfillment of the covenant with Moses.

Until the whole world is filled with individuals who are credited with faith, fulfilling the covenant of Abraham.

Until the heavens are perfectly purified as you have done fulfilling the covenant with Noah. And until the world itself is rid of its curse.

As you will continue to do until you are finished. Lord, let us remember that you are not finished.

And that because we are not dead, you still have a purpose for us. Lord, help us not be purposeless people.

Help us be people who understand we live under the kingship of a cosmic king.

Lord, let us understand the importance of what it means to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.

Lord, let us remember the confidence that comes and being a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. And Lord, let us remember the conviction and the holiness and the purity and the beauty that comes with being a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.

Until every ear has heard, until every soul is saved, may your kingdom continue to reign.