2 Samuel 17:1-17 The Greatest Giver

Of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsack is preaching from his series, The Warrior Poet King, Study of Second Samuel.

Let's listen in. I'm Don Filsack, I'm the lead pastor here, and welcome to Recast this morning. It is a privilege, and I hope that you're grateful to gather together in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

How many of you are glad to be under the name of Jesus this morning? We are all about Jesus here at Recast. Our mission is to worship him and to find more worshipers for his name, and that's what we set out to do here in Matawan.

Over 12 years ago, going on 13 years now, and God has continued to multiply us in that, and hopefully to continue to multiply our ministry in the community as well. We've been marching our way, verse by verse, and chapter by chapter, through the Old Testament book of Second Samuel, and this morning, we come to what scholars say is perhaps one of the most pivotal passages in scripture.

Now, I have to be careful not to be superlative about things, because every passage seems to be pretty significant, right? We're talking about the Bible. It's all significant, but some of these things are pivotal in human history.

Some of these passages are a shift or a change or a revelation of what God is doing new in the world that highlights something extremely significant, and one of the greatest promises ever given to a human comes to a man who is concerned that he hasn't done enough for God.

So we're gonna see a man named David in the text, and he's concerned that he hasn't done enough for God, and the text this morning begins with David wanting to give something, therefore. I am not sure I've done enough.

I want to give something to God, but how many of you know that God doesn't really need anything from us? Go ahead and raise your hand if you knew that. God doesn't really need anything from any of us.

You see, in our text, God gives, God gives, not takes, God gives his greatest promise to David at the very moment David is feeling the most guilty for not having done enough for God, and we'll see that in our text this morning.

God says to him, in essence, I really don't need what you're offering. I just want to bless you. How many of you, that's a relief. Like, that's a relief. I don't really need what you have to offer. I'd kind of prefer for you to come to me with empty hands.

Like, I don't need what you're offering, David. Instead, I just want to bless you to show you my glory, to show you my glory and to show the world my glory through you and your offspring, through you and your descendants, David.

This is an unreasonable message of astounding grace, and I hope it meets us where we're at today. To a person, my prayer this week has been that God would meet us in this place through his word and impress on us the glory of the God who gives, the God who is the greatest of givers.

Do you ever feel like, honest question, I want you to assess your own heart. Do you ever feel like God needs a little more from you? Anybody ever feel like that in life? God just needs a little bit more from me.

Or have you ever entertained the question, it's very common to human nature, have I done enough? Have I done enough? Well, that question, have I done enough, it's ancient, it's also modern, and it's also extremely common.

It's an extremely common question that I think many of us have asked over the course of our lifetimes, from the youngest to the oldest here, we have wondered, have I done enough? And isn't there always something more you could do for God?

Isn't there always something more? But God is the God who wants us to rest in his gifts, to rest in his giving. And he sets up in this ancient text his greatest gift of all. And he will bless David's royal line.

You see, David says, oh God, I'm living in this palace. How can I live in this palace when your ark is traveling around from tent and place to place and it's living in this old tent? And he wants to give God a house.

But instead, God says, no, David, I don't need a house from you. I'm going to build you into a house. I'm gonna build you into a royal dynasty. And the blessing over this royal house that God will build up for David is here's some of the characteristics of what he's promising, and you'll see it in the text when I read it here in a moment.

Death will not stop my promise, says God. Sin will not end my promise, says God. And time will not erode my promise, says the greatest giver. The one who will rule and reign forever will come from the line of King David.

And here we have that promise for the first time in scripture. And can you imagine David just answering and saying, like, I was just hoping to give you a temple. And here you are promising. And you can never outgive God, church.

You will never outgrace him. And just at the moment when you feel guilty for not giving him enough, he stands ready to remind you that he wants to give you more. Wanna see the kindness of God? Need a reminder that he is generous?

Need a reminder that he is kind and eager to bless his people? I think all of us could use a refresher on that. We gather together for these things from his word. But even more so, I encourage you to remember the name of the promise.

The name of the promise is Jesus. He is promised in our text as the eternal son of David. But he is received by us day by day and week by week in our gathering as our savior and king. So let's open our Bibles to 2 Samuel, chapter seven, verses one through 17.

Again, that passage, if you have a device, navigate in that device or one of those scripture journals. But again, it's 2 Samuel, chapter seven, verses one through 17. We'll read this in its entirety together.

Church, the privilege that we have is awesome to be able to take in God's word together in the gathering of his people. 2 Samuel seven, one through 17. 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 and 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, 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 to 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 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 I 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 of these words, in accordance with all this vision, Nathan spoke to David. Let's pray as the band comes to lead us in worship this morning. Father, we rejoice that you are a God who makes promises and keeps promises.

You are the giver of all good things. And even in our hearts, we might be like David early in this passage, sitting with his friend Nathan on the veranda, talking together about the palace in which he lives and wondering why he's not giving more to you.

We see in this passage that at the very moment where David desires to give to you, you turn the tables and give the greatest to him. Father, I pray that you would make us a people of empty hands, coming before you with faith and trust that you provide us what we need.

That you give us all that our souls require. All that our souls need to be okay with you. Father, I pray that from a place of stability, a place of forgiveness, a place of hope in the cross of Christ, that our praises would rise before you in this gathering of your people.

I recognize that some people have had really rough weeks. And the last thing on their mind was the Davidic covenant this morning. There's a lot of things that press in on us and a lot of things that weigh on us and a lot of, from the emotional, the spiritual, the economic, all of the pressures that we face.

Father, we rejoice in the opportunity that we have to come under your word this morning as a people who are hungry and needy for mercy and grace from you. Father, I pray that you would speak to us through your word and in these songs, let us raise up our praise to you this morning in Jesus' name, amen.

Well, I hope you were able to meet with God during that time of worship and I'm really grateful for Dave and his commitment to get up here and do music. I can't do that and you wouldn't wanna see me try.

So, super grateful for these guys who get up here every week and lead us in worship. I encourage you like I do every week to make yourself comfortable if at any time during the message you need to get up and step out to the back and stretch out.

If you need to use the restrooms, they're out the double doors down the hallway on the left-hand side. Otherwise, there is more coffee back there. Looks like we're out of donuts. There's also some water back there if you need that as well.

But then I ask you to please keep your Bibles open or your devices open to 2 Samuel 7, verses 1 through 17. We read that together earlier in the service. We're gonna now walk through it in more depth and kind of see what God has to communicate to us through it.

So again, that's 2 Samuel 7, 1 through 17. You may have lost your spot there, so jump back in there. There's been a lot of ink spilled over this text over the centuries. The promises issued to David from Almighty God here in the text refine what is a major thread of promises issued by God to his people down through the ages.

It began all the way back in the garden with God promising to Eve that one that is born of the woman, interestingly, that he's only born of the woman, but one born of the woman would crush the head of the serpent.

He would be wounded by the serpent, but the serpent would be crushed by the descendant of the woman. Promised to God at the point where he's issuing the initial judgments of original sin, he's already promising to fix it.

He's already saying, on my initiative, I'm going to fix it. I'm going to take care of it. You're gonna see this down through history. Well, then there's another major movement when you get to what's Genesis chapter 12, the pagan idol-worshiping Abram was promised three things by the Almighty God.

If he would take him as his God and follow him, he said, here are three things that you can take to the bank, Abram. He's gonna change his name to Abraham, of course. And he says these three things. He says, your descendants will number like the stars in the sky.

Takes him out on a dark, starry night. How many of you ever been to the UP and stepped out, or at least northern Michigan, and stepped out into the night sky where there's no light pollution and he takes him out like that and says, your descendants are gonna number like the stars in the sky.

Second, your people are gonna be granted a fertile land, which amounts to Israel, and is given to them as the promised land. The third thing is that one of your descendants, Abram, is going to be a blessing to all nations.

A refinement of that promise of Eve, given to Eve, initially, now given to Abram, and now that same promise is revived in our text through another man. That same promise carries on to a descendant of King David.

And David is promised something here in the text. And with each renewal of the promise, we get refinement, we get more information, we get more detail, we get things set more in relief. The Messiah is coming into focus through the promise and prophecy, through kingdom and covenant, through God really relating with real people and real history.

The promise is coming, David, and it's going to be through you. Our text begins in verse one with peace in the kingdom of Israel. So what we have here is a little bit later in 2 Samuel, the author is not super interested in chronology, so we know that the palace of David was not built until the last 10 years of his life.

How do we know that? Well, it says that he sent to Lebanon, to that area, and had timbers brought from there and from a guy named Hiram, who was the head of Phoenicia, or that area. Well, Hiram only overlapped with David's reign for about 10 years, so we have that historically, so we can see that this is kind of going on near the end of David's reign.

But his kingdom is at a place of rest from surrounding enemies. He's a little bit older, but not, again, he's got 10 years out of a 40-year reign left, and we can imagine that King David and his spiritual advisor, the prophet Nathan, will see him a couple of times in 2 Samuel.

He has a relationship with this guy. He's a prophet, and they probably hung out a lot, and he probably sought Nathan's advice, the counsel of God, through the prophet Nathan, and they're chilling on the veranda, sipping on some iced tea, maybe, some coffee, and discussing the state of the nation.

David brings up a nagging concern, something that's kind of been in the back of his mind, and you can tell, by the way that he brings it up, that it's a little low-level burn for him that's going on here, thoughts, feelings, that he's expressing to Nathan.

Something's been growing in his heart. He says, how is it fair that I live in a palace made with cedar and all of these fineries around me? You see, he lives in a palace that, they brought the timbers from miles away, down on the Mediterranean coast, and then brought them inland to build him a palace.

All the while, the ark of God, which we saw brought up into Jerusalem last week, the ark of God is in an old tent, and when I say old tent, it's a really old tent. This is a tent that was organized back during the Exodus, and built during the Exodus, and sure, it may well have been updated from time to time, but this is where the ark of the covenant, where the symbol of the presence of God is in Israel, in Jerusalem, he set it up in Jerusalem last week, but it's in a tent, and he lives in a palace.

Now, I want you to consider what stands behind these types of questions. I mean, David is a human like you or me, with the same kinds of emotions, the same kind of feelings and thoughts, and I believe that David wants to honor God.

How many of you can see that in his motivation? Like, something about him, he says, I want to honor God, but I think he has more going on in his heart than mere concern for God. Notice that he brings up his own living conditions in his concern.

Not a pure and completely pure motivation on David's part is just like, I want to serve God, I want to do this for God, but there's a little bit of guilt. Do you see it in the text? A little bit of guilt on his part.

A little bit of like, man, why am I living so, why am I living so high on the hog when God's, God has no temple, when there's no good place for the presence of God to reside, to rest. And so he brings up his own living conditions.

How can he live in such an opulence while the symbol of God's presence is left in this tabernacle tent in the city? The question is based, of course, on comparison. I believe that David has a sense of guilt over his own blessing, and therefore, that's part mixed into the motivation of his desire to honor God.

So to modernize this, we might ask the question, how can I spend $1 ,000 a month for rent or for my mortgage and only give $500 a month to God? We might ask these kinds of questions. How can I drive a nice car instead of giving more to God?

How can I buy so much gasoline for my car at these prices? I probably could have fed an entire village in Africa for a year for the price that I just filled up my tank, right? You know what I'm talking about.

And we laugh and we chuckle because of the gas prices, but how many of you have asked these kinds of questions in your life before? How can I live this way and still be consistent? And would people look at my expenses and say, wow, he really loves God.

You can ask those questions. I think you can get creative with your own guilty questions. I think you could come up with your own. I think many of you have, and some of you have already entertained this line of questioning that David is heading down.

How in the world can I be so blessed and not give God a house? I believe that this is a legitimate question, but it's only legitimate in that we are called to be generous people. We are called to be a people who do not love money.

We are to not worship affluence, and we are called multiple times in Scripture to have a light hand on our material stuff. You see that as a consistent, those consistent messages in Scripture? They are.

I believe the concern for God to be lifted up in the eyes of the nation is a good thing on David's part here. The desire to demonstrate honor in him is well placed. The assumption, though, is misguided.

That's that God's blessings are meant to be contrasted to our gifts to him, and that's where error creeps into David's logic. As if the blessings that God has given to us are on one side of a scale, and the things that we give to him are on the other, and boy, oh boy, we ought to try to balance those out.

It is a false dichotomy, church, to place his gifts of kindness on one side of the scale and our gifts to him on the other. How many of you know that that scale will never balance out, ever, never could?

You'll never be able to pay him back for all that he's given to you. You'll never pay him back. To enter into the scale game with God is silly on its face, and even when I say it, I'm sure that many of our hearts go, yeah, of course that's foolish.

Why would we ever do that? But I'm guessing that all of us religious people here have at least had some thoughts that run this way, have at least spent some time trying, trying to compete with God on the scale, to give him more so that he'll like us better.

Have I ever given enough to God? Your heart might ask. So let me cut to the chase in case your heart has ever asked that or is asking it now. No, no, you haven't. So now we got that out of the way. No, you have not given him enough.

You've never given him enough. You never will give him enough. But here's the beauty, church, are you ready for it? He's okay with that, he's all right with that. As a matter of fact, what he wants from you is an open-handed reception of his good gifts, of his kindness to you.

Maybe what David would do better here is to get down on his knees and say thank you for my palace. Thank you for the gifts that you have given to me that I don't deserve, that I've never earned, and you have just lavished gift upon gift upon gift to me.

Can't pay you back for that, God, for the good things that you have done in my life. Praise God that, praise God to the highest that he doesn't play the scale game, amen? Woo, dodged a bullet on that one.

If the God who created this universe was a scale type of God, we'd be toast. But his answer to David is the answer we all need as we are tempted to think about paying God back for his blessings to us.

In verse three, David's spiritual advisor says, it's interesting what happens here and how it's recorded for us. It doesn't even have to be recorded this way. We could've just gone straight to the vision that Nathan receives, but no, we have him say go for it here in the text.

The Lord has been with you, David. And they're having this conversation on the veranda, and he's like, if you wanna build him a house, go for it. Just do it. And then you have a Nike swoosh on the side of the temple, and it would be all kind of like, you know, merchandise and all that.

No, I'm just kidding, but just do it. Does anybody even know, you guys remember that campaign? Okay, that didn't fly. God interrupts the plan later that night, so they're out on the veranda, they're talking, and Nathan's gut level, how many of you have just given gut level advice to somebody?

There's a guy like, just shoot from the hip. Yeah, of course, God's blessed you. Go do this ministry. Go do that. And Nathan's guilty of that. We have an actual prophet of God who's guilty here of just saying like, off from the hip, just, sure, you've been blessed.

Just go build him a house. God interrupts that plan later that night by revealing his plan to Nathan in a vision. Whether it was a dream or a vision, we don't know exactly how that was revealed, but he gets some very specific speech he's supposed to give to David the next morning.

So in the morning, Nathan returns to David, and he comes with a full-blown speech from God that corrects things. God refers to David in his speech as my servant David, not as my king, not as the appointed leader over my entire people or my nation.

The powerful and mighty and famous King David was known and titled by God as his servant. And I suggest to you that that's higher praise than king. That's the highest of praise that I think a human can attain to, is servant of the Almighty God.

I wanna be known as a servant of the Almighty God. Do you, is that enough for you? I hope that that's true in our hearts, but that's the way that God addresses David, my servant. And in verses five through seven, God takes issue with the plan for David to build him a temple, for him to build him a house.

In verse five, God rhetorically identifies that he doesn't need, I mean, there's really three reasons here. He says, I don't need a house. Do you think I'm going to dwell in a house? Do you think that I can be contained in a geographical location?

I'm everywhere. I don't need a house. Now, he certainly, we know in just a few years down the road Solomon is indeed going to build a temple, and that has a place and a time, but he doesn't need one. And in verse six, God appeals to historical precedent.

He says, for centuries since the Exodus, by the time that we get down to David, we have passed centuries of judges and all of that time of conquest of the land under Joshua and all of that. Since the Exodus, God has not had a permanent temple.

Some really key things for us to learn from the way that God works with humanity in this text. You see, instead, God set a precedent of being a God who goes with his people. Not that it requires them to come to him, but goes with his people.

He has gone with his people all along. I believe that even here by God showing his preference to be among his people, he's preparing the way in our minds for the spirit to dwell in his people permanently.

One day, one day from the vantage point of David, one day all of the sacred space and sacred formality will be done away with. One day the final sacrifice will be made for sins, once for all. One day access to the Almighty will not be surrounded by formal attire, by formal structure, or even by geography.

We need not, church, take a pilgrimage to meet with our God, amen? All of that Old Testament formality highlights our need for a better sacrifice. A better sacrifice that was made from our vantage point nearly 2 ,000 years ago.

I believe that God is showing that he finds David's concern to be kind, and he's kind to David. He doesn't spurn him. He doesn't kind of just mock him or say, you know, he's kind, but I think he, I get the impression, if I can say this, I get the impression that God's response here is kind of like, David, that's cute.

It's a cute gesture. I mean, I appreciate that. I appreciate your idea of building me a house. That's nice. But God is fine with mobility, and he is fine with mediocre opulence. He does not need the fineries.

He will allow Solomon to build a temple for him, but he says, I'm not the one who brought it up. If you wanna do it, go for it. A church building, I don't know if you've noticed this, but 25120 Front Avenue, where we are right now, is not very opulent.

It is pretty utilitarian. How many of you are glad that we have a church building? It has served our purposes well for the last four years. It has been a good place for us to rest. It has been a good place for us to be.

It's not opulent. It's not ornate. It was expensive, but it was not extravagant as it could have been, let me say that. And that comes out of a theological conviction for us, church, the people, the people, us, gathered together, are the temple of the living God.

We are the temple of the living God. He doesn't live here at this address. He lives everywhere. And yet the specific location of the glory of God is found in the hearts of his people. Wherever we go, there God is with us, amen?

Verse seven, God lets David know that he has never asked for a permanent structure. That's the third kind of disagreement with David's plan. So David says, in essence, I feel guilty for having such a nice house while God's ark is in a tent.

And God says, I don't need a permanent place. I have never had a permanent place, and I have never asked for a permanent place. Our God is satisfied with the arrangement, and if he wasn't, he says, I would have let you know.

I would have spoke through the judges. I would have spoke through the prophets. I would have let you know if I needed a house. So consider what it means that God is not concerned for location. He knows what he is going to do, and he knows it's going to go global.

I'm glad that we don't have to go on pilgrimage. I'm glad that we don't have to go to a temple in Jerusalem whenever we want to worship God. How many of you know that would be cumbersome? How many of you know that God was already planning something globally, and he didn't want us to have to travel all the way to Jerusalem to worship him?

So he's already making plans for us here in Matawan to not have to jump on a jet or row a boat or something to get over to Israel. Praise God for that, and even way back here in his interactions with King David, God is demonstrating a lack of concern for a centralized location of worship.

We know that Solomon, David's son, will actually build a temple for God, but God wants to be sure that this is a place for the people to come and worship him. I believe that he says all that he does here in verses five through seven in this text to be sure that the people do not think that God is going to make the temple his permanent dwelling.

He wants to shake us from that notion that he has a permanent geographical location. But now God turns a corner in his speech to David through the prophet Nathan, and it's not accidental that he uses this timing to break the news to David that rather than give God a house, God is going to establish David's house, and he uses a play on words with the word house.

Here at the point of David's guilt over not doing enough for God, God breaks in and says, I'm going to do even more. I'm gonna do even more. I'm gonna give you more. I mean, if you're honestly taking account, if you're honestly considering the scale for even just a moment, I mean, you'd be justified in saying, God, the scale seems broken.

It seems like the more I try to give to you, the more you heap up on your side. How is that fair? How silly that we would ever try to give God something that he needs. What could we ever offer him that we have not already received from his gracious hands?

Have you made anything that he didn't give you the energy to create? Did you use your own resources ever in creating anything? I read something this week that said that the Hebrew word create is only ever used of God.

How many of you know all we do is refashion stuff? We just kind of reorganize it. He grew the trees, we cut the lumber, we build this stuff, right? But we don't create it. He created it. We just refashion things.

Verses eight through 16 amount to God's rehearsing his history with David, which I think is interesting because I picture, you know, God who stands outside of time begins to rehearse David's history and he just gets over into the future.

It's almost like, I mean, when he sees David's life, he doesn't break in a hard, fast line between the things that he's already done for David. It just bleeds right over into the things he's gonna do because how many of you know that God, from his vantage point, already sees David's beginning from the end and our beginning from the end and the very end?

He already sees it. It's before him. So as he begins to rehearse David's past, this bleeds right over into the future. God says, I took David, I took you, I took you from shepherding the sheep and I've raised you up to be a shepherd over your people.

From the lowly, stinking cold, working, that working of a shepherd, and I've brought you up into a palace. God has done so much for David over the course of his life. God is establishing here his side of the scale.

He has been with David according to verse 19. All along the way, cutting off enemies, lifting up David's name, but now God begins to promise things to David for the future in verse nine and that's where the second half of verse nine, we start to flip over and bleed over into the future.

David will not merely be a good king over Israel during the Bronze Age of human history. David is mentioned in commercials to sell subway sandwiches. He's used in commercials. I looked up some. He's used in commercials to sell cars.

There's even a really funny old Wilson sporting goods ad that I watched this week where he slings a stone and David, I mean, Goliath falls and then he reaches down, picks up the stone and there's a Wilson symbol and it says something like, you know, you gotta get the right gear.

Something like that. It's a funny commercial, maybe mildly blasphemous. I don't know, but we're laughing. So, you know, it is. It's used. David's name is used in all kinds of capacities and 2022, his name is known in this little hole in the wall called Matawan, Michigan.

Not great ones among Israel is the promise of God. No, no, no. David's name will be among the great ones of all the earth. Where can you go that David's name isn't named? We go, what about the Muslim world?

He's in the Quran. I don't know if you guys knew that. Like a billion people who worship a different God in a different way and David's still named among them. Anytime you see a guy named Dawud, it's David.

Like all around the globe is this man's name. Fulfillment of prophecy, fulfillment of this promise. In concrete evidence, this man is one of the great ones on the earth and God will give his people a great place in the future, he says.

He will remove all enemies. God is appointing a future time when his people will be given ultimate rest from all enemies. The extent of these promises begin to diverge from anything Israel has ever experienced historically.

The words used begin to form a permanence that divides us from things that are past and things that are still yet future. There is coming a day when Israel will be disturbed no more. A new heavens and new earth.

They will get rest from all of their enemies. And further, God now promises to David at the end of verse 11 that he will make David a house. David comes to him and says, I wanna build you a house. And he says, no, I'm gonna make you a house.

It's a play on words. David wanted to build a house for God, a physical temple and God says, no, not now, but let me bring you into a little plan I've been hatching. I had this idea and it's kind of been like a long time coming.

How about I, I'm going to make you a house, a royal line of kings leading all the way down to an ultimate king who will have no end to his reign. The promises here are for both, both for David and for us and so it can get confusing.

You go verse to verse and we like things cut and dried. Hebrew prophecy doesn't. Hebrew prophecy doesn't like to delineate exactly who it's speaking of. So he's encouraging David with his grace and God is shining a spotlight for our benefit on this prophecy.