The King's Covenant

Well, good morning to you. So glad that you made it in safely. I'm glad we kept the doors open for those that wanted to be here. I know that there are a bunch of people that are watching us online as there were at our first worship gathering, hope that you're doing well and that you can keep to the degree possible, that you can keep kind of a as uninterrupted a space as possible when you're watching there at home. I hope that you'll find a copy of God's Word and be in that with us. We're going to be in 2 Samuel 7 in just a few moments, we're gonna cover the entirety of the chapter. Don't worry, we'll do it in a way that makes sense to us all and we'll be there in just a moment. Now, I don't know if last week if you watched the Super Bowl or didn't. It's a little touchy subject for Buffalo fans and I know we're all kind of feeling that, but you probably turned it on anyway in the background just to watch and you know, hope that the Chiefs would lose, which they did. But nonetheless, you might have watched the Super Bowl halftime show. I'm not sure if you did or didn't. It was the most watched halftime show in the history of halftime show, Super Bowl halftime shows, performed by a guy named Kendrick Lamar, who is probably one of the, if not the most influential voice in the rap genre. Now, like every Super Bowl halftime show, you may have absolutely loved it. You may have thought it was rich, deep, smart, all of those things. Or you may have gone, "Not really my thing. I didn't really, you know, like it that much or I didn't get it," or whatever the case may be, right? Music and art are almost always a matter of taste if we're being honest anyway. So everyone has different ones. So that's neither here nor there. What I was doing, and I was really tired on Sunday, preaching a couple times, had a meeting and I was well into the afternoon before I got home late afternoon. And so I'm kind of on autopilot just watching. And here's what my brain fixed on. Kendrick Lamar comes out and he's kneeling or kind of squatting on the hood of a Buick Grand National, which I was like, "Oh, cool car," you know? So that was awesome. But then I was watching as a few people started coming out of the car. They were gonna be dancers and all that stuff, right? A few people started coming out of the car, but it wasn't just a few people. I mean, people just kept coming out of the car. And I found myself literally saying out loud to myself watching this by myself, "Wait, another one. Like there's more people coming outta this car." It was like one of those, you know, circus clown cars where they just keep pouring out and pouring out and pouring out. There had to be like, I don't know, 25, 30 people that poured out of this little car, right? And I was just glued to it sitting there the whole time just going, "Wait, another one is coming out? What, another one is coming out?" Now the reason I tell you that is because as we read through the Old Testament and we acquaint ourselves with this great drama of God, it seems like we run into the covenants over and over and over. Like there's just more that are coming all the time. It's almost like when we're reading, we think to ourselves, wait, another covenant, hold on. Is this another covenant that's actually showing up? And the answer is yes, we do have another one that we are talking about today. And there are more than what we've already talked about. We've talked about a number of them, right? We talked about the covenant with Abraham, we talked about the covenant with Israel that was mediated by Moses. And even though there are more than that, today we're going to look at the covenant that God made with King David. Now, some of you may or may not have a lot of experience in the scripture or the Old Testament, but I'm guessing that you probably know who David is. You probably heard about, you're like, "Man, you mean the guy with the sling that killed the giant?" Yeah, that guy, right? He was a shepherd. Samuel the prophet came to his father Jesse's house when he was just a kid because God had rejected the first king of Israel named Saul. And he told Samuel, go to Jesse's house 'cause one of Jesse's kids is going to be the anointed one, the next one to be able to come. So Jesse paraded, seven of his sons in front of Samuel and Samuel went, "Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope," right? And he said, "Do you have any other kids?" And he said, "Yeah, I've got a young one that's out in the fields." He said, "Call him in." And then as David stood before Samuel, Samuel said, the Lord said to Samuel, "That's my guide right there. That's my guide." And so the Lord was with him from that time forward, he ended up getting into the court of Saul and playing his music because Saul was tormented in mine and he would play his music in there. And then when a big giant Philistine who would come and challenge the armies of Israel and make them look stupid and mock them and all that stuff. And David said, "Wait, this uncircumcised Philistine's gonna talk like that. I'll be glad to go out there and I'll go with the power of God." And they thought he was crazy. They tried to put armor on him. He said, "No, I don't need armor. I've got five smooth stones, one for Goliath and his four brothers if they wanna show up." And then he goes out there and he slays the giant, right? And then after that, he becomes a military hero in Israel. In fact, the people of Israel would shout out, "Saul has killed his thousands, but David, his tens of thousands." How do you think that made King Saul feel? He was now suffering from feeling a little bit insecure and insufficient, and now he became incredibly jealous of David. But that jealousy turned to homicidal hatred, decided he wanted to kill David. David would have to run for the hills. He had some mighty men that were with him. But eventually Saul died and David became king. And when David becomes king, the first thing, one of the first things he does is has military victory in Jerusalem. He takes Jerusalem and he runs the Jebusites out of Jerusalem. He also goes and finds the Ark of the Covenant that the Philistines had taken and he brings it back to Jerusalem and sets up Jerusalem as the capital city of the kingdom of Israel. And then after that, David builds himself a palace. And that's where we pick up today in 2 Samuel 7 when we look at the covenant that God made with David, here's what it says beginning in verse one. "After the king was settled in his palace and the Lord had given him rest from all his enemies around him, he said to Nathan, the prophet, 'Here I am living in the house of Cedar, while the Ark of God remains in a tent.' Nathan replied to the king, 'Whatever you have in mind, go ahead and do it. For the Lord is with you.'" Now as you can imagine, what David was wanting to do is he's saying, "I'm living in this palace and God's Ark is in a tent and surely we need to build him a house so that he has this, right?" I think David's heart was in the right place. I think he was motivated rightly. And by the way, I think he was motivated more than likely by what was said to Moses about the nation of Israel and what would happen. If we go back to Deuteronomy, here's what we see, in Deuteronomy 12 it says, "But you'll cross the Jordan and settle in the land the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance. And he will give you rest from all your enemies around you so that you will live in safety. Then to the place the Lord your God will choose as a dwelling for his name. There you are to bring everything I command you, your burnt offerings and sacrifices, your tithes and special gifts and all the choice possessions you have vowed to the Lord." In other words, the promise was there's going to be a place where everything is going to be settled. And I think David may have assumed that this, Jerusalem was the place where the rest of God would be and the place for worship and sacrifices and making offerings to the Lord. So there he wanted to build a house for God. And the prophet Nathan, when David told him about this, said, "Sounds good. Do what's in your heart to do. I like the idea, get after it." So David was like, "Okay." But that night plans changed as they sometimes do with the Lord, as we continue on in verse number four, it says this, "But that night the Word of the Lord came to Nathan saying: Go and tell my servant David, 'This is what the Lord says: Are you the one to build me a house to dwell in? I have not dwelled in a house from the day I brought the Israelites up out of Egypt to this day. I've been moving from place to place with a tent as my dwelling. Wherever I have moved with all the Israelites, did I ever say to any of their rulers whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, Why have you not built me a house of cedar?'" In other words, he says to David, "No, this is not the plan." And we learned later the reason that David was not gonna be the one to build the house of God or the temple of God was 'cause David was a man of bloodshed. He was a man with unclean hands, so to speak, because he had shed so much blood. But now what God is going to do after telling David this, "Hey, you're, I know you wanted to do this. That's not what you're gonna do." Then God makes a covenant with David. Now lemme pause here and give you a little sidebar. In 2 Samuel 7, the word covenant is not used one time. Now when we read about the Abrahamic covenant, the word covenant is used, when we read the covenant with Israel and Moses, the word covenant is used, but the word covenant doesn't appear in 2 Samuel 7. Why is that? Why do we then think this is a covenant? Well, because of the language that God used, God continued to use. I will, I will, I will, I will, language. So we knew that that was based on a covenant. And if we were to fast forward into 2 Samuel 23, when David's at the end of his life, he's actually reflecting on his life with God and he talks about the covenant God made with him. So we know that this is covenant language, even though the word covenant is not used. So what did God make a covenant with David for? Well, lemme say it to you this way. God made a covenant with David that would be for his lifetime. So in other words, God said, "I'm gonna make some promises to you, David. I'm gonna make a covenant with you, David, that is gonna be for your lifetime." Well, what did that entail? Well pick up in verse number eight. "Now then tell my servant David, This is what the Lord Almighty says: 'I took you from the pastor from tending the flock and appointed you ruler over my people Israel. I have been with you wherever you have gone and I have cut off all your enemies from before you. Now I will make your name great, like the names of the greatest men on earth. And I will provide a place for my people Israel, and will plant them so that they can have a home of their own and no longer be disturbed. Wicked people will not oppress them anymore as they did at the beginning and have done ever since the time I appointed leaders over my people Israel. I will also give you rest from all your enemies.'" So God's using this, I will language. And here's what he says, "David, during your lifetime, here's what I'm going to do. I will make your name great." By the way, here we are in 2025 talking about David. God certainly made his name great, but he did it in his own lifetime. Everybody knew who David was. And then he said, "I'm gonna also settle the people of Israel in the place that I promised them." Remember the Abrahamic covenant where he said, "I'm gonna give you a land." And then Moses was leading them toward that. Joshua led them into that, but there were still pockets and places where that needed to be dealt with. And then he says, "I'm also gonna give you rest from your enemies." Now, if I were to turn the page from 2 Samuel 7 to 2 Samuel 8, which I'm not gonna do today, we don't have time, what you would see is you would see a list of military conquest that David actually was involved in so that there could be peace and rest from his enemies. So God said, "This is what I'm going to do. I'm making a covenant with you for your lifetime." But this covenant was bigger than that. This covenant that God made with David would also be for after his lifetime, not just for his lifetime but even after he died. Pick up with me in verse number 11. It says this, "The Lord declares to you that the Lord himself will establish a house for you. When your days are over and you rest with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, your own flesh and blood. And I will establish his kingdom. He's the one who will build a house for my name and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his father and he will be my son. When he does wrong, I will punish him with a rod wielded by men, with floggings inflicted by human hands. But my love will never be taken away from him as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you." You see what God promised here to David is not only am I gonna do these things during your lifetime, but even after you're gone, here's what I'm promising you, David, a dynasty. I'm promising you a legacy that when you die, your son is going to take over and he's gonna build a house for my name. And guess who did that? Solomon. And then guess who came after Solomon? David's grandson, Rehoboam, Solomon's kid, right? And then for the next number of hundreds of years, there would be someone in the line of David that would be reigning over Israel because God made a covenant not just for David's lifetime but for after his lifetime. But it gets even bigger than that, because this covenant that God made with David would also be for forever. I'm gonna show it to you in verse number 16, and I want you to pay close attention. Here's what it says, "Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me and your throne will be established forever." Now, leave this up here for a moment. I want you to see this and this is gonna be important for what we're putting together here, ready? What does he say will endure forever before him? Your house and your kingdom. Then he also says, "Your throne will be established forever." So there are three pieces of this that he made a promise to David about. He said, "Your house is going to endure forever before me. Your kingdom is going to endure forever before me and your throne will be established forever." I want you to keep that in mind because it's really important because some of you may be in your heads right now who are students of the Bible maybe understand a little bit about the history of scripture. May be thinking, wait, David's line actually ended at one point. There was no king of Israel at certain points in the line of David. Isn't that right? Yes. Well, is God's promise not real? No, God didn't promise that there wouldn't be any interruptions. God only promised that there would be a forever line. You see, about 400 years after King David came, the last of the Davidic kings, his name was Jeconiah. This was in about 597 BC, through some of the exiles, Babylonian, first the Assyrian, then the Babylonian, right? And then there's no king and after Jeconiah, there's no king in the line of David for a 100, 200, 300, 400, 500, 600 years. The better, like you're talking about two thirds of a millennium at this point. There is no king in the line of David until Jesus is born and you're going, wait. You're saying Jesus is a king in the line of David. I'm not saying that, the angel Gabriel was making that clear because when the angel Gabriel came to Mary to tell her about what God was going to conceive in her by the Holy Spirit, I want you to listen carefully to the words the angel used, "And behold, you will conceive in your womb." This is in Luke 1. "You'll conceive in your womb and bear a Son and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High." Watch this, "And the Lord God will give him the throne of his Father David. And he will reign over the house of Jacob forever and of his kingdom, there will be no end." You see, this was no accidental statement. This wasn't just flowery language from the angel. The angel was actually saying, "Do you remember that covenant that God made with King David? Here it is, this is him." This is a beautiful picture. And by the way, we see it in other places as well when we go to the gospel of Matthew and we see Matthew's chronicle of the birth narrative of Jesus right before that chronicle is a genealogy and that genealogy is there in Matthew because it's establishing that Jesus came through the line of Abraham was the seed and offspring of Abraham, and specifically was a king in the line of David. You see what Matthew's trying to help us understand is this, Jesus is the king of the covenants. Abraham, David, and now Jesus. Even the apostle Paul knows how important this truth is because when he's talking in the New Testament, when he writes his second letter to his protege Timothy, he says something about the nature of the gospel that he preaches. Watch what he says in 2 Timothy 2. "Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, descended from David. This is my gospel." You see, Jesus being from the line of David is part of the good news of the gospel for Paul because it demonstrates that God is good on his promises and the world actually has a king. This is the beautiful picture here. So this covenant with David is for his lifetime. Yes, it's for after his lifetime, yes. But it also has implications for forever. Now this covenant of with David, it doesn't replace the other covenant. So when you're reading these covenants, sometimes you may be thinking, well, does that covenant, this next covenant replace the other covenant? And does that covenant replace this covenant? No, it's just a covenant within a covenant, within a covenant so to speak. There is correspondence, there's symmetry, there is continuity between all of these things. Lemme see if I can explain. You guys have probably seen one of these before. Russian nesting dolls. Ever seen those? So back in the day, there's some people that collect them. In fact, this came from a woman in our church who collects them. My grandmother did not collect them, but she had them. And I remember when I was little, I, you know, I would mess around with everything. You know, if I could find blocks or things to build or things to tear up, then that was just kind of what I did. And I remember when I was young that I played with these. The first one was always the largest, right? And then you, you could open it up and then there was one that was not as large that you could take out. And then you could open that one up and take out something that was a little less large and then take that one out and there would be something else in there. And I thought it was super fun 'cause I'm like, I'm just keep going finding stuff, right? It was awesome. And then finally it would end with like the smallest one that was like a baby or whatever. You know, you finally get to the end and you're like, okay cool. And then you get to put it back together. Well, maybe this is good for us from a visual standpoint. When we start thinking about the nature of the covenants, lemme see if I can explain. Let's start with the first one that I didn't really cover, that we didn't cover in this series, but that I've referenced a couple times. That was the covenant with Noah. The covenant that God made with Noah had to do with all of humanity. It had to do with the preservation of humanity. God was not going to judge the world in the same way with the flood as he did at that point. So that was a really large covenant, right? But then if you open that up and you take something else out, you find that there's another covenant that's inside of that, so to speak. Because what God does is he takes a member of the human race that he has preserved and he says to that member, named Abraham, "I'm going to build a nation from you. I'm going to create people from you that are going to be as vast as the stars of the sky or the sands of the seashore," so to speak, right? It's a really remarkable statement that he makes that I'm gonna create a people. And so inside of that covenant, what we have is another covenant because that people was now been made and this people called Israel was being led out of captivity by Moses. And so now it's gone from all of humanity to a portion of humanity to where he's calling out a nation out of humanity. And now that creation of that nation actually exists. And then inside of that, there's another covenant. Because out of that nation, he promises that there's going to be a king. And that through that king's line is going to come the promises that were made all along about the offspring or the seed that was going to come. That's David. And then out of that come comes Jesus, who is ultimately the fulfillment of all of the covenants. He's the king of the covenants. He's everything that was promised. It goes from humanity to a little bit smaller. Now I'm gonna call out a people. Now I'm gonna talk to this people about how they're supposed to live. Now I'm gonna call a singular king out of this people from a line of kings that are going to be in line. And then there's going to be one who is the fulfillment of all of these things. It's a covenant inside of a covenant, inside of a covenant, inside of a covenant, that gets fulfilled by the baby that is born in Bethlehem. Who is the king in the line of David. So, so what do we learn from all of this. Now that we kind of, can put that together and we're pulling together everything we've been talking about in this kind of second act of the drama of God with all of these covenants. What do we learn from David's covenant? And what do we learn from all of these all together? Well, pretty simple. If I could say it as simply as possible, it'd be this, with God, the best is yet to come. With God, the best is yet to come. Now make sure that you're not hearing something, I'm not saying. I'm not saying or suggesting that there won't be hardship. Jesus said in this world you'll have trouble, right? "But take heart, I've overcome the world," he said. I'm not suggesting that there won't be tragedy. I'm not suggesting that there won't be sickness. I'm not suggesting any of those things whatsoever. And I'm also not suggesting that for those who have not surrendered and kneeled to King Jesus, that the best is yet to come for them, because it's not. But for those of us who have yielded our lives to King Jesus with God, the best is always yet to come. Think of it from David's perspective for just a minute. David told the Lord, and I think with the right motive, David told the Lord, "I'm gonna build you a house" and here's what God said. "No you're not. I'm gonna build you one." Huh? Yeah, Why? Why would God say something like that? It's remarkable anyway. When you're reading into the Hebrew like we all were right before we got here, 15 times, this word house is used as the Hebrew word beiyit. And it was used 15 times in this chapter. It's a play on words. The whole kind of conversation is because sometimes that word house is referring to a palace, like David's palace. Sometimes it's referring to a temple, sometimes it's referring to a tabernacle. Sometimes it's referring to a lineage or an ancestry. And God says, "You're just saying you're gonna build me a house, David, I'm gonna build you one. I'm gonna build you a house." Why? 'Cause with God the best is always yet to come. See David was overwhelmed by this. And the same would be true later on as we move through the course of history, right? Because even before the birth of Jesus, there were people I think rightly motivated who were trying to reach out and wanted to come to God. We want to come to God. But it's as if God said, "No, no, no, no, no, I'm gonna come to you." And that's what God did in the person of Jesus Christ. I'm coming to you, because why? 'Cause with God the best is always yet to come. Do you remember as Jesus grew in stature and wisdom and favor with God and man and then eventually began his ministry? Do you remember the very first miracle that he did? He was at a wedding in Cana of Galilee and they ran outta wine. This was an awful thing to do in the ancient world. You can imagine it would be terrible too if you were hosting a wedding reception and you know, you're the parents of the bride and you're hosting a wedding reception. You're like, "We're out of food." And all these people traveled in and it's like, "We don't have like, you know, Ritz crackers or nothing, like we're out of food." It's a bad thing, it's an embarrassment, right? It was terribly embarrassing in these long multi-day kind of wedding celebrations to run outta wine. And so Jesus' mom, who's at the wedding with Jesus and some of his other friends says, "Jesus, could you do something about this?" And he's like, "Whew, not my time, ma'am. It's not my time." But he goes over to the water basins and he turns the water where they would purify their hands, you know, kind of the ceremonial washing. He turns the water into wine and then they start, he doesn't brag about it, doesn't go tell everybody, "Hey, this was me." They just start serving it. Like the host is like, "Oh, we got, we got more wine. This is great." So they're serving everybody. And then here's what everybody's communication is. You know, normally, normally what happens is a host gives the best wine right outta the gate. And then after everybody's drank a little bit, you know what I mean? Then they gave him, then they give him the wine that's not so good. And by that point they don't really know, but not here. This party's awesome because they're bringing out the best wine last, what was Jesus helping us to see that with God the best is always yet to come. Yes, it meant Jesus would ultimately go to a cruel cross that he knew he was headed to. He even announced that that was where he was going and he died a brutal and a grotesque and gory death on a cross. But three days later he wasn't dead anymore and was living with a resurrection body, why? Because with God, the best is always yet to come. And see for you and I friend, we still will face hardship and we'll face trouble. We're also going to face that dark day of death at some point as well and so will our loved ones. But for those that know life with God, their death erupts into joy and peace in the presence and safe care of God, why? Because with God, the best is always yet to come. And then at some time known only in the secret counsel of the heart of the Father, he's going to say to Jesus, it's time. See for you and I friend, we still will face hardship and we'll face trouble. We're also going to face that dark day of death at some point as well and so will our loved ones. But for those that know life with God, their death erupts into joy and peace in the presence and safe care of God, why? Because with God the best is always yet to come. And then at some time known only in the secret counsel of the heart of the Father, he's going to say to Jesus, "It's time" and Jesus is going to return and all of the dead in Christ that are his are going to awaken to resurrected bodies where we will walk into a brand new heaven and earth created perfectly and without sin. And now we are also without sin, but we are physically and bodily resurrected just like Jesus, why? Because with God the best is always yet to come. You see, I think that's why my heart gets so encouraged every time I go back on occasion and look at the "Chronicles of Narnia" series that C. S. Lewis wrote. Some of you've seen some of those movies, "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" and all those. There's seven books in the "Chronicles of Narnia" and the first six are great. There's, they talk about Narnia and all these other wonderful and fanciful places and characters that you meet. But then when you get to book seven, the very last book, it's called "The Last Battle." And the very last book that you get to concludes with the Pevensie kids who've been the the protagonist of this entire storyline that they end up being told by Aslan that they're actually and really dying. They're dead. But then the narrator, which is Lewis himself, actually writes the last lines of the last book to remind us of this truth. They so encourage my heart and my wife knew that I loved it so much that she actually took that and she put it on a wall hanging kind of picture plaque kind of thing and it's in my office. And so here's the picture of it in my office and here's what it says. "Now at last, they were beginning chapter one of the great story no one else on earth has ever read, which goes on forever, in which every chapter is better than the one before." See Lewis understood that with God the best is always yet to come. So how do we respond to a truth like this? How do we take this truth and just respond to it, the same way David did? And I wanna show you this in the chapter that we were in. You're like, "I thought you said you were gonna handle the whole chapter." I am. "If you're going well, you're only halfway through." I am, not halfway through the message, but watch, watch how David responded. After this great news that he received. You're not gonna build me a house, I'm gonna build you one. Here are the promises I'm making for you for your lifetime. Here are the promises I'm making for you for after your lifetime. Here are the promises I'm making to you for forever. How did David respond? Here's the first way he responded with humble prayer. That's how he responded. Pick up with me in verse number 18. Here's what it says. After David heard all of this, right? "Then King David went in and sat before the Lord and he said, 'Who am I Sovereign Lord, and what is my family, that you have brought me this far? And as if this were not enough in your sight, Sovereign Lord you have also spoken about the future of the house of your servant. And this decree, Sovereign Lord is for a mere human. What more can David say to you? For you know your servant Sovereign Lord. For the sake of your Word and according to your will, you have done this great thing and made it known to your servant.'" Do you see the heart of gratitude that David has being overwhelmed by the kindness and the graciousness of God that David understands, I don't deserve this. Who am I? I know where I've come from. I know who I used to be and yet you're doing this on my behalf. It was humble gratitude. Listen to me, friends, listen to me. We have greater revelation than David had. We've got all of this. David was at peace in the midst of everything that was happening in the unfolding drama of God. But we've got this 2020 vision as we look backwards on it. And what we can see is this, is that God in the midst of our sinfulness, still came and moved into the neighborhood. Jesus, the Son of God, who is also the son of David, to show us that there is a true king, one who came, gave his life for our sin because he was sinless and could satisfy the justice of a holy God against sin, but who didn't stay dead but God up to demonstrate that he satisfied the justice of God in his perfect sinless offering. And now by faith in him, the now dead but not dead, Son of God. Now by faith in him, we can have our sins forgiven, our life transformed, abundant life And now eternal life that goes into forever. And we get this because of God's grace. And here's what we should be thinking. Who am I that you would do such great things on my behalf? Who am I? It just, our response even more than David's should be humble gratitude before the Lord, when we understand the beauty and the greatness and the implications of the gospel of Jesus Christ. There's a second way David responded. This was all within a prayer he prayed, right? But you can see his heart turned to heartfelt worship. He responded with humble prayer, but then it went into heartfelt worship. Pick up in verse 22, "How great you are Sovereign Lord. There is no one like you and there is no God but you as we have heard with our own ears. And who is like your people, Israel, the one nation on earth, that God went out to redeem as a people for himself and to make a name for himself and to perform great and awesome wonders by driving out nations and their gods from before your people whom you redeem from Egypt? You have established your people Israel as your very own forever and you Lord have become their God." You know what David's doing now? He's worshiping God, for the greatness of who he is and it's heartfelt. You see David saying, "Oh Sovereign Lord, there is nobody like you. You alone are God. You are the one who's done all of this." You can see him pouring out his heart because he's so good. God is so good. God is so gracious. God is so powerful and wise and good and Dave is acknowledging it. How much more friends, should our response to the great news of what God has done in Christ and the promise that in him we know that it will always, always, always, always be that the best is yet to come. How much more should we respond in heartfelt worship? Now let me say something to you. Some of you may think of that I'm only talking about singing. I'm not only talking about singing. Worship has to do with our obedience. Worship has to do with the stewardship of our stuff. Worship has to do with our life of prayer and our dependence upon God. But let me say something about the singing for just a moment. Women shouldn't be the only one doing it. Listen to me men, listen to me. If you understand the greatness of God, open your mouth and tell him. This man David, was a warrior king who sang with his full chest to the glory of who God is. You see, listen men, you wanna set an example in your family, sing with your whole chest to the greatness and the worthiness of who God is. Let your kids look at a man, not a man who thinks that they're a man just because they stand there and look tough and look silent. How about being God's man? And let God be the one that you are worshiping and that listen, if tears fall, they fall because you recognize the glory and the worth of God and you're willing to lay down your life for him. Let that be your example. All right, I'm off of you now men for just a moment. But we need to be that kind of people when we worship. It needs to be heartfelt worship. When we understand the implications and the beauty of what God has done for us in Christ, it calls us to a worship with our whole heart, with our whole lives, my stuff, it's yours, God. How do you want me to steward it? My time, it's yours God, how do you want me to steward it? My marriage, it's yours God, how do you want me to walk in it? Our kids, God, they're yours. How do you want us to lead them? Everything about our lives should come from heartfelt worship because of the beautiful truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ. When we understand what God has done for us in Christ, we are a people who worship with our whole hearts. Let me, lemme give you a third response that David had and it was hopeful faith. This is how David finishes up his prayer in this chapter. He says in verse 25, "And now Lord God, keep forever the promise you have made concerning your servant and his house. Do as you promised so that your name will be great forever. Then people will say, 'The Lord Almighty is God over Israel.' And the house of your servant David, will be established in your sight, Lord Almighty God of Israel, you have revealed this to your servant saying, 'I will build a house for you.' So your servant has found courage to pray this prayer to you. Sovereign Lord you are God. Your covenant is trustworthy and you have promised these good things to your servant. Now be pleased to bless the house of your servant, that it may continue forever in your sight, for you, Sovereign Lord have spoken. And with your blessing, the house of your servant will be blessed forever." You see what happened in David's life is this, David started out with this humble gratitude. He's overwhelmed because he said, "God, I wanna build you a house." God says, "No, no, no, I'm gonna build you one. I'm gonna make some promises that are gonna affect your lifetime. They're gonna be for after your lifetime and some promises that are gonna be forever. There's gonna be a king that's gonna come for your, through your line and his house and his throne and his kingdom, it's gonna be for forever." David's overwhelmed by all of this. And so he starts out with this humility of saying, "God, I can't believe I like, who am I?" He even uses his own name. You know your servant David? Who am I? And then it moves into this heartfelt worship, Sovereign Lord, you are powerful, you are good, you are the only God. You are the one who can do all this. And do you know what rises up in David? Courageous and hopeful faith. That's what starts to rise up in him. And he says, "God, do what you said, you promised this was going to be the case. God, do what you said, you I've found." Do you hear his words? "I've found courage to pray this prayer. Hopeful faith." It's a courage to be able to say God, "Do what you said." How much more for us, who now have the beauty of all of the promises of scripture, all of the promises that we have in Christ. Friends, listen to me. We have a king who has a forever throne and he will do what he said. He's always done what he said. And he will always be good on every promise that he's ever made. And so I want you to remember that and I want you to have a hopeful faith that has the courage to hold him at his word. So what do you mean? Well, I can't tell you the number of times that I've talked with people and they've kind of said to me, you know, "I feel like the Lord's abandoned me. I feel like the Lord's left me. I feel all alone. I'm not sure he is with me." Except for what he said is this, "I will never leave you or forsake you." Jesus said, "When I commission you and I want you to go and make disciples and teach them to obey everything that I've commanded you," he said this, "I will be with you to the end of the age. I will be with you." So no matter what it is that you are facing as a child of God, if you are in Christ, here's what you can be sure of. He will not leave because he said he wouldn't, ever. For some of us, we look forward in time and we think about the hardships that maybe life is going to bring to us. We think about maybe our death or the death of our spouse or our parent or our child or any of those things. And we think to ourselves, we could never, we could never get through that. I've seen it happen with other people. I don't know how they've gotten through it. We could never ever get through that except, except as God told Paul the Lord Jesus told Paul, "My grace is sufficient for you in your weakness. My grace is sufficient." That's a promise he's made. Here's what you can know. Are you gonna face hardships in life? You will. Have you faced hardships in life? You probably have. Might you experience tragedy and all those things? We are not immune to that friends. We live in a broken world. It's not yet what it's supposed to be. We will have trouble, we will have tragedy. Here's what you can know for sure that in the middle of it, the sufficiency of his grace will be there right when you need it, every single time. It's never there early, but it's never late. The sufficiency of his grace will always be there for us no matter what. You know you can know. You can know that when you choose to obey the Lord Jesus Christ. He said, "If you love me, you'll obey what I tell you to do." If you do that, just like God said to Moses, "When you obey, there will be blessing. And when you disobey, there will be curses." Here's the good news. No more curses for us. Jesus has taken our curse. We are now, there's now therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 'cause the law of the spirit of life has set us free from the law of spirit of death. But here's what I want you to remember. When you choose obedience because of love for Jesus Christ, God always adds his blessing to that, always. It may not be the kind of blessing you're thinking about. Well God, here's the kind of blessing I want you to bless me with. No, no, no, no, you don't get to hold God hostage. God I want this to be a financial blessing. I'm gonna give you $4 on Sunday, a four. I mean, I'm gonna peel off a couple of dollars, all right? And I'm looking for you to respond with a $10,000 windfall. We don't get to do that to God. The blessing of God comes in a barrage of different ways that we don't always understand. But with our obedience, here's what you can trust. No matter what, God is gonna add his blessing to it. Some people have told me, "I think that God has forsaken me. God doesn't love me," whatever. Listen to me, God loves with an unconditional everlasting love. His love is as high, and as wide, and as deep, and as long as you could possibly fathom in Christ. So for those that are in Christ, his love will never be taken from us, no matter what. No matter what misstep you have, no matter what. And no matter what else happens in this life, friends, no matter what else happens up to and including our death, his promise is this, is that in him the best is always yet to come because he will be our God, we will be his people and we will dwell in the palace of the king forever. What great truth this is, what rich truth this all is. My hope is, is that what you'll do is you'll allow God to use it in your life to breathe life and encouragement. Or maybe, maybe the challenge. Maybe you've come to a place where you recognize, you know what I've, I've been kind of sitting around on the outside, kicking the tires on faith. I want you to know, and I say this with a sorrowful heart outside of God, outside of Jesus, it's not a promise that everything is better in the end. 'Cause in fact it's not. Separation from God is not what God intends. That's why God so loved the world that he sent his son, that whoever believes in him would not perish but have everlasting life because only he could satisfy God's judgment against sin. And if you wanna bypass that and treat it as a common thing, and as the word of Hebrews says, "Trample underfoot the blood of God's Son" and you wanna treat it as a common thing, then you, you will stand before God and have to deal with your sin, yourself. And I promise you, that's not what you want. And God has made provision so that that's not what you'll do. But you've gotta turn from sin and turn in faith to the Lord Jesus Christ. And if you've never done that, then I hope that you'll do that on this day. Let's bow our heads together. In a moment we'll be dismissed. But before we are, if you're here and have yet to surrender your life to Jesus Christ, there'll be some folks that'll be right down front. Some men and women, they would love to just take you by the hand and share with you how you can know Jesus and pray with you that you might pray a prayer of faith in receiving Jesus, surrendering your life to him. And so if that's your need, I pray that you'll do that. But maybe you're here and you're like, "You know what? I realize that in my own heart I have, I've maybe not taken God at his promises. I've maybe not walked in obedience as I should. Maybe I've not recognized the glory and the greatness of who he is. And so I've become maybe a little cold hearted." And maybe you need to take some time to just spend before the Lord. And if you wanna do that, you can do that right there. Just remain in your seat when we're done. If you want, if you wanna come forward and kneel and pray as some did in the first worship gathering, you feel free to do that. If you wanna take one of these folks that are down here by the hand and just say, "Hey, would you pray with me that I might, that I might surrender kind of all of who I am to all of who he is." Then they would be honored to do that as well. Father, I pray that by your own strength, your own power, you would do your own work in the lives of people, 'cause God you are worthy and we are reminded that in you, we can always rest assured that the best is always yet to come. Thank you for that. Thank you for that reminder through the ebbs and flows of the great story that has been marked out for us in the Old Testament. And thank you that we see that clearer eyes on this side of Jesus. So Lord, I pray that you would speak deeply into our hearts, bring us encouragement where we need it, bring us correction where it's required and shape our hearts more into yours. We trust you to do that now, in Jesus' name, Amen.