Dance Like David

2 Samuel 6:12-15 ESV

12 And it was told King David, “The Lord has blessed the household of Obed-edom and all that belongs to him, because of the ark of God.” So David went and brought up the ark of God from the house of Obed-edom to the city of David with rejoicing. 13 And when those who bore the ark of the Lord had gone six steps, he sacrificed an ox and a fattened animal. 14 And David danced before the Lord with all his might. And David was wearing a linen ephod. 15 So David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the Lord with shouting and with the sound of the horn.

When we study the Scriptures and theology in general, the one thing that is always apparent is that what God is most interested in, what He is most passionate about, and what He loves the very most is His own glory.

Everything that God does, everything that God allows, everything that happens in general is allowed to happen so that one main purpose be accomplished, and that purpose is the advancement of God’s own glory.

And one of the ways in which God is most glorified is how He disciplines those who are His people. And one of the most remarkable, God glorifying aspects of how God disciplines His people is how God preserves His people through His discipline.

In other words, those who are saved will stay saved, and they will stay saved, not because they try their best to please God, but because God keeps them saved through His own power. And quite often, the way in which God keeps His people saved is through the way that He disciplines them when they get out of line.

True discipline, loving discipline is meant to accomplish that purpose. When one disciplines out of love, it’s so that through the discipline administered, the one who is being disciplined might stop doing what is wrong and start doing what is right instead.

And quite often, what God’s discipline towards His people produces is jealousy within them.

What I mean by that is that there are times when we as God’s people do what is wrong, and the way in which He places us back on the right track is by showing us the kind of blessings that we could be receiving if we would only repent and obey Him.

We will see what doing things our own way and not repenting is getting us, and then God will ensure that we witness either a person or a group of people who are doing things His way, the blessings that they are experiencing as a result of doing things His way, and it will cause us to jealously long for what they have.

And hopefully, we will then repent and do things God’s way.

Paul gives us a wonderful example of this in his epistle to the Romans. You see, many people hold to what is called replacement theology which essentially states that God once had an interest in the people of Israel, that it was once His will to mark out the people of Israel as His peculiar people, but now that we are here in the New Testament era, God no longer has any interest in the people of Israel as He has replaced them with the modern Christian Church.

And while there are many supporters of this way of thinking, I am not one of them, and one of the main reasons why I am not one of them is because Paul, who knew God a lot better than I ever will, was not a supporter of this way of thinking.

As I said, in Paul’s epistle to the Romans, particularly in the 11th chapter of this epistle, Paul tells us plainly: “Through Israel’s trespass salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous.”

So, this tells us that it is the will of God to save many Gentiles and that through Him saving these Gentiles, the people of Israel will become jealous of these Gentile’s relationship with God when they see how God blesses them, and that then they themselves will be willing to do what is necessary for them to be saved.

Now as we continue working through our narrative today concerning David transporting the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem, we see God disciplining David this very same way.

In the first sermon in this series of messages, we saw the dilemma that David found himself in when he attempted to transport the ark, which was a good thing, but the way in which he went about trying to transport the ark was what was not good.

God had commanded that the Ark of the Covenant be transported on poles, that would be carried on the shoulders of the Kohathites, descendants of Levi, the priestly tribe.

But David decided to twist what God had commanded when he instead transported the Ark of the Covenant on a new cart that was pulled by oxen.

Now, this may not seem like a big deal to a lot of us, but it was in direct violation to what God commanded, so it was a big deal. And when a man named Uzzah reached out his hand to steady the ark when it began to rock on the cart, God struck him down where he stood to make it obvious to everyone that He did not approve of what had just happened.

Now, at seeing that he had done what was wrong and offensive to God, David should have admitted that he was wrong and repented of what he had done right then and there; but instead, he became angry that things didn’t go his way, and he just put repentance off and abandoned his plan to transport the ark to Jerusalem and instead placed it in the home of a man named Obed-edom.

Now, while David sought God’s blessings through having the ark in the capital city of Jerusalem, it was instead Obed-edom who experienced these blessings.

So, what David clearly sees here is that doing things God’s way means experiences God’s blessings, while doing things his own way meant a lack of God’s blessings.

What God was doing here was making David jealous of Obed-edom enough to where he would do what Obed-edom done in order to obtain the blessings that God was giving to him. And what he had done was worship and serve God the right way… God’s way.

And just like always, what God set out to accomplish here happened exactly the way He desired it to happen, as David repented and responded in reverent worship of God.

We see this happening in our reading, where we read:

2 Samuel 6:12-13 ESV

12 And it was told King David, “The Lord has blessed the household of Obed-edom and all that belongs to him, because of the ark of God.” So David went and brought up the ark of God from the house of Obed-edom to the city of David with rejoicing. 13 And when those who bore the ark of the Lord had gone six steps, he sacrificed an ox and a fattened animal.

Verse 12 starts out by saying what I had just said when it says that David is made aware that God had blessed Obed-edom as a result of properly worshipping him. And now that David sees what the outcome is of properly worshipping God, he follows suit as he now goes to retrieve the ark and do things God’s way.

And it is written that as David goes to retrieve the ark, he does so while rejoicing. He rejoices because God has given him a second chance, he rejoices because now the Ark will be in Jerusalem, he rejoices because now he is finally experiencing the blessings of God as a result of repenting and doing things God’s way.

And now that David has a second chance, he is very careful to treat the ark with the utmost respect and reverence.

We see this here in verse 13 where it says that those who bore the ark, so that word bore signifies that they were now properly transporting the ark as they carried it, or bore it on poles that go through the sides of the ark and placed it on their shoulders, and that when they had gone six steps, they stopped and sacrificed a fattened animal.

Now, why exactly David directed these men to do this, we don’t know for sure. But what is obvious by it is that it was an act of reverence for and fear of the God Whose presence dwelt amongst the Ark.

So, what we see here is God causing David to see what kind of blessings that he can enjoy if he repents and does things God’s way. And we then see that David does what is necessary to enjoy these blessings: he repents, and he does things God’s way.

So, this means that God has redeemed David from the punishment that he endured from not doing things God’s way, and that now David and the people of Israel in general are going to be experiencing God’s blessings.

Because of this, it was time for a celebration:

2 Samuel 6:14a ESV

14a And David danced before the Lord with all his might.

Because of the realization of what God had done for him, David celebrated as he danced!

But this dancing of David’s wasn’t just any old dancing, it was in fact, an act of worship. We know this because it says that David danced before the Lord. This implies that what David was doing here was an act of worship that was offered to God.

And what we also see here is David’s attitude towards what God has graciously done for him as it says that he danced before the Lord with all his might.

This means that this act of joyful worship that David offered to God was the very best act of joyful worship that David could possibly offer to God.

And David does so in the humblest fashion, as the last part of this verse tells us, when it says:

2 Samuel 6:14b ESV

14b And David was wearing a linen ephod.

Now, there has always been a lot of confusion when it comes to this verse and the linen ephod. Some people say that this means that David was dancing in his underwear, some even say that this means that David was completely naked while he was dancing. But before we make any assumptions, we need to figure out what exactly this ephod is and why David was wearing it in the first place.

The Law of Moses speaks of a special ephod that only the high priest could wear, but the kind of ephod that David was wearing here was what was typically worn by a priest but could still be worn by any person who chose to wear it.

David wasn’t dancing in his underwear; no, he was dancing in the clothing of a priest.

Take a look for a moment at what John Mackay, a respected theologian says about this in the ESV Expository Commentary:

“In divesting himself of his royal robes and assuming a garment unequivocally associated with divine service, he is willingly emphasizing who is truly King of Israel and renouncing any attempt to manipulate him.”

David had finally recognized Who the real King is, he finally recognized that God was the true King of Israel, and that even David, the earthly king of Israel was expected and commanded to obey God as King.

Think of what God has done here. David was initially proud and high handed as he thought that it was best to tell God how He ought to be worshipped. Then God showed David Who is really the Boss when He struck down Uzzah. Then God disciplined David by causing him to envy Obed-edom. Now David has fully repented and offers a humble, joyful sacrifice of worship to God.

God did all of that! From start to finish, God did all of that! And for His own glory! Beloved, isn’t our God amazing?!

So, as we have been working through this series, we have been speaking of the local congregation offering to God an appropriate sacrifice of worship. And just like God did with David, so does God do with His people today in that quite often He makes an unrepentant congregation envious of a congregation that is worshipping Him the right way as they witness God clearly blessing them with spiritual blessings.

Beloved, let us see where we have been wrong, let us see where we have strayed from doing things God’s way in our worship of Him. Let us repent for going astray. And may God graciously redeem us, and may we dance like David and offer to God a right, humble sacrifice of worship.

Amen?