David: Finding Home

Scripture: 2 Samuel 7:1-14

2 Samuel 7:1–14 NIV

1 After the king was settled in his palace and the Lord had given him rest from all his enemies around him, 2 he said to Nathan the prophet, “Here I am, living in a house of cedar, while the ark of God remains in a tent.” 3 Nathan replied to the king, “Whatever you have in mind, go ahead and do it, for the Lord is with you.” 4 But that night the word of the Lord came to Nathan, saying: 5 “Go and tell my servant David, ‘This is what the Lord says: Are you the one to build me a house to dwell in? 6 I have not dwelt in a house from the day I brought the Israelites up out of Egypt to this day. I have been moving from place to place with a tent as my dwelling. 7 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?” ’ 8 “Now then, tell my servant David, ‘This is what the Lord Almighty says: I took you from the pasture, from tending the flock, and appointed you ruler over my people Israel. 9 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. 10 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 11 and have done ever since the time I appointed leaders over my people Israel. I will also give you rest from all your enemies. “ ‘The Lord declares to you that the Lord himself will establish a house for you: 12 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. 13 He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. 14 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.

Order of Service:

Announcements

Opening Worship

Prayer Requests

Prayer Song

Pastoral Prayer

Kid’s Time

Offering (Doxology and Offering Prayer)

Scripture Reading

Sermon

Communion

Closing Song

Benediction

Special Notes:

Week 1: Communion

Opening Prayer:

Heavenly Father, thank You for inviting us into Your family, calling us by name, and making places for each of us as Your adopted children. As we gather in Your presence today, help us make room for Your Spirit to move in us today and teach us to love like You.

David: Finding Home

Resting

It takes me a while to wind down enough to rest. I don’t mean falling asleep each night. I can fall asleep quickly but don’t always wake up refreshed. Some of you have experienced this due to stress and anxiety about work you have to get done or perhaps concern for family members in difficult circumstances. I like to blame a lot of my troubles on stress. But it doesn't fully explain why I struggle to rest once the storm has passed.

Our cats at home are lovely examples of self-care and rest. They live the good life, centered around eating and sleeping and occasionally tossing a stuffed mouse around the room for good measure. There is a lot of teaching about sabbath rest that sounds like something our cats could teach.

On the other hand, I can spend a few days at a training event, allowing someone else to lead me closer to God and putting my agenda aside, and most of the time, I come back with far more energy and excitement than I had before I left. I need to recognize that my time serving God each week does not always bring or keep me closer to Him. Sometimes, I must stop the busy work and look up to ensure I have not wandered away from the Good Shepherd... probably in Jesus's name.

Like Adam and Eve and every descendent after them, I can grasp the idea of working for God without too much trouble. But God has always intended us to work with Him, which is another matter altogether. And there's more. Just as life is more than work, so our relationship with God goes much further than serving. God does not want us to rest from serving Him. He wants us to learn to rest with Him.

Indeed, God calls us to live all our life with Him.

Building God a Home

David struggled to rest as well.

Noah, Abraham, and Moses were all called by God in their old age to perform essential tasks for God and carry on His covenant with humanity. They had lived over half their lives struggling to be faithful people of God before God spoke to them and challenged them to step up and out in faith. However, David, the last of the covenant bearers in the Old Testament, was called as a young boy. He had only spent a handful of years tending sheep as the youngest child of Jesse when the prophet Samuel came and anointed him to be the new king of Israel.

It took him twenty years from the day Samuel anointed him as king of Israel before he finally got to sit on the throne. He spent several of those years fighting the Philistines. For most of those years, he was fighting against the Israelite army because Saul, the current king of Israel, wanted David dead. Twenty years of fighting would wear anyone out. Our scripture today begins at the moment that David was finally able to rest.

As he realized how fully exhausted he was and how little the sleep refreshed his aching body and spirit, he thought of God, who had led him in and out of all those battles. He could have been a shepherd, napping all afternoon as his sheep grazed peacefully around him. But God got ahold of him, and his life was never the same. David had been the homeless king of Israel for twenty years, and God had been homeless, right there with him. So, David began to make plans to build God a home that would be at least as good if not greater than the palace he was resting in.

The prophet Nathan thought this sounded like a great idea and told David to continue, just as he desired.

4 But that night the word of the Lord came to Nathan, saying:

5 “Go and tell my servant David, ‘This is what the Lord says: Are you the one to build me a house to dwell in? 6 I have not dwelt in a house from the day I brought the Israelites up out of Egypt to this day. I have been moving from place to place with a tent as my dwelling. 7 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?” ’

God did not need to have a roof over His head. To all the Gentile people of that time, community gods were like team mascots, and they were chosen and created to help encourage the people to fight stronger in battle or to promote good crop and livestock yields. But Yahweh, the God of the Israelites, was not like the others. He forbade the people from making an image of Him. He did not allow them to make him into their mascot. He was their God. They needed Him, not the other way around.

David was going to learn that God did not prefer fancy sacrifices, whether they were offerings of money, animals, or labor to build things in His honor. What God truly wanted was obedience. King Saul sacrificed plenty to God but failed to be obedient and, therefore, lost the throne. God did not intend to let David walk down that same path.

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Deeper Reasons and Promises

I have to wonder if part of David’s desire to build a house for God was a subconscious attempt to get God to sit still. You may have noticed that David expressed no interest in living in the Temple he wanted to build for God. In his exhaustion, David may have felt like this was his chance to finally take a break from constantly serving in God’s presence. If God was still and settled, then perhaps David could finally be still and settled. As dearly as David loved God, I think there still may have been something in him that wanted to put God in a box and go live his life the way he wanted to instead of constantly chasing God around from one end of the country to the next.

Even more than that, David left the only home he ever knew to follow God and protect Israel. Perhaps he decided to make a home for himself while the opportunity was still there. Maybe if he made God a home, God would let David stay in his own home, too.

Regardless of his reasons, David's thought was misguided, and the prophet Nathan was corrected and sent back by God to take back the blessing on this endeavor. God didn't need or want a house for Himself, and it was not David's job to build it. God had other plans. David needed to figure out how to rest, knowing that God was still the same as in the wilderness or on the battlefield.

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Instead of accepting the gift of a house to dwell in, God promised to make a house for David. Just as our God has always been more interested in people than buildings, this house God promised was a family, a lineage, and a legacy, not a palace. The very thing David had given up to follow God in those twenty years was what God promised to give back even more.

This is much like Peter said to Jesus in Matthew 16:27-30:

27 Peter answered him, “We have left everything to follow you! What then will there be for us?” 28 Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. 29 And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life. 30 But many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first.

David was the last son of Jesse, but God made Him first in the nation of Israel. He was at his best when He saw himself as the shepherd of God’s flock, not the builder of a nation. It was God who was going to build the nation of Israel, not her political or military leaders, and God was going to do it His way.

David spent most of his life working to conquer and protect the Promised Land. Solomon had far less warfare to deal with in his reign. During Solomon’s reign, Israel was opened up to the other nations around them. During this time, the Temple would not primarily be for God to live in. It would be the place where visitors from outside of Israel would witness the worship of God. It would be to gather in the nations of those adopted into God’s family and kingdom.

David conquered the Promised Land. Solomon would welcome the world to God. And Jesus, the true King of Israel and descendant of David would build a temple covering every corner of the earth and welcoming all people into God’s family and kingdom.

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Take God Home with You

You and I are part of that house that Jesus built for God. Paul wrote to the churches in 1 Corinthians 3:16:

“Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst?” (NIV)

God wants to live with us. And we hope to someday live forever with Him in heaven. So, what do we need to do today?

We need to make space for God in our lives and our homes. We can easily think about our church buildings as where we come to be in God’s presence. When I first committed to following Jesus, I went to the church several times weekly to kneel at the altar and pray. I needed that time there because God did not live in my home. Indeed, no one else at home followed Jesus, and some discouraged me from making that decision regularly. My home was not a safe place for my newborn faith, so I had to find a place that was. If I could have moved into the church then, I probably would have done so.

But that was not what God desired. Over the years, I learned that God loved my family at home more than I did, and He wanted me to bring Him home to meet them. I was so stuck on my experience of meeting God in the church building that I unintentionally left Him there every time I went home. God never wants to be stuck in a box of our making, even if that box is a church building. Instead, He wants to live in us.

And, as God explained to David, He wants more than that. He wants to adopt us into His family. For that to happen, though, we must be willing to take Jesus home.

Jesus changes everyone everywhere He goes. Everything He touches is redeemed in one way or another. When we take Jesus home with us, we invite Him to pour out His love, His power, and His righteousness into those areas of our life. Yes, God wants to work in, through, and with us to accomplish His will in the world, but He does not want to use us as if we were tools He keeps in His toolshed. He wants us to work beside Him as a loving father who invites His beloved children to follow and learn their trade as they grow in His image. That is the covenant God made with David and all His family, and that is the covenant Jesus invites us into with Him. We are invited to follow Him, be adopted into God’s family, learn the family trade, and grow in His likeness.

You will never experience true rest, true satisfaction, or true purpose apart from God. He wants to give you all of that and more. Will you take God home with you today?

Closing Prayer

Heavenly Father,

You know better than us. In all we are and all we do, You know better than us.

We need You in our lives. We need to hear Your voice comforting, encouraging, teaching, and correcting us. We need to feel Your reassuring touch. We need to see You moving in and around us as You work to save and redeem those all around us. And we need to know that we can only find our true satisfaction in You.

Save us from the false idols we use to make us feel safe and comfortable. Save us from the temptations we face to make us feel pleasure and power. Help us to follow You humbly in all we do because we know the world is watching us as they look for You. Help them see You clearly when they look at those of us who dare to call ourselves Your disciples, Your followers, and Your children.

Thank You for the example You gave us in Jesus and for the constant guidance and companionship of Your Holy Spirit. May we never take Your love for granted.

In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Communion – The Great Thanksgiving II

Tony: Christ our Lord invites to his table all who love him,

who earnestly repent of their sin

and seek to live in peace with one another.

Therefore, let us confess our sin before God and one another.

Merciful God,

we confess that we have not loved you with our whole heart.

We have failed to be an obedient church.

We have not done your will,

we have broken your law,

we have rebelled against your love,

we have not loved our neighbors,

and we have not heard the cry of the needy.

Forgive us, we pray.

Free us for joyful obedience

through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Hear the good news:

Christ died for us while we were yet sinners;

that proves God's love towards us.

In the name of Jesus Christ, you are forgiven!

In the name of Jesus Christ, you are forgiven!

Glory to God. Amen.

Bekah:

The Lord be with you

And also with you.

Lift up your hearts.

We lift them up to the Lord.

Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.

It is right to give our thanks and praise.

It is right and a good and joyful thing,

Always and everywhere to give thanks to you, Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth.

And so,

With your people on earth

And all the company of heaven

We praise your name and join their unending hymn:

Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might, Heaven and earth are full of your glory.

Hosanna in the highest.

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

Hosanna in the highest.

Holy are you, and blessed is your Son, Jesus Christ. By the baptism of his suffering, death, and resurrection

you gave birth to your church,

delivered us from slavery to sin and death and made with us a new covenant

by water and the Spirit.

On the night to which he gave himself up for us

he took bread, gave thanks to you, broke the bread,

gave it to his disciples and said,

“Take, eat; this is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”

When the supper was over, he took the cup,

gave thanks to you, gave it to his disciples, and said:

“Drink from this, all of you.

This is my blood of the new covenant, poured out for you and for many

for the forgiveness of sins. Do this as often as you drink it,

in remembrance of me.”

And so,

In remembrance of these Your mighty acts in Jesus Christ, we offer ourselves in praise and thanksgiving,

as a holy and living sacrifice,

in union with Christ’s offering for us as we proclaim the mystery of faith.

Christ has died; Christ is risen; Christ will come again.

Tony: Pour out your Holy Spirit on us gathered here,

and on these gifts of bread and wine.

Make them be for us the body and blood of Christ, that we may be for the world the body of Christ,

redeemed by his blood.”

By your Spirit, make us one with Christ, one with each other,

and one in ministry to all the world,

until Christ comes in final victory,

and we feast at his heavenly banquet.

Through your Son Jesus Christ,

with the Holy Spirit in your holy church,

all honor and glory is Yours, almighty Father,

now and forever.

Amen

The body of Christ, given for you. Amen.

The blood of Christ, given for you. Amen.

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