The House God Builds

We Are a People (Part 1)

A 6 Week Series On Worship & Identity in 1 Chronicles

5. The House God Builds

Verse :: 1 Chronicles 17:14 (cf. Psalm 89:34) Big Idea :: God's promises hold because they rest on him, not on us. David wanted to build God a house. God said no, I will build you one, and I will confirm it in my house and my kingdom forever. The kingdom did not stand because the kings kept it. It stood because God keeps his word.

Introduction

ICEQ | Where is your favorite place to sit in your house?

What do you like about it? Do you ever worry it isn’t going to hold you?

Series Summary

1 Chronicles was written to remind a discouraged people who they were, a people who worship Yahweh. Over six weeks we will watch the Chronicler reconnect worship and identity through the genealogies and the life of David, pairing each week with a Psalm to see how worship recalls and reminds a people who they are.

Where We’ve Been

Last week the ark came home and David's first move was a song. We said worship does three things :: it makes us remember what God has done, respond to him, and reinforce who we are. Singing is a call to action aimed at your own heart :: this is what I believe, this is what I will do, this is the God I serve.

So David has given God his best worship. This week he wants to give God something bigger :: a house. Watch what God does with that.

Where we’re going

We are going to read the song David wrote for this day, then walk back through it slowly and watch what worship actually does. It makes a people remember what God did, name who God is, and decide how they will answer him. And we will notice something remarkable :: the song even reaches forward to people in exile, centuries later, who needed to hear it most.

Introductory Questions

Before we read his song, let’s talk about promises…

Q |When you make a promise, what makes you actually keep it? What makes a promise trustworthy :: the promise itself, or the person behind it?

Q | Have you ever felt like being part of God's family depends on you keeping it together? Where does that pressure come from?

Getting Into The Text(s)

David wants to build God a temple. God stops him and flips it completely :: you will not build me a house, I will build you one. This week we find out why that matters, and why God's promises hold even when everything around them falls apart.

Real quick, tabernacle reminder.

Read 1 Chronicles 17:1-2.

David is settled. He looks around at his cedar palace and feels the mismatch :: I live in luxury, and the ark of God sits under tent curtains. So he decides to build God a house, and Nathan the prophet tells him to go for it.

Q | David's instinct seems good, even generous. What is right about wanting to give God your best?

Let’s keep reading!

Read 1 Chronicles 17:3-6.

That same night God stops them both. His question :: did I ever ask for a house? I have moved around in a tent this whole time and never once complained.

Q | Why would God pump the brakes on something that looked so good? What might David have been assuming about God that God wanted to correct?

Read 1 Chronicles 17:7-10.

Here is the turn. Before God says one word about the future, he makes David remember where he came from :: I took you from the pasture, from following sheep, and made you a prince, and I have been with you everywhere you went. And then :: you will not build me a house. I will build you a house. David meant a temple. God means a dynasty, a family, a line that lasts. David tries to give, and God says no, I have been the giver from the very beginning.

Q | God answers David's offer by reminding him he was just a shepherd boy God picked up. Why start there? What is God protecting David from believing about himself?

Read 1 Chronicles 17:11-14.

This is the promise the whole chapter is built on, and it is enormous. When David's days are over, God will raise up his offspring and establish his kingdom. He will build the house. His throne will be established forever. I will be his father, and he will be my son. Short term this points to Solomon, who builds the temple. But that word forever runs right past Solomon. It lands on Jesus, the son of David whose kingdom never ends.

David’s plan for God is focused on today. God’s plan for David is focused on eternity.

Q | God makes a promise that reaches past David, past Solomon, all the way to forever. What does it tell you that God's plan was never about one king or one building?

Here is where the Chronicler's pen matters. Set 1 Chronicles 17 next to 2 Samuel 7, which records the very same night, and watch two changes.

First, 2 Samuel 7 has a line about the promised son :: if he does wrong, God will discipline him. The Chronicler drops it, and puts in its place :: I will not take my steadfast love from him.

Second, and bigger, 2 Samuel says your house and your kingdom will be made sure forever :: David's house, David's kingdom. The Chronicler changes it to :: I will confirm him in my house and in my kingdom forever. God's house. God's kingdom. Two small edits, one huge point. For the people first reading Chronicles, who had watched the monarchy collapse and the temple burn to the ground, this was everything. The kingdom was never David's project that would fall apart if the next king failed. It is God's. And it stands because God stands behind it.

Q | Whose kingdom is it, David's or God's? Why does that one word change everything for people who just watched their kingdom fall apart?

Q | If the promise depended on the kings being good enough, it was doomed, because they were not. What changes when you realize it depended on God instead?

Discussion / Breakouts

Read 1 Chronicles 17:16-27.

Watch David's response. He does not throw a party, he does not start drawing up blueprints for a dynasty. He goes in and sits down before the LORD, and he worships. His whole prayer is astonishment :: who am I, and what is my house, that you have brought me this far? He worships by remembering what God has done and resting in what God promised.

Q | David's answer to an unearned promise is to sit down and worship. What does that tell you worship is actually for?

Read Psalm 89:1-4.

David's line kept singing this promise for generations. I will sing of the steadfast love of the LORD forever. You swore to David, his throne will endure for all generations.

Then read Psalm 89:38-39, 46, 49.

But the same psalm turns, and the singer cries out, because now it looks like the promise failed :: you have cast off, the crown is in the dust, where is your steadfast love of old that you swore to David? That is exactly where the exiles were living.

Q | The same song celebrates the promise and then cries out that it looks broken. Is it faith to say both? Can you hold onto a promise even when the evidence is against it?

And here is the Chronicler's answer to that cry. The promise did not fail. It never rested on the kings. It rested on God, and it landed in Christ.

Our running idea :: worship is fueled by our identity and it refuels our identity, and our identity shapes how we live. The idea of this week :: God's promises hold because they rest on Him, not on us.

Q | Bring it home. If being one of God's people rested on you keeping it together, how safe would you feel? Now :: it rests on God keeping his word. How does that change things?

Q | This does not mean nothing is asked of us. But there is a difference between obeying God to try to earn your place and obeying because your place is already secure. Which one have you been living out of?

Conclusion

David wanted to build God a house. God said no, and built David one instead :: a kingdom that would outlast every king who ever sat on the throne, because it was never their kingdom. It was God's. That is why it held when everything else fell. That is why the promise made it all the way from a shepherd boy to an empty tomb.

God's promises hold because God holds them.

So hear this :: you are one of God's people, and that does not rest on your grip. It rests on his. He took a shepherd boy out of a field and kept a promise for a thousand years to get to you. He is not going to drop you now.

That is who we are :: a people whose place is secure, not because we are strong, but because he keeps his word. And people like that worship. Not to earn it. Because they finally believe it.

Next week closes our first part :: David's last gift, where a whole people gives everything back to God and David prays the line that sums it all up, all things come from you.

This week :: name one place you have been trying to earn something God has already promised you. Then stop, and thank him for holding what you cannot.