Sermon -- Thanksgiving Eve (November 22, 2023)

2 SAMUEL 7:18-22

ACCORDING TO YOUR HEART, YOU HAVE BROUGHT ABOUT THIS GREATNESS.

In the name + of Jesus.

     The Lord has made many promises throughout the Scriptures.  All of them are evidence of God’s grace.  God does nothing because he owes it.  Everything that exists exists only by God’s command and will.  It comes into being by his grace.  It is sustained by his grace.  And it endures for as long as his grace allows.  So, when God makes a promise, it is a declaration of his gracious intent.  It reveals God’s heart to us.

     The Lord made a promise to King David in the verses just before our reading.  David had intended to construct a temple for the worship and the glory of the Lord.  David observed, “See now, I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of God dwells in a tent” (2 Samuel 7:2).  The tabernacle was a travelling house of worship—from Mt. Sinai through the wilderness and into the Promised Land.  Even in the Promised Land, Israel continued to use the tabernacle for several centuries.  It travelled a few times from one city to another.  David was convinced that the house of the Lord deserved a permanent site with greater honor.

     While David’s intentions were good, God’s plans were different.  The Lord gave the prophet Nathan words for King David.  David was a man of war, but his son would be a man of peace.  Therefore, it would be David’s son who would build the Lord’s temple.   This was the Lord’s promise: “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.   … And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me.  Your throne shall be established forever’” (2 Samuel 7:12-13,16). 

     The Lord had promised David not only a successor, but a dynasty.  Therefore, David offered up his prayer of thanksgiving, “Who am I, O Lord GOD, and what is my house, that you have brought me thus far” (2 Samuel 7:18)?  David recognized how much the Lord had done for him.  David was the youngest son from a nowhere town.  While his brothers went off to fight wars for King Saul, David was given the low-level job of a shepherd.  But when the Lord sought a king to replace faithless Saul, David was God’s unlikely choice.  God’s gracious heart was revealed.  According to your heart, O Lord, you have brought forth this greatness.

     Is your story as dramatic as King David’s?  Politically, socially, economically, no.  Nevertheless, your beginnings are exactly the same as David’s.  King David confessed the reality of the sinful condition which affects all people: “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me” (Psalm 51:5).  Our sinful condition causes us to abuse God’s commandments and despise God’s gifts.  Consider one of the promises our Lord has made.  The Psalms teach us, “The eyes of all look to you and you give them their food at the proper time.   You open your hand and satisfy the desires of every living thing” (Psalm 145:14-15).  The birds, the fish, the squirrels, and the deer do not worry about God’s provisions or complain about God’s gifts.  We do.  Our worrying shows that we do not trust God to provide.  Perhaps we are so accustomed to luxuries that we are incapable of handling inconveniences or shortfalls.  Discontent even with abundance, we pursue more.  We are devoted to ourselves.  We do not consider how our wealth can benefit others.  Our wealth is not for us to hoard, but to help our neighbor and to honor the Lord. 

     According to your heart, O Lord, you have brought forth this greatness—that even though we misuse God’s gifts and grouse that they are not given more frequently, the Lord has not withdrawn his promise.  When God makes a promise, he is ever faithful to it.  After the Lord had wiped out mankind because of its wickedness in the Flood, the Lord swore to Noah: “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth.  Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done.   While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease” (Genesis 8:21-22).  Notice that mankind has not changed.  We are still sinners.  But true to his word, faithful to his grace, the Lord sustains the earth and blesses all creatures on it.  God’s goodness remains constant because of who God is, not because of who we are.  According to your heart, O Lord, you have brought forth this greatness.

     King David was overwhelmed at God’s promise to him and to his descendants.  He rightly acknowledged his lowliness and God’s greatness.  “Who am I, O Lord GOD, and what is my house, that you have brought me thus far? … And what more can David say to you?  For you know your servant, O Lord GOD!  Because of your promise, and according to your own heart, you have brought about all this greatness…” (2 Samuel 7:18,20-21).  The Lord had owed David nothing.  The Lord knew David with all his faults and weaknesses, and yet he blessed David richly.  God brought David from poverty to riches, from unknown to famous, from being of no account to highly influential. 

     God’s blessings were great, but his promise was far greater.  That promise went far beyond David and the kingdom of Israel.  Listen to it again:  “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.   … And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me.  Your throne shall be established forever’” (2 Samuel 7:12-13,16). 

      Now, the Lord did establish Solomon, the son of David, as king.  And Solomon did oversee the construction of the temple in Jerusalem.  Although the line of kings from David’s seed continued for about 400 years, it came to an end with the destruction of the temple of Solomon and the city of David.  So, the promise found its total fulfillment in another—Jesus.  Jesus reveals God’s grace and proves God’s faithfulness.  According to your heart, O Lord, you have brought forth this greatness.

     Jesus has built a house for the Lord’s name.  It is the holy Christian church.  Like David, like you and me, like all people, no one has an inherent right to this house.  We all come from the lowly beginnings of outcasts and rebels.  We fail to trust God’s faithfulness.  We are dismissive of God’s generosity.  We are envious of the blessings God gives to others.  These attitudes are worthy of punishment, not reward. 

     Jesus has built his house through his own blood, sweat, and tears.  God had made a promise, and he is faithful to that promise.  One promise came through the prophet Isaiah: “He was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5).  This promise reveals God’s gracious heart, that he desires sinners to live and not die, to receive blessing instead of a curse.  So, Jesus endured the curse and the death for us.  All who dwell in Jesus’ house and under Jesus’ reign are delivered from sin and death.  According to your heart, O Lord, you have brought forth this greatness.

     Jesus has also established a throne that endures forever.  After paying for sins, Jesus rose from the dead.  Having fulfilled God’s gracious promise, Jesus was exalted by the heavenly Father.  The Son of David sits at the right hand of God the Father which means Jesus rules over all things.  He who bound himself to us now lives and reigns for us.  For this reason, you hold a title greater than the royal title David held.  The title of king is only good for as long as the king is alive.  But your title is an everlasting title.  You are children of the Most High God.  You are brothers and sisters of Jesus.  Since he lives forever, you shall live forever, too.  According to your heart, O Lord, you have brought forth this greatness.

     “Therefore you are great, O Lord God.  For there is none like you, and there is no God besides you, according to all that we have heard with our ears” (2 Samuel 7:22).  The Lord has made his heart known to you and has poured out his grace upon you.  He has promised you a resurrection at which your body will be made whole, your understanding will be perfected, your spirit will be forever at peace, your every struggle will be removed, and your every need met.  And again, the promise is not made because it is owed; it is made because God is good.  According to your heart, O Lord, you have brought forth this greatness.

     And the Lord pours forth more promises to sustain you until that day.  Here is one.  Jesus said, “Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’  For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.  But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (Matthew 6:31-33).  The promise is that God will give you what you need.  He knows what you need, and he is capable of providing it.  You need not fear or fret. 

     It may be that the Lord will teach you how much less you need by withholding blessings you have become addicted to.  If he does, God be praised; for he will remain faithful.  And if God should remain generous to you, God is testing you to see how you will use his gifts.  Either way, your thanks to the Lord will go beyond prayers and praises on a November weekend; it will be expressed in sharing your gracious gifts with those in need—even if all you can afford is time, energy, or companionship.

     With David, we marvel and ask, “Who am I, O Lord GOD, and what is my house, that you have brought me thus far” (2 Samuel 7:18)?  And the Lord replies, “Who are you?  You are my beloved, my redeemed.  You are princes and princesses of King Jesus, and heirs of everlasting glory.”  Why?  Because God has promised it to be so.  And God is ever faithful to his gracious promises.  According to your heart, O Lord, you have brought forth this greatness. 

In the name of the Father and of the Son + and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.