The Amazing Promise

2 Samuel 7:1-17

Hello saints! I want to thank all of you who are joining us live via Zoom and to thank all of you who are reading this message in the text form and/or are listening to the recording of this message. Today we continue our series on David the Warrior King and how God used him to build God’s Kingdom. Last week John Farmer shared the message on how David was worshipping, and praising God as the Levites brought the Ark of the Covenant into the city of Jerusalem. Today I am going share a message on the promise that God made to David through the prophet Nathan but before I do that let us pray and ask God to speak to you through this message today.

The Worshiping King

2 Samuel 6:1-23

Good morning!  We are at a transition point in our series David: Kingdom Builder.  In previous weeks, we have observed the challenges David and others experienced as a result of the death of Saul and the end of his family’s dynasty reigning in Israel.  In last week’s message, Jonathan explained how David was recognized by all the tribes of Israel as king.  David then made a covenant with the elders of Israel, and they anointed him as king over Israel.  We saw how David conquered Jerusalem and established his capital there and called it the City of David.

Jonathan also explained how David sought God even in the details of how he should plan to face an enemy in a military engagement.  We also saw how God directed David in the details.

I know for me, I seek the Lord.  I commit my plans to Him like Proverbs 16:3 says, “Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and he will establish your plans.”  I ask God for wisdom, like James 1:5 says, “If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.”  These are both right and good, but I think I have room to inquire of God even more, into the details.  I know He often gives us freedom in our decision-making, but I think over time, I have gotten comfortable to the point where I don’t ask God questions like I used to, like David does.

David routinely draws near to God.  He’s not perfect at it either, but He perseveres in coming to God, in seeking Him.  Today’s message is another example of that as David goes to bring the Ark of God to Jerusalem both honoring God and placing God at the center of the nation as the people had not done since perhaps even Eli’s time nearly a hundred years earlier.

Sometimes in worship, we sing a song by Charlie Hall called Center.  I didn’t think of it when preparing the worship set, but I think that song exemplifies David’s desire.  The chorus of the song says, “Oh Christ, be the center of our lives, be the place we fix our eyes, be the center of our lives.”  The bridge adds, “We lift our eyes to heaven, we wrap our lives around your life, we lift our eyes to heaven, to You.”  David is not only passively waiting for God to be the center of his life.  David actively seeks to center his life around God.

Let’s pray and look together at 2 Samuel 6:

The Expanding Kingdom

2 Samuel 5:1-25

Good morning! We continue in 2 Samuel this morning, and our study takes us to chapter 5.  A chapter we have been waiting a long time for. Let’s do a quick review before we get into our passage.

After Saul was killed in the battle with the Philistines, David’s men rescued his body from the Philistine temple and gave him a proper burial.  His commander-in-chief, Abner, made Saul’s son Ishbosheth king over Israel.  The people of Judah instead followed David as their king.  After a brief civil war, Abner realized that David was the rightful king and began working to merge the two kingdoms.  But before he could really get started, he was murdered by Joab.  Last week, we saw that Ishbosheth was assassinated by leaders in his military.  When the murderers bragged to David about their deeds, he had them put to death.  Let’s pray and then look at 2 Samuel 5.

Kingly Correction

2 Samuel 4:1-12

When Ish-Bosheth son of Saul heard that Abner had died in Hebron, he lost courage, and all Israel became alarmed. Now Saul’s son had two men who were leaders of raiding bands. One was named Baanah and the other Recab; they were sons of Rimmon the Beerothite from the tribe of Benjamin—Beeroth is considered part of Benjamin, because the people of Beeroth fled to Gittaim and have lived there as aliens to this day. – 2 Samuel 4:1-3

Ishbosheth was king over the Northern tribes of Israel and the eastern ones across the Jordan. Abner was the commander of Ishbosheth’s military. When Abner died Baanah and Recab exerted a grab for power. They wanted to seize the opportunity while the timing was ripe. They were trying to solve a broken system by using a broken solution.

Kingly Compassion

2 Samuel 3:2-39

Good morning!  Today is my first time giving a message live online.  With God’s grace, I hope it will go smoothly.  We are in our third message in a new series about the life of David as he becomes king and unifies Israel.

We are going to look at 2 Samuel 3.  It is a chapter with a multitude of events.  We’ve got a lot to cover, so I’m going to try to keep the intro short.

As to the time period, it is interesting to consider how the bible gives us quite a number of details from which the reader can grasp a decent flow and spacing of events.  At a somewhat wider view, there is a time window of 140 years created between Judges 11:26 (300 years after the conquest, or 340 years after the Exodus) and I Kings 6:1 (480 years after the Exodus when the building of the temple begins in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign as king).  In this time period of 140 years, we have the events of 1 and 2 Samuel and the first five chapters of I Kings.

Here is my attempt at a graphical representation of approximate dates and the relationship of the key leaders.  You can see the outline of the times of 1 and 2 Samuel.  Then, in the bright red box is the timeframe of today’s passage.  It is somewhat narrower than that, but hopefully you get an idea.  We are looking at David’s life nearing the midpoint when he was 30-35 years old.

On the next slide, we see a map of the approximate range of the two kingdoms.  Last week, we learned that the remaining son of Saul, Ish-Bosheth, was installed as king over ten tribes of Israel in a northern kingdom while David had become king over two tribes, Judah and Simeon, in a southern kingdom.

In last week’s passage, we read how David had returned from the land of the Philistines to the territory of Judah in Israel.  David asked God if he should return, and when God answered yes, David asked to which town.  God said to go to Hebron.  In 2 Samuel 2:2, it says David went there with his two wives.  In total, David would live in Hebron and reign as king over Judah for seven and a half years.

With that, let’s take a moment and pray and then we will dig into today’s passage in 2 Samuel 3.

Divided Kingdom

2 Samuel 2:4b-3:1

Welcome back to 2 Samuel and this second message in our second series on the life of David, the second king of Israel. Last time Carl reintroduced us to this amazing man and his heart to obey and honor God. When David was a youth, God had chosen him for his purposes and sent the prophet Samuel to anoint him king over the people of Israel. But, as we saw, his path to the throne was full of ups and downs and twists and turns, many of which were caused by Saul, who was jealously clinging to the remnants of his own regal authority after being rejected by God for going his own way. David had helped and served King Saul in several ways, but Saul perceived him as a rival and pursued him relentlessly to try to get rid of him. However, with God protecting and encouraging him, David had managed to stay one step ahead of Saul and had actually grown stronger, despite being on the run.

David: Kingdom Builder Introduction

David: Kingdom Builder Introduction

Welcome! Once again, we are having church via video conferencing, in our “new normal.” You may remember that before our world took this sudden dramatic shift to social distancing, isolation, and all the strangeness that goes along with this, we were doing a series on the book of Matthew. We interrupted this series for a set of 3 messages addressing the new world we found ourselves in, and following this, on Palm Sunday we had a message on Christ in the Passover, and last Sunday we had our Easter message along with the world premiere of the movie spectacular, Rogue Twelve.

 

Well, today we begin a new series on David, based on the book of 2 Samuel. You may be wondering what happened to the rest of the Matthew series. Well, the plan all along was to only go through the first half of Matthew, up through Chapter 12, and to finish Matthew in a separate series at a later date. We ended up making it through Chapter 9 of Matthew. We have decided to make the three planned final messages of the current Matthew series become the first three messages of the later series. Matthew 10 will need to wait. Ironically, this passage is all about Jesus sending out the twelve into various towns throughout Israel. Israel is currently in a lockdown just like us. You could say that Jesus’ disciples will just have to wait before going on their journey, just like us.

In any case, as we know, and as 2 Timothy 3:16-17 states, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” And so let us pray that God gives us ears to hear and hearts to apply the timeless truths of 2 Samuel.

Eye Witnesses

Eye Witnesses

Good Morning Saints. Under normal circumstances on Easter Morning we would greet each person at the door of the church or in the church parking lot with the statement “He has risen!” and the person coming in would respond “He has risen indeed!.  However, as you know these are not normal circumstances. Never the Less I still want to say to you all “He is Risen!”

Let’s Pray!

Christ in the Passover

Christ in the Passover

Welcome! Months ago, before our world was turned upside down with this virus, we had planned to do a Passover Seder as a church together. We had chosen today as the date to do this, as it is fitting with our celebration of Palm Sunday today and Easter one week away.

Well, the world has changed, and although it is easy enough for us to partake of communion together even though we are physically separated (as we did last week), I felt that it would be completely inappropriate to ask you to hunt around town for the various elements of the Passover ceremony and meal so that we could do something similar to celebrate a Passover Seder.

But I really didn’t want to drop the topic altogether, so today’s message will be a little different from normal as we talk about the elements of a Passover ceremony, looking at the original experience as described in Exodus as well as the modern ceremony. Most importantly, we will look at how both the ancient and modern expressions of Passover point remarkably to Jesus Christ. That the modern Passover points to Christ is quite remarkable, even miraculous, because it is the result of modifications and adjustments made by people who professed not to believe in Christ! How has this happened? Why has this happened? I believe it is because God still loves the Jewish people and the Holy Spirit continues to draw them, to whisper to them, and although it may be possible to reject Him, it is impossible to truly run away from Him (a lesson that Adam and Eve learned in the Garden).

Imporatant Questions in a Time of Crisis

Important Questions in a Time of Crisis

One of the phrases that you may have heard a few times recently is “uncharted territory.” I have heard people talk about uncharted territory in a variety of contexts over the past weeks as they struggle with the uncertainty of our current situation. It seems to capture what has been perhaps the most difficult aspect of the pandemic – all the unknowns. The impact of the virus seems to change by the day, both in terms of where and how many people are becoming infected and dying and in terms of response: new restrictions, new recommendations, new rules, and new ideas for treatment and prevention. How long will this continue? What additional measures should be taken? What will the final impact be? There always seem to be many more questions than answers.

As we struggle with these unknowns, it is good for us to dig a level deeper and ask some questions about faith. This is a time for us to step back and think about what the theme of these messages means: faith in the face of pandemic. I would like to pose a set of three important spiritual questions for each of us to consider, in light of the scriptures that we will look at today.