Sunday
07/19/15 Freeville/Homer Ave UMC’s
Sermon Title: “I will raise up
your descendent—one of your
very own children”
Old Testament
Lesson: 2 Samuel 7:1-14a
New Testament
Scripture: Ephesians 2:11-22
Gospel Lesson:
Mark 6:30-34, 53-56
Friends, brothers and sisters, welcome once again on this our
Eighth Sunday after Pentecost. Pentecost, that day so long ago that Holy Spirit
moved like a mighty fire, like a mighty wind, and the Christian Church was
born. In being born, the first Christian Church went forth preaching the life
giving gospel of Jesus Christ. For this first Christian Church claimed that
Jesus Christ was the savior of the world, a descendant of the great King David.
That in Him and through Him, our sins could be forgiven. That we could be made right
and upright before almighty God, and that by following Him, that we could
transform the world around us, for the better.
Yet, admittedly, making the claim that Jesus Christ was who
the early church proclaimed him to be, was and still is a very high claim. I
mean, where did this early Christian Church get these claims about the coming
savior from anyway? Well of course they got many of these claims from the lips
of Jesus Christ himself, but we are also talking about people that were Jewish.
By this I mean, in the Old Testament or the Hebrew Bible,
as our Jewish brothers and sisters call it, there were prophets and claims that
were made. Some of these claims talked about one who would emerge as a new
leader. A leader unlike any leader the world had ever seen before. This leader
would be great, and no other leader would ever compare to this leader. For this
leader would not only rule on earth, but reign in heaven. This leader would be
a descendant of the great King David.
While Jesus Christ is the messiah, while he is the savior
of the world, the early Christian Church though, needed to “connect the dots”
from the Old Testament to the New Testament. By this I mean, the Old Testament
or the Hebrew Bible, among many other things, makes predictions of the coming
savior or Messiah. These claim that the early Christian Church made then, these
predictions, according to the early the church, all came true in the person and
deity of Jesus Christ. The only man to have ever walked the earth, as being
fully God and fully human. Having all of God’s power and authority, while still
taking on human flesh, to be among us. The only person to ever conquer sin and
death. The one who promised that through him, we can have life eternal. This
gospel, this hope, and the reality that we can make the world better in the
here and the now, is what God came to earth in the form of Jesus Christ for.
This is why on the day of Pentecost, and after the day of Pentecost, the early
Christian Church preached the gospel of life far and wide. For Jesus is Lord,
and in him and through him, all things can be achieved. The early church wanted
a hurting and dying world to know this, the way that we want a hurting and
dying world to know this, even today.
With all of this said, my sermon this morning will focus
most closely on our scripture for this morning from 2 Samuel 7:1-14a. In this
scripture, there is a prophecy about the Messiah, the Christ that would come
one day.
You see, throughout the Old Testament of the Bible, like I
said a moment ago, we have prophets, predictions, and prophecies of the one who
would come to save Israel, and all people.
The story in 2 Samuel for this morning, picks up with King
David and Nathan, a prophet of God that serves in King David’s royal court. This
scripture specifically picks up with King David saying in 2 Samuel 7:2, “Look!
I’m living in a cedar palace, but God’s chest is housed in a tent!” (2 Sam.
7:2b, CEB). This chest, this Ark of the Covenant, which held the actual tablets
that Moses himself brought down from Mount Sinai, which contained the 10-commandments
given to Moses from God.
Yet while King David is living in a great cedar palace, the
Ark of the Covenant was housed in a mere tent. King David therefore, planned to
build a cedar temple to house the Ark of the Covenant.
The scripture then says though, “But that very night the
LORD’S word came to Nathan: Go to my servant David and tell him: This is what
the LORD says: You are not the one to build the temple for me to live in” (2
Sam. 7:4-5, CEB). The scriptures then says, as God is speaking through Nathan, “In
fact, I haven’t lived in a temple from the day I brought Israel out of Egypt
until now. Instead, I have been traveling around in a tent and in a dwelling”
(2 Sam. 7:6, CEB). God then says, “Throughout my traveling around with the
Israelites, did I ever ask any of Israel’s tribal leaders I appointed to
shepherd my people: Why haven’t you built me a cedar temple?” (2 Sam. 7:7,
CEB).
Then what the prophet Nathan tells King David, will change
the world forever. For he tells King David, “So then, say this to my servant
David: This is what the LORD of heavenly forces says: I took you from the
pasture, from following the flock, to be leader over my people Israel” (2 Sam. 7:8,
CEB). You see David was a farm boy, a shepherd. He wasn’t anyone of any great significance.
In fact, God sent Samuel, who was a leader and a prophet to choose David in 1
Samuel in the Bible. It says in 1 Samuel 16:1b that God said to Samuel, “I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have
provided for myself a king among his sons” (1 Sam. 16:1b, NRSV).
Samuel didn’t know ahead of time either,
that it would be David. In fact David’s father Jesse, had many sons. Yet God
chose David. David wasn’t the biggest or the strongest. In fact, 1 Samuel 16:12.
It says of Samuel picking David, “He sent and brought him in.
Now he was ruddy, and had beautiful eyes, and was handsome. The Lord said, “Rise and anoint him; for this
is the one” (1 Sam. 16:12, NRSV). Now
to be ruddy, or “reddish,” could have meant David’s cheek, his hair, both, or something
else. Yet David wasn’t the biggest, or the strongest.
So one day,
David, one of Jesse sons, a small ruddy kid, has just been picked to be the King
of Israel. In the scripture today from 2 Samuel, the now King of Israel, David,
is lamenting over the fact that he has not build a cedar temple for the Ark of
the Covenant, for the 10-commandments that Moses brought down from Mount Sinai.
Yet God tells the prophet Nathan to tell the great King David to build no such
cedar temple for the Ark of the Covenant.
Then the
prophet Nathan continues on to tell King David that the LORD said to tell
David, “I’ve been with you wherever you’ve gone, and I’ve eliminated all your
enemies before you” (2 Sam. 7:9a, CEB). Then Nathan tells King David that the
LORD told me to tell you, “Now I will make your name great—like the name of the
greatest people on earth. I’m going to provide a place for my people Israel,
and plant them so that they may live there and no longer be disturbed” (2 Sam.
7:9a-10, CEB).
Then in 2 Samuel 7:11b, is
what I would argue as one of the most important scriptures all of the Old Testament,
or the Hebrew Bible. God says to King David in 2 Samuel 7:11b-12, “And the LORD
declares to you that the LORD will make a dynasty for you. When the time comes
for you to die and you lie down with your ancestors, I will raise up your
descendent—one of your very own children—to succeed you, and I will establish
his kingdom” (2 Sam. 7:11b-12, CEB).
God then
finishes the scripture from 2 Samuel for this morning by saying, “He we build a
temple for my name, and I will establish his royal throne forever. I will be a
father to him, and he will be a son to me.”
King David’s
son Solomon will go on to rebuild the temple that was first destroyed in
Jerusalem. David is promised by almighty God, a dynasty. This means that his
family will continue to rule, “forever” (2 Sam. 13b, CEB).
So God took
one of Jesse’s sons, a shepherd boy named David. He took David, made him king
of all of Israel, promised to make him great, to establish a dynasty of rule
for his decedents. He promises that David’s son Solomon will rebuild the temple
in Jerusalem, and that David’s family line, his lineage, would rule “forever”
(2 Sam. 13b, CEB).
So why then,
is all of this significant to Jesus Christ? What connection does Jesus Christ
have with the great King David? Well let me re-read 2 Samuel 7:11b-12, that
says, “And the LORD declares to you that the LORD will make a dynasty for you.
When the time comes for you to die and you lie down with your ancestors, I will
raise up your descendant—one of your very own children—to succeed you, and I
will establish his kingdom” (2 Sam. 7:11b-12, CEB). Jesus Christ, the Messiah, is
a decedent of King David, God promises that his reign will be “forever” (2 Sam.
13b, CEB).
In looking at
the gospel of Luke, when the Angel Gabriel visits the Virgin Mary in Luke 1:32,
the Angel Gabriel tells Mary that she will carry the Christ Child. The Angel
Gabriel said of this Christ Child, this Jesus, “He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most
High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his
kingdom there will be no end” (Luke 1:32-33, NRSV). For he will rule “forever” (2 Sam. 13b,
CEB).
So God
promised King David that his family, that his dynasty, would rule forever and
ever. He promised King David that his son King Solomon, would rebuild the great
temple in Jerusalem, and that his family’s throne would rule forever.
My friends, my
brothers and sisters, I believe that Jesus is the fulfillment of the promise
that God made to King David. That he is the one who has come to fulfill the
house of David. That he is the promised Messiah, the one that was born in Bethlehem,
the City of David.
This is why
the first part of the first chapter of the gospel of Matthew, it shows a
lineage, proving that Jesus was a decedent of the great King David. For God
promised David that his family’s reign would be forever, and this promise of the
coming Messiah, I believe has been fulfilled in Jesus Christ.
The Apostle Paul said it
best however, in Romans 15:12, as the Apostle Paul is quoting the great Old
Testament prophet Isaiah. Paul writes, and again Isaiah
says, “The root of Jesse shall come, the one who rises to rule the
Gentiles; in
him the Gentiles shall hope.” Jesus is related to King David, whose father was
Jesse. Jesus is the Messiah, the fulfillment of God’s promise to King David, as
Jesus comes from “The root of Jesse” (Rom. 15:12a, NRSV).
Yet the fulfillment of the promise to King David, the Messiah,
Jesus Christ, becomes a promise not just for Israel, not just for some, but for
the entire world. For everyone. For all of us here today.
As Paul wrote to the church in Ephesus or the Ephesians from
this morning, he said, “Christ is our peace. He made both Jew and Gentiles into
one group. With his body, he broke down the barrier of hatred that divided us”
(Eph. 2:14, CEB).
The Apostle Paul then goes on to say, “As God’s household,
you are built on a foundation of the apostles and prophets with Christ Jesus
himself as the cornerstone” (Eph. 2:20). Jesus Christ, the savior of the world,
the Lion of Judah, the decedent of the great King David, the in whom God
promised that his lineage would rule forever and ever, has come.
In looking at the gospel reading from Mark from this morning,
it says in Mark 6:34 as Jesus sees a large crowd, “When Jesus arrived and saw a
lard crowd, he had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a
shepherd” (Mark 6:34a, CEB).
Brothers and sisters, friends, Samuel went to Jesse, looking
for a boy among his sons, to shepherd the people of Israel. God then promised a
boy named David, that he would make his name great, promised him that his
family lineage will rule forever, and promised him that one day one of his decedents
would be the savior, the messiah. Jesus Christ, I believe is that decedent,
that is the Messiah, the promised one. A
son of the Great King David, who went on to die for the sins of humanity. Friends,
brothers and sisters, God keeps him promises.
Brothers and sisters, friends, I want to tell you a short
story called “Jesus is Gonna Win.” This story was taken Reported by Bernard Travaieille
in Illustrations Unlimited.
Here is how it goes: “While a student at theological
college in the United States Bernard Travaieille was playing basketball with
some friends. They were using the court at a nearby school, where a friendly
old janitor would patiently wait until they had finished their game before
locking up. One day Bernard noticed the janitor was reading the bible. In fact
he discovered the old janitor was reading the Book of Revelation.”
“Bernard was surprised. It was a
difficult book to interpret even for highly trained bible students! “Do you
understand it?” asked Bernard. “Oh yes, I understand it” the janitor replied. Now
Bernard was really intrigued. Here was this book that baffled scholars, that
was the focus of every conspiracy theory known to humanity, and this old man, a
janitor with little formal education, claimed to understand it! “You understand
the Book of Revelation?! What do you think it means?” asked Bernard. The old
man looked up at him and very quietly said, “It means that Jesus is gonna win.”
Friends, brothers and sisters, this
morning God tells David, that he will be great. That he will rule Israel, and
that his family will rule forever. That one day a savior, a messiah would come,
a decedent of David, and this descendant would conquer sin and death. This morning then, not only does this mean that God says that great King David wins,
even more, “It means that Jesus is gonna win.” Amen.
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