The story of Christmas is splashed across the pages of your Bible long before Mary, Joseph, Wise Men, and the shepherds arrive. We’re exploring the promises made a millennium ahead of Christmas, and it’s these promises that serve as a bedrock granite underneath the holiday season. 2 Samuel 7 is one of the most important chapters in your Bible. And it is one that most of us have never heard of. In fact, it is arguably the one chapter that plays the single most significant role of any Old Testament passage in shaping the early church’s understanding of Jesus.
How did the first disciples know Jesus was the Son of God? “Being, therefore, a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne, he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption” (Acts 2:30–31). Unless you understand David and his family, you will not understand Christmas.
Inside our story lies the secret to experiencing a great Christmas. Turn in your Bibles to 2 Samuel 7, or page 330 in your pew Bible. We’ll return to the book of Acts after the 1st of the year. The secret to experiencing a great Christmas is that an all-powerful God and all-wise God is working for the best outcome for your life.
Today’s Scripture Text
Now, therefore, thus you shall say to my servant David, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts, I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep, that you should be prince over my people Israel. 9 And I have been with you wherever you went and have cut off all your enemies from before you. And I will make for you a great name, like the name of the great ones of the earth. 10 And I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them, so that they may dwell in their own place and be disturbed no more. And violent men shall afflict them no more, as formerly, 11 from the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel. And I will give you rest from all your enemies. Moreover, the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house. 12 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. 13 He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. 14 I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men, 15 but my steadfast love will not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you. 16 And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever.’ (2 Samuel 7:8–16)
David & his family are the reason we have Christmas. Let me offer some background to today’s text. You may be surprised to discover the message of Christmas inside the pages of the Old Testament. Your Bible has two testaments – Old and New –, and there’s a rich unity that brings them as together as one. You can think of the two testaments as 2 acts – Act 1 and Act 2. It is not until Act 2 (the New Testament) that Jesus and Christmas are splashed before us in bold headlines. But in Act 1 (the Old Testament), there’s a moving spotlight that is searching for the True King throughout Act One. As you read the narrative in the first act, you see a longing for a better ruler over the people of Israel until it ripens for the search for the Perfect Ruler.
Let’s talk about the Ark of the Covenant for a moment. David has finally experienced some rest from Israel’s enemies. In fact, in the immediate chapter before, David brought the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem. It’s important for you to realize that the Ark was the throne of God on the earth. David had built himself a beautiful home to live in after many years of military campaigns. It’s then he realizes that he lives in luxury in a palace while the Ark of the Covenant is sitting in a tent. How could David live in such luxury while God lives in a ratty tent? So, King David wants to build a house for God, and he brings his idea to Nathan, the prophet. I love David’s heart here, don’t you? At first, Nathan says, “Greenlight ahead. All systems go!” Nathan is like a lot of us ministers. If some wealthy person comes and says to the minister, “I want to make a huge donation to the ministry,” what do we say? “Go, do all that is in your heart, for the LORD is with you.” But then Nathan goes to bed, and it’s there God speaks to Nathan, who in turn is to speak to the king. That very night, God came to Nathan & said, “No. I don’t want David to build me a house” (2 Samuel 7:4-5). While King David wants to build a house for God, God says in effect, “No, but I will build a house for you.” God’s alternative plan of building the house of David is the secret to a great Christmas.
Sermon Preview
1. God’s Promise
2. David’s Prayer
3. Your Christmas
1. God’s Promise
2 Samuel 7 is a key chapter in the overall plotline of the Bible. The significance of this chapter lies in the promise God makes to David. God promises to build a house, and this promise is called the Davidic Covenant, or David’s Covenant. You have said, “I have made a covenant with my chosen one; I have sworn to David, my servant: 4 ‘I will establish your offspring forever, and build your throne for all generations.’” (Psalm 89:3-4). A covenant is God’s self-written job description that says it is His responsibility to withhold no good thing from those who walk uprightly. Let’s look at the promise in detail.
1.1 Seven Steps of Promise
2 Samuel 7:9-16 offers us seven steps of promises that develop as God continues to make promises. These seven aspects of this magnificent Christmas promise/prediction will act as identity markers for THE coming King. Follow along in your Bibles as I walk to walk through the seven steps with you.
1. “I will make for you a great name” (2 Samuel 7:9b).
2. “I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them, so that they may dwell in their own place and be disturbed no more” (2 Samuel 7:10a).
3. “violent men shall afflict them no more, as formerly, … And I will give you rest from all your enemies” (2 Samuel 7:10b, 11b).
4. I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom” (2 Samuel 7:12b).
5. “Moreover, the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house.” 13 “He shall build a house for my name” (2 Samuel 7:11b, 13a).
6. “I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son” (2 Samuel 7:14).
7. “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 7:13, 16b).
God tells David, “Not you and not yet” - “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…” (2 Samuel 12-13a). He’s told that one of his children will have the privilege of building the Temple. David’s plans are put on hold as he’s told that he isn’t the one to build God’s house. But the word of the Lord came to me, saying, ‘You have shed much blood and have waged great wars. You shall not build a house to my name because you have shed so much blood before me on the earth. Behold, a son shall be born to you who shall be a man of rest. I will give him rest from all his surrounding enemies. For his name shall be Solomon, and I will give peace and quiet to Israel in his days. He shall build a house for my name. He shall be my son, and I will be his father, and I will establish his royal throne in Israel forever” (1 Chronicles 22:8–10). “You know that David my father could not build a house for the name of the Lord his God because of the warfare with which his enemies surrounded him until the Lord put them under the soles of his feet” (1 Kings 5:3). Again, God tells David, “Not you and not yet.”
1.2 Two Ways to Understand the Promise
Now, this promise could be fulfilled in probably only two ways. One is for every generation to produce a new Davidic heir so that the throne is passed to the next heir & the next heir and the next heir and the next heir, world without end. A quick read of the kings who came after David, and in David’s lineage, shows they failed miserably. By 587 BC, the nation of Israel is no longer a nation. There is no king from David’s family on the throne just 400 years after God’s promise. That’s one way this promise could be fulfilled. But there’s another way to read this promise. You could eventually have an heir inside the Davidic line who lives forever. The kingdom could never be secure in the hands of a sinner. There’s a moving spotlight in the Old Testament that is searching for the True King. You see a longing for a better ruler over the people of Israel until it ripens for the search for the Perfect Ruler. A succession of imperfect kings could never fulfill this promise. If God were true to His word, if He stuck by his job description in 2 Samuel 7, He would raise up a righteous, obedient son of David to take the throne.
1.3 Tracing the 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” (2 Samuel 7:12). Circle the word “offspring” in verse twelve and write out beside it Genesis 3:15 where God makes the same promise to Adam and Eve: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel” (Genesis 3:15). This promise is the granite behind the joy of Christmas. And you can trace this promise all the way through the pages of the Bible. Years go by, and God makes the promise to Abraham: “I will make your offspring as the dust of the earth so that if one can count the dust of the earth, your offspring also can be counted” (Genesis 13:16). God made a covenant with Abraham and said in effect, “Your family is my chosen family to bless the earth.” A couple of centuries go by when God now tells one of Abraham’s children this promise: “The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet until tribute comes to him; and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples” (Genesis 49:10). So, God’s covenant is working as a funnel as it starts large (Adam and then Abraham), then Judah, and then God further restricts it to David’s family. Centuries go by, and God is narrowing and focusing His promise. Turn in your Bibles to Matthew 1 where we see this: “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, and Perez the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Ram, and Ram the father of Amminadab, and Amminadab the father of Nahshon, and Nahshon the father of Salmon, and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of David the king” (Matthew 1:1–6b). Now, the house God promises is not a house built with walls and a roof; instead, this house is a dynasty. Rather than David building a great house for God, God promises to build a house of David & for David.
“Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne, 31 he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption.” (Acts 2:30–31)
I marvel as I sense the centuries flip along and see God inching toward confirming His promise to Abraham and then Judah and lastly David. Who else but God can keep His promise despite centuries of time passing? Who else but God can keep His promise when kings go to war and nations uproot other nations? This is the bedrock granite for your holiday joy – God keeps His promises! God is all-powerful, and God is all-wise, and God is all for you. Peter saw it and worshiped the Jewish carpenter born of the Virgin.
Consider all the gifts we’ve given one another over the years.
2000 - Razor Scooter
1995 - PlayStation®
1986 - Pictionary®
1982 - Rubik’s Cube®;
1973 - Electric Football;
1963- The Easy-Bake Oven®
1952 - Mr. Potato Head®.
Jesus is the gift worth waiting for. He’s never upgraded, and He’s never replaced. He’s the gift worth waiting for.
1. God’s Promise
2. David’s Prayer
Nathan has left David, and it’s then that David fully realizes the significance of Nathan’s words to him. Then King David went in and sat before the Lord and said, “Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house that you have brought me thus far? 19 And yet this was a small thing in your eyes, O Lord God. You have spoken also of your servant’s house for a great while to come, and this is instruction for mankind, O Lord God! 20 And what more can David say to you? For you know your servant, O Lord God! 21 Because of your promise, and according to your own heart, you have brought about all this greatness, to make your servant know it. 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 7:18–22). Oh, I wish I had the time to fully develop all of this prayer. David’s prayer is one of the sweetest prayers you’ll see in all of Scripture. David is so overwhelmed by all he has heard – an avalanche of promises. He goes and sits before the very presence of the Lord. David gives a template of how to worship.
2.1 John Newton and 2 Samuel 7:17
In fact, John Newton writes the words to Amazing Grace when he discovers and reflects on David’s words: “Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house, that you have brought me thus far” (2 Samuel 7:17b)? Do you know how hard a man has to be to capture a son away from his father or mother? This was the slave trader John Newton.
Amazing Grace how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.
But the grace of God changed him. Newton discovered the secret to a great Christmas. It is an all-powerful God & all-wise, God is working for the best outcome for your life. God doesn’t do great things for you because of your greatness: “Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house, that you have brought me thus far” (2 Samuel 7:18b)? God’s great heart is the reason for our joy: “Because of your promise, and according to your own heart, you have brought about all this greatness, to make your servant know it” (2 Samuel 7:22). Let David be your guide this Christmas and sit before the Lord in humble adoration.
1. God’s Promise
2. David’s Prayer
3. Your Christmas
When we think of Christmas, we think of family gathered together, sharing meals, and exchanging presents. We are asking you to share pictures of a holiday, and we’ll share them throughout this series. What would Christmas be without family? Here’s a picture of TJ & Melanie Owen’s daughter. Here are Kenneth & Allyson Duncan’s three boys doing what boys do … only under the Christmas tree! And here’s the Sibley and Wilson family – (Stanley Wilson) granddad on the left just turned 80!
3.1 Will You Join His Family?
The promise made to David can include you. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:12). Here’s how you can be included in David’s family: repent and believe. The funnel of God’s promise, His covenant, can even include you. Of all the gifts you’ll receive this Christmas, this is the gift worth waiting for.
3.2 God Keeps His Promise
David begins all this by saying, “God, let me build you a house.” You know there were at least three temples built in Jerusalem, and not one of them is standing today. Every building we build for God will fall down. What matters is the house God builds for us. If God keeps His promises to David despite a 1,000 years of delay, He’ll keep His promises to me. If God keeps this promise, will He not deliver on all His promises? “I will never leave you or forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5). “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life” (Psalm 23:6a). “Because I live, you also will live” (John 14:19b). “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you…” (Isaiah 43:2a). If God keeps this promise, will He not deliver on all His promises? Christmas becomes real when you rest in the fact that God’s very job description includes the responsibility of seeing that everything in your life (believer) turns out for your good. The secret to experiencing a great Christmas is that an all-powerful God (and all-wise God) is working for the best outcome for your life.
