[0:00] Let's pray first. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word again. We thank you for your promises that you have made in the past that we know are true.
[0:13] And we look forward to the complete fulfillment of that. So as we read your Bible and we think about what you have said, help us with the power of your spirit to understand and to live our lives in light of your word.
[0:31] In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen. Well, it's the first Advent Sunday. And Advent is a moment of anticipation, isn't it?
[0:47] As we anticipate Christmas, you know, as Michelle said, it's 22 days until Christmas. We anticipate Christmas, which celebrates the birth of Jesus.
[0:59] We also anticipate his second coming, his return. But who is this Jesus that we are anticipating? Because knowing whom we are anticipating shapes our waiting stands now.
[1:17] If we are anticipating that our family will come for dinner, the way we wait will be different to compared to if the prime minister is coming for dinner.
[1:29] And so today and next week, we'll look at two Old Testament passages to see who it is that the Old Testament Israel were waiting for and how Jesus fulfilled those passages.
[1:43] And because the Jesus that they were waiting for is the same as the Jesus that we are waiting for in the second coming, then these passages will also tell us how we can anticipate him today.
[1:57] And here in our passage in 2 Samuel, we will see that Jesus that we are waiting for and the Jesus that they were waiting for is the eternal king whose reign is characterized by perfect peace.
[2:12] And if you are currently feeling anxious or worried about the state of the church or the state of the world during this Advent, then this passage will give you some encouragement.
[2:28] So, our 2 Samuel passage, just a bit of context, this passage takes place when David already becomes a king. So, if we read the first six chapters of the book of 2 Samuel, we see that David has been busy.
[2:47] He gets crowned in chapter 2, and straight away in chapter 3, there's a civil war between the house of David and the house of Saul, Saul, because Saul was the king before David.
[3:03] And then after that, there are cases of murder, and then David goes to battle the Jebusites and the Philistines, and he wins against them all.
[3:14] And after he captures Jerusalem, he brings the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem. He's been doing a lot of things. He's been busy.
[3:24] And now, our passage opens with the first instance that David gets a chance to rest. But his mind immediately goes to what he can do next.
[3:40] So, read with me in verse 1 to 2. After the king was settled in his palace, the Lord had given him rest from all his enemies around him.
[3:51] He said to Nathan the prophet, Here I am, living in a house of Seder, while the Ark of God remains in a tent. So, here, David is thinking, Hey, now I'm resting in this house of Seder, full of luxury things, but God is still living in a tent, like hundreds of years ago, during the time of Moses.
[4:14] I'm going to build him a house. And in verse 3, the prophet Nathan approves of the plan. Whatever you have in mind, just do it.
[4:25] The Lord is with you. God, however, is not with him. And God did not take long to respond in verse 4 to 5.
[4:36] But that night, the word of the Lord came to Nathan, saying, Go and tell my servant David, this is what the Lord says, Are you the one to build me a house to dwell in?
[4:51] And if we jump a little bit to the second half of verse 11, instead of letting David build God a house, God promises to build David a house.
[5:06] Here, God responds by asserting his sovereignty. There might be a mixed motive behind David's decision. On the one hand, he might be thinking, Oh, I want to do something for God, which is nice.
[5:23] But also, on the other hand, in ancient times, building a house for someone without them asking, was an act of patronage. So, there might be a suggestion here, and from the way God answers David in the rest of the passage, that David wants to become God's patron.
[5:45] And God's answer reasserts that God is, in fact, David's patron. God shows that he is the actual king, not David.
[5:57] In verse 6 to 7, God shows that he doesn't need people to build him a house. Even when in a tent, God is able to show his sovereign power over all nations by bringing Israel from place to place and defeating all nations on the way.
[6:18] In verse 8 to 9, God even shows that he can give David so much more than David can ever give him. In verse 8, Now tell my servant David, this is what the Lord Almighty says, I took you from the pasture, from tending the flock, and appointed you ruler over my people Israel.
[6:41] I have been with you wherever you have gone, and I have cut off all your enemies from before you. Now I will make your name great like the names of the greatest men on earth.
[6:57] If there is any possibility that David might be thinking that he has the power to give things to God, here God flips the table. It is God who gives to David.
[7:11] God is the one who moved David from his humble background to becoming a king. And by the way, in verse 8, when it says, I have appointed you ruler over my people Israel, the original word there is prince.
[7:31] I have appointed you prince over my people Israel. God appointed David as a prince because God is the king. Once when my siblings and I were just little kids, we thought, hey, dad's birthday is in a few days.
[7:51] Let's do something nice for him. Let's take him to that nice steakhouse across the road. But come on, we were kids. We didn't have any money to buy our dad anything.
[8:03] So, when we got there, my dad was the one who offered us things. Hey, do you want the Wagyu steak? Do you want this? And do you want that? He provided for us so much more than we could have hoped to provide for him.
[8:21] The table was turned, so to speak. And here, God turns the table and shows David who the real king is. And God doesn't just give to David.
[8:36] He also makes great promises to his people Israel in verse 10 to 11. And I will provide a place for my people Israel and will plant them so that they can have a home of their own and no longer be disturbed.
[8:50] Wicked people will not oppress them anymore as they did at the beginning and have done ever since the time I appointed leaders over my people Israel. I will also give you rest from all your enemies.
[9:04] Here, God promises a permanent home for Israel and perfect peace that also lasts forever. It says there, Israel will no longer be disturbed.
[9:19] Wicked people will not oppress them anymore. There's no end to this promised period of peace. And then, on top of all that, in the rest of the passage, God promises an offspring for David.
[9:37] This is what's important for us in this Advent. verse 1. The Lord declares to you that the Lord himself will establish a house for you.
[9:48] When your days are over and you rest with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, your own flesh and blood, and I will establish his kingdom.
[10:00] He is the one who will build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his father and he will be my son.
[10:11] When he does wrong, I will punish him with a rod wielded by men with floggings inflicted by human hands. But my love will never be taken away from him as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you.
[10:25] Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me. Your throne will be established forever. forever. So, on top of everything that God has done for David and what he has promised to Israel, now, he also promises to raise up a son for David.
[10:46] And this son will be, first, a king to succeed David in verse 12. This son will be the one building God a house in verse 13.
[10:58] And God will make his kingdom to last forever. In verse 14, this son of David will be like a son to God. In verse 15, he will be favored forever by God.
[11:13] And in verse 16, because this son of David will be king forever, so David's throne will last forever as well.
[11:24] And then, we might even say that the promised eternal peace that God promises his people in verse 10 to 11 is tied to the promised son of David.
[11:37] Because they both share similar quality. That is, both the peace that Israel will have and the reign of the son of David will be eternal.
[11:52] So, that's what God has promised to David. Now, we might ask, when are all these promises fulfilled?
[12:04] Well, viewed in its immediate historical context, the prophetic reference was to Solomon, one of David's sons, who did build the temple for the Lord in Jerusalem in around the year 950 BC.
[12:20] But, Solomon's kingdom was not eternal at all. the kingdom of Israel split into two shortly after Solomon's death. And then, Israel and Judah were both destroyed by Assyria and Babylon.
[12:36] And so, the peace for Israel did not last forever either, did it? Now, the beginning of Matthew, our New Testament passage, reveals that Jesus is the true son of David promised in this passage.
[12:56] Matthew opens his gospel with the genealogy of Jesus, and in verse 1, he highlights that Jesus is the Messiah, that means the appointed king, and he's the son of David.
[13:13] And then, the gospel of Matthew closes with the announcement of Jesus' universal kingship. He says, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
[13:25] And it ends with the announcement of Jesus' eternal life, Jesus' eternal kingdom. Surely, I am with you always to the very end of the age.
[13:37] Which means that he really is the eternal king that God has promised David. The one that Israel had been waiting for. And Jesus was also depicted as the one who built God's temple.
[13:52] He says, I am able to destroy the temple of God and rebuild it in three days. And then John says, the temple he had spoken of was his body. He is the one who built God a house.
[14:08] And he's also the son of God, literally. As God himself said, this is my son whom I love with him, I am well pleased.
[14:19] He's the one on whom God's favor lies. In Jesus, the eternal house of David, the promised eternal house of David and the house of God become one.
[14:36] Because he's the son of God, he's the temple of God, and he's also the son of David who lives forever. God's love of God. And therefore, his first coming into the world ended the long-waiting period of Israel for the fulfillment of these promises in 2 Samuel.
[14:58] But now we might be thinking, hang on, but even then, not all of these promises were perfectly fulfilled. God's people are still not in perfect peace.
[15:10] both his old Israel and his new Israel, the church, still face threats and violence. So we are still waiting for the complete fulfillment of those promises, aren't we?
[15:28] And that's what we're waiting for during Advent, the return of the eternal king who is both the son of David and the son of God.
[15:40] who will make everything right, whose reign will be perfectly peaceful. As Revelation 21 says, when Jesus returns, this is what John saw, I did not see a temple in the city because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.
[16:02] The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light and the Lamb is its lamp. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it.
[16:17] On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there, which means there will be no danger associated with night. The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it.
[16:30] In other words, the nations will not attack it, the nations will instead bring their glory and honor. nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life.
[16:51] When Jesus returns, he will establish his eternal, perfect, peaceful kingdom. most of you know that I have a two-year-old son, Kai.
[17:11] Now, Kai goes to childcare two days a week. Now, he loves it there, but the first month was hard. Every time I dropped him off in the morning, he always cried, he always clanged to me and wouldn't let go.
[17:28] And so often, throughout the day, I would worry if he was going to be okay. And when I picked him up, I usually saw him first from afar, and he usually just played by himself.
[17:41] And then when he noticed me, he suddenly had a big smile on his face. Then he dropped all of his toys, he left his bike behind, and he ran towards me and hugged me really tightly.
[17:56] And then when I asked, want to go home home? With a big smile, he said, home. Then often when I talked to his educators before going home, they always said, oh, he's been very good, he's been very, very good, but really quiet.
[18:17] But as soon as I picked him up, he started talking and talking and talking. Because now everything's all right. Now he's got his peace.
[18:31] I imagine that that feeling that Guy had in the first month of being in childcare, that anxious feeling of being separated, a feeling of worry, perhaps, that his parents were not there to take care of him, that lack of peace, that feeling is how we're feeling many times while we're here on earth.
[18:58] Anxious, worry, lack of peace. And so that feeling that Guy had when I picked him up, that feeling of relief, joy, safety, and peace will be how we will be feeling, even perfectly, when Jesus returns to pick us up.
[19:24] But in the meantime, how do we wait for Jesus? What's supposed to be our response? Well, how did David respond to all these great promises?
[19:40] In the next passage in 2 Samuel, which is not in our reading, David shows humility and trust. He humbles himself, saying, Who am I, sovereign Lord?
[19:54] that you've done this and you've promised all these great things for me. And for the first time in the entire book, after doing all those actions in the previous chapters, after going to war and going to battles, for the first time, it says, David sits down.
[20:17] He shows trust. God's promise of action puts David out of action, and he's fine with it.
[20:35] Going back to the story about my son Kai, even though his first month in child care was tough, now he's happy and he doesn't cry when I drop him off.
[20:47] He still hugs me tightly when he says goodbye, but he willingly lets go and he goes to join his friends. Perhaps because he knows that I will be there at the end of the day to pick him up.
[21:05] He trusts that I will be there, and so he can enjoy his time there without worry. perhaps we can show the same humble trust in Jesus, the eternal king who has promised that he will come and pick us up.
[21:27] Sometimes while we're waiting for Jesus to return, we can worry about the fate of the church or the world, sometimes a bit too much. Oh, there are so many attacks, we say, from society and secularism and so much immorality.
[21:47] But looking back across history, we can see God's sovereign hand in keeping the church. In the early church, during the persecutions, the church strangely did not die out, instead it flourished.
[22:05] That's not our work, that's God's miraculous sovereign kingship. That's Jesus fulfilling his promise that he will be with us to the end of the age.
[22:18] When the church became too corrupt in the Middle Ages, God gave the Reformation. When the church became too intellectual, God gave the religion of the heart, which we call the evangelical movement.
[22:34] King Jesus has been keeping his people throughout history with his sovereign authority, and he will do it until he returns and establishes perfect peace for us forever.
[22:51] God has promised to David here, and he's going to keep it. He's going to keep the promise. So even when we are attacked politically, socially, culturally, we don't fear.
[23:08] Jesus is king, and God has promised that his rule will be forever. He will return, and just like Kai, we will happily, happily leave whatever we're doing and run to him and hug him and say, home.
[23:30] let's pray. Father, we thank you for the great reminder that you have promised to David for this eternal king who will establish perfect peace, and thank you that you have sent your son to fulfill that promise.
[23:54] help us as we wait for his second coming to trust you, to trust King Jesus, that he's the one who holds us fast, and he's the one who keeps the church from stumbling.
[24:12] In the name of Jesus, our Lord, who will return. Come, Lord Jesus. Amen.