[[Category:Fourth Sunday in Advent Sermons]][[Category:Sermons from 2 Samuel]] * Liturgical Date: Fourth Sunday in Advent December 21, 2014 * Order of Service: Divine Service 3 * Hymns: LSB #346, 357, 624, 549, 352, 338 [[Media:God_Needs_No_House_Built_2Sam_7.mp3]] '''SERMON TEXT:''' [God says:] In all places where I have moved with all the people of Israel, did I speak a word with any of the judges of Israel, whom I commanded to shepherd My people Israel, saying, 'Why have you not built Me a house of cedar?' (2 Samuel 7:7) David thought he was living a life of sacrilege. A king living in a great palace. His God living in a shabby, wind-blown tent. David purposed in his heart to build a great house for God. A very noble task to undertake. But what kind of house would be worthy of the Creator of the universe? Man cannot build a house worthy of God. It's simply impossible! However, those who obey His commandments and follow His Way will have an everlasting house built for them. 1 Our problem is that we reverse the created order. David was no exception. David believed God was being dishonored by not having a temple grander than the king's palace. He believed it was his duty to build a temple for God. David fell into the error that God needed his works. Even though God had blessed Israel with peace, 2 it had to be temporary because God was forced to dwell in a tent. David wanted to right that wrong. He felt God was being not only dishonored but neglected by His people. He bought into the idea that grander is better. The prosperity Gospel at its finest. That God needs our best in works and intentions. 1 John 14:1-6 2 2 Samuel 7:1 The better everything looks, the more glory God is being given, the greater blessings He will bestow. The idea that your lives will become better because you have done all the right things in the right ways. That God helps those who help Him. God rebukes David for his thoughts. He doesn't need anyone's help. He is God Almighty. The Creator of Heaven and earth. He tells David, I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day, but I have been moving in a tent for My dwelling. 3 He had never asked any of the judges of Israel to build Him a Temple. 4 He had appointed a time for that to happen. It was not in David's time. It was to be in Solomon's time. 5 But even then, the earthly Temple was not the Temple He was preparing. God was not preparing a Temple of stone and wood. God was preparing a Temple of flesh and blood. 6 A Temple that was truly not grand, but it was better than any built on earth. 7 3 2 Samuel 7:6 4 2 Samuel 7:7 5 2 Samuel 7:13 6 LSB #624.1 7 Isaiah 53:3; Mark 14:58; 2 Corinthians 5:1; Hebrews 9:11 1
The ancient Greeks and Romans also worried about the neglect of the gods. If the gods were not worshipped regularly, their power over their elements would wane. They needed their worshippers to worship so that they would retain their power. This was Demetrius the silversmith's argument against Paul's evangelization of Ephesus. If Ephesus accepted Jesus, Artemis would be dethroned from her seat of power. She would no longer be the patron goddess of the region of Asia Minor. This upstart Jesus would take her place. So he began a riot in Ephesus to save his livelihood and his goddess. 8 Jesus takes over Ephesus and the surrounding area. St. John the Apostle becomes the bishop of Ephesus. The congregation there receives a letter from the risen Jesus in Revelation. 9 Demetrius fades into the shrouds of history. Never to be mentioned again. His only claim to fame being a short, anecdotal mention in the Scriptures inspired by the One he opposed. David and the pagan religions reverse the order of creation. God doesn't need our works. We need God's work. But we also try to put ourselves in God's place. Especially when we try to figure out why bad things happen. The existence of suffering and the existence of an all-powerful God seem to contradict each other. When tragedy strikes, how many times have you heard, My God would never allow that to happen!? Our sinful nature causes us to reverse the order of Creation 8 Acts 19:23-41 9 Revelation 2:1-7 by making God into our own image. By transferring our thoughts and ideas onto Him. The ancient Greek philosophers, following Plato's lead, believed that the material world was only a shadow of the truth. That there was no permanence and no source in this world. Everything here was a shadow of the ideal in some heavenly realm. Only by shedding the desires and trappings of this world can one achieve true peace with God. Shedding off the material, focusing solely on the spiritual, you become closer to the ideal. You become closer to God. This travels well in our world today. While trying to be good Christians, some will adopt an idea similar to the Mormon couplet: As man is, God once was. As God is, man may become. 10 This was first said by the future LDS President Lorenzo Snow. It shows Plato's influence on Christian thinking. Influence that take Christians from orthodoxy to heresy. This influence, grounded in the idea that grander is better, boils Jesus down to a moral example. Salvation down to becoming more like Jesus. Satan has a field day because people still fall for his same lie: You will be like God. 11 You must do better so God will be pleased with you. But Jesus says, For God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish 10 LDS President Lorenzo Snow, June 1840 11 Genesis 3:5 2
but have everlasting life. 12 Jesus came into the world to rescue the perishing. To restore the proper order of Creation. To be the Creator King who needs nothing from you. To be the Redeemer King who humbled Himself to save you. Jesus comes as the King who created the universe. He came to restore what has been broken by sin. Creation killed the Creator, sacrificing Him on the altar of the cross. But death would not the victor be of Him who hung upon the tree. 13 Nothing is impossible with God. 14 The Son of God dies, but He rises again from the dead. Rises victorious over the greatest enemies sin can offer. Rises so that He can reclaim the throne David borrowed in this world. David's throne was not his. In fact, God never called Israel to crown a king. It was a decision made by sinners who wanted to usurp the power of their Creator God. They wanted to be like the nations around them. 15 The nations God had called them to be different from. God grants them their desire. He gives them a king. Someone to borrow God's throne in the midst of His people. David sat on that throne. His place before the Lord secured, established forever. 16 12 John 3:16 13 LSB #624.4 14 Luke 1:37 15 1 Samuel 8:19-22 16 2 Samuel 7:16 But this borrowed throne truly belonged to his Seed. The Seed promised from the very beginning. 17 His throne He comes to reclaim. On this throne He reigns forever. 18 Over the house of Israel. 19 Over all nations. 20 The highest of all kings. 21 Jesus is the Seed, who reclaims His throne as the Key of David, the Branch of Jesse's tree. 22 In the place He will appoint, 23 which is Heaven. From this appointed place, Your King is coming to you; righteous and having salvation. 24 Jesus comes to ransom captive Israel. 25 He comes to keep His Word. The Word of promise to David. The Word of promise to all mankind. The Word of forgiveness of sin. 26 This is the house that God will build for David. This is the throne upon which Jesus will reign forever. But Jesus reclaims His throne in the most unusual way. He comes to you as the Redeemer King. Not in might and glory. He humbled Himself to take on human flesh. To be born a lowly child in a lowly cattle stall. 27 Even though He was in very nature God, Jesus thought equality with God something to be given up so that you might be saved. 17 Genesis 3:16 18 2 Samuel 7:16; Luke 1:33 19 Luke 1:33 20 Revelation 7:9-10 21 LSB #352.1 22 LSB #357.4-5; 549.2 23 2 Samuel 7:10 24 Zechariah 9:9 25 LSB #357.1 26 LSB #352.1 27 LSB #393.1 3
He saved you by submitting to God's will and being chastised by the unmerciful rod of God's wrath on the cross of Calvary for your iniquity. 28 Jesus became nothing so that you might become everything. To fulfill the promises God made to David. Promises that He fulfills in your life as well. I will make for you a great name. 29 God made David's name great through his anointing through Samuel 30 and his victory in battle over Goliath. 31 God's arm strengthened David against Goliath and in the administration of the kingdom. 32 God makes your name great through the strengthening of the Gospel and the preaching of Jesus. 33 The Gospel proclaims Jesus' death and resurrection. The Gospel proclaims Jesus' gift of His name in Baptism. Your name becomes great because Jesus gives you the name that is above every name. 34 In His name you are established forever. 35 With this establishment, God promises, I will appoint a place for My people Israel and will plant them. 36 Jerusalem had been chosen by God for His name to dwell among His people. First in the Tabernacle. The tent David wanted to replace. Then in the Temple. The house David's son Solomon would build. 28 Philippians 2:5-8; 2 Samuel 7:14-15 29 2 Samuel 7:9 30 Psalm 89:20 31 1 Samuel 16-17; Psalm 89:21 32 Psalm 89:21 33 Romans 16:25-26 34 Philippians 2:9 35 Psalm 89:29 36 2 Samuel 7:10 Finally in the flesh of Jesus. The Word of God incarnate, walking through the city's streets, teaching God's people the true faith through His flesh and blood. God continues to appoint a place for His people to gather for worship. Not just the command to gather together. 37 The command to gather together in one place. A place consecrated and set apart primarily for God's worship. 38 This building is not great because we built it to worship God. This building is great because God comes down to us. He deigns to dwell among us here. Placing His gifts on us and in our mouths so that we might have the forgiveness of sins and rest for our souls. God's rest had come to David because he had defeated all his enemies. 39 God's rest comes to you when He comes to you in His Word and Sacraments. With these gifts, God highly favors us. He is truly with us in these gifts. 40 God was with David in his ruling Israel. God was with Mary because she carried Jesus in her womb. 41 God is with you through the Child Mary carried. In your Baptism, you put on Christ. 42 He is truly Immanuel, God with us. 43 37 Hebrews 10:25 38 Deuteronomy 23:16 39 2 Samuel 7:1 40 2 Samuel 7:3; Luke 1:28 41 Luke 1:35 42 Galatians 3:27 43 Matthew 1:23 4
God making a house for you. 44 Not needing a house for Himself, He builds a house for you. A house in His Heaven. 45 A house whose foundations will never be shaken. 46 Because it is built on the Rock. 47 In this house, I will sing of the steadfast love of the LORD forever. 48 I rejoice because God has built me a house. A house that cannot be taken away. A house for me to dwell with Him forever. For this I will praise Him forever. These promises are mine and yours in Christ. We rejoice in the promises, but we also are desirous for the end of our waiting. The season of Advent, the season of waiting, teaches us patience. Patience to know that the promises will be fulfilled in God's time. Until then, we proclaim our faith and our waiting as we sing the great Advent carol Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus : Come, Thou long-expected Jesus, born to set Thy people free; from our fears and sins release us by Thy death on Calvary. Born Thy people to deliver, born a child and yet a king; born to reign in us forever, now Thy gracious kingdom bring. By Thy own eternal Spirit rule in all our hearts alone; by Thine all-sufficient merit raise us to Thy glorious throne. 49 Amen. 44 2 Samuel 7:11 45 John 14:2 46 Matthew 16:16 47 Matthew 7:37-39 48 Psalm 89:1 49 LSB #338 5