David gets a new “house” of cedar; David (through Nathan) offers to build God a “house”; God declines a “house” and instead (through Nathan) offers David a “house” that isn’t cedar. Now it’s David’s turn.
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? 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. May this be instruction for the people, O Lord God!
Did you catch that? David is done with intermediaries. He “went in and sat before the Lord.” There are times when God’s goodness is so good that just need to sit down and talk for a while. Yet this is no casual conversation; hear the awe and humility in David’s words: “Who am I …” and “What is my house …?” David well knows that God’s promises are from the goodness of God’s heart and not merited favor. Yet as world-changing as God’s promises turn out to be, they do not require a large expenditure of God’s power. Through what “small thing in the eyes of the Lord God” has God wrought such a huge blessing in your life?
And what more can David say to you? For you know your servant, O Lord God! Because of your promise, and according to your own heart, you have wrought all this greatness, so that your servant may know it. Therefore you are great, O Lord God; for there is no one like you, and there is no God besides you, according to all that we have heard with our ears.
David has heard about a lot of gods, but he has heard of no God like Yahweh God. Humans seek to manipulate and provoke their gods with a little “g”, but they waste such efforts on Yahweh, a God who will, on his own, seek the highest good for his people. He often shapes these good things in forms that his people could not even begin to imagine. How has God seemingly passed over your prayers in order to give you something better than that for which you hoped?
Who is like your people, like Israel? Is there another nation on earth whose God went to redeem it as a people, and to make a name for himself, doing great and awesome things for them, by driving out before his people nations and their gods? And you established your people Israel for yourself to be your people forever; and you, O Lord, became their God.
Just he sent Israel, so God sends out the church to share his redemption, to sing his praise, to press the cause of his kingdom, and to replace worldly idols in the hands of others for his real and powerful presence. How is God acting through us, as his people today, to accomplish these very things?
And now, O Lord God, as for the word that you have spoken concerning your servant and concerning his house, confirm it forever; do as you have promised. Thus your name will be magnified forever in the saying, 'The Lord of hosts is God over Israel'; and the house of your servant David will be established before you. For you, O Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, have made this revelation to your servant, saying, 'I will build you a house'; therefore your servant has found courage to pray this prayer to you. And now, O Lord God, you are God, and your words are true, and you have promised this good thing to your servant; now therefore may it please you to bless the house of your servant, so that it may continue forever before you; for you, O Lord God, have spoken, and with your blessing shall the house of your servant be blessed forever."
While David’s posterity was faithful, his house reigned over Israel. Sadly that faithfulness found a bitter ending. Yet even past the promise as David understood it, God maintained his promise by continuing David’s house. What David could not have fully understood was that God would take David’s acts of faithfulness and use them as a pathway to enter into the world as Jesus, God Incarnate. In the hands of an eternal king, the throne of David has become truly eternal. In the hands of the eternal king, Jesus, God has fulfilled his promise to David in a way that immeasurably dwarfed David’s understanding.
So, the question comes to us: “How will God use our faithfulness to advance his kingdom into the eternal through the seemingly insignificant things that we say or do?” Not only do I believe that God will do this, but that he has already begun to do so. We don’t have to foresee all of the possibilities for God to make use of the work of our hands. Yet I think that we will find great encouragement in this imagining if we will allow ourselves to see the possibilities of our diligent ministry. We will also find innumerable reasons to praise God for his work in our world in our lives.
“Thus your name will be magnified forever!”
Blessings,
Ron
2 Samuel 7:18-29 – NRSV
