SPEAKER_01: We study through books of the Bible here at the village chapel, and we have extra copies.
SPEAKER_01: If you didn't bring one with you and you would like one to follow along, raise your hand up real high, and we'll get one to you.
SPEAKER_01: I got one in the middle there, a couple over by the far windows as well.
SPEAKER_01: Just keep your hands up high, and the folks that are uh coming around will make sure to get one to you.
SPEAKER_01: You can see up on the screen if you prefer to follow on a device.
SPEAKER_01: Uh the password has now become Davidic Covenant.
SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, one, two, three, four would work, but we just like to make sure you're reaching for it, okay?
SPEAKER_01: So uh we're studying 2 Samuel.
SPEAKER_01: We're calling our study the story of unlikely redemption.
SPEAKER_01: And the Bible is filled with stories of unlikely redemption.
SPEAKER_01: God choosing those no one else would choose, using those no one else would use, loving those no one else would love, and uh that brings great comfort to my heart and my soul.
SPEAKER_01: I hope it does to yours as well.
SPEAKER_01: Last week, if you were here or at the other campus, uh we studied the first half of chapter seven.
SPEAKER_01: Uh Tommy Bailey and Matt Pearson did a great job unfolding that for us.
SPEAKER_01: And uh sort of a hinge point in all of redemption history, really, the Davidic covenant itself, which uh, of course is our, as I said, is the password.
SPEAKER_01: And now we're gonna look at David's response to that.
SPEAKER_01: I'll remind you that in that first half of chapter 7, what happened was David had wanted to build the temple.
SPEAKER_01: He wanted to build a house for the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: And so he had approached Nathan the prophet, talked about that.
SPEAKER_01: Nathan at first said, Go and and do all that you've you're planning to do.
SPEAKER_01: But then upon uh God sort of intruding into the whole situation and said, No, no, no, no, that's not what I want to do, because they hadn't sought the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: So the Lord reveals to Nathan, go back to David and tell him, No, that's not not that's not right.
SPEAKER_01: Not David, not now.
SPEAKER_01: Uh that's gonna happen later, but I will.
SPEAKER_01: And then there were all these I wills.
SPEAKER_01: There's like 23 I wills in in that first half of the chapter.
SPEAKER_01: So God uh taking the initiative, making clear what he will do.
SPEAKER_01: And now this is David's response.
SPEAKER_01: He's been given a no.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you've been given a no by God before.
SPEAKER_01: You're not the one to build the temple.
SPEAKER_01: No, don't build a temple now.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you've heard no from the Lord before.
SPEAKER_01: A lot of times we don't like that word, although I do think from what I hear from some parents anyway, that no is one of the first words their kids learn.
SPEAKER_01: Not to obey, but to say, right?
SPEAKER_01: No, no, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_01: And uh, and and so here's David with a no from God, and in the middle of all of that, uh here's his response, which I think is great, because I I think we can learn a lot about people when we hear them pray.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe, maybe that's the way that's been your experience as well.
SPEAKER_01: Some people uh in praying, they they really open up their hearts or their minds open up, and you and you kind of hear them what's the deepest longing is of their heart and all that sort of thing.
SPEAKER_01: And so with that in mind, hearing that you know David is sort of sitting on the on the heels of this no, uh, even though there's all these promises, uh, there is this no.
SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry, you're hearing that's a bunch of guys jumping around in the attic, I think.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not sure what's not sure what that is.
SPEAKER_01: Aaron, tell me if I need to go to the boom mic.
unknown: Not yet.
SPEAKER_01: Not yet.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, we won't give up yet.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, all right, good.
SPEAKER_01: Um let me move that away from my uh my maybe it's rubbing up against me.
SPEAKER_01: Um we'll cut this out of the video.
SPEAKER_01: There's no problem.
SPEAKER_01: Since that we're talking about prayer today, let me let me join me in it.
SPEAKER_01: Let's let's say this prayer.
SPEAKER_01: John Stott used to use this prayer when he opened up all of his preaching.
SPEAKER_01: Bow your heads with me and let's let's pray this prayer.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, uh, please we bow in your presence.
SPEAKER_01: May your word be our rule, may your spirit be our teacher, may your greater glory be our supreme concern through Jesus Christ our Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Everybody said.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: So let's listen to, let's look in on this prayer of David.
SPEAKER_01: Then David the King, verse 18 of chapter 7 of 2 Samuel.
SPEAKER_01: David the King went in and sat before the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: That's interesting because the typical position for praying back then, the customary position would be their standing or kneeling.
SPEAKER_01: And so it's interesting that he comes and he sits, and it's it's it's almost as if in this middle of this no, he has come now to listen.
SPEAKER_01: And I don't know if you listen in your prayers.
SPEAKER_01: I know a lot of times we tend to, we're in such a hurry with our prayers that we don't take time to do what I think is really some of the richest experiences, it's just listening for the Lord to speak to us.
SPEAKER_01: Um, and usually he's reminding us of his word, as we say just a minute ago, on your word I will rely.
SPEAKER_01: And he's generally, the Holy Spirit is using that word to speak to us.
SPEAKER_01: But here he sits before the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: He goes in and he's probably in the tent where the ark is.
SPEAKER_01: It's likely that.
SPEAKER_01: And he sat before the Lord, we're told.
SPEAKER_01: And he said this.
SPEAKER_01: This is what he said.
SPEAKER_01: Who am I, O Lord God?
SPEAKER_01: And what is my house that you have brought me this far?
SPEAKER_01: And yet this was insignificant in your eyes, O Lord God, for you have spoken also of the house of your servant concerning the distant future.
SPEAKER_01: And this is the custom or the law, the word is Torah, this is the law of man, O Lord God.
SPEAKER_01: That's interesting that he recognizes that what God has said to him through Nathan the Prophet in the first part of this chapter that we studied last week, had a near fulfillment, because who am I that you brought me this far?
SPEAKER_01: And yet it also had a far fulfillment.
SPEAKER_01: And he says it right there, doesn't he, in verse 19, concerning the distant future.
SPEAKER_01: And this is the custom of man, O Lord God.
SPEAKER_01: That what custom that you speak to.
SPEAKER_01: Your English translation may have that a little bit differently.
SPEAKER_01: That's a little tricky in some of the Bible commentaries that I read.
SPEAKER_01: There are a couple different ways that that will roll out into English, but uh the idea there is that this is the way God deals with us and reveals himself and speaks to us.
SPEAKER_01: And that God is the one who sets the boundaries for life, as we read in our call to worship this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Um that God is the one that sets things the way they should be and the way they should go.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 20, and again, what more can David say to you?
SPEAKER_01: For you know your servant, O Lord God.
SPEAKER_01: For the sake of your word and according to your own heart, you have done all this greatness to let your servant know.
SPEAKER_00: For this reason you are great, O Lord, for there's none like you, and there's no God beside you, according to all that we have heard with our ears, and what one nation on the earth is like your people, Israel, whom God went to redeem for himself as a people, and to make a name for himself, and to do a great thing for for you, and awesome things for your land before your people, whom you have redeemed for yourself from Egypt, from nations and their gods.
SPEAKER_01: For you have established for yourself your people Israel as your own people forever, and you, O Lord, have become their God.
SPEAKER_01: Now therefore, O Lord God, the word that you have spoken concerning your servant and his house, confirm it forever, and do as you have spoken, that your name may be magnified forever by saying, The Lord of hosts is God over Israel, and may the house of your servant David be established before you.
SPEAKER_01: For you, O Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, have made a revelation to your servant, saying, I will build you a house.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, your servant has found courage to pray this prayer to you.
SPEAKER_01: And now, O Lord God, you are God, and your words are truth.
SPEAKER_01: And you have promised this good thing to your servant.
SPEAKER_00: Now, therefore, may it please you to bless the house of your servant that it may continue forever before you.
SPEAKER_00: For you, O Lord God, have spoken, and with your blessing, may the house of your servant be blessed forever.
SPEAKER_01: So I try to read that with a little emphasis.
SPEAKER_01: See what he does 40 times, over 40 times in that short prayer.
SPEAKER_01: The second person personal pronoun for God.
SPEAKER_00: You, your, your people, your house, your servant, your will, your purposes, just over and over and over.
SPEAKER_00: And I love that.
SPEAKER_00: I love that.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord's prayer that we have up on the screen, we pray from time to time, and maybe we will today.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, all in the plural, but begins with God.
SPEAKER_01: I love this.
SPEAKER_01: This prayer, which uh I think is fascinating, another uh kind of prayer, that actually begins with a question.
SPEAKER_01: And I love this question.
SPEAKER_01: Um, it is a it is an ancient question.
SPEAKER_01: Who am I?
SPEAKER_01: As a matter of fact, it's so ancient that a form of it uh was said by a guy named Moses in Exodus chapter 3, verse 11.
SPEAKER_01: Another form of it, what is man that you're mindful of him?
SPEAKER_01: Said by Job, later by David in Psalm 8 and Psalm 144, I think it is.
SPEAKER_01: Um repeated again in the New Testament, who am I?
SPEAKER_01: What is man that you even are mindful of us?
SPEAKER_01: It's the quest and the question of every sentient creature on the planet.
SPEAKER_01: If we're aware of our own lives and we can think it all, we might be asking that question, who are we?
SPEAKER_01: What are we?
SPEAKER_01: And the answer to that question is really important, but equally important is where you turn for the answer.
SPEAKER_01: Where we might turn for the answer to that question.
SPEAKER_01: In this prayer, David speaking directly to the living creator God, calls him by his personal name, Yahweh, eleven times.
SPEAKER_01: So 40 of those personal pronouns, you, you, you, your, your, eleven times Yahweh.
SPEAKER_01: He refers to himself, David does, as the servant of the Lord ten times.
SPEAKER_01: Um Bible scholar Ronald F.
SPEAKER_01: Youngblood has offered this brief little outline of this prayer, and I really liked it so much, I just wanted to post it on the screen for you.
SPEAKER_01: Here's David praying about the present, the past, and the future.
SPEAKER_01: Um, stunned gratitude for divine favor, verses 18 to 21.
SPEAKER_01: Exuberant praise for what God has done already, verses 22 to 24.
SPEAKER_01: Impassioned prayer for divine fulfillment of covenant promises, verses 25 to 29.
SPEAKER_01: A great outline of that prayer when you think about the fact that you have past, you have a present, and you have a future as well.
SPEAKER_01: And why wouldn't you want to take all of that to God and then trust it to God?
SPEAKER_01: Why wouldn't we you want to take that as deep, burning questions in your heart and your mind?
SPEAKER_01: Who am I?
SPEAKER_01: Who are we?
SPEAKER_01: What is mankind?
SPEAKER_01: That God should be mindful of us at all.
SPEAKER_01: Who are we gonna take that to?
SPEAKER_01: The who am I that we ask?
SPEAKER_01: What can we learn from studying this prayer?
SPEAKER_01: I think we can trust a sovereign God with our past, our present, and our future.
SPEAKER_01: And it's right to come before the Lord to sit in his presence, as David did, and express our gratitude through prayers like this.
SPEAKER_01: I'm just gonna highlight three things, if you don't mind, if you'll permit me to, as we look at this prayer, the proper disposition for prayer is humbled gratitude showing deference.
SPEAKER_01: And that begins with that question, who am I?
SPEAKER_01: It's not so much, not only a question of identity, which that they abound in our day and in our time right now, questions about identity.
SPEAKER_01: There is much confusion over what it means to be a human person right now.
SPEAKER_01: Um partly that's because we're taking the who am I, and instead of turning it toward God, we're turning it toward finite things.
SPEAKER_01: A lot of us, when we introduce ourselves or first meet someone, the very first thing we talk about is what we do, not who we are.
SPEAKER_01: And we think that we're defined by what we do.
SPEAKER_01: Others of us might be considering that at the very center of our lives, the center of our being, who we are, is actually answered in some other category of finite life.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe it's pleasure, maybe it's resources, maybe it's relationships with human persons, whatever it might be.
SPEAKER_01: And we say, that's who I am.
SPEAKER_01: I'm that, you know?
SPEAKER_01: And instead, here what we have David doing, he's saying, God, who am I?
SPEAKER_01: And he's he's it's not just identity, it's actually in view of how great God is, he's feeling insignificant himself in a proper way that I think is right for us to be reminded of our smallness from time to time, and to be, but more importantly, to be reminded of God's greatness.
SPEAKER_01: And so the proper disposition for prayer is a humbled gratitude, showing deference to a great God.
SPEAKER_01: The only true, living, wise, all-powerful God.
SPEAKER_01: And throughout this prayer, here's what you see him recalling: our smallness, God's greatness, God's uniqueness.
SPEAKER_01: There's none beside you.
SPEAKER_01: There's no other God like you.
SPEAKER_01: Sui generis.
SPEAKER_01: He's one of a kind.
SPEAKER_01: And that's who he is.
SPEAKER_01: He's in made, there's nobody, there's no other gods like him whatsoever.
SPEAKER_01: And um, and he's he's he talks about God's character, his mighty saving deeds in the past, God's promises in the future, and he prays for those toward the end of the prayer.
SPEAKER_01: God's loving kindness, God's faithfulness.
SPEAKER_01: What God has done affirms the claims of the Bible as to what the character of God is really like.
SPEAKER_01: When you pray to this God, the God of the Bible, you are praying to someone who has a character.
SPEAKER_01: He has a certain uh trustworthiness, David reminds us, and I love that.
SPEAKER_01: Trust, of course, involves risk.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you have been in relationships where the trust has been violated before, or where you may have violated the trust as well.
SPEAKER_01: It's very difficult to recover that, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01: But here's a God who we look down through the uh ages of history and we continue to see over and over and over again how faithful God is to his promises, to what he's actually promised.
SPEAKER_01: And I realize we have to ferret that out.
SPEAKER_01: We have to figure out what has God actually promised to every person across time and culture, across all of those little categories that we have.
SPEAKER_01: What has God actually promised?
SPEAKER_01: A lot of us have been trained up in sometimes in Sunday school thinking and well-intentioned and all that sort of thing, but trained up to think that every little phrase that we can lift out of any little verse can all of a sudden be claimed.
SPEAKER_01: We can put it on a little plaque, put it on the wall, and claim it for our own, as if God must abide by our plaques and our embroidery.
SPEAKER_01: Whatever we claim.
SPEAKER_01: And that really guts the sovereignty of God, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_01: Uh sometimes the promises that God makes in the scriptures are for a specific person or a specific group of people in a specific situation at a specific time, and that's exactly where it's supposed to stop.
SPEAKER_01: But sometimes we see promises repeated throughout Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: And the overarching narrative of Scripture is God continuing to show himself to be one who's eager to call out a people he can claim for his own.
SPEAKER_01: And we see across Scripture the idea that God is eager to shower his grace upon sinners like us.
SPEAKER_01: That God one day intends to set things right.
SPEAKER_01: That all of the stuff that's wrong in this world, uh, the darkness in this world, uh, the disease, the dye, all of that is going to be completely reversed one day.
SPEAKER_01: That's the promise of this God across Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: And so He calls us to trust in Him.
SPEAKER_01: I love the way that Augustine put it: trust the past to God's mercy, the present to God's love, the future to God's providence.
SPEAKER_01: Trust will involve risk, that's right.
SPEAKER_01: But that's why it's such good news that God is trustworthy, and why the proper disposition for prayer is this humbled gratitude, showing deference to God.
SPEAKER_01: He's the one that knows everything.
SPEAKER_01: If I knew everything God knows, then I could pray and claim XYZ and know that he would be trustworthy for XYZ.
SPEAKER_01: But I don't know everything he knows.
SPEAKER_01: So when I go out and visit folks in the hospital, when I'm praying for people who've just had an operation or people who are facing death even, I have to just always allow room for the sovereignty of God and that in his own timing, he's gonna glorify himself in each and every life, as well as in all of history one day.
SPEAKER_01: And I trust him to do that.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because he's trustworthy.
SPEAKER_01: Secondly, I think we see in this prayer that sitting before the Lord displaces noise, hurry, and worry.
SPEAKER_01: I'm a guy that likes my music loud.
SPEAKER_01: Is there anybody else like, do you like your music loud?
SPEAKER_01: I'm literally driving over, you know, the roads are kind of blocked off, and you can't really get everywhere you want to go.
SPEAKER_01: But I drove over to the other campus this morning to speak at the 8:30 service over there, and I'm I'm winding my way through.
SPEAKER_01: But I've got, I mean, I've got the music up really loud.
SPEAKER_01: I'm pretty sure everyone around me was thinking, what's with the guy in a jacket having to, you know, all that stuff, all that music is playing, and I'm I'm playing some worship music.
SPEAKER_01: I'm sort of preparing my heart, but I'm doing it loud, you know?
SPEAKER_01: And uh as I'm going to bed early in the morning, I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm waking up to the whole thing.
SPEAKER_01: But sometimes I need to get quiet before the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: And we've talked about this before around here.
SPEAKER_01: There are times to celebrate and dance like David danced, but there's also times to just be quiet before the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: David in this prayer goes in and he sits before the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: And I think there's something eager in his heart.
SPEAKER_01: He's been told no, yet God's made all these promises.
SPEAKER_01: Now he wants to express his own heart to God and listen as well.
SPEAKER_01: And so he goes before the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: And sitting before the Lord displaces noise, hurry, and worry.
SPEAKER_01: Um, God is never in a hurry.
SPEAKER_01: I would like God to be in a hurry sometimes.
SPEAKER_01: Anybody else?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I would like him to be in a hurry to do what I want him to do.
SPEAKER_01: I would like for him to be in a hurry to stop something that's happening that I don't want to happen anymore.
SPEAKER_01: But God has his own pace, his own timing.
SPEAKER_01: And he's always right on time.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because he's God.
SPEAKER_01: And he's trustworthy.
SPEAKER_01: He's not in a hurry.
SPEAKER_01: And when I worry, I'm I'm actually expressing my anxiety that God won't get it right.
SPEAKER_01: That somehow he's not trustworthy.
SPEAKER_01: That's why the Apostle Paul can say, be anxious for what?
SPEAKER_01: Nothing.
SPEAKER_01: That's pretty absolute.
SPEAKER_01: Be anxious for nothing, okay?
SPEAKER_01: But in everything, and he goes on, right?
SPEAKER_01: And he instructs us to pray.
SPEAKER_01: And that's beautiful.
SPEAKER_01: I sometimes, uh I think I've shown this before, but uh probably bears repeating.
SPEAKER_01: I sometimes wake up in the middle of the night.
SPEAKER_01: I did last night at about 3.07, I think it was.
SPEAKER_01: Does that happen to anybody yet?
SPEAKER_01: Okay, yeah.
SPEAKER_01: A couple of you.
SPEAKER_01: Uh and the older you get, it seems to happen a little more often.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so it was my birthday last week.
SPEAKER_01: I think it was appropriate that this happened to me this week.
SPEAKER_01: But I woke up about 3.07, and in our house we call it you get the big eye.
SPEAKER_01: So it's like, oh, it's 3.07.
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
SPEAKER_01: You know?
SPEAKER_01: And there's just, so you think, okay, I'm gonna close my eye, you know, and you do that, I'm going back to sleep.
SPEAKER_01: You know, I got at least two more hours before I gotta get up.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going back to sleep.
SPEAKER_01: And then you open eyes again, and it's 3.08.
SPEAKER_01: And you're just kind of going nowhere real fast, you know?
SPEAKER_01: It's the big eye.
SPEAKER_01: And and and sometimes for me, that's that's about creative thinking that's churning in the back of my mind and my heart, all this.
SPEAKER_01: But sometimes it's about worry.
SPEAKER_01: And sometimes it's me imagining all the different ways that if I were in charge, I'd take care of business.
SPEAKER_01: Or I'd fix that person, or I'd respond to that person who offended me, you know.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm writing the scripts and the narratives and all that, and I just can't shut it down.
SPEAKER_01: We, you know, Kim and I typically will go, okay, well, you know, grab the remote control, turn on some boring HGTV channel show and watch Hawaii Life or something like that, and just go, you shouldn't pick that out.
SPEAKER_01: You know, and you just go over and over again.
SPEAKER_01: They make the wrong choice all the time, and then you turn it off and go to sleep, you know.
SPEAKER_01: So, hopefully, because you've shifted your mind away.
SPEAKER_01: But but more often, what's needed for me is to do what David did, to get before the Lord, to sit before the Lord, uh, metaphorically, to place myself before God, to remind myself of how great he is, how small I am, but how faithful he is in his greatness, with all of his power.
SPEAKER_01: He's made all of these amazing promises, that one day he will indeed set all things right.
SPEAKER_01: And while we're waiting for that to happen, I will wait for you.
SPEAKER_01: I will wait for you.
SPEAKER_01: On your word, I will rely.
SPEAKER_01: Because in his word we find his promises.
SPEAKER_01: In his word, we've we're reminded that he's faithful and true.
SPEAKER_01: And just and trustworthy.
SPEAKER_01: So sitting before the Lord is great.
SPEAKER_01: What are you sitting before?
SPEAKER_01: This is a good question.
SPEAKER_01: As I looked at this and I looked at David, he went in and sat before the Lord, and it was unusual that that wasn't really the customary play way to pray.
SPEAKER_01: And I went in and I thought about, you know, what am I what am I sitting before?
SPEAKER_01: Well, if I'm worried, I'm probably not sitting before the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: But if I'm humbled in gratitude, if I'm responding in deference to him, because he is trustworthy, and he is almighty and powerful, then I might be sitting before the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Heard another preacher say one time, if you've never sat before the Lord and trembled, you probably never sat before the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: He is so great, he is so powerful.
SPEAKER_01: When you begin to recount, as David did in this prayer, the amazing deeds in redemption history, how the Lord God interrupted history in Egypt, called out his people in this amazing thing called the Exodus that just runs throughout the pages of redemption history as a symbol of this kind of God that loves to deliver his people who are trapped in slavery and bondage.
SPEAKER_01: And we see all of that pointing to and fulfilled in the person and work of Christ, who saves us not just from a geographic slavery or a cultural slavery, but he saves us from our own spiritual slavery to self and to sin and sets us free to point our who am I to him.
SPEAKER_01: To direct it to him, because he's really the only one that can actually answer that question.
SPEAKER_01: And when we say, who am I?
SPEAKER_01: to the Lord, he says, not what do you do, not what do you have.
SPEAKER_01: He says, You are mine.
SPEAKER_01: And that's the answer.
SPEAKER_01: See?
SPEAKER_01: Who am I?
SPEAKER_01: I'm his.
SPEAKER_01: Who are you?
SPEAKER_01: You are his.
SPEAKER_01: We are his.
SPEAKER_01: I can't replace, Ortberg says, any idol by turning away from it.
SPEAKER_01: I got to turn towards something.
SPEAKER_01: See, that's what repentance is.
SPEAKER_01: It's a two-fold turn.
SPEAKER_01: Stutt made that point beautifully when he talked about we turn away from our sin and selfishness.
SPEAKER_01: But repentance is complete when we turn towards something.
SPEAKER_01: And what we do is we turn toward Christ, the one who's paid the price once and for all for all my sin and for all your sin as well on the cross.
SPEAKER_01: And we trust and hope in him.
SPEAKER_01: Who am I?
SPEAKER_01: I belong to him.
SPEAKER_01: Who am I?
SPEAKER_01: I don't belong to my job.
SPEAKER_01: I don't belong to some passion.
SPEAKER_01: I don't belong to my possessions.
SPEAKER_01: I don't belong to the culture.
SPEAKER_01: I belong to him.
SPEAKER_01: 100% belong to him.
SPEAKER_01: And that's where you can rest and trust.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because he's trustworthy.
SPEAKER_01: Spurgeon said the first thing for our soul's health, the first thing for his glory, and the first thing for our own usefulness, is to keep ourselves in perpetual communion with the Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: To see that the vital spirituality of our religion is maintained over and above everything else in the world.
SPEAKER_01: And how's that done?
SPEAKER_01: We abide in, we're we're branches, we abide in the vine.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is the true vine.
SPEAKER_01: We find our life in Him.
SPEAKER_01: We found our hope, our joy, our salvation in Him.
SPEAKER_01: Though the circumstances around us might rage, they might be horrible.
SPEAKER_01: It might be the stormy sea like the disciples.
SPEAKER_01: It might be the giant that David faced.
SPEAKER_01: And it might be whatever giant you're facing, or whatever stormy sea you may be in.
SPEAKER_01: But this God, this God that made everything out of nothing, this God that created and designed you, He's trustworthy.
SPEAKER_01: You can turn to Him.
SPEAKER_01: He's shown over human history that He can deliver His people, that He can save.
SPEAKER_01: And that's exactly what David's reminding himself of along the way through this prayer.
SPEAKER_01: Third and final point is this it's always right to pray for God to fulfill God's promises and accomplish God's purposes and plans.
SPEAKER_01: God had an agenda for David, for Israel, for the lineage of David.
SPEAKER_01: God intended to send Messiah, Jesus Christ, to lay down his life on the cross for the sins of the world.
SPEAKER_01: God's plans would be fulfilled about a thousand years after David.
SPEAKER_01: I get the sense here that in David's prayer that he had an idea.
SPEAKER_01: This is what God was up to.
SPEAKER_01: Look again at verse 19 there at the end, it says, You have spoken also of the house of your servant concerning this distant future.
SPEAKER_01: So David knew there was an immediate fulfillment, an aspect of it that's immediate, but another aspect of it that's distant.
SPEAKER_01: And the thousand years is some good distance, right?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: But now we have the benefit of being able to look back through history, back to the cross, and understand the Old Testament in view of what happened in the New Testament and how it's fulfilled in the person and work of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And so it's always right and proper, I think, for us to be praying that God would fulfill his promises according to his purposes and plans.
SPEAKER_01: God has an agenda for human history.
SPEAKER_01: God has an agenda for my story and for your story as well.
SPEAKER_01: But God is not a vending machine.
SPEAKER_01: God may indeed and probably will indeed say no to you and to me, just like he said no to David at this particular time.
SPEAKER_01: But God's no may be a not this or a not yet or a not now.
SPEAKER_01: It may be a not you.
SPEAKER_01: It may be a never.
SPEAKER_01: That's true.
SPEAKER_01: It could be.
SPEAKER_01: Prayer is a request, C.S.
SPEAKER_01: Lewis said.
SPEAKER_01: It's not a demand.
SPEAKER_01: We're not the ones in charge.
SPEAKER_01: We're not the ones holding the reins.
SPEAKER_01: God is.
SPEAKER_01: We've got to remember: who are we?
SPEAKER_01: We know who he is.
SPEAKER_01: He's God, and we're not.
SPEAKER_01: It's important that we learn that and that perspective and trust him in all things and pray to him that his promises would be fulfilled, that his purposes and plans would indeed be accomplished.
SPEAKER_01: So you have the proper disposition for prayer here in 2 Samuel, which is this humbled gratitude, showing deference to God.
SPEAKER_01: Then you have this sitting before the Lord instead of so many other things we might sit before.
SPEAKER_01: And that sitting before the Lord displaces all of the noise, interior and exterior noise, the hurry and the worry that so often besets us and controls us.
SPEAKER_01: And it's always right to pray for God to fulfill his promises and accomplish his purposes and plans.
SPEAKER_01: Gene Peterson, the sage-like pastor, said there's a great danger in getting so caught up in our God plans that we will forget all about God.
SPEAKER_01: When David sat down, the real action started.
SPEAKER_01: Not David making God a house, but God making David a house.
SPEAKER_01: I pray that God will build his house in me and in you, in us collectively, as the village chapel, all five of our services every Sunday, and all people that gather in them.
SPEAKER_01: That God will build his house in us.
SPEAKER_01: That it would be for his glory.
SPEAKER_01: And that whether we are suffering or whether we are experiencing great blessing, in either case, we will continue to turn to the Lord with our questions, who am I?
SPEAKER_01: And remind ourselves over and over again of who he is and that we belong to him.
SPEAKER_01: And it's fascinating to me that in this prayer, I kind of see a foreshadowing of the prayer of one of David's descendants as well.
SPEAKER_01: Because during this prayer, I kind of see as David sits down in the middle of just having received a no, he sits down and honors God for God's greatness and God's wisdom, and essentially says, And may your promises come true.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, thy will be done.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: And what did Jesus say when his disciples said, Teach us to pray?
SPEAKER_01: One of the things he taught them to pray was, Thy will be done.
SPEAKER_01: What did Jesus himself pray in the garden?
SPEAKER_01: Lord, if it's possible this cup pass, but not my will, but thine be done.
SPEAKER_01: It's never wrong to pray for the will of God to be done.
SPEAKER_01: We trust him to be God.
SPEAKER_01: We trust him to be sovereign.
SPEAKER_01: Would you stand with me and let's pray as our Savior taught us to pray as we close out this service today?
SPEAKER_01: We'll put it up on the screen for you.
SPEAKER_01: As we pray this prayer, remember it's all in the plural.
SPEAKER_01: We are the people of God.
SPEAKER_01: Yes, we are individuals before him, much like David, but we belong to the people of God.
SPEAKER_01: You belong here to one another.
SPEAKER_01: I belong.
SPEAKER_01: We all belong to one another because we belong to Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And in Christ, none of us are ever alone for the rest of eternity.
SPEAKER_01: And that's a beautiful thing.
SPEAKER_01: We belong to him.
SPEAKER_01: Let us pray to him together.
SPEAKER_01: Our Father, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
SPEAKER_01: For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever.
SPEAKER_01: Amen and amen.