God's dream house
Commentary
Object:
I was recently appointed by my bishop to a different church in a different town. The job change required a move for me and my family, which meant selling our old house and buying a new one. And the process of looking for a new house, of course, provoked a great many conversations within the family about what features were most important to each of us.
Do we want to be out in the country or in a neighborhood? What is important to have within walking distance? Fireplaces and attached garages, porches and decks, trees and lawns -- these, plus numbers of beds and baths, occupied our family's attention for many weeks as we looked for the perfect house. If we had not loved so much the house we were leaving behind, perhaps the search would have seemed easier. As it was, though, our "dream house" seemed quite elusive for a long time.
One reality that quickly emerged, of course, was the wide variety of tastes, styles, and preferences. The décor choices made by this particular seller were insurmountable obstacles for my wife. Some things that were very important to her seemed inconsequential to me, while some of my priorities had little resonance with the rest of the family. So it is that a hundred different people could each design and construct their "dream house," and the result would be one hundred very different houses.
I imagine it would be a mixed blessing, therefore, to have someone else design or select your dream house for you. Their dream, after all, might be very different from yours. I'd rather just choose my own, thank you!
So it is that, in our Old Testament and New Testament lections this week, we have an opportunity to peek into God's dream house. It's a house that begins, in a sense, with Moses. Then it takes on new features with David and Solomon. But it is Jesus who really makes the dream come true.
2 Samuel 7:1-14a
Give David credit for seeing things clearly.
This, I am coming more and more to realize, is life's great challenge: to see things clearly, to see always at any given moment what is most important, to see the real heart behind someone's words, to see the destination even when the journey is long, and to see with the eyes of faith the hand of God at work.
This is not the stuff of mere physical sight, as lovely as that is. This is the kind of seeing that is captured by words like perspective and vision, insight and foresight, faith, hope, and love. And this is the sort of clear-eyed vision that David had as he looked around himself.
In just six chapters, we have seen David rise from a fugitive hiding among the Philistines, to the king of Judah, to the king of all the tribes of Israel, to the dominant ruler in the entire region. The nation of Israel, so recently the 98-pound weakling against neighboring bullies like Philistia, Amalek, Midian, and Ammon is now the biggest kid on the block. David himself is comfortably situated as a strong, secure, and prosperous king.
What's a person to do when he finds himself in such a favorable position?
One guy might try to leverage his position to gain still more for himself. Another might take a kind of early retirement -- put up his feet and take it easy, rest on his proverbial laurels. And another might write a best seller, profiting from his success by teaching others how to duplicate it.
However, David takes a different route. He sees a great inequity: for he lives in "a house of cedar, but the ark of God stays in a tent." It was precisely what the people of Haggai's day did not perceive (Haggai 1:3-4). And David proposed to make things right by building a suitable house for God.
God, however, insisted that he was going to build a house for David.
It is interesting to see that Nathan gave David a premature green light. His reflex demystifies the prophets for us just a bit, for we see that he was human enough to make an assumption without actually hearing from the Lord. Perhaps it came naturally to Nathan to tell David to follow his heart in this plan, since both his heart and his plan seemed so very good. But God had a different plan.
The Lord reminds David of two histories. First, there is the history of God with his people, and the Lord reminds David that he had not asked any of the previous generations to build him such a house to replace the tabernacle. Second, there is David's own history: how God had taken David from the anonymity and insignificance of the fields outside Bethlehem to the very throne of Israel.
Then, with those histories in view, the Lord tells David of the future. The Lord will establish David's house -- that is to say, his lineage, his dynasty, his throne. One of David's own descendants will have a throne that the Lord will establish forever -- a prospect that later generations came to recognize as messianic -- and that descendant "shall build a house for my name."
So we discover that those two lines of history, when projected forward, intersect in the future. On one hand, there is the history of God and his dwelling place among his people. On the other hand, there are David's humble beginnings. Down the road that erstwhile shepherd boy will be one of "the great ones of the earth." One of his descendants will build the special dwelling place for God among his people for the future.
Ephesians 2:11-22
Fix it up or tear it down. That is the difficult decision sometimes faced by congregations with older buildings. Is it more sensible to reinvest in the existing, aging building, with all of its challenges? Or is it wiser in the long term to tear down the old in order to build something brand new?
In this teaching from the apostle Paul, we see which choice God made. Here we read an account of the old thing God tore down, as well as the brand new and beautiful thing he is building. The new thing might fairly be called a church building -- indeed, the church building. What he has torn down, however, was not an old church, but rather an old paradigm.
The thematic context of the whole passage is the three-way relationship between Gentiles, Jews, and God. Those relationships used to look one way, but God has graciously destroyed that. Now those relationships are all meant to be new and different, and that too is an achievement of his grace.
The "before" picture shows the Gentiles with no relationship with God, at all. They have no knowledge of him, no promises from him, and no covenant with him. They were "the uncircumcision." The Jews, by contrast, were "the circumcision," and they had a covenant relationship with God. There was no relationship between the Jews and the Gentiles, however; or, such as it was, it was one of separation and enmity.
Those of us who cut our teeth on Dr. Seuss will recall the insightful little story about the Sneetches. There were two sorts -- those with stars on their bellies and those without. "The stars weren't so big," the author notes, and yet they became a point of division and contention between the two types of Sneetches. So it was between "the circumcision" and "the uncircumcision." The Jews had a covenant relationship with God, but the Gentiles were at a distance from him, and there was a tall and ancient wall of hostility between them and the Jews.
The "after" picture, meanwhile, is entirely different. Now the grace of God and the blood of Christ have drawn the Gentiles near -- near to God and near to the Jews. But the human reconciliation part of that achievement must not be misunderstood. It is not that the Gentiles have somehow caught up with the Jews; no, for both the Jews and the Gentiles are saved the same way: that is, through Christ. The new unity of Jew and Gentile, therefore, is not that the one has joined the other, but rather that both have come to him.
So God has torn down what was there before. He "has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us," Paul writes. Instead, God is building something new. There is a "whole structure," a "holy temple," that he is raising up. It is "built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets," but it is "Christ Jesus himself (who is) the cornerstone." And so it is in Christ that the Jews and Gentiles alike are able to be "built together (into) a spiritual dwelling place for God."
Mark 6:30-34, 53-56
The gospels are manifestly about Jesus. When we preach any gospel passage, therefore, and something less is our theme, we are likely missing the point. The two selections from Mark 6 that are assigned to us this week are no exception. So let us consider the lovely truths we learn about him in merely nine verses.
First, at the most superficial reading of the text, we observe that Jesus was popular. Mark's account suggests that Jesus was instantly and widely recognized. Wherever he went, it seems, he was sought by the crowds. He had to be deliberate about seeking solitude, for without the conscious effort to "come away," Mark reports that he and his followers "had no leisure to eat." And even some of those efforts at solitude were thwarted by the ever-present, ever-pursuing crowds.
Meanwhile, we also note that his popularity was not a shallow thing. We mustn't confuse Jesus' experience with the frail and superficial popularities of our day. He was not being pursued by paparazzi and autograph hounds. Rather, Jesus was sought by people in need: "sheep without a shepherd" and countless folks who longed for healing.
Within that context we are also graphically reminded of a truth about the incarnation and Jesus' ministry. The world into which Jesus came was a needy place. From outer space, the earth seems to be covered mostly with water. A closer view, however, soon reveals that it is actually covered with trouble. Everywhere he turned, therefore, Jesus was greeted by folks who required his help.
That, in turn, reveals one of Mark's central affirmations about Jesus: namely, his miraculous power and authority. Jesus did not come into the world to provide palliative care for it, after all. He came to save and to rescue, to deliver and to heal. He is not a mere handholder, but a world-changer.
Finally, these two brief excerpts from Mark also reveal Jesus' compassion. That compassion is found, you will note, at the intersection of the points we have already made. Where the neediness of the world, the popularity of Jesus, and his power all meet is where his compassion is made manifest. We see that intersection twice in these verses. In both instances, Jesus was tracked down by needs, and in both instances he met those needs.
Without compassion, of course, Jesus' power would have been of no use to anyone but himself. Indeed, such power might send people running rather than inspiring folks to crowd around him. Yet the larger testimony of the gospels demonstrates that Jesus never exercised his power on his own behalf, but reliably on the behalf of others.
The word Mark uses for Jesus' compassion is itself an important revelation about Jesus. The underlying Greek term, splagchnizomai, appears just a dozen times in the New Testament, all of them within the synoptic gospels. Eight of the ten occurrences are used to describe Jesus (Matthew 9:36, 14:14, 15:32, 20:34; Mark 1:41, 6:34, 8:2; and Luke 7:3). Once it is employed by a desperate father asking it of Jesus (Mark 9:22). And, most revealingly of all, Jesus uses it three times to describe characters in his parables. In every instance, the character represents God: the merciful master (Matthew 18:27), the good Samaritan (Luke 10:33), and the prodigal's father (Luke 15:20). Such is the nature of Jesus, and the gospel passages are all about him.
Application
Solomon is not mentioned by name in the 2 Samuel passage. The later rewrite of the episode in 1 Chronicles, which features David's memory of God's word to him, makes specific reference to Solomon (1 Chronicles 22:9). But the original record of the event in 2 Samuel does not include Solomon's name.
Why is that an important detail? Because I believe that God's word can be true at more than one level. I don't mean to suggest a mischievous vagueness in his word, but rather a profound and beautiful depth. So, for example, it may well be that the author of Psalm 22 is speaking of himself and his own experience. It is clear on this side of Calvary, however, that God had another person and another event in mind for those very same words.
So it is that, when God promises David that one of David's sons would build a house for the Lord, I believe that God had more than one son of David in mind. In the short term, there was Solomon, who built the fabulous physical structure known as the temple there in Jerusalem. In the long term, however, I believe that God was referring to Jesus and the eternal, spiritual temple that would be built by and on him.
The first "dwelling place" for God in scripture was the tent constructed in Moses' generation. David thought the time had come to replace that tent with something more grand, more permanent, and more glorious. And his son and successor, Solomon, built a grand and glorious structure for God, indeed.
Of course, no structure built by human beings is really permanent. The Jews of Jeremiah's day saw how vulnerable even the grandest of buildings can be. Glory turned to rubble at the ruthless hands of the Babylonians.
That temple was rebuilt, though on a smaller scale, in the post-exilic period of Haggai and Zechariah. And that temple campus was enlarged and improved by Herod the Great at the dawn of the New Testament era. Yet that fabulous structure, too, proved vulnerable and impermanent. The Romans destroyed the temple in Jerusalem around 70 AD, and there has not been one on that site since.
We need not grieve, however, thinking that God's dream house was destroyed. No, no, for it had never actually been built yet. Neither the tabernacle in the wilderness, nor Solomon's Temple, nor Herod's was the perfect and permanent structure that God had in mind for himself. Rather, the apostle Paul reveals in his letter to the Ephesians the "dwelling place for God" that the Lord is establishing for himself.
Exodus, Kings, and Chronicles offer elegant detail about the skill, the care, and the quality ingredients that went into the construction of the previous houses for God. Paul is not nearly so meticulous in his description. Yet the glimpse he gives us is enough to demonstrate the superiority of this new dwelling place.
First, it is made of finer stuff, for it is not mere gold and silver, paneling and fabrics. No, this temple is comprised of the saints. Second, it is, therefore, made of more lasting stuff. All the previous efforts were inevitably temporal, while this dwelling place of God is spiritual and eternal. Third, we recognized from Paul's description that this is a more beautiful construction. As intricate and artistic as the earlier versions had been, this spiritual structure weaves together Jew and Gentile, which is a pattern of peace that gives glory to God. Finally, this structure's foundation is unrivaled. For no stone is more solid than the prophets and apostles upon which we are built, and no cornerstone more perfect and unifying than Jesus Christ.
Alternative Application
2 Samuel 7:1-14a. "The Lord we can't out-give." The story of David's wish to build a house for God and God's promise to build a house for David has such large-scale implications. It points to the immediate reign of Solomon and to the eventual reign of Christ, it cements David's unique role in Israel's history and God's plan, and it is messianic in scope, setting the stage for so many centuries of prophecy and anticipation. Yet if we can isolate it from all of that larger significance, we are left with a very sweet, personal testimony.
The image is of a boy, who had a close and faithful walk with God even when he was very young. In his own life as a shepherd, he had come to understand how shepherd-like God is. He had demonstrated a larger-than-life faith in the face of a larger-than-life opponent, and his music was an instrument of healing for the tortured king, Saul.
Over the years, the Lord had used, blessed, guided, protected, and prospered David. He had grown into a man, who now sat on Israel's throne and whose rule dominated the entire region. He had been promoted, by God's providence and generosity, from anonymous shepherd-boy to renowned king. In his gratitude, he wanted to honor God properly with a building project: a magnificent temple for the name of the Lord and the ark of God.
Yet just when David was about to give back to God, God said that he had still more to give to David. His providence and his generosity were not exhausted. Just as David was about to wrap his well-intentioned gift, he discovered that the Lord had still more presents for him under the tree.
Such is the nature of David's sweet testimony and ours too. We may try to thank him for all that he has given us and to honor him for all that he has done for us. Yet even those efforts are overwhelmed by still more kindness from his hand. We splash in his direction, and we are met with Niagara Falls in return.
Do we want to be out in the country or in a neighborhood? What is important to have within walking distance? Fireplaces and attached garages, porches and decks, trees and lawns -- these, plus numbers of beds and baths, occupied our family's attention for many weeks as we looked for the perfect house. If we had not loved so much the house we were leaving behind, perhaps the search would have seemed easier. As it was, though, our "dream house" seemed quite elusive for a long time.
One reality that quickly emerged, of course, was the wide variety of tastes, styles, and preferences. The décor choices made by this particular seller were insurmountable obstacles for my wife. Some things that were very important to her seemed inconsequential to me, while some of my priorities had little resonance with the rest of the family. So it is that a hundred different people could each design and construct their "dream house," and the result would be one hundred very different houses.
I imagine it would be a mixed blessing, therefore, to have someone else design or select your dream house for you. Their dream, after all, might be very different from yours. I'd rather just choose my own, thank you!
So it is that, in our Old Testament and New Testament lections this week, we have an opportunity to peek into God's dream house. It's a house that begins, in a sense, with Moses. Then it takes on new features with David and Solomon. But it is Jesus who really makes the dream come true.
2 Samuel 7:1-14a
Give David credit for seeing things clearly.
This, I am coming more and more to realize, is life's great challenge: to see things clearly, to see always at any given moment what is most important, to see the real heart behind someone's words, to see the destination even when the journey is long, and to see with the eyes of faith the hand of God at work.
This is not the stuff of mere physical sight, as lovely as that is. This is the kind of seeing that is captured by words like perspective and vision, insight and foresight, faith, hope, and love. And this is the sort of clear-eyed vision that David had as he looked around himself.
In just six chapters, we have seen David rise from a fugitive hiding among the Philistines, to the king of Judah, to the king of all the tribes of Israel, to the dominant ruler in the entire region. The nation of Israel, so recently the 98-pound weakling against neighboring bullies like Philistia, Amalek, Midian, and Ammon is now the biggest kid on the block. David himself is comfortably situated as a strong, secure, and prosperous king.
What's a person to do when he finds himself in such a favorable position?
One guy might try to leverage his position to gain still more for himself. Another might take a kind of early retirement -- put up his feet and take it easy, rest on his proverbial laurels. And another might write a best seller, profiting from his success by teaching others how to duplicate it.
However, David takes a different route. He sees a great inequity: for he lives in "a house of cedar, but the ark of God stays in a tent." It was precisely what the people of Haggai's day did not perceive (Haggai 1:3-4). And David proposed to make things right by building a suitable house for God.
God, however, insisted that he was going to build a house for David.
It is interesting to see that Nathan gave David a premature green light. His reflex demystifies the prophets for us just a bit, for we see that he was human enough to make an assumption without actually hearing from the Lord. Perhaps it came naturally to Nathan to tell David to follow his heart in this plan, since both his heart and his plan seemed so very good. But God had a different plan.
The Lord reminds David of two histories. First, there is the history of God with his people, and the Lord reminds David that he had not asked any of the previous generations to build him such a house to replace the tabernacle. Second, there is David's own history: how God had taken David from the anonymity and insignificance of the fields outside Bethlehem to the very throne of Israel.
Then, with those histories in view, the Lord tells David of the future. The Lord will establish David's house -- that is to say, his lineage, his dynasty, his throne. One of David's own descendants will have a throne that the Lord will establish forever -- a prospect that later generations came to recognize as messianic -- and that descendant "shall build a house for my name."
So we discover that those two lines of history, when projected forward, intersect in the future. On one hand, there is the history of God and his dwelling place among his people. On the other hand, there are David's humble beginnings. Down the road that erstwhile shepherd boy will be one of "the great ones of the earth." One of his descendants will build the special dwelling place for God among his people for the future.
Ephesians 2:11-22
Fix it up or tear it down. That is the difficult decision sometimes faced by congregations with older buildings. Is it more sensible to reinvest in the existing, aging building, with all of its challenges? Or is it wiser in the long term to tear down the old in order to build something brand new?
In this teaching from the apostle Paul, we see which choice God made. Here we read an account of the old thing God tore down, as well as the brand new and beautiful thing he is building. The new thing might fairly be called a church building -- indeed, the church building. What he has torn down, however, was not an old church, but rather an old paradigm.
The thematic context of the whole passage is the three-way relationship between Gentiles, Jews, and God. Those relationships used to look one way, but God has graciously destroyed that. Now those relationships are all meant to be new and different, and that too is an achievement of his grace.
The "before" picture shows the Gentiles with no relationship with God, at all. They have no knowledge of him, no promises from him, and no covenant with him. They were "the uncircumcision." The Jews, by contrast, were "the circumcision," and they had a covenant relationship with God. There was no relationship between the Jews and the Gentiles, however; or, such as it was, it was one of separation and enmity.
Those of us who cut our teeth on Dr. Seuss will recall the insightful little story about the Sneetches. There were two sorts -- those with stars on their bellies and those without. "The stars weren't so big," the author notes, and yet they became a point of division and contention between the two types of Sneetches. So it was between "the circumcision" and "the uncircumcision." The Jews had a covenant relationship with God, but the Gentiles were at a distance from him, and there was a tall and ancient wall of hostility between them and the Jews.
The "after" picture, meanwhile, is entirely different. Now the grace of God and the blood of Christ have drawn the Gentiles near -- near to God and near to the Jews. But the human reconciliation part of that achievement must not be misunderstood. It is not that the Gentiles have somehow caught up with the Jews; no, for both the Jews and the Gentiles are saved the same way: that is, through Christ. The new unity of Jew and Gentile, therefore, is not that the one has joined the other, but rather that both have come to him.
So God has torn down what was there before. He "has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us," Paul writes. Instead, God is building something new. There is a "whole structure," a "holy temple," that he is raising up. It is "built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets," but it is "Christ Jesus himself (who is) the cornerstone." And so it is in Christ that the Jews and Gentiles alike are able to be "built together (into) a spiritual dwelling place for God."
Mark 6:30-34, 53-56
The gospels are manifestly about Jesus. When we preach any gospel passage, therefore, and something less is our theme, we are likely missing the point. The two selections from Mark 6 that are assigned to us this week are no exception. So let us consider the lovely truths we learn about him in merely nine verses.
First, at the most superficial reading of the text, we observe that Jesus was popular. Mark's account suggests that Jesus was instantly and widely recognized. Wherever he went, it seems, he was sought by the crowds. He had to be deliberate about seeking solitude, for without the conscious effort to "come away," Mark reports that he and his followers "had no leisure to eat." And even some of those efforts at solitude were thwarted by the ever-present, ever-pursuing crowds.
Meanwhile, we also note that his popularity was not a shallow thing. We mustn't confuse Jesus' experience with the frail and superficial popularities of our day. He was not being pursued by paparazzi and autograph hounds. Rather, Jesus was sought by people in need: "sheep without a shepherd" and countless folks who longed for healing.
Within that context we are also graphically reminded of a truth about the incarnation and Jesus' ministry. The world into which Jesus came was a needy place. From outer space, the earth seems to be covered mostly with water. A closer view, however, soon reveals that it is actually covered with trouble. Everywhere he turned, therefore, Jesus was greeted by folks who required his help.
That, in turn, reveals one of Mark's central affirmations about Jesus: namely, his miraculous power and authority. Jesus did not come into the world to provide palliative care for it, after all. He came to save and to rescue, to deliver and to heal. He is not a mere handholder, but a world-changer.
Finally, these two brief excerpts from Mark also reveal Jesus' compassion. That compassion is found, you will note, at the intersection of the points we have already made. Where the neediness of the world, the popularity of Jesus, and his power all meet is where his compassion is made manifest. We see that intersection twice in these verses. In both instances, Jesus was tracked down by needs, and in both instances he met those needs.
Without compassion, of course, Jesus' power would have been of no use to anyone but himself. Indeed, such power might send people running rather than inspiring folks to crowd around him. Yet the larger testimony of the gospels demonstrates that Jesus never exercised his power on his own behalf, but reliably on the behalf of others.
The word Mark uses for Jesus' compassion is itself an important revelation about Jesus. The underlying Greek term, splagchnizomai, appears just a dozen times in the New Testament, all of them within the synoptic gospels. Eight of the ten occurrences are used to describe Jesus (Matthew 9:36, 14:14, 15:32, 20:34; Mark 1:41, 6:34, 8:2; and Luke 7:3). Once it is employed by a desperate father asking it of Jesus (Mark 9:22). And, most revealingly of all, Jesus uses it three times to describe characters in his parables. In every instance, the character represents God: the merciful master (Matthew 18:27), the good Samaritan (Luke 10:33), and the prodigal's father (Luke 15:20). Such is the nature of Jesus, and the gospel passages are all about him.
Application
Solomon is not mentioned by name in the 2 Samuel passage. The later rewrite of the episode in 1 Chronicles, which features David's memory of God's word to him, makes specific reference to Solomon (1 Chronicles 22:9). But the original record of the event in 2 Samuel does not include Solomon's name.
Why is that an important detail? Because I believe that God's word can be true at more than one level. I don't mean to suggest a mischievous vagueness in his word, but rather a profound and beautiful depth. So, for example, it may well be that the author of Psalm 22 is speaking of himself and his own experience. It is clear on this side of Calvary, however, that God had another person and another event in mind for those very same words.
So it is that, when God promises David that one of David's sons would build a house for the Lord, I believe that God had more than one son of David in mind. In the short term, there was Solomon, who built the fabulous physical structure known as the temple there in Jerusalem. In the long term, however, I believe that God was referring to Jesus and the eternal, spiritual temple that would be built by and on him.
The first "dwelling place" for God in scripture was the tent constructed in Moses' generation. David thought the time had come to replace that tent with something more grand, more permanent, and more glorious. And his son and successor, Solomon, built a grand and glorious structure for God, indeed.
Of course, no structure built by human beings is really permanent. The Jews of Jeremiah's day saw how vulnerable even the grandest of buildings can be. Glory turned to rubble at the ruthless hands of the Babylonians.
That temple was rebuilt, though on a smaller scale, in the post-exilic period of Haggai and Zechariah. And that temple campus was enlarged and improved by Herod the Great at the dawn of the New Testament era. Yet that fabulous structure, too, proved vulnerable and impermanent. The Romans destroyed the temple in Jerusalem around 70 AD, and there has not been one on that site since.
We need not grieve, however, thinking that God's dream house was destroyed. No, no, for it had never actually been built yet. Neither the tabernacle in the wilderness, nor Solomon's Temple, nor Herod's was the perfect and permanent structure that God had in mind for himself. Rather, the apostle Paul reveals in his letter to the Ephesians the "dwelling place for God" that the Lord is establishing for himself.
Exodus, Kings, and Chronicles offer elegant detail about the skill, the care, and the quality ingredients that went into the construction of the previous houses for God. Paul is not nearly so meticulous in his description. Yet the glimpse he gives us is enough to demonstrate the superiority of this new dwelling place.
First, it is made of finer stuff, for it is not mere gold and silver, paneling and fabrics. No, this temple is comprised of the saints. Second, it is, therefore, made of more lasting stuff. All the previous efforts were inevitably temporal, while this dwelling place of God is spiritual and eternal. Third, we recognized from Paul's description that this is a more beautiful construction. As intricate and artistic as the earlier versions had been, this spiritual structure weaves together Jew and Gentile, which is a pattern of peace that gives glory to God. Finally, this structure's foundation is unrivaled. For no stone is more solid than the prophets and apostles upon which we are built, and no cornerstone more perfect and unifying than Jesus Christ.
Alternative Application
2 Samuel 7:1-14a. "The Lord we can't out-give." The story of David's wish to build a house for God and God's promise to build a house for David has such large-scale implications. It points to the immediate reign of Solomon and to the eventual reign of Christ, it cements David's unique role in Israel's history and God's plan, and it is messianic in scope, setting the stage for so many centuries of prophecy and anticipation. Yet if we can isolate it from all of that larger significance, we are left with a very sweet, personal testimony.
The image is of a boy, who had a close and faithful walk with God even when he was very young. In his own life as a shepherd, he had come to understand how shepherd-like God is. He had demonstrated a larger-than-life faith in the face of a larger-than-life opponent, and his music was an instrument of healing for the tortured king, Saul.
Over the years, the Lord had used, blessed, guided, protected, and prospered David. He had grown into a man, who now sat on Israel's throne and whose rule dominated the entire region. He had been promoted, by God's providence and generosity, from anonymous shepherd-boy to renowned king. In his gratitude, he wanted to honor God properly with a building project: a magnificent temple for the name of the Lord and the ark of God.
Yet just when David was about to give back to God, God said that he had still more to give to David. His providence and his generosity were not exhausted. Just as David was about to wrap his well-intentioned gift, he discovered that the Lord had still more presents for him under the tree.
Such is the nature of David's sweet testimony and ours too. We may try to thank him for all that he has given us and to honor him for all that he has done for us. Yet even those efforts are overwhelmed by still more kindness from his hand. We splash in his direction, and we are met with Niagara Falls in return.
