The Eternal Dynasty Sermon from Jan 18, 2009

THE ETERNAL DYNASTY
2 SAMUEL 7:11-16
JANUARY 18, 2009

Craig Brian Larson writes, “Since 2004 Time magazine has each year recognized 100 people as the most influential in the world. As heady a thing as it would be to find your name on such a list, the recognition also highlights the fragility of life and power in this world. In May 2008 Time recognized journalist Tim Russert as one of the 100 most influential people for the power he wielded over politics on the program Meet the Press. In June of 2008 the respected and beloved Russert suffered a heart attack at age 58 and died. Also named among the most powerful in the world were the three candidates still in the race for president: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John McCain. One month later, Hillary Clinton ended her campaign, and before the year was out McCain had lost the election. Follow the others on the top 100 list and you can depend on it: their influence will pass, some in fading glory like the leaves of autumn, others overnight like a towering tree felled by a lumberjack. Even for the most tenacious, life and power are brief.” No one lasts in power forever. No type of government last forever. Just think of the changes that have happened in your own lifetime. Even the things and monuments we think are forever are not. Even the pyramids of Egypt which are thousands of years old are slowly being eaten away and if not constantly preserved will eventually disappear. When we think of ourselves it can be even scarier. In a hundred years no one is probably even going to remember us or anything that we did. In the words of Scripture we are but a breath.

Yet in the midst of this transitory world there are some eternal things. And there was one person in Scripture that was told that his kingdom would last forever. That his throne would be part of an eternal dynasty. That would be King David. In 2 Samuel chapter seven we see Nathan telling David what God has revealed to him. He says, “The Lord declares to you that the Lord himself will establish a house for you: When your days are over and you rest with your fathers, I will rise up your offspring to succeed you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom. 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. When he does wrong I will punish him with the rod of men, with floggings inflicted by men. But my love will never be taken away from him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you. Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever.”

God is telling David that the throne that he occupies will always be occupied by one of his descendants. That is quite a promise when you think about it. What if for instance you had started a family business and you wanted to pass it down to your children but you were always nervous about whether it was going to make it or not and God told you that not only would your business survive but that generation after generation of your descendants would inherit this the business and build it up, that at some point in the future it would become the world’s largest business. How would that make you feel? Well that is exactly what David is being told here. Except he is being told that it is going to be eternal. What we see here in this promise, remembering that the Seed of the woman also goes through David, is that the promise of the Seed from the first week and the promise of the eternal kingdom are tied together. In fact there is an eternal kingdom for David because the eternal king is going to come from his seed. Not only will kings come from his loins but so will the ultimate king, the Messiah, the Savior of the World.

In Psalm 89 we have a prayer that mourns the downfall of the Davidic dynasty and yet pleads for its renewal. And so there is a reminder that thought there will be bad kings and there will be punishments meted out to them that the promise of the eternal kingdom will endure. The individual kings will be punished but the covenant will not be torn up. We read, “If his sons forsake my law and do not follow my statues, if they violate my decrees and fail to keep my commands, I will punish their sin with the rod, their iniquity with flogging; but I will not take my love from him, nor will I ever betray my faithfulness. I will not violate my covenant or alter what my lips have uttered. Once for all, I have sworn by my holiness – and I will not lie to David – that his line will continue forever and his throne will endure before me like the sun; it will be established forever like the moon, the faithful witness in the sky.” Again this is an everlasting kingdom, no matter what happens to it through the years, it will endure forever.

In Psalm 110 David talks about his kingdom and how strong and victorious it is and will be. “The Lord says to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.” The Lord will extend your mighty scepter from Zion; you will rule in the midst of your enemies. Your troops will be willing on your day of battle. Arrayed in holy majesty, from the womb of the dawn you will receive the dew of your youth. The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind. “You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.” The Lord is at your right hand; he will crush kings on the day of his wrath. He will judge the nations, heaping up the dead and crushing rulers of the whole earth.” This will not only be an enduring kingship but a victorious triumph one.

This is again promised along with some very specific prophecies about the coming the king, the Messiah who will be the ultimate fulfillment of this promise in Isaiah 9:6-7, “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this.” This Messiah will reign forever; he will be the eternal king. So these are some very interesting promises and prophecies we see running throughout the Old Testament. I say throughout because I just gave a small sampling of the many references we could go and on about this morning. This is a huge theme in the Old Testament. But what we are really concerned about this morning is how that is fulfilled in the New Testament. And more importantly, who fulfills it.

The Jews were definitely looking for this king. They were in fact living in great expectation of him. Unfortunately they were thinking too small. They were looking for a king that would simply deliver them from their Roman occupiers. But the King that Scripture was talking about was going to deliver them from much more than that. He was going to deliver them from Satan, sin and death and give them eternal life in an eternal kingdom. And before we get too judgmental on them for that, we many times do the same thing. We focus on immediate deliverance from the problems right in front of us. Especially the ones that threaten to immediately overwhelm us. Whether it is a relationship problem or a financial one or a health one or a tax one or you name it. All these real problems that we deal with in real life. And God is not unaware of or unconcerned about those things either. He cares about everything that goes on in our lives. But he also has a much bigger plan and has much bigger things to deliver us from than just those things. He will get us through that stuff, but he also has much bigger fish to fry. The Israelites were always worried, like us, about what was around the next corner. That, like with us, sometimes became so much of their focus that they couldn’t see the forest for the trees. If you read through the Old Testament you see that God let them go through suffering but he always rescued them in the end or got them through it. He didn’t forsake them and he won’t forsake us today either. He will get you through that stuff but in the process he doesn’t want you to get so focused on it that you lose sight of the big picture. The big picture which contains your real problems, sin and death and that fact that he is going to deliver you from them. Sin and death make the rest of our problems look small in comparison.

Jesus stresses this fact by beginning preaching in Mark 1:15, “The time has come, the Kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!” In other words the physical kingship of David is not here to physically continue, no we are beyond that. This is the kingdom of God baby! This is the eternal kingdom; this is the real eternal of the eternal kingdom. It is time to turn your hearts to God, this is good news. This is time to look beyond your immediate circumstances and see that you are included in God’s eternal kingdom and the king has arrived. He makes this very clear in Matthew 12:28 where he says about himself, “But if I drive out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.” He said this after the teachers of the law questioned by what authority he was casting out demons, admitting that he did it by the way but asking how. Jesus says well either it is by the power of the devil, but then why would the devil be casting out his own people, so it must be by the power of the God’s Spirit. And if that is the case, which it obviously is, then guess what the kingdom talked about in 2 Samuel, the kingdom talked about in Psalm 89, Psalm 110. The kingdom prophecies in all the prophecies throughout the Old Testament, well guess what guys he’s here, I’m the man!

He points this out directly to the Pharisees in Matthew 22 when he applies the words of Psalm 110 directly to himself, “While the Pharisees were gathered together Jesus asked them, “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?” “The Son of David,” They replied. He said to them, “How is it then that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him Lord? For he says, “The Lord said to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet.” Then David calls him Lord, how can he be his son? No one could say a word in reply, and from that day on no one dared to ask him any more questions.” What Jesus is saying that is that He is more than just a descendant of David but that he is also superior to David, that he is David’s Lord as well. We also see numerous other fulfillments as well. Matthew 8:16-17 records this about Jesus, “When evening came, many who were demon-possessed were brought to him, and he drove out the spirits with a word and healed all the sick. This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah: “He took up our infirmities and carried our diseases.” Jesus is king over all things even disease and sickness. In fact as the eternal king he is head of everything, Colossians 2:15, “and having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.” And Philippians 2:9, “Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave them the name that is above every name.”

Jesus is the king that God talks about the in Old Testament. He is the King that first of all comes and suffers for his people. That is why the prophet Isaiah talks about his suffering on the cross and his death and resurrection. This is not just a king that puts on a crown and grabs a comfortable seat on a throne. This is king that becomes one with his people, lives like them, suffers normal everyday suffering with them, and goes through what they go through, what we go through. And then even though he is innocent he declared guilty of all of man’s sin and is put on a cross to die a slow painful death in our place. In doing so he pays for all of our sins and wins us forgiveness. And then in the end rises victoriously from the grave declaring that Satan, sin and death have been defeated. This is a warrior king like his forefather David, except where David defeated earthly enemies Jesus defeats the bigger spiritual ones. And he is a king who reigns on high, whose name is above every other name.
In two days we are going to inaugurate a new President in this country, a new leader. A leader who is normally thought of as the leader of the free world. He will be the leader for at least 4 years, but that the most 8 years. And then he will become just another former president like all the others before him. His hold on power you could say will be brief. In contrast Jesus leadership will never end. He is clearly the ultimate eternal king that is talked about throughout the Old Testament. A king that is yes concerned about your everyday problems and needs. A king who has promised not necessary to remove you from them, but to get you through them. But more importantly a king who has promised you eternal deliverance and eternal things. Deliverance from Satan, sin and death. And the promise of his continual forgiveness and salvation. A king who has promised you a place in his eternal kingdom, the kingdom of heaven. To echo the words of Jesus the Kingdom is near, in fact the kingdom is here in our faith in Jesus Christ. Amen.