Long Live The King: The Divine Promise of the Davidic Covenant Found in Jesus Christ
2 SAMUEL 7:8-16
Introduction
Long Live the King. These crucial words hit the big screen in June of 1994 when Walt Disney Pictures produced the greatest Disney picture of all time. I was only 2 years old but the impact of those words stick with me now as much as they did when I was a kid. Long Live the King. These were spoken by the Scar the wicked brother of Mufasa, the king of the jungle. These infamous words are spoken as Scar kills his own brother leaving the Pride Lands in shambles as he plans to take over. What we saw in Pride Rock as stability, normalcy, and a circle of life would give way to the oppressive regime of Scar where starvation would threaten our beloved Sarabi, Nala, and their kin. When Scar stated those dreadful words he did so with power as Mufasa fell to his death and a new kingdom was born.
Our hearts broke and we all were drawn to tears when Simba cried out “Dad! Come on. You gotta get up. We gotta go home.” This scene which is undoubtedly one of the most memorable in Disney Picture’s history is so powerful because the grief is holistic. It is not just the death of a beloved character. It is not just the uncertainty young Simba faces. It is the loss of everything that was supposed to be. It is the way sin, suffering, and death changes everything we know to be good. When we come to the Davidic Covenant we come to a place where God looks at his people and promises a kingdom to come where sin, suffering, and death will be no more.
Covenant as Divine Promise
Now as we have been going through our Summer Series on the covenants we have been defining a covenant as a divine promise. We saw with the covenant of works and grace how God moved through covenant with his people to provide a way for them to remain in relationship together. We saw in the Noahic covenant that God made a divine promise to save a remnant with Noah’s family as the world was baptized into judgement. We saw through the Abrahamic covenant that God offers new revelation with a divine promise that God will bless the nations through the family of Abraham. Moving forward we saw the divine promise found in the Mosaic covenant where God laid out the Law to show the people of God who they were and who they were supposed to be.
As we journey through the biblical covenants and arrive at our current place we note the difference between Saul, Israel’s first king and David who is God’s anointed king. While Saul was the attractive choice the people desired, David was not even sought out by his own family as being a viable candidate. Dr. Jim Hamilton reminds us that David is better than Saul and as we will see soon, his son will be even better.[1] This morning I have 3 points to offer you on the divine promise offered to David by addressing WHO will bring such a kingdom, WHAT this kingdom is promised to be like, and finally HOW this kingdom will come to pass.
1. God’s promised kingdom only comes by God’s initiative
WHO will bring such a kingdom? God’s people have been looking to its leaders from the Garden to the grave ever since the seed of Adam continued. Who will restore peace? Who will reign with righteousness and justice? As we read from 2 Samuel earlier David gets an awakening when God responds to his plan to build a great house for God. God flips the script on David to show him who has been in control the whole time.
8 Now, therefore, thus you shall say to my servant David, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts, I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep, that you should be prince over my people Israel. 9 And I have been with you wherever you went and have cut off all your enemies from before you. And I will make for you a great name, like the name of the great ones of the earth.
Again, when David’s own father sought to see which among his boys in the family were worthy of greatness he did not even think of David. When David had Saul breathing down his back wanting to kill him it was not David’s own might that kept his heart beating. God shows David that his security and safety – indeed the security and safety of all God’s chosen – is firmly held in the capable and loving hands of our sovereign God.
God tells David that it was God who took David from the pasture. When David was a shepherd instead of a warrior king, God saw him. Before Israel could see what God would do through David God was looking out for David. God was with David wherever he went.
God is the one who cut off all David’s enemies and David would face many enemies in his life and certainly many after this covenant. Whether it was the animals David had to fight off to protect the sheep or whether it was Saul and his raging anger towards God’s anointed, God protected David from his enemies.
One of the crucial elements of this promise is that warfare inherently threatens a kingdom. David knew this, Israel knew this, and we know this even today. We do not have to look far in our own country or abroad to see the way in which our enemies can wreak havoc on our state of peace. We have learned from the covenants preached on from Dr. Alex, Pastor Bobby, Pastor Mike, and Pastor Randy that God is the initiator of and provider for covenants. The peace once known in the garden and long-awaited for ever since cannot be obtained apart from God’s initiative. God is clear that the name of the Lord will bless this world by God’s own initiative.
2. God’s promised kingdom will bring sin, suffering, and death to an end
God will bring this divine kingdom and it will endure forever. God’s promised kingdom to David is a kingdom where the enemies of God do not inflict evil and death, it is a kingdom where God’s people are disturbed no more, a kingdom where God’s people will no longer know affliction.
10 And I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them, so that they may dwell in their own place and be disturbed no more. And violent men shall afflict them no more, as formerly, 11 from the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel. And I will give you rest from all your enemies. Moreover, the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house.
Disturbed no more. Afflicted no more. Rest. I often wonder if we truly grasp the way this would have hit the people of Israel. Can we begin to understand what it means to fight others off in order to eat, sleep, or even exist? Church history past and present reminds us that comfort and security have always been a concern for the spread of the Gospel. The Lamb’s Book of Life is saturated with names of the saints whose blood was spilled because of opposition to the kingdom of the Messiah.
Do remind yourself this morning that we have more in common with our brothers and sisters whose knee only bows to Jesus living Nigeria, Mexico, China, and Afghanistan than we do our fellow Americans who bow to other idols. Unless we let that sink in and give birth to a global unity in the mission of the kingdom we may very well miss that the Messiah’s kingdom will include people from every nation, tongue, and tribe.
When I began my residency as a hospital chaplain we used to have this saying we would offer in good faith to one another before an on-call shift and it would go like this, “may the peace of the pager be with you.” This benediction at the end of our shift was at first a fingers-crossed gesture hoping the night was slow and our fellow workers could get some sleep. But after some time and experience this benediction began to teach me something about the kingdom of Christ. It became a cry to God not only for an easy night but an existence where trauma bays aren’t needed, where intensive care units have no patients, an existence where gun-shot wounds, kids drowning, motor vehicle accidents, and overdoses are long gone because peace reigns.
God’s promised kingdom is a kingdom where terrorists cease to reign, domestic and sexual abusers find no cover to hide, and false gods cannot prevail. In God’s promised kingdom the people of God find rest from all of their enemies. We will sing here shortly that Christ is our only hope in life and death. Do you believe that? Do you live like that? Jesus says in Revelation 2 “Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades.” Hear these words Christian, if you are found in Christ death has no final dominion over you and life eternal is yours for the taking. O may we live like Jesus is not dead but reigning at the right hand of the Father Almighty.
We have seen that God will bring about this divine promise of a kingdom where peace will one day cover this world now we turn to our last point which is how God will bring about this kingdom.
3. God’s promised kingdom will come through David’s Son – Jesus
12 When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers [aka when you die], I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. 13 He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. God tells David that when he dies God will establish a king and a kingdom from his own lineage. In one sense this is speaking about Solomon. The Jewish people would have seen the connection between building a house and a great name with the temple which God will use Solomon to build. While the contextual context reminds us of the connection to the building of the temple the canonical context reveals to us that there is a son that is coming that is even greater than Solomon who fulfills the eternal kingdom.
You see the way we read the Bible will impact the way we interpret the text. The readers of 2 Samuel 7 would have identified this special offspring to be pointing to Solomon and his building of the temple but several generations later the readers of this text would clearly see Solomon does not satisfy the divine promise offered here. Solomon died. Solomon is still dead.
Who is this Son of David whose kingdom will know no end? Unless our answer ultimately finds its affirmation in the person and work of Jesus of Nazareth then we have not gone far enough. As we read in our Call to Worship this morning from the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus is the Son of David. When the Gospel begins to lay out who this man named Jesus is it does so in the context of the Messiah. The Gospel of Matthew right out of the gates is telling us the king we were waiting for has come. Jesus is the Son of David in ways that Solomon never could have been. Solomon’s kingdom did not last forever. Solomon died, and eventually so went his kingdom. Even to this this day my dear friend who is an Orthodox Rabbi will tell you he longs for Messiah to come.
Moving forward in this passage v.14 I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men we see there will be kinship between God and the Anointed Messiah. We see that he will bear the discipline that is due for iniquity. Although Jesus never has committed iniquity he stands in the place of those who have. Jesus stands in the place of ruined sinners so that their punishment can be rightly paid for.
In v. 15 we see the beautiful words given to David in the divine promise that the love of the Father will not depart from the Son of David. 15 but my steadfast love will not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you. If you are an Israelite and you hear this coming off the reign of Saul this is huge. David pleads for God not to take the Holy Spirit from him in Psalm 51:11. Why? He saw what this was like for Saul. God the Father will forever love God the Son and this will never change.
We see that this divine promise is held true to the time God delivers the Messiah. The Old Testament shows the treacherous sin of Adam and Eve in the Garden, the egregious sin that covered the globe in the day of Noah, the idolatry of Abraham, and the mirror of sin that the Law shows us. We have a deep wound that needs healing. We need our sin to be covered, the curse of death to be reversed, and our burdens to be carried. It is only in the forever kingdom of Jesus where we find ultimate peace from sin, death, and suffering. This kingdom that was promised to the Son of David was indeed delivered upon.
Christocentric Application
The promise to David for an eternal kingdom where life abounds without death and suffering is activated through the Messiah Jesus. The Davidic Covenant is a divine promise that reminds us that as followers of Christ we are part of an eternal kingdom. Our citizenship is primarily of another kingdom. When we sing we do so raising a banner and marching forward with an anthem. We sing “Now the kingdom of darkness will not stand, For the King of kings has died and rose again.” [can I please get an amen?] Will you live for this?
While Adam failed to slay the serpent we were promised that one would come. While God brought global judgement we were told there would be room in the ark for shelter from the storm. While other nations continued their false worship God showed us how to live and be the people of God so that we could be a people marked out by holiness. But in all of this we failed too. Far too often we’ve joined in with the idolaters around us rather than worship the one true and living God. As one poet and author once remarked “I've carried my cross into dens of the wicked and you know I blended in just fine.”[2]
But Jesus, the serpent slayer, the ark which we take shelter in, the one for whom blessing comes, the sinless Lamb, he stands amidst all the divine promises of the Old Testament as the AMEN of God. Jesus is that Son of David – the descendant who reigns with peace and righteousness, who brings the enemies of God’s people to their feet, who saves God’s people from sin, suffering and death. Jesus is the anointed one long awaited for whose kingdom will not end. Now after 2,000 years into this kingdom party and despite attempts from oppressive governments, and abusive leaders both within and outside the church the faithful go before us reminding us this morning that the party is still on.
Conclusion
This morning we close asking ourselves the question: Why did Jesus have to die and rise again for this passage to be true? And I am here as God’s preacher this morning to tell you that Jesus had to die and rise again for the Davidic Covenant to be true because it is only through his death and resurrection that we have eternal life in the eternal kingdom. Over the past two weeks we have heard about the Abrahamic Covenant and how the Mosaic Covenant led Israel down the pathway toward the Davidic Covenant. As we read in our Call to Worship this morning, Jesus is both the Son of David, the Son of Abraham.
Before us the table has been set. Messiah Jesus, the Davidic King welcomes all those who believe to join. He doesn’t call you this morning because he needs your service, your gifts, your abilities, or your willingness to fight. He calls you because he loves you. If you will follow him you have a seat at this table. If you will not I would beg you to abstain. Please do not mock his kingdom.
You know when Scar took over Pride Rock the jungle became dark and all hope seemed loss. Long Live The King these infamous words that once broke our hearts will one day finally be flipped on its head one last time because the divine promise was inaugurated over 2,000 years ago. Today, and every Sunday we gather at this very table together to reclaim this broken world for our Lord, proclaiming Long Live The King.
[1] James M. Hamilton, God’s Glory In Salvation Through Judgement: A Biblical Theology, (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2010), 168.
[2] Andrew Peterson’s song, “Come, Lord Jesus.”