God's Righteous and Just Kingdom

[0:00] 2 Samuel 8 In the course of time, David defeated the Philistines and subdued them, and he took Mephagama from the control of the Philistines.

[0:26] David also defeated the Moabites. He made them lie down on the ground and measured them off with a length of cord. Every two lengths of them were put to death, and the third length was allowed to live.

[0:40] So the Moabites became subject to David and brought him tribute. Moreover, David defeated Hadadezer, son of Rehob, king of Zobah, when he went to restore his monument at the river Euphrates.

[0:54] David captured a thousand of his chariots, 7,000 charioteers, and 20,000 foot soldiers. He hamstrung all with a hundred of the chariot horses.

[1:07] When the Arameans of Damascus came to help Hadadezer, king of Zobah, David struck down 22,000 of them. He put garrisons in the Aramean kingdom of Damascus, and the Arameans became subject to him and brought tribute.

[1:22] The Lord gave David victory wherever he went. David took the gold shields that had belonged to the officers of Hadadezer and brought them to Jerusalem.

[1:33] From Teba and Berethi, towns that belonged to Hadadezer, king David took a great quantity of bronze. When Tau, king of Amath, heard that David had defeated the entire army of Hadadezer, he sent his son Joram to king David to greet him and congratulate him on his victory in battle over Hadadezer, who had been at war with Tau.

[1:57] Joram brought with him articles of silver, of gold, and of bronze. King David dedicated these articles to the Lord, as he had done with the silver and gold from all the nations he had subdued, Edom and Moab, the Ammonites and the Philistines, and Amalek.

[2:15] He also dedicated the plunder taken from Hadadezer, son of Rehob, king of Zobah. And David became famous after he returned from striking down 18,000 Edomites in the Valley of Salt.

[2:29] He put garrisons throughout Edom, and all the Edomites became subject to David. The Lord gave David victory wherever he went. David reigned over all Israel, doing what was just and right for all his people.

[2:45] Job, son of Zeruiah, was over the army. Jehoshaphat, son of Ahilud, was recorder. Zadok, son of Ahitub, and Ahimelech, son of Abiathar, were priests.

[2:57] Zeruiah, the secretary. Benaiah, son of Jehoiada, was over the Kerithites and Pelithites. And David's sons were priests. This is the word of the Lord.

[3:09] Amen. Great. Good evening. Thanks, Gavin. Thanks, Helen. Thanks, Lydia, for praying.

[3:21] Tough reading there. Let me pray. Father, we thank you for this time. We thank you for this awesome word that you've given us. Please help us to listen clearly now.

[3:34] Help us to consider how we can be humble before you. In Jesus' name. Amen. Great. I wonder if you might turn to your neighbor and just chat to them quickly.

[3:44] And here's the question. When have you benefited from someone else's humility? When have you benefited from someone else's humility?

[3:56] So I'll give you a couple of moments there just to chat to your neighbor about that. Great. And let's draw our discussions together there to a close.

[4:10] And maybe you can chat to your mates afterwards, hear more about that. I trust you'll forgive me if I don't have you feedback the answers right now. I'm sure they are quite good. Well, as Christians, we're called to be humble, aren't we?

[4:25] So remember Ephesians 4.2? Be completely humble. And Samuel, the books of 1 and 2 Samuel, that's the main point of these books, is that we need to be humble before the Lord, that when we humble ourselves, the Lord exalts us, but when we are proud, the Lord brings us low.

[4:47] That's the message of the books of 1 and 2 Samuel. And being humble can be a great blessing to those around us. So here's Forbes magazine on humble people.

[4:57] Here's what the writers in Forbes write. They write, they put others first. You see, humble people realize that nobody cares how much you know until those people know how much they care.

[5:09] Humble people, well, they listen. Humble people, they take time to say thank you.

[5:21] Thank you. But note, often being humble can get a bit of a bad rap. So Forbes goes on to write, humility is frequently associated with being too passive, submissive, and insecure.

[5:33] And many times it seems that those who are humble don't prosper, whereas those who are not humble come out on top of the pile. And so it's hard.

[5:46] You want to be humble as a Christian. You want to be God-honoring. You want to fear. But at the same time, it seems like humility is a bit of a suicide pact in your job or socially or in your home life or wherever else you may be.

[6:01] But in this chapter that we've read at tonight, what we see is why it is so important to be humble. We see that what God's kingdom looks like when God's king is humble before his God.

[6:17] And by implication, what it's going to look like for us when we are humble before God. So by way of context, if you've come here new tonight, I'll get you up to speed of where we are in Samuel.

[6:31] And we remember the book of 1 or 2, Samuel, Saul rises up and Saul's a proud king. And then after that, another king comes over God's people. And that's the king, David.

[6:42] And David is described as being a man after God's own heart who humbles himself before the Lord. And we see this throughout the book, don't we? So we remember how Saul is chasing David.

[6:55] He wants to kill David. And twice, David has the opportunity to kill Saul. But he says, I will not kill the Lord's anointed. He refuses to kill the Lord's anointed Saul out of reverence and humility before God.

[7:10] And then when Saul dies, what does David do? He weeps at his enemy's death. He's broken by his enemy dying in humility. And then in the chapter before, chapter 2, Samuel 7, we read at the start of David's prayer in verse 18, Who am I, sovereign Lord?

[7:29] And what is my family? And then in the next chapter, we hear this great humble story of Mephibosheth, where David goes and finds this chap from Saul's household, his enemy, so that he can bless him.

[7:44] He's incredibly humble. And so these two chapters, 2 Samuel 7 and 8, they work as a picture that's across two frames, two picture frames.

[7:55] So the one half of the picture is in 2 Samuel 7, and the other half of the picture is in 2 Samuel 8. And it's a picture that tells us of what God's kingdom is going to look like when God's king is humble.

[8:09] And so what we see in 2 Samuel 7 is that the Lord gives David some spectacular promises because he is humble. So he says in 2 Samuel 7, verse 10, I will provide a place for my people.

[8:24] And then he says, I will give you rest from your enemies. And then he goes, verse 16, he says astoundingly to David, your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me.

[8:38] Your throne will be established forever. He says to, the Lord says to David, I'm going to set a king from your house that will be king forever and ever and ever over my people.

[8:51] That's astounding promise. And so in chapter 8, what we see is how these promises come to fruition. We see the fulfillment of these promises in chapter 7 given in chapter 8.

[9:05] So what we see is God's humble king and then how God uses that humble king to establish a kingdom that is filled with righteousness and justice.

[9:18] And the strapline that Samuel gives, the author Samuel gives David, that he says of David, to Samuel 8, verse 15, if you want to follow along, David reigned over all Israel doing what was just and right for all his people.

[9:34] And that's the strapline for David's rule and reign. So what is God's righteous and just kingdom going to look like that God's going to give David?

[9:44] The first thing is, it's a kingdom where David will get victory wherever he goes in verse 1 and 6. So in chapter 7, he's given that promise, I have been with you wherever you have gone.

[9:56] And then we get these repeated refrains refrains in chapter 8, verse 6, the end of verse 6 and end of verse 14. The Lord gave David victory.

[10:07] And the word there is literally to save wherever he went. So wherever David goes, the Lord gives him victory. The Lord saves him. So you might have seen that movie, The Gladiator, and there's that spectacular, absolute carnage scene in the beginning of the movie where you've got the Roman gladiator, Maximus the general.

[10:28] He just absolutely trashes everything. And his emperor comes to him, Marcus Aurelius, and says, you've done well. You've done brilliantly. Long met reign. And Maximus says, there's no one else to fight.

[10:40] I have trashed everyone. And that's the picture that we have of David in this passage here. So all these places, all those funny place names that we read here, they are all places all over Israel, right up to the north, right down to the south of Israel, right to the east, right to the west.

[10:59] Wherever David has gone, the Lord has given David victory. He has saved David. And it's the first time in Israel's history, from the very start of the Bible, that Israel, God's people, occupied the land that God promised David's great, great, great grandfather, Father Abraham, right at the start of the Bible.

[11:25] So, in 2 Samuel 7, the promise is given, I will give my people a place, and I will give you rest from your enemies. And what do we see in verse 15, 2 Samuel 8?

[11:37] David reigned over all Israel. Now, our enemies might not look a lot like David's enemies. Our enemies are the flesh, the world, the devil.

[11:49] The flesh, our sinful desires, the world. What our world tells us to do. The devil, all the spiritual forces at work. But what does victory look like when we humble ourselves?

[12:01] God promises to give us victory. Imagine you're struggling with anxiety. You wake up totally calm for the first time in days because you trust that God is big enough to give you victory.

[12:15] Maybe you struggle with what you're watching. You're staying up, you're watching too much late night TV or some other things that are bad. And you're looking for your satisfaction in escapism and watching those things.

[12:30] And you realize, and you wake up the next day and you realize for the first time that God is the ultimate and greatest satisfaction and joy that you're ever going to know in life.

[12:41] And that you don't need to find your satisfaction in escapism and watching stuff. Or maybe it's that you've come to university, first time away from home and the finances have gone absolutely to pot.

[12:53] You're in debt everywhere. The studies have gone out the window. Everything is out of control in your life. And you wake up and you realize for the first time you can see it clearly.

[13:05] You realize that you need to be humble so that you can live God's way and God will sort out those problems for you. And this is what it looks like when we humble ourselves before the Lord.

[13:17] He gives us victory over our enemies. And the second thing that we see about God's righteous and just kingdom that he gives David is that the wealth of the nations are brought into Jerusalem.

[13:32] Verses 7 to 12. So I'll just read a couple of verses there. Verse 11 and 12. King David... Have I got that right? So the first thing we see in verse 7 and 8 is that Hadadiza conquers and Samuel writes, David took the gold shields that belonged to the offices of Hadadiza and he brought them into Jerusalem.

[13:55] And then what do we read in verse 11 and 12 is that David dedicates these articles to the Lord. He gets this gold from these kings that he conquers.

[14:06] And what does he say? He says, Lord, it is yours. And what is David doing when he does this? He's simply humbling himself before God. He's declaring his reliance before God.

[14:19] Now I wonder if you've, maybe you've gone on Reddit or something like that and you would have seen a picture like this. And here's this poor Thai farmer. He slaved his whole life to save up, to send his only son to university.

[14:34] And this is the graduation of his son's degree from university. Now, having that father, having given everything that he earned to his son, what would be the appropriate response of that son to his father?

[14:49] He would naturally want to give back all the good things that he had been given. He was only going to give what was already rightfully the father's.

[15:00] And so by giving this gold that David gets from all the enemies, David is simply saying thank you to God.

[15:13] He recognizes that all his blessings and fortunes are from God and he is simply giving back to God what God has given him. But notice also if you're a bit of a Bible spotter and you've read a bit more of the Bible, where this gold ends up going.

[15:30] in the Bible. This gold is used to build and decorate God's temple where all the nations come in and praise the one and living God.

[15:42] And it's this temple that is to be a light unto all the nations. So this gold that comes in is used to bless all the people everywhere, bless all the people and exalt and give glory to God.

[15:58] So as we humble ourselves before God, do we model this kind of gospel light sharing other person centered model of giving?

[16:09] Do we acknowledge our dependence and reliance on God as the source of all the good things that we get in life? Do we realize that God asks us to give not because he needs the gold but because giving is good for us and it benefits it helps us to partner with God and benefiting and blessing other people.

[16:37] So and the third thing that we see in God's righteous and just kingdom there is that God gives his king he gives King David a great name for the king in verses 13 and 14.

[16:50] So 2 Samuel 7 verse 9 the promise is given I will make your name great like the names of the greatest men on the earth and then in verse 13 of 2 Samuel 8 what do we read?

[17:03] And David became famous and now that famous there that's not kind of like the great name infamous way that we see of used of our celebrities today I'm a celebrity get me out of that here it's not that kind of fame that greatness that we're thinking about but it's about having a well respected and good name so in contrast to Hadadiza Hadadiza's trying to make a name for himself so he builds his monuments he's trying to establish his control along the rover he's trying to build himself up in many ways we do that in our lives we try to build ourselves up and we're a bit like maybe you've seen the movie Charlie and the Chocolate Factory we're a bit like Violet the uber competitive girl she's forever trying to win every competition so that she can make a name for herself but here what do we see God gives David in his humility a great name he gives him the respect that he would have hoped to have had at God's king so what might that look like for us as we humble ourselves the good name that we might get well it's being known for being hard working and reliable it's being known that our kindness is only outmatched by our wisdom and our wisdom is only outmatched by our kindness it's having your friends turn to you in times of need it's being known for being a person centered around holiness for loving and living for God alone now the fourth thing that we see in God's righteous and just kingdom that God establishes through his humble king is that justice and righteousness for all people is given in verse 15 and 18 and so in verse 15 we've read there we've read it already

[19:09] David reigned over all Israel and how is he described as doing what was just and right for all people now right at the start of the Bible in Genesis God commanded Abraham to do justice and right that he might live in the promised land in a land that was going to be unbelievably wonderful and David fulfills this promise in bringing about justice and righteousness to all God's people in humility so in this passage when we see David conquering enemies in this passage and our first reaction might be to draw back slightly from that and wonder what's going on what we are really seeing is simply God's righteousness and justice being established and why because God is a righteous and good and just

[20:12] God that is who he is by his very nature and righteousness and justice is something that we all want what do I mean by that so you might be following it at the moment this is slightly technical is anyone caught up on the old retail price index consumer price index debacle that's going on no well here it is if the money if the government pays you money at the moment right they charge you interest of 1.78 retail price index but if you have to pay the government money like your student loan you have to pay it back at the consumer price index 2.78 it's outrageous it's so outrageous that there's this little finance committee and the lords lords they never get involved in anything they haven't spoken up in 12 years and for the first time in 12 years they've said right this needs to get sorted out it wasn't something the government expected it's just how this stuff's worked out recently but it's an injustice that's come into our community that's more by accident than design and it's something that's getting worked out but we naturally when we hear something like that and we hear about these injustices that are happening particularly when it's something that affects us we go that's so unfair why can't people see that that's just so unfair and so when we read that David was doing what was just and right for God's people he was looking after the little people he was looking after the poor people he was giving justice to the widows and the orphans he was giving fair sentences to people who had maybe transgressed and that kind of stuff we should rejoice we should go yes that is absolutely right and so in this chapter we see a picture of what

[22:10] God's kingdom looks like when God's king is humble before God a kingdom of righteousness and justice and we've noticed there what did we notice it's a kingdom where victory where David gets victory wherever he goes it's a kingdom where the wealth of the nations is brought into Jerusalem it's a kingdom where David is given a great name as king it's a kingdom of righteousness and justice for all people but as humble as David was he was not the perfect humble messiah king who would reign forever that God had promised whose kingdom would endure forever and ever so immediately after these chapters in chapter 11 what we see is David rather than humbling himself as God's humble king before God we see God we see David in his pride rising up and rebelling against God's law he commits adultery he murders a man and what happens

[23:19] David's name is tarnished the kingdom descends into civil war and he's not given peace from his enemies anymore he starts fighting the Philistines again everything goes to pot when David gives up on humility and the lesson for us here is that as try as we might to be humble before God as much as we recognize that being humble before God is the only way to have God's blessing to acknowledge that he is God and Lord we are going to fail at this we are not going to get this right but here is the thing 2 Samuel 8 is only a picture of what God's perfect and heavenly kingdom is going to look like it's like 2 Samuel 8 is like comparing an ox cart to a Tesla hopefully you know what a Tesla is it's a super duper amazing car that is amazing you see so where we and David fail in higher humility

[24:29] Jesus is perfectly humble as God's king who would reign forever see Jesus is the savior that we need from when we fail to be humble and when we sin you see when God calls us to be humble and where the message of 2 Samuel is that God opposes the proud and exalts the humble it is because God himself is humble Jesus is humble here's how 2 Philippians puts it speaking of Jesus I'll just read this for us it should come up on the screen you can follow along there I'll read it 2 Philippians chapter 2 starting at verse 6 speaking of Jesus who being in the very nature God did not consider equality with God something to be used for his own advantage rather he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant being made in human likeness and being found in appearance as a man he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death even death on a cross therefore

[25:44] God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father you see because Jesus humbled himself God built his perfect kingdom around Jesus at his death on the cross you see as the Lord saved David wherever he went gave him victory wherever he went so Jesus saves us from every sin at the cross God gave Jesus victory over every enemy every knee bows at the cross all the world comes to Jesus every tongue acknowledges at the cross

[26:48] Jesus name is exalted God gave him the name that is above every name at the cross Jesus established righteousness and justice for all people how Jesus paid the price for our sins to the very fullest extent to the last iota the debt is completely paid justice has been done and moreover he glorified his father he spoke truly of God of who God is so what's it going to look like for us to humble ourselves imagine you see a kid and they see their dad and they come to their dad in complete humility of the dad and their mother and they run up to their father and mother in complete humility they can barely speak they don't have the words and what does the dad and father do they pick them up and they absolutely envelop them when we go to

[27:54] God that's what we're like we're as hopeless and helpless as a child he picks us up and he embraces us and loves us fully in our humility so what about you maybe you are here this evening and you have a relationship with a colleague at work or family member maybe there's been a tiff over Christmas that hasn't been resolved yet and it isn't going well maybe it's time to rather than expecting them to say sorry it's time for you to humble yourself and acknowledge that you've got things wrong maybe it is that you've been going in the Christian life and you're starting to reckon I've got this Christianity thing nailed I'm a good guy I pay my taxes I've got the CPR index sorted out I've watched gladiator I sing I do readings at church I'm a good guy maybe it's time that rather than depending on your own good works on all the good stuff you do you acknowledge that you're helpless and hopeless and in need of a savior rather than being confident on your own works you become totally dependent on God and humble yourself before him maybe it is that you've never acknowledged your need for God to say you come here this evening because your friend said it was a good time there's good coffee beforehand there's good chats afterwards you have and maybe it's tonight is the night where you simply acknowledge your dependence and reliance on God and you acknowledge that you're hopeless and helpless before him and you come to him in complete humility trusting in him alone to save you from your pride and your sins

[29:44] I don't know which one of those you are you guys alone know let me pray for us as we finish Father we thank you for this passage of 2 Samuel 8 we acknowledge our dependence and reliance on you Father we pray that you'd work within us to make us people who are humble in our dependence and reliance on you in Jesus name Amen amen amen I