2 Samuel 7
At a news conference the morning after the beginning of the 2003 attacks on Iraq, a reporter asked Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld “about the apparent failure to follow the war plan.” To which Rumsfeld dryly replied, “I don’t believe you have the war plan.”
We often come to God with a question like the reporter’s – why doesn’t he follow the plan we expect? Why doesn’t God follow OUR plan? And God has been telling his followers since the beginning, “I don’t believe you have the plan.”[i]
Sometimes, God says “No.” Even when our plan seems to be a good plan, even a selfless, God-honoring plan, to us and to everyone else. There are many times in life when our plan seems to be the most logical and the right path, and God’s plan doesn’t. Are we willing to submit ourselves to God’s plan, to God’s will, even when our plan seems to be just fine? Are we willing to surrender our plans for God’s? How do we pray the prayer of surrender to God’s will? Turn with me to 2 Samuel 7:1-3.
This morning we’re continuing our journey through the life of the great, and also very human and flawed and broken, King David. Saul, Israel’s first king, is dead. And David is now king. He has captured the Canaanite city of Jebus, renamed it Jerusalem, and made it his political capitol. He has also moved the Ark of the Covenant from its temporary home in Kiriath Jearim to a tent he had erected for it in Jerusalem, making the city of David both the political and religious center of the nation.
And it is now a time of peace. David has pushed the Philistines back into their own land and secured Israel’s borders. The peace wouldn’t last. Sadly, it seems it never does in this world. But this was a time of peace. David has built his palace and taken up residence there. And now he decides that it isn’t right that he lives in a luxurious palace, a permanent home, while the Ark of the Covenant rests in a temporary tent that had been erected for it in Jerusalem.
So he goes to Nathan, who is now God’s prophet in David’s royal court, and says, “Do you believe this? I live in this beautiful royal palace, while the Ark of God sits in a tent. This isn’t right, man. I’ve got to do something about that.” Can you feel David’s passion for the glory of God? His passion for God, his enthusiasm to do something great FOR God, just leap off the page.
I mean, it seems like everything about this should be a go, right? It’s being done for God and for God’s glory. David’s passion seems to be pointing him in the right direction. All Nathan needs to do is turn David loose and let him do what he wants to do. And that’s what he does, at first.
We love to say things like “follow your passion,” “pursue your dreams,” or “do what you love and love what you do.” But do these mantras truly represent the path to vocational clarity, personal fulfillment, and human flourishing?
Not according to a new study by researchers from Stanford University and Yale-NUS College, which found that “following your passion” is likely to lead to overly limited pursuits, inflated expectations (career, economic, or otherwise), and early or eventual burnout.
The study’s authors concluded:
People are often told to find their passion as though passions and interests are pre-formed and must simply be discovered. This idea, however, has hidden motivational implications … Urging people to find their passion may lead them to put all their eggs in one basket but then to drop that basket when it becomes difficult to carry.
Although our culture tells us to “look within,” assuming a fixed set of passions to guide us on our way, researchers found more positive results among those who allow room for interests and intelligence to develop over time. The study encourages us to ask: Are we still looking only to the self or are we looking outward and upward as well? As David Brooks once wrote: “Most successful young people don’t look inside and then plan a life. They look outside and find a [need or God’s call], which summons their life.” [ii]
Yes, passion is important, but it isn’t the only thing that’s important, or even the most important thing. We also need to consider the needs around us. David has done those two things. He sees what he thinks is a need, and it aligns with his passion for the glory of God. Check and check. All systems are go, right? No. You see, we also need to talk to God about it, to see what God wants done. And not just what God wants done, but what God wants ME to do. And that’s where David got off course. Because God said, “No.” Look at Vv. 4-17.
Now, there’s a lot to unpack in these verses, because even though there isn’t a lot actually “happening” in 2 Samuel 7, it’s actually one of the most significant passages in the entire Old Testament. You see, in these verses we find what theologians and Bible scholars call the “Davidic Covenant,” God’s covenant with David, which would shape Israelite theology for millennia, and our own up to the present day. God has plans for David. They just don’t include the thing David is passionate about at the moment: building a great Temple for God in Jerusalem.
To see that, though, we have to trace God’s plan for our salvation through the Old Testament up to this point. Believe it or not, God laid out his plan for salvation almost as soon as humanity fell into sin. That prophecy came straight from the mouth of God in the form of his curse on the serpent in the Garden of Eden. “The Lord God said to the serpent … I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel” (Gen. 3:15).
The offspring of the woman, Eve, is the key. Humanity would in some way play a role in God’s plan for salvation. The savior would be an offspring of the woman. He would be born as a human. And while the serpent would inflict a painful wound on that offspring (bruise his heel), the offspring would overcome and destroy the serpent (crush or bruise your head).
After the flood, God made a covenant with all of creation, through Noah, to never again send a world-wide flood to destroy the earth as an act of divine judgment. It is a covenant of grace and mercy in light of the sinfulness of humanity.
Move ahead a few thousand years and God calls a man named Abram, and his wife, Sarai, to follow him, not knowing where God was taking them. And eventually, in what we call the Abrahamic covenant, God promised that Abraham’s descendants would become a great nation, and that in Abraham all the nations of the earth would be blessed (Gen. 12:1-3). God’s plan for the salvation of humanity would come about through the nation God was forming from Abraham and his descendants.
Moving forward in history, we come to Abraham fleeing Egypt under God’s guidance in the exodus, and they camp at the foot of Mt. Sinai, upon which God gave to Moses the Ten Commandments and then the rest of the law that they summarize. In this Mosaic Covenant, the responsibilities of God’s people were laid out. They were called by God to be defined by God and by living as citizens of God’s kingdom in the midst of this world. They were to live according the law as a testimony to the nature and character of God.
So we have God’s promise of salvation through the woman’s offspring. Then God’s promise of grace and mercy in the Noahic covenant, and God’s promise of blessing for all through Israel in the Abrahamic covenant. And then we come to the Davidic covenant. God promises three things to David here. First, that David’s son would build God’s temple in Jerusalem, but not David. That was the “No,” that God gave to David. No David, not you on this one. Your son.
But. God rarely says “no.” He often says, “No, but …” God’s “no” to David isn’t a punishment. It doesn’t come because David is in some way unworthy. It comes because in this instance, David’s desire doesn’t align with God’s plan for David.
So what’s the “but?” It’s a big “but.” I like big but’s. And I cannot lie. But, your name, David, will be great. You will be seen as being among the greatest to ever live. And your lineage will be established on Israel’s throne … forever. What? Wait a minute. What about the fall of Jerusalem and the exile still to come in Israel’s history. It wasn’t until the exile that Israel sort of started to figure out what God meant by that promise. That God had gone from talking about David’s son Solomon and his earthly line of kings in Israel, to God’s eternal salvation of all of humanity. It would be a son of David who would sit on not just Israel’s throne but on God’s throne throughout eternity.
That’s why, in the New Testament, where Jesus takes center stage, God becoming flesh and dwelling among us, a big deal is made of Jesus being born in Bethlehem, the city in which David was born and raised. And that Joseph was a descendent of David. The offspring of the woman who would crush the serpent’s head, from the people of Israel, would be a son of David too. Joseph, earthly father of Jesus, was a descendent of David. Through the woman, and Abraham, and David, God would save all of humanity. That’s a big “but.” God rejected David’s plan, but not David.
When God says “No,” it isn’t because you’re unworthy. It isn’t because you aren’t good enough or because you’ve messed up. It’s because God has something else for you to do. So how do we respond when God says “No?” How do we pray a prayer of surrender? Look at David’s prayer in Vv. 18-29.
David goes into the tent and sits facing the Ark of the Covenant, the Ark that he wanted to build a magnificent temple for, and he prays. And the first words out of his mouth are words of gratitude. Thanks. “Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house, that you have brought me thus far?” What you’ve already done for us is more than we could ever have asked or imagined. I mean, you defeated Goliath using me. You kept me alive all those years when Saul wanted me dead. You gifted me as a poet and a musician and a warrior on top of that. You have given me so many victories on the battlefield. And you’ve made me king. Me. Just a shepherd, from a shepherding family. We aren’t royal. We aren’t special. We’re just us.
Do you have an awareness of what God has already done for you. He’s given you life. He’s given you breath. And he’s given you Jesus. Forgiveness for your sin. Your debt paid in full. A gift you cannot earn. Why? Because he loves you. We struggle to be grateful when things seem to be going our way. But David isn’t focused on the “no” now. He’s been floored by the “but.”
Oh, he hasn’t forgotten about the temple. Look at 1 Chronicles 22:2-5. Like the gospels, the books of Samuel and Chronicles run somewhat parallel, each with their own emphasis. David may not have been allowed by God to build the temple, but he made darn sure that Solomon would have everything he needed to build it. His passion for the house of God was still there. He never lost it.
But in the midst of his disappointment at not being permitted to build the temple in Jerusalem, he still finds a way to go straight to gratitude. God says, “No,” and David immediately submits and turns his heart to gratitude for what God has already done for him, and what God has said that he would do for him. But that doesn’t just happen. David has trained himself to be grateful.
You see, this is where David and Saul’s paths most clearly went in different directions, and God wanted David to decisively choose to be obedient, unlike Saul. When Saul heard a “No” from God, he started bargaining, trying to compromise with God, complaining, and then, when that didn’t work, he did what he wanted to do anyway.
When David heard God’s “No,” his heart went right to gratitude. That isn’t a natural human response. That’s a response we train our hearts to make as we do the hard work of discipleship. We cannot earn our salvation. We cannot earn God’s love. But having received it, we can and should work to discipline our hearts and minds, training them to follow Jesus and submit to him whether he says, “Go” or “No.” We “work out our salvation with fear and trembling” (Phil. 2:12), as St. Paul says. Following Jesus isn’t a passive thing. We can’t earn our salvation, but we are to put effort into following Jesus. And David has done that hard work. That’s why, in the midst of the disappointing no, he can turn his heart to gratitude. Even though he never lost his passion for building the house of God.
David defers, submitting himself to the God’s will and plan, and he turns to gratitude, grateful for all that God had already done and had promised to do. It was no small thing that God had promised David. But most of it would happen after David died. After quite a bit of political maneuvering, as David’s other sons competed for the throne before he was even dead, and one ran him out of Jerusalem for a time, David died knowing only that Solomon was on the throne, and the temple was not yet built. The supplies were there and ready to go, but it wasn’t yet built.
But he died knowing that God is faithful and will keep his promises. He closes his prayer here by simply asking God to do what God has said he will do. By asking God to be God. Look at Vv. 24-29. That’s his request. “Ok God, I won’t build the temple. My son will. And you’ve made some pretty spectacular promises to me. Go and do your thing.” That is the cry of a heart submitted to the will of God above all else. “Ok God. Go and do what you’re going to do.” No maneuvering, no complaining, no trying to compromise with God, no bartering with God. Just, “Go and be God. I’ll follow.”
David would never see what was to come with human eyes. And he couldn’t conceive of an exile and a messiah, a savior who was to come. God’s faithfulness to his promises to David remained through the centuries and culminated in a manger, a cross, and an empty tomb.
St. Paul, in Ephesians 3:20, says that God “able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us.” Far more abundantly that all that we ask or think. David wanted to build a temple. God said “No. But, your throne will be an eternal throne.” That was all that David knew. He lived long enough to see his throne pass to his son Solomon. That’s all the promise that he got to see. But God did way more that David could have imagined. More than he would have dared to ask. He had no idea what God would do in faithfulness to his promise. You and I are here today, worshiping God as “Christ Church,” because of God’s faithfulness to David.
God will not bring a messiah into the world through you. He’s already done that. But the same God who was faithful to his promise to David through the centuries, long after David died, that same God is the God who says either “Go” or “No” to you and I, and he is no less faithful, and we cannot begin to imaging, and may never live to see, what God will do if we align our hearts to him, submit ourselves to his plan, and simply say, “Ok. Go and be God. I’m following you.”
Pastor John Powell, in a sermon called “Prayer as Surrender” says, “I have a sign in the mirror of my room I see it every morning in my groggy condition, when I first wake up: WHAT HAVE YOU GOT GOING TODAY, GOD? I’D LIKE TO BE A PART OF IT. THANKS FOR LOVING ME.”
He goes on to say, “I have to find my place in God’s plans, rather than make my own little plans and then ask God to support them: “Come on, God, give me an A in this course. Come on, God, do this for me.” Instead, I pray, “What have you got going today, God? You love this world. You loved this world into life. You created this world. We’re all yours. What’s my part in the drama? What part do you want me to play? I will play any part you say. Want me to be a success? I’ll be a success for you. Want me to be a failure? I’ll fail for you. Whatever you want.”
That’s the condition of successful prayer.[iii] Let’s pray.
[i] Steve Johnson, “‘Little Things’ Add Up to Jumpy, But Compelling, News Coverage,” Chicago Tribune (3-21-03)
[ii] Joseph Sunde, “The folly of ‘following your passion,'” Acton blog (7-25-18)
[iii] John Powell, “Prayer as Surrender,” Preaching Today, Tape No. 108.
