Who Gives and Who Receives?

Today on Summit Life with J.D.

Greer. Hear this. At its core, Christianity is not about giving to God or doing things for God. Christianity is about what God has done for you. The heart of the gospel is not spelled D-O.

The heart of the gospel is spelled D-O-N-E. Welcome to Summit Life with J.D. Greer, lead pastor of the Summit Church in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina.

As always, I'm your host, Molly Vitovich. As we continue in the book of 2 Samuel today, Pastor J.D. walks us through both King David's desire to build the temple and God's response to him, one that serves as a good reminder for us even today. What David learned and what we often forget is that our relationship with God is not based on how much we do or give for him. Instead, it's based on what God has already done for us and given to us, an important distinction for those of us worn out by religion. Remember, you can catch up on this teaching series online anytime at jdgreer.com. But right now, grab your Bible, take some notes, and let's let these truths speak to us today.

2 Samuel 7. Several years ago, we had a church member that worked at Ancestry.com. And one day, she came up and handed me a big folder with my name on it. And she said, here is a little history of your family in America. I was a little bored at work, she said, and got curious about the spelling of your last name, Greer, because it seems to have that extra vowel in it, G-R-E-E-A-R. And by the way, whether you know how to spell my last name is always a sign to me of whether you actually know me or not. And she said, she said, I did a little research. Turns out, she said, the extra A was not used by the original Greers that came to America. She said, did you know that?

I said, no. She pulled out a shipping passenger manifest, a copy of it, and said, your first Greer ancestor to come to America was Shadrack Greer, who came over from Scotland in 1730 something. Shadrack Greer, that's got a nice ring to it, doesn't it? You pregnant couples are free to use that for your newborn.

Personally, I think it works for boy or girl, or girl, that's, you know, whatever. Anyway, she pointed to the ship manifest and sure enough, there it was, Shadrack Greer with Greer spelled G-R-E-E-R with no extra A. That spelling, G-R-E-E-R with no A, she said, that stays the same until we get to the mid 19th century, when unexplainably, it changes to G-R-E-E-A-R, which, she said, is almost always a sign that somebody was trying to avoid the law.

They wanted to keep their last name, but avoid being tracked by the government. I said, so you're telling me, and she said, yes, I'm telling you that one of your ancestors was some kind of criminal, or at least a tax evader. And here I am as your pastor, okay? Look how far the Greers have come. Dad, look how far we've come. Well, I'm not sure what all that means for me.

Hopefully nothing, but I do know that for many of us, understanding who our ancestors are, helps us better understand who we are. I share that because Jesus' most frequent title in the gospels is Son of David. The gospel writer, Matthew, uses this title for Jesus 10 times in his gospel alone. The point being to understand Jesus, you have to understand David. And this passage makes the Jesus-David connection clearer than just about any other. As chapter seven opens, David has established himself as king. He has subdued his enemies, but he is at rest, and the people are prospering. The prophet Nathan, who basically serves as the nation's pastor, is sitting with David out on David's back porch.

I picture them out there with a couple of decaf coffees, maybe smoking a pipe. That's not in the text, but that's just how I see it. And David's eyes falls to the tabernacle that's located not far from his palace. It was looking pretty shabby. And the tabernacle was basically a giant tent that housed the Ark of the Covenant. God had given Israel instructions for how they were to construct it right after they left Egypt in the Exodus. So by this point, it would have been several hundred years old.

And I assume it was showing significant signs of wear. Here's David in a big old palace with rooms and hallways and marble and balconies and a helicopter pad and whatnot. And so David looks over at Nathan and he says, verse two, you know, this isn't right.

This isn't right. God lives in this shabby old tent. And I live in a big old house that smells like cedar. Cedar wood, by the way, was considered top of the line luxury in those days.

And if you've ever, by the way, priced adding a cedar line closet to your house, you know that it is still considered a top of the line luxury. David's got a whole house made of cedar. And so David says, this ain't right.

This ain't right. I'm up in first class and God's flying coach. It's time to upgrade God's digs. Nathan responds like any pastor does when a wealthy person indicates that they want to make a large donation to the kingdom of God. You say, verse three, go and do all that is in your heart for the Lord is with you.

Will that be cash, check or stock transferral, David? That night, however, after giving David this kind of thumbs up, the word of the Lord comes to Nathan in a dream. And the Lord tells Nathan, I want you to go back and say to David, David, I appreciate the sentiment, but have I ever asked you for this? And all those years when I was rescuing Israel and leading Israel and providing for Israel, did I ever ask any of those generations?

Did I ever ask one to build me a house? Have I ever asked you to do this for me, David? On the contrary, David, verse eight, I took you from the pasture. I took you from following the sheep that you should be prince over my people, Israel. David, do you remember where you were when I found you? Did you have anything to offer me?

Was there anything about you that would make me choose you? Verse nine, I have been with you since that point wherever you went. And I have cut off all your enemies from before you. And I will make for you a great name. And I will appoint a place for my people, Israel. And I will plant them.

And I will give you rest from all your enemies. And the Lord will make you a house. Who is giving to whom? God is giving to David, not vice versa. Hear this, at its core, Christianity is not about giving to God or doing things for God. Christianity is about what God has done for you. The heart of the gospel is not spelled D-O.

The heart of the gospel is spelled D-O-N-E. There's three questions I want us to consider this morning as we unpack what that means. Number one, what exactly did God promise David? Number two, what was the basis of that promise? And then number three, how did David respond? Number one, what exactly did God promise to David?

The answer is a house, a house. God said, I'll build you a house, David. When David first uses the word house in this passage, he's using the word as to refer to a temple, a place for God's presence to dwell in the ark of the covenant. When God says back to David, no, David, I'll build you a house, he means more than just a physical building to house his presence.

God also means a kingdom, a dynasty. God says, I'm going to give you a dynasty and I'm going to do this through one of your sons. Verse 12, when your days, David, are fulfilled and you are lying down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you who shall come from your body and I will establish his kingdom forever and he shall build a house for my name. Here's the question, which son is God talking about right here? Well, as with other Old Testament prophecies, this prophecy has a double fulfillment.

There is a short-term fulfillment and there is a long-term fulfillment. The first fulfillment came through David's son, Solomon. Solomon would build the temple that David wanted to build, a house for God's presence. And under Solomon, David's kingdom would thrive like it never had before and never would again.

But, and this is a huge but, Solomon also turned out to be a pretty big disappointment. Solomon's going to marry 700 wives, most of them from foreign nations and clans, and he even starts to worship some of their idols, which is why this prophecy points forward to another son of David. About 930 years after Solomon, another son was born in the lineage of David, in the very hometown of David himself, the town of Bethlehem, and that son would be the embodiment of the house that God built for David. Jesus was both the ultimate temple and he was the eternal king that God had promised. Jesus was the ultimate temple. He housed the presence of God in himself. John 1 14 says that in Jesus, God became flesh and the word became flesh and dwelt among us. Interestingly, the word John uses there for dwelt is literally tabernacled. Jesus was God tabernacling among us. He was the ultimate walking, talking tabernacle, which is why he made really confusing statements like, hey, if you tear this temple down, I'll rebuild it in three days.

When he says that, everybody looks around and they're like, what? I mean, how on earth could you rebuild the temple in three days? It took hundreds of workers more than 40 years to build this thing. But see, they thought Jesus was talking about the physical temple. They didn't realize, John 2 21, that Jesus was actually speaking of his own body, because that was the ultimate, the real temple. Now, Jesus housed the presence of God in himself.

And indeed, when they tore that temple down by nailing it to a cross, sure enough, Jesus resurrected that temple and rebuilt it in three days. Then the most amazing thing, y'all, he put that presence into us. Jesus said, when I go to the father, I'm not going to leave you alone. I'm going to send my spirit to live inside of you.

And in him, the father and the son are going to come to live with you. The very spirit that hovered over the arc of the covenant is the spirit that now dwells in me. Interestingly, when the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost, do you remember what appeared over the heads of the Christians?

Little flames of fire, similar to what appeared over the arc of the covenant and the Holy of Holies. God's presence, which had once hovered above the arc of the covenant, now is in us by the Holy Spirit. God's desire has always been to be united with his people, to be close to them, to walk with them, to commune with them in the Garden of Eden. What did God do every night? He came down to walk with Adam and Eve in the cool of every evening. And they said, God walks with us. When God led his people through the wilderness with a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, the people said, God is among us.

When they built the tabernacle and then the temple and the glory of God came to rest upon the temple, the people rejoiced. And they said, God is in the midst of us. When Jesus came to earth, they called his name Immanuel, which meant literally God with us.

And now by his Spirit, you and I say, God in us. The point of Christianity has never been merely believing the right things or behaving the right ways. The point is being united to, communing with and walking with God, knowing him, trusting him, abiding in him as he abides in us. So Jesus was the ultimate temple. And the other meaning of house, Jesus is the eternal King. All those prophecies in the Old Testament about an eternal kingdom that would be established forever and bless the nations.

Those were all fulfilled in Jesus. You're listening to Summit Life with JD Greer. As we take a brief pause from today's teaching, I want to share with you about a fantastic resource from Summit Life that's available to you free of charge each day. Our daily email devotional is a great way to develop a habit of keeping yourself grounded in the Word of God. These devotionals even follow along with the current teaching series here on Summit Life. And they include a scripture reading, a devotional thought, and a prayer prompt to help you start your day on the right foot. We know that sometimes, heaven forbid, you might miss our program here on the station. But the good news is that these daily devotionals cover what we're talking about here on Summit Life. So if you miss a day, you can stay caught up with a quick reading in your email.

It's completely free and you can sign up today at jdgreer.com slash resources. We hope that these devotionals will be a source of encouragement and growth in your walk with Christ. And remember, our resources are made possible by the generous support of listeners like you. Now let's get back to today's teaching with Pastor JD Greer here on Summit Life. Jesus didn't just come as our Savior.

You understand that, right? He also came as our King. And I want us to pause here for just a moment because sometimes I don't think we give enough weight to this idea. We talk about Jesus almost exclusively as a personal Savior whom we invite into our hearts to forgive our sins. Like he's our personal get out of hell free card and our life coach. And he is that. But he is also our King, and that means a few things. As a King, he is our authority. Look, there's no such thing, just going to tell you. No such thing as I accepted Jesus as Savior, but I'm not yet fully submitted to him as Lord.

I've heard people say that to me. You cannot bifurcate Jesus. If you have not submitted to his authority, you have not received him because he came as King. To follow him is to join his kingdom. To join his kingdom is to submit to his authority. Sometimes people say, well, you know, I tried Christianity, but it didn't work.

I'm always like, that's a joke. All that means is I tried to use Jesus to help me achieve another goal that I had. I was trying to get happiness, joy, get back together in my marriage.

I was trying to get a stable family. I was trying to get ahead in my career, trying to have personal peace, whatever. But y'all, that's not Christianity. Christianity is submitting to Jesus as King because he's the King and then letting him set the goals. You can't try total commitment anymore, and then you could try out death.

If it's a try, it's not total. As King, he is our authority. As King, he gives us a mission.

This new kingdom has its own agenda and its own priorities. And when you become a Christian, you become agents of that kingdom. Just as there is no such thing as a Christian who is not submitted to Jesus as Lord, there's also no such thing as a Christian who is not on mission. Jesus said we are supposed to pray over every situation in our life.

Remember the Lord's prayer that we all memorized when we were kids if you grew up in church? We always are supposed to say, let your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven, which means that in every dimension of my life, in my job, with my money, in every relationship, I am saying, what is the kingdom's purpose in this? You cannot have Jesus as your Savior if you have not submitted to him as King.

There's no such thing as a Christian who's not living as an agent for the kingdom. As a King, okay, he's an authority. As a King, he has a mission. As a King, he reigns. This passage says that the King will appoint his people a place where they will dwell in safety and never be disturbed or afflicted by violent men. And you know, I know it doesn't always feel like that now, because we look around and we see all kinds of oppression and sickness and danger, and we see all kinds of kingdoms that look stronger than Jesus's.

But you know what? Our King defeated death itself, which shows me that he's got power over all those things. And I believe him when he says that he is working all those things now according to the counsel of his will and for my good. I believe him when he tells me that the Democrats are not in charge, the Republicans are not in charge, Putin's not out there doing what he wants, Kim, John, whatever his name is, is not out there running crazy over there in North Korea.

None of that stuff is what ultimately is in charge. Jesus is the King and he reigns, right? He's not just a personal savior who forgives my sins. He's the reigning King who promises to come again soon and wipe away every tear from my eye. And in the meantime, he promises to use all my pain for my good and for his glory. Over cancer, he reigns. Over nations, he reigns.

Over difficult relationships in my life and relational challenges, he reigns. So what exactly was promised to David? A house, a permanent dwelling place for God on earth, and an eternal kingdom. Both of those were fulfilled partially in Solomon. They are fulfilled ultimately in Jesus. Number two, on what basis did God make this promise?

One word, grace. This kingdom was not something David would do for God, something God would do for David. Already in our study of David, we've seen that David is a pretty flawed individual, have we not?

It's only going to get worse from here. In a few chapters, we're going to have the whole Bathsheba incident where David takes the wife of one of his right-hand men, sleeps with her, and then has that innocent guy murdered. So God says to David, this is not about you and your goodness building something for me.

You could never earn this if you tried, David. It's about me and my goodness giving something to you. Y'all, that might be the hardest lesson to learn in Christianity. We come to God not with anything to give, only to receive. The reason that's really hard is because it cuts against every ounce of pride I have. I come to God as a beggar with literally nothing to offer. I am poor, wretched, naked, and blind. Whatever I've got to offer to God is like a filthy rag.

And if you think that comes easy or naturally, then you've never actually done it. Billy Graham used to say that it's not usually people's sins that keep them out of heaven. It's their good works. God has abundant mercy even for the biggest sins. It's people's pride in their good works, he said, and their sense of personal worthiness that keep them from throwing themselves on that mercy. Y'all, in the same way, it's not our weaknesses that keep us from being used by God.

That's what you think it is. Well, God can't use me because I'm weak here, and I don't know this, and I can't do that. It's not your weaknesses that keep you being used by God.

It's your strengths, because your strengths keep you from allowing God to do what he's offered to do. Church historians say that it was this emphasis, the emphasis on our utter spiritual poverty that characterized the preaching of the great awakening. They say you could summarize the preaching of the great awakening as two basic points. Point number one, repent of your wrongdoing. Everybody's like, duh.

That's the obvious one. Turn from your sin. But what caught everybody off guard was the evangelist's second point.

Repent of your strengths, because your strengths have filled you with pride and kept you from throwing yourselves on God's mercy. There was one farmer alive at the time. The man was named Nathan Cole. He was in the crowd listening as one of these great evangelists preached, and he wrote about the experience in a journal, a journal that has survived to this day, and it's got so many precious things in it. But I love how he described listening to the preaching of the great awakening.

Here's what he says. My hearing him preach gave me a heart wound. By God's blessing, my old foundation was broken up, and I saw that my righteousness could not save me, and I turned to God for mercy.

The old foundation was broken up. For God to build you a house to make you part of this kingdom, he's got to break up your old foundation, and that's the hardest work he's going to have to do in your life. It's not turning from your sins. That's the hard thing. It's turning from your righteousness. That's the hard thing.

If I were to ask you, for example, why do you think God will let you into heaven? And you answer with anything about you. Well, I'm a good person. Well, I'm not as bad as I used to be. I'm trying my hardest. I go to church sometimes.

Then your old foundation hadn't been broken up yet. You see, I got just one answer. This is all my hope and peace. Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Nothing in my hands I bring simply to that cross I cling.

I speak Jesus. If I ask you, what do you think is going to make you a successful parent? Or if I ask you, why do you think you can live an effective Christian life? And you point to anything about you.

Well, then that old foundation hadn't broken up yet. You're still trying to build a house for God. You haven't learned yet the truth of John 15 five, where Jesus said, apart from me, you can do nothing. You want to do something great for God? Give up any idea that you can do something great for God. Greatness is not with you.

It's with him. My righteousness, my strength, my hope, it's all with him. One of the early missionary explorers in Africa, David Livingston, in his travels, he learned about an African custom on certain parts of the African continent, where if you made a treaty with another tribe, the chief would take a knife and literally carve his symbol like a tattoo into your arm. Some chiefs would have half a dozen or so of those symbols. So say when you're out by yourself or you're with a small group of people and you were attacked, you would uncover your arm and raise it up. And you would be saying, my strength is not just what you see here around me. My strength is all this power represented by these symbols on my arm. This is what the Christian does. When the guilt and the shame of my sin taunts me, when the challenge is presented by parenting or my own sinful struggles, my own insecurities, when they threaten to overwhelm me, I unsheathe my arm. And I say, my righteousness and my strength are not what you see here. My strength comes from my king who has put his mark into my soul, and my help cometh from the Lord. So what was the promise?

A house. What was the basis of the promise? Grace.

Number three, what's our response? Verse 18. Then King David went in and sat before the Lord and said, Who am I? Who am I, O Lord God?

And what is my house? As you brought me thus far. And what more can David say to you because of your promise? And according to your own heart, you have brought about all this greatness to make your servant see the word?

Know it. The heart of the gospel is not spelled D-O, but D-O-N-E. An important an important distinction we talk about often here on Summit Life. If you missed any part of today's message or would like to catch up on this teaching series, you can always view them online free of charge at jdgrier.com. And speaking of this series, Pastor JD, we have a great companion resource to go along with the life of David teaching on the program right now.

Can you tell us why it works so well with this series? Well, it's one thing to listen to preaching on a passage of scripture. That's a great thing.

But it's another to dive into the text yourself. I'm actually just right now we're taking a trip over to Germany for the Reformation tour. And one of the big things that caused the Reformation to really be the Reformation was it was ordinary people that were beginning to read the Bible for themselves. So I'm grateful. I really am humbled that day by day you would listen to me open the word.

And I hope that I proved to be a trustworthy source. But there is just nothing quite as powerful or as important as you getting into the Bible yourself. That means reading the passages, because sometimes you might say, hey, I'm not sure I, you know, you might look at it differently. But more often than not, you'll find some application that I just wasn't thinking about that the Holy Spirit will say, here's what I want this passage to do in your life. So anyway, that's the value of a companion resource is it's without having my voice crowding out, you'll just have the Bible and the Holy Spirit.

And you as you see what the things in these stories say to you specifically. So if you've loved it, if you love the teaching series, as I hope you have, grab it jdgrayer.com and go deep. Thanks, JD. We are excited about this brand new Life of David Bible study. And we'd love to send it to you with your gift of $35 or more to this ministry. To give call us now at 866-335-5220. That's 866-335-5220.

Or you can give online at jdgrayer.com. I'm Molly Vidovitch inviting you to join us tomorrow for the conclusion of today's teaching called Who Gives and Who Receives. That's Thursday right here on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by J.D. Greer Ministries.