Today on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Because of your past, you might label yourself divorcee, cheater, thief, adulterer, absent father, abuser, criminal, compromiser, coward, alcoholic, failure. But God's got a new label for you.
And from this point forward, your life can be defined not by the sins you committed, but by the good that you do. And it is time for some of you to get on with that. Hello, and welcome back to Summit Life with Pastor J.D.
Greer. As always, I'm your host, Molly Vitovich. We're nearing the end of our Life of David teaching series that we've been hanging out in for several weeks now. And as we do, we're looking at the final days of David's life. It's no wonder that David closes the sum of his life by glorifying God's power in redemption, because there is nothing quite as amazing as God taking a life ruined by sin, like David's, and making it new. Today, Pastor J.D. continues to look at what we're calling David's life song and shares the three things that God's salvation gives us. Because of the Gospel, we can say with David, God is my hope, my savior, and my restoration.
So let's rejoin Pastor J.D. as he brings us God's word today. In 2 Samuel 22 and 23, the editor of 2 Samuel uses a song that David wrote at a point earlier in his life to summarize David's whole life. David actually wrote this song right after God had delivered him from the hand of Saul.
So many, many, many years, probably 30 years before he died. Textually, it's important to note that the editor puts this song of David here at the end of 1 Samuel to mirror the song of Hannah that the editor used to open the book. I'm not going to read this song in its entirety. I hope that you will do that this week, if you have not yet. What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna draw three dominant themes from this song, three truths about God that David believes that his life proclaims and illustrates. Number one, David says, God, my hope.
God, my hope. Let me again read to you verse two. Verse two, the Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock and whom I take refuge. My shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold and my refuge, my savior. Verse four, I will call upon the Lord who is worthy to be praised and I am saved from my enemies. If there is one thing that David's life teaches us, it is that God will be the strength and the shield and the sword for all those who trust him. I love how the missionary Hudson Taylor, missionary to China, I love how he summarized it. He says, all of God's giants, all of God's giants in Christian history have been weak men and women who did great things for God because they reckoned on God being with them.
That was it. Just weak people, shepherd boys who knew God was with them. God's giants are weak men and women who reckon that God is with them and their hope for any kind of success is the grace of God.
And they apply this literally to every part of their lives. So lesson number one, David says, God, my hope. Lesson number two, David says, God, our savior.
God, our savior. When David first wrote these words about God being his horn of salvation and his deliverer, he had no idea the extent to which he would need those things to be true. You see, when David first wrote those things, he thought of them mainly as God's promise to save him from his enemies, to deliver him from those like Saul who were trying to destroy him. What David did not realize was that the main way that God would deliver him would be from himself. See, by the time we get to this point in the book of 2 Samuel, we're not sure how to feel about David anymore, are we? In some ways, he's shown great promise. He's been awesome.
He's done some great things. But then again, we got the whole terrible Bathsheba incident and he's murdered Uriah, one of his most loyal men. And then we got Tamar's story and Absalom's story, which present David at best as an absent and disengaged father. Even here at the end of the book, David still has left Joab in power.
He didn't have the courage to remove Joab, who is a murderous jerk. And so the words of this song put at the end of David's life have a deeper meaning than David first realized when he altered them. God is going to deliver David and save him not just from his enemies, he's going to save him from himself. And so we end the books of 1 and 2 Samuel, we end them realizing that they're not ultimately about David. They're supposed to show us how David points to another king, a greater king who would be that righteous king that Hannah prophesied would come, who would be that king that we've always craved, that king who would himself be our rock, our refuge, our deliverer, and our salvation. When David said in this song, God my savior, he had no idea how much he would need that to be true. At this point in the book, we see that David's ultimate hope was anchored, thank God, in that one way unconditional promise that God had made to David in 2 Samuel 7. Do y'all remember when we went through that chapter, 2 Samuel 7, how David had started off the chapter saying to God, God, I'm going to build something great for you, a temple that will be the biggest one in the world. And God corrected him and said, David, no, no. This whole thing is not about you doing something for me, it's about me doing something for you. David, you're never going to be able to build me anything, you're too weak, you're too sinful, you're about to fail. In fact, you're about to make decisions that are going to devastate not just the nation, but your family.
So this is going to be about what I'm going to do for you because I'm going to succeed where you're going to fail. Friend, listen, every other religion in the world, all of them, without exception, are spelled D-O. Do. Do great things for God. Be a good father, be honest, be kind, give money to the church, do great things for the poor, and he will accept you. The gospel of David is spelled D-O-N-E, done. It's a one-way promise that you simply receive. It's not about what you do, it's about what you receive. It's not about what you do for God that he rewards you for, it's about what, well, what God gives to you that you glorify him for.
Let me say that again. It's not about what you do for God that he rewards you for, that's every other religion. It's about what God gives to you that you glorify him for. And so that brings us to the final and what is perhaps the best, though most confusing part of this song.
You ready? Write this down. Number three, God my restoration. God my restoration. Look at verse 22.
I'm gonna just read it for you. The Lord, David says, dealt with me according to my righteousness. According to the cleanness of my hands, he rewarded me, for I have kept the ways of the Lord, and I have not wickedly departed from my God.
For all his rules were before me, and from his statutes I did not turn aside. I was blameless before him, and I kept myself from guilt, and the Lord has rewarded me according to my righteousness, according to my cleanness in his sight. We read this and we say, David, blameless is not the word that I'd use to describe your life. How could Bathsheba or Uriah or Tamar or any of us reading these stories say, yep, David was blameless and clean. Oh, clean.
Squeaky clean. He had kept the ways of the Lord and he did not wickedly depart from his God. Why would David say that?
Why would the editor include that here at the end of David's life? As I see it, y'all, there are three options for why that verse is in there. And I need you to really lean in here, okay?
Maybe physically actually lean in, because this is a little deep. I'm going to need you to put on your theological big boy pants for just a minute, okay? Here's option number one for why that's in there. Hagiography. That's just a fancy word that means you tell the most polished version of a person's life, leaving out all the bad parts.
You turn them into a hero. I remember as a kid, for example, reading a biography of George Washington. It was basically like George Washington didn't do wrong. He walked five miles to repay a penny somebody had overpaid him. He could not tell a lie when he chopped down the cherry tree. He was dauntless. He was fearless. He was a man with no flaws, and that's why America is awesome.
And y'all hear me. George Washington was a great man, but we know that he, like many great men, had inconsistencies, grievous inconsistencies. If you don't believe that, read Ron Chernow's 2010 biography of him. So is the author here trying to heroize David? He's trying to whitewash David's past?
Well, no. I mean, the same author that put this here also recorded all the bad stuff in the preceding chapters, and he's not trying to pretend that what he just recorded didn't happen. Whitewashing somebody's past is not only dishonest, it's also harmful for victims. It's hard for somebody who's been deeply hurt by somebody else to sit there and hear us talk about how this or that person was perfect or that era of history was perfect when they really suffered at the hands of that person or those people that we are lionizing.
I've heard victims say that being abused was bad enough, but then to see that victimizer present as if they had no flaws is even worse because it makes them feel completely invisible, like their past pain is invisible and irrelevant. So I do not think that's what the Bible is doing. The sin that David committed was real.
The pain he caused was real. The Bible has been clear about that. This is not hagiography.
This is not whitewashing. So option number two, as I see it, positional righteousness. Our second option is to say that these statements are declarations about David's positional righteousness in Christ. After all, the gospel is that God gives us Christ's righteousness, right? When you trust Jesus as your savior, your sin becomes his and his righteousness becomes yours. It's called gift righteousness. I've told you before that it's almost like you and Jesus are sitting together in class, taking a test, and you didn't study at all, so you fail spectacularly. But Jesus studied perfectly, so he aces it.
But when it comes time to turn in your papers, he takes yours and writes his name on it and then gives you his with, put your name on it, so that he gets your failing grade and you get his ace. At the cross, Jesus took our simple record and he gave us his perfect righteousness. So is that what's happening here? All these statements about David's righteousness, they're really about Christ's righteousness?
Is that what's going on here? Well, I mean, it's certainly true that the gospel is that we receive Christ's righteousness, but there are several things in this text that don't quite fit with that explanation, that indicate positional righteousness is not the full answer to that problem. I mean, look again at what David actually says. According to the cleanness of my hands, I have kept the ways of the Lord. Verse 22, I have not wickedly departed from my God. Verse 23, from his statutes, I did not turn aside.
I kept myself from guilt. The Lord has rewarded me according to my righteousness. Over and over, David uses the word my, my. If David's only pointing to the righteousness of Christ, that's an odd way of describing it. No, it's clear that David here is referring to actual good things that he himself did. Not good things that Jesus did, but good things that David did, which leads us to the third option, new creation righteousness. The third option is that this final song of David demonstrates for us the power and the reality of the restoration and the life of the believer. Thanks for being with us today here on Summit Life with pastor J.D.
Greer. To find out more about this ministry, visit us online at jdgreer.com. Did you know that each month we curate an exclusive resource as our way to say thank you to all of our gospel partners and financial supporters? This month's featured resource is a commentary that pastor J.D.
co-wrote with Heath Thomas called Exalting Jesus in First and Second Samuel. It's an incredible way to dive deeper into these two books of the Bible. And like the title suggests, this commentary is designed to help you see the message of the gospel through the Old Testament. We believe that all of the Bible is ultimately pointing to Jesus, including the story of King David and Israel.
And this commentary will help you understand where to see these pictures. It's great for personal Bible study, but also a huge help in preparing for teaching or discipleship opportunities. And we'd love to send you a copy with your gift of $35 or more to this ministry.
You can give at 866-335-5220 or give online at jdgreer.com. Now let's get back to today's teaching. Once again, here's pastor J.D. Let me point out to you something else that David said in another one of his songs.
What I'm going to say in the next few minutes is absolutely going to change some of your lives. So listen, David says, the Lord does not deal with us according to our sins, Psalm 103 10. In other words, David's sins are off the table.
Compare that to verse 21 of this psalm in 2 Samuel 22. The Lord dealt with me according to my righteous. He didn't deal with me according to my sins, which were real, but he is dealing with me according to my righteousness, which means David's righteous acts stay on the table. David's wicked deeds, off the table. David's wicked deeds, off the table. David's righteous deeds, still on the table. David had sinned grievously.
God does not remember those things anymore. But David also was the humble shepherd boy who depended on God when the world was arraigned against him. He showed real courage when he ran out to face Goliath while everybody else sat like cowards on the sidelines. David showed incredible patience and faith about not taking matters into his own hands when killing King Saul would have made things a lot easier for him. David showed extraordinary grace and generosity and forgiveness to his enemies. And God does remember all those things.
This is incredible. Because of salvation, God does not remember our wicked deeds, but he does remember our righteous ones. And that means, and again, this is going to change somebody's life today. Because of Jesus, our lives can be defined by the good that we do, not the sins that we committed. See, I'm talking with people right now today who have sinned grievously in their past. And I'm not trying to minimize or whitewash what you did.
The pain that you caused was real. In many cases, it needs restitution. In some cases, those choices leave lasting earthly consequences.
There are certain kinds of abuse that mean you'll never be able to re-engage in certain relationships this side of the resurrection. But the good news of the gospel is that even with the reality of those sins, your life can be defined not by the bad that you did, but by the works of faith and the good that you have done and will do in Jesus' name. Y'all, the final verdict on David's life, the final summation of his life, the label that scripture gives to David was not abuser, compromiser, negligent father, or murderer, even though all those things were true. The label over David's life the final verdict is humble man of faith, blameless one, gracious man of God, and man of courage. Because of your past, you might label yourself divorcee, cheater, thief, adulterer, absent father, abuser, criminal, compromiser, coward, alcoholic, failure. But God's got a new label for you. And from this point forward, your life can be defined not by the sins you committed, but by the good that you do.
And it is time for some of you to get on with that. Stop wallowing in the shame of your past and get on with the good that God has for you. Ephesians 2, 8, and 10.
Say it like this. It's by grace that you've been saved through faith. That's not of yourselves, it's the gift of God.
It's not of works, lest any man should boast. God sees us, Paul says, in Christ. Christ's righteousness given to me as a gift, but the verse goes on. Verse 10, for we are his workmanship. We're recreated in Christ Jesus for good works.
We should go and walk in them. What are you recreated for? What were you recreated for? You were recreated for good works. God saved you for the good that he was going to do through you and from you. And from now on, your life is going to be defined by those things.
By the way, the Greek word for workmanship is poema, where we get our word poem or song. In other words, God wants to write a song about your life too, like 2 Samuel 22 was for David's life. And the melody of that song, the chorus, the refrain is not the sins that you committed.
It's the works of faith and love that you pursued after you were forgiven. This is when God is at his best. Listen to a message recently by the famous African-American evangelist, Evie Hill. One of our worship pastors, Hank Murphy, gave it to me and said, you listen to this. The message was titled, when God was at his best. In the message, Dr. Hill went through a litany of things in the Bible, where we see God's power on display. Starts with creation. We look at the vast expanse of the stars, he says, or the breathtaking complexity of the human DNA strand.
Our minds are blown. Was God at his best there? I mean, those things are amazing, he said, but no, God was not at his best in creating those things. Dr. Hill then says, and I can never truly imitate him, so I'm not going to try.
Rich Bowman, our campus pastor at Downtown Durham, could definitely do it, but I can't. Dr. Hill says, and then God made this beautiful country of ours. He made Florida, gave it white sand, gave it to the South, gave it to tobacco and cotton and produce of every kind. He made the Midwest, gave it to wheat and to corn, made Texas and gave it to cows, made California and gave it to the hippies. Then he made North Carolina and he just decided to live here.
God was certainly showing off when he made this great country of ours. By the way, you say, wait a minute, you didn't mention New Jersey. That's right. God made the South, gave it to the South, gave it to the Midwest, gave it to New Jersey.
That's right. God did not make that. Man is to blame for that, not God. But then Dr. Hill asked, was God at his best when he created this great country of ours? No, no, he said it's amazing, but God was not at his best there.
How about the Exodus, he says, where God brought the people of Israel out of Egypt through the mighty plagues led by a pillar of cloud by day and pillar of fire by night. Was he at his best there? No, not even there. He says, fast forward to Mary's immaculate conception where God overshadowed Mary and made her conceive a son though she'd never known a man. And the baby she gave birth to was fully God and fully man. A miracle of miracles was God at his best there. No, no, he says not even there. So we come to the cross and resurrection and surely we say God had to be at his best there. Even there, Dr. Hill says, even there, God was not at his best.
No, E.V. Hill says, God was good in all those places, but God was at his best when he came into my life and saved me, changed me and made all things new in me. It took a miracle to put the stars in place.
It took a miracle to hang the world in space. But when he saved my soul, cleansed and made me whole, it took a miracle of love and grace. You know, there's nothing quite so spectacular as when God takes a life that has been ruined and marred by sin like David's and makes it new. When God takes what has been destroyed and broken and breathes new life into it, that's when God is at his best.
Now let me prove that to you. The apostle Peter says that angels long to look into the beauty of the gospel. They're jealous of us.
I love that phrase. They long to look with envy. They long to look. They can't get enough of it. They're jealous of our experience with the gospel.
Think about that. What does it take to impress an angel? Think of all that they've seen, all the things we talked about in the Bible they saw firsthand, but what makes them put their hands over their mouths, what makes them long to look again and again in wonder is the power of redemption at work in the lives of sinners like David and me and you. So it's no wonder that David closes the Psalm of his life glorifying God's power and redemption. Verse 50, for this I'll praise you, O Lord among the nations. For this I'll sing praises to your name. Great salvation he brings to his king.
He showed steadfast love to his anointed, to David and to his offspring forever for this, for his power of restoration and redemption. Friend, the salvation of our God gives you three things. It gives you forgiveness.
That's what we always talk about. Your sin is paid. It gives you power.
We talked about that a few weeks ago. God gives you power to break the cycle of sin, but here's the third thing. He gives you healing. He can heal what sin has destroyed. Isaiah 53 says, by his stripes we are healed. The cross not only gives you forgiveness, it includes provision for complete and total healing for you. In fact, we didn't even pray for physical healing on the basis of the cross. Healing from our sicknesses based on it. Does that mean that God always physically heals?
No. I mean, sometimes the full healing does not come until we get to heaven. But just because we don't experience the fullness of that healing in this life doesn't mean that it wasn't included in the cross or that we can't ask for an early installment of it. This morning God's cross offers you forgiveness from the penalty of sin, the power to overcome sin, and healing from the damage of sin. And there's no better picture of those than baptism.
It's a very important symbol. It's our first act of obedience in the New Testament. Peter compares it to the Exodus. God delivering us from our bondage to sin in Egypt, coming out through water.
Paul, who just wanted to stick it to Peter a little bit, said, well, I'll take it up a notch. It really compares to the death of Christ. We symbolically enter the death of Christ, all your old sins. Your Abigail and your Bathsheba and your Ryah and your Tamar and your Absalom.
All those moments are dying. You'll be raised a new life, a life that is defined not by the bad that you did, but by the good that God has called you to do and that He's created you for. Have you done that? If you were to write a song reflecting on your life, what would it say? Would you be able to say, like David, that God is your hope, your salvation, and your redemption? If you've never had a relationship with Jesus and have questions, we'd love to hear from you and pray with you. You can give us a call at 866-335-5220 or send us an email at requests at jdgrier.com. You know, we always want you to get as much spiritual growth as you possibly can out of the teaching here on Summit Life.
And to help you do that, our featured resource right now is a commentary co-written by Pastor JD called Exalting Jesus in First and Second Samuel. To get your copy, simply call us at 866-335-5220. That's 866-335-5220. Or you can give online at jdgrier.com. That's jdgrier.com. And while you're there, why not consider becoming one of our gospel partners? This generous group of monthly supporters truly makes Summit Life possible. Again, head to jdgrier.com today to join the gospel partner team. While you're on the website, don't forget to sign up for our weekly newsletter. Get ministry updates, information about new resources, and Pastor JD's latest blog post delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up when you go to jdgrier.com. I'm Molly Vidovitch, and I hope you'll join us tomorrow as we start the final stretch toward the end of our Life of David teaching series with a message titled, And I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For. We'll see you on Friday. Today's program was produced and sponsored by JD Greer Ministries.
