Sermon on 1 Chronicles 13–16: Bringing God back to the centre when hope turns to disappointment
A sermon by James de Costobadie, Senior Pastor at Latimer Church, working through 1 Chronicles chapters 13 to 16.
Summary
James de Costobadie preaches through 1 Chronicles 13–16, addressing the theme of disappointment — both for the original post-exilic readers of Chronicles and for contemporary Christians. He argues that David's first act as king, bringing the Ark of God back to the centre of Israel's life, is a model for how believers should respond to unmet hopes: not by running from God, but by running toward him. The sermon draws out three imperatives: remember the Lord's holiness (illustrated by Uzzah's death and the danger of approaching God casually), be confident in the Lord's promises (even when circumstances suggest otherwise), and be joyful in the Lord's presence (as seen in the great procession and psalm of thanksgiving in chapters 15–16).
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Introduction: Disappointment and the people of God
James de Costobadie: We're continuing in our series in 1 Chronicles. If you're here this morning and that seemed a bit foreign — of course it is foreign. It was written to a different culture a long time ago. But the amazing thing about the Word of God is that it speaks to all people everywhere at all times. So let's have a think about what it's saying to us this morning in these chapters — chapters 13 to 16.
Dealing with disappointment can be a very difficult thing in life. The disappointment that life has not worked out as we thought or hoped it would. The disappointment that our dreams have not been realised and we're the ones to pick up the pieces. The disappointment that sometimes comes from a sudden turn of events, or at other times the disappointment that builds slowly or comes from repeated failure — ours or someone else's.
And maybe in an odd way it's actually harder for Christians who are left dealing with disappointment, whose hopes and dreams have shrivelled. After all, we believe in a God who loves us and who cares for us, which raises the question: why has he allowed the situation in which we find ourselves to develop as it has? Why hasn't he sorted it out? Why has he not answered our prayers?
Well, perhaps those were the sentiments of the people to whom this book of Chronicles was first written. Returning from the exile, they had ridden the crest of the wave, but now, sometime later, hope had turned to disappointment. We're now over a century later — maybe even up to two centuries later — so somewhere between 400 and 300 BC. And manifestly, the situation has not turned out as they had hoped. The promises of God do not seem to have been fulfilled. There has been no great revival. There has been no restoration of the nation as Scripture had led them to believe. And great hope had turned to great disappointment.
The structure of Chronicles so far
And into this situation, the chronicler writes these words for them. Chapters 1 to 9, he recounted all the genealogies from Adam onwards — how God in fact has been faithful over the generations, how he has been calling a people to himself — with the subtext being that if they keep their trust in him, God will add them to the story as well. It's his story as well as their story, and they can be the next chapter if they keep on believing. Then chapters 10 to 12 reaffirm God's plans to establish a great kingdom through a great king that he had promised. Okay, there may not be a great kingdom at the moment back in Israel. They may not have a king at all, which they don't. But he's promised to do this, and it would be fulfilled — as we've noted — through David's greatest son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Which brings us today to David's first act as king. I mean, you become king — what are you going to do first? And the first and great thing that David would do would be to get the Ark of God, God's symbolic presence, and bring this into the centre of the people.
These readers may have suffered from disappointment regarding the promises of God which have not yet been fulfilled. What they needed to know was that the right response to disappointment is to make God your centre. It doesn't work out to run from God. It's no good to put your fingers in your ears and say, "He's not hearing me, so I'm not going to listen to him." Don't say, "I don't like his script, so I'm going to write my own." Go the other way and run towards him. Make him the centre of your life. Because that's what David does for the nation here. He brings Yahweh — the God of Israel, the God of the covenant — into the centre of the nation's life. Because that's the way to deal with disappointment and give hope for the future.
And as you do so, remember these three things from these chapters.
Point one: Remember the Lord's holiness
First of all, remember the Lord's holiness.
The beginning of chapter 13, we see that David has a plan. The plan comes in verse 3. Have a look down: "Let us bring the ark of our God back to us, for we did not inquire of it during the reign of Saul." Straight away, he picks up on Saul's downfall. And his downfall — we saw last week in 1 Chronicles 10, verse 14 — was that he did not inquire of the Lord. Saul was the king, the first king of Israel. He thought he could cut his own path. He thought he could rule by himself. He thought he could make up the rules for Israel. He had cut God out of the nation and out of his own life. And David here has learned from that.
So he puts it to the elders and the people — actually in a great show of unity — that they should bring the ark back to Jerusalem. Verse 2: "He said to the whole assembly of Israel, 'If it seems good to you, and if it is the will of the Lord our God, let us send word far and wide to the rest of our brothers throughout the territories of Israel, and also to the priests and the Levites who are with them in their towns and pasture lands, to come and join us.'" In other words, this is something for the whole nation — to bring the presence of God back into the centre.
And the way they would do that is by bringing the ark back to Jerusalem. The ark was the gift of God. It was a box, roughly a metre in length, a bit less on the height and the depth. It was the only piece of furniture that was to sit in the most holy place in the tabernacle. And inside the ark were three items. There were the stone tablets — you remember how Moses wrote the Ten Commandments up the mountain? Those stone tablets were to go in the ark. And also a jar of manna and Aaron's rod — Aaron the first priest. In other words, it's a symbol within the ark: a symbol of God's deliverance and a symbol of his rule. So you've got the symbols of God saving his people — the jar of manna and Aaron's rod — and a symbol of the Lord who ruled his people. Lord and Saviour.
And then on the outside, the top of the ark is made of solid gold. And on each end there is this carved cherubim — the angel. And above the cover and between the cherubim, that is God's throne. Or maybe more accurately, his footstool, where he will meet with the people. From this place he will express his sovereign rule over the nation and, in fact, over all nations. This is where he is.
In other words, what's going on here with this ark? What is going on is David making provision to bring the presence of God back into the centre of the people. So that they might do what Saul had not done — which was inquire of the Lord — that they might submit themselves to the Lord as the Lord of their lives and the Lord of their nation.
So David puts it into action. Verse 5, he assembles all the Israelites from the Shihor River in Egypt — that's the deep south — to Lebo Hamath — that's the far north — gets them all together, and it's going to be a journey with the whole nation involved. So it comes out so clearly: verse 5, all the Israelites; verse 6, all the Israelites; when they come to celebrate in verse 8, all the Israelites. They're all in on this together because it's about bringing the presence of God back into the centre of the nation.
Verse 6, they collect it from Kiriath-Jearim. Interestingly, that's only about eight miles west of Jerusalem. So it's not like a massive journey geographically. But it is a massive journey spiritually. Because when you bring God back into the centre of your life, that is a huge step. And that's what it is for these people here — it's a massive difference in spiritual terms.
But it's at this point that it goes wrong. Verse 7, we're told that they moved the Ark of God on a new cart. There's a backstory to that — they shouldn't be using a cart. We'll come on to that a bit later. Then it doesn't go well for them because, verse 9, the oxen who are dragging the cart stumble, and this man Uzzah sticks out his hand because the ark is wobbling, puts his hand on the ark, and we read there in verse 10 that he died there before God. God struck him down. You don't touch the ark because you cannot touch God. To come into the presence of God is like arriving on the surface of the sun without any protective gear. His blazing purity, his burning holiness means that Uzzah cannot survive.
On the 26th of April, we've just had the 40th anniversary of Chernobyl — the world's worst nuclear disaster. And I was just reminding myself — I watched the fictionalised account, but I think lifelike at the same time — that five-part series. And when the reactor core first exploded, what do you do? There's a fire there, so they call the fire brigade. And the firemen come, and these poor firemen put out the fire in the presence of radioactive material. And in the days afterwards you trace the lives of the firemen as their faces begin to go red with radioactive poisoning. There's one particularly moving scene in that series with a young wife of one of the firemen who rushes to the hospital, then she's told it's a different hospital, goes to that hospital, she's told she can't come in, but she manages to evade the medical people. She finds the corridor, she finds the room, and then just as she's about to go into the room, a nurse stops her — this is their last chance — and says, "Do not touch your husband." She goes in there and the husband is bleeding with redness and radioactive poisoning, and she gives him a hug, and the baby that she's carrying doesn't survive as a result.
Now, make God the centre of your life — but be careful. Immediately here, the mood changes and the festive celebration turns into fear and even despair. Verse 11, David is first of all angry because the Lord's wrath has broken out against Uzzah. And then verse 12, he's afraid — afraid of God that day — and asks, "How can I ever bring the ark of God to me?" In other words, how can we live in the presence of God?
Here is a question for humanity. Ever since the Garden of Eden: how can a sinful humanity live in the presence of a sinless God, a God who is holy? And when people don't know God, they don't imagine it's a problem. They imagine it's just a small thing to walk into the presence of God. They imagine that if there is a place called heaven, one day the gates will swing open for them and people can just walk in. They're horrified that God would keep anyone out of heaven. Whereas the Bible has it the other way around: how could God let anyone into heaven and keep them alive? By ourselves we couldn't come close.
And of course there is an answer to David's question — an answer that will come very soon. We noted that Chronicles in the Old Hebrew Bible was the last book of the Old Testament. And so it's not long before you get into Matthew chapter 1 — just one page, in fact — where you see that Jesus is the answer. That Jesus had come for the sins of his people. And that at the cross of Christ, God's holiness would break out — but not against us, but against his own Son, who would absorb the wrath of God for our sins. So that we now can make God the centre.
But don't do it lightly. Don't do it casually. Don't come to God while you're still clutching your sins and holding onto them behind your back. Don't come to God saying the right words on a Sunday but with no intention of changing on a Monday, because we cannot approach God on our terms. There's only one way to approach God, and that's on our knees with faith in the King that he has given to us.
And I think that tension between God's holiness and our need to make God the centre is something that we have to wrestle with. And C.S. Lewis, in a lesser-known passage, writes very powerfully on this. This comes from The Silver Chair, where there's a girl called Jill, and she's had an interaction which is the backstory to this. And she's now desperate for a drink. There's a brook — a river from which to drink — just in front of her. But next to the river is Aslan, with whom she's had this interaction.
C.S. Lewis (quoted): "The lion said to her, 'Are you not thirsty?' She said, looking at the water, 'I'm dying of thirst.' 'Then drink,' said the lion. And she said, 'Well, would you mind going away first before I drink?' And the lion answered this only by a look and by a low growl. And as Jill gazed at his motionless bulk, she realised she might as well have asked the whole mountain to move aside for her convenience. The delicious, rippling noise of the stream was driving her nearly frantic. 'Will you promise,' she says to him, 'not to do anything to me if I do come?' The lion said, 'I make no such promise.' And Jill was now so thirsty that without noticing it, she had actually come a step nearer to the stream. She looked at the lion and she said, 'Do you eat girls?' He said, 'I have swallowed up girls and boys, women and men, kings and emperors, cities and realms,' said the lion. He didn't say this as if he was boasting, or as if he was sorry, nor as if he was angry. He just said it. 'Well, I dare not come for a drink,' said Jill. 'Then you will die of thirst,' said the lion. 'Oh dear,' said Jill, coming another step nearer. 'I suppose I must go and look for another stream then.' And the lion said, 'There is no other stream.'"
James de Costobadie: You have to come and drink from the Lord Jesus Christ if you want to live — if you want to live beyond this world. Maybe you're here this morning, not a Christian, never really thought about this. If you want to have life after this world, you have to drink from Jesus. But beware that when you come to him, you're coming to the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. You can only come to him by submitting to him. You can only come to him by recognising who he is.
So make God the centre of your life by coming to him, but remember his holiness.
Point two: Be confident in the Lord's promises
Then secondly, make God your centre and be confident in the Lord's promises.
Well, at the end of chapter 13, the ark gets parked outside of the city in the house of this person, Obed-Edom. Now, I don't know how Obed felt when someone said, "Good news for you — we've had a few problems, but we're now going to put the ark in your garage for a little while. Is that all right?" I'm not sure how he felt about it. But anyway, it turns out it's a great thing. Verse 14: it's there for three months, and the Lord blessed his household and everything he had, because the Lord is a good God, and blessed Obed-Edom.
And then two things happen in chapter 14 to confirm that the Lord is committed to his purposes. There's a hanging question here because of what's happened to Uzzah. But chapter 14 says, no, no, no — he's absolutely committed to his purposes. Verse 2, David expresses that. He said he knew that the Lord had established him as king over Israel and that his kingdom had been highly exalted for the sake of his people Israel.
And then two things happen to confirm it. First of all, Hiram sends all this material for the establishment of the palace. Verse 1: "Hiram, king of Tyre, sent messengers to David along with cedar logs, stonemasons and carpenters to build a palace for him." Hiram was far more established than David — a long-established Canaanite king. But for whatever reason suits his own purposes, he sends all of these provisions to help build a palace and establish David's kingship. There's the wood, there's the people who can actually do something — the stonemasons, the carpenters. He sends it all because God is going to make sure that his king establishes his kingdom. And this is another one of those times when God moves the heart of a pagan to help build his kingdom. And that's one thing that confirms these promises are going to go ahead.
And the second is that God gives David victory over the Philistines. That's verse 8 onwards. The Philistines come forward and scout him out so they can attack him. And this time, David does the right thing. Unlike Saul, David does the right thing — verse 10 — and inquires of the Lord: "Shall I go and attack the Philistines? Will you hand them over to me?" And the Lord says, "Go on then, go and do it." And David does, and he defeats them.
And interestingly, verse 12, the Philistines abandon their gods at the place of their defeat. David gave orders to burn them in the fire. That is: when you realise that you're against God and God's against you, it makes sense to abandon the things you've been living for. There is no future in them. Your friends might be living for money, success, a relationship, something else — it's very easy to set your heart on those things because that's what everyone else is doing. There is no future in making those the centre of your life. One day, as they say, you will run out of road. The Philistines here realise they've been living for the wrong thing. They abandon their gods because they can't help them in the day of their defeat. Just like those other things in life won't help us one day when we need them most — when we're on a hospital bed at the end of our life. They can't help us in that day. The Philistines abandon them and David burns them.
Then there's another incident. David, verse 14, inquires of God again. And God answers him this time: "Don't go straight up, but encircle them. And when you hear the sound of marching in the tops of the trees, move out to battle, because that will mean that God has gone out in front of you." And David did as God said. They struck them down. And verse 17 is the result: David's fame spread throughout every land, and the Lord made all the nations fear him.
So what this is saying is that God has a plan for his king to be victorious, and he would ensure that he would be.
Now, we need to know the same. Maybe, like the readers of Chronicles, disappointment is our theme. And maybe life has not given us what we had hoped. But maybe, too, God has a greater plan and we need to be ready for that. They talk about the prosperity gospel, don't they? The problem with the prosperity gospel is not the prosperity — that's not the problem with it, because the prosperity is absolutely right. If you put your faith in Jesus, you will be blessed physically with more than you can ever imagine. The problem is not the prosperity, it's the timing of it. That blessing will come when Jesus returns.
And these readers of Chronicles needed to know that God would bring them victory — yes, over sin, over Satan, as he has at the cross — but one day over sickness and sadness and sorrow as well, when that will be banished. And what we have to do to gain those blessings is to wait — to wait until the day when the King is enthroned, in other words, when Jesus returns.
And the wonderful truth is, just as the believers who received this letter were not at the end of their story and had to wait for the coming of Christ, so we're not at the end of our story either. We've got to wait for his second coming. The final chapter is still to be written when he returns. And on that day, our hopes will blossom into a reality that is far better, far more colourful, far brighter than we ever could have dreamed.
So be confident in the Lord's promises, in his purposes. Make him your centre, even if life is not like that now, because you're confident about the Lord's promises for the future.
Point three: Be joyful in the Lord's presence
And then thirdly, make him your centre and be joyful in the Lord's presence.
Now, this is chapters 15 and 16. After the aborted attempt in chapter 13 to bring the ark back, they have another go. But this time, proper preparations are made. A couple of differences. First of all, it's the Levites who do it, as they should have done. They're the ones who are consecrated before the Lord. They're the ones who are going to be doing this. And this time, instead of the cart — which they actually shouldn't have done, they were told they shouldn't have done — it's brought on poles. So you see in verse 15: "The Levites carried the Ark of God with the poles on their shoulders."
Now, I don't know if you've ever had the sad privilege of being a pallbearer at a funeral. Those things are pretty heavy — the wooden casket and the body inside. Well, you imagine here: gold on the top. Lifting this thing up. And they bring it. But alongside it, there is so much joy. And that's really the emphasis here — the joy.
Verse 16: "David told the leaders of the Levites to appoint their brothers as singers to sing joyful songs, accompanied by musical instruments — lyres, harps and cymbals." And in verse 22, he appoints Kenaniah as the team leader to be in charge of the singing. That was his responsibility because he was good at it. So he's leading the team. They've got the full band and they're singing joyful songs.
Verse 28: "So all Israel brought up the ark of the covenant of the Lord with shouts and the sounding of rams' horns and trumpets and of cymbals, and the playing of lyres and harps." They're singing because when you put God at the centre, it actually brings joy to the people. That's what it is.
It's so different to how people imagine, isn't it? People imagine that if you allow God to get too close to you, he would spoil your life. He would take away from your life. And that's because they imagine that God is a taker. But he's not. God is the giver. And you may like to reflect this morning, if you've never thought about this before, that everything you enjoy in life is not just luck that it's fallen into your hands, and it's not just by the sweat of your own brow — it's because God has given it to you. Maybe you do have difficulties in life, but you also have good things as well. And whether those are material things, or family, or friends, or experiences you've had — whatever it is — any good things that we enjoy come from the generous hand of a generous God. And so to bring God back into the centre actually brings joy to the people.
But interestingly, one person won't join in. Verse 29 of chapter 15: "As the ark of the covenant of the Lord was entering the city of David, Michal, daughter of Saul, watched from a window. And when she saw King David dancing and celebrating, she despised him in her heart."
Michal was the daughter of Saul. She doesn't like the fact that David is the appointed king and is revelling in the Lord, because she wishes her father was still the king. It's self-interest at play. She would have been better off. And some people are like that. They will not turn to the Lord. And indeed, they look down on those who have turned to the Lord because they want to rule their own life. They don't want to submit to the king that the Lord has installed. They want to do things their own way. And if that's you here today, perhaps you can relate to that. And of course, what she should have done was come downstairs and actually join in, knowing that this could have been the greatest blessing for her as well. But she wouldn't, so she missed out.
And the reason those who don't praise is that they don't understand who God is. Those who don't want to sing about him don't value him. But when you do understand who he is and what he's done, then you want to sing. And Christians love to sing. I remember it being said — 30 years ago now — I remember being in a service and it was just said from the front: "Christians love to sing because they believe that in Jesus, they have much to sing about." Absolutely true.
The psalm of thanksgiving in chapter 16
So chapter 16, they bring the ark in. In verse 3, they get given a goodie bag — he gives them a loaf of bread and a cake of dates and a cake of raisins to each Israelite man and woman. Let's join in this together. It's all part of the celebration. Some of the Levites are appointed as the chief ministers and they get the musicians in order. And then David gives this great psalm of thanks to the Lord, which we don't have time to look at in full this morning.
Verses 7 to 22, he praises God as the covenant keeper. Verses 23 to 33, he praises God as the creator. And verses 34 to 36, he praises God for his mercy. Just have a look at verse 34:
"Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good. His love endures forever. Cry out, 'Save us, O God our Saviour. Gather us and deliver us from the nations, that we may give thanks to your holy name, that we may glory in your praise.' Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting. And all the people said, 'Amen. Praise the Lord.'"
Conclusion: Recapturing who God is
Now, just as we finish, I think it's worth remarking that I'm not sure the readers of this felt like praising God. There they were back in the land, but very much in a time of small things and very much not on a spiritual high. Maybe you can relate to that as well. They're being reminded here, though, of realities beyond their circumstances. Maybe disappointment was their current experience, but what they needed to do was recapture what their God was like and actually bring him back into the centre of their lives. Stop running from him. Bring him back into the centre.
And as for them, so with us. Whatever our situation in life, to come to him and submit to him — knowing that he wants us to live with him, he knows what we're like as no one else does, and yet still wants us to be with him as no one else ever will — to bring God back into the centre. But as you do, remember his holiness. Be confident in his promises. And then be joyful in his presence.