Sermon on 1 Chronicles 17: God's promises to David teach humility, hope, and prayer
A sermon from Latimer Church working through 1 Chronicles 17, examining God's covenant promises to David and their fulfilment in Christ.
Summary
James de Costobadie (Costa), Senior Pastor at Latimer Church, preaches through 1 Chronicles 17 as part of a series through Chronicles. The chapter divides into two halves: God's promises to David and David's prayer of response. Costa argues that these promises teach three things: humility (because God's promises remind us that he does everything for us, not the other way around), hope (because the promises of a forever king find their fulfilment in Jesus Christ), and how to pray (because David's example shows that praying God's promises back to him is the most confident and effective form of prayer). Costa connects the passage to its post-exilic context, showing how the chronicler used these promises to encourage a shattered people that God had not abandoned them and that their future rested entirely with him.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Introduction and context
James de Costobadie: Good morning again. We're carrying on in 1 Chronicles, marching our way through. And we come today to one of the more important passages in the book. I mean, they're all important because it's God's Word, but some of them are particularly significant. And this is very significant. By pure coincidence — humanly speaking — it's exactly the same as what you were looking at in growth groups this week, if you are in a growth group. So I'm assuming your growth group looked at 2 Samuel 7 this week, and 2 Samuel 7 is almost word for word 1 Chronicles 17. I did at that point consider doing a little game of spot the difference and seeing who could find the most differences between the two. But we're not going to do that because we're going to focus on this chapter. Feel free to have a look during the week and email in your answers, and we'll have a winner for next week.
The chapter breaks into two main chunks. The first half is God's promises to David, and the second half is David's prayer of response. And there's an awful lot we can learn from it. It would actually be quite helpful to have broken it into two and done two sermons on it, but we're not. We're going to try and tackle the whole lot.
What we're going to focus on is what these promises teach. And they teach, I think, at least three things. God's promises here teach humility. God's promises here teach hope. And God's promises here teach us to pray. They teach us humility, they teach us hope, and they teach us to pray.
Before we dip into it, I am going to pray and ask God to help us. So let's bow our heads. Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for your word. We thank you that it is light and it is life. Thank you that it contains the words of life. Thank you that it points us to the Lord Jesus, all he has done for us, and all he will do for us. And as we come to it now, we pray, Lord, that you would give us understanding. Lord, through your Spirit, give us eyes to see the truths that you would have us hear, and give us hearts to believe it and be changed by it. We pray that in Jesus' name. Amen.
The post-exilic context of Chronicles
A reminder of the context. Chronicles was written, we think, roughly somewhere between 200 and 400 before Christ. So it's definitely post-exile. The people of Israel had been carted off to Babylon, had a terrible time there, and then they came back. And what they came back to was just incredibly depressing. The entire city of Jerusalem had been razed to the ground. The temple — their beloved temple — was gone. And they were just a small remnant, surrounded by enemies. It was kind of worst-case scenario for God's people.
And it's in that context that the chronicler writes a bit of a history of Israel, because he is teaching his people a few things. He is teaching them that they are God's people. He is teaching them that he has not forgotten them. He is teaching them that actually everything will be okay because God is God and he is their God. And this chapter is particularly significant with that in mind.
David's desire to build a house for God
As far as the recounting of history goes, we're up to King David. David is now king in Israel. The nation is united under him. He's made Jerusalem his capital. He has brought the Ark of the Covenant of God into Jerusalem, and it says he's put it in its place under a tent. David himself has a very fancy palace. We're told in chapter 14 that King Hiram of Tyre had sent a whole lot of expensive cedar, had sent tradesmen — builders and stonemasons — and had built David a really flash palace.
And David has moved into his palace, we're told at the start of chapter 17. But something doesn't feel right. Maybe one morning he's standing at the window, sipping on his coffee, looking out, and he sees the tent where the Ark of the Covenant of God is. And he's like, this doesn't sit right with me. Here am I in my luxurious palace, and the Ark of the Covenant of God is in a tent.
And so he goes to Nathan the prophet and says, "Here I am living in a house of cedar while the ark of the covenant of the Lord is under a tent." Nathan replies to David, "Whatever you have in mind, do it, for God is with you." It's a slightly male conversation, isn't it? There's not a lot of detail. There's not much back and forth. David doesn't explain what he's got in mind. Nathan doesn't ask what he's got in mind. It's just kind of: I'm thinking this — okay, go. But Nathan knows David's heart. Nathan knows David has a heart which loves God, and so he's sure whatever David has in mind would please God.
But Nathan the prophet has spoken out of turn. That night God's word comes to him, and he was not right. And it's a little lesson about prophets in the Old Testament. Not everything a prophet said in those days was the word of God. When Nathan said to his wife, "I'm going up the shops to get some bread," that wasn't a prophecy from God. That was just Nathan's words. But when the word of the Lord was given to Nathan to pass on, and he then said to the people, "Thus says the Lord," that was the word of the Lord, and that carried the weight of divine authority.
And that's exactly what happens now. Nathan has spoken his words, but then God speaks his.
God's promises to David — the text
Verse 3: But that night the word of the Lord came to Nathan. And here is what he says. Verse 4:
"Go and tell my servant David, 'This is what the Lord says: You are not the one to build me a house to dwell in. I have not dwelt in a house from the day I brought Israel up out of Egypt to this day. I have moved from one tent site to another, from one dwelling place to another. Wherever I have moved with all the Israelites, did I ever say to any of their leaders whom I commanded to shepherd my people, "Why haven't you built me a house of cedar?"
Now then, tell my servant David, "This is what the Lord Almighty says: I took you from the pasture, from tending the flock, and appointed you ruler over my people Israel. I have been with you wherever you have gone, and I have cut off all your enemies from before you. Now I will make your name like the names of the greatest men on earth, and I will provide a place for my people Israel and will plant them so they can have a home of their own and no longer be disturbed. Wicked people will not oppress them anymore as they did at the beginning and have done ever since the time I appointed leaders over my people Israel. I will also subdue all your enemies.
I declare to you that the Lord will build a house for you. When your days are over and you go to be with your ancestors, I will raise up one of your offspring to succeed you, one of your own sons, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for me, and I will establish his throne forever. I will be his father, and he will be my son. I will never take my love away from him as I took it away from your predecessor. I will set him over my house and my kingdom forever. His throne will be established forever."
Huge words. Remarkable promises that God makes to his king David. And he just flips the table on David, doesn't he? David said, "I want to build a house for you." And what does God say? No. It's not you who's going to build a house for me. I am going to build a house for you. David had great plans for God's house. But God says, I have greater plans for yours, David.
First lesson: God's promises teach humility
And as we look at these promises, there are three things we learn. The first thing God's promises teach us here is humility. God's promises teach us humility because they're reminders that we need God and what he can do for us — not the other way around. Which is very humbling. God is very clear to David: I don't need this from you, but here's what you need from me. It's not about what you can do for me, David. It's about what I will do for you. He's reminding David who is who and who needs who.
First, he says to David, I don't need you to build me a house. I haven't needed a house to this point. I've been very happy in my tent. Someone will build me one, but not you. Secondly, he says, David, remember all I've done for you. I took you from the pasture. I appointed you as my ruler. I've been with you wherever you have gone. I have cut off all your enemies from before you. I have done that for you. And I'm not finished with you yet. I have even greater promises than that. He says, I am going to make your name great, like the greatest name on earth. I will build you a house, David. It will be a forever house. Your son will rule over my kingdom forever. Immense promises.
And God says, this is about what I am going to do for you. And you see it over and again in the passage. Fifteen times I count that God says "I" in these promises. I took you from the pasture. I have been with you wherever you have gone. I have cut off all your enemies. I will make your name great. I will provide a place for my people. I appointed leaders over my people. I will subdue all your enemies. I declare to you that I, the Lord, will build a house for you. I will raise up your offspring to succeed you. I will establish his kingdom. I will establish his throne forever. I will be his father. I will never take my love from him. I will set him over my house and my kingdom forever.
Do you get the point? You can't miss it. David, this is not about what you can do for me. This is about what I am going to do for you, the Lord says.
And David gets the point loud and clear. When you look at his prayer, what's the first thing he says? He says, "You, Lord, are God." Not David. You, Lord, are God. And David is simply his servant. God's promises have given David clarity on who is who. They've given him clarity on who helped who. And they've given him clarity on who needs who. And it's all about God.
And if you put yourself in the shoes of those exiles — those shattered, weak, post-exile Israelites — how incredibly helpful and encouraging is it to be humbled like this? Because the chronicler is reminding them: who made you who you were in the first place? It was God. Who raised you up? It was God. Who chose you to be his people? It was God. Who made promises about your king? It was God. And who doesn't need them to rebuild their own kingdom? It's God.
It is very humbling to know that God doesn't need you. It is very humbling to know that God is going to do everything for you. But how wonderfully humbling to know the responsibility doesn't sit with us — it's with him. How good for those poor Israelites to remember that God was responsible for them being his special people in the first place. He's the one who made them great. And he is the one who has made great promises about their future. He is their God and there is none like him. Their future success as a nation isn't going to come through their own efforts. They don't have to rebuild everything themselves. God made them who they were in the first place and he can make them even greater than that again.
And the chronicler is reminding them: remember what God has done and remember what God has promised to do. Remember who you are and remember who he is. These promises guaranteed the future of David's people. And the responsibility for fulfilling them did not rest with the people of Israel. It rested with God. They were his promises. Israel needed to remember who she was and who he is. They were God's people, and he is their God.
It is humbling, but it's exactly what they needed to hear. And that's what God's promises do for us. They remind us who it is that does the giving and who does the receiving. They remind us who is needy and who is not. They remind us who is dependent and who is not. They remind us our future depends not on what we do for God, but on what he does for us. It is humbling, but it's so freeing. It's not all about us. It's all about him.
And when we look at his promises, they're reminders that he is the God who does for us, and he is the God who will continue to do for us. Our relationship with him is not based on what we do, but on what he has done. And so how can we lose it? And our future is not based on what we will do, but on what he will do. It teaches us who is who. He is God, and we are his servants.
Paul makes a really similar point in Ephesians 1 to 3. The first three chapters of Ephesians are basically Paul saying, look at everything God has done for you. I was tempted to read the whole three chapters. I'm not going to. I encourage you maybe to do it when you go home. But Ephesians chapter 1, from verse 3, where Paul writes:
"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ in accordance with his pleasure and will, to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the one he loves. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins in accordance with the riches of God's grace that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and understanding, he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfilment, to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ."
And he goes on and on and on. It's all about what God does for us. It's not about what we do for him.
It's not an excuse to be lazy or passive. David goes on after this and does a whole lot of work preparing the temple. He works hard. But he remembers it's not about what David does for God, but about what God does for him. That's where our hope lies. It is very humbling, but it's absolutely the best place to be — right here in my place, with him above me. It is freeing. It is humbling. My future is not based on what I do for God. It's not based on my performance. It's based on what he does for me, on his promises. And that is very reassuring.
Make sure you know the promises of God, because they remind you that God is God and you are not. And that all you have and will have depends on him and not on you.
Second lesson: God's promises teach hope
So God's promises teach us to be humble. God's promises also teach us hope. How precious do you think it was for those post-exile Jews to be reminded of the promises of God at this point? Because they give them hope for the future. It must have felt so awful to go back to your home country and see it just demolished. There was nothing there, nothing good. Surrounded by enemies, you're a small people. You're starting again.
And the chronicler says to his people: remember what God has promised us. The future is not dark for us, the future is bright. Because God has promised us a great king over the house of David. A king who would build a house for God. A king who would rule over God's house and God's kingdom forever. He would be God's son and God would never take his love away from him.
And there is no way these promises have been fulfilled by Solomon — not completely. Yes, Solomon built the temple for God. He did build a house for God. But God is speaking of something infinitely greater here. And it had not been fulfilled at this point in Israel's history. Solomon was long dead and gone. He was not the forever king they'd been waiting for. They were still waiting for him. But God had made a promise to David that he would do it.
And as he says in Psalm 89:
"I will not violate my covenant or alter what my lips have uttered. Once for all I have sworn by my holiness, and I will not lie to David, that his line will continue forever, and his throne endure before me like the sun. It will be established forever like the moon, the faithful witness in the sky."
God had promised a great and forever king for his people, and he would do it. There was hope in their future. This shattered and broken people could have confidence. This was not the end of the people of Israel. This was not the end of the line of David, because God had made promises and God is never a liar.
And how much more do these promises encourage us? Because we know a lot more detail of how God was going to achieve all of this. In Luke chapter 1, the angel said to Mary:
"You will conceive and give birth to a son and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David and he will reign over Jacob's descendants forever. His kingdom will never end."
Israel waited and waited and waited. And an angel came and said, your wait is over. The king I promised is here — in the person of the Lord Jesus. God's king has come. God's king is even now building and ruling over the house of God. He has established forever the throne and kingdom of God. He's defeated the power of death. That's why his kingdom is a forever kingdom — because death has no power in his kingdom, because he's defeated it.
And one day his work will be complete. When you read Revelation 21 and 22, you see the culmination of everything, all of God's promises coming together. And it's beautiful to read. If you read through it later, you'll see all the promises God made to Abraham, all the promises that God made to Israel in the Mosaic Covenant, all the promises God made to David — you see it all culminating in this beautiful image of the Lamb on the throne. He is ruling in the forever kingdom. There are no more enemies. There is no wicked there — they're all cut off. There's a place where there's no more death, no more disease, no nothing. All the promises he makes to David are fulfilled. They're all fulfilled in Christ. Christ has done the work to achieve them. And one day he will bring it all to completion in Revelation 21 and 22. And it's just beautiful to read.
God's promises for the future give us hope. There may be times when we feel weak and shattered like the people of Israel did here. When we look around, it just kind of feels like earthly disappointment everywhere we look. But God's promises give us hope. No matter how dark things are right now, he has brought us this far. He has kept his promises to this point, and he will not violate his covenant or alter what his lips have uttered. If he has promised it, he will keep it.
Christians should always be spiritual optimists. I don't know what your personality is. I don't know if you're a pessimist — if you're a pessimist who likes to call themselves a realist because you want to pretend you're more positive than you are, which is what I do — or if you're an actual optimist by personality. None of those things actually matter, because every Christian should be a spiritual optimist. Because we know the promises of God. We know the future is bright. We know he will keep them. And so we know we have hope for the future.
Third lesson: God's promises teach us to pray
God's promises teach us to have hope. And lastly, God's promises teach us to pray. It's the first thing David does in response, isn't it? The first thing he does on hearing these promises of God isn't to grumble, "Oh, why can't I be the one to build your house?" He is blown away by the promises God makes. And the first thing he wants to do is get himself into that humble little tent and pray to God. He knows now that what matters is not the tent, the building, the housing of the Ark of the Covenant. What matters is the one who occupies it. And so he prays.
I would love to have more time to go through this prayer in more depth. It's definitely worth reflecting on later. But you could really split it into his prayer of humility, which is verses 16 to 22, where he remembers who God is and who he is. He's like, who am I, God? Who am I that you make all these promises to me? And who are we as a nation that you have done all this for us? He is absolutely humbled.
In the second half of it, he prays with hope. I hope that we can echo it. Look at what he says in verses 23 to 27:
"So your servant has found courage to pray to you. You, Lord, are God. You have promised these good things to your servant. Now you have been pleased to bless the house of your servant that it may continue forever in your sight. For you, Lord, have blessed it and it will be blessed forever."
What does he do? He prays God's promises back to him. He says, please do it. And he has this interesting little phrase in verse 25: "So your servant has found courage to pray to you." What's given him courage to pray to God like this? The promises of God. That's what he says. The promises you have revealed give me confidence to pray massive prayers to you, because they're promises that you have made to me. These are outrageous prayers. The things he asks God to do are bigger than probably any prayers we personally have prayed. But he can do it with courage because he knows that God has blessed him and God will bless him, because that's what God has promised to do.
As one commentator observed, prayer is never more effective than when it claims from God what he has already said he will do in any case. Another commentator said, our praying is never on a surer foundation than when it is grounded in Scripture, for here God's will is revealed. As we pray biblical prayers and promises, we know that God will hear and answer.
The Apostle John said, "And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us." How do we know God's will? How do we know what God's plans are? Because he's told us in his word and in his promises. And so if you want to pray prayers that you know God is going to hear and you know God is going to answer, pray his promises back to him.
Conclusion
As Christians, we need to know what God has done for us. And we need to know what God has promised us. It gives us fodder for our prayers — prayers we know will be answered. And the promises of God throughout the Bible are absolutely incredible. I would love it if we did a series at church on the promises of God because they're huge. They're absolutely fantastic. But maybe just go and do your own research. And you can pray them. You can pray them to God.
We need to know his promises because when we know his promises, it teaches us humble dependence on him. It teaches us hope in the face of earthly disappointments. And it teaches us to pray with courage and confidence.