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As Jesus was taking his last breaths on the cross, he cried out “It is finished!”  What did he mean by that?  What does that have to do with our lives today?  I take a look at those questions in this message I shared this past Sunday at Whitesburg…

Like so many around the world, I have been interested this week in the selection of the new pope.  Pope Francis is now the leader of over 1 billion Catholics around the world.  His selection is understandably big news.  His religious leadership and influence on the world stage is evident.  I am grateful for his strong stands on the sanctity of all human life and for Biblical marriage between a man and a woman for life.  I pray that he will continue to stand firm on these issues and lead courageously.

On the other hand,  first of all as a born again Christian and Bible preacher and second of all as a Baptist, I do feel it is important to help people understand some very real distinctions.  Catholics believe that Peter was the first pope and reference Matthew 16:17-19.   I believe Jesus is actually referring to himself in that passage and affirming that the church is built on the rock of salvation – the Lord Jesus Christ.  I believe the Bible teaches that no man is the head of the church, but rather the Lord Jesus is the head of the church of the church that he is building…

“but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ— from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.” (Ephesians 4:15–16, NKJV)

In addition, I believe the Bible teaches that we do not have a priesthood today because the Lord Jesus Christ is our great High Priest who provided direct access to God through his death on the cross…

“Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” (Hebrews 4:14–16, NKJV)

While volumes have been written on these theological issues, let me sum up briefly.  Because the Bible teaches that Christ is the head of the church and the great High Priest of every believer, then every sinner can draw near to God for salvation by grace through faith in the Lord Jesus.  There is no priestly mediator that must accept your confession, but rather each person confesses their sin directly to God.  Therefore, the Lord is directly involved in a real and personal way in the individual life of every Christian.  As a result, we look to the Bible and the leadership of the Holy Spirit for our guidance. Individual Christians may worship, pray, confess, and study the Bible based on their own personal relationship with the Lord.  This is a fundamentally different understanding of personal salvation and Christian discipleship than what is taught in the Catholic church. These convictions are held by Baptists and many Christians from other denominations and backgrounds. It is important to understand these distinctions.

As a result, Baptists do not elevate and recognize the pope to anywhere near the degree our Catholic friends do.  Our King is Jesus. He is the head of the church. The Bible is our authority. We do not have popes; we have pastors who are called by each individual congregation to teach the people, shepherd the people, and lead the people all under the authority of the Great Shepherd – the Lord Jesus Christ.  The pastor is not the ruler of the church, and he is certainly not infallible. That is why the pastor is to lead the people in a way that allows the Lord to work in their hearts and bring them to the same conclusions and directions.  As a result, when the Baptists vote on a matter we believe this reflects God’s will as He has spoken to the individual members of the church. This is called congregational church government, another Baptist distinctive.  Each Baptist congregation is free to call its own pastor and make its own decisions as it feels led by the Holy Spirit.

As a result, there is no Baptist Vatican either. While there is a Southern Baptist Convention headquarters in Nashville, it has no authority over any church.  It exists to carry out the cooperative missions and education efforts of over 40,000 Southern Baptist churches. Participation is completely voluntary.  No church is required to give a single dime. No pastor is ever told what he must preach. No church is ever told what they must do. Churches choose to be part of the cooperative Southern Baptist family. They can choose to no longer cooperate at any time.  This is why one person described the Cooperative Program as a “rope of sand.”

The same holds true on a state and local level. The church I serve is also a member of the Alabama Baptist State Convention and the Madison Baptist Association. The same principles hold true in those relationships. Whitesburg Baptist Church is not instructed by or bound to either of these organizations.  Whitesburg Baptist Church owns our buildings, calls our own leaders, and makes our own decisions as we feel led by the Lord.  We are glad and busy participants in the Southern Baptist Convention, Alabama Baptist Convention, and the Madison Baptist Association, but this is because our church chooses to be and we feel the Lord wants us to cooperate with other like minded believers.  Neither of these groups has any authority over our church.  In fact, the true headquarters of the Southern Baptist Convention is the local church!

In light of the new pope being chosen, I thought it appropriate to remind all of my readers about these important distinctives.

“Trust in the Lord, and do good; Dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness. Delight yourself also in the Lord, And He shall give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord, Trust also in Him, And He shall bring it to pass.” (Psalm 37:3–5, NKJV)

On this Saturday morning as I was doing my personal devotional time in Deuteronomy, for some reason these verses in Psalm 37 came to my mind. Verse 4 is a favorite of many. However, it’s important to remember that it comes between two verses that speak of our staying faithful and trusting the Lord.  Notice what we are told to do while we are waiting on God to give us the desires of our heart:  “do good…dwell in the land.”  In other words, stay faithful. Do what you know the Lord wants you to do. Be a faithful spouse.  Invest in your kids. Be faithful to faithful to your church.  Pay your bills.  Be a great employee.  Do all of these things while you trust in Him and wait on Him.

It’s a mistake to believe that trusting God means we just rest on our laurels or give up on our situation.  These verses teach the opposite. Trusting God is staying faithful and doing good – all the while believing that God will move one day and give us the desires of our heart.  You see, trusting God IS staying faithful.

Finally, notice the last phrase “…He shall bring it to pass.”  When we stay faithful and do what we know the Lord wants us to do to the best of our ability, then He is responsible for the results. Staying faithful demonstrates that we are not depending on ourselves, but on Him. Think about it.

 

 

 

On Wednesday evenings, I am sharing a series of message on the life of David. Recently I shared a message on David’s actions toward a young man named Mephibosheth and what they teach us about grace.  Due to the great amount of feedback I have received from this message, I wanted to share a synposis of it here. Take your Bible out and follow along!

“A Powerful Picture of Grace”

2 Samuel 9:1-13

You might want to make a note that Mephibosheth is first mentioned in 2 Samuel 4:4 where we are told that he was the 5 year old son of Jonathan, the grandson of King Saul. It says in that verse that when word came back that both Saul and Jonathan were dead that the nanny immediately decided to flee their home. Why would she do that? Well, I am sure that they thought they were next! Anyway, the Bible says that she took young Mephibosheth and began to run away and he fell. Maybe she had him in her arms and dropped him. Maybe he was running beside her, but either way he fell and broke both of his legs or ankles. Now broken bones are terrible injuries to have today. They are painful and they take a while to heal even with the medical care we have today, but rarely are broken bones debilitating. However, in Bible times, if you broke your leg, that first of all could be fatal and second there was a good chance it was be debilitating for the rest of your life.  Mephibosheth broke both his legs or ankles and could not walk for the rest of his life.

So this is the story of Mephibosheth and his encounter with the great king, David. From his story, I want us to talk about the promise of grace and the powerful picture of grace that we see here…

I.               The promise of grace  (v. 1)

Verse 1 really is out of the ordinary. Think about it. David is at his height of power, prestige, wealth, you name it. A number of years have passed, and then David asks this question. Really “kindness” isn’t a bad translation of the Hebrew word, but we can’t really capture the idea in one English word. In fact, this same Hebrew word is used numerous times in the OT and do you know the most common way it is translated in our English Bibles?  MERCY. So, here is the powerful king asking if there is someone left that he could show mercy to.  Why would he care?  Because he had promised!   In 1 Samuel 20, Jonathan had asked David to spare his life when he became king.  Now we know that David loved Jonathan, so why would that matter?  Because at this time in history, when a new king took over and established a new dynasty, the first thing that he typically did was to exterminate all of the family members of the former dynasty. You had less rebellions that way!  So that was Jonathan’s concern.  Then in 1 Samuel 24, David has spared Saul’s life in the cave and Saul asked David to promise that when he is king, he will not destroy his descendants. So, David made that promise on two occasions and evidently when we get to 2 Samuel 9, David is thinking about that promise.

Let’s pause and make sure we get the big picture here. David had promised to have mercy. David had promised to bestow grace. Do you know that it works the same way with grace today?  We can only have it because the King of Kings has promised it to us!!!

“So they said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.”” (Acts 16:31, NKJV)

“that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” (Romans 10:9–10, NKJV)

 Those are promises in the Word of God. We can only receive grace today because the King of Kings has promised. Did you know that is really all being saved involves?  It involves taking God up on His promise to forgive your sins in response to simple faith. Sadly, most people today are not saved, many of them because they just absolutely cannot believe it can possibly be that simple. I even had a man I witnessed to tell me one time, “There’s got to be more to it than that!”  No. Grace flows out of a promise. And the grace that King David promised is a foreshadow of the saving grace of King Jesus!

              

II.              The picture of grace (v. 2-13)

Now that we have seen the big picture story of Mephibosheth, I want us to take a closer look because what we find is that his life and story is a great parallel of the NT doctrine of God’s grace. I want us to see several ways that Mephibosheth and his experience with King David are a great picture of God’s NT grace.

• Like Mephibosheth, we are crippled from a fall

He fell when he was five years old and was lame from that point on. We are also crippled from a fall – not physically crippled, but spiritually crippled.

“Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned—” (Romans 5:12, NKJV)

This death speaks of both physical death and ultimate spiritual death. The Bible says that we are dead in our trespasses and sins as a result of the fall!

• Like Mephibosheth, the King called us even though we deserved nothing, did nothing, and can repay nothing.

Look at verse 4 of our text. Did you notice where he was living?  Lodebar.  Out in the sticks of the sticks. It was basically out in the desert wilderness. He was hiding from David. Anyone remember what Adam and Eve did after the fall back in Genesis?  They tried to hide!  From Adam and Eve on, every single one of us has been a lost sinner separated from God. We’ve been like Mephibosheth hiding out, but the King knocked on our door when we had nothing to offer! Think about if you were Mephibosheth and you are a home one day and there is a knock at the door. You crutch over there and there are several soldiers standing at the door. What are you thinking?  You are thinking, “I’m dead.”  HOWEVER, THAT KNOCK ON THE DOOR WAS NOT A KNOCK OF DEATH BUT A KNOCK OF GRACE!

• Like Mephibosheth, we have been brought from where we were to the presence of the King

Think about it. Mephibosheth was in the desert, but he was taken into the King’s chambers.

“And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,” (Ephesians 2:1–6, NKJV)

• Like Mephibosheth, we have been adopted into the King’s family

Did you notice v. 13 of our text?  It says that Mephibosheth ate at the King’s table. Do you know who ate at the King’s table?  The King’s family!  The New Testament presents our salvation in terms of being adopted into the family of God…

“just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.” (Ephesians 1:4–6, NKJV)

“Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil.” (Ephesians 5:15–16, NASB95)

Years ago I heard someone talk about what you cannot do with the time you have in this world.  First of all, you cannot save time because time is gone once you have it.  There is no storing up time for tomorrow, no matter how much we wish we could!  Also, you cannot manage time because time marches on no matter what you do with it.  Finally, this speaker said, “The only thing you can do with time is spend it.  Time marches on, but you choose how you spend it.”

I have never forgotten that.  It is the truth. The same idea is expressed in Ephesians 5:15-16.  As Christians, we ought to be determined to make the most use of our time. The old King James Version that many of us grew up with says, “redeeming the time..”  All of us have the same twenty-four hours in every day. The only question is how we spend it.  All too often, we get so busy that we fail to think about being intentional with our time.  Really, each one of us should ask the Lord two important questions.  First, we should ask, “Lord, what do I need to do more of?”  Then, have the courage to ask, “Lord, what do I need to do less of?”  Those two questions will go along way in helping us make the most of our time. Do more of the things that matter most and less of those that do not.

It’s important to know that there is one important key to making the most of our time:  do it today.  The time to do what we need to do is today.  The great preacher and author, Dr. David Jeremiah, once wrote that “today” is God’s word and “tomorrow” is Satan’s word.  I believe that to be true.  If Satan cannot get us to fall into gross sin and failure, then the next best thing for him is to influence us to put off until tomorrow what we need to do today.  Satan certainly knows that very often tomorrow never comes.  The other day, I asked my administrative assistant to help make sure that I made a particular ministry contact by the end of the week and I explained why it was so important.  Wisely, she looked at me and said, “Why don’t you just do that one right now?”  She was right. If it was so important, I needed to do it right away.  I took her advice.  If it’s really that important, then do it today.

What do you need to do today?  Perhaps you are reading this blog and you need to give your life to Christ.  I beg you. Do it today!  Want to be a soul winner?  Start today.  Do you need to have a daily time of prayer and Bible reading?  Start today.  Is there someone you need to forgive?  Forgive them today.  Is there someone you need to apologize to?  Why not go ahead and do that today?   Is there someone that you need to tell how much they mean to you?  Tell them today.

What do you need to do?  Today is the day to do it!  Take that advice and you will make the most of your time.

“Anything is better than the dead calm of indifference.” – Charles Spurgeon

This morning, I read those words and they gripped my heart. Immediately, my mind went to the Lord’s famous words to the Laodicean church in the book of Revelation…

““And to the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write, ‘These things says the Amen, the Faithful and True Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God: “I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth.” (Revelation 3:14–16, NKJV)

In New Testament times, the temperature of the water supply was one of the ways that cities were known. Hierapolis was a nearby city that was famous for its hot springs. Colossae was known as the home of a cool mountain stream.  However, the city of Laodicea was famous for its dirty, tepid water and out of town visitors to the city often spit it out immediately after drinking it.  This fact sheds great light on why the Lord spoke to the church at Laodicea in the way He did, doesn’t it?  Basically, God was telling that church that anything is better than the dead calm of indifference and He used something they were all familiar with to do that.

The dead calm of indifference is the place in life where we are not living with passion and purpose, but just existing – going through the motions. There can be many causes of indifference.  The busyness of life and physical exhaustion can get us to that point.  Discouragement and depression definitely take us there. Unexpected hurts, problems, or setbacks in life quickly lead to, “Why do I even bother?  I don’t care anymore.”  Routine and the familiar can easily take us to indifference. If we’ve done the same thing the same way for years, then maybe we don’t even think about it or appreciate any more.

This morning, my personal prayer is that the Lord will renew my passion and purpose for the things that really matter in my life. I became a Christian when I was eight years old, and I pray that my passion for Christ will be more fervent in this season of life than ever before. After nineteen years of marriage, I don’t want to just go through the motions. I want to invest in my marriage intentionally.  As a father of two sons who are growing into men before my eyes, I pray that I will let nothing deter me from intentionally investing in them.  After more than twenty years of full-time ministry, I am praying for a fresh wind of the Holy Spirit to propel me into the next twenty years.  God is too great and life is too short to live in indifference.

I am so grateful that God gave the Laodicean church the cure for their indifference…

“As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Therefore be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me.” (Revelation 3:19–20, NKJV)

The cure for indifference is repentance and renewed fellowship with the Lord. What is holding you back?  What sin are you ignoring?  How long has it been since you got alone before the Lord and prayed fervently?

Anything really is better than the dead calm of indifference. God is too great and life is too short to live there!

 

“Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.” (Romans 12:15, ESV)

In over twenty years as a pastor, there are some things that you never get used to.  Yesterday, I visited in the home of a member of our church who is dying of cancer. With his wife on one side of the hospital bed and me on the other, the three of us prayed together and wept together.  This particular couple have been dear friends of ours during our years in Huntsville.  I cried when I was them, and I cried when I got into my car.  I cried as I drove back to my office.  Even though they are strong believers, the sadness is profound.

Today, I conducted the funeral of another member of our church.  She was a beloved wife, mother, grandmother, church member, neighbor, and friend. Typically the funeral director gathers the family together a few minutes before the service starts so that the family can have a final private viewing.  Many times, these are the most emotional moments for families. Today was no different.  During this time before the funeral, we wept together and prayed together.

In addition, there are the ministry situations that I cannot share on this blog.  These are the heartbreaking situations that lead people to talk with a pastor. The pain is just as real, even though no death is involved.  I pray with everyone who comes to see me.  Sometimes I cry with the person as I pray with them.  I’ve had a few of those situations as well recently.

When I first started out in ministry, I used to think that it was a necessity to have something profound to say in these situations. No more. The truth is that oftentimes weeping with those that weep means more than anything.

Is there an issue in your life where you really struggle to trust God completely?  Scripture affirms over and over again that we are to trust Him.

“Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act.” (Psalm 37:3–5, ESV)

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.” (Proverbs 3:5, ESV)

What does it mean to trust the Lord? The word translated “trust” in these verse has the idea of “to be confident, to feel safe, to rely on.”  The Bible presents our Lord not just as one whom we are to love and serve, but as one who can absolutely and totally be trusted.  Let’s think about that for a moment. The Lord desires that we trust His Word, but the reason we can trust the Word of God is because we trust God. It all comes back to that issue. Our trust is in the Lord himself.  E.M. Bounds in his classic book The Necessity of Prayer speaks to this issue…

“Have faith in God,” “Trust in the Lord” form the keynote and foundation of prayer. Primarily, it is not trust in the Word of God, but rather trust in the Person of God. For trust in the Person of God must precede trust in the Word of God…Trust, in an historical fact or in a mere record may be a very passive thing, but trust in a person vitalizes the quality, fructifies it, informs it with love. The trust which informs prayer centers in a Person.

I believe that Bounds is exactly right to link our trust to our prayer life. Think about it. If there is a person in your life that you don’t trust, it’s difficult to have much of a relationship with them. You might be required to talk with them in your job or they might be a member of your family, but the reality is that you will go through the motions in your interaction with that person because ultimately you are not assured that they are acting your best interest or even have your best interests at heart.  Where there is not love, there cannot be trust.  Ultimately our perception of a person’s love for us determines our capacity to trust them.

What does this have to do with prayer?  Everything! What does prayer have to do with trusting God?  Everything!  Remember, where there is not love, there cannot be trust. However, there is another side of that coin – where there is love, there can be trust.  We can trust God first and foremost because God loves us.

“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” (1 John 4:7–10, ESV)

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:35–39, ESV)

You see, the basis of our trusting God is His faithful love for us!  If we believe with all of our heart that God loves us, then we can trust Him with all of our heart. If I know God loves me, then I also know that He will always act in my best interest. Therefore, I can trust Him.  Love and trust are intertwined. If I am assured of love, then I can trust.

One more thing: prayer is the key to trusting God.  Think about it. Isn’t conversation how relationships grow?  Aren’t talk and trust intertwined as well?  Ask a married couple who never talk to one another if there is really trust.  Go to any large company or organization where one group never talks to another group and you will find a lack of trust every time. So it is with our spiritual lives. Prayer is the engine that drives our trust in God. Once again, Bounds has the right words here when he wrote, “Trust grows nowhere as readily and richly as in the prayer chamber.” 

We are assured of His love, therefore we can trust Him. Because we trust Him, we talk to God in prayer. The more we talk to God in prayer, the more we are assured of His love. The more we are assured of His live, the more we pray.  And the more we pray…well, you get the idea. It goes like this..

Love > trust > prayer > love > trust > prayer > love > trust > prayer

Are you struggling to trust God this Monday morning?  Rest assured of His love and start praying!

“Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,” (2 Timothy 3:12, ESV)

““If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me.” (John 15:18–21, ESV)

I grew up in the small community of Ider, Alabama where the overwhelming majority of people believed the Bible to be God’s Word and viewed it as a good and positive thing to be a committed Christian. As a teenager I began to really read the Bible regularly and, to be very honest, I would read passages like these and never give them a thought because I lived in somewhat of a bubble in the Bible belt of America. It was really only when I studied in seminary that I learned about the persecuted church and the sacrifices that so many have given for sake of Christ.  Still, for the last twenty years, I have served as a pastor in the United States and the reality has been that true persecution of Christians has been something that happened in other parts of the world.  Even after the cultural revolution of the 1960’s, being a Christian in the United States has largely been viewed as a good thing for my entire life.

However, we now see that changing before our very eyes.  Our culture is rapidly becoming hostile to the Biblical, historic Christian faith.  At present, this hostility seems to revolve around two issues: the exclusivity of the gospel (the belief that personal faith in Christ is the only way of salvation) and the Biblical standards of sexuality, marriage, and family.  It’s still “OK” to be a Christian in America as long as you are a Christian who believes that all religions are equally true and that homosexuality is a perfectly acceptable lifestyle that should be celebrated and even given the rights of marriage. However, if you are a Christian in America today who believes that faith in Jesus Christ is the only way to Heaven and that sex is meant to be enjoyed and celebrated in the context of marriage between one man and one woman for life, then there is a rapidly growing hostility toward you. Increasingly, our culture will label you as hateful, bigoted, ignorant, unworthy of leadership, etc.  In other words, the Biblical, historic Christian faith is no longer welcome to growing segments of our culture in America.

Where will all of this end?  I do not know.  I personally pray every single day for America to return to the Lord.  I pray every day for revival to come to America. A great revival could turn this tide.  I am praying that all of this ends in revival for our nation.

However, if present trends continue, Bible believing Christians in America might soon have to face some very tough questions.  Will we remain faithful when our faith truly costs us something?  Will we share the gospel and make disciples in a culture that is hostile to our message and beliefs? Will we stand up for the right to teach our children Biblical truth even if that is labeled harmful to their well being by the government? What if there is violence against churches with Biblical convictions?  What if our church is sued for not allowing gay weddings in our facilities? What will we do when the TV and radio broadcasts of faithful pastors are labeled as “hate speech” because of their convictions and forced off the air if they refuse to edit them?   What will we do if being a member of a conservative, Bible preaching church might mean we won’t get promoted or even hired in the first place?  What would we do if being a committed Christian means you will not be elected to any political office of any consequence? Would we still tithe if we no longer receive a tax deduction for giving to our church?

If revival doesn’t come to America soon, we will very likely be answering these questions and many more.

During our Wednesday evening service at Whitesburg, I have been preaching a series of messages on the life of David. Today, I thought I would share a synopsis of the message last night…

“When God Says No”

2 Samuel 7:1-29

Years ago, I heard a preacher talk about the three ways that God can answer our prayers…

YES, right now

YES, but wait

NO

It’s this third instance that we are going to look at today. What do we do when God says no? How do we process that?  Here we see David go through a time when God did not answer his prayer. God did not give him the desire of his heart. David has now become king and he is ruling the nation from Jerusalem, just like he is supposed to. He even brought up the ark of the covenant to Jerusalem so that it would have its proper place and the presence of God would dwell among the people. So, this period in David’s life is very much a high point. God has blessed and David has honored the Lord. And this is one of the mountaintop times in David’s life. And God says, “no.”

God sometimes says no to good things  (v. 1-2)

Look at David’s situation here. There is not a hint of pride or of David desiring to do this for any reason other than to glorify the Lord. Up until this time, the presence of the Lord was manifested in the tabernacle, a tent. David looked around at the expensive, ornate palace that he lived in and said, “You know, the Lord should have a nicer house than me. I want to build the Lord a permanent house.” That is what was going on.  David wanted to do a good thing. A noble thing.  In fact, the Bible says just that later on in 2 Chronicles 6:7-9  The Lord told David that he desired a good thing. He commended David for that desire, but then he said, even though you have a good heart, that is not my will for you to do.

You see, so many Christians have all of these wrong ideas about prayer and the will of God. Years ago, I had a lady tell me that whatever she prayed for she had learned to expect the opposite from God. She took that to mean that she had little faith to pray or that something was so wrong with her. Now, one reason that might have been her experience is simply that she needed to learn to walk with the Lord more and get her desires more in line with God’s desires. That happens many times. We don’t walk with him as we should and therefore, we do not want what God wants. As a result, we are asking God for things that aren’t even in the ballpark of His will for us. Many times that is the case.

However, sometimes we are walking with him and we desire good things. Even things that would bring honor to the Lord. Yet, God still says no. That is what happened to David. God said no to a good thing. Think about it.

Many times our friends will say yes before God says no (v. 3)

Look at what Nathan the prophet says in v. 3.  By the way, this is the first mention of him in the Bible and later on he is going to have a more key role in David’s life.  Nathan says, “I think you ought to go for it!”  Now, Nathan was not some pagan out here. He was a prophet of the Lord. He wanted to honor the Lord too. He was sincere, AND HE WAS DEAD WRONG.

Listen, friends, there is value in many counselors. There is value in talking with trusted, Godly people in our lives.  Many times God might use them to speak to us or to clarify a situation, BUT they do not speak for God. Ultimately, we must listen to God alone. That is the advice I recently gave a close friend of mine who came to me.  I told him the situation as I saw it and gave him my best advice – and then told him to get alone with God for the answer!

God often has something else in mind when He says no (v. 4-17)  

Read v. 4-11 and God reminds David of how He has worked in His life. Notice V. 11 there is a definite play on words here. David isn’t going to build God’s house, but rather God is going to build David’s house.  Now, very important point here. Down through v. 11 God tells David some things that are going to be fulfilled in his lifetime. Then beginning with v. 12, God tells David some things he is going to do after his death…Read v. 12-17  Now, it is very important to point out that these verses have a dual fulfillment…

• In the short term, they are fulfilled in Solomon

• In the long term, they are fulfilled in Christ

-Compare v. 13-14 to Hebrews 1:8

–Compare v. 16 to Luke 1:26-33

 Do you know how long it was between David’s death and the birth of Christ?  About 960 years. Think about that. While David was thinking about the “right now”, God was thinking 960 years down the road!

Respond to God’s no with reverent humility (v. 18-20)

Think about this. David was reaching the height of his accomplishment, power, popularity, wealth, you name it. David had it all at this time. And yet, look at his heart. The truth is that all of us need to read v. 18 more often than we do. The truth is that none of us deserve anything from the Lord. The truth is that our worst day is all of his grace. The truth is that every single one of us  – by the nature of living in America and the blessings we have here – every single one of us is far better off than the overwhelming majority of Christians in the world right now. AND WHO ARE WE?  We are nobody. It is only by God’s grace we are who we are.

After God says no, praise Him (v. 21-29)

Did you notice that 10 times in these verses David refers to Himself as “your servant.”  Now, David is king, but he saw himself as a humble servant of THE KING over all. So much of our struggle comes from our prideful self-importance. The truth is that our theology says God’s will is all that matters, but our hearts sometimes say something else. It’s times like these that we must praise Him and let our feelings catch up. God said no to David, but David praised the Lord and said Yes to God’s plan.