Blessed

Our Old Testament lesson this morning comes from 1st Kings, chapter 2. When David's time to die drew near, he commanded Solomon his son, saying, I'm about to go the way of all the earth. Be strong and show yourself a man, and keep the charge of the Lord your God, walking in his ways and keeping his statutes, his commandments, his rules, and his testimonies, as it is written in the law of Moses, that you may prosper in all you do and wherever you turn, that the Lord may establish his word that he spoke concerning me, saying, if your sons pay a close attention to their way, to walk before me in faithfulness with all their heart and with all their soul, you shall not lack a man on the throne of Israel. Moreover you also know what Joab, the son of Zeroiah, did to me. Now he dealt with those two commanders, the armies of Israel, Abner, the son of Nure, and Amasa, the son of Jather, whom he killed, avenging in time of peace for blood that had been shed in war, and putting the blood of war on the belt around his waist and on the sandals on his feet, acts therefore according to your wisdom, but do not let his gray head go down to shayol and peace. But deal oily with the sons of Barzalai, the Gileadite, and let them be among those who eat at your table, for with such loyalty they met me when I fled from Absalom, your brother. And there is also with you Shimiai, son of Gera, the Benjamin from Baharim, who cursed me with a grievous curse on the day I went to Mahaneim. But when he came down to meet me at the Jordan, I swore to him by the Lord, saying, I will not put you to death with the sword. Now therefore do not hold him guiltless for you are a wise man, you will know what you want to do with him, and you shall bring his gray head down with blood to shayol. Then David slept with his fathers and was buried in the city of David, and the time that David reigned over Israel was forty years. He reigned seven years in Hebron, and thirty-three years in Jerusalem, the word of the Lord. Have you ever noticed that at funerals people seem to be praised for living a life a little better than maybe they had actually lived, that the positive is accentuated, I don't know, but it may just be me as a pastor who probably goes to more funerals than most, but I think as we get along in years, we end up going to more and more funerals, and we see that. I don't think it's just me who's noticed that, and I've got to say that while there's some people who I think are just kind of living and denial and refuse to admit reality, I think for the most part, people do that at funerals, those who are giving testimony about the dearly departed, they're doing that out of respect, and it's not as though they have forgotten any of the misdeeds and sins and faults and failures of the one who has passed, but they choose to remember what that person has done that is good, that is right, that is God glorifying. And I think that's good, I think that's redemptive, I think God deals with his children and precisely that fashion, I hope to show you that today as we finish our little summer mini-series on the life of David, I hope to show you that David was in the first point a great man and a great center, and then look at some verses that talk about David from God's perspective, and then ask the question, how, because God will give kind of praise for David, as the godly man, a man after his own heart and such, and ask the question, how can God do this when the scriptures so clearly portray not only the great deeds of David, but also the great misdeeds of David, his sins and his failures, there's so much before us, and then we'll look at the passage that we had read to us as our assurance of pardon from Romans chapter 4, and we'll look at how God deals not only with David, but with us, in fact I'll go from using in our outline David to using the first person, I, me, my, these sorts of things, thinking of you that you ought to be able to, by faith, write these things about yourself, that I am counted as righteous, that God sees me as righteous, maybe only for the righteousness of Christ, imputed to you, but nevertheless he sees that, and that's how we'll look at this text this morning, and I suppose you could sum it all up this way, by faith, live by God's justifying grace, that's what I want to try and get across, so let's sum up David's life, we'll look at the text we've read, and also kind of review a few things from the summer, we'll spend most of our time in this first point, and then we'll finish up with these last two points and kind of want to try and bring it home, in a way that's personally impactful for us, as we think about how God sees us, and how we ought to see one another. David was a great man and a great sinner, I think that we've already seen that in the series, I don't think this takes too much time, but let's spend a little bit of time, our text seems to point this out, he was a great man and a great sinner, you know, the text starts off telling us of David giving something of a charge, it tells us in verse one and two, when David's time to die, drew near, he commanded Solomon, his son, saying, I am about to go the way of all the earth, be strong and show yourself a man and he begins to give a charge, this is consistent with the great men who have gone before him. Moses did this, before Moses, I think we could say Jacob did this, Joshua did this, Samuel did this, and now David is doing this, and we see something of his greatness and something of his sinfulness, even in the words that his last words before he dies, according to verse kings chapter two. In verses two to four, I think we see something of David's faith and his greatness, how he charges his son, I'm going the way of all the earth, be strong therefore and show yourself a man, keep the charge of Yahweh your God, to walk in his ways, to keep his statutes, his commandments, his ordinances, antistestimonies, according to what is written in the law of Moses, that you may succeed in all that you do and wherever you turn, those are great words, those are the words of faith, those are the words of a great man leading his son to maintain a dynasty and he goes right into that, so that the Lord may carry out his promise which he spoke concerning me saying, if your sons are careful of their way, to walk before me in truth, with all their heart and with all their soul, they shall not lack a man on the throne of Israel. So David shows his greatness in part by the charge he goes to his son Solomon, we can say he does so also in verse seven when he says, but show kindness to the sons of Barzilli, the Giliadite, and let them be among those who eat at your table for they assisted me when I fled from Absulin, your brother, he's making provision for faithful men in that verse and we could go on in fact in review, talk about how David was a man of faith, the greatness of David in that first event we looked at with Goliath, if you remember way back at the beginning of the summer if you were here, it wasn't so much that he killed Goliath but the way he led Israel to remember that the God most high is the God who this Philistine had profaned by his words and that God himself would provide deliverance, he said to the Philistine and for all Israel to hear you come to me with a sword and with a spear and a javelin but I come to you in the name of Yahweh of hosts the God of the armies of Israel whom you have taunted and this day Yahweh will deliver you into my hands and I will strike you down and remove your head from you and give your dead bodies of the armies of the Philistines this day to the birds of the sky and the wild beasts of the earth. That, the earth may know that there is a God in Israel and that all this assembly may know that Yahweh does not deliver by sword or by spear but the battle is the Lord and he will give you into our hand. That is true greatness from the leader, right? Here is the man leading in a battle, a significant battle when the king was afraid and and he leads the people to see the hand of God is what significant. He does the same thing we looked at how when saw the king was chasing David around and David and some of his men were running and hiding and there was one point where he hides in a cave he and his men and Saul goes in to relieve himself and David's men encourage him hey God has put him into your hand, God has put Saul into your hands going kill him and he goes and he sneaks very quietly and stealthily over to where Saul is and he cuts off the corner of his robe and then his conscience smites him and it tells us he's he said to his men are be it from me because of Yahweh that I should do this thing to my Lord Yahweh's anointed to stretch out my hand against him since he is Yahweh's anointed and it tells us David persuaded his men with these words and did not allow them to rise up against Saul greatness greatness there and we could go on to talk about the greatness of King David how he led Israel's armies to fight God's battles to take the land for the people of God that God had promised to him he wrote so many of the prayers in Israel's prayer book the book of Psalms in fact when you we didn't look at these things but we could have looked at them and seen how David was instrumental in leading Israel to worship God he not only wrote the Psalms but he appointed the priests and the Levites by their division to bring worship on certain days he recruited and worked with musicians and singers and appointed them to bring worship to God on certain days there was not a king like him for almost all of Israel's history who led the people to know God and to worship God to seek his word he ruled and administered justice and righteousness in Israel and just the very fact that there is so much ink spilled on David in the Old Testament shows that he was indeed a great man no argument so far and I doubt much on this second part of that that he was a great excuse me sinner as well and I think we see that in our text too don't we a little bit of maybe maybe we could say miss judgment as it relates to Joab there was a miscarriage of justice I mean he let him live it tells us in verses five to and six more over you also know what Joab the son of Ziraya did to me how he dealt with the two commanders of the armies of Israel Abner son of Nura and Amasa the son of Jethr whom he killed avenging in time of peace for blood that was shed in war and he goes on to say do not let his gray head go down to shul in peace now what do we make of that we're we're not told the details we do have in second Samuel chapter three and in chapter 20 some of the stories of how Joab misused his power abused his power as the commander of the armies under David's reign how he did exactly what what David accuses him here of doing that in a time of peace he kills the rulers or the commanders of the armies of Israel that's when they were you know Saul was still about or shortly after his death he killed them in a time of peace when they had merely shed blood in war and he's talking about Joab's relatives that and there was some vengeance going on there but what do you do either there should have been justice in the time of Joab which would have made sense David could do that remember when someone came and reported to him that he had killed Saul at the battle to put him out of his misery David's administered justice on the spot by your own testimony you were guilty and he commanded men kill him and and when they had killed Saul's son who was raining kill him in his sleep and they came and they boasted and said God's giving Israel over to your hand David said kill him they've they by their guilty of sin but with Joab he didn't why it may be that he needed Joab Joab was a brilliant war general it may be that politically he just didn't have the power to do it to to bring justice upon Joab he may not have been able to execute justice Joab's men may have refused we don't know we're not told but it doesn't look so good on your deathbed to say what he says and it gets worse there's this guy Shimei who cursed David you know when Absalon was pursuing David and David had to flee and he and some of his men were running and it was a cool coup that Absalon was pulling Shimei was the guy who who just went along cursing and throwing rocks and it was not very good at all but when David was restored and he was returning to Jerusalem this guy was very penitent at least apologetic and he made a great apology and David's war and you can read about this as well that he would not be put to death for this the words are a little bit different than in the text that tells us that David told him you won't be put to death for this and what he says to a son Solomon the exact words who knows what was said but again it just looks like revenge here when he calls for his death in verses eight and nine you know Shimei the son of Gerrard the Benjaminite etc. what he did and he says the same thing you shall bring his gray head down to with blood to Shuel it wasn't so good it's not a sign of a great man it's a it's a sign of his weakness of his faults of his failures of his sin and we saw in the last couple weeks the story about Bathsheba and what David did there and how he killed Bathsheba's husband Yoraya and then covered it up and it was almost a year maybe more than a year before Nathan the prophet came and confronted him in a repentant of that sin and we saw earlier in the series about David wanting to take revenge into his own hands with Nabled you remember that his he was committed he had committed the sin in his heart didn't he and he had told his men strap on your swords boys were going for blood and it was only Abigail's wise words that kept him from shutting blood we didn't look at but could have seen how David numbered the people of Israel in a way that he knew he was not supposed to and he had a guilty conscience for it and Joab the general tried to talk him out of it but couldn't do so so he did it and the justice of God that came down took out 70,000 in Israel 70,000 people lost their lives as a direct result of David's sin that's big that's not small that's big and we could spend time I mean higher psychiatrists that come up here and psychologists and talk us through David as a dad and his failures as a dad how Amnon has one son rapes David's daughter Tamar and how another son Absalom is in rage but David does nothing and then Absalom murders Amnon for murder for raping his sister and David does nothing and there's just this very sad story of how all that unfolds even to Absalom pulling the coup and David not being able to deal with it and it was just he was disastrous that way it was a great center wasn't he David was a great man and a great center but think about how the scripture speak about him I selected two verses so as not to overwhelm you with too many passages to be read but but here's two this this first one first kings 14, seven and eight I'll just read the first part of seven he says go tell Jerebom this would be a contemporary of David's grandson Ray Abom who wasn't such a great guy it tells go tell Jerebom these things and it finishes in verse eight saying yet you have not been like my servant David listen to this who kept my commandments and followed me with all his heart doing only that which was right in my eye now this is a little bit after the funeral for sure but listen how he speaks of him and God is not one who forgets and it's not as though God cannot call this up because the next verse I want to read he will bring up one of David's sins but notice what he says there David kept my commandments and followed me with all his heart doing only that which is was right in my eye and so during the time of his great grandson Abijim we read in first kings 15 verses three through five that Abijim walked in the ways of the sins of his father and did as his father did before him and here it is and his heart was not holy true to Yahweh his God as the heart of David his father great grandfather such nevertheless for the sake for David's sake the Lord his God gave him a lamp and Jerusalem setting him up setting up his son after him and establishing Jerusalem first five because David did what was right in the eyes of the Lord and did not turn aside from anything that he commanded him all the days of his life except in the matter of Yahya the Hittite that's pretty good God speaking well of David David God isn't saying the first point David was a great man and a great center he's saying David was a great man okay even the Eriah the Hittite is that really the summation of what God has to say that he did wrong God has great words that he says about David and the question then arises how can God do that God the judge of all the earth God who is most holy who is infinitely wise who never forgets anything as far as facts he can choose not to remember something but but how can God do this God who says I will visit the iniquities of the children on the of the fathers to the third and fourth generations he is the just judge of all the earth how can he talk this way about David that brings us to our next two points the second one being God counts my faith to me as righteousness God counts my faith to me as righteousness and again I've I've moved where notice I didn't say God counts David's faith to him as righteousness although I could say that and I mean that but what is true of David is true of you okay and so I want you to write in for yourself God counts my faith to me as righteousness because the scriptures teach this and again I'm going to take this from Romans chapter 4 and let me just kind of set the context you know there's nothing worse than proof texting a verse out of its context right and we don't want to do that so in the book of Romans Paul after he he gives the good news by starting with the bad news we talked about that before and then he starts to give the good news that God there's a righteousness from God apart from the law that God counts to us and chapter 4 is all about the way God counts righteousness to his people how he does it and it makes it very clear that righteousness God that God counts righteousness to us not as something we've earned by our works but as a gift by faith and Abraham is the big example Abraham is the example of being the counted righteous by God because he believed and Abraham is pointed look he's the father of the Jews by natural descent and especially the father of the Jews who by faith follow the faith and he's the father of the Gentiles who share the same faith and are justified by faith that's the point in Romans 4 you'll have to study that out on your own and I would encourage you to do so it will encourage your faith greatly but don't do it right now stay with me for the rest of the message later this afternoon or this week but for right now that's that's kind of the what's going on in chapter 4 and he brings David in to this passage as well and that's where we're landing right now Romans chapter 4 and verse 5 just we've got a context word so we should be able to hear this and to the one who listen does not work but trust in him who justifies counts righteous justice and righteousness or the same Greek word who justifies the ungodly his faith is counted as righteousness I know this is a truth you know but it's important to let this just come upon us with a sense of freshness and and wonder and amazement that God counts faith as righteousness and then he says just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from the work so there it is there's David David understood this is amazing this is not a new testament doctrine different than the way people were saved in the old testament he's saying this is what David said and then he quotes Psalm 32 we'll look at that in a minute under the primarily under the next point but we already saw it in our call to worship this morning I'll point that out to you so David understood something about the fact that God counts faith as righteousness and that's an important thing this is what God does this righteousness God is counting to us is a pristine righteousness it is in fact the righteousness of Christ chapter 5 that's kind of the main point in chapter 5 that we don't have Adam's sinful nature but we have Christ righteousness this is the free gift that God gives to us and such but we're not looking at that now just stay we'll stay here and let me give you a couple verses first Corinthians 1 30 tells us he is the source of your life in Christ Jesus whom God made to be our wisdom and our righteousness that's of course the point I'm trying to make and sanctification and redemption Christ is all of that to us he's our wisdom our righteousness our sanctification and our redemption and so Paul prays for us in Philippians chapter 1 that we would love with Christ's love would abound so that we would do things verse 11 it tells us filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the praise and glory of God and the apostle Paul later in Philippians we'll talk about it that he himself wants to be found this way when he says in chapter 3 and verse 9 and be found in him not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law but that which comes through faith in Christ the righteousness from God that depends on faith it's a righteousness of Christ no wonder God could call David righteous and think about this pristine righteousness it's it's the righteousness that Christ exercised in his his life it's a perfect righteousness it's pristine it's beautiful it's holy it's flawless he loved God with all his heart and soul and mind and strength he never worshipped half heartedly he never was thinking of roasts instead of righteousness you know he was never thinking of the the reds instead of righteousness or redemption he was always focused in worship I'm bringing praise and honor and glory to Christ he worshiped God perfectly he did all the all the commands that God had given in their intent flawlessly that's a beautiful righteousness and he loved his neighbor flawlessly he loved all those around him he sought the loss he encouraged all of the saints and even those who didn't know God to come to know the God he revealed God to people he grasped the hand of the poor and the needy he sought justice and righteousness for people his rebukes always landed just the way they should he sought to call the righteous the righteous and sinners to faith and repentance and called the airing to himself he loved his neighbor flawlessly he fulfilled the law and this is the righteousness that God counts to you we really need to be more penicostle that's just I'm this point we need to just really rejoice that is just that's just amazing we'll come back to it in a second but we need to come to our third point and ask the question okay so God counts Christ righteousness to David and David sought and he counts Christ righteousness to me by faith so that God talks about me as being righteous and it's a gift it gives the faith and it's my faith but what about the sin what about the great sin well that's our third point we've looked at the first half I'm counted right just it's the second half we need to look at my sins are forgiven we read in first kings that David trusted the Lord holy and that he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord and did not turn away from his commandments all the days of his life he speaks about David as being righteous and then he says the one little thing except in the matter of Yeraya and that's our point right so what about the sins and how does God deal with that and that's where David takes us again Romans chapter 4 verses 6 through 8 just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works and here it is quote of Psalm 32 blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven whose sins are covered blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin that's what David understands and that's how David could be righteous in his day because God dealt with his sins and and there's a couple words used for sin one is the word at least in the Greek translation the word sin is mentioned twice in the other one lawless deeds so different translations may call it transgressions iniquities and whatever we want to use that way it's talking about that that's sinfulness it's the other side that I think is important it says forgiven covered not counted forgiven covered not counted now how does the judge of all the earth who deals justly with every human being in all create every being in all creation how does the judge judge do that how does he forgive well again just as there was a substitute who fulfilled all righteousness so our Lord Jesus took the iniquity they didn't they weren't swept into nothing God didn't just say oh well it doesn't matter it absolutely matters and there absolutely is this need that our sins are covered forgiven paid for and so as Isaiah prophesied about it it's as good as any we'll find in the Bible Isaiah 53 6 the Lord has laid on him the iniquities of us all and then verse 11 out of the anguish of this soul he shall see and be satisfied and by his knowledge shall the righteous one my servant make many to be accounted righteous and he shall bear their iniquity I don't know how you could get a clear discussion about what Christ did on the cross then that right there he bore our iniquities on the cross and the reason that we can be accounted or counted righteous is because before he bore our sins on the cross he earned it and then he earned or paid the full debt so that we could be righteous in God's sight and when it comes to your sin to my sin God says forgiven covered not counted that's powerful let me ask you a couple questions the first one is this have you been to Jesus have you received him as God's substitute on your behalf have you by faith received Christ if not the judge of all the earth is a terrible foe and his judgment are horrendous to all eternity and we should not mistake the easiness of life today as God's salvation our faith must squarely be in Jesus Christ because he is the only one that God has given by which we may be saved and he counted as righteous and not counted sinful for those of you who are in Christ Jesus let me ask you you know how God talks about you you know he says about you my servant she serves me with all their heart holy and completely committed to me there's all that I want my servant he is a man's man he is great and he follows me wholeheartedly and completely you believe God says that about you it's a little easier to believe he says that about David do you believe he says that about you that is the word of the law that is justification by faith God speaks well of you he speaks well of you you hear that he he speaks well of you let me ask you one more question and we'll be done if we can speak well of people at their funerals and we can choose to remember how they lived right we can choose to see their faith we can choose to see the things they did by faith if we can do that for the dearly departed is there any reason why we should not reflect the image of God and see the living that way as well how would that change your relationships your marriage your parents your boss to the people you work with the people you know you practice living on the basis of Christ righteousness being applied to other people now I know that if they say well they're a dirty rotten pagan and they'll would burn in hell for their sins you really want to start rejoicing in that now would you not rather we and earnestly plead for their soul and think about the way you who are parents think about the way we treat our children I know my children have faults and morts and foibles that you better not tell me about them I don't want to hear it you want to tell me about how you see Christ in them I'll invite you over and feed you well and give you all the time you want I'm not alone in that in mind we love our children and somehow we've made more sacrifices for our children than we have for our spouse or anyone else in our life and we see something of the image of God in the way he loves his children there as well brothers and sisters that your faith in Christ open your heart to hear God's love for you his appreciation of you his delight in you his words of affirmation to you and let that same faith lead you to love like your father that's pray we ask a father that you would burn these truths deep in our hearts may they never ever become cold or old or insignificant to us but may the freshness and the wonder that you would speak so highly of us just overwhelm us and humble us and move us to trusting in Christ serve you with our all heart for the glory of your name and because though you loved us first yet nonetheless we love you help us to show it Amen