The Covenant of Order
2 Samuel 7
St. John’s United Church of Christ
Greeley, Colorado
February 23, 2025
Rev. Juvenal Cervantes
Do you ever struggle to believe that God is above all and that He has his best interest in you when it seems like there is so much in your life or in our world that He is not?
I don’t know where you are in your journey, but maybe everything is in its place and you feel, “My life is in order, I am doing great!”
Well, perhaps this is laughable because we all bring our stuff and often disorder is the order of the day.
A few weeks ago, we prayed for my cousin Antonio from Omega, GA. Antonio’s wife sent out a message on Facebook that we all pray for Antonio’s healing- about 120 individuals were on that list. We prayed fervently and after the second day of his stroke, Antonio’s health took a turn for the worst. He passed away as his brain and body no longer were able to respond.
This was hard news for me. I thought, “This is not happening, I just talked with Antonio several days ago and we had plans to travel to Savanah and Charleston, and possibly spend time in Orlando.
I don’t have a many close friends, perhaps just one or two. Antonio is one who I enjoyed talking with at least once a month. We talked about family, growing up, ideas, politics, education and so on. Never did I feel judged or dismissed by Antonio; he was a good listener, a family man, a man of faith.
I will no longer get a chance to pick up the phone and enjoy conversation with my cousin Antonio.
When things are in chaos it is natural for us to say, “Lord, I want to believe all this, help me with my unbelief.” We are here in God’s house because we all come to this place with challenges. It is good to reflect, “Lord, I need to be reminded of how much you love me and how you are orchestrating a plan in my life for my good and for your glory.”
We’re looking at the covenants of God with His people and each covenant is like a stepping stone that takes us to Jesus and that it plays out in the New Testament. The Old Testament points to Christ, the gospels unveil Christ, the epistles explain Him and the book of Revelation exalts Him. All the covenants that God makes, His people let him down, and He says there is something else that is coming.
Sometime in life we say, “This does not make sense, but I am going to trust you in it” and that is so challenging, isn’t it?
Today we want to talk about order, God’s reign and rule on our lives. We seek order through different means. We say, “This thing will bring me comfort, control, order, rest” and then we’re disillusioned and we feel we come to an impasse.
We say, “I need a new job” and you suddenly get it and you life gets really complicated. We say, “If I can just start dating” and then we start dating and things are not like we envisioned. A young family say their life will be complete in they had a child. The baby or babies are born and then life changes dramatically.
We want order, but we can’t get it right. The medical community have word for this type of dis-order, an “obsessive-compulsive disorder.”
God want to bring order into our lives in ways we don’t anticipate.
The Davidic covenant is based on the story of David which is the lineage of Christ. I want us to reflect on three things that God does not bring when we think about order.
God does not promise celebrity, He does not bring control, and He does not bring comfort. We’re going to see there is a twist. We learn that God does bring order into our lives as we surrender to Him.
God does not promise celebrity, 2 Samuel 7:8-11a.
We think order will come to our lives through our own celebrity, through our own reputation, the approval of others and we rely on that. We’ll look at David who was a man after God’s own heart, but when we look into David’s life, we say, “He’s messed up, the wheels are off” and we see the same with Abraham, all of those Bible heroes, who have faults, make egregious mistakes and fall short of God’s expectations of their lives.
David is a kind of celebrity, he kills Goliath, he is trending upward, he is very popular, so much so that Saul comes after him. He evades Saul twice and he even saves Saul’s life. David says, “I am humble, I’ll take the higher road.” He is even anointed as king by this time. The prophet Nathan speaks to him, David has already brought the arc to Jerusalem.
The arc represented the presence of God. David says, “I am popular, I have a nice cedar house, maybe I am supposed to build God a house.” Nathan says, “David, you are the man, go for it.” Then God says, “Not so fast.”
2 Samuel 7:8
Now, therefore, thus you shall say to my servant David, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts, I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep, that you should be prince[b] over my people Israel. 9 And I have been with you wherever you went and have cut off all your enemies from before you. And I will make for you a great name, like the name of the great ones of the earth. 10 And I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them, so that they may dwell in their own place and be disturbed no more. And violent men shall afflict them no more, as formerly, 11 from the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel. And I will give you rest from all your enemies
God reminds David in Psalm 73, “I took you out of the sheep pen and put you in high places.” It is God who raised people, the one who works on our behalf.
Succes is God’s choosing; success is being in God’s presence.
God said to Abraham: “Leave your homeland.” Abraham said, “Where am I going?” God assured him, “My presence will go with you.” If we have the presence of God in our lives, we have everything we need.
It is not about us. It is not about celebrities. We have a tendance to make monuments of celebrities and these can become idols.
Some of us find celebrity though political power. I don’t believe the church should engage in partisan politics, yet we need to be remined that our loyalty is to the Lord because we live in a different world and there is only one king.
Chuck Colson, advisor to President Nixon in the late 1960’s was involved in the Watergate scandal and spent time in prison. Colson was radically transformed by Christ. Later he wrote a book, “Born Again,” a phrase that was first shared with Christ who said, “You must be born again.”
Colson wrote: “When we politicized the church, we made a grave mistake because we thought we could recover America by getting the right person in office, but the problem is not in the office, the problem is in the church. So, if we turn our attention to ourselves and truly follow Jesus and love like Jesus that’s how we are going to change the world.”
The problem in the church is made evident outside the church when we don’t believe that living like Jesus works in the real world. Many don’t have enough faith to turn the other cheek, to go the extra mile.
In Christianity, the means justify/produce the ends. We live like Jesus. As Christians we have a very specific code of conduct: live life just like Jesus.
If winning in politics or in our relationships, finding this pecking order, is more important than winning souls for Jesus. And if scolding culture becomes more important than sanctifying the church, we lose because we live in a different culture.
Our power resides in our grace, and living out the gospel.
We are not meant to be famous. Think about it: When we think of celebrities who we venerate, the end is not good; Michael Jackson, Prince, Robin Williams, Marylin Monroe, Elvis Presley and many others.
II. God does not promise control, 2 Samuel 7:11b-15.
Moreover, the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house. 12 When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. 13 He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. 14 I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men, 15 but my steadfast love will not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you.
David was not in control. He did not build the temple, his son Salomon did.
Every covenant is a type or shadow of what is to come.
We’re here for a season, moment, and it all point us to the one to come. The Spirit of Christ resides in us and we become the temple of God.
Psalm 127 tells us, “Unless the Lord builds the house, the workers labor in vain.”
When God bring order, it is not about control, but of being in His presence and following His ways.
III. God does not promise comfort, 2 Samuel 7:16-17
And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me.[c] Your throne shall be established forever.’” 17 In accordance with all these words, and in accordance with all this vision, Nathan spoke to David.
There is no comfort for David. Absolon, his son rebels against him. He has another son, that tries to take over Salomon’s right. We know that David, call it what you will, he violates a woman, powers up, assaults her and then he ends up killing her husband. And David is a man after God’s own heart? What is up with that?
Think about other so called heroes of the faith: Noah rescues family and we say, “Be like Noah!” Abrham is called the father of faith and obedience and we say, “Be like Abraham!” We hear of David, God’s shepherd boy and we say, “Be like David!”
Remember that Noah got drunk, Abraham lied about Sarah, David went in the wrong direction, and so on. Therefore, who is the hero. God is our only true hero.
You and I wonder, “Why does God work through sinful people like the leader of past and the present? Because that’s all he’s got!
In the Hebrew language, the word “heart” is about the will, the mind. David was a man after God’s own mind and will. David was not chosen for his moral behavior. Why did God choose David? God chose David because he was willing to repent of his sin.
God is at work through whatever is going on today and He alone can bring order to our lives. Zechariah 4:6 proclaims, “This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel: Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, says the LORD of hosts.” May we daily rely on God’s Spirit and His world to bring order to our lives and we are going to experience blessing. This is the word of the Lord.