The Community Church: Sermons and teaching

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Morning.

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I think we've already sung this morning one of my favorite lines of any hymn out of Amazing Grace when it says, Lord has promised good to me, His word my hope secures. I just, I thrill when I listen to that because I know that every promise of God will be fulfilled if God's spoken it to me. ah And this morning,

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Well over recent weeks we've been talking haven't we about uh David, King David in the Old Testament and how that applies to us in the New, in the Kingdom of God and that's what we're going to continue on this morning. One of the favorite places that Pam and I visit is a lake district.

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We like the Lake District, it's wonderful. You go there and it's very beautiful and there's the lakes and the hills and the mountains and they are absolutely beautiful. I am of the opinion that those things are to be looked at and admired. There are people who feel that they should go and climb up them. I am not one of them. I think the people who go away and climb them are wonderful because it leaves the restaurants open for me.

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be able to get a decent seat but but we you know just because it's scenic doesn't mean say I have to go and climb up it in fact you can see it better if you're not up it it's not true so hey that's me mount is the thing that irritates me well I have tried climbing hills and I found this it really annoys me a lot right you say

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darling can we go and climb that? Jesus that's a wonderful hill, let's go and climb that and you set off up this hill and for an hour you walk and you're getting hot and a bit there's no restaurants up there it's terrible uh but you get up and then you go over this brow only to find you're not on that hill you're on a little hill before you get to the big hill and you go over it and you find you've got to go all the way down it again to start going

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I prefer to just scale the north side of a nice restaurant, to be honest.

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Yeah. Old Testament prophecy is often like that, isn't it? The answer is yes, yes. Old Testament prophecy often works like a mountain range that from a distance what appears to be the summit isn't.

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Hence that picture. You think you've arrived, but suddenly there's a valley and then there's a mountain. And this um is how Old Testament prophecy, I want to get into this properly in a moment, but I'm just trying to explain. This is how Old Testament prophecy often worked. The prophets would prophesy about something and you'd see...

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the immediate fulfillment of something but there is a greater fulfillment further on. And between the two things there is this valley of time.

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this valley of time uh between the lesser fulfillment and the greater fulfillment that is always in Christ. The greater fulfillment is always... Oh, I want to click a few times. So, there's Old Testament events which had a partial and immediate fulfillment, but then the ultimate...

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fulfillment we find in the New Testament and in Christ. And between those two events, there's a valley of time. And what we're gonna be talking about this morning of the day, covenant the day God made with David is a prime example of this kind of thing. Because what we discover is,

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Every promise of God finds its fulfillment in Christ. Every, say the word every, every promise of God finds its fulfillment in Jesus. Not most, not some, every promise of God will find its fulfillment in Jesus. Many things that took place in the Old Testament we see, in actual fact it's not just prophetic words, it's

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things that took place. The New Testament says what took place for them, what took place for them was really fulfilled in us. That's what it says, doesn't it? Yes. So we find loads of pictures like that. An example would be Abraham. All right, you take Abraham, his name means father. Abrahams means father, we have a father.

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in heaven. Abraham has a son, his name is Isaac, Jesus has a son, his name is Jesus. Abraham was told to sacrifice his son, God sacrifices Jesus. Abraham was told to go to Mount Moriah to sacrifice his son. Moriah, word Jerusalem was built and Jesus went to Jerusalem to be sacrificed.

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They arrived there on a donkey and Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey. Isaac was given the wood to carry to the place where he was going to be sacrificed and Jesus carries a cross to the place where he is sacrificed.

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Isaac was old enough to resist, but he allowed himself to be bound on the sacrifice, and Jesus was nailed to the cross. Yeah? We see these fulfillments of a picture in Christ. Jesus was nailed to the cross. Abraham took a knife to pierce his son, and God's own son was pierced.

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us because God provided the sacrifice for Abraham and Jesus was the sacrifice on the cross.

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And Abraham, as it were, received back his son from the dead. And Jesus rose from the dead. Isn't it great? There's a picture, but there's a greater picture. There's a revelation, but there's a greater realization.

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We could go on from that with him by the way. Isaac goes home to his father's house with Abraham and Jesus goes back to his father's house.

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Abraham the father sends the servant to find a bride and the Holy Spirit comes to find a bride.

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and the Spirit comes and bestows all these gifts on Rebecca.

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and Holy Spirit comes and bestows gifts upon the church. Name of his bride, Isaac's bride was Rebecca, and the name of God's bride was Jean, or Andy, or Jane, Barry, Jeff, the bride of Christ. Isn't that wonderful? So we see these pictures in the Old and its realization coming in the New. oh

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prophetic shadows of greater realities which are to come. And we had a story of David uh being chosen by God, chosen by God from being a shepherd boy. We've heard the story over the last month or so about all that God did there. And last week Dave gets up and speaks.

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It's gone now but the wonderful Ark of the Covenant you're to see here, handcrafted by Dave Gregg. Magnificent in all its glory it was, made out of cardboard and silver foil.

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Goal foils! about that. Thought you did.

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And so the ark has come back to Jerusalem. If you have your Bible with you, turn please to 2 Samuel 7.

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and we will read a passage together.

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Oh, here we go.

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to Samuel 7.

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After the king was settled in his palace and the Lord had given him rest from all his enemies around him, he said to Nathan the prophet, here I am living in a palace of cedar while the ark of God remains in a tent. And Nathan replied to the king, whatever you have in your mind, go ahead and do it for the Lord is with you. And that night the word of the Lord came to Nathan saying,

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Go and tell my servant David this is what the Lord says. Are you the one to build me a house to dwell in? I have not dwelt in a house from the day I brought the Israelites up out of Egypt to this day. I have been moving from place to place with a tent as my dwelling. Wherever I have moved with all the Israelites, did I ever say to any of the rulers whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, why have you not built me?

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house of Seda. Now then, tell my servant David, this is what the Lord Almighty says, I took you from the pasture and from following the flocks to be 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 great like the names of the greatest men on earth.

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and I will provide a place for my people Israel and will plant them so that they can have a home of their own and no longer be disturbed.

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Does that change?

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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 give you rest from all your enemies. Get this, the Lord declares to you that the Lord himself will establish a house for you when your days are over and you rest with your fathers.

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I will raise up your offspring to succeed you.

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who will come from your own body and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my name and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.

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Amen. Hallelujah. God's covenant with David takes place during this time of peace, this time of rest. Walls had quieted. David had established Jerusalem as the political and spiritual center of the nations. It was a time of peace and a time of great stability. And David...

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looks around him and he says well look at me I'm living in his you five-star luxury and God's outside in a tent this can't be right and wants to build up for something magnificent for God uh and his desire is sincere it's a great desire I want to build a home for God but that night God sends the prophet Nathan with a surprising word and the word was this

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you're not going to build me a house, I'm going to build one for you. That's cool, it? You just love God to come to you and say, I'm going to build you a nice new house. You're not going to build a house for me, I'm going to build a house for you. One of the most important lessons that we can learn as Christians is not us trying to build something for God, but for realizing that God is building something greater than we could have ever imagined.

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We have to get into God's plans not to get God into our plans.

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So many people just want to get God accommodated into what they have in their minds and what they want to do. Get God into your agenda, get God into my plans. I've got all these great ideas. God come and bless it. God wants you to get into His purposes. What's the purpose of God for your life? People ask me that question all the time. Oh please, tell me what is the purpose of God? What's God got for me? I'll tell you what God's got for you. Get into His purpose. Get into His plans.

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See what God's building in this generation and get into that. Not try to get God to bless your plans, but get you to be part of the fulfillment of His plan and His purpose. Isn't that right? We agree. See, David wanted to erect a building, but God wanted to establish a kingdom. David wanted to build a temple, but God wants to build a dynasty, something that will last forever.

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And I don't believe that David for a moment truly understood the eternal significance of what God was saying to him. He saw the hill and not the mountain. He'd have glanced the mountain. He'd have had an idea about the mountain. He stood as it were at the foothill of Revelation, seeing those distant peaks of glory, but having no idea of how God was going to work them out.

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Isn't it fantastic that God's ideas are bigger than your ideas? My puny little thoughts and my puny little ideas in comparison to what God has planned.

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There was an immediate fulfillment of course. It's interesting, there's a verse that says...

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Solomon, his natural son, was the one who ended up building the temple. But it was David who had all the plans. He says, I have it in writing from the hand of God upon me, all the details of the plan for the building of this temple. Isn't that great? I have it in detail from the hand of God on me. You know, God will give you details.

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about what he wants you to accomplish and what he wants you to do.

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God said your offspring will build a house. David passed all the plans on to his son. He arranged all the materials and all the financing for this building. But it was Solomon who went ahead and Solomon who built the temple. And he did a great job, by the way. It was probably the most magnificent building on earth. It was truly amazing.

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And the reign of Solomon, the reign of Solomon was a pinnacle of the glory of that nation. It was stunning.

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in wealth, in power, in peace, and Solomon himself in wisdom. It was amazing. It started incredibly well.

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But it ended in disaster. Solomon turned from wholeheartedly following God.

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He went into idolatry, into compromise. He 700 wives, 300 concubines. I can't even imagine.

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with my sanctified imagination what that must have been like a thousand

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I would like to make some cheap joke about we can't call we won. But I won't. Because I have to go home with my wife.

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But he turned away from being obedient to God and to following God and his kingdom collapsed. The nation was divided, fragmented. It was cut down.

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Outwardly it had looked so impressive, outwardly it had looked spectacular, but at foundation level there was rottenness.

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Human kingdoms fall. People fail.

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Some fail morally, some fail spiritually. Kingdoms collapse, thrones become empty, crowns disappear. Tell you, Putin, Trump.

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all those kind of people, Kim Jong Un, all these people you hear about. The kingdoms will fall, they'll fail, but we are part of an everlasting kingdom. We are part of that which will never fail, which will never be shaken. The Bible tells us that there's going to come a time when everything will be shaken. We feel like that at the moment when we look at the world, when you turn on your TV set and the things that take place. But we can be part of a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and therefore we do not need to be shaken.

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And when the world around you is collapsing, you can stand because of the Word of God to us.

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And when Solomon's kingdom was cut down, when Solomon's kingdom collapsed, it looked as though God's word to David had failed. It was the end.

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But the collapse of Solomon's kingdom shows us that God's promises are never defeated by human failure. The tree might have been cut down, but it didn't mean that the word of God was going to fail.

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The prophets kept on speaking, prophets kept on prophesying.

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Isaiah

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gets up and he begins to prophesy out of the stump the stump is what's left when the tree is cut down out of the stump of David's family will grow a shoot yes a new branch if you look at the word is branches capitalized because it's speaking of a person

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Out of the stump of David's family will grow a shoot. Yes, a new branch burying fruit from the old root and the spirit of the Lord will rest on him. Guess who we're talking about? The spirit of the Lord will rest on him. The spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord and he will delight in obeying the Lord.

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He will delight. Yeah. He will not judge by appearance nor make a decision based on habit. He will say, he will give justice to the poor. He will make fair decisions for the exploited. The earth will shake at the fourth of his word and one breath from his mouth will destroy the wicked. He will wear righteousness like a belt and truth like an undergarment. Yeah.

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The stump still has roots and the roots are still alive.

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One of you saw like me, I'm sure you did, a couple of years ago, up near Hexham on the Hadrian's Wall.

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at a place called Thickamore Tree Gap.

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You have to double click this not single click it Remember the tree quite a famous tree quite a landmark Appear in some movies Robin Hood I think Prince of Feath all that kind of much love much delighted and some uh I'll call them people For want of a better word some people came down and thought it would be jolly clever to uh

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Chop it down. To cut it down.

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It was awful. But if you go there today and you look at the site today

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There's a sign up that says, this tree stump is still alive. Isn't that great?

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And the stump of Solomon was cut down, the tree was cut down, but the stump was still alive. The stump was still alive. Isaiah describes Jesus as the branch out of David's family. That's what Jesus was. The stump, the tree had been cut down, but Jesus springs up.

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Jerry Meyer reminds us, Behold the days are coming declares the Lord when I will raise up for David a righteous branch and he shall reign as king and deal wisely and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land the prophets continue to prophets prophesy that the promise to David had not failed but the promise of David was still to be fulfilled one would rise up the coming Messiah the one that we call Jesus

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and he would spring up out of the root. Zechariah 3, 8. See, I am going to bring my servant, the branch. Isaiah again, Isaiah 4, 2 says, in that day the branch of the Lord shall be beautiful and glorious. I don't know how you describe Jesus, but beautiful and glorious. I think it's a pretty good description.

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The promise of God seemed to have failed but it hadn't. He is the branch. Excuse this, slight detour but I've got to do it.

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It's a great story, one of my favorite Bible stories, a little story in 2 Kings chapter 6. And it's about the school of the prophets with Elisha, and they're living in his place and they decide that the place that they're living in was too small for them. And so they go to Elisha and say, can we go down to the riverside and cut down some trees and build a bigger place for us? And Elisha said, yeah, off you go. And so...

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off they went, he said come with us, he said I'll come with you and they're going down there and they're chopping down the trees and one guy is whacking away at the tree, you know the story and he's whacking away, the axe head comes off Murphy's law came into, if you're going to whack it it's going to come off and it's going to land in the river and that's where it landed, sploosh, somehow in the river sinks down to the bottom the guy cries out alas master it was borrowed

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an axe head with a valuable piece of equipment back then an iron head axe head and he was in trouble he'd have to pay it off uh so Elisha says where does it fall Elisha's name means God is salvation and Elisha God is salvation goes to a tree and he cuts down a branch

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and he takes a branch and he casts it into the water and it sinks down to where the iron acts. Wood does not, naturally wood does not sink and iron doesn't float.

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But God can reverse those things. And the axe head goes down, sorry, the branch goes down to where the axe head had fallen and it floats to the surface. The King James Version even better, the King James Version says that the axe head did swim. I just love that.

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That's just great. like that. Do you know a corpse can float? But you got to have life to swim. It's just a great, isn't that a great story? And here's a picture of God who is my salvation taking the branch who is Jesus and him coming down into the darkness to where I fell and he lifts me up gives me life that I can raise again. Isn't that fantastic?

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The branch in the story with Elisha is not capitalized, it's just cut small b. But I think it should be. In fact, I want to change it in my Bible to capital B. He is a branch cut off. He is a branch out of the tree that was cut down. But he was always the mountain peak that David had been promised way, way, way back. Amen? He is a branch.

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You know, after Solomon's reign, there were many kings. There were many kings after Solomon's reign. Some good, some bad. Some very good, some absolutely awful. But eventually, the monarchy came to an end. They were taken away into captivity in Babylon. And the monarchy ended. And in the natural way of things, that was the end. The promise seemed to have failed.

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But God does not operate out of the realm of the natural but out of a greater revelation that David had. Had the promise failed? No, no, no, no, this is not a failure because Daniel chapter 2, you remember Daniel chapter 2? You might not, but in Daniel chapter 2, there is a picture of a rock that has been cut out not by human hands. It's speaking of Jesus.

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that the rock knocked out by human hands and it comes down and it destroys every kingdom. Every kingdom is destroyed and then that rock grows and becomes a mountain that fills the whole earth. This is the mountain of what was promised to David on that mountain peak beyond the foothills. And on a universal

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an unshakable rule of God that would replace all earthly kingdoms and last forever. God's do not fail. God's promises do not fail. That's why I love, the Lord has promised good to me. His word my hope secures.

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The greater fulfillment was yet to be. And then we come into the New Testament, we turn our Bible into the New Testament. Let's look at chapter one, verse one, the very first thing that we read in the New Testament as we turn in our Bible. And it's like a trumpet blast because it says in the very first sentence, in the very first verse, in the very first chapter of the New Testament, the genealogy of Jesus Christ, son of David.

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He's arrived. That's what it declares. We've come to the foot of the mountain.

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the book of the generation of Jesus Christ.

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I am never gonna use this thing again.

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the book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David. In that moment, in that moment as we look into the New Testament, in that moment, the long valley of time between God's prophetic promise to David and his ultimate fulfillment comes to an end. The valley of time stops and now there's a kingdom in front of us, the mountain of the Lord.

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The mountains down before us, what seemed delayed was not denied, what appeared silent was not forgotten.

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Never, my friends, allow the valley of time to persuade you that what God has promised to you has failed.

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never allow the valley of time between the promise of God to you and its fulfillment to allow you to think that somehow it has failed, it has not. It was a thousand years, it was a thousand years between that promise of God to David and Jesus coming. A thousand years, that's a long time.

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But for God a thousand years is as a day, and a day is as a thousand years. And so for you as an individual,

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It might feel like there's just a stump left, but the stump still has roots.

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It might feel like all that's left is a stump, but the stump has roots. And in God, what looks like it's been cut down is not unrooted. The roots are still there. The dead dreams can live again.

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I wonder how long you've waited for fulfillment of a word from God.

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to us as a company of God's people. You know, there are prophetic words spoken over us in this church that yet remain unfulfilled. We've not seen the good of them yet. We've not seen the fulfillment of some of the words that God has spoken to us. But we must never assume that God works to our timetable. Nor must we ever know that we fully... Sorry, I'll start that again.

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God does not work to our timetable.

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nor do we always fully understand how He will bring around His purposes. We don't always understand. We don't always understand. Scripture reminds us in 1 Corinthians 14, we know in part and we prophesy in part. We don't always understand. We don't always fully grasp the meaning and the timing or shape of the prophetic words that come to us, but we are called to be faithful in holding on to them.

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We thought we were climbing this but there was something greater beyond and sometimes we're just in a valley of time waiting for the fulfillment of the word.

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Don't let that passage of time rob you.

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Perhaps today you find yourself in that valley of time between a promise God gave you and its fulfillment, between a prophetic word spoken over your life and its realization.

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Many of us right now are in that situation. I know the things that Pam and I still believe in God for, promises that come, promises God's made to us and we've not seen the fulfillment of it. Some we're thinking God there doesn't seem to be any movement here at all. Nothing seems to be changing God, you promised, you said.

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I'm with you.

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And in waiting we can become weary. In waiting we can begin to wonder, will it ever really happen? We may have messed up. Others may have failed us. Circumstances might have worked against us. Everything might seem to have gone wrong. No sign of any change taking place. But there is always life in the promise of God. And it doesn't matter whether you can see it or not, the root is still alive if it was from God.

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and the genealogy of Jesus stands as a testimony to this truth, God is never late. His promises do not expire, they do not have a sell-by date on them, or use-by date on them, and what He has spoken, He will surely bring to completion. He did it for David.

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greatest kingdom. I love it. I love it when Jesus walked the earth and the people were in need and the blind man would cry out, Jesus, thou son of David, thou son of David, he wasn't Jesus from Nazareth, he wasn't Jesus' healer, he wasn't Jesus' teacher, he wasn't rabbi, was Jesus, thou son of David, he was a fulfillment of every promise that God made to David all those years.

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before.

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Here's the appeal. We're having an appeal. If you feel that way, if you feel like there's promises on my life and I'm weary and wondering and...

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Was it really from God? It feels like the tree was cut down and was just a stump.

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Good news is.

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The root is still alive.

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So if you feel like that, if your faith in the fulfillment of God's promise to you has faltered, if you've assumed failure, if you've become discouraged in the waiting in that valley of time, I invite you to stand and we're going to pray together.

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Just stand.

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One of the saddest terms in the Bible was those men walking on the road to Emmaus, or that couple on the road to Emmaus. And Jesus comes alongside of them and starts talking and they talk about Jesus and they said, we had hoped. We had hoped. And it feels like hope.

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have gone.

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Let's pray. Let's bow your head. Just reach out to God. Let's pray.

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He's a covenant-keeping god.

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Father God, Father, you are the one who keeps covenant.

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and promise.

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every promise Lord from generation to generation Lord you do it you spoke to David and those centuries past not one word fell to the ground

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what you promised God you'd always in your time.

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always in your way. And so Lord we bring before you the valleys of waiting in our lives and the promises that seem delayed and the prophetic words that feel distant, the dreams that look cut down to a stump.

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We pray God, breathe again by your spirit. Father, I pray that where hope has grown weary, you'll renew strength. Where faith is faulted, you'd restore confidence. Where we have assumed failure, remind us your purposes are still alive at the root.

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Teach us to trust you Lord in that valley of time, in that in-between time. Give us grace to hold fast to what you have spoken. Even Lord when we only see it in part and dimly.

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Father, we pray you guard our hearts from discouragement and our minds from unbelief.

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Lord, as you brought forth the Son of David in fullness of time, bring to completion every word you have spoken to your people here.

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For the glory of your name and for the good of your church, and for the advance of your kingdom.

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Lord, we choose Lord to trust you today.

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again. We choose Lord to wait with hope. We choose to believe that in the valley is not the end because the mountain is still ahead.

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We ask Lord God in the meantime, you make us strong.

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Keep us faithful and we ask it in the wonderful name of Jesus.

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Amen.