THIS MESSY LIFE: ADOLESCENCE - PART 2
HOMECOMING KING
Sunday, October 20, 2019
2 Samuel 6:1-23
David and all the troops who were with him set out for Baalah, which is Kiriathjearim of Judah, to bring God’s chest up from there - the chest that is called by the name of the Lord of heavenly forces, who sits enthroned on the winged creatures.
2 Samuel 6:2
Life couldn’t get much better for David. His days of hiding from Saul had come to an end and he was on the throne. He claimed victory after victory over the Philistines and now we find him establishing a new capital city in Israel, Jerusalem, “David’s City.” This Philistines had captured the Ark of the Covenant, the very footstool of God who reigned above the Ark on the mercy seat between the cherubim.
David would establish Jerusalem once and for all by bringing this Ark, and with it, God’s very presence, to dwell in his city.
In 2 Samuel 7 we find David taking yet another step as he seeks to build a temple for God in his city, only God has other plans. “You are not the one to build the temple for me to live in,” God says (2 Samuel 7:5). Later in verse 11 we see that it is God who will build David a house, or a dynasty, not the other way around.
David may indeed be living large as the Homecoming King, but like any popular teenager, David and Israel with him may be letting their heads get just a little too big. Nothing can stop them, or so they think. They are doing great and wonderful things for God, but how much glory are they taking for themselves in the process?
Pride comes before disaster, and arrogance before a fall.
Proverbs 16:18 (CEB)
There is nothing wrong with doing great and wonderful things for God, but we must be careful that the things we do are actually the things which God desires and not the things which will merely inflate our own pride.