A series on the story of redemption
The story of David
(Click on the link below to read the
verses.)
2 Samuel 7:1-17
[Everybody has
a story. Even God has one. His is a story about love and redemption and
faithfulness. In this series we are going to take a closer look at God’s story
through the lives of the people that He touched. How their story became His
story of redemption. And how your story is also a part of it.]
A straight line is the shortest distance between two points. However, if you Google “how to determine the shortest distance between two points”, it gives you this formula:
- Denote the
given points as (x1, y1) and (x2, y2).
- Apply the
Euclidean distance formula, distance, d = √[(x2 − x1)2 +
(y2 − y1)2]
- Simplify the
square root.
Are you kidding me? All you have to do is take a ruler, connect the two
points and draw a straight line. Voila! Easy peasy. It doesn’t take a
mathematician to figure it out. But, as Lee Corso from ESPN College GameDay
says, “Not so fast my friend”.
Apparently, the Lord wasn’t a mathematician because he didn’t know how to
connect a straight line when it came to his story of redemption. Consider David.
But first, to understand his story, we begin with Saul.
Rejecting the Lord as their king, the Israelites asked Samuel for a human
king like all the other nations around them. The Lord instructed Samuel to
anoint Saul as king. He was a man of good standing and was a head taller than
anyone else. When he was anointed, the Spirit of the Lord came upon Saul, and
he was a changed man.
Saul ruled as king for forty-two years and started his reign well. He
obeyed the Lord and was victorious in battle.
But slowly, cracks appeared in
his character. Eventually, the Lord rejected Saul as king and instructed Samuel
to go to Jesse of Bethlehem; that he had chosen one of his sons to be king.
Now Jesse had eight sons and brought them out to Samuel one at a time
starting with the oldest. One by one, the Lord told Samuel “No”, it wasn’t him. Finally, the youngest came out, David. He had been tending the sheep and was an
afterthought. But he was the one that the Lord had chosen.
In secret, Samuel anointed David as king. Following this, the Lord’s
Spirit came upon David. But it also left Saul, and was replaced by an evil
spirit that tormented him. To relieve Saul of his torment, David was brought to
play the lyre. Can you imagine the irony of this and the anxiety of David?
Eventually, when David defeated Goliath in battle, he became a war hero. As
a result, Saul was extremely jealous of David, and tried to kill him. Because
of this, David became a fugitive, running for his life.
This is anything but a straight line story. Did the Lord make multiple
mistakes? Did he choose the wrong man to be king? Did he know what he was doing;
what the ramifications would be? Did he truly have a long term plan in mind? It
doesn’t seem like it.
Yet, when David finally replaced Saul as king and possessed the throne, the
Lord made this covenant with him.
16 Your house and your kingdom will endure forever
before me; your throne will be established forever.’” NIV
This covenant was fulfilled twenty-eight generations later.
1 This is the genealogy of Jesus the
Messiah the son of David, the son of Abraham… NIV Matthew 1
The Lord’s plan of redemption is not a straight line story. It’s not easy
peasy. But he does have a plan and that plan includes you and me. It may not be
a straight line, but it’s His plan, and we are a part of his story.
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