First Baptist Church in Amboy,IL Podcast
When God's Glory Comes In
I'm going to make sure everybody had the Bible with you this morning. It looks like everybody's looking down. You're either looking down to your Bible or looking down at texting your friends. I'm not sure which, so I think everybody's got a Bible with you. I encourage you to follow along in the Bible because I'm going to show you some things in the Bible. I think there'll be a help and a blessing to you. Now, I started having Gary teach Sunday school, and it just dawned on me this morning that we've been in the same chapter all week, and if you've ever done much teaching or preaching and somebody goes before you, you always think, "Oh, no, I hope they don't use my text. I hope they don't use..." We've been studying the same chapter all week, so chances are pretty good. He's going to talk about the same things that I was planning on talking on, so it just dawned on me, but it's a little bit different, so that won't be a repeat. So if you're in Sunday school, that doesn't give you excuse to sleep through church, all right? But I appreciate Gary doing that. He did a great job, by the way. I have a joy in doing that and hearing someone else's perspective and what God shows them. Second Samuel, chapter number six, and I would like to read a few verses, and if you found your place in the Bible there, and if you're able to stand with me, I'll respect the word of God. Let's stand as we read. I'll read and you follow along in second Samuel chapter six and beginning in verse number 12. It says, "And it was told David, or King David, saying, 'The Lord had blessed the house of Obed Edom, and all the pertaineth unto him, because of the ark of God.' So David went and brought up the ark of God from the house of Obed Edom into the city of David with gladness." I like that. "And it was so that when they bear the ark of the Lord had gone six paces, he sacrificed oxen and fatlings. And David danced before the Lord and all his might, and David was girded with a linen ephod. And let's stop there and go to the Lord in prayer. Our Father, thank you for your goodness to us. Thank you that we can know your presence today in our lives, that you're not a God off far away somewhere, but you are a very present help in our time of need. And Lord, we need you this morning to work in our hearts and our lives more than we realize we need you. We need you more than the air that we need to breathe. We need you more than the food and water that we eat and drink. Or do we need your grace today? We need your mercies today. Thankful that your mercies are new every morning. Thank you that your grace is always sufficient. Bless now. In these few moments we have to share together in the Word of God. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Have a seat if you will. And of course, if you've been reading this week, you realize in chapter 6 David attempted to move the ark, his way, the Philistine's way, and now he's going to move the ark of God's way. And we're talking about when God's glory comes in. Now the ark of God, and if you have your bulletin, you've got just a simple outline that I give you with some blanks that you can fill in as we go. But God, the ark of God was really a box. If you've got a certain, my study Bible has a picture of what we think the ark looked like. There's a lot of different renditions of what the ark looked like. It was a box about similar in size of this table in front of me. And I won't go through a description of that ark, but that ark was a symbol of God's person in his presence. That ark was not God, but it was a symbol, a picture of God's present. Much like baptism is a picture of our salvation, but baptism is not salvation. Some people get that mixed up. They think that they're going to heaven because they've been baptized. A lot of churches, I was taught that in the church I grew up in. Your baptism doesn't get you to heaven. It is not salvation, but it is a picture where buried with Christ and where risen with Christ who walk in newness of life, and we'll look at Romans 6 tonight. But this is a picture of God's glory, of his power, his mercy, and his grace. Now this ark, it's interesting that this ark, which is a picture, a symbol of God has been in captivity. It's been tucked away the entire reign of King Saul. There was no coincidence. It went into captivity before Saul was made king. I remember the days of Eli earlier in the book of 1 Samuel. But now David says it's time to bring the glory of God back. It's time to bring the ark back. You know, there's a lot of folks, it's good time to bring God back into your life. It's a good time to get God into your life. Now, I want to look at some things concerning this ark of what it means to bring God's glory in. How do we bring God's glory? Of course, David failed, and Uza lost his life when he tried to set the ark and we'll go back into that. Gary talked about that some this morning, we talked about it on Wednesday night. But when the ark of God, when the glory of God comes back, how do we usher in the glory of God? How do we bring back? We're not talking about bringing a box, bringing an ark back in, but bringing the glory of God, bringing the presence of God back into our life. I want you to notice first of all, and if you have your bullet in there, the first blank that goes in there, when we bring the glory of God, it's got to start where there is worship. There is worship. I say that word worship reservedly today because a lot of people have some funny ideas when it comes to the word worship. When I was growing up in a very formal ritualistic church, I thought worship was when you sit in the pew and you try to stay awake, and if you fidget around too much, your mom will pinch you. And boy, I tell you, my mom could pinch harder than any crab that I've ever known, and she's straightening you right up. If you got out of line in church, we didn't have nurseries in the church I grew up in, and he just tried to stay awake and thank the Lord that it only lasted a couple of minutes, the misery, and I think of the ritualism, the formalistic worship. But today, worship is a far different idea in modern, what's called Christianity. It's become a form of entertainment, but I want you to see what worship, the word worship, if you look at the word worship in the Bible, it means to fall down. It means to bow down, most of the time in silence, in reverence, in humility. In fact, look at verse number all, let's find the verse here that I need, I have it written down so I can find it quickly, verse number 13, and it was so when they that bear the arc of the Lord had gone six paces, he sacrificed oxen and fatlings. Notice plural, oxen, that's more than one, fatlings, plural, that's more than one. Three six paces, come on, David, don't you have something more to do? I mean, can you, I don't know how far they had, I've looked on the map, trying to figure out how far it was, every, you know how far six paces is? One, two, three, four, five, six, it's time for another sacrifice. By the way, that took some time, round up the animals, let's kill them, let's sacrifice them, and come on, let's get the show on the road, would we have patience for that today? And then, well, I'm going to go to the same, I'll just walk out the door, you would like that, wouldn't you? As I'm pretending to go on that, another six paces, two, three, four, five, all right? Let's make another sacrifice. I imagine that took some time, don't you? It wasn't something that we could hurry through. It wasn't getting up in the morning, and I asked the kids over in camp, did you have your Bible tied this morning? Yup. If I would have timed it, it probably would have been two, three minutes. I'm going about getting a hold of God, and worship, and humbling ourselves before Him. And by the way, worship involves a sacrifice. You see the word worship used in the Bible, it involves giving something, sacrificing something. It's not entertainment, it's not somebody bebopin' around on the stage, and they don't have worship teams, they worship God. In fact, I notice this is an interesting thing, there's something missing from the first time they tried to move, go back to chapter number six and verse number one, and David gathered together all the chosen men of Israel, 30,000. Notice how big the crowd was the first time? By the way, I don't know how big the crowd was the second time. I wonder how many people took the time to worship God in prayer. And David arose and went with all the people that were with Him from Baal, Judah, to bring up from thence the Ark of God, whose name is called by the name of the Lord of Hosts, as well as in between the cherubahs. And they said in the Ark of God in the cart, now we see, you can put them out of the cart, that's not the way, but did you see any time where they spent time worshiping God before they went about their business? But I tell you what, they had a big crowd, didn't they? 30,000 people, wouldn't you like to have 30,000 people in church? But I wonder how many of them would show up for hours of prayer and worship to God. You see, something very interesting in our day today, we don't have time to worship God. There was first and foremost worship, and they skipped it the first time, maybe that was the first mistake. Now, before they put the Ark on the new cart, maybe they should have saw God first in prayer. I wonder how many of us skipped that time of worship in the morning when we get up before the Lord. I wonder how many of us skipped the time where I say often, and I used to hear people say "Yeah, but who's got time for that?" The most important ministry of our church is the prayer time, but how many people show up for prayer time? But we're going to have a gym night, we're going to have activity time, but we'll have a whole crowd. We're going to have a concert, well that'll bring people out of the woodwork. So we're going to have prayer time, yeah, three, four, maybe five, people will show up, and then, oh yeah, we're going to pray for the next ten hours, oh, what? When's lunchtime, but they were serious about worship, there's worship when God shows up, and a worship is a humbling of ourself, a sacrificial giving to the Lord. And when we're worked, and David continued to worship even in chapter 6 and verse 17-18, when they finally got the Ark there, he offered another sacrifice. In fact, when he got done offering that sacrifice in verse 17-18, they brought the Ark of God of verse 17, let's read the verses, and the Lord had said it in place in the midst of the tabernacle, and David pitched for it, and David offered burnt offerings, and peace offerings before the Lord, and as soon as David had made an end of offering, burnt offering and peace offering, he would bless the people in the name of the Lord of hosts. In verse 19, he blessed the people in verse 19, and he dealt among all the people, even among the whole multitude of Israel, so well to the women, as well as to the women, as men, to every one, a cake of bread, a good piece of flesh, and a flag and a wine, and all the people departed every one to his house. They'd met together, and I thought, wow, that's an interesting verse, verse 19. This is the three things that David made sure every person had before they left. Every man, every woman, they all were given a cake of bread, or slice of bread. My wife made some rice crispy cookies, rice crispy treats, then left over rice crispy course, before they go bad, you've got to make cookies out of them. And I said, can I cut them and have one for breakfast this morning? I'll only have one piece, of course, I get to cut it, and I cut one good size piece, and I was tempted to take the rest, and that's still just one piece, but just a piece of bread, not a rice crispy treat, all right? And there's a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ, and he said in John chapter 6, I am the bread of life. You see, the focus was on Jesus, and then it says that they were all given also a good piece of flesh and a flagon of wine. I need to add in here, whenever you see the word "wine" in the Bible, it does not necessarily mean alcoholic wine. It could mean anything from grape jelly to fresh grapes to juice and to alcoholic wine. And when it's an alcoholic wine, it's always in a negative sense, not to touch that, not to look at that. But these things are again a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ, and again in John chapter number 6, and the same chapter, a little later in that same chapter in the Gospel of John, he says, "Who so eateth my flesh," now he's talking about being a cannibal here, no. He's talking about receiving Jesus Christ into ourselves, "and drinketh my blood," and of course, there's a picture of the Lord's table, hath eternal life, and I will raise him up in the last day. Of course, the Lord's table, much like baptism, doesn't save you, but it's an identification that we've received Jesus Christ into our life. And we are part of him, our substance comes from him, and his blood has washed away our sin, and we're identifying with Jesus. You see, worship is a humbling ourselves before God, and that David identified with the common man. We'll come back to that in a little bit. He took off his kingly robe, his linen ephod, which we'll look at that in just a few moments, and which is a gesture of humility. He enjoyed his, you know, we live in a world today where you've got to have good self-esteem. David was enjoying his low self-esteem. When he was condemned for the way he humbled himself, he said in verse number 22, he said, "I will yet be more vile than thus, and it will be base in my own sight. Hey, I'll humble myself farther than you've ever seen me go before, and I am nobody without God." Well, you don't have very good self-esteem. No, we ought to have others esteem, but before that, we ought to have Jesus esteem to value him above our self. But our world's answer to everything is to build people's self-esteem. When I think that I'm more important than anybody else, if I don't like you, I just blow you away. I don't care about you. That's because I have too high of self-esteem. If we would humble ourselves before God, that's where worship begins. But here's the great king kneeling, humbling himself before God. I'll say this, the greatest of all kings are those that kneel before God. He knelt before he humbled himself in worship. And when God's glory comes in, first of all, there's worship and then second, there's rejoicing. When God's glory comes in, there's rejoicing. Look again in verse number 14, "And David danced before the Lord with all his might." I'm going to say this, this is not a sensual carnal vulgar dance that you see called dancing today, but this is exciting. I like what Gary said, "And when your ball team wins the game, you jump up and yell and chat." That's dancing before the Lord. I like to use the illustration, and I said this Wednesday night, dancing is moving in time with music, a marching band. We don't think of that as dancing, but they're marching in step with the music. That is literally what the word dancing means. He's rejoicing. He just beside himself, and he's jumping up and down, cheering with all of his might. Not just partway. I mean, he's all the way in there. I mean, he got religion is what some folks would say. He got a good dose of it. He was thrilled about the things of God. There was rejoicing. He was holding nothing back. And David was girded with a linen Ephod. It says in verse 14, which means that the linen Ephod was common clothes. He took off his priestly garment and was now wearing common clothes. He identified with everyone that he said, "Hey, I'm not the king. I'm just a common folk like you. I need to be saved just like anybody else." In verse number 15, "So David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the Lord with shouting, and with the sound of a trumpet, the trumpet is something that sounds in the alarm, sounds of call, sounds of call of worship, sounds of call of the battle, sounds of call of warning. And the ark of the Lord came into the city of David, and there was great rejoicing. There's the unity in unison, in singing and shouting to the Lord. And the ark came. The presence of God came. Let me tell you something. Sometimes somebody goes forward to, you're praying about them getting saved. They come forward and they, oh, praise the Lord they got saved, but then nothing seemed to happen. Let me tell you something, when God is real, you're going to know he's there. When you come into the presence of God, and you ask somebody, well, do you know you're saved? Well, I don't know. I think so. Maybe you don't get it yet. When the holy God that created the universe comes to live inside, I guarantee you're going to know something's different. Something's real. It's not, well, I just said a prayer and I don't know what happened. Nothing really changed. Nothing really happened. Oh, I tell you, when God comes in, you're going to know he's there. And I don't know how you're going to know it, I can't explain it, but I remember, and it's a long time ago, there's a back when we used to, you know, walk uphill both ways of school. In fact, I think we used to ride a dinosaur uphill both ways of school. That's how long ago it was when I got saved. And, but I tell you, when I got saved, I knew something changed inside. In fact, I thought I've lost my mind, something's, I'm not the same person inside, not outside nobody knew any different, but inside, I knew something's real, something's genuine, something that I've never, I don't know how to explain it, I wasn't extremely emotional, I'm not an emotional person, it wasn't all about emotions, but I thought, there's something that took place. Well, the God of heaven came to live inside my soul. And I became a part of him, and I share life in him now, and there is rejoicing. And I remember as a new Christian going out and reading Romans chapter five, verses six and seven, wherefore God commended his love toward us, why we're yet sinners, Christ died for us in that verse, and I was thinking that, and I just wept like a baby for an hour or two, just thinking about how God loves me. And if I was in front of somebody, I probably wouldn't have done that, but, but I just realized, wow, God, now I'm talking about God all my life. I'm talking about how God loves me all my life. I plan to be a Christian all my life, but when something real happened now, it's personal. It's real, he's alive, and there's something about it, and there is rejoicing in the goodness of God and the power of God, there's worship, and then there's rejoicing, but make no mistake about it immediately, there's going to be opposition. Oh, yeah, there's going to be opposition from somebody real close to you. You know the story in chapter six and verse number 16, and as the Ark of the Lord came into the city of David, Michael Saul's daughter, who was David's wife, one of his many wives. We will go there every time I say that, every time I say that, well, we won't talk about that right now. Okay. That's another whole message or two or three, Michael Saul's daughter looked through a window and saw King David leaping and dancing before the Lord, and she despised him in her heart. Why don't you see that? First of all, this was Saul's daughter, Michael. She thought she was marrying the king, and now this king's humbling himself to be amongst the peasants, he's supposed to be the king. I mean, I came from royalty and thought I was marrying into royalty, and now what is this all about? And notice how she was not there. Where was she at when David came in with the Ark? She was in the house looking through a window, didn't mean anything to her. She was a spectator, not a participant, a lot of spectators when it comes to Christianity today. Well, yeah, I'll be there to enjoy the show, but don't expect me to be involved in it. And she saw the king thinking, well, that's not how my dad acted when he was a king. No, that's not how your dad acted when he was a king, and that's probably why he had so many problems, but her problem was a heart problem. She despised him in her heart. Do you see that verse 16? She despised him in her heart. Verse number 20, when David got done at church, got done serving the Lord, got done rejoicing and praising God with his people, he came home. Of course, she wasn't there. She was at home. She returned to bless his household, and Michael, the daughter of Saul, came out to meet him. Did you have a good day at work today, David? Oh, God's so good today. Hey, God had a great time meeting with you. He had a great time meeting with you. No, that's not how she met him when he came home. She was a queen of sarcasm, you know, a lot of folks are sarcastic jabs, but out of the bitter heart, and her bitter heart began to blood and blossom. She said, "Oh, how glorious the king of Israel was. Oh, the mighty king of Israel, look at you, David." Well, she was sincere, wasn't she? And how glorious was the king of Israel today who uncovered himself, took off, and by the way, we got to this discussion Wednesday night and positive because the Bible never's nakedness ever mentioned. It wasn't that he made himself there. He took off his linen Ephod. His linen Ephod was a garment that was designed for, that Ephod was something that was designed for kings and priests and special people to wear before God. He took off his priestly robe and he was out in public. Now king doesn't do that unless he's humbling himself, and she wasn't used to a king home for himself. She used a king being like God, and David humbled himself, took off his linen Ephod. He was no longer seen as a king. He was seen as a common person, as a common sinner, in need of a Savior. And uncovered himself in the eyes of all the handmaids and servants as one of the vain, as one of those peasants, as one of those sinners shamelessly uncovered himself. You're walking around like you're nobody special and David said, "Hey, I am nobody special." And by the way, that's what great men think. I know nobody's special. I'm just a sinner, saved by God's grace. And David said to Michael that it goes on in verse number 21, "David said to Mike, "It was before the Lord." You don't understand. You don't know what it is to have a relationship with God and have a walk with God and to be rejoicing in the Lord because of your bitter heart and your callousness in your heart. And you're only upset, and he says, "You chose me before by Father." I'm not a king like your father, I'm a king after God's own heart. Now he didn't say that, but that's what he was referring to. "And before all his house to appoint me ruler over the people of the Lord over Israel, therefore will I play before the Lord? It's before God. It's not about me. It's about God. And I will yet be more vile than this. I will be base in my own sight in the maidservants, which thou hast spoken of them, shall I be had an honor? And therefore Michael, the daughter of Saul, had no children under the day of her death." Look at that verse many times and thought about it, read a few things about it. I'm not sure if that means that God judge Michael and close her womb or just mean, "Well, her husband and her have much of a relationship, they can have no children." But there's a judgment of God, but I want you to see and clarify something that we talked about a little bit of Wednesday night nakedness or in modesty was never intended, never the message here was about humbling of the king and identifying with common man. And there again, what a picture of Jesus Christ that God left his throne in heaven. Put aside his, well, he was still God. His deity was veiled in humility and humanity. And he became a man and that became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross for our sins, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him and he humbled himself to die for us and David humbled himself as picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. And then one other thing, and I would like to spend a lot of time that I wanted to make a whole message out of this, but I'll just give you a couple of things here. There's not only opposition, but lastly, there is an eternal blessing. There is eternal blessings or there is an eternal blessing. You know, God's concerned about our needs today, isn't he? We mentioned some things that God's that we're praying for. Maybe a logo, maybe a, I'm trying to think of some of the, the mentioned, the prayer requests that we talked about this morning, physical need, a need of a job and a marriage situation that's about the fall apart, lives that are falling apart, and God's concerned about those needs. But that's not all there is to life. He that findeth this life in this world and loses it for all these, what, what profit has it made up? What good has it done? It's more than about this life, but it's about having an eternal blessing of God. Now in chapter number seven, we see God's presence and blessing known in chapter seven and verse number one, it came to pass in the king sat in his house and the Lord had given him rest about from all his enemies. And the king said in the Nathan the prophets, the first time you see Nathan in the scripture, see now I dwell in a house of cedar and the ark of God dwelled, God's been so good to be Nathan. I can't believe how good, and he's in Jerusalem, remember what the city Jerusalem means? Remember we talked about last week Jerusalem, the habitation of peace, Jerusalem. I'm in Jerusalem, I'm at peace with God, I'm in the very presence of God, I'm enjoying the good things of God, and I'm going to do something for God. I like to build, God's given me a wonderful city, God's given me all that I need, He's given me salvation, He's met my needs, He put me on the throne, but I thought I would never get to that place where God's called me, and I'm finally at that place. Now I want to do something for God, I want to build God, a temple. So He calls Nathan in, and they get into this discussion, I'd like to build God a house and God's, and Nathan the prophet intercedes between David and God and says this is God's message to David, I'm going to just kind of skim over the whole chapter here real quick. David, you're not building me a house, but I won't build you a house, and this house I'm building is not a house made with hands, we're not talking about brick and mortar, like Abraham was looking for a city whose builder and maker was God, that not something that man could build, this house I'm building you, and the son that I'm promising you is not the son of the flesh, but it is the very son of God that one day is going to come to be the savior of all the world, the son of David, the son of man, God Himself. He gives him what we call the Davidic covenant, the unconditional promise. But it doesn't matter what you do, I've chosen you, and I'm going to preserve your lineage long after you're gone, and out of your lineage there's coming a son, and his name shall be called Jesus, and he will save his people from their sin. Now I'm not reading the text, but I'm just giving you an overview of what God is singing here to David, I'm going to build you, you're going to forever be remembered as the great king, the psalmist of Israel, and this son that's going to be born is going to be called the son of David, and also the son of God, and he shall be great in all the world will worship him, God's eternal house, and let me say this, despite David's failures, God's still going to use him, doesn't that give you hope? Despite my failure, God's going to bring me to that appointed place, God's got a home prepared for me in heaven, in fact Jesus said I go to prepare for you, a house, right? If I go to prepare for you a place, I will come again to receive you, but God I don't deserve that place, it doesn't matter, you've called upon me, I'm building it for you. What a picture we have here salvation, but God what if I fall and stumble along the way, what if I forsake you and go the wrong direction doesn't matter, I've already got a house with your name on it, I've got the key here waiting for you, that's just a matter of time before you get here, David's going to fall, and I'm going to fall, but God says I'm still building you a house, it's not up to you, but it's up to my faithfulness. God is going to be faithful even when I'm not faithful, God's going to be faithful to David even when he's not faithful, and long after David's buried it in the grave, God's still going to be faithful to his children, and one of the most amazing things in Bible history is how God preserved the lineage of David through not only the divided kingdom, but through the years of captivity, and at the end of that captivity there's still a lineage of David that the Messiah is going to come through. That's an amazing thing to follow and study that how, but God says I'm going to be faithful even though you're not faithful, and when God's people are not faithful I'm going to be faithful, and I'm going to be righteous even when we are not righteous. In fact it's not your righteousness, David talked a lot about his righteousness in Psalm, and keep in mind it wasn't David's righteousness, it was God's righteousness imputed unto him just like it is in our lives, and God's eternal house is his eternal kingdom. His eternal people are the nation of Israel, and God's eternal name is faithful and just, look at the end toward the end of the chapter in verse number 26, it says let thy name be magnified forever, saying the Lord of hosts is God over Israel, these are words of David, wonderful words, I think Don pointed out Wednesday night, focusing on the words of David here in verse number 28, and now oh Lord God thou art that God, and thy words are true, and thou has promised this goodness unto thy servants not about me, it's about how good my God is. And the eternal blessing is not something that God would you meet my needs, say oh he'll do more than that, he'll meet your needs today, but he'll take you to a place that's called heaven at the end of this life if you put your faith and trust in him. And some folks come to God because they have an immediate need and they don't realize hey you've got a much bigger need, in fact that immediate need you had brought you to your knees so you would see who God is that he's able to meet that need and much more if you learn to call upon him and trust him for the salvation of your soul by receiving Jesus Christ as your Savior. Well I want to do something forgotten, oh God wants to do something for you more than you could ever do, more than you could ever think or conceive, call unto me and I will answer thee and show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest, not thank God for his faithfulness. When God's glory comes in we humble ourselves before him when we realize who he is. There's rejoicing when he picks us up out of the mighty clay and sets our feet in the solider, yeah there's ground for singing and shouting and hallelujah and rejoicing better than any joy that this world could ever give, oh there's going to be opposition you mark it down there will be opposition if you want to live for God yea and all that will live God being in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution Paul gives us that, now that's not a promise we like to hold on to but that is a reality and there's more to the blessings of God and those are the temporal blessings that's the eternal blessings, the eternal goodness the home that God has for us in heaven you see we're all going to spend eternity somewhere it's more than about this life we're either going to spend eternity in hell without Christ or in heaven with Christ the only difference of what have we done with Jesus Christ as we accepted his grace for salvation to escape the fires of hell that's the only difference Have you accepted Christ as your Savior today? I'm going to ask you to stand here for...