12/14/08 - Advent 3 - 2 Samuel 7:8-14

IT'S BETTER TO RECEIVE THAN TO GIVE
- We give our sins to Christ
- Christ gives his life for us

The giving and receiving of gifts has become a big part of the Christmas tradition. And that’s OK. There’s nothing wrong with giving gifts to people and there’s nothing wrong when people give them to you. And I’m sure you expect to get a few gifts this year from certain people and you probably have a list of people that you are going to give Christmas presents to - if you haven’t sent them there already. Of course, some gifts are better than others. Some gifts are practical, some gifts are useable, some gifts are needed or wanted, and then there are those gifts that come out of the wrapping paper only to be placed on the top shelf of the closet never to see the light of day again. Naturally, the goal is to give gifts that will benefit a person in some way. Gifts that will be used. Gifts that fill a need of some kind.
Early on in his reign, King David saw a need and he wanted to give a gift to fill it. He had just taken over as king of Israel, he had captured Jerusalem, he had moved the ark of the covenant there, and he had built himself a palace in which to live. But he noticed that the Lord did not have a temple that bore his name. And so David decided that he was going to build a permanent house of God for the Lord in which he could place the ark of the covenant and at which the people could praise God’s name for generations to come. It was a big gift that David wanted to give. But God said no. The Lord was not going to allow David to praise him in that way! He told David that it wasn’t something he needed at that point. Although it was a very noble thought and a Christian gesture on the part of David to want to build a house for his God, the Lord turned him down.
But the Lord didn’t leave it at that. Instead of permitting David to give him a gift, the Lord told David that he wanted to give him even more than what he had blessed him with before. In 2 Samuel chapter 7 we hear the Lord tell David about all the blessings he planned to give him in the future, “I will make your name great… I will provide a place for my people Israel… The LORD himself will establish a house for you… I will raise up your offspring to succeed you… I will establish his kingdom… I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever… I will be his father and he will be my son.” The Lord planned to do all these things for David. And so in a strange turn of events, the Lord was going to establish a house for David when it was David who had originally planned to build a house for the Lord! And on top of that, God was going to make sure that David’s name would always be remembered, that his successor would build the house of God that David had planned, and that the Savior himself would one day come from David’s line. In a matter of a few words, David went from wanting to give something to his Lord, to receiving more blessings from the Lord than he would have ever dared to ask for. When it comes to the Lord, it’s always better to receive than to give.
And that is still true today. When it comes to our relationship with the Lord, it’s better to receive than to give. Of course, it’s good to give to the Lord - please don’t misunderstand me! He wants you to give him gifts out of thanks and praise. But also realize that your gifts don’t benefit the Lord in any way. He doesn’t actually need any of your gifts. Because consider the things that you are able to give him: You may put money in the offering plate on Sunday, give a special monetary gift to the Synod, or send money to a disaster relief fund overseas, but you aren’t really giving anything to the Lord that he doesn’t already have. Because any money that you give to him has always been his in the first place! He’s just loaning it to you for a while! And the same goes with the talents you use for him or the time you spend for him. He’s provided you with the talents and skills you possess, and he’s blessed you with the time of grace that you enjoy on this earth. Your time and your skills and your possessions are all his. And he can take them back whenever he wants to. And so he doesn’t really need the things you give him, they’re his no matter what. It’s the same as if my daughter took a book that I gave her to read, wrapped it in wrapping paper, and gave it back to me for a Christmas present. Nice thought, I guess, but it’s already mine. I don’t need her to give it to me. That’s why when it comes to the Lord it’s better to receive than to give. Because our gifts that we give to God aren’t truly gifts at all - they’re just returns. Whereas the Lord’s gifts to us are far and above anything we could possibly ask for or imagine.
I don’t think David could have ever imagined the blessings the Lord promised to him that day. Who would ever guess that the Savior himself would be one of their own descendants? But that’s exactly what the Lord promises to David here in 2 Samuel. And I want to talk about this prophecy a little bit because this is a special kind of prophecy. It’s not a direct prophecy like we are used to hearing during Christmas time. For example: Isaiah prophesied that a virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son and he will be called Immanuel (Isaiah 7:14). That is a direct prophecy because he is talking directly about Christ and no one else. The prophecy here in 2 Samuel 7, however, is called a typical prophecy. It’s a typical prophecy because it refers a type of Christ as well as Christ himself. Think of it as a layover on a plane trip. It’s not a direct flight, there’s a stop in between your departure city and your final destination. The type of Christ is that stop in between. And a “type of Christ” simply means that the person or event depicted in the prophecy has certain qualities or characteristics that parallel qualities and characteristics of the coming Savior. In this prophecy, David’s son Solomon is the type of Christ. And so I want to read a section of our Old Testament lesson again and I ask you to listen closely and see if you can find those phrases that refer to Solomon and those phrases that refer to Christ. “When your days are over and you rest with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, 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. I will be his father, and he will be my son. When he does wrong, I will punish him with the rod of men, with floggings inflicted by men. But my love will never be taken away from him…”
Did any of these predictions jump out at you as referring to one or the other? Obviously, both Solomon and Christ were David’s offspring and came from his body. Both had kingdoms established by God. And neither of them had the Lord’s love taken away from them. Even the sentence, “I will be his father, and he will be my son” can be describing both Solomon and Christ: It is specifically quoted in the book of Hebrews as referring to Christ himself, but the same can be said of Solomon - God was his father and Solomon was his son through faith. On the other hand, only Christ’s kingdom has been established forever - so that can only refer to Christ. But Solomon was the specific person who built a physical house for the Lord during his lifetime. And so here in this one prophecy we have both similar and different descriptions of two different people who lived at two different times all rolled into one. It’s a typical prophecy - a layover prophecy. It can be confusing sometimes, but it is very interesting.
And the most interesting part about this particular prophecy to me is one of the last descriptions I read, “When he does wrong, I will punish him with the rod of men, with floggings inflicted by men.” At first glance, you would think this refers only to Solomon because Christ never did anything wrong, and so he never had to be punished for it. And it’s true that Solomon was punished for doing wrong. He did suffer the consequences of his actions. But Christ was punished too. Christ was punished with the rods of men because of sin. He was flogged at the hands of men on account of sin. The sin wasn’t his own, of course. But Christ took it as his own.
I think you know where this is going. The sin wasn’t his, it was ours. We gave him our sin and he suffered for it. Paul says in 2 Corinthians, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21). Jesus had no sin, but he actually became sin for us. He took our sin that we gave him, he acted like it was his own, and he suffered and died in order to pay its consequences. And what a sad thing it is to come to the realization that out of all the things we have given the Lord in our lives, the only thing we have given him that he didn’t already have was sin. That is the only way we have ever affected God by what we have given him. We have provided him with suffering, with rejection from his own Father, with the tortures of hell, and with death itself. That is what the Lord has gained from our generosity. Congratulations. I’m sure the Lord appreciated your gift of sin.
But the remarkable thing about that is: he wanted your sin. He wanted to take it! The Lord knew it wouldn’t be pleasant. He knew it would be worse than anything anyone on this earth has ever had to face. But Christ wanted our sin anyway. Because he knew it was the only way. It was the only way to save us. That’s why he came to this earth. He wouldn’t have bothered to have been born in a manger and live in this sin-filled world and be treated like dirt by a crowd of sinful human beings and be taunted by a devil whom he had kicked out of heaven long ago if he didn’t want to take our sins from us. The reason that perfect baby was born to Mary in Bethlehem 2000 years ago was solely to become sin for us. That is what the Lord prophesied to David in 2 Samuel 7 and that is the way it had to happen. Christ took our sins and gave us salvation in return. It’s surely better to receive than to give when it comes to the gifts of the Lord. Because the only thing we have given is sin; and the everything he has given to us is salvation.
And now with all that being said: because of what the Lord has given you, respond by giving your gifts back to the Lord. He doesn’t need them, of course. We know that. But he wants them. He wants you to return to him some of the blessings he has given you because that shows him your thanks and praise and appreciation for what he has done. It is a form of worship to your Lord. And he is pleased with that. He loves when you give back to him. Not because he gains anything by it, but because you are acting like his dear children by it. And as his dear children he will gladly make sure that you never run out of gifts to return. Just like he did with David. He gave him blessing upon blessing upon blessing and didn’t even allow him to try to pay him back. The Lord loves to give. He loves to give to his children. He loves to give to you. And the Lord’s love of giving to you is never clearer than it is at Christmas. Look at what he gave you. As you see him lying as a baby in the middle of a barn, look what he gave you! As you watch him grow up surrounded by sinful people in a sinful world, look what he gave you! As you see him perform miracle after miracle and preach sermon after sermon, look what he gave you! As he bent his back to flogging and bent his head to thorns, look what he gave you! As he is nailed to the cross and rises from the dead, look what he gave you! He gave you his life. And he gave you yours. It is truly better to receive from the Lord than to give to the Lord. Because we have little to offer, but everything to gain.
Amen.

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.” - Eph. 1:3