God gives the victory.

Then he put garrisons in Edom, and all the Edomites became David's servants. And the Lord gave victory to David wherever he went.

1 Chronicles 18:13

 

When God needed a man

to fulfill His plan

unite His people into a nation

and show His great salvation

 

God raised David as king

and blessed him with everything

he would need to decidedly win

every battle God put him in.

 

David trusted the Lord

and the power of His Word.

He was humble and true;

that’s why God brought him through.

 

When the nations raged

and warfare was engaged

God was with His chosen king

and victory songs would ring.

 

As the battle was decided

by God’s hand as He guided

David to do His will,

God can grant victory still!

 

If we trust in God’s plan

and accept the gifts from His hand

His help with us will stay

and God will save us today.

humbled by extreme blessing

and your name will be established and magnified forever, saying, 'The Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, is Israel's God,' and the house of your servant David will be established before you. For you, my God, have revealed to your servant that you will build a house for him. Therefore your servant has found courage to pray before you.

1 Chronicles 17:24-25

 

God made a unique covenant with David and his descendants forever. It came about because of David’s clear determination to build a temple for the worship of the LORD in Jerusalem. His heart was that God be treated with all the respect and glory due to Him. David was not happy to live in a cedar lined palace while God was worshiped in a tent. He longed that in every way imaginable, God’s name would be made known as great.

 

God’s response to David was to honor him with a covenant that blessed David’s unyielding passion for God. God promised to unilaterally establish the house of David as the ruling dynasty in Jerusalem forever. He would make David’s name great even as David longed to make God’s name great. And by doing so God would make His own power known through the throne of David, eventually to the salvation of the world through Jesus, the Son of David. God blessed David so that his son could carry on his rule and build the temple of Yahweh in Jerusalem. God blessed David so that His Son could become the Messiah of Israel forever. And those things are exactly what happened through Solomon who built the temple in Jerusalem, and through Jesus, Who saves us from the peril of our sins forever.

 

When Nathan the prophet relays this message back to David, the king’s response is humble submission to God’s revealed will. David is overwhelmed. He went to God asking to build a house for God, and the Lord responded by telling David that He would build up David’s house as a ruling dynasty forever. David is humbled by God’s great grace. It seems almost more blessing than he can bear as David humbly comes to God to thank Him for the unprecedented favor that David has found in God’s eyes.

 

I am humbled by the precious heart of David that would respond so worshipfully to God’s blessing. David almost sees himself as unworthy of such favor. But joy flows our in praise from a thankful heart. And that is the type of response that should fill our days when we realize just how blessed we are by God’s unfailing love and grace. We are recipients of the blessings of the covenant God made with David on that day. And we should share in his joy!

universal worship

Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name; bring an offering and come before him! Worship the LORD in the splendor of holiness;
tremble before him, all the earth; yes, the world is established; it shall never be moved.
Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice, and let them say among the nations, "The LORD reigns!"
1 Chronicles 16:29-31

God's desire has always been that He would be worshiped by all the peoples of the earth. The reason He called Israel into relationship with Him was so that through them, the knowledge of God would spread to all the earth. They were to be a light to the nations. Even the Old Testament is filled with a global sense of mission. This magnificent worship song gives us insight into the great heart of God for ALL the world.

That vision of the whole earth in worship of God still must drive the hearts of God's people. I like the perspective that John Piper gives: "Missions exists because worship does not." The hope of spreading the good news of Jesus among every ethnic group is that God will be loved, revered, and worshiped across the globe. It is this outrageously global perspective that means that the Christian message is always on the move. This passion is a calling worth living for, now and forever.

The Christian vision is equally compelling in the New Testament. The way that Paul put it placed Jesus at the very center of global focus: "Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father" (Philippians 2:9-11). I will love, live, and choose to see my world in the light of that vision and mission.

WORSHIP: is loud bad?

So David and the elders of Israel and the commanders of thousands went to bring up the ark of the covenant of the LORD from the house of Obed-edom with rejoicing.
1 Chronicles 15:25

David marked his love for the Lord with expression in his worship. He could not help it. It was his passion for God and thankfulness for God's blessings coming out. David had an artistic side to him that was expressed most in his worship of God. We have the book of Psalms as testament to this. We know he played musical instruments (most notably the lyre) and he led this loud worship service as the Levites carried the ark to Jerusalem. I am sure it was quite a spectacle. The text says there was shouting with the loud music of horns, trumpets, cymbals, harps and lyres (1 Chronicles 15:28).

Praise ought to be heartfelt. And every personality is a little different, but expression is the key. There is nothing more disheartening than being in an assembly of Christians who are just "going through the motions" in a worship service. I don't mean liturgy. I have been in intense, meaningful liturgical assemblies. I mean instead that the worship has degenerated into passionless procedure. May we spare God our dry drudgery!

Personally, when I hear a few complaints about the volume or the content of the "performance level" in a worship service, I tend to go to this episode in the life of David for an evaluation context. In my mind, I wonder if the complainter might be a little like Michal (1 Chronicles 15:29) who despised David's display of rejoicing. There are certainly technical matters to consider in any worship gathering. The sound engineer ought to be able to keep things at a controlled decibel level for the size room. But in the end, a little shouting and rejoicing seems to me to be a biblical precedent to gauge authentic praise and worship! And no sound console should contain that!

I do know this... when I get embarrassed at my own worship of God, it is NEVER because I got "way too into it". It is always because I felt too reserved or I held back or I failed to truly worship God in spirit and in truth. Rejoicing is expressive... whatever that looks like for any person... and that must be the gauge by which we measure honest to goodness, heartfelt praise.

Commanded by God

And David did as God commanded him, and they struck down the Philistine army from Gibeon to Gezer. And the fame of David went out into all lands, and the LORD brought the fear of him upon all nations.
1 Chronicles 14:16-17

God brought deliverance to Israel under the leadership of King David because David was submissive to God's control over the nation. Twice in this chapter the Philistines attack Israel. And twice David does nothing until he first inquires of the LORD. That was the secret of his success in defending Israel.

The first episode is one of Philistine aggression. David hears that the Philistines are against him. David decides to take a "strike first" position and inquires of the LORD. God confirms David's decision, and under God's blessing Israel routes back the Philistine advances with overwhelming success. David gives all the credit to God who delivered the nation. On the battlefield the Philistines abandon their Baal figurines. David has them all collected and burned. The king will not let even a hint of foreign idolatry taint his heart or tempt the nation.

The second engagement finds a Philistine counter attack coming against David's army. Again David seeks the LORD, and this time God asks David to strategically retreat, then outflank the Philistines, waiting for a miraculous sign from God to then bring on the attack. Again, the king obeys God as commander and the Philistines are overwhelmingly defeated. The result was that the reputation of the military might of Israel under David spread to neighboring nations. A peace came to Israel through the strength that God gave to David.

David was a military man. He was a shrewd fighter and a magnetic commanding general. But he did not rely only on these personal gifts. Instead, he entrusted himself to the power and person of God. He was under God's command. And God was glorified as He blessed David and made his name to be feared not only throughout Israel but also to the gentile world. David's trust in God shows how much such real faith can give the faithful heart. It challenges such faith to guide decisions even today.

worship is the center

Then let us bring again the ark of our God to us, for we did not seek it in the days of Saul.
1 Chronicles 13:3

And so began David's personal passion to lead Israel with the kind of deep worship that he had for God in his own heart. He wanted to bring the ark of God (really the entire tabernacle) to Jerusalem and there to build a permanent temple dedicated to the worship of the Lord. He wanted to set the example of commitment to the covenant that the nation needed to follow to see success and experience God's blessing.

Saul's reign had not been characterized by this. It wasn't that Saul was an active idolater. It was just that he was not earnest in his worship of the Lord. He was not really a spiritual leader. And that was shown in his unwillingness to wait on the Lord. It was shown in his readiness to consult a spiritist rather than a prophet when seeking divine guidance. It was shown in his quick decision to disobey God's direct command to destroy everything Amalekite. He did not love the Lord enough to surrender his opinions and desires to Him. It was always "Saul's god, Saul's way". And David meant to change that for the kingdom. His example would be submissive and worshipful.

Seeking to have the ark near the throne would convey to the nation how serious David was about seeking and trusting God. This move was deliberate repentance and really was a good thing. The tabernacle and its furnishings were meant to be portable. There was no command to keep it in any one place. Having God's center of worship in the same city as Israel's center of government would be exactly the right thing to do. It let the Israelites know that God was their king's king.

David's desire to keep the worship of God the central focus speaks a challenge to us today. So many things will shove the real worship of the Lord to the periphery of our experience. May we take David's desire to our own hearts and never see worship as anything other than the center of our lives! And if necessary, let's take it back and place our focus squarely there.

slow trickle to greatness

For from day to day men came to David to help him, until there was a great army, like an army of God.
1 Chronicles 12:22

God brought together in His unique providential way all the men who would comprise the army of Israel under David. And David began his rule with this military foundation. It was what the times demanded. Israel was being oppressed by Philistine control. The previous king, Saul, and his sons were killed in battle with this enemy of Israel. When David ascended to the throne, he had to finish this Philistine war.

It makes sense that the powerful people under David as general would still have influence under David as king. These army commanders came from every tribe and region. David's reliance upon them in wartime forged alliances in peacetime that unified the nation around the king's leadership. The shared experiences in battle led to shared responsibilities in the civilian government.

What is striking in this passage is that David did not need to canvass the countryside to recruit good fighters to his cause. This was a volunteer army that God led together. Every day as the forces grew, eventually it coalesced into a group used by God under David's command to deliver the nation. It became mighty as under David Israel went from being a puny confederation of tribes to a powerful nation of warriors. God was doing a sovereign work. He used a gifted and battle hardened general to full advantage at a time when that was exactly the kind of leader that was needed.

This insight is not so much about military might, political power, or lessons in leadership. It is testimony to God's sovereign control over human affairs. he will use what people naturally do to perform His will among the nations. When God needed a strong and victorious Israel, He created a leader in shepherd boy named David, forced him to defend his life in battle for years under Saul's manic manhunt, and then trickled in an army of discontents and misfits for David's command. Incredibly, something bigger than the sum of its parts started to emerge. The hand of God is seen through His powerful providence.