The history of Scripture, the things that are recorded there are wide and varied; I guess the best word would be 'amazing'. We're given grand, sweeping moments like the recording of God's act of creation, the flood of Noah, the parting of the Red Sea, the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ. And then, we're given a window into some of the most intimate, and solemn, and personal moments that you could ever imagine. Tonight, we want to look at one of those moments, the words of a dying man to his son. Think with me for a moment; if you were on your deathbed, you had your children standing around you, you knew that life was passing away from you, that you could no longer ward off death, you knew you were at the end, but you had enough vitality to say a few last things to your children.
What Would Your Final Words Be?
What would you say? What would be your final words? I can think of no better words than the words we have recorded in I Kings 2: 1-9. David is an old man; he's at the end of his forty-year reign. Notice what he says, "I'm about to go the way of all the earth." Yes, it is true, this thing called 'death' is the unavoidable result of the fall; it was never supposed to be that way. Life was to give way to life, was to give way to life, was to give way to life, was to give way to life, on into eternity.
The reason death seems so wrenching and so unnatural is because that's exactly what it is. We should not think of death as being okay; we should not think of it as being normal; it is a horrible interruption to what God had planned. And we ought to all celebrate the fact that death will die. But David is facing that inescapable thing, and so his heart turns to his son, Solomon, who is there at his bed. And David speaks those final words, words of a father to his son, the son who was to be the next King of Israel to carry on this line that would eventually lead to the coming of the Messiah, the Lord Jesus.
Well, I want to organize David's final words for you. Here's the first thing he says to his son: live a life of faith. Look at verse 2, "I am about to go the way of all the earth. Be strong, and show yourself a man." You say, "Well, Paul, what in the world does that have to do with living a life of faith - 'Be strong, and show yourself a man?'" Well, you know that David is not saying, "Make sure you pump lots of iron, and hunt and fish a lot; speak with a deep voice and intimidate people." This was a man who knew where strength was to be found.
This was a man who knew where courage was to be found. This was a man who knew the reason for being decisive; it was not rooted in his strength, it was rooted in strength in the Lord. David talked of God being his strength; he understood the theology of strength, that as a child of God, my strength is not in the quality of my intellect, or the variety of my experience, or in my physical muscles, or the force of my personality. It's found in the Lord, the Lord Almighty, who has made me His child. David didn't just know that by theology; he knew that by experience.
This is the young man who walked down into the valley of Elah after the Army of Israel, for forty days, had been afraid, who said, "God delivered the lion and he delivered the bear, and he'll deliver this giant to me this day." And without instruments of warfare, without weapons, garbed as a shepherd boy with nothing more than a shepherd's sling, he was a victor. "Be strong, show yourself a man,"...stand up in the courage of faith. Are you standing? Are you standing in your family, standing at your university, standing at your job, standing in the face of the temptations of life in a fallen world?
Are you standing in courage and faith and hope because you really do believe God is your strength, and you really do believe God will not call you to a task without giving you the wherewithal to do it? Or is your life more a picture of timidity, and anxiety, and fear, and indecision, and scarily fickle faith? "Be strong, and show yourself a man," is David's way of saying, "Live the life of faith." Second thing David says: determine to obey. "Keep the charge of the LORD your God, walking in his ways and keeping the statutes, his commandments, his rules, and his testimonies, as it is written in the Law of Moses."
Two parts of this: First, be faithful to the calling that God has placed on you. For Solomon, that meant his calling as king. God had placed his hand on Solomon. He was to be the next King of Israel. And David says, "Know who you are; know what God has called you to do; be faithful to the charge that God has placed on you." I would say to you this evening, "What is your calling, your calling as a husband or a wife, your calling as a ministry leader, your calling as an elder or deacon, your calling as a neighbor, your calling as a citizen in this city, this region, your calling as a member of the body of Christ?
Drafted Into His Service
Do you take God's calling on your life seriously? Is your way of living being true to the charge of the Lord on you?" Hear this - if you're God's child, you've been drafted into His service, and you didn't have a vote. And He, in His grace and His sovereign plan, has positioned you somewhere to be part of what He's doing. Do you take your calling seriously? I am deeply concerned about the passivity of the Body of Christ. I'm deeply concerned about Western culture, 'consumerism Christianity'. And I wonder what an army we could be if we took our calling seriously, all the variety of choices that God has made for us to position us in certain places to be part of what He's doing.
We don't lack calling; we lack faithfulness; we lack seriousness; we lack willingness; we lack perseverance. Don't look at the leaders of Christ's Church as the only ones who are called. Everyone in this room is called to God's service; our calling is unique and severe. There are times when I get a glimpse of what God has called me to. It's a burden that makes me pray that I would be faithful to what God has called me to. It makes me afraid, and it should. Do you have that reverence for God's call on your life?
Second part of that call to obedience is to live inside of the boundaries of God's revelation. You have these overlapping words, His commandments, His rules, His testimonies, His statutes. The more you study those words, although there are nuances in each one of them, they overlap. Basically, the advice of his father to his son is, "Take Scripture seriously; live inside of its boundaries." The Law of Moses was the Scripture of the day. Live a radical, revelation-based lifestyle. Do you take God's Word seriously?
Is God's Word a practical, functional, rubber-meetsthe-road, street-level guide for everything you do, everything you say, everything you choose, everything you desire, everything you think? Is your life dominated, dyed with the Word of God? Is your life a picture of joyful, faithful obedience to His commands? Everybody keeps the law - the issue is, who writes the law you keep? Are the laws that guide your life, are they God's Law, His principles, His perspectives, His wisdom, His promises, His commands?
And do you work to have that down to where you live every day where it shapes your marriage; it shapes your friendships; it shapes your study; it shapes relationships to neighbors; it shapes your finances; it shapes the things that you do with your mind; it shapes the directions of your desires? Or is there a gap between your confessional allegiance to the Word of God and the functional way that you live every day? Listen, this is a father who is talking out of his own sad experience, who knew what it was like to pay the price of stepping outside of God's boundaries.
There's no way that David could say these words to Solomon without reflecting on his own life. There's no way that he could have said these words without there being a twinge of grief and a twinge of regret, although God had forgiven him. And he longed for his son a different pathway than his own life. Live by faith; determine to obey. Third thing: Keep your eyes on the Lord's reward that you may prosper in all that you do and wherever you turn. God promises reward. I think that we need to resuscitate a theology of blessing, a theology of reward.
Everyone who lives and is rational is in pursuit of reward. Listen, the fall was about a promise of reward, was it not? "You can be like God." People lie for the reward on the other side of the lie. People steal for the supposed reward. People give themselves to sexual immorality, and pornography, and adultery for the short-term reward. People misuse their body in a variety of ways for the reward. There is in every heart in this room, and surely in Solomon's heart - if you read his story you know it's there - a war of reward.
The Lie of the Enemy
And the lie of the enemy is that the real reward, the real good stuff is outside of God's boundaries. If you're a parent here, or you're one that has influence in ministry or friendship with young people, please hear what I am about to say: I am concerned of the thousands and thousands of young people in Christian culture who actually feel disadvantaged that they've been born into a family of faith because they think that will keep them from the good stuff. Oh, they won't say that, and they are good at parroting the faith, but they're standing at the fence looking out so longingly that they have fence marks in their face.
And we need, with skill and perseverance, to hold out to them the danger of stepping outside of God's boundaries, and the deep and fulfilling rewards that are only ever found in following Christ. What your soul seeks cannot be found out there. God's way is a way of unique fulfilling eternal blessing. What rewards are you after? What treasures claim your heart? But David goes on; not only live a life of faith, not only determine to obey, not only keep your eyes on the Lord's reward. Fourth thing: live for God's kingdom.
Look at verse 4, "That the LORD may establish his word that he spoke concerning me, saying, 'If your sons pay close attention to their way, to walk before me in faithfulness with all their heart and with all their soul, you shall not lack a man on the throne of Israel.'" Now what happens is...David's counsel to Solomon goes beyond Solomon. It's a counsel that begins to look down the generations, look at something bigger than his own success, something bigger than his own blessing, that eternal purpose of God to establish this house, to establish this kingdom, out of which would come...The Messiah.
Not just Solomon, but Solomon's sons, so that what was said to David would be established down the generations. Now, I don't know how much you think about these things, but you should. It's hard to live for something bigger than you. It's hard not to have your day dictated by your wants, your needs, and your feelings. It's hard not to have a 'me and mine' way of living. I would imagine, when you wake up in the morning, your mind isn't filled immediately with the grand purposes of the kingdom of God.
And I would imagine that most of us don't say as our first waking words, "I must, today, live for something bigger than me." It's quite natural as you wake up for your mind to be filled with all the things you'd like to accomplish, all the things you need, all of those every day sort of cares and purpose of life, and there's a way that that's not an evil thing, but you're living must be an expression of something bigger than that. And, although God's purposes for this kingdom were sure because He's a sovereign God, the participation of these men in it was conditional on their following His ways.
What kingdom, what kingdom structures your life - the Kingdom of God or the kingdom of self? Do you actually have, and I think this is practical, a multigenerational vision? When you think of Philadelphia, do you think down the generations of what could happen in this city? When you think of Tenth Church, do you envision fifty years from now, a hundred years from now? Do you want to be part of something bigger than just this moment for us? Do you understand that you have been hooked to something vastly bigger than the borders of your own life?
Do you live with that vision? Do your eyes see? David's saying to Solomon, "Look at your son, and his son, and his son, and his son, and his son, and his son, and his son. Live with that care; live with that concern; participate in that plan." There's a fifth thing that David very clearly says to Solomon; it is there in verses 5 through 9. I would summarize it this way: deal decisively with evil and be quick to reward what is good. Joab was a seditious and murderous man. That evil needed to be dealt with.
Don't Let Evil Infect Your Reign
Shimei was a man who had cursed David; that needed to be dealt with. David is saying, "Don't hang around with this evil; don't let this evil begin to infect your reign. Don't open yourself up to the influence in the counsel of these men. This evil needs to be dealt with, and it needs to be dealt with decisively." These are hard words, and they are hard for us, and I wonder if they are hard for us because it's hard for us to be this decisive, this black and white, with what God says is wrong. Do you deal decisively with what God says is wrong in your life?
You hear these words, and you hear the echo of the New Testament's teaching here - "if your eye offend you, gouge it out, or your hand, cut it off" - that kind of call to decisiveness with evil. David also says, "Reward what is good. Take the sons of Barzillai who were kind to me when I was fleeing from Absalom, and make them part of your household; encourage them; support them; love them; treat them as your own family." Do you look for any way you can to encourage the work of God's Spirit, the work of God's grace, the activity of God's people?
If you're a parent here, are you as good at catching your children doing what is right as you are doing what is wrong? Are you committed to a ministry of encouragement, of support, of faithfulness, of love? That is as important to the work of God's kingdom as being decisive with evil is. Live the life of faith; determine to obey; keep your eyes on the Lord's reward; live with the kingdom in view; deal decisively with evil, and encourage what is good. What you have in that list is actually the character qualities of another son of David, the Lord Jesus Christ.
He came to earth to do His Father's will. Every act and word of His was for something bigger than Him. Willing to have no place to lay His head, willing to be mocked and despised and tortured to the point of death, on the cross, dealing decisively with evil, and instituting the good of the lavish grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, whereby our sins are atoned for, and we are accepted into His family. What is our hope? Our hope is not in our obedience; our hope is not in our faithfulness to God's kingdom; our hope is not in our decisiveness or our wisdom; our hope is Christ.
He perfectly did all these things for us so that we would have life and strength eternally, and so that we can look at this passage, and we could say, "Oh Father, my life is not always a picture of faith; I do step beyond your boundaries; I am tempted by other systems of reward; I often love my kingdom more than I love Yours; I am all too casual in the face of evil; I don't look for ways to encourage what is good; please forgive me. And please, in Your grace, draw my heart ever closer to You." Would you pray that this evening?
Let's Pray: Lord, although these words of David to Solomon are personal and specific, rooted in the call of Solomon to be king, these are words that are echoed in many ways throughout all of Scripture. They are words to us. You have put Your call upon us; You have claimed our lives; You have chosen us to live for something bigger than us. Lord, our hearts are prone to wander; we are often more afraid of what people would think of us than what You have called us to do. We worry and we fret; we wander; we take evil in and hold it in our hands as if it's a treasure and not a curse.
Oh forgive us, but we would pray that You would work change in our hearts, that we would follow You by faith. In Jesus's name, Amen.
