Amen, and amen. Well, we're going to continue our study on the kingdom. We're walking through 2 Samuel right now, using 1 Chronicles and 1 Kings as our kind of backdrop commentary. This morning we're going to be in 2 Samuel chapter five. And it's a big moment in the narrative, in the storyline, because this is the chapter that finally David is going to be anointed king over all of Israel. And it's been a long time coming. It's been at least 18 years since David was anointed by Samuel the prophet as a young shepherd boy that God had chosen him to be the next king of all of Israel. In that 18 years, David had struggled and suffered greatly. He'd had some incredible highs, but he'd had some terrible lows. Through it all, David had patiently waited for God to give him what God had promised him. He refused to seize for himself that which God had promised to give. And now, after these long, hard years, it's finally going to happen. And I think that's worth celebrating, the faithfulness of God. And this chapter does that. It really does celebrate that God has honored His word, kept His word, fulfilled the promise that He made to David. And God is working, even though it's not at the pace or scale that David probably would have preferred, but God did it. But this chapter also does something else, and it's subtle. It's very easy to kind of skip over what this chapter is doing because it's almost hidden in a list. See, in this chapter where David finally becomes king, it's also the chapter where David begins to become the kind of king that Samuel warned against and that God prohibited in the law. So let's go ahead and dive in this morning. 2 Samuel 5, verse
1 Then all the tribes of Israel came to David at Hebron and said, “Behold, we are your bone and flesh.
So if you were here last week, you remember David has spent seven and a half years ruling over the tribe of Judah at Hebron, and the rest of Israel has been fighting against them. So it's been a civil war for seven and a half years, brother against brother. And finally, finally, all of the tribes come together at Hebron and they say, "Behold, we are your bone and flesh." We are your bone and flesh. That's a significant phrase in the Hebrew. It's ʿeṣem bāśār, and it's the language that Adam used when Eve was created and he said this is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. It's the language that Laban used to greet Jacob, his relative, when he met him for the first time. So it's a word that always, always, when it's used in the Old Testament, includes a relational, covenantal commitment. So this is not a casual gathering, and these are not flippant words. All of Israel comes together and they announce to David, "You are our bone and flesh. We are your bone and flesh." This is covenantal language. So they're initiating covenant with David. And the author is going to give us three reasons that they give why they're going to have this covenant with David. The first is this: kinship. Behold, we are your bone and flesh. Secondly, they're going to say David has proven his military prowess time and time again. They say
2 In times past, when Saul was king over us, it was you who led out and brought in Israel. And the Lord said to you, ‘You shall be shepherd of my people Israel, and you shall be prince over Israel.’”
This is military terminology of victory. And there's a subtle dig towards Saul there. While Saul was king, it wasn't Saul that led us in and brought us out. It was you, David. The hand of God has been upon you. You have been doing what the king was supposed to do, even when there was another king and you weren't king. So they say, "We're in a covenant with you because we're kin. We belong to each other because of who you are, David, and your proven track record." But then thirdly, in verse two, they say, "And the Lord said to you, you shall be shepherd of My people Israel, and you shall be prince over Israel." Which I think should have been all the reason they needed, right? That's the elephant in the room for this whole thing—everybody knows, because Samuel wasn't quiet about it, everybody knows that God has handpicked David to be king. But for 18 plus years, he hasn't been king. And for the last seven and a half years of that, a vast majority of the people, 11 of the other tribes, have been fighting against David, which means God's people have been fighting against God's choice, which is such a tragedy. But now they finally say, "Well, yeah, and God did say you're supposed to be king, so I guess you'll be king." But I do like how they phrase it here. "You shall be shepherd of My people Israel." They don't phrase it the way God phrased it when He called him—well, actually, this is how God phrased it when He called him, and this is how God will covenant with David again later as we continue walking through the story: that David is to shepherd the people of Israel. Shepherds protect, for sure, but that's not their primary focus. The primary focus of a shepherd is to provide, to feed and water, to nurture, to watch over. So even as God is calling David to be king, He's telling him what kind of king he is supposed to be—one that doesn't use the people, but one that serves the people. One that guides and protects and nourishes and strengthens God's people, because they're not David's people, they're God's people. And David is the king, and that means he is God's representative, but they're still always God's people. So he is to shepherd My people, God's people, Israel, and you will be prince, ruler, leader over Israel.
3 So all the elders of Israel came to the king at Hebron, and King David made a covenant with them at Hebron before the Lord, and they anointed David king over Israel.
So we have a mutual covenant. It's not just one-sided. So the people are committing themselves to David and David commits himself to them. This is a mutual covenant. Obligations and responsibilities flow both ways. And I think maybe the most important phrase in here is that it takes place before the Lord. Before the Lord. This is a serious, significant covenant that is made from David to the people and from the people to David. After nearly two decades of running and waiting, the whole nation arrives to give David freely what God had promised him and that David had refused to seize. So now we're going to begin to see how David actually acts as a king. We get a little bit of information. First,
4 David was thirty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned forty years. 5 At Hebron he reigned over Judah seven years and six months, and at Jerusalem he reigned over all Israel and Judah thirty-three years.
When you think about how much David has suffered, and you run the math and figure how young he was when Samuel called him, and how young he was as a teenager being chased with Saul attempting to kill him, the faithfulness of God to this young man is an overwhelming and amazing reality. And now he's king. So verse six: the king and his men. The king and his men. Samuel gives us just this simple little phrase. Now I've been telling you that this story is told twice in the scriptures. It's written several hundred years later by the chronicler in 1 and 2 Chronicles. This section of the story of Samuel is taught in 1 Chronicles chapters 11 through 14. And a big chunk of that is this: David and his men, David and his mighty men. The chronicler lists—and this is one of those things that stops so many people from reading the Bible, right?—the lists of names. David's mighty men: there was this guy that I can't pronounce, and this guy that I can't pronounce, and this guy—but David has gathered to himself, and one of the interesting things, and I encourage you to go spend some time in the Chronicles material, is that they're not all Israelites. David is drawing to himself these men of valor from other nations, which is exactly what Israel was created to be and to do. Israel was created by God to be His representative, a kingdom of priests to the other nations, right? God's heart has always been, and always will be, by the way, for everyone everywhere—men and women from every tribe, tongue, and nation to come unto Him. We see that in the reign of David. We're going to see it a little bit here in this text in a moment. But this is the heart of what Israel was always supposed to be and do, and tragically failed to be and do. So the king and his men go up to Jerusalem against the Jebusites. Now most of us are so familiar with Jerusalem being the capital of Israel and so significant in the story that we might not realize, or we might have forgotten, that the city of Jerusalem was never taken in the conquest—not for a lack of trying, but it was never taken. So while Israel was in the land and ruling, right in the heart of it was this stronghold, this city Jerusalem, and it was occupied by the Jebusites, the inhabitants of the land. And so David
6 And the king and his men went to Jerusalem against the Jebusites, the inhabitants of the land, who said to David, “You will not come in here, but the blind and the lame will ward you off”—thinking, “David cannot come in here.”
And this is what they say. So trash talking's nothing new. It's biblical trash talking. That's what this is, right? And this is not casual talk—they've got grounds for this. When Joshua led the nation in, and they're destroying nations, and Jericho's walls are falling down, and all the stuff that's happening in the book of Joshua—Joshua manages to kill the king of the Jebusites, but they can never take the stronghold. We have it listed just twice, straight out in scripture, both in Joshua and Judges, that Israel was unable to dislodge the Jebusites. So depending on when you want to date the conquest, we're talking either 200 years or 450 years—let's just go with the low number. For 200 years, Israel's been trying to take Jerusalem and failing, right? So you can understand their confidence, their cockiness. So they taunt. They taunt: "You're not coming up. We can defend this with the blind and the lame." All right. Nevertheless—those are the great transitions in the Bible.
7 Nevertheless, David took the stronghold of Zion, that is, the city of David.
He took it. And then we get this weird verse in verse eight here.
8 And David said on that day, “Whoever would strike the Jebusites, let him get up the water shaft to attack ‘the lame and the blind,’ who are hated by David’s soul.” Therefore it is said, “The blind and the lame shall not come into the house.”
Well, first of all, let me just say this is a weird passage to translate in the Hebrew. I'm not going to go too deep into it, but that word there for water shaft—nobody really knows what it means. I mean, honestly, and you look back through translation history, it's got this crazy long translation history. Somehow David got his people in and they won. And then we get this weird phrasing of whoever would attack the lame and the blind, because they're hated by David's soul. And you're like, "David hates blind people?" So let me just say what I think is clear, at least to me, from this: David can trash talk too, right? So they're like, "The lame and the blind can take care of us and protect us," and David's like, "We can take some lame," and there's just this craziness. One interesting translation note: the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the scriptures, doesn't say "those who David's soul hated." It says "those who hated David's soul," which is a very legitimate translation of that phrase, which I think actually works better. Continuing on, it says,
9 And David lived in the stronghold and called it the city of David. And David built the city all around from the Millo inward.
So David takes this city, this stronghold that for at least 200 years Israel's been trying to take but couldn't. But David does. David and his men, they take it. They claim it. He claims it so thoroughly that even to this day it's known as the city of David. Now it's interesting, back in verse seven it was called Zion. And if you've grown up in church or been around this, this is something that we hear a lot—Zion, Mount Zion. Sometimes it's considered a mountain, sometimes it's a reference to Jerusalem. This is actually the first chronological reference to Zion in the scriptures. And so now Zion and the city of David get linked together inextricably, which really matters as you're reading through the Psalms and especially the later prophets, because so many of the latter-day prophecies are centered around Zion and God's faithfulness and covenant there. So verse ten, David became greater and greater. Man, that'd be nice, wouldn't it? Just upward trajectory, just growth potential coming out of it. And it tells us why. It's not because he worked hard. It's not because he was smarter than everybody else—and maybe a lot of that stuff was true—but the reason he became greater and greater, at least according to the author here, is for the Lord
10 And David became greater and greater, for the Lord, the God of hosts, was with him.
I've talked about this before—that phrase "the God of hosts" is one of the names of God, one of the titles of God, and it's a military term. It literally means the God of armies, the warrior God, the God that is unstoppable and cannot be defeated. So David becomes greater and greater. Why? Because of the One that he serves. Yeah, David has great military prowess and he's got these mighty men of valor around him, but all of that pales in comparison to the fact that he is the chosen king of the God of hosts. So he grows greater and greater.
That greatness, that reputation, it expands. And so verse eleven, Hiram the
11 And Hiram king of Tyre sent messengers to David, and cedar trees, also carpenters and masons who built David a house.
It's my birthday month—I love presents. Nobody's ever given me a house before, right? That's pretty impressive. This is amazing—his reputation—and this is a political move. Hiram doesn't want David coming and attacking him, and so this is a way to build an alliance and say, "Hey, let's be nice to each other," and so he sends him this extravagant gift. "You've taken the stronghold, but you're king; you shouldn't be living in this fortress." So he comes, and cedar trees—this isn't a shack, all right, this is going to be a palace. This is a house worthy of a king. And I want you to just file away that David has a house in Jerusalem before God does, because that's going to matter here in a few weeks. And it says David knew
12 And David knew that the Lord had established him king over Israel, and that he had exalted his kingdom for the sake of his people Israel.
This is one of those verses where in the English it's hard to know—you got all these "hises" and it's hard to tell which "his" goes to who. It's really clear in the Hebrew that David comes to this deep understanding that God has exalted him and his kingdom for the sake of God's people. That's not just for David. Ultimately it's for God and His glory and the glory of His people. David knows that it's not about him, which is a really difficult thing to know when you're growing greater and greater and people are buying you houses, right? One of the most dangerous things that we have to face in life is the voices of praise and adoration and the success that we actually achieve, and becoming confused about where it actually comes from and who actually deserves the credit. So I love this verse twelve here, in the midst of it—David, in the midst of this catastrophic rise, and it's been a long time coming, but he knew that it wasn't because of him. So this is where he is. Now
13 And David took more concubines and wives from Jerusalem, after he came from Hebron, and more sons and daughters were born to David. 14 And these are the names of those who were born to him in Jerusalem: Shammua, Shobab, Nathan, Solomon, 15 Ibhar, Elishua, Nepheg, Japhia, 16 Elishama, Eliada, and Eliphelet.
I literally have written here in my notes: sigh, more wives, more concubines. I'm going to come back to this at the end of the sermon. So just hold it for a second. Let's walk through the rest of the chapter. Verse seventeen.
17 When the Philistines heard that David had been anointed king over Israel, all the Philistines went up to search for David. But David heard of it and went down to the stronghold.
So David growing greater and greater—it's interesting because there's always two responses to that. So you got one king that's like, "Hey, let me build you a house," and now you got the Philistines going, "We better go kill him." Right? You never get to please everybody, right? You've learned that. It's such a hard but basic lesson of life to really take in. But that's where David and Israel are at. So the Philistines come, and so David goes into the stronghold that he just took because the Philistines are coming. And it says,
18 Now the Philistines had come and spread out in the Valley of Rephaim.
Rephaim—literally the valley of giants. I'm not going to go down that rabbit hole this morning, but it's fun. Now, David inquired of the Lord. So now—this is not the first time we've seen this. This is one of the things that sets David apart, and it's such a contrast, right, to Saul, because Saul quit inquiring of the Lord. Saul started inquiring of other things; Saul wasn't really interested in what God wanted. So now David, see, even after he's had this incredible success—he's gathered this incredible army, he's taken Jerusalem, his fame is growing, kings are building houses for him—but now the enemy comes, and what does David do? David does what David knows to do: he asks God, because he knows that it's not about him. So he inquires of the Lord: "Shall I go up against
19 And David inquired of the Lord, “Shall I go up against the Philistines? Will you give them into my hand?” And the Lord said to David, “Go up, for I will certainly give the Philistines into your hand.”
He knows that the battle belongs to who? The Lord. He knows this. Which is what I'm sure he wanted to hear. So that's what they do. They go up
20 And David came to Baal-perazim, and David defeated them there. And he said, “The Lord has broken through my enemies before me like a breaking flood.” Therefore the name of that place is called Baal-perazim.
Literally means "the Lord has broken through." David pictures here God's victory over the Philistines like a flood breaking through and washing everything out before it. And then we get verse twenty-one, which says,
21 And the Philistines left their idols there, and David and his men carried them away.
That's an interesting little detail in the text. In the Hebrew there are two words here—the word for idol is ʿatsav, and the word for leaving them behind is ʿazav. So there's this alliteration and assonance taking place, and in the Hebrew text it's really easy to see. So it's highlighting the fact that these idols, these gods of the Philistines that they carried with them as a representation—that those gods were carrying them—when they're destroyed by God and David and his army, they flee, leaving behind their gods, their idols. Now this is a tribute from the author of Samuel to God's reign, not just over human kingdoms, but over all spiritual kingdoms—that there's nothing that can stand against Him. And the chronicler in 1 Chronicles 14:12 gives us another detail that the author of Samuel doesn't give us. It says this: it says "they left their gods there." So Samuel calls them idols, the chronicler calls them their gods.
12 And they left their gods there, and David gave command, and they were burned.
David gave command, and they were burned. So it's not like David's collecting idols, right? In fact, the language that is used here in Chronicles is word for word out of the Torah, what God says to do with idols after victories—they are to be burned. So the chronicler wants us to know that David is keeping the law as he's doing this and burning the idols of
22 And the Philistines came up yet again and spread out in the Valley of Rephaim.
Raphael—the valley of giants. And when David inquired of the Lord—see, I like that. I like that he inquires again. He doesn't let yesterday's victory determine today's faith and his relationship with God. He doesn't assume, right? So he goes again: shall I go up? And this time God says,
23 And when David inquired of the Lord, he said, “You shall not go up; go around to their rear, and come against them opposite the balsam trees.
"You hear the sound of marching in the tops"—the God of hosts, the God of armies, the God of angel armies, as Chris Tomlin has made that beautiful song—like when you hear the armies marching on top
24 And when you hear the sound of marching in the tops of the balsam trees, then rouse yourself, for then the Lord has gone out before you to strike down the army of the Philistines.”
then you're good to go. Like, sign me up, right? He says,
25 And David did as the Lord commanded him, and struck down the Philistines from Geba to Gezer.
What a chapter. What a chapter. David is finally king, and he does some great things—takes Jerusalem, gathers for himself the nation as a unified whole, has built up a significant army full of mighty men, not just from Israel, but from the nations. The reputation, the glory, the goodness of God is being presented through his people as was intended. And of course there's the good and the bad and the ugly that comes with it. He—here builds him a house, the Philistines come to kill him. Unfortunately, the ugly comes from David himself. I said we'd come back to verse thirteen. "David took"—that word there is significant.
13 And David took more concubines and wives from Jerusalem, after he came from Hebron, and more sons and daughters were born to David.
The man who wouldn't seize the throne and the crown once it was given to him began to take. He began to take. And this is what kings do. First he took the city of Jerusalem. Then he takes more wives and concubines for himself. And let's be clear, it's not surprising—this is what ancient kings did. Marriage for political alliance, marriage because they see a girl that they want—they're kings, this is what they do, they take. But God, even in the law—so interesting is that in the Torah given to Moses and the people at Sinai, God's like, "You shouldn't have a king, but you're going to want one anyway." And when that king comes, He says a few things I want you to think about. And one of the things He says, Deuteronomy 17:17,
17 And he shall not acquire many wives for himself, lest his heart turn away, nor shall he acquire for himself excessive silver and gold.
The king of Israel is not to be like the other kings of the ancient Near East, because he's God's king and he's to shepherd God's people in distinctly different ways than other kings do. And so hundreds of years before David becomes king, God is like, "Make sure that the king doesn't do a few things." And two of them: don't get a bunch of wealth for yourself, and don't get a bunch of wives for yourself. So here, what should be this sweet celebration of David's kingship, we get the bitter taste of what will lead to his eventual downfall. His strength—David became greater and greater—becomes his weakness. He's acting like a king—not the king that God has laid out, but the kings that he sees around him. Now, much more recently, Samuel—if you remember in 1 Samuel, the people come to Samuel and they say, "Give us a king." And if you remember the story, Samuel's like, "No, I won't do it, I won't do it." And Samuel goes away and he talks to God, and God says, "Samuel, give them what they want. Give them what they want, but it's not going to go well." And you may not remember this, maybe you weren't here when we preached through this last year, but 1 Samuel 8:9-18. This is what Samuel says—God says this to Samuel.
9 Now then, obey their voice; only you shall solemnly warn them and show them the ways of the king who shall reign over them.” 10 So Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking for a king from him.
He said, "These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you." And then we're going to see this word "take." Same word that was used of David taking the wives and the concubines. We see this word over and over again.
11 He said, “These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen and to run before his chariots. 12 And he will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots. 13 He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. 14 He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his servants. 15 He will take the tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and to his servants. 16 He will take your male servants and female servants and the best of your young men and your donkeys, and put them to his work. 17 He will take the tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves. 18 And in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the Lord will not answer you in that day.”
The people don't receive the warning from Samuel. They want the king anyway, and they get Saul. But when it says that David took more wives and concubines, it's that exact same word, lāqaḥ—the same word we just heard over and over again. David becomes, at the very beginning of his kingship, exactly the kind of king that God had warned against—a taking king. And it's a mixed bag. And isn't that life, right? I know we'd like things to be just completely black and white—is he a good guy or a bad guy? Yes. Yes. And the question is, how does this happen? How does David, the warrior, the poet, the one who so passionately seeks God—how does this happen to him? We need to answer that so that we can answer the more important question: how does that happen to us?
I think David has become a victim of his own success. He was successful because he was faithful to God, and that very success and faithfulness led him to become unfaithful. We're not told how. We're not privy to David's thought process, but somehow he justified to himself that it was okay for him to do what God had expressly forbidden, because God was so obviously with him. And I think that's the lesson. So let me say it this way: faithfulness in one area of your life does not justify unfaithfulness in another. And that's a mistake I think many, if not all of us, make. And it comes from this weird and wrong understanding we have about sin. We see sin as this ledger of good and bad, right and wrong—a list of the good things I do and a list of the bad things that I do. And we think—this is deep in our cultural consciousness, we really think, without even realizing it, it's presuppositional—we really believe that if I can just have more in the good column than in the bad column, then I'm going to be okay. And if that's how we think about sin and our relationship to God, then that's exactly how we find ourselves going, "Well, I'm really faithful over here, and so therefore it's okay to have just a little bit over here."
I think it's an easy trap to fall into. Maybe you haven't, but I have. Confession time, right? Early on in my ministry, I was working full-time as a youth pastor, getting paid $750 a month, and they thought they were being generous—they really did. And we were so broke and so poor, and I remember going, "God, I'm just not going to give. I'm not going to tithe. I'm not going to give, because we're barely surviving." And I did this whole rationalization, this whole justification thing—this whole, "God, it's okay for me to not give out of faith, give out of obedience, because I'm serving so hard over here and getting so little in return." There have been—I mean my mind is flooded with how many small little ways I do this in my life. I can use it to justify my greed. I can use it to justify my laziness. "God, I worked really, really hard for You yesterday, so now I'm going to just sit on the couch."
See, sin's not simply this ledger that we try to balance out, or have the good outweigh the bad. Sin is a disease. It doesn't need to be balanced. It needs to be cut out. It needs to be excised. It needs to be destroyed. It needs to be healed. So faithfulness to God in one area will never justify unfaithfulness in another. And the fruit and the wage of sin will always result in death of some kind. And the glories of David ahead are high, but the tragedies ahead for David are terrible—wouldn't wish them on my worst enemy. And it comes back to verse thirteen: David took more wives and concubines to himself. He became exactly the kind of king that God had warned against.
And so I find myself asking myself this rhetorical question almost daily—I'm sure I've asked you this before—aren't you glad Jesus isn't like that? David is a figure, a shadow, a pointer towards Jesus, no doubt. And he does that sometimes in his faithfulness. But sometimes he points to Christ through his faithlessness, because it highlights the complete and perfect faithfulness of Jesus. Jesus is absolutely the true and better David, the true king. And Jesus was faced with the same temptations that you and I are—the same rationalization: Jesus faced the temptation like, "I fed the 5,000 yesterday, so today I can..." but He never hit the easy button. He never went His own way. He never made peace with sin. He never submitted Himself to anything other than the will of God. Jesus is the true and perfect Imager. I was reminded this week of John 6 as I was studying through this. John 6, at the beginning of it, Jesus feeds the 5,000, and it's amazing—it's a great story of provision and grace and a young man and faith and all that sort of stuff. That's actually the end of the story that I was thinking about. It says
14 When the people saw the sign that he had done, they said, “This is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world!”
so when He filled their bellies. So they get excited, and then they perceive, Jesus said,
15 Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself.
It's almost the inverse of what we just saw in 2 Samuel 5. The people come to David and they're like, "We want a covenant with you," and David waits. But now the people are coming to Jesus, and Jesus has been going around announcing the gospel of the kingdom, and people are coming—but it's only after He fills their bellies that they're like, "Let's make Him king," right? And so Jesus, because He's Jesus, and because He's got the Spirit, and because He's wise, recognizes what's going on—perceiving that they're about to come and take Him by force and make Him king, which I think is a hilarious phrase, right? It's nonsensical in and of itself—how do you make someone be the sovereign over you? They're exercising sovereignty over the Sovereign. It's a category error, at least. But what does Jesus do? He just walks away. He walks away. You say, "I'm not sure I would. I'm not sure you would"—the glory of the crowd, the approval of the masses, the offer of a crown without the cross. And Jesus goes up into the mountains by Himself to do what? To pray and be with His Father. Just like David, Jesus wouldn't take the crown, and He wouldn't let the crown be given to Him except from His Father and by the will of His Father. Jesus—thank God—Jesus is the king, not that we wanted, but that we needed, the king that God wanted. I originally wrote in my notes that what sets Jesus apart is the kind of king He is, that He's not a king that takes, He's a king that gives. But after reflection, that's not true. Jesus is a king that takes. He is. He's a king that takes your sin, your loneliness, your pain. He collects your tears. He takes the weight and the penalty of your sin and the death that you deserve as king, and takes it from you into Himself. He's the kind of king that takes from you for you. And He never just stops at taking, because He takes our sorrow and gives us His joy. He takes our shame and gives us His honor. He takes our sin and gives us His righteousness. David was a great king, but he's got nothing on Jesus. He is the King of kings. He is the King who has come to set everything right. So this morning, as every morning, the invitation is always the same: will you come to the King who longs to take from you the burdens that you cannot carry yourself, and longs to give to you the freedom and life that you so desperately need and were made for. Church, run, don't walk, to Jesus the King. Amen.
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