Who Am I?
Texts: 2 Samuel 7:18-25; 1 Peter 5:5-6
Pastor Phil Hughes, American Fork Presbyterian Church, Utah
August 25, 2024
This morning we are going to consider an event from the life of King David. It was an event that absolutely blew away King David. It is about something massive God did for David. And it moved David to bow down in prayer before the LORD.
David was the greatest king to ever govern Israel. He was one of the sons of a man named Jesse. He grew up tending sheep. When God told the prophet Samuel to go and anoint one of Jesse’s sons as king of Israel, Samuel started with the oldest and worked his way down. The LORD led Samuel to keep going until he came to the very youngest – David. The LORD told Samuel that David was his chosen and anointed one. No one imagined that the youngest, David, would be the one the LORD had his eye on.
In this morning’s passage King David comes to a time of rest. No wars to fight. Things are good in the land. And with a little time on his hands to think and take stock it occurs to him that while he has a beautiful house – a palace - there is no house for the Lord. No temple. No place for worship or prayer that reflects the beauty and greatness of God. David wants to build something big for God.
He tells Nathan, his high priest, about this and Nathan gives him the thumbs up to do whatever he thinks he should do. But that night the LORD comes to Nathan in a dream. The LORD tells Nathan that David is not going to build him a house, but rather, the LORD is going to build David a house. What the LORD means is that he is going to build David a kingdom, a kingdom that will never end. David’s name will be exalted and be honored forever. And one of his own sons will always sit on his throne.
This promise from God to David is one of the most important passages in all the Bible because it is fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus, descended from David, comes and establishes that kingdom. Christians have seen Christ as the fulfillment of what the LORD promised to David that one would always sit on his throne and his kingdom would never end. When Jesus came and said he had a kingdom it took people back to King David. It was why Jesus got pushback when people called Jesus “Son of David.”
But David’s kingdom did end. Many years later Israel and Judah were conquered. So, what about God’s promise that he made to David? Well, God was speaking of a kingdom not of this world. Something much bigger, massive, eternal than any worldly, political kingdom.
At Christmas, when we celebrate Jesus as King of kings, and having a kingdom that never ends, the coming of Messiah, it goes back to this promise the LORD made to David. David didn’t understand this. He was thinking in earthly terms. He was thinking of the kingdom he was currently over. It is when Jesus comes that we see God meant something much bigger than anyone imagined.
But in 2 Samuel 7 the LORD tells David, “David, I am going to establish your kingdom and it will never end.” What do you do with that? Who had heard of such a thing?
Given this, what kind of king will David become? I mean, if no one is going to take the kingdom from you, and you have a blank check from the LORD, and you don’t have to please anyone, and your place is guaranteed, what do you do? Will David become a tyrant who cruelly abuses the people over whom he reigns? That’s how the kings were in surrounding empires. You get power you keep power by any means necessary. Will he become boastful? Domineering? Demeaning and depersonalizing? Will he use God for his office? Maybe be an ego-maniac? Will he forget God? No, David will do none of those things.
This is where we pick up the passage in 2 Samuel we read this morning. It says that King David went in and sat before the LORD.
He sat before the LORD.
David didn’t get on social media and make a big announcement. He didn’t gather others and speak to how great he was and how much the LORD must love him to do this. David sat before the Lord. He brought himself to attention before God.
Our attention is hard to keep these days. With our phones and screens and other things it is hard to sit anywhere or for anything. We get distracted and can find it hard to concentrate on just one thing. I imagine David was somewhere quiet where he could just be before the LORD.
Do you sit before the LORD? We don’t even have to stand or kneel. We can sit. To sit before the LORD is to bring ourselves before God. To approach him. To speak to him. To listen to him. To sit before the LORD is to give him full attention. Most often we pray. But we can also just reflect. Write. Sing. We put our phone, computer, to-do list somewhere else. And we sit before the LORD, fully present to him.
And that is what David does upon hearing this staggering promise from the LORD. And he prays, “Who am I, Sovereign LORD, and what is my family, that you have brought me thus far?” Oh, how far the LORD had brought David. He found him as a young boy tending sheep. He gave him victory over a Philistine champion named Goliath, putting David in the spotlight of Israel. The Sovereign Lord protected David as the king he was going to replace, Saul, tried to hunt him down and kill him. He gave him favor in the eyes of many in Israel, giving him success again and again. When he was finally able to sit on the throne as king he defeated the Philistines and reclaimed the most treasured and sacred artifact in Israel – the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord. And he brought it back to Israel. God had brought David so far. And David saw it and he knew it. And now this!
He asks, “Who am I to receive all this?” David did not feel worthy. He did not presume upon God’s favor. He was astounded that God would do all he did for him. David wasn’t full of himself, thinking he deserved all that filled his life. He wasn’t a self-made man, a success story, someone who pulled himself up by his own bootstraps. He wanted to know who he was that God would bring him this far.
One of the things to notice in David’s prayer is his constant use of the name of the LORD. Over and over again he exalts who he calls the Sovereign LORD. He remembers what God has done for his people and for him. He prays that the LORD’s name would be great. It reminds us of how Jesus taught us to pray “Hallowed/holy be your name.”
“Do as you promised, so that your name will be great forever. Then people will say, ‘The LORD Almighty is God over Israel!’”[1] David wanted to see the LORD lifted up.
Sometimes we use the LORD’s name in a very casual manner. Remember the God we are calling upon. His name is holy. It is sacred. He is not the Big Guy Upstairs. He is the Lord God Almighty. The author Wendell Berry said, “People in conventional Christianity have spoken lightly and sometimes frivolously of God for a long time. It’s a word that needs to be used sparingly, in my opinion.”
David has a proper perspective in his relation to God. He understands the enormous difference between God and himself. God is majestic and he is rather insignificant. His prayer lifts up the name of the LORD, which is to lift up who God is.
It would have been very easy for David to be full of himself. Arrogant. Narcissistic. David is truly humbled by all God has given to him. He doesn’t feel deserving. He has no sense of his self-importance. He doesn’t feel entitled. Entitlement is absolutely antithetical to walking faithful with God Almighty. And it’s not like David didn’t have some accomplishments. But his awareness of God in all of it gives him perspective. He knows it was the LORD who had brought him to where he was.
In Psalm 8 David sees the moon and stars and heavens and asks God who are human beings “that you are mindful of them and care for them?”[2] He is amazed that we are so big on God’s radar given the vastness of the universe.
Let’s not get so caught up in ourselves and our plans that we forget about God. When we do good and receive recognition and applause from people around us it is easy to lose our sense of dependence on God. We easily lose our awareness of our always and ever increasingly desperate need for God’s grace.[3]
Who are we to receive the goodness of God? Who are we to receive Jesus? Think of all we receive that we really have no part in creating. And if you have never thought of all God has done for you in your life then this morning is a good time to start.
Charles Spurgeon, the great Baptist preacher in England from the 19th century whose sermons people are still reading today said that “nothing humbles a [person] like the mercy of God…Nothing weighs a [person] down like a load of blessing. When you see God blotting out your sin, accounting you righteous in his sight, for Jesus’ sake, and saying to you, ‘I have loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee,’ where is boasting then? It is excluded.”[4]
I know, sometimes when hard things come into our lives we think, “Who am I to deserve this?” “Why me?” That’s fair. But when the good things come do we ever ask, “Who am I to deserve this?” Shouldn’t it go both ways? Yes, we wonder why tough things come, but who are we to receive all the good? Recognizing how far God has brought us keeps us from entitlement and helps us live by grace.
Do this: find a time and the time, find a place – a quiet moment in the morning or at night, take a day away, a private prayer retreat, or come to this sanctuary someday and sit and reflect on your life and consider where God has brought you. Through the trials and troubles. The blessings and the good. Trace the gracious hand of God that has held you.
To say with David, “who am I?” comes from a place of gratitude. We will be grateful to God for what he has provided. We will be grateful for where he has brought us.
In his first letter Peter wrote that all are to clothe ourselves with humility toward one another because God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble. “Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.” Our world teaches us to secure the highest place for ourselves, to be great, to aspire. And those things have there place as long as they are God’s will for us.
David never aspired to be king of Israel, nor did he try to attain all that had come to him. God’s hand had lifted David up. If we place our lives in God’s hands he will lift us up in the right way and in the right time.
Our job is not to find the highest place for ourselves. To walk with God is to let him exalt us in due time, as Peter writes. He may take us to the highest place, or he may not. But he will take us to the right place.
Peter knew something about being lifted up. He went from being a humble fisherman to a disciple of Jesus to the main voice of the first church. Peter first met Jesus after a long night of fishing produced nothing. Jesus directed Peter and the men to go back out and cast their nets in a certain place. And they brought in more fish than the boats could hold. Peter cried out, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!” Peter didn’t deserve such abundance goodness. He was undone by that moment. He didn’t see fish he saw God. It was Peter’s “who am I?” moment.[5]
When a Roman centurion had a valued servant who was sick and dying he called for Jesus. But as Jesus was on his way the centurion sent someone ahead to stop Jesus and, “Lord don’t trouble yourself, for I do not deserve to have you come under my roof.” He didn’t feel worthy to come to Jesus himself.[6] The centurion thought, “Who am I?” Jesus said he hadn’t seen such faith in all of Israel. And that servant was healed.
Let’s bow down before the LORD for the tremendous blessedness we have that is from his hand. Not that we haven’t used our energy to have it, but it is by his grace. And grace is not opposed to effort, just earning.
Who are we to have the blessings of health, family and friends?
Who are to have this wife? This husband? These kids? These parents?
Who are we to get to experience what we do?
Who are we to have the careers and vocations we do?
Who are we to have this job and receive this compensation?
Who are we to hold the positions we do?
Who are we to enjoy the freedoms we do?
Who are to be born in such a place and time to enjoy the prosperity and opportunity we do?
Who are we to have clean water at the turn of a nob? Bigger houses than we probably need? Refrigerators and pantrys stockpiled with food?
Who are we to have the LORD? His love, his grace, his mercy, his strength, his presence? Who are we to have the Lord Jesus Christ?
We aren’t entitled to these things. God owes us nothing. We are recipients of tremendous good from a gracious God.
Let those of the Lord always keep our perspective, be humble under his mighty hand, and pray in a spirit of thanksgiving and awe to our God, “Who Am I?”
Prayer: Good and gracious God, who are we? Who are we to be right here in this church, with all its sacredness, with friends and family and others who share our faith? And yet you visit us with such generous and lavish grace. In every success, triumph, and gift you send into our lives, and where you have brought us we say thank you. Faithful. Loving. Our LORD God Almighty. Through the one by who grace we are saved, Jesus Christ. Amen.
[1] Vv.25-26
[2] Psalm 8:3-4
[3] Eugene Peterson, Leap Over A Wall,
[4] Marrow and Fatness, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, March 29, 1874, From: Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Volume 20
[5] Luke 5:8
[6] Luke 7:6,7