Kingdom People and Kingdom Purposes

Amen. Thank you, Brother Chris. It is such privilege to preach anytime I get to. Most of you all know that I usually preach when Brother Chris is away, so he's here on the front row. So I kind of feel as though my boss has listened to me preaching. But I know it's a privilege. It was a great time to be at the True Church Conference with Brother Chris. And Christie, we just had a great time of fellowship. I have been telling Brother Chris, I've been hearing about all of his friends from Anchored and Truth. I've been hearing about his friends that he's been to the Philippines with, individuals he's eaten dinner with.

We even have prayer cards that I've prayed over. So I walked up to a whole bunch of strangers and acted like I knew them. I told Brother Chris I kind of felt like a stalker. I had to introduce myself as a guy who works with Brother Chris. It was a tremendous time of fellowship. And we will be sharing more of that even this morning. So if you would open up your copy of God's Word to Acts 13. As we read verses 35 through verse 37 once again.

"Therefore he says also in another psalm, 'You will not let your holy ones see corruption.' For David, after he had served the purposes of God in his own generation, fell asleep and was laid with his fathers and saw corruption. But he whom God raised up did not see corruption. Let it be known to you therefore, brothers, that through this man forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you." Let me pray if I may. Father this is a joyous day. It's a day to gather in your Word, a day to worship. And Father the theme of resurrection is on our hearts. We're thankful that we serve a risen Savior whose body did not see corruption or decay.

And I pray that you would show us today what the hope of Christ's resurrection has for us as we do our Christian service. So we ask you to make us those who live lives focused on the resurrection of Christ and for the good deeds that you have for us. In your name we pray. Amen. If you are a born again believer here in this place, you are exactly like King David. You perhaps have never thought about that. You're exactly like King David. If you would open up your Scripture and look in verse 36 of our text, and I will read that in introduction again.

"For David, after he had served the purpose of God in his generation, fell asleep and was laid with his fathers and saw corruption." And you're just like King David in verse 36 because God has purposes for you to serve. Scripture says right very clearly that David accomplished the purposes of God. Now that verse is so loaded as we will unpack it today, but think about that, the power in that. That everything that God had for David, David did. And if you're born again, you're exactly like King David.

Ephesians 2.10 says that we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. And like King David, before the foundations of the earth, the Lord had good deeds for you and his desires that you would walk in those. But like King David, not only does God have purposes for you to serve, but he has people for you to serve. If you look in verse 36, it says, "Again, after he served the purposes of God in his own generation." Your generation is not King David's generation.

You have neighbors, you have loved ones, you have family members, and God has pre-determined good deeds for you to walk in. In context of those neighbors and friends and families. You're sitting at work, there is a coworker perhaps is annoying you, you're tempted to get angry or aggravated or frustrated. And then you can think of the hope that God has good deeds prepared for me and perhaps maybe one of them is that I can find a way to serve this coworker. Your Christians as born again believers, you're called to love your enemies. Perhaps the good deeds in your generation is forgiving someone.

As we sang this morning, "Let all men of tender heart, forgiving others, take your part." Perhaps those are the good deeds, but God has people for you to serve and he has purposes for you to serve. And also in introduction, God has a time for you to serve. He has a time for you to serve. Look in verse 36. "For David, after he served the purposes of God in his own generation, fell asleep and was laid with his fathers and saw corruption. It is appointed under man once to die and then the judgment.

God not only knows the good deeds he has for you, but he also knows the limited time within which you are working." God's got a purpose for you to serve, a people for you to serve, a time for you to serve. Most importantly, God has a king for you to serve. Look in verse 37. "But he whom God raised up did not see corruption." David the patriarch was the pride of Israel. Yet in this passage, the writer is exalting Christ above David as one who is an eternal king. My friends, if you are adopted sons and daughters, just like King David, God has unique kingdom purposes created for you. These eternal kingdom purposes involve your generation.

These eternal kingdom purposes involve a limited amount of time. And we serve an eternal king who is resurrected and did not see corruption. Brother Chris shows our title here this morning if you would like to write this down. "Kingdom People and Kingdom Purposes." Kingdom people and kingdom purposes. Today we're going to look at the life of David and draw courage and strength at how God accomplished the eternal purposes of God.

Now, although we will spend the better part of our message this morning unpacking verse 36, as we have briefly looked into in the introduction, we have to note verse 35 and 37 because those are the purposes of this passage. In fact, if you don't understand the bookends of verses 35 and 37, you can't understand 36. I would be taking verse 36 out of context if I did not first tell you the purpose of this passage. In verse 35 it says, "Therefore," he says in another psalm, "you will not let your holy ones see decay." See, this book of Acts was written by Luke. In fact, if you remember, Luke is sort of part one that Dr.

Luke writes to the honorable Theophilus. And he continues in the book of Acts or the Acts of the Apostles. And Luke is giving account of Paul's evangelistic outreach to the Jews in Antioch. It was Paul's practice to go into a town and to go to the synagogue first. And this was the case, that he is preaching to these believers who revered Paul and the patriarchs. And he is exalting Christ above King David.

And we've got to understand, before you can understand anything about the eternal purposes that God has for you, before you can understand that God has placed you in your generation for a time, God has placed you in your neighborhood, he's placed you in this church. Before you can understand that, we need to understand that our eternal King is greater than any religious heritage. Me and Brother Chris get in the habit of preaching our sermons back and forth one another. And even just before we were getting ready to come out here, he mentioned Acts 13, 21-24. And I want us to read this in your copy of God's Word.

If we could go to Acts 13, just back up a little to verse 21. And let's read this because this is part of that same sermon Paul is preaching in Antioch. "Then they asked for a king, and God gave them Saul, the son of Kish, a man of the tribe of Benjamin for forty years. And when he had removed him, he raised up David to be their king, of whom he testified and said, 'I have found in David the son of Jesse, a man after my own heart who will do my will.' Of this man's offspring, God has brought to Israel a Savior, Jesus, as He promised." And if we go down again to our text in verse 37, this is a juxtaposition or a comparison between David and the Christ in verse 37.

"But he whom God raised up did not see corruption." This would have been a challenging sermon to the Christians in Antioch. It would have challenged them. Their patriarch, the pride of Israel, was a man who saw decay. Our dear friend Bruce is in glory. I received a call last Tuesday from Chris Cooksey. I decided to get into the car and to drive north knowing that my dear friend was no longer residing in the body. But I knew that family would be there and I wanted to be there with family. I got to spend some time with Jeffrey and we just got to share memories.

And we were there sharing memories in the presence of a dear friend whose body had already begun to decay. David, just like our friend Bruce, just like our loved ones who have already passed, and just like you, my dear friend, our bodies will decay. King David could have been revered, but he was not the Messiah. He was the prized patriarch of Israel. His body like ours see decay. And this is the sermon. And this is the bookend of 36. And before you understand the eternal purposes that God has for you, you have to see the temporality, the temporal nature of your life, and the eternality of Christ.

So let's go to the body of the message if we can. And if we can take a look, I believe that looking into God's eternal purposes formed in David can help us understand the faithfulness to Jesus. You can understand how faithful God was to David, a man who was after God's own heart, who eventually would see decay. He's one of our brothers. We can see something about God's eternal purposes. So the first thing I want you to see this morning is that God determines our good deeds. God determines our good deeds. Look in verse 36. Quite simply, for David, after he had served the purposes of God.

We have to see that those good deeds were determined by God. God knew David was going to be king. We do well to think of Ephesians 2.10 as I read again, for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in him. I've told you several times before that I've been meditating on this Ephesians 2 passage. This might be one you go back and look at in the 10th verse and just meditate. Especially parents. What a tremendous and glorious truth that God is working through us.

And for our children, perhaps he has ordained them to grow in our families to mature simply looking at the good deeds that he has prepared for us. So that our children may walk in the good deeds he has prepared for them. I've told you about my testimony. This is a tremendous release for me. Literally decades I lived my life thinking that I had to figure out good deeds and I had to exercise all of my energy to perform those good deeds by in some nature to make God happy. Now I would have said, yes, it's by grace so no man can boast. Intellectually, I believed it was by grace.

But in my heart, I believed I had to do all the work for the good deeds. I was never praying enough. I was never reading the Bible enough. I was always empty. I always felt that I was a failure spiritually. I wasn't witnessing enough. And then I came across a glorious truth that God prepared these good deeds beforehand. And all I had to do was be a man of faith and be a man of the word and God would order my steps and I would walk in the good deeds. And it's tremendously liberating when you realize that we as born again believers at Nola Baptist Church are not out here trying to manufacture good deeds. God has determined your good deeds.

It's not an accident that you're here. If you're born again, there is a class for you. There is a place for you. I say this sadly and I say this with all reverence. We got an open position right now. It's a void that will never be filled. Every Sunday morning, our friend Bruce swept the porch. He opened the door and he waited. And that's a very simple job, but he did it with all of his heart. Has God ordained a job like that for you? If you do it, do it because God's called you. If you jump up and do anything that God has not determined for you, you're taking someone else's spot. And we would not have it. We will pray for you.

We have been praying for laborers. One thing I would like to challenge you to do is to join in the prayer that Bruce prayed so faithfully. He prayed for laborers every single Wednesday night. Brother Chris told me he went with Jeffrey and Johnny and Shane and went walking through the house. You guys looked through the house. I asked Chris about the favorite possession of mine that Bruce had. There's one thing that I envied. I relished and it was the dry erase board on the back of his wall where he prayed for me. He did it faithfully. I'd ask that you would join in that work that Bruce modeled. And God determines our good deeds.

A few key truths to this that I hope you take notes and mark down. God determines the timing of our good deeds. Your good deeds are predetermined by God and this brings us great freedom. David struggled with this timing early on in his life, I believe. This has been something that has really perplexed me and challenged me. We've been teaching our children through the Answers in Genesis curriculum. There's this beautiful timeline. It is in the back on the wall. I would encourage you to go look at it. I took pictures of it.

But if you look at the timeline of David's life, or even more specifically, the time in which the Ark of the Covenant was captured, you see about a hundred years from the time the Ark was captured until David passed away. There was almost one hundred years between the Ark leaving Jerusalem, the Ark coming back, David dwelling in Israel and then dying. And that one hundred year time frame represents tremendous ups and downs. I'm going to move through this quite quickly, but I just want you to get something here that in 1117 B.C. Israel is at a terrible state of defeat. The Ark of the Covenant is captured.

In fact, Eli's grandson is named Ichabod because the glory of God had departed. That means this is the pride and joy. The presence of God is gone. It is total national religious failure. So about 20 years later, in 1095 B.C., about a thousand, one hundred years before Jesus comes, Israel rejects God as king and they ask for an earthly king, as we read in Acts 13, 21. You know, Israel was resistant to a theocracy. That is God in charge. They wanted to be like their pagan, spiritually bankrupt neighbors. And although this was a rejection, God in his sovereignty knew it was going to happen and allowed it to happen.

Saul reigns as a king for only two years. Now think about this. In 1093, Saul is rejected. First, Israel rejects her king and then God rejects her king. There's not an accident. I've been even perplexed and challenged by this because I believe that God even allowed Saul those two years. What you have to wrestle with is that he continued reigning for about 40 years. Even though the kingdom was ripped for him after two years, he reigned 40 years. And so that meant 38 years. The purpose of his reign was basically to torment David. We will look at this. Let's look at 1 Samuel 1527. If you can, I'd love for you to turn here. 1 Samuel 1527.

And I'll set this up as you're turning. King Saul was appointed by Samuel, but he disobeys God. You remember this, I'm sure. He kept King Agag alive as well as select sheep after defeating the king. And God told King Saul to destroy everything. Told him to kill King Agag, yet he kept him alive. So after rebuking King Agag and after rebuking King Saul, Samuel pronounced his judgment. He ended up killing King Agag. And then this happened. Let me read this. "Stirring passage, as Samuel turned to go away, Saul seized the skirt of his robe and it tore.

And Samuel said to him, 'The Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from you this day and has given it to a neighbor of yours who is better than you.'" Now think about this with me for a second. At this moment, God decreed that David was to be given the kingdom, yet David was not even born. David was not born yet. How could God say that King David was better than King Saul? Only an omniscient God across time could know that. So as King Saul remains king for four decades, David was king before he was born.

Dear Christian, maybe you could look at a young godly mother who is about to give birth and in faith maybe you could believe that the child in that womb has good deeds prepared for them. Perhaps a Sunday school teacher, perhaps a pastor, perhaps a missionary. It is not our job to know the eternal purposes, but it is our job to believe that God has eternal purposes for his children. But also God not only determines the timing of our good deeds, God determines the scope of our good deeds. So in time, David would be born and he would grow into a faithful shepherd. He killed lions and bears before he killed Goliath.

I would like to quote our pastor. I heard him say this when he was a youth minister about 12 years ago. No, how long was this? 2004 or 2005. Brother Chris said this and it stayed with me. David was faithful to kill Goliath because he was faithful to kill lions and bears as a shepherd. And so there are times in our good deeds where they are mundane. Not that killing lions and bears was mundane, but keeping sheep was. Keeping sheep was at times boring. If you're teaching a Sunday school class or if you are driving up to the church to cut the grass or to clean the church or whatever, if you're going to visit someone who is in need.

There are times when those services will be mundane. They may be laborious. At times they may be difficult or frustrating or arduous or you may not know how you'll possibly keep this commitment. But God determines the scope of your good deeds. He has appointed some to be elders and teachers. He's appointed others to be laymen. He's appointed some to be missionaries. He's appointed some to exercise their gifts. As you serve God, his deeds will become evident. God not only determines the timing and the scope, but he determines the success of our good deeds.

At this year's True Church Conference, Brother Chris and I were encouraged by Brother Jeff Noblett, who often quotes Zechariah 4.10, "Do not despise the day of small things." And we heard testimony of church planters and missionaries all over the world and many of them, if not most of them, are going through extreme difficulty. When you labor in a harvest field and it seems barren, it's quite discouraging. I heard many pastors share their ups and downs. There are days when you don't want to keep sheep and there are days when you don't have the energy to try to kill bears. There are days when you're too fearful to kill bears or lions.

There are days when you may not even want to get out of bed. And so God in his faithfulness has to empower us for these good deeds. And we leave the success and the results to him. Second major truth this morning. God determines our good deeds, but he also uses trial to shape our good deeds. Now I do not have time to be exhaustive, but I will hit the low points if I can. I'm not going to hit the high points because we're talking about trials. But 30 years, 30 years after Saul was rejected in 1063, David was anointed by Samuel, a very young man, likely in his late teens. Here you have a guy who didn't even show up to be picked.

Now I don't know about you, but I wasn't often picked at first for school yard basketball or football or even kickball. I don't know if you figured this out, but I'm 5'7". For years I would say I'm 5'9" on my license, but in reality I'm 5'7". And I wasn't picked first. Now imagine this, David was not even in the lineup. Let that sink in. He was not even up for consideration. No one even gave thought that he would be a candidate. And so he's got so many trials, he's anointed, and we don't have time to be exhaustive, but let's look very quickly.

One minute David is being mocked by his brothers for faithfully tending sheep, the next he's killing Goliath. He becomes an overnight national war hero. And one minute the rejected King Saul loves David, and another minute he's giving him a spear trying to pin him to the wall. He gave David several promotions. He gave David a wife. Later he would take that wife away and give it to someone else. And David loved this wife, and it was not until he regained the kingdom that he could get this wife back. David eventually flees. He spends nearly seven years on the run. He lives in the wilderness.

And even for a time, this is quite perplexing, he even goes to live with the Philistines. He dresses up for armor thinking that they would pick him and they didn't even want him. His own people were trying to kill him, and the Philistines said, "You killed Goliath. He was our hero. So no, you're not dressing up for battle with us." And he encounters hardship after hardship after hardship. Even after he is anointed King, he only serves in the southern kingdom for another seven years. Every single corner in David's life is marked by trials. And when you encounter hardship, how will you accomplish the purposes of God?

It's one thing to believe that you have good deeds that God's prepared for you. It's another thing that when you're in faith trying to do those good deeds, you have what seem like roadblocks. You have what seem like impossible barriers. God says, "Your good deeds may encounter going to the mission field." Brother Chris has told us so many times about great missionaries who were called to the mission field, and mission boards wouldn't even select them. You do not have money to go. And sometimes God will give you a good deed knowing that only he can support and fund and finance that good deed. His hardship.

I heard one church planner discuss how his family of seven left their small congregation. They had about 21 people. Seven leave. That's one-third. And that is extremely discouraging. I can remember with Brother Chris, at times when people would come into our fellowship and were praying for laborers, and Bruce was a part of, from the very beginning, praying for those laborers. When God would move someone out, just as God would move someone in, that's hard. But you have to realize that your power and the strength to accomplish these good deeds, they don't come from you. He determines the scope of your good deeds. He determines the timing.

He determines the success of your good deeds. He gives you the power for the good deeds. You're not out there trying to do it alone. Praise God. I heard one pastor speak, even at tears, about how his wife was struggling on the mission field. And not just his wife, but many pastors we talk to deal with loneliness. At this conference, they bring people on stage who have congregations of 15. And they may be in a country where there is no other Christian. Or they may be in a large American city where there are not many Christians. Several people describe a loneliness in God's work.

But what we must know is that God's work is his work, and the good deeds are actually his. And so these trials are actually part of the work. I'd like you to write this down if you're taking notes. King Saul's assault on King David was a part of David's victorious work. So King Saul's assault on King David was a part of King David's victorious work. God employs, God uses the Sauls in our life. They're as much of the part of the good deed as the good deed, if that makes sense. And finally, the last truth. I believe God would have us to hear. God determines our good deeds.

He uses trials to shape these good deeds, but God completes our good deeds. And we know that God is the author and finisher of our faith. And let's go back to our principal text in verse 36 and verse 37. Acts 13. "For David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep, and was laid with his fathers and saw corruption. But he whom God raised up did not see corruption." So there is what I will call a mountain of victory that pastors must get over. Pastors must get over this mountain of victory. Missionaries must get over this mountain of victory.

But ordinary Christians teaching a Sunday school class have to get over a mountain of victory. What I mean is there is a tipping point, as a secular sociologist refers to this, Malcolm Gladwell. A tipping point is a point at which you can't really quite get victory or gain traction until one event happens, and then the wind is at your back. But tipping points come at great cost, and the mountain of victory comes at great cost. For every three or four pastors and missionaries that we spoke to that were having uphill battles, we would hear one who was having a very fruitful ministry.

And if you talk to this person, maybe they're pastoring for 20 years, and maybe people are getting saved, and they're baptizing, and they feel the Lord has really energized their work. You ask them about their early days, and they'll talk, "Oh, that mountain of victory was hard to get up." We can go back to the early days of NOLA, and we remember when there was only enough on one side. But the Chris used to make everybody sit on the right side, and he would stand at the podium right in the front. Mackenzie remembers those days. Bill remembers those days.

And there are difficult, difficult times when you're trying to plot on in the work of these good deeds that God has prepared for you, and you don't have the energy. You must know that God is going to complete that work. It may be that after you pass, someone else will have to pick up the torch. And after Brother Bruce has passed, God has someone to pick up the torch. This is a call for someone to pick up the torch of intercession, of service, and of love. So in 1055 Saul was killed, about eight years after David was anointed. He lived on the run for about eight years. He began to rule in Hebron.

Does this mean that David immediately becomes king of the entire nation? No. He got half of it. King Saul's son, Ish-Besheth, ruled in the north. David ruled in Hebron. And it was another seven years until Israel was united. David would go on to rule for several decades. A high point is in 1045 B.C. The ark is moved to Jerusalem. Think about this. 72 years after it was captured. It took 72 years for them to get the glory of God back. And David came in rejoicing. David begins to get comfortable, however. He falls into sin. He repents. He has 20 more years at which he loses so much in his family. He doesn't have time to talk about Absalom.

He has time to talk about all the sin that led to that rebellion as part of his judgment. But again, the ups and the downs continued all the way throughout his life. And this is the word that I leave you with. It's a challenge that you would go to your prayer closet in faith knowing that God has a good deed for you. Good deeds for you, believer. Some of them are clearly pointed out in Scripture. The spiritual disciplines. Right? Reading your word, going to church, praying, asking God to send laborers, telling God, "Here I am.

Send me." Praying prayers of consecration, supplication, and God will in time, he will accomplish the work through you. So this is a call in the church that we would seek God's good deeds that he has prepared in advance for us. This is a miraculous work. It's a mysterious work. But it is a sure work. God is eternaling. It is accomplishing his eternal purposes for our eternal King. We celebrate our Lord Jesus. He's resurrected. And we know he will accomplish this work. Bow with me in prayer.