Preaching Christ from the Old Testament

I‘ll break the silence of my self-imposed holiday hiatus by pointing you to an excellent sermon I was privileged to hear today. My fellow elder/pastor Lee Tankersley continued the series through 1-2 Samuel today taking up 2 Samuel 9-12. The audio is not up yet but it should soon be available at the church website. Actually the last two sermons are both especially good examples of preaching the Old Testament well in light of Christ and of dealing with a larger section of text. Lee took up 2 Samuel 4-8 on Christmas day focusing especially on chapter 7 and the covenant with David which is ultimately fulfilled in the coming of Christ (Christmas). His summary of biblical history and how it culminates in Christ is especially helpful.

In the sermon on 2 Samuel 9-12, one might say that preaching the Bathsheba episode is easy enough (there is much to apply there). However, Lee pointed out appropriately pointed out that the passage not only provides us with a good warning about lust, hiding our sins, etc. but also serves to say that as great as David is there must be another yet to come. The faults of David force us to look further for the ultimate king. Furthermore, I especially appreciated his handling of chapters 9 and 10. Chapter 9 shows us David’s gracious treatment of Mephibosheth. Although Mephibosheth was by birth an enemy of David (being of the house of Saul), and of no use to David’s kingdom (being lame), David showed him grace and mercy in amazing abundance because of a covenant he had made with another (Jonathan). The parallels to Christ’s treatment of believers in the gospel are obvious. Chapter 10 then foreshadows Christ’s response to those who reject Him. David offers expressions of kindness to those who are outsiders, but they reject it and set themselves up as his enemies. In response David destroys them. So also says the Scripture is the fate of those who reject and despise Christ. Christ calls but will destroy those who continue to rebel (Psalm 2). I can only briefly summarize here, but the presentation of these two chapters in the sermon is well done and very helpful in sharing the gospel with others.