Sermons

This passage deals with David wanting to build the temple and God refusing. When David was forbidden to build the temple for the legitimate reason that he had shed much blood in war, he obeyed God's will and gave thanks even though his earnest wish was not fulfilled. He believed that his own judgment must not go ahead of God's, and was confident that God was protecting him.

The sermon emphasises that human limits and God's wisdom are different. God sometimes refuses wishes that would bring his children more loss than gain, or that could harm their souls. At such times believers should not lose heart or become angry, but wait for God's timing and pray. God sees our patience that does not stop praying and our humble hearts, and gives greater power and victory. And when we set aside our own righteousness and put God first, God gives believers the material things and authority they need as gifts.

Finally, through the reason David forgave the traitor Joab and gave him a position, the sermon asks what a faith that trusts God completely looks like. Believers must give up worldly comfort, love Christ, and believe in God's righteous judgment and endure. Because God governs all things, believers can entrust their choices and decisions to God and live in peace.

This passage covers how David failed when he tried to move the ark by his own will, and how he was forbidden to build the temple. Living in a splendid palace, David felt ashamed of himself and wanted to build a temple for God, but this created a situation in which human zeal collided with God's law. The prophet Nathan, too, trusted David's heart and agreed without reservation, but God had not commanded David to build the temple.

The sermon points out that although David's plan came from good intentions, it failed because it did not follow God's law and will. We often believe our own thinking is proper and imagine that we are working for God, but human thoughts and God's will are fundamentally different. In particular, through the issue of bloodshed, the reason he was forbidden to build the temple, and through David's attitude of obeying without excuses, it emphasises the need for the wisdom to understand what God's will is.

When God refuses our plans or sends us suffering, we must not complain and abandon our faith. Why do we need a mature faith like David's, one that hears God's voice, immediately gives up its own will and gives thanks?

This passage tells how David, from the comfort of the throne, tried to move God's ark on a new cart, and suffered the tragedy of Uzzah's death because of human devotion that ignored the ordinances. Departing from the faith with which he had relied on God through earlier hardships and miracles, David judged that his own ideas and zeal would please God and pushed ahead with something that broke the law. This shows a dangerous moment in which, instead of the way God had appointed, human pride and an idolatrous heart come to light.

The sermon points out why we must be even more careful once we have come out of hardship into comfort. It is because in comfort human desires grow, we take God's answers for granted, and we put our own devotion ahead of God. In particular, it warns how faith becomes corrupted, as David, when he met God's anger through Uzzah's death, instead became angry with God and tried to send the ark far away. This stresses that a work begun with a wrong plan and heart ends in catastrophe, and shows that true loyalty is following God's word and ordinances rather than human zeal itself.

Through the contrast of Obed-Edom, who, unlike Uzzah, kept God's ark in his house and was blessed, it reveals how a faith that obeys God's will leads to blessing. Just as David found peace only when he repented and moved the ark according to the ordinances for the Levites, it suggests that our faith, too, must lay aside human righteousness and go forward in God's way. How should we discern whether our thoughts and zeal right now are for God or for ourselves?

This passage deals with Mary, who, after the angel's visit and the news that she will conceive the Messiah, visits Elizabeth and offers praise and worship. Although Mary knows her own weakness and the impossibility of her situation, she accepts it in obedience, desiring God's word to be fulfilled. Amazed and grateful that she, lowly as she is, has been entrusted with God's great work, she offers God heartfelt worship.

The sermon emphasises that Mary's attitude was not a mere religious act but a resolve to take part in God's deep providence and plan once she had understood it. It says that God's will, which cannot be known by worldly wisdom, is revealed to believers through the Holy Spirit, and that believing and obeying it is true wisdom. It also points out that, just as Mary praised God amid hardship and misunderstanding, believers too should take part in God's will without being shaken by whether their circumstances are good or bad.

The sermon asks believers not to become proud by asserting their own righteousness, but to live only for the holiness of Jesus Christ. Just as Mary praised the Lord even in the hardship of conceiving a child as a virgin, it asks whether we will live a life of worshipping God, fulfilling our duty as believers to the end, through the hardships and joys of this year.

Reflecting again on the meaning of Christmas, this passage sheds light on the essence of faith through the two criminals crucified beside Jesus. Although Jesus came in humble form, people expected him to be a worldly liberator or a mighty king, and were disappointed or mocked him. In particular, the two robbers, arrested while fighting against Roman oppression, were men who had devoted themselves to their nation, and even to the last moment they asserted their own merits or demanded salvation, regarding Jesus as a worldly power.

Through the complex feelings they went through and the historical background of the time, the sermon points out that salvation cannot be gained by human effort and will alone. One robber admitted that he was rightly on the cross for what he had done, yet confessed the sinless Jesus to be righteous and pleaded with him to remember him when he came into his kingdom. This shows that the decisive standard for salvation is not the world's standards or human good works but faith in, and confession of, Jesus Christ alone.

We are led to reflect on our priorities as we work hard for our country and our families. We come to realise that the true purpose of life is to live for Christ rather than for worldly success or honour. We must not forget that after this life we will be divided between the kingdom of heaven and hell, and must seek never to let go of our faith in Jesus Christ. Remembering that God willingly bore the cross to save us, what should we learn through this sermon to make sure that Christ comes first in our lives?

This passage deals with the scene in which David, attacked by the Philistine army, asks God what to do despite his own formidable military strength. God instructs David not to go out and fight directly, but to wait behind the mulberry trees and attack when he hears the sound of marching above. This is an astonishing promise that God would send his angels ahead of David to defeat the enemy.

The sermon emphasises David's humble attitude of still obeying and praying to God even after gaining power. He confesses that his victories came not from his own strategy or military strength but because God helped him, and he keeps a faith that does not forget God but fears him. It says that such obedience and humility are the conditions for blessing that bring greater protection and miraculous victory from God.

Consider what answer there will be when we entrust to God the frightening situations and hard-to-solve problems we face, and pray persistently without doubting.

This passage deals with Noah building the ark at God's command just before the judgment of the flood. In a world full of corruption, Noah, the only righteous man who walked with God, obeyed God's warning and kept on building the ark to completion despite mockery and persecution. God announced that judgment was imminent and commanded Noah to prepare the ark of salvation, and Noah did his utmost, believing that the word would surely be fulfilled.

The sermon emphasises that Noah's ark was not simply a physical structure but faith in Jesus Christ itself. It says that even when the world still looks calm and the mockery continues, true salvation is to believe in the unseen judgment and stay inside the ark. And through Noah's grieving heart as he built the ark and strove to save his family and neighbours, it helps believers realise their mission to be set apart from the world and share the gospel.

Through the contrast between Noah weeping and praying to God inside the ark and the people outside, who had mocked him, regretting it after the door was shut, the sermon leads us to reflect on the present. Believing that the judgment God has appointed will surely come, it asks us to ask ourselves honestly whether at this moment we are inside the ark or outside it.

This passage deals with the murder of Saul's son Ishbosheth by his own officials. Hearing of Abner's death, Ishbosheth trembled with fear and relied entirely on Baanah and Rechab, who were supposed to protect him. But the two officials, judging that Ishbosheth was of no more use to them, betrayed him and took his head to David. They thought David would rejoice that his enemy had been killed and that they would be rewarded.

But David did not tolerate what they had done; instead he was very angry. David knew that killing Ishbosheth in his bed was a wicked act. Baanah and Rechab had killed the king only to satisfy their own greed, not for God. God regards the process and the heart as more important than the result. God does not accept formal devotion or false loyalty. God wants honest faith and sincerity.

The death of Ishbosheth shows the tragic results that human will and greed bring. David, by contrast, did not take revenge on his enemy himself but left it to God. David was patient, trusting that God would repay on his behalf. This faith of David's became the occasion for God to establish him as king. We must look back on the heart with which we serve God. We must distinguish whether our faith is truly directed toward God or toward our own interests. We are led to think about what God wants and how we should live.

This passage deals with the sin committed by Joab, King David's general, who put his own power and hot temper first and ignored God's will and the king's command, and with its consequences. Joab gained great power through his service in fighting for David, but he grew proud, killed Abner on the pretext of avenging his brother Asahel, and shook the foundations of David's rule. The sermon points out that Joab lost his spiritual discernment and judged only by the gains and feelings immediately before his worldly eyes.

The sermon warns that if we cannot tell whether suffering comes from sin or is for spiritual training, we may make excuses or do evil rather than repent of our sin. Although Joab had seen David's wisdom in entrusting everything to God and waiting, he trusted his own wisdom, acted on his own, and finally set out on the road to ruin. David, on the other hand, shows a mature faith: while using the abilities of a wicked man in his rule, he kept his integrity and left Joab's sin to God.

Believers must not use God by putting forward their own merits, nor decide their faith by blaming circumstances and people. The sermon leads the reader to reflect that their choices are not determined by circumstances but depend on how faith interprets them. It asks how, so that our lives do not end in ruin like Joab's, unable to leave the place of sin, we can gain the wisdom to understand God's will in suffering and to repent.

Through the story of Joab, King David's cousin and army commander, this passage looks at how devotion and loyalty can degenerate into pride and eventually lead to betrayal. Joab risked his life for David, winning many battles and playing a decisive part in establishing the kingdom. But the greater his achievements grew, the more he overrated his own abilities, and he changed into someone who put his own righteousness ahead of David's judgment.

This pride began with small incidents and led to deadly results. Leading a reckless battle on the pretext of avenging his brother Asahel, he killed Abner, and afterwards repeatedly ignored God's will and David's commands, even killing David's son. Caught up in his pride at having made David king, he lost his reverence for God and for David, and in the end took the path of betraying the one who had been closest to him.

Believers must mature spiritually so that they do not become proud because of their own devotion and zeal. When, like Joab, we mistake the grace and abilities we have received for our own achievements, we can fall to Satan's temptation and set out on the road to ruin. We must acknowledge God's absolute sovereignty, set aside our own righteousness and live in obedience to the Word. Then, taking Joab's failure as a mirror, with what heart should we treat God and our neighbours?

This passage deals with David going up to Hebron and being anointed king over the house of Judah, and with him praising the people of Jabesh Gilead, who had buried King Saul's body, and repaying their kindness. Despite Saul's persecution, David put God's command ahead of his own judgment and obeyed, and he rewarded and blessed those who had buried the body of his enemy. This shows how David, who had become a mature believer through suffering, gained the trust of God and of people.

The sermon emphasises that when believers are thankful for the grace they have received and devote themselves wholeheartedly even to small things, God honours them. Through Jesus' parable, it points out that what matters is not the size of the result but an obedient heart, and explains that the process of sharing the gospel is itself something God approves. It also says that not rejoicing in an enemy's suffering but making good choices is the proper attitude of believers, and that God knows all the sincerity of believers' hearts.

The sermon asks whether believers are children to whom God can entrust his work with peace of mind, or frustrating children who insist on their own way.

This passage deals with the scene in which David hears of King Saul's death from a young Amalekite. The young man lies, claiming he killed Saul himself, and brings the crown and bracelet to win David's praise. But David is not deceived by his words, and coolly judges the wickedness of killing the king whom God had anointed.

Through this incident, the sermon shows how people's perspectives and judgments lead to different outcomes. The young man committed the folly of deceiving God and God's people for his own gain, but David put God's will ahead of his feelings and lived honestly. It warns believers, too, not to deceive God or offer false devotion in pursuit of worldly riches and honour. It emphasises that the words that come out of our mouths reveal our character, and that lies can lead to irreversible judgment.

The sermon asks what believers must hold on to in order to stand before God wisely and with understanding, as David did.