God Doesn't Invest in Stone : He Invests in You

10 min read

Introduction

David is finally settled. The land is at peace, he lives in a magnificent cedar palace, and a thought strikes him: I live in a splendid house, and God's chest is still under a simple tent. From this good intention a project is born, to build a temple for God. But the answer the Lord gives David through the prophet Nathan (2 Samuel 7:1-17) takes his heart completely by surprise. God doesn't invest in stone first. He invests in a people. And this word concerns you today.

Outline

1. Three key texts, one project of God

For several weeks now, this text has been examined alongside two other foundational passages: Genesis 12:1-3 (the call of Abraham) and Exodus 19:4-6 (the meeting at Sinai). 2 Samuel 7 now joins this series.
Three key moments where God comes to meet humans to reveal what he intends to do.
To Abraham, God announces a numerous descendance that will be a source of blessing for all the families of the earth.
To Israel at Sinai, God announces that he will make this freed people of slaves a holy nation, a kingdom of priests, a people on mission to make God known to the world.
And to David, about 300 years later, God addresses a key word through the prophet Nathan.

2. David's project: build a temple for God

God speaks this word to David at a moment when everything is going well: the land is at peace, it is prosperous, David lives in a beautiful palace.
It's precisely in such moments that we often forget to think of God. But David starts thinking about God.
His observation is simple: I live in a beautiful cedar house, and God is only under a tent covering.
David doesn't even need to explain his project. Nathan understands right away: "Go, do all that is in your heart." A beautiful temple must be built with a superb frame of Lebanon cedar.
What was David's intention? Perhaps some scruples about being better housed than God by his own standards. Perhaps a nobler intention: to offer a place to give glory to God, as the great cathedrals would later do.
David had just brought the ark of the covenant back to Jerusalem, that chest which contained the tablets of Moses' law and on which God revealed his presence. Could this chest remain without a fixed home?
We don't know exactly David's motivation. There was likely a bit of everything: scruple and a sincere desire to honor God.

3. God's answer in three movements

God answers David in three movements, and his answer is rich in teaching for us today.
Movement 1: "I have never asked to dwell in a house; I have moved about with a tent."
Movement 2: "It's not you who will build me a house; it's I who will make you a house."
Movement 3: "It's your descendant who will build me a temple." God still honors David's intention, but reveals its true scope.

4. "I have never dwelt in a house; I have moved about with a tent"

Watch the verbs here. The chapter opens by saying David dwells in his house in Jerusalem (v.1). God replies in v.6 that he has never dwelt in a house, it's the exact same verb in Hebrew.
Instead, God has always moved with his people, which the tent allowed and a solid house would not have.
The temple has this flaw: it can become a place where one settles for good, where the people shut themselves in, worse, where the people want to shut God in.
But God doesn't want to be a shut-in God. He doesn't want his people to be a shut-in people.
The calling of this people, as Genesis 12 and Exodus 19 show, is to be a source of blessing for all the families of the earth, a people who go toward all nations to make God known. That requires a people on the move.
The same is true for his Church: God doesn't want us to be a people shut in behind the walls of a temple, however beautiful.
When John speaks of Christ's coming, he writes that the Word "pitched his tent among us" (John 1:14). Commentators note the Greek verb really alludes to the tent of meeting.
Jesus came not to be shut inside a temple, but to walk with his disciples on the roads of the world. Just read the Gospels: Jesus is rarely settled, always on the move, always meeting people.
There's a song that says: "Open the doors, announce the King, and let Jesus in." A pastor with a gift for turning a phrase added: and let Jesus out. Let him out of the church. He wants to move with us on the roads of the world.

5. "It's not you who will build me a house; it's I who will make you one"

Verse 1 just said David built himself a beautiful house. And despite this, God tells him: I will make you a house.
God obviously isn't speaking of a house of stone, but of a household, a descendance, a dynasty. Some translations render it "I will make you a descendance," others "I will make you a dynasty."
Verse 12 confirms this: "When your days are fulfilled and you sleep with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who will come from your own body."
God's word here echoes exactly the phrasing used in Genesis 15:4 when God spoke to Abraham: "one who will come from your own body." The same phrase, twice, to David as to Abraham.
God isn't primarily interested in building a solid house. He wants to build a household, for David as for Abraham.
The title of this message could be summed up like this: God doesn't invest in stone. God invests in a people.
Jesus will say nothing different when he announces: "I will build my Church", he isn't speaking of a building, but of a people, a household.
Through his answer, God wants to make David think. A temple, why not? After all, there will be one. But never a temple at the expense of the people, because that is where the Lord wants to invest.
And this should make us think too: what are we investing in?

6. "It's your descendant who will build me a temple"

God doesn't entirely dismiss David's proposal: a temple will be built, but by his descendant.
Who is this descendant? First, Solomon, who was not yet born at the time of this word. The book of Kings (1 Kings 5:19) clearly identifies Solomon as the one who built a temple in Jerusalem, referring back to this word of Nathan. Perhaps somewhat at the people's expense, since the construction involved heavy labor.
Several centuries later, Zechariah 6:13 refers again to this word of Nathan to designate another descendant of David: Zerubbabel, the one who brings the people back from exile in Babylon and restarts the work of rebuilding the temple destroyed by the Babylonians.
On this earth, a stone building has its use. The temple gives visibility to God's people, and through the people, gives visibility to God. The temple allows people to gather, it gives a place to celebrate worship, like this morning, even though one can debate calling this place a "temple" among Protestants, since God dwells in the midst of his gathered people.
But we also know that in the new Jerusalem described in Revelation, there will be no more temple: "I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God the Almighty is its temple, and the Lamb" (Revelation 21:22). His presence will simply be there, in the midst of his people.
But the true descendant of David, the one whose reign is established forever, is someone else still. The New Testament identifies this descendant as Jesus Christ.
Jesus is presented as both a descendant of David and of Abraham from the very opening of the New Testament: "The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham" (Matthew 1:1). He is the one who came, in a sense, from the body of Abraham and of David, according to the word given.
And it's this Jesus who said: "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up" (John 2:19). And the evangelist clarifies: he was speaking of the temple of his body.
In Christ, bodily risen, God dwells fully, and God now lets himself be found by those who seek him.

7. The new temple: a people indwelt by the Spirit

In the risen Christ, a new people appears, a new body, a new temple in which God dwells by his Spirit.
This is what the apostle Paul will tell the Church: "Don't you know that you are a temple of God, and that God's Spirit lives in you?" (1 Corinthians 3:16).
If we may mix the images: be a temple that invests in the right place. Don't be a temple that shuts itself in, but a temple where the Spirit of God dwells.
The Spirit who blows where he wills. The Spirit whose power makes us witnesses, not within the walls of a temple, but to the ends of the earth.
That is where God has come, and that is where God has invested: a temple, a people, with whom he can walk on the roads of the world.

Key takeaways

God doesn't invest in stone first. He invests in a people, a household, a dynasty that runs through the centuries all the way to Christ.
A temple can become a trap: a place where the people are shut in and where one tries to shut God in too. God prefers the moving tent to the fixed house that keeps things still.
The Word "pitched his tent among us" (John 1:14). Jesus didn't come to be shut inside a temple, but to walk with his disciples toward others.
The true descendant of David is Jesus Christ, whose risen body is the new temple where God dwells fully.
Today, the Church is this new temple: a people indwelt by the Spirit, sent to the ends of the earth, not held within four walls.

Personal application

Today, what are you actually investing your time, energy, and money in? In "stone" (structures, buildings, appearances) or in "the people" (persons, mission, fellowship)?
When everything is going well for you (peaceful circumstances, a stable home, a comfortable situation), do you, like David, remember to think of God? Or is it in prosperity that you forget him?
In your church life, is there a temptation to make the place, the building, or the Sunday service an end in itself? How do you keep the tent open rather than lock the door?
Are you more of a "settled" Christian (parked within the walls of the temple), or a Christian "on the way" with Jesus on the roads of the world?
Since you yourself are the temple where the Spirit dwells (1 Corinthians 3:16), who around you this week could meet God through your life?

Verses cited

Further reading

Frequently asked questions

If God doesn't invest in stone, should we criticize churches that build or renovate buildings?

No, the message doesn't condemn building temples. God himself authorizes Solomon to build one, and later Zerubbabel to rebuild it after the exile. A place of worship has its use on this earth: it gives visibility to God's people, it allows people to gather, it offers a space to celebrate. The real warning is never to build a temple at the expense of the people. God's priority isn't the stone but the household he builds through Christ.

What does it actually mean that "we are the temple of God"?

The apostle Paul explains in 1 Corinthians 3:16 that the Church (and through it every believer), has become the place where God dwells by his Spirit. God's presence is no longer tied to a sacred building like the temple in Jerusalem. It rests on an indwelt, sent, moving people. This transforms your everyday life: your body, your relationships, your work become the place of God's presence in the world. You carry that presence wherever you go.

Why does God say "no" to such a beautiful project of David's?

God doesn't say "no" to David's pious intention, he even honors it by promising that a descendant will build this temple. But he corrects David's perspective. God's true project since Abraham is a people who bless all the families of the earth, a people on the move toward the nations. A solid house risks settling this people, shutting them in. God prefers to first build them a household, a dynasty that leads to Christ, in whom he dwells fully. David's intention was good; God's priority was even greater.

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God Doesn't Invest in Stone : He Invests in You | Efficient Church