The King's Table

So God is keeping His word to David. And in the middle of all of that, in 2 Samuel 8:13, it says this:

¹³And David made a name for himself when he returned from striking down 18,000 Edomites in the Valley of Salt.

David made a name. David made a name for himself after striking down 18,000. The Hebrew here for name is — שֵׁם — shem — name; reputation, fame, renown (BDB; HALOT). I talked about this a little before. It means not simply the identifier, the name — it means the reputation, the fame, the glory of an individual. A person's name and their honor, their identity, are all wrapped up together. It says David made a name. Now, our ESV that I'm preaching out of says "for himself," but the "for himself" is not there in the Hebrew. That's just an editorial gloss, a choice to try to bring some context, but it literally just writes, "David made a name." In chapter 7 God promises to make David a name, and then in chapter 8 David makes a name. Some see this as David doing for himself what God had promised. I think the ESV addition there, "for himself," leads you to think maybe that way — oh, David's now going off on his own little Babel project, God promised him a name and so now David's going to go do it on his own. But I don't think the text supports that. The chapter is framed again with that refrain —

^6bAnd the Lord gave victory to David wherever he went.

And what we see David do with his name is what's important about this text. As God gives him victory, as God cuts off his enemies and David takes the spoils, what does he do with them? What does he do with the gold and the silver and the tribute and the spoils? He takes them, and the text tells us that he directs them toward the Lord, not to himself. These also King David dedicated to the Lord. He directs all that blessing that God is pouring out upon him right back to the One who has given it to him.

So when it says that David makes this name, it's because God has made the name for him. David has this profound recognition that everything that he has comes from the Lord. That's an easy thing to say. It's a whole other reality to really internalize and live out of — that everything David has comes from the Lord. I think some of us in the room need to sit with that for a minute, because we're a culture of radical expressive individualism, self-made people. We take pride — and this is a room of some pretty high achievers — and it's easy for us to look at our career, our reputation, our identity, our possessions, our achievements, our accomplishments, and think, "I did that." The question, though, is did we build that, or did God build that? And I think the biblical answer that's given in this text is yes — they're not mutually exclusive. The reason that you're able to do anything that you have ever done with your life, by your effort and your energy and your creativity and all of that stuff — the reason that you were able to do that is because God has allowed and enabled and empowered you to do those things. You're not self-made. We don't stand on our own two feet. We are, at the end of the day, created. You've been made. You have a Maker, and He's designed you. And so that intelligence that you have, you don't get to take credit for that. Now, what you do with it — yeah, that's part of it, but it's not an either/or.

Part of what I love about this chapter is that David is promised by God all this stuff, and he doesn't do what so many people do today — just sit back and say, "Okay, God, make it happen." David is being invited by God to participate in the work and life of God. That's what having a great name is all about. It's being brought into the work that we were made for. So David's promised a great name. The promises of God don't require us to sit back in passivity. They become the foundation and the hope from which we actually operate. I can do these things because the Lord is with me. David fought every one of those battles with his blood, sweat, and tears, and the Lord made him a name. That's how that works. So for that reason, David gives back and dedicates his victory to the Lord.

And that gets us to the structure of these chapters that I mentioned, that's easy to see in the Hebrew and not easy to see in the English. There's a very simple Hebrew word — עָשָׂה — ʿāśâ — to do, make, fashion, produce, accomplish (BDB; HALOT). It means to make, or to do. It's really simple in the Hebrew, but it's a complex enough concept that in the English we use several different words to try to get it. And this word shows up three times in this chapter. It forms the structural basis of it, but we don't often see it in the English. The first time it shows up is in verse 13:

¹³And David made a name for himself when he returned from striking down 18,000 Edomites in the Valley of Salt.

Verse 15 it says:

¹⁵So David reigned over all Israel. And David administered justice and equity to all his people.

That's that exact same word, asa. So he makes his name, and then out of that name that he has made — that God has made for him — what does he do? He makes justice and equity. Notice — for all his people, not some of the people, not a few. No, because he's been given the name, because he's been given the throne, because the Lord is with him, what does David now do with the name he's been given? He now makes justice and equity to all his people. And then the ending of that chapter starts to list out the administrators, the leaders, the priests, the people around him that keep the kingdom going, that administer that justice and equity that David is now making on behalf of all of Israel.

And then we get to verse one of chapter 9, for the third instance of it.

¹And David said, “Is there still anyone left of the house of Saul, that I may show him kindness for Jonathan’s sake?”

Chapter 8 is really forming the context to set up what's going to happen here in chapter nine. It's one of my favorite stories in the Old Testament, the story of David and Mephibosheth. And it's all about this structure of making — David makes a name, out of that David makes justice and equity for all of his people, and now we get this snapshot, this Polaroid image of what that looks like, as David says, "How can I make kindness to the descendants of Jonathan?"

It's critical to understand here that David's not trying to virtue signal. This is not him saying, "Oh, I want to do something really cool, I want to do something just nice so that everybody likes me." David is actually keeping an oath. I'm going to dig into this, but when he says "that I may show kindness," that's the Hebrew word — חֶסֶד — ḥesed — covenant loyalty, steadfast lovingkindness (HALOT). So he says, I need to keep hesed. David made two oaths. The first he made with Jonathan, in 1 Samuel chapter 20, if you remember. Jonathan's father, Saul, the first king of Israel, was trying to kill David, and Jonathan loved him, and so Jonathan on multiple occasions rescued and saved David's life by actually coming in between him and his father. And in 1 Samuel 20:13–17, Jonathan says this:

¹³But should it please my father to do you harm, the LORD do so to Jonathan and more also if I do not disclose it to you and send you away, that you may go in safety. May the LORD be with you, as he has been with my father. ¹⁴If I am still alive, show me the steadfast love of the LORD, that I may not die; ¹⁵and do not cut off your steadfast love from my house forever, when the LORD cuts off every one of the enemies of David from the face of the earth.” ¹⁶And Jonathan made a covenant with the house of David, saying, “May the LORD take vengeance on David’s enemies.” ¹⁷And Jonathan made David swear again by his love for him, for he loved him as he loved his own soul.

I don't know if you caught the timeline in that covenant, but there's a timeline established. Jonathan says, "Hey, I need you to make me a promise." Jonathan knows where things are going. He recognizes the madness that is gripping his father. He sees that God has withdrawn, and he knows that God, through Samuel the prophet, has chosen and ordained that David will be the next king. So Jonathan knows what's coming. And so he comes to David. He says, this is where it's going. So here's what this is — all I can ask of you: when God gives you what He's promised to give you, when He cuts off the enemies, when He brings peace of mind, when He puts you on the throne, if I'm still alive, don't kill me, and if I'm not alive, don't destroy my name, my house, my reputation, my lineage, my children. Show hesed, covenant loyalty. Don't — because in the ancient Near East, when a dynasty would change, that is standard operating procedure: the new incoming king would kill and destroy all of the heirs of the outgoing king. Why leave that kind of threat in the mix? This is a legitimate, reasonable, intelligent request that he makes of David. Don't do what all the other kings do. I know you're going to be king, and I know I'm the son of the former king, so do the math. Please don't do the math, David. Please let me live. Let my children live. Show mercy, show loyalty, make this covenant with me.

And so there's this timeline in the midst of this covenant — when the Lord cuts off your enemies, the Hebrew is — כָּרַת — kārat — to cut, cut off; to cut a covenant (BDB; HALOT) — when He cuts off your enemies around you, then show hesed to me and my household. So the wars of chapter 8 aren't simply scenery. They set the stage for David to honor his oath.

But this isn't the only oath that David made. He actually made an oath to Jonathan's father, Saul. In 1 Samuel 24, David makes this oath, and it's one of my favorite stories. In 1 Samuel, if you remember, David has a group of his men, and Saul is chasing them, and they hide in a cave. And Saul and the army come up outside that exact cave, and Saul has to relieve himself. So Saul goes into the cave by himself to do his business, and while he's doing that, David sneaks up and — what does he do? — cuts off a corner of his robe. And then when Saul leaves, David comes out of the cave, and he's waving the piece that he cut off. He says, "Hey, look at this — I could have killed you. I didn't." Now, there's an interesting note in verse 14, when he calls out Saul, David says:

¹⁴After whom has the king of Israel come out? After whom do you pursue? After a dead dog! After a flea!

Saul responds to David in verses 17 to 22:

¹⁷He said to David, “You are more righteous than I, for you have repaid me good, whereas I have repaid you evil. ¹⁸And you have declared this day how you have dealt well with me, in that you did not kill me when the Lord put me into your hands. ¹⁹For if a man finds his enemy, will he let him go away safe? So may the Lord reward you with good for what you have done to me this day. ²⁰And now, behold, I know that you shall surely be king, and that the kingdom of Israel shall be established in your hand. ²¹Swear to me therefore by the Lord that you will not cut off my offspring after me, and that you will not destroy my name out of my father’s house.”

It's the same thing that Jonathan was asking for. Saul recognized, "You're going to be king, I see that God is with you. Here's what I'm asking" — when He establishes it, do not do the math, do not cut us off, do not destroy the name out of my father's house.

So in chapter 9 verse one, when it says:

¹And David said, “Is there still anyone left of the house of Saul, that I may show him kindness for Jonathan’s sake?”

What David is really asking about is keeping his oath — both of them. The word here translated as kindness, hesed, it's almost impossible to translate it cleanly into the English. At its heart, it's a word that's used to describe faithfulness within a relationship of mutuality. It's a word that describes honoring and keeping your word, and being faithful to the responsibilities of relationship that have been entered into. It's a covenant word, a promise-keeping word. So when David says, "that I may show kindness," what I want you to hear, what I want you to think, is: who can I show covenant faithfulness to, covenant loyalty? This is what David is wishing to do. He wants to keep his word.

²Now there was a servant of the house of Saul whose name was Ziba, and they called him to David. And the king said to him, “Are you Ziba?” And he said, “I am your servant.” ^3aAnd the king said, “Is there not still someone of the house of Saul, that I may show the kindness of God to him?”

That little addition of "God" is almost word-for-word what Jonathan had asked for. Jonathan doesn't say just show me your hesed; he says show me God's hesed, right? So this is what David is doing — he wants to show what promise-keeping, what covenant faithfulness, what loyalty looks like, not just in David, but in God. So, is there anybody left that I can show this covenant loyalty to?

I was thinking, when David made those promises, he made them from a place of weakness. He'd been promised to be king, but he wasn't king. He's running, he's hiding, he is the underdog in the story from a human perspective. He makes that kind of promise from a place of weakness. I wonder if you've made promises like that out of weakness, a situation of weakness or need. Someone took a chance on you and gave you a job that you weren't quite qualified for, and you said, "You know what, I'm going to remember this." You're 24 and broke, and somebody slips you a little money and says, "Hey, I believe in you" — and you're not going to forget that. Maybe you stood in a hospital room with a friend or a family member. They say, "When I'm gone, will you look after my kids?" We make these kinds of promises often in times of great need or weakness, and then as years go by, there's no one to hold us to those promises. Nobody's checking in. That's certainly the case with David. David made this promise to Saul and to Jonathan. They're both dead, they're both gone. He made these oaths, these covenants, while he was weak. Now he is strong. It'd be easy for him to neglect the promise that he made in weakness, to not keep covenant loyalty. Certainly no one's going to hold the king to it. But David chooses to show it.

And so Ziba said to the king, "There is still a son of Jonathan." There's actually seven others — we're going to come across them a little bit later — but Ziba tells him about one in particular.

^3bZiba said to the king, “There is still a son of Jonathan; he is crippled in his feet.”

Ziba's not being unkind about Mephibosheth. He's giving David valuable information. I think Ziba knows what happens when new kings find heirs of old kings. So he's giving David some valuable information. "Well, there is one, it's Mephibosheth, but don't worry, he's crippled in both his feet. He's not going to lead an army, he can't fight you, David, he is not to be worried about." David's not worried about him, but I think that's what Ziba is thinking.

Now we learned about Mephibosheth back in chapter 4, on the day that Saul and Jonathan fell in battle. The text told us this, from chapter 4:4:

⁴Jonathan, the son of Saul, had a son who was crippled in his feet. He was five years old when the news about Saul and Jonathan came from Jezreel, and his nurse took him up and fled, and as she fled in her haste, he fell and became lame. And his name was Mephibosheth.

Just think about that. There are so many little tragedies in these stories. He's five years old. His father and grandfather just died. And because of the culture, and because of the family he comes from, because of the name that he bears, his life is at risk. So this little five-year-old — his whole world is turned upside down. And the nurse grabs him, and she loves him, and she wants to protect him. So what's she going to do? She's going to get out of town, she's going to take him somewhere safe. And in her haste, something happens. Now, she doesn't drop him — the text is very clear to say that he falls. But he falls, and in that fall he becomes paralyzed. He can't use his legs anymore. What a tragedy.

So David in verse four says to Ziba,

⁴The king said to him, “Where is he?” And Ziba said to the king, “He is in the house of Machir the son of Ammiel, at Lo-debar.”

It's one of my favorite place names in the Old Testament, Lo-debar. It means literally "no thing" or "no pasture." In a land that is a wilderness, how barren does a place have to be to be called "no pasture"? This is the place nobody wants to go visit. Nobody's saying, "Where you going for a vacation, man? I'm going to Lo-debar. Ain't no party like a Lo-debar party." Nobody's going to Lo-debar. Nobody. That's why he went there. When you're the heir of the outgoing king, you want to go where the new king can't see you, can't find you. You go to the place of no thing, of no pasture. It's actually across the Jordan, and I think that's a significant contextual reality as well — he leaves the land of promise and goes back across the Jordan, which God had led the people across into the land of promise. He's thinking, "David will never find me here, he'll never look for me here, I'm in Lo-debar."

⁵Then King David sent and brought him from the house of Machir the son of Ammiel, at Lo-debar.

Imagine what that day was like for Mephibosheth. You're living in this place of no pasture, it's pretty barren, and you see a cloud of dust in the distance, as a squad of soldiers comes your way. All your life you've been fearing this moment. The text doesn't give us a precise chronology of how long this has been — my best estimate is 15 to 20 years, so Mephibosheth is now 20 to 25. We'll see here in a few verses he actually has a son of his own by this point. But Mephibosheth, for his entire life, ever since he was five and was paralyzed, has been terrified that one day soldiers will come from King David and his life will be over. And that day has come. They come, and it says,

⁶And Mephibosheth the son of Jonathan, son of Saul, came to David and fell on his face and paid homage. And David said, “Mephibosheth!” And he answered, “Behold, I am your servant.”

That fall is this thread that keeps running through 1 and 2 Samuel. Saul has fallen, Jonathan has fallen, Mephibosheth fell as a child, and now as a man Mephibosheth falls before David. 2 Samuel chapter 1 begins with David lamenting,

¹⁹“Your glory, O Israel, is slain on your high places! How the mighty have fallen!

The house of Saul has fallen, and now here's the heir, Mephibosheth, fallen again before David. And what does David do? He says his name. David says, "Mephibosheth." And he answered, "Behold, I am your servant" — not your enemy, I'm your servant, please don't kill me. But Mephibosheth — in a text that's all about a name, and preserving a name, and building a name — when the king speaks your name, there's something profound. And then the first thing David says to him, after calling him by name, David says to him, "Do not fear." Do not fear. I love that, because all his life Mephibosheth would have been afraid of David. It's the fear of David that led to his paralysis, his lameness, his exile in Lo-debar. His whole life he's been afraid of David, and the first command David gives him is "do not fear." Unbelievable.

And then David moves on to make his intentions clear. He says, "Do not fear, for I will show you" — hesed —

⁷And David said to him, “Do not fear, for I will show you kindness for the sake of your father Jonathan, and I will restore to you all the land of Saul your father, and you shall eat at my table always.”

That was not what Mephibosheth expected to hear. He was ready to hear his death sentence. He was ready to lose everything. And instead he's returned everything that has been lost. Amazing. Everything that belonged to Saul, everything that belonged to Jonathan, by rights — who does it belong to now? David, because he's taken over. David says, "I'm not going to take it. I'm not going to take your name. I'm not going to cut off your house. It's all coming back to you." That's what Saul and Jonathan had asked him for, and David does keep that promise.

But I love the last phrase: "And you shall eat at my table always." That's not in the covenant, that was not in the promise. This is David taking hesed — taking covenant faithfulness and loyalty and kindness and love — and taking it to the next level. "Not only am I going to keep the covenant, and give you your name, and give you your land, and not cut off the house of Saul — you're going to be one of mine. You're going to dwell in the king's house, and you're going to eat at the king's table." It's an almost unthinkable act of generosity.

Mephibosheth — he doesn't get it. So he paid homage. Somebody tells you something that you're just not prepared to hear, right? So he just starts bowing again — this is so much. And then he says,

⁸And he paid homage and said, “What is your servant, that you should show regard for a dead dog such as I?”

I love these little details. Now, in the ancient Near East, dogs were not the lovable family pets that we have today. They were scavengers, they were nuisances, they were the lowest of the low. You wanted to insult somebody, you called them a dog. You really wanted to insult somebody, you called him a dead dog. I'll be honest, this text hit hard, because this week, on Monday, my family — we had to put down our beloved little June Bug. We loved her, 16 years we had that little dog. That's not at all how they thought about dogs in the ancient Near East.

So he just — and I love it, because that's what David had said way back in 1 Samuel 24, when he made that covenant with Saul — "What are you chasing me for? I'm just a dead dog." No, David, you're the one that God has chosen. But now here it is, Mephibosheth — this great reversal.

And this may be my favorite detail in this story, and it's the absence of something: David doesn't respond to that at all. He just ignores it. Doesn't say, "Oh, you're not a dead dog, oh no no no no, you're a good guy." No, he just ignores it, and he starts giving orders. It says,

"The king then called Ziba,

⁹Then the king called Ziba, Saul’s servant, and said to him, “All that belonged to Saul and to all his house I have given to your master’s grandson. ¹⁰And you and your sons and your servants shall till the land for him and shall bring in the produce, that your master’s grandson may have bread to eat. But Mephibosheth your master’s grandson shall always eat at my table.” Now Ziba had fifteen sons and twenty servants.

All right, Ziba, you used to serve Saul; now you're serving me, but now you're going to go back to Saul's household, and so now you're going to be serving Mephibosheth. You and your sons, you're going to work that land, you're going to raise the produce, you're going to bring it in — why? So that Mephibosheth has food to eat." I love that. So, Ziba, you and your family are going to work really, really hard to make sure he's got enough to eat, to give him what he needs. So David's providing for Mephibosheth, and for Saul and Jonathan's family, and for their name. He's giving them back that which they had lost and which they didn't deserve. But he gives it back to them so that they might produce. But then he takes it to that next level — so he's going to have food to eat, but he's not going to have to eat it, because he's going to eat my food at my table. For David, this is what hesed looks like. It's more and bigger and greater than what could be imagined. It doesn't simply meet the strictest terms of the promise, but it takes it as far as it can go.

The chapter then ends with this strange but, I think, intentional tension.

¹Then Ziba said to the king, “According to all that my lord the king commands his servant, so will your servant do.” So Mephibosheth ate at David’s table, like one of the king’s sons.

So David functionally adopts him — the enemy, the one that could be the threat, the one that everyone else, every other king in the ancient Near East would just kill without thinking. David says, "You sit at the table next to me like one of my sons." And it says Mephibosheth —

¹²And Mephibosheth had a young son, whose name was Mica. And all who lived in Ziba’s house became Mephibosheth’s servants. ¹³So Mephibosheth lived in Jerusalem, for he ate always at the king’s table. Now he was lame in both his feet.

It's interesting how the author brings this to conclusion — he always eats — both of these things are re-emphasized. David keeps his promise and does not cut off the house and name of Saul, and this is what hesed is all about — going above and beyond. He functionally adopts Mephibosheth in spite of the name Mephibosheth bears, the family he comes from, the history that David has lived through. He functionally adopts him in spite of who he was and the name he bore. And this is key — he does it in spite of the fact that Mephibosheth has nothing to offer him. He has no way to earn the king's favor or gratitude. He has nothing to offer the king that the king doesn't already have. It's just summarized in this — he lives at the king's table, he eats at the king's table, and he's still lame in both his feet. And yet David pours out hesed upon him. He wasn't healed. He comes to the table lame, and he sits at the table lame, and he is welcomed and loved at the table just as he is.

I don't know about you, but I find that absolutely beautiful and a little bit troubling, because if we're honest, I think most of us, when reading stories like this, want to identify ourselves with David, because who doesn't want to be the hero, right? We'd much rather be the benefactor who writes the check than the one who receives it. We're actually not very good at receiving — we don't even receive compliments well, we're not good at it. It cuts against the grain of so many of our unspoken cultural values. We don't know how to sit at a table we can't pay for and eat it and receive it without keeping score. And that's a problem, because our God is a giving God, and our gospel, our salvation, is a received reality. You can't earn your way to the table, you can't buy a seat, you don't get to use the things that God has given you to somehow get God to give you something else. It's freely given, and it must be freely received.

I want you to see this this morning from David's side — the table is him keeping his covenant loyalty. He made two oaths, one to a friend and one to an enemy. He keeps them years later, when nobody could make him. For David, it's about keeping his word. For Mephibosheth, it's just grace. Nothing in the text suggests he even knew anything about those oaths. He walked into that palace listening for the sounds of the soldiers' boots who would end his life. The same table — on one side is the covenant faithfulness, on the other side is the grace received, unearned but not unpromised. That's a distinction with a difference. The oath said, "Don't cut off the house of Saul, don't cut it off, let him live, keep the name." That was the promise, and David kept it. But he gave so much more — a seat at the king's table, always. That "always" is emphasized over and over and over again — just like one of the king's sons. Nobody swore that. David kept his promise and then went beyond.

Mephibosheth — why did he need a promise at all? Well, because of whose grandson he was. He didn't choose what house he was born into, he didn't choose his parents and grandparents. He was five years old when everything went wrong in Saul's reign. He lost it all — the throne; the family name became a liability. He's living in Lo-debar, raised in the fear of a king that has taken over. Mephibosheth is living in the wreckage of somebody else's choices.

Long before David, God told Moses His own name, Exodus 34, verses 6–7:

⁶The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, ⁷keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”

You hear both halves of that in God's revelation of Himself to Moses. This is who I am — I am the God who keeps covenant, I'm gracious and slow to anger, and yet I'm just, and I'm the judge of the earth. So I will show grace and mercy, I will forgive, but I will not — when it's not deserved — this is such an interesting contrast. "I show hesed to thousands, even though I hold guilty to three generations." That phrase, steadfast love, just keeps showing up over and over and over again in the story, because it's at the heart of what God is and does. God keeps His word, He keeps His promises. The ruin that ran down Saul's family line — so did the promise. And in that room in Jerusalem, they met. That's why David calls it the hesed, the kindness of God.

I think that whole story — David and Mephibosheth coming together at the table — is a beautiful picture of how Jesus treats us — how the true and better David, the true king, not just of Israel but of the whole earth, treats us. We don't choose the house we're born into either. We're all living in the wreckage of choices that others have made long before us. And we keep adding to them. So we're not just victims here, we're also the victimizers — we've inherited sin, and we've added to it. That's why Romans 5:8 is such a precious promise:

⁸but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Jesus died for us. God keeping His own promise at the highest cost there is. The death of Jesus is covenant faithfulness. It is God honoring His word. We can go all the way back to Genesis 3, through Genesis 12 and 15, and 2 Samuel 7, and all the way through — that God is going to restore that which has been lost. He's going to rebuild that which has been broken. He's going to reconcile that which has been separated by sin and death. So when we look at Jesus on the cross, that is the covenant promise-keeping, faithful loyalty of God for who? Sinners. And He doesn't do it after we stop sinning, He doesn't do it when we clean ourselves up — while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Somebody say amen this morning, please.

Listen how Paul says it just a few chapters later in Romans. He says,

⁸For I tell you that Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God’s truthfulness, in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs, ⁹and in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy.

As it is written, therefore I will praise You among the Gentiles and sing to Your name. God's truthfulness to the father, God's mercy to the outsider, covenant on one side of the table, grace on the other — not because of, but in spite of what the other has to offer. And God doesn't just stop — God's not stingy with His. He pours it out. I like how John puts it in John 1:16, talking about Jesus. He says,

¹⁶For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.

Grace upon grace. Because of God's hesed, we receive not just a little bit of grace, but grace upon grace upon grace upon grace. Why? Because that's what God is like. And that's what David is revealing to us in 2 Samuel chapter 9. He's showing us what the hesed, the faithfulness of God, looks like. And on God's side, it looks like covenant faithfulness, and on our side, it looks like unbelievable, unexpected, undeserved grace. It comes together at the table. That'll preach, by the way.

So we go back to the question I asked you at the start. Why do we want a great name? Why should we want a great name? What did David do with his great name? I think we want a great name because we're afraid of Lo-debar. We're afraid of being erased and unknown. That's actually in that Babel story in Genesis 11 — they say, "Let us make a great name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed." Lest we be forgotten, lest we be cast aside. That's Saul calling out after David outside the cave, "Swear to me that you will not destroy my name out of my father's house." But here's the thing about a name that we build — a name that you build can't keep you from being forgotten. Saul's name was kept by a promise that somebody else made and that somebody else kept.

Why does God give anyone a great name? If you're here from last week — "I will bless you and make your name great" — so that you will be a blessing. Not so that you will be known, so that you will become a blessing. The name is given not simply for David's benefit or for your benefit — we're not blessed simply to be blessed, we are blessed that we might enter into the life and work of God, which is blessing, giving, serving, loving, joy, life. David has one of the great names of the earth, and the first thing he does with it is say the name of a small one, a nobody, out loud — Mephibosheth. A man who had spent 15, 20 years hiding in a place called nothing, no pasture. That's what a great name is for. A great name is given by God to call the small ones out of Lo-debar.

I want to say to you this morning, if that's you — if you're living in Lo-debar, you're still living in fear, still in hiding, still no pasture — I want you to know this morning that God is calling your name. He's calling your name. It's not by accident — I don't have time to go into it this morning — but it's not by accident that in the book of Revelation, one of the things that we see in this great reunification, this great everlasting, is that God gives His people a name and inscribes it. I don't know who needs to hear it this morning, but you don't have to build a name for yourself. In the gospel, we're offered the opportunity to let God build our name with us. And that's something that nobody can take away. If that's you this morning, come and receive the faithful covenant loyalty of God. Come and take your place at the table that King Jesus has set for you.

And those of you that have already come, which is the vast majority of us, I want you to recognize that you have been given a name already. "Those that believed in His name, He gave them the right to be called children of God." You're treated like one of the king's sons. You eat always at the king's table. You have been so blessed. But church, you've been blessed not for you — you've been blessed to be a blessing. You've been blessed that you might reach out to those who are still suffering in fear in Lo-debar. Who is it that maybe you've made a promise to? Who is it that you see that God has brought into your sphere of influence? Let's give it to Him in the normal traffic patterns of your life. Who is it that needs to hear of the hesed of God, that needs to see it enacted and embodied in the name that God has given and is building in you? Church, freely you have received. You need to freely give.