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We're going to turn to 2 Samuel chapter 9. 2 Samuel chapter 9. So you have here King David. First King of Israel was Seoul. And he really didn't follow the Lord.

And David then was anointed king and saw became David's enemy But David was great friends with Saul's son Jonathan, but now Saul and Jonathan are dead, and we come to 2 Samuel chapter 9 and verse 1. David asked, Is there anyone left of the House of Saw to whom I can show kindness for Jonathan's sake. Now, there was a servant of Saw's household named ziban. They summoned him to appear before David, and the king sent him a u zebra at your service, he replied. The king asked, is there no 1 still alive from the House of Saw to whom I can to whom I can show God's kindness.

Ziver answered the king. There is still a son of Jonathan. He's lame in both feet. Where is he the king asked? Zipper answered, he is at the house of maker, son of Amiel, in Lolly Bar.

So King David had him brought to him from Lady Bar, from the House of Maker, son of Emil. When m thybuchath, son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, came to David, he bowed down to pay him honor. David said, Mathiasheath, at your service, he replied. Don't be afraid David said to him. For I will surely show you kindness for the sake of your father, Jonathan.

I will restore to you all the land that belonged to your grandfather saw, and you were always eat at my table. Mathiva Sheff bowed down and said, What is your servant that you should notice a dead dog like me Then the king summons ever saw Stewart and said to him, I have given your master's grandson everything that belonged to Saul and his family. You and your sons and your servants are to farm the land for him and bring in the crops so that your master's grandson may be provided for. And methibashev, grandson of your master, will always eat at my table. Now Zebra had 15 sons and 20 servants.

Then Ziva said to the king, your servant will do whatever your my lord, the king commands. His servant to do. So mister Bashir ate at David's table like 1 of the king's sons. Mister Bashir had a young son named Micah, and all the members of Zebra's household were servants of mister mister Przybylshed. And Mythibosheft lived in Jerusalem because he always ate at the king's table.

He was laying in both feet. Yeah. Once you trip up on my Fibershaft, you it's very hard. Let's go let's go over to the Mathiva chef expert. It's probably gonna pronounce it completely there.

No. Thank you for joining us. Bye. Berlin, thanks so much for your welcome and thanks for welcome us as a family as well. We've really enjoyed spending yesterday with you guys and our sons son of thoughts are absolutely lucky and wallets.

Well, that massive kind of poll thing that kept taking 1 out. So thank you so much for the welcome. I'm gonna pray and then we'll we'll dive in to this chapter in 2 Sam of 9. Farfetch, we want to thank you so much for your words. Farfetch, that as Jesus said, the whole of scripture is about Jesus.

In fact, the whole of life is about Jesus. And far, we we pray this morning that we might see what you want us to see through this story. You might see your grace, your kindness, you might see your son Jesus, and we might fall in love with him. Wherever we're coming from this morning, grip our hearts with Jesus, we pray. In Jesus' name we ask.

So hopefully, you'll get to see my things on the screen, apologies for those of you over there where my nose have skills. The screen for you is quite a big 1. But we're thinking about the kind king this morning. And really, in 2 7 or 9, you've got these 2 main characters. The 2 main characters are David and Mefibishi.

And they both had a very different kind of life. So you start with this with David who's really started off in life with nothing. He's been a slowly shepherd boy, the least of all his brothers. And now by the time he gets to Samuel chapter 9, he's risen to great heights. Now he's gone to nothing and now he has everything.

And in 2 78, what you find in the chapter 4 hours is a day that has really landed on his feet. He's really loving loving his life. His name means beloved, the 1 who is beloved of of gods. He's the king over all Israel at this point. And David and Israel have become the superpower of that particular era.

And and life is good. You see in chapter 8, all these military victories that David is enjoying, and the Lord was told gave David victory wherever he went. Not even easy as superpower, but he is royally minted. He has absolutely anything he wants to have. David has gone from nothing to having absolutely everything.

But then we meet the the second character. We meet Mefibishi. And he has gone from having everything, including the unpronounceable name, to having nothing, and we're gonna see his story in in a few moments. But let me let me explain Miffer Pacheft's story and from his perspective and it goes something like this. I remember growing up and growing up life was good.

Life was so good. I loved hanging out as a young 4 year old lads with my father Jonathan. He was a great guy. He used to take me on great adventures all over the place. And not only that, my granddad was King Saul, King of all Israel.

And that meant every day we got to eat at the king's table, It meant for me as a 4 year old. They were Robinson's fruit sheets on tap. That's right. Anything I wanted, where it was mine. There were amazing things.

Those posh fetched cruiter taste chopped up. And there was whom a stiff wherever I wanted it. There were crayfish and dill vollivons, although we went out to eat them at Quantilla vega 11. But there were also there were those ramekin things were suiflates. Life was good.

Food was good. I'd never any toy I wanted because I was a prince. And 1 day, I might well become king. But then at age 5, at a turn of a page, all of a sudden, life changed. I went from having absolutely everything to absolutely nothing.

News came to me that that my grandfather had committed suicide that my father Jonathan had died in battle. I was heartbroken. I was devastated. And my old pair who's looking after me at that time She picked me up in in haste to try and get me away from any future attempts on my life. But in the speed in the Russia trying to run away, She ended up dropping me.

The next thing I remembered was waking up. My feet were in such pain. The doctor came and he told me, you'll never walk Again, properly, you'll be crippled and invade your feet. My life had been completely turned upside down. I was empty.

I wanted everything but Now if that was though, I had nothing. And I still needed to get out of Jerusalem. I still needed to escape because when a new Kingdom comes in when a foreign territory comes in, then it's gonna be death for me. So I knew I needed to escape ants. So I left my home.

And I ended up traveling miles north and ended up in this very strange desert light place, this place called Loda Bar. And the irony wasn't lost to me because the name Lobar means it means nothing. And here I was, having nothing, living in this place of nothing, feeling like I was nowhere, feeling like I was going nowhere in my life. Very kindly a certain man took me in to live in his home. But that was the next 15 years of my life.

I aged about 20 around about this time. All of sudden, looking at the misery of my flight, there was a knock on the door, a ring on the doorbell. It was soldiers from King David And they came and they said, we are looking for mthibisheft of the House of Soul. As soon as I heard those words, my heart sank. I knew that if soldiers from the new king of Israel were here, then it would this would mean death for me.

All of a sudden, I had these flashbacks to the stories I've been told about how my grandfather saw had treated this new king David, how he tried to basically use him as his own personal dartboard and chop 2 bears through his heart, but missed. How my grandfather saw took David's wife and gave her to another man. I remember the stories all of sudden again of how my grandfather saw, desired to kill David and sort him out and was hunting down like a dog, like a wild animal. And even when David could have killed my grandfather, but didn't, Even then, my grandpa continued to pursue him, continued to want him dead. Knowing all this, hearing the noise of that doorbell, I knew that this meant the end for me.

My life would be liquidated. I'll be blended because when a new house comes to power, they get rid of, they exterminate the old house. This certainly spells the end for me. My life is 1 that is full of shame. Shame because I used to have everything I used to be somebody, but now I'm nowhere, now I'm nothing.

That's the situation of mephibosheft as we get into to Samuel chapter 9. And it's an interesting 1 because I think Mr. Bishop's plight is very much the plight of what so many people are experiencing right now in 21st century and Britain that we've been sold this this promise that you can have it or you can have this light at the end of the tunnel that they'll that things will only get better in your life. We've been told this promise that you can have it all. And yet, what so many people are finding is that we just can't And then we feel as though we are living in low to far, that we feel as though we have got nothing and that we are going nowhere.

1 of the ways that people can view 1 of the drivers or driving ways of thinking in our society right now is is that by saying it's very much a meritocratic world in which we live. Over the last 30 or 40 years, there's been this big focus in education and in with the workplace. On just if you want to really thrive and just strive, strive to thrive. If you want to really do well in life, then you have to achieve to receive. And you can make it if you try.

You can be the cream of society if you just give it a go and try hard. Bill Clinton had his own little spin on this which was learn to earn. All these good ideas, it's drip fed to us. Even if things got Pokemon, we got to catch them all. I wanna be the very best.

And the aim is to try and be the very best so that you can be that great leading Pokemon master you want to be. There's constantly this emphasis on you strive, you strive, you strive, you do. And if you do, then you will achieve. But people are beginning to realize actually the end result so often is low to bar that we're in this place of nothing and nowhere. 1 of the guys who's written quite a bit on this stuff recently is a political philosopher from the states called Michael Sandow.

And and he says that we live under the system of comedy of of tyranny of of merits. And by that, he means that that for those people who do manage to achieve, that the problem he says is that they're full of arrogance and pride because they think I've made it because I'm great, because I'm amazing. And they don't start to think or stop to think. Hang on. The reason I've made it is because I've been gifted with particular academic abilities or I've been gifted in particular ways.

Or I've been gifted various opportunities in life that others haven't been gifted and afforded. And he says there's arrogance when people do make it. Because conversely, for those who don't make it, there's complete and utter despair. They feel as low. They are the mephibers chefs because I tried, but I haven't made it.

It must all be my own fault. And in our world right now, I think there are a lot of amphibious ships. There might well be a lot in this room this morning where we feel as though we want everything, but we feel as though we're nothing. We feel that we're going nowhere. Tyler Durden in our classic quote from Fight Club put it brilliantly.

He said, our generation has had no great depression. No great war. Depression is our lives. We were raised on television to believe that we'd all be millionaires. I wonder if you'd been listened to Del Boy or something.

Movie Goats, rock stars, but we won't. And we're starting to figure that out to this to spare out the way that their life is. Joel Cochaquin is a bit of a a status quo kind of guy. And looking at a range of different economies across the world in his book about, called NeoFuedism, which is a real page tenor. Not he he in his book, could have makes the point that whereas in the past since post second world war, there's been this increase in economic activity and people's locked in life getting better and better.

He's saying that, hitting the 20 first century, that's kind of flat lined and beginning to fall in most advanced economies. Across the world. This is upward mobility has declined markedly, virtually, in virtually all high income countries. And again, people are beginning to feel like you probably feel the pinch of that unless you have a property, then how what is your life gonna be? And and this is striving to get it.

And if you haven't got it, then are you anyone? The Christian psychiatrist, Glenn Harrison, puts you like this. He says failure to hit the big time, maybe leading people to hit out, not at others, but at themselves. You see, we live in low to bar. We live in an era where I think increasingly people are seeing the frustrations the cost of living, the government is not knowing what to do or where to go.

And they're seeing their lives, I don't know what it's all about anymore. And I think increasingly what we're seeing is people are feeling the real sense that we are living a loafer bar. We're seeing the stink we're smelling the stench of life. So what do we do when we smell that stents in our own lives? When we smell it in in the world around us?

Where do we go when life is a real pig of MS. What do we do? Well, 2 channel 9 tells us that what we need to do is we need to go to the kind king who wants to shower us in his kindness. Listen to what it says in in verse 1 of chapter 9. David asked, is there anyone still left of the House of Seoul to whom I can show kindness for Jonathan's sake?

When he when he talks about that word kindness is this word has said with this idea of covenant, faithful love, this unfailing kindness is what he's what he's getting at. And he's he's wondering to himself, who can I show this this faithful love to? And when you ever hear that word covenant, if you played a word association game, if someone asked me the word covenant, my first word that would be boring. I think our dry, dusty, boring bit of paperwork. But that is not at all what the Bible means when it's talking.

About covenant. It's not a dry dusty boring document. In fact, covenant is actually an occasion for showering those who are you are in covenant with who you have promised things too. It's about sharing them and occasion to shower them in blessings and in kindness and in faithful love. And the context for this all comes from 1 Samuel 20 where Jonathan and David were these really, really good friends.

So mister Vishastad, Jonathan was best friends were David and were told their hearts, Jonathan and David's hearts, were knits together. Now in other words, they literally said that their their lives were bound up with 1 and others. And in this chapter in 1 time of 20, Jonathan and David, Shannon, and David promises that he will shower unfailing love and kindness onto Jonathan's descendants. He promises him that we will do this. And so when we read verse 1 that he is asking this question, is there anyone still left of the House of Soul to whom I can show clients for Jonathan's sake?

He's remembering the promise he made to his best friends. Now, what he could have done, having this promise known, was just between Jonathan and David, Jonathan is now dead as we know. What he could have done is just gone, oh, well, he's dead. So the promise is gone. So let's forget that.

He could have done that. He could have said no 1 else is around So to say what no 1 really really know. But he doesn't. He remembers. He's a man of integrity.

He's a good king. He's a kind king. And so what he does is he remembers this promise to shower the descendants of Jonathan with blessing and kindness. And so what did he does? He goes to great lengths to do this and to find 1 of those descendants, any of those descendants who we can share those blessings on.

Look at that as 2 to 5. Now there was a servant of Saul's household named Zebra. They called him to appear before David, and the king said to him, are you Zebra? Your survey replied, the King asked, is there no 1 still left of the House of Seoul to whom I can show God's kindness? Zebra answered the king, there's still a son of Jonathan.

He has crippled him by feet. Where is the king asked? Zebra answered, he's at the house of Mikey, son of Amielle in L'Oreal, in L'Oreal, so King David had him brought from L'Oreal from the house of Mikey, son of Amielle. So you see here that David goes to these huge, huge great lengths to seek and save him out as he can find him. And what I love this, and what I love about this, is that David is not going to gain anything from the Fibershop.

We're told here that Mefibrosis is crippled him by feet. What can he in that era offer King David who has everything? What can he offer him? He can offer him nothing. Is it going to do David any big favors to bless a rival house?

Do you have the house of David and this house of silver previously that my fifth chef is part of? Is it going to do David any favors to to bless that and not obliterate them? No. Not really. So David is going to gain nothing really from seeking out the Fibershaft.

But he's a kind king who seeks out this guy who is living in nowhere land and he's feeling like a nobody. And he goes to stream lengths and he's searching it, come on. Is anyone heard? No. No.

What about you? Let's bring this servant in, and he finds, and he finds, and then he hears about this 1 guy. And he says, I want to show kindness. To that guy, my fibrochet. And the question comes, well, what was the kindness David wanted to shower and into the stench of Mefebo Shelf's life.

And he's seen in verses 6 to 7. When Mefebo Shelf's son of Jonathan, the son of Saul came to David, he bowed down to pay him honor. David said, Mitrochef, your servant he replied. Don't be afraid David said to him for I will surely show you kindness for the sake of your father, Jonathan. If he instantly met my therapist, he's feeling like David's gonna kill me.

He's fearful of that. He knows that should be the normal consequence. Because he's a rival of a rival house, but he doesn't. And David knows he's afraid, but what does he do? He speaks generously, he speaks kindly, he speaks graciously to mephirbisher.

He says, Don't be afraid for I will surely show you kindness for the sake of your father, Jonathan. I will restore to you all the land that belonged to your grandfather's soul and you will always eat at my table. So what was the kindness then that David is about to shower on the flip chef. Well, there are a couple of things he talks about. The first 1 is this that he says, I will make you rich.

He says, I will restore to you all the land that belonged to your grandfather's soul. So remember, mister Voorhees' plight in low to wireless place of nothing. He's got nothing anymore. He's at least complete enough to low. And David comes in, he says, I'm gonna transform your life.

I'm gonna completely change it by pouring out migraines, my love and my kindness, and my generosity to you. And I'm gonna make you rich. I'm gonna take you from this place of poverty to riches. And isn't that just a brilliant, beautiful picture of exactly what Jesus has done for us. Number 2 Corinthians chapter 8 verse 9 that he who was rich, Jesus became poor for your sake to and so that through his poverty, he might enter you into his riches.

And and that is the brilliant news of of the good news of the gospel. Is that Jesus sees our plight, sees our poverty of our destitution away, exiled, away from the God of this universe, and he joins us in it, to lift us. Into a relationship with God. Jesus is coming to our lives to make our lives rich not necessarily at all with monetary blessings, although that may come. But he's come to bring us a richness of relationship with with the living God.

And this is what David is is picturing for us in what he does. From the Fibrosis here. I'll make you rich. Then he says this. He says, and you will always eat at my table.

And I put on the screener, I will adopt you into my families what he's saying. Why why say that? Well, 4 times And and in any kind of Hebrew story, if anything is emphasized, any little details emphasized, it's not like a Harry Potter novel with ridiculous amounts of details. They don't generally give you loads and loads of detail. So anytime you get anything, you're going, this is something significant.

And the fact that this is mentioned that he will eat at the king's table 4 times in verse 7, I think verse 10, 11, and 13. The very fact that's mentioned 4 times is hugely significant that Sam with the author is warning us to see something amazing here. That he's wanting us to see that not only is David saying come and eat some nice lunch and nice food and get your olive ones and all that kind of stuff, he's saying to him, no, I want you to be part of my family. You see that really emphasized in verse 11. So mister Fibersheff ate at David's table like 1 of the King's sons.

Again, isn't this a beautiful picture for us of what David did from the FibroGen. Sure. But of what Jesus has come into the world to do for us. You know, David in the story, he's got the gun shows. He's got the power.

He can he can do anything he wants. As the kit superpower of the day with all the money he's got. He can crush my fibrochef right now, but he doesn't choose to do that instead he choose to shower him in kindness. And the God that we know and we love and we worship is the God of immense power as well. And what does he do with that power?

Well, it's a brilliant chapter in in John chapter 13 where in in the week before Jesus dies, what we were told there is that Jesus knew quite a lot of things. He knew where he'd come from and he knew where he was going to. He'd come from the father and he's returning to the father via his death and burial and resurrection. He was newly confirmed where he was going. These are the 2 bookends of Jesus life.

It meant his life stacked up. It meant his life stood up. And then he wasn't collapsing and falling around because he knew who he was. He knew where it come from. He knew where he's going.

And not only we told that he knew those things, but he also knew in John 13 that he had all power to do anything he wanted. And what did he choose to do with that power? We're told in John 13 that he gets down from the table and he gets onto his hands and his knees and he begins to wash the filthy, manure and crusted feet of his disciples, and he washes them clean. We thought he gets up and does that very thing. This is the kind of king where Jesus is.

What does he do with his power? He always uses it for the blessing and the goods of of this world. And I wanted to bring out this morning that the king of kings that we that David points to, he's the 1 who seeks us out because we are very much like my favorite chef as we've seen. Living this nowhereville, being nobodies. And what does the king see amidst our flight, whereas we are exiled away from god because we walked away from him.

What did he do? Well, he, Jesus, seeks us out. He sees the place where we've been hiding. And he says, I've come into this world for you. Is that brilliant verse, which everyone always quotes, any Christian always quotes, John 3 16, which we all know so well.

But it explains what we've been looking at so brilliantly. For god so loved the world. God has always had always far less unspared, always covenanted within himself that he, this god, would send his son Jesus into this world for us because he loved this world so much. He wanted to bring it back and before the foundation of the world. Go ahead a plan to send his son Jesus into the world for sinners.

And we told that for god so loved the world that he did what. That he took everything, know that he gave everything. He gave his utmost treasure. He gave his 1 and only son he gave Jesus. That whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

And that I love that eternal life rates because In John's gospel and John's chapter 17, Jesus defines what it is and he talks about it about having a relationship with God the father and God the son. It's about having a relationship with God through Jesus. That's his that's his point. And and God loves us, you, the world who and the world in John always means the rebellious world. People in rebellion against him.

So much he gives 1 and only son for us. He gives everything for us to lift us from no load of bath in this place of nothing. To give us everything. In Christ, just as we sang about in the second song earlier today. So we get to share in Jesus life.

We get to share in and participate in that. Exactly as a methodology, I've got to share in being a son, being a family member. That's our reality for us as as Christians. And if you're not a Christian, that's a reality that can be yours if you come to to Jesus. And we'll see more of that in a in a little moment.

But we share as Christians in the life of Jesus and what are we doing then in life is being the recipients of his covenant blessings in Christ. Of all the spiritual blessings that are in Christ. We have an overflow of all that he poured into us in Jesus. We overflow that glows covenant blessings out to 1 another as Christians. We're in covenant with 1 another.

And that doesn't mean that we are are kind of doing life then through kind of gritted teeth thinking, oh, I must do nice things for other people and oh, gone and if I must. But no, being covenant with 1 another means that each day we're excited about the fact that we can genuinely share the love that Christ has given to us with our brothers and sisters and we can bless them and shower them in kindness in a world that's full of nothingness and going nowhereness. We can shower another in blessings. And so this whole idea that we're in covenant means that we're all in. Just like this fellow on the screen.

He's certainly gone all in with the brightness. He even the trees join in. But that's what we're through as Christians. We go all in in a relationship sharing 1 another with blessings, not thinking in a stingy, tight fisted could have mightily, as mentioned earlier, mightily away. But no, we go all in in our relationship thinking, how can I bless my brothers and sisters in Christ?

But not just my brothers and sisters in Christ because as we've seen God, the covenant to descend his son for the work, for each 1 of us in this world. And so we go into each day, go into work tomorrow, and we think how can I shower my workplace, which is full of nothingness and going nowhereness How can I shower the stench of that world with real life, with Jesus kind of life? It means in a weird way, and this is weird, I admit. It means going to bed every night with still a black anthem in our in our head. You know the surprise surprise.

The unexpected hit you between the eyes. The unpredictable, it's that's a surprise you see, a surprise surprise. It's that kind of idea. We need to ask them churning around as annoying as the tune is in our heads every night that we get a bad thinking, who tomorrow can I surprise and shower with kindness? So as you go into tomorrow, who's the person at work, who is constantly changing along the rest of society, our lexicon, and are the words we must use, must use, and he's constantly looking to tripwire me up.

Who is that person? How can I shower them? He's of a rival house, if you like? How can I shower them with God's kindness? Maybe I can buy them a coffee made of steamed Austrian goat's milk because they like it that way.

Well, what can I do to to bless them? Tomorrow and Shire and The McInnis. When I go into work tomorrow and I see all the same crusty cups where everyone's lipstick and lips will start to unsteady and all the tea stains what can I do? I can go to the kitchen sink and I can wash them up for everyone. So everyone's got a spanking shiny cup to drink out of.

I can shower people in kindness tomorrow. And when people ask why, I tell them it's because the god of this universe has showered me in the blessing of his son. He's given me life in Jesus. And this is just a small token of of what he has done for me. And and we talk about how Jesus is the 1 who makes our heart overflow of love for others.

It means as we go into life tomorrow, we're looking to shower people with the blessings not just of what we do, but of what we say. So we're looking to share people with the blessings of actually listening to people and asking them questions and engaging with people and and genuinely finding out what is going on their lives. Because no 1 does that. So we do that. We shower people in the kindness of of god by listening to them.

And in the process of doing that, we're looking, we're praying for opportunities that we might speak of Jesus in that moment, that we may say something of Jesus, and that will erode interest in Jesus. This is what it means to be in covenant with the God of this universe, to be those who sit around the king's table. It's not a blessing just for us. It's a blessing given to us so that we go out with it. To the world in which we live.

Jesus is the 1 who showers us in kindness and we go and do likewise. As you come to the end of the passage, what I want us to see finally is not any of the nowhereness, the shame of going nowhere in life. And how Jesus comes to bring us the shower of of kindness. But I want us to see how also Jesus is the 1 who is ultimately the only hope for our friends. He's the only hope for each 1 of us where we're coming from this morning because he is the shame remover.

Listen to what happens when we get to Versa at in the end of our story. My father's chef bowed down and said, what is your servant that you should notice a dead dog like me? He's just been told that the blessings he's gonna be shared with. And he says, what is your servant? You should know he's a dead dog like me.

He realizes he's a park, I'm a dead person, you know, it's a rat, isn't it? I I he realizes he's a dog. I don't know. There's no pants. I don't know.

There's a lot of pants there. But Anyway, Raul Pena. Yeah. But he realizes he's a dead dog. He says, I'm a dead dog.

And what's our reaction to that? Saying when he says, I'm a dead dog, In our 25 century cultural moment right now, we would say, he's got it wrong, surely. Cool. Now I'm calling yourself a dead dog. That's terrible.

You've got serious kind of self esteem issues. You got more baggage than Heathrow Terminal 5. What are you doing? I'm calling yourself a a dead dog. Has he got it wrong then?

Has has my fibrosis? Has he got it wrong when he calls himself a dead dog? I think no. I think you've got it right. And I can offer 3 little reasons for that.

The first 1, when he says, I'm a dead dog, I think he's he's got it right because he knows he's got nothing to bring to the king's table. He knows he's crippled. I can't do anything for David. He knows he's been living far away exiled from this king in fear of his life. He knows he's been living his own life away from the true doing his his own thing.

And he realizes, what can I bring? I've got nothing to bring. I've literally got nothing. I've got nothing good to bring. And it's like us all when it comes to Jesus as well.

We are, as Martin Luther said, we are like cheesy quavers. We are curved in ourselves. We are constantly consumed with focusing everything through the prism of me and we're so self obsessed and and and even the good things we do are full of our self obsessed cheesy quaver fingers everything is in our lives. And when we come to King Jesus, what have we got to bring nothing? We are crippled with the blind, with the lying people in this in us well because we walked away from him and we were in exile.

And so when he says, I'm a dead dog, I've got nothing to bring. He's right. But he's he's right about us all as well. We are all dead dogs, what have we got to bring to the God who's perfectly pure and beautiful and good and true. We've got nothing but a horrible sin.

So he's right. But the second reason he's right as well is because even if right in this moment, he says, I'm a dead dog and actually he hears our 20 first century voices speaking back to him Don't quote yourself a dead dog. You're not a dead dog. You're a pedigree. You know?

You're a real pedigree. You're great. And just talk back to yourself. You know that none of us ever believe our own propaganda. You might try and tell yourself something over and over and over again, but you don't believe it.

Is a guy we play football with. He's brilliant footballer, but absolutely violent with it. And and yet, he is always trying to say, trust me. I'm a good guy. I'm a good guy.

I'm a really good guy. And he's he's always saying that. Why? Because he knows deep down that he's not. He knows deep down.

He's actually a dead dog. That's the reality of a soul. And that's why we're constantly fishing for compliments. That's why we're constantly dropping in the humble bracks because we want to think we're not dog dogs. We want to think we're pedigrees.

But my favorite chef gets it right here. He realizes, actually, overall, dead dogs. I'm a dead dog. We don't believe we're in propaganda. But thirdly, I think he's got it right because it's only when we see the reality of how curving on ourselves we really are.

It's only when we really get that. That we can then be in the right position to hear the king of the universe's verdicts over us, which is that he loves us and he came into this world to die and rise for us and pay for us sin. I need them we can really see. Actually, our identity is found in him. The real us is only ever found in the real Jesus.

You will not have never find out who you are unless you come to Jesus. And here is verdict. And what is his verdict? Here in the story, it's it's come and sit at the table. You think you're a dead dog.

You are a dead dog, but I want you to come from the floor and sit at the table. The king of the universe sees you to the core of your heart, knows exactly what you're like, knows your nothingness, your knowiness, and yet he calls you, he invites you to come to him. So I think he's right on that. But there's a little cautioning note that needs to be thrown out here because you can fall off the horse the other side because the danger is then You see this dead dog stuff going on and he goes on a dead dog, on a dead dog. And the problem is that we careful off the horse yard side by saying something like this that I'm a dead dog.

I'm a dead dog. You don't know what I've done. I'm a dead dog. I'm a dead dog. And all we do is just focus in on our dead dog ness.

And we just stay there looking at it. And that's not how this story ends, is it from a nervous shift. It's not yeah, you stay there mate. You are a dead dog. Enjoy enjoy that life.

Now the king says, yeah, you've got it right, but I don't want you to stay there. I want you to be a living dog. I want you to be the pedigree. Want you to be more than a pedigree. I want you to actually be 1 of my sons.

I want you to be in my family. And the worst thing we can do is is just focusing our lives in on just how dead doggy we are and just stay there. It was Robert Murray at Shandy famously said, for every look at yourself, take 10 looks at Christ. So see your dead dog, but then start obsessing on Jesus, not your dead dogness, but obsess on Jesus. That will help you blast out of your self centered preoccupations by looking at Jesus.

It's the opposite mistake we don't need to make either because the king invites us. And so when we constantly focused in and say even this morning it's Christians, but you don't know what I've done, you don't know the things I've gone to, the places I've gone even this week, then what we've got to do is hear the king go, admit that you're a dead dog, but see his invitation. Here's invitation. He invites you to come. And he says pipe down with your dead dog nest now.

Come to me. Come and feast with me. Christianity isn't just about forgiveness. It's about being forgiven. Into a relationship.

So you live and participate in the very life of Christ. And that's why I wanna just finish with We've something that focuses a bit more on Jesus as I conclude here. Because we've been looking very much at how the Fibre Sheff pictures asked as human beings about how King David is very much a picture of of Jesus. And and yeah, we wanna mix it up a bit at the end because Also, we're the mfibershev is also a picture of Jesus. And Jesus becomes like we ask that we can become like he is.

Not that we can become God, but that we can share in his life. That's what I mean by that. And Jesus, if you like, becomes my favorite chef, what do I mean by that? Well, my favorite chef His name means the discolor of shame. There was shame remover.

And we know that mister Vachef could not remove his shame. He was living in lodebart. He was full of shame. He couldn't remove it. But there is 1 to whom of the checkpoints and it is Jesus who came into this world to remove the shame about who we are because we've rejected God he's come to remove the guilt, the the guilt that is there, the real guilt because of our rebellion against him.

And he's come to to remove those things. I love it when David, King David, the same King David in his story, writes Psalm 22. About thousand years before the events of Christ. And in Psalm 22, the sum that pictures beautifully the death and resurrection of Jesus and predicts it. It's very interesting what happens.

You read in verse 16. David, really speaking in the voice if you like of Jesus here, says this, dogs surround me. A pack of villains encircles me. They pierce my hands and my feet. You see mophibrosis has crippled in his feet, but Jesus goes to the cross and isn't just crippled in his feet with a nail.

He's crippled in his arms and his hands by nails as well. And as he's there dying on a cross, we told dogs encircled Jesus. The dogs are out there Jesus. Jesus goes even lower than the the depths that men live Jeff and any of us have been in. He goes so low that he becomes dogmeat if you like for us.

The dogs were circling for him and Jesus allows himself on that cross to be torn apart for each 1 of us. Why? So that we can be brought back together in in him. Jesus bears our guilt, bears our shame, bears our punishment on the cross. So that we can get what's the song towards the end ends with.

He says, look, the poor will eat and be satisfied. And that's a bit of a picture of what happened in the Fibrochet. He was poor, but he was brought to the king's table. And as honest we trust in Jesus that we are forgiven, and us in our poverty away from god are brought into the riches of his life where we can feast and enjoy him and live for him and through him and in him. In our lives.

So as I've closed, I won that this morning. Where where you're at with all of this? Maybe you're a Christian here this morning, and and you know you know theologically at least, you know in your head at least, I do sit at the king's table because I've accepted his invitation and I sit there. But you found yourself Even this week, on the floor, like a dead dead dog that was almost dead trying to grab the crumbs on the table. And you realize you're you're not sitting in a position that you know as he is yours in Christ.

And and the urgency this morning is for you to listen to the king's invitation, to admit where you've gone wrong this week and and listen at the king is kind. He wants you back at the table, enjoying you, and you enjoying him again. So he invites you to come back. For those of us who aren't Christians this morning. What's the what's the message for us?

Well, I think very clearly from this, he wants us to see that we are on the fifth shift. We are the dead dogs in life. We've walked away from God, we're exiled away from him. But yet, he loves you so much. He sent Christ to die and rise fee.

And he wants you to receive his invitation to turn away from yourself and to come and sit with Jesus and become a family member and sit at the table. If you wanted to do this morning, why not pray with me? I'm going to say a little prayer. And now for those who who want to receive Jesus this morning and turn from their dead dog nest to feast with the king of this universe. If that's you, want want a pray at this prayer.

I've I've written down a a short prayer and you can echo these words in a quietness of your own heart if you want to term for yourself inward curve in nature and look outwards to receive Jesus. Let's pray if you wanna receive Christ's prayer this and you're quiet at your heart. Father, gods. I've lived my life away from your table. I realized this morning that I am a dead dog, that you have surprised me You've invited me to feast with you.

I know this morning that the cost of that invitation was the death and the resurrection of your son. I fall at your feet. I turn away from my old life. I now gladly accept your invitation to be your dearly loved child in Jesus' name, our prayer. Amen.