You Don't Have to Grab — What God's Generosity Makes Possible

Central Image

"My cup runneth over" — David's chesed toward others, including Saul's most loyal men, only makes sense as the overflow of a man who knew God's chesed had already run over onto him.

The Turn

A man who kills giants seizes power when it opens up; this sermon shows that David's twenty years of restraint wasn't a personality trait — it was the direct result of a man who trusted that God had already given him what he needed.

Outline

The Stingy Boss and the Year-End Letter

A job in manufacturing, an owner's father who bankrolled the place — and when Toby saw him for the first time, a verse gonged in his head: "Do not eat the bread of a stingy man." At Christmas, a company letter arrived calculating exactly what each employee cost. Suspicions confirmed. Loyalty went to zero. Counter-image: his Greek professor Tom Geer at ACU, a world-class scholar who gave more than he had to, set something on fire inside Toby's mind about the Bible, and still commands loyalty decades later. The principle that carries the whole sermon: when the leader is generous, the follower can afford loyalty. Stinginess — of money, but more often just of spirit — kills it.

Chesed: The Word That Holds Everything Together

The Hebrew word chesed — covenant loyalty, steadfast love, faithfulness to the terms — runs both directions. From God's side it looks like generosity; from the human side it looks like fierce loyalty. Toby opened with Psalm 23 to establish that David's "my cup runneth over" isn't poetry for its own sake — it's David's own theological read on his life. He knew God had overflowed His goodness to him, and that's the only framework that explains what David does for the next twenty years.

David Receives the Kingdom Instead of Taking It (2 Samuel 2:1-7)

Saul is dead. There's a power vacuum in Israel. David — the man who once walked out alone to fight the giant nobody else would face — stops and asks God: is it time? He goes to Hebron because God says go, not because he calculated the opening. The men of Judah come to him; he doesn't announce himself or send for them. Then, instead of neutralizing Saul's most loyal supporters — the men of Jabesh-Gilead who recovered and buried Saul's body — David sends them a blessing and an invitation. He could see their chesed toward Saul and reach out chesed toward them because he'd received it first. He didn't take the kingdom. The Lord handed it to him.

Seven and a Half Years of Not Grabbing (2 Samuel 2-4)

The northern kingdom is a mess — Abner running a puppet king, Philistines pressing from the north, no unified leadership. A giant killer in David's position has leverage and motive to exploit every bit of that chaos. He doesn't. He fights when provoked, holds the line, then stops. He doesn't invade, doesn't take territory, doesn't eliminate Ish-bosheth when he has every reason to. When Abner is murdered and Ish-bosheth is assassinated, David publicly mourns them and calls it wrong. A shepherd doesn't slaughter the sheep that aren't cooperating — he saves that fierceness for wolves. David's whole conduct through those years was that kind of restraint: loyal to God's charge, not his own opportunity.

The Tribes Come: Covenant Before the Lord (2 Samuel 5:1-5)

David is 37 years old. Probably 17 when Samuel anointed him. The northern elders show up at Hebron: "bone and flesh," "you led us out and brought us in" — shepherd language, not accidental. Before he accepts the crown, David insists they make covenant before the Lord. Not a contract to prevent getting ripped off, but a covenant — the expectation that both parties go all in, that this is a relationship, not a transaction. He could do it God's way because he trusted that God's way would be enough. About as peaceful a transition of dynastic power as the ancient Near East ever saw, and none of the violence was David's doing.

Who Do You Think Has Your Back?

Back to the factory. Toby out-ran everybody — not from loyalty, not from love, but because he hated being outdone by a stingy man. He was a lunatic about it. The old man eventually walked faster when he spotted Toby coming. The point: how you respond to everything in life tracks directly with who you think has your back. Are you overcompensating — hustling to be holier than God because you think He's watching for you to slip? Are you walking on eggshells? Are you carrying a legalistic oppression and passing it along? God sent His Son. That's not the move of a God who's ambivalent. That's chesed on the largest possible scale. You don't have to overcompensate, and you don't have to be weird.

The Landing

When God says go up to Hebron — for you personally, for this church — go. Don't assume He's stingy. He didn't send His Son for someone He was on the fence about.

1. Toby opened with a boss who sent out a year-end letter showing every employee exactly what it cost the company to have them on staff. Most people have had some version of that — someone who made you feel like a line item. Who came to mind?
2. Toby made a point of separating "David asking God if it's time" from passivity — because this is the same man who walked out on a battlefield to fight a nine-foot giant. What's the actual difference between those two things?
3. Chesed is the same word for God's faithfulness flowing toward David and David's faithfulness flowing toward others. What does it tell you that the covenant runs both directions with the same word?
4. Toby named three kinds of people: the ones hustling to be holier than God because they think He's watching for them to slip, the ones walking on eggshells spiritually, and the ones carrying a legalistic weight and passing it along. Which one is closest to how you actually move through life?
5. David waited twenty years from the day Samuel anointed him to the day the northern tribes showed up at Hebron. He had real opportunities to take the kingdom and didn't. What's something you've been waiting on — and are you trusting it's coming, or quietly trying to make it happen on your own terms?
6. Toby said how we treat other people has a lot to do with how we actually think God has treated us. Setting aside what you'd say you believe — what does your recent track record with people tell you about what you actually believe about God?
7. Toby closed by asking what it would mean for First Christian Church in Chester if God is personally faithful to this congregation. What's the Hebron for this church — and what's the thing keeping us from going up?
8. David sent a blessing to the men of Jabesh-Gilead — Saul's most loyal supporters, the people with every reason to resist him. Is there someone in your orbit this week who was loyal to someone who hurt you, or who you've written off as an adversary, who you could reach toward instead?