Redeemed Life, Redeemed Name

During Jesus’s earthly ministry, people identified him as Jesus, the son of David. The angel Gabriel announced to Mary, “You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be very great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David” (Luke 1:31–32 NLT).

And Bartimaeus, who was blind, called out to Jesus, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” (Mark 10:47 NLT). David not only was part of Jesus’s family tree, but he also was the most important member of it (other than Jesus Himself).

The Bible dedicates a lot of ink to David’s life and exploits. He’s uniquely called “a man after [God’s] own heart” (1 Samuel 13:14 NLT). God plucked him out of obscurity and directed the prophet Samuel to anoint him to replace the wicked King Saul.

David was the greatest of all of the kings of Israel. We know about his victories, including the defeat of Goliath, a massive giant of a man.

We also know about his horrible failure with Bathsheba, identified in Matthew’s genealogy as the wife of Uriah (see 1:6 NKJV). David committed adultery with Bathsheba, and he tried to cover it up. That didn’t work, and so he effectively had Bathsheba’s husband killed in battle.

You could sum up David’s name with two other names: Goliath (his greatest victory) and Bathsheba (his worst defeat). Yet David makes it into the most exclusive genealogy in all of human history.

Even after all the mistakes David made, he was part of this exclusive genealogy. Talk about the redemption of a life and a name. God redeemed David despite his shortcomings.

In the same way, God can redeem your life. And He can redeem your name as well.