2 Samuel 9 Old Testament Grace

You're listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsak is preaching from his series,

The Warrior Poet King, Study of Second Samuel. Let's listen in. Well, good morning and welcome to Recast Church.

I'm Don Filsak. I'm the lead pastor here. And today is Mother's Day. How many of you already knew that? How many of you didn't know that?

Okay. Oops. I really encourage you, as I do every year, to reach out to your mom if you're able to.

God tells us in his word to honor your father and mother. And this is one day where our culture gets something right.

So we can celebrate that together as a culture. And our culture and God's word overlap today in an opportunity to focus a little bit of attention on our moms and give them the honor and a little bit of love that is due to them.

I'm glad that we get a chance to gather together in the name of Jesus Christ this morning. Our goal here as a church is that everybody is growing in faith, growing in community, and growing in service.

And I want to kind of give you a rundown on what we mean by that, by way of introduction this morning. By growing in faith, we mean that we desire to trust

God, take him at his word, and believe that this Bible is a faithful guide to knowing him and also knowing how he wants us to live out the good news that his son died for us.

So we take in his word, we believe it, and then we seek to apply it. And that's primarily on Sunday mornings. We recognize that this sermon, this message that you're going to hear this morning is not sufficient for you.

It is a method, it is one way for us to grow in our faith, but the goal is that you'll be taking in God's word on your own as well throughout the week and allowing him to speak to you what he desires to communicate.

The second thing is growing in community. We mean that we acknowledge that God has created us for community.

He has made us relational. How many of you already knew that? He's made you for relationship. And despite the fact that the last couple of years have challenged that and maybe pushed a lot of us into a little bit more isolation, we recognize maybe even more so now than we did two years ago how much we need each other in this life.

We need each other in the church in order for us to accurately reflect who God is by faith.

We must encourage one another, build one another up, allow others to do so in our lives as well.

Not merely giving in the body, but also receiving. And so we connect in relationships, entering into life together as the body of Christ, committed to one another in love and unity in Jesus.

And the last thing is we grow in service. That means that we believe that everyone has been given a gift by God that is their unique contribution to the church.

Some have the gift of giving, some have the gift of evangelism, some have the gift of teaching and encouragement, and on and on the list goes, and those lists are there for us in the

New Testament. But everyone has something to contribute. And we believe that we are missing something individually, and we're also missing something as a church if we are not actively using our gift in the service of God through His church.

And so that's kind of the simple model of growth here at Recast. That's what we stand by is growing in faith, growing in community, growing in service.

And that's where the S in Recast, which is an acronym for core values, the S stands for simplicity. It is those three simple things that we believe all of us need in order to be growing.

And all of those things are fueled by God's grace in our lives.

It all begins with a right assessment of ourselves. We are sinful people, we are a broken people, we are an unworthy people.

We are born into rebellion against God. And yet God, based on His intentional and active desire to make

His grace and mercy and loving kindness known to humanity, known to His creation,

He has pursued us. He sent His Son with the goal of setting aside a people to be recipients of His great grace and His great kindness.

He pursued us and brought us into peace with Him. And now we who are in Jesus Christ, we have faith in Him.

And the work that He did on the cross to cover our sins, we are brought into the abundant provision of members of His family.

Church, we have been adopted into a family we didn't originally belong to. Amen? Are you glad for that?

We weren't part of His family. We were on the outs and He's brought us in. We deserve condemnation, having been born

His enemies. But based on His pursuit of us and the work He did for us on the cross, we who have faith in Him are the beneficiaries of His covenantal faithfulness.

Our text this morning is about as clear as the gospel can get in the Old Testament. I entitled this message

Old Testament Grace because the parallels in this passage between the activity of the anointed

King David in our text, He's keeping His promises and we're going to see Him keep a fundamental promise in His life.

And that parallels the activity of the anointed King Jesus who also in saving us is keeping

His promises as well. So let's turn in our Bibles to 2 Samuel 9 and we're going to read this strange account of a guy named

Mephibosheth. And as I read God's holy words, see if you can draw the parallels between David in saving

Mephibosheth and in God saving you. So again, this is 2

Samuel 9 and you might go, wait a minute, Don. Is this a Mother's Day message? It is because I'm convinced that mothers need to hear about grace too.

But I think it's for all of us. I'm not preaching just to the women here. I'm not preaching just to the moms here. I'm preaching to all of us.

And it's a word that God desires for all of us to take. And I think the best thing that I can offer to the moms that are here gathered is the word of God.

So we're just going to keep going. So 2 Samuel 9. And David said, Is there still anyone left of the house of Saul that I may show him kindness for Jonathan's sake?

Now there was a servant of the house of Saul whose name was Zeba. And they called him to David and the king said to him,

Are you Zeba? And he said, I am your servant. And the king said, Is there not still someone of the house of Saul that I may show the kindness of God to him?

Zeba said to the king, There is still a son of Jonathan. He is crippled in his feet. The king said to him,

Where is he? And Zeba said to the king, He is in the house of Machir, the son of Amiel at Lodabar. Then King David sent and brought him from the house of Machir, the son of Amiel at Lodabar.

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

Then the king called Zeba, Saul's servant, and said to him, All that belong to Saul and to all his house

I have given to your master's grandson. And 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 Zeba had fifteen sons and twenty servants.

Then Zeba said to the king, According to all that my lord the king commands his servants, so will your servant do.

So Mephibosheth ate at David's table like one of the king's sons. And Mephibosheth had a young son whose name was

Micah. And all who lived in Zeba's house became Mephibosheth's servants. So Mephibosheth lived in Jerusalem, for he ate always at the king's table.

Now he was lame in both of his feet. Let's pray. Father, I thank you for the opportunity that we have to gather together on this

Mother's Day. A day set aside in our culture to acknowledge and to honor those who have given us life.

And Father, I pray for those here. I recognize that this strikes all of us in different ways. Some here are without the opportunity to interact with their moms today.

Some have broken relationships with their moms today. Some have great relationships with their mom today. Some need to make a phone call this afternoon.

Some are making a road trip. Some are sitting right next to their mom right now. Father, I pray that you would meet each and every one of us right where we're at.

And that you would encourage and strengthen families and relationships through this day and through the honor given.

But Father, I also pray that you would speak into our hearts truth as we have an opportunity to interact with your word. That as we handle these holy things, these holy stories, this holy history of the way that you worked in sinful people's lives, we rejoice in the grace that is so clearly and abundantly reflected in this passage.

The way that your steadfast love is demonstrated by David, and that he seeks to demonstrate just an ongoing kindness to those descendants of King Saul, who was in essence his enemy.

Father, I pray that you would draw down into our hearts a rejoicing, a gladness, over the grace and the steadfast love that you have given to us.

And that that would ignite our hearts in worship to you as we have an opportunity to sing these songs. I pray that you would be with the band now as they seek to fade into the background.

I thank you for David's willingness to step in at the last minute for Dave Bunt. And I pray that you would just allow all of these things to be for your honor and glory this morning in Jesus' name.

Amen. All right, yeah, you can go to be seated. And a big thanks to David Schrock. What you need to understand is that he didn't know he was leading this morning until yesterday evening.

So he just jumped in, and I just really appreciate guys who will just step up like that, especially with the slides a little off, and thank you for your patience with us on all of that.

And I do encourage you to keep your Bibles, re -find your place in 2 Samuel chapter 9, your device, your scripture journal, your

Bible, whatever, just have that open on your lap in front of you so that you can see the things I'm saying are coming from that text.

We're going to walk through that. That's our text for this morning. And if at any time during the message you need to get more coffee, juice, or donuts, while supplies last back there, so take advantage of that.

And for those of you that maybe this is your first time with us, the restrooms are out the double doors down the hallway on the left -hand side if you need those.

You're not going to distract me if you need to get up during the message, but let's jump in. I want to start off by just setting a little context for 2

Samuel chapter 9. David, King David, he's now king over Israel by the time we get to 2

Samuel 9. He had a really rocky relationship with the previous king of Israel. His name was

King Saul. Saul tried to kill David on many occasions, and David had spent a good chunk of his youth running and hiding from King Saul.

Just as often is the case in a monarchy like that, there's fear in the present king over somebody rising up to take over his throne, and that's exactly the relationship between Saul and David.

Saul always had one eye out for David, and he was even told by prophets, David's going to replace you, and so he obviously had good cause to be concerned.

And yet Saul's son Jonathan, the previous king's son Jonathan, was David's very best friend on the planet.

The two of them hit it off, they got along really well, and David actually and Jonathan made a covenant. Jonathan said,

I'm the crown prince, but I know God has revealed to me through the prophets that you are going to be the next king, and I covenant with you to support you in that.

Jonathan died in battle with his father before he was ever able to make good on his end of that covenant.

And we have that covenant recorded for us, and it's kind of good for you to see this. I don't ask you to do this very often, but since you're in the

Bible and you're really close to it, I want you to tab back a little bit to 1 Samuel 20, verse 15.

If you're kind of like, oh, that's a lot of work, well, it's going to be on the screen too. But I'd like you to see it, and I'd like you to maybe even, if you've got one of those scripture journals and you're taking notes, this verse is so fundamental to the text that we're looking at that I want you to make note of it.

I want you to put it in your margins if you're a note taker. 1 Samuel 20, verse 15. This is a covenant between Jonathan and David.

And Jonathan says these words to David while he still lived. He said, He's basically predictably saying there's coming a time where you're going to be king, and all of your enemies are going to be cut off.

Don't forget my family when that happens. Don't take the sword to my family, as is the routine habit of kings.

And David swore this as a covenant to Jonathan. And then, by the way, there's a few verses after this in 1

Samuel 20, verse 15. You could kind of read a little bit of the context on your own if you want to. But he basically makes a promise that when the

Lord gives David victory over his enemies, that he would not turn against Jonathan's house, and they make this pledge.

Now there's three things that set the stage in this interchange, that kind of set the stage for our text this morning.

First is just what I've already kind of alluded to, and that's that kings often put to death anyone from a previous dynasty.

Anyone that could claim rights to the throne is often put to death. Any offspring of Jonathan, who's the crown prince of Israel under his father,

King Saul, could claim to be of royal descendant, and therefore claim the rights to the throne that David occupies.

Do you get it? Are you tracking with that? And so it would be a brutal, yet normal, common cultural expectation that David would put to death any descendants of Saul, and therefore any descendants of Jonathan as well.

As a matter of fact, we're going to encounter a young guy named Mephibosheth here in just a moment, and he's going to prove to be the main character of our entire text.

Mephibosheth, it's told us back in 2 Samuel 4, verse 4, that Mephibosheth was in the house of the nanny who took care of the royal children when he was about five years old, and word came to the household that Jonathan and Saul are dead.

They've died in battle. And what's the first thing that the nanny does? She scoops up the children of the current king and runs with them.

Why is she running? There's a complete and utter expectation that someone's coming for them. Immediately the thought is,

I've got to get these kids to safety because somebody will come and kill the royal line of the current king.

Well, when she scoops up those kids in her arms and runs, she drops one of them named Mephibosheth, and he becomes paralyzed.

He's a main character in our text. And it's in the very notion that the current king, the new incoming king, is going to slaughter all the descendants of the previous king.

Brutal expectation, but a common occurrence down through history and monarchies. The second observation comes from the pledge made between David and Jonathan in this passage from 1

Samuel 20, verse 15. The phrase that you see in that verse, steadfast love, occurs there in the text.

Steadfast love in verse 15 of 1 Samuel 20 is the exact same word we find in Hebrew three times in our text this morning.

Not translated the same way, unfortunately. But in our text, it's translated merely as kindness.

Kindness. You see the word kindness in verse 1 of chapter 9 of 2 Samuel, in verse 3, and in verse 7.

Each time that that occurs, it is the same exact word for steadfast love. It is a covenant word.

It's a uniquely covenantal type of word, a promise kind of word. It's not the kind of kindness that just happens upon you when you're driving on the highway and you've got a few extra minutes and somebody's struggling with a flat tire and you stop to help them fix that.

Now, is that kindness? That's kindness. That's a good kindness. We would use the word kindness for that.

But this isn't that kind of kindness because there's different kinds, isn't there? There's different kinds of love expressed.

This is the kind of kindness of a husband who cares for his wife through a dark and dire season of Alzheimer's where the only cause of the kindness is a commitment previously promised in covenant.

That's this kind of kindness. When I talk about covenant kindness, steadfast love, a love that goes the distance because it's been pledged, because it's been vowed, and therefore it's going to be fulfilled.

That kind of kindness. A prearranged pledge of loyal, steadfast, unending, undying love.

That's what a covenant is. And a word about the reason why we take covenants and vows, right? Why in the world would we ever take vows?

How many of you go ahead and raise your hand if you've ever taken a vow? If you're in a covenant right now, hopefully all the married people raised their hands.

You have taken a vow. You have taken a covenant. Why do we do such things? Why in the world would we?

Jesus told us don't take them often. He cautioned us about vows and oaths and covenants. He said don't take them often, and yet marriage is one relationship that's sealed with that.

It's one of the only ones that we take intentionally before God. Not many of our mortgage agreements have

God mentioned in them. They have repercussions mentioned in them, but they don't have God mentioned in them, but our covenant of marriage does.

And we say things in those vows, don't we? Things that matter. We say things like in sickness and in health because there is the real possibility of a sickness that makes this relationship no longer advantageous to us.

So why take a covenant when there's a reason? We say for richer or poorer because there is a distinct possibility that poverty could tear at the fabric of our marriage, right?

So we say for richer or poorer. We say a very ultimate statement in our routine marriage vows.

Until what do us part? Until death do us part because there is the possibility, though small, that sometime prior to death we may very well feel like throwing in the towel and giving up.

And I say that tongue -in -cheek with a sliver because I think almost every, no, every marriage will go there.

That's why it's sealed with a covenant. That's why it's needed. That's why we must pledge it because without pledging it there will come a time where our marriage is no longer advantageous to us.

You know what I'm talking about? Don't make eye contact with your wife when you nod your head. Don't make eye contact with your husband when you nod your head, but it is true.

And we all know it. We just don't want to show it in front of our spouse. My wife gets to hear me talk about it.

But all of us, right? All of us acknowledge that there needs to be a covenantal relationship there because we're not gonna feel like it.

I point this out because we're seeing David keeping a covenant here in this text that I believe is meant to make us consider

God's covenantal love toward us. That kind of steadfast, stable, our marriages don't do justice to it.

The fact that so many of our marriages in our culture end in divorce just demonstrates the lack of understanding of this steadfast covenantal love that is meant to be ours and ultimately is ours in Christ.

We don't reflect it well. God is perfect at it. We are not. It's also wrapped up in the covenant of marriage.

God's covenant to us is wrapped up in the covenant of marriage in that marriage is a reflection of Christ and the church is meant to be anyways.

He covenanted to take care of his church. He has given us a pledge of his steadfast love and how many of you are glad that God is more faithful than us?

Amen to that. He is more faithful than me. He covenanted to take care of us and we are supposed to be doing this as well in our marriages.

We want to as much as possible reflect God. A good marriage is not one without conflict. A good marriage is one that stays faithful to the pledge despite the conflict, despite the difficulty, despite the pain but this is not a text primarily about marriage despite the fact that it's helpful for us to consider the covenantal nature of our marriage vows before God.

This is not a marriage covenant that David is fulfilling. It's rather a kind of royal covenant that he's taking and a covenant of salvation to an entire line but the third observation about this text is that in 1

Samuel 20 verse 15, Jonathan was concerned for what David would do once he sits on the throne and has rest from his enemies and he says this, and 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. Those of you that were here just last week, you heard chapter eight.

What just happened in chapter eight? David is now at peace with his enemies. They have been cut off to the west, to the east, to the north, to the south.

Now, he says, now I will fulfill the covenant because the primary, the primary, what's the word, prereq to it is now fulfilled.

Jonathan said, when your enemies are cut off and you've got some spare time, the tendency's gonna wanna be to cut off my line.

Don't do that then. And now, he's got some free time. He's got freedom on his four borders.

And so verse one immediately turns his attention, David immediately turns his attention to the promise that he made, the pledge that he made, the covenant that he made to David.

And so here we start with our first three movements of the text. The first is the pursuit. In verses one through five, we see the pursuit of the covenant keeper.

He asks his advisors, David begins by asking his advisors in verse one, if there's anyone left of the line of King Saul to whom he can do chesed, to whom he can do steadfast love, to whom he can do faithfulness.

The phrase show kindness in our text does not do justice to this phrase.

It is active, and the word chesed, the Hebrew word that's used here for covenant of love, is a faithful obligation to do good towards someone because you said you would.

And again, it's usually towards someone who doesn't deserve it. We only, I mean, I don't need to take a covenant to eat a piece of chocolate cake, right?

How many of you know what I'm talking about? Like, you don't have to covenant, you just do it, man. It's like, you don't have to hold me to the fire on that.

I'll just, I'll eat it. We only need to take a covenant over something that we probably won't want to do in the future.

Do you get it? We only have to take oaths and vows over things that are uncomfortable or not easy. The advisors inform

David that there's still a man who served the house of Saul. His name is Ziba. And the fact that David doesn't know this man and doesn't know his name and has to ask a couple of follow -up questions about it makes me wonder if the theme song to Saul's line in Saul's family was, we don't talk about Ziba.

I don't know. But maybe that was their theme song. Five of us got it. But there, a little, throw a little something out for some of you there.

But David sent for him, and it's clear from verse one that David's intention is to fulfill the covenant he pledged to Jonathan through doing some kindness to his household.

And I further want to emphasize that he has a God -centered idea because he says to do the kindness of God toward him.

He has an idea that what he is going to demonstrate in this act of kindness to Jonathan's line is actually reflective of God's kindness to us.

He's gonna intentionally try to find somebody alive from David's household to show kindness to.

Now, David becomes aware that one of the sons of Jonathan through Ziba is still alive. His name is

Mephibosheth, which means, it's kind of a crazy name. It means one who slings shame or spreader of shame.

Honestly, it's not far off to name, this guy's name is manure spreader. Like, it's literally like kind of, the name is not a good name.

It is a pejorative, derogatory, not flattering name in any way, shape, or form. I don't know if his hunch is that his mom didn't give him this name, but that he achieved this name somehow.

But we saw a brief verse explaining back in 2 Samuel 4, 4, and I already referenced it, that Mephibosheth was injured and became paralyzed as an infant when his nanny dropped him while fleeing after the death of King Saul.

So we see this reiterated through the text that he has a disability in verse 3 and in verse 13.

It's quite likely that he was probably dropped and paralyzed, broken back from the waist down.

That seems to be the indication here. His legs don't work. Mephibosheth has been living north and east of Jerusalem on the far side of the

Jordan River in kind of what would have been Saul's primary territory in a place called Lodebar. A man named

Machir was taking care of him. Ziba wasn't. We have that in the text, and so Ziba probably should have been, but isn't.

We don't know all the details on that, but he's going to be. And I don't know about you, but if I were Mephibosheth, knowing what

I have studied and researched this week, I have quite confidence that I don't think

Mephibosheth was eager to meet David. I don't think he was eager for this meeting. As a matter of fact,

I think he was terrified of it. I'm pretty confident that he understood what it would mean for him to come into the presence king, the presence of the current king, with royal blood running through his line.

I'm not sure that he had much to say in the matter, being paralyzed. I think he probably went pretty much where people told him to or took him.

But I would have visions of this not going well if I were Mephibosheth.

I am sure that he knew the expectation was the killing of the previous royal line, and he enters

David's presence knowing that. Now David sent for him and had him brought into his presence in verse five.

David has done the pursuing, and we know, the narrator and the writer has given us already the benefit of knowing what

David's intentions are. He's pursuing him for kindness, while from Mephibosheth's perspective,

I'm not sure that it felt like kindness to come into David's presence. Let me pause for a moment and just encourage all of us to think and consider how the

Lord pursued us. He called us to come into his presence, and he did so for blessing.

He wants to bring his people into his presence for blessing. But for many of us, it came to us initially sounding like a call to fear.

It felt like he would only call us into his presence, of course, for judgment. It felt like the only possible reason

God would want me to come to him was for an expression of anger, an expression of rage or wrath, or to express at least his disappointment.

You know, the whole, I'm not angry, just disappointed. And instead, he has called us to come to his presence for what we find in our second point.

In verses 6 through 8, we see the reason and the giving of the peace, the peace.

The first is the pursuit, the second is the peace. P -E -A -C -E. David, well,

Mephibosheth is brought into David's presence, and he is laid there at his feet, and what we, you know, we don't know,

I mean, as a lame guy, I don't know if he was just down on his face or what, but David's first thing is to shout

Mephibosheth's name. Just stop there for a second. Would this be comforting or scary?

David's like, Mephibosheth! And he's like, ah, dead. Like, where's the spear? What's going on? We know how it hit

Mephi, and I'm gonna start calling him that because Mephibosheth is a mouthful, so I'm gonna start calling him

Mephi. That all right with everybody? You guys good with that? So Mephi, Mephi is there on his face paying homage to the

Lord's anointed. We know the heart with which he came, or at least, I mean, sorry, the behavior with which he came, and he responds, look, look, look,

I'm your servant. At the shout of his name, he's like, ah, ah, behold, I'm just, I'm on my face here, bro.

Mephi knows his rightful position here in front of the Lord's anointed. He knows how precarious his future is right at this moment, and he has a heart to come under David and his rule.

Now, I'm not sure that Mephi had a deep love for David. We're not given that kind of insight. The text doesn't tell us anything about his heart, but we can surmise things from his behavior, from what he does, and also from the way that David approaches him.

He does bow. He does respect David. I mean, we have a photographic evidence right there of the way that it worked.

That's a, you Google search that, and you find that image. That's Mephi right there. But he bows.

It says he pays, the word homage means he pays due, correct, right, respect to the king, and I think we can see fear on his part, but what

David says next in verse 7 helps to clarify that there's obvious fear in Mephi there in David's presence, because what does

David have to say? Do not fear. How many of you think that was, those are some of the most relieving words in scripture, right?

Those passages that say do not fear, do not fear, for I will do faithful covenant kindness to you, says

David. I will do faithful covenantal kindness. I will do steadfast love to you for the sake of your father,

Jonathan. Oh, such sweet words of comfort. Can you feel that, church? Can you feel what

Mephi would have felt in that moment? Sweet words of comfort to this poor, helpless, crippled man.

He has received mercy in the first half of verse 7. He comes with fear of what is likely going to happen.

I'm going to be slaughtered today. And he is given immediate relief that harm is not going to come to him.

And if the text ends there, this message would have had a different title. I would have entitled it Old Testament Mercy.

Old Testament Mercy, because the first half of verse 7 demonstrates mercy. Mercy is not getting a bad thing that we rightly expect or deserve.

That's mercy. You don't get the bad that you deserved. In this case,

Mephi thought it was the end of the line, and instead he has pledged that there will not be harm.

Oh good, thinks Mephibosheth. You're not going to do something bad to me.

But the verse goes on, and it doesn't leave it there with the absence of bad. How many of you, that's like good.

I mean, that's enough. I'm not going to die. You're not going to do bad to me. Okay, that's good.

All right. But the verse goes on to grace the giving of good that's not deserved.

And says, David, I will restore to you all the land of Saul your father, and you shall eat at my royal table.

What? I thought you were just going to spare my life. Like that's enough for me.

Grace, covenantal steadfast love, is found in the giving of what is not expected or deserved.

Mephibosheth is the recipient of a covenant he was not even involved in.

Do you see it, church? A covenant he wasn't even involved in. A decision was made that was outside of himself.

A decision was made, much like a decision that was made that the Son of God would come to earth to pay for my sins.

I was not the originator of that plan. I was not there when it was pledged. I was not there when it was accomplished.

And yet by faith in the Son of God, Jesus Christ, my Lord, I am set free from the consequences that I rightly expect.

And I've been adopted into his family. And just like Mephibosheth had royal refrigerator rights, so do all of us who come to the

Father through the Son have divine refrigerator rights. We are counted as being in the family.

When I say refrigerator rights, I think of that as a pretty technical thing. You come to my house and you start rummaging through my fridge,

I'm going, hey bro, what? Anybody with me on that? But how many of you know that there are people in your life that can come and rummage through your fridge?

And you need those people. You should have those people, church. And to God's house, we are that kind of family.

How close has God brought you in? He says, come and dine at my table. Come and eat my food.

Come and hang at my place, says the Lord. That's what we're seeing here with Mephibosheth.

Tell you, you're one of the family. Come on in. Where he expected to be slaughtered and murdered, he's brought in and said, eat the good stuff.

There's nothing in the fridge that's marked not off limits. Have at it. You guys get what

I'm saying in that? It's a glorious truth. The humility that grace produces also is found in verse eight.

And it must not be overlooked, church. This is key. This is key and fundamental. Mephi says, what is your servant that you should show regard for a dead dog such as I?

This grace, this undeserved favor granted by David by his covenant keeping moves

Mephibosheth to a humility in his heart. This is the foundation of the Christian life, church.

A life that understands grace. A life that understands that what I deserved in contrast to the privilege that I have been given will struggle to get to pride and arrogance.

It will be a struggle if you are focused on the gospel and what you've received that you didn't deserve, you will struggle to get to pride.

You will struggle to get to arrogance. I was of no more value than a dead dog and last time

I checked, dead dogs aren't going for much. I didn't really check that. I'm just saying. I don't think they have a whole lot of value.

Who buys those things? But I was like a dead dog when

Jesus gave me his grace. When he brought me into his family. When he rescued me from the natural way that my life was heading.

My hellbound race. Indifferent to the cost. And he scooped me up and rescued me.

Just riding, bobbing along in the flow to hell. And he exercised his grace.

He pursued me. He said peace over me. Can't get past that.

David is pledging to Mephibosheth kindness and peace and a place at his table. The anointed pursued him.

The anointed gave him peace. And lastly we see that the anointed gives him provision. The provision is in verses 9 through 13 through the end of the text.

David turns his attention to Ziba the servant of Saul and gives him charge over Mephibosheth's new found estate.

All the property that belonged to King Saul. How many of you think that was probably sizable? The king owns a lot of property generally speaking.

No, it's yours now Mephibosheth. Being crippled in both of his feet. He cannot work the land. So David as king by fiat says

Ziba. Oh Ziba will take care of that for you. Him and his 15 sons and 20 servants are now going to run the farm for you Mephibosheth.

And all these arrangements for the provisions of Mephibosheth and his family are made in verses 9 and 10. And Ziba agrees to the arrangement in verse 11.

And all of us consider what this means for Mephibosheth. This is a rags to riches, win the lottery kind of grace that's being expressed here.

He has gone from pauper to prince in a day. The story of grace, church, is always a rags to riches story.

Not that you had a bunch of stuff to offer and gave that and God gave you a little bit more. It's always poverty that we come to salvation.

It's always with nothing in our hands or we're not saved. We come with nothing or we are attempting to save ourselves in spurning the cross of Christ.

It's a common thread in human fiction and stories by the way this rags to riches that picks up in many of our stories because it strikes deep into the hearts of the true story, what is actually true.

The story begins with a bad lot in a dire situation. Luke is stuck moisture farming on Tatooine, right?

Harry lives under the stairs. And the future doesn't look so good for him but suddenly a turn of events and Luke is a

Jedi and you're a wizard, are he? Right? All of a sudden. But in the true story, hear me carefully church because there's a turn in here.

Our culture doesn't get this point. The turn comes about not because of some hidden worthiness in the heart of the main character.

No, we're all dead dogs. The surprise doesn't come about because of what we really are.

Because oh, you're a snowflake. Oh no, we're awesome. Oh no, we're amazing. Oh, we're super valuable.

Look it, God made you and you're super valuable. The turn comes about because of the pursuit of the king to rescue.

That's where the turn happened in my story. That's where the turn must happen in every story. The king came to pursue and to rescue, to extend peace and to give provision where there was nothing.

No capacity. How many of you think that Mephibosheth maybe struggled with earning potential in his culture?

I think he did. And everything given to him in his act of covenantal faithfulness.

The text ends with the arrangement being enacted. The Lord's anointed pursued someone to show steadfast love to.

He found him. He gives him peace. He gives him provision. And Mephibosheth lived in Jerusalem where he was carried to the table of the king to take his meals in royalty.

Let's consider how we put this message into practice down three specific lines this morning, down our three points.

First, when we think about God's pursuit of us, that's the first thing. Second, think about God's pursuit of you.

There are likely some names associated with his pursuit. And I'd like to highlight three names connected to God's pursuit of me just to honor them before God and you.

Jim Foote was my sparks leader. I don't know a ton about his backstory. I was just eight. He listened to a little boy in fear after Awana one night.

He had to stay after later with us. I'm sure there are places to go. But at the First Baptist Church in Middleton, Michigan, he took the time to pray with me, to ask

Jesus Christ to save me. The second name is Bill Dobson, my pastor.

Now, my family moved on from the Baptist Church to Whitneyville Bible Church when I was in high school. Bill Dobson was my pastor.

And at that church, for some reason, he preached a message on hell that made sense to a 16 -year -old.

It made sense to me, like, oh, wow, the fire feels hot and I know what I deserve. And in that moment,

I went forward to rededicate my life and say, I wanna take you seriously, God. The third name is

Steve Jackson, my youth pastor at the same church, who discipled me with an intentional lifestyle of just walking with a teenager through tricky years or just trying to figure stuff out.

Anybody have, like, some tricky years in high school? Anybody in high school? Tricky years?

They're not easy, not easy to navigate. And I had somebody who came alongside of me in the absence of a father to walk with me, to do life with me.

So is this a story about me? Where's the application? And there's two things for all of us. Write down your list of people who God has used to pursue you.

Maybe it was your mom, it's Mother's Day, this would be a great time to honor her if she was a godly woman.

Honor her if she wasn't, but if she was a woman who was seeking to invest in you, tell her, thank you.

Thank you for investing in me. And if the only thing that she invested in you was nine months of carrying you, then thank her for that.

Thank her for that, because that was no small thing. Thank the people who have invested in you, and particularly when you think about that pursuit.

Maybe it was a mom, maybe it was a dad, maybe it was a friend, maybe it was a youth leader or a volunteer. Maybe take some time to thank

God for them this week, and then maybe even jot them a note if you still can. I've reached out to these three individuals. Bill is with the

Lord now, but I still have interaction with Steve Jackson, and I reached out to Jim Foote as well. Who did

God use to bring you to the throne of grace? And then let's flip this on its head. Not just to give thanks for the one who carried you, but consider who are you pursuing for the king?

I want to point out a really strange thing. He uses us to pursue people, and you see in this text,

I don't know if you noticed it, because it's very easy to notice. It's a little bit trickier to notice what's not there. There's an unnamed character in the text.

There's an unnamed character in this story that stands out to me. In verse five, it says that David sent and brought

Mephibosheth. David sent somebody to go get him, to bring him into his royal presence.

He said, go pursue Mephibosheth, and bring him, carry him to my throne, where I can show him grace.

That's awesome. There's a messenger of the king sent to go get him, and his primary purpose was to retrieve a dude so the king could show him mercy, so the king could show him grace.

Who, church, are you carrying to the king? If I ask that question, and there's nobody on your list, there's nobody that you believe

God has sent you to go bring to the king, then know that he wants to use this message to wake you up today, to wake you up to our role in carrying people to the king.

Be grateful for those who carried you, church, and get busy carrying others.

The second application is to consider the peace that God has brought to us. We live in a world of increasing anxiety.

Anybody with me? Increasing anxiety, increasing division, increasing hostility, but we serve a

God who says these words, do not fear, for I will show you kindness, because I am faithful, because I keep my promises.

I will exercise steadfast love. I will exercise my covenant faithfulness to my people.

We have nothing to fear, church. We have peace with God, and I encourage you to let that be enough.

As many times as it takes you before 10 o 'clock tomorrow morning, wrestle yourself, wrestle your mind and your heart to the ground, hold it down, and chain it to this glorious truth.

If you have asked Jesus Christ to save you, then he will, then he will, because he is committed, not to how awesome you are, how you are glad that that's not the contingency, because of how faithful he is, because of his faithfulness to keep his own promises, and he says, you can be a jerk, but I'm not gonna be.

I'm not gonna take back my promises. I will be faithful, though the world all lies.

That's our God. Lastly, consider his provision.

We end every single sermon at communion because this is the place where we remember his provision for us.

We sing the song, and we're gonna sing the song today that comes straight from this text, and we've sung it before.

We've had it as a communion song. I don't know if you realized that it comes from this text. It's a song called Carried to the

Table. It comes from 2 Samuel 9. It is meant to be a reminder of our inability to rescue ourselves.

When we come to these tables, we come to reflect on his body broken for us. We take that cracker for that purpose, and we come to a table to take a cup of juice that represents his blood shed for us.

How did you come to this table? Well, certainly, we're gonna stand up. We're gonna stand in lines. We're gonna walk back there.

But figuratively speaking, how did you come to, are you worthy of that? Are you worthy of his body sacrificed for you?

Are you worthy of his blood shed for you? Or is it dead dog theology?

No value in my own, no worthiness in myself, and no ability in these legs to carry me there, and he has done it.

He pursued. He gave peace. In church this morning, he is giving us in these elements provision.

He's giving us provision. Without his pursuit, without his sending for us, without his calling us into his presence, we would never be welcomed to his table.

So let the glory of his pursuit of us, the glory of his peace given to us, and the unreasonably gracious provision given to us, which is nothing less than the very body and blood of Jesus Christ to be slain to cover our sins.

Let this crash into your heart and mind this morning. Don't come to these tables out of routine, church.

Come thoughtfully considering how he has done it from beginning to end for his people.

Please only come to the tables if you have asked Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior. If you're here, and you have not asked

Jesus Christ to save you, then I encourage you to take in the song. Nobody's keeping tabs on who gets up and who doesn't, and just remain in your seat.

But if there's something in your heart that's kind of pulling you to know more about how you can have a relationship with Jesus Christ, come and talk with me.

Come and talk with David Schrock. Come and talk with Zach Lloyd, the elder on duty in the back there. I'll be standing at the door.

I don't need to shake every hand here. If you need to talk and you want to talk this morning about how you can have a relationship with Jesus Christ that forgives and washes you clean, come and talk with me.

We'll go find a quiet place to have a chat about that. Let's pray. Father, I thank you so much for the grace that you have bestowed on us.

We are so unworthy. We are so undeserving. I just think it's so awesome, the phrase dead dog in this text.

The value of us just completely in the negative, and you sought to rescue us.

In the midst of our inability, in the midst of our fallenness, in the midst of our brokenness, in the midst of our fear, rightly expecting condemnation.

You have seen fit to reach down and rescue us.

So Father, I pray that as we come to this table of provision today, that you would allow us to freshly in our minds, just in a renewed way, reflect and remember the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for us.

Thank you that you have carried us to this place. We're not worthy, but we are the recipients of your steadfast, covenantal love.