Life of David part 4

Whitten Baptist Church

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June 5, 2023

SNBS - The Book of Matthew part 5

00:00: You may be seated. I feel like having a chew and a whiskey now or something.
00:10: I don't know. Oh, Lord. That was good, guys.
00:16: Appreciate that. We're going to be in part four of our study in the life of David.
00:23: And the first takeaway I would have you to remember is that this is not a Bible story.
00:29: This is both scripturally and archaeologically and historically validated.
00:38: Now, for those of you little millennials that have daddy issues and you're too insecure and couldn't make the football team,
00:45: I understand that you have doubts. I get it. But they're not based upon any reality in any academic study.
00:53: They're based on a presupposition of your denial because of your rebellion of the authority of Almighty God.
01:01: This is a beautiful thing. The Word of God is not Shakespearean. The protagonist is not perfect.
01:09: The antagonist is not always evil. It is absolute beauty that we can have an example like King David.
01:18: From all of your little Sunday school lessons, you know, he was usually a little white kid with brown curly hair, which is not found anywhere in Scripture, but whatever.
01:29: And he's killing little David. He's killing little Goliath with a little stone. And then he's like this great hero.
01:36: If you read Scripture, David was a yutz. David was a militant, self -just, focused individual who constantly ran away from God and had to constantly repent and come back.
01:51: We just looked at last week where he was butchering people to get money for a military and political campaign to remove
02:00: Saul because God had said, you're going to be king, David. And David thought God needed a little help.
02:07: And so he went on killing and butchering people in the Philistine area to try to gain that momentum.
02:15: We read again where David is a horrible father, horrible father.
02:20: We're going to read more about that later. But he was an absolute dork when it came to women and kids.
02:28: We read, and I always love, I hear in churches or preachers talking about Michal, his wife.
02:34: She was taken away from David, married to another man. David wins, becomes king, takes her back.
02:41: But in the meantime, he's marrying three other women. And then people go, oh, well, she was just so bitter.
02:47: Well, yeah, she was bitter. You dork. Yeah, she was. Now we see
02:54: David in 2 Samuel 9. We see another instance where David is acquiescing to God in keeping his covenants.
03:05: I want you to understand something real quick. Hannah, do me a favor, baby. Stand up for a second.
03:12: She loves it when I point her out. I want everyone on this side of the room only, from here over,
03:18: I want you to point at Hannah right now. Everybody point. Look, there's Hannah. Keep your hands up.
03:24: And I want everybody on this side of the room to point to Hannah. This is the
03:29: Old Testament. Everything you read in the Old Testament, no matter what it is, is pointing to Jesus Christ.
03:38: She is not really Jesus. Everything in the
03:44: New Testament is pointing back to Jesus. That's how it's written. Put your hands down.
03:49: So the Old Testament, everything we read, has to do with, Hey people, this isn't a religion.
03:56: Hey y 'all, this ain't church. This is my Son, God incarnate, coming to earth to save your wretched soul.
04:04: And the whole Old Testament points to Jesus is coming. Jesus is coming. The whole
04:10: New Testament is Jesus has already come. This is how you're supposed to live.
04:16: So as we read this part of David's life, I want you to keep that in mind.
04:22: And I'm going to give you the allusion, not allusion, but I'm going to allude to the symbiotic relationship that God had through giving examples through the
04:32: Old Testament about Jesus. Read with me 2 Samuel 9, starting in verse 1.
04:42: And David said, this is after he'd been king, this is after he's taken Jerusalem, this is after all of that.
04:48: So he's sitting around and he goes, okay, now what? And he says, is there anyone left of the house of Saul that I may show him kindness for Jonathan's sake?
05:01: Let me explain what's going on. Saul has been killed. He was an evil individual, but Saul's son,
05:09: Jonathan, he and David were best friends about 20 years ago. And they made a covenant with one another.
05:16: You can find this in 1 Samuel chapter 20. They made a covenant and they basically said this.
05:23: Jonathan said, if I die, David, will you take care of my family? And David said, and if I die, will you take care of mine?
05:32: And these two young men made a covenant and a promise to take care of each other's descendants.
05:39: It's amazing. 20 years later, David no longer a teenage boy, now a young man sitting on the throne.
05:48: After everything's said and done, he did exactly opposite of what the secular world said you should do.
05:55: You got to understand when there was a regime change in any ancient city or nation, one of the first orders of business to do was to find any blood relation of the king that you just defeated and kill them to death.
06:13: The idea was if there was no blood relation to claim to the throne, then you would be safe.
06:21: David does the exact opposite here. And he asks publicly, is there anyone, because of my covenant with Jonathan, is there anyone
06:32: I can fulfill my promise to? And it turns out there was a kid.
06:38: His name was Mephibosheth. You know he got picked on a lot. Old Mephibosheth was the son of Jonathan.
06:48: It was Saul's grandson. Now what had happened though, years earlier when he was a young man, he was a baby, his nursemaid was carrying around and they came in and they said, hey,
07:01: Saul's dead. All of his sons are dead. And the nursemaid was so broken hearted, she started crying and getting hysterical and she accidentally dropped old
07:11: Mephibosheth. And he became paralyzed from the waist down. He was a cripple.
07:21: Guys, one of the most beautiful things about our Lord is this, is that we are brought near to God, but we have to first understand that we were separated from God by the wickedness of our past.
07:39: For some of you in here that are Christians, but you haven't been educated properly in Scripture, that word is imputation.
07:46: And it means that from conception, we are damned already because we come from corruption from the
07:56: Adamic sin. That's why Jesus had no earthly father. The line of sin translates from father to child all the way down.
08:06: You cannot get perfection from corruption. We too are the same.
08:11: Every single child born, little Addison, wherever she is, cutest little, oh my gosh, want to kiss that face off, right?
08:21: That is a sinful human being separated from God. You say, oh, but she has done nothing wrong.
08:28: That is wrong. She was born from sinful parents. Just like Mephibosheth, who has been separated from everything that he knows because of the evil that his grandfather had did.
08:43: Also understand this. We are lame in our abilities to draw close to God.
08:50: Let me explain this to you. And once again, some of you have a false sense of security because you prayed some silly prayer when you were a kid or a teenager at a youth camp and you think you're a
09:02: Christian. You think because you belong to a church somewhere or you have this idea that there's a
09:10: God, you're a Christian. I've heard people say all the time, well,
09:15: I found Jesus. According to Scripture, you were already dead in your trespasses and sin.
09:22: You didn't find anything. God found you. You are lame and incapable of bringing yourself to the throne of God.
09:32: And I know that people struggle with this. I get it. I understand that your good life, your moral and cultural perfection thinks in your brain, well,
09:43: I don't beat up old women. You know, I don't do crack cocaine. I'm a really kind of good guy.
09:50: You are an utterly crippled, godless, heathen, incapable of meriting anything of yourself in redemption back to Jesus Christ.
10:00: You have nothing to offer. Nothing. You were born in sin and you've gotten worse ever since.
10:09: You see, we have been separated from God because of that sin and we are incapable of gaining it back because we are spiritual cripples.
10:20: Also understand this, verse 4, read with me. The king David said to him, where is he?
10:26: And Zilba said to the king, he is in the house of Mekir the son of Amiel at Lodabar.
10:32: You know what's amazing? I have been saved now. I was converted 33 years ago.
10:40: You know what my spiritual life looks like? I'm going to be honest with you. It looks like this. It's like up, down, up, down, up, down, up.
10:47: Now I know some of you more mature, godlier people in this room, you know, if you go to Bellevue or whatever,
10:53: I know you're like up here, okay? But just being real for me, mine goes like this.
10:59: And then sometimes it's like this. And then sometimes it's like this. Do you all know what
11:04: I'm talking about? Okay, so not everybody in here is Baptist. That's good. Guys, that's what
11:12: I feel like. And here's what's really stinky. I could not help the imputation of that Adamic sin into my life.
11:20: I couldn't help it. But I can help what I do with God's grace in my life now. And I'm going to be honest with you, just like David, just like everybody else found in Scripture, save Jesus, just like everybody else found there, my life is like a roller coaster.
11:37: It just is. You know? Now I don't struggle with the same things I used to struggle with 30 years ago.
11:44: I'm not looking up www .hotdeacons .com anymore, you know?
11:50: I don't know, Tim in that wheelchair, just something's smoking hot about that. I don't struggle with those things anymore.
11:59: But I still struggle with things. Guys, just like Mephibosheth, I'm dependent on something else.
12:06: And I have been separated, but some of it is by my own choice. You see, old Mephibosheth, he could have gone to Jerusalem himself.
12:15: He could have said, look, this is where I'm at. Okay? This is where I'm at. I am a grandson of Saul.
12:22: I am the son of Jonathan. And though it may cost me my life, I choose to identify who
12:28: I am and where I am. Christian, how are you doing in that identification? In your job?
12:34: Men? Do you sit there and you tell the jokes about the chick at work? See, you're choosing.
12:42: You're choosing to do what's right. Women? Yes, I'm a sexist pig. Y 'all stay with me. Women, do you gossip?
12:48: Do you run that mouth? Do you sit there and tear people down? Do you sit there and judge others?
12:56: Guys, we choose our fate and judgment sometimes. And just like fib, we're lame, broken, busted, and separated from deliverance.
13:07: But read with me here. Verse 5, it says this, After King David heard that Mephibosheth was in Lodabar, he said in verse 5, the very next verse,
13:21: The King David sent and brought him from the house of Mecur, the son of Ammuel, at Lodabar.
13:29: I'm not a great orator or a great storyteller. But man, this is what
13:35: I see. In my head, I can see a guy who knows that he's crippled.
13:43: He's sitting in Lodabar, which was kind of like Millington, you know, or Nutbush.
13:50: That was a Millington cop that got up and spoke earlier, so you know what Millington standards are. So, he was kind of over there, you know.
13:58: Busted, broken, didn't have much. And he's sitting there and he's expecting nothing.
14:04: Because he knows he deserves nothing. He has nothing.
14:11: And then God said to Jesus, go get my boy.
14:17: You know that Jeff Shipley kid who's nothing? Who's a bum? Who deserves nothing but hell?
14:24: Who is an absolute pathetic disgrace to what even holiness looks like? Jesus, would you go pick him up?
14:33: Jesus came over and hit that hill of Calvary, stretched out His arms and said, it is finished.
14:39: And when He rose again from the grave, He said, Jeff, you are one of My born that will follow after My likeness.
14:47: Guys, do you understand what's so beautiful about grace? It's not just grace that saves you.
14:55: It's grace that sustains you in life. But the most beautiful part about grace is one day, it's going to carry me home.
15:03: And it doesn't matter my failures. It doesn't matter my value or worth in the eyes of religion or the eyes of man, for the price that was paid for me was grace by the blood of Jesus Christ.
15:16: God sat there and said, go pick him up. Therein is grace. Now look at this other thing.
15:22: Verse 7. I didn't become a
15:29: Christian until later in life. I got brought up Catholic, but we only went to church once a year.
15:36: So it's not even fair to say I was Catholic. But I remember in my brain, this was how
15:42: I pictured the whole God -Heaven thing. I pictured one day that I would go and stand before God.
15:51: You know, after I went through St. Peter and the pearly gates. There's no St. Peter's gates. That's all made up.
15:56: But anyways, I went and stood before God. And God would sit there and He would go, alright boy, you think you're worthy to come up in here?
16:07: Let me show you what you did your entire life. And there'd be some 8mm projector.
16:13: Notice how old I am. An 8mm projector there. And there'd be a big screen where everyone would see all the bad things
16:21: I'd done. Even them things I really don't want people to see. You know what I'm saying? Okay, well maybe none of y 'all did, but I got some private sins that are just a little bit embarrassing.
16:33: Golly, man. There was this one time with high heels and this dress. Never mind. But anyways, there's this big screen.
16:41: And it starts playing everything that I've done. And all the ladies sitting there going, look at that loser, you know.
16:49: Everybody's making fun of me. And I picture God sitting up there going, mm -mm, mm -mm, mm -mm.
16:57: Boy, you are so dumb. You couldn't pour water out of a boot if the directions were on the heel. You are absolutely worthless.
17:04: You would tear up a steel ball with a rubber hammer. Son, the best part of you, because those are all the things my dad told me.
17:13: Yeah? And that's how I pictured it. And then God would say something like this, why should
17:18: I let you into heaven? Have any of y 'all ever felt that way before? Oh, and then here's the really even stinkier part.
17:26: Then you get to go to heaven, they put a little makeup, rosy cheeks on you with little angel wings and a halo, a white robe, and you've got to stand and sing for the rest of eternity.
17:38: Personally, I'm going to be at a deer camp with Artie, you know. I don't know what the rest of you nerds are going to do, but that ain't heaven for me, okay?
17:46: And if you hear me sing, it ain't heaven for you. Okay? Here's some good news.
17:53: None of what I just said, lesson, appears anywhere in Scripture. That is all man -made religion bull crap.
18:02: None of it's in Scripture. At all. None of it. You know why we make stuff up like that, why religion does?
18:10: For two reasons. Number one, for a sense of control. But here's the other thing. We really don't understand grace.
18:16: We can't comprehend that we receive adoption into the kingdom of God through nothing of our own merits.
18:25: We feel like we've got to put something on the table. We've got to bring something to this equation.
18:31: We ain't got nothing. And we never will. David said, bring him to me.
18:37: And when he got there, look, he said to him, verse six, and Mephibosheth the son of Jonathan, son of Saul, came to David and fell on his face and paid homage.
18:48: Verse eight, and he paid homage and said, what is your servant that you should show regard for a dead dog such as I?
18:59: Guys, you want to have a good mental picture of God? And I know some of y 'all, you know, you can only imagine way too many times you've listened to that song, you know.
19:09: I can only imagine when that day will come. And all that other, it's just syrupy.
19:16: I got to take insulin when I hear that song. And it's not scriptural. You don't have to imagine.
19:22: The Word of God tells us what's going to happen. You don't have to go running to Jesus because Jesus done picked you up.
19:29: You ain't got to do nothing because just like in your life now, you didn't do nothing to get there, you didn't do nothing to stay there, and you didn't do nothing to go to heaven.
19:38: God has done it all. And when you die and you stand before Him, the same grace that saved your life is going to be even more perfect and more powerful at that moment.
19:49: The only thing that will change is you will finally understand that you got there by nothing else other than His love.
19:57: Guys, if you come to a place in your life now where you realize you want to be able to praise
20:03: God more, do two things. Recognize how holy and separate He is.
20:08: And number two, recognize that in that holiness, His grace bids you to come to Him. It tells you, well, you know, pastor,
20:17: I haven't prayed in three years. The same voice that saved you is the same voice that's still telling you to come.
20:22: I keep falling asleep every time I pray. I promise never to do that sin again and then I'm back doing it again.
20:29: That ambition of God is to bring you to heaven. And it is only through your failures of misunderstanding what grace really is that you think your sin is more powerful than the grace of Almighty God.
20:41: It's not ever going to be. Man, that's so beautiful. And here's something else, especially for you church folk that are bitter.
20:50: Have you ever met one of them church Christians? They're just angry at everything.
20:58: I just like slapping them. I mean, it's just like, go to Bellevue. Go somewhere else besides here because one of my jobs is to protect the culture here.
21:09: Which means that if you are breathing, you are welcome here. Now, we don't serve
21:15: Bud Light here and Target ain't ever going to be a place I shop. But I don't care who or what you are.
21:23: I don't care who or what you are. You are welcome in this place. Now, you might not be welcome to be a member, but you're welcome up in here.
21:32: We'll feed you. We'll preach to you. We'll love you. And we'll probably tell you what you're doing is wrong. But here's the most beautifulest part.
21:43: One of the things before David sent for Mephibosheth, David knew everything that he had done, was doing, and would ever do.
21:57: Guys, do you really think that the sin of your present... You know, we ask
22:03: Jesus Christ our heart and may our Lord and Savior. It's like our sin in the past is forgiven, but from here on out, buddy, you know,
22:13: God's up there and He's going to be like, Oh, no! Really? Again? Where's the omniscience and sovereignty?
22:20: Where's the immutability of God? Where's the idea that God didn't just see you saved back then.
22:26: He saw you saved like your 80 years in your life is such a stretch for an infinite, awesome, omniscient
22:33: God. He already knows how stupid you are. There ain't no red alert button up there and panic going because you watch porn again.
22:42: Okay? Man, I saw some people pucker at that one.
22:48: Right? Alright, listen, listen. Understand that we are
22:55: Mephibosheth. Understand that God's still calling us back. And understand it's not just where we were in our incapability, it's what
23:04: God's grace brought us. Now watch this. Watch what David says to him. When he says,
23:09: I ain't nothing but a dog, run down to me verse 11. Verse 11 and 12. Then Ziba, that was a servant who went and got
23:18: Ophib. Then Ziba said to the king, according to all that my lord and king commands, your servant will do.
23:26: So Mephibosheth ate at David's table like one of the king's son. And Mephibosheth had a young son whose name was
23:33: Micah. And all who lived in Ziba's house became Mephibosheth's servants. So Mephibosheth lived in Jerusalem for he ate always at the king's table.
23:43: Now he was lame in both his feet. Let me just close with this. We're going to have an invitation time.
23:51: Before we do the Lord's Supper, you need to get right with God. But before we close up with the sermon, listen.
24:00: Do you know what it's like to be a part of something? Some of you peoples in this room wear certain clothes to be accepted by a certain thing.
24:14: Some of you people talk and act a certain way so you will know acceptance. Some of you are destroying your families and destroying your lives to live out a personification that you think brings you security, but it never stifles the insecurity of your soul.
24:32: Can I just suggest this to you? Let go. Let go.
24:39: Some of you all are so scared. You know that you're not a Christian. You know you're not.
24:46: But you're so scared to let go. You're so scared of the veneer that you have covered your life with for so long.
24:54: You are so scared that you think you're going to be rejected. And you think you're not worthy of God's grace.
25:04: Look what David did. Here's this crippled, good for nothing, knows that this guy is never going to be anything that David could ever need or want.
25:15: I mean, what's this crippled guy going to do? Cripples are useless. I've got two of them here in the church. They don't do nothing, you know.
25:24: Actually, our two cripples work more than most other people. Definitely better than most pastors I know.
25:30: But anyways, here he is. And this is what David said.
25:36: My servant is now your servant. Now watch what David did. All the lands that belong to your grandfather, the king,
25:46: I'm giving them back to you. And all of the servants that belong will work that land and you will get the proceeds.
25:55: You don't have to do nothing. And you're going to not just be taken care of at your house, you're going to live here at my house.
26:03: And you will eat at the king's table. And look what it says. Like one of my sons.
26:11: You know, imputation stinks until you get to Jesus Christ. You see, the righteousness of Christ in the vacuum left by the removal of that Adamic sin by the blood of Christ, in that vacuum, the righteousness of Christ was replaced in us.
26:26: Romans chapter 5 if you want to study it. And in that imputed grace of God Almighty in the identity, we were adopted as sons of God.
26:37: For you feminists out there, anthropois, it means mankind. So relax and take a break and take an
26:43: Adderall. So the idea that God says, I will make you one of my children.
26:52: Man. You know, I got five kids and except for my daughter, they're just stupid.
27:01: You know? They just are. You know what I did this weekend?
27:06: I patched holes in the wall. Upstairs. Because the last one finally moved out. And I go upstairs and I've got to rip the carpet out, man.
27:16: Because I had four teenage boys living in one room and it stinketh. Okay? There are holes in the wall.
27:23: There's a knife hole in the wall. It looks like someone's head went through a wall. And I'm sitting there at 55 years old.
27:31: I mean, here's what my boys did. See you, Dad. And gone. I haven't seen Jeff in weeks.
27:37: I don't even know if he's still around. Are him and Taylor still married? I don't know. I haven't seen my grandchildren in months.
27:50: I'm rebuilding it, man. And I'm going to make it the Cousins Club. This big room.
27:55: That's what I'm going to make it. The Cousins Club. I'm sitting here repairing all this stuff and working hard. And you know what's awesome about it?
28:05: Is I didn't have none of that growing up. I ain't had none of that growing up.
28:11: And I ain't saying that to sound like some hard luck story. I'm vicariously reliving what it is like to be accepted and loved.
28:19: I tell my sons all the time, don't say my house anymore. This is our house.
28:24: Yeah, you have your home at Heathcliff or wherever you live, but this will always be your house.
28:31: This will always be the house of your children and your children's children as long as it's here.
28:36: You know why? Because you are part of a family and that family does not stop because of a marriage.
28:43: Children, listen. If you're a child of God, you have not a place just at God's table, you have a place reserved for you at God's table.
28:53: And the reason you have that is because of the grace of God. Now notice those last words. After all the stuff that David gave
29:01: Mephibosheth, look how it closes out. And he was lame in both feet.
29:08: Where is the Shakespearean climax here, man? Where is the, and they all lived happily ever after.
29:16: Well, they didn't. I'm going to tell you why. Because Mephibosheth screwed Dave over, screwed him over a couple of years later.
29:22: He did. And David forgave him. David is about to mess up big time.
29:29: And God forgave him. You know what that tells me? Guys, I am saved, but I am still crippled in this world.
29:39: I have got the Holy Spirit of God dwelling inside of me, but I still struggle. I'm a license ordained senior pastor.
29:46: You know what that means? Not Jack. The same struggles you got are the same struggles I got.
29:52: And I'm just like you. But here's what also that means. The same grace and power, the same
29:58: Spirit that God gives me, gives me the confidence, the same grace and Spirit God can give you. All you've got to do is be willing to receive it.
30:06: We're going to have an invitation, and you peoples that are doing the singing and pastors, y 'all come up here. Listen to me.
30:13: And I just close with this. Listen to me, please. Forget sermon.
30:19: Forget church service. Forget all of that religious garbage. Okay? If you were to drop dead right now, where would you go?
30:32: Where would you go? I ain't asking you to join no Baptist church. If I never see you again,
30:38: I know this sounds, I don't care. Okay? I don't. I got things to do.
30:44: But I do care, I do care whether you go to heaven or hell. If you're visiting with us today, and you're one of them peoples that prayed
30:54: Jesus in your heart 30 years ago, but your life looks like an absolute train wreck and nothing changed, you might want to check on that.
31:01: Not according to my standard, but according to the Word of God. If any man says, what we just read, if any man says he has no sin, he is a liar and the truth is not in him.
31:11: If any man claims to know the truth, yet continues to walk in darkness, he is a liar. Where are you?
31:17: Number two, if you don't have a church home and church people all up in your business, you are never going to know the spiritual maturity that God's trying to give you.
31:28: Because the number one tool God has besides the Holy Spirit to keep you on the straight and narrow are fellow believers.
31:35: And if you are too arrogant to see that, and you think your spiritual relationship with God is between you and God, good luck with that.
31:44: Because the same arrogance that's destroying you now is the same arrogance you're going to die with. Humble yourself, confess your faults one to another that you may be healed.
31:53: That ain't no Baptist saying, that's a Bible saying. If you need someone to help hold you accountable, that's what we do.
32:01: I got five groups of people constantly just wearing me out about it. Just nag the fire out of me about it.
32:11: But that's why I am where I'm at. Number three, if you're 89 years old and realize that you've never been baptized after you were a
32:21: Christian, you need to get baptized. Getting sprinkled on when you're a kid, that ain't scriptural.
32:28: And if you grew up Catholic or Presbyterian or whatever, I'm sorry, they're wrong. Baptism is by faith in obedience to God's Word.
32:40: And it can only happen after you're a believer. Guys, if you need to get that right, we're here to help you do that.
32:47: Wherever you are today, maybe you just need prayer, maybe you just need encouragement, I encourage you to hear
32:53: God's Word today and be changed by His Word. I'm going to ask you to stand before we take the
32:59: Lord's Supper. And if God has spoken to you, you need some help, you need some counsel, you need some advice,
33:05: I want you to come down here and let someone help you. You come this morning as God leads.
33:11: You may be seated. I feel like having a chew and a whiskey now or something.
33:21: I don't know. Oh, Lord. That was good, guys.
33:27: Appreciate that. We're going to be in part four of our study in the life of David.
33:34: And the first takeaway I would have you to remember is that this is not a Bible story.
33:41: This is both scripturally and archaeologically and historically validated.
33:49: Now for those of you little millennials that have daddy issues and you're too insecure and couldn't make the football team,
33:56: I understand that you have doubts. I get it. But they're not based upon any reality in any academic study.
34:05: They're based on a presupposition of your denial because of your rebellion of the authority of Almighty God.
34:12: This is a beautiful thing. The Word of God is not Shakespearean.
34:17: The protagonist is not perfect. The antagonist is not always evil.
34:24: It is absolute beauty that we can have an example like King David from all of your little
34:31: Sunday school lessons. You know, he was usually a little white kid with brown curly hair, which is not found anywhere in Scripture, but whatever.
34:39: And he's killing little David. He's killing little Goliath with a little stone.
34:45: Then he's like this great hero. If you read Scripture, David was a yutz.
34:51: David was a militant, self -just, focused individual who constantly ran away from God and had to constantly repent and come back.
35:02: We just looked at last week where he was butchering people to get money for a military and political campaign to remove
35:12: Saul because God had said, you're going to be king David. And David thought God needed a little help.
35:19: And so he went on killing and butchering people in the Philistine area to try to gain that momentum.
35:26: We read again where David is a horrible father. Horrible father.
35:32: We're going to read more about that later. But he was an absolute dork when it came to women and kids.
35:39: We read, and I always love, I hear in churches or preachers talking about Michal, his wife.
35:46: She was taken away from David, married to another man. David wins, becomes king, takes her back.
35:52: But in the meantime, he's marrying three other women. And then people go, oh, well, she was just so bitter.
35:58: Well, yeah, she was bitter. You dork. Yeah, she was.
36:04: Now we see David in 2 Samuel 9. We see another instance where David is acquiescing to God in keeping his covenants.
36:17: I want you to understand something real quick. Hannah. Do me a favor, baby. Stand up for a second.
36:23: She loves it when I point her out. I want everyone on this side of the room only from here over,
36:30: I want you to point at Hannah right now. Everybody point. Look, there's Hannah. All right, just keep your hands up.
36:35: And I want everybody on this side of the room to point to Hannah. Okay, this is the
36:40: Old Testament. Everything you read in the Old Testament, no matter what it is, is pointing to Jesus Christ, okay?
36:50: She is not really Jesus, all right? Everything in the New Testament is pointing back to Jesus.
36:58: That's how it's written. Put your hands down. So the Old Testament, everything we read has to do with, hey people, this isn't a religion.
37:07: Hey y 'all, this ain't church. This is My Son, God incarnate, coming to earth to save your wretched soul.
37:15: And the whole Old Testament points to Jesus is coming. Jesus is coming. The whole
37:21: New Testament is Jesus has already come. This is how you're supposed to live.
37:27: So as we read this part of David's life, I want you to keep that in mind and I'm going to give you the allusion, not allusion, but I'm going to allude to the symbiotic relationship that God had through giving examples through the
37:44: Old Testament about Jesus. Read with me 2 Samuel 9 starting in verse 1.
37:53: And David said, this is after he'd been king, this is after he's taken Jerusalem, this is after all of that.
37:59: So he's sitting around and he goes, okay, now what? And he says, is there anyone left of the house of Saul that I may show him kindness for Jonathan's sake?
38:12: Let me explain what's going on. Saul has been killed. He was an evil individual, but Saul's son,
38:20: Jonathan, he and David were best friends about 20 years ago. And they made a covenant with one another.
38:27: You can find this in 1 Samuel 20. They made a covenant and they basically said this.
38:34: Jonathan said, if I die, David, will you take care of my family? And David said, and if I die, will you take care of mine?
38:43: And these two young men made a covenant and a promise to take care of each other's descendants.
38:50: It's amazing. Twenty years later, David no longer a teenage boy, now a young man sitting on the throne.
38:59: After everything's said and done, he did exactly opposite of what the secular world said you should do.
39:06: You've got to understand, when there was a regime change in any ancient city or nation, one of the first orders of business to do was to find any blood relation of the king that you just defeated and kill them to death.
39:24: The idea was, if there was no blood relation to claim to the throne, then you would be safe.
39:33: David does the exact opposite here and he asks publicly, is there anyone, because of my covenant with Jonathan, is there anyone
39:44: I can fulfill my promise to? And it turns out there was a kid.
39:49: His name was Mephibosheth. You know he got picked on a lot. Old Mephibosheth was the son of Jonathan.
39:59: It was Saul's grandson. Now what had happened though, years earlier when he was a young man, he was a baby, his nursemaid was carrying around and they came in and they said, hey,
40:12: Saul's dead. All of his sons are dead. And the nursemaid was so brokenhearted she started crying and getting hysterical and she accidentally dropped old
40:23: Mephibosheth. And he became paralyzed from the waist down.
40:29: He was a cripple. Guys, one of the most beautiful things about our
40:36: Lord is this, is that we are brought near to God, but we have to first understand that we were separated from God by the wickedness of our past.
40:50: For some of you in here that are Christians but you haven't been educated properly in Scripture, that word is imputation.
40:58: And it means that from conception, we are damned already because we come from corruption from the
41:07: Adamic sin. That's why Jesus had no earthly father. The line of sin translates from father to child all the way down.
41:17: You cannot get perfection from corruption. We too are the same.
41:23: Every single child born, little Addison, wherever she is, cutest little, oh my gosh,
41:30: I want to kiss that face off, right? That is a sinful human being separated from God.
41:37: You say, oh, but she has done nothing wrong. That is wrong. She was born from sinful parents.
41:43: Just like Mephibosheth, who has been separated from everything that he knows because of the evil that his grandfather had did.
41:54: Also understand this. We are lame in our abilities to draw close to God.
42:01: Let me explain this to you. And once again, some of you have a false sense of security because you prayed some silly prayer when you were a kid or a teenager at a youth camp and you think you're a
42:14: Christian. You think because you belong to a church somewhere. Or you have this idea that there's a
42:21: God. You're a Christian. I've heard people say all the time, well,
42:27: I found Jesus. According to Scripture, you were already dead in your trespasses and sin.
42:33: You didn't find anything. God found you. You are lame and incapable of bringing yourself to the throne of God.
42:43: And I know that people struggle with this. I get it. I understand that your good life, your moral and cultural perfection thinks in your brain, well,
42:54: I don't beat up old women. You know, I don't do crack cocaine. I'm a really kind of good guy.
43:01: You are an utterly crippled, godless heathen, incapable of meriting anything of yourself in redemption back to Jesus Christ.
43:11: You have nothing to offer. Nothing. Nothing. You were born in sin.
43:17: And you've gotten worse ever since. You see, we have been separated from God because of that sin.
43:24: And we are incapable of gaining it back because we are spiritual cripples.
43:32: Also understand this. Verse 4, read with me. The king David said to him, where is he?
43:38: And Zilba said to the king, he is in the house of Mekir, the son of Amiel at Lodabar.
43:43: You know what's amazing? I have been saved now. I was converted 33 years ago.
43:51: You know what my spiritual life looks like? I'm going to be honest with you. It looks like this. It's like up, down, up, down, up, down, up.
43:58: Now I know some of you more mature, godlier people in this room, you know, if you go to Bellevue or whatever,
44:04: I know you're like up here, okay? But just being real for me, mine goes like this.
44:10: And then sometimes it's like this. And then sometimes it's like this. Do you all know what
44:16: I'm talking about? Okay, so not everybody in here is Baptist. That's good. Guys, that's what
44:23: I feel like. And here's what's really stinky. I could not help the imputation of that Adamic sin into my life.
44:32: I couldn't help it. But I can help what I do with God's grace in my life now. And I'm going to be honest with you, just like David, just like everybody else found in Scripture, save Jesus, just like everybody else found there, my life is like a roller coaster.
44:48: It just is. You know? Now I don't struggle with the same things I used to struggle with 30 years ago.
44:55: I'm not looking up www .hotdeacons .com anymore, you know?
45:02: I don't know, Tim in that wheelchair, just something's smoking hot about that. I don't struggle with those things anymore.
45:10: But I still struggle with things. Guys, just like Mephibosheth, I'm dependent on something else.
45:17: And I have been separated, but some of it is by my own choice. You see, old Mephibosheth, he could have gone to Jerusalem himself.
45:26: He could have said, look, this is where I'm at. Okay? This is where I'm at. I am the grandson of Saul.
45:33: I am the son of Jonathan. And though it may cost me my life, I choose to identify who
45:39: I am and where I am. Christian, how are you doing in that identification? In your job?
45:45: Men, do you sit there and you tell the jokes about the chick at work? See, you're choosing.
45:53: You're choosing to do what's right. Women, yes, I'm a sexist pig. Y 'all stay with me. Women, do you gossip?
46:00: Do you run that mouth? Do you sit there and tear people down? Do you sit there and judge others?
46:07: Guys, we choose our fate and judgment sometimes. And just like Phib, we're lame, broken, busted, and separated from deliverance.
46:19: But read with me here. Verse 5. It says this, After King David heard that Mephibosheth was in Lodabar, he said in verse 5, the very next verse, that King David sent and brought him from the house of Mechir, the son of Amuel, at Lodabar.
46:40: I'm not a great orator or a great storyteller. But man, this is what
46:47: I see. In my head, I can see a guy who knows that he's crippled.
46:54: He's sitting in Lodabar, which was kind of like Millington, you know, or Nutbush.
47:00: That was a Millington cop that got up and spoke earlier, so you know what Millington standards are.
47:06: So, he was kind of over there, you know, busted, broken, didn't have much.
47:12: And he's sitting there and he's expecting nothing. Because he knows he deserves nothing.
47:19: He has nothing. And then God said to Jesus, go get my boy.
47:28: You know that Jeff Shipley kid who's nothing? Who's a bum? Who deserves nothing but hell?
47:35: Who is an absolute pathetic disgrace to what even holiness looks like? Jesus, would you go pick him up?
47:44: Jesus came over and hit that hill of Calvary, stretched out His arms and said, it is finished.
47:51: And when He rose again from the grave, He said, Jeff, you are one of My born that will follow after My likeness.
47:58: Guys, do you understand what's so beautiful about grace? It's not just grace that saves you.
48:06: It's grace that sustains you in life. But the most beautiful part about grace is one day, it's going to carry me home.
48:14: And it doesn't matter my failures. It doesn't matter my value or worth in the eyes of religion or the eyes of man, for the price that was paid for me was grace by the blood of Jesus Christ.
48:27: God sat there and said, go pick him up. Therein is grace. Now look at this other thing.
48:34: Verse 7. I didn't become a
48:40: Christian until later in life. I got brought up Catholic, but we only went to church once a year.
48:47: So it's not even fair to say I was Catholic. But I remember in my brain, this was how
48:54: I pictured the whole God -heaven thing. I pictured one day that I would go and stand before God.
49:02: You know, after I went through St. Peter and the pearly gates. There's no St. Peter's gates. That's all made up.
49:08: But anyways, I went and stood before God. And God would sit there and He would go, alright boy, you think you're worthy to come up in here?
49:18: Let me show you what you did your entire life. And there'd be some 8mm projector.
49:24: Notice how old I am. An 8mm projector there. And there'd be a big screen where everyone would see all the bad things
49:33: I'd done. Even them things I really don't want people to see. You know what I'm saying? Okay, well maybe none of y 'all did, but I got some private sins that are just a little bit embarrassing.
49:45: Golly, man. There was this one time with high heels and this dress. Never mind. But anyways, there's this big screen.
49:53: And it starts playing everything that I've done. And I'm already sitting there going, look at that loser, you know?
50:00: Everybody's making fun of me. And I picture God sitting up there going, mm -mm, mm -mm, mm -mm.
50:08: Boy, you are so dumb. You couldn't pour water out of a boot if the directions were on the heel. You are absolutely worthless.
50:15: You would tear up a steel ball with a rubber hammer. Son, the best part of you, because those are all the things my dad told me.
50:24: Yeah? And that's how I pictured it. And then God would say something like this, why should
50:30: I let you into heaven? Have any of y 'all ever felt that way before? Oh, and then here's the really even stinkier part.
50:38: Then you get to go to heaven, they put a little makeup, rosy cheeks on you with little angel wings and a halo, a white robe, and you've got to stand and sing for the rest of eternity.
50:50: Personally, I'm going to be at a deer camp with Artie, you know? I don't know what the rest of you nerds are going to do, but that ain't heaven for me, okay?
50:57: And if you hear me sing, it ain't heaven for you. Okay? Here's some good news.
51:04: None of what I just said, listen, appears anywhere in Scripture. That is all man -made religion bull crap.
51:13: None of it's in Scripture. At all. None of it. You know why we make stuff up like that?
51:20: Why religion does? For two reasons. Number one, for a sense of control. But here's the other thing. We really don't understand grace.
51:28: We can't comprehend that we receive adoption into the kingdom of God through nothing of our own merits.
51:36: We feel like we've got to put something on the table. We've got to bring something to this equation.
51:42: We ain't got nothing. And we never will. David said, bring him to me.
51:48: And when he got there, look. He said to him, verse 6,
51:53: And Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan, son of Saul, came to David and fell on his face and paid homage.
52:00: Verse 8, And he paid homage and said, What is your servant that you should show regard for a dead dog such as I?
52:10: Guys, you want to have a good mental picture of God? And I know some of y 'all, you know, you can only imagine way too many times you've listened to that song, you know.
52:20: I can only imagine when that day will come. And all that other, it's just syrupy.
52:27: I got to take insulin when I hear that song. And it's not scriptural. You don't have to imagine.
52:34: The Word of God tells us what's going to happen. You don't have to go running to Jesus because Jesus done picked you up.
52:40: You ain't got to do nothing because just like in your life now, you didn't do nothing to get there, you didn't do nothing to stay there, and you didn't do nothing to go to heaven.
52:49: God has done it all. And when you die and you stand before Him, the same grace that saved your life is going to be even more perfect and more powerful at that moment.
53:01: The only thing that will change is you will finally understand that you got there by nothing else other than His love.
53:09: Guys, if you come to a place in your life now where you realize you want to be able to praise
53:14: God more, do two things. Recognize how holy and separate He is.
53:20: And number two, recognize that in that holiness His grace bids you to come to Him. It tells you, come.
53:26: Well, you know, pastor, I haven't prayed in three years. The same voice that saved you is the same voice that's still telling you to come.
53:34: I keep falling asleep every time I pray. I promise never to do that sin again and then I'm back doing it again.
53:41: That ambition of God is to bring you to heaven. And it is only through your failures of misunderstanding what grace really is that you think your sin is more powerful than the grace of Almighty God.
53:52: It's not ever going to be. Man, that's so beautiful. And here's something else, especially for you church folk that are bitter.
54:01: Have you ever met one of them church Christians? They're just angry at everything.
54:10: I just like slapping them. I mean, it's just like, go to Bellevue. Go somewhere else besides here because one of my jobs is to protect the culture here.
54:21: Which means that if you are breathing, you are welcome here. Now, we don't serve
54:27: Bud Light here and Target ain't ever going to be a place I shop. But I don't care who or what you are.
54:34: I don't care who or what you are. You are welcome in this place. Now, you might not be welcome to be a member, but you're welcome up in here.
54:43: We'll feed you. We'll preach to you. We'll love you. And we'll probably tell you what you're doing is wrong. But here's the most beautifulest part.
54:55: One of the things before David sent for Mephibosheth, David knew everything that he had done, was doing, and would ever do.
55:08: Guys, do you really think that the sin of your present... You know, we ask
55:14: Jesus Christ our heart and may our Lord and Savior. It's like our sin in the past is forgiven, but from here on out, buddy, you know,
55:24: God's up there and he's going to be like, oh, no, really, again? Where's the omniscience and sovereignty?
55:31: Where's the immutability of God? Where is the idea that God didn't just see you saved back then?
55:37: He saw you saved, like your 80 years in your life is such a stretch for an infinite, awesome, omniscient
55:44: God. He already knows how stupid you are. There ain't no red alert button up there and panic going because you watch porn again, okay?
55:55: Man, I saw some people pucker at that one. Right?
56:01: All right, listen, listen. Understand that we are
56:06: Mephibosheth. Understand that God's still calling us back. And understand it's not just where we were in our incapability, it's what
56:15: God's grace brought us. Now, watch this. Watch what David says to him. When he says,
56:21: I ain't nothing but a dog, run down to me, verse 11. Verse 11 and 12. Then Ziba, that was a servant who went and got
56:29: Ophib. Then Ziba said to the king, according to all that my lord and king commands, your servant will do.
56:37: So Mephibosheth ate at David's table like one of the king's son. And Mephibosheth had a young son whose name was
56:44: Micah. And all who lived in Ziba's house became Mephibosheth's servants. So Mephibosheth lived in Jerusalem for he ate always at the king's table.
56:54: Now he was lame in both his feet. Let me just close with this. We're going to have an invitation time.
57:02: Before we do the Lord's Supper, you need to get right with God. But before we close up with the sermon, listen.
57:11: Do you know what it's like to be a part of something? Some of you peoples in this room wear certain clothes to be accepted by a certain thing.
57:25: Some of you people talk and act a certain way so you will know acceptance. Some of you are destroying your families and destroying your lives to live out a personification that you think brings you security, but it never stifles the insecurity of your soul.
57:44: Can I just suggest this to you? Let go. Let go.
57:50: Some of you all are so scared. You know that you're not a Christian. You know you're not.
57:57: But you're so scared to let go. You're so scared of the veneer that you have covered your life with for so long.
58:06: You are so scared that you think you're going to be rejected. And you think you're not worthy of God's grace.
58:16: Look what David did. Here's this crippled, good for nothing, knows that this guy is never going to be anything that David could ever need or want.
58:26: I mean, what's this crippled guy going to do? Cripples are useless. I've got two of them here in the church. They don't do nothing, you know.
58:36: Actually, our two cripples work more than most other people. Definitely better than most pastors I know.
58:41: But anyways, here he is. And this is what David said.
58:47: My servant is now your servant. Now watch what David did. All the lands that belong to your grandfather, the king,
58:58: I'm giving them back to you. And all of the servants that belong will work that land and you will get the proceeds.
59:07: You don't have to do nothing. And you're going to not just be taken care of at your house, you're going to live here at my house.
59:15: And you will eat at the king's table. And look what it says. Like one of my sons.
59:22: You know, imputation stinks until you get to Jesus Christ. You see, the righteousness of Christ in the vacuum left by the removal of that Adamic sin by the blood of Christ, in that vacuum, the righteousness of Christ was replaced in us.
59:37: Romans chapter 5 if you want to study it. And in that imputed grace of God Almighty in the identity, we were adopted as sons of God.
59:48: For you feminists out there, anthropois, it means mankind. So relax and take a break and take an
59:55: Adderall. So the idea that God says, I will make you one of my children.
01:00:03: Man. You know, I got five kids and except for my daughter, they're just stupid.
01:00:12: You know? They just are. You know what I did this weekend?
01:00:17: I patched holes in the wall. Upstairs. Because the last one finally moved out. And I go upstairs and I've got to rip the carpet out, man.
01:00:27: Because I had four teenage boys living in one room and it stinketh. There are holes in the wall.
01:00:35: There's a knife hole in the wall. It looks like someone's head went through a wall. And I'm sitting there at 55 years old.
01:00:43: I mean, here's what my boys did. See you, dad. And gone. I haven't seen Jeff in weeks.
01:00:48: I don't even know if he's still around. Are him and Taylor still married? I don't know. I haven't seen my grandchildren in months.
01:01:01: I'm rebuilding it, man. And I'm going to make it the cousin's club. This big room.
01:01:07: That's what I'm going to make it. The cousin's club. I'm sitting here repairing all this stuff and working hard. And you know what's awesome about it?
01:01:16: Is I didn't have none of that growing up. I ain't had none of that growing up.
01:01:23: And I ain't saying that to sound like some hard luck story. I'm vicariously reliving what it's like to be accepted and loved.
01:01:30: I tell my sons all the time, don't say my house anymore. This is our house.
01:01:36: Yeah, you have your home at Heathcliff or wherever you live. But this will always be your house.
01:01:42: This will always be the house of your children. And your children's children as long as it's here.
01:01:47: You know why? Because you are part of a family. And that family does not stop because of a marriage.
01:01:55: Children, listen. If you're a child of God, you have not a place just at God's table.
01:02:01: You have a place reserved for you at God's table. And the reason you have that is because of the grace of God.
01:02:07: Now notice those last words. After all the stuff that David gave Mephibosheth, look how it closes out.
01:02:15: And he was lame in both feet. Where's the Shakespearean climax here, man?
01:02:23: Where is the... And they all lived happily ever after. Well, they didn't.
01:02:28: I'm going to tell you why. Because Mephibosheth screwed Dave over. Screwed him over a couple of years later.
01:02:34: He did. And David forgave him. David is about to mess up big time.
01:02:40: God forgave him. You know what that tells me? Guys, I am saved, but I am still crippled in this world.
01:02:50: I have got the Holy Spirit of God dwelling inside of me, but I still struggle. I'm a license -ordained senior pastor.
01:02:57: You know what that means? Not Jack. The same struggles you've got are the same struggles I've got.
01:03:03: And I'm just like you. But here's what also that means. The same grace and power, the same
01:03:09: Spirit that God gives me, that gives me the confidence, the same grace and Spirit that God can give you. All you've got to do is be willing to receive it.
01:03:18: We're going to have an invitation, and you peoples that are doing the singing and pastors, y 'all come up here. Listen to me.
01:03:24: And I just close with this. Listen to me, please. Forget sermon.
01:03:30: Forget church service. Forget all of that religious garbage. Okay? If you were to drop dead right now, where would you go?
01:03:43: Where would you go? I ain't asking you to join no Baptist church. If I never see you again,
01:03:50: I know this sounds... I don't care. Okay? I don't. I've got things to do.
01:03:55: But I do care. I do care whether you go to heaven or hell. If you're visiting with us today, and you're one of them peoples that prayed
01:04:05: Jesus in your heart 30 years ago, but your life looks like an absolute train wreck and nothing changed, you might want to check on that.
01:04:13: Not according to my standard, but according to the Word of God. If any man says he... What we just read.
01:04:18: If any man says he has no sin, he is a liar and the truth is not in him. If any man claims to know the truth, yet continues to walk in darkness, he is a liar.
01:04:27: Where are you? Number two. If you don't have a church home and church people all up in your business, you are never going to know the spiritual maturity that God is trying to give you.
01:04:39: Because the number one tool God has besides the Holy Spirit to keep you on the straight and narrow are fellow believers.
01:04:46: And if you are too arrogant to see that, and you think your spiritual relationship with God is between you and God, good luck with that.
01:04:55: Because the same arrogance that's destroying you now is the same arrogance you're going to die with. Humble yourself.
01:05:01: Confess your faults one to another that you may be healed. That ain't no Baptist saying. That's a Bible saying.
01:05:08: If you need someone to help hold you accountable, that's what we do. I got five groups of people constantly just wearing me out about it.
01:05:17: Just nag the fire out of me about it. But that's why
01:05:24: I am where I'm at. Number three. If you're 89 years old and realize that you've never been baptized after you were a
01:05:32: Christian, you need to get baptized. Getting sprinkled on when you're a kid, that ain't scriptural.
01:05:39: And if you grew up Catholic or Presbyterian or whatever, I'm sorry, they're wrong. Baptism is by faith in obedience to God's Word.
01:05:51: And it can only happen after you're a believer. Guys, if you need to get that right, we're here to help you do that.
01:05:58: Wherever you are today, maybe you just need prayer, maybe you just need encouragement, I encourage you to hear
01:06:04: God's Word today and be changed by His Word. I'm going to ask you to stand before we take the
01:06:10: Lord's Supper. And if God has spoken to you, you need some help, you need some counsel, you need some advice,
01:06:16: I want you to come down here and let someone help you. You come this morning as God leads.