“True to Your Word” – FBC Morning Light (4/19/2024)

Well, a good Friday morning to you. Looking forward to another weekend and gathering on the Lord's Day. Hope you're planning to do that this week and enjoy the blessings of fellowship with God's people and worshiping gathered together with his people.

Today in our Bible reading we're in 2 Samuel chapters 8 and 9, and then 1 Chronicles 18 and Psalm 60. I want to zero in on 2 Samuel chapter 9 in this very gracious act on the part of David to bring Mephibosheth into his home.

Covenant Loyalty in David and Jonathan

Why did he do this? Well, there's a backstory to it. The chapter begins and says, David says, is there still anyone who is left of the house of Saul that I may show him kindness for Jonathan's sake? Now that word kindness, this is reading in the New King James, is the Hebrew word hesev.

I like the way the ESV handles that word, because it handles it consistently throughout in the translation. The King James and the New King James are less consistent in how they translate. Sometimes it's in the King James or New King James, sometimes it's mercy, sometimes it's kindness, sometimes it's loving kindness, and so forth.

The ESV consistently translates it in a different way. It translates it as communicating the idea of a covenant loyalty, or a steadfast love. A steadfast love. And this is going back to the covenant that David made between him and Jonathan back in 1 Samuel chapter 20.

And David was still, you know, David was in the throes of being sought by Saul, and it wasn't quite fully clear to everybody concerned that Saul wanted to kill David, and Jonathan and David had this little test that they were going to conduct to see whether or not Saul really wanted to kill him.

And then in the course of setting up that test, Jonathan said this, "...you shall not only show me the kindness, or the hesed, the covenant loyalty of the Lord while I still live, that I may not die, but you shall not cut off your hesed from my house forever.

No, not when the Lord has cut off every one of the enemies of David from the face of the earth.". And David said, let that be the case. So be it. And they made a covenant with one another. So basically what David was doing here, entering into a covenant with Jonathan, was promising that when David became the king, he would not annihilate Jonathan's family to secure his own kingdom.

He wasn't going to do that. Instead, he would treat them with grace and kindness and steadfast covenant loyalty in behalf of, for the sake of, Jonathan. So he asked the question in 2 Samuel chapter 9, is there anyone left?

And there was a servant of the house of Saul, his name was Ziba, comes before David, says, is there anyone left? And Saul says yes, or Ziba says yes, there is a son of Jonathan's. He is lame in his feet, and it turns out that that son's name is Mephibosheth.

And Mephibosheth comes to David and ends up being cared for David for the rest of David's kingdom. But here's the thing, this was years later. So we discover earlier on in 2 Samuel, I think it is, that when Jonathan died in battle, that same day that his father Saul died in battle, he had a son named Mephibosheth, who was five years old at the time, and his nursemaid picked him up and ran with him to escape, and he fell, or she fell with carrying him, and he ended up becoming lame in his feet.

And he's been unable to walk ever since, Mephibosheth. Well now, he comes before David, he's brought before David, not as a child. He comes before him as a grown man. How old, we don't exactly know, but this has been several years has passed.

Now here's the point, here's the point I want us to get. David has on his mind, through all these years, I will be loyal to Jonathan. I made a covenant with Jonathan, I will keep my covenant with Jonathan.

And so he wants to find out, is there anybody left in Jonathan's household to whom I can show covenant loyalty? Yes, comes the answer, Mephibosheth. And David says, bring him to me, brings him to him.

And David says, everything that belonged to your father Saul, I give to you, everything that was Jonathan, I give to you, and you're going to sit at my table for the rest of your life. Wow. That's covenant loyalty.

That's being faithful to your word. I take that as a challenge, I trust you do as well, that we need to be faithful in keeping our word. When we make a promise to somebody, we need to follow through with it, and fulfill that promise.

There's some reason that we can't, I mean a legitimate reason that a promise cannot be fulfilled, we need to beg their forgiveness and ask for mercy ourselves. But no, it must be our mindset. I've made a commitment to someone, I made a promise to them, I need to follow through on that.

And I want to encourage us as parents, are there promises that you have made to your children that you have conveniently forgotten about? How about to your spouse? Are there promises you made to your spouse that you've conveniently forgotten about?

How about your marriage vows? That's a covenant that you entered into, being faithful to that covenant. David's a great example, he's a great example in this regard. Be faithful, be faithful in your covenant-keeping.

Prayer for Faithfulness to Our Word

Help us in this, Father. We are sinners in need of a Savior, and those of us who have come to faith in Jesus, even though we're saved, we can find sometimes excuses for not following through on the promises we make.

Deliver us from that kind of mentality. Help us maintain faithfulness to our word, we pray, in Jesus' name, amen. All right, have a good rest of your Friday and a wonderful weekend, and don't forget, gather with God's people on the Lord's Day.

Good day.