Sunday Morning Sermon Series - The Dysfunctional Family - Bonus Round

Now, I want you to pay attention. It wasn't anything in Israel. It wasn't their military styles.

It wasn't the type of people. The guy who praises God, turn with me if you will to 2 Samuel chapter 9.

And that's mainly where we're going to be today, 2 Samuel chapter 9.

We had just done, 7 week or 6 week, we've just finished a 6 week sermon series on grace over the dysfunctional family.

And I had several folks come to me and say, man I wish you would keep going with that.

But the reality is, everything in scripture is about grace over dysfunction.

It really is. And every one of us in here needs to be reminded about how

God's holy, beautiful grace can not only seal your destiny in heaven, but it can change your life right here on earth.

We got half our church out right now. Bunny, you did a great job as the second string.

Miss Carla's not here, and drummer's not here, but Bunny you did a great job. Where are you Bunny? Oh there's

Miss Carla! What are you doing back there? Ah, you're going to change it up a little bit.

Well that's alright, that's alright. Got to feed the second string every once in a while. Get them some PT. Guys, this is a rough

Sunday today, ain't it? A little bit. I remember when

John and his family came here. You know, Katie was, I don't know, something like this.

And John came here and he was a clueless, ignorant

Methodist. Which is kind of redundant, I know, but he was absolutely clueless.

And man, he got it together, joined our MIT program, was licensed and ordained, and has now been pastoring a church for the last, what, five years.

And tragedy hits, and I'm on the phone with him this morning, and he's blubbering and crying, and then he says this.

He says, God is in control. Man. Is that just, as Nietzsche or some of the other philosophers of the world, is that just false hope based upon a religious conditioning?

Or is that something that is actually real? That's not a rhetorical question,

Farley. What do you think? How do you people know that? It's called that.

What did you say over there? Huh. Would you know anything about tragedy?

She lost her son in an automobile accident a couple, three years ago.

I know some of y 'all are sitting there going, oh God, that just made things awkward. See, you're part of the problem.

See, you're part of the problem. You have been inundated with religious and cultural conditioning so much that tragedy is seen as nothing more of tragedy.

Try to stay away. Whether to embrace that with the grace of God, it gives strength, and it gives confidence, and it gives witness and glory to God Almighty.

See, we try to act like we don't need exhaust fans in our bathroom.

We try to act like we got it all together. But, you see, we can't glorify

God. The greatest glory God gets is in the midst of our depravity, in the midst of our pain, and then we still, through the power of the

Holy Spirit, can rise up and say, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come.

The world can't comprehend that hope. The world's never going to understand that hope.

In fact, the world doesn't even comprehend the idea of what that is.

How do we have that this morning? Well, here's some good news.

How many of you in here are super Christians? How many of you are here?

Now, I know all the deacons are. I get that. I know all the deacons are. But, shh, you'll embarrass yourself.

How many of you are super Christians? Guys, you know how many folks get frustrated and they'll come up with plausible reasons to quit fellowshipping with the church?

They'll come up with plausible reasons for disengaging with the Spirit because what they do is they come to a point where they try and try again and keep failing because they feel like there's some sort of plateau that needs to be reached before they can be accepted by God.

Do you all understand that concept? Are you all with me on that? There are people who are going to split the gates of hell wide open because they're trying to get religion before they find grace.

I've known people like this. It's like you want to take a bathtub to get cleaned up before you get in the shower so you won't be so dirty when you get there.

And then we come to a place where we make these religious emotional decisions or we make these religious ideals or these standards in which we have to meet and we never can meet them then all we end up doing is beating ourselves up.

Isn't that just stupid? Hey, let's do something different, shall we? Let's stop listening to the wisdom of men and let's start listening to the

Word of God. Now remember, everything in the Old Testament is a foreshadowing.

What's a foreshadowing mean? Somebody tell me. It's showing or explaining what's to come.

What did you say? A precursor. That's good. Very good, Cliff. Guys, Mississippi Redneck gets it.

All of you should get it, okay? I mean, if white trash can't understand this, anyone can.

All right, so now listen. Listen. We have everything in the Old Testament pointing and describing the grace of God through Jesus Christ our

Lord. Look with me in 1 Samuel. I know I told you 2 Samuel, but I wrote it down for you.

You don't even have to turn your Bibles there. If you look at the top of that page there, in 1

Samuel chapter 20, let me explain a little bit about what's going on. Now, I'm not telling you, for those of you that are visiting or those of you that are, you know, you're one of them millennial spiritual people, i .e.

an idiot. Let me explain what's going on to you if I can, all right? David, he's not the wittle guy who killed

Goliath with the walk, okay? That is one thing that happened in his life. David is a foreshadowing of who

Jesus Christ really is. David's bloodline is going to be the bloodline from whom

Jesus Christ is incarnate. He is incarnate through the bloodline of Judah, the tribe of Judah.

But before we get all carried away into that, I want to tell you about a guy named Saul. He was king of Israel.

And David killed Goliath. And everybody was talking about how awesome David was. And Saul got jealous of David.

So God said, you know what? David's going to be king of Israel. But he's not going to come to the throne yet.

He's got a little learning to do. And so here's what Saul did. Saul went around trying to kill

David. He would run around and tell him one day, Man, I love you so much.

I love you so much, David. The next day he'd try to stab him in the heart. Kind of reminds me of menopause.

But that's another subject, another subject. That wasn't politically correct, was it?

Sorry. I feel bad. No, that's gas. No, I'm good. All right. So he tried to kill him.

Well, Saul's son Jonathan loved David. And he loved David because he loved

David. He didn't love David to get anything from him. He didn't love David. He just loved, in holy love, his friend

David. And David and Jonathan made a covenant with each other. And they said this.

They said no matter what happens, whether my dad tries to kill you, if I die, if no matter what happens, whoever is left,

David, you will take care of my family forever or I will take care of your family forever.

That's the way it's going to be. And David and Jonathan said I love you, gave each other a hug and kiss, and went their separate ways.

And they never saw each other again. Never saw each other again. They made a covenant with each other.

Now, I want you to understand something about God's grace this morning. God's grace is a covenant, an unconditional covenant.

There are two types of covenant in Scripture, conditional and unconditional. Conditional is something like this.

If my people who are called by my name will hate homosexuals and talk about how bad tattoos and smoking are and say

God bless America and salute the flag, then I'm going to bless America. It doesn't say that, does it?

It says this. If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves, not everybody else, will humble themselves, turn from their sin, hear,

I will hear their prayers, and then I will heal their land. You know? You know, if we can just get rid of them liberal

Democrats, everything's going to be okay. Gosh gee, it'll be Leave it to Beaver again.

Guys, that ain't the solution, man. It ain't Republicans and it ain't Democrats. If God's people in this place will humble themselves and clean up their act, then

God said I will heal. But anyways, that is a conditional covenant.

If you do this, I will do this. Got some good news for you today. Your salvation is not a conditional covenant.

Your salvation is not conditional. It is unconditional. It is an unconditional covenant, okay?

And that is what we need to see in understanding how David is a forerunner or a foreshadowing of Jesus Christ.

In 1 Samuel 20, they made an unconditional covenant. Now guys, why do we need our salvation to be unconditional?

Huh? We're wretched. We're wretched. Guys, Jonathan had a son.

Jonathan was killed in battle, by the way. David becomes king. He's sitting, and you can turn now to 2

Samuel 9. He's sitting in the palace. The Ark of the Covenant's there. He's whooped everybody around.

He is the big man on campus. And in 2 Samuel 9 verse 1, it simply says this.

It says, Is there anyone of the house of Saul, i .e.

Jonathan, that I can show kindness for for Jonathan's sake? Read with me. It's chapter 9 verse 1.

David asks, Is there anyone remaining from Saul's family I can show kindness to because of Jonathan?

So in other words, David is now on top, and he remembers the covenant he made with Jonathan.

And he asks, Is there anyone left? And the question is answered here in verse 3.

It says, So the king asked, Is there anyone left from Saul's family I can show kindness of God to? Ziba said to the king,

There is still Jonathan's son who was injured in both feet. If you go back, the nursemaid who was carrying this kid named

Mephibosheth, he got picked on a lot in school, this kid named Mephibosheth, she was running and dropped him, and he was paralyzed from the waist down.

This was Jonathan's grandson. And so now David, who is the king, is saying,

Is there anyone I can show grace to? Why do we need it to be an unconditional covenant?

It's because of this. We are paralyzed and wretched without Christ. Guys, I want you to understand this today.

Listen to me. Some of you folks have tried religion. Listen. Some of you have walked down an aisle, and you've prayed

Jesus Christ in your heart as your Lord and Savior, and nothing has changed. Let me tell you why.

Because you're not a Christian. Okay? Wrap your head around that if you've got to. But you're not a

Christian. Okay? Guys, there is no prayer in Scripture to get saved.

Does not exist. You see, you walked down an aisle, and you did what religion told you to do instead of what

Scripture said you should do. You cannot come to Jesus on your own.

You are dead in your sins. You are without hope.

I know a lot of people, I know this makes some of you feel, I see some of your rear ends growing legs and walking on the chair.

Stay with me. All right? I'm trying to get you to stop taking the blue pill and come to the reality of what

Scripture says. Okay? This isn't holly hobby Jesus. All right? This is really what the

Word of God says. It says that you are incapable of finding Jesus Christ.

You cannot find Him. He has to find you. You see, you're lame.

You're crippled. Look, it's Tim back there. He's a cripple in a wheelchair. Tim, run on up here, buddy.

Come on, Tim. It's not going to happen. Jake, spread your legs out on the ground and run up here.

Jake's got two little nubs. It doesn't matter how much he wants it,

Jake's never going to run up here. Guys, you have to understand that because of your sin, you cannot earn your way to God.

You cannot be religious enough. You cannot be holy enough. You cannot be perfect enough to find salvation.

Now, someone says, yes, there's a guy named Mephibosheth. We're going to call him Phib for short.

Old Phib. Yeah, we found old Phib. It's Jonathan's grandson. And this is what David says.

Well, go get him and bring him here. So we're actually seeing...

Now, David, militarily, military and politically, what should

David be doing with Mephibosheth? Kill him. Every other king in the world, if he comes up any of the bloodline of the past dynasty, we've got to kill them to death.

It's the only common sense thing to do, you know? David doesn't do that.

David has a covenant. Now, Mephibosheth is sitting there and he has nothing.

He has no way to make a living. He's basically going to slowly starve to death. All of a sudden, he's sitting there and he hears...

I wish I had coconuts, but never mind.

Some of you older folks don't get it. Our younger folks don't get it. But anyways, he hears horses coming.

All of a sudden, king's banner is flying from a spear, and here comes a squadron of cavalry bearing the royal household flag of David.

Mephibosheth doesn't go, oh, I wonder what the king wants. You know what he's doing? He's crawling for the nearest hole.

He is going to crawl under the bed because he knows he's fixing to get killed to death.

The soldiers see him and they say, hey, are you Mephibosheth? He's like, yes.

They say, come with us. The king wants to see you. Oh, I bet the king wants to see me. They load him up in a chariot, carry him back to the king.

Mephibosheth comes and they plop him down there in front of the king, and he's like, oh

God, here it comes. David says, hey, who are you?

I'm Mephibosheth. I'm going to show you kindness because of your father.

Because of your father's father. Here's what I'm going to do. From now on, you're my son.

You're going to eat at my table. You will never have need again, but it's more than that.

I'm going to restore back to you everything that originally belonged to your family.

All of the lands, the houses, the servants, the cattle, all of it is now yours again.

And from now until the day you die, you are going to be a member of the king's household.

Grace and salvation. I don't know what is. Kids, boys and girls, put away the

ABCs. Put away the Roman's Road. Put away FAITH and GROW and all these other stupid acronyms we come up with to try to explain salvation.

Salvation is basically this. You don't deserve it. You can't earn it. God loves you enough to give it to you anyways.

That is grace. That is grace. The minute you think you can work at it, the minute you think you can earn it, it no longer is grace anymore.

Grace is God's riches at Christ's expense. You know how many people actually believe that getting in this bathtub washes their sin away?

Dude, it's the same water out of my bathroom. It comes out of my hot water. It ain't holy. It's just water.

It can't wash away anything all but the blood of Jesus Christ. When it touched that cross, when it was spilt, it was spilt for me.

And that one drop of Jesus' blood is enough to wash all my sins away.

You may be sitting in this room today lame. Religion may have harmed you. If you're one of those people that have a war story about how you were wounded in church or some other dramatic garbage to try to explain away your rebellion against the

Holy God, today is the day that it needs to die. I've heard them all, guys. Oh, you don't know what happened to me.

I don't have to know what happened to you. I know what Jesus Christ has done. And the hope and peace that you need is not going to be found in you continuing to live your drama, wounded lifestyle.

It's going to be found in you submitting to the holiness and grace of Almighty God. Now listen to me.

If you read on down in chapter 9, if you read on down in chapter 9 and I wrote it out for you, go down there to verse 12, 13, and 14.

It says this, Mephibosheth ate at David's table like one of the king's sons.

Amen. Mephibosheth had a young son whose name was Micah.

All those living in Ziba's house were Mephibosheth's servants. However, Mephibosheth lived in Jerusalem because he always ate at the king's table and his feet had been injured.

I always thought that was a weird literary ending. You know? It doesn't...

You know what I mean? And they wrote off and lived happily ever after. Shrek and Fiona, you know.

He forever ate at the king's table. It was so beautiful. Dogs were sleeping with cats.

It was beautiful. Everybody loved each other. Israeli and Palestinians were going, oy!

Right? I mean, it was wonderful. Oh, but by the way, he was laying still in both feet. That's kind of a downer, you know?

You know what's really cool? I can do nothing to earn my salvation.