“Tales From The Crip”
Text: I Samuel 20:42; II Samuel 4:4, 9:1-13
I. Introduction
This is a very familiar portion of Scripture. You have probably read it and heard it preached on numerous occasions. We have all been exposed to this story as a great story and example of Grace. David, the king, remembers the poor crippled son of Jonathan. Mephibosheth receives undeserved and unmerited favor from the king. The king brings him in and allows him to sit with his crippled legs under the table hiding his crippled condition. It is indeed a great illustration of Grace. This is perhaps the greatest Old Testament account of grace. I have preached about the meanings of names in this story. The names illustrate for us how we get out of the desert or dry place.
Mephibosheth means “Idol Breaker” and when we break the idols in our life it produces “Micha” Mephibosheth’s offspring which means “Godlikeness.” Again this is a great lesson. But this morning I want to deal with a different angle of this account. I don’t really want to deal with the fact that Mephibosheth was crippled because I didn’t come to find out if anyone in this place is crippled. I already know that there are many under the sound of my voice that are living in a crippled condition. I didn’t come to demean your pain or to attempt to condemn your crippled state. What I want to deal with in this account is why Mephibosheth winds up crippled? I want to pose the question “Why did the son of king end up handicapped and broken”? I also want to look at how he dealt with this issue.
II. Prayer
III. 2 Reasons for Handicap
A. He was mishandled
II Samuel 4:4 tells us that when the news came that Saul and Jonathan were dead Mephibosheth’s nanny picked up the young child and began to run. However, in her haste to flee she drops the boy and both legs were injured, broken, crushed and Mephibosheth ends up crippled for life. Get the scene in your mind. This unsuspecting, innocent young boy is minding his own business when he is scooped up and then dropped into brokenness and pain. In other words, Mephibosheth a healthy young man becomes crippled because he is mishandled. The nanny was trying to help but ended up hurting and her clumsiness creates a crippled.
Many of you come from homes, situations, or experiences at school that caused you to arrive on the campus of SCU crippled. Many of you arrived healthy, unsuspecting, minding your own business only to now after 2 months into a semester to find youself walking with a decided limp. The issue is not are you crippled the issue is why? For many of you like Mephibosheth you can testify to being mishandled and it has produced life altering pain and devastation. Maybe it was your mom or your dad. Unkind words, lack of affection or approval and you find yourself broken and crushed. Perhaps a boyfriend, girlfriend, or a best friend has betrayed, broken your heart, and dropped you in haste. Maybe a roommate, a teacher, administration, or an RA in an attempt to help ends up dropping you. They may have not meant to hurt you. They may have been trying to help but you find yourself dropped. You are crushed in spirit, in emotion. You have been used, abused, and now you look in the mirror and you see a crippled. It could have been malicious and on purpose or it may have been done by mistake with good intentions. However, the result is the same. You are in pain. Your life has been wrecked. You are crippled. You are no longer whole but hurt. No longer victorious but a victim. All because you were mishandled.
B. What he was running from caused him to be crippled
However, there is another way to look at this account. Mephibosheth was crippled because he was running from something. Fear caused him to become crippled. If there had been no fear there would have been no fall. You need to understand that what you are running from will cripple you. If there was no bitterness there would be no brokenness. If there was no shame there would be no shattering.
Many of you are crippled right now because you are looking over your shoulder, afraid, hoping no one will find out what you did 2 years ago, 2 months ago, this weekend in the dorms. Your memory, your past is crippling you. You can’t get what you did off of your mind. You can’t forget where you have been. You can’t forget what you took part in. The result is that you are unable to serve, bear fruit. Because you are in escape mode you are overcome with fear, shame, low self-esteem, embarrassment and what you are running from has crippled you. What are you running from this morning? What secret are you afraid of? What is causing you to be crippled?
IV. His response to being crippled
The other thing I want to address and examine is how Mephibosheth responds to being crippled? The only thing that we know is that from the time he was five until he was a grown man and David calls for him to move to Jerusalem is that he dwelled in LoDebar. Now I know that at the age of 5 he had no choice where he lived. But as he grew up and became a man he continues to live in LoDebar. LoDebar means “No Word”, “No Pasture”, or “Barren”. Mephibosheth makes a choice to stay in a dry place. A place where there is no word. I used to just assume that he had no choice. But he did. I used to think maybe he stayed because it was a good hiding place. But there were more remote locations to hide from David. He could have gone to hide in the caves or hills. He could have gone to locations that were much further from David. He was only about 50 miles from him. He chose to stay in the dry place. He allowed his handicap, his condition, his crippled legs to keep him in a place where there was no fruit, life, word.
The truth is that he didn’t live in LoDebar because he had been mishandled or because he was running. The truth is he lived in the dry place because he chose to live there.
I realize that you have been mishandled, hurt, dropped, done wrong, betrayed and I realize that you have been running but where is the rule that says that you have to allow those things to make you stay in the dry place. In fact Jesus encouraged us not to allow that to happen. In Matthew 11:6, he addressed John the Baptist who had been mishandled and hurt he had every reason to move to a dry place. But Jesus said “Blessed is he, who is not offended in me.”
Many of you are in a dry place right now. You are in a place where there is no word. Others may have mishandled you and hurt you. But the truth is you have to make your own decision to live in the dry place. You have to choose to stay there. The problem is that we voluntarily decide to go and stay in LoDebar.
If you are in a dry place spiritually, socially, emotionally today it is time to realize that it isn’t someone else’s fault or someone else’s problem. You have not been forced to go there. You are there because you have allowed yourself to go there. Yes, what happened to you makes you want to shrivel up, curl up, withdraw, and run to a dry place. However, you disqualify yourself from service, fruitfulness because of your condition. I have been hurt. I have been crushed so I will go where I don’t have to serve. I came to tell you you don’t have to go to LoDebar. Crippled yes, but you don’t have to stay where there is no word, no fruit. You have the choice to allow what happened to you to send you to the desert or you can come back to the king, throw down your crutches, and allow him to position you in your place of destiny.
V. Closing
The Word tells us that David sent a messenger to call Mephibosheth out of the dry place. I am here as a messenger today to tell you that in spite of being mishandled, in spite of your desire to run, you don’t have to stay in the dry place with no word. I have been sent to call you out of that hot, dead, place back into fellowship with the king.
Why are you crippled? Did someone drop you? Did someone hurt you? Have you been on the run? Has your past has haunted you? You have allowed these things to send you to the desert. You don’t have to stay there. You can come out today.
a. Feel mishandled and it has crippled you.
b. Running and you want to stop.
c. Chosen to allow the pain to keep you dry.
