Series Introduction:
Middle Eastern people in the Bible, from Abraham to Paul, were as acquainted with covenants as we are with weddings. The Greeks and Romans did not have covenants. In fact, when the Jews translated the OT into Greek, they had to use the Greek word for “will” or “testament” to translate the Hebrew word for covenant. Since our society was shaped by Greek and Roman cultures, we don’t know much about covenants either.
However, as we learn about God and the covenants he made with people like Abraham, I expect us to experience a surge of faith. We will see who God is and what he can do in our lives when we understand covenants more clearly. So, think of areas where you perceive the need for a breakthrough. It could be an attitude or habit in your life, a broken relationship in your circle of loved ones or a problem in the church.
A covenant is a comprehensive agreement between two participants with clearly outlined boundaries and bonds; a mutual understanding between two people that voluntarily bind themselves to each other forever.
1. MEPHIBOSHETH HAD A DEVASTATING LIFE.
His life started in the palace of his grandfather, King Saul. Saul was ancient Israel’s first king. His son, Crown Prince Jonathan, was Mephibosheth’s father. The first five years of his life were fairly happy – even though King Saul was a paranoid egomaniac.
[1 Sam. 31:1-13] Now the Philistines fought against Israel; the Israelites fled before them, and many fell slain on Mount Gilboa. The Philistines pressed hard after Saul and his sons, and they killed his sons Jonathan, Abinadab and Malki-Shua. The fighting grew fierce around Saul, and when the archers overtook him, they wounded him critically.
So Saul and his three sons and his armor-bearer and all his men died together that same day.
The next day, when the Philistines came to strip the dead, they found Saul and his three sons fallen on Mount Gilboa. They cut off his head and stripped off his armor, and they sent messengers throughout the land of the Philistines to proclaim the news in the temple of their idols and among their people. They put his armor in the temple of the Ashtoreths and fastened his body to the wall of Beth Shan.
[2 Sam. 4:4] Jonathan son of Saul had a son…. He was five years old when the news about Saul and Jonathan came from Jezreel. His nurse picked him up and fled, but as she hurried to leave, he fell and became crippled. His name was Mephibosheth.
[2 Sam. 9:4] … He is at the house of Makir … in Lo Debar (means a place with no encouraging words)
Born a prince, dropped and crippled by his nanny, now he lives far from the palace, far from Jerusalem, far from encouraging words, supported by a generous humanitarian – MEPHIBOSHETH HAD A DEVASTATING LIFE.
2. YOU AND I HAVE TROUBLE IN OUR LIVES TOO.
We may not be crippled in our feet but others have crippled us in other ways. Hurtful, abusive statements from parents, brothers and sisters, as well as friends have twisted the way we see ourselves. We believed them when they say, "You can't do anything." We assumed they knew better than us when they said, "You're a loser." We are living in our “Lo Debars” – our places with no encouraging words.
The doctors’ diagnoses and prognoses limit our lives to sickness and we accept it as inevitable. They say words like, “terminal,” “incurable” or “hopeless” and we believe they know more than we do so we go on living in our “Lo Debars” – our places with no encouraging words.
Temptation and the lies of our culture have led us into sins and addictions that enslave us. People say we can by no means transform our lifestyles. “Once an addict always an addict.” “Liars and cheats never tell the truth.” “You will never change.” We hear the condemning words over and over, until we believe them and we go on living in our “Lo Debars” – our places with no encouraging words.
3. DAVID REMEMBERED HIS COVENANT WITH JONATHON AND MEPHIBOSHETH MOVED UP TO THE KING'S TABLE.
[1 Sam. 18:1] After David [killed the giant, Goliath] … Jonathan made a covenant with David…. Jonathan took off the robe he was wearing and gave it to David, along with his tunic, and even his sword, his bow and his belt.
[1 Sam. 20:1-42] [Later] David fled from [King Saul] and went to Jonathan and asked, “What have I done? … How have I wronged your father, that he is trying to kill me?”
“Never!” Jonathan replied. “You are not going to die! Look, my father doesn't do anything, … without confiding in me. Why would he hide this from me?”
But David … said, “Your father knows very well that I have found favor in your eyes, and he has said to himself, ‘Jonathan must not know….’ Yet as surely as the LORD lives and as you live, there is only a step between me and death.”
Jonathan said to David, “Whatever you want me to do, I'll do for you.”
So David said, “Look, tomorrow is the New Moon festival, and I am supposed to dine with the king; but let me go and hide … until the evening of the day after tomorrow. If your father misses me at all, tell him, ‘David … asked my permission to hurry to Bethlehem, … because an annual sacrifice is being made there for his whole clan.’ If he says, ‘Very well,’ then your servant is safe. But if he loses his temper, you can be sure that he is determined to harm me. As for you, show kindness to your servant, for you have brought him into a covenant with you before the LORD. If I am guilty, then kill me yourself! Why hand me over to your father?”
“Never!” Jonathan said. “If I had the least inkling that my father was determined to harm you, wouldn't I tell you?”
David asked, “Who will tell me if your father answers you harshly?”
“Come,” Jonathan said, “let's go out into the field.” So they went there together.
Then Jonathan said to David: “…I will surely sound out my father by this time the day after tomorrow! If he is favorably disposed toward you, [I will] let you know. But if my father is inclined to harm you, may the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if I do not let you know and send you away safely. May the LORD be with you as he has been with my father. But show me unfailing kindness like that of the LORD as long as I live, so that I may not be killed, and do not ever cut off your kindness from my family….”
So Jonathan made a covenant with the house of David, saying, “May the LORD call David's enemies to account.” And Jonathan had David reaffirm his oath out of love for him, because he loved him as he loved himself.
Then Jonathan said to David: “Tomorrow is the New Moon festival. You will be missed, because your seat will be empty. The day after tomorrow, toward evening, go to the place where you hid when this trouble began, and wait by the stone Ezel. I will shoot three arrows to the side of it, as though I were shooting at a target. Then I will send a boy and say, ‘Go, find the arrows.’ If I say to him, ‘Look, the arrows are on this side of you; bring them here,’ then come, because, as surely as the LORD lives, you are safe; there is no danger. But if I say to the boy, ‘Look, the arrows are beyond you,’ then you must go, because the LORD has sent you away. And about the matter you and I discussed — remember, the LORD is witness between you and me forever.”
So David hid in the field, and when the New Moon festival came, the king sat down to eat. …but David's place was empty. Saul said nothing that day, for he thought, “Something must have happened to David to make him ceremonially unclean…. But the next day, … David's place was empty again. Then Saul said to … Jonathan, “Why hasn't [David] come to the meal…?”
Jonathan answered, “David ... asked me for permission to go to Bethlehem. He said, ‘Let me go, because our family is observing a sacrifice in the town and my brother has ordered me to be there….’ That is why he has not come to the king's table.”
Saul's anger flared up at Jonathan and he said to him, “You son of a perverse and rebellious woman! Don't I know that you have sided with the son of Jesse to your own shame and to the shame of the mother who bore you? As long as the son of Jesse lives on this earth, neither you nor your kingdom will be established. Now send and bring him to me, for he must die!”
“Why should he be put to death? What has he done?” Jonathan asked his father. But Saul hurled his spear at him to kill him. Then Jonathan knew that his father intended to kill David.
In the morning Jonathan went out to the field for his meeting with David. He had a small boy with him, and he said to the boy, “Run and find the arrows I shoot.” As the boy ran, he shot an arrow beyond him. …Jonathan called out after him, “Isn't the arrow beyond you?” Then he shouted, “Hurry! Go quickly! Don't stop!” The boy picked up the arrow and returned to his master. … Then Jonathan gave his weapons to the boy and said, “Go, carry them back to town.”
After the boy had gone, David got up from the … side [of the stone] and bowed down before Jonathan three times….
Jonathan said to David, “Go in peace, for we have sworn friendship with each other in the name of the LORD, saying, ‘The LORD is witness between you and me, and between your descendants and my descendants forever.’” Then David left, and Jonathan went back to the town.
[1 Sam. 23:14-18] Day after day Saul searched for him, but God did not give David into his hands.
While David was … in the Desert of Ziph, he learned that Saul had come out to take his life. And Saul's son Jonathan went to David … and helped him find strength in God. “Don't be afraid,” he said. “My father Saul will not lay a hand on you. You will be king over Israel, and I will be second to you. Even my father Saul knows this.” The two of them made a covenant before the LORD. Then Jonathan went home, but David remained….
[2 Sam. 9:1-13] [After Saul and his sons died in battle, David became the king of Israel. A few years later he] asked, “Is there anyone still left of the house of Saul to whom I can show kindness for Jonathan's sake?”
Now there was a servant of Saul's household named Ziba. …
The king asked, “Is there no one still left of the house of Saul to whom I can show God's kindness?”
Ziba answered, “There is still a son of Jonathan; he is crippled in both feet.”
“Where is he?” the king asked.
Ziba answered, “He is at the house of Makir son of Ammiel in Lo Debar.”
So King David had him brought from Lo Debar….
When Mephibosheth son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, came to David, he bowed down to pay him honor.
David said, “Mephibosheth!”
“Your servant,” he replied.
“Don't be afraid,” David said to him, “for I will surely show you kindness for the sake of your father Jonathan. I will restore to you all the land that belonged to your grandfather Saul, and you will always eat at my table.”
So Mephibosheth ate at David's table like one of the king's sons.
And Mephibosheth lived in Jerusalem, because he always ate at the king's table, and he was crippled in both feet.
Born a prince, dropped and crippled by his nanny, now thanks to the covenant between his father and King David, he lives in the palace, in Jerusalem, surrounded by encouraging words, MEPHIBOSHETH ATE AT THE TABLE OF THE KING WHO LOVED HIS FATHER LIKE A BROTHER.
4. WE CAN MOVE UP TO THE KING'S TABLE! [Thesis] WE ARE CHILDREN OF THE KING OF KINGS AND ALL HE POSSESSES BELONGS TO US!
The problem is that we are comfortable in our “Lo Debars.” Moving up to the King’s table frightens us. We fear the unknown; and we don’t know what will happen if we claim more God’s covenant promises. So many of us willingly choose to live in spiritual, emotional, and physical poverty, but we are heirs to a great covenant between God and Abraham.
Let me encourage you to move up to the King's table to enjoy the blessings of God’s covenant. He promises to take your sickness, sorrow, sin & shame and to give you righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. (Romans 14:7)
Will you trade your hurtful, abusive thoughts twisting the way you see yourself for the Lord's truth?
• Will you trade and keep on trading the idea that "You can't do anything" for God’s promise that says, "I can do all things through Christ"? (Phil. 4:13)
• Will you trade and keep on trading the thought that "You're a loser" for God’s promise that says, "We are more than conquerors through him who loved us"? (Rom. 8:37)
Will you trade your sickness for the Lord's healing touch?
• Will you trade and keep on trading the words “terminal,” “incurable” or “hopeless” for God’s promise that says, “I am the Lord your healer”? (Exodus 15:26)
• Will you trade and keep on trading your illness for God’s promise that says, “by his wounds we are healed”? (Isaiah 53:5)
Will you trade your enslaving sins for the Lord's freedom and righteousness?
• Will you trade the idea that we can never change for God’s promise to make us “like his Son, so that [Jesus] would be the firstborn, with many brothers and sisters”? (Romans 8:29)
Will you leave your “Lo Debar” – your place with no encouraging words and move up to the King’s table? If so, tell God as Nicole and Kristen sing. You may pray in your seats or here at the altar rail. Wherever you are, just move up to the King's table to enjoy the blessings of God’s covenant.
