Let me ask you a question. How do you know when somebody really loves you? Is it by what they say? No. It is by what they do. 1 Corinthians has one of the best descriptions of love in all of literature. It is a beautiful painting of what love looks like. You remember the passage. It's almost a law that it has to be read in a wedding ceremony, right?
1 Corinthians 13:4 starts out by saying, "Love is patient. Love is kind." And then it continues on but let's stop right there. That word "kind" is an interesting word. The original Greek word is "chresteuomai" and I can't pronounce it but it means to treat as one's kin or one's own family.
I read something the other day that was written by a mother who said something along these lines. She said if your kid comes over to our house to play with my kid, I will treat him just like I treat my own child. If we get something to eat, I will pay for it and it will be about the same as my kid eats. If we go somewhere, I will watch over your kid just like I watch over my kid. And if he acts up, he will be disciplined just like I discipline my own. And when he falls and hurts himself, I will kiss the booboo and he will be bandaged and hugged just like he was my own.
Now, some of you are thinking, "What's that lady's phone number? I want to send my kids over there." Right? Shoot, I want to go over there myself! Sounds like a pretty good time. But that is the picture of the word "kind." And that is part of what love looks like. Love is kind.
Now, most of you have been to other churches before. And I'm pretty sure every other church on the planet says that they are a loving church. They say they are a kind church. And most of them are...to each other. They are kind to the other church members that they have grown up with and grown old with. But the true test of being loving and kind is when you can be loving and kind to a stranger; to someone who can't repay you; to someone who hasn't done anything to deserve your loving kindness and maybe somebody that other people don't love. When you can show loving kindness to that person, then you can say you love.
Grab your Bibles and DON'T turn to 1 Corinthians just yet. We are going to be there in a couple of weeks and we are going to camp out there for so long your Bibles will start to open there automatically after a while. But today I would ask you to turn to the Old Testament book of 2 Samuel. I bet you can guess which book is on the left side of 2 Samuel and the book on the right side is 1 Kings.
2 Samuel is one of my favorite Old Testament books. It has some great stories like the one we are going to see in chapter 9. 1 and 2 Samuel have some of my favorite stories because they tell the story of one of my favorite characters, David. David, while a man after God's own heart, (1 Sam. 13:14) was far from perfect and these books tell the whole beautiful and ugly story of the greatest king Israel ever had.
By the time we get to 2 Samuel chapter 9, David has reigned on the throne of Israel for many years. He has won most of his battles and killed lots of men and he has lots of people who call him king. In chapter 8 it says that the Lord gave David victory wherever he went. God had blessed David and protected him from men who wanted to kill him and nobody wanted to kill him more than the previous king, King Saul.
Saul was the first King of Israel and he started out pretty good, but David came along and killed Goliath and was immediately a threat to Saul. At first, Saul invited David to eat at his table and basically be part of his family but it didn't take long before Saul was trying to pin Dave to the wall with his javelin. That should be a red flag right there that something is awry in the relationship. It's starting to get a little rocky when the big guy tries to hang you on the wall like a poster.
But Saul has a son named Jonathan and Jonathan and David are best buds. They love each other like brothers from day one and Jonathan finally figures it all out that David, not him, is going to be king some day and so Jonathan asks David to promise that when that day comes, David will not kill him or his family. And David happily makes that promise. In 1 Samuel 20, Jonathan says, "Show me unfailing kindness like the Lord's kindness as long as I live, so that I may not be killed, 15 and do not ever cut off your kindness from my family--not even when the Lord has cut off every one of David's enemies from the face of the earth."
Well, fast forward a couple of decades and we see David right in that spot Jonathan was talking about. God has cut off every one of David's enemies from the face of the earth and David remembers his promise. He is sitting in his palace one day remembering that Saul and Jonathan and some other members of Saul's family have all been killed one way or another and he remembers the promise he made to Jonathan all those years before. Let's pick it up in 2 Sam chapter 9. I'll read the whole chapter. It's not too long and it's a great story.
David asked, "Is there anyone still left of the house of Saul to whom I can show kindness for Jonathan's sake?" 2 Now there was a servant of Saul's household named Ziba. They summoned him to appear before David, and the king said to him, "Are you Ziba?" "At your service," he replied. 3 The king asked, "Is there no one still alive from the house of Saul to whom I can show God's kindness?" Ziba answered the king, "There is still a son of Jonathan; he is lame in both feet." 4 "Where is he?" the king asked. Ziba answered, "He is at the house of Makir son of Ammiel in Lo Debar." 5 So King David had him brought from Lo Debar, from the house of Makir son of Ammiel. 6 When Mephibosheth son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, came to David, he bowed down to pay him honor. David said, "Mephibosheth!"
"At your service," he replied. 7 "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." 8 Mephibosheth bowed down and said, "What is your servant, that you should notice a dead dog like me?" 9 Then the king summoned Ziba, Saul's steward, and said to him, "I have given your master's grandson everything that belonged to Saul and his family. 10 You and your sons and your servants are to farm the land for him and bring in the crops, so that your master's grandson may be provided for. And Mephibosheth, grandson of your master, will always eat at my table." (Now Ziba had fifteen sons and twenty servants.) 11 Then Ziba said to the king, "Your servant will do whatever my lord the king commands his servant to do." So Mephibosheth ate at David's table like one of the king's sons. 12 Mephibosheth had a young son named Mika, and all the members of Ziba's household were servants of Mephibosheth. 13 And Mephibosheth lived in Jerusalem, because he always ate at the king's table; he was lame in both feet.
Mephibosheth! What a great name! Seems like nobody names their kid Mephibosheth anymore. I don't know why. It's fun to say. In fact, say it with me. Mephibosheth! Morris said I should get Daffy Duck to teach us how to say it but I think we'd all get wet. Anyway, can you imagine what ol' Phib is thinking when he hears a knock on his door there in Lo Debar?
"Mephibosheth, King David wants to see you."
"Uh, yea, Mephibosheth? Oh, he lives down the road there. See that old house over there. That's where he lives. Not here."
See, the only reason the king would want to see any of the previous king's family was because he was going to kill them. That's just how it was done back in the day. The new king didn't want any of the old relatives trying to lay claim to his throne so it was common for the new king to just come in and kill everybody; mom, dad, cousins, kids, the dog, the hamster. He would kill them all and take all their stuff and burn down their house. So, don't you know Phib thought he was going to be killed?
And why not? He was crippled. He was of no use to anybody unless he was the king so why not just kill him. That's why he was living in Lo Debar. The name Lo Debar means "without pasture." Now, I have been to Israel and there is not much pastureland anywhere in the country that I saw. It's almost all rocks and sand so when it says that Lo Debar was without pasture, it must have been really poor. And Phib was just trying to survive.
In chapter 4 of this book, we read that Mephibosheth was five years old when his dad, Jonathon, and his granddad, Saul, were killed. And when Phib's nurse heard the news, she grabbed little Phib and started to run off with him so he wouldn't be killed and she evidently tripped and fell and it says that is when Phib was injured and became lame in both feet. And ever since then he has been hiding out in the ghetto just trying to stay alive. Then one day, David finds him and sends for him. Can you imagine the fear Mephibosheth had right then?
"Don't be afraid," David said. Do you remember what the angel, Gabriel, said to young Mary when he visited her to tell her she was pregnant with the Messiah? "Don't be afraid, Mary. You have found favor with God." Well, Mephibosheth has just found favor with the king.
But let's think about this for a minute. First, let's look at it through the eyes of Mephibosheth. Technically, he had been a prince. He was the grandson of the great Saul and son of Jonathan but now...he was a poor, crippled, has-been. You can hear it in his voice when he asks David, "What is your servant, that you should notice a dead dog like me?" A dog was the least important and most disgusting thing he could probably think of and he said he was a dead dog, to boot.
It's interesting that just two chapters before this, David says similar words to God. In chapter 7, David is praying and it says, "Then King David went in and sat before the LORD, and he said: "Who am I, Sovereign LORD, and what is my family, that you have brought me this far?" It is the natural reaction when you realize that the person you are talking to has all the power and all the authority and all the ability to take your life or make your life.
As king of Israel, David had all that. His word was law. If he wanted something, he just spoke it. If he wanted you dead, his men killed you. He didn't have to have a reason. He was the sovereign king. So, let's look at it from David's point of view. Here he is in the palace. He has an over-abundance of everything he could ever want. He has hot and cold running wives and wall to wall concubines. He has riches beyond compare. He has power. He has prestige and, for now, he even has peace.
Then he remembers his promise to Jonathan and decides, "Why not? Why not be good to somebody"? He's killed more people than smallpox. Maybe it's time to do something good for somebody. So, he tells Mephibosheth in verse 7, "I will surely show you kindness for the sake of your father Jonathan." Now, that word "kindness" is different than the word "kind" in 1 Corinthians but it's just as good a word or maybe better. This word is "chesed" in the Hebrew and it means to show strength, steadfastness and love. My concordance says that if the definition doesn't include all three aspects of that then it loses some of its richness.
Chesed (kes'-ed or hes'-ed) is the loving kindness that God shows us. If God showed us kindness just with strength and steadfastness it would look like a legal obligation but He does it with love as well as strength and he continues to over and over again. It is strength, steadfastness and love.
David, in a scene that foreshadows what Jesus has done for us, tells Mephibosheth that he will give him everything that had been Saul's and tells him he will always eat at David's table. And what do you think Mephibosheth thought? "Yea, sure. Sure, you are. And as soon as I turn my back, you're gonna kill me." Right? Think about it. All Phib's life, he has thought he and David were enemies. He didn't know about the promise David made to his father.
It all sounds too good to be true, doesn't it? This sounds like a fairy tale or something. This just doesn't happen to people. But it did happen to Mephibosheth, and it happened to you! In fact, the similarities are startling when you compare what happened to ol' Phib and what happened to you. Think about it.
You used to be an enemy of God. James 4:4 tells us that we all used to be enemies of God until we accepted Jesus to be our Savior. And in our sins and our lostness, we were lame and useless and living in a wasteland bound for hell. Now, I'm not saying that people that are handicapped are useless at all. I'm saying, don't you know that is how Mephibosheth felt? Don't you know his whole identity was wrapped up in being lame and living in no pasture LoDebar? People would see him and say, "Yea, that guy used to be something but now he's just waiting to die." That was his whole identity.
But David came along and gave him a completely new identity. David called him "son" and insisted that he eat at David's table. You know, I bet the meals were pretty incredible there. I bet David ate the best food and had the best sweet tea and there were always seconds if you wanted. I'm sure there would have been entertainment and if Phib wanted anything, all he had to do was ask.
But do you know what else happens at the table? Conversation, communion, fellowship, deep discussion. Can you imagine sitting next to the king? "Hey, David, pass the gravy please. So, anyway, then what happened with Goliath?" Yes! Mephibosheth went from being an enemy to being a close friend and we have done the same thing with God! Can you comprehend that? God has invited us, the dead dogs that we are and completely undeserving, to sit at His table and fellowship with Him.
And that is our identity now! I'm no longer that guy who made all those bad mistakes. I'm no longer the failure who kept choosing to sin and then wondering why my life was messed up. I'm no longer a slave to sin. That's not who I am anymore. I am a new creation and my whole identity is wrapped up in Jesus. And yours should be too if you are saved by God's grace.
And if you are saved by God's grace and if you are a new creation then you should be three things. There are three things I want to talk about really quickly that should be part of your identity in Jesus now. The first thing is you should be grateful! Mephibosheth was completely undeserving and was completely grateful and you should be too. Don't you know every where Phib went he was talking about the grace of David? "Did you hear what David did for me? Let me tell you!" Loving kindness like that makes you grateful.
Secondly, loving kindness makes you generous. Christians ought to be the most generous people around. God has blessed us with so many things, we ought to be generous to a fault. Even if you don't have much in the way of things or money, you can still be generous with what you have. You can still be generous with your time and your prayers and your wisdom. Loving kindness ought to make you so generous.
And lastly - and this one is a little different -- lastly you ought to be leery. You ought to be watchful. Because Satan hates you and he hates you even more now that you are grateful and generous. We didn't read it in this passage but if you read just a couple of pages over, you see the story of David and Bathsheba. You know, this story with Mephibosheth ought to be the most famous story next to Goliath that David is famous for. But right after this happened, David was taking it easy; he was where he shouldn't have been doing what he shouldn't have been doing and as always happens, one thing led to another and...well, you know the story.
Now, when everybody thinks of King David, they think of Goliath and then Bathsheba where she winds up pregnant, her husband is killed and David is completely at fault. Don't let that be you. And it CAN happen to you. You have to be leery of Satan all the time; always watching, always prepared, always with the full armor of God completely on.
How do people get through this life without a relationship with God through His son Jesus? Do you know Him today? Are you sitting at His table today? Are you assured of a place at His table in Heaven? You can be. Just ask God to forgive you of all your sins. Then repent of those sins and turn away from that lifestyle and turn the way God tells you to turn. Then allow Jesus to be Lord and Savior of your life and the Holy Spirit of God will come into your life to live and change you and make you a new creation too. Do it today. Do it right now as the music plays.
