Feasting with the King

There's a new song on the radio. It's a few months old now, but it's by Jason Mraz. And I don't know if it's part of my age, but the older I get, the more the new music just kind of stops making sense. But this song particularly is just irrational. The name of the song is I'm Yours. Maybe somebody younger than me can explain to me why it's not irrational, but they have a line in it. That is what's really bothered me, and so I'm going to get it off my chest. The line is you have a God forsaken right to be loved. You have a God forsaken right to be loved, and that doesn't make any sense to me, because if you are forsaken by God, you have lost all your rights. How can you demand anything when you are God forsaken, much less? The right to be loved. God is love. God is the source of love. God is the greatest lover. How can someone say that you have a God forsaken right? To be loved, it just doesn't make any sense. But I think practically we often think this way. We function this way. We know we're sinners. I hope we recognize that we're sinners. But we often demand the right to be recognized and looked at and cared for by God. Especially as Americans, claiming our rights is just part of our identity. And what greater right does any one of us have other than to be loved by God? To demand a right to be loved by God, that's only evidence that There is no real experience of the love of God. There's no real understanding of God's great love because God's great love is free. He bestows love upon whom He chooses to give love to. His love is great and mighty and powerful. And we have to recognize that we're completely unlovely. If we recognize who we really are, we would never demand love. But once we receive it, we would only be thankful for it. We'd only be grateful for such a great love. This morning, we're going to look at an Old Testament text that demonstrates the love of God beautifully. We're going to be looking at 2 Samuel 9. And we're going to see the great free love of God as evidenced in David. The main point of our sermon, the main point of our text this morning is this. Until we recognize our sinfulness, we will not rejoice in God's love. It's just that simple. Until we recognize our great sinfulness, we will not rejoice in the greatness of God's love. Let's read our text together. 2 Samuel 9. And David said, Is there still anyone left of the house of Saul that I may show him kindness for Jonathan's sake? Now, there was a servant of the house of Saul whose name was Ziba, and they called him to David. And the king said to him, Are you Ziba? And he said, I am your servant. And the king said, Is there not still someone of the house of Saul that I may show the kindness of God to him? Ziba said to the king, There is still a son of Jonathan. He is crippled in his feet. The king said to him, Where is he? Ziva said to the king, He is in the house of Mekir, the son of Emiel at Lodabar. Then King David sent and brought him from the house of Mekir, the son of Emiel at Lodabar. And Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, came to David and fell on his face and paid homage. And David said, Mephibosheth. And he answered, Behold, I am your servant. And David said to him, Do not fear, for I will show you kindness for the sake of your father's Jonathan, and I will restore to you all the land of Saul, your father, and you shall eat at my table always. And he paid homage and said, What is your servant that you should show regard for a dead dog such as I? Then the king called Ziba, Saul's servant, and said to him, All that belong to Saul and to all his house I have given to your master's grandson. And you and your sons and your servants shall till the land for him and shall bring in the produce that your master's grandson may have bread to eat. But Nephitesheth, your master's grandson shall always eat at my table. Now, Ziba had 15 sons and 20 servants. Then Ziba said to the king, according to all that my lord the king commands his servants, so will your servant do. So, Mephibosheth ate at David's table, like one of the king's sons. Mephibosheth had a young son whose name was Micah. And all who lived in Ziba's house became Mephibosheth's servants. Mephibosheth lived in Jerusalem, for he ate always at the king's table. Now, he was lame. in both his feet. Now, as we think of this story, it takes place in a pretty unique time in Scripture. It takes place in a pretty unique time in David's life, especially as one of the key figures of the Old Testament, pointing to Christ. David has just become king. If you were to flip over just two chapters before this, you have 2 Samuel 7, which is really One of the highest points of Old Testament prophecy and promise of who the King is going to be. God comes to David and He says, you're not going to build My temple, but I'll tell you what I'll do. One of your sons will build My temple. He will be to me like a son. His throne will be forever. I will show him kindness. I will show him steadfast love. The same Hebrew word that God says to David there is the same word He is using to show that He wants to show to Saul's son. Chesed. Chesed. I don't have something in my throat. That's literally how you say it. Chesed. It's a steadfast, everlasting, always built up, never failing, always there, only God kind of love. We can read about it in Psalm 89. David reflecting upon the great love of God. I will sing of the Chesed of the Lord forever. With my mouth I will make known your faithfulness to all generations. For I said, Chesed will be built up forever in the heavens. You will establish your faithfulness. David has just experienced the great love of God in 2 Samuel 7. And here in 2 Samuel 9, we see David really experiencing that love, being driven by that love and wanting to drive it to someone else. And so he requests, and it's an odd request, is there anyone in the house of Saul, in the house of Jonathan, to whom I can show this great love to? The love of God. And so they ask for Ziba. Ziba comes. Ziba says, well, I know one fellow. And our author is very intentional. What's the first description he gives of Mephibosheth? He's crippled. It's very intentional throughout the whole thing. He mentions it three or four times to make sure he didn't miss the point. How does the whole passage end? He was lame in both his feet. There's a picture of Mephibosheth we're supposed to be getting. Now, this covenant, this love that David wants to show to the son of Saul, well, it's based upon his relationship with Jonathan. They were friends. They loved one another. And they made a covenant with one another back in 1 Samuel 18. I'll let you go back and look at that in your own time, but that's where this covenant is being based out of. It's God's love with David and then David's love for Jonathan. He wants to show someone in the house of Jonathan, the house of Saul, great love. They bring in Ziba. Ziba says, there's this one fella, Mephibosheth. You've already heard my speech impediment come out as I'm trying to pronounce his name. Mephibosheth. He's crippled. Now, Mephibosheth is living in Lodabar. Everybody flip to the maps in the back of your Bible and let's locate Lodabar. It's very important where this place is. I'll go ahead and stop you. It's a trick. Lodabar literally means nowhere. That's the translation. He's living nowhere. I would be very surprised if that's on anyone's map. What says a lot about Mephibosheth, he's crippled and he's living in Lodabar. Now, at one level, I think he's probably hiding. Because if you're an ancient Near Eastern king, as David was, the first thing you want to do is secure your throne. And how do you secure your throne? You take care of anybody else who has any claim to that throne, right? You take out the heirs of the previous kings. You want to make sure no one's going to show up and say, look, Bob, I don't know where you came from, but my daddy was king. And that means I'm the king. And so, Mephibosheth is most likely hiding here. He's in Lodabar, hiding from David because, well, if he faces a king, he knows He's going to be done away with. He's a threat to the kingdom of David. And so while we see that David is intending to show loving kindness, as Mephibosheth is making this journey, this difficult journey, because he is lame in both his feet, from Lodabar all the way to David's palace. Think about what he's going through in his mind. Is this a trick? What does David want with me? There's great fear and trembling because the reality is Mephibosheth is an enemy of the king. He's an enemy of the king. He poses a threat to the king. And the king, if he followed modern practices, the practice of the day, he was supposed to kill him. But look what happens there in verses 5 and 6. The king sent him, brought him in. from low to bar. And Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, came to David and fell on his face and paid homage. And David calls him, Mephibosheth. Mephibosheth answers very humbly, Behold, I am your servant. And then David's words had to be so sweet to the ears of this man who was in great fear. Do not fear. Do not fear. For I will show you kindness. I will show you heaven. I will show you the love of God for the sake of the covenant that I made with Jonathan that will restore to you all the land of Saul. You shall eat at my table always. And the rest of the story is Ziba carrying out these orders. And then we have a great summary statement in verse 11, the second half of verse 11. So Mephibosheth ate at David's table like one of the king's sons. Verse 13, so Mephibosheth lived in Jerusalem, for he ate always at the king's table. Mephibosheth has just been taken from being an enemy of the state, an enemy of David, to being brought in and shown great love. He was just taken from being an outcast, a nobody from nowhere, and elevated to the king's table. elevated to have a privileged position of being a son of the king. What a beautiful, beautiful gift Mephibosheth finds in David. Something we need to look at is his response. That really should stand out. What an unusual response in verse 8 to all these great blessings. What is your servant that you should show regard for a dead dog such as I." It's a beautiful picture of the Gospel. Here's David showing great love, the great love of God to the outcast, to the enemy, to the crippled. Well, as we think about this story and how it relates to us, one of the key questions in interpreting narratives is we have to ask ourselves, who do I identify with in this story? Who do I identify with in this story? Let's just go through the characters. Do you identify with Ziba? Is that who the author wants you to identify with? Well, that would be great because then you're a servant of the kingdom and you're doing good things and you're obeying the king, but I don't think that's the author's intention because that would just lead to moralism. Are you supposed to be like David? Are you supposed to go out and love your enemies? Are you supposed to go out and bring in the outcasts and do mercy ministries and just promote a great social gospel? Again, I think that fails the Christian Scriptures because it's mere moralism. Oh friend, I hope that you are giving such great pity to Mephibosheth because of his horrible state in life. And I hope you'll identify with a Mephibosheth. That's who we need to identify with. Because if we think about our own lives, we are the outcast. We are the nobodies from nowhere. We are meant to be in God's presence. We were created to be in fellowship with God. We were created to be in His presence always. Loving Him and being loved by Him and enjoying Him forever. But we sinned. casting ourselves out of His presence. We have made a great distance between us and God, and therefore we really have nowhere to call home. And really, if we think about it, we are nobodies. In terms of your righteousness, what are you going to bring to the table? In terms of your righteousness, what are you going to boast of? Is it that you have a great successful job? That you have a model family? Is it that you've gone through great tribulation and suffering? All this is only glorious if you've done that by faith in Christ. Those things we cannot boast of, we can only boast in Christ. We have nothing to bring to the table but our own sinfulness. We often want to make ourselves somebody. We love to boast of our own works. We love to boast in our own accomplishments. But in light of Christ, in light of the greatness of God, we have nothing to boast in. We should identify with Mephibosheth because, well, he's crippled. He's broken. He doesn't function correctly. His legs don't work. And while many of us may have frailties of life, all of us share the same frailty, and that is a broken heart. That doesn't mean someone's crushed you emotionally, and probably is the case. Our hearts don't function correctly. Our desires don't work correctly. We don't love the things we're supposed to love. We have healthy legs, but our hearts are bent in the wrong direction, so we run the wrong direction. We don't love God the way we should. We don't desire the way we should. We don't have Shalom. You see, in the Hebrew, in Israel's culture, being crippled was a sign of being under a curse. Being a cripple was a great physical manifestation of not having peace. But we, all of our limbs may function incorrectly. If we're really honest with ourselves, there is no rest. There is no peace because there is a war going on inside of our hearts and we're warring against God. Our desires aren't correct. They're not bent in the right direction. If we think about Mephibosheth further. The great blessing he received. He was invited to eat at the king's table as a son. He was invited to be in the presence of the King. Now, one of the main reasons we couldn't identify with David is because David already has a very important role in this passage. David is a type of Christ here. David is the Christ figure in this passage. He is the King of Israel. And while we think here he is really doing great, we know he's not the ultimate King of Israel because if you turn the two chapters over, what's he going to do? He's with Bathsheba. He's committing adultery. He's committing murder. We know David isn't the ultimate king. But what David is doing here is actually functioning like the king is supposed to function. For a small moment, we see what the king of Israel was supposed to be like before the true king came. David is like Christ here. He shows love to the outcast. He shows great love to the enemies and he brings them home. He brings them into the table so that they can eat in God's kingdom as sons and daughters of God. David is a great Christ figure here. He is not the ultimate hope. He is not the ultimate king because we know. I hope we know that we have such a great king. A greater king than David could ever hope to be because while David's love for Mephibosheth is great, he's loving an enemy, he's bringing an enemy into his home. David didn't lay down his life for that enemy. David didn't have the greatest love you could possibly imagine for his enemy because only Christ is able to give that kind of love. The greatest love is the love that lays down his life. And it's not just any life, friends. Jesus Christ is God Himself who looked down upon us and saw that all we were doing was kicking and spitting and punching at Him with every fiber of our being, with every desire we have. He saw that there was no hope for us. He saw that we were living the way we were not supposed to live. And we had no hope. We had no joy. We had no peace. So He came down out of the glorious heavens. He came into our nowhere to take upon our flesh. And most gloriously, He took upon our sin. The judgment that we should have gotten of enemies. The wrath of God. Jesus Christ took upon Himself. Friends, if you do not know that great love, if you do not understand the greatness of Christ's love, Please speak to someone here before you go. Because you're going to continue roaming this earth, going from nowhere to nowhere, thinking you're somebody, when really your whole life is just being played out like an enemy of God. But you have the opportunity to respond to the Gospel, the death of Christ, the atonement of your sins, the resurrection, and the hope of the return of Christ, so that you can receive great peace. You can receive rest. for your restless heart. You can stop fighting against God and you can enjoy fellowship with God. You can stop kicking against God and spitting at Him, and you get to come to His table. Believers, as you think about yourself with Mephibosheth, recognize he didn't come to David claiming a birthright, claiming a blood sample. It's easy for us to come to Christ with humility. Sometimes it's hard for us to keep that humility. It's sometimes hard for us to remember that that love was so freely given, that it was such an overwhelming experience understanding and learning about the grace of God and the love of Christ for us. We sometimes think we move beyond the Gospel. We're not moving beyond being sinners, and so you'd never move beyond the Gospel. We need the Gospel every day, every hour, every minute. We think too much of ourselves and we miss the love of Christ. We stop thinking about how great our sin is and we miss the opportunity to continue to glory in the love of Christ. Friends, as we think about Christ, we think about how He gives us a place at the table. How He gives us a place to be loved. And as the prayers this morning just really emphasize so well. Do you realize you get to call God Father only in Jesus? It's not until Christ introduces the Lord's Prayer that we actually get to start, the covenant people, get to start calling God Father. What a sweet intimate relationship we have at our hands. We can enjoy a fellowship with the Father. Not a distant God of wrath. Not a distant God of fear. But we can approach God through Christ and the power of His Spirit. Enjoying an intimacy with God the Father. So how do we do this? I've got three points of application. We can rejoice in God's love by pursuing humility in Christ. We can rejoice in God's love by pursuing humility in Christ. Now, those last two words are extremely important. In Christ. Because we don't pursue humility for humility's sake. We don't just want to walk around with our heads down just to put our heads down. Pride is ugly. But you don't just become humble for humble's sake. You become humble because you recognize your life in light of Christ. In light of what He's done. If you think about a pendulum scale, the more you think of yourself, the less you're going to think of Christ. You get to choose how much you're going to enjoy Christ. The more you think of yourself, the less you're going to think of Christ. The more you recognize your sin, the more you're going to want to love Christ. But it's your choice. We can continue to walk around with a facade of self-righteousness that I'm somebody and I really bring something to the table, or you can do what Paul says and boast only in Christ. Boast only in Christ. Think less of yourself and the greatness of Christ, the greatness of the Gospel will overwhelm you. It's your choice on the pendulum scale. The less you think of yourself, the more you will think of Christ. We all love to be self-righteous. We all love others who think everything's great with us. We want other people to look at the outside and say, wow, He really has it together. The family's great. Everything is wonderful. But God knows our hearts. God knows when there's no shalom. God knows when chesed isn't being practiced in the home. I think of my life so often as a nice, juicy plum. You look at the outside, it's just perfectly purple. You touch it to see how ripe it is, and you can tell it's going to be one of those plums that's crisp, but yet still juicy. Not too ripe. Just perfectly crisp and just juicy. And then you take a big bite into that plum. And you find there's a big worm in there. It's rotten on the inside. While it looked so beautiful on the outside, to the look, to the touch, everything was just right. There's a big worm on the inside that's disgusting. Friends, if God is taking a bite into our self-righteousness, that's what it's like. It tastes disgusting. But He's not fooled by our outer experience. He knows what's there. The key is to start practicing humility. Here and now, confessing our sins to one another. Christ looked at our hearts. Christ looked at that disgusting heart that we are hiding, and He came down to look over it and heal it. The foulness of our sins Christ looked upon. And He took upon the wrath that they were going to bring upon us. And He looked to heal them. And He gave us the Holy Spirit to indwell us to heal those foul sins. That disgusting sin that we hide. We should look and submit and humble ourselves and let the healing process take place. Now, I really intended this to be a feel-good sermon. I've told you you're like a cripple enemy, nobody from nowhere. The reason it is a feel-good sermon for Christians, only Christians, is that it gives you an identity. That's what's supposed to make us feel good. Now, I could tell you to look in the mirror and tell yourself you're smart enough, you're good enough, and people like you, but that's going to do nothing for you. Quit trying to build yourself up and boast about how great you are. And stop looking in the mirror and start telling yourself, in Christ, I am sanctified. In Christ, I am justified. In Christ, I will be glorified. In Christ, I am a saint. I am elect. I get a place at the table. Or better yet, friends, find brothers and sisters who are also at the table. who will say the same things about you. Find brothers and sisters who are going to look at you and they're going to confront the sins in your life and they're going to confirm the grace in your life. I can tell myself all the time about God's blessing, but it means so much less than those times where I've had other brothers or sisters or my wife show, this is an evidence of grace in you. I see God working in you. The church needs to create a culture where confrontation and confirmation are done with care, are done with the Gospel. Yes, you need to be reminding yourself of the Gospel in your devotions, but that's what the church is supposed to be doing as well. Confronting us with our sins. Confronting us with our evidence of grace. Caring for each other with the Gospel. You know how you start a culture where that happens? You start confessing your sins. You start letting other people see that you are willing to be transparent. You start letting other people see that you're not scared of the shame and the sin. And that the Gospel is mighty and powerful. And pray and look for those brothers or sisters who are willing to do the same. The church must be a place where there's a culture of confrontation and care from the Gospel. That's how we pursue humility because Well, I'm very thankful I've got a few brothers who just won't let me think too much of myself. We all need that. Secondly, rejoicing God's love with intentional gratitude. I was very blessed Wednesday night by the great presentation of how we're supposed to be loving God, and as I just thought about it, We are supposed to be growing in our understanding of the height and width and breadth and length of God's love. We'll never get to wrap our heads around how wide and how deep and how strong and how large God's love is. But the one way we can begin to experience the greatness of God's love is to begin recognizing the greatness of our sin. That's where God's love is most evident. That's when God's love is most manifested to us. When we recognize the greatness of our sin, that's when the greatness of love that overcomes that sin, that's when our horizon is expanded. And I think we are supposed to be like David. We're supposed to be grateful for God's love. And one of the ways we do it is by sharing that love with other people. We're supposed to be sharing the love that we receive from God with others. And it's not through random acts of kindness because that's not what the love of God is like at all. The love of God is intentional. The love of God has a purpose. The love of God has a definite end goal in mind. And that's how we should be loving others. My wife doesn't want random acts of kindness. She doesn't want love at halftime. She wants purpose. She wants intentionality. She wants clear care. And that's the kind of love God has shown us. That's the kind of love we're supposed to be showing others. And the number one way you can show this love is by forgiving those who have sinned against you. That's where you see the rubber meet the road. That's where you can test how well you understand and how well you've experienced and how well you've grasped The love of Christ. Because you will show the forgiveness to those who have sinned against you more. The more you recognize the great forgiveness you've received in Christ, the more you will show that forgiveness to those who sin against you. Are you grateful for God's love and forgiveness? Well, the way to measure that is how great and how quick you are to show others love and forgiveness. Finally, friends, we will rejoice in God's love by persevering in hope. We will persevere in hope. We have frail bodies. I'm just now starting to experience this as my knees and my ankles are getting more and more sore with each basketball game. Many of you are experiencing a frailness of the body that is beyond just the weakness of knees. There's a true crippling of the human body that takes place as we grow older. One of the things we must do is never take our focus off of that hope that's set before us. It's not like the table that Mephibosheth ate at. It's a glorious table where Christ is seated, where we get to gather as sons and daughters, and we get to receive new bodies. We get to enter in a complete state of shalom. Where we have glorified bodies. We have renewed souls. We have a perfect soul and body because Christ's great redemption has been completed. Persevere in hope for that day. Don't lose sight of that day. We have many senior citizens. Friends, be open. Be persevering. Be showing us young people how to end the race. Looking to the end. Looking to the great hope that is set before you in Christ. We need that. While not all of our bodies are failing, we all do have the same problem here. Sin keeps us from enjoying life the way it's supposed to be enjoyed. If we've been striving for Christ, we've been striving for love, we all know that sin keeps creeping its little ugly head in the door and hindering us. And it gets more and more and more frustrating, because I am always going to be a sinner until Christ returns. And that's why I'm starting to look more and more forward to the day when Christ returns, because I'm getting sick of my sin, always frustrating my love of God. Always hindering my love of God. We can't ever love God perfectly until Christ comes back. The more we strive for that love, the more we're going to hate that sin and long for the day where we receive shalom. And we get to enjoy God forever. Friends, as we think about this passage, as we think about ourselves, claim your identity in Christ. Think much of Christ and much of His love. The best way you can do that is by thinking less of yourself and more of your sin. Recognize how great your sin is, and you will recognize how great the love of Christ is. Until we see the greatness of our sin, we will not recognize the greatness of Christ's love. Let's pray. Almighty God, we thank You, Lord, for passages like this that's just so sweet with the Gospel, where love is the leading declaration. Well, even though David is not the perfect lover, even though David is not able to show the perfect great love of God, he does give us a glimpse of it. He does give us a small sample of what your great love is going to be like. Thank you, Lord, for his looking forward to your love. And thank You, Lord, that we get to look back at it. Thank You, Father, for sending Your Son. Thank You, Christ, for Your humility. You are thinking of us above Yourself. You are laying down Your life to die for us, even though we were enemies. Thank You, Lord, for the great blessings and benefits we have in that death. Thank You for the place at the table. I pray that now as we look to that small little sample of eating together as brothers and sisters, in the Lord's table that we will celebrate just a few moments. Pray that that will help us reflect upon the greatness of your love and the future hope that we have in you. In your name we pray. Amen.