10 2 Samuel Preaching/Teaching 2 Samuel 9:1-13-Mephibosheth

Pictures of Grace!

One of my favorite movies is Les Mis. Not the musical but the one with Liam Neison. In this movie the main charachter Jean val Jean is a deadly criminal. He is out of jail and has no where to go so he breaks into a priests house at night… IN this moment…

Is your life characterized by grace?

Do you receive grace well?

Do you give grace well?

You don’t have Christianity without grace, it is the very thing that separates Christianity from everything else.

Someone asked C.S. Lewis one time what the difference is with Christianity. This is a genius; expecting a long answer, he said it was simple: GRACE!

Ephesians 2:8–9 NASB95

For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.

We are literally saved by grace.

God’s

Riches

At

Christ’s

Expense

During the reformation Martin Luther had five main points and one of them was about grace.

But many times we oversimplify grace, or we just think it is a prayer you say before food.

Talk about Grace and what it means. Then close with but it is not supposed to be just a theological idea, grace is supposed to be experienced.

Today I want us to be a people who receive grace well.

To be a grace receiver.

We are going to look at a story from the OT and what I have found is many times the best explanations of the new testament are found in the Old Testament.

We must personalize these three pictures of God's Grace.

The first picture of grace we must personalize is:

1. Death to Life (Mephibosheth). (1-6).

Does anyone even know who Mephibosheth is?

Try to say it three times as fast as you can.

Does anyone have a friend named Mephibosheth.

What do you picture in your head when you hear death to life?

Grace like Rain (1-3).

Think about the biggest down pour you have ever been under, that is how God wants to pour grace down on us.

We see a picture of David wanting to give out grace.

2 Samuel 9:1 NASB95

Then David said, “Is there yet anyone left of the house of Saul, that I may show him kindness for Jonathan’s sake?”

Remember who Jonathan was, he was Saul’s son but more importantly he was David’s best friend.

Jonathan supported David even at the expense of wanting to be King. Jonathan should have been the next king but he said David is God’s man.

2 Samuel 9:2 NASB95

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.”

But before Jonathan died David made an oath with him that he would show his house kindness (1 Sam. 20:14-17).

Ziba was a servant of Saul and the fact that he was showing him support shows that David was not going to do harm to the house of Saul.

2 Samuel 9:3 NASB95

The king said, “Is there not yet anyone of the house of Saul to whom I may show the kindness of God?” And Ziba said to the king, “There is still a son of Jonathan who is crippled in both feet.”

This was Jonathan’s son. Now think about this, here is how it was supposed to work, Saul was king-Then Jonathan would be king and then MEPHIBOSHETH. instead he gets crippled because his dad is killed. We like to here stories of rags to riches, well this was a story of riches to rags.

Just to hear that it was Jonathan’s son must have brought back memories of their great friendship and what he swore he would do.

David was doing everything he could to find this man to show kindness to him. Where is he.

He experienced a fall and could not walk Ver. 6.—

He fell on his face. Mephibosheth probably expected the fate that usually befalls the members of a dethroned dynasty in the East. Subsequently, in Israel, each new line of usurpers put to death every male relative of its predecessor, and it was with difficulty in Judah that one babe was rescued from the hands of its grandmother, Athaliah when she usurped the throne. Looked at, then, in the light of Oriental policy, David's conduct was most generous. He approached David as royalty, as he should have. He was the king.

We are helpless and hopeless without grace.

Mephibosheth was hopeless and helpless without grace. Turn to your neighbor and say you are hopeless and helpless without grace.

2 Samuel 9:4–5 NASB95

So the king said to him, “Where is he?” And Ziba said to the king, “Behold, he is in the house of Machir the son of Ammiel in Lo-debar.” Then King David sent and brought him from the house of Machir the son of Ammiel, from Lo-debar.

When the king wanted something done he got it done, he got him there ASAP!

2 Samuel 9:6 (NASB95)

Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan the son of Saul, came to David and fell on his face and prostrated himself. And David said, “Mephibosheth.” And he said, “Here is your servant!”

v.6-Mephiboshth expected to die, but he got grace and Mercy instead.

Look at his desperation and the reality that his life would be over. PROSTRATED HIMSELF IS YOUR SERVANT.

The narrator's seemingly unnecessary repetition of David's question in v. 3 (cf. v. 1) is significant in establishing this chapter's theme. It underscores that David was not an enemy of "the house of Saul" (v. 3); in fact, he was an agent of "God's kindness" (Hb. ḥesed; "loving faithfulness"), working to benefit Israel's former dynastic family.

Contrast David vs Other Kings!

David was different. Most kings would be looking for the former ruler's family so they could take them out. David was looking for the son of the man who spent his life trying to kill him. Why? Not so he could kill him but so that he could give him grace.

Contrast God’s Judgement to his Grace

One of God’s attributes is his holiness. We are not even supposed to be able to go into the presence of God because of his holiness. But when Jesus died on the cross he made a way to bridge the gap. He would much rather give us grace and judgment.

The Bible says in Genesis when Adam and Eve at the fruit, if you eat from it you will surely die.

BUT

When Jesus died on the cross he died for us so we would not have to.

Do you need grace this bad?

Testimony of how it wasn't until I was 18 that I needed grace.

A man asked me how sure I was that I was going to heaven. 100%-

He then proceeded to take me through the Ten Commandments.

It was the first time I thought I needed grace.

Have you ever experienced grace like this?

Just like David was looking to give out grace God wants to pour grace on your life, he is looking to give it to you, but most people are resistant to it.

Grace is free of charge, with no strings attached on the house.

Would you like to experience this kind of grace?

Jesus grace is still available today to anyone who will turn and receive it.

2. The next Picture of Grace we must personalize is:

Mud Pies versus a Banqueting Table (7-10).

Who in here would choose McDonald's over Killens BBQ or Steakhouse?

God wants us to eat from his spiritual banqueting table.

2 Samuel 9:7 (NASB95)

David said to him, “Do not fear, for I will surely show kindness to you for the sake of your father Jonathan, and will restore to you all the land of your grandfather Saul; and you shall eat at my table regularly.”

David's Grace brought Mephibosheth back to the banqueting table

Grace is more significant than Mercy (explain the difference)

First, David restored to the disfigured, exiled Saulide "all the land that belonged to ... Saul" (v. 7). This would have meant that the family estate located about three miles north of Jerusalem in Gibeah would be returned to Mephibosheth.

Now think about this: Saul was the King. Consider how much land Saul must have had before he died, and David gave him all that back.

He did not destroy him, but He gave him his land back (which would have been a lot of land). He would eat with the King regularly. Using a dialogic script reflective of an interchange between a social superior and an inferior (cf. 1 Sam 3:9), David called out Mephibosheth's name; Mephibosheth referred to himself as "your servant." After establishing the sociological parameters of this relationship by giving the proper initial exchange, David issued a magnanimous decree that changed Mephibosheth's fortunes forever.

Second, David gave Mephibosheth a privilege that seemed to have perished the day his father Jonathan had died: the right to board at the King's table "always." Saul had accorded David this dispensation during his youth (cf. 1 Sam 20:5); now David returned the favor.

Mephibosheth had been eating worse than McDonald's; he was eating Ramen noodles and suddenly going to the King's banqueting table. Could he even remember what it was like to eat at the banqueting table?

Are you eating @ God's banqueting table? Or are you settling into your Christian walk?

2 Samuel 9:8–10 NASB95

Again he prostrated himself and said, “What is your servant, that you should regard a dead dog like me?” Then the king called Saul’s servant Ziba and said to him, “All that belonged to Saul and to all his house I have given to your master’s grandson. “You and your sons and your servants shall cultivate the land for him, and you shall bring in the produce so that your master’s grandson may have food; nevertheless Mephibosheth your master’s grandson shall eat at my table regularly.” Now Ziba had fifteen sons and twenty servants.

Third, David provided Mephibosheth with a large contingent of servants and material wealth. He ordered "Ziba, Saul's servant" (v. 9), along with his "fifteen sons and twenty servants" (v. 10), "to farm the land" that had initially belonged to Saul "and bring in the crops" for Mephibosheth so that Jonathan's son "may be provided for."

If this is what can happen if a king gives Grace, can you picture how beautiful the Grace of God is

We have to stop settling for mud pies!

"It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at sea. We are far too easily pleased."

The problem with Christianity is that we want less; we settle for less. God has given us his word, and we don't have time for it. We have impure and unhealthy relationships; we put sports before God. I always say to students who say I am so busy, I am so busy. And can you spend ten minutes in the scriptures? I am too busy. These same people spend hours watching TV. At the same time, he sits and waits for us to feast with him at his table.

The other day, my daughter came to me and was eating mud pies, and I was sitting there thinking just ask, and I'll give you a fruit snack.

God's word is our spiritual food, and we don't feast on it.

Grace changed the Picture from feasting on mud pies to Killens; this is what Grace does. As believers, we have to accept God's Grace to start our relationship with God, but we also have to take it daily and feast on his word.

Luke 10:38-42 Psalm 1:2

Grace takes us to a point where we don't spend time with God because we have to. We spend time with God because we want to.

Free of Charge, no strings attached, on the house.

Grace changed the Picture of Mephibosheth. He went from death to life. He also changed his eating mud pies to Chilies.

But Grace Gives us another picture 3rd Picture.

3. The last picture of grace we must personalize is:

Slave to _SON__. (V.8- V.11).

He was a dead dog

Slavery-He thought he had to run from David

Freedom-Now he got to feast at the table all the time

After Abraham Lincoln abolished slavery, did you know many people chose to go back as enslaved people?

Now, he was a child of the king of the gospel, and he could have lived like an exile; instead, he lived as a son.

Are you living like a son or daughter of the king, or are you living like an exile?

2 Samuel 9:8 NASB95

Again he prostrated himself and said, “What is your servant, that you should regard a dead dog like me?”

8-You don't deserve grace. Mephibosheth viewed himself as an unworthy 'dead dog.'

Mephibosheth's Response to the king's magnanimous pronouncements was one of abject humility (cf. 2 Sam 7:18). After bowing down once again before David, he called himself "your slave" (v. 8; N.I.V.N.I.V., "servant"; Hb. ʿebed) and "a dead dog" (cf. 1 Sam 24:14). Response to grace.

2 Samuel 9:11 (NASB95)

Then Ziba said to the king, “According to all that my lord the king commands his servant so your servant will do.” So Mephibosheth ate at David’s table as one of the king’s sons.

How do you think about yourself 11-He was David's son, and he should have been an enemy.

2 Samuel 9:12–13 (NASB95)

Mephibosheth had a young son whose name was Mica. And all who lived in the house of Ziba were servants to Mephibosheth.

So Mephibosheth lived in Jerusalem, for he ate at the king’s table regularly. Now he was lame in both feet.

13-He makes it a point to make sure that we know how good his treatment and how bad his situation was (as opposed to David's physically very limited

Application:

God created us to be people who receive his grace regularly.

1. Have you accepted God's Grace like Mephibosheth Accepted David's.

2. Do you see yourself without Christ? Matthew 5:3

3. Are you feasting at the table of God's feast? Devotions have to put ourselves in a position to receive it.

a. If you are not, what is keeping you from feasting?

4. How do you view yourself? Child of the king or enslaved to sin.

There are a lot of identities that are true about us males; that is part of my identity. However, the most essential identity is our identity in Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:17).

Slave trader

Newton was nurtured by a Christian mother who taught him the Bible at an early age, but he was raised in his father's image after she died of tuberculosis when Newton was 7. At age 11, Newton went on his first of six sea voyages with the merchant navy captain.

Newton lost his first job in a merchant's office because of "unsettled behavior and impatience of restraint"—a pattern that would persist for years. He spent his later teen years at sea before he was press-ganged aboard the H.M.S.H.M.S. Harwich in 1744. Newton rebelled against the discipline of the Royal Navy and deserted. He was caught, put in irons, and flogged. He eventually convinced his superiors to discharge him to a slaver ship. Espousing freethinking principles, he remained arrogant and insubordinate and lived with moral abandon: "I sinned with a high hand," he later wrote, "and I made it my study to tempt and seduce others."

He took up employment with a slave trader named Clow, who owned a plantation of lemon trees on an island off of West Africa. But he was oppressed by Clow and the slaver's African mistress; soon, Newton's clothes turned to rags, and Newton was forced to beg for food to ease his hunger.

The sluggish sailor was transferred to the service of the captain of the Greyhound, a Liverpool ship, in 1747, and on its homeward journey, the boat was overtaken by an enormous storm. Newton had been reading Thomas A. Kempis's The Imitation of Christ and was struck by a line about the "uncertain continuance of life." He also recalled the passage in Proverbs, "Because I have called and ye have refused, ... I also will laugh at

your calamity." He converted during the storm, though he admitted later, "I cannot consider myself to have been a believer, in the full sense of the word."

Newton then served as a mate and then as captain of several slave ships, hoping as a Christian to restrain the worst excesses of the slave trade, "promoting the life of God in the soul" of both his crew and his African cargo.

2095 Three Wonders In Heaven

John Newton said, "When I reach heaven, I shall see three wonders there. The first wonder will be to see many people there whom I did not expect to see—the second wonder will be to miss many people whom I did expect to see; and the third and greatest wonder of all will be to find myself there."