Feast, Ye Lame for Joy Pt. II

Introduction

The only thing that matters is the coming of the king.

So many things in our lives will try and destroy this sentence in our minds and in our hearts. Calvin said that “our hearts are idol factories.” He means that we are expertly skilled in giving to created things what must only be given to the Creator of all things. In every department of our life, there will be things that will try and defeat the great victory of this sentence: that the only thing that matters is the coming of the king.

It was the good pleasure of God to send this message across the world. It was the good pleasure of God to raise up and bring down nations — all the while sustaining a remnant of his church. It was the good pleasure of God to intend your presence here today. God delights in lifting up the name of his Son among the nations. God promised to the Son, in eternity-past, that he would call, from the nations, out of darkness, a people for the Son.

It was this promise that we ended last week revelling in. We basked in the doctrinal warmth of the Father’s covenant with the Son to save a people out of the world. We tried to wrap our minds around the idea that our salvation was written in a divine contract before the foundation of the world. God promised to save us before we ever were. We looked at the life of Mephibosheth, and how he was called by the king to sit at his table because of the king’s love for Jonathan. Even now, the idea chills us with its beauty: the Father loves us like he loves Jesus.

We hear this Gospel of the kingdom -- the king’s call -- and, upon receiving this free gift, we receive unthinkable grace. We are a cripple sitting at the king’s table! What Mephibosheth tells us is that we, Christians, sit at the king’s table this very moment. Eph 1:3 states God has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing. Psalm 23 says God prepares a table for us in the presence of our enemies. Like Mephibosheth, we are blessed beyond imagining.

But this isn’t where the story ends, is it? There is yet a life to live. The King Jesus has come, but he has yet to come again, in a final sense. What happens between now and then? How do we make sense of the struggles and setbacks that threaten to destroy our lives, even down to its basest foundations? Let’s pray and ask the Lord to answer.

Prayer

Recap

When we left off last week, King David had received Mephibosheth into his court and, because of a promise he made to his father, Jonathan, he gave him a royal seat at his table. This meant a life of luxury and abundance, never needing anything and always having all the help he needed. However, peace in the land of David wasn’t going to last. The infamous scandal with Bathsheba was just around the corner.

David, having gained all that the Lord promised he would gain, made the lethal error of wanting more than God gave. God sent the prophet Nathan to tell David a parable about a greedy rich man who took the only beloved lamb of a poor man. David became enraged at such overt greed, and, with ironic foolishness, declared this rich man should receive the death sentence. Let’s read what Nathan said.

2 Samuel 12:7–13 ESV

Nathan said to David, “You are the man! Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you out of the hand of Saul. And I gave you your master’s house and your master’s wives into your arms and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah. And if this were too little, I would add to you as much more. Why have you despised the word of the Lord, to do what is evil in his sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and have taken his wife to be your wife and have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.’ Thus says the Lord, ‘Behold, I will raise up evil against you out of your own house. And I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this sun. For you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel and before the sun.’ ” David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.” And Nathan said to David, “The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die.

David would go on to lose the child he conceived with Bathsheba. His other son, Absalom, would stir up an insurrection against his father. This rebellion would start a civil war, costing thousands of Hebrew lives. David would be on the run for his life. Some people helped David; one of these was Ziba, a fellow we’ve met before*. Ziba came to the king at his weakest, bringing much needed supplies. After asking where Mephibosheth was, Ziba told David that he abandoned him, hoping to curry favor with the new king, Absalom. Imagine David’s response to hearing this: the cripple he had shown such kindness to had abandoned him for political gain.

The war continued. At the very end of his rope, he would hear that his rebel child, Absalom, had been killed fleeing for his life. Destroyed by grief, David began the long journey home. Even though he was technically the victor, there was no sweetness to it. The guilt of his sin and the destruction it had caused was still fresh in his mind. Ziba had been travelling with David across the Jordan, and then into Jerusalem. David, believing Ziba’s story of Mephibosheth’s betrayal, sees this crippled man approaching him.

This is where our text picks up.

Text

2 Samuel 19:24–30 ESV

And Mephibosheth the son of Saul came down to meet the king. He had neither taken care of his feet nor trimmed his beard nor washed his clothes, from the day the king departed until the day he came back in safety. And when he came to Jerusalem to meet the king, the king said to him, “Why did you not go with me, Mephibosheth?” He answered, “My lord, O king, my servant deceived me, for your servant said to him, ‘I will saddle a donkey for myself, that I may ride on it and go with the king.’ For your servant is lame. He has slandered your servant to my lord the king. But my lord the king is like the angel of God; do therefore what seems good to you. For all my father’s house were but men doomed to death before my lord the king, but you set your servant among those who eat at your table. What further right have I, then, to cry to the king?” And the king said to him, “Why speak any more of your affairs? I have decided: you and Ziba shall divide the land.” And Mephibosheth said to the king, “Oh, let him take it all, since my lord the king has come safely home.”

To say that the plot had thickened would be an understatement. Much like last week’s text, where the biographer introduces us to Mephibosheth, this interlude can quickly pass by without grabbing our attention. The life of David is such a sweeping biography, I tend to read it like a page-turner. I’m eager to get to the next part. I just finished listening through the posthumous biography of R.C. Sproul and I had the same urgency. I wanted to hear what happened next. But we have the same opportunity as last time. This section in 2 Samuel is another slightly-obscured meadow we ought to pause our forest walk for. “All Scripture is God-breathed,” and is for all of the church in all circumstances. There is more for us to learn from these events, 3,000 years ago.

Mephibosheth receives his king and finds his joy not in what he had lost, but what he had gained. We will be looking at four things that Mephibosheth lost that we, too, will lose. But, by the grace of God, we gain infinitely more — like Mephibosheth did. Here are the angles we will take.

The loss of comfort

The loss of reputation

The loss of control

The loss of death

First up: the loss of comfort.

1. The loss of comfort

When we’re saved, our eternal destiny is changed in an instant. The promise the Father made to the Son is poured into our lives. At the end of our journey, we are pardoned before God because of Christ’s sacrifice. Following this event is an experience of eternal peace and joy that our mental faculties simply cannot begin to grasp. Part of the reason this is difficult for us is because of what we are experiencing now. The cares and tragedies of the world try to distract us from that reality of the coming king. But for now, the king cannot be seen. This was Mephibosheth’s struggle.

The king had left, and prosperity ran off with him. Don’t we feel this way, from time to time? Doesn’t the current state of world events grow, in the back of our mind, this idea that things are getting out of control? The authorities of this world are only almost accidentally righteous; where most of time they are wicked or foolish. We yearn to see justice and world peace in our day. We want to see abortion crushed by the Gospel. We want to see wicked ideologies crushed by the Gospel. We want to see closeness and unity returned to Church, and her dignity restored in the high places. We want our seat at the table of this world.

Maybe, in our heart of hearts, we really do believe things are out of control. Or, maybe, we intellectually believe that God is working all things, but through our behavior show we are more skeptical than we think. Mephibosheth lost his comforts, and what he chose to do in reaction to that should surprise us.

Mephibosheth’s grief and anxiety resulted in outward disheveling. He “let himself go,” abandoning any meaningful practice of hygiene. This is an interesting expression of mourning, don’t you think? We all have our ways of processing defeat. Some sell their possessions and travel, others buy cars they can’t afford, and some shave their heads. Notice what the author didn’t say: Mephibosheth didn’t fast, at least to our knowledge. We aren’t told that he daily prayed for the safe return of the king. Instead, he lost control — he abandoned control, even.

David, likely while away from Mephibosheth, wrote this in Psalm 6:

Psalm 6:6–7 ESV

I am weary with my moaning; every night I flood my bed with tears; I drench my couch with my weeping. My eye wastes away because of grief; it grows weak because of all my foes.

Mephibosheth was likely in a similar spiritual place. And all Christians will experience this:

Ecclesiastes 1:8 ESV

All things are full of weariness; a man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.

Or, as David also wrote:

Psalm 69:1–3 ESV

Save me, O God! For the waters have come up to my neck. I sink in deep mire, where there is no foothold; I have come into deep waters, and the flood sweeps over me. I am weary with my crying out; my throat is parched. My eyes grow dim with waiting for my God.

This is where some of you are; where some of you have been; and where some of us will be. Christ promised this:

John 16:33 ESV

I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”

Our king has not yet returned. We are not yet in the final expression of the Kingdom of God. That is yet in the future. But Christ has overcome the world. Our challenge now is to trim our nails and clean our clothes. We are to remain expectant and prepared for the king’s coming. The reality is: Mephibosheth despaired when he should have waited on the promises of God. We fail at this, and God has grace for us. But that doesn’t change the fact that, in the final day, we will look back and wish we had remembered God’s promises. Mephibosheth very likely looked back on his choices following David’s fleeing, and regretted many things. He likely wished he had anticipated Ziba’s treachery, and prepared for it. He probably wished he was regularly closer to the King so that he could’ve joined him directly when he left.

Our king has not yet returned, but his return is guaranteed. And that is both what matters and comforts us most. Christ will come and make all things new. Paul says to you, now -- weary, comfort-less Christian:

2 Timothy 4:8 ESV

Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.

David offered to Mephibosheth what he could, but Christ guarantees the crown of righteousness for those who have loved his appearing, and wait for his return.

We aren’t in the final expression of Christ’s kingdom; we’re travellers in a temporary world. Eph 2 refers to this world’s course as following “the prince of the power of the air,” which is to say that God has allowed Satan operate in a restrained fashion in this current world. We know it is Satan’s intention to attack the comfort of the Church, as it also his mission to try and attack the reputation of the church — which is what we will examine next.

2. The loss of reputation

When Ziba stranded Mephibosheth, he brought his stuff with him to give to the king. He presented these supplies to David and told him Mephibosheth abandoned him. Ziba lied to David, and tarnished Mephibosheth’s reputation. For a crippled man of an almost extinct house, to have lost your last earthly life-line would have been the worst possible news. This is was slander and fraud that could have had lasting destructive consequences.

It is hard for us to wrap our mind around what the loss of reputation is for the Christian. The nation that we live in was founded, more so than any other, on Biblical principles. It affirmed fundamental truths about man and his responsibilities before God. While not perfect, our national heritage is inextricably Christian. Even with how fervently Satan is seeking to destroy this country, there is still, yet, a faltering cultural acceptance of Christianity. It is still culturally acceptable to go church. It can be respected or admired, even. Such days are not long to last. England, Rome, and Solomon’s reign over Israel are all some of the largest empires in history: their demise all began with cultural corruption. Our hope and trust should have never been in nations, my friends. Our peace should’ve never rested on the condition of our environment. We ought to never get comfortable with prosperity and begin to take it for granted. Pop Christianity will fade away, and the church will once again be introduced to persecution, its lifelong acquaintance.

A man named Timothy Stephens was arrested in Canada for holding underground church services. There are pictures of him hugging his family as masked police officers standby to handcuff him. There are other pictures of him handcuffed being put into a police vehicle. There are a few comments on the Facebook post praising God for faithful preachers; there are more comments condemning the Christians for gathering and endangering others. Our popularity with the world is shrinking. The Christians are becoming less of a force for good and more a force for oppression and injustice. Christ explained as much in Jn 15:

John 15:18–21 ESV

“If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me.

Right now, there are Christians in countries where Christianity is taboo. There are Christians in countries where obeying Christ is criminal. Faithful Chinese are arrested in darkness and disappear overnight. South American Christians lose their arms to machetes, and the Middle Eastern faithful are executed on camera.

Our family is attacked abroad. Our brothers and sisters are marched to their deaths by the world and its followers. But are they marched there alone? Do they suffer the destruction of their bodies and the disrepute of Christ in vain? Does Mephibosheth remain a dirty, king-less cripple? No. They do not. Their king returns. And he makes all things new. This is what matters most, and it’s Christ’s reputation that we will gain for eternity when he comes.

3. The loss of control

I said at the beginning that there will be countless things that will try to convince us that the reality of Christ and his coming is not what matters most. We will be tempted to seize control over things which we actually possess none over. These attempts to control our life do not come from a trusting faith in Jesus, but a fretful concern for the world. For me, it’s the neglect of prayer. I can’t picture a more foundational expression of this issue than a wasting prayer life. Prayer is, itself, the yielding of our control over to God. It is the submission of our desires to what God desires for us. It’s been said, “prayer is not the changing of God’s mind, but the conforming of ours to his.”

Mephibosheth lost all control: I wonder what his prayers were. The absence of its mention should prompt us consider how we would’ve responded. Would we have prayed if we were in his position? The reality is that we are not in ultimate control. God knows this, and because he is a loving Father, he invites us to seek him in prayer. This is where the greatest comfort can be found now, for when we have no control. Control or not, we are to pray without ceasing.

Romans 12:12 ESV

Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.

How is this possible? Jesus told us.

When his disciples asked him that question, he said:

Matthew 6:9–13 ESV

Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

Whose will is to be done? Whose will is sovereign over all of life’s circumstances? Our Heavenly Father’s will is to be done, in heaven and on earth. In Mephibosheth and David’s life, and in ours. Jesus, the God-man, on the night he was betrayed, prayed in the garden:

Mark 14:36 ESV

And he said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”

Jesus had perfect trust in God’s provision. Jesus knew what would happen to him in a matter of hours, but yielded all control to the Father. What a man, what a savior, and what a king!

And we know that this king is coming back. We know he will set all things in order and right every wrong. He will heal every heartache, and restore all that was lost! We can experience this strong joy in one moment, and then stub our spiritual toe the next.

How quickly does a worshipful attitude get erased when we are in pain?

How quickly can our experience of peace be rocked when someone hurts us?

How many times have we missed God’s comfort and peace because we focused more on the loss of control than the control our coming king has over all things?

Mephibosheth had zero control over what was happening while David was at war. He had zero control over Ziba’s actions and couldn’t venture to clear his name. Perhaps his lack of hygiene was, itself, an attempt to regain some semblance of control over his life. We do that, don’t we? Our quirky ways to flirt with the idea that we’ve got it together. Do they truly satisfy? Jesus truly satisfies. His coming will truly satisfy. His coming is all that matters for us now. The day of his return is what the faithful church eagerly awaits, throughout the ages.

Our obedience and worship now is done with our eyes on the horizon. We walk the path of life routinely checking the clouds for any disturbance. All faithfulness; all obedience; all worship — it all is the spiritual drum roll of the church of Jesus Christ, which builds to the explosion of his coming.

Revelation 19:11–14 ESV

Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written that no one knows but himself. He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God. And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses.

His coming will shrink every loss of comfort, reputation, and control from our minds to a point of such microscopic unimportance, we will wish we had more of it.

We will wish we had lost more for Jesus.

We will have wished we were Mephibosheth a thousand times over, so that we could have suffered for so a great Savior.

Even as the words spill out of my mouth, I feel my inadequacy and utter brokenness to honor the coming king. I know I am Mephibosheth, and I know I am even more disheveled and self-abandoned than he was!

But here’s the beauty: you cannot reduce perfect joy. You cannot reduce eternal life.

You cannot add any tears to the redeemed of God in heaven. You cannot grieve where the king is taking you:

Revelation 21:3–6 ESV

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment.

4. The loss of death

Before we end, there is one more text we need to look at. It is the last time we will speak with Mephibosheth until we speak with him in heaven.

2 Samuel 21:1–7 ESV

Now there was a famine in the days of David for three years, year after year. And David sought the face of the Lord. And the Lord said, “There is bloodguilt on Saul and on his house, because he put the Gibeonites to death.” So the king called the Gibeonites and spoke to them. Now the Gibeonites were not of the people of Israel but of the remnant of the Amorites. Although the people of Israel had sworn to spare them, Saul had sought to strike them down in his zeal for the people of Israel and Judah. And David said to the Gibeonites, “What shall I do for you? And how shall I make atonement, that you may bless the heritage of the Lord?” The Gibeonites said to him, “It is not a matter of silver or gold between us and Saul or his house; neither is it for us to put any man to death in Israel.” And he said, “What do you say that I shall do for you?” They said to the king, “The man who consumed us and planned to destroy us, so that we should have no place in all the territory of Israel, let seven of his sons be given to us, so that we may hang them before the Lord at Gibeah of Saul, the chosen of the Lord.” And the king said, “I will give them.” But the king spared Mephibosheth, the son of Saul’s son Jonathan, because of the oath of the Lord that was between them, between David and Jonathan the son of Saul.

God is showing us the most important thing that we lose when we are saved for his Son. God tells you now what the cripple has to gain from the king. What we have to lose is death; eternal death itself!

Mephibosheth’s grandfather was Saul, and because of Saul’s actions, vengeance was demanded by God.

But there is another, a farther away ancestor, whose actions demand a greater vengeance of eternal proportion that abides on all of humanity. The sin of our first representative Adam plunged the human race into darkness, in which we all walked. The wrath of God and his vengeance against sin was pointed squarely at our hearts.

But that inexhaustible vengeance of God was poured out on a substitute. The spear of death was thrust not into our side, but into the side of Jesus. David spared Mephibosheth from the bloodguilt of Saul because he loved Jonathan. The Christian is spared from the bloodguilt of Adam because Jesus loved them. All those who reject the call of king have chosen hang on a Gibeonite hill. Jesus calls all sinners to abandon their death in Adam, and take up life in Christ. Christ becomes our representative ancestor, not Adam. Have you left the path towards the hill on Gibeah — where the sons of Saul will hang before the Lord? Have you grasped the urgency and immediate need of knowing Jesus? Paul wrote:

Philippians 3:7–11 ESV

But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

Conclusion

When Jesus saves us, nothing else matters. The only thing that matters is being with him when he returns. Our friend Mephibosheth did not care to receive any portion of the land. His king had returned.

For all those who love the Savior, and await his coming, all lost comforts, lost reputation, and lost control will be made new when he comes. On that day, death will be defeated; only a dark shadow of the past that is cast out by the light of Lamb.

All the comfortless days of anguish on earth will be replaced by endless days of eternal peace!

Our reputation, whether slandered by the world or ruined by our own sin, will be cast into an ocean of forgetfulness!

All the battles for control our spirit loses to flesh will cease, and in the Resurrection we will only ever glorify and enjoy God!

All death, passed down from our ancestors, is destroyed for good! It is swallowed up in victory!

Mephibosheth will join us on that day, and he will be no cripple. We will look back on the concerns of our life, but for a moment, before they disappear from our mind — not because we’ve forgotten them, but because we our attention will be elsewhere.

1 Corinthians 15:52 ESV

in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.

If you were able to get his attention, and ask him about all the land in the world, he would say: O take it all, my king has brought me safely home.

Benediction: 1 Thess 5:23