Intro

• Kay’s mom & dad, brother & SIL are coming later this week from northern Michigan
• At some point, the topic of nothern vs southern culture is going to come up.

Southern hospitality, kindness, fakeness?

Recap

• C7 ∙ David has had this amazing encounter with God.
• C8 ∙ Armed with God’s promise of victory, David sets out to do what’s been left undone since Israel entered the Promised Land.
• C9 ∙ Some time has passed, David is even more secure, settled in to his new role as King of Israel.

Now he’s got more time to think about times gone by,
friends he misses, promises that were made…

David asked, “Is there anyone remaining from the family of Saul I can show kindness to for Jonathan’s sake?” There was a servant of Saul’s family named Ziba. They summoned him to David, and the king said to him, “Are you Ziba?”

“I am your servant,” he replied.

So the king asked, “Is there anyone left of Saul’s family that I can show the kindness of God to?”

Ziba said to the king, “There is still Jonathan’s son who was injured in both feet.”

The king asked him, “Where is he?”

Ziba answered the king, “You’ll find him in Lo-debar at the house of Machir son of Ammiel.” So King David had him brought from the house of Machir son of Ammiel in Lo-debar.

Mephibosheth son of Jonathan son of Saul came to David, fell facedown, and paid homage.

2 Samuel 9:1–6

David is remembering the covenant he made with his best friend in the world.

• To Saul, he simply promised not to harm his descendants.
• To Jonathan, he made a covenant to show “hesed”
  (steadfast, covenantal love, lovingkindness)

And he’s told (via Ziba) that there in fact is a descendant, in fact, he’s Jonathan’s son. His name is Mephibosheth.

Let’s talk about Meph for a second:

Poor Mephibosheth

Notice the first thing we hear about him: “Jonathan’s son…
that’s crippled in both feet.”

Back in C4, during the battle where Saul & Jonathan were killed, we got the backstory of how it happened:

Saul’s son Jonathan had a son whose feet were crippled. He was five years old when the report about Saul and Jonathan came from Jezreel. His nanny picked him up and fled, but as she was hurrying to flee, he fell and became lame. His name was Mephibosheth.

2 Samuel 4:4

Things have not been easy for this guy. He’s had a hard life.

• He’s the grandson of a dead/deposed king.
• Crippled in both feet is tough regardless, but particurlarly
  in a militaristic & agrarian society. It meant you’re basically useless.
• People (wrongly!) believed that being lame meant you were cursed by God, because of a misapplication of Leviticus 21.
• The name Mephibosheth means “spreader of shame.”
• The town where he was staying, Lo-debar,
  literally means no place/nothing. (v5)

Put yourself in Meph’s shoes—you have no reason in the world
to think this meeting is going to go well for you. David has been mopping up his enemies one by one… looks like your time is up.

Mephibosheth son of Jonathan son of Saul came to David, fell facedown, and paid homage. David said, “Mephibosheth!”

“I am your servant,” he replied.

“Don’t be afraid,” David said to him, “since I intend to show you kindness for the sake of your father Jonathan. I will restore to you all your grandfather Saul’s fields, and you will always eat meals at my table.”

Mephibosheth paid homage and said, “What is your servant that you take an interest in a dead dog like me?”

2 Samuel 9:6–9

Here’s the big idea this AM/PM.

“Where do you get that? Isn’t this just David just being a nice guy?”
Good question, glad you asked!

Remember, this book is not a strict chronological history—the Spirit supernaturally guided the author/editor in arranging the story to convey spiritual truth to us, to reveal God, his ways, and his Kingdom to us.

No, it’s better than that!

Kindness from God to Us

David experiences the undeserved, over-the-top kindness of God in C7, and now he responds in kind by sharing/showing the same kindness to Mephibosheth.

It’s the difference between being nice because it’s a nice way to live, and being kind as an act of worship to God in response to His overwhelming kindness to you.

POP QUIZ: What was the point of the message last week?

Life in the kingdom is not about what we do for God, but what He’s done for us. David starts all gung-ho, ready to go and build something great for God, but he ends up just sitting in wonder at the greatness of God’s kindness toward him.

The order is crucial—unless you come from this same place, your kindness will always be motivated by lesser things.

And you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you previously walked according to the ways of this world, according to the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit now working in the disobedient.

Ephesians 2:1–2

• Spiritually, we’re in even worse shape than Mephibosheth—
  dead is objectively worse than crippled.
• We weren’t just potential enemies of the King,
  we were actual enemies.
• We weren’t just separated by the perceptions of others,
  but by the reality of who we are… or rather, who we were.

But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love that he had for us, made us alive with Christ even though we were dead in trespasses. You are saved by grace! …

So God can point to us in all future ages as examples of
the incredible wealth of his grace and kindness toward us

Ephesians 2:4–7

You’ll never become generous like David in this story until you see that first you were in the place of Mephibosheth in this story. You were God’s enemy, helpless, a “dead dog” in your sins, when God’s outrageous, radical kindness came to you in Jesus Christ.

J.D. Greear

Do you see how this is just the next logical step from last Sunday? We don’t set out to do something great for God, all the greatless lies with Him. This whole Kingdom is based on His work, His greatness.

But then, as His love and graciousness toward us transforms our hearts, and from that God-centered, grace-centered place, His kindness can flow through us to others.

Kindness from Us to Others

Look at how kind David was to Mephibosheth:

• calls him by his name ∙ such a small thing, but it’s a kindness in itself.
• “Don’t be afraid” ∙ one of the most common phrases in Scripture
• subtle literary shift from “the King” (vs 1-5) to just simply David.
• restores Saul’s family land, and in vs 10, assigns Ziba & Sons to tend to it for him (he couldn’t do it himself!), so that he’ll have food & income.
• you’ll always eat at my table, “just like one of the king’s sons” (11)

So this is an enemy from nowhere who many regard as useless and cursed by God, that David invites to sit at his table like one of the king’s sons.

J.D. Greear

Who’s Your Mephibosheth?

Where are you—in response to being so loved by Jesus—doing something radically generous, treating someone in an unexpectedly kind way.

• Something that would make them react the same as Mephibosheth—“Why would you be this nice to me?!”

The indicator that you’re experiencing the gospel is that you start to display the generousity of the gospel.

J.D. Greear

Hear me when I say, I don’t mean that I don’t see kindness happening in your lives. I definitely do!

I can think of so many examples of kindness in our church family. Some you all know about, some you don’t, some only God knows about. Let me just give a few examples.

1. Caring for family members, both physical/spiritual family.

   • from young to old, reflecting God’s extraordinary kindness in hard places where it seems like nobody sees. He sees.

2. Taking care of physical needs.

   • often with nobody else knowing, not letting right hand know what left is doing, not doing it for your glory but His.

3. Giving people a ride to church, or somewhere else, Night to Noonday.

4. Those who faithfully, sacrificially give time/energy/money to the grocery giveaway.

I don’t say that in a “look at us, aren’t we great!“
sort of way—don’t get a big head!

I say it from the dual role as both as a sheep that belongs to this flock as well as the shepherd of this flock, I see the evidence of God’s kindness toward you in you, and it moves me to tears on a fairly regular basis.

But to use the phrase we saw back in 1 Thessalonians…

You live this way already, and we
encourage you to do so even more.

1 Thessalonians 4:1, NLT

Maybe you already have that Mephibosheth relationship already,
but God’s just bringing to mind the much bigger, better “why?”

The Better Why

Those four examples of kindness I just mentioned, and all the ones I didn’t, why do you do those things?

If you were to ask the average person, maybe even the average Christian, that question, I think you’d probably get answers like…

• it’s just the right thing to do
• it makes the world a better place.
• my heart just aches for those in need
• karma, what goes around comes around, reap what you sow
• it’s what the Bible says to do

There’s nothing inherently wrong with any of those reasons…
but none of them are the best answer, either.

If David were here this AM/PM and we could ask him, “Why did you show Meph so much kindness?”, I think it’s clear that his answer wouldn’t be any of those.

He might say, “Didn’t you see the reason I gave when I asked if there were any descendants of Saul still around?” And then we’d look back at verse 3:

So the king asked, “Is there anyone left of Saul’s
family that I can show the kindness of God to?”

2 Samuel 9:3

“See? I was simply showing Mephibosheth the slightest bit of the kindness that God had shown to me. I was letting the kindness of the King flow through me.”

Some of us in here might need to find a Mephibosheth.

Most of us probably just need a reminder of the greater why?.

1. caring for family members, → “family sticks together”

   • or → God adopted me into his family

2. physical needs → should help the less fortunate

   • or → in my most desparate moments, God has provided for my every need.

3. giving people a ride → because they need it, don’t want them to walk.

   • or → when I was far away, God brought me in.

4. giving time/energy/money to the grocery giveaway → don’t want people to go hungry

   • or → he’s the bread of life, He’s filled my cup to overflowing, physically & spiritually.

Those first reasons, they’re fine… except that they’re exact same reasons any person would have, whether they have a relationship with God or not!

It would be so easy for me to say, “Be kind like David!” And you would’ve said, “Amen!” (at least theoretically!), and then we’d sing a song and go eat lunch and watch basketball… and we’d have all missed the point.

David isn’t our ultimate example—the Son of David is!

Conclusion

Who do you need to show kindness to?

• those closest to us often get the worst of us

How can you turn your “just because” kindness into “kingdom kindness?”

And just as my Father has granted me a Kingdom,
I now grant you the right to eat and drink at my
table in my Kingdom.

Luke 22:29–30, NLT