different places this evening in the Word of God. I do have an outline, but I don't want to give it to you yet. So we'll get that to you in just a moment. But I'm getting my paraphernalia here. One more thing. Okay. I will start in First Chronicles. First Chronicles. We'll do a little bit of a history lesson here this evening, and then we'll show you something that I find very good. It's always enjoyable what we'll be Father, we pray you bless the service tonight. Thank you for the good music, good choices in the singing, family of God, and heir to the throne, and God of glory, we just don't deserve any of that, but by your grace, you've provided that for us, and we trust in the Lord Jesus. So, bless our time together, may it be encouragement to each and every one of us, we pray in Jesus' name, amen. Excuse me, you and this, my sermon is from being a pauper to a prince. There's a book that was written, The Prince and the Pauper. You read it? Who's read it? One person's read it. Two people read it. You know who wrote it? Who wrote it? Who wrote the original? Now, there's a lot of variations of it. There's movies and other books and it's been written differently, but the original book was written by Samuel Clemens, or known as Mark Twain, you know that? It actually was published first, I don't have the date here, first in Canada for some reason, and then it was published in America. You know what it's all about. I have a dissertation here about what it's all about. Let me just give you a brief, a brief summary, okay? Published in 1881 in Canada and 1882 in the United States. It is a nonfiction, it's not a true story of course, but it's about, supposedly about the ascension of a nine-year-old boy by the name of Edward who's going to be the king of England after his father, I believe his father was Henry, okay? 1547, this was one of Mark Twain's attempts to write a kind of a historical book. Most of his works were different than this. It involved two characters, Edward, and then a young man by the name of Tom Canty, C-A-N-T-Y, who had a, looked a lot like Edward the King, or the Prince, okay? Tom Canty was the lovin' pulper. He lived with an abusive and alcoholic father. You know where this is going, don't you? Basically, these two get to know each other, and they trade places. The prince meets this young boy, and they get together and share something, and the boys are like, hey, let's trade places. So Edward takes place of Tom Canty, Tom Canty takes and goes into the palace as the prince. Well, things don't go too well for a while because Tom dressed as the prince doesn't know what a prince is supposed to do, okay? So he has a little heart problem there supposedly. The prince, who's dressed as Tom, ends up in Tom's home. How did that happen? experiences some of the abuse that Tom was getting, which supposedly helps him when he becomes king, and he's a better king because he knows what's going on. Got the story? And it's not quite finished yet. While the prince, who is dressed like Tom, is out in the world, his father dies. And so the prince is going to become the king. And so the prince is not really the prince, it's Tom. So Tom is getting ready to be crowned king. Read the story, I don't know. I haven't read it either, okay? And so about this time, the prince comes back and says, no, no, I'm the real prince. I'm the real prince, not this guy here. He's not an imposter because they've played the role. And the prince has, and remember, what is it called, the great seal of England that he has that he's kept. And he shows that, oh, you are the prince involved. So he becomes the prince. Tom is no longer the prince, but he stays in the royal castle or whatever. He stays there as a ward of the state and as a friend of the new king, King Edward. Got the story? Here's Tom, who's a pauper. He becomes a prince. I don't think he ever went back to being a pauper. Interesting story, so that's not what I'm, whether it has something to do with it. I wanna, there's a Bible story, a great Bible story with a great lesson about a pauper who becomes a prince. Anybody have any idea? Prince who became a pauper. But what I'm gonna do, we're gonna start, though we're not gonna start with him, we're gonna start with King Saul. Now look at 1 Chronicles chapter eight. First prophet was chapter eight, King Saul. See how they look alike? Amazing. Which one's Tom? You don't know. So King Saul, he's a king now. God placed him there. And King Saul has three sons. Excuse me, four sons, not three sons. Four sons. Look at chapter eight, verse 33. sometimes in these descendant, these ancestor lines, there's some good truths here. And Nur begat Kish, and Kish begat Saul, and Saul begat, okay, well, I want this to go when I go. There you go. Begat Jonathan, and Malchai Shua, and Abinadab, and a fellow by the name of Ish, Now, it's used here, his name is used, Esh-bay-uh-bay-oh, but it's still, it's the same guy, Ish-bo-sheh, Ish-bo-sheh, I get that, all right? Now, four sons. What happened to the sons? Anybody know? They were all killed in battle. Three sons were killed in battle. Three sons were killed in battle. Jonathan, Malchi, Shua, and Abinadab, they were fighting the Philistines, This is over in 1 Chronicles chapter 10. We can turn, but we won't do that. In this battle, Saul is wounded, but he's not killed. And because he understands he's probably going to die, he does what? You know what he does? Remember your history? He tries to commit suicide. He falls on his own sword. Okay? However, he doesn't completely He doesn't completely die, he doesn't complete that. If you remember the story, this is further over in 2 Samuel. There's an Amalekite that comes to David and says, King Saul is dead. And David says, how did it happen? You remember what had happened? He says, the Amalekite came, I came, I came upon this, and I see you're wounded. And King Saul said, I'm dying, kill me. So the Amalekite killed him. I believe he actually cut his head off, I think, and took it back to David, if I remember the story. Okay? Did he do that? That's another story. David mourns the death of Jonathan and King Saul, and then he turns to the Amalekite and does what? He kills the Amalekite. Why? He says, how dare you touch God's anointed? God put Saul in place as a king and you really had no right to do that. And so he was killed. All right. After this, David is established as king of Judah. Now this is not the divided kingdom after Solomon, but it's somewhat divided right now. So David is over the kingdom of Judah, second Samuel, chapter two. And Ishmael, the fourth son here, becomes king over Israel. So he's king and he reigns for two years. Two years. And you know what happens to him? Everybody gets killed, don't they? You're right. He is assassinated by two of his captains who think that they're doing David a favor. And, oh, that's the guy. Let me check. I think that's the guy who had the head. Just a minute. I want to check it out. Let me look at Samuel chapter 2. real quick. You can turn there. Check me out. 2 Samuel chapter 2. You'll see the difference. Samuel is about the kings and David. The Chronicles, a lot of ancestry, a lot of historical things. So you have to kind of go back between Samuel, Chronicles, and the king. 2 Samuel, where am I? I want to just verify something here. 2 Samuel 2. Yeah, I did. Yeah, this is the guy. 2 Samuel chapter 4. And they brought the head of Ish-bosheth unto David of Hebron. What verse? Chapter 4, chapter 4, chapter 2, verse 8. They smote him with a dagger under the fifth rib. What did David do? You know what David did? Had both of those been killed. They didn't have a right to do that. They thought they were doing David a favor. We're going to have this kingdom together, so if we kill Ishmael, then everybody's got to gather together. It wasn't. You can do a good thing the right way, and it'd be wrong. There's a right way of doing things, and we've got to do things the right way. Well, there was war back and forth before this assassination and so forth. Between David house of David house of Saul finding David becomes king over all of Israel Okay, he is over all of Israel. He's the only king. He's that now I'm gonna jump about 20 years later 20 years later go to chapter 9 Second Samuel 9 No. In 2 Samuel chapter 9, David, some 20 years after all this took place, he says in verse 1, we're gonna do a little narration here. And David said, is there yet any that is left of the house of Saul that I may show him kindness for Jonathan's sake? So King David says, I'm gonna bless someone. Is there anyone that is left of the house of Saul? Most of them are dead now. The sons are dead. We don't know a lot about what the ancestors of the sons. We know a little bit about one of them, but not very much. So he asked about if there's anyone there. Verse two, and there was of the house of Saul a servant whose name was Ziba. Z-I-B-A. He's not the best servant. You see him later in the scriptures where he actually betrays his master, but we'll probably won't get to that. And when they called him unto David, the king said unto him, art thou Ziba? He said, yes, thy servant be. I'm him, I'm him, I'm him. I used to be part of Saul's servants. And the king said, is there not yet any of the house of Saul that I may show the kindness of God unto him? And Ziba said, under the king, Jonathan hath yet a son which is lame on his feet. His name is? Mephibosheth. Mephibosheth. How did he get lame? He was dropped. He was dropped. When he was five years of age, he was dropped. And the nurse dropped him as they were fleeing. and he became lame, and that's back in 2 Samuel chapter 4. Now, there's something interesting here too. And the king said to Ziba, where is he? And Ziba said to the king, behold, he is in the house of Macher, the son of Amiel in Lodomar. You know, some of these names you have to You have to find out what they're talking about, because there's some interesting things here. And there's an interesting thing here about the place of Lodibar. This was not Jonathan's place. He was in a place. I actually believe he was hiding. I believe he was hiding from David. Typically, in those days, a king usually eliminated his enemy and even the family of the enemy. And here's part of Saul's family. And so I believe he was hiding it below Dabar. Here's the interesting thing about below Dabar. The Hebrew word Dabar, D-E-B-A-R, means word or thing. You put lo in front of it, and lo negates it. Instead of being something, it says this is a city of nothing. And your scholars look at it and say, what does all that mean, and so forth. He said it's probably a description of the town that it really wasn't a good place. It didn't have good pasture land, maybe not good water. It was a, someone said it was called a nothing town. It's like a country Podunk city way out in the country. You know any Podunk cities in the country? Yeah. There's some in Kentucky, by the way. One of the commentators called it Nothingville. Nothingville. So here is Mephibosheth. He's a pauper. He doesn't have any land. He doesn't have anything. He doesn't have any servants. He was an heir to the throne after Jonathan. Did you realize that? Jonathan was the heir after Saul. saw out of the picture, but then Macbeth would have been the heir after Jonathan. That would be like Prince William. Prince William is now an heir to the kingdom there in Great Britain. So anyway, so I believe he's hiding. And then it says, the Bible goes on to say, the king said, send and fetch him. And they fetched him. I thought that was an interesting use of an English word there. Fetched means to grab, to seize. Does Mephibosheth know what David's going to do? No. Would you be a little fearful? I would be a little fearful. And so David, David was, watch this. Boy, isn't that neat? Did you, everybody see that? You missed it? Okay, here we go again. David goes, Mephibosheth goes, Mephibosheth, he comes. All right. So he comes, he's brought to David. He does not know what's going on here. Is he going to be killed? Is something going to bad happen to him? It says, let me show you what happens here. Now, when Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, was coming to David, He fell on his face and did reverence. He fell flat on his face before David and honored him, okay? David said, just use the name, Mephibosheth. And Mephibosheth answered, says, behold, thy servant, I'm your servant. He doesn't know what's going on, what's gonna happen. And David said unto him, fear not. For I will surely show thee kindness for Jonathan thy father's sake, watch this, and will restore thee all the land of Saul thy father, and thou shalt not, and thou shalt eat at my table continually. That's pretty good news. That's great news. We're gonna restore all of Saul's land. You're gonna have all of Saul's land back. That's not what he had anticipated or expected at all. Let's read on. And he bowed himself and said, what is thy servant that thou shouldest look upon such a dead dog as I am? I'm not worthy of this. I don't deserve this. And we'll come back to that. The king called Ziba. Saul's servant said unto him, I have given unto thy master's son all that pertaineth to Saul and to all his house. I wonder how much that was. That had to be a lot of stuff, okay, because he was king. Thou, therefore, and thy sons, even your sons, and it tells us, it doesn't tell, yeah, it tells us here, it tells us how many, Zebazan's people. Thy sons and thy servants shall till the land for him, and thou shalt bring in the fruits, for thy master's son may have food to eat, but Mephibosheth, the master's son, Shall not, shall eat bread always at my table. He's not gonna eat out there with you guys. He's gonna eat with me at my table. Ain't that great? I'm gonna be able to sit at the king's table and have fellowship with the king. Now Ziba had 15 sons and 20 servants. There's even something better here, watch. Then said Ziba the king, according to all that my lord the king hath commended my servant, so shall my servant do. As for Mephibosheth, said the king, he shall eat at my table as one of the king's sons. He had been taken from a place of being a pauper, hiding from David in any possibility of having anything, and now he was a pauper, and he is now a son, and a son of David would be a prince. So he's gone from being a pauper to having all this land and service and being able to sit with the king at the king's table, not at some table way over there, but at the king's table as a son, as a son, with the privileges of a son. Mephibosheth had a young son whose name was Micah. I am, I, my, my, I figured that Mephibosheth was in his mid-20s or so forth, and, and that's, so he has a son. And all that dwelt in the house of Ziba were serviced unto Mephibosheth. So Mephibosheth dwelt in Jerusalem, for he did eat continually at the king's table, and was laying at both feet. Isn't that an interesting story? You know what that story's all about? One word. What is it? Grace. Grace. You're right. It's all about grace. Come, young man, Stephen, you whippersnapper. Bachelor's hat. This story's all about grace. David showed Mephibosheth grace. You can't miss it. And I want to look at it. It's really a picture of the grace of God that has been shown to us in salvation. Has God been gracious? Grace is receiving what we do not deserve. Whatever you and I have spiritually or even physically, it's not because we, so I heard it, no, no. God in his grace has allowed you to be spiritually blessed, and God in his grace has allowed you to be spiritually prospering as well. It's all in grace, it's about grace, and we're gonna look at that this evening, as soon as you get all these outlines out. And I'll show you how it works. He's young, but he's slow. Here we go. Number one, Mephibosheth was... The story of Mephibosheth is a lesson about God's grace. Mephibosheth was sought by David. Was Mephibosheth looking for David? No. He was hiding from David. David was looking for Mephibosheth. What's the truth here? The truth is that the laws are not seeking after God. God seeks after them. That's where you say amen, folks. You know who said that first? Wasn't the apostle Paul. David, the psalmist, David, when he wrote a psalm, wrote in Psalm 14, the fool has said in his heart, there is no God. They're corrupt. They have none. They have done abomination. There is none that doeth good. The Lord looketh down from the heaven upon the children of men to see if there were any that didn't understand and seek God. Are there any that are lost in seeking God? The answer is what? No, they're all going to side there altogether and become guilty. There is none that doeth good. No, not one. Who else said it? Who else quoted that scripture? Paul. The apostle Paul in Romans chapter three wrote, I'm gonna read that too just so you see the similarities. Paul wrote, as it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one. There is none that understandeth. There is none that seeketh after God. They're all going out of the way. They are together become unpromptable. There is none that doeth good, no, not one. So we didn't seek God. The lost don't seek God because there's no way to seek God. They don't understand God. They don't have any understanding of God. The lost cannot do it. You didn't either, right? God sought you through the word of God, through the spirit of God, and showed you the reality of salvation. God seeks man. When Adam and Eve sinned, God was coming in the cool of the evening. Where was Adam and Eve? They were hiding. Just as Meshuvah was hiding, what did they do with David, the king? I mean, they were hiding from God. They knew they were wrong. They'd done something wrong, and they were wrong. They disobeyed God. They were hiding, and the lost people were hiding from God. Does a lost person want, a lost person knows they're lost and undone on the road to heaven. Do they want to stand before a holy God? Does a thief or a murderer want to stand before a judge? Of course not. And so God seeks man, that is part of God's grace. God's grace seeks man, amen? If it wasn't for God seeking after us and us responding to that, then we would continue to be lost on the road to hell. Now, as believers, we become part of God's plan as ambassadors. We're to take God's word, the truth, and help those who are lost and They don't understand, but given the truths of the Spirit of God, can begin to draw them and give them some understanding of their need of salvation. So, it's all by grace. God sees man. David saw Mephibosheth. Part of God's grace. Secondly, when Mephibosheth came before David, Mephibosheth, we'll have to say that a few times, you kind of lose it, don't you? Mephibosheth. Mephibosheth, that's how I pronounce it. That's how I've heard it pronounced. He was convicted. I don't know he was convicted. When he saw David, what did he do? He fell on his face. He fell on his face and gave reverence. He said, I am a dead dog. I don't deserve, I haven't earned anything. I haven't earned this privilege of being in David's house and receiving the blessings of the land. By the way, the lost. It's not very clear back there. The law, in order to come to Christ, must be convicted by the Spirit of God. Amen? There is no salvation apart from the Spirit of God convicting. Convicting a person of their sinfulness, realizing they're lost in the road to hell, and there's a punishment, and then confirming or showing them that Jesus Christ is the only way. So the Spirit of God is that person. When we came to Christ, we didn't come to Christ with an arrogancy, did we? I deserve this. Salvation is not something we deserve. We should have come like that publican in Luke chapter 18. The Pharisees are doing their self-righteous thing, and the publican's standing over there doing what? Reading his breast. The Bible says, says, Lord have mercy upon me, out of my sinful soul. Have mercy. Salvation is coming to the Lord and say, have mercy. Mephibosheth, I don't know if he deserved to be killed or what, but he, David could have done that if he wanted to. We deserve to die. We deserve to spend eternity in heaven. We deserve, we haven't earned a thing. God chose to bless us because we were convicted and came to Christ. Conviction is critical to being saved. Amen. And we feel conviction, right? If we do wrong, what happens? Do you feel bad about it? It's called a guilty conscience. I don't like a guilty conscience. I don't like a guilty conscience even though I'm guilty. And it just troubles. And so a lost person is convicted of their sin and they have to come face to face with their sinfulness and ask God for mercy. You see this grace involved here? David's doing something of grace as the Lord has done grace for us. Thirdly, Did everybody get that? Those who are greatly convicted, the lost, are convicted by the Spirit, by the Holy Spirit. We talked about the Spirit this morning. You have the Spirit this evening? Yes. There's a song says, what's the song says? Hope the Spirit will come and be with us in church. Well, that's not very spiritual, all right? He's not sitting out there somewhere in some chair. If you're a believer, he's with you, he's in you, right? He's indwelling you. You do that. Mephibosheth, he's the one who delivered David. David, yeah, thanks, thanks. Thanks for laughing, appreciate that, makes me feel good. David, David was the one who delivered Mephibosheth. Mephibosheth was delivered by David. Here's Mephibosheth flat on his face and David says, Don't worry. There's no fear here. Here's what I'm going to do for you. Not because you deserve, because I'm going to deliver you. Why? Because of Mephibosheth? I think that's it. He didn't do it for Mephibosheth. He did it for Jonathan's sake. Because it was way back when Jonathan and David were friends, when Saul was trying to kill David, and they made a pact. They made actually a covenant that says, you watch me, you watch him. And Jonathan sat down. David, I want you to promise me that you'll take care of me and my house. So he's fulfilling a covenant that he had made with Jonathan years ago. So our salvation was God delivered us from hell. You know that? It was God and his grace that he saved us. And that salvation, we were saved from sin. We were saved from eternal punishment. We were saved and delivered by God himself. That's grace. Not for our sake, but for Christ's sake. Because of what Christ did on the cross of Calvary. Not by works of righteousness, but by grace you can save through faith. Well, aren't you glad you're delivered? I always see, I can see in my mind, that chalk artist doing a BBS, I've told you before, chalk artist. You know, there's a couple of chalk artists still around that say, I got, I got an email from one once. And he put that blackboard up there, he drew that narrow road, he drew that broad road. Boy, that broad road. He said, there's a lot of people in this broad road. He says, there's people, all of us in this broad road, and they're getting down toward the end of this broad road, the end of their life, and they're falling off into hell. Man, I remember that so clearly. And aren't you glad God delivered you? Is hell real? We believe it's real. God has delivered us from that. It's all by grace, all by grace, all by grace. And the truth is, the loss is delivered by, for Christ's sake, not for our sake. David delivered Mephibosheth, or Mephibosheth was delivered by David. Four, Mephibosheth was blessed by David. He received the lands. He had his servants. Ziba was gonna be his servant. And his family's going to be a servant. They were going to till the land. I just can't imagine how much acreage was involved and other things that were involved there. And all these things were going to belong to Mephibosheth. And the food would be brought and so forth. I find that great. The greatest part is that Mephibosheth became one of David's sons. That's what amazes me. Not just somebody to sit around, I'll bless you, no, I want you to sit here, I want you to be at my table, I want you to be able to sit here with me and talk, to be here, you're one of the sons. We sing this song, we're a child of the king, we're a son. Not going to be sons, 1 John chapter 3 says, we don't know what we're gonna be yet, but we know now, now we're the sons of God, amen? Is God committed to our care and take care of us? Yea or nay? Is He committed to us? Whatever we're going through, He's committed to us. We don't have to worry. We don't have to fear. He's in charge. He's gonna be with us to the very end, regardless of what happens to us. Why worry, the little chorus says. The lost who come to Christ become sons of God. We were children of wrath. Now we're sons of God. Boy, how did that happen? Isn't that amazing? Not because of anything that we did, but because, again, it's all about the grace of God. And then look at verse 13. Oh, I forgot to give you. The lost who trust Christ become sons of God. Yes. One more. One more, and then an epilogue. Mephibosheth enjoyed fellowship with David. He says, continue verse 13, and Mephibosheth dwelt in Jerusalem, for he did eat continually at the king's table, and was lame in both his feet. He wasn't perfect, he still had lame feet, he probably had crutches or whatever, I guess he did, but he was there, he was eating continually, and fellowship. If I'm sitting at the king's table, that means I have some kind of connection there, there's some talking going on, some fellowship, And praise God for that. As believers, do we have fellowship? We as believers have fellowship with the Lord daily. That's amazing. That's great. We're still unworthy. We're still lame spiritually. We're not perfect by any means, but we can have fellowship with the Lord and enter in His presence and make our prayers known and so forth. What a joy! That's grace! I can open my Bible and experience fellowship with the Lord. And He can speak to me through the Word, and I can speak to Him in my prayers and my praise to Him, and I can have fellowship. Are you having fellowship with the Lord? Just because you read the Bible doesn't mean you're having any fellowship. You gotta read, and think, and meditate, and pray, and just have a good time with the Lord. It's by grace. It's God's grace that allows us to enjoy the things that we enjoy. We're so thankful for that. Did Mephibosheth's life change? Did it not change? That complete turnaround? Doesn't mean he did. It was all grace by day. Jim gave a testimony the other day. I'll tell you what it was. He said, just come to Christ a couple of years ago. And he said, you know what? God had completely changed my life. I think differently. I act differently. I treat other people differently. God did a work in my life or something that changed. Now, we're supposed to be amen. Great evidence of salvation when there's a change of the heart and a change of our lives that bring glory to God. Excuse me. Mephibosheth's life was changed greatly. I'm gonna show you one more thing in closing. Turn over to 2 Samuel chapter 19. We're gonna go about 10 to 15 years beyond this. So Mephibosheth had been in the king's palace. He's been eating continually. He's been there with David. And now we have a story here about David going off to war. I won't read all of it for you. He goes off to war, and he returns. He returns. I'm going to pick up the reading in verse 24. Chapter 19, verse 24. Let me show you how Mephibosheth responded to David. Verse 24. And Mephibosheth, the son of Saul, came down to meet the king, and watch. He was so concerned about the king's return. There's such a love for David and appreciation for what David did. He said, neither dressed his feet. I'm not sure exactly what that means, but I'm afraid to be very hard with that, aren't you? Had not dressed his feet, nor trimmed his beard, nor washed his clothes from the day of the king department to the day he came again in peace. What a stinky guy, right? Why? Because he was more concerned about David's safety, because what David had done for him, the appreciation of love, that he wouldn't do that, so David came back. Now watch this a little bit more here. It came to pass when he was coming to Jerusalem to meet the king, that the king said to them, wherefore wouldest thou not go with me? But they said, why didn't you go with me? That kind of cut him. And then Mephibosheth says in verse 26, My Lord, O King, my servant deceived me. This is Ziba. You have to read the entire thing. Ziba had some deception. He kind of betrayed his master here. For thy service, I said, I will saddle me an ass, and I will ride thereon, and go to the king, because thy servant is lame. I'm going to get on this donkey, and I'm going to go. I'm going to go. Verse 27. And he hath slandered thy servant unto my lord the king. Ziba turned out to be a rat, if you understand that terminology. But my lord the king is as an angel of God, do therefore what is good in thy sight. You see the love and appreciation that Mephibosheth had for David. He said, for all of my father's house were but dead men before my lord the king. Yet this thou said, thy servant among them, that did eat at thine own table. What right, therefore, have I to cry any more unto the king? Now, I've got to read two more verses. Wait a minute, wait a minute. Stay with me. Verse 29. And the king said unto him, Why speakest thou any more of these matters? I have said, You and Zelub can divide the land. You can have the land. Mephibosheth said unto the king in verse 30, Yea, Let him take all. For as much as my Lord the King has come again in peace unto his own house. I don't care about this other stuff. I'm just glad, I'm thrilled that you're back and you're safe. And Mephibosheth had a love and appreciation of what David had done for him in grace. Does that not speak of what we should be? Should we not be thankful and appreciative? It doesn't matter what we have or do not have. It's just what God has done for us. We complain about what we don't have, what we think we need, which we really don't need, and so forth, and we think God is angry with us or God is treating us bad. Wait a minute, wait a minute. We are what we are today by the grace of God. We're saved on the road to heaven. We know the word of Jesus Christ. We have the Holy Spirit. We have the word of God. We have his promises that he's gonna be with us no matter what. And we still what? Oh, woe is me. I don't know what's gonna happen. Let's trust God. Let's show our appreciation and love by how we live our lives for the Lord, as Mephibosheth. What a wonderful story of grace. Isn't that a wonderful story of grace? What we have, what we are, is by the grace of God. It'll be by God's grace that we'll enter heaven one day. Okay? All right. Please take that. Stand to your feet, please. You can eat supper when you get home. Have your dessert first. Have your dessert first. Father, I am thankful for your grace. The story of Mephibosheth and David is just an amazing story. David was so gracious. He was a just king. He was a righteous king. He would have done anything because of who he was. level of authority could have done anything. He chose to be kind, had to go out of his way to be kind to someone of the house of Saul, who at one time wanted to kill him, but showed grace to Mephibosheth, and blessing him, and delivering him, and God, you've done that for us. Forgive us for not living our lives for you. Forgive us, Lord, for not knowing you are the love that we have This week, Lord, may we rejoice that we're a son of the King. We're a son of the King. And we can go to you at any time, fellowship, as Meshivah did with David, and we experience that even this week. Bless our folks, Lord, bless our folks. Bless our fellowship. Give us a blessed time of fellowship this evening, as pressures of life come crashing around us. Let us just relax for a few moments, Lord, before a new week begins, and just come to you and trust you and have a good time fellowshiping with our fellow brothers and sisters. Bless the food, we pray in Jesus' name.