Well, hello church. If you would open to 2 Samuel 9. It's 13 verses. I'm going to read the whole chapter for us. This is God's Word. And David said, is there still anyone left in the house of Saul that I may show him kindness for Jonathan's sake? Now there was a servant in the house of Saul whose name was Ziba. And they called him to David. And King David said to him, are you Ziba? And he said, I am your servant. And the king said, is there not still someone in the house of Saul that I may show the kindness of God to him? Ziba said to the king, There is a son of Jonathan. He is crippled in his feet. The king said to him, where is he? And Ziba said to the king, he is in the house of Micah, the son of Emel at Loabdar. Then King David sent and brought him from the house of Micah to the son of Emel at Loabdar. And Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, came to David and fell at his face and paid him homage and said, and David said, Mephibosheth. He said, 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, 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 all his master I have given to your master's grandson. And you and your sons and your servants shall till the land for him and bring in the produce that your master's grandson may have bread to eat. But Mephibosheth, 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. And Mephibosheth had a young son whose name was Micah. And all who lived in Ziba's house became Mephibosheth's servants. So Mephibosheth lived in Jerusalem, for he ate always at the king's table. Now he was lame in both feet." Father, Lord, we refuse to treat these words as an old story, as history in Israel, merely. Lord, this is Your God-breathed Word. You've preserved it. It's written here for our sake, Lord, so that we could know Your kindness and so that we could be changed and be people who Your kindness extends through. And so we pray that happens right now as we look at this passage. And we pray it in Jesus' name, Amen. Well, as you all can see, we've decided to leave the Gospel of John for, it'll probably be a couple months, and then Lord willing, we'll come back. We really needed to stop in chapter 17 and then cover chapter 17 all the way with the rest of John. That's the ideal way to do it. So, we're starting a little series here on virtue and Christian character. And I believe this is a very neglected topic of discipleship in churches. Even here, we've spent a lot of time, for those of you who've been in the church for a while, you know we talk a lot about why character or virtue matters, and we talk a lot about how your character could change. But what we don't often talk about, or not as much, is what the character actually is. And so when we come at a virtue or a characteristic, we don't want to look at kindness, for example, and just do a word study. We want to look at that characteristic in the life of a person. And we're going to look at Old Testament narratives for the next couple of weeks and see this embodied. Because if I just say to you, be kind, honor, show loyalty, That's a little frustrating unless you see it exemplified in someone's life. That becomes a much more helpful way to approach this. So let me tell you, two things I guess kind of happened to me recently that put this on my heart as a burden for us to study. And the first is how much this is lacking in our culture. Virtue and Christian character is not what it should be even displayed from the church. I think that this is a strong apologetic for the Christian faith. For people to just see virtuous Christians break down guards and barriers and defenses that they may have put up around the gospel, and it causes those things to fall, and they give a better hearing to the gospel. I was talking to one of you who just joined the church about your testimony the other day, and one of the things that was interesting about your testimony was that there was somebody the Lord brought in your life who displayed a kindness, a compassion, a friendliness to you in such a way that you were willing to hear the gospel from the church they were bringing you to and from that person. And the guards came down. You heard the gospel and you were saved. And it wasn't the person that saved you, it was the gospel. But the person was used to get you there, to hear the gospel, and the Lord uses that. And our culture needs to see virtuous Christians. That's one thing that's on my heart, is a genuine loving kindness of someone who isn't just nice and friendly to your face, and then behind your back doesn't really care about you, but a genuine loving kindness. People need to see that. Here's the other reason I think this series is important. There are a lot of misunderstandings as to what it means to be gospel-centered. We throw around these phrases, gospel centrality, and there are abuses and misunderstandings surrounding that, and I hope to dismantle some of those. So I'll give you an example of how this came in my path recently. So I was at a father-son camp out with my sons recently. And one night, they had a man stand up and speak to all of us. It's all these men and all of our boys. And he didn't say, hey, this is how you become a Christian. This is how you get saved. I'm about to preach the gospel. He just said, men, It's a bunch of men. We are protectors and providers of women and girls, and you need to be kind and respectful and chivalrous toward the ladies." And he began to teach us and teach the boys and kind of gave some stories to inspire them to treat women well. And then he said, okay, now y'all go back to your tents, fathers and sons, and talk through this. pray, and then come back later. So we all went and we got to talk to our own sons and build that out how we wanted. I thought it was great. Later that night, I was talking to a man who was there. And I want to believe the best about this man. I don't really know him. But he said, what just happened there? That was gospel-less. That was moralism. What was that? And I'm like, well, brother, you know, he didn't say it was the gospel, and I didn't know this guy. I didn't really want to get into it at that moment. But he had been taught by, I'm sure, well-meaning Christians, that gospel centrality means any teaching of children or adults about Christian character or about virtue is somehow legalistic moralism, and that the gospel has been set aside, and now we're only talking about moralism and virtue. And I personally refuse to let someone who is not understanding Scripture rightly truncate and make my understanding of the Gospel shallow. When I see the Gospel here in beautiful in its wholeness, I don't want someone to shrink it down and truncate it for me. So I want us to have a rich understanding of what the gospel is. And the reality is, moralism and virtue aren't what you preach when the gospel's been left behind. The beauty of Christ is seen in His character shining through the people who have received the gospel. This isn't moralism. This isn't gospel as Christianity. This is people who have received the gospel, received his spirit, and now the fruits of the spirit, which we're calling virtue in Christian character, are actually just displaying Christ's character to the world. And so this is a, I'll remind us, this is a fruit of the spirit. So if you have the Spirit of God in you, one of the fruits of that Spirit living in you will be love, joy, peace, patience, kindness. It's there. And so if it's not there, and then you say you're a Christian, but yet there's no kindness, we've got a problem. It's in the same way that if someone says, yeah, I'm a Christian, but then you look at their life and there's no love. You would say, whoa, we got a problem. How can this person claim to have Christ's spirit in them yet not love? In the same way, how could someone claim to have Christ's spirit in them and yet not be kind? That's a problem. It's a deep, deep, deep heart problem. And so I want to just put this, quote me, call me out on this. I'll put this on the record right now. Kindness in the Christian life isn't just important. It's essential. And if you don't have it, you're not a Christian. I know that's not said very often, but it's true. And I refuse to ignore the vast amount of Scripture that would make kindness essential to Christianity. And so, let's look at this passage. that this is very richly displayed. 2 Samuel 9. If you say, why did you pick this passage? Well, we were reading in our family devotions, and this is where we ended up reading this week, and I thought it was an awesome passage and wanted to preach it. So here we go. 2 Samuel 9. Let's read these first few verses again. David said, Is there still anyone left in the house of Saul that I might show him kindness for Jonathan's sake? Now there was a servant in the house of Saul whose name was Ziba, and they called him to David. And the king said to him, are you Ziba? He said, I am your servant. And the king said, is there still not someone in the house of Saul that I may show the kindness of God to him? Very important phrase. Ziba said to the king, There is a son of Jonathan, he's crippled in his feet. The king said to him, where is he? And Ziba said to the king, he is in the house of Micah, the son of Emel, at Lodabar. Then the king sent and brought him from the house of Micah, the son of Emel, at Lodabar. And Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, came to David and fell on his face and paid homage to him." Now, Mephibosheth, if I say that name right this whole sermon, that's amazing. His name means shame. At least that's in the name. There's differing interpretations as to what the name actually means, but shame is always in there, and it's a fitting meaning to go with his name because early on in this young man's life, he was dropped. They dropped him. Many of you know this story. It's in the Bible. They drop him, and in this tragic fall, both of his legs are crippled, and he's lame. He can't walk. And apparently that's an important thing for us to know. It's mentioned a few times here. There's multiple reasons to that, but this is obviously significant even at a practical level. This guy lives in, what is it called, Diyabar? Lodibar. It's kind of a ghetto outside in the middle of nowhere. So he's off in this unknown nowhere land. living. He can't walk, which back in that day, they didn't have wheelchairs, no prosthetic legs. He's having to be carried or he's crawling off in this nowhere land. This is the one that David calls to him. And then he falls down before David. And it says in verse 6, David said, Mephibosheth. And he said, 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 Jonathan. I will restore to you all the land of Saul, your father, and you shall eat at My table always. So there's incredible kindness here shown to Mephibosheth, who, side note, David's not just trying to be nice to a crippled relative. That's not what's going on here. Something much, much more. When we see this in its context, and when we look at the word that's translated kindness, which is hesed, It's one of the most important words in the Old Testament actually, chesed. It's often translated love or loving kindness, steadfast love, covenant love. That word is translated here, it's translated kindness. It's a very, very powerful, weighty word. And so what we're looking at here is something we'll call covenant kindness. It's kindness to be showed in the context of a covenant relationship. That's what David says in verse 7. I will show you kindness. Why? For the sake of your father Jonathan. David's in covenant with Jonathan. And so there's covenant kindness. You say, what is that? Well, let's back up, let's think about what covenant is. We just had some of you stand right here and then walk over here and sign our church covenant, which isn't identical to the covenants that we're reading about here, but there are similarities. So what do we mean by covenant? Here's a really simple way to explain what just happened here. and with you voting them in and then entering a covenant before God and in the context of this church. It's bringing these into the context of a covenant relationship so that they can display the kindness of God to us and we can display the kindness of God to them. It's a covenant. It's a relationship where kindness can happen mutually. Given and received. That's what covenant was in the Old Testament. That's what it is in the New Testament. Covenants are not something that you get into and then you nitpick all the violations of the covenant. And how the other party hasn't upheld their end of the covenant. Covenants are primarily about creating a relational context for showing loving kindness. So you don't create a covenant because you want to go beyond the bounds of what Scripture says. We don't have a church covenant for that reason. We don't have a church covenant so we can micromanage each other's lives. We have a covenant so that we can show kindness to one another in a real, meaningful, committed relationship at the local church level. As pastors, when we do these covenant renewal meetings, where we go around and we meet in your house and we call it a covenant renewal meeting, we're not trying to just see if you violated the covenant and then rebuke you. We're trying to come alongside you and say, can we help in any way for you to to grow in your ability to show kindness in this local church covenant. Can we help you to be more fruitful in your covenant keeping? That's why pastors exist. I think that's a large part of what our job is, is to equip you so that you can show more kindness in biblical ways so that you can receive that kindness. By the way, this is a one another command. Remember, we talk a lot about the one-another commands. Be kind to one another. There's 59 one-another commands in the New Testament. We talk about this. Ways in which we display love in the context of the local church. Be kind to one another is one of those. This is a New Testament command from Christ to us to be done in the local church. David's not in the local church in the New Covenant, he's in the Old Covenant, right? But there's still the covenantal tie here, so listen to what he... I'll sum it up and then we'll unpack it in a moment. But he's basically saying, I am going to demonstrate kindness to Mephibosheth because Mephibosheth is the son of Jonathan. I'm in covenant with Jonathan. Jonathan is Saul's son. And I'm in covenant with him. We're all in the nation of Israel. We're all covenanted with God. So he extends kindness to Mephibosheth because of his covenant relationship with Jonathan and with Saul, who were also in covenant with God in Israel. This week I met with the pastor at Brentwood Assembly, the church we're looking at. And those conversations just get more and more encouraging to me and edifying, just as brothers in Christ. But I said at one point in this conversation, you know, brother, I won't say his name right now, but I said, brother, why don't we just renew each other's minds? And we were kind of trying to have an edifying conversation and not talk about the practicalities of the building. And I said, listen, we're not two organizations trying to make a business deal. We're just brothers in Christ trying to be kind and love one another. And he fully agreed. He fully agreed. That's because of our covenant with God. We are together in this. Even with those outside of this local church. Now that's probably a really bad illustration. Because me and my kindness given and receiving with the pastor at Brentwood is not like David in Saul and Jonathan and Mephibosheth because what was Saul trying to do to David forever? He's trying to kill him, right, for years. So unless that's happening, it's not a parallel. But the pastor has been very kind to me from there. But David, look at his heart, guys. David has been pursued and hunted by Saul for years. And now, on his own initiative, he's seeking out Saul's grandson and saying, I want to show kindness to this young man I've never met for the sake of Saul, my enemy. Because even though at a personal level it was nasty, they were still in covenant together. Look at verse 1 again. Is there still anyone left in the house of Saul that I might show him kindness for Jonathan's sake? Verse 3, is there not still someone in the house of Saul that I might show the kindness of God to him? That's what the Gospel does. In someone's heart. That's what someone who's received the kindness of the Lord, they want to bend it out horizontally. They want to extend God's kindness to others. That's David's heart. He's not just trying to be nice. He's not just going, I'm a nice guy. I like to be nice to people. No. He's saying Mephibosheth must see the kindness of God through me. Very different. Guys, do you know anybody in your life who God might want to show His kindness through you to them? Think about that. I'm sure He does. I'm sure God does want to show His kindness to someone through you. Who could that be? I'm not talking about being nice and friendly. I am not preaching about niceness. I'm preaching about God's divine kindness coming through you. You are the vehicle. You are the conduit in which His kindness reaches them in words that you speak, in deeds that you do. It's an amazing privilege. And here's the reality, that if you've experienced the kindness of God, if you have experienced the kindness of God, you are ready to display the kindness of God. You're ready. We're not talking about five years down the road once you mature. We're not talking about once you learn more Scripture and you really get your mind around. We're talking about right now, if you've received the kindness of God, tonight, when you leave, You can display the kindness of God to your spouse. This week, you can display the kindness of God to co-workers. You are equipped, you are ready. If the Spirit of God is in you, kindness is a fruit that God wants to bring through you to others in your life. Guys, God does not get glory merely through our being nice. and tolerating difficult people in our lives. God gets glory when His kindness comes through us, especially to difficult people in our lives that we choose to show kindness to, especially because they're difficult. That's very different than what the world knows regarding kindness. David could have ignored Mephibosheth. This guy was no threat to... I think one of the reasons it talks about his broken feet, his lame legs, is because he's not a threat to the throne. You know, that's one of the accusations that would have been given. Nobody even knew this guy existed. He's off in this small town in nowhere land, and David seeks him out. He seeks him out because kindness that is displayed in covenant is always something that one party initiates with the other. One person in that covenant relationship must initiate the kindness. So that's what David did when he called for Mephibosheth. He initiated the kindness of God. That's what God did when He sent His Son to us. He initiated kindness with us. Maybe we could say it like this. Surprise one another with your kindness. Don't just sit around and wait for a pastor, myself or Kent, to go, hey, there's this opportunity to show kindness. Or wait for someone in the church to say, hey, could someone show kindness to me in this way? I have this need. Surprise somebody. Initiate it on your own. That's what we see here. Walk up to somebody and say, I've been praying for you all week. Every day this week I've prayed for you. And they'll go, whoa, I was not expecting that. Did you really pray for me every day this week? I took Priscilla on a surprise date last night because of this passage saying to me all week long, don't be predictable in your love for your wife, John Mark. Surprise. Kindness surprises. Kindness initiates. I hope you can see the application here is massive. I hope you'll think through this. You could send someone a note of encouragement. You could text them Scriptures. You could cook a meal. These things are happening all in the body already. There are 10,000 kindnesses we can surprise one another with. Some of you have been blessed financially. Not so that you can get nicer stuff and go on better vacations. but so that you can extend God's kindness to more people. Maybe you could make a, that's what, again, the word hesed, you could even call a little savings account called a hesed account or a hesed money. This is money just to show kindness to those I'm in covenant relationship with. When a need comes up in the body, we have money put aside for that. We'll meet that. We don't have to pray about it. As soon as a need comes up, bam. It's said money, kindness money, to those, especially to those we're in covenant relationship with. And I don't think it's wrong to pray, Lord, bless me. Give me this promotion so that I could be a greater blessing to others. And then when He does bless you, don't sit on the blessing. Steward it well. Give it away. Extend kindness. You know, when you begin to really meditate on this passage, David's kindness begins to look strikingly similar to God's kindness. And so similar, you actually can't tell them apart because God's kindness is coming through David. It's helpful to see what's going on here. We need to remember that David is a new king. He's recently stepped into this role. And in this culture, a new monarch or a new king like David taking the throne, it was customary for him and kind of protocol for him to wipe out the predecessor's family so that there be no contenders to the throne. who could claim royal blood and they could try to make their way into it. So it was customary for a king to say, is there anybody left in the family of Saul so I can wipe them out? And you would even do that publicly so everybody would know, I'm making an end to Saul's line now. I alone am a rightful king. That was a customary thing. So think about when David calls Mephibosheth and says, bring him to me. Think of how horrible this, I don't know if he's in a carriage or what, riding to Jerusalem, knowing he's been summoned by David. Think of how long that ride would have been, knowing you're about to be publicly killed as the last remaining descendant of Saul. David's worst enemy. And then for him to come before King David, fall at David's feet, and basically plead for his life, I'm your servant. Make me a slave forever. I'll be happy if you just don't kill me right now. And then in verse 6, Mephibosheth, son of Jonathan, son of Saul, came to David, fell on his face and paid homage. And David said to him, Mephibosheth. And he said, behold, I'm your servant. And David said to him, do not fear. For I will show you kindness." Oh my. Oh my. I will show you kindness for the sake of your father, Jonathan. And it gets better. And I will restore to you all the land of Saul, your father, and you shall eat at My table always. It's mercy. It's mercy. If there's ever a rags to riches story, this is such good news to Mephibosheth. He doesn't even believe it. Look what he says in verse 8. He paid homage and said, what is your servant that you should show regard for a dead dog such as I? The self-esteem gurus will not like this passage. They're squirming at this. Dead dog, this guy's not thinking very highly of himself. He's brought himself all the way down to this point. But let me take this in a different direction. This is a common thing I continually hear, and I know it's a struggle for many of you probably. How do you know you're really a Christian? How do you know you've really ever received the kindness of God? Say to God what Mephibosheth is saying to David. Oh God, how could you? How could you? How could you be merciful to me? A dead dog such as I. A nobody. Dogs were not fun, friendly pets in this culture, right? They're nuisances running around in the streets. And he's calling himself a dead dog. Have you ever said to the Lord? This is so strikingly similar to Matthew 7. What the woman says to Jesus. Where she basically says, I'm a dog under the table, unworthy to eat the crumbs from the Master's table. The ones that your children, Jesus, drop on the floor. I'm not worthy to eat those crumbs. Has grace ever touched your heart in such a way that you look to God and say, I'm not worthy. Not, I chose you when I was 12 years old. That's why I'm a Christian, because I chose. I'm not worthy. That you would show mercy to someone like me. Remember the Apostle Paul? How did he think of himself? He said, I am the least of all the saints. I am not worthy to receive mercy. Grace humbles. And especially in our church it should. Many of us believe salvation is all of grace. All of it. Not 99.9% grace. All of grace. It should humble us. It should humble us. Mephibosheth experienced grace. Because David not only gave him his life and saved his life, but he also made him extremely rich. He gave him all of Saul's land. I don't know, property-wise, I didn't do the math to try to see the parallel of our culture to theirs. This is certainly millions of dollars worth of property. The man just became a multi-millionaire in that moment. But understand this, it's even better than that, because it's not like David just throws him this huge check and goes, hey, I'm signing all this property to you, but I don't want to see you again. So go enjoy it. Be gone. David says, I want to see you every day. You're going to eat at my table forever. That's very different. Look at it. He says, I want to see you. He says, you shall eat at My table always. Later it says, as one of My sons. He adopts Him. He's adopting Him into His family. I want to close by looking at this last section, because this passage is so meaningful and masterful and glorious in how it works. Because here's what happened to me reading this and maybe you even hearing this. You start out at the beginning and you go, okay, kindness. I need to show more kindness like David. That's how I read this. I look at it, he's showing kindness. I need to try to show more kindness like David. That's how you start. But then as you begin to read it, what you realize is, I'm not David. That's not ultimately what I'm supposed to be seeing here. I'm Mephibosheth. I need God's kindness. Look at verse nine. Then David, that is the king, called Ziba, Saul's servant, and said to him, all that belongs 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 bring in the produce. And your master's grandson may have bread to eat. But Mephibosheth, your master's grandson, shall always eat at my table.' Now Ziba had 15 sons and 20 servants. And Ziba said to the king, according to all 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. And Mephibosheth had a young son whose name was Micah. And all who lived in Ziba's house became Mephibosheth's servants. So Mephibosheth lived in Jerusalem, that is the city of God, and he ate always at the king's table. Now he was lame in both feet." Interesting ending. Isn't it? Now he was lame in both feet. Weird way to end the story. Very, very odd way to end the story. Look back at verse 13. It's very strange. Mephibosheth lived in Jerusalem, for he ate always at the king's table. Now he was lame in both feet. Why does it end like that? It's an odd ending. Deformity? His problem? His crippledness again? Why bring that up again? It was already said. What does it end with? He lived in Jerusalem. He ate at the king's table. Bam! Good story. Happy ending. What does it end with? His feet were crippled. End of story. It's not a happy ending to this story. Or is it? Here's what I think it's showing. God brings to His table those who are not whole. Those who have deficiencies and problems. He brings them to His table and those problems disappear. He hides them. Think about it. Every day. Mephibosheth. was crippled. And everybody saw it. He was crawling. He was having to be carried. Every day he's faced to deal with his deformity, with his problem, with his unwholeness. Until those times he would go to the king's table and sit at the king's table and his feet and legs went under that table. And he hid them under the king's table. Like one of David's sons, he would appear. Every day, that reminder. I'm like everyone else. All the problems in my life, they disappear at the table. At the King's table. And I want to walk us right into the Lord's Supper, because I hope we're seeing the parallel here. When you come to the table, The king's table. Right? Because of the body and the blood of Christ shed for you. What does this symbolize? Is it not a picture of this beautiful hiding of our unholiness? That at the table you become one of the king's sons. You forget about all the failures of your week, and you become one of the King's sons. And you hide all of your sin and all of your problems under the mercy of the King's table. Guys, let's come to the table. I'm going to walk us right into this, and then Ken will come up and read the passage in a moment. You all know if you are a baptized believer and a member of a church, we want you to take this with us. Come to the table and think about that. Would you? Think about your crippled legs. But then think about the king's table and how he hides them and what he did to hide them. It is a beautiful gospel reminder to us. Let's pray. Father, Lord, we need this mercy that David displayed to Mephibosheth Lord, we know we deserve to die. It is right for You to put us away, because we have contended for Your throne. We have rebelled. And yet, You have shown us mercy. And You've not only saved our lives, but You've made us rich. And You've made us sons and daughters and adopted us into Your family and You've given us a seat at Your table. Right now at the Lord's table and one day at the wedding feast of the Lamb. And so, Lord, we just take deep comfort in these promises and in this little picture in 2 Samuel. And so, Lord, help us to think deeply on Your Son as we come to the table. We pray this in Jesus' name, Amen.