Of course, the advancement of Christ's kingdom comes through reconciling all things to Himself. In the sin-sick world, that is the only way, and we have been looking in 2 Samuel chapter 19 at various facets of that reconciliation and how it relates to us, and I would like you to look with me at verses 24 through 30. Now Mephibosheth, the son of Saul, came down to meet the king, and he had not cared for his feet, nor trimmed his mustache, nor washed his clothes from the day the king departed until the day he returned in peace. So it was, when he had come to Jerusalem to meet the king, that the king said to him, why did you not go with me, Mephibosheth? And he answered, my lord, O king, My servant deceived me for your servant said, I will saddle the donkey for myself that I may ride on it and go to the King because your servant is lame. And he has slandered your servant to my Lord, the King, but my Lord, the King is like the angel of God. Therefore do what is good in your eyes for all my father's house were but dead men before my Lord, the King. Yet you set your servant among those who eat at your own table. Therefore, what right have I still to cry out any more to the King? So the king said to him, why do you speak any more of your matters? I have said you and Ziba divide the land. Then Mephibosheth said to the king, rather let him take it all in as much as my Lord, the king has come back in peace to his own house. Amen. Father, we thank you for your word. It is our glory to study it. But Father, so much more important that we be sanctified by your word, that we grow in terms of it. And we pray that you would send your Holy Spirit into our hearts, quicken the word to our hearts, and enable us to, this Sunday, grow up. into you in this whole area of reconciliation, that we would be matured in you. And so we pray for your anointing upon the preaching of your word, your anointing upon each one here who hears. Receive our continued worship from hearts cleansed by the blood of Christ. And we pray this in Christ's name. Amen. Many years before I became a pastor, I worked for a company where the manager did everything possible to get me fired. The manager told my boss outright lies about me. I was cussed out in public for doing what the manager had just told me to do, and when I would meekly go to where I was being cussed out and told to go, then after a few minutes would go over there and cuss me out for being there. What are you doing over here? And I was put into a lot of no-win situations, and it was a very difficult situation to be in. I think the purpose was to make me have an angry outburst so that I could be legitimately fired. A very tough situation. In fact, I was told, do it this way. And it was the exact opposite. I would have gotten fired if I had done it the way I was told. It was just really, really tough. And my wife could sense that I was getting bitter over time. And she sympathized with me, but she encouraged me to not let the manager get under my skin. Well, as soon as she talked to me about my bitterness, I recognized my anger, my bitterness, and confessed it to the Lord. And we made Romans chapter 12, verse 21, my theme verse. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. So now you know the background story of why I quote that verse all the time. It's one of my favorite verses. So Cathy and I strategized a war of love using Romans 12, 9 through 21. as our guide. And so I would pray for my manager, pray that God would bless my manager. And I'll have to admit, the first times I was doing that, it felt like eating gravel because my manager didn't deserve to be blessed, you know. But I, in faith, did it anyway. And we had a whole list of things that were a part of our war of love. And over time, God gave me a supernatural joy in blessing when I had been cursed, in doing good for a person who had stabbed me in the back, in giving praise for my manager when I was being torn down, asking God to bless my manager with a pay raise and to bless a newbie that was elevated above me with a pay raise, even though I had never been given a pay raise, and saying, Lord, bless them. Baking cakes and other ways, trying to do everything that I could to overcome evil with good. And initially it was very, very difficult to do this. It just felt wrong. It felt like that paralytic who came to Christ for healing and Jesus said, stretch forth your arm. Now that paralytic could have said, what are you talking about? The reason I came to you is because I can't stretch forth my arm. You've got to heal it first. And there probably would have been no healing if he had taken that attitude. But no, Jesus asked him to do the impossible, to will to do the impossible. And I was like that paralytic. It was in the act of doing what surely did not come naturally, surely did not feel like it was even possible that God came through on my behalf and enabled me to have supernatural grace within me. And I would encourage you to read that passage sometime. When you dig into the passage, I think it's just a remarkable set of illustrations on reconciliation, which as I've just mentioned is the theme of the verses of this, first verses of this chapter. and to be pursuing reconciliation even when the other person doesn't want to be reconciled, which is the subject of the passage that we have just read. Now, I hasten to say that Romans 12 does not guarantee you're going to win the other person to God's grace. There are no guarantees, and that's one of the things that makes this so hard. During the first year of my war of love, it seemed to make no difference whatsoever to that other person. just did not seem to make a difference, but it made a fabulous difference within my own heart. I was freed from bitterness and brooding and anger and envy and grudges and other negative things that had been tearing down my heart. And in place of those things, God was beginning to work within me a love and a compassion for that other person. I actually started feeling sorry for that other person, began interceding for that person. Now, prior to that experience, I had tried to be a nice Christian around this person, but it was kind of an outward, superficial thing. It was just what I could do in my own flesh. It was not Jesus living his life through me. Okay, so even though I controlled my outward responses my inward responses were pretty ugly I'll have to admit that they were pretty ugly and I think one of the reasons that God put me through such difficult circumstances was to force me into the realm of the supernatural and over the course of the next year I I became thankful that God had given me a Romans 12 test and that He was beginning to give me a walk of joy that could only come from the Holy Spirit. A walk of love that could only come from the Holy Spirit. A walk of peace that could only come from Him. It was really a pivotal point in my life for which I will always be thankful. Now, was it still painful? You bet it was. It was still very painful. in my life, but as I began and continued and persevered in sowing the seeds of Romans 12 actions into the realm of the Holy Spirit, I saw not only a huge harvest in my own life, but I began to see a change in my manager, and over the next months, I actually became friends with my manager. We were reconciled, so to speak. And that is the subject of today's passage. It's really going beyond what we've looked at in the previous passages. Is it possible to pursue reconciliation even when you have been falsely accused and totally wronged? Now, I cannot guarantee that I know Mephibosheth's heart. I actually have one commentary that says he thinks that Mephibosheth was faking this mourning for David. Most commentators do not. Most think that this was really an evidence of God's grace at work in his life. But I can't guarantee that. I can't guarantee that Mephibosheth was actually declaring self-consciously a war of love on on anyone as Romans 12 commands us to do, but you know what, on the surface this passage parallels Romans 12 so perfectly that I do not think it can be by accident. I should have actually put the references to each point from Romans 12, but you'll have to just pick them up. So, even though I cannot guarantee that Mephibosheth really is a Romans 12 candidate, I personally am convinced that he is. And I just want to tell you up front, this is my presupposition as I'm giving the exposition of this passage. But even if you're not convinced of that, at least take heed to the Romans 12 verses that we're going to go through for each point. Now I want us to begin by reading, if you turn back with me to chapter 16, reading the first few verses there. where Mephibosheth had been slandered. Mephibosheth had actually asked his servant Ziba to saddle a donkey to put him on it so that he could ride to David and give David a generous supply of food. He loved David. He was grieved over the turn of events and he wanted to be the first one there to minister to David in his needs. David had done so much for him. It was a joy for him to return the favor. It was finally a situation where he could do something that David needed. And earlier chapters said he was lame in both his feet, could not walk, so he was absolutely no use to David on the other side of the Jordan. But he could at least minister to David's needs in this immediate crisis. So let's take a look, chapter 16, verses 1 through 4. When David was a little past the top of the mountain, there was Ziba, the servant of Mephibosheth, who met him with a couple of saddle donkeys and on them 200 loaves of bread, 100 clusters of raisins, 100 summer fruits, and a skin of wine. And the king said to Ziba, what do you mean to do with these? So Ziba said, the donkeys are for the king's household to ride on. The bread and summer fruit for the young men to eat, and the wine for those who are faint in the wilderness to drink. Then the king said, and where is your master's son? And Ziba said to the king, indeed he is staying in Jerusalem, for he said, today the house of Israel will restore the kingdom of my father to me." Now that was absolute slander. Mephibosheth, who was lame in both his feet, wanted the servant to put him onto a donkey so that he could bring all of this stuff to David. He loved David, and this slander that turned David's heart against him would have been extremely, extremely painful. This slander alienated him from the one whom he considered to be his best friend. And not only does David believe Ziba's story, he punishes Mephibosheth in verse 4 for doing something he didn't do. So the king said to Ziba, here, all that belongs to Mephibosheth is yours. And Ziba said, I humbly bow before you that I may find favor in your sight, my lord, O king. So that's the context of the emotional hurt that Mephibosheth has experienced. And in terms of timing, several weeks have gone by. There was only about a week in terms of the actual rebellion by the time that Absalom dies. But what had happened is there is all of this debating amongst the tribes as to what they should do. Should they bring David back? Should they not? They're arguing back and forth. David sends to Judah a message to Zadok and Abiathar, says, hey, would you be mediators for me? Would you help these people to process through? Let them know I'm not mad at them. Let them know I would like reconciliation. And by the time that all happens, it's likely, most of my commentators think, that several weeks have gone by. We don't know exactly the time period. But this is the important background to realize. Through this whole time, David has the misunderstanding that Mephibosheth has betrayed him and wants to be king in his place. This whole time, David thought Ziba was the generous one. who had given all this stuff, when every bit of that food came from Mephibosheth's household. In fact, instead of thinking of Mephibosheth as generous, he thinks that Mephibosheth is greedy. This whole time David has been thinking that Mephibosheth has stabbed him in the back after all that David has done for Mephibosheth. It's a horrible misunderstanding and it would have been very easy for Mephibosheth to have become extremely bitter against Ziba and to resign himself to the fact that he would be forever alienated from his best friend David. So that's the context, and I think it's a very important one to understand what we're going to go through. Well, let's go back to chapter 19. Even though Mephibosheth has been the one 100% wronged, he is the first one to make the move of reconciliation. And it took some effort to do so. Chapter 19, beginning at verse 24. Now Mephibosheth, the son of Saul, came down to meet the king. Commentators point out that the trip from Jerusalem to where David was fording the river was 21 miles, descending 3,700 feet. That's why it says going down. We'll look at an objection of where he's traveling from, where he's traveling to in a bit, but most commentators are convinced that he traveled from Jerusalem to the Jordan. And if that's the case, this was a long trip for a cripple to be making on a donkey. I don't know how many of you have ever ridden on donkeys. I have. And it's kind of a rough ride. It's not a real comfortable ride that is being made. And yet, despite the inconvenience, Instead of waiting for David to come, no, he initiates, he goes through this grueling trip so that he can initiate reconciliation. At least the initiation part of it is crystal clear. And this is so contrary to human nature. The tendency that we have when we have been wronged is either to come out slugging. what Ken Sandy calls peace-breaking, or to painfully distance ourselves from the person who has hurt us, what Ken Sandy calls peace-faking. And, you know, one of the peace-faking modes that we sometimes get into is to flee from conflict rather than dealing with the conflict. In fact, some people are so conflict-aversive they're almost willing to deny that there even is a problem, because they just don't want conflict, right? And what we're talking about here is dealing with issues and dealing with them properly. True peacemaking seeks to be reconciled by dealing with the issues, and that's exactly what Mephibosheth is going to try to do. And Jesus made it clear, whether you're the one at fault or whether the other person is the one at fault, you are responsible to initiate. You've got to be the first one to take the chance. And you say, well, God's speaking to the other guy. He's got to be the first one. No, you are the one who has to make the first move. And that's tough. Why should I be the first one to make the move when the other person is the one who has wronged me? That's the tough thing. Now, let me read from page 150 of Ken Sandy's book, The Peacemaker. He said, I recall one Sunday when I visited a small ranching community and preached on a message on Matthew 5, 21 through 24. After church, a friend took me out to lunch. Partway through our meal, a man I had seen in church that morning walked into the restaurant. Seeing me, he came over to our table smiling with delight. I have to tell you what just happened, he said. Your sermon really shook me up because I've got a neighbor who hasn't talked to me for two years. We had an argument about where to run a fence. When I wouldn't move it to where he thought it should be, he just turned his back on me and stomped away. Since I thought I was in the right, I've always figured it was up to him to make the first move being friends again. This morning, I saw that the Lord wants me to be the one to seek reconciliation. So right after church, I drove over to his house to talk with him. I told him I was sorry for being so stubborn two years ago that I wanted to be friends again. He just about fell over. He said he felt bad all along for stomping away that day, but he didn't know how to talk with me. Man, was he glad I came to talk with him. Now, things don't always turn out that well, but Romans 12 calls us to seek reconciliation even when you are the one who has been wronged. Now, for some people, that is so tough to swallow. Rather than getting even, Romans 12 tells us to not avenge ourselves. Rather than getting furious, it says, don't give place to wrath. Rather than waiting for the other person, it says, you take the first steps to trying to get reconciled. Now, it's not always possible, but he says, if it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men, verse 18. So point number one. is saying that even if you've been wronged, it's your responsibility. And I know it just feels like gravel in your mouth. It doesn't feel natural, doesn't feel right. But in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says that the way you demonstrate that you are sons and daughters, you are children of the Almighty, is that you can do things that no pagan can do. It doesn't take any grace whatsoever to love those who love you, right? That's not gracious, but it takes the power of the Holy Spirit to rejoice when you are persecuted, to love those who hate you, and to seek to take these first steps of reconciliation even when you are the one who has been wronged. So like that paralytic, Jesus is calling us into the realm of the supernatural. It doesn't matter that it's hard. God is always calling us into the supernatural. The second point says, don't let the other person's alienation alienate your heart. Verse 24 again. Now Mephibosheth, the son of Saul, came down to meet the king, and he had not cared for his feet, nor trimmed his mustache, nor washed his clothes from the day the king departed until the day he returned in peace. Now those were Jewish signs of mourning. And when did that mourning start? You might think, if you're a cynic, that the mourning started after he got his property taken away from him, but that's not the case at all. His mourning started before Ziba's slander. It started the moment David fled from Jerusalem, and it continued until David got back. So that means he was mourning for David before he got slandered, and he continued to mourn for David even though David's heart was alienated from him. So here's the point. Don't let your own heart become poisoned just because the other person's heart has been poisoned against you. And this is remarkable because hurt feelings cause us to do the exact opposite. In the devotional, Our Daily Bread, F.J. Hugel was quoted as saying, just remember that more Christians go on the rocks defeated over the nasty thing we call hurt feelings than over the so-called great crises which test the very fiber of the soul. So don't give in to those hurt feelings that make you want to do what God is not calling you to do. And you know exactly what we're talking about. Chapter 5 of Ken Sandy's book, The Peacemaker, brilliantly shows that conflict actually starts in the heart, long before the outward conflict is going on, and it can only be resolved as you resolve those heart issues. Matthew 15, verse 19 says that every sin, including conflict, arises out of the heart, which is an idle factory. James 4, 1 through 3 says, where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war." And it goes on to discuss those idolatrous inward desires that absolutely must be put under the feet of King Jesus. Ken Sandy said, these passages describe the root cause of conflict, unmet desires in our hearts. When we want something and feel that we will not be satisfied unless we get it, those desires start to control us. If others fail to meet our desires, we sometimes condemn them in our hearts and fight harder to get our own way. And then he goes on to show this progression in our heart from I desire, to I demand, to I judge, to I punish. Okay, and this book brilliantly shows how the hard issues must be dealt with or our efforts at reconciliation will constantly be frustrated. Now, 2 Samuel 19 doesn't give us the solution, does it? So I'm not going to give you the solution. You've got to read the book. I'm not going to give you a shortcut. You've got to buy Ken Sandy's book, The Peacemaker, and read Chapter 5 if you want to see how he got that way. I'm just pointing out here, Mephibosheth is demonstrating that somehow he got that way, right? And you've got to read the book to see how that happened. Discipleship Journal had an interesting story written by Roy Anthony Borges who is serving right now a 45-year prison sentence for robbery. He's in the Florida Penitentiary. I've never understood why in the world for robbery do they give such long sentences. It seems like restitution would be a whole lot better thing, but Scripture says even the wrath of man can praise Him. And Roy came to Christ in the penitentiary and it was in that penitentiary that he was tested on precisely this point. Let me read from his article. He said, where the strong prey on the weak, loving your enemies can seem self-destructive. Rodney stole my radio and headphones while I was in the prison yard playing volleyball. I had no way to prove it, and since we couldn't receive any more gifts at the time, I couldn't replace it. The old Roy wanted to knock that wisecrack grin off Rodney's face. That's how I had solved my problems in the past. God's been teaching me another way, however, since I became a Christian. He tells me vengeance is his. I decided to pray for Rodney. Later, my job as a prison law clerk took me to the confinement cells. Rodney's days of stealing from other prisoners had caught up with him. As I passed his cell, he asked if I remembered him. Sure, you're the guy who stole my radio. That weren't me, he lied. That's all right, Rodney, I forgive you. Which, by the way, I don't think is what Luke actually says the person, you know, you forgive after a person's repented. But at least his heart was there, that's the point. His heart was forgiving. He goes on. I forgot about Rodney stealing my radio and thought more about the fact that Jesus loved him. Soon I found myself helping Rodney and telling him about Jesus. Then one day I saw him kneeling next to his bunk, reading the Bible, and I knew that good had overcome evil." So there's a testimony of a brand new Christian in prison. You know, 45 years for robbery. He's had stuff stolen from him. And yet he's experiencing the powerful grace of God to be a Mephibosheth to somebody else. Good had overcome evil because Roy had not given in to his old feelings of rage and alienation. He was putting off the old. He was putting on the new. Now we did clarify from Luke last week that verbal offering of forgiveness comes after repentance. Not all Christians are clear on that. Nevertheless, in our hearts there must be that forgiveness. He had in his heart let that go, and that's so important. He had not allowed his heart to be alienated just because the other person's heart was alienated from him. And sometimes this is extremely, extremely difficult to do, and it requires us to cry out to God. Say, Lord, I can't do this. My heart is so bitter. I need Your supernatural to be able to love this person as I ought to love Him. So this sermon is a call to go beyond the natural. Point three, Do what is in your power to seek an audience with the person who is alienated from you. And last week we saw that if you're particularly vulnerable, sometimes it's appropriate to take along a third party to help you through that, but Mephibosheth is Courageous enough, he goes to David alone with the slander that David had heard. You know, this could have been a scary thing for him to do. But verse 25 begins, so it was when he had come to Jerusalem to meet the king. That was his purpose, to meet the king. It was to seek an audience with the king. And let me just comment on that translation there because there are many versions that translate it from Jerusalem rather than to Jerusalem. And you might think, wow, that's a pretty significant difference. How do those differences come up? It's actually pretty easy to explain. There is no to or from in the Hebrew. There is no preposition there. So the translators have to guess from the context whether they should put to in there or whether they should put from, and there's disagreements among them. On this particular point, I happen to disagree with the New King James Version. And my commentators agree with the NIV, the NASB, the HCSB and other versions in saying he traveled from Jerusalem to the Jordan for a number of reasons. Let me just give you three. First, in chapter 16, verse 3, it says that Mephibosheth remained in Jerusalem during the rebellion. That's where his home is. So he could hardly be traveling to Jerusalem if he's already in Jerusalem. Secondly, Verse 24 has already said that he came down to meet the king, and the only way you could go down is to be traveling from Jerusalem to the Jordan. It's way downhill. It's a 21-mile trip, descending 3,700 feet. And so that word down indicates he's coming from Jerusalem toward David. And then thirdly, the Hebrew grammar in verse 31 begins with a wow consecutive, which is a Hebrew grammatical structure, which means sequence. The next thing, this is the next thing that happens. And if you look at verse 31, you'll see David's at Jerusalem at the time the Barzillai comes along. And yet the wow consecutive indicates that happens after Mephibosheth. So to me, that's just a slam dunk. If you take that wow consecutive at all seriously, then I don't see how the new King James could insert the word to rather than inserting the word from. So if the translations that make this coming from Jerusalem are correct, which I'm 100% convinced that they are correct, I just crossed out my two and put a from in there, this makes Mephibosheth's efforts even more accentuated. As a cripple, he truly was doing everything in his power to seek an audience with the one who was alienated. But either way, the critical point is he sought David out. You're all probably familiar with the Rwandan massacres of the Tutsis in the early 1990s. Every time I think of that event, it gives me another reason to be mad at the United Nations. They were the ones who supported the butchers. The Hutus back at that time were spreading all kinds of lies and hatred via the radio. They were planning a massacre. They called repeatedly the Tutsis cockroaches that needed to be exterminated. And interestingly, the Belgium peacekeeping force of the United Nations found a government document that definitively proved that the Hutus were planning to massacre the Tutsis as soon as the United Nations had rounded up all of the guns. There was a gun confiscation program that was going on, and the Belgian peacekeepers gave this to the President of the United Nations and told him, there's going to be a massacre, we've got to do something about it. The President told them to stand down and don't tell anyone. It's just a wicked organization. I despise the United Nations. But anyway, that's exactly what happened. As soon as all of the guns were rounded up, the Hutu government started massacring the Tutsis, and over one million Tutsis were murdered over a period of 100 days. That's 10,000 every day, 400 every hour for 100 days. It was just a mass genocide. Well, a remarkable autobiography came out in 2008, and you'll see the picture of the book in your outlines, by Frida Gashumba, one of the Tutsis who had survived. She talked a lot earlier than the massacre about how this racial prejudice had been building and building. For example, she tells about being made to stand up. All Tutsis had to stand up in class, and then everybody would laugh at them and mock them. So she was experiencing some of this hatred earlier on. But when the massacres happened, she watched every member of her family. being just brutally murdered. She knew the man who had killed her father. It's just a miracle that she was able to hide. It was actually a Hutu who was so embarrassed by what was going on, he hid her at much danger to his own life. But the horrors of what she saw emotionally scarred her. And you can imagine the scarring that would have happened in her soul. Well, later Freda became a Christian and very painfully and slowly saw some measure of emotional healing. And one day she believed strongly that the Holy Spirit was convicting her that she needed to forgive the man who had murdered her father. And the first time she went to the prison, Soon as she saw the guy, she was so scared, she ran. She just couldn't do it. She was just emotionally a wreck, emotionally overwhelmed. And the Holy Spirit kept prompting her that she could not allow her bitterness to go on. So several weeks later, she went back, she talked to the man, and she did forgive the man. So she was really going even beyond what Luke calls us to do, because this man had not repented of his sins. But she said, the moment she forgave this man. She experienced such incredible peace from the Holy Spirit and such a sense of forgiveness for her own sins that she had never experienced before that it strengthened her and enabled her to continue this process of reconciliation. So she was doing this numbers three work in her own life. One day she went to visit an old neighbor by the name of Alina, and as she sat in Alina's home, she suddenly realized that the cupboards and the plates and cups and all of the dishes that were in those cupboards had been stolen from her home, and Alina's kids were wearing her old clothing. And she asked for a drink of water, and she was being served a drink of water from a glass that came from her house. And as Alina realized all of a sudden what an awkward situation this was, she felt deeply embarrassed. But Frida immediately said, I have not come to take anything from you. I have come to make peace with you. She was initiating. So Frida, She drank the water, prayed for Alina, and Frida said, my neighbor herself just shook her head and opened her mouth as if to speak, but she could not find any words. Shortly afterwards, I left her home with these words, peace be with you. Now your attempts at reconciliation may not be even remotely as difficult as the attempts that she was making there, but sometimes God's work of grace in our lives makes us take courageous steps of faith just like this, that seem every bit as impossible as Peter getting out of the boat and walking to Jesus. And we say, Lord, I'm gonna drown, I cannot do this. I cannot do this on my own. You see, Romans 12 calls us to do what our flesh cannot do. He didn't want us to be living in the realm of the flesh. He wants us to be living in the realm of the Spirit. And if you justify your rejection of Romans 12 and say, it's too hard, I can't do it, what you're saying is, I can't live like a Christian. I don't have the Holy Spirit's power within me. I reject the idea that I have the supernatural at work within me. And yet God says, you are adopted sons and daughters and you can become like your adoptive father, God the Father. We have the power of the Spirit. We can go beyond the natural. And that's the message of the Sermon on the Mount. Point four says, don't lash out when your character is questioned. Now I'm sure it would have been very easy to react negatively to David's words in verses 25 through 26. The king said to him, why did you not go with me, Mephibosheth? And he answered, my lord, O king. And then comes an answer that while telling the truth and while confronting sin, did not lash out in the least. Romans 12 admonishes us not to return tit for tat and says bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse. Now the reason this point is so important is that when we lash out in anger It so easily can stir up anger in the other person and before we know it, we're not even talking about the problem anymore and attacking the problem, we're attacking the person. Instead of the sin becoming the problem that we're trying to work through, the person is the problem and we come on attack mode. When I think of the way some arguments end up, I think of an old Amos and Andy routine where Amos is always thumping Andy on the chest and it just irritates the daylights out of out of Andy and fed up with it Andy finally says I'll fix him I'll strap this dynamite to my chest and the next time Amos thumps me on the chest. He'll blow his hand off Okay, that's what lashing out and anger does yes, it hurts the other person, but it hurts us in the process, too Doesn't it? We cannot put on the call to gentleness, love, and patience that we find in Romans 12 in our own strength. That's why they're called fruits of the Spirit. We can only get it from the Spirit, and it's faith that receives it from the throne of Christ. We've been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. We've got to sign in the name of Christ our checkbook and say, Lord, I need another draft from my account in heaven. I need love. To love the impossible. Lashing out breaks peace rather than making peace. And Ken Sandy has a whole chapter on addressing this. It's chapter 8, Speaking the Truth in Love. And it goes step by step with how to maximize your speech so that it becomes peacemaking, not peacebreaking or peacefaking, but peacemaking. Now, I'm not going to give you the answers. But hopefully by the end of the sermon, you're going to be motivated to get out there and buy Ken Sandy's book, The Peacemaker. I really expect every home to understand that book. It's absolutely critical. Very, very, very important. Now, as I said, this passage on Mephibosheth doesn't give the answers. It just shows you the result. And I'm hoping it motivates you to want to be on Mephibosheth. Point five. since lashing out often arises out of pride. Point five says, make sure you approach the person humbly. Now, if you count, you'll see that five times in his short speech, Mephibosheth calls David, my lord, the king, and three times he literally calls himself your slave. It's almost like he's going overboard and saying, David, in confronting this sin, which I must confront, I want to do so humbly. That's what he's trying to come across at. Now, of course, it's a lot easier said than done. It's so easy for our pride to immediately rise up as soon as a conflict comes and we've been mistreated. But that's where our previous homework on crucifying pride And putting on humility that comes from God's throne comes into play. We saw that every person of the Trinity exhibits unbelievable humility and instills that humility into us. And I'm not going to repeat what we said back then, but let me tie it in with Romans 12 to show that this is not Mephibosheth being a wimp. He's not being a doormat here. He is being a peacemaker by confronting the real issue in a humble way. And so to me, this is evidence of grace. Paul said in Romans 12 verse 3, For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith. By faith, we put on humility, and without humility, the reconciliation process is often short-circuited. Paul not only calls himself a fellow slave, but later says, who are you to judge another servant? To his own master, he stands or falls. Indeed, he will be made to stand, for God is able to make him stand." In effect, Paul is saying, we are not our own. We've been bought with a price, and we have no rights that God cannot take away. The sooner we see ourselves as God's slaves and everything we have, including our rights belonging to God, that they're at God's sovereign disposal, the sooner we will gain victory over lashing out to protect our pride. and to protect our rights. The sixth point is to be calm when explaining controversial truth. And again, this is almost an impossibility for some people. Their emotions have never been sanctified to the Lord. And we've spent a great deal of time on how to sanctify our emotions to God before. But let's deal with the fact that this is not passivity. This is confronting the problem with truth. As I've mentioned, Paul was no wimp. in Romans 12. Some people actually, I've read some articles by non-Christians who say that Christianity is just a doormat religion, you know, that Christ and Paul say that we're to not return evil for evil, we're to bless those who curse us, we're to overcome evil with good. You're just being a doormat. No, this is the exact opposite of being a doormat. It takes far more strength and far more grace to do what Romans 12 calls us to do rather than ignoring the problem or lashing out against the problem. It's not being a doormat. It takes incredible grace, incredible strength to do that. And I want you to notice that Romans 12 does not call us to simply roll over and agree with false accusations when trying to deal with controversies. Instead, verse 9 says, let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil. Cling to what is good. So it's not calling for the false peace that asks for forgiveness for things that you haven't even committed, just to get the person off your back. That's absolute hypocrisy. That's not truthful. It would be failing to abhor what is evil. It would be failing to cling to what is good. We should value the truth, oppose error, And when seeking reconciliation, it's important to clear the air about misunderstandings and outright falsehoods that have hindered the relationship. And Mephibosheth does exactly that. Verse 26, And he answered, My lord, O king, my servant deceived me. For your servant said, I will saddle a donkey for myself that I may ride on it and go to the king because your servant is lame. And he has slandered your servant to my lord, the king. Now, in these circumstances, it's important to call sin and describe sin exactly as it is. In this case, it's slander. It's deceit. If he does not accurately describe the sin, David's not going to even be able to be undeceived. So you don't take the sins against you lying down. But at the same time, notice the calmness with which Mephibosheth speaks. He had his emotions under control. Failure to be calm has gotten me into trouble on more occasions than I would care to admit, but I will admit them. And it's kept us from being able to deal with the misunderstandings and the problems that come between us. Ken Sande's book, The Peacemaker, gives several ways that you can pursue the truth But keep emotions out of it even when the other person is being emotional and is resisting you. Like one of the ways is to make sure you write out, you think through, as Mephibosheth has very obviously thought through what you're going to say. And then anticipate, what are some things that David might respond with or object with, and what am I going to say if he says this? What am I going to say if he says that? If you find yourself one of those people who struggles in this area of being calm, I would encourage you to start studying, prayerfully studying that book, The Peacemaker. Point seven. I want you to notice that in doing this, Mephibosheth does not talk down to David or treat him like an idiot, okay? In verse 27, he continues by saying, but my Lord the King is like the angel of God. Now, the word angel literally means messenger because angels brought messages from the throne room of God. And so he may be even thinking of David as being a prophet here, because prophets bring messages from God as well, but at least He is being respectful of David. And in the same way, Romans 12 verse 10 says, Now how do you give preference to one another when you've been misrepresented? Well, it's by receiving from God a love that believes the best, hopes the best, that it endures, it expresses respect. I have seen children get the exact opposite of what they are demanding because of the disrespectful way that they speak to their parents. See, if you treat the other party like he's an idiot, don't be surprised if he does not respond well to even the best of your rational arguments. When you put people down, it tends to raise up emotions within them, and emotions tend to cloud rational discourse. So be respectful and for sure don't treat the other person as if he's an idiot. David believed the worst about Mephibosheth, not because he was an idiot, but because he had been misinformed. And Ziba actually had a pretty good story. Now, I'm sure David by the end of the story, you know, feels like he's an idiot, but Mephibosheth did not treat him that way. The eighth point is don't use manipulation or force. Mephibosheth says, therefore do what is good in your eyes. He does the best he can to present the evidence, and he trusts God to work in David. Peacebreakers have a tough time doing this. They have a tough time trusting that God can open the other person's eyes or change the other person's heart. They feel, no, it's up to me. It's up to me to force this person to agree with me or manipulate this person into agreeing with me. But let me tell you something, when you force a person into agreement with you, that agreement is not going to last very long. If you manipulate somebody into agreeing with you, they're going to feel resentful against you. God's way of peacemaking takes all the actions that we should take and then says, Lord, I'm just going to trust you that you can change this person's heart. That's why Romans 12 says, if it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men. And sometimes God does not make it possible. And when he does not, we can be at peace, at least knowing that our hands are clean. If there's going to be a broken relationship, just make sure it's not because of you. You've done everything that's on your part. You leave the rest up to God. The ninth point is that it's so helpful in conflict resolution to keep perspective. And there are two aspects to keeping perspective in verse 28. The first is to realize that in the ultimate scheme of things, we really deserve far worse than we are getting. We deserve far worse. Mephibosheth said, For all my father's house were but dead men before my lord the king. He knows it would have been so easy for David to have killed him off as an enemy, but instead David befriended him. Okay, things could be much worse and indeed they were much worse previously for Mephibosheth. So even if David doesn't believe his explanation, he's willing to live with it. He knows that he didn't deserve what was taken away in the first place. He deserved far worse. Now let's bring this down to the day-to-day world. Some of you may have heard me complaining last year about a camera fine that I got north of Sioux City. Prior to traveling to that area, I knew about the speed trap there, so I was watching my speed like a hawk. And so I was really surprised when I got in the mail this huge fine, I forget now what it was, $169 or something like that. And I thought, how could that be? And even the picture that they sent showed me in the slowest lane with other cars passing me. But I thought, well, I can't travel all the way up there. And I just decided to go ahead and pay the fine. But here's where it came to me. And I know you guys wonder about your pastor now, you know, speedster pastor. I grumbled a while about it until I reminded myself of all the times I had sped and hadn't gotten caught. Yes, pastors can blow it, so go ahead and judge me. If I lived up in Sioux City, you know, I'd probably go ahead and try to fight that because it just didn't seem right. I think they've made a mistake somehow on that. But the realization I really have had times that I deserved fines and didn't get them helped me not to fuss about it so much, to be at ease about it. Trial lawyer Clarence Darrow once said, I have suffered from being misunderstood, but I would have suffered a lot more if I had been understood. Can you relate? I definitely can relate. Charles Spurgeon said, ultimately, you can't slander human nature since it is far worse than words can paint. So when you're falsely accused, ask yourself, okay, I'll try to get this misunderstanding dealt with. But really, could things be a whole lot worse for me? And if they could, yeah, pursue reconciliation. But if you don't get your way, leave the results in God's hands. Okay, the second aspect of keeping perspective is to remind yourself that in the ultimate scheme of things, God has blessed us with much more than we could expect. We tend to focus on what we don't have rather than focusing on the incredible blessings. This was the problem of the wilderness generation of Israelites, constantly grumbling about what they did not have. And God said, look at all the things I've done for you. They fail to appreciate their vast blessings. And remember, we are not our own. God has purchased us. He has purchased all that we have, and He has the right to take them away or to give them as He pleases. So if a particular blessing gets removed, you can remember, hey, I didn't deserve it in the first place. And I am enjoying and have enjoyed far more than I deserve. So take a look at that verse again. Mephibosheth says, Yet you have set your servant among those who eat at your table. He is still so grateful for all that David has done for him, and his gratefulness softens David a bit. Appreciation for all of the good in your spouse can make you less negative about the specific things that have come between you. Appreciation about the blessings you have received in this church can make you less negative about the parts that you wish were different. That leads logically to point 10. Leave the results in God's hands. Mephibosheth says, therefore, what right have I still to cry out any more to the king? Now on a human level, he actually did have a right to cry out because the law says he shouldn't be slandered, right? Falsely accused in this way. But in the big picture, we have no rights because God has purchased them all. The only right we have is the right to go to hell, okay? And when we have that perspective, we can pursue what we used to think of as rights But now pursue them as responsibilities. In fact, I want you to turn with me, if you would, to Mark chapter 10. This is a really important passage to process this through. What in the world is Pastor Kaiser talking about? Treat the same things as responsibilities rather than as rights. Mark chapter 10, this is a passage that says that really we are simply stewards of all that God has given. He's the owner. He can take anything from us. He can give it back to us. God had given an enormous stewardship trust to this rich young ruler. And let's begin reading at verse 17. Now as he was going out on the road, one came running, knelt before him and asked him, good teacher, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life? So Jesus said to him, why do you call me good? No one is good but one, that is God. Now this is the first hint that Jesus is challenging this man on his understanding of goodness and sin. This man saw himself as good, he saw rabbis as being good, and so Jesus says, now why are you calling me good? Is it because you think that I'm a god? Or is it because you don't have the foggiest clue of the depths of human depravity and you don't have the foggiest clue of the impossibility of achieving the standard of God's law? Okay? He's testing the rich young ruler by doing a Ray Comfort number on him, right? Seeing how he thinks he measures up to the law of God. And it's good, I think, for all of us to do this because intractable conflicts are intractable because we see ourselves as better than we are, and we see ourselves as deserving much better than we deserve. So Jesus tests him by quoting the commandments. having him, quote, he says, you know the commandments. Do not commit adultery. Do not murder. Do not steal. Do not bear false witness. Do not defraud. Honor your father and mother. And he answered and said to him, teacher, I've done all these. I've kept them for my youth. That's the answer Ray Comfort always gets, isn't it? Oh, yeah, I've kept those. I'm pretty good. And it shows the blindness he had in his sinful heart. So Jesus is going to dig a little bit deeper using one commandment and show through that one commandment that this rich rung ruler hasn't kept any of the commandments of God, not any of them. So let's read. Then Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said to him, One thing you lack, go your way, sell whatever you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. And come, take up the cross and follow me. But he was sad at this word and went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. Those possessions were more important to him than God was, which means he broke the first commandment. Those possessions had become an idol, which means he broke the second commandment. And since it was all a stewardship trust, when God asks for some of it back and he's not willing to do that, this means that he broke other commandments. He showed covetousness, theft, a failure to honor authority, a failure to operate in terms of God's name, etc. He broke all the commandments of God. Now Jesus could have done this with any of the other commandments. He could have done it with the seventh commandment and showed that he was a sinner. But just this one commandment that Jesus gave, this request shows that this man's concept of goodness and what he deserved was totally skewed. Now continuing to read, verse 23. And then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, how hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God. And the disciples were astonished at his words. But Jesus answered again and said to them, children, how hard it is for those who trust in riches to enter the kingdom of God. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. And they were greatly astonished, saying among themselves, who then can be saved? They got it right. Okay. It's not just a rich man's problem. It's every man's problem. They got that right. Who then can be saved? But Jesus looked at them and said, with men, it is impossible. but not with God, for with God all things are possible. It's impossible for any man to be saved, but with God all things are possible. Then Peter began to say to him, see, we have left all and followed you. So Jesus answered and said, assuredly, I say to you, there is no one, it's an absolute statement, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands for my sake and the gospels, so he's not talking about abandonment, He's talking about giving these things to God. Chinese Christians, you know, sometimes have abandoned their spouses, abandoned their children because they think that's what this is saying. That's not what it's saying. It's saying, Lord, I'm no longer going to treat these as if they belong to me. I'm giving them to you and they belong to you. And what does God do when we leave everything to him? He says, who shall not receive a hundredfold now in this time? And now he's going to list exactly the same things that you've given to God that you've left. houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands with persecutions, so it won't be all pain-free, and in the age to come, eternal life. But many who are first will be last and the last first. When we put ourselves first, we're relating to everything as if they are my rights, what I deserve, what I own. When we put ourselves last, it is God's rights, God's property to give to me or to take away from me as he pleases. I have no rights. The only right I have is the right to go to hell. But God has now given me a stewardship trust of my wife. Since my wife belongs to God, I can't relate selfishly to her. I have to ask God how God wants me to relate to my wife. Since my house belongs to God, I have to ask God, Lord, how do you want me to use my house? And so long as I have the stewardship attitude with everything in life, he says, I'm going to enjoy it 100 times more. 100 fold does not mean he's going to give you 100 husbands or 100 wives. That would be an absolute curse. He's saying you're going to enjoy your husband. You're going to enjoy your house. You're going to enjoy all of these things 100 times more than you did when you selfishly kept it for yourself. So if I'm putting myself first and my baby is crying night after night, keeping me awake, I'm being attacked. I have a right to sleep and I can get angry. And it can be very, very frustrating. But if I put God first, then I don't have a right to sleep, do I? I've given my right to sleep to God. God gives that back to me as a responsibility, as a stewardship trust, which means I have a responsibility to take care of my body. I've got a responsibility to try to get sleep. So I'm going to do everything in my power to try to get the baby to sleep properly so that I can sleep. But if God says, I'm taking this away, I give it to him. I don't get frustrated and angry. You see, rights are self-focused. I'm the one who's under attack. Responsibilities are God-focused. It's God who makes the decision on that. Can you see the difference between the two? And really, it takes a while of daily giving your rights to the Lord, the right to privacy, the right to be respected, the right to be heard, and all of these things. If you want them trampled on, that's up to you. You can protect your property better than I can. I can't protect it, you know. But I'm giving these to you. It takes a while to get to the place where we can say with Mephibosheth, I don't have any rights. I have responsibilities to not take this lying down. I have responsibilities to confront sin. I have responsibilities to try to restore relationships, but I don't have rights. I can leave those in God's hands. And when we have that attitude, then it is possible to do what Mephibosheth does in point 11. Look at verses 29 through 30. So the king said to him, why do you speak any more of your matters? I have said, you and Ziba divide the land. Now, he hadn't said that, had he? He said to Mephibosheth, you can have all of it. But he said, why do you speak any more of your matters? I have said, you and Ziba divide the land. Then Mephibosheth said to the king, rather, let him take it all, inasmuch as my lord the king has come back in peace to his own house. Now, there are differences of view in exactly what's going on in verse 29, but the only explanation that has made any sense whatsoever to me has been the one by A.W. Pink. He believes that David still doesn't know who to believe, Ziba or Mephibosheth. Both stories seem credible, so he gives a judgment to see what the reactions of both Ziba and Mephibosheth will be. If Ziba is being mercenary, he'll perhaps be frustrated that David is going back on his word. And if Mephibosheth is being mercenary, he could either be overly joyful at getting some stuff back or perhaps be negative that Ziba is getting everything. And so Pink believes this is a test, just like Solomon gave, you know, in the dividing of the baby, between those two women to test where the hearts were at. And to David's surprise, Mephibosheth isn't interested in the property. He wants the relationship restored. And Pink thinks that a proof that David now believes Mephibosheth and probably restored everything to Mephibosheth is that in chapter 21 he defends, he cares for, he nurtures Mephibosheth, protects him when it was necessary that seven of Saul's descendants be killed. And if Pink's explanation is true, then I think this 11th principle is indeed illustrated. When your motives are questioned, that's verse 29, reiterate that it is reconciliation that is desired, not a hidden agenda. Too many times reconciliation is so clouded by mixed motives. How much do we really want to be reconciled and how much is this conflict because my pride wants to get its way? Ultimately, Romans 12 gives these principles because Christians who have been reconciled to God through Christ's sacrifice should be willing to live the same grace of reconciliation with each other even when we have been wronged. Because after all, God reached out to us when we had wronged Him. If we have been saved by grace, we should display our salvation in how we relate to others. Let me end the sermon with the story of Charlotte Elliot of Brighton, England. She had so many health issues in her life that she could not live the life that she wanted to live, and her disability made her an extremely hardened and embittered woman. She muttered to herself, if God loved me, he would not have treated me this way. Well, hoping to help her, a Swiss minister by the name of Dr. Cesar Millan visited the Elliots on May 9, 1822. Now over dinner, Charlotte lost her temper and railed against God and against her family in a violent outburst. Her embarrassed family left the room and Dr. Milan, left alone with her, just stared at her across the table. You're tired of yourself, aren't you? He finally said. You're holding to your hate and anger because you have nothing else in the world to cling to. Consequently, you have become sour, bitter, and resentful. What is your cure, asked Charlotte. The faith you were trying to despise, said Cesar Millan. And as they talked, Charlotte began to soften. She asked, if I wanted to become a Christian and to share the peace and joy you possess, what would I do? You would give yourself to God just as you are now with your fightings and fears, hates and love, pride and shame. I would come to God just as I am, she asked. And when he affirmed yes, that she could not earn that reconciliation but must receive her salvation and all her sanctification from what Jesus had purchased for her, she professed faith and asked God to help her to do what she could not do and to be what she could not be. And God not only saved her, he gave her the faith to step into the supernatural and to attempt the impossible by grace. And God did transform her from a hateful woman into a loving woman. Now, several years later, her brother, The Reverend Henry Elliott was raising some funds and Charlotte wrote a poem for him and they distributed the poem throughout England. It was a leaflet that people would buy to raise funds. Leaflet said, sold for the benefit of St. Margaret's Hall, Brighton, him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. And underneath was Charlotte's poem, which you'll immediately recognize, one of the most famous hymns in history. Just as I am, without one plea, but that thy blood was shed for me, and that thou bidst me come to thee, O Lamb of God, I come, I come." Now, if we pattern our human reconciliations after God's reconciliation for us, We will not short circuit the process by making people earn the right to be reconciled. We will not wait. We will not give up on each other. We will not substitute humanistic ideas for the cleansing of God's grace. We will not do simply what we feel is possible or what we feel good. But we will step into the supernatural, we'll do the impossible, asking God for a forgiving heart that is not natural. Asking God for a love that is not natural. and asking Him to help us do what is impossible because nothing is impossible with God. So as I read that whole poem, think of your human reconciliations and I want you to measure them against the pattern that God established when He saved us as vile enemies and turned us into friends. Just as I am without one plea, but that thy blood was shed for me, and that thou bidst me come to thee, O Lamb of God, I come. Just as I am, and waiting not to rid my soul of one dark blot, to thee whose blood can cleanse each spot, O Lamb of God, I come. Just as I am, though tossed about with many a conflict, many a doubt, fightings and fears within, without, O Lamb of God, I come. Just as I am, poor, wretched, blind, sight, riches, healing of the mind, yea, all I need in thee to find, O Lamb of God, I come. Just as I am, thou wilt receive, wilt welcome, pardon, cleanse, relieve, because thy promise I believe, O Lamb of God, I come. Just as I am, thy love unknown hath broken every barrier down, Now to be thine, yea, thine alone, O Lamb of God, I come, I come." Ask God to live that kind of reconciliation in you and through you. 2 Corinthians 5 verse 20 says, we are ambassadors for Christ as though God were pleading through us, be reconciled. Amen. Father God, I pray that you will lift up drooping hearts, hearts that struggle with what you are calling them to do, hearts that know they cannot walk on the water, hearts that know that they cannot stretch forth a withered hand, hearts that know that they cannot forgive, they cannot love, they cannot have peace, they cannot have joy in the circumstances that you call us to love and have peace and have joy in. Father, lift up drooping spirits and enable them to receive from your hand such measure of grace that they have a joy that they know cannot come from this world. They have a forgiveness that they know cannot come from this world, a humility, a repentance, whatever it is needed, Father, to achieve full, complete reconciliation and restoration. Work by your Holy Spirit powerfully in our lives, O God, humbling our flesh and drawing our spirit heavenwards. Please, Father, forgive us for falling so far short of your glory. And thank you for the forgiveness that you do give. And being covered with the blood and the forgiveness and the cleansing, help us with joy to attempt the impossible. Father, with that man that came to Jesus, we say, Lord, I believe. Help thou mine unbelief. In Jesus' name, amen.