Have you ever been asked to come to a party of a really important person and you know that you didn’t deserve it?
Let’s say that you do come to the party. Most likely, you will just stay in the back of the room and just be grateful that you are there in the first place.
Let’s say that during the party, the really important person- the host- wanted to have you come on the stage in front of everyone and talk about all your accomplishments.
How would you feel?
You would probably feel pretty embarrassed, humbled and grateful.
Mephibosheth- son of Jonathon in 2 Samuel 9 felt a little like that.
Okay, let me give you some context.
David was anointed king as a teenager, but he had to wait his turn in line with King Saul- a man who was first chosen by God, but then his pride and vanity drove the Lord’s anointing from his life.
So David had to wait, not one year, not 5 years, not 10 years, but 15 years of running for his life and hiding in caves from King Saul.
Then David FINALLY becomes king and we think the first thing that he is going to do is kill ALL of the remaining members of Saul’s family, but he doesn’t. He extends grace- purposely trying to find anyone that he could blessed with the influence that God had given to him.
The only member of Saul’s family that is still alive is poor crippled Mephibosheth.
Someone calls him to come to the palace and see the King. I get Mephi was scared to death knowing that he was the last one in his whole line that has survived the old kingly line.
When Mephi came to the King, he bowed low before him in humility, saying “I am a dead dog.”
David embraced him, sat him at the King’s table and let Mephi live in the king’s household the rest of his live. David also let him have all the land previously owned by his grandfather.
The is the unmerited type of kind of Grace that Paul talked about in Ephesians 2. Where we were “dead” in our transgressions and now we are seated forever at the King’s table by no merit or works of our own doing.
Wow! How great is the grace of God that He has lavished upon us. That while we were crippled in our sin- we were invited at the table of grace- seated with Christ in heavenly places and given our inheritance.
Todays reading: 2 Samuel 9:2
The king asked, “Is there no one still alive from the house of Saul to whom I can show God’s kindness?”
Ziba answered the king, “There is still a son of Jonathan; he is lame in both feet.”
4 “Where is he?” the king asked.
Ziba answered, “He is at the house of Makir son of Ammiel in Lo Debar.”
5 So King David had him brought from Lo Debar, from the house of Makir son of Ammiel.
6 When Mephibosheth son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, came to David, he bowed down to pay him honor.
David said, “Mephibosheth!”
“At your service,” he replied.
7 “Don’t be afraid,” David said to him, “for I will surely show you kindness for the sake of your father Jonathan. I will restore to you all the land that belonged to your grandfather Saul, and you will always eat at my table.”
8 Mephibosheth bowed down and said, “What is your servant, that you should notice a dead dog like me?”
9 Then the king summoned Ziba, Saul’s steward, and said to him, “I have given your master’s grandson everything that belonged to Saul and his family. 10 You and your sons and your servants are to farm the land for him and bring in the crops, so that your master’s grandson may be provided for. And Mephibosheth, grandson of your master, will always eat at my table.” (Now Ziba had fifteen sons and twenty servants.)
11 Then Ziba said to the king, “Your servant will do whatever my lord the king commands his servant to do.” So Mephibosheth ate at David’s[a] table like one of the king’s sons.
12 Mephibosheth had a young son named Mika, and all the members of Ziba’s household were servants of Mephibosheth.
13 And Mephibosheth lived in Jerusalem, because he always ate at the king’s table; he was lame in both feet.
Ephesians 2: 10
As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins,
2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.
3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh[a] and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath.
4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy,
5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.
6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus,
7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.
8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—
9 not by works, so that no one can boast.
10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.