2 Samuel 9
David’s Kindness to Mephibosheth
1 Then David said, “Is there yet [a]anyone left of the house of Saul, that I may show him kindness for Jonathan’s sake?” 2 Now there was a servant of the house of Saul whose name was Ziba, and they called him to David; and the king said to him, “Are you Ziba?” And he said, “I am your servant.” 3 The king said, “Is there not yet anyone of the house of Saul to whom I may show the kindness of God?” And Ziba said to the king, “There is still a son of Jonathan who is crippled in both feet.” 4 So the king said to him, “Where is he?” And Ziba said to the king, “Behold, he is in the house of Machir the son of Ammiel in Lo-debar.” 5 Then King David sent and brought him from the house of Machir the son of Ammiel, from Lo-debar. 6 Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan the son of Saul, came to David and fell on his face and prostrated himself. And David said, “Mephibosheth.” And he said, “Here is your servant!” 7 David said to him, “Do not fear, for I will surely show kindness to you for the sake of your father Jonathan, and will restore to you all the [b]land of your [c]grandfather Saul; and you shall [d]eat at my table regularly.” 8 Again he prostrated himself and said, “What is your servant, that you should regard a dead dog like me?”
Let’s talk a little about Mephibosheth. As I mentioned yesterday, he is broken and hiding in a place called Lode-bar. When he was 5 both his father, Jonathan, and his grandfather, Saul, we’re killed at the hands of the Philistines. Mephibosheth was being cared for by a Handmaiden and when she heard that both father, and grandfather had been killed she feared that they would come and kill the child since he would be a possible heir to Israel’s throne, so she took the child and ran. While running, she dropped the young boy and he suffered some kind of spinal injury and was crippled in both feet for the rest of his life. Later in his chapter we are told that he had a son named Micah, but there is no mention of a wife. Obviously life had not been good to Mephiposheth. I can’t imagine how hard it would be to support and raise a young son being that severely handicapped. He likely dealt with a lot of bitterness. Surely he had heard about how close his Dad was to David, and the covenant between them. Why after all these years didn’t he go see David and ask for his covenental rights. He must have been afraid. In verse 7 when he is brought into David’s presence, David encourages him to fear not. What was he afraid of? We can only guess, but I believe his fear was on several levels. For one thing I think he was convinced that David might do him harm if David found him. He was Saul’s descendent, and therefore David might think he could be a threat to the throne. Perhaps also, he simply believed that in light of his own brokeness and messed up life he didn’t qualify for the blessings his father had earned for him. The bottom line is, I believe he knew about the covenant, but couldn’t believe it was for him. He believed the lie that he was disqualified. He simply was too big of a mess. He wasn’t good enough. Sounds like us doesn’t it. We hear about all that’s ours In Christ but we are convinced that God couldn’t love us, because we are too messed up, and haved messed up too many things. All that blessing stuff has to be for those people the Father is proud of, not us. We don’t deserve it. We try to earn it, but we just don’t ever seem to get it quite right. I’ll leave you with this today. Mephibosheth didn’t have to act like a Kings Kid to earn his right to sit at the table and enjoy the Kings presence and provision. He first had to receive his right to sit at the table and enjoy the Kings presence and provision so he could start acting like a Kings Kid. That’s God’s order. We don’t change to get grace, we get grace to change.