Finishing Well

Well, it is great to be back with my church.

Folks, I've had a great uh Jill and I have had a few weeks off and and we spent some time in the mountains.

We've spent a little time with our children, our kids, our adult children, and um, and it's so great.

And if you haven't, if I hadn't had the privilege and the opportunity to meet you, my name's Russ, and I'm one of the pastors here at Church at the Grove, and um so good to be with our church.

I was here last week.

I was kind of hiding in the corners, and and uh I didn't have any responsibilities.

It was it was such a blessing to see God at work and to see God at work in the life of our church.

Uh today's the final uh Sunday in this summer study on the life of David.

So I I began in ministry in um January of 1995, and that just makes me feel and sound so old as that comes out.

So I started in January 1995.

I was I was a youth pastor, um, and and I had one of those clauses in my job description that included all the other things that the pastor needed me to do.

So I was a youth pastor and all the other things.

And it and and when I went to Concord Baptist Church, which is up in North Hall County, some of you probably know where that is.

There's a little town there called Claremont.

It's between Gainesville and Cleveland, Georgia.

Um it was it's a it was a little country church, probably small, medium-sized church when I went there.

And and I'm telling you, we had church Sunday morning, we had church Sunday night.

I had to show up on Tuesday night for what was called church visitation.

Anyone remember what church visitation is?

There's a few, a few of you.

Um and then we had Wednesday night church, and we we just had a lot of church.

But one of the best parts of being at Concord were the potluck dinners.

Anybody know what a potluck is?

It's like a buffet, but it's all home cooked from different people, and and and they did potlucks all the time.

I mean, there's a there was a meal all, I mean, it just and I loved it.

I absolutely loved it.

I'm I'm all for bringing back potluck.

And so so they would say, hey, everybody bring something.

Everybody brings something, bring your dish.

And we had a group of what I call the casserole queens in the church.

And man, they could they could cook.

Now, I don't cook.

I have never cooked.

I mean, I can grill, I can do a few things, but I don't.

I mean, if if if Jill leaves, I I have to scrounge for food.

Um, if she left me, I'd be coming to y'all to scrounge for food.

Actually, if she left me, I told her, if she ever leaves me, I'm going with her.

So, so we so so I everybody had to bring something.

And so I felt like I had to bring something.

I was brand new.

I wanted to make a good impression.

I was I was 39 business years old.

I'd come out of the business world, first church, and so when they'd have a potluck, here are some of the things that I brought.

A bag of Doritos.

I'm telling you the truth.

You know how some preachers, not me, embellish things.

But bag of Doritos, um, uh a bag of pretzels, one potluck.

One potluck, I brought this big container of peanuts, not realizing that I had already opened it and eaten half of them.

But I didn't say a word to anybody.

And so I felt like a pauper.

Because I didn't have anything to offer and to bring to the table.

But you know what?

Those ladies and those men, those the people in that church, they they treated me as if I had baked and cooked something so special and so um scrumptious.

They they treated me the same.

And they loved me the same as if I actually had something to bring.

The truth is, when it came to potlucks, I didn't deserve a place at the table.

Because I didn't really have anything to offer to bring.

But those people, that family, that church loved on me and they treated me with grace.

And I came like a pauper, but I ate like a king.

Man, it was good.

I ate like a king, and I don't know if you've ever felt that way.

I I feel that way.

I I've there's a place called the Ritz Carlton down at Lake O'Coney, and I'm not gonna ask you to raise your hand if you've been there.

Um, but I've been there and I don't fit in.

I don't fit in.

When I I drive my 2007 Toyota Tundra pickup, I drove up, Jill and I went to a pastor spouse retreat there.

And if it hadn't been the pastor spouse retreat, we would have never gone.

But I pull up and I'm looking for the place to park, and there's this guy up there waving me in, and it was, you know, he was he was the valet parker.

And I brought my old truck, I drove it up there, and I passed all the Range Rovers, and I passed all the big suburbans and the Tahoes.

For those of you basically all the vehicles that you can start the engines before you ever get in the car.

That's kind of how I think about car world is I drive one that I have to get in and actually put a key in.

But you know what is the best thing about my 2007 Toyota Tundra pickup?

It's paid for.

And so I listen, I pull up the old 2007 tundra pickup, and I just I just wanted to shrink in my seat because I felt like a pauper.

In a place where kings hang out.

I felt like a pauper.

And so this morning, as we look at this story that we're gonna look at to conclude this series, it's about a man that, for all um uh intention and purposes, was rejected from society because he was disabled.

He didn't have anything to offer.

As a matter of fact, he should have been dead when this story took place, he should have been dead.

And here's the one thing I want us to remember from this morning is that grace always gives people a seat that they've never earned.

Grace always gives people a seat that they've never earned.

And so if you've got your Bibles, turn to 2 Samuel chapter 9.

2 Samuel 9 · chapter mention

2 Samuel chapter 9.

2 Samuel 9 · chapter mention

And so um very this week's a little unusual.

Nathan is our pastor in social circle.

Um, he's actually teaching on a on a separate passage.

We we we usually never do that.

It's always on the same passage.

Obviously, the messages are a little bit different through our personalities.

Um, but this is one week where I would say, hey, I would encourage you, if you are here, go online and listen to Nathan preach out of his passage because it really does kind of wrap up the whole series, um, these two messages together.

And so if you've just been, if you're here for the first Sunday, maybe, or maybe you're here for the first Sunday in a while, we're finishing up this series called The Story of David.

We've done a summer study on the person of David in the Bible.

And here's a few things we've seen.

David was chosen from the shadows.

God chooses this overlooked child to be the ruler of the next, the next ruler of the king uh of Israel, the next king of Israel.

David had courage, and and we see that courage, and when I say this, it's not a courage he produced, it's a gospel courage that was supernatural that allowed him to go to battle and to defeat the giant Goliath.

David had a heart that was turned, just turned toward the Lord.

In all of his success and all of his failures, and all of his running and all of his threats, he never gave up faith in the Lord.

You read all through the Psalms.

Now he got frustrated with God, he might be angry with God, and he would vent with God.

You read that in the Psalms, but he never stopped and gave up his relationship with God.

So he had a heart that was turned towards the Lord, even in success.

And so when Saul was out chasing him down in the wilderness, David stayed faithful to the Lord.

He wrote many of his Psalms while he was in the wilderness, running and hiding from King Saul.

He valued deep covenant friendship.

We talked about that one week with David and Jonathan that modeled for us what a covenant friendship is like.

He saw that he had blown it.

Over the last few weeks, Jonah, um, Jonah has preached through uh this the scenario where David has the affair with Bathsheba.

And then last week we talked about how David responded with repentance and confession and coming clean with God.

And so, even through all that, we see David's heart turn toward the Lord.

We've seen David at every season of his life, and there was so much that we didn't even cover.

We could do another series or multiple series on all of the things.

We've seen him overlooked, we saw him winning, we saw him waiting, he's befriended, he's fallen, and then he's restored.

But this morning we're gonna look at what I consider a bit of an obscure, often overlooked story that gives us insight to David being the man after God's own heart that he's described to be in the book of Acts in the New Testament.

And 2 Samuel 9 is where we pick up with a story.

And a story is about a man named Mephibosheth.

How many of you have ever heard of Mephibosheth?

A few hands.

This is an obscure story.

Probably some of you have never heard his name mentioned.

You certainly maybe never heard a whole sermon preached on a guy named Mephibosheth.

Now say with me, Mephibosheth.

Now, I'm probably gonna mess that up a few times.

Say it three times real fast.

No, I'm kidding.

And so here's what 2 Samuel 9:1 says.

2 Samuel 9:1

It says this David asked, Is there anyone remaining from the family of Saul that I can show kindness?

That I can show kindness to for Jonathan's sake.

Now, who's Jonathan?

Jonathan is David's best friend.

They're in this covenant relationship.

Jonathan had been uh the the crown prince.

He was supposed to replace Saul, and uh, but he and David ended into a covenant friendship relationship, and he says he knows that David's been anointed the king.

He's God's chosen person to be the king, and so Jonathan uh lays down his pride and and he and he joins David.

And he and he and he and so David is now at a point where he's not on the run anymore.

He's in his palace.

There is peace in the kingdom.

There aren't battles going on on a large scale, and so you kind of imagine David sitting there, maybe on his uh uh on his throne, and he's kind of twiddling his thumbs and he's thinking, you know, hmm, what would be a good thing to do as a king right now?

He says, okay, all right, all right.

He asked the question, hey, hey, is there anyone remaining from the family of Saul that I could show kindness to for Jonathan's sake?

And a circle underlying that word kindness because it's a word that is almost indescribable and undefinable in a simple way, but it really means grace.

It is the God-given grace that God bestows upon us even when we don't deserve it.

When we bring our half-empty can of peanuts to a banquet table.

Oh, the grace of God in the Hebrew word is kessed.

Kessed.

That's the Hebrew word.

And I'm telling you, you read through the Old Testament and you come across that word kindness, and and probably most often it's that word kessed that is translated into English as the word kindness, or it could also mean the grace of God.

And by grace I mean God's riches, God's presence, who He is, God's riches at Christ's expense is a way to define grace.

And so this attitude is a bit odd because typically when things are going good and a king has great power, they begin to think about how great they are, and they begin to think about taking new ground, new territory.

They begin to make decisions on how they can reward themselves.

Hey, they deserve it.

I have fought all these battles.

Don't I deserve a little bit of credit for what I've done in bringing this kingdom to the place that it has come?

But David doesn't do that.

He doesn't focus on himself, he thinks about others.

And so David says, Who is there out there?

Who is out there from the family of Saul that I can show Hesed grace to?

He goes on in verse 2.

He says, There was a servant of Saul's family named Zeba.

They summoned him to David, and the king said to him, Are you Zeba?

I am your servant, he replied.

So the king asked, Is there anyone left of Saul's family that I can show kindness, the kindness of God to, the grace of God to?

Zeba said to the king, There is still Jonathan's son who was injured in both feet.

And some translations will say crippled, and I, you know, I don't, that word I think it is largely considered maybe inappropriate.

But I'm going to use that word a little bit in the message because there's no other word that fits what we're talking about.

Jonathan's son, who was injured in both feet.

Now, Jonathan was Saul's son.

Jonathan is David's best friend.

He is the son of Saul.

Jonathan had a son, and his name was Mephibosheth.

And David, when he established his covenant relationship with Jonathan, part of the covenant was, I will care for your family if you go before I do, and you care for my family if I go before you do.

And so Jonathan is killed in battle, and David, when things are peaceful, when things are settled, and David is sitting around, he remembers, oh, I made a promise.

I made a promise.

So he goes and searches.

He goes and looks.

So now's the time he would search for someone in Jonathan's family to show this radical love, this radical grace too.

And David is putting the kindness of God on display, the radical grace of God.

Now, can I just say this?

When you experience the radical grace of God, it changes everything.

When you experience a relationship with the King of the universe who came not just to sit on a throne, he's born in humility as a child, Jesus.

He lays down his life for us, surrenders his life, he's beaten, and he's crucified on a Roman cross.

And when you encounter the Jesus of the Bible, and you not just encounter him, but when you actually turn and put your faith in him.

Mark 1.14 says, repent and believe.

Jesus says that's what we're to do.

We are to repent and believe the gospel.

This good news that Jesus has come to give us life.

When you experience the radical grace of God, it changes everything.

I'm telling you, when you experience the radical grace of God, you can't remain the same.

It's impossible.

And so it changes the way that we would live, the way we think, the way we carry out our relationships.

And here's a few ways that God's grace impacts us and those around us.

Three things if you're a note taker.

The first thing is this is the first point.

Grace comes looking for people who aren't looking for it.

Grace comes looking for people who aren't looking for it.

Now you might be here this morning because you're part of our church family and you come on a regular basis.

You might be here this morning because you have a drug problem and your parents drug you to church this morning.

You might be here, though, seriously, because somebody invited you to come and to be a part of church, maybe here for the first time.

But there is no mistake that you are here because God doesn't do things that are mistakes.

He doesn't make mistakes.

There's no chance, there's no accidents.

You are here for a purpose.

And maybe you've been coming around for a while, but but and you heard about grace, you've heard about Jesus, but but you've just been kind of waiting, and you haven't stepped out and said yes to Jesus yet.

And so grace comes looking for people who aren't looking for it.

You may be here thinking, I don't need the grace of God, but maybe God has made today a divine appointment.

And maybe you've never said yes to Jesus, or maybe you have said yes to Jesus, but you come here this morning and you feel like a pauper.

Maybe it's a sin habit or a or a or a bad habit or a or or you've got circumstances going on in your life that that just hurt, there's pain.

And so David is this new king, and and you most of you know that when one when one king, this is a practice that still takes place today, when there is a revolution in a country and a new president or king takes the position of power, one of his first action steps is to make sure that nobody is left alive from the previous administration.

And so this has been happening for centuries up until the current day.

When a country is taken over, when there's a revolution, and somebody new moves in to take the position of president, king, or prime minister, one of the things they'll do is they'll go and make sure that there's nobody left in the family of the previous leader who can come back and bring another revolution, who can be sent out into exile and some point maybe put together a plan.

And so.

It is horrible to think of.

It's barbaric to think of.

But what would have been the natural thing would have been the king, King David, once he assumed the throne, King David would have made sure that all of Saul's family were dead.

And so David's the new king.

And so when one king normally, when one king dies, normally his sons or a distant relative will assume the command.

Well, Jonathan obviously had been the crown prince, and he is gone.

So who would be left?

Jonathan had a son named Mephibosheth.

Now David was not part of Saul's family by blood, at least, but David is now the king.

He is God's anointed king for Israel.

But David's not going to look for someone who potentially has more right to the throne than he does.

What David does is he puts God's radical grace on display and he goes to find the remaining member of Jonathan's family.

Not to exterminate them, not to assassinate them, but to bring them into the palace.

And David is willing to risk.

He's willing to take that risk.

He's willing to risk it because he wants to put God's grace on display.

He wants to show the kindness of God that God has shown him.

David could have found himself in a tough spot as Mephibosheth could have rallied the loyalists to Saul and tried to come back and overthrow David.

His own family could have complained about having to share the palace with a former king's grandson.

However, David was willing to take the risk to show and demonstrate the loving kindness, the Kessed, the grace of God.

Not because Mephibosheth deserved it, but instead because of the covenant he had made with Jonathan.

Now what had happened, and we see in verse 4, the king asked him, Where is he?

David says, Where is he?

Zebah has said, hey, there is, there is Jonathan's son.

He's out there.

David says, Where is he?

Zebed answered, the king said, You'll find him in Lodabar at the house of Mashir the son of Amiel.

The circle underlined that word Lodabar.

That word Lodabar, it literally means barren place.

And so you've got to ask the question, is he living in a barren place?

Or is that the description of the state of his life?

Whatever, whatever, which way, whichever way you want to take it, it's not good.

A young man who's born into a royal family is now living like a pauper.

Not because he chose it, it's because out of fear.

And so David had him brought from the house of Mashir, son of Amiel and Lodabar.

Mephibosheth, son of Jonathan, son of Saul, came to David, fell face down, and paid homage.

And David said, Mephibosheth, I am your servant.

Let's see, I told you.

Mephibosheth says, I'm your servant.

Now why does he, why does he, why do you think he cowers down?

Well, part of that is what you did in response to royalty.

But I think the other part is he's waiting and hoping that this is not the end of his life.

Because he knows.

He knows what the customs are.

He knows what the what the how things are supposed to go, how they usually go.

But Mephibsheth says, I'm your servant.

Now can you imagine what's going through Mephibsheth's head?

He he if he knew any stories about his grandfather and the and the relationship that he had with David, he probably expected David to kill him.

David probably would have wanted to kill anyone in the lineage of Saul to protect his throne.

That's the normal action of a new king.

Normal standards.

But here's what's not normal: a life that's been transformed by the grace of God.

There is no normal.

It is absolutely abnormal.

The better word is it's supernatural.

See, followers of Jesus are not intended to fall in line with what worldly standards are, but instead, we're called to do what is unusual, that may seem strange, but we do it to put the grace of Jesus on display in us and through us.

So what does David do?

Verse 7.

Don't be afraid, David said to him, since I intend to show you kindness, there's that word Kessid.

You could put grace.

Since I intend to show you grace for the sake of your father Jonathan, I will restore to you all your grandfather Saul's fields.

And you will always eat meals at my table.

What?

It's one thing that he didn't kill him.

He cowers in fear because he's expecting the sword.

But when he lifts up his head, he sees a face that's shining with the grace of Jesus.

He says, I will restore you, restore to you all your grandfather's fields.

You will always eat meals at my table.

Mephith paid homage and said, What is your servant that you take interest in a dead dog like me?

Now, I wonder how many of you came into this building feeling like a dead dog.

You may not have thought that specifically, but you may have come into this building feeling unworthy of the presence of God.

You may have come into this building carrying weight.

And it might be the weight of your own sin, a habit, a pattern in your life that is so hard for you to change.

You may have come into this building feeling just unworthy of God's love and God's grace.

You may have come into this building carrying the weight of loss or carrying the weight of stress.

You may have come into this building not thinking about how glorious it is to be in God's presence because you don't feel like you're worthy to be in his presence.

Not to mention the people that are in this community that aren't here today because they don't feel worthy of God's presence.

And so Mephibosheth describes himself as feeling like a dead dog.

What is your servant that you take interest in a dead dog like me?

So Mephibosheth saw himself as nothing.

He was disabled, he was crippled.

He's living in a place where he is an outcast.

Why would the king want to show grace to me?

He didn't deserve it.

He's not worthy of it.

He didn't earn this kindness, but he is getting it.

And it is overwhelming him.

Verse 9 says, Then the king summoned Saul's attendant, Zeba, and said to him, I've given your master's grandson all that belong to Saul and his family.

You, your sons, and your servants are to work the ground for him.

You are to bring the crop, so your master's grandson will have food to eat.

But Mephibosheth, your master's grandson, is always to eat at my table.

Now Ziba had 15 sons and 20 servants.

And so we grace comes looking for people that aren't looking for it.

But also we see that grace gives us what we could never earn.

Grace gives us what we could never earn.

He gives us a seat at the king's table.

We don't deserve that.

He gives us a place in a family of God.

We don't deserve that.

He gives us his presence himself.

We don't deserve it.

What do we deserve?

We deserve eternal separation from God.

We deserve hell.

Grace gives us what could never be earned.

David is bringing this man in the house and giving him the land, not just having him in the palace, not just sitting at the king's table, but he gives him everything back that his father had.

Everything that his grandfather owned.

The servants, the land.

And then he tells him, You come eat at my table.

See, radical grace always has a price.

And King David was willing to pay the price for the grace of Mephibosheth to sit at the king's table.

And what does that point us to?

That points us forward to a king who would pay the price for our invitation to the table.

Last week we shared in communion.

The Lord's table.

And we know, hey, if we belong to Jesus, we can come partake of the Lord's table.

We're invited to.

We may not feel like we deserve it, but we're invited to it.

Radical grace costs something.

It doesn't just cost money, it costs us time, it costs us energy.

It costs, it's a huge price.

Verse 10 says this you, your sons, and your servants are to work the ground for him, and you're bringing the crop so your master's grandson will have food to eat.

But Mephibosheth, your master's grandson, is always to eat at my table.

Now Zeba had 15 sons and 20 servants.

Zeba said to the king, Your servant will do all my Lord the king commands.

So Mephibosheth ate at David's table just like one of the king's sons.

Do you know that when you put your faith in Christ, you are adopted into the family of God, and you are now a child of God.

You are no longer a dead dog.

You are no longer anything else that you can fill in the blank that you might fill sometimes.

You are a child of God adopted into the family of God through Jesus.

Now Zeba had 15 sons and 20 servants.

Zeba said to the king, Your servant will do all my Lord commands.

So Mephibosheth ate at David's table just like one of the king's sons.

Mephibosheth had a young son whose name was Mekah.

All those living in Zeba's house were Mephibosheth's servants.

However, Mephibosheth lived in Jerusalem because he had always ate at the king's table.

His feet had been injured.

Now, if we look back to 2 Samuel, I think it's chapter 4, there's a very short little section where it says specifically that Mephibosheth, when Saul had been killed and Jonathan had been killed, they knew what was coming.

Falls down, trips over, not sure exactly what the accident is, but it is serious enough that he ends up disabled in both legs.

And so even though he could walk, he probably clumped.

And many of us walk with a limp.

We walk with a clump because we don't feel like we're worthy.

We don't have healing.

We don't, and I'm not talking about physical healing.

I'm talking about spiritual wholeness.

The shalom and the peace of God that comes through the kindness, the kessid, the grace of God.

And then lastly, grace changes your identity and it gives you a new belonging.

No longer did Mephilisheth have to worry about where his next meal was going to come from.

No longer did he have to worry about who was going to help him survive since he was crippled.

He didn't have to worry about how he was going to fix the roof of the hut where he was living, because he has now been shown the radical kindness of David, and he's invited into the king's palace.

I'm in pretty good shape.

I can get around.

But there is also a spiritual crippledness.

And those of us who are outside of Jesus are disabled.

Spiritually disabled.

We can't be in the presence of God.

We can't know God.

We can't experience the blessings of God.

We're not adopted into the family of God where we have belonging.

We can't become like Jesus because we're not a disciple.

You can't be a disciple of Jesus unless you've experienced the grace, the radical grace of Jesus.

And so this story points to the cross.

Charles Swindall talks about this in his book, the biography, that he writes about David.

He says, picture what life would be like in the years to come at the supper table with David, the meals fixed, and the dinner bell rings, and along come the members of the family and their guests.

And there's Amnon.

He's the clever and witty when he comes to the table first.

And then there's Joab, one of the guests, and he's muscular, he's masculine, attractive, very much like your pastor.

His skin bronzed from the sun.

Just making sure you're listening.

He walks in.

And no peanut jokes.

Alright, so no peanut gallery over there.

Next comes Absalom.

Talk about handsome.

From the crown of his head to the soles of his feet, there's no blemish on Absalom.

Then there's Tamar, the beautiful tender daughter of David.

And later on, one could add Solomon as well.

He's been in the study all day, but he finally slips away from his work to make his way to the table.

And then Swindall goes on, and I put this on the screen because I want you to see it, and I want you to feel it, and I want you to resonate with it, and I want you to meditate on it, and I want you to apply it to your own personal life, but also want you to think about who is a Mephibosheth in your life that needs to hear the gospel or see the gospel through you.

But then they hear clump, clump, clump, clump.

And here comes Mephibosheth hobbling along.

He smiles because he's welcome.

And he humbly joins the others as he takes his place at the table as one of the king's sons.

And the tablecloth of grace covers his feet.

Oh, what a scene.

What a picture.

Now see, we we can there's all different ways to take the gospel to the world.

I mean, you can go stand on a street corner if you want to with a bullhorn.

I mean, that that's not my that's not my particular style.

I'll I'll do whatever.

I've done it before.

I'd do it again if God called me to do it.

There's ways you can you can you can you can drop a track in the bathroom, gospel track, hoping somebody picks it up and reads it.

I mean, there's all kinds of ways that you can get the message out there.

But what is it about coming up close to somebody that you know is maybe well physically on the outside, but crippled in their heart and they desperately need the grace of Jesus.

See, grace always gives people a seat that they've never earned.

What would happen if the people in this room took this message, realizing that we have been radically changed and transformed by the grace of God, and we take it.

Next week we begin a new series, and the title of the series is The Empty Chair.

And you know what the series is about?

It's about taking what we're talking about in this message and applying it to our life in every area.

See, there's some empty chairs here.

And the church, the responsibility of every disciple is to make sure that those chairs end up with people who might come in with broken hearts but can walk out with hope, the living hope of Jesus Christ that He promises us.

Listen to this.

As simple as this: those who believe the gospel become like the gospel.

Those who truly believe the gospel become like the gospel.

And it'll cost us.

It'll cost us.

It may cost you money, it might cost you energy, it might cost you stepping out of your comfort zone.

But why would we not want to take something that has radically changed us and share it with a Mephibosheth in our life?

Who is it in your life that needs you to see them separated, broken, without Jesus?

And God has put you in their life for a specific purpose.

And we go through our normal circumstances and sometimes we just walk around like zombies.

It's almost as if there is a system that has numbed us to the point that we aren't able to see people truly as they are.

And Mephibus Jeff.

He comes to the table struggling.

But he sits at the king's table.

And the tablecloth covers his sin, his brokenness, everything wrong.

It's on its way to wholeness.

And we are on our way to wholeness.

And on our way to wholeness, are we willing to reach out and to bring somebody with us?

I'm about to sing a song called Living Hope.

I'm gonna ask our team to come.

Would you just bow your heads for a second and let's just spend a moment in prayer?

Thinking about how God would ask us to respond to this song.

We talk about the hope of Jesus Christ.

The hope that Christ brings to us when we surrender our heart to Him.

It is a living hope.

And it is a hope that comes through the radical encounter of grace that we have with Jesus.

And so maybe you're here and you need to think about this hope.

And you walked in, and maybe you didn't think the exact same words that Mephibosheth says in that passage where he feels like a dead dog.

Maybe you didn't think I'm a dead dog, but you came in thinking, am I really supposed to be here?

I don't fit in.

I feel like I've got a half empty container of peanuts that I've brought to the pot luck.

And the invitation is to come.

Half can of peanuts and all.

And you are invited, and every time we come into the presence of God, and certainly hopefully it's not just on Sundays, but every morning we wake up to new mercies.

And He wants to indwell us and to include us.

We are adopted and we're no longer dead dogs.

We're no longer spiritually crippled.

We are now whole and we're healed and we have hope because Jesus has radically changed us.

Just like King David searched and went and found Mephibosheth, he's called us now to join him in reaching into a community to see lives changed through this living hope.

Father, would you work in us and through us?

God, as we sing about the living hope that we have through Christ.

Father, we love you, we worship you, we lift you up.