The Power of Kindness: 2 Samuel 19:24-43

You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a

couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun in

practical ways. Well, good morning everyone, and welcome to the

Bible Guys. That's right. My name is Kyle, Yes, and

I'm Chris, and so today Jeff is out of pocket,

so Kyle is joining us for this week, and so

we're very excited. Yes once again to give you back.

In fact, even you pointed this out to me just

a moment ago. But if you're watching, you can see

that it says Bible Guys with Kyle and Chris. So

you made Yeah, I like it.

Nice little logo.

Yeah, and your little photo right yes there it is.

Pretty head exactly what I've got the same haircut today

is nice and high hair. In fact, let me just

mentioned about my hair really quickly, because people do make

make how much about my hair because it is definitely

spike sticks up. There is somebody who's driving down my street.

A couple of days ago. This lady stopped and I

was talking to somebody who was out in the street,

like a contractor was working across the street. I'm talking

to him. This lady pulled up stuf backed up and said,

is that Kyle? And I was like, what is going on?

So I walk over there and I was like hello,

and she goes, no, I thought that was you. I

recognized your head from far away. I thought that was

Kyle from Heritage and it was just the hair. She

reckonized my head, like from the back of my head.

She goes, I saw the hair and I thought that

was Kyle from heritage.

That's pretty good.

Yeah, I guess.

So I get recognized from my voice a loon, Oh yeah, absolutely,

but never in the back of my hair.

And I'm sure the contractor is just thinking what is

going on because he's like, why is that lady calling?

That's really funny, that's funny. Hey. Well, first of all,

we're super excited to dive into this today. But before

we get into the scripture, we have a segment and

today do you know did you know Jeff and I

how we introduced the segment.

No, let's here, so you have to sing it, okay.

Yes, okay? Where he goes today is back. All right,

you have a better voice than I do, so that's

all right. That's right, we'll spare the listeners. We'll go

with it. This one is from Linda h So, Hi, Linda,

thank you for writing in. I appreciate you very much.

And this is what she says, thank you for all

you guys do exclamation mark. I know that a lot

of time goes and work goes into this. What is

your favorite part about being a Bible Guy? Now, of

course this question was probably meant for Jeff for you, No.

Not meant for me, but you have definitely psychicked.

You've been a guest Bible Guy for many times. So

what is your favorite part about being a guest Bible Guy? Well?

I enjoy being on here just because it's fun to

hang out with you guys and read scripture together. And

it's even even as a person who's reading and maybe

you know, I know a lot of people take things away.

It's also really great to be on this side of

it things to be growing as well. But I'll just

share as well. I've heard from so many people even

recently who've talked about how it's impacted them for the better.

There's a couple that I'm actually doing a wedding for

this coming weekend, and we were just talking two days ago.

They're both in their mid twenties, and they were talking

about how they're referencing a verse that they want to

use in the ceremony and they're like, oh, yeah, the

Bible Guys talked about it a few months ago and

we thought that's such a great verse. So it's really cool. Yeah,

it's really cool this verse that I'm using in a

ceremonies because they heard it more in context on a

Bible guys aside.

So it's so cool.

It is it is about you.

That's great.

What do you like about being a Bible guy?

You know, it's it's a I want I have a

lot of things to say that are good. I'm just

only pausing because what I wanted to say. Wash. It's

one of those things where I'm reminded of all the

good from the people, right. But like, but it's sort

of like this morning when I was getting up, I

was like, oh, I have a four and a half

hour recording session, right. So it's I'm not saying that

I'm complaining at all, but it's just it reminds me

of how good it is when people give feedback. So

I do appreciate the feedback a lot, because if nobody

would ever give feedback, I'd be like, oh my goodness,

this is a lot to work, you know what I mean.

So anyway, so let's get past that, and let me

just say that the best part about it is, honestly,

it's when I hear stories exactly like what you just said.

Right, you can get that a lot, I imagine you do.

But yeah, we do, and we really do. And I

bet you I have with that exaggeration, at least maybe

ten to fifteen people a week that mention how much

they appreciate the Bible. Guys, great, and it's really cool.

You know, I was explaining this last night. But my

whole goal, sorry, last night, in my small group, my

whole goal of my whole life is to help people

understand the Bible in a really clear and concise way,

very practical, very relevant. Right, It's my whole goal in life.

And so last night in our small group, we were

talking about verses that are confusing, and Jesus has this

pesky way of saying, you know, he has ears to hear,

let him hear. Not everybody is given to understand, right,

And sometimes we have to understand that, you know, we

have to really press into the scripture because not everything

is crystal clear. Some verses can be taken out of context,

and sometimes that frustrates me because my whole goal in

my life is to is to give something really really clear. Anyway,

all that to say that the best part for me

is when people come up and say, I never understood that,

and now I understand with more clarity. That's great, and

I think, man, that is that's the whole goal, right yeah.

Yeah, And in a thirty five minute message on a

Sunday morning, when you're covering a few verses you're trying

to apply to their lives. This is totally different. This

is not it's a totally different approach, but yet it's

got the same outcome, right, that's what you're hoping for,

the same outcome, And a thirty five minute message on

a Sunday morning versus what you're seeing here. So that's

really cool.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's great. Well, hey, thank you Linda

HS for writing in. And I'm sure that if Jeff

were here, he would say the same thing. He'd say

you say things about you know, people who come up

to him and mention the Bible guys that that's really

what it's all about. Yeah, so awesome. So hey, we're

going to dive right into a Second Samuel nineteen, and

we have skipped over a few little stories because remember

we're in the Old Testament, and the Old Testament. We're

going through this chronologically, of course, but more importantly than

that that we're focusing on the highlights of the Old Testament,

which is sort of like the milestones or the main stories,

and so we're not reading, you know, everything, verse by verse,

and we're skipping over just a few highlights. Here David

mourns Epsolom's death. We read that, and then there's a

part in there. I think we skipped over where Joev

rebukes the king, David returns to Jerusalem, and then David

shows mercy to SHAMAI and then and now we're reading,

we're picking up where David shows kindness to Phibischev Fibiev yep.

And he actually already did that, but he's showing more

kindness here.

So yes, all right, yeah, Second Samuel, chapter nineteen versus

twenty four to go all the way to forty three

in this one, all right, So here we are now Maphibischef,

Saul's grandson, came down from Jerusalem to meet the king.

He had not cared for his feet trimmed his beard

or washed his clothes since the day the King left Jerusalem. Wow,

why didn't you come with me, Maphibichaff, the king asked him.

Maphibischeff replied, my Lord the King my servant, and Zebra

deceived me. I told him, saddle my donkey, so I

can go with the king. For as you know, I

am crippled. Zeba has slandered me by saying that I

refuse to come. But I know that, my Lord the

King is like an angel of God, so do what

you think is best. All my relatives and I could

expect only death from you, my lord, but instead you

have honored me by allowing me to eat at your

own table. What more can I ask? You? Said? Enough,

David replied, I've decided that you and Zebra will divide

your land equally between you. Give him all of it,

Maphibichef said, I am content just to have you safely

back again, my Lord the King. So keep in mind

that the person he's doing this too, if you remember

from a future ten chapters prior, is actually Jonathan David's

close friend. It's his son Maphibashev and and also yes, yes, yes, okay,

So then next proportion. Says Barzillai of Gilead had come

down from Roguelim to escort the king across the Jordan.

He's very old, about eighty, and very wealthy. He was

the one who had provided food for the king during

his stay. And Mahonna, I'm come across with me and

live in Jerusalem. The king said to Barzilai, I will

take care of you there. No, he replied, I am

far too old to go with the King to Jerusalem.

I am eighty years old today, and I can no

longer enjoy anything. Food and wine are no longer tasty,

and I cannot hear the singers as they sing. I

would only be a burden to my lord the King.

Just go across the Jordan river with the King is

all the honor I need. Then let me return again

to die on my own in my own town, where

my father and mother are buried. But here's your servant,

my son, kim Hem. Let him go with my lord

the King and receive whatever you want to give him. Good.

The King agreed. Kim Him will go with me, and

I will help him in any way you would like,

and I'll do for you anything you want. So all

the people crossed the Jordan with the king. After David

had blessed Barzilai and kissed him, Barzilai returned to his

own home. The king then crossed over to Gilgal, taking

kim him with him. All the troops of Judah and

half the troops of Israel escorted the king on the way.

Let's see, and we continue on just a few more verses. Yep,

it says, but all the men of Israel complained to

the king. The men of Judas stole the king and

didn't give us the honor of helping take you your

household and all your men across the Jordan. The men

of Judah replied, the king is one of our own kinsmen,

why should this make you angry? We haven't eaten any

of the King's food or received any special favors. But

there are ten tribes in Israel. The others replied, so

we have ten times as much right to the king

as you do. What right do you have to treat

us with such contempt? Weren't you the first to speak

of bringing him back to be our king? Again? The

argument continued back and forth, and the men of Judah

spoke even more harshly than the men of Israel.

Yeah. So one of the first things that would be

helpful is to read the Note and the Life Application

of Study Bible. We always promote that, and it says,

although Israel is a united kingdom, it was still made

up of twelve separate tribes. These tribes had officially or

excuse me, had difficulty agreeing on the goals of the

nation as a whole. Tribal jealousness had originally kept Israel

from completely conquering the Promised Land. Read the Book of

Joshua for that. And now the tribal jealousies were threatening

the stability of David's reign by giving Sheba an opportunity

to rebel. So so, yeah, it was just one of

those things where you know, good gosh, have we ever

have we ever gotten away from politics and you know,

power and.

Same stuff happenedands of years ago.

Yeah, everybody can relate to that as soon as they

read it, right. But you know what's so interesting about

this is that it's not just the fact that David

is showing kindness to the Phibuisheth once again. Because listen,

just as a reminder to our readers, it was very

customary in those days. You know, if you know David,

you know he takes over a house, saw that the

house rose up against David. Everybody was against him. It

would have been customary for David to wipe out the

entire house of Saul. Anybody related to Saul would be

wiped out, because that's a claim to the throne, right,

So if you're related to Saul, then technically you could

start a rebellion and come back and all these different things.

And so everybody who was related to Saul when there's

a regime regime change, look out right, so they run,

they hide everything else. And so David actually makes a

promise to Saul. He's so unusued. You'll remember back when

David was in the cave and he wouldn't raise his

hand against Saul, and he says, God forbid that I

should raise my hand against God's anointed, even though that

Samuel had anointed David king. Samuel had promised David king.

Saul also was also hunting David down. Saul was so

distraught and so jealous and so unstable that he was,

you know, trying to spear David to a wall. David

was running from Saul. He had every reason to rise

up and kill Saul. But not only did he not

do that, but David here, long after Saul's death, is

still honoring who he is as a person. David's honoring himself,

David's honoring God. And David is saying, hey, when I

was alive, I made a promise not to rise up

and raise my hand against Saul. And and so I'm

I'm gonna carry on that promise to his family. And

so he shows kindness back in chapter number nine to

mamphibis Eath, and so here, anyway, that's not I said

all that to say, that's not what stands out to

me in this chapter. What stands out to me in

this chapter is Maphibiath's absolutely humble posture. So what does

he say? He says, divide the land, and David's trying

to give him half the land, and Mephibichef says, hey,

give it all, give it all to Zebra, because to

be honest with you, I'm just content with What does

he say? What? More? He says, all my relatives and

I could expect his only death from you, my lord,

but instead you have honored me by allowing me to

eat at your own table. And he says, what more

can I ask? So think about that. That is a

posture that all of us need to have with our

heavenly Father. This is a beautiful picture of the king

who has every reason to you know, smite us, right,

you know, our heavenly thought is uh the perfect king

of kings. Here we are, you know, at fault in

our own sin. Uh. You know he has the right

to uh to you know, if not smite us, at

least discard us from his kingdom right and uh, and

yet he shows mercy to us, and and so uh

and and he's and he's giving him above and beyond.

This is a picture of what God does for us.

God treats us this way. And our sin, we are

not worthy to be in uh communion with our perfect,

sinless heavenly Father. We betray him, we let him down,

We break our promises, We are unfaithful, we are inconsistent.

And God gives over and above continuous love and mercy

and forgiveness above and beyond what we deserve. Right and

a lot of us as Christians, we feel entitled, right,

we feel we feel like we put in our time,

We feel like we you know, we're we're the we're

important in our church, you know, we're important in our community,

or maybe we're just not such bad people and we

feel like we're deserving of God's blessings. In some way,

we feel entitled. But yet Maphibuschev not so much. What

does he say is he says? He says, what more

can I ask? Yeah, Gosh, I love that You're right.

It is very humble. The thing that stood out to

me when I'm reading through this is David. I know

you mentioned this earlier. He had every right to come

back as the king after he'd been turned on, I mean,

his whole story with Absolom and people turning against him.

He had every right to have one of many different reactions. Right.

He could have come back with vengeance. He could have

come back and like you know, had retribution upon those

who had done what they had done. He could have

come back and hidden in shame. He could like, there's

so many different outcomes to what David could have done.

And then we're seeing really quickly in these two two

big sections back to back, talks about his kindness to others,

and it makes me think of, you know, how many

of us have been betrayed, not probably to the level

that David had been betrayed, and yet how it's so

easy for this the outcome of betrayal to be something

other than kindness. It made me think, as we're going

through that and even prepping for this, I was remembering

something that I actually don't share with many people. But

when I was growing up my parents' side of the FAMI,

or my mom's side of the family, there just was

not a lot of There's a lot of hostility, a

lot of anger, frustration, Like if someone got in a

fight with somebody, there would just be like a huge

falling out. And so I'd go years without talking to

certain cousins or aunts or uncles because there was a

fight going on. I never knew who was fighting with who,

but I just knew that there hadn't seen my cousin

in six months, there must be a fight going on.

And then even when it comes to my grandparents, what

ended up happening when I was in high school, my

mom had gotten a fight with my grandparents, and then

from my entire high school year never saw my grandparents

and they only lived, you know, down the road from me.

So when I hit eighteen, I was like, you know what,

I'm a man. Now I can go stop by my

grandparents' house and I'm gonna go talk to them and

just you know, show it was. My intention was just

to show love to them, see how they were doing

and what's going on. So check this out. I'm eighteen

years old, I got my own car, I got my

own life. I'm feeling proud of myself. I drive to

my grandparents, I knock on the door. My grandma comes

to the door, she opens it sees me, and she

didn't see me in years. I looked older and all

this stuff. And then she she looked at me and

I said hey, and then she yelled for her husband,

my grandpa, and said hey JD. She goes, hey JD,

this one's for you, and then just walked away. And

then my grandpa came to the door and was like,

what do you want? Like that was his response, and

I was like, hey, Grandpa, it's me. And I literally

spent the next like twenty or thirty minutes trying to

like almost woo my grandparents over, like to seeing like, hey,

this what's been going on in my life? And slowly

but surely like kind of like broke down some walls.

But I was like trying to like win them over.

It was very weird now that I think back on

that as an eighteen or when I was eighteen years

old twenty years ago, but it was just a weird

spot to be in. And I think about those as

well as several I'm sure everybody's got those stories of

feeling betrayed or feeling like confused, is there somebody's hurting

you or turning from you? And I could have had

many moments with certain people in my life right I

could have walked away, I could have felt burned by betrayal.

I could have felt dismissed. I could have been hurt.

I could have been you know whatever.

I mean.

It happens in church so often right with other Christians,

where you're like, man, I'll never get burned like that again,

or I'm gonna have to have the upper hand, I'll

never trust people again. And you have to really seek

kindness no matter what's happened to you, no matter how

difficult to be. You have to choose to like go

the other way. And I've had many instances like that

where I'm like, man, I just can't do what's been

done to me. I have to choose kindness. Yeah that,

I'm sure you have examples of that as well.

Oh sure, you know you know what, being in the

church world sometimes it's great. Yeah right, I mean everything

that's good about church. When it's good, it's great, isn't

you know? I say my favorite part of church is

number one the community. When there's a true small group

of friends and you have relationships that are there for

you in a way that feels like family, it is

absolutely the best. Another really great experience in church for

me is worship, corporate worship, when you are able to

worship with somebody side by side, even though you may

not even know their name, you feel this bond, right,

and that's only true for people in your church, in

your community. That's true when you visit other countries. Isn't

it like you're in Africa and you're worshiping side by

side with somebody and you're like, I don't even know

this person, and yet I feel like there's a common

bond in Christ. Right. So the church capital c can

be great, but unfortunately it's you know, the inner workings

of church are managed by imperfect people, aren't we We're

all imperfect people, and so being in the church gig right,

you know, you know, for this being our jobs, it

could be really challenging because not only do you work

for people sometimes that don't necessarily behave the way that

we want them to behave, you know, and that's unfortunate, uh,

you know, and hopefully you know, hopefully we're not saying

that about previous people, right. But but also more more,

more difficult than that are the people of the church, right,

because if you have a church of thousands, then all

of a sudden you have, you know, some people who

get in there who maybe who quite haven't matured, you know,

and on the outside they look a certain way, but

on the inside they've got a lot to learn. And

we all do it. We all have a lot to learn.

So yeah, it could be it could be a lot,

It could be really a lot. But you know, to

your point, you know, choosing kindness, choosing love. Gosh, there's

so many great memes and quotes and reels about uh,

you know, they're so they're so wise about uh, let's

not spend time with people who uh, you know, treat

us poorly. Let's not give them energy, Let's not give

them the time of day. You know, life is too

short to respond to people who are petty and they're mean,

or they're you know, bitter, or they're you know, they're

they're they're in the church and they and they cause

the vision. Man. Life's too short to give them energy.

So therefore what we do is we just think of

the things that Christ challenges us with. You. We think

of you know, God's love. We think of the experience

of like love and forgiveness. That's what we choose because

after all, you know, we want our lives to be

filled with life abundant blessings. That's just what God promises

to us, right, he promises us peace and joy and blessings.

This is where we get it from by by choosing

Christ's way, not not the world's way. Yeah, that's really good.

You know, we were talking about Maphibosheth's posture and his attitude.

So I got to tell a quick story and I

hope to tell this from stage soon if it fits.

But so I literally just got back yesterday twelve or

six am is when my plane touchdown, uh from the

Dominican Republic. And I was there for a long time.

We were doing this survey and summit, and we were

there scouting out potential partners, but we were also I

was there training leaders and volunteers and it was a

very long trip. It was exhausting, but it also took

place directly after our five k race. So transform one

is an organization for our listeners who don't know that

our church has adopted as one of our global partners,

and they rescue children from sex trafficking and help them

and then even do prevention by feeding children and you know,

addressing food and securities and giving them reasons not to

go into the industry in the first place and things

like this. Anyway, there was a girl that we ran

into while we were there, and she was a rescue. Okay,

so she's a survivor. And I may get emotional telling

this story, but her name is k And when I

saw her, she's just this cute little thing. You know,

she's just sweet as a button. She's just her posture

is like like like so sweet and innocent. It seems

like right. And I can't even believe that she was

a survivor of of you know, of this, of sex trafficking.

But I found out a little bit of her story

and I'm telling you this because of her posture Okay,

So here's her story. So we actually went out to

dinner with all of you know, some of our staff

and on Transform one and her and we're out to

this fantastic, you know, barbecue place, and come to find out,

she has this really short hair and it looks like,

to be honest with you, like a boy's hair, like

like just that's that's what she looks like. And I

was wondering why you know that she had hair like this,

but of course she don't say anything. We'll come to

find out she used to have this really long, beautiful hair.

But she was involved with people who were involved with voodoo,

and she was sort of like a nomad. She she

lived in the bushes, and she lived with this of

people and she was an orphan and she just sort

of joined up with these people and lived in the

bush and she contributed to the community by working the

streets and then giving the money to the community. That's

the way that they survived. And so so she wasn't

pulled out of like like a pimp or you know,

people who had guns, and you know that it wasn't

like that at all. She was just pulled out of

a community where she was expected to contribute, and this

is the only way that she can contribute. So anyway,

when the organization was pulling her out, apparently they got

so mad at her that they took a lock of

her hair and they did a view voodoo ritual calling

a curse upon her. Well, she had said, she had

said that she had seen the evil spirits work, and

she had seen this stuff was dangerous. She knew this

stuff was dangerous. So the very first thing that she

requested was that she shaver had balked so that this

voodoo curse would have no effect on her. And so

when she got out, and this was less than a

year ago, she completely had her head shaved down to

be bald. It was just amazing to see the gratitude

and the posture of this girl who is now on

the receiving end of kindness and love and mercy. And

she's going through this restoration program. And what they're doing

is they're teaching her how to make her own money.

And so they're teaching her how to make jewelry. Right,

so she makes this beautiful jewelry out of stones that

are native to the Dominican Republic. There's just this bluestone

that's I only know what they're called with coral. And

so what we did as a thank you for all

of our volunteers back in the States is we decided

to buy purchase some of her bracelets so that she

can have her own money.

That's great.

Uh, yeah, it was really great. But her posture is

it was just unbelievable how thankful she was, you know.

And and it's it's this fibishev kind of attitude? Right?

You know what?

More that's great because yeah, this thing, when you look

at it, a lot of the focus is on David's kindness,

and we touched on that for sure, but you're right,

it's the posture that he had approaching this gracious king,

which is us on a daily basis approaching a very

gracious and merciful king.

Yep, that's great. Well, that story went long, So that

was that's that's definitely our time. So thank you so

much for tuning in and we'll see you next time

on the Bibble guys,