Podcasts about Mephibosheth

Discover how one king's act of kindness changed a life forever.In this episode, the host reflects on the importance of the Golden Rule, urging listeners to treat others with the same kindness and respect they desire. Through the story of David and Mephibosheth, the episode explores themes of compassion, empathy, and the transformative power of love.Today's Bible verse is Matthew 7:12, from the King James Version.Download the Pray.com app for more Christian content including, Daily Prayers, Inspirational Testimonies, and Bedtime Bible Stories.Pray.com is the digital destination for faith. With over 5,000 daily prayers, meditations, bedtime stories, and cinematic stories inspired by the Bible, the Pray.com app has everything you need to keep your focus on the Lord. Make Prayer a priority and download the #1 App for Prayer and Sleep today in the Apple app store or Google Play store. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week, Pastor Jim walks us through 2 Samuel 8–9, where we see David faithfully leading Israel as God gives him victory wherever he goes. In the midst of his success, David remembers his covenant with Jonathan and extends unexpected kindness to Mephibosheth, welcoming him to the king's table. These chapters remind us that God's blessings are meant to overflow into the lives of others and that His covenant love is shown through grace and compassion. Like Mephibosheth, we have been shown undeserved kindness and invited into the King's presence.Text: 2 Samuel 8–9 Recorded: July 19, 2026

Kindness is more than simply being nice—it's a powerful reflection of the heart of Jesus. In this message from our Fruit of the Spirit series, you'll discover how biblical kindness is Christlike, intentional, and often sacrificial. Through personal stories, practical examples, and the inspiring account of David's kindness to Mephibosheth, this sermon reveals how God uses kindness to heal relationships, overcome conflict, and point others to His love.As followers of Christ, we're called to display the same kindness God first showed us. Join us as we explore how the Holy Spirit produces this life-changing fruit in our lives, enabling us to leave a lasting impact on our families, our communities, and everyone we encounter.

Have you ever felt like you don't measure up to God's standards? That your past, your qualifications, or your struggles disqualify you from His calling?If you are navigating life, career, and faith in the Upper Highway and Pinetown area and searching for what authentic Christianity actually looks like, this message is for you. We often look at our lives and feel like we are stuck in "Lo-Debar"—a place of nothingness, drifting, and unworthiness. But what if the King is actively seeking you out, not to condemn you, but to give you a permanent seat at His table?In this message, we dive deep into the story of King David and Mephibosheth to uncover the radical, unearned grace of God. We're stripping away religious performance to look at how God empowers you by His Spirit—whether you're in a hospital ward, an office, or a manufacturing plant right here in KZN.In this video, we explore:Why God ignores our "qualifications" when He calls us (The David & Goliath principle).The danger of people-pleasing over God-pleasing (Where King Saul went wrong).The powerful story of Mephibosheth: Escaping the spiritual amnesia of "Lo-Debar."Why authentic discipleship is the missing key in the modern church.How to stop living like a "stable boy" when you've been given the keys to the palace.If you've been mentally living in the background and disqualifying yourself, it's time to renew your mind. The table is set. The King is calling.If this message resonates with you, hit the Subscribe button to join a community of believers seeking authentic, transformative truth. Drop a comment below—what is one area of your mind you need to renew this week?Video Chapters

Have you ever felt completely dropped by the people who were supposed to carry you? Left broken, disappointed, or abandoned because of circumstances that weren't even your fault?If you are a young adult in the Pinetown or Upper Highway area trying to figure out your faith, your purpose, or why life has left you feeling "stuck," this message is for you. Too often, we find ourselves living in a spiritual "Lo-Debar"—a place of no direction, no purpose, and feeling like we have no value.In this powerful message, we look at the raw and authentic story of King David and Mephibosheth. Mephibosheth was dropped as a child, left crippled, and hid in exile, believing he was worthless. But the King came looking for him—not because of what he could do, but because of a permanent Covenant promise.In this video, we uncover:How to handle being "dropped" by life or by the people you trusted.The difference between what qualifies you in the world vs. what qualifies you to God.Why King Saul's people-pleasing cost him his destiny (and how to avoid the same trap).The true meaning of "Lo-Debar" and how to escape the mindset of nothingness and depression.Romans 5 and the radical truth: You are saved by a promise, not by your performance.You don't need to clean yourself up, get a certain degree, or fix your brokenness before God invites you to His table. The King is calling you out of hiding today.If you are seeking real, authentic Christianity in Durban and the Upper Highway, hit the Subscribe button to join our community. Let us know in the comments: Have you ever felt stuck in Lo-Debar, and how is God calling you out today?

2 Samuel 9

Preached by Pastor Jared Kress on July 12, 2026Main Idea: One of the strongest measures of character is how you treat those who cannot personally benefit you. When David became King, it would have been culturally acceptable to kill Mephibosheth, but he did the exact opposite. Challenge: How do you treat those who cannot directly benefit you? How far would you go to keep a promise? How do we see the gospel in Mephibosheth's story? King David....1. Seeks Someone to Shelter2. Extends an Elaborate Offer3. Discerns a Difficult Dilemma----------Join us in person Sundays at 10:30am at 6325 Poplar Ave, Memphis TN or online at https://www.kirbywoods.org/live. Follow us online! Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kirbywoodsmemphis Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kirbywoodsmemphis YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@kirbywoodsmemphisPodcast: https://kirbywoodspodcast.buzzsprout.com

What if the little things you overlook every day are actually the key to winning the race that matters most? Pastor E draws from the film *F1* to illuminate one of Scripture's most beloved commands: *"He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God"* (Micah 6:8). Just as driver Sonny reads the track, notices hidden details, and outmaneuvers his opponents through integrity and sacrifice, Pastor E challenges us to live with that same intentional awareness. He unpacks the Hebrew word *hesed*—covenant loyalty in action—showing how Sonny's relationships transform an entire racing team, mirroring David's radical welcome of Mephibosheth to his own table. Most powerfully, Pastor E reveals that Micah 6:8 isn't merely a moral checklist—it's a prophetic portrait of the cross, where divine justice and mercy are perfectly reconciled in Christ, freeing us from arrogance and expanding our capacity beyond our own limitations. You are not bound by your past, your exhaustion, or your inadequacy. This week, open your eyes to the people around you—and run your race with justice, *hesed*, and humble, resurrection-powered faith.

No matter what follows the word "but" in your life—fear, failure, rejection, weakness, sickness, insecurity, or lack—God has the final word.In this powerful and deeply personal message, Dr. Ethel Sefakor Boadum unpacks the transforming truth of "But God"through the stories of Mephibosheth, Naaman, and Gideon, revealing how God's mercy, grace, and presence rewrite impossible stories. With biblical insight, heartfelt testimony, and practical encouragement, this sermon reminds us that our limitations are not our identity, our condition is not our conclusion, and God's intervention changes everything.If you've been waiting on God, battling discouragement, or wondering whether He still sees you, this message will strengthen your faith and remind you of one life-changing truth:Your story doesn't end with "but..."—it continues with "But God."

Matt Pearson, Senior Pastor of ClearView Baptist Church in Franklin, Tennessee continues the sermon series "FORMED: Wins and Warnings from the Life of David" with "David & Mephibosheth - Formed by the Gospel."

The sermon explores the biblical narrative of Mephibosheth in 2 Samuel 9 as a profound illustration of divine grace. It highlights how King David actively sought out his enemy's descendant, offering kindness not because of merit but through a covenant of love. This historical account serves as a metaphor for God's initiative in seeking lost sinners who are spiritually fallen and unable to save themselves. The preacher emphasizes that salvation is a gift received through humility and faith, rather than earned by religious works or personal righteousness. Ultimately, the message invites listeners to accept this unmerited favor and enter into continual fellowship with the King of Kings.

Send us Fan MailThis week we continue our summer series, After God's Own Heart, as Evan Robinson explores one of the most beautiful and unexpected stories in David's life.When King David asks if there is anyone left from Saul's family, everyone expects justice—or even revenge. Instead, David extends extraordinary kindness to Mephibosheth, the grandson of Saul, welcoming him to eat at the king's table for the rest of his life.This remarkable act points us to something far greater. David's kindness foreshadows the heart of Jesus—a King who seeks us out, restores our identity, and invites us into His family not because we've earned it, but because of His grace.Whether you've followed Jesus for years or you're still exploring who He is, this message is a powerful reminder that God's heart is full of mercy, kindness, and invitation.

Group Guide Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week. 2 Samuel 21 Chet Phillips Download TranscriptGood morning. My name is Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. If you will grab a Bible and go to 2 Samuel, chapter 21. We've been working our way through 1 and 2 Samuel and we have reached what commentators call the epilogue of 2 Samuel that the main story has ended.And in the final four chapters, we're going to be in chapter 21. In the final four chapters, we're going to have six pictures that are kind of closing pictures on the kingship of David. And they are not in chronological order. They are in a thematic order. And they're meant to kind of sum up the picture of David for us.The actual story of David's death and Solomon becoming king, that doesn't happen until 1 Kings. You got to work all the way through into 1 Kings for that to kind of to pick up there. So, what this is is almost like the movie's ended, the end credits are rolling, and then it's cutting to different scenes or showing you different pictures of things to try to kind of give you the last picture that it wants you to have of King David. And so, we're going to see two of those pictures today. Now, I heard one pastor put it this way in regards to this text.It's not difficult to understand, but there are aspects of it that are difficult to accept. And so, we're going to go through this text that has some difficulties in it for us. Our hope is to understand why it's here. What was the author trying to tell the people in the original the original hearers? What how would they have understood this?What are we trying to see about David? And then as from our standpoint, what should we do with a text like this? And how do we understand this kind of text? And so hopefully we'll be edified by it, pointed towards Jesus in it. But let's pray and then we'll jump in.Lord, we ask for your mercy. We ask for your grace. and we ask that we would honor you well in the reading and the studying of your word and in submission to it. May your spirit be at work and help us to love Jesus more in Jesus name. Amen.Chapter 21 verse one. Now there was a famine in the days of David for three years year after year and David sought the face of the Lord. Okay, so famine in this region is not uncommon, but three years of it is is getting bad. And we're told that David starts asking the Lord. We don't know exactly when he began, but he's seeking the Lord to understand what's going on here. it's starting to seem like one of the covenantal curses, which is in the in Deuteronomy and Leviticus, if they don't follow the law, it says that your your crops won't yield their fruit.You you will find that your trees don't produce. And so he's starting to go and ask the Lord, is something going on? What's happening here? And this is what happened. Says David sought the face of the Lord.And the Lord said, there is blood guilt on Saul and on his house because he put the Gibeonites to death. So the king called the Gibeonites and spoke to them. Now the Gibeonites were not of the people of Israel, but of the remnant of the Amorites. Although the people of Israel had sworn to spare them, Saul sought to strike them down in his zeal for the people of Israel and Judah. Now, there are several things we need to consider that are going on right here in this text.One is Saul was the original king. Saul is not king anymore. Saul is dead. But there is guilt on Saul, on Saul's house. This blood guilt on Saul. in Saul's house for something that Saul did and the entire nation is paying for it.There's a famine in the land because of blood guilt. Now, blood guilt is a specific thing in the law that is the shedding of innocent blood. And so, there's blood guilt because Saul led the people to attack the Gibeonites. And it says they weren't the Gibeonites aren't the people of Israel, but the people of Israel had promised to protect them. Now, that going to take a little history lesson.That happens in Joshua chapter 9. So, Joshua is sent in with the people of Israel to take over the land. They're they're marching through. They're supposed to get rid of all the Amorites. Well, the Amorites who live in Gibby find out that they're coming and they think this isn't going to go well.So, they come up with a trick to make it seem like they're from another place. They show up. They meet with the people of Israel and they make a covenant with them. People of Israel shouldn't have made this covenant. They should have consulted the Lord, but they make it.When they find out they've been tricked and that the Gibeonites aren't from a far land, but they're from right here and they're a part of the people group they're supposed to get rid of, the people of Israel are like,"Let's kill them."And Joshua and the elders say,"We can't. We promised that we wouldn't. We co we signed the Lord up in covenant with them that we would not kill them."So we we can't. Then we would make it seem like God is a liar and he is not. And so we have to keep this promise.Well, Saul in his zeal not for the Lord, but for the people of Israel and Judah. So, he's running around going,"Israel, Israel, Judah, Judah, Judah, oi, oi, oi."Stuff like that. He's super zealous for his people. He decides the Gibeonites, who've been here forever, who are a subjugated people, we're just going to kill all of them. And so, this would have been a massacre.These people would not have been, they were surrounded by the people of Israel. They were servants to the people of Israel. they would not have been in a position to defend themselves. And he just starts killing them. That story, this is all we get of that story. There's no place that tells us that anywhere else in the text.And so David says,"Why is there a famine?"And God says,"Saul broke a 400year-old covenant that he was supposed to keep."So there's a couple of things. One is God expects you to keep your promises. We ought to be people who keep our promises. Now, if you want to not make a lot of promises, that's fine. Like, if if today you came over to me and said,"Why haven't you given me $5?You've sinned against me."I might would argue,"No, I haven't. That's not like a thing I have to do. I have not sinned against you."But if I had promised to give you $5 and then didn't give it to you, have I sinned against you? Yes. And have I sinned against the Lord?Yes. So somehow in our agreement, the Lord gets involved. He binds covenants together. Now they specifically had done it in the name of the Lord. But even as we make agreements with one another, we can still sin against God by being the type of people who don't keep up with our end of the agreement.And we'll say things like,"Yeah, but we made that deal like 10 years ago."This was 400 years old, and Saul was meant to keep it.Here's the other thing that's happening in this text. Saul was the representative head for the people of Israel. So as king, he can sin on their behalf and lead them all into sin. He's the representative head of the people of Israel of his family. And so he sins and it spreads.The consequences spread. And David as the representative head of the people of Israel now is going to have to figure it out. That's why it says he calls the Gibeonites. When he finds this out, he's got to fix the problem. Now, we don't think about headship that often, but one of the New Testament pictures we're given, it's Old and New Testament, is that husbands are the head of their family.They're head of their wife. They're the head of the household. So, I want to say to husbands in the room, every problem in your house is your problem. You don't get to say,"Well, that's her thing. Well, she's the one who deals with the kids.Well, she told me she didn't want me to be involved in that, so we'll just see how it goes."That's not how it works. David doesn't get to go,"Well, that was Saul's fault. take it up with Saul. Oh, he's dead. Let's move on. David has to try to figure out this problem because he's the representative head for the people of Israel.So, that's where we are. That's what's happening at this moment in the text. Okay.So, he's called the Gibeonites.Verse three. And David said to the Gibeonites,"What shall I do for you? And how shall I make atonement that you may bless the heritage of the Lord?"There's blood, guilt, there's sin. There needs to be atonement. How can we atone for this sin?That's what he's asking. The Gibeonites said to him,"It is not a matter of silver or gold between us and Saul or his house. Neither is it for us to put any man to death in Israel."And he said,"What do you say that I shall do for you?"So he calls them together and says,"How do we make this right? How do we atone for this?"And they say,"Is it sitting the sort of thing that we can settle out of court? It's not the sort of thing that's not a matter of silver and gold.You can't just pay off this debt with money. And then they say,"And we're not allowed to put people to death. That's not the position that we're in."And then they stop talking. Because what they're saying to him is,"But you can put people to death."So he says,"What do you want me to do for you?"Because there's a blood debt.Verse 5. They said to the king,"The man who consumed us and planned to destroy us so that we should have no place in all the territory of Israel, let seven of his sons be given to us, so that we may hang them before the Lord at Gibeah of Saul, the chosen of the Lord."And the king said,"I will give them."So they said,"We want seven of his sons. He killed us in our place. We want to kill them in his place. in his location. We want to hang them before the Lord as a representative sacrifice.That's what they're going to propose. David says,"We can do that."So, they're going to take these seven sons, seven relatives of Saul because Saul is dead, and they're going to make them pay this blood debt. Now, it's not equal because for Saul to try to eradicate them is basically what they're saying. He tried to wipe us out of here. I seriously doubt he'd only killed seven men.So what they request is representative atonement. And even if it's horrific and gruesome, this idea of rounding these guys up, going to their home, knocking on the door, and saying,"Hey, you're related to Saul. You've got to come. You're going to pay this debt."And having to go kill them publicly, have a public execution. At least the impulse should make some sense to us.If you found out that in North Korea they had overthrown the rule of the Kims and that they had gone into the royal palaces and they had killed every Kim they could find, we go,"Well, that I mean I understand it. I understand that they don't want that household, that family rising up again. I understand that they're trying to make them pay for all that they've done in their um ruling over them and their hardship."It's like we can understand the impulse even if there's parts of it that are revuls repulsive to us. But they asked for seven and David says yes. And then it says this verse 7.But the king spared Mephibosheth the son of Saul's son Jonathan because of the oath of the Lord that was between them between David and Jonathan the son of Saul. Now we don't exactly know when this took place but we know it does seem like it's after Mephibosheth has been found and is apart. Then it says,"The king took the two sons of Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, whom she bore to Saul, Armoni and Mephibosheth."That's a different Mephibosheth. That's uncle Mephibosheth. And the five sons of Merab, the daughter of Saul, whom she bore to Adriel, the son of Barzillai, the Meholathite.If you remember Barzillai from a couple days ago, the 80-year-old man, that's not him. It's a different Barzillai. So, we got two Mephibosheth, two Barzillai. and he gave them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they hanged them on the mountain before the Lord, and the seven of them perished together. They were put to death in the first days of the harvest at the beginning of the barley harvest. Now, this would have been a scant barley harvest or a non-existent barley harvest, but right at the beginning of the barley harvest, in the middle of this famine, which the Gibeonites are also having to deal with the famine, they hang them and put them to death.This next part is very sad. Then Rispa, the daughter of Aiiah, took sackcloth and spread it for herself on the rock from the beginning of the harvest until rain fell upon them from the heavens. Now, the beginning of the harvest is in April. Guaranteed normal rainy season. That's the starting of the dry season.Normal raining season doesn't start till September, October. Rain is almost non-existent during that middle period. It is possible there was some rain that came sooner, but it's also possible she was doing this for months. She did this until rain fell from the heavens and she did not allow the birds of the air to come upon them by day or the beasts of the field by night. So she sets up a vigil.She was not able to save her sons and her nephews from death, but she goes and camps out in front of them. She's not going to let birds pick their eyes out. And she's not going to let beasts come by and eat them. And she sits in front of them while they bake in the sun, while they rot, while they decompose. And she gives them as much honor as she can possibly give them, which is the only thing she knows how to do.It's horrific. But she has two sons and she's not going to let them be dishonored any further than they have to be.Verse 11. When David was told what Rispa, the daughter of Aiah, the concubine of Saul, had done, David went and took the bones of Saul and the bones of his son Jonathan from the men of Jabeshgilead, who had stolen them from the public square of Bethshan when the Philistines had hanged them on the day the Philistines killed Saul on Gilboa. Those are all events that have been we've gone through previously in 1 and 2 Samuel. And he brought up from there the bones of Saul and the bones of his son Jonathan. And they gathered the bones of those who were hanged.And they buried the bones of Saul and his son Jonathan in the land of Benjamin and Za in the tomb of Kish his father. And they did all that the king commanded. And after that God responded to the plea for the land. David finds out what she's doing and he goes,"Okay, they're still hanging there."He's going to finish putting into this. He goes and gets the bones of Saul and Jonathan, the bones of the men who've been hanged, and he buries them.And after that, God responds to the police. So this agreement made between David and the Gibeonites, God honors the payment, accepts the atonement of blood for blood, and responds to the plea. That's the first picture that we're given that it's about to immediately swap to another picture. We're going to take a moment when we get done with both of them to try to understand what is it saying to them. How would they have understood this?And then how do we understand it? So second picture, that's first picture.Second picture, there was war again. And this is again not in chronological order. There's no really these are just kind of floating out there. There was war again between the Philistines and Israel. And David went down together with his servants, and they fought against the Philistines.And David grew weary. And Ishbi Benob, one of the descendants of the giants, whose spear weighed 300 shekels of bronze, and who was armed with a new sword, thought to kill David. But Abashai, the son of Zerui, came to his aid, and attacked the Philistine, and killed him. Then David's men swore to him,"You shall no longer go out with us to battle, lest you quench the lamp of Israel."There's several things that are going to happen in this section. First, we see that David at some point was getting older, was getting tired.They said,"Look, you can't go out with us."So, they're giving some explanation to why David quit going out with the army the way that he used to. We see Abashai, the son of Zerui, who's shown up consistently throughout this, showing up and saving David's life. We also see a giant and there's going to be several giants in this text. And so I have a couple of things to say when it comes to the idea of giants. One, this does not have to be the most fantastic thing in your mind.The idea that there are giants. There are giants in the Bible. We're going to talk a little bit about the fantastic side of that in a second. But it doesn't have to be the most fantastic side of things. I want to show y'all a picture.This is a picture. I had AI put two pictures together, but the guy in the middle is 5 foot seven, 5 foot eight. He would walk amongst us and not really stand out. You wouldn't be like,"Wow, what an average fellow."That's always you just be here fine. To his left is a tribe of pygmies.This was taken recently. They exist in Africa in the jungles. The average height of the pygmy tribes is about 5t tall for males. So they're about 5t tall. To his right in South Sudan, there are the Dinka people who have whole families at the average height is 6'5.If the Pygmies had to go fight the Dinka, they might be like,"Oh my goodness, those guys are huge."They may say,"We spied them out and they look like they made us feel like grasshoppers."So all I'm saying, the whole point of showing you this, other than I think the picture is neat looking, is that that's just normal genetics at play right now. These families of giants were just families that had genetics that we're playing into they're really big. And in a world where the biggest baddest guy kills people and gets all the women, he can have a whole lot of children. And so what we have is several families, sons of Anoch, sons of Rafa, that just were really big. And there's several giants.It doesn't have to be this big fantastic thing. You can pull that picture down. The other thing is, just side note, there are some things in the Bible that we don't have all the answers to. How exactly does this work? How many were there?What did they look like? Why does this one guy we're about to read about have six fingers and six toes? I don't know. But if you get on the internet, you can get sucked into a black hole of weird stuff that is unhelpful. And there are people who some are I would say lack wisdom or misguided and I would say some who are evil and demonically led who are trying to pull people into the oddest corners of the Bible.And they want to tell you that well you really got to find out. We we've got to we got to get behind this thing. We got to figure it out. We got to get underneath it. There's something really going on.There's a secret in the Bible and you got to hold it like this and squint with your left eye. It's like what are you talking about? That that's not how it works. So whenever there's like this mystery, this hidden thing, this secret thing, only we know about it. We figured out where the lost 12 tribes went.All this mess, the Bible is extremely clear. There was a mystery. It's been revealed in Christ. All the wisdom and knowledge is found in Christ. He's the revealing of God's promises.The book of Revelation, which is going to reveal, pull back the curtain and show you, it's the revelation of Jesus Christ. It is not unclear. So, if somebody's pulling you into some weird niche thing and they're like,"You have to know this."If I did, can I tell you, it would be in here very clearly. Do you know how many times Paul repeats himself? If I had to know it, he'd have written it in like four of his letters.If it was the most important thing, like it would be showing up and stuff. Now, there are times where we're basing some information off of one piece of little thing we have, but the non-essential pieces of the faith is clear. The revelation of Christ is clear. So, I would suggest you do what David does, what his mighty men do here, which is put the giants to death and then live your life free of them. So, if there's weird little things you like to get into, get done with that and live your life in the joy and the freedom and the hope of the gospel and the clarity of the scriptures.That's all I'm going to yell at you about that at this moment.Verse 18. After this, there was again war with the Philistines at Gob or Gob. Then Cib Cibekiah the Hushathite struck down Saf who was one of the descendants of the giants. And there was again war with the Philistines at Gob. And Elhan the son of Jaier Orahim the Bethlehemite struck down Goliath the Gitite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver's beam.Okay, Goliath the Gitite is just another way of saying Goliath of Gath, which means a whole lot of ink has been spilled over this one verse where people are talking about what does this mean? And there's all kinds of weird theories like Elhanan must have been David's nickname. I don't think so. Couple of options for who this Goliath of Gath is. One, there were two guys named Goliath.That's possible. We already ran into two Mephibosheths and two Barzillais. Two, Goliath is a title, not a name. Three, there is a textual issue here and it's supposed to say brother of Goliath of Gath, which is what sec first Chronicles, I have it written down, 1st Chronicles 20:5 says that Elhanan killed his brother. And there are only a few places in the Old Testament we have very trustw trustworthy manuscripts, but it's possible that we're just missing a word here.Anyway, we're not going to spend any more time on that. But he kills a giant.Verse 20. And there was again war at Gath. It's verse 20. And there was a man of great stature who had six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot, 24 in number. He also was descended from the giants.So there's some genetic anomalies going on here. Also, whenever they start telling you how much their clothes weighed or how many fingers they had or whatever, usually those people are going to die. And I think they just count that out and weigh it later. I don't know if he was swinging his spear and they were like ducking and being like,"Does his hand look weird?"I think maybe they figured it out later. I high-fived him.It felt like a lot. All right, verse 21. And when he taunted Israel, Jonathan, the son of Shimi, David's brother, struck him down. These four were descended from the giants in Gath, and they fell by the hand of David and by the hand of his servants. And those are the two pictures we're going to look at today.Now, the first thing I want to ask quickly is why? What is this serving? In the epilogue of David, what point is this making? I think the first story is reminding us, putting in our head that David is sorting out the leftover problems from Saul. That some of the problems that happened during David's reign weren't even David's fault.He He's coming in and fixing problems caused by Saul. I also think it's showing that even when David had negative things happen in his reign between his house and Saul's house, it wasn't David just seeking to get revenge on Saul. That David was trying to navigate difficult situations. And at the end of this, he even tries to show as much honor as he can to them by burying them even though the Gibeonites hadn't treated him that well. I think that's the first story.David as representative head is fixing problems on behalf of the nation, fixing problems left by Saul and not trying to have a ton of hostility between his house and Saul's house. I think the second picture is, hey, you remember how there used to be giants? You know how there aren't anymore? Y'all should be thankful to David. That's the second picture is just the Philistines used to be a big problem after David.They're not a big problem. Giants used to be a big problem after David and his mighty men. They're not a big problem. like it's just a picture of remember that David went to war for us. Remember that David cleared out problems. Remember that David defended us.I think that's basically what that second picture is doing. Now for us as we read this story and we try to understand how should we think about things like this.The first thing that I would recommend to us is that there's something going on with the idea of blood guilt. This idea of collective guilt, this idea of headship, representative headship that has guilt on us that we ought to consider. And I specifically had this in mind as we're going into Fourth of July and celebrating this this, you know, America 250. You I'm glad America's been here for 250 years. And if the Lord delays his return, I hope America hits another 250.I hope there's an America 500 and that all the states in the union allow fireworks and it's a blessed occasion. But I hope that the next 250 years are years of peace, justice, righteousness, goodness. I hope they're years of obedience. I hope they're years of worship. I hope that this isn't just a a pagan nation that exists for a long time, a powerful nation that exists for a long time.I hope it's a faithful nation. And we ought to consider if there is shared guilt and blood guilt that can spread to peoples and to a nation and that can pollute the land. The Lord even talks about when sexual sin in Leviticus, he says that the land will vomit you out because they've piled up this sin. Then we ought to be people who pray for our nation, for our leaders, who repent for our nation, for our leaders. I came across this quote as I was studying this this week, and I want to share it with you. says,"We think of the unknown slaves who died in despair on southern plantations, the unknown immigrants who died in squalor outside northern factories, and the unknown faces of infant children today who will never see the light of day because of the sins of their mothers and the conspiracy of a wicked society."None of these names are unknown to God.None of the crimes forgotten in the annals of his perfect justice. How great is the blood guilt on this land as with the land of so many other nations that have already fallen under the sword of God's providential justice. So may the Lord bless us, but may he be merciful on us. And may we be people who pray for the grace and the mercy of the Lord and for things to change and for things to be good and for there to be righteousness here. And the idea that everything the US does is excellent because the US did it.Let us not be fooled into believing that. But let us be people who long for another kingdom where certain things never take place. I think that's one of the things that we should see in this text as we consider the idea of blood guilt and shared guilt and representative headship. May we be repentant and prayerful and hopeful in the light of God's goodness to move forward well. But I think there's a problem in the middle of that that we have to reckon with.When we read this story, we we see that there's shared guilt, which is foreign to us. Feels wrong. That Saul could commit a sin and that it would be on his family and that it would the whole nation would have to pay for it and then Saul's children would have to pay for it feels wrong. And that God would accept the sacrifice at the end feels wrong. You almost want God to show up at the end and go that y'all did this wrong.Why are you rounding up people and killing them for something Saul did? But he doesn't. He says he accepts. He accepts the plea for the land. And so there's part of us that is like,"This doesn't feel fair.This feels off."We want to look at this text and go,"This text, this is unfair. That idea is unfair. And therefore, it's unjust and therefore wrong. And maybe God's evil."That's kind of the track we follow. So I want to share a story with you, and I'm kind of coming at this from the side to try to help us wrap our head around something.So we're going to change subjects for just a second. I want to read a story. This was recently posted online by Nouaga, if I'm pronouncing that correctly. He's Japanese. He wrote this story, posted it online.Some of you may have seen it, maybe you haven't. I want to read it to you. He says,"USA, a Mexican restaurant. We had not yet ordered anything and the food was already arriving. Chips, salsa, unrequested, free.I stopped the waiter. We have not earned these. They just come with the table, man. Okay.Now, he didn't say,"We've not ordered these."He's Japanese. He said,"We have not earned these."There's something going on here for him. Let's see what happens. They come with the table. In my land, hospitality is a debt.Every gift creates an obligation weighed carefully, returned in the proper season with interest of feeling. Here, the gift arrives before you have even proven you can pay for dinner. This is not an appetizer. This is a declaration. We trust you.Eat. chips hit the table and he starts having psychological problems. He is working his best to process what on earth is happening. And it is culturally cross so many lines for him that they've made a declaration of trust. Now, do you feel well trusted when chips hit the table? I don't think you've ever thought about it.I ate with the gravity the moment deserved. People are snacking, eating chips. He's eating with gravity over here. And then I must report this calmly. The basket emptied and a new one appeared.Did we? Like he's trying to What is happening? Refill. The waiter said it's bottomless. Bottomless.They have wells of salsa. The supply lines of this nation are beyond anything my ancestors imagined. My friend warned me,"Don't fill up on chips, dude. Too late."I had accepted three baskets. Honor demanded each one be finished.An unfinished gift is an insult. By the time my actual food arrived, I was a ruined man. This is a trap for a Japanese person because if you finish the chips, they're going to give you more. But he has to finish the chips or he's dishonoring the whole group of people that have brought him here. He's dishonoring those who have handed to him.He's got to honor the gift. He's got to finish the chips. And when he does it, another basket arrives. He says,"Thank you."And goes back to eating with the gravity the moment demands. It says this,"I was not hungry.I was not comfortable. I had been defeated by a courtesy."Generosity that arrives before the request cannot be repaid. It can only be survived. I know the rule. I have made my peace with the basket.One basket. Two at the most. Who am I deceiving? There is no number of baskets I would refuse. The trust of a nation is in that salsa and I intend to honor all of it.Now, have you ever been in a Mexican restaurant and thought,"The trust of the nation is in this salsa. I must honor their trust."Not once, not ever. And as he describes this to you, it's like,"What are you even talking about? How is this an honor shame situation? This is we're at a restaurant.How are you having to honor their gift? They're just giving you chips. Like the it doesn't compute for us. And what happens when we interact with someone who has a completely different culture because you've just been trained in a culture. You've just been equipped in one.And there are things that are ingrained in you. If I'm somewhere and there are no seats and there's a lady, I have to get up. And I'll say,"Here, you have the seat."And if they say,"No, you sit."Then we both just stand because I can't sit back down because I'll die inside and think about it later. I'll ride in my truck later and be like,"I was sitting. They were standing.What have I not?"Like it messes with me because it's been it's built into me. We We all have these things. He has that. So he's overthinking chips where we're all free and we can explain it to him, but he can't not feel it. He can't not feel the chips sitting in the basket.I'm sure there was a moment when he was thinking,"Don't eat But he's like,"I have to or I'm bringing shame and not handling this well and I've got to be thankful and the trust of the nation is in this salsa, whatever that means."Now, what happens when we interact with people of other cultures like that is that we'll often look at them and go,"Huh, that's how y'all think about that? That's interesting. That's not how we think about it, but that's interesting. It's it's weird. You might ask more questions, but there's this level of humility.We'll read things in the biblical text where we're bringing our same American, Western sensibilities. We'll run into something that we don't understand and we'll go,"Well, that's wrong. Feels unfair to me. Unfair means unjust. Unjust means wrong.Wrong means evil. If God's like this, then he's unfair. Unjust, wrong, evil. I don't have to follow him. I don't have to believe him."and we will come with the most insane level of blind confidence that if it goes against my sensibilities, I'm right, it's wrong, and God can be dismissed.Now, in this situation, if we're going to have a handful of humility and a handful of blind confidence, and we have to choose who we're going to interact with, God or noaga, who gets humility and who gets confidence? I'd say let's hit Nounaga with blind confidence and let's walk towards God with some humility. But we so often just go, it feels sideways to me, so it must be wrong. And if I feel it, then it's wrong and so this can't be good and therefore I can get rid of it. What ought to happen when we hit a text and we go,"Wait a second.Headship guilt. Wait a second. Blood sacrifice from family members to pay this back. There's blood guilt. I don't understand that.What we ought to realize is there's something wrong in my understanding. I'm missing a piece and I've got to submit to this because God has authority over me and he's right. I'm not wrong. If God is real and we believe that he's real and that he's over all things, then we should expect to find things in the Bible that confront us and that correct us. If every time you run into one of those, God has to conform to you, well then you're God and you're in charge.So, we should expect there's going to be moments like this. And y'all, you you can come to the scriptures and go, I don't understand that, but I'll submit to it. I don't understand exactly how that works, but I'll I'll believe it. And that exact same framework I just gave you, you use all the time. You use it, you've used it with your parents, you've used it with a mechanic, you use it with an accountant, you've used it with a doctor.They explain something to you and you don't go,"In order for me to take this medicine, I'm I too must become a doctor. You just go,"I don't understand. I don't understand half the words you just said, but I trust you. And we come to the scriptures and we'll read something we don't understand and go, I guess it must be wrong. I guess I can dismiss God.And that is the most arrogant, prideful, nonsensical position to hold. This is hard to understand. It's hard to It's easy to understand. It's hard to accept. It's hard to get our jump past our sensibilities.This idea of guilt that spreads. But what that means is that there's more to sin than you understand. There's more to sin than you realize. If sexual sin can pollute the land, and if blood guilt can pollute the land, and if it can be shared down to families, and if everybody can pay for it, there's more to sin than you understand. It's actually more dangerous than you think it is.It's like if you tell a child to wash their hands and they look at their hands and go,"They're not dirty."It's like,"That's not how it works."Your hands could be coated in diseases. We don't know. Just wash your hands. And knowing you, they probably are. Go wash your hands.Like, that's And we're like, well, that's not how sin works or this sin isn't a big deal or it's just my sin or it's just their sin or it should it's like that's not how it works. And we should look at passages like this and realize there's more to it and it's more dangerous and it's more heinous. And that we should walk with some level of humility. And whether you like it or not, this idea of representative headship and representative atonement, it's the exact situation you find yourself in. We had a representative named Adam who is the representative head over all of humanity.And he rebelled against God. And we've all been born into Adam into sin because of what he did. This is why the Bible will say things like,"In Adam all die."When you were born, before you got a birth certificate, you were theologically, metaphorically handed an undated death certificate. It's a guarantee because we're in Adam and his sin has spread. and it has to be paid for. And if we read something like this and go there's a 23 and me roundup where they went and got these guys to have their blood pay for this debt and we we repulsed by it.But there's a reality of Jesus showed up to pay a blood debt so that there might be forgiveness. That's what Hebrews 9:22 says. Indeed, under the law, almost everything is purified with blood and without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins. So that Jesus has to come pay a debt. So that in this story, it's as if David were to respond and say,"Well, Saul sinned on behalf of the people.He was the king. I'll pay the debt on behalf of the people. I'm the king. I'll be their new representative. Hang me up."the gruesome picture of a son being stripped and impaled before his mother to be laid out in the sun to die on behalf of others for sin he didn't commit is the exact picture of the cross and the exact hope that we have that there was a representative head who did not sin on beha our behalf but saves on our behalf who paves on our behalf This is what 1 Corinthians 15:21-22 says.For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. I want to read a quote by Charles Simeon in reference to this passage. He was a pastor in England. He says,"The blood of Saul's sons was poured forth as a sacrifice to national justice and as a means of averting the divine displeasure."And it was considered by God as an atonement for the sin which Saul had committed.How much more then will God accept in our behalf the blood of his own son who was sent into the world for the express purpose that he might expedate our guilt and procure for us reconciliation with our offended God. You are either in Adam alone or you're in Christ. We're all in Adam and you can stand in Adam and be under guilt or you can have Christ be your representative head to pay the guilt for you. And you don't have to understand how that works. You just need to understand that it works.That you can humbly walk to the Lord and say,"I don't exactly know how guilt works. I don't exactly know how sin works this way. I know that I've sinned, but I don't know how it works that I'm under this curse. But I understand that you're willing to accept the sacrifice of Jesus. You're willing to accept his atoning blood.You're willing to let him pay on my behalf. And I want him to pay on my behalf. I want to be saved. I want to be rescued. I want him to be my representative head.And you don't have to understand exactly how that works, but you just need to know that that's how it works. And that we get to have Jesus represent us to the father so that we might be forgiven. And if Jesus represents you to the father, you are forgiven. The atoning sacrifice has been paid. So, may we read texts like this with a level of humility, and may we read texts like this in a way that helps us appreciate the goodness of Christ on our behalf.The band's going to come back up.In a moment, we're going to receive communion, which is where we as Christians take time to remind ourselves of the hope of the gospel. We have communion elements set up in the front here. Here we have them in the back. And in that corner there, if you have a gluten allergy, we have a a gluten-free table. And what we do when we take communion is we remind ourselves that there is blood that has been shed on our behalf, that an atoning sacrifice has been paid, that the debt has been covered, that Jesus Christ really came for the express purpose to bridge and reconcile us back to God.It is something for Christians to partake in where we take the body where Jesus said on the night he was betrayed he took bread and he said this is my body broken for you and he gave it to them and said take this and then he took a cup and he said this is my blood shed for the forgiveness of sins take drink and so we take the bread reminding us of the body of Christ that's broken we take the cup we drink reminding us of the blood that was shed and the new covenant that was made with us and we take it reminding ourselves that the atonement has been made.If you are not a Christian, then do not take communion. But we would invite you to come to know Christ and to ask him to be your representative head to rescue you and to get you out of this problem.Let's pray.Lord, may we approach you with humility. May we honor your sacrifice and your generosity and your grace. And Lord, may we hide behind the representative sacrifice of Christ that pays for sin. Trusting in you and you alone in Jesus name. Amen.When you are ready, take and eat.

As David remembers his covenant with Jonathan, he searches for someone to show kindness to—and finds Mephibosheth, a broken man living in a barren place. In this message from 2 Samuel 9, we discover the powerful meaning of "hesed"—God's faithful, covenant love—and see how David's kindness points us to the greater kindness of King Jesus. This isn't just an inspiring story of compassion; it's a picture of the Gospel, reminding us that we are welcomed into God's family, restored to our inheritance, and invited to the King's table, not because we've earned it, but because of His unfailing love and grace.

Today's sermon is Mephibosheth And Me by Paul Lester Find more teaching from Pastor Paul at www.ccmodesto.com

In this episode, Pastor Gary continues the Still They Speak series by exploring the life of Mephibosheth. Through David's remarkable kindness to this seemingly forgotten and undeserving man, we catch a glimpse of God's overwhelming mercy toward us in Christ. We discover that we are Mephibosheth, crippled by the fall and living in a land of desolation, while Jesus is the truer and better David who welcomes us to His table, not because of what we've done, but because of His own sacrifice and grace.

2nd Samuel Series  Message: 09 Episode: 3 of 3 Broadcast: June 23, 2026 Key Verses: 2nd Samuel 8 & 9 In this episode of Walk in Truth, Pastor Michael Lantz teaches through 2 Samuel 8–9 in a message titled "The Shepherd Warrior." As David leads Israel to victory over its enemies and extends unexpected kindness to Mephibosheth, we see a beautiful picture of both strength and compassion flowing from a king after God's own heart. These chapters reveal that true leadership reflects God's character—upholding justice, fighting for what is right, and showing mercy to those who could never repay it. David's covenant faithfulness points us to Jesus Christ, our Shepherd King, who triumphs over sin and graciously invites the undeserving to His table. Pastor Michael unpacks these powerful truths to encourage believers to trust God's victory, extend His grace to others, and walk faithfully in the calling He has given them. This teaching will help equip you to navigate life as a Christian with courage, humility, and compassion, applying God's truth to everyday relationships and circumstances as you follow the example of the ultimate Shepherd Warrior. Welcome to Walk in Truth! These are the Bible teachings of Pastor Michael Lantz. Equipping you to reach out with God's truth to all people. And how to apply that truth to today's issues, trends, and culture.  Leave your question or comment contact@walkintruth.com  

2 Samuel 9:1–13 We live in a world of earning and deserving. Promotions come to those who perform. Favor goes to those with the right background. But grace—true grace—operates by a completely different economy. It seeks out the undeserving and pulls them to the table. From 2 Samuel 9, Pastor Chuck Swindoll tells the remarkable story of Mephibosheth, a crippled outcast brought to eat at King David's table as one of his own sons. In this obscure Old Testament story lives the clearest picture of how God's grace works. See yourself in Mephibosheth. Embrace the grace God extends to you freely, and enjoy the life available to those who sit at His table!

2 Samuel 9:1-13 / June 18-22, 2026 From 2 Samuel 9, Pastor Chuck Swindoll tells the remarkable story of Mephibosheth, a crippled outcast brought to eat at King David's table as one of his own sons. In this obscure Old Testament story lives the clearest picture of how God's grace works. From the Series: How Great Is Our God! read more

2nd Samuel Series  Message: 09 Episode: 2 of 3 Broadcast: June 22, 2026 Key Verses: 2nd Samuel 8 & 9 In this episode of Walk in Truth, Pastor Michael Lantz teaches through 2 Samuel 8–9 in a message titled "The Shepherd Warrior." As David leads Israel to victory over its enemies and extends unexpected kindness to Mephibosheth, we see a beautiful picture of both strength and compassion flowing from a king after God's own heart. These chapters reveal that true leadership reflects God's character—upholding justice, fighting for what is right, and showing mercy to those who could never repay it. David's covenant faithfulness points us to Jesus Christ, our Shepherd King, who triumphs over sin and graciously invites the undeserving to His table. Pastor Michael unpacks these powerful truths to encourage believers to trust God's victory, extend His grace to others, and walk faithfully in the calling He has given them. This teaching will help equip you to navigate life as a Christian with courage, humility, and compassion, applying God's truth to everyday relationships and circumstances as you follow the example of the ultimate Shepherd Warrior. Welcome to Walk in Truth! These are the Bible teachings of Pastor Michael Lantz. Equipping you to reach out with God's truth to all people. And how to apply that truth to today's issues, trends, and culture.  Leave your question or comment contact@walkintruth.com  

We live in a world of earning and deserving. Promotions come to those who perform. Favour goes to those with the right background. But grace—true grace—operates by a completely different economy. It seeks out the undeserving and pulls them to the table.From 2 Samuel 9, Pastor Chuck Swindoll tells the remarkable story of Mephibosheth, a crippled outcast brought to eat at King David's table as one of his own sons. In this obscure Old Testament story lives the clearest picture of how God's grace works.See yourself in Mephibosheth. Embrace the grace God extends to you freely, and enjoy the life available to those who sit at His table!

We live in a world of earning and deserving. Promotions come to those who perform. Favor goes to those with the right background. But grace—true grace—operates by a completely different economy. It seeks out the undeserving and pulls them to the table.From 2 Samuel 9, Pastor Chuck Swindoll tells the remarkable story of Mephibosheth, a crippled outcast brought to eat at King David's table as one of his own sons. In this obscure Old Testament story lives the clearest picture of how God's grace works.See yourself in Mephibosheth. Embrace the grace God extends to you freely, and enjoy the life available to those who sit at His table! To support this ministry financially, visit: https://www.oneplace.com/donate/82/29?v=20251111

This special combined service with Collins Christian Church and Sacred Mission Church concludes a vibrant Vacation Bible School (VBS) week with a teaching focused on the life of David and his "Strong Shepherd." Pastor Tim Kimberly explores the "5, 3, and 1" of the week: the five nights of VBS truths—ranging from David's courage against Goliath to his gratitude toward Mephibosheth—the three steps of the Gospel (Admit, Believe, Forever Receive) illustrated through a testimony by Farmer Finn, and the one true Shepherd, Jesus Christ. By drawing parallels between David's life and the far greater work of Jesus, the message invites everyone to move from being lost, fearful, or shaky to being found, peaceful, and sure in the Lord's dwelling place.

Group Guide Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week. 2 Samuel 19:8b-40 Chet Phillips Download TranscriptGood morning. My name is Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. If you will grab a Bible and go to 2 Samuel chapter 19. We're working our way through the book of 2 Samuel. We have made a shift recently.We would always have the passages that we were on on the screen and we have stopped doing that. Our hope is that as people of the Bible, as people of a book, we would grow in our ability to hold and read a book in a culture that has increasingly lost the ability to hold and read a book. And so we want to be people who we practice that together on Sunday mornings. And our hope is that it'll be helpful. We think it may be a kind of an annoying shift, but we hope that it'll bear fruit and we'll see. So we're not promising we'll never go back to putting it on the screen.We are promising we won't quickly. We're going to try to see if we can learn how to hold and read a book. Bring your Bibles with you. If you don't have a Bible, grab one of the black ones that should be in the seat row and one of those little cages in front of you. If you can't reach one easily, smack someone and do like this till they hand you a Bible. We're going to be on page 309.One of the joys of pastoring is getting to perform weddings. You get to celebrate with people. It's a lot of fun to perform a wedding, to get to be there with people during that time. It can be anxiety ridden because people do remember the things you say at their weddings. And if you mess it up, they're upset by that. But it is fun.And one of the blessings that we have as a church is that we have five pastors. So different ones of our pastors get to participate in performing weddings. There was a time there where I went a long time without getting to perform a wedding. Matt Freeman performed some weddings. Raz Bradley performed some weddings. Isaac Hill performed some weddings.Spencer Cary performed some weddings and I didn't perform any weddings. And that's fine. But my wife and I were discussing this at one point. And she said, yeah, I don't know why people don't ask you to perform their weddings. And I was like, yeah, I don't know either. And then we sat there quietly for a little while.And then she said, I do think people want their pictures to look nice. So I said, hold on a second. So it turns out my beloved wife of many years doesn't think that I always have the most pleasant look on my face. That could tip the balance away from me. But one of the things that's happened is I've sat in other weddings performed by our other pastors.I've heard Spencer say several times in weddings as he goes to have the couple give their vows, declare their vows to one another. He'll say, if you are a married person in the room, I would encourage you at this time to consider your vows. As they take their vows for the first times, I would encourage you to consider your vows that you have made and the promises that you have made and what that looks like in your life right now and have the opportunity to reinvest in your vows. And the reason I bring that up is because that's in some ways how we're going to approach this passage this morning.We are in the middle of David who has had to flee from his son who has rebelled against him. And then they had a battle and Absalom died and everyone ran away and it kind of broke up. And now we're going to see today as David returns back from across the Jordan, back over to Jerusalem. And as we read these individual interactions, we're going to see three individual interactions between David and individuals as he comes back and they have to reckon with the return of their king. We're going to take a moment to consider as a gathered people of God, as Christians who've gathered this morning, that we are in a rebellious kingdom waiting for a returning king.We're in a similar situation. Now, this situation plays out differently than ours is going to play out because David is imperfect and this kingdom that he's coming back to is imperfect, as we'll see in the coming weeks. But we're going to just pause. We're going to read one of these stories, try to understand it, and then we're going to pause and consider for a moment our situation with our better king. And then we're going to kind of work our way through in that manner. So that's what we're going to do today.I'm going to pray for us and then we'll hop in to the story. Lord, we ask that you would help us to consider well the position that we're in, to consider well our hearts, to see our lives well in light of your imminent return. That as people who await the return of a good king to set up a righteous kingdom, that we would wait properly and be ready for that day. Help us to study your word well. In Jesus' name, amen. All right, we're going to pick up in 2 Samuel chapter 19 verse 8b.And the reason b just means the back half of verse 8b. The verses were added later, so sometimes you end up needing to pick up in a different place. So it's just, it says, now Israel had fled every man to his own home. So that's after Absalom's rebellion. Absalom dies. Everybody who was helping him flees.And all the people were arguing throughout all the tribes of Israel saying, the king delivered us from the hand of our enemies and saved us from the hand of the Philistines. And now he has fled out of the land from Absalom. But Absalom, who we anointed over us, is dead in battle. Now, therefore, why do you say nothing about bringing the king back? So Israel begins to argue amongst themselves as they've traveled back home as, hey, we, King David was pretty good.He saved us from the Philistines. We held a very unsuccessful rebellion. Why don't we bring the king back? Why aren't we trying to fix this? That's what they start to say. And apparently this word of this makes it to David.David is in Mahanaim. He fled from Jerusalem. So he's crossed over. That's why they're talking about bringing him back because he left. Once he crossed over the Jordan, he's kind of away from the people, even though there are some tribes that would be up here by the Sea of Galilee. And there are some tribes that are over here at Mahanaim.He's kind of out of the main part of the people, the main part of the promised land. They actually had a whole big discussion of whether or not they could settle tribes on that side of the Jordan because the promised land was on the other side of the Jordan. They decided they could, but then they had all this, you know, relational drama over time to try to settle that they're allowed to be over there, but they are still part of Israel. But the main bulk of the land that belongs to them is on the other side of the Jordan. And David is not there. And they're saying, let's bring him back.And most of what we're going to see today is going to happen at the Jordan River. It's going to happen while David is coming back and people are coming up from Jerusalem in that area to meet him at the Jordan. So that's what they're talking about. It says, and King David, this is verse 11. And King David sent this message to Zadok and Abiathar, the priests who were their pro David. They were willing to come with him.He says, say to the elders of Judah, why should you be the last to bring the king back to his house when the word of all Israel has come to the king? So the tribe of Judah is around Jerusalem and that's the tribe that David is from, but they're not murmuring about bringing them back. Everybody else is. And so he sends message to him and says, Hey, say, what are y'all doing? What's the holdup? Why are you taking forever?Verse 12? You are my brothers. We're the same tribe. You are my bone and my flesh. Why then should you be last to bring back the king and say to Amasa? Okay.Amasa is David's nephew and Amasa joined Absalom and was Absalom's general in the battle they just had. Joab is David's nephew who's over his army. Amasa was the over Absalom's army. He says, say to Amasa, are you not my bone and my flesh? God do so to me and more also if you are not commander of my army from now on in place of Joab. So I think David's doing two things there.One, Joab just killed Absalom after David specifically asked him not to. So there seems to be some frustration potentially between David and Joab because Joab is dangerous and willing to not do what David asked. And so there's some hurt there, even though the most recent thing we read was David following Joab's call on how he ought to treat his troops. Amasa would have been in David's army for a long time and only once tried to kill him in a rebellion. But Amasa is probably the strongest figure left in and around Judah.He is over the army. If power is going to shift after Absalom dies, it would most likely shift to Amasa. And so he's saying, hey, you come here, you'll replace Joab, you'll be over my army, and we'll go from there. And so he's in some ways removing Joab, but also removing Amasa as a threat and bringing him back over to his side. That's the game plan here. That's why he says that.Verse 14, and he swayed the heart of all the men of Judah as one man. So they sent word to the king, return both you and all your servants. So the king came back to the Jordan and Judah and came to Gilgal and Judah came to Gilgal to meet the king and to bring the king over the Jordan. And Shimei, the son of Gerah, the Benjaminite from Bahurim, hurried to come down with the men of Judah to meet King David. For the record, when you're reading the Bible, a lot of times people come down from Jerusalem because it is uphill. So they can come down and head north, just so you know, because they are heading down a hill.Down does not mean all south when you're reading your scriptures. So he comes down to meet David, but he's heading northeast. And with him were a thousand men from Benjamin and Ziba, the servant of the house of Saul with his 15 sons and his 20 servants rushed down to the Jordan before the king. And they crossed the ford to bring over the king's household and to do his pleasure. Which got introduced to two people, Shimei and Ziba. Ziba we'll deal with in a second when we talk about Mephibosheth, but he's the one who's related to the situation with Mephibosheth.But let's talk about Shimei for a second. Do y'all remember Shimei, the son of Gerah, the Benjaminite from Bahurim? If you don't remember Shimei, the son of Gerah, the Benjaminite from Bahurim, when David was fleeing in chapter 16, Shimei, the son of Gerah, the Benjaminite from Bahurim, came out while David was in Bahurim and cursed David. So he's a Benjaminite, meaning he was from the people of Saul. He's not of the tribe of Judah. So when David's fleeing Shimei, the son of Gerah, the Benjaminite from Bahurim comes out and basically says, Oh, in your face, David, you deserve this.Oh, God got you. Now all the things that you've done, you man of blood, you wicked, worthless, sorry son. He says all kinds of things to him and throws rocks at him and says everything that you did to the house of Saul is coming back on you, which is really unfair because David didn't do much of anything to the house of Saul. He actually went out of his way to find people in the house of Saul to be nice to. He just was anointed King. And then he ran from Saul for a really long time.But this guy who had more position and more power of being a Benjaminite in the house of Saul comes out and curses him. And while he's doing this, one of David's soldiers basically says, can we kill him? And David says, no, because maybe God told him to curse me. And then we don't want to oppose God. Or maybe God didn't. And God will hear him cursing me.And God will feel sorry for me and be nice to me because this guy's being mean to me. Either way, don't kill him. Let's go. Well, Shimei hears that David is coming back and seems to think something along the lines of, uh-oh. And he heads to go meet him. It says, this is the back half of verse 18.And Shimei, the son of Gerah, fell down before the king as he was about to cross the Jordan and said to the king, let not my Lord hold me guilty. Or remember how your servant did wrong on the day my Lord, the king left Jerusalem. Do not let the king take it to heart for your servant knows that I have sinned. Therefore, behold, I have come this day, the first of all the house of Joseph to come down to meet my Lord, the king. Abishai, the son of Zeruiah answered. This is Joab's brother, one of David's military leaders.Shall not Shimei be put to death for this because he cursed the Lord's anointed? Which cursing the king isn't something to to take lightly. Cursing the Lord's anointed is not something to take lightly. Open rebellion against the king that God placed in the position that he's in is not something to take lightly. And Abishai says, shouldn't he be put to death? But David said, what do I have to do with you?You sons of Zeruiah, that you should this day be as an adversary to me. Shall anyone be put to death in Israel this day? For do I not know that I am this day king over Israel? And the king said to Shimei, you shall not die. And the king gave him his oath. So Shimei comes and lays down before him and says, don't take it to heart.Don't remember it. Please forgive me. I know I was wrong. I shouldn't have said the things I said. I shouldn't have done what I should have done. And Abishai standing there with the king says, let's put him to death.And David says, what do I have to do with you? Why are you an adversary to me? This is a day of rejoicing. This is a day of joy. I'm king in Israel. Nobody's being put to death today.And so he spares him. And there's part of me that goes, yeah, but he just said he was sorry because it didn't work out. Get him. There's part of me that doesn't want this to play out the way it does. But when we consider the position that we're in as we await the return of our king, that it plays out like this is wonderful news.And that we have the same hope is wonderful news. Because we're supposed to approach our king in repentance as well. And we also have an adversary that stands there and accuses us before him. And we are also thankful that God in his grace sent someone to pay for our sin, that Jesus Christ died for our sin, that we might have forgiveness, that we might be able to repent. That's the way we're supposed to approach the return of Jesus. And so I think when we read this story about Shimei, we should ask the question, do you see your sin?Do you know that you need forgiveness? Can you see that you're wrong? I don't think Shimei saw it until he reckoned with the return of David. And I think some of you need to reckon with the return of Jesus that one day he will set up his kingdom. I had a guy who used to work for me when I ran a firework store. He was a young guy and we were talking about he had grown up in the church.We were talking about Jesus and he was in college and he just said, yeah, I like I know the stuff I'm doing is wrong. And I'll need to like repent and, you know, ask Jesus to forgive me. He said, I just, I just don't want to. And I've got plenty of time. I'm young. I've got plenty of time.Now, he doesn't know that we don't know that we don't know that he has plenty of time. Personally, we don't know if we have plenty of time before the Lord returns. He says he's going to return at any time when he wants to. And so the idea that we don't consider the return of the Lord and we continue in our sin, I think it's helpful for us to see, you know, we actually are supposed to approach the Lord in repentance. That's what Jesus says. That's his first message.When he comes to earth, he says, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. That's the proclamation. The kingdom calls us to repentance or an Acts five. When they're preaching the gospel, they say God exalted him. That's Jesus at his right hand as leader and savior to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. That's our hope is that there's repentance and forgiveness.Second Peter three, when he's talking about the return of the Lord, he says, the Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise. That's the promise of him coming back as some count slowness, but it's patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. Do you see your sin? We have care nights and community groups. Do you take the time to consider your sin? Do you take the time to understand your need for forgiveness?You show up and go, I'm doing good about the same. I'm fine. One of the signs of faithfully following Jesus is there should be times when you or someone in your group says, Hey, actually I need to talk to you. I need to come. I know it's not a care night, but I don't sin on a schedule. And so I need to repent now.I don't just wait for like the week leading up to care night to get all my sins out so that I can talk about them on that, you know, that nice scheduled Tuesday. We do that on purpose to build the rhythm of repentance, but it's something that we should do something that we should see our need for a savior and the hope that we have that there is forgiveness because we don't save ourselves, but we do get to have repentance and forgiveness. That's our hope. So I think that's what we should consider as we consider, as we see Shimei on his face before the King, we should consider, do we see our sin?Do we know what happens when he returns? The second interaction and Mephibosheth, the son of Saul came down to meet the King. Now he's in the line of Saul. That's what that means. He's Saul's grandson. Mephibosheth, if you remember, is Jonathan's son.He is crippled in his feet is the way the text describes him. And he is the one who David went and searched out and brought specifically to his table. And David found Ziba and said, is there anybody left that we can be, that I can be nice to in the house of Saul? And Ziba said, yes, there's Mephibosheth. He goes and gets Mephibosheth. And then he places Mephibosheth with Ziba under him as Ziba is his servant.When David flees, Ziba shows up with no Mephibosheth. And David says, where's Mephibosheth? And Ziba says, oh, he was so excited that you're fleeing. He actually said, this is great because today I'll become King. So I just left because I'm on your team.And David says, okay, well, everything that belongs to Mephibosheth is yours. And that's how they leave. When David's returning, Mephibosheth shows up. Verse 24, he had neither taken care of his feet nor trimmed his beard nor washed his clothes from the day the king departed until the day he came back in safety. Mephibosheth looks rough. David's been gone for a while.He's been gone long enough to make it all the way to Mahanaim, to set up himself there, to fight a battle, to have everyone flee back to their homes, to then have arguments, to hear the whispers, to then send a message to Judah, to then have Judah talk it out, send back and him to make it here. It's been a while. Mephibosheth hasn't taken care of his feet, hadn't shaved his beard, hadn't washed his clothes. I don't know if you've ever bumped into someone at CVS who looks like they died that morning, microwaved themselves and then headed into CVS. And you're just like, oh, hey, and you take a step back because you don't want what they have.That's what Mephibosheth looks like. He's not looking good right now, obviously in a state of distress. It says, So Mephibosheth says, yeah, he tricked me. He saddled up and left. But I'm at your mercy.He slandered me to you, but I'm at your mercy. I was a part of a rebellious enemy house of yours until you brought me in and cared for me. I don't have anything else, any other claims to make. I don't have anything. Just you decide. That's Mephibosheth's approach.And the king said to him, why speak any more of your affairs? I have decided you and Ziba shall divide the land. And Mephibosheth said to the king, oh, let him take it all since my Lord, the king has come home safely. And that's most likely just a nice way of saying thank you. He's going to take half of it. He'll accept the gift.The king wants the king says that, but he just says, that's not what I'm most worried about. I'm thankful you're back. Now, I don't know if David's right in his ruling here. I think David was quick in his original ruling with Ziba. I think he's quick in his ruling here. I don't think that Ziba and Mephibosheth could go back to the same situation they were in.That makes some sense. And Ziba did help David as he fled. So I think he just kind of honors Mephibosheth, honors Ziba, cuts it in half and just moves on. But as we consider our position awaiting our king, and I consider Mephibosheth who went into mourning because of the situation that he was in, who had great upheaval in his life. I just started considering how comfortable are we with the situation that we're in? Do we see the need we have for a good king who brings justice?Do we see the need we have for a king to set things right? Do we see that we're not at home here? Because I think it's so easy if we're well fed, if we're well provided for, if we're prosperous enough, if we're comfortable enough to not really long for the king to return. I think there's a lot of things we might be looking more forward to. We're not in a state of mourning and waiting for him to come and set things right. Sometimes we are.Sometimes there's seasons of life where you feel that acutely. But I think it's very easy for us to be comforted to the ability to be dull. Entertained to where our senses are no longer aware of injustice and need and brokenness and the hope of a returning king who sets things right. So I think we need to ask, do I see my need? Do I long for the return of the king? Do I want Jesus to come fix what's broken here?Or am I just fine? And the things I'm most concerned about are simpler and shorter and closer. Because Mephibosheth needed David to come back to fix things for him. Verse 31, the third interaction. Now Barzillai, the Gileadite, had come down from Rogelim and he went on with the king to the Jordan to escort him over the Jordan.So he actually lived on the other side and met David when he fled and helped feed him and helped care for him. And he's coming towards the Jordan with him, not meeting him. He's not coming to the Jordan. He's coming with David and he's kind of at the Jordan. He's basically escorting him on his way out. That's the way he's coming.Verse 32, Barzillai was a very aged man, 80 years old. I don't know how that hits some of y'all, but I'm just reading what it said. He had provided the king with food while he stayed at Mahanaim, for he was a very wealthy man. And the king said to Barzillai, come over with me and I will provide for you with me in Jerusalem. But Barzillai said to the king, how many years have I still to live that I should go up with the king to Jerusalem?I am this day 80 years old. Can I discern what is pleasant and what is not? Can your servant taste what he eats or what he drinks? Can I still listen to the voice of singing men and singing women? Why then should your servant be an added burden to my Lord, the king? Your servant will go a little way over the Jordan with the king.Why should the king repay me with such a reward? Please let your servant return that I may die in my own city near the grave of my father and my mother. But here's your servant, Chimham. Let him go over with my Lord, the king, and you do whatever seems good to you. So David says, you care for us, come with me back to Jerusalem and I'll care for you.You get to eat at the king's table. You get the best of everything. And Barzillai says, no thank you. Mostly what I want is to live where I live, to die among my people, to be buried with my household, and everything good you have to offer is kind of wasted on me. He said, I don't really taste the food I eat anymore. So it doesn't matter who the chef is.I can't hear people sing and dance and enjoy that sort of thing anymore. So it just kind of gets on my nerves. He didn't say that. That's me reading into it. That's the way my grandparents were on some things where they like movies were annoying because of the, you know, you go in and it's like high quality sound and they're like, I can't hear anything. This is obnoxious.I don't want to be there. It'd be like if you were like, hey, we're going to a rave. You want to come? No, I don't. I do not want to participate in anything that is loud and populated. So he says, come to Jerusalem.And he says, no, thank you. But Chimham would probably love that sort of thing. Take him. Chimham. You can taste food. Yeah, cool.You're going to love Jerusalem. That's what he does. And he sends Chimham. Verse 38. Verse 38. And the king answered, Chimham shall go over with me and I will do for him whatever seems good to you.And all that you desire for me, I will do for you. Also, I know our church family usually has quite a few pregnant ladies in it. Chimham, baby name. Boy or girl. Kim or Ham for short. There you go.All right. That's not helpful. Verse 39. Then all the people went over the Jordan and the king went over and the king kissed Barzillai and blessed him. And he returned to his own home. The king went on to Gilgal and Chimham went on with him.And all the people of Judah and also the half the people of Israel brought the king on his way. That's where we're going to stop in our text this morning. And I think in considering Barzillai and his relationship to David, I think one of the things that we need to realize is that when a king comes into his kingdom, he blesses and grants rewards. It's a thing that a king does. And we're told that Jesus does the same thing. Now, it's interesting here because Chimham receives the blessing that he didn't earn.And there's a part of that that's us. That we get the blessing of Christ. We get the righteousness of Christ. We get what Christ has accomplished for us. That that is what actually saves us is the work of Jesus. But also that a king would see those who had served him and bless them and reward them is a thing that the Bible also tells us happens.Jesus tells a parable, the same kind of parable framework over and over where he says there's a master who leaves. And he places people in charge. And when he returns and then he always has this master returning. And sometimes when he returns, they're doing what they're supposed to. And he says, it's great. The master says, well done, good and faithful servant.He says, it's good that the master finds them awake when he returns. No matter when he returns, that they're ready. Sometimes the master returns and they're not ready. They haven't been doing what they're supposed to be doing. And it goes very poorly for them. They're cast out.They're destroyed. Some stories they're torn to pieces. And there's this promise of reward. There's a promise of a returning king who we're supposed to be faithful and at work when he comes back. And it's interesting. If you consider what Barzillai did.Barzillai was wealthy. And he provided for David in the wilderness. He provided for David while he was at Mahanaim. He provided for him while he was in the wilderness. And if you consider your life as a Christian. We've been given gifts.And we're in the wilderness. We're surrounded by people who are in need. Some of that's monetary. Some of that's physical. That we're supposed to be people who care for other people. That all the things that you have aren't meant to terminate on you.But you're supposed to give of your wealth. Of your resources to care and provide for other people. But some of it is like spiritual gifts. Joy. Do you know that you have a wealth of joy that's accessible by you? Because of Christ.That you should share with other people. In a culture where people go yeah they're too hard to deal with. Being around them makes me sad. Well we have a hope that's in Christ. That's not circumstantial. Christians should go into those situations.You should go share some of your joy with somebody. Because you can have yours replenished by Christ. You should go share some of your love with somebody. There are lonely people around you. My family was recently on vacation. And there's other people that came with their child.And were like hey we're going to hang out with y'all. And I had to pray. Because I don't want to hang out with them. I did not come to the beach to make friends with new people and their children. And I had to be like Lord help me. Because maybe I came to the beach to make new friends with people and their children.I need to care for people. And I don't know if I navigated that well. I did have to ask for help. I had to tell my sons hey I know that this isn't what. My son stared at him like. What on earth is happening?I had to be like say hello. That's a human. But they got it from me. Because they just aren't good at acting. I was like hey. And I wanted to just be doing the same thing.Like you've misread the situation. You picked the wrong people. We are not friendly. But I had to ask for help. Because the reality is we can welcome and care and love and give. We should.And we have Barzillai who's faithful. And the king sees it and says I want to reward that. And we have a king who's going to return. And we should be at work when he does. We should be loving and caring and praying and laboring when he does. We should be putting effort towards things that matter when he does.So I think. As we consider. Different individuals who knew that David was coming. And responded in different ways. I think we should ask. Do I see my sin?Do I know I need forgiveness? I think we should ask. Do I see brokenness in the world? Do I know that I'm not at home here? Do I feel too comfortable here? Or do I know I'm a citizen of a future kingdom?And I think we should ask. Am I faithful? Am I doing what I'm supposed to be doing? I want to finish by considering. Second Peter chapter three. It'll be on the screen.We read a bit of this earlier. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise. As some count slowness. That's his promise to return. But it's patient toward you.Not wishing that any should perish. But that all should reach repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. Meaning we won't be ready for it. Jesus says. If the master of the house had known.When the thief was coming. He'd have been ready. But you don't know when the thief is coming. Then he says. So be ready.Be awake. Be alert. Meaning he could come at any point. He told them that in the first century. He's going to return. At a time they don't expect.And I know. If you get on the internet. There's a whole lot of people telling you. The signs have gotten more signy lately. Okay. But he can come whenever he wants to.And if they're telling you. It's more likely now. It is. Because he didn't come yesterday. So it's more likely today.Every day we move forward. It's more likely. He can return whenever he wants. And we're not waiting for some specific thing. That's got to happen. We're waiting for him.And he returns when he wants. But he's going to come like a thief. It says there'll be people still being. There's still going to be things on the calendar. There's still going to be good plans. That people have to do good things.People are going to be engaged. And waiting to get married. That's going to happen. And he's going to return. There's also going to be evil people. Plotting evil things.And they're not going to get to fulfill it. Because he's going to return. There's going to be all these plans at work. All these negotiations. All these things that are happening. These businesses that are going to merge.And these people who are going to do this. And a trip you're going to take. And then he's going to return. Like a thief. And then the heavens will pass away with a roar. And the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved.And the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed. Everything will be laid bare. Since all these things are thus to be dissolved. What sort of people ought you to be. In lives of holiness and godliness. He says none of this other stuff is going to make it.But we are. And faithfulness is. Holiness is. Godliness is. What sort of people should we be? Waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God.God. When was the last time you sat and thought, I hope he hurries? When was the last time you sat and waited for it. Longed for it. Hastened it.Prayed, Lord, come on. When was the last time you said. Lord be patient. I want to see them. Repent.Oh Lord. If you could wait a little while. I'm trying. I'm praying. Lord. Can you save them?Can you rescue them? Are we living our life. Knowing that the master can return whenever he wants. But according to his promise. We are waiting for new heavens. And a new earth.In which righteousness dwells. Our good things are not here. But they are to come. If you belong to Jesus. And if you don't belong to Jesus. The offer of repentance.Is for you. That you might come to know him. But may God grant us to be people. Who wait for. And hasten the day of his return. And are ready.When he gets here. Let's pray. Lord we're thankful. That we have a better king. Than David. Who's going to return.And set everything right. We're thankful. We're thankful. That we have a better judge. We're thankful. That we have a hope.In you. And may we look forward. To our reward. May we see. What is to come. And to treasure it.And to value it. Above what we have. In front of us. Lord may your spirit. Help us. And may we daily.Wait. For you.In Jesus name. Amen.

2 Samuel 9:1–13 We live in a world of earning and deserving. Promotions come to those who perform. Favor goes to those with the right background. But grace—true grace—operates by a completely different economy. It seeks out the undeserving and pulls them to the table. From 2 Samuel 9, Pastor Chuck Swindoll tells the remarkable story of Mephibosheth, a crippled outcast brought to eat at King David's table as one of his own sons. In this obscure Old Testament story lives the clearest picture of how God's grace works. See yourself in Mephibosheth. Embrace the grace God extends to you freely, and enjoy the life available to those who sit at His table!

2 Samuel 9:1-13 / June 18-22, 2026 From 2 Samuel 9, Pastor Chuck Swindoll tells the remarkable story of Mephibosheth, a crippled outcast brought to eat at King David's table as one of his own sons. In this obscure Old Testament story lives the clearest picture of how God's grace works. From the Series: How Great Is Our God! read more

2nd Samuel Series  Message: 09 Episode: 3 of 3 Broadcast: June 19, 2026 Key Verses: 2nd Samuel 8 & 9 In this episode of Walk in Truth, Pastor Michael Lantz teaches through 2 Samuel 8–9 in a message titled "The Shepherd Warrior." As David leads Israel to victory over its enemies and extends unexpected kindness to Mephibosheth, we see a beautiful picture of both strength and compassion flowing from a king after God's own heart. These chapters reveal that true leadership reflects God's character—upholding justice, fighting for what is right, and showing mercy to those who could never repay it. David's covenant faithfulness points us to Jesus Christ, our Shepherd King, who triumphs over sin and graciously invites the undeserving to His table. Pastor Michael unpacks these powerful truths to encourage believers to trust God's victory, extend His grace to others, and walk faithfully in the calling He has given them. This teaching will help equip you to navigate life as a Christian with courage, humility, and compassion, applying God's truth to everyday relationships and circumstances as you follow the example of the ultimate Shepherd Warrior. Welcome to Walk in Truth! These are the Bible teachings of Pastor Michael Lantz. Equipping you to reach out with God's truth to all people. And how to apply that truth to today's issues, trends, and culture.  Leave your question or comment contact@walkintruth.com  

We live in a world of earning and deserving. Promotions come to those who perform. Favour goes to those with the right background. But grace—true grace—operates by a completely different economy. It seeks out the undeserving and pulls them to the table.From 2 Samuel 9, Pastor Chuck Swindoll tells the remarkable story of Mephibosheth, a crippled outcast brought to eat at King David's table as one of his own sons. In this obscure Old Testament story lives the clearest picture of how God's grace works.See yourself in Mephibosheth. Embrace the grace God extends to you freely, and enjoy the life available to those who sit at His table!

We live in a world of earning and deserving. Promotions come to those who perform. Favor goes to those with the right background. But grace—true grace—operates by a completely different economy. It seeks out the undeserving and pulls them to the table.From 2 Samuel 9, Pastor Chuck Swindoll tells the remarkable story of Mephibosheth, a crippled outcast brought to eat at King David's table as one of his own sons. In this obscure Old Testament story lives the clearest picture of how God's grace works.See yourself in Mephibosheth. Embrace the grace God extends to you freely, and enjoy the life available to those who sit at His table! To support this ministry financially, visit: https://www.oneplace.com/donate/82/29?v=20251111

2 Samuel 9:1–13 We live in a world of earning and deserving. Promotions come to those who perform. Favor goes to those with the right background. But grace—true grace—operates by a completely different economy. It seeks out the undeserving and pulls them to the table. From 2 Samuel 9, Pastor Chuck Swindoll tells the remarkable story of Mephibosheth, a crippled outcast brought to eat at King David's table as one of his own sons. In this obscure Old Testament story lives the clearest picture of how God's grace works. See yourself in Mephibosheth. Embrace the grace God extends to you freely, and enjoy the life available to those who sit at His table!

2 Samuel 9:1-13 / June 18-22, 2026 From 2 Samuel 9, Pastor Chuck Swindoll tells the remarkable story of Mephibosheth, a crippled outcast brought to eat at King David's table as one of his own sons. In this obscure Old Testament story lives the clearest picture of how God's grace works. From the Series: How Great Is Our God! read more

2 Samuel 9:1-13 / June 18-22, 2026 From 2 Samuel 9, Pastor Chuck Swindoll tells the remarkable story of Mephibosheth, a crippled outcast brought to eat at King David's table as one of his own sons. In this obscure Old Testament story lives the clearest picture of how God's grace works. From the Series: How Great Is Our God! read more

We live in a world of earning and deserving. Promotions come to those who perform. Favour goes to those with the right background. But grace—true grace—operates by a completely different economy. It seeks out the undeserving and pulls them to the table.From 2 Samuel 9, Pastor Chuck Swindoll tells the remarkable story of Mephibosheth, a crippled outcast brought to eat at King David's table as one of his own sons. In this obscure Old Testament story lives the clearest picture of how God's grace works.See yourself in Mephibosheth. Embrace the grace God extends to you freely, and enjoy the life available to those who sit at His table!

We live in a world of earning and deserving. Promotions come to those who perform. Favor goes to those with the right background. But grace—true grace—operates by a completely different economy. It seeks out the undeserving and pulls them to the table.From 2 Samuel 9, Pastor Chuck Swindoll tells the remarkable story of Mephibosheth, a crippled outcast brought to eat at King David's table as one of his own sons. In this obscure Old Testament story lives the clearest picture of how God's grace works.See yourself in Mephibosheth. Embrace the grace God extends to you freely, and enjoy the life available to those who sit at His table! To support this ministry financially, visit: https://www.oneplace.com/donate/82/29?v=20251111

Many of us carry identities shaped by disappointment, insecurity, past experiences, or the voices around us. In *Mephibosheth: Identity at the Table*, Pastor RJ Ciaramitaro walks through one of Scripture's quieter but powerful stories—a man who expected rejection but received restoration. This message invites us to consider what changes when we stop defining ourselves by what was lost and begin living from the place God has prepared for us. Listen in and reflect on the invitation of grace, belonging, and a renewed identity.

In today's readings, we'll cover some of David's military exploits. As he and his forces are victorious over their enemies, the reader is to understand that the Lord is with him in battle. The narrative thus far has established that David prioritizes the right worship of God. Much like the gospel accounts, we'll read parallel narratives when we read portions from 2 Samuel and from 1 Chronicles, so don't be alarmed or feel like you're experiencing déjà vu. One section that's unique to 2 Samuel is a recording of David's kindness to a handicapped man named Mephibosheth; he was last remaining relative of Saul's family, the son of his friend Jonathan. 2 Samuel 8 - 1:06 .  2 Samuel 9 - 4:18 .  2 Samuel 10 - 8:22 .  1 Chronicles 18 - 14:39 .  1 Chronicles 19 - 15:29 .  Psalm 99 - 19:31 .  :::Christian Standard Bible translation.All music written and produced by John Burgess Ross.Co-produced by the Christian Standard Bible.facebook.com/commuterbibleinstagram.com/commuter_bibletwitter.com/CommuterPodpatreon.com/commuterbibleadmin@commuterbible.org

Ish-bosheth Murdered 4When Ish-bosheth, Saul's son, heard that Abner had died at Hebron, his courage failed, and all Israel was dismayed. 2Now Saul's son had two men who were captains of raiding bands; the name of the one was Baanah, and the name of the other Rechab, sons of Rimmon a man of Benjamin from Beeroth (for Beeroth also is counted part of Benjamin; 3the Beerothites fled to Gittaim and have been sojourners there to this day). 4Jonathan, the son of Saul, had a son who was crippled in his feet. He was five years old when the news about Saul and Jonathan came from Jezreel, and his nurse took him up and fled, and as she fled in her haste, he fell and became lame. And his name was Mephibosheth. 5Now the sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, Rechab and Baanah, set out, and about the heat of the day they came to the house of Ish-bosheth as he was taking his noonday rest. 6And they came into the midst of the house as if to get wheat, and they stabbed him in the stomach. Then Rechab and Baanah his brother escaped.7When they came into the house, as he lay on his bed in his bedroom, they struck him and put him to death and beheaded him. They took his head and went by the way of the Arabah all night, 8and brought the head of Ish-bosheth to David at Hebron. And they said to the king, Here is the head of Ish-bosheth, the son of Saul, your enemy, who sought your life. The Lord has avenged my lord the king this day on Saul and on his offspring. 9But David answered Rechab and Baanah his brother, the sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, As the Lord lives, who has redeemed my life out of every adversity, 10when one told me, Behold, Saul is dead, and thought he was bringing good news, I seized him and killed him at Ziklag, which was the reward I gave him for his news. 11How much more, when wicked men have killed a righteous man in his own house on his bed, shall I not now require his blood at your hand and destroy you from the earth?12And David commanded his young men, and they killed them and cut off their hands and feet and hanged them beside the pool at Hebron. But they took the head of Ish-bosheth and buried it in the tomb of Abner at Hebron.

God's invitation and the miracle of restoration from the Old Testament table behind the veil to Jesus, the Bread of Life, who tears the veil and seats spiritual outcasts like Mephibosheth at the King's Table. Grace — God's Riches At Christ's Expense — has made a place for us at His Table so that we might know Him deeply and become witnesses to His redeeming love and transforming power. (2 Samuel 9)

In this week's episode, I take a look at the movies and streaming shows I watched in Spring 2026, and rate them from least to most favorite. This coupon code will get you 25% off the ebooks in the Dragontiarna series at my Payhip store: DRAGONJUNE The coupon code is valid through June 15, 2026. So if you need a new ebook this summer, we've got you covered! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 305 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is May 29th, 2026 and today we'll be discussing my Spring Movie Review Roundup for 2026, where I discuss the movies and streaming shows I watched over the last few months. We will also have Coupon of the Week and a progress update on my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. So let's start off with Coupon of the Week. This week's coupon code will get you 25% off the ebooks in the Dragontiarna series at my Payhip store. That coupon code is DRAGONJUNE. And as always, you get the coupon code and the links in the show notes for this episode. This coupon code will be valid through June the 15th, 2026. So if you need a new ebook for this summer, we have got you covered. Now let's move on to my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. As I mentioned last week, Dragon-Mage is out and you can get it at Amazon and Kindle Unlimited and it's doing well, so thank you for that. My next main project is Blade of Thieves and as of this recording, I am on chapter 11 of 25, though that'll probably expand in the final draft, which puts me at 56,000 words in. So I'm almost halfway through. I think probably it's going to be the length of Blade of Wraiths or a little longer, but we'll see. I'm hoping to have it out towards the end of June, but depending on how June goes, that might slip till July. Hopefully we can avoid that. I'm also 5,000 words into Cloak of Frost and that will be my main project once Blade of Thieves is done. I'm hoping to have Cloak of Frost out towards the end of July, but depending on how June goes, it might slip to August. For audiobook projects, Blade of Wraiths is still processing at ACX, though I believe as of right now, you can get it at Google Play, Kobo, Spotify, and my own Payhip store. The other stores should be available within a few weeks. As of right now, I don't actually have any current audiobooks in production, though we have some scheduled for the future. Once Blade of Thieves is finally done, Brad Wills will record that for us. Hollis McCarthy is scheduled to record Cloak of Worlds in June, if all goes well. Leanne Woodward will be recording Dragon-Mage sometime in July, if all goes well. So that is where I'm at with my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. Hopefully we'll have new things for you to read and listen to before much longer. 00:02:32 Main Topic: Spring 2026 Movie Review Roundup Now without any further ado, let's move on to our main topic, my Spring 2026 Movie Review Roundup. It's time for the Spring 2026 Movie Review Roundup, where I review the movies and streaming shows I watched over the last few months. As always, they're listed from least favorite to most favorite. The grades are wholly subjective and based on nothing more than my own opinions and thoughts. With that disclaimer out of the way, let's go to the movies. First up is Kicking and Screaming, which came out in 2005. This is a family comedy with Will Ferrell and Robert Duvall. Pharrell plays Phil Weston, a mild mannered vitamin store owner and Duvall plays his father, Buck Weston, owner of a successful chain of sports equipment stores. Buck is one of those hyper competitive guys who has to win at everything and Phil has always rolled with it. But when Phil's son is a benchwarmer on the youth soccer team that Buck coaches, Phil's had enough and starts coaching a rival team to get his son into the game and to defeat his father. Along the way, of course, he descends into Will Ferrell style comedic lunacy, but the PG version since this is a PG movie. Mike Ditka was also hilarious as Phil's sidekick and assistant coach. It seemed like an '80s family movie. It was a sort of movie where you could have taken the entire family to the theater in 2005 and everyone would have been at least moderately entertained. Overall Grade: C Next up is the animated Lord of the Rings, which came out in 1978. As I mentioned, this was the animated version of Lord of the Rings from 1978. Extremely ambitious, but I think it's fair to say this landed in ambitious failure territory, but they tried the best they could given the constraints of the technology at the time and the actual available budget. They tried to pack the entirety of the Fellowship of the Ring and the first half of The Two Towers into about two hours and 20 minutes. I'm sorry to say it just didn't work. Like Dune, the Lord of the Rings is one of those books that requires like 10 hours of very expensive filmmaking to pull off properly. That said, I think it is fair to say that this stumbled so that the Peter Jackson live action trilogy could run. Adapting a book (especially a big book) into a movie is a challenge and I don't think this quite got there. Too much was cut out and if you hadn't read the book, you would probably have no idea what was happening or just been confused the entire time. Additionally, the movie relied heavily on rotoscoping and it didn't always quite work. Like the rotoscope Nazgul looked creepy and unsettling, so that worked for them. However, the rotoscoped orcs just looked bad. You know how in live theater stagehands will dress all in black? The orcs kind of looked like that, albeit they're wearing yellow ponchos over their black stagehand outfits, almost like the stagehands were expecting inclement weather backstage. That said, the vocal performances and the music were very good. So an ambitious and admirable failure. As I said, I think the filmmaker's vision exceeded the grasp of their budget and the available technology of the 1970s. Overall Grade: C Next up is Airplane!, which came out in 1980. It was interesting to watch this as a cultural artifact. It had the leisurely pace of an '80s movie, with far more absurdist humor. It was a parody of various airplane disaster movies from the 1970s. It's also interesting that this is remembered as a Leslie Nielsen movie nowadays, though Leslie Nielsen 's character is only a supporting character. For all that he's known for his absurdist humor these days from later movies, Nielsen plays his character stone cold dead straight, which makes him all the funnier, amazingly enough. Some of the jokes in this movie have aged very badly, but it's still worth watching as an interesting and amusing cultural artifact, given how it influenced the entire genre of comedy movies afterwards. There's also the obligatory three seconds of nudity that can get cut on cable TV broadcast. Overall Grade: B- Next up is the Thomas Crown Affair, which came out in 1999. This is an interesting remake of a movie from the 1960s. Pierce Brosnan plays Thomas Crown, a billionaire who has grown bored with his life, so he orchestrates the theft of a priceless Monet painting from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The heist goes off flawlessly and the museum's insurance company sends out investigator Catherine Banning (played by Renee Russo) to retrieve the painting and avoid a hundred million dollar insurance payout. Banning immediately intuits that Crown is the thief and sets about to find the painting. This investigation is complicated by the fact that Crown and Banning immediately develop a strong attraction and start an affair. It was interesting to watch since neither Crown nor Banning are particularly sympathetic characters. In 2026, the phrase "bored New York billionaire" has much more sinister connotations than it did in 1999 and Banning breaks all kinds of laws and sleeping with her target is not a particularly bright idea. That said, the opening heist was interesting and Crown's final gambit to return the painting was extremely clever and enjoyable to watch. So overall, I like the movie, but there's still way too much nudity. Cable broadcasts are probably like 10 minutes shorter than the actual runtime from cutting it all out. Overall Grade: B- Next up is Whiskey Galore, which came out in 2017 and this is a remake of the original Whiskey Galore from 1949. Honestly, this is exactly the same movie from 1949 that I watched in the Movie Review Roundup for Summer 2025, just updated with modern filmmaking techniques. If the movie makers in the '40s could have done it this way, they would have. Though I would recommend watching the 1949 one first and then the one from 2017. Overall Grade: B Next up is Super Mario Galaxy, which came out in 2026. And I have to admit, it felt a little strange to be the oldest person at the theater watching Super Mario Galaxy, but I've been playing Mario games since before any of these kids were born, so I think I had a right to be there. Anyway, I would say this movie is about 75% as good as the first one. It was a little overpacked and the plot wasn't quite as tight, but it's still fun to watch. The animation was excellent and I enjoyed all the callbacks to the various Mario games and since I haven't actually played all the Mario games (as a reminder, I played no console games of any kind between 1998 and 2019), I'm sure there were quite a few I missed. The plot is that Bowser Jr is coming to rescue his father, Bowser, who's been held captive since the end of the last movie. To power his doomsday weapon, Junior kidnaps Princess Rosalina and Princess Peach goes to rescue her while Mario, Luigi, and Yoshi stay to protect the Mushroom Kingdom. Their separate subplots will end up crossing when Bowser Jr. invades the Mushroom Kingdom to get Bowser. Glen Powell was an excellent choice to voice Fox McCloud. I'd say if you could imagine a movie that the audience would enjoy and the critics would hate, you'd end up with Super Mario Galaxy. Since that appears to be what happened to the tune of $970 million, it appears that metaphor was accurate. Also, to be less glib, "movies you can take your kids to" do serve a valuable social function (in my opinion). Overall Grade: B Next up is the Rise and Fall of Reggie Dinkins, which came out in 2026. This was a comedy with a fun premise. Reggie Dinkins (played by Tracy Morgan) was an elite NFL player who got bounced out of the league for placing bets on himself. Years later, he teams up with an indie filmmaker named Arthur Tobin (played by Daniel Radcliffe), to make a documentary to rehabilitate his image. However, Tobin has his own issues. He has an Oscar, but after the Oscar, he got hired to direct a Marvel movie and cracked under the pressure. He and Reggie have to go on a journey to recover their reputations. I thought this was a pretty funny sitcom. Tracy Morgan is a comedic natural, but Daniel Radcliffe turned out to be an excellent comedic actor as well. He was great in that Weird Al biopic a few years ago and he's very funny in this. Craig Robinson was also great as Jerry Basmati, Reggie's sleazy nemesis. Overall Grade: B+ Next up is The Mandalorian and Grogu, which came out in 2026. I enjoyed this. It was like three pretty good episodes of The Mandalorian show put together. The end result was an adventure movie that kind of reminded me of the best of 1980s fantasy and sci-fi movies with a lot of creature work and a lot of action scenes. For an extended stretch of the movie, Grogu takes over as the primary protagonist, and given that Grogu is a very expensive puppet, that's an impressive feat. The plot picks up from the end of The Mandalorian show. The Mandalorian and his adopted son Grogu are now working for the New Republic, helping to hunt down Imperial warlords. Mando gets assigned to hunt down in a mysterious Imperial warlord named Commander Coin, but the only people who have information on Coin's location are the Twins, a pair of Hutt crime lords and relatives of Jabba the Hutt from Return of the Jedi. The Twins are willing to give up Coin's location if Mando does a job for them, but as Han Solo could have warned Mando, working for the Hutts is not a good idea. I was surprised that the reviews for this movie were as mixed as they were, but I suspect that's a combination of three social factors: Number one, cumulative ill will towards Disney as a corporation, which has done numerous sketchy things in the 2020s. I think something similar happened with Microsoft and Starfield. Number two, the lingering bad aftertaste of the sequel trilogy and number three, the tendency of the hardcore Star Wars fandom to chronically overthink things. Overall Grade: B+ Next up is the animated Hobbit, which came out in 1977. Peter Jackson's Hobbit Trilogy from the 2010 famously stretched The Hobbit across three movies, which really didn't work and added a bunch of epic battle scenes, which was totally off for what was essentially a children's book. The animated 1977 version of The Hobbit, by contrast, went in a different direction, neatly adapting it down to 70 minutes or so, presumably because animation is very expensive. At the time, this got mixed reviews, but looking back nearly 50 years later, I think we can appreciate it more because of the sheer amount of work that goes into hand-drawn animation. Like computer-based animation is unquestionably a lot of work as well, but hand-drawn animation is on something of a higher level in terms of difficulty, in my opinion. That said, I think this adaptation did a better job of compressing the story down than the animated Lord of the Rings movie I mentioned earlier in this episode. There's also a lot of 1970s style folk singing-like a LOT. I suspect J.R.R. Tolkien would have hated every single adaptation ever made of any of his works (with perhaps the exception of the audiobooks), but he would have approved of the number of songs and poetry in this. Though it was amusing that the high elves in this movie sing in a '70s folk music style. It would be humorous if in the Silmarillion, Earnedil the Mariner had finally crossed the Sundering Seas to reach Valinor and appeal the aid of the Valar against Morgoth and his hordes, only to hear '70 style folk music echoing across the shining hills of the Undying Lands. Anyway, it's definitely worth watching this if you like The Hobbit or old style animation. Overall Grade: A- Next up is House of David Season 2, which came out in 2026. I wrestled with what grade to give this because it used a lot of AI for the big battle scene in episode one and as long time readers and listeners know, I do not generally approve of LLM generated slop. Ironically, I think episode one, the big battle sequence with all the AI, was definitely the weakest point of the entire second season. Everything else was better. That said, all the character drama and interactions and acting were really good, which amusingly shows that while LLM stuff can generate blurry scenes of mounted soldiers charging at night, the real human emotion comes from, well, real human emotion. Anyway, this picks right up from the end of Season 1, right after David kills Goliath, which means it takes place during most of the events with the third quarter of the book of 1 Samuel from the Bible. David becomes one of the chief commanders of King Saul, but David is secretly the anointed king of Israel. Saul's deteriorating mental state becomes threatening to David while Saul's children scheme for position (with the exception of Jonathan, who has accepted that God has chosen David as the next king of Israel) and the Philistines prepare for war against Israel. It is interesting how the show alternates between leaning into the Grimdark aspects of life in the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age and avoiding them. Like, constant warfare was a fact of life for a Mesopotamian king around 1000 BC. But the show also shows David as having passionate romantic love for Saul's daughter Michal and in the Bible, David ended up with at least eight wives that we know about (there were likely others) and an unnamed number of concubines. So late Bronze Age/early Iron Age monarchs were not likely to have been in the grips of fervent romantic love. Though based on the Psalms he wrote, David seems to have been a man who definitely was in touch with his emotions and quite possibly he would have passionately loved multiple women at the same time. Anyway, I enjoyed the show. While I am not an expert, I probably have a higher than average level of Old Testament knowledge. So when the show expanded on something from 1 Samuel (such as the role of Doeg, the murderous Edomite shepherd), I could see where they were coming from. Or the subplot where Jonathan falls in love with an Israelite woman since in the Bible, David took care of Jonathan's son, Mephibosheth, logically, Jonathan had a wife at some point. Related to that as Saul continues his descent, in a moment of rage in 1 Samuel, he calls Jonathan "the son of a perverse and rebellious woman" and the show has a subplot explaining how Saul came to see Queen Ahinoam as a "perverse and rebellious woman". So I enjoyed this and will definitely watch Season 3 when it comes along. That said, the opening battle with the AI generated battle scenes is still definitely the weakest part of the series, though. Overall Grade: A- Next up is Maul: Shadow Lord, which came out in 2026. And in my opinion, this was pretty good. I think he could call the plot Sith Noir. Maul, desiring vengeance against the Emperor for all the pain he has endured, has decided to rebuild his criminal syndicate (previously destroyed in the Clone Wars) and use it to bring down the Empire. Meanwhile, Captain Lawson, a detective on a minor world, is trying to rebuild his relationship with his teenage son and keep his career afloat. This becomes tricky when a pair of fugitive Jedi fleeing from the Inquisitors turn up on their world. But in the younger of the two Jedi, Maul sees a potential apprentice for himself, one he could corrupt to the dark side. The animation has improved by quantum leaps and bounds since the days of the Clone War show. The lighting and the shadows are excellent. Maul looks spooky and a little uncanny. The lightsaber fights are quick and fluid. No spoilers, but the final episode is absolutely excellent. I also think one of the best things about the Star Wars animation shows is how Maul's character has evolved from simply the cool swordsmen at the end of The Phantom Menace to a sympathetic yet still evil warrior-philosopher, a tragic figure whose every effort always contains the seeds of its own downfall. Overall Grade: A Next up is Emma, which came out in 2020. This is an excellent adaptation of the Jane Austen's novel. Good performances, good cinematography, and it captures the essence of the novel quite well and it's probably a must for Austen fans to see. I don't really have anything negative to say about it, say that it has the three seconds of unnecessary nudity that can be cut in cable broadcasts. Ironically, and quite amusingly, that three seconds of nudity is quite literally the only thing this movie has in common with Airplane!. Overall Grade: A Next up is No Packers, No Life, which came out in 2025. This was a fun documentary about a group of Japanese Green Bay Packers fans. Obviously, there are fairly large cultural and linguistic divides between the United States and Japan, so American football is not hugely popular in Japan. However, the Green Bay Packers are the only community owned team in the NFL to this day and so they're quite a bit more sympathetic than one that's owned by a faceless billionaire. Anyway, an American businessman goes to Japan and stumbles across a Japanese man wearing a Packers jersey at a bar. From there, he learns of a small club called the Japanese Packers Cheering Team that gathered to watch Packers games. This businessman in question happened to be from Wisconsin, so he befriended the Japanese Packers Cheering Team and invited them to Green Bay for a game. The invitation snowballed and so the entire club and their families arrived to watch the game. Sports fandom really isn't one of my interests, so it's always interesting to look at it from the outside. That said, this was an enjoyable documentary about cross-cultural communication at its best. Overall Grade: A Let's close out this episode with my favorite thing I saw in spring 2026, which was Project Hail Mary, which came out in 2026. This is another "science man solves space problem that saves the day with math and science", type science fiction adventure like The Martian, though some new twists on the formula. Dr. Ryland Grace wakes up alone on a spaceship with all the other crew dead and no memory of how he got there. Gradually, he partially remembers and works out that he is part of Project Hail Mary, a last ditch effort to stop Earth's sun from dimming due to an extremophile organism called the Astrophage. Only one other star in Earth's stellar neighborhood was showing no signs of Astrophage infection, so Grace's ship was sent there on a suicide mission to try and recover some means of defeating the Astrophage. While there, he encounters an alien ship with a sole survivor and he slowly works out how to communicate with the alien, who he dubs Rocky. It turns out Rocky's people sent him there on a mission to solve the Astrophage problem as well and together Grace and Rocky try to work out how to save their respective home worlds. Quite enjoyable and worth seeing. At the time I typed this in March of 2026, it was the highest-grossing movie of 2026 and I think it deserved that, though it did eventually get overtaken by Super Mario Galaxy. Overall Grade: A I suppose that was an eclectic range of movies, wasn't it? Interestingly, I actually saw three of them in theaters: Project Hail Mary, Super Mario Galaxy, and The Mandalorian and Grogu, so I went to the theater three times in three months. I think that's the most I've been to the movie theater in a single year in the entirety of the 2020s. So that is it for this week. Thank you for listening to The Pulp Writer Show. I hope you found the show interesting. A reminder that you can listen to all the back episodes at https://thepulpwritershow.com. If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave a review on your podcasting platform of choice. Stay safe and stay healthy and we'll see you all next week.  

Group Guide Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.Additional context: Watch the theology teaching video, What is the Bible? 2 Samuel 15 Mike Goble Download TranscriptAll right, so Chet and Spencer are away. Let's get down to business. No, no, no, no, no. My name is Mike. I'm an elder in training here. Last week at the end of the sermon, I had three people come up to me and say that I reminded them of Absalom.I had one person come up and tell me I reminded them of Abimelech and I reminded them that that's not what the story was about and that was Raz. So when they told me that I reminded them of Absalom, I said, "Oh, of course, the striking good looks." And they all pretty intentionally clarified, "No, that is not why. it is because you have long hair and you are trying to convince people to leave this church and go out with you to plant another church. And so that brings me to my first point today. Oak Ridge Church in Lexington will be meeting sometime in January of 2027. Now this is not an infomercial for our church plant, even though we are very excited about that.We're going to be today in 2 Samuel. We're going to be in chapter 15. This is going to be on page 304 of the Bibles that are at your seats. We would ask if you'd consider not using an electronic Bible if you're willing and instead maybe pick one of those Bibles up and we're going to read the Bible together. And we think that's a helpful thing. Before we get started in our text, I'm going to pray for us. Father, we thank you for being our God, for being our salvation.We thank you for your good scripture that teaches us about you. Please Lord, may the Spirit work in our hearts through the foolishness of preaching that we would be changed to be more like your Son in Jesus' name. Amen. All right. Last week we saw that David permitted Absalom to return back to Jerusalem after he initially spent three years in exile after murdering his brother Amnon after Amnon's sin with Tamar. But even though Absalom was back in Jerusalem, he was not allowed to be in the king's presence.And after about two years, he kind of forces himself back into the king's presence by burning down Joab's field. Now, Joab is one of David's nephews. He is the son of David's sister. And he's one of the commanders of David's army. So, Absalom burns down the field, gets his attention, and Joab tells David, and David lets Absalom back into his presence. And then Absalom goes and spends the next four years positioning himself daily at the city gate, rendering judgments and manipulating the people, stealing their hearts is what it says. He is taking them away from their loyalty and their allegiance to King David.He then travels down to Hebron, which is about 18 miles or so south of Jerusalem. And he's got a large group of followers with him. And guys, remember Hebron is actually a pretty significant place. It's significant that he goes down there. So Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the patriarchs, the men from which all of Israel descended, are buried.They're all buried in Hebron. And David himself was was anointed king down in Hebron. So this is a pretty significant place. And now we see Absalom is down there and he's proclaimed as king, but he's not anointed. He's taking it by manipulation. And we're going to see taking it by force.This is the beginning of a full-scale rebellion. And today we're actually gonna look at how David responds and how the people around David respond to what's going on here in Israel. We pick up in verse 13 of chapter 15. And a messenger came to David saying, "The hearts of the men of Israel have gone after Absalom." Then David said to all his servants who were with him at Jerusalem, "Arise and let us flee, or else there will be no escape for us from Absalom," "Go quickly, lest he overtake us quickly and bring down ruin on us and strike the city with the edge of the sword."And the king's servant said to the king, "Behold, your servants are ready to do whatever my Lord, the king, decides." So the king went out and all his household after him. And the king left 10 concubines to keep the house. And the king went out and all the people after him and they halted at the last house. All right.So a messenger comes in and tells David, hey, Israel is going to follow Absalom. So through his manipulation over the last four years, he has won over a significant portion of people that this messenger comes right in and says, "Hey, is the hearts of the men of Israel, they're gone. And they're not just gone from you. They've gone to your son Absalom." Meaning Absalom has the loyalty of these people. So David responds by saying to all his servants that are still in Jerusalem that they need to flee because if they stay, they will not escape from Absalom and he will come quickly and violently and he will ruin them.And so his servants get up with him and they get ready to flee and they leave behind the 10 concubines to maintain the house. And now they're going. And this is a pretty high pressure moment in this story. And we've we've kind of seen stuff like this play out in stories before, right? You know, you know the story the the tale of the prince who his uncle wanted to become king. And so he convinces the prince that the prince killed his dad.And the prince gets so overwhelmed and so scared that he flees. And he leaves Pride Rock. And Zazu and Rafiki have no idea what they're going to do. And we see stories like this in our entertainment. But guys, this happens a lot and it has happened a lot in history.There are so many coups in history from the murder of Julius Caesar to Napoleon taking over France to Castro and the Cuban Revolution. Did you know that in 2024 there was a coup in South Korea where the president of South Korea decided he was going to declare martial law so the legislature you know they couldn't meet or do anything and then well the legislature met anyway and 11 days later he was impeached and then put on trial. That was two years ago. This kind of stuff has been happening forever throughout history. And honestly, when I think about that, I can't help but think back to 1 Samuel chapter 8, where Israel is demanding that they have a king so they can be like all the other nations.And David, their king, is now here fleeing Jerusalem because his son is coming to overthrow him just like so many other nations before them and so many other nations that will come after them. What do you think was on David's mind? What do you think he was thinking about here? You know, the text doesn't directly say, but do you remember what the Lord said through the prophet Nathan in chapter 12? In chapter 12, when Nathan is pronouncing his judgment from God on David for his sin, the Lord says to David that the sword will not depart from your house. And then right after in chapter 13, we find out Absalom kills his brother Amnon.So, one of David's sons kills the other. And now David suspects Absalom is coming for him. So his plan is to flee. And it might be because he's afraid of Absalom. It might be because he wants to avoid conflict with his own son. It might also be acceptance of the judgment of God.And I actually think that the rest of what we're going to look at today supports that idea. Supports that David has accepted what God has planned for him no matter what. All right. So, David's servants are ready to go and they begin leaving Jerusalem together. And let's pick up verse 18. And all his servants pass by him.And all the Cherethites and all the Pelethites and all the 600 Gittites who had followed him from Gath passed on before the king. Then the king said to Ittai the Gittite, "Why do you also go with us? Go back and stay with the king, for you are a foreigner, and also in exile from your home. You came only yesterday. And shall I today make you wander about with us, since I go, I know not where? Go back, take your brothers with you.And may the Lord show steadfast love and faithfulness to you." But Ittai answered the king, "As the Lord lives and as my Lord the king lives, wherever my Lord the king shall be, whether for death or for life, there also will be your servant." And David said to Ittai, "Go then, pass on." So Ittai the Gittite passed on with all his men and all the little ones who were with him. And all the land wept aloud as all the people passed by and the king crossed the brook Kedron and all the people passed on toward the wilderness. Okay, so David's leaving and as he's leaving he passes by different people that are highlighted for us here in the text.First there's the Cherethites, the Pelethites and the Gittites. So the Cherethites and the Pelethites are part of the royal bodyguard. So these are warriors who protect David and they go with him. And the Gittites and their leader Ittai are originally from Gath, we're told. And that's a a Philistine city. And the reason that we're told that is because back in 1 Samuel, David when he was originally fleeing Israel, fleeing from Saul when Saul wanted him dead, lived in Gath.And these men followed him when he returned back to Israel. And so he gives Ittai the option. He says, "Go back. You can just go back and align yourself with Absalom. You do not have to come with me." He says, "There's not really a reason for you, Ittai, to go ahead and get caught up in this problem.I'm releasing you from that." And Ittai refuses and he says, "He's going to stay with David even to death." And that is pretty awesome. There's something in us that just kind of loves a display of loyalty and a display of friendship like that. If you remember the famous book series that was adapted into the blockbuster movies, The Lord of the Rings, the whole series, the whole journey, the main character is trying to destroy this ring that he has to carry. And right when he's at the end, right when he's just feet almost steps from being able to do so, he runs out of strength and and by his side with him the whole time is his friend, his best friend that he's known his whole life.And his friend looks at him and says, "I can't carry it for you." And that's the ring, "But I can carry you." And when you watch that in the theater or maybe at your house, you're like, "Yeah, and I can carry it for you, too." You just like get so swept up in it, it's really cool. And your wife says pipe down, but you're like, "No, this is this is awesome." And so we see that and that strikes a chord within our hearts because we love that display of loyalty and friendship.We want to be a part of that display of loyalty and friendship. And so I think that's a really noteworthy thing and I think it's included in that in who he passes by on his way out of town because we get to see that exceptional display of friendship and loyalty to David. So, he's got this large group of faithful friends who in his darkest hour are leaving Jerusalem with him and they're all together and it says that they're weeping and that they're headed into the wilderness. Verse 24, and Abiathar came up, and behold, Zadok came also with all the Levites bearing the ark of the covenant of God.And they set down the ark of God until the people had all passed out of the city. Then the king said to Zadok, "carry the ark of God back into the city. If I find favor in the eyes of the Lord, he will bring me back and let me see both it and his dwelling place. But if he says, I have no pleasure in you, behold, here I am, let him do to me what seems good to him." The king also said to Zadok the priest, "Are you not a seer? Go back to the city in peace with your two sons, Ahimeaz, your son, and Jonathan, the son of Abiathar.See, I will wait at the fords of the wilderness until word comes from you to inform me." So Zadok and Abiathar carried the ark of God back to Jerusalem, and they remain there. But David went up the ascent of the Mount of Olives, weeping as he went, barefoot and with his head covered. And all the people who were with him covered their heads and they went up weeping as they went. And it was told David, Ahithophel is among the conspirators with Absalom. And David said, "O Lord, please turn the counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness."All right. Now we are going to get into David's response to the situation that he's in. So Abiathar and Zadok, who are they? They are the chief priests. They are part of the Levites and they carry the ark of the covenant. And the ark of the covenant represents God's presence with his people.What does David say? He tells them, "Take it back to Jerusalem." Why? Why would David say that? Part of the answer to that question is because he says, "Zadok, aren't you a Aren't you a seer? Aren't you a prophet?" maybe David thinks, well, if he's back there, he can he can get some information out to me while I'm out here in the wilderness.It might be good to have him back there. And that is part of it. However, I think the main answer, the main reason that David tells him to take the ark, tells them to take the ark of the covenant back, is because he is accepting of the sovereign will of God. And he's doing it with humility. David's response is to essentially resign himself to the will of God. And if he sees the ark again, he knows God has looked favorably on him.And if not, then may God do what seems good to him. In the 1600s, German theology professor Samuel Rodegast wrote a song for his friend who was dying. And the song is called Was Gott tut das ist wohlgetan. Do you got I'll translate that for you for those of you who don't speak German. Whatever my God ordains is right. And one of the verses in this song goes, "Whatever my God ordains is right, he never will deceive me.He leads me by the proper path, I know he will not leave me. I take content what he has sent. His hand can turn my griefs away, and patiently I wait his day." So David resolutely accepts the will of God and he ascends the Mount of Olives weeping and here we see the second aspect of his response. We first see the humble acceptance of the divine will and after that we see him pray. What does he pray?He asks God to make the counsel of Ahithophel foolish. Now, Ahithophel was once David's advisor, but he turned his allegiance toward Absalom. And David here, powerless from a position of humility, asks the Lord to make whatever Ahithophel advises Absalom to be foolish. And we're actually going to see later on that God is going to answer this prayer. But something I want to see is that the two aspects of the response are actually linked together, require each other.Because intrinsic to prayer is humility. It's recognizing that the greatest thing you can possibly do is acknowledge the will of God and the fact that he is ordaining all things. And when you do that, you are going to pray. No, you are. You pray. When you have a heart posture like that, what comes out of it from within you is prayer.Because you finally understand how insignificant you are in affecting outcomes on this earth and you realize that God is sovereign and that God is ordaining all things and you are not God. What happened in Israel when they decided to accomplish their own will? Sexual sin, murder, treachery, it doesn't really go well. And the world around us doesn't really understand this, right? Because what happens when we see tragedies and things like that and people say, "Well, you know, our thoughts and prayers are are with the victims and and the things that have happened, right?" And people just don't like that.They sort of respond back with, "Well, we don't want that. We would rather you do something. We would rather see action. But if you know God and you know your relationship to him and you understand in your heart that what he ordains is right, that what he is doing has a purpose, then you know that the greatest thing you possibly could do would be to pray and to ask him, hey, if it could work out this way, would you change the counsel of Ahithophel to be foolishness? Right? And to commune with God from a position of humility is a really powerful thing.Let's pick back up in verse 32. While David was coming to the summit where God was worshiped, behold, Hushai the Archite came to meet him with his coat torn and dirt on his head. David said to him, "If you go on with me, you will be a burden to me. But if you return to the city and say to Absalom,"I will be your servant, O king, as I have been your father's servant in time past, so now I will be your servant. Then you will defeat for me the counsel of Ahithophel."Are not Zadok and Abiathar the priests with you there? So whatever you hear from the king's house, tell it to Zadok and Abiathar, the priests. Behold, their two sons are with them. Ahimeaz Zadok's son and Jonathan Abiathar's son. And by them you shall send to me everything you hear. So Hushai, David's friend, came into the city just as Absalom was entering Jerusalem.Okay. Here, David tells Hushai, another one of his close friends and counselors, to go back to Jerusalem and act as a spy, essentially to feed information to Zadok and Abiathar, who will through their sons get that information out into the wilderness to David. And so now we finish chapter 15 with David on his way out of Jerusalem. And we begin chapter 16. And as David is out of Jerusalem, Absalom has now entered Jerusalem. Chapter 16 starts, "When David had passed a little beyond the summit, Ziba the servant of Mephibosheth met him with a couple of donkeys saddled bearing 200 loaves of bread, a hundred bunches of raisins, a hundred of summer fruits, and a skin of wine."And the king said to Ziba, "Why have you brought these?" Ziba answered, "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 faint in the wilderness to drink." And the king said, "And where is your master's son?" That's Mephibosheth. "Where is your master's son?" Ziba said to the king, "Behold, he remains in Jerusalem, for he said, Today the house of Israel will give me back the kingdom of my father." Then the king said to Ziba, "Behold, all that belonged to Mephibosheth is now yours."And Ziba said, "I pay homage. Let me ever find favor in your sight, my Lord the king." Okay, so back in 2 Samuel 9, we see the first interaction of David with Ziba. And what's happening there is remember David wanted to honor someone of the lineage of his friend Jonathan. And so he wants to find someone of the lineage of Saul. Jonathan was Saul's son.And he wants to honor him. And Ziba says, "Well, actually, Jonathan's son, Mephibosheth, is here." And David says, "Okay, bring him to me." And he brings him and he honors him. And he says, "You're going to always eat at the king's table." And Ziba then after that is made the servant of Mephibosheth.And now where we are, we've got Ziba coming to tell David, "Hey, just so you know, as you were leaving back in Jerusalem, Mephibosheth went ahead and said, "Awesome. Now I'm going to get the kingdom back because David's gone." Like as if the house of Saul is going to now take back the kingdom. And David kind of takes this just at face value. And I don't know if it's because maybe things have not been working out super well for David. So, you know, when you're not having the greatest of time and you hear a piece of information that's not that great, you're like, "Of course, yeah, that's going wrong, too.The car is broken as well." You know, it's that kind of thing where, yeah, Mephibosheth thinks he's going to be king. I guess that's what he wanted all along. I don't know if that's exactly what David's thinking, but he responds by giving what he had originally given to Mephibosheth over to Ziba. But later on, and we're not going to unpack this as much today, in chapter 19, Mephibosheth is going to dispute this.And we're not actually sure if this is what happened. But from David's perspective, he thinks Mephibosheth has also sort of abandoned him and is looking to gain his own kingdom. And he thinks that's another person who probably is not on his side anymore. Verse 5. When King David came to Bahurim, there came out a man of the family of the house of Saul, whose name was Shimei, the son of Gera. And as he came, he cursed continually. And he threw stones at David and at all the servants of King David.And all the people and all the mighty men were on his right hand and on his left. And Shimei said as he cursed, "Get out. Get out. You man of blood, you worthless man. The Lord has avenged on you all the blood of the house of Saul in whose place you have reigned. And the Lord has given the kingdom into the hand of your son Absalom.See, your evil is on you, for you are a man of blood. So Shimei, who is one of Saul's relatives, sees things aren't going very well for David. And as David and his guard and all his people with him are are passing by, he starts flinging stones at him and saying a curse at him. And the text sort of reads this as one man just out there flinging rocks into a crowd of hundreds, thousands at David and cursing at him. And we're told he does this because he resents David for what happened to Saul. In verse 9, you see, then Abishai, the son of Zeruiah, said to the king, "Why should this dead dog curse my Lord the king?Let me go over and take off his head." But the king said, "What have I to do with you, you sons of Zeruiah? If he is cursing because the Lord has said to him, "Curse David, who then shall say, why have you done so?" And David said to Abishai and to all his servants, "Behold, my own son seeks my life. How much more now may this Benjaminite? Leave him alone and let him curse, for the Lord has told him to. It may be that the Lord will look on the wrong done to me, and that the Lord will repay me with good for his cursing today."So David and his men went on the road while Shimei went along on the hillside opposite him and cursed as he went and threw stones at him and flung dust. And the king and all his people who were with him arrived weary at the Jordan and there he refreshed himself. Okay. So Abishai is Joab, the guy who we talked about from last time whose field was burned. He's his brother. So this is another one of David's nephews, one of the children of David's sister.And Abishai, he is not liking this. He does not like what he sees here. This is like, you know, if you're like in high school and maybe you're like having a feud with another person and so like all your friends, they're like shooting that other person dirty looks. Maybe that person's having a party and they're like, "Well, we're not going to go because, you know, our friends are feuding with each other. we're not going to go support that. And then your friend kind of comes up to you and he says, "Look over there at that dead dog. How about I just go bring his head to you?"And you're like, "Whoa." Love the zeal, but no. And so David here tells Abishai, "No." But this isn't the first time that's had to happen because actually back in 1 Samuel, Abishai is with David when David is in the camp of Saul when Saul wants to kill him and Saul is sleeping and David and Abishai are there and see him and Abishai goes let me pin him to the ground with one thrust of the spear and David tells him no and he tells him here no again. So he's being cursed and mocked by Shimei and Abishai will not stand for that.And in his zeal he wants to go kill him. And you know David could have just been like yeah I am so tired of this. I am so sick of this. Go over there and bring me his head. But he does not.Instead, he says, "Let him curse because if God told him to curse, then who are we to question that? And perhaps one day God will look favorably upon it for me." This is David again accepting God's will humbly. He rejects the opportunity to control the outcome by manipulating the circumstances and instead he resigns himself to the will of God. I think that's really hard. And I know some of you feel like you're in the same boat, right?Maybe your mind is three steps ahead of everyone else and you're always trying to engineer the best outcome for yourself, especially if things haven't been going well lately. And so seeing David do this this act of humility is impressive and it's really challenging. We're going to bring our time together with this story to a close today. I want us to look back through some of those themes that we stopped to talk about. You know, we're not kings and queens. We probably will never flee our own homes on foot because of a coup.But a lot of these are reflections of what goes on in people's hearts. And I think some of these things go on in our hearts. First, I want us to reflect on Israel's desire for the king. Their desire to be just like everyone else around them. You know, this was a rejection of God as their king. And we talked about this in 1 Samuel, but now here they are just like everyone else.Because murder and sexual sin and treachery are all just glimpses of what life choosing your own sin and choosing your own will can lead to. And it doesn't ever seem like that. Nobody ever says we want a king and is thinking about a military coup. But yes, sin can take us to the place that we never think we'll go. So where are you tempted to believe these things?Where are you tempted to say that you know better that you desire a king even though that's not what God wants? I mean, I know I'm not supposed to sleep with my boyfriend or girlfriend before we're married, but what's the big deal? I mean, it's just so impractical in this economy anyway to not live together. I mean, I understand that God says I shouldn't lie, but really, honestly, taxes are crazy high, and I don't really believe in them anyway. So, what's a big deal if I count that as a deduction? Where do you think you know better than God?And where will it take you today? Reflect on that and turn from it. You can do it. You can turn from it. You can reject it and obey God, but not in your own willpower. But Romans tells us that we were once slaves to sin, but from a changed heart, we can now obey.You can obey if you have repented of sin and put faith in the gospel because your heart is changed. And only from a changed heart can we obey God. Second, I want us to see the beauty of friendship and the beauty of loyalty. David in one of his darkest hours is surrounded by men who refuse to leave him. So where do we need to be a friend like Ittai the Gittite?Where do we need to say that wherever you will be, I will be, good or bad? Are you sticking it out with your friends? Are you showing it up? Are you showing up when they need you or are you just busy? What do you need to remove from your life so that you can have the space to be there for other people? Some of you have been in rough situations in your life.Some of you are in rough situations and some of you can think of people who have showed up. Some of those people are sitting nearby you in this room. Rejoice in that because guys, you know that's a reflection of God. You know in the book of Hebrews it says that God will never leave us or forsake us. Why? Because he forsook Jesus.And so we are welcomed in a relationship with God that even death cannot sever. And we should reflect that to the friends around us that God has brought in our path. Thirdly, I want us to see David's humble contentment with God's will. We see it in his posture toward the ark of the covenant and in the cursing from Shimei. David accepts whatever God has ordained. And the temptation in times when you're walking a dark road can be to look up at God and say, "No, I am the master of my fate.I am the captain of my soul." And so I ask you today, where are you discontent with what God has sent? work, family, dating, children, health. Remind yourself of his goodness and entrust yourself to him. David ascends the Mount of Olives, weeping, resolved to God's will. And about a thousand years later, a descendant of David will sit at the base of the Mount of Olives in the Garden of Gethsemane. And in grief, he is going to call out to God and say, "Let this cup pass from me."Yet, not as I will, but as you will. And that's Jesus. And that's David's descendant who humbly accepts the will of God and goes to the cross and is punished for sin and he dies and he's buried and he rises again. And because of that, because Jesus has humbly accepted the will of the Father and was crushed, you can humbly accept the will of the Father and live. And the band is going to come back up and we are going to close this morning reflecting on Jesus, on the freedom he brings from our own sinful will and desire, on the relationships that he makes possible for us to have with God and on the example of humble acceptance of the will of God that he showed us on the cross that allows us to accept whatever comes our way.

By Tim Pebworth - All of life from time to time requires that we deal with uncertainty. It can leave us in a difficult situation and significantly impact our Christian conduct and growth. Our faith may need to be built on uncertainty. One individual in the Old Testament endured a lifetime of uncertainty. What

“So Mephibosheth dwelt in Jerusalem: for he did eat continually at the king's table; and was lame on both his feet.” — 2 Samuel 9:13 Mephibosheth was no great ornament to a royal table, yet he had a continual place at David's board, because the king could see in his face the features of the […]

The death of Ish-bosheth In this study of 2 Samuel 4:1-4, we examine the unraveling of Saul's remaining kingdom after the death of Abner. As Ish-Bosheth hears the news, his courage fails because his position was secured by human strength rather than God's appointment. The sermon explores the contrast between lives anchored in changing circumstances and lives anchored in the unchanging character and presence of God. Through the history of the Beerothites and the introduction of Mephibosheth, the passage reveals how unresolved compromises can produce consequences for generations. Ultimately, this section of Scripture points us toward the security found in God's sovereign purposes and invites believers to build their confidence on Christ rather than on people, positions, or worldly stability.

Pastor Rodney and Pastor Gibson unpack what it truly means to grow in godliness—not through performance or behavior modification, but through a life transformed by Jesus from the inside out. Through Proverbs 11 and the story of Mephibosheth, they challenge us to live with humility, honesty, grace, and generosity as people who have been welcomed to the King's table. Listen and be challenged. Support the show

What if the place you've been hiding is the very place grace wants to find you? In this powerful message, we explore the story of Mephibosheth in 2 Samuel 9 — a man wounded by life, hidden in Lo-debar, and convinced he was forgotten. Yet while he was hiding, the king was searching for him. This message speaks to anyone carrying pain, shame, rejection, fear, or emotional wounds that shaped how they see themselves. Through the Gospel, we discover that Jesus still invites broken people to the table — not because they earned it, but because covenant made a way. In this teaching, we talk about: • How wounds shape identity • Why the enemy attacks identity first • The healing power of grace • What “Lo-debar” looks like today • Jesus healing the brokenhearted • The invitation to leave isolation and come to the King's table No matter how far you feel from purpose, hope, or belonging — God has not forgotten your name. Key Scriptures: 2 Samuel 9:1–13 Psalm 34:18 Isaiah 61:1 Romans 8:15 2 Corinthians 12:9 Matthew 11:28 John 10:10 If this message encouraged you, be sure to like, subscribe, and share it with someone who needs hope today. #Faith #Jesus #Grace #Healing #ChristianMessage #BibleTeaching #Gospel #Brokenhearted

At the King's Table In this moving and deeply personal message, Pastor Rhonda explores the "portrayal of grace" through the biblical story of Mephibosheth. She delivers a powerful reminder that no matter how many times we have been "dropped" by life, there is a seat reserved for us at the King's table—a place where sinners become saints and the broken find healing. Key Highlights The Tragedy of being "Dropped": Mephibosheth was born to royalty but became disabled at age five when his nurse dropped him while fleeing a takeover. Pastor Rhonda notes that many of us feel "dropped" by circumstances, failures, or the decisions of others. The Reality of Lo Debar: Mephibosheth ended up in Lo Debar, which means "no pasture" or "place of nothing." This represents a mental state where hope dries up and we believe our best days are behind us. Grace Seeks You First: David didn't wait for Mephibosheth to find him; he went looking for someone to show "Hesed" (loyal, unfailing love) to. Similarly, God doesn't wait for us to get it together; He comes looking for us in our broken places. Hidden Limitations: When Mephibosheth sat at the King's table, the tablecloth covered his crippled feet. Pastor Rhonda explains that at God's table, His grace covers our past, our limitations, and our shame. Treated Like Family: Mephibosheth didn't eat like a servant or a charity case; he ate "like one of the king's sons." Grace provides full dignity, honor, and rights to the household of God. The Journey from Lo Debar to the Palace Stage The Lo Debar Experience The King's Table Experience Identity "A dead dog" (Shame-based) A Son/Daughter (Dignity-based) Location Barrenness, no pasture Restoration, abundance Support Lame in both feet (Stuck) Carried by the King's chariot Future Hope has dried up Continual access to the King Living Testimonies of Grace Pastor Rhonda shared four powerful stories of modern-day "Mephibosheths" who found their seat at the table: Jenny Cross: Survived a childhood of abandonment, homelessness, and witnessing the drug trade to become a miracle of love for her own children. Zachary Wages: Spent years in foster care due to abuse but was adopted by a teacher who saw a son where others saw a case file. Priscilla Phillips: Overcame childhood trauma and a hard battle with addiction to celebrate three years of sobriety and a new life in Christ. Jay Dennison: Facing total organ failure and the "devils" of despair, he received a miraculous physical healing and a divine reminder that God wasn't done with his journey. Core Message: A Table for the "Whosoever" The message concludes with a challenge to the church to have a "Yes face"—to be a place that welcomes the outcast, the addict, and the broken without judgment. "When you sit at the king's table, your past is under the table... because grace has the final word." Scriptures Mentioned 2 Samuel 9: The core story of David restoring Mephibosheth. Romans 5:8: "But God put his love on the line for us... while we were of no use whatever to him." Psalm 139: God's ability to find us even if we "make our bed in hell." Proverbs 21:1: "The heart of the king is in the hand of the Lord." 2 Corinthians 12:9: "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Ephesians 2:19: "You are no longer foreigners and strangers, but... members of his household." "Thanks for listening! For more information, visit churchoftheharvest.com. Don't forget to follow us on Facebook and YouTube @cothcleveland.

Fr. Mike draws our attention to David's kindness towards the house of Saul, including Jonathan's lame son Mephibosheth. We learn that even though Saul persecuted David, David continued to honor his descendants. Today's readings are 2 Samuel 9, 1 Chronicles 12, and Psalm 28. For the complete reading plan, visit ascensionpress.com/bibleinayear. Please note: The Bible contains adult themes that may not be suitable for children - parental discretion is advised.

Learn from the life of Mephibosheth how God extends the same kind of convenant love toward us through Jesus.Donate: https://store.intouch.org/donate/generalSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.