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The message you're about to hear was preached at Liberty Baptist
Church in Easton, MA. You can find out more about us
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message from God's Word will be a blessing to you.
We'll be looking at David and Mephibosheth this evening.
I couldn't help as I was getting this message ready that this oh,
the opening words of this book kept coming to my mind.
It was the best of times. It was the worst of times, Dave.
All right, listen to Dave. All right, He's going to.
Why don't I sit down and you come up here, Dave?
I was asked. I was hoping you'd just give me
the name. I didn't know you'd keep talking
because honestly, I didn't know. I didn't know the next line
after that. So that's good.
You could have just said something that was total
nonsense. And I always said, Yep, that's
the next line. So, but Dave, that's our well
learned, well read brother. But it was the best of times of
the worst of times, The Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens.
And when I think of the best of times and the worst of times, in
many ways I think of David and Mephibosheth because David was
living in the best of times. David was the king of Israel and
listen, everything was going right.
I mean, haven't we seen David give, or God rather give David a
covenant just a few weeks ago? And then we saw that David has
been winning in battle, that he's gone all the way to the
land of the Philistines and has captured Gath, and then in the
eastern direction has gone all the way to the Euphrates and has
gotten land there that was promised all the way back in the
time of Abraham. But it was a promise that really
hasn't been realized in the Life and Times of the people of
Israel yet. I mean, it was the best of
times. But then there's Mephibosheth, a
man who was lame on his feet. And to live life in disability
at that time was in many ways a death sentence.
Because you think of all the ways that someone who has a
disability is able to live with dignity here and now, with the
different modes of transportation, the different
methods that are available to help people that aren't able to
do some of the things that those of us who are able bodied are
able to do. There's an inherent dignity that
in some ways, in many ways, or is offered to someone with a
handicap or disability here and now where we live.
That was not the case in the time of Miss Fibischath.
It literally was the worst of times I've been to find the
disparity between David and Mephibosheth.
You couldn't get a gulf that was much larger than what we're
going to see here in Second Samuel chapter #9 But in the
midst of the sorrow, in the midst of the grief, in the midst
of the beauty and the turmoil that we'll see here tonight, we
find one of the greatest accounts you will find in the
Word of God of the love of David for the son of an enemy's
family, Saul Mephibosheth, a grandson of Saul, a son of
Jonathan, and the inherent kindness offered to him by the
king. And you can't help think, even
as we've already said here this evening, to see the parallel
between our neediness, our abject poverty spiritually, and
the king of all creation who smiled upon us and didn't just
save us. As if that would have been
enough, but gave us far beyond anything we possibly could
imagine or deserve. It's all here in Second Samuel
chapter #9 This evening. Would you stand, please for the
reading of God's Word? Second Samuel chapter #9 If
you're looking to have a book club this week, see Dave after
church and he'll be glad to recite the remainder of of the
book to you. That was great, Dave.
I, I enjoyed that was that was so much even better than I'd
imagined in my mind before service started.
That was great. Second Samuel chapter #9 Look at
verse one. It says, And David said, Is
there yet any that is left of the House of Saul, that I might
show him kindness for Jonathan's sake?
And there was of the House of Saul a servant, whose name was
Zeba. And when they had called him
unto David, the king said unto him, Art thou Zeba?
And he said, Thy servant is he? And the king said, Is there not
any of the House of Saul, that I may show the kindness of God
unto him? And Zeba said unto the king,
Jonathan hath yet a son, which is lame on his feet.
And the king said unto him, Where is he?
And Zeba said unto the king, Behold, he is in the House of
Maker, the son of Emil in Lodibar.
Then King David sit and fetched him out of the House of Maker,
the son of Emil from Lodibar. Now when Mephibosheth, the son
of Jonathan, the son of Saul, was come unto David, he fell on
his face and did reverence. And David said, Mephibosheth.
And he answered, Behold thy servant.
And David said unto him, Fear not, for I will surely show the
kindness for Jonathan thy father's sake, and will restore
the all the land of Saul thy father, and thou shalt eat bread
at my table continually. And he bowed himself, and said,
What is thy servant? Thou should look upon such a
dead dog as I am. Then the king called Zeba A sole
servant, said unto him, I have given unto thy master son all
that pertain to Saul and to his house.
Now therefore and thy sons and thy servants shall till the land
for him, and thou shalt bring in the fruits, that thy master son
may have food to eat. But mephibosheth thy master son
shall eat bread alway at my table.
Now Zeba had fifteen sons and 20 servants.
And said Zeba unto the king, According to all of my Lord, the
king has commanded his servant, so shall thy servant do.
As for Mephibosheth, said the king, he shall eat at my table
as one of the King's sons. And Mephibosheth had a young
son, whose name was Micah. And all that dwelt in the House
of Zebra were servants unto Mephibosheth.
So Mephibosheth dwelt in Jerusalem, for he did eat
continually at the King's table and was lame on both feet.
The title of my message tonight is The King and the Beggar.
And not realizing that maybe before we started the service
that the king and the beggar we're Speaking of is not so much
Mephibosheth and David, but the Lord and us and our need.
Why don't you be seated? Let's pray together.
Heavenly Father, I pray to you be with us tonight.
And again, thank you for this time and I thank you for what
we've experienced already today. But Lord, we cannot live off the
blessings of the past. Lord, even a message from
earlier today, Lord, we don't, we don't, we don't seek
something new here tonight because there's nothing new in
your word. But we do just seek that you
would speak to us afresh and anew from your word tonight.
And that are hard to be encouraged and helped through
what we see with David and Mephibosheth and our
relationship with you as well mirrored through what we see
here in Second Samuel Chapter 9. And we do ask it in Jesus name,
Amen. What an amazing picture we have
here in Second Samuel Chapter 9 of the love of the King.
But yet we also see not just the love of the King, but the depths
of depravity of this man named Mephibosheth.
And really, the depths, the total depths that he is
suffering aren't probably immediately clear as we go
through our text just by reading it the first time here this
evening, we start verse #1 where David asked a very interesting
question. He says, is there yet any that
is left of the House of Saul that I might show kindness for
Jonathan's sake? You know, it's interesting that
David a few chapters ago had basically said this.
What can I do for God? Remember, can I build the Lord a
house? I dwell in a House of Cedars,
and God dwells in a House of tents.
And what can I do for God? And now just a couple chapters
later, what's David saying? What can I do for others?
And isn't that real really showing why David was a man
after God's own heart? What's the 1st and greatest
commandment? Love the Lord thy God with all
thy heart, and all thy soul with all thy mind.
And the second is like unto it. Love thy neighbor as thyself.
And David is showing that here in the Old Testament.
What can I do for God and what can I do for others?
Now, may I also remind you that here in verse #1 He doesn't know
that Jonathan has a son that's alive.
He doesn't recognize You could maybe if you're a little bit
jaded, say, well, sure, he wants to help Mephibosheth because
Mephibosheth is the son of Jonathan, and Jonathan was his
best friend. He did not know that was the
case. His original question was this,
can I help someone in the House of Saul because of Jonathan?
But basically he was saying this, I will help anyone who is
yet alive, who is in the House of Seoul, in the household of
Seoul. And that's even more remarkable
when you consider the last encounter he had with the
household of Seoul was Ishma Chef.
And that go very well. Remember, Ishbosheth tried to
steal his Kingdom. And in some ways he was able to
for a short period of time. Listen, David dealt with Saul.
David dealt with Ishbosheth. If in the back of his mind he
says, you know what, if I never hear the name of the House of
Saul again, I'll be a happy man. But this was a God.
This was a man who loved God and this is a man who loved others.
And so because that he says, listen, there's got to be
someone in this family that I would be able to be a help to,
that I will be able to be a blessing to.
And the word comes to him that there is such a man and his name
is Mephibosheth. And he's a man who is lame on
his feet. He's a man who is disabled.
He cannot move on his own. He has no physicality like he
would have had others would have had as well.
And so Zeba, this servant comes and explains this to David.
And David reiterates once again, why want to show some kindness
unto him because of the he's of the House of Saul and because of
the of my friendship with Jonathan.
But also, we can go back and we won't do this for the sake of
time, but you can go back to first Samuel chapter #20 verses
14 and 15. And remember there was a
covenant made between David and Jonathan, basically that they
would care for one another and that they would care for one
another's families. And they did so in life.
And after Jonathan passed away, David continues to want to
maintain this covenant that he made with his best friend
Jonathan. He may be gone, but I want to
honor Jonathan's family because of the promise that I made those
many years ago. Well, the question maybe that
you might have in your mind is, well, what happened to
Mephibosheth? How did he get into the
situation that he was in? You might remember we so briefly
read about Mephibosheth's problem several weeks ago.
It probably would have been about a couple months ago.
And I kind of said at the time, mark this in your mind because
we'll be coming back to this eventually.
And guess what? Tonight's the night.
All right, Second Samuel chapter 4.
Leave your spot there, but just go a few pages back to Second
Samuel chapter #4 we'll read the first 4 verses.
It says. And when Saul's son heard that
Abner was dead in Hebrew, his hands were feeble, and all the
Israelites were troubled, And Saul's son had two men that were
captains of bands. The name of the one was Bena,
and the name of the other Rekhab, the sons of Rimmon
Berethite of the children of Benjamin.
For B Roth was reckoned to Benjamin, and the B Ross fled to
get him, and were sojourners there until this day.
Now note this verse 4. And Jonathan, Saul's son, had a
son that was lame on his feet. Well, how did that happen?
He was five years old when the tidings came of Saul and
Jonathan out of Jezreel. And his nurse took him up and
fled. And it came to pass, as she made
haste to flee, that he fell and became lame.
And his name was Mephibosheth. So Mephibosheth was not born
with this disability. Mephibosheth was not born unable
to walk. It just so happened that in the
commotion, you'll remember the the fog of war that took place
at the end of First Samuel when Israel was under siege by the
Philistines, that Saul and his sons all died with the exception
of Ishbosheth. Because we don't know where that
guy was until he showed up sitting on his false thrown with
his false crown here around the same time period.
But on that day, what do we see that Mephibosheth just five
years old, their family is evacuating.
Their family is trying to get away from the danger that is
coming upon him. He has a nurse.
This nurse grabs Mephibosheth somewhere along grabbing him and
trying to get him to safety. There's an accident.
He falls, he hurts himself, he breaks his legs.
Very likely not being able to receive medical attention at the
time because of the the danger that they were in that his legs
grew back in a way that was deformed, that he wasn't able to
walk. This was not something that he
was born with. This was something that came
upon him while he was still a young child.
Now I do want to say this and I want to be careful how I say
that this evening, but but Fibba chef and the trouble that he was
in was not of his own doing. That the difficulty that he
found himself in. Yes, he was under the Providence
and watched care of God. Of course, certainly he was as
we all were. But but I will tell you this.
When I look at the life of Saul and I look at what happened that
day, Saul died, his sons died, his grandson, grandson became
disabled. Listen, our bad choices have
consequences. All bad choices have
consequences far beyond anything we could have imagined.
Could you imagine if someone had told Saul, listen Saul, you're
going on a road that if you don't get off this road, your
sons will be dead and your your grandson will be physically
disabled because of you and because what you have done.
I would imagine that perhaps he would have had the mental
clarity to say, well, I probably shouldn't be going this way.
But listen, none of us are able to see the end from the
beginning. None of us are able to know
where our choices will take us. God has not given us that
luxury. So what do we need to do?
We need to trust the Lord that we live a life that is good and
right and holy. Why not?
Because if we do so, that calamity doesn't befall us.
What? We understand that bad things
can happen even when we are following the Lord.
But listen, there's some things that God wants you to avoid when
he wants you to avoid sin. And listen, there's some things
that when we don't avoid sin, that will befall not just
ourselves, but the people we love.
Now listen, I don't like living with the the consequences of my
own sin, but if you're like me, you understand I did it.
I've got to live with it. You know, what's hard is getting
the place where I understand that there are people that I
love that have to live with consequences because of my sin.
That's a lot tougher, isn't it? There could be people you've
never even met, people that aren't even alive yet that can
suffer the consequences for sin. Now listen, is God a gracious
God? How much time do we got tonight?
Of course, God's a gracious God. God's loving and he's kind.
And listen, even though we have wandered from him, as many of us
have at some point in our life, has God be gracious to restore
us? Oh yes.
But is it a warning to us? Yes, our choices have
consequences. It sure is.
And it's a warning in Mephibosheth's life, a man who
suffered, I would dare say, because of the poor choices of
his grandfather. So what happens?
Well, going back to chapter #9 as you turn back there, we find
that it says that here is Mephibosheth, and he is living
in this home, and he is in a place called Lodibar, and he is
called to meet David. It seems to me that he is afraid
and that he is in a place where he feels like he's going to die.
Now, why would that be? Well, in those days, if you were
found to be a relative of a royal family that has been
fallen from grace, Well, what does that mean?
The new royal family, the new king can do what?
The statue. And again, because the king was
the law, no one would say anything.
And so perhaps maybe in Mephibosheth's mind, he's
thinking, well, all, all David knows about my family, at least
recently, has been Ishbosheth. And, and maybe he believes that
someday I'll have an uprising myself as well as Ishbosheth
did. And certainly he's going to try
to take care of me as well. I do believe he was afraid
because David's first words to him were fear not.
Why would David say fear not if he wasn't exemplifying it,
wasn't showing some level of fear in the way he was
presenting himself to David. He did him reverence and
David's, he said, behold thy servant.
He's trying to show himself as a man of humility.
But David says fear not. Basically saying this, whatever
you think's about to happen, it's quite the opposite.
Whatever you think is about to take place, it's not what you're
thinking. He says, here's my plan.
Mephibosheth. Your father, Jonathan was a
friend of mine. The two of us made a covenant.
He took care of me. I took care of him.
We said we'd take care of each other's families.
He helped make sure that me and my family were hidden from your
grandfather. And now you have a need.
And I am someone that has means. And so you know what I'm going
to do? He says, I want you to come, and
I want you to eat your bread at my table continually.
I mean, Can you imagine what a privilege that would have been
for a man to be invited to the table of the king?
But it wasn't just that he was invited to the table of king.
He said this, I want to invite you, but I want to invite you in
perpetuity. He says.
It's not just that I want to invite you to a banquet tonight
and send you off tomorrow, but I want you to stay here.
And I want you to know that you're always going to be fed
with me. But it wasn't just that He says
you lost some land. Your family lost land.
The land of Saul has been gone. Your ancestral land is gone.
And you've not want to make claim against that land.
And So what I'm telling you is that you are going to make claim
against that land. I'm going to make sure that your
ancestral land belongs to you. But you know, physically you
can't work that land because of your situation.
And so Ziba, the servant here, he's going to take care of your
land. And he's got 15 sons.
And by the way, whoa. All right, fifteen sons.
And did anybody else catch that? All right, fifteen sons and 20
servants. It's like, you know, wow.
I mean, so many things we could say about that here tonight.
But he said, listen, they all are working for you now, but
they're not on your payroll. They're on my payroll.
I'm going to take care of them. And not only that, you're going
to be at my table. It says in verse #10 Alway.
And then in verse #11 it says you're going to eat at my table
as one of the King's sons. Basically, you're going to live
as royalty because you lost your royalty when someone else made a
bad decision. But I'm going to restore you in
essence, to that which you could have had if Saul hadn't made the
choice that he has. You're going to be a son of the
king, and I'm going to take care of everything that you need.
Man, you want to talk about the best of times.
The man who had the worst of times is now living in the best
of times. It's an incredible account, but
I'll tell you what makes the account even more incredible is
I mean, look, look, you feel bad for, for I'm a Fitbit chef here.
He's lame on his feet again. He lived in a time when there
would have been very little that would have been there to help
him with his disability. But I would tell you, as you you
do a little bit more digging, you find there's there's more
hints that his situation was even more dire than maybe we
would have thought at first. Just kind of doing a cursory
reading of the chapter. In fact, go back to verse #2 it
says this. And there was of the House of
Saul a servant whose name was Zeba.
And when they had called him unto David, the king said unto
him, Art thou Zeba? And he said, thy servant is he?
I would suggest to you that David didn't even know that
Mephibosheth existed, because Mephibosheth was living in
hiding. He was living in fear.
It wasn't that he was living out in the open.
He literally as the king who had the knowledge of the Kingdom in
front of him, he had to do some real reconnaissance to even find
this guy in the first place. So he was living in fear.
It wasn't just he was fear full of David in that moment.
It very likely that he had been living in fear for years.
Wondering if David finds out where I am, I'm a dead man.
But it gets worse than that. Go down to verse #4 it says king
said unto David, where is he? And zebra said unto the king,
behold he is in the House of make here the son of a meal.
So is he even living in his own house in hiding?
No, he's bumming out at someone else's house.
He doesn't even have his own place to live.
So he's in hiding. He's hiding in someone else's
house. Even though he owns land, Saul's
ancestral land would have belonged to him.
He doesn't even want to claim the land.
He's living with someone else. He's living in hiding.
He barely has his own place to be able to take for his own.
And it says that he lives in a place called Lodibar.
Now this might be the most descriptive of all.
Now you know in the Bible that often times we find names.
And we find places and these nouns that we find the, the,
these, these names often mean something.
You know, you can go back and do a little bit of research and
find out what it means. Lodibar is a very descriptive
name. Now, Lodibar was a city to the
east of Jordan. You'll remember we just talk
about the east of Jordan last week as David was moving towards
the Euphrates, reclaiming land. But you remember those 2 1/2
tribes that never crossed the Jordan River?
I mean, they did cross to be able to help with the conquest,
but then they decided to live in what is called Gilead.
We'll find Gilead as we go through some of these accounts
later on. This was this land that was kind
of, well, we would call it the Wild West, but really for them
it would have been the wild E because it was the East.
It was a land that really wasn't well settled.
It was a land that seemed disconnected from the rest of
Israel because of the Jordan River and because of the
distance. And so this town of Lodibar was
of some distance from the other 9 1/2 tribes of Israel.
But the word Lodibar is very descriptive because lo, the word
lo in Hebrew means no. And D beer as it's used means
either word or thing. So Lodibar means no word or no
thing. Could we maybe put it this way
in the way we talk in 2025 English?
Lodibar was a nothing town. Lodibar was in the middle of
nowhere. Listen, Lodibar was the Mayberry
of Israel. Listen, we've been to the Rio
Mayberry in Mount Airy, NC It's a pretty neat place to get to go
around and see Floyd's Barbershop and, you know, the
Walker Drug Store and all that stuff.
And for someone that grew up on that kind of television, when
television was television, you know what I'm saying, and watch
that kind of stuff, I enjoyed it very much.
But you know, one of the appeals of watching The Andy Griffith
Show is that Mayberry really had nothing going on.
And what did Barney always want to do?
He always wanted to get to Mount Pilot or always want to get to
Raleigh, where all the action was, you know, he want to get
out of Mayberry because there was nothing going on in
Mayberry. And that was where the humor of
the show was found. Listen, Lodi Bar was the
Mayberry of Israel. There nothing going on.
By the way, there was Number Gomer, there was Number Goober,
there was Number Floyd. There was none of them.
There was no entertainment of any kind of note.
What do we see? That Lodi Bar was a nothing
place. And so here's a man who's lame
on his feet. He's living in hiding.
He has to live in someone else's borrowed home and live with
another family and he's living in a town that has nothing going
for it. Mephibosheth has nothing.
Can I even put it this way in? In essence, Mephibosheth is
nothing. He's a nobody.
He's a non entity. The world was passing him by.
Listen, I'm thankful because we have a son with disabilities.
I'm thankful that there is a movement that shows the inherent
dignity of everyone, including those with disabilities.
I'm thankful that there is that's been seen and that's been
heard and that's talked about in our society today.
Listen, that was not the case back then.
There was no help there. There was no assistance there.
There was no real help in that time the way that we would think
of it today. But what do we see?
Here was a man who had nothing. He had nothing going for him.
He had nothing by way of anything he could provide for
himself. He was completely at the mercy
of everyone until the king came along.
And a man who had nothing all of a sudden had everything.
Does it sound like anybody you know, say, well, pastor, I'm not
disabled. Pastor I, I don't have the
physicality issue. Pastor I, I own my own home.
Pastor I don't, I don't live in Lodibar.
I, you know, I live in Bridgewater and I would say no,
nevermind. I would say listen.
Well, physically, the similarities may not be the same
as Mephibosheth. Spiritually, we were
Mephibosheth before our King came by.
Who was our king? King Jesus?
That we had nothing. We were nothing.
In fact, our prospects were so dim that death and hell were in
our future. But then the king came by and
what did he do? He said eat with me.
But he didn't just say that. He said this.
You could sit at my table forever.
But he didn't just do that. He said this, I'm going to
provide land for you, but he didn't just say that, He said
this. I'm going to make you as one of
my own children and adopt you into my family.
Do you realize what God has done for us?
That you are a Mephibosheth and I'm Mephibosheth.
That you can't read Second Samuel Chapter 9 without seeing
Jesus Christ and yourself in this text.
You know David is real, Bephibosheth is real.
But but why is this in the word of God?
Because God wanted to show you what your life was like apart
from Christ, and God wants to show you how rich you are now
that you're in Jesus Christ. Only God can take a nobody going
nowhere and set him at the table with the King.
Only God can do that. So what does our King do?
He tells us to fear not. He says he'll take the bread of
life and feed us with it, and he says He'll give us a home with
Him forever in heaven. Revelation One verse 6 says He
had made us kings and priests, and to God and his Father, to
him be glory and dominion, forever and ever.
Amen. He has made us kings and
priests. David in essence adopts him.
David brings him into his family.
He's going to eat like one of the King's sons.
But Romans 815 says, For ye have not received the spirit of
bondage again to fear, but you've received the spirit of
adoption whereby we cry, ABBA, Father, and as I mentioned you
before, listen, God never had to save us, but he didn't want to
save us. He desired to save us.
That's why Jesus Christ came. But listen, He could have saved
us without adopting us into his family and giving us the rights
of adoption that we have by being brought into his family.
He could have saved us and kept us at arm's length.
He could have saved us and said, because of my love and my mercy,
I will save you. But in essence, you repulse me.
In essence, I want nothing to do with you.
In essence, I will keep you at arm's length.
He could have done that and he would have been righteous even
in doing that. But yet God in his love and God
in his mercy, in his care, He loved you so much that Jesus
Christ died for you and gave you everything when we I had
nothing. And not just that he says this,
I want you to be part of my family.
You belong to me. One pastor put it this way,
Mephibosheth's life teaches us the true royalty is not in
physical strength or status, but in the grace of a king who seeks
out the forgotten. That's beautiful.
You know, I don't know what anxiety you're dealing with
today, but know this, the King not only wants you to take
courage, he's going to provide for you.
He's not just going to provide for you.
He'll promise you protection. And he won't just promise you
protection. He'll adopt you into his family.
What more could a person ever desire?
What more could a person ever want?
I, I told this story before and so I apologize if you've heard
it before, but just smile and nod like you haven't heard it
before. And it does help me to be able
to have you, my children especially, feel that way.
It was several years ago that we had a veteran's service here,
the very first one that we had, and I was told by someone in the
town of a man who was a veteran who was homeless.
And to be able to visit this man, I literally had to drive in
Brockton to a homeless encampment.
It was basically go to the Dunkin, go down about half a
block, pull over on the side of the road.
There'll be a path. You go down a little bit and
you're going to find this man in such and such a tent.
And literally, that's what I was able to do with brother Dan
Woodward as well. We found this man, his name was
Richie. When I say he had nothing, he
had nothing but what was in that tent.
And listen, often times we think, boy, I don't have a lot.
You know, we have a whole lot more than we think we have.
And I would say even those who are homeless in this country
have much more than many do in other quarters of the world.
That what's provided even through our own government in
this country is far greater than what people have in many third
world countries and even other countries that are not the
United States of America talked to this man, Richie, and
encouraged him to be able to come to our church.
And he did. He came on that veteran Sunday,
Dan Woodward literally came out and drove the van out to that
homeless encampment, went out, picked him up, brought him into
church. I remember Richie coming in.
And I will tell you, one of the real, real treats as a pastor to
me. One of the things that has stood
out to me over the years, and I've said this before and I'll
say it again because I do think it bears repeating, especially
as new people come over the years.
Our church has been blessed to have many dignitaries, if you
will, over the years. We've had those who have been in
politics in our town. We've had a state representative
who in the last administration was actually a ambassador to the
nation of Ireland. She's been to our church before.
Claire Cronin. I think many of you know that
we've had a Major League Baseball players come here
before, but I won't belabor that point.
Did you ever think anyway that you would be in a car with Manny
Ramirez? But and people have treated them
well, and that's really the way it's supposed to be.
But I'll tell you one of the greatest things that's brought
me pride, the good kind of pride, was to see people rally
around a man who hadn't washed, who didn't have his clothes
clean, a man who looked pretty ragged but loved him with the
love of Christ. You know, anyone could be nice
to Manny Ramirez. And let's be honest, people were
coming out of the woodwork when they found out that Manny
Ramirez was here. Nobody comes out of the woodwork
when Richie comes to church. Isn't that what James chapter 2
tells us to do? To not regard the one in the gay
apparel and the great and and grand apparel and then to look
at the one the other that the one that isn't right and say get
beneath my footstool, get away from me.
Don't, don't be around other people.
But people treated him as a soul.
It was not long after that that Richie was coming, that Richie
accepted Jesus Christ as a Savior.
We didn't have a lot of time with Richie, but we did were
able to help and be part of him getting into a program that
found him housing. Before you knew it, he got into
that place and he was in a house with other men about maybe 2
miles or so from here. He was coming to church, shine,
shave for Jesus, and folks loaned him clothes, gave him
clothes to be able to wear to church.
He came. He was a different man. 1
Because of the love of people, but really because of the love
of Christ. And really the only love that
people can give is only a radiation, a reflection of the
love of Christ. I look at Richie and I think,
man, that's what it's about. You find someone that's down and
out, you find somebody that's got nothing, you watch them get
saved, you see them grow, and that is a joy.
And that's a blessing. I'm so thankful we got to
minister them to the short period of time before he moved
to another facility. And I've never had contact with
him again. But I know this, I'll contact
with him someday. I can't wait to hear how the
rest of his life played out and how we had a very small partner.
So it's a great story. But here's what I fear when we
hear stories like that. But most of us, and I would
probably dare say all of us would be at the place where we
could say my story wasn't like that.
I was never homeless. I grew up in a middle class
family. I didn't grow up with trauma.
I grew up with two parents that love me.
I'm not saying my life was perfect.
It certainly wasn't. But I'm saying, you know, I grew
up in a pretty, you know, stable place.
I got married at a young age to a, to a beautiful wife and I
just, I had amazing children. I just, I look at my life and
I'll tell you there gets to a place where you maybe you feel
like you feel pretty respectable and you forget the fact that
spiritually speaking, no matter how my life may have played out,
spiritually speaking, I was just as needy as Richie was.
I was just as down and out as he was.
Oh no, the physical may not have manifested itself the same way,
but I was in just as much of abject spiritual poverty as
Richie was, as much as Mephibosheth was.
Listen, Mephibosheth story is Richie story, but Richie story
is my story. And maybe you got saved a
younger age and maybe you feel like you can't even identify
with this. Listen, friend, understand this.
You are in the same position that Mephibosheth was.
You were in the same position as Richie was.
Listen, you had nothing and God gave you everything.
Well, I got saved when I was five years old, Pastor.
I got saved when I was seven years old.
You think that if you had continued on the trajectory of
being unsaved, that you somehow were going to be able to clean
yourself up yourself. You were in the exact same
position. You were needy, but you just
recognized that need at a young age by the grace of Almighty
God. But there will be many who would
say something like this may be different from me.
Pastor, I'm glad your story was like that, but my story played
out differently. I'm glad you grew up in a place
with comfort and ease and it wasn't that comfortable and that
easy, but maybe perhaps compared to yours, you say.
But Pastor, my story doesn't play out that way, doesn't play
out that way at all. May I remind you that even as
you now know Jesus Christ as your Savior, that God was the
one who did that and God was the one who enriched you, and God is
the one who continue to feed you, and God is the one who will
continue to care for you. Listen, there's not anything you
have that you have on your own apart from God.
You know why? Because He adopted you, He's
given you some land. You say, what kind of land is he
giving you, Pastor? I mean, you, you're a renter.
You said, oh, I'm a renter. But I do know where there's
going to be a mansion. The place has been prepared for
me. I do know that.
I do know he feeds me with his living bread every day.
And he's also promised to be able to meet the needs of my
daily bread as well. And hasn't God been good to you?
You know, I think sometimes we forget.
And the thrust of this message is abundantly simple.
This evening. I mentioned a few moments ago
that only God can take a nobody going nowhere and set him at the
table with the king. Listen, you were the one living
in Lodibar. You were the one that couldn't
help yourself. You were the one that was
disabled from being able to care for yourself.
And the king came along and gave you everything.
And if I was to give you just one thought this evening, it
would be this. Don't forget it.
We get so caught up in what we don't have, what we wished we
had, that things aren't right here or things that aren't right
there. And listen, I know there are
times to identify those things and there are times to take care
of those things depending on what they are in life.
But listen, you have been so well cared for by the king.
The King has cared for you in the way that no one else ever
could and no one else ever would.
Listen, keep your head up high. You're a child of the King.
Be encouraged tonight. He cares for you.
Listen, don't feel like you're alone.
He's adopted you into his family.
And by the way, that's why we call each other brothers and
sisters. Why?
Because we're part of the same family, because God has adopted
us all together and that we find commonality here in His house.
Be encouraged tonight and listen, even if your story
doesn't feel like a Mephibosheth or Richie story.
It was you were lost. You needed Jesus, you couldn't
do it on your own. But the King came along and
said, is there someone that I can show kindness to?
And when Christ died on the cross, he wanted to show
kindness to you. Thank you for listening to the
sermon from the pulpit of Liberty Baptist Church.
If this message was a blessing to you, or if there's any way we
can serve you, please let us know by contacting us at
info@mylibertybaptist.org. Or you can visit us this Sunday
at 800 Washington St. in Easton, MA.
May the Lord bless you as you grow in His Word.