Mephibosheth: Adopted by the King

This year I made a very unusual but amazing phone call. It went like this:

[Ring Ring Ring]

Her: Hello?
Me: Hi, is this Carolyn?
Her: Yes, who is this?
Me: It's Brian.

[Long, long pause...]

Her: Brian? Really???
Me: Yes.

[Lots of crying....]

You see, I was adopted and this was a phone call to my birth mom, the first time I ever talked to her in 41 years. Since it was a closed adoption, she didn't even know if I was alive, I didn't know about her either. But through some digging we connected with each other.

I have been doubly blessed by God. First, my birth mom was courageous and loving enough to make a huge sacrifice on my behalf, she didn't take the easy option, but instead chose a difficult road to give me life and put me up for adoption. Second, my adoptive parents, my mom and dad, are amazing. They took me into their family, loved me as their own son and have been a huge blessing in my life.

Are any of you adopted? If so, you've might have had this dream that you find out your birth parents were crazy rich, maybe the King and Queen of some realm, and they would take you on great trips on their yacht or limo or spaceship. And you'd visit them in their palace, and they'd spoil you, and have a huge plate of Rocket Donut bacon maple bars, and you'd eat so many bacon maple bars, and you'd be so happy and a little sick but so happy!

There is a truth in the Bible that each of us can be adopted by the King. God wants to bring us into his family. He wants to be our father. This is really life changing and more incredible than any earthly dream. This is way more awesome than a plate of bacon maple bars!

For some people, when we talk about family and fathers it is a good thing. Your family is together, your dad is a good guy basically (even if you think he's a dork because he doesn't exactly fist bump right, and you don't like it when he makes you clean your room). If that is you and you basically have a good family and a good dad, the good news is that God wants you to know him as a great Father.

But for other people as you read this, right now there is a pit in your stomach because home is not a safe place for you, it's a place of suffering, or abuse because your dad has done great harm, or abandoned the family, or is in jail, or has made work more important. Some people cringe even if they just think about their father. But God wants to be the perfect, loving Father they've never had. He wants to bring all of us into his family, give us blessing we can't imagine, be a source of peace not pain. God wants to be present in our life, not absent. He wants to be our rock, not our trap.

Ephesians 1:4-8 talks about our adoption:

For [God] chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will– to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace that he lavished on us.

Doesn't this sound like a miracle, Hollywood adoption story? Like the best dream you've ever had? It is. Look at the language again: in love, by his pleasure, glorious grace, freely given, redemption, forgiveness, riches lavished on us!

The truth is God wants to bring you into his family. To really bring this alive we will look at possibly my favorite story in the Old Testament about three people:

1) The most famous King of the Bible: David
2) David's servant Ziba who he sends to adopt another person. The one Ziba seeks out is:
3) Mephibosheth: a wretched, crippled guy living in the desert and a natural enemy of the King who was adopted by King David.

This is my story. It is the story of a wretched guy who was made part of the family of the King. And it can be your story.

Quick summary of 2 Samuel 9

Background:
In the olden days, they didn't have peaceful elections to bring new leaders to power. They didn't vote for leaders. Changes in kingdoms were usually bloody, savage. And when a new King came to power by force, he usually wiped out everybody from the old leader's group, including family and friends. 1 Kings 15:29 is an example go the brutality. This would be like Obama rounding up all of Bush's allies, wife, mom, brothers, kids and killing them. It was brutal.

But when new King David took over from the old King Saul he had an amazing display of grace that he wants to show a descendent of Saul. He wanted to make an enemy a part of his family.

So King David sent a servant, Ziba , to search the land. Ziba found Mephibosheth, grandson of David's enemy Saul. A man crippled in both feet, living far away in a town called Lo Debar (in Hebrew "Lo Debar" means "no pasture" a barren place). This is a nasty place. Nobody books a vacation to LoDebar. You don't find LoDebar t-shirts or key chains. In 4,000 years not one person has hit "like" on the LoDebar Facebook page.

Mephibosheth was brought before the King and he must have been terrified. When Mephibosheth met David, it went like this in vs 8: Mephibosheth bowed down and said, "What is your servant, that you should notice a dead dog like me?"

Have you ever felt like not just a dog, but a dead dog? When I was a kid I was walking with my sister. She was throwing a ball in the air and catching it, and I had a hedge trimmer (think BIG scissors). Just then I had the brilliant idea to snip the ball with the trimmers before she could catch it. And I chopped her finger, not off, but it was bloody. And I felt like a dead dog!

Mephibosheth knew that he was lower than dirt before the King. In fact, his name means "From the Mouth of a Shameful Thing". Wow. In today's language that name is like "Trash-Jaw Tim" or "Puke-Lips Paul." This guy does not have anything going for him. Picture this: a guy crippled in both feet, probably dressed in really shabby clothes, stinky, dirty, filthy feet, matted knotted hair. Coming before the king dressed in royal gowns, a jeweled crown, golden throne.

Mephibosheth was not expecting at all to be chosen to be brought into the family by the King. In fact, you could say that he should have been the very last to be picked.

Have you ever been the last to be picked? The very least desired, the least wanted?

I have. Last year I went to Cornwall Park with my son for some boffering (beating the tar out of each other with a variety of mideival foam weapons). Out of about 100 people I was picked almost dead last for the capture the flag game. Kai was picked way ahead of me, 10 year olds were picked ahead of me, if Granny Gertrude was there she'd be picked ahead of me. You might feel like this is your life: passed over, undesired, last in line or maybe not in line at all, left out. That was Mephibosheth. Not expecting to be chosen for anything.

But Mephibosheth was brought to David, and granted to feast at the King's table all the days of his life. He was chosen by the king to be brought into his family. Mephibosheth was given riches, land, servants, food galore, cleaned up, redeemed from a horrible life living in a barren place. And the cloth of the King's table covered the crippled feet of Mephibosheth.

More importantly than all of the stuff Mephibosheth got to enjoy, more than the sweet LED tv screen, the pool, the Beemer, the bling, Mephibosheth got to enjoy the presence of the King. When you sit at the King's table and are made a part of his family you get to know the king, you laugh with him, share life with him, learn from him. The presence of the king is a bigger blessing than the stuff of the king. Sitting at the King's table is a big deal.

Did you ever get frustrated with sitting at the kids' table at thanksgiving or Christmas dinner? Yup, me too. Adult's table has china, Kid's table has plastic plates. Adult's table has goblets and champagne flutes, Kid's table has sippy cups. Adult's table has steak knives, kid's table maybe a Thomas the Tank Engine spork. It's not that the food is better at the adult's table, but you are a part of their world and are close to them. You feel like you are a more important part of the family.

Memphibosheth, the dead dog, was made a part of the Family and got to sit daily at the table of arguably the most famous and important King of the entire Bible.

Put yourself in the position of the principal characters in the story and you'll see why this matters to your life.


Mephibosheth: Dead Dog Adopted by the King
Here is some tough truth: All of us are by nature Mephibosheth, by our sin and rebellion we are born enemies of God. You included. And by birth we're living in a far desolate land, Lo Debar. Crippled, helpless in and of ourselves. There is no way we deserve to be with God. And yet the loving heart of God searches out to the dry places, yearning to show kindness to those utterly unworthy of even a table scrap. And we're adopted, brought into God's family, brought into the Kingdom, shown grace and favor we don't deserve.

The Bible says that Mephibosheth became like a Son to David. We too can be adopted by God, into his family to be sons and daughters of the King.

How is this possible? Just like Mephibosheth we don't deserve to be brought into the family, we don't deserve to sit at the table. It is only by the kindness of the King.

The whole reason Jesus died was to bring enemies into his family. When Jesus died on the cross, he paid the penalty for our sin so we wouldn't have to. When we accept Jesus as our King, we are forgiven, cleansed, made whole and brought into the family.

There is no way that Mephibosheth could have one day decided all by himself, "I'm going to go sit at the King's table today." Then hobbled up and knocked on the castle door and said, "I'm here, what's for dinner?". No matter how much he bathed, or made himself look pretty he was an enemy of the King. Same with us, getting into the kingdom of God has NOTHING to do with what we can do for God. There is no work we can do, no amount of going to church, not "being nice", not doing good deeds, not even helping a thousand old ladies across the street. NOTHING we do will get us into the family of the King. It is ONLY what the King has done for us, ONLY by his kindness, only by his grace, only by the work of Jesus are we brought into the family of the King. We only have to accept the invitation to sit at the table of the king. Like Mephibosheth we have to put our faith in the King, trust in him, kneel before him in humility and receive the blessing.

Ask yourself this: Am I living in Lo Debar? Far from the king? Do I know the King is looking for me? Do I know the King wants to bring me into his family?

There's only one catch, our adoption is not involuntary, God won't force us to eat at his table and enjoy the blessings of His Kingdom. Mephibosheth could have given David the bird and still lived in the wretched barren land of LoDebar. He could have rejected the offer of the King and continued to live in the desert. And there might be people reading this who haven't decided to accept this amazing invitation from the King. Maybe you're not exactly flipping God off, but what does it mean if you're not accepting his invitation and offer of adoption? By not accepting His offer to bring you into his family, you are rejecting it. And if you choose to reject God on earth in your life time, He will honor that choice you made for eternity.

But the good news is this in John 1:12:

Yet to all those who received [Jesus], who believed in his name, he gave the right to become the children of God.

That's how you are brought into God's family, you believe in the name of Jesus.

Ziba: Servant that Helps Save
We can also be Ziba, the servant enlisted by the King to help others, sent to go find one whom the King might show his favor. If you are a Christian, then your Father wants to use you to bring others into his family. You could be like Ziba, sent by God to bless somebody.

But what if Ziba instead decided to take a detour and go live at the beach for a while? Watch a whole lot of football? Hang out with his friends playing Call of Duty Black Ops and too busy to look for Mephibosheth? Mephibosheth could still be living in Lo Debar. The Christian life isn't just feasting, it is also service. And sometimes at the will of King Jesus we must leave our place of comfort to bring good news to people that are lost.

For some people, the King might send you far away, but for most people you're sent to your neighborhood, your school, your own home. Will you respond to Jesus call to help save the lost? Is your Mephibosheth waiting for good news from you about his adoption into the King's family?

Serving the king and doing the work of Ziba can be very hard work. Remember that Mephibosheth was crippled and lived far away from the king. It probably was not easy getting him to David. There were probably times that Ziba had to lift him, carry him, feed him, give him water on the long journey. For some people you know, it might be a long journey to bring them to God. Perhaps years of prayer, years of caring, years of love, years of service, maybe years of being rejected. But won't it be worth it?

There's a clear challenge and application.

Challenge: Serve the King
If you are already in the family, adopted by the King, feasting at his table, don't you want to bring others to the table? Which one of your friends, family, classmates, co-workers is living in the barren land apart from God? If you know Jesus, you know something that can change a person's eternal destiny. I want to challenge you to take a huge risk and talk to one person this week about Jesus. Let them know that Jesus wants to save them, forgive their sins, give them a new life, make them part of his family. One person. If you do that, you're going to be blown away that God could use "dead dogs" like us for an eternal impact for the kingdom and bring somebody else into the family of God.

Application: Accept the Invitation to Sit at the King's Table
God, the King of Kings wants to adopt you, to bring you into his family. God wants to be your father, He wants you to sit at his table. Some of you right now are snacking on this nasty moldy crust of bread in the desert, you are lost in your sin, and you're being invited to feast at the table. When you receive Jesus as your Lord, put your faith and trust in Him, you are made clean, you are brought into a new family, and join an eternal kingdom. At this moment, you can leave the barren land, which is any place apart from God, and can be adopted by the King. I want you to accept that invitation to be brought into God's family.


Here is Ephesians 1:4-8 again. This is the very Word of God. If you've ever wondered if God could speak to you, this is it:

For [God] chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will– to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace that he lavished on us.

Other Notes on Mephibosheth:
1) trinity in the Father (David), Son (Meph), and Holy Spirit (Ziba)
2) Meph had to humble himself before the King and acknowledge his position ("dead dog like me").
3) Christians sometimes push away from the table, leave the feast and return to LoDebar when living in the flesh, the "old man". We need to repent.

The Knife Edge of the Name of the Lord

Near the top of Mt. Everest, 28,000 feet high in the "death zone", there is a narrow ridge only a few feet wide that drops 10,000 feet down to one side and 8,000 feet to the other. This is a place where exhaustion is literally consuming, brain cells are killed at a rapid rate and neurological damage is certain within a very short period. And also in this place, there is little room for errors, and a misstep has huge consequences.














GK Chesterton said that theology is like walking a knife edge ridge with sheer drop offs on either side. The error of legalism falls to the right, and lawlessness to the left. If we neglect the love of God we err, if we neglect His justice we err. Both missteps can have a huge impact in our lives.

Exodus 34:5-7 walks this narrow course and makes clear that the name of the Lord encompasses both justice and love. This passage has been like the John 3:16 to Jewish people through the ages:

Vs 5 Then the Lord came down in the cloud and stood there with [Moses] and proclaimed his name, the Lord.

Vs 6 And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, "The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness,

Vs 7 maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation."

Recently I made a personal discovery about the name of the Lord. The "Name of the Lord" rings throughout scripture like a deep bell, sounding and echoing and resounding throughout the entire book. Yet I didn't notice that until just a few days ago. Some things are too big to see.

In light of this, the passage in Exodus is a real gem for me, where God steps out before Moses and proclaims His own name: Jehovah, Lord. The name that is at the same time love, mercy and forgiveness along with justice, righteousness and judgement.

If we deny an attribute of God, say his mercy and love, then we fall into the abyss of legalism. God becomes a cruel school master to fear lest we have sloppy hand writing and get a rap on the knuckles with the almighty ruler. Or if we deny his righteousness and justice, then sin has no consequence, we tread on his creation and creatures with ever increasing cruelty, without regard to judgement from a righteous judge.

Either error is a form of blasphemy because we are denying the full, complete name of the Lord.

Application
The response of Moses in Exodus 34:8 to God proclaiming His name is awesome and should also be our response when we consider the Name of the Lord:

Moses bowed to the ground at once and worshiped.

What was that like for Moses when the Lord proclaimed His name? Was the voice deafening, the sound of thunder and a rushing wind? Was it a still, small voice? Did Moses feel the voice booming inside him? When he went to bed for the next weeks and months, did the proclamation of the Lord haunt Moses, make him yearn deeply for heaven? Could Moses still hear that voice and freshly recall the Name of the Lord on his death bed as he overlooked the promised land from the east side of the Jordan river? Did Moses grit his teeth or want to haul off and knock somebody's head off when he heard that Name blasphemed?

When Moses himself sinned, was the shame and sorrow in his heart amplified because he knew the Name of the Lord included punishment for the guilty? After Moses was cleansed for his sins in the tabernacle rituals, was the joy and thankfulness in his heart magnified because he knew that mercy and loving forgiveness are part of the name of the Lord?

The details are speculative, but the result and application for our lives are clear: the Lord inspires worship, even by his name alone.

Genesis 5-6: The Image of God

In Genesis 5, the Bible says that God created man in the image of God and then Adam had a son in his own likeness.    The genealogy that follows in this text seems to be like an avalanche, started with one small rock rolling down a scree slope.  God created Adam.  Just one soul created, a single solitary stone, barely a pebble.  Then Adam had a son in his likeness, Seth, and the small rock kicked loose another.  And then another, and another. And then a the trickle became a rockfall and then a landslide.  But as sin took hold, the image of God was covered with the ugliness of rebellion.  The repeated refrain in Genesis 5 "and then he died" is a horrible drum beat, a deep bass pounding that carries the heaviness of God's sorrow for the corruption of man's sin. Adam lived 800 years and then he died.  Seth lived 912 years and then he died.  Enosh lived 905 years and then he died.  Kenan lived 910 years and then he died.  Without sin's corruption, the Bible would have read:  Adam lived.  Seth lived.  Enosh lived. Kenan lived.  Period.

God's image has never been erased from people, but thousands of years of ugliness and tarnish obscured what lay below the surface.  Until Jesus.  From Adam to Jesus, thousands of years passed, and millions of souls perished with the image of God marred. Not destroyed but certainly defaced, sometimes beyond recognition.  Until Jesus.  With the Second Adam, the image of God was restored, and in Jesus we see the fullness of the Godhead, we see the Truth, the Light, the Life.  We see love, mercy, grace undiluted.

And with the redemption by Jesus' blood, our sin and stain is washed away, so that the image of God is restored in us.  First in our justification, the one-time forgiveness and cleansing when the Holy Spirit filled us.  And the image of God is being restored in us through our sanctification, the daily and life-long work of God perfecting us, continuing His work in our lives until our death.  And finally, the image of God is ultimately restored with our glorification when we're given a new body, an incorruptible body free of sin and death.   On that day, we will fully reflect the truth of God, we will shine and live in the light, our life will be eternal, and we'll enter completely into the fellowship of His love.

When we read the genealogies, there's an interesting progression.  The first people lived a really long time, almost 1000 years!  But eventually sin took hold, wormed it's way deep into our souls.   But not only our souls got corrupted, but the depths of our genetic makeup. Into the adenine, guanine, thymine and cytosine of our DNA (the "seed of man").  And so the lives that once 10 centuries long were rapidly shortened from decay to 1 century (Gen 6:3).   I picture a telescoping downward, so that the life God meant to be eternal, shrank to nearly a point, a tiny span cut short by death.

It's interesting that the blood of Jesus is able to cleanse our souls, but not able to cleanse our bodies.  We're forgiven, but sin has penetrated so deeply into the physical stuff of our bodies, that the only fix is for God to destroy our bodies and give us new ones. Genesis 6:5 captures this:

The Lord saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.

Even the very stuff of earth has been utterly defiled by sin (Leviticus 18:25, 28).  So that God must burn the earth up, roll the heavens like a scroll, and make a new heavens and earth.  It illustrates the terrible power of sin:

1. The power of sin to corrupt all flesh for all time.  I wonder if sin seeps into the minuscule regions of microscopic space between the atoms of our bodies.  If we could "see" sin and peer into a cell of our thumb with a very high-powered microscope, would it be there, next to a gluon or muon, sneering back?  (Out of necessity, Jesus escaped the contamination of sin by the virgin birth.)
2. The power to corrupt the rest of creation.  Creation groans to be free from the bonds of sin.  The order of animals have been corrupted and made savage.   Just like man must die in order to be fully redeemed, the natural creation must die, be consumed in order to be rid of sin and corruption.

But the power and horrible magnitude of sin, also magnifies the saving power and redemption of Jesus.  By His blood I am made clean.  But not just me, the mounding heap of sin of all people for all time was atoned for by his blood.  Occasionally we hear in the news of atrocities beyond imagination.  Acts that are entirely repulsive and sickening.  But there are thousands of years where such acts have been committed millions of times.  The mass of sin could not begin to be weighed.  Yet Jesus bore it all on the cross.  I think that we'll spend eternity trying to understand the agony Jesus endured on behalf of a fallen world He so loved. 

By this sacrifice, the image of God is restored in us.  By His love beyond compare we are born again in the likeness and image of God.

Adonijah: My Lord is Jehovah (?)

In 1 Kings 1,  King David is weak, a frail old man and on his death bed. His 4th son, Adonijah, decides he wants to be David's successor to the throne, then rallies some of his associates, priests, royal officials, some brothers, soldiers and throws a big party for himself, slaughters cattle, blows trumpets to proclaim himself king (vs 7-11)

Only problem is that he wasn't anointed by priest or prophet to be king, nor chosen by David. Nor, most importantly, by God. Solomon was to be king (vs 30).

The sad irony is that Adonijah's name means "my Lord is Jehovah" but his life does not reflect that. (Adoni= Lord, Jah= Jehovah). Jehovah did not install him as king, it was also huge insult to his father David. Adonijah was running on good looks (vs 6), greed, and political maneuvering, not the Lord's direction.

It's easy to point and stare at Adonijah, like a car wreck on the side of the road.  But how often do I share the shame of Adonijah? Call myself Christian, and Jesus "Lord" but do not do what he says? We need to trust in the Lord's anointing by the Holy Spirit in our lives for our leading.

Vs 41 is really awkward and also pretty funny. Picture it:  Adonijah is having this huge party outside of town, he's probably up on stage belting out Neil Diamond on the Karaoke machine, when he hears a noise in the distance.  It was the party being thrown for Solomon, with an even bigger celebration and more rockin' Karaoke that maybe even had a smoke machine!!!!

Inside the city walls Solomon has ridden the king's donkey, been anointed with oil and is sitting on the throne with trumpets blaring. All signs of royal succession.  Meanwhile, Adonijah was just sitting on a lawn chair at his picnic, oil from the KFC drumstick dripping from his fingers, looking very much like a jackass.

When Johnathan arrived to announce to Adonijah the coronation of Solomon, all of the people in the party "rose in alarm and dispersed" (vs 49). This is like a kegger at the teenager's house whose parents aren't home, then the cops show up and people start climbing out windows, diving through bushes, hiding under the bed!!

The chapter ends with an amazing act of grace by the newly anointed King Solomon, his first recorded act as king. He showed mercy to his brother Adonijah who by all rights and customs should have been killed. I love that! Often the first thing recorded in the Bible is the most important. And here, the one who is utterly humbled, deeply aware of his failing, is brought from the altar of sacrifice to the throne of the King and finds grace when he bows before Solomon.

Doesn't that capture the many times in our lives we've not followed the leading of the Lord?  And then returned with humility and repentance to find abundant grace and mercy.