A matter of perception

“People always say, ‘Oh, we want something practical,’ ” Jordan always reports from the pulpit. He then always explains, “Your Bible is the greatest practical thing there is in the world!”

In a recent sermon he further explained, “There are basic things in Scripture so that when you’re reading the doctrine in Romans, for example, you see it LIVING! I train guys to preach and they say, ‘What books of illustration—what sermon books should we buy?’ I say, ‘You’ve got the greatest sermon book illustration you could have! Read Samuel, Kings and Chronicles.’

“You see, they want a book of stories that are indexed so they can just go to the index and find three stories and it didn’t cost them anything. It would cost you some hours of study to find the illustrations in Samuel, Kings and Chronicles, not to mention Numbers and Joshua and Genesis, and all the other stuff back there.

“I got to be honest with you, most preachers are lazy and they don’t study. They study books about sermonizing in order to get up and do it because all they’re really interested in is running the program instead of the godly edification that’s in faith, and that means you have to GET IT before you can give it to others.

“But you see most people in the pews are lazy too because Jeremiah told Israel, ‘The prophets prophesy lies and my people love it so.’ If the church didn’t put up with it, the dudes in the pulpit couldn’t get away with it.

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I Samuel 20:16 says, “So Jonathan made a covenant with the house of David, saying, Let the LORD even require it at the hand of David's enemies.
[17] And Jonathan caused David to swear again, because he loved him: for he loved him as he loved his own soul.”

Jordan explains, “Now, you read that verse and you say, ‘Who loves who?!’ or you read it one way and it’s , 'Jonathan loved David as his own soul. 'By the way, loving someone as your own soul—we use the term ‘soulmate.’ That’s a Bible term that comes out of Deuteronomy 13 when the Bible gives the definition of a friend.

“And then there’s Proverbs when he says, ‘There’s a friend that sticks closer than a brother.’ You know who that friend is? That’s talking about your spouse. Deut. 13:6 talks about a person’s friend who is ‘as his own soul.’ A real friend is someone who loves you because of what’s inside of you; because of who you are, not because of what you do for them. That’s a high standard.

“Jonathan loved David as his own soul. But you know, you can turn that verse around and look at it the other way. David loved Jonathan. See how the little verses can look kind of ambiguous so when you read it you say, ‘Who is loving who? He who?’ Either way it’s right.

“You know who Jonathan was? David said, ‘You be loved.’ Jonathan looked at David and said, ‘You be loved. You’re my beloved. You’re as my own soul. You’re one in whom my soul delights.’ So when David is talking about Jonathan, is there anybody in Saul’s family, this wretched enemy family, that I can go show kindness to?’ ‘Why, David?’ ‘Because of my beloved friend Jonathan.’ He wants to show kindness for the Beloved’s sake. That’s Ephesians 1:6.

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“Mephibosheth has fallen because he believed a false report; a lie. I love it down in verse 8, when he says about himself, he it says, ‘And he bowed himself, and said, What is thy servant, that thou shouldest look upon such a dead dog as I am?’

“He wasn’t just a cripple; he’s a dead dog. Dogs in the Bible are pictures of the Gentiles. He said, ‘I’m dead. I’m cut off and I’m like that prodigal off in a far country, out there among the Gentiles as a fugitive, running.’

“Mephibosheth’s in tough shape so what did David do? I love verse 5: ‘Then king David sent, and fetched him out of the house of Machir, the son of Ammiel, from Lo-debar.’

“One of the great privileges of being raised Down South is you have a lot of Bible in your terminology normally. You know, ‘Go fetch that for me.’

“You know who took the initiative? Mephibosheth didn’t send a message to David saying, ‘Boy, did you remember the covenant you had with Jonathan?’ He didn’t even know about the covenant but the king did. It was made before he was born. Now you’re back in Eph. 1:6

“II Samuel 9:6 says, ‘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!’

“By the way, Mephibosheth was living down in poverty in Lo-debar, sort of like the prodigal eating the husk that the swine didn’t eat. David fetches him and look what he does: he said, ‘Mephibosheth.’

“I don’t know about you, but I wonder what it must have been like for Mephibosheth to be brought in before the king. He’s a cripple and he bows down to him to the earth, prostrating before him, and he hears the king call him by his first name.

“Obviously the king’s not going to be mad at him. I think of that verse in Galatians 4, where Paul says, ‘When you were known of God.’ Does it fascinate you that the Creator of heaven and earth knows you by name; that He’s as personally devoted to you as He is to His own Son? We’ve received the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness that we might reign in life by one, even Jesus Christ (Romans 5).

“Mephibosheth was brought from Lo-debar (meaning ‘no pasture; no provision’) to sit at the king’s table and eat of the wealth of the king. You read that and you say, ‘Wow.’ He said, ‘I’ll give you back all of the estate of your family. I’ll let you sit at my table.’

You go from want and poverty to abundance and exceeding riches. Verse 11 he said, ‘As for Mephibosheth, said the king, he shall eat at my table, as one of the king's sons.’

“David’s saying, ‘I’m going to adopt the boy, put him up here and make him a full-fledged member of the family.’ Once an alien, he’s now been adopted, a child of the king, and he can reign in life. Why’d he do it? For Jonathan’s sake. That means it’s secure, it’s never going to go away. He’s accepted in the beloved. All the provisions.

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“In chapter 16 is a sequel. David, by the way, was one lousy daddy. He was a man after God’s own heart but he was an absolute failure and a flop as a father. One of his boys, Absalom, went out with a kiss and stole the kingdom from him and David had to flee from his own son who’d politically overthrown him.

“As David fled, when he was a little past the top of the hill, a servant of Mephibosheth met him. II Samuel 16:1 says, ‘And when David was a little past the top of the hill, behold, Ziba the servant of Mephibosheth met him, with a couple of asses saddled, and upon them two hundred loaves of bread, and an hundred bunches of raisins, and an hundred of summer fruits, and a bottle of wine.’

“He brought provisions for the fleeing king and the king said, ‘Where is thy master’s son.’ See, David wasn’t so concerned about the stuff. He could get something to eat for his troops. He said, ‘Where’s the boy? You’re his servant; where’s Mephibosheth?’

“II Samuel 16:3 says, ‘And the king said, And where is thy master's son? And Ziba said unto the king, Behold, he abideth at Jerusalem: for he said, To day shall the house of Israel restore me the kingdom of my father.’

“Now that doesn’t sound so good, does it? What an ingrate rube Mephibosheth must have been? As soon as the king got in trouble, he said, ‘I’m gonna get mine now!’

“Well, that’s not exactly the story. Come over to chapter 19. David flees away thinking, ‘Mephibosheth has betrayed him because that’s what his servant told him. But eventually David comes back. Absalom is killed and David’s restored back to his throne.

“He’s on his way back to Jerusalem to where he needed to be. Chapter 19:24 says, ‘And Mephibosheth the son of Saul came down to meet the king, and had neither dressed his feet, nor trimmed his beard, nor washed his clothes, from the day the king departed until the day he came again in peace.’

“From the day David left to the day he came back, Mephibosheth mourned. He didn’t care about his crippled condition and the degradation of his feet, he didn’t trim his beard, he didn’t try to get spruced up, he didn’t wash his clothes. He must have been a stinking mess. He’s mourning.

“Jesus told the disciples of John, ‘When the bridegroom’s here you don’t mourn. It’s when he’s gone that you mourn.’ Mephibosheth’s real heart in the departure of David was with David so, verse 25 says, ‘And it came to pass, when he was come to Jerusalem to meet the king, that the king said unto him, Wherefore wentest not thou with me, Mephibosheth?’

“ David says, ‘What’s this deal about you staying in Jerusalem, thinking that they’re going to restore Saul’s inheritance to you? I already gave you all that, boy! What are you betraying me for?!’

“Now notice what he said: ‘Why didn’t you go with me?’ He doesn’t condemn Mephibosheth. He gives him a chance to answer for himself. You ever had anybody do that for you? People say, ‘Well, why did you do such and such?’, and they don’t know whether you did it or not, they just heard somebody say you did it.

“Paul calls that ‘evil surmisings.’ Think evil of people. He’d gotten a bad report about Mephibosheth and Mephibosheth wasn’t there! And yet David still gave him a chance to answer for himself. That’s sort of the integrity of David’s heart.

“And he said, ‘And he hath slandered thy servant unto my lord the king; but my lord the king is as an angel of God: do therefore what is good in thine eyes.’

“Mephibosheth said, ‘You know what Zeba did? He tricked me and then he came down and lied to you about me! But David I know you, I know your heart, and whatever you think’s right, is what you ought to do. I know your wisdom and I trust your grace. I’ve experienced it. I know about it.’

“David restored him. If you go to chapter 21:7 it says, ‘But the king spared Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan the son of Saul, because of the LORD's oath that was between them, between David and Jonathan the son of Saul.’

“Mephibosheth had people condemn him before David and yet David didn’t condemn him. You go through life and you need to remember that the greatest factor on how you view yourself is your perception of what the most important person in your life thinks about you.

“What you need to do is acknowledge that the most important person in your life is God Himself and what the Father thinks of you is you’re ‘accepted in the beloved.’ And all the rest, the circumstances, enemies, whatever, faulty or accurate opinion . . .

“I think of the thing in John 13 when the Lord is in the Upper Room with His disciples, He starts out in verse 3, ‘Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he was come from God, and went to God.’

“I read that and I say there’s Philippians 2: ‘Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.’ What was it that allowed God the Son to become the servant with the towel, washing the feet of His disciples? It was verse 3. He was secure in the knowledge that He was the beloved Son of the Father, in whom the Father is well-pleased.

“He had a consciousness of His acceptance in His relationship with the Father that allowed Him to humble Himself. You see, true humility, humble yourself to be a servant, obedient even unto death. To say, ‘It’s not I, it’s Christ.’ ”

“That doesn’t come with pride; pride doesn’t do that. That doesn’t come from self-confidence. It comes from confidence in who God has made you in His Son. You learn to, ‘Let this mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus.’

“Then you’ll understand Mephibosheth when he came in before the king and prostrated himself and did reverence. Then you can understand Mephibosheth when the king left and he tried to go, and he couldn’t because he was crippled, and yet his heart went with David and his heart came back with David.

“In II Samuel 8:19 David tested Mephibosheth’s heart. He said, ‘Mephibosheth, let me let you demonstrate to me where your heart is. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll take all of Saul’s inheritance and give it to you and Zeba and let you all divide it equal.’

“But Mephibosheth said, ‘I don’t want that. Let him have it all. I just want you. Because when I’ve got you I’ve got everything that counts.’ ”