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[0:00] 2 Samuel chapter 9, 2 Samuel chapter 9, it's a very short chapter, but we will read it in its entirety, 2 Samuel chapter 9. It says, Then David said, Is there yet anyone left of the house of Saul that I may show him kindness for Jonathan's sake?

[0:22] Now there was a servant of the house of Saul whose name was Ziba, and they called him to David, and the king said to him, Are you Ziba? And he said, I am your servant. The king said, Is there not yet anyone of the house of Saul to whom I may show the kindness of God?

[0:38] And Ziba said to the king, There is still a son of Jonathan who is crippled in both feet. So the king said to him, Where is he? And Ziba said to the king, Behold, he is in the house of Macher, the son of Amil in Lodabar.

[0:53] Then king David sent and brought him from the house of Macher, the son of Amil, from Lodabar. Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, came to David and fell on his face and prostrated himself.

[1:07] And David said, Mephibosheth. And he said, Here is your servant. David said to him, Do not fear, for I will surely show kindness to you for the sake of your father Jonathan and will restore to you all the land of your grandfather Saul, and you shall eat at my table regularly.

[1:25] Again, he prostrated himself and said, What is your servant that you should regard a dead dog like me? Then the king called Saul's servant Ziba and said to him, All that belong to Saul and to all his house I have given to your master's grandson.

[1:42] You and your sons and your servants shall cultivate the land for him, and you shall bring in the produce so that your master's grandson may have food. Nevertheless, Mephibosheth, your master's grandson, shall eat at my table regularly.

[1:57] Now Ziba had 15 sons and 20 servants. Then Ziba said to the king, According to all that my lord the king commands his servant, so your servant will do.

[2:08] So Mephibosheth ate at David's table as one of the king's sons. Mephibosheth had a young son whose name was Micah. And all who lived in the house of Ziba were servants of Mephibosheth.

[2:20] So Mephibosheth lived in Jerusalem, for he ate at the king's table regularly. Now he was lame in both feet. What a wonderful story we have.

[2:33] We are very quickly approaching the part in 2 Samuel where the trajectory of David's life will change. The 10th chapter continues this upward trajectory, and that is to the point where we reach our pinnacle of David's height, not necessarily from the world's standards, but maybe before the Lord.

[2:55] And then the 11th chapter, things start going downward from there. But we're still seeing these wonderful pictures of Christ as David is now ascended to the throne.

[3:06] What had been his calling and his anointing and his appointing well before this had finally come about. By this time, many people believe that David has been reigning for a number of years.

[3:19] This passage can be read in connection with the passage near the end of 2 Samuel where a number of Saul's descendants are slain for one of Saul's sins and David spares Mephibosheth of that slain.

[3:33] Some think that this event took place at that same time. We will get to that as scripture gets to it later on. But we see this just wonderful picture here in this chapter.

[3:43] Right in the height of David's reign where he has defeated the enemies of the people of God. He has brought in the ark of the covenant of God. He has reorganized and reestablished the true worship of God.

[3:59] He has come to this place where God has entered into a covenant with him, the Davidic covenant. So he has heard clearly the word and the promises of God. And right in the midst of that, we see this wonderful picture.

[4:11] I want you to see this evening a display of sovereign loving kindness. A display of sovereign loving kindness. I want you to know, I spend probably about as much time thinking through my title and my points as I do the rest of the message.

[4:28] Because I think words have grand importance. You say, well sure you do, pastor. You have based your livelihood upon words. Well, I have.

[4:38] And I've learned that we need to say the right word at the right time for the right reason. And what we see here is a display. That is a picture. That's why we have it recorded here.

[4:51] That's why it is in this portion of scripture. It is a picture not of David's care and concern. It moves beyond him, but it is being portrayed by David. And we also see a sovereign loving kindness.

[5:04] Because all through the passage we read of King David, King David, the king, the king, the king, the king. The word sovereign means to be one who is in absolute control and rule and authority of that particular land.

[5:18] Now we know that ultimately there is but one sovereign king who is also the Lord God Almighty. Lord Jesus himself is both sovereign and savior.

[5:31] But in the land of Israel at this time, David is sovereign. That is nobody else has more authority. No other man has more authority than David at this time. He is the sole ruler in the land of Israel.

[5:45] As we have read, the divisions have been displaced. The nation has been united. Even the location of the capital in Jerusalem was a neutral ground.

[5:56] It was neither in Hebron nor in the land of Benjamin. It was not in the land of Judah nor in the land of Benjamin. It was right on the border. And he had brought the nation together. He was ruling over all the people.

[6:06] He was the sovereign king in that land. For the first time in Israel's history, since they had come into the promised land, they are no longer fighting defensive battles.

[6:18] Now they're on the offensive. That is, God is using David and his military to expand the kingdom. David is finally claiming what God had promised a long time ago through Abraham. And he is basing his expansion upon the promises of God.

[6:33] And in the midst of that, he gives a grand display of sovereign loving kindness. The word loving kindness, if you look it up, either hesed or chesed, however you want to translate it back to the Hebrew, means a love and goodness that is for our absolute good in light of an enacted covenant.

[7:00] That is, everything that is for our good based on the reality of a covenant. It is not just to be loving. It is not just to be kind. It is to be hesed.

[7:12] All that is for the good of the individual and light of the covenant in which they have entered into. The Bible tells us, and probably one of the most somber books you will ever read, not the book of Job, but the book of Lamentations.

[7:28] Very short book. A book that when you read portions of it, you're like, oh, I wish it wasn't in there. Where parents are eating their young and the city is besieged and the weeping prophet Jeremiah is writing this lament.

[7:43] But in the midst of that, as a matter of fact, I love it because it's the very place that most Bible printers put the tab. That is, these ribbons that are in your Bibles, most of them put them somewhere around Lamentations.

[7:57] I've never taken this one out. I don't use them. And this one rests on Lamentations 3. Most Bible printers do that. Lamentations 3 reminds us that God's loving kindness and mercy are new every morning.

[8:11] In the midst of all the misery, in the midst of all the sorrow, in the midst of all the ugliness, the weeping prophet stops and says, God's mercy and loving kindness is new every morning.

[8:26] You say, well, what does that mean? And what the wonderful thing is, is not only do we have God telling us what it is, he also put it on display. And he put it on display in 2 Samuel chapter 9 through an individual named Mephibosheth and a king named David.

[8:41] And we see a display of sovereign loving kindness because the story is so much more than just about David and a guy with a weird name laying in both feet. It's so much more than that.

[8:54] It is a display for us to understand the gospel in a greater way. The first thing that we notice in this display is the king's pursuit.

[9:06] Because it's not just, I almost titled it, a display of loving kindness. But it's not just loving kindness. It is sovereign loving kindness because it involves a king. And the first thing that we notice in this passage is the king's pursuit.

[9:20] The Bible says, and then David said. I love this. Because everything that transpires in the ninth chapter, everything that takes place follows, then David said.

[9:34] You say, well, sure, pastor, that makes sense. Right. That means if David had never said, none of these things would have ever taken place. Hopefully by the time we get to the end, you'll understand the reality that these things would have never taken place.

[9:48] Had David not said. David asked a question. He didn't just stop, which was some kind of passing question. He said, is there no one left of Saul's house to whom I may show the Lord's loving kindness?

[10:00] This is how we know it's not just the loving kindness of man. But it is the loving kindness of the Lord God that he's hoping to put on display here. And he's hoping to extend that to a particular individual. And David asked a question and someone gives him an answer.

[10:14] And then it says, and then David called Ziba. And then David spoke to him. And then David commanded. And then David did this. And then David brought back every aspect of the account. Starts with, and then David, or then King David.

[10:27] And then the king did this. And the king did that. Everything that takes place in this chapter finds its genesis, that is its beginning, with King David. Don't lose sight of that.

[10:41] Because the reality is, over and over and over again, we are reminded in these short verses, 13 verses, that David is king.

[10:52] He's referred to as the king, the king, the king, the king, King David, King David, the king, king, king. The king has said he is sovereign. No one else in the land is over him. He's at the height of his reign.

[11:05] He is ruling in peace and prosperity. And they're moving forward positionally. No one is claiming his throne. No one is tempting him to take away his throne.

[11:17] We get to that later, right? For those reading the daily reading plan, you know you're in the not-so-good parts of David's life. Near the end of 2 Samuel, and you read of Absalom, and all these revolts that take place. Those things haven't taken place yet.

[11:28] Because David has not sinned and fallen yet. He hasn't went there. Now, sure, he sinned because none are perfect. But he has not entered into those sins that will bring the multitude of hazards that come to his family.

[11:40] But over and over in this passage, what we read at his height, at his rule, and his authority, the king David said, the king David said, the king David did. See, what we notice is that every bit of this, this loving kindness, this display of chesed, chesed, however you want to call it, love to an individual is a result of the king's pursuit.

[12:07] David was looking for an individual. He was asking questions. When he found out there was one he sent for him, he brought him there. These things are important, by the way.

[12:21] You know, I believe that every aspect of Scripture has of the utmost importance, even the historical elements, because in them we are reminded of the character of man and we are reminded of the character of God.

[12:34] We have so many types of Scripture. We have so many pictures and foreshadowings of which Jesus Christ is the ultimate fulfillment of. Now, we don't want to overemphasize passages and we don't want to get down to where we use Scripture as a springboard to make it say whatever we want it to say.

[12:53] We're not trying to paint a picture that isn't there, but we're also always trying to see what is there. And what we see is that David wants to show God's loving kindness to an individual.

[13:08] And everything rests on David finding him. The reality is, just as limitations remind us, his mercies and loving kindnesses are new every morning.

[13:20] The way God operates with his people is in loving kindness. That is, his desire for you is to show a love and a concern for you to give you everything, each and every one of us individually, even though I believe it also takes place corporately.

[13:36] He desires to give us everything that is for our good within the confines of a covenant relationship. That is, if we're not in that covenant relationship, then we do not expect things to be for our good.

[13:50] This is why we have to be careful and name it and claim it passages. Right? But we also understand this reality, just like every covenant we find in Scripture, every divine covenant we find in Scripture.

[14:03] The Adamic covenant, the covenant that God makes with Adam and Eve in the garden, the Noahic covenant, the Abrahamic covenant, the Davidic covenant, every covenant you find in Scripture that has divine blessing attached to it is a direct result of God's sovereignty and God's dealings with man, not man's obedience to that or not man's earning favor of that.

[14:27] So when we come to this matter of salvation, salvation, redemption, restoration, those are the loving kindnesses of God displayed in the New Testament, right? The redemption of all that is for our good.

[14:39] We need to carry Old Testament realities into New Testament interpretations. Stay with me. This is why we have to be careful that we cannot say in the Old Testament, everything was a direct result of the work of God, but when we come to salvation, it's the work of man because we are trying to put man in a greater position because what we find in this passage is the picture we see is that the only reason loving kindness is on display is because the king pursued him.

[15:09] It's a long way of saying salvation is not the work of man, it's the work of God. None come to the Father lest he be drawn.

[15:23] We don't earn it. We don't deserve it. We don't work for it. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. We are drawn to him.

[15:35] Friend, the reality isn't the thing that we must not ever overcome. Is that long before we turned to the Savior, the king was pursuing us. Long before we ever understood what it was like to be in a covenant relationship, and we'll get to the rest of that in just a moment, we were being pursued by a king.

[15:56] We find that rampant throughout all of Scripture. What is about to take place in Mephibosheth's life has really nothing at all to do with Mephibosheth other than the reality that there was a covenant entered into between David and Jonathan.

[16:12] And the covenant was that David would spare and bless the offsprings of Jonathan. And based upon that covenant, he pursues Mephibosheth. The king almighty pursues us based upon a covenant relationship in Jesus Christ.

[16:29] And in case we don't understand any further, not only do we see the king's pursuit, we see an unworthy person. Because now we stop looking at the king and we start looking at the man he's pursuing.

[16:40] Now, historically, normally, it would be very common for a king such as David to pursue a man such as Mephibosheth. And the reason he would pursue him would be not to show him loving kindness, but to remove him as a threat.

[16:55] Look at this most unworthy of individuals. Mephibosheth is a direct descendant of Saul. Up to this time, he is the only remaining descendant of Saul that we are aware of.

[17:08] By the time we get to the end of 2 Samuel, we would know that there are at least seven other men who will die for the sins of Saul. Seven others of that family that are alive. And even then, we are reminded that David spared Mephibosheth.

[17:20] There's another individual, evidently, in the family named Mephibosheth as well. There seem to be two there in that passage. We'll get to it when it's time. But David intentionally spares this one because he knows about this individual.

[17:33] But what we find here is that he would be considered by most sovereign kings a threat to the throne. You say, well, he can't be a threat because he is lame in both feet.

[17:44] Right. But he also, did you notice in the passage, by this time Mephibosheth has a son. By the time David finds him, Mephibosheth has a son who is not lame.

[18:01] We have an unworthy person because everyone else in the world would say that Mephibosheth is an enemy of David. Saul had declared that David was out to get him.

[18:14] In the eyes of the world, David had taken the throne from the lineage of Saul. Now, David literally extends the life and preserves the heritage of Saul's family.

[18:30] He takes what was an enemy and makes him a friend. Oh, your mind ought to all of a sudden be going to the gospel, right?

[18:41] He took what was opposed to him and united him with him. He took what the world counted as an enemy and united him and put him around his table.

[18:55] Mephibosheth walks in and we should never lose sight of this. David finds him. The sovereign king finds him. Oh, we could preach a whole message on this one. I could almost get excited right here.

[19:05] Just get this picture. Just stay with me if you will. The king finds him and they bring Mephibosheth in and the first thing Mephibosheth does is fall on his face, prostrate to the ground, which by the way, when we realize we're unworthy to be in the presence of a sovereign, we fall on our face.

[19:22] You say, well, the Bible tells me to go boldly before the throne, right? But don't stop there. Through the blood of the lamb, right? And if you're not going through the blood of the lamb, you need to find yourself the same way everybody else in scripture found themselves.

[19:37] Isaiah was there. He fell on his face. Ezekiel was there. He fell on his face. John was there on the island of Patmos. He fell on his face. Peter was talking. He showed up and there was glory and started radiating from him and had to be quiet.

[19:51] Peter didn't even know what to say. He fell on his face. Everybody in scripture that walks into the presence of the sovereign falls on their face. And we need to have a little bit more face falling and a little bit less chest pumping when we go into the presence of the sovereign.

[20:04] But this is what's so good because when Mephibosheth fell on his face, the king said his name. He said, Mephibosheth. Isn't that good? I mean, just think about that just for a moment.

[20:17] When he fell on his face, the king said his name. He didn't have to say anything else because he had called him there. He said, but I'm an unworthy dog.

[20:28] He didn't say, you dead dog. He didn't say, you don't deserve to be here. He didn't say, you descendant of Saul. He didn't say, you son of Jonathan. He called him by name. Because no matter how unworthy the person, the king knew him by name and the king called him by name and raised him up by name.

[20:49] Friend, listen to me. When Jesus pursues us and we fall on our face before the king, he calls us by name. And he raises us up and gives us a new name.

[21:01] What a beautiful picture. He walked into the house, fell on his face. He called him by name and raised him up and he pulled up a place.

[21:14] It's so good. The king called him by name. Not only was he a sworn enemy of the king, he also was a man with a problem. He was lame in both feet.

[21:26] Now at this time, David is reigning in what city? It's biblically important. Jerusalem. What was the mockery of the Jebusites living in Jerusalem before David took it?

[21:39] That even the lame and the crippled could keep you out of here. Remember that, right? Even the lame and the crippled could keep you out of here. And you remember when David and his men took Jerusalem, they came up with this saying, therefore let there be no lame and crippled around the table of David.

[21:53] Oh, that seems to be a problem because we just a few chapters removed away from that. All of a sudden we got a man who's crippled in both feet. He's an enemy and he's an enemy with a problem. The problem makes him unclean and unworthy.

[22:04] Oh, the gospel's all over it. The problem makes him an enemy who is unclean and unworthy and the king still wants him. And he got his problem because of who his descendants were.

[22:16] He was a descendant of Saul. He inherited his problem. And his problem was caused, his unworthiness and his uncleanliness was caused because of whose family he was a part of.

[22:27] He was a part of the family of Saul. And when Saul died in battle, the nurse taking him out in a hurry dropped him and caused him to be lame in both feet. If he hadn't have been a part of the family of Saul, he wouldn't have had to leave, right? It's all inherited.

[22:41] We are unworthy people who have a problem. We're the enemy of the king. We're unworthy, we're unclean, and we're unfit. And the problem is, is we've inherited that because of who our parents are. We're not of the lineage of Saul, but we're the lineage of Adam.

[22:57] And since the first Adam fell, so too have we. Some will teach you that you don't inherit a sin nature. And I say, that's a bunch of baloney. Because if we don't inherit it from our forefathers, if we don't inherit it from our original parents, then where does it come from?

[23:14] Because there are none righteous, no, not one. All have fallen short of the glory of God. We have a grand problem where we're sworn enemies of the king of the land, and we have a problem that makes us unfit and unclean, and he calls us into his presence, and we fall on our face, and he calls us by name.

[23:33] You couldn't have found a more unworthy person in all the land of Israel than Mephibosheth. You couldn't have. Now, I love that because when God is putting sovereign, loving kindness on display, he doesn't just say, now, we have to scratch our head just a little bit here because when we get to, as what Paul Harvey would say, the rest of the story at the end of 2 Samuel, there seem to be seven other fit men of the family of Saul, but the one God chose to single out and put on display was a man crippled in both feet named Mephibosheth.

[24:10] He didn't do it from Mephibosheth's son. He did it from Mephibosheth. Why? It says, show us the most unlikely, unworthy of people. Sovereign, loving kindness on display for the one who deserved it least.

[24:26] Oh, what a wonderful picture this is. Ought to cause us all to fall on our face before a sovereign king who's pursuing us. Refer to himself as a dead dog, but we come to the third and final thing.

[24:40] Not only do you see a king's pursuit, an unworthy person, oh, look at this third thing, an exalted position. An exalted position.

[24:52] Mephibosheth was in hiding. Evidently, Ziba was pretty well off. He was the servant of Saul, had 15 sons and 20 servants. Ziba kind of gets himself in trouble later.

[25:06] He helps David when he's fleeing from the presence of Absalom. He lies about Mephibosheth. It kind of causes a rift there in the family as the rest of the story plays out. Mephibosheth is in hiding in Lodabar.

[25:19] David goes and gets him because when man has a problem and man knows he doesn't deserve to be in the presence of the king, the problem is that we always hide. I don't know if you noticed that or not. Ever since the garden, as soon as man realizes the king's looking for him, we hide.

[25:34] You say, why does the king have to pursue us? Because we hide. That's why I know that we don't run to the king on our own accord. I have yet to find one in scripture that ran to the king on his own accord.

[25:46] Man in his natural tendency hides. Adam, who had such sweet fellowship with God and perfection, heard God in the cool of the day, knew what time of day it was, knew what they usually did, and went and hid.

[26:00] And the Bible says that God called out for Adam, which if you remember seven years ago, some of you were here, many of you were not, looking at Genesis, the first response to sin by God ever in scripture.

[26:13] How does God respond to sin? He calls out to man and pursues him. The law of first mention, right? You say, oh, God is a big mean God.

[26:23] He judges sin. Sure he does. But it's righteous judgment but God's response to sin, very first response to sin, is he pursues Adam and Eve. The law of first mention carried that all the way through the scripture.

[26:38] Man has a problem of hiding. Mephibosheth's in hiding. The king finds him, brings him in, calls him by name. He's unworthy. But he doesn't just call him in by name and say, don't worry, Mephibosheth, you don't hide anymore because see, the king has something better than just to bring you out of hiding.

[26:53] The king doesn't just want to bring Mephibosheth out of hiding, the king wants to bring him out of hiding and put him in a better position. The king doesn't just want to bring him out of hiding and say you can live wherever you want to because see, Christ doesn't call you so that he can just remove the guilt of your sin.

[27:10] He calls you so that he can remove the guilt of your sin and put you in a better position. And what he does with Mephibosheth is the same loving kindness on display to us in the covenant relationship of Christ.

[27:23] He could have said, Mephibosheth, I know who you are. I want you to know it's okay, you can live wherever you want to, you don't have to hide anymore. But he doesn't do that. He calls him by name, he calls Ziba and says, Ziba, I'm giving to Mephibosheth everything that belonged to Saul.

[27:40] Now that's ironic because all of Saul's belongings would have immediately become David's when David became king. So everything that belonged to Saul now belongs to David.

[27:52] Stay with me. David is the sovereign king so everything Saul had acquired, his land, his houses, all of his possessions, David now has that plus his, right? David has earned that because he is the anointed and appointed.

[28:05] He is the king. He is there in position. David takes of his own goods and enriches Mephibosheth with them. Now as sovereign king, David could have claimed any other land.

[28:18] Who's going to tell the king? No. King David could have said, I want that over there. You know what, Ziba, that land we just conquered over there where we set up all those fortresses, I want to give some of that to Mephibosheth.

[28:29] But he didn't. He took what was his and gave it to Mephibosheth. He enriched him with his own goods. See, the God who pursues us and enters into a covenant relationship with us gives to us from himself.

[28:51] We are enriched with his possessions. Nothing else. But that's not enough. That's not where it stops. He says, Ziba, you're going to go take care of all this.

[29:04] He's got a big family. He's got a lot of people there. He's got a lot of servants. I mean, 15 sons and 20 servants. That's 35 workers. A man, let me just say, a man can get a lot done with 35 men.

[29:16] Makes me want to say, man, we should have had 15 sons. And my wife's like, we don't need 15 sons. Three's enough. But, you know, he's got a lot of land here. He gives him, that takes, that's a lot of land to keep that amount of people busy.

[29:29] Mephibosheth was hiding in a house. Now he's enriched with kind of a mini kingdom, right? He gives him everything that belongs to Saul. Now, there's risk in that. The risk is to the world, that's just like, Mephibosheth can now claim the right to rule, or his son could claim the right to rule.

[29:46] But the sovereign king, David, is comfortable in his rulership. He knows who he is. And he's showing loving kindness. But then he takes it even further.

[29:58] While he gives him everything that was Saul's, he says, but Mephibosheth, Mephibosheth, you're going to eat at my table. You're going to eat at my table. Now, at the end of the chapter, we're told Mephibosheth lives in Jerusalem.

[30:11] Now, Saul's possessions weren't in Jerusalem. They couldn't have been because Jerusalem belonged to the Jebusites when Saul was reigning. Jerusalem was not yet Israeli territory.

[30:22] Saul's possessions belonged in the land of Benjamin, which was a little north of Jerusalem. But Mephibosheth lived in Jerusalem. He owned some stuff over there, but he lived here.

[30:32] And the reason he lived here is because he had a seat at the table. David said, you're going to eat around my table. And then the scripture tells us, so Mephibosheth ate around the king's table as one of his sons.

[30:49] He's a grown man by this time. But what we have is essentially David adopts Mephibosheth. he's put him around his table with his sons and given him an equal place.

[31:08] He has exalted him from being a disabled, unworthy man in hiding to sitting around the king's table with the king's sons.

[31:21] He's enriched with the world's goods, but the position he has around the table is so much better. This is sovereign, loving kindness because who's going to tell the king no?

[31:34] He had a seat for him at the table. The beauty of the gospel is not only that we have a seat at the table, the beauty of the gospel is in the book of Revelations tells us we have a seat on the throne. We have a king who has a table.

[31:48] Oh, it's going to be a feast, right? We have a king who has a table. I believe table fellowship is so important. I believe table fellowship means so much in scripture. I believe there's so much that needs to take place around the table in the home and in the church.

[32:01] I believe table fellowship is of utmost importance. It's so important. We see it in glory. We see it in heaven. There's the wedding supper of the lamb where the church, the bride of Christ will be gathered together.

[32:16] But we also read in the book of Revelations that those who overcome will sit with him upon his throne. We not only have a seat at the table, we have a seat on his throne.

[32:29] Now David didn't say Mephibosheth sit up here with me on my throne. He didn't say that. Why? Because he's only giving a foreshadow of what's to come. Our king sought us out, called us by name, enriched us with his goods, exalted us, redeemed us, restored us, renewed us, and then told us sit with me on my throne.

[32:53] We'll never usurp him, we'll never take his place, but we will rule and reign with him. Oh, what a beautiful picture. Because I know who I am.

[33:05] I'm the Mephibosheth, the sworn enemy of God, messed up with crippled feet. I don't belong there. I'd be happy to eat from his crumbs, but he's giving me a seat at the table.

[33:19] I'd be happy to look upon his throne, but he's called me to sit up there with him. See, what we see is a display of sovereign, loving kindness directly connected to a covenant relationship.

[33:31] May we never, ever forget the grand benefits of the covenant relationship we have through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Because if a covenant between men, David and Jonathan, could be this strong, how much more the covenant of the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world.

[33:52] Then we go boldly before the throne of glory. Then we are welcomed into his presence. Why? Because we belong there.

[34:04] That's our Father's house. We've been adopted. We cry out, as Scripture says, Abba, Father, through the spirit of adoption. We cry out.

[34:17] One thing I've learned about the spirit of adoption is it takes a lot more work on the act of the parents than it does the act of the children. Some of you know that.

[34:32] And through the spirit of adoption, I cry out, Abba, Father, because I didn't do it. He's done it all. And I belong there because of loving kindness.

[34:45] 2 Samuel chapter 9. What a display of sovereign loving kindness that extends all throughout Scripture. Thank you, my brothers.

[34:56] Amen. Amen.

[35:36] Amen. Thank you.

[36:36] Thank you.

[37:06] Thank you.

[37:36] Thank you.