Having caught up with last week’s sermons, it’s time to look at this Sunday’s!
The story of Mephibosheth and David told in 2 Samuel 9:1-11 is not only a wonderful demonstration of David’s generosity, grace and mercy in remembrance of his vow to do the right thing by Jonathan and his family, but is also a pointer to who we are in Christ. Mephibosheth, the crippled grandson of King Saul, has been forgotten, living in Lo Debar in Gilead, banished. But he is brought into the new king’s presence and far from being punished or killed, his lands are restored to him and he is welcomed to eat at the king’s table. What a picture of what God has done for us!
The inheritance and the identity we have as children of God are amazing, but so often, we are influenced by other people’s evaluation of who we are. We need to learn, as the song below indicates, to learn to ‘stand in Your love, in Your power,
In all You say we are; (‘We Could Change the World’, Matt Redman, Jonas Myrin & Jason Ingram.)
God says that we were dead in our transgressions and sins, but now we have been made alive with Christ (Eph 2). More than that, “God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.” (Eph 2:6-7) We need to be able to see the invisible, to have the hope of eternity planted in our hearts so that we understand who we really are.
We are children of God (1 John 3:1, John 1:12-13), born again (1 Pet 1:23), brought into God’s family and as a result of this “fellow citizens with God’s people and members of His household” (Eph 2:19). We are God’s workmanship (Eph 2:10), a dwelling in which His Spirit lives (Eph 2:22, 1 Cor 6:19-20). We have been chosen by God before the creation of the world (Eph 1:4). We are “a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” (1 Pet 2: 9-10). Our identity is truly amazing!
More than this, we are the salt of the earth and the light of the world (Matt 5:14). We need, as John reminds us repeatedly in 1 John, to live in the light, therefore, and to understand “the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe.” (Eph 1:17-19)
When we truly understand who God is and who we are, we could, indeed, change the world.
Listen to the song here (click on the video when you get to the link, fourth one down):
http://uk.search.yahoo.com/search?fr=mcafee&p=Could%20we%20change%20the%20world%20Matt%20Redman