I enjoy watching western movies.  The good classic westerns.  I read that the most watched made-for-TV movie ever was the western “Crossfire Trail.”  In the story, the hero travels hundreds of miles to keep his promise to his dying friend.  The main “bad guy” in the film laments that his plans are being destroyed by the hero’s arrival and says, “What kind of dinosaur upends his whole life to keep his promise to a dying man?”  Keeping promises creates heroes.  Do you keep your promises?  Even the tough ones?  Like one David had made?

Everything was finally going great for King David.  He was just crowned.  He’s got a brand new city, a brand new palace, a brand new throne.  The Ark of the Covenant is back in the Tabernacle.  His bank is overflowing with gold and silver.  The Lord gave David victory wherever he went, and Israel’s enemies are keeping their distance now.  The days of running from Saul are long gone.  A distant memory.  A past life.

But then David remembers a promise he made during that past life.  One regarding Saul’s family.  “Is there anyone still left of the house of Saul to whom I can show kindness for Jonathan’s sake?”  David’s advisors must wonder: “Why bother with Saul’s family?  He hounded you!  Forget them!  Who cares about them?  Well, David does.  He does because of a promise he made to Saul’s son Jonathan.  When Saul was threatening to kill David, Jonathan saved his life.  When he did, Jonathan asked David to promise to always show kindness to him, and if he should die, that David would show kindness to his family.  David promises.

Jonathan did die.  But David’s promise did not.  No one would have known if he didn’t keep it.  No one would have faulted David for just forgetting about it.  He and Jonathan were young and idealistic when they made this covenant.  Who keeps the promises of youth?  Saul had been cruel to David?  Why honour his family?  And David’s a bit busy, ruling a new kingdom.  Who has time for little matters like this?  But to David, a promise is no small matter.  When you think of all the giants David faced, you would have to include this as one of them.

The husband of a depressed wife knows the challenge of a promise.  As she daily stumbles through a gloomy fog, he wonders what happened to the girl he married.  Can you keep a promise in a time like this?  The wife of a cheating husband asks the same.  He’s back.  He’s sorry.  She’s hurt.  She wonders: he broke his promise…do I keep mine?  Parents have asked such a question.  Parents of prodigals.  Parents of runaways.  Parents of the handicapped and disabled.  Even parents of healthy toddlers have wondered how to keep a promise.  Honeymoon moments and quiet evenings are forgotten beneath the mountain of dirty diapers and short nights.

When it’s time to make good on a promise, we often find ourselves in very different circumstances than when we made the promise.  David didn’t let that stop him from keeping his promise.  And it took some research to find a descendant of Jonathan.  They brought in Ziba, a former servant of Saul, and asked him if he knew a surviving member of Saul’s household.  Ziba responds: “There is still a son of Jonathan; he is crippled in both feet.”  Ziba doesn’t give his name – just mentions that the boy is crippled.  “Be careful, David.  This boy isn’t…how would you say it…suited for the palace.  You might think twice about keeping your promise.”

The lame boy’s name is Mephibosheth.  When Mephibosheth was 5 years old, his father and grandfather were killed by the Philistines.  Knowing how brutal they could be, the family of Saul headed for the hills.  Mephibosheth’s nurse grabbed him and ran, but then tripped and dropped the boy, breaking both his ankles, leaving him crippled for life.  Escaping servants carried him across the Jordan river to an obscure village named Lo Debar.  A name meaning “without pasture.”  Picture a tumbleweed-tossed, low-rent trailer town in a desert.  Mephibosheth is hiding in a place like that.  First for fear of the Philistines.  Then for fear of David.

Consider Mephibosheth’s life: Born the rightful heir to the throne.  Victimized by a fall.  Left with crippled feet in a foreign land.  Where he lived under the threat of death.  Victimized.  Ostracized.  Disabled.  Uncultured.  David, you sure you want this guy in your palace?  Yes, David is sure.  You can just picture the “stretch limo” showing up at the boy’s shack.  Telling Mephibosheth the king wants to see him.  Loading him into the car and taking him to the palace.  Can you imagine how scared he was to walk in there?  He was dead for sure!

But to Mephibosheth’s amazement, David says something about a promise he made to his dad.  David gives him his grandfather’s land back, and tells him that he will always have a place in the palace and will eat at the table of the king!  Mephibosheth gets promoted from Lo Debar to the king’s table!  Good-bye, obscurity!  Hello, royalty and realty!  Now David could have just sent money to Lo Debar.  That would have generously fulfilled his promise.  But David gave Mephibosheth more than a pension; he gave him a place – a place at the royal table! 

If you looked at the family portrait hanging over David’s fireplace, you would see the grinning face of this crippled boy from Lo Debar!  David in the center.  Just in front of the tanned and handsome Absalom, next to the beautiful Tamar, down the row from nerdy looking Solomon, you would see Mephibosheth, the grandson of Saul, the son of Jonathan, leaning on his crutches and smiling as if he’d just won the Jerusalem lottery!  Which indeed he had!  The kid who had no legs to stand on now has everything to live for!  Why?  Because he impressed David?  Convinced David?  Coerced David?  No!  Mephibosheth did nothing!  It was a promise that prompted David!  The king was kind to him, not because the boy was deserving, but because the promise David made was enduring.

Here’s proof that’s true. Fifteen years later, David’s son Absalom rebels against David, forcing him to flee Jerusalem. David’s few friends go with him.  Ziba is among them, but Mephibosheth isn’t.  Ziba tells David Mephibosheth sided with the enemy.  After Absalom is dead and David returns to Jerusalem, Mephibosheth gives David a different version of the story.  He said he wanted to go, but Ziba left him behind! Who was telling the truth?  Ziba or Mephibosheth? We don’t know, because David never asked. Why not?  Because it didn’t matter!  Mephibosheth’s place in the palace depended not on his behavior, but on David’s promise.

Why?  Why is David so loyal?  And how can he be so loyal?  Mephibosheth brings nothing and takes much.  So what in the world would motivate David to keep such a promise?  Well, if we were to ask David how he fulfilled his giant of a promise, he would take us from his story to God’s story.  God sets the standard for promise keeping!  God never breaks his promises.  The Hebrew word for covenant means “a solemn agreement with binding force.”  Remember his promise to Noah?  He put a rainbow in the sky, and so every rainbow reminds us of God’s promise.  Curiously, astronauts who’ve seen rainbows from outer space tell us they form a complete circle. Circles have no end. God’s promises are equally unbroken and unending.

Abraham can tell you about promises.  God promised this patriarch that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars.  To secure the oath, God had Abraham cut several animals in half.  To seal a covenant in the ancient East, the promise-maker passed between a divided animal carcass, volunteering to meet the same fate if he broke his word.  God takes promises seriously!

Consider the prophet Hosea.  God commanded Hosea to marry a prostitute named Gomer.  Hosea obeyed.  Gomer gave birth to three children, none of whom were Hosea’s.  Gomer abandoned Hosea and returned to her life of prostitution.  She hit rock bottom. Was put up for auction.  Men bidding on her as a slave.  But as the faithful husband, Hosea came to the rescue and got into the bidding and bought his own wife and took her home again.  Why?  Because God had told him to buy her back as an example of the way God loves his people!

Friends, do you need a picture of our promise-keeping God?  Look at Hosea buying back his wife.  Look at God, in the form of a smoldering pot, passing through the animals Abraham cut up.  Look at the rainbow.  Look at Mephibosheth.  Look in the mirror!  Mephibosheth’s story is your story! Were you not born as a child of the King?  Have you not been left crippled because of the stumble of Adam & Eve?  Who here hasn’t wandered through the “desert” of Lo Debar?

But then came the palace messenger!  A grade 4 teacher.  A high-school pal.  An aunt.  A pastor.  A neighbour.  A brother or sister.  They came with big news and a waiting limo.  “You aren’t going to believe this,” they said, “but the King of Israel has a place for you at the table!  Your place card is printed!  The chair is empty and waiting!  He wants you in his family!”  WHY?  Because of your IQ?  Your bank account?  Your organizational skills?  Your good works?  Sorry!!  Your invitation has nothing to do with you and everything to do with God!  Your eternal life is promise-caused, promise secured, and promise based.  You can put your past failures and past fears behind you forever for one reason – God keeps his promises!

Shouldn’t God’s promise-keeping inspire yours?  People can exhaust you.  It can be a real challenge to keep the promises you have made.  You’re tired.  You’re angry.  You’re disappointed.  This isn’t the marriage you expected or the life you wanted.  But looming in the past is this promise you made.  Friends, do all you can to keep that promise!  Why?  So you can understand the depth of God’s love.  When you love the unloving, you get a glimpse of what God does for you.  When you keep the porch light on for the prodigal child, when you do what is right even though you have been done wrong, when you love the weak and the sick, you do what God does every single moment!  When you keep promises you are imitating God!  Isn’t this why God has given you this challenge?  When you love liars, cheaters, and heartbreakers, are you not doing what God has done for us?  God wants you to understand the way He loves!

He also wants you to illustrate it.  David did with Mephibosheth.  Hosea did with Gomer.  So did an ex-slave with his master.  A Virginia slave had made a contract with his master, three years before the Emancipation Proclamation freed him.  The contract stated that the slave was permitted to buy himself, by paying so much per year, and while he was paying for himself, he was permitted to work where and for whom he wanted.  He found he could make more money in Ohio, so he went there.  When freedom came three years later, he was still in debt to his master some $300.  Even though the Emancipation Proclamation freed him from any obligation to his master, this black man walked all the way back to his old master in Virginia, and placed the last dollar, with interest, in his hands.  The man knew he didn’t have to pay his debt, but he had given his word to his master, and he had never broken his word.  He felt he could not enjoy his freedom until he had fulfilled his promise!  (B.T. Washington, “Up From Slavery”)

He modeled the power of a promise kept.  God calls on you to do the same.  Illustrate stubborn love.  Practice unyielding fidelity.  Face your giant!  God is giving you a Mephibosheth-sized chance to show your children and your neighbours what real love does.  Who knows?  Someone may tell your story of loyalty to illustrate the loyalty of God.

One final thought:  Remember the family portrait in David’s palace?  We aren’t sure if David actually had one.  But heaven might.  Won’t it be great to see your face in the picture?  Sharing the frame with people like Abraham and Hosea, Peter and Paul…there will be you and Mephibosheth!  He won’t be the only one grinning!   Amen.

 

This sermon adapted from Max Lucado’s book: “Facing Your Giants.”