Keeping Promises
2 Samuel 9:1 – 7
Keeping Promises is the theme of our lesson today as we continue to study David’s story through the books of Samuel. In our study we have been considering his story through the lens of the challenges that he faced over many years while King Saul was still in power.
In our story today, we see that David’s life has changed dramatically. As Max Lucado tells us: He has been anointed king of Israel and the Ark of God has been recovered from the Philistines. The people of Israel are happy about the new king and gold and silver overflow the king’s coffers. The enemies of Israel maintain their distance. The challenges of his past are a faded and distant memory.
But one memory comes back to haunt David as he sits on his throne. Perhaps a comment resurrects the old conversation. Maybe a familiar face brings back memories of a different time and place. In the midst of his new life, David remembers a promise that he made in his distant past. He remembers a promise, a covenant that he made with Jonathan.
In our lesson in 1 Samuel 20 earlier there is a conversation between then loyal subject David and Jonathan, Saul’s son. When Saul threatened to kill David, Jonathan sought to save him. Jonathan succeeded at keeping David alive at his own personal risk. In fact Saul tried to kill Jonathan because of his loyalty to David. But as we saw last week Jonathan dies in battle against the Philistines alongside his father Saul. But David’s commitment to his promise does not die.
We read that there was a promise made but there were only two people that were privy to the conversation and one of them was now dead so no one would have been the wiser. It would be easy to suggest that David made the promise, the covenant, only because he was desperate to have an ally in the court of Saul. That doesn’t count right?
David has many reasons to forget the vow he made with Jonathan. The two were young and idealistic. Saul was cruel and relentless. Now David has a nation to rule and an army to lead. No king has time for trivial matters.
But to David, a covenant, a promise is no small matter. In fact just two chapters before we find God making a covenant with David. God sends the prophet Nathan to tell the servant David this:
I took you from the pasture, from tending the flock, and appointed you ruler over my people Israel. I have been with you wherever you have gone, and I have cut off all your enemies from before you. Now I will make your name great, like the names of the greatest men on earth.
David reflects on the promises made and the Promises Kept by God and he knows that if he is to honor God, he too must keep the promise that he made to Jonathan. And so as we saw in our scripture David asks:
“Is there still anyone left of the house of Saul to whom I may show kindness for Jonathan’s sake?” (2 Sam. 9:1)
Those around him must wonder why bother with the descendants of Saul? This is a new era, a new administration. Who cares about the old guard? Out with the old guard and anyone associated with them. Protect the new king by eliminating the remnants of old regime they are thinking.
But to fulfill his covenant with Jonathan, David needs to know if there is anyone in the lineage of Saul still remaining. Finding a descendant of Saul wasn’t easy because no one in David’s circle knew one, they had been outcasts and on the lam.
They summoned Ziba, a former servant of Saul. Did he know of a surviving member of Saul’s household? “Yes” he says, “one of Jonathan’s sons is still alive, but he is crippled” (2 Sam. 9:3 NLT). Ziba gives no additional details about the boy, but the fourth chapter of 2 Samuel does.
The person in question is the son of Jonathan, Mefeebosheth and he was five years old when his father and grandfather died at the hands of the Philistines. Without protection and afraid for their lives the family of Saul had headed for refuge elsewhere.
To fulfill his promise David must find this last heir, so he sends his palace guard to look for him. They find him and bring him back to David’s palace. The boy assumes the worst and he enters the presence of David unsure of what is to become of him. He fears that since he is the last of Saul’s line that David is only looking to eliminate him.
But with unexpected grace and mercy David tells the young man “Do not be afraid, for I will show you kindness for the sake of your father Jonathan; I will restore to you all the land of your grandfather Saul, and you yourself shall eat at my table always!”
From that day forward he ate at David’s table, like one of the king’s sons. David gave him a place, a seat at the royal table. The king is kind, not because the child was deserving of better but because a promise is enduring.
You see that David learned from God himself that God’s promised grace and mercy is an unbreakable covenant. God sets the standard for covenant keeping. As Moses told the Israelites:
Know this: God, your God, is God indeed, a God you can depend upon. He keeps his covenant of loyal love with those who love him and observe his commandments for a thousand generations. (Deut. 7:9 MSG)
God makes and never breaks his promises. The Hebrew word for covenant means “a solemn agreement with binding force.” His irrevocable covenant runs like a scarlet thread through the tapestry of Scripture. Need some evidence? Remember his promise to Noah:
“I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth. This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth.” (Gen. 9:11–13 NIV)
Dear ones, every rainbow reminds us of God’s covenant. Interesting fact, did you know that astronauts who’ve seen rainbows from outer space, from God’s vantage point, tell us that rainbows form a complete circle not just the arc that we see? From God’s vantage point a rainbow is unbroken and without end. Likewise, from God’s vantage point the rest of His promises to mankind are equally unbroken and unending.
For those of you that are coming to our Bible Study on the Book of Genesis know that Abraham can also teach us about promises. God told this patriarch that because of his obedience to God in which God found favor, counting his descendants would be as challenging as counting the stars in the sky and the grains of sand in the seas.
So the next time you look at a rainbow remember God’s promise between himself and Noah. Next time you are outside at night, look up and try to count the stars remember God’s promise to Abraham. Both are Promises Kept.
Need another promise to remember how faithful God is to his people? Let’s look back at 2 Samuel 7, after the list of promises that the Lord had fulfilled to David, we see one more promise that was yet to come then but it is a Promise Kept that has transformed the life of everyone here today. The Lord promised David:
When your days are over and you rest with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, your own flesh and blood, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his father, and he will be my son.
That my friends, this is the promise by the Father of the coming of Jesus Christ, the descendant of David, the savior that came into the world to establish God’s kingdom on earth and the one that sacrificed himself so that we could, you could have eternal salvation. God is Keeping Promises!
Hear the Good News my friends……..
Max Lucado tells us that: Your eternal life is covenant based, covenant caused, and covenant secured. You can put your wilderness, the caves that you crawl, the Giants and Pain Makers into in the rearview mirror for one reason, God keeps his promises. God’s promise-keeping should inspire your Promise Keeping. Fulfilling your promises to God and to others. Heaven knows we can all use some inspiration Keeping Promises.
Just like David we are all under the promised protection of the Father as we go through our lives. In our Call to Worship we read and responded along with David to his delight in God’s acts of Keeping Promises to us:
Those who love me, I will deliver; Those who know my name, I will protect. When they call to me, I will answer them; When they are in trouble, I will be with them I will rescue them, and I will honor them. I will satisfy them with long life I will show them my salvation.
God made promises to David not only because he was a man of God’s own heart, not because of something more divinely significant than what we possess but rather because of something that each of us can possess, a heart for God!
Through the lineage of David, because of his faithfulness in God, despite all the challenges that he faced, God Keeping Promises strengthened David to offer grace and mercy to the broken and lost son of his friend and protector Jonathan. Like Jonathan’s son as we will see in the communion liturgy, we too have been promised a seat at the King’s table for the eternal feast of Christ, not because we are deserving but because God’s promise of salvation through Jesus Christ is unbroken and unending. Our Father is Keeping Promises to us. Amen