The Fruit of the Spirit: Kindness | Landon Schott | Mercy Culture Church

How many of you have enjoyed this series on the fruit of the spirit over the last couple months? Well, today is the last message in that series. If you have your Bibles, turn with me to 2 Samuel chapter 9, 2 Samuel chapter 9. And we'll start in verse 3. And it says this, so the king asked, is there anyone left of the house of Saul and whom I can show the kindness of God? Someone say kindness. Ziba answered, there is still Jonathan's son who is lame in both feet. Where is he? Reply. And Ziba said, indeed, he is in Lodabar, the house of Makar of Amal. And so the king had brought him from the house of Makar in Amal to Lodabar. And when Mephibosheth saw Jonathan, the son of Saul, came to David, he fell face down in reverence. And David said to Mephibosheth, I am your servant. He replied, do not be afraid, said David, for surely I will show you kindness for the sake of your father, Jonathan. I will restore to you the land of your grandfather, Saul, and you will always eat at my table. Verse eight, Mephibosheth bowed down and said, what is your servant that you should show regard for a dead dog like me? The king summoned Saul's servant, Ziba, and said to him, I have given to your master's grandson all that belong to Saul and to his house. You and your sons, our servants, are to work the ground and bring him the harvest. And your master's grandson may have food to eat. But Mephibosheth, your master's grandson, is always welcome to eat at my table. Now Ziba and his 15 sons and 20 servants, and Ziba said to the king, your servant will do all that the Lord my king commanded. So Mephibosheth ate at David's table like one of the king's own sons. I came to tell you today that the Lord is requiring kindness.

The title of this message today is the fruit of the spirit, kindness. Let's pray. So Lord, we declare right now that your word is true. Let every man be a liar. We declare your word as a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. Lord, we hide your word in our hearts so we won't sit against you. I pray right now that you would breathe your word, your spirit upon your word. I pray your logos would become rain, a personal revelation to us today. I pray you would give us ears to hear, hearts to receive, minds to understand what your spirit is saying today. Holy Spirit, we declare we don't make room for you, but we give you the entire room. So we declare no spirit, but the Holy Spirit is welcome in this place today. We say spirit of fear, you must go. We say spirit of offense, you must go. We say, Holy Spirit, come rule and reign. Father, I thank you. Nobody came to hear me. We all came to hear you. So today we pray, speak Lord. Your servants are listening and all God's people said, amen and amen. Well, we are starting a prophetic word of radical love. The Lord said this was a Matthew 22, 37 year. This is a year that we would love the Lord, our God with all of our heart, with all of our mind, with all of our soul and with all of our strength. We are in a season that we're calling the fruit of the spirit. What is the fruit of the spirit? The fruit of the spirit is found in the book of Galatians and the fruit of the spirit is evidence that you have relationship with the Holy Spirit. It is proof that you know the spirit of God and there are no other parts of fruit besides the fruit of the spirit.

We find in Galatians 5, 22, love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. These are the fruit of the spirit and nothing else can replace these fruit. Since we are in the last service or the last sermon of this series, I'll just recap what these are again, give you simplified definitions. What is love? Love is relationship with God. Joy is the result of encountering God's mercy and the evidence of abiding in him. Peace is when you feel the presence of God and he becomes the primary focus of your attention. Patience is confidence or trust in the mercy of God. Kindness is mercy in action. Faithfulness is relationship with the Holy Spirit that produces God's love or nature. Faithfulness is continual faith and trust in God. Gentleness is strength under control that is submitted to God and self-control is when your will is submitted to God's will. If you texted notes or excuse me, if you texted grow, you would get a link to all of the sermons on this. to find them on our YouTube and podcast channels where you can listen to all of the messages on the fruit of the spirit. This morning we're talking about kindness. Someone say kindness. Kindness. Kindness can be defined as loyal love in action. It's a spirit-empowered compassion that keeps covenant, restores the broken, and reflects of the character of God. When we look at the word kindness in its original language or etymology, in the original Hebrew, it's the word hesed. And it means kindness, loyalty, steadfast love,

mercy, or covenantal faithfulness. Now when we study this in the original language, we see a great depth to the different meanings of the word. So when you look at different translations like the ESV to the King James to the NIV, you'll see different verbs or different uses of the word. For example, in the ESV, you'll see the phrase steadfast love used quite a bit. In the King James, you'll see the word loving-kindness. In the NIV, sometimes you'll see kindness or unfailing love. All of those words in English are pointing back to the original language in the Hebrew of the word hesed. In the Greek, we have the word kres-ta-tes. And it means this, a moral goodness, a graciousness, or a divine kindness. What is a divine kindness? Divine kindness is when your kindness goes beyond you because it is not from you. It's extended to those that are in need. And it connects the words gentleness and generosity in that word kindness. I'll give you a simplified definition for kindness today. Kindness is mercy in action. And that action is from God to you, and that action is from you to other people. When you study the word kindness and look at what it is, it also begins to reveal what it is not or the opposite of it. The opposite of kindness in God's word, we get words like cruelty, harshness, unforgivingness,

malice, or an attitude or action that violates the covenant of love or withholds mercy. This week I was with my boys when Heather was in DC and it's summertime, and so I was inviting them to do daily encounters with me. And so there's this place that God specifically has spoken to me before, and one of the things that I do is I'll go back to the places that God spoke to me before, I'll thank him for speaking to me, and then I'll ask him to speak to me again. It's one of the practices that I do. I never wanna be one of the lepers that doesn't come back and thank the Lord after encountering him. And so I'm running on my prayer run, and my six-year-old is on his bike, and we're running together, and we get to this place where God has spoken to me, and so I told him to get off his bike, and I come get down on my knees, and I invite him to come get down on his knees, and I tell him about what God spoke to me, and then I start taking him through the Lord's prayer. And so we get to the point where we're asking the Lord to forgive us, and so I said to him, hey, bud, is there anything that you need to ask the Lord forgiveness of? And he said, yeah. I said, what do you need to ask the Lord to forgive you for? He said, being mean to Preston. And I said, well, why don't you just pray about that?

So he starts praying, Lord, forgive me for being mean to Preston. And he goes like this, he goes, and help me with my rage and anger. I'm like, obviously you got that from your mom. But it was so funny how he was articulating his rage and anger. Listen, rage, anger, and cruelty is not kindness. Someone say kindness. Someone say Lord, help me, my rage and anger. Now, there's not a whole lot of difference between a six-year-old and his brother in a lot of Christians on social media. It's quiet in this church. We teach you about kindness. There's over 250 scriptures that point to kindness. Obviously, the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians. But kindness is the nature of God. We see this in Titus chapter three, where it says this, beginning in verse four, it says, but when the goodness and lovingkindness, there's that lovingkindness again, of our Savior appeared, he saved us not because of our works have been done, but by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing and regeneration of the renewal of the Holy Spirit. Kindness is the nature of God. I'll explain it like this.

It's like in Texas, we have two seasons. We have summer and not summer. And everybody laughs at that, and they know what that means. It means it's gonna be hot, and it's gonna be hot a lot. How many enjoyed those four and a half days of spring? Those were amazing four and a half days of spring. We loved it this year. It was awesome, it was really long. And we joke about it. But the culture or the nature here is hot. And the reason why it's the nature is because that's its pattern or consistency. So God's nature is kindness, that is his pattern, or that is his consistency. Another thing the Bible teaches us in kindness is it reflects covenant or a covenantial love. A covenantial love or a covenant is this, it's a sacred promise or agreement that God makes that he will never break. And it's based, watch this, upon his love, not our performance. This is where you start seeing God's version of kindness is different than your version of kindness. Because when we choose to be kind, it usually has to do with what someone deserves. It's like when you go to a restaurant and you're gonna tip and you're trying to determine what the tip is based on their service. A lot of us do that with our spirituality

and our Christianity. We're gonna determine the amount of kindness that we show based on what we think someone deserves or what they have earned. But the problem is is that's not how God defines kindness. That's not his nature. His nature is it is a covenantial kindness or a simplified way to put it, it's a loyalty of love. And here's what that means. It means that God doesn't determine his kindness towards you based on your actions. He determines his kindness towards you based on his own love for you. This is where it becomes divine. This is where it stops making sense. This is where it goes beyond how we understand our nature compared to God's nature. And this is where you must be transformed and renewed in your mind to start thinking about things the way God thinks about things instead of the way you understand things. Let me give you an example, Exodus 34. This is where the foundation of the mercy culture verses. This is where we get our benediction from Exodus 33, 13. In Exodus 33, 13, Moses prayed the prayer, Lord, teach me your ways that I may know you and find favor. But God answers the prayer in Exodus 34 where God begins to pass by him. And here's what he says. He says, as the Lord proclaimed and passed by,

the Lord proclaimed, the Lord God merciful, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love. Or there's that Hebrew word hesed again. So when Moses prayed, Lord, who are you? God said, I'm gonna respond and I'm gonna tell you I am merciful, I am gracious, and I am kind. That is the nature of God. So steadfast love or loyal love is God's own self-description of himself. I'll simplify it and put it this way. It means this, that God keeps his promises. A loyal love is God keeping his promises. You saw this with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob into Israel. He keeps his promises. God has kept his promise. We're in June where people are calling June Pride Month, not as many anymore, because there's a shift in the atmosphere when our president stood in front of the nation and said there's only two genders and we're not doing this DEI anymore. And just so you know, DEI was never for black people. It was for perversion. And they hijacked the civil rights of the black community and tried to make it their own perverted Trojan horse to get perversion inside schools and government and how many of you know treating people right according to civil rights only goes too far. The next stage is treating people according to civil righteousness.

It means that we're not treating people because we think it's the right thing to do. It's treating people because God says it's the right thing to do. It goes beyond. Watch our kindness and our ability to lead and guide people and it becomes God. So watch this. There was a shift that took place in the nation. When our president did this, there was a spiritual shift that took place in the nation. This is why we have to get beyond political parties and preferences and be able to learn and lead through spirituality. When he did this, anyone notice that the White House was rainbow last year and it wasn't lit up rainbow this year? There's a shift that took place in the nation. That original rainbow was God's promise that he wouldn't judge the earth again. If you're using a rainbow to. Enhanced sexuality you're actually invoking the judgment of God that he promised he wouldn't do People have no idea the things that they do and they mess with watch this but God is so radically loving even when someone tries to pervert and weaponize a sign of God he is still faithful to keep his promises because of his loyal love that is how kind our God is God keeps his promises let me ask you this question do you keep your promises to God? There's a lot of us that pray prayers like Lord if you get me out of this situation Lord if you help me here Lord if you just do this and we start making promises to God and I believe that we intend to keep those promises but it's this amazing thing we forget and all of a sudden we forgot about promises that we have made to God let me pastor you today I would encourage you to search your heart in your history with God if you have ever promised

God you would do something I would challenge you and I would warn you keep your word to God so many of us are asking God to bless us and do things in our life and we have not kept our word to the Lord kindness is also connected to compassion we see this in Matthew chapter 25 verse 5 says this for I was hungry this is Jesus speaking and you gave me food I was thirsty you gave me drink I was a stranger and you welcomed me I was naked and you clothed me I was sick and you visited me I was in prison and you came to me then the righteous will answer him saying Lord when did we see you hungry when did we feed you or thirsty give you drink when did we see you as a stranger when did you we welcome you or naked and clothe you when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you and the king answered them truly I say it to you when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers you did it to me do you know that when you show compassion you are producing the spiritual fruit of kindness when you go through connect with God you can learn the different ways that you connect with God and many people connect with God through compassion they connect with God with serving people in the food bank or visiting people in the prisons or doing these acts of kindness that are the hands and the feet of Jesus kindness also brings correction according to the word of God revelations 3 19 says this those whom I love I reprove or I rebuke and I discipline this is Jesus speaking in the book of revelation he's saying I rebuke or I correct those that I love do you know real kindness corrects people and let me challenge you if you have a friend that you are afraid to correct it may not be that close of a friendship because real friendship allows people to speak into their life I know it's the facebook christians favorite thing to quote don't judge me but actually we're supposed to judge those inside the church scripture says we're not supposed to judge those outside the church and then it warns us in the measure that we judge we will be judged what's the bible teaching us take the stinking plank out of your own eye first before you begin to take things out of other people's eyes and then it's saying this once you're both seeing clearly then you can be an iron that sharpens iron that you can strengthen each other then you can be two that starts putting 10 000 to flight watch but this doesn't happen if you do not bring godly correction so kindness is actually not letting people be led astray or act a fool kindness is actually confronting in love because you care about the individual so let me give you some practical advice when you are correcting people do it in humility ask them hey can I submit something to you hey there's something I've noticed hey I could be wrong this was just on my heart I wanted to bring it to your attention

and see what happens in your friendships and in your lives when you begin to correct or confront someone with humility now how many really want to spiritually grow today now I've noticed something watch this that when god corrects me he does it through questions where god will ask me questions and it's wild because god doesn't ask questions because he doesn't know the answer and he needs us to get the answer he asks us questions because we're the dummies doing the wrong thing and when he asks us questions it causes us to think why am I doing this and then that correction allows you to be realigned with the perfect will of the lord not tell you how many times the Lord has asked me questions that has corrected me and realigned in me about three years ago we're being attacked by all these uh left-wing organizations and non-stop they're taking your tax of 103 you're breaking 5123 you're breaking the law you're doing this you're doing that and there's just this bombardment of attack from the media that was non-stop and i went on a prayer complaint run i call them a prayer run but i was just complaining and i'm running and i'm i i i i i'm just frustrated lord they're doing that they're lying they're saying this and they're activists and they're this and so i'm on the prayer run and i hear the lord speak to me and he asked me a question he said hey i thought you never wanted a pastor i'm like yeah i didn't want a pastor yeah let's not pastor pastoring stinks and he said this to me if you didn't want it what can they take from you and all of a sudden i'm like i swear angel started like humming the rocky song i start running faster i'm like yeah what can they take from me i felt like i can run through a wall watch because the lord watch was correcting me through asking me questions now i ask you again how many want to spiritually grow today so watch if the lord corrects you through him asking you questions then the lord will direct you by you asking him questions i'm this is a cheat code right here that's when your teachers are like hey this is going to be on the test pay attention this watch this if you don't wait for the lord to ask you questions but you ask god questions before you get to a big decision he will give you direction so he doesn't have to give you correction and i don't know about you but i would much rather have the direction of god than the correction of god so simply start asking god questions we actually teach people and connect with god how to do this you know what it's called it's called conversation where you can connect with god through conversation little things i do constantly is i'll write down questions to ask god i'll ask him out loud one time i'm in this prayer house and i asked the lord a question

in my mind i asked the lord a question as i'm asking the question another pastor in the room starts giving the answer from god out loud to the question i didn't ask out loud guys i'm telling you it works this is how you spiritually grow when you learn how to connect with god and spiritually grow according to your spiritual disposition let's learn more about kindness kindness is meant for your enemies true kindness shows up when it's not deserved it reflects the nature of god by doing good to your enemies let's look at the word romans 12 19 beloved never avenge yourself but leave room to the wrath of god for it is written vengeance is mine and i will repay says the lord to the contrary if your enemy is hungry feed him if he is thirsty give him something to drink by doing so you will keep burning coals on his head look at this do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good have you ever noticed it's a lot easier to love strangers than it is people close to you do you know why because strangers haven't burned you yet strangers haven't betrayed you yet strangers haven't offended you yet could you imagine if we treated strangers like we did people that were in relationship with you meet someone you feel like god's calling you to pray from you like hey scale of one to ten how ten being the most amazing person in the world one being you're like hitler where are you right now before i pray for you and god does a miracle in your life and then we become friends i just really want to know what i'm dealing with in advance there hasn't been one person that have come to this altar and and received prayer someone's given prayer or god speaks to you in the parking lot to pray for someone that you have hesitated when it's a stranger because watch you're not emotionally involved so how come sometimes we can show more kindness to strangers than other people that when relationship with and the truth is is because this is where we feel our humanity and kindness where we start determining if they deserve it or not because our enemies surely do not deserve kindness and so we stop or we withhold kindness but according to our bible that that our kindness was or his kindness was designed for our enemies in fact it's not even from us until It becomes an enemy. That's when we know it's for them Let me give you some practical advice Ask the Holy Spirit how to love or show kindness to your enemies You know, we call this at mercy culture radical love Because this has to come be on you showing kindness to your enemies is when things start

Getting radical and guys this is the kindness that Jesus modeled for us He showed kindness to his enemies by washing his disciples feet before they would abandon him deny him or betray him According to John's 13. He showed kindness when he healed the man's ear that came to arrest him according to Luke 22 He forgave the soldiers that were crucifying him in Luke 23 when when Judas betrayed him with the kiss He called him friend and said hey just do what you came to do According to Matthew 26 and when he died for you and me why we were yet his enemies He showed us kindness according to Romans 5 8 through 10 Let me caution you Kindness does not mean we tolerate sin Kindness means we go past sin and engage people Kindness does not mean we tolerate sin. It means we confront sin and establish God's nature Because kindness always leads people to repentance. Look at this Romans 2 verse 3. Do you suppose a man? You who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourselves That you would escape the judgment of God Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience not knowing look at this that God's kindness Is meant to lead people to repentance watch this when you show kindness To your enemies it leads them to your God Kindness leads people to repentance I'm gonna give you three things real quick that will guarantee that you will produce the spiritual fruit of kindness Three practices that you can partner with that you will guarantee to produce the spiritual fruit of kindness. Are you ready? Number one is radical love when you Engage in radical love you will produce the spiritual fruit of kindness Deuteronomy 7 9 Therefore that the Lord your God The Lord your God is God the faithful God who keeps covenant or steadfast love look at this with those who love him and Keeps his commandments to a thousand generations Church when you love God for no reason you can show kindness for no reason But if you do not love God for no reason you will transfer your relationship

With God on other people and you will wait till you have reasons to show them kindness Matthew 23 39 Jesus is talking about the greatest commandment. This is the the key scripture of this year But the next verse over it says this Jesus said and the second is just like it that you should love your neighbor Like yourself your ability to show Radical love to God and to people will produce this fruit of kindness in your life number two forgiveness If you forgive you will produce the spiritual fruit of kindness Ephesians 4 32 be kind to one another tender-hearted Forgive one another as God in Christ forgave you At mercy culture. We have a very Intentional culture set of values that we live by we believe that they reflect heaven because they speak to scripture So we have a value of forgiveness and then we also have a leadership standard of forgiveness and here's what we say I'll just summarize it for you. We say at mercy culture. Forgiveness is not an option and Here's why because the place that you stop forgiving is the place you stop spiritually growing And there's a lot of people that think that they are a Christian But they don't forgive and I would argue Biblically that there is a good chance that you're actually not a Christian If you do not forgive it means you are not a follower of Christ And I cannot tell you how many people I have met over the last 20 years of ministry that have said Statements like this. I cannot forgive them for that and my response would be then you may not be a christian because if you call yourself a christian but do not forgive there's a good chance you're actually not a christian because you're no longer following christ hear this today forgiveness is one of the fastest ways to spiritually grow forgiveness is where your anointing comes from and forgiveness is how you produce the spiritual fruit of kindness because it becomes divine to show someone forgiveness i'll say it like this you are never more like jesus than when you are forgiving can i get an amen number one radical love number two kindness and number three mercy now mercy actually means undeserved kindness when you show kindness to someone that doesn't deserve it hear this today

that's when it becomes mercy the moment you show kindness to someone that doesn't deserve it is the is the moment it becomes mercy it's amazing that we really really love god and yet we forget the teachings of god so quickly it really is like the leper that encounters god he gets healed and then just forgets and just goes on his way and it's so unfortunate in the body of christ that so many people encounter god's mercy or undeserved kindness but then yet doesn't show it to other people and we so quickly forget what god has done i just want to lean into this this moment because a lot of time it's like honor where we're trying to determine what people have value in our life and who we're going to show honor we do the same thing with kindness and so if we don't think someone deserves kindness we don't get it give it and here's the thing is the moment we give kindness that's not deserved that's the moment it became mercy and i want to remind you that not only did that person that you're about to show kindness not deserve it but you didn't deserve it from jesus either watch why you were yet sinners christ died for you it means like this why you were still abandoned addicted when you were broken when you were in perversion when you were a liar when you were a cheater when you were an enemy of god he died for you he showed you undeserved kindness watch it had nothing to do with your works or who you are he just decided to show you mercy and if god showed you mercy then we need to be people watch that show mercy you will produce the fruit of kindness when you show people the mercy of god let's go back to our story in 2nd samuel chapter 9 i'm excited to talk to you about this story because i believe that we are in a divine prophetic moment and we are as a congregation in the perfect will of god now the bible says that god is the alpha and the omega which means he's the beginning and which means he is outside of time he always was and when you realize that god is outside of time but he just uses time for our own benefit sometimes it takes us a a while to figure out when we are in the perfect will of god because we're navigating time but i'm going to show you as a congregation i believe that we're in the perfect will of god through this story in 2nd samuel chapter 9 so those that are unfamiliar it's a story of king david this is the david that killed the giant goliath it's king david and then the the son of his best friend jonathan or the grandson of his arch enemy king saul so it's the story of david mephibosheth and kindness this was written around a thousand bc and 2nd samuel is accredited to his author which is the prophet samuel this is the prophet samuel that his mother

hannah brought him into the house of god this is the one that we pray all the time speak lord your servants listening it's that prophet who wrote this book some theologians believe that other prophets contributed to the works but it's widely accepted that he wrote it and he's writing it to the people of israel chronicling the kings of israel and their journey so 2nd samuel chapter 9 is about 10 to 15 years into david's rule as king so you know the story i referenced some of it last week david kills the giant god prophesied through samuel that he was going to be the anointed king he was out in the field for for decades uh fighting and and and waiting for that moment to happen finally saul dies and david becomes king so 2nd samuel is about 10 to 15 years into this journey. Now, typically, in in these cases, whenever a new king would come in, the reigning king would completely wipe out all of the family members of everyone associated with the past kingdom. This would prevent rebellion or retaliation to ever come. That is typically the case. But it did not happen in this case, because David is a man that's after God's own heart. So because David is a man after God's own heart, he's praying prayers like, Lord, does this please you? So according to Second Samuel, Chapter nine, David wants to please the Lord. And so he says this. Is there anyone left from the household of Saul? Watch this that I can show the kindness of God to. They bring to his attention that there is a grandson of Saul, but more importantly, there is a son of his best friend named Jonathan, a son named Mephibosheth. So David had this relationship with Jonathan, who was the son of Saul. And if you study this out, they were actually best friends. Proverbs 18 says there's a friend that sticks closer than a brother. This would be the type and shadow of the friendship of David and Saul or David and Jonathan. They were they were covenant brothers or they had a loyal love together. They fought with one another. Jonathan actually protected David from his father, Saul. He actually brought them into reconciliation for a short period of time, but they fought together in covenant with one another because they were best friends. And in fact, Jonathan asked David to promise him, hey, because I have fought for you and I have defended you, would you be loyal to my sons? Would you be loyal to my house? And David made a promise to Jonathan that he would do it. So now David is reigning as a king and he wants to fulfill that promise. Now, watch this as well. David and Jonathan are so close. Even the Bible says that they kissed each other. And when the Bible says they kissed each other, this has been taken by gay activists to try to pervert and manipulate and cause people to fall away from the faith.

Where if you study this out, it's not the word Eros where we get our word erotica. There is no word that that brings this to any form of sexuality. This was a beautiful love that they had for one another that was not sexual in nature, but one of the strongest bonds of friendship people can have. I wrote a book called Gay Awareness. It's a great book to read this June where you can learn the heart of the father in the mind of Christ when it comes to sexuality and unpack this delusion and heresy by the gay affirming churches or progressive churches. And I completely unpack it for you. But back to our text. So David is looking for somebody to show kindness to. And the Bible says that he found or heard about a man named Mephibosheth. So when we say this, when I read this scripture when I was young, I would think of Mephibosheth like a kindergartner. But the Bible says that he was five years old when he left the palace. Second Samuel chapter nine is about 10 to 15 years after David is ruling, which would mean that Mephibosheth has to be anywhere between the ages of 20 to 25 years old. So the second thing we learn about Mephibosheth is Mephibosheth was a cripple, but he was not crippled by birth. This is important to the story. Second Samuel chapter four verse four gives us the story. And here's what it says. It says Jonathan had a son named Mephibosheth who was crippled as a child. He was five years old when the report came from Jezreel that Saul and Jonathan had been killed in battle. When the child's nurse heard the news, she picked him up and fled. But as she hurried away, she dropped him and he became crippled. I want you to watch this today. In the hurry to flee the palace, Mephibosheth had an accident that caused lifelong damage. You can imagine that the ancient palaces were not plush carpet that we see today. They're either stone or marble. So Saul dies. Jonathan dies. The brother dies. And the people realize that the kingdom of Saul, the house of Saul is now over. So they are fleeing the palace, getting ready for David and his mighty men and his warriors to come and take over. So there was an individual that picked up Mephibosheth. And as they begin to run away in flight, she dropped him. Now, the Bible doesn't say how they dropped him or what happened, but I could only imagine that as they were running down the stairs or some sort of moment where they begin to fall. And as they begin to fall, this individual, instead of. Taking the blow and falling and protecting the child that this individual fell on the child I believe that this wasn't just a regular problem, but this was a Leadership problem because the individual that was assigned to be the leader of Mephibosheth

Hurt them in the process. I want you to hear this today Leadership that puts themselves first always hurts people And the individual that was assigned to protect Mephibosheth When push came to shove, they end up falling on Mephibosheth, crippling Mephibosheth And now there is damage that is done to Mephibosheth and it all reflects our leadership Watch this today when a pastor puts himself first He hurts the congregation when a business leader puts himself first He hurts the employee or the organization when a father puts himself first. He hurts the family We see this pattern over and over and over and when you put yourself first You are going to hurt your relationship with God Because you will never be able to fulfill the perfect will of the Lord on your life when you are putting what you want Before what God wants and here's what the Bible says The Bible says that he was crippled all the days of his life You need to understand what this means If someone was crippled it means this that they weren't allowed to fight in the army And they weren't allowed to serve in the priesthood So watch this the two things he can never do is fight for his king or serve his God So the value on his life was destroyed and church This is the same thing that happens in the Church of America today when people are hurt by leaders You see this all over the internet about this thing called church hurt and I would propose to you that there is no such thing As church hurt like there's not hospital hurt or lawyer hurt or dentist hurt The only thing there is is leadership hurt when a leader does not protect the people By doing what is best for them instead of what is best for the people and every time that is going to hurt someone somewhere So now Mephibosheth is hurt he's broken And the king says I want you to come to the palace So Mephibosheth comes to the palace watch this and here's what he says to the king He says who am I but a dead dog Want you to hear this today Using the phrase dead dog

Was the most degrading revolting thing you can possibly say We see an example of this in 1st Samuel chapter 24 Where King David is leaving the house in ashes leaving the palace in ashes because Absalom stood by the city gate and got in between the people and their king or the sheep and their shepherd and he used seesaw saying and manipulations to stoke the offenses in people's hearts to get them to turn on their king and turn on their God and when When David is leaving the temple there was a man named Shemmy or Shemmy I and he was curling curses at the king as the king left and Joab said about Shemmy I let me go and cut off this dead dog's head It was a phrase to be used for the absolute lowest disgust in Society I want you to hear this today in Mephibosheth Self-declared to David. I am a dead dog. I am a crippled man I am the lowest in society watch this and I have no value I'll say this Mephibosheth embraced his shame Now I stinking love God's Word Do you know that you can read something over and over and over When the Holy Spirit breathes upon it or kisses it it comes alive Guys, I am telling you the God honest truth Wednesday night. I'm putting my boys to bed I know I'm gonna wake up early and start working on this sermon on Thursday morning And I hear the Holy Spirit whispered to me and he said Mephibosheth And it was one of those quick put them to bed cuz I'm tired. It's too late Is that summer nighttime little I'm a Jesus lives you this I know I'm for the birds. Oh, you know this quick going to bed And I hear the Lord say Mephibosheth I Woke up early

Look at the story of Mephibosheth and kindness and the fruit of the Spirit And I'm getting through it and in in our comms team was demanding my sermon early And so I relented and sent in my sermon early. I was like, but it's not done yet And I hadn't heard God and I woke up on friday morning about 5 a.m to spend time with the lord and i'm with the lord and he says me this he says go look at the name mephibosheth go look what it means do you know that god knows what is said over you do you know god knows what he says over you despite what you say over you or what other people say over you do you know that you can call yourself a dead dog you could dishonor yourself you could degrade yourself you can partner with the enemy you can believe the enemy doesn't want to use you anymore you can say because i'm divorced because i did this sin because i did that because i made this mistake i'm too young i'm too old or whatever you want to do to try to partner with the enemy do you know but despite what the enemy says over you or what you say over yourself do you know that god has his own words over you his own plans over you his own purposes over you do you know that god has the final say jp do you know when you were doing time god was already putting something in your heart for other men in another prison in another day and despite what people fought over you or what you partnered with yourself there was still a prophetic word watch this do you know what the name of phibosheth means this will blow your mind god speaks to mercy culture at the beginning of january a prophetic word that this would be a year that shame would go he spoke to me over a year and a half ago to do a series on the fruit of the spirit i didn't even have this already yet so i'm planning the fruit of the spirit we're stewarding a prophetic word the lord says my phibosheth that he tells me to look up his name this is what the name of phibosheth means this will blow your mind the phibosheth means though it literally means of no shame it literally means to remove the utterance or the breaking of shame watch this the entire his entire life people had been speaking shame over him your grandfather was saul he was the demoniac king who lost the anointing your father was killed in battle it didn't even matter he was a good man he was under bad leadership the bad leadership you were under broke your legs it crippled you you're never going to be used you're never going to be called god's never going to use you he doesn't love you anymore all of these words of shame but watch this he had no idea

that his father had prophetically named him that forever watch he would be a shame breaker and just as watch he breathed he would break shame off it literally translates to mean shame is gone or shame you must go someone say shame go we stood here on easter sunday morning and yelled out over and over shame go we we prophesied it we proclaimed it but that same prophetic word that was over this house is the same prophetic word that was over his life and watch this when a bad leader hurt him watch a king raised him up and here's what david said he said you're going to eat at my table i'm restoring the lands of your father watch in forever you're going to eat with me and my sons he said this i'm restoring your identity i'm restoring your honor and i'm restoring the favor that was on you and the bible says that the king restored what a bad leader damaged do you know what kingship that david was are you aware that he was from the tribe of judah are you aware that he's in the genealogy of jesus christ do you realize that this is a prophetic type and shadow that the same way that david was looking for somebody i got holy ghost goosebumps he was looking for somebody that was broken he was looking for somebody that was hurt he was looking for somebody that was crippled he was looking for somebody that had been hurt by a bad leader he was looking for somebody that he could show kindness to do you realize that the bible says in ephesians chapter 2 that we're seated in heavenly places with christ jesus do you realize that our king of kings and lord of lords is looking down today he's looking at somebody who's been hurt from leadership he's Looking for somebody that's been crippled by the pains of life. He's looking for somebody that has been living in brokenness He's looking for somebody who's partnered with the prophetic lie and wants to reverse the curse and show them his real true Identity in the name that he has for them in the same way that David found Mephibosheth Jesus is here today and he's looking for you He is looking for somebody to show kindness to In the season of the fruit of the spirit, God is requiring the church to bear the fruit of kindness I came with the prophetic word The Lord is requiring spiritual fruit Would you bow your heads and close your eyes with me?