Honor One Another, Part 2

A great example of seeing honoring one another in action is in 2 Samuel 9:1-13 (NIV) where David lives this out for us in his honoring of Jonathan’s son Mephibosheth.

David asked, “Is there anyone still left of the house of Saul to whom I can show kindness for Jonathan’s sake?”

Now there was a servant of Saul’s household named Ziba. They summoned him to appear before David, and the king said to him, “Are you Ziba?”

“At your service,” he replied.

The king asked, “Is there no one still alive from the house of Saul to whom I can show God’s kindness?”

Ziba answered the king, “There is still a son of Jonathan; he is lame in both feet.”

“Where is he?” the king asked.

Ziba answered, “He is at the house of Makir son of Ammiel in Lo Debar.”

So King David had him brought from Lo Debar, from the house of Makir son of Ammiel.

When Mephibosheth son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, came to David, he bowed down to pay him honor.

David said, “Mephibosheth!”

“At your service,” he replied.

“Don’t be afraid,” David said to him, “for I will surely show you kindness for the sake of your father Jonathan. I will restore to you all the land that belonged to your grandfather Saul, and you will always eat at my table.”

Mephibosheth bowed down and said, “What is your servant, that you should notice a dead dog like me?”

Then the king summoned Ziba, Saul’s steward, and said to him, “I have given your master’s grandson everything that belonged to Saul and his family. You and your sons and your servants are to farm the land for him and bring in the crops, so that your master’s grandson may be provided for. And Mephibosheth, grandson of your master, will always eat at my table.” (Now Ziba had fifteen sons and twenty servants.)

Then Ziba said to the king, “Your servant will do whatever my lord the king commands his servant to do.” So Mephibosheth ate at David’s table like one of the king’s sons.

Mephibosheth had a young son named Mika, and all the members of Ziba’s household were servants of Mephibosheth. And Mephibosheth lived in Jerusalem, because he always ate at the king’s table; he was lame in both feet.

David models excelling at honoring one another for us first in His eagerness to find some relative of Jonathan’s that he could honor by keeping his promise to always be faithful to Jonathan. David was not only willing to show honor to Mephibosheth, but was eager to do so. He did not wait for the opportunity to present itself, but rather looked for the opportunity to do so.

Isn’t that how our heavenly Father acts towards us too? As Paul says in Romans 5:8 (NIV) But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. If God had only been willing to bestow honor on us, adopting us as sons and daughters, it never would have happened. Like Mephibosheth, we would never have come forward on our own. If we would honor one another as Christ has honored us, we need to not only be willing to honor one another, but be actively looking for ways that we can honor one another.
David did not let Mephibosheth’s past nor his health deter him from honoring him. Mephibosheth, for all intents and purposes, should have been looked at as a threat to David’s throne. He should have been a political enemy to be removed, not someone to be exalted. But David did not let his past or his heritage stop him from honoring him. Nor was David’s desire cooled by his condition. He was lame in both feet. He was not going to be an asset to David. He was not going to be able to work or to lead in a public way since he could not walk well. But David overlooked his defects, favoring instead his relationship to Jonathan as the determining factor of his worth.

Again, is this not how God treats us? His choosing is not because we are good enough, or worthy, or because God is making out by bringing us into His house. When I hear people say, “I give my best to God,” I say, “Well He didn’t get much then did He?” There is nothing about us that commends us to God. He takes us in simply because He wants to be gracious. His honoring us in the fact that we are in Christ. We should honor one another for the same reason, not because it is earned, or deserved, but because of Whose they are. A Christian is a prince or princess of the highest rank in God’s house, whom are honored and precious in God’s sight, and because of that, we should hold each other dear in our eyes.
Notice too that when David met Mephibosheth, that David accepted and welcomed him and told him not to be afraid. What king would accept the grandson of a deposed monarch into his presence and tell him not to fear, and one who had been so intent on murdering David? This is a powerful example of what it means to honor one another above yourselves.

Likewise, Jesus did not allow either His divinity or our sinfulness to keep Him from coming down to us in a spirit of grace and humility. In fact, in Matthew 20:25-28 (NLTse), He told His disciples that this was what godly leadership looked like,

You know that the rulers in this world lord it over their people, and officials flaunt their authority over those under them. But among you it will be different. Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must become your slave. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many.

If we are going to honor the people we are leading, whether that be our family, people at work, a small group or Sunday school class, or a little league team, we will be servants to them.
Lastly, David models excelling at honoring one another for us in the high degree of the honor he showed him. He restored all of Saul’s land to Mephibosheth, and put people in place to care for the land for him so that he and his family would be provided for. Not only did he restore what was lost to him, but David treated Mephibosheth like a son, bringing him into his family and insisting he take a seat among the princes of Israel.

The parallel between David and Christ apexes at this point. Christ, whom David prefigures reaches down to poor lost sinners like you and me, who are by nature enemies to His crown; not to condemn us, but to honor us, to restore to us what we lost; and like David, does not stop there but adopts us as sons and daughters who have seats at His heavenly table, with all the rights and privileges He has with His Father. Living for God though Christ means following David and Christ’s example in honoring one another to the highest degree we are capable.

So if we would live out this kind of love, we will seek out opportunities to honor one another, we will not let a person’s past or station, or circumstance lessen the honor we give them, we will serve them, and we will give them the highest degree of honor that we are able to give.