The Overwhelming Nature of God’s Grace - Pastor Greg Addison - April 26, 2026

Sermon from Pastor Greg Addison on Sunday morning, April 26, 2026.

Ministering to the heart of the Western Arkansas River Valley for over 165 years. Welcome to Chapter and First- the Bible Teaching Ministry of Fort Smith First Baptist Church, you'll find sermons and teachings from Pastor Greg Addison, our ministry staff, and guest speakers. Thank you for listening!

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Ministering to the heart of Western Arkansas's River Valley for over 165 years, welcome to Chapter and First, the Bible Teaching Ministry of Fort Smith's First Baptist Church. You'll find sermons and teachings from Pastor Greg, our ministry staff, and guest speakers. Thank you for listening.

SPEAKER_01 0:21

We're looking forward to Jesus coming again. Amen. In fact, when we take the Lord's Supper in just a moment, we'll see the scripture says we do this until the day Jesus comes. And so we're proclaiming that by God's grace, heaven is the promise and hope of salvation. In just a few moments, we are going to do the Lord's Supper, but I just want to set up for you a little bit the capture the message of this in kind of a fresh way. What I want to talk to you about for just a minute is the overwhelming nature of God's grace, because that's what the Lord's Supper represents. Jesus' body, which was broken for us. Jesus didn't have to do that. There wasn't anything that required God to create salvation, to send Jesus or any of that. It is purely out of his nature as a loving God and a God of grace that after we had sinned and we had wrecked everything with our sin, he created the means of salvation. He promised to do it. And he came and accomplished God's plan of salvation. The Bible says God demonstrated his love towards us and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. I mean, it is purely his grace for us. As we were praying about the Lord's Supper, and I was reading through our chronological reading this week, I hit this little verse that introduces this character in a strange way in Scripture. In 2 Samuel chapter 4, is just this interesting one verse introduction to this person. Now, as you're reading through the Old Testament, this happens a lot. You get this one verse mention of these random people. And as we were reading this week, we just hit this strange introduction to this character. Now, as you know, as we talked about last week, I believe, David and Jonathan, David and Saul were at odds together. And Saul was trying to kill David. He hated David. He was jealous of him. He knew that God had placed his hand and favor on David, and it was no longer on Saul. I'm sorry, I think I said Jonathan. Jonathan is David's son. Now, Saul's son. I mean, I need to start over, don't I? I've like totally got that messed up. Saul hated David. Jonathan is Saul's son. Jonathan and David are friends. In fact, they made a covenant with each other, much like we would think of as a blood brother kind of a covenant, right? I was watching, got a chance in the rain to watch uh John Wayne Western yesterday. And then one of those scenes, an Indian and a guy, and they cut their thumbs and shared their blood and became blood brothers, and you saw that covenant play itself out in the movie. And that's exactly what Jonathan and David had created together in their relationship. And so in that covenant, Jonathan and David had sworn that they would take care of each other's families extended down through time as a part of their covenant together. So what you have is Saul and Jonathan, they go to battle and they are killed in this battle. And so here is the sort of the context, and we're introduced to this character this way. Saul's son Jonathan had a son whose feet were crippled. Now, how would you like to be introduced that way? Everybody, from now on, you were introduced as the cripple guy. He was five years old when the report about Saul and Jonathan came from Jezreel. That was the battle in which they were killed. And so everybody knew at some point David would become king. And what happens in that world when there is an exchange from one king to another, the new king goes and kills everybody in the other families, anybody that would have a claim to the throne, he just kills them all, so there's not anybody else that challenges authority. And so here you have this staff that's keeping Jonathan's son. The Bible says the one who was nursing him picked him up and fled, but as she was hurrying to flee, she fell and he became lame. Now, the word Mephibosheth has in it a sense of shame, a person of shame, or he has carrying shame. Now, how'd you like your mama to name you Shame? Hey, Shame, come here. Shame, come to dinner. This is my son's shame. Right? So here's his name. Shame is who he is, and now he's crippled and he's lame and all that. And then the story just goes on. For some more chapters, we just read, and like, what happened to this guy? He's another one of those random people that God threw in Scripture. But as we read forward in chapter 9, we will run into shame again. David has become king. He's consolidated his powers, the context. And he has a moment where he's kind of settled and everything is settled in, and he's kind of looking over things, thinking through things, and he is reminded of his covenant with Jonathan. And so he asks the question: Is there anybody who was a descendant of Jonathan left? Does anyone know anyone who might? They bring this servant, former servant of Saul, named Zeba, to David. And David asks him, Is there anybody left? And Zeba says, Well, yeah, there is. Mephibosheth. So in verse 4 of chapter 9, the king asks him, Where is he? Zeba answered the question, you'll find him in Lodibar at the house of Mature, son of Amiel. Lodebar. That just sounds like a terrible place, doesn't it? I mean, you can just tell ahead of time. If you break down the word from the Hebrew, it means no pasture land. In other words, a place that's barren. There's no life there. So here you have a crippled dude named Shame living in a place that's barren, Lodibar. It's kind of like moving to New Jersey. Nobody wants to live there. It's a Godforsaken place. It's terrible, right? And he's living there hiding and being hidden because they don't know if the new king will kill him because he's a descendant of Saul and the animosity between Saul and David. So the Bible says in verse 6 that David had him, Mephibosheth, brought from the house of major son of Amelia in Lodabar, verse 6. Mephibosheth, son of Jonathan of Saul, came to David and bowed down to the ground and paid homage to David. Now, get this picture. He is crippled. In that day and time, if you were handicapped or had physical disabilities, I mean it was a problem. You were a second-class citizen, you were lower than we don't have the ability or the technology for people to function and do all the things they do today. You were dependent on everybody else. And so here's a guy named Shame who is a burden to everybody around him. He's afraid of a death sentence from the new king because he's Saul's grandson. He's living in a place that is out barren, out there, just hiding. They come and they bring him to the king, and he walks, he comes into the palace, somebody brings him in, and he is bowing as low as he can possibly get. It says, paid homage. He is doing everything he can do to let David know, please don't kill me. I will be subservient to you. I am no threat to you. He is really trying to just humble as much as humanly possible. David says, Mephibosheth, I am your servant, he replied. Verse 7. Don't be afraid, David said to him. Since I intend to show you kindness because of your father, Jonathan. And that word kindness is a much deeper, richer word than just translated English and kindness. If you want, you could translate that word to grace. In fact, when David is looking for descendants of Jonathan, he says, Are there any out there so that I can show them God's kindness or this word, grace? And David is looking to show grace to Mephibosheth. He says, In fact, I will restore to you all your grandfather's Saul's fields, and you will always eat meals at my table. Now, can you imagine what Mephibosheth trying to process all this? Like, surely this is a trick. Like, there's no way this is real. Mephibosheth bowed down and said, I mean, he was already bowed down, paying homage. How'd he get even lower? What is your servant that you would take an interest in a dead dog like me? You see his self-image and where he is and what life looks like for him and all of this. You can't get any more low down in life than to be named Shame in Lodabar. Then the king summoned Saul's attendant, Ziba, and he said to him, I have given to your master's grandson all that belong to Saul and his family, you, your sons, and your servants are to work the ground for him, and you are to bring in the crops, so that your master's grandson will always have food on the table to eat. But Mephibosheth, your master's grandson, is always to eat at my table. Now can you imagine? Not only does he give Mephibosheth all of the lands of Saul and all of that, what's Mephibosheth gonna do with them? Like he's crippled. And so he calls this servant Zeba, who is a servant of Saul, and he says, I want you and all your family, you are all gonna have jobs for life, and I'm gonna send you out there, and you're gonna manage and and plow and harvest all of the fields of Saul that I'm giving to Mephibosheth. So not only does he bless Mephibosheth, you're gonna be an honored guest at my table always. I'm giving you all these lands, you'll be provided for, you and your family. We read later he has a young son, you're gonna be provided for, and I'm giving you an entire servant family to go out and work these fields for you. The Bible says that Zeba and his family, there's like 15 or more of them. And so he has just lavished on Mephibosheth all of this incredible wealth, privilege, position, and opportunity. And Mephibosheth didn't do anything. In fact, he was just hiding in shame. He had no hope. His legs were broken, he couldn't fend for himself, he's dependent on somebody else, all of this stuff. And yet David just lavishes all of this on him because of his promise to Jonathan and a covenant that he had made. And even deeper than that, that covenant was built in and is a picture of God's grace. And David says, I want to show you God's grace. Mephibosheth is as beautiful a picture of God's grace as you can get in Scripture. I mean, you think about this guy who can do nothing to fix his condition, he can do nothing to help himself. He thinks he's under a death penalty because of his grandfather. And yet David elevates him and lavishes on him wealth and provides for him and gives him a place and a family where he did not a broader family in the king's house where he didn't before. And all of that is what Jesus did for us when he gave us salvation. When you place your faith in Jesus Christ, you are literally making an announcement that you understand you're like Mephibosheth. I was saved as a nine and a half-year-old boy. There was nothing I could do to save myself. There was nothing I could do to fix that sin. I was living under a death judgment. The Bible says, for the wages of sin is death, just like all of us were. And one day I realized, as the pastor was preaching, it was a Sunday morning, all the Sunday school teachers, all the VBS, all the children's choir, all of the parents, and all of the teaching and all of that came together, and I realized nobody ever loved me as much as Jesus. That he gave himself for me so that I could be saved. And when you give your life to Christ, you're doing the same thing. You are recognizing there is nothing I can do to save myself. There is nothing I can do to fix this. There is, I am under a death penalty. There is no hope in my life for eternity or forgiveness or whatever. Now, sometimes we talk to folks and they think, well, I got it all together and I'm better than the next guy, and I don't really need that. Let me tell you what. Every person who's ever been born from a woman that would be all of humankind is Mephibosheth. There is no one, Pastor Warup used to say all the time, there is no one so good they don't need to be saved, and there is no one so bad that they cannot be saved. You can never outsend God's grace, and that's why here Mephibosheth is such a beautiful picture. He couldn't do anything, he didn't deserve any of this, and David blessed him anyway. And when you come and you give your life to Christ, what you are recognizing is that I know I'm a sinner and I can't fix that, and I'm gonna trust in God's grace that he gave Jesus for me. That Jesus lived a sinless life, he went to the cross, as we'll do in a moment, we'll represent in a moment, his body there was broken for me, and he died on the cross and took the full wrath and punishment of God. And then he rose again, conquering death and sin. And when I come to him, I believe, Lord, I know that historically that happened. You actually came, that's who you were, and you died for my sins, and you rose again. You are the Son of God, you're the only one who could do that. Yesterday I had Jehovah's Witnesses knock on my door. And not trying to be critical about other things, but you know, here we go. We go into this deal, and I said, Well, thank you. I appreciate you stopping by, and but I want you to know I'm the pastor of First Baptist Church, and I'm a Christian, and I believe that Jesus is the Son of God and died on the cross for our sins. And they said, Well, we do too. And I said, No, you don't. That's not what you teach. Yeah, it is. We believe. No, you don't. You don't believe in the Trinity. You don't believe that Jesus was the Son of God. You believe that he was some created being. He might have been a God, but he died for our sins, and God appointed him to do that, but he's not God. That's not what you believe. You go and you had somebody in your heritage retranslate scripture in the early 1900s, and you changed. In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. You changed that. You retranslate it to was a God, and you've denied the deity of Christ and who he is. And they get frustrated with me or whatever. And I said, listen, I'm not trying to be ugly ass. I just pray that one day the truth that I'm sharing you from the Word of God, the actual Word of God, translated from the original manuscripts properly, that tells us what it is, the truth of who Jesus is, and I pray that one day in the midst of your journeys and all of that, you'll meet someone just like me, and you'll hear the truth that Jesus is the Son of God who stepped out of heaven, died on the cross, paid the price for our sins, rose again, conquering death and sin. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the once who was dead and now is alive, and it was by his grace that he stepped out of heaven as God Almighty and paid the price for our sins himself and rose again, conquering death and sin, to lavish on us the privilege to have a relationship with him, to walk with him, to have our sins forgiven, to have the promise and hope of heaven, to never be forsaken because of the covenant of his shed blood for us. That's God's grace. And when we take the Lord's Supper, this is not just an exercise in the church. This is important. This is called an ordinance of the church. It's in our what we teach documents that you can read on our website. It says this is an ordinance of the church. What does that mean? That means two things. It means it is an exact dead ringer, beautiful picture of salvation. It defines the gospel and God's grace through salvation in Jesus. His body was broken for us. And just like Mephiboseth received the grace of David because of the covenant with Jonathan, we can know and trust in salvation when we give our lives to Jesus and place our faith in him because of the covenant that is in his shed blood, the promise of God to save us through what Jesus did for us on the cross. And we are worshiping, we are doing that today, and it is taken as the church because we are affirming today that this is what we believe. And it is a picture of God's grace to us, his overwhelming grace, that because of what he did for us, we can be saved and know the promise of heaven, even though we don't deserve it, we could never earn it. He did it for us because of his grace. That's why we love that verse in Ephesians chapter 2 that says, For by grace are we saved through faith. Placing your faith in Jesus is not an act or a work that you're doing, it is an acknowledgement that you can't. Just as Mephibosheth prostrated himself before David and he knew that he was hopeless and could not fix the situation, it all depended on what David did in that moment. When you come and you give your life to Jesus, you are trusting and you're doing the same thing. You are bowing before him and you're acknowledging, God, I am nothing and I cannot do this, and it is all up to you. For by grace are you saved through faith in him. That Jesus died for us and extended this forgiveness and grace to us. If you grow up in church like I did, all of us have different heritages and faith journeys, and they're all wonderful. And in all of them, however you came to faith in Christ, you came because of his grace and he loves you. And your testimony is powerful and spiritual and paid for by Jesus on the cross. Mine just happens to be I grew up in church and they would teach us all the time what grace means, G-R-A-C-E, God's riches at Christ's expense. What it means to be saved is we take this, we're focused on the shed blood of Jesus, but we are focused on what He purchased for us with His life and His blood. Before we take it, I want you to just picture this image. Mephibosheth, one day. He's sitting in this house. And he's thinking, this is so much better than Lodabar. And as he is marveling at where he is, there's a knock on his chamber doors, and Zeba or one of his sons come in and they're so excited, and they say, Mephibosheth, we're so excited. We want to report to you the harvest is coming in, and we are in awe. This is the greatest harvest that we've seen. God is blessed, and and we may need to build another barn. The harvest is so incredible. I mean, it's just, and we knew before you went to supper at David's house and ate with the king and his family, we just wanted to share with you, man, God is blessed, and this is going to be the best harvest we've ever had. He leaves. Mephibosheth is thinking, and before he calls the person to have to take him to David's house because he can't go on his own strength because he's crippled. He's thinking, I never could dream life would be like this. A harvest, wealth, my family taken care of. I am about to eat dinner at the king's table. And the vast majority of people in the Jewish nation will never have that privilege. And yet I'm about to go feast at the king's table. When we come to the table today, if you know Christ as your Savior, that's the picture of God's grace that rests for us. If you know Christ as your Savior, man, this is celebrating the incredible meaning of what it means that Jesus saved us. As we take the Lord's Supper, I want you to think about that. Worship as we do that. And I want you to realize, man, this is beyond anything I can imagine. And I just pray that this real-life example of Moshibasheth that was given to us to help us understand the lavishness of God's grace, that you will worship him today. As we take the Lord's Supper, the Bible tells us what it is. Jesus was observing the Passover Supper, the last one with his disciples, and there. As they were observing the Passover Supper, which is a picture of the Messiah who would come, Jesus tells them, I am the Messiah, and I'm about to go to the cross in essence. And then he says, We're gonna, I'm gonna show you that what we're about to do is now fulfilled. And as they broke that bread, Jesus said, This is my body which is broken for you. I am that Messiah. And so here's then down through the time as we're building the church and the book of Acts and all of that, Paul gives us instruction to churches to remind us of what it means when we take the Lord's Supper. Paul says, For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you. On the night in which he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and he said, This is my body which is broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me. And in the same way he also took the cup after supper, and he said, This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes, just as we say. And then he tells us, in that spirit of worship and experiencing that grace, how we're to take the Lord's Supper. Therefore, whoever eats the bread and drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sin against the body and blood of the Lord. In other words, if we if we know God's grace and we profess to accept Him as our Savior, but we come with sins we're holding on to and we've not let go and we're clinging to them and we're not walking with Jesus, it is a deep spiritual disrespect to the sacrifice of Jesus and the grace that he's given us. So he says, so a man should examine himself in this way. Let him eat the bread and drink from the cup. For whoever eats and drinks without recognizing the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. In other words, we are to be focused on the grace of God and what it cost us that Jesus saved. In just a moment, I'm going to lead us in time of prayer and let you talk to the Holy Spirit. Let him shine a spiritual light on our lives. And what we're doing is, just as Paul said, we're taking a moment to take those sins that we may be clinging to or we haven't dealt with or whatever. And you can give those to the Lord and confess them to him today. Now, what happens for a Christian with sin? It interrupts our relationship with him. We're still saved, we're still going to heaven, but when we're clinging to those sins and our journey of growing to be like him, they interrupt our relationship with him and our fellowship and they create issues between us and him and we have to deal with them. And so this is a great opportunity for you to take those to the Lord and say, Lord, I'm sorry, here is this part of my life that I've held back from you. And the Bible tells us because of the covenant in his blood in 1 John 1 9, if any of us, if we will confess our sins, that means agree with God what they are. If we will confess our sins, he is faithful and just because of the covenant of Jesus' blood. He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So you come to him and you give him those sins and he will wash them away and that promise of that relationship, and you will have the freedom to come and worship and thank him for the grace that he gives us, even that forgiveness as we walk with him. When he saved me as a nine and a half-year-old boy, he looked down through the quarters of time and he saw into 2026 and he said, Man, like Greg still doesn't have that together. He saw all the things I would do this year that would that would be failures and then I would mess up and I would not walk with him and I would do all that, and he saved me anyway. And he never stopped working in my life anyway, and he won't stop for the ones in 2027 or 2028 or 2035 or however long I'm here. That is his grace that he continually works. He never gives up on us, he never forsakes us, he forgives us and walks with us. And so today I want you to be able to worship with the Lord's Supper and bask in that sense of his overwhelming grace. So I want you to bow your heads as we get started. And I just want you to let the Holy Spirit talk to you for a moment. And whatever he brings up, don't push back, don't get distracted, wiggle around, look in your purse or whatever. Let Jesus point it out and you confess it and give it back to him. And now I want you to say thank you, Lord, for saving me. Say thank you, Lord, for forgiving me. Thank you, Lord, for allowing me to be in your presence and worship you in this moment. Lord, we come now in awe, overwhelmed, excited, thrilled, blessed, humbled, all of those things, all of those things that Mephibosheth would have felt going to David's table, that human illustration you give us, so we can relate to this, Lord. We feel those things, we confess them to you, and we say thank you for Jesus and allowing us to come before you in this moment, because of salvation, to say thank you for your grace. It is in these things we pray in the gracious name of Jesus, and all God's people said. I'm gonna ask our deacons to come and to help us uh serve the Lord's Supper. Now you know you have two, and the bread is on the bottom. So I want to remind you what we read just a moment ago as Paul gave us those instructions, that Jesus said, He took the bread and broken and said, This is my body, which is broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me. And then the Bible says, in the same way as he just told us that the bread illustrated his death for us, he said, This cup is the new covenant established in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for that salvation and what that means to us today, and the overwhelming nature of the grace you extended to us to offer us salvation. It's in the gracious name of Jesus that we pray in all God's people said. Before we close with all of this beautiful picture of the grace, of the salvation that comes through the shed blood of Jesus, we don't want to leave without an opportunity for you to be saved. So we're not going to linger, it won't take a long time. I'm going to pray for us. But listen, if you want to be saved, we've shared the gospel, we've illustrated the gospel. You come to Jesus and you realize I'm a sinner, I know that my sin must be punished. There's nothing I can do to affect that. And just like Mephibosheth did, you bow before the King, dependent on him, but you recognize that God sent Jesus who died for our sins and rose again, accomplishing our salvation. He conquered death and sin. And when you come to Jesus to place your faith in him, to accept that grace by faith, it means you take everything you've been in your life, that you were, that you are, that you ever will be, and you surrender your life to Jesus because he gave his life for you. And God's grace means that he'll do more with your life than you could ever imagine. Just like Mephibus said. I'm going to pray, and if you've never accepted Christ as your Savior, we're going to sing a last hymn and gonna give you the opportunity to come and give your life to Jesus. We'll have pastors here, our deacons are here. Listen, we're here to help you. Nobody's gonna arm twist you or force you to do anything, but we want to give you the opportunity to give your life to Christ. If you have questions, come and ask, or come and set an appointment. We'll sit down with you, we'll pray with you, we'll walk that journey with you. Also, I want to invite you, if you've if you've accepted Christ, but you've never been baptized. I had a conversation with somebody this week in our church, and they were talking about how many people they knew who'd been saved but had not been obedient in believers' baptism. And if you've never been baptized and you'd like to be baptized, come and follow the Lord in that obedience and let us help you in that journey. We'd love to walk that journey with you as well and help you be baptized so you can be obedient to the Lord and give testimony of your salvation. Let me pray and then we'll.

SPEAKER_00 31:57

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