“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
- Matthew 5:3
I was once told a story about a man named Watchman Nee, a Christian leader in China. Nee was at a retreat with a group of men, teaching them about Scripture and life and one afternoon they decided to take a break. They went out back and ventured down to a river which had more of a current than one man had anticipated. This man had found his way out into the white caps and was beginning to flail around, arms tossing and head bobbing in the moving water. Out of the whole group there was one strong swimmer, but this man made a decision that infuriated Nee: he did nothing for quite some time. After what felt like minutes of watching a helpless man gulp rushing water, the swimmer made his way to the suffering fool and dragged him back to shore. Upon the arrival back to the bank, Nee approached the successful lifeguard and bellowed: “What took you so long?”, wondering if it brought the strong man joy to see the other brother struggling. The retort that found its way back was something like this: “If I had not waited for that man to lose his strength, he would have pulled us both down to certain death.” In other words, the man in the river needed to submit himself to his own inability before he could be saved. Before he surrendered under his own weakness, salvation was an impossibility.
In Matthew 5 Jesus begins the Sermon on the Mount with a profound statement (see above). What He chose to communicate is the very message that Watchman Nee learned about human buoyancy on that fateful afternoon: until we learn our own weakness and insufficiency, we cannot be saved. Paul echoes this reality in 2 Corinthians 12 when he learns that it is in his own weakness that he can live according to the surpassing strength of Jesus Christ. In our passage this week, a man named Mephibosheth exposes a similar message to us. It is in our complete and utter helplessness that God’s mysterious grace can do its work. If we are dependent upon our own strength and abilities there is no avenue through which grace can flow.
Read 2 Samuel 8-9
1. Your greatest hope before God is that you would recognize that you look a whole lot like Mephibosheth. How do you feel about this statement? What does this mean about you? What does it mean about God?
2. Why do you think we are naturally offended the idea that we cannot earn God’s blessing? How do you respond to this feeling?
3.Why do you think Jesus begins His most well known sermon, where He explains what it looks like for human beings to walk rightly with God, by pointing out that the spiritually bankrupt will be blessed?
3. What does it mean for you if there is nothing you can do to earn God’s mysterious grace? What does that say about your identity? What does He want you to do with that information?