1 Samuel 18:1-4 Friendship That Holds When Life Breaks

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1 Daniel 18. That's okay. That's the thread of my life. Alright, so we are going through 1st Daniel, and eventually 2 Samuel. We're looking at the life of David. And so far, not a whole lot has happened, but he has been anointed king. But not king yet. Saul is the king. And David is kind of in the holding pattern. But it's not just that. We'll see he's growing, right? That's the lesson we get from all these. He's growing. God's working in his life. But we've seen his faith demonstrated there last week as this young man, David, faces off with a giant. He goes running at Goliath, not in his own strength or his own skills, but in the name of the Lord. And that really is the thing that was sparked in his heart. Now that's great, but we understand, because we have the perspective of the whole book, we know the whole story, that this sparked some jealousy in Saul's heart. Look forward in time to verse seven. As they're coming back from this battle, it says there, verse 7, the women saying as they danced and said, Saul has slain his thousands, and David is ten thousands. Then Saul is very angry, and the same displeased him. He says, They have ascribed to David ten thousands, and to me ascribed only thousands. Now, what more can uh he have, but the kingdom? So Saul eyed David from that day forward. So again, the picture here as everybody is rejoicing over the victory against Goliath and the Philistines. Uh, they're singing songs. And this song is going to become Saul's least favorite song, and I think David's least favorite song is well, Saul is slaying his thousands, David is tens of thousands. And inside of Saul, he goes, What? Why does he get 10,000? And I only get a thousand, and it's jealousy, right? Saul is dealing with a lot of stuff in his heart, jealousy. And because of that, he eyed David from that point on. He gave him the evil eye is kind of the thing. Um, and Saul's gonna try to kill him more than once. This is gonna be the next 12 to 13 years of David's life. But check it out. We know what's coming for David, we know the difficulties and the trials. David does not, but God knows. God knows what David needs. And before he takes one more step, we get verse 1 of chapter 18, a friend or David. Let's read the first four verses. Now, when he had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David. And Jonathan loved him as his own soul. Saul took him that day and would not let him go home to his father's house anymore. Then Jonathan and David made a covenant because he loved him as his own soul. And Jonathan took off this robe that was on him and gave it to David with his armor, even to his sword and his bow and his belt. So here we see God preparing a friendship for David. Friendship that God knew David was gonna need. It was something he would need. Um, and our structure for today will see the need for friendship in our lives, uh, the character of that friendship, and then of course, we're gonna see how Jesus is the ultimate friend and the enabling for that true friendship. David needed a friend, for sure. He would throughout those years. Um, science, I'm not always much on science, but science of life shows us that humans, we really do need association and socialization. We need friendship. Now, certainly some of us more than others, some of us are introverts, right? Some of us are just fine sitting by ourselves for a good long time. I've been there. Some of us, then we have to be around people all the time. We have different personalities. But I think the science really is that without people in our lives, we start to fall apart. We need that kind of support. I mean, consider, I don't know how scientific it is, but uh Tom Hes in castaway, right? If you've seen what? Castaway, you've seen it, right? He's stranded on an island, and before long he's talking to a volleyball, right? And I think science would tell us that that really would happen. Well say no, right? Because we need fellowship, we need friendship. Even my dog, I saw this this morning, uh, Luna, the trouble dog, right? Uh she was locked up. I let her out this morning, and and then I let her back in for some food. Always on the schedule. She loves it just like that. Well, she's barking, and I hear her, and I come to the cage and I've opened it up, she must be ready to go out. She didn't go out. She just continued to eat her food. All I can gather is she really just wanted me there. And I think even dogs are social to that point, right? Um, that's the way God has created us. And then we get to the theological, which is even better than the scientific. God has created us for relationship because that's how God is. God is full of relationship in his life: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one God, three persons. And we find from the get-go that God is talking amongst the three persons of the Trinity. I know that's a mind-blowing thing, but he is. He's saying things like, let us make man in our own image. And and all of these things. Now, God didn't need us for friendship, he had it within himself. But one of the first things in Genesis chapter 2, you find, is that God says about Adam, it is not good that man should be alone. And so God created uh a one, E for him, fellowship, friendship, and God knows what we're made of and what we're made for. What by the way, one of the attacks of the enemy, I think, is to isolate us. Isolate us away from people. We see that in the gospels with people with leprosy, people who are demon-possessed, or on the outside of society, and that's what the devil will oftentimes do to get us away from others. We need other people. God created us for them. Now, what should godly friendship look like? I think that's where we come to 1 Samuel here 18. Godly friendship. Should look like a few things. Number one, it's dedication. Notice in verse 3, then Jonathan and David made a covenant. Covenant. That's dedication, a covenant. Um we may say that he's committing, um, but it's it's a covenant. Now, later in chapter 23, they reaffirm this covenant, this agreement, that they're gonna take care of each other's families no matter what happens. They're gonna be true friends to the best of their ability, to the end, and it's very sweet. Um, Proverbs 1824 lets us know that a friend will stick with you. It's an important quality. Uh, a committed friend. Now, check it out. It's different than a business relationship. I know that's obvious, but it's different than a business relationship, right? Maybe you have your place that you uh like to shop, right? And you know you've gone there for years, uh, and you have your different reasons. But check it out. When somebody else comes around, another store has maybe better quality things, produce perhaps is your guideline for that, or cheaper prices, better prices. As much as you love that business, chances are you're gonna go somewhere else because they're not giving you everything that you're looking for. Somebody else can give you something better. That's a business relationship. And you know, as uh business smart people, you would do that. But a covenant or a commitment, a dedication, we're there regardless of what's in it for me. That's an important thing to see about a covenant, committed, dedicated relationship. It's not about what's in it for me. I'm committed whether there's something in it for me or not. Right? David and Jonathan, no matter what came their way, they agreed to the best of their ability, I will be committed to you as a friend to the very end. And that's important. Now, in friendship, another thing that's important is honesty and openness, right? And this is just a practical thing that we see. Um, the ability to tell the truth, right? With a real friend, you're open with your decisions, right? And throughout 1 Samuel, we're gonna see from time to time David and Jonathan get together. And David says, you know what, your father's trying to kill me. I think I need to leave. And Jonathan says, I don't think so. And they figure it out, right? David shares his plans and his hopes and those kinds of things. Um, with a good friend, they're allowed to give you counsel, to speak into your life uh truth. And sometimes that truth can hurt our feelings, but we'll accept it from a friend, won't we? A real friend that tells the truth. Um, Proverbs 27:6 says this faithful are the wounds of a friend. Right? Faithful are the wounds of a friend. Why? Because they love you and they care about you. They'll tell you the truth, even when it's something maybe you don't want to hear. They can tell you, you know, I think looking at the situation, you're being selfish. You go, ouch, well, thanks for telling me, at least. You know, maybe they can tell you, you know what your attitude is a little bit stinky. And and you go, ah, that's hard to hear, but I know you care. I'm glad somebody told me. It's like them telling you you got something on your face, right? It can be embarrassing, but you want to hear it from a friend. So there's an honesty and an openness in friendship and a commitment as well. But the last thing, and probably the most important thing I want to point out in godly friendships, is that the best friends are sympathetic friends, right? The word sympathetic, we would look and go, well, that means I guess sympathy. Sort of. But it needs to say the same thing, right? To feel the same thing as someone else. It's commonality. Now, come back. This is probably the most important point of friendship. It's commonality. In the New Testament, the word is koinonia, it's fellowship. Now, that word I think is totally misunderstood in the church. We're having the night of fellowship. And again, you just bring your favorite snack food, and you come and you hang around, you play some games, and we're going to have some fellowship. But that's not what fellowship is. It's not fun and games necessarily. It's not finger foods, it's having the most important things in condom. We could start with a fellowship of a book club, right? That's not very important, but people get together. I love books. I love books too. Let's read books and talk about books, right? And he goes, that's a good thing. You can have fellowship over that, right? People have fellowship over sports teams, right? But in the New Testament sense of this, it's the most important thing. It's that we have Jesus in common. Now that's a hard thing to get to, even in the church. Here we are talking about the Bible, talking about Jesus. And it's so easy to never talk about him again in our conversations. But that's what being a Christian is about. That's Christian fellowship, is that we have him in common. And that's the glue that keeps godly friends together. But that's why Paul says in 2 Corinthians, don't be unequally yoked with non-believers, don't be in close relationship. Specifically, marriage is probably like the biggest marriage relationship with a non-believer. Why? Because there's no real commonality in the things that matter most. There's no having that faith in common. And so the glue can tend to be weak in those friendships. When the books aren't interesting anymore, we don't go to the book book. You know, when the sports aren't really cooking and just great, you know, there's nothing to watch. We're not together. If that's a friendship, yeah, it's one thing. If it's a marriage, it's painful when commonality has just gone out the window. But that's why God needs to be the thing we have in common. We see this with David and Jonathan, right? They both had this amazing faith in who God was and what he could do. Uh, chapter 17, we saw David fighting Goliath. And it really wasn't about him fighting, right? It wasn't just that David was a great with, he was so good with that sling. Oh, he did it. But it was about God. David trusted God. You come at me with your sword and javelin, I come at you in the name of the Lord, and that's why he won. Now, check it out. Jonathan, and you need to go back and read this, but in chapter 14, Jonathan's faith is outrageous, right? 1 Samuel 14, just one day, the children of Israel are camped out, and the Philistines will camped out in another spot. And Jonathan gets up with his armor bearer, and he says, you know, let's just go see what God wants to do. They go to the camp of the Philistines, and Jonathan says, God can save by many or few, let's see what he wants to do. If the Philistines see us and they say, hold on, we'll come down there and fight you. Stay where you're at. And we know God's not in it. We'll run. But if the Philistines say, Oh, you come up here and we'll show you a thing or two, I know God's in it. That's the fleece, so to speak, that Jonathan picked up. But the amazing thing is that Jonathan and his armor bear actually went and did it. And the Philistines called them up and they were stoked, right? They were so excited. God's gonna do this. And they went up and left and right, they're throwing Philistines all over the place, and and they totally route the garrison, you know. Uh, but but check it out. It was this amazing faith that Jonathan just believed God can do great things because God is great, and that really was the glue that brought him and David together. That common faith, that that common friendship. So they were dedicated. Uh, I believe they were honest, but they shared that common faith. Now, in the application here, application, what what should we do about this? Well, I just want to say at the beginning of this year, you absolutely need friends in your life. And I mean friends. We need friendships, not just people to hang out with, but people we can talk to and share. Because David's life gets difficult, and life is difficult. We cannot do this on our own. But we also need to be friends ourselves. We need to be friendly. That's kind of a biblical premise, too. To have friends, you gotta be friendly. Now that's difficult. I'm just gonna say that's difficult. Because believe it or not, I'm more of an introvert, naturally. When I was in elementary school, I had a whole just intention about making frames and saying anything. I was scared to death. Um, but I think it's a ministry like anything else. I'll tell you another thing that I've told you many times that's difficult for me is talking in front of people. This is not natural for me. So, what do I do? I go, God, I'm gonna freak out. Every Sunday, I'm gonna freak out a little bit less sometimes than others. But you're gonna have to help me say the right things. You're gonna have to help me get through this because I don't have it in my myself. Well, for some of us, stepping out of our comfort zone, making friends is a painful thing. I understand that. But I'm gonna say that God's able to give strength for that, just like any other ministry that you might have. God help me to be friendly. God help me to open my mouth once in a while, God provide the right friends to me. Well, I need a few, right? One or two is fine. Uh more than Mary. But but it's a thing that we just step out and go, God, I need you. I need you to help me. But the most wonderful thing we see here is really this example. Again, it all comes back to Jesus, doesn't it? Turn to John chapter 15. We'll leave the Old Testament, we'll head to the New Testament for the end of our time here. John 15 This is the night before the frost, and this is the third thing that is the title. Verse 12, chapter 15 is gone. This is my commandment that you love one another. As I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down those life for his friends. You're my friends. Do whatever I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for a servant doesn't know what his master has been, but I have called you friends. For all things that I heard from my father, I make known to you. So Jesus, you know, I think Jesus puts it a little too plainly. You're my friends now. He's always going to be the master. But he's like, I'm not calling you servants today, I'm calling you friends. And great in the love has known us to lay down his life for his friends. And he would, right? But they were his friends. Jesus actually had friends and his disciples. And what a crazy example that God in flesh would call us his friend. Now, again, that feels a little wrong. You know, we should probably talk about how he's Lord and how he's king and how he's God, and that's important. The Bible presents us as friends with God. We can spend time with him. Tell whatever's on your heart. Um, you know, and yet he's laid down his life for us, not when we were the best, not when we were faithful friends. We were not. We were at war with him, and he laid down his life for us. Is he a true friend? Is he a faithful friend? He is so faithful. Man, I would not have stuck with me like God has stuck with me, right? And yet he's patient and he's kind and he forgives and he loves us so faithfully. What an amazing example. But that is really the power to be a friend to others. As God has loved us, I want to love other people. As Jesus laid down his life, it's no big deal for me to lay down my time or my energy or my attention for someone else. And it inspires us because of what God's done for us, and of course, that's the most important friendship we could ever have, is to know God in that way and the love that he has for us. So, God, again, we know we can't talk ourselves into anything. We look at our lives and we are absolutely unique in every point, uh, even being a faithful friend. God, I've been so unfaithful to friends from time to time. And God, I've been so selfish so many times, but God, you've been so good to us. God help us to represent you in this world. God help us to uh love a little bit more like you love us. God needs your strength to that, we need your spirit to that, and I'd be absolutely promised to give us everything that we need in life. So we look forward to that. God, we pray that you would continue to use us in our world and that you would help us be good friends and experience that wonderful thing of friendship to you. God, you're so wonderful and so kind. Work these things into our life and pray in Jesus' name. Amen.