MK040 Sermons
Friendship (Audio)
You know when I think of friends, people in my life, a number of names come to mind. When I was a child growing up in a church, one of the kids that was a friend of mine, his name was Chris, and his dad was in leadership as my dad was, and so we often were stuck in meetings. Our dads were in meetings, they were in conversations, so we spent time connecting and became good friends then. As I went into high school, there was a guy named Ernie, and Ernie and I connected around the matters of our faith, and even though we went to different schools, we felt the same calling of God in our lives, and he now serves God in the church out in Southern California. During my high school years, God brought some other guys into my life. A guy named Mike Moore and Mike Miller, who were friends that we stayed connected for many, many years, even past our high school days. College brought friendships with a guy named Bill, who eventually became my roommate and then in my wedding, along with Ron and Steve. These friendships have changed over time, as they've migrated to different parts of the country, but I would still call these individuals my friends. When I moved in the role as a pastor, I wondered what friendships would be like, because I observed with my dad, who's also a pastor, that he didn't have many close friends, knew a lot of people, but didn't have many close friends, and I feel like I've been blessed to have friendships with men and women, friends and mentors, not only here in this church, but who have moved on to other parts of the country and the world, people that I can call friends. As you look back over the course of your life and you think about seasons of your life, are there people that you would call friends? Are there individuals that you can think of during your childhood or during middle and high school years, maybe your young adult life, raising your kids or even your golden years, or people that you would call your friends? Maybe beyond just a spouse, but a guy who you would call in a pinch, someone who you know would cover your back when the chips were down, or a lady who would be there, no matter what was going on in your life, and she would come if you called her, and they would be known as your friends. Even before the hit TV show, I think everyone wanted to know who their friends are, who their friends are, and who they could count on when they were in a pinch. This morning, we're going to continue our series entitled "Unlikely Heroes," "Unlikely Hero." If you haven't been with us, we've been in this series of studies on the life of David. We've been looking at David who was not someone who woke up one morning and decided he wanted to be a hero, but God selected him and said, "I have this task for you," and that task is for you to be a hero. We're going to continue looking at his life, and this morning, we're going to look at someone who God brought into his life. Some heroes have a sidekick, Batman had Robin and Iron Man had Pepper, but not all heroes did, but everyone wanted to know who that sidekick was going to be and who was going to be with them, because the reality is, is no one likes to go through life alone. The reason that no one likes to go through life alone is God has not made us to be that way. You say, "But John, you don't know me. I'm kind of a loner. I'm not outgoing. I'm the introvert. I like to... I'm a homebody, even if all those things are true of you, God has designed you and created you for relationships." Now for some, those relationships may be more difficult than others, and they may be harder to navigate than others, and that's something that we'll continue to talk about and continue to interact about. Last morning, I want to talk about the essence of this, which is the relationships that God invites us all into, and this morning no matter where you are on your faith journey, whether you're curious, whether you're coming back to God, whether you've been walking with God, this is something that affects all of us, I believe, evenly across the board. But as we talk about this issue, it's done in a very confusing cultural context, because when you talk about men having relationships with men and women having relationships with women in our current setting today, the homosexual and lesbian influence clouds that and gives that a sexual nature. Those are important issues to look at, but we're not going to have time to talk about them today. It is something I am going to talk about and do some teaching about over the course of this next year. But as we talk about this, we're talking about this in the context of friendship. And the challenge is, some of the passages we're going to look at this morning are some of those same passages used by individuals who are people of faith who claim that the Scriptures give permission for those relationships. And so it may feel a little bit confusing, but this morning we're looking in the context of friendship that's not in the sexual nature, but in the support of being there for one another. If you have your Bibles, if you would turn to 1 Samuel chapter 18, you don't have your Bibles or you have a tablet or a phone that you can go to you version and connect that way. We'd love to have you follow along this morning. Our guys have some Bibles and pens that make available to you to follow along or take notes with as well. First Samuel 18 is where we're going to pick up the story. And if you haven't been here with us, David had accomplished a great victory by defeating the giant Goliath, and he defeated this giant and in defeating this giant, he empowered the whole nation of Israel to defeat the Philistine army. So David's victory literally made him a national hero. David was at the top of the heap, but it drove a wedge between David and Saul that would continue to fracture, and we're going to see more of that take place this morning. Because this fracture between David and Saul occurs, a surprising thing happens because the son of King David, a man by the name of Jonathan, becomes friends with David. And we're going to see why this is very unusual in the context of the relationship between Saul and David and Jonathan. But at the core of this struggle, there's another struggle being waged, and that's a struggle that's being waged because when Saul was selected and made king over the people of Israel, Samuel who's recording these events for us says that God's spirit came upon this individual named Saul and guided him. But as Saul turned his back on the prophet who spoke for God and turned his back on the words of God and listened to the words of everyone else, then over time, Samuel records that God's spirit left Saul and resided in David. And we're going to see how Saul becomes increasingly aware of this taking place. If you have your Bibles, if you look in verse 8, chapter 18, I want to read just the first couple verses for us, they'll also come up on the screen. It says, "After David had finished talking with Saul, Jonathan became one in spirit with David, and he loved him as himself. From that day, Saul kept David with him and did not let him return to his family. What had taken place is after David had killed Goliath, Saul wanted to know who was that who defeated our enemy." And they said, "It's David," and they brought him, and he said, "I'm here to serve." And what Saul discovered a little bit later is he discovered that not only was, he had not only discovered was David a giant killer, but he's also a musician. And God would use his musical ability, his musical talent, to soothe the emotional ups and downs that Saul himself was experiencing. And so Saul said, "I'm not going to let this guy go. I want him to stay here." And while he was there in the king's court, while he was there in the king's house, this bond developed between him and the king's son, whose name was Jonathan. It says in verse 3, "Johnathan made a covenant with David because he loved him as he loved himself." Twice that phrase is used, he loved him as he loved himself. And yet the idea of love when it's talked about in the Old Testament, most often when it's talked about among individuals is a kind of love that refers to being there for someone, a deep genuine concern. There's a few places, specifically the song of Solomon, where the context of love is used in a sexual nature, but most of the time in the Old Testament, when it talks about love in a sexual nature, it says he knew her, or she knew him, referring to an intimate knowledge of that person, even in the area of sexuality. And so it describes their relationship really in a deep friendship, and he talks about in the context of a covenant. Covenant is not something that we often talk about in our culture. We talk about contracts. You sign a contract for a certain job position. You have to sign a contract. You sign a contract when you borrow money from the bank. You sign a contract when you enter an agreement with someone. But one of the places we often talk about a covenant is marriage. Or often we treat marriage like a contract, because you see in a contract, you enter a contract with someone because you don't trust the other person. And you enter that contract because you want to guarantee that they're going to pay you what they owe you. Or you want to guarantee that your employer is going to give you what you deserve during the time that you're employed by them. And that's what a contract does, a contract binds you, but one person can break the contract. You can tear it up and it can be done. But a covenant, most often when covenants are entered into, they're because of a desire to be in relationship, not to protect yourself from the other person. And a covenant is one that when entered into is not something that can be destroyed simply by one person bringing that to an end. And so that's one of the reasons that I talk about this concept of a covenant when I talk about the arena of marriage. Did a wedding two weeks ago, another wedding this next weekend, Gina Nauman who many of us know is getting married this next weekend and we're very excited for her. She was here in first service and everybody gave her a round of applause. But I'll be talking about this whole idea of a covenant because that's a relationship that is best pictured in the context of marriage versus a contract where you're doing it because you want to hold the other person to it. And so what David and Jonathan enter into here in verse three, it says Jonathan made this covenant with David and they entered into a relationship because they had something to offer and because they wanted to commit themselves to one another and they didn't want this to end. Verse four, it pictures the significance of that. It says he took off the robe he was wearing, gave it to David along with his tunic and even his sword, his bow, his belt. It reminds me of what happens with little kids sometimes. I don't know if this happened to you as a kid or maybe you've watched this with your kids when they bring home this and they show up at your house with something that belongs to their friends and it's kind of expensive and you're like where did you get that from and you're like oh from my friend, you're like your friend gave you that, yeah they gave you that. You can't have that, you have to go give that back. What do you mean I have to go give that back? They gave it to me because they just wanted to enter into that relationship of friendship and so what did they do? They give them something of great value and that's what took place here with Jonathan and with David. But there's also something subtly symbolic about this because the things that he describes in that verse when he describes his robe, his tunic, his sword, his bow, these are symbols of his position and symbol of his authority and it's almost as if he's subtly recognizing that he will not one day be king but David will one day be king and he hands those things over. Verse five goes on to describe what happens in this setting with David. It says whatever mission saw sentinel and David was so successful that saw a game of high rank in the army, this please all the troops and saw his officers as well. Seemed like everything David touched, he had kind of like the Midas touch, you know. Every project he got involved in, every job he tackled, everything just went right. And so Saul was like, everybody's like, he's kind of making this all happen. You should put him in charge and Saul really didn't, he acts like he didn't have a choice and he was continually successful. So so successful that the theme song of that day, the pop song on the radio of that day would have been, Saul has killed his thousands, but David he's killed his tens of thousands. So how do you think that impacted Saul? A shepherd boy shows up on the scene, defeats Goliath who no one in his whole army, the king included, had the bravery or the courage or the reliance upon God to do so that had been taunting his whole nation for six weeks. And now he goes out and every battle he goes out, he comes back victorious with the spoils of war that everyone is enjoying and celebrating. Well, this didn't set too well with Saul. Look at verse eight, Saul was very angry and this refrain displeased him. They've credited David with ten thousands, he thought, but me only with thousands. What more can he get but the kingdom? And from that time on, Saul kept a close eye on David. You maybe have seen this happen at work where there's a president or a CEO of a company and they don't treat people well and they kind of, they're all about the prophet and the bottom line and they just run rough shot over knee over everybody. And then there's a VP underneath him who pays attention to people and he's engaged with people and he resources them and make sure they have what they need. And without realizing it, the alliances start to shift in a company towards this individual and away from this individual and guess what tends to happen to that VP? He tends to what? Get pushed aside or loses job. Why? Because the threat is too great. Because what would happen in that culture in that day is what you would have called a political or a military coup where there would be a movement of the people away from the leadership of Saul and towards the leadership of David. And if David chose to, he could easily take over the whole kingdom and Saul would be deposed and deposed kings didn't live around very long. They were taken out of the picture and usually killed. So the next day, this reads like a scene from a movie, an evil spirit from God came forcibly on Saul. He was prophesying while David was playing his liar. He usually did, saw the spirit in his hand and you hurled it at him saying, "I'll pin David the wall," but David alluded him twice and I don't know if he threw one with each armor. This is recording two different events that happen, but I don't know about you, but if I was playing a harp, now that would be a dream sequence to start with, if I was playing a harp, but if I was playing a harp and there's someone that I'm playing the harp for and he throws two spears at me, how would you be feeling at that moment in time? Probably a little fearful, wouldn't you say? I think my fear level would be slowly elevating, but look what the text says in the very next verse, "Saul was afraid of David." It's a little bit of a head scratcher. So the guys that throw in the spears, the guy that the king, the guy that's in charge of everything, he's afraid of David, but go look at it says why he was afraid of David because the Lord was with David, but it departed from Saul. Saul realized something had changed. He realized something had happened and Saul instead of looking inward and trying to figure out what was going on, why has this happened, going and turning to God saying, "God, can you tell me what has happened for you to depart from me?" All Saul did is Saul just allowed emotion to take over him and to rage to fill his soul slowly deeper or higher and higher to the point that he's now trying to take the life of this man who is simply doing exactly what the king wanted him to do. Goes on to say that, "So he sent David away and gave and command over a thousand men. David led the troops and campaigns that everything he did was successful because God was with him." It says, "All of Israel and Judah loved David because he led them in all of their campaigns." The rest of that chapter, which we're not going to spend time on today goes on to tell the story, anyone recall last week the person who killed the giant, they would get great wealth. You may remember the second thing that they would get? They would get, what, king's daughter's hand in marriage, and then by the way no taxes for the rest of your life to boot as well, but so the rest of this chapter is a story of David who is supposed to receive one of the king's daughters ends up being the second daughter who really loves him, and in an attempt to kill him once again, Saul sends David out to try to defeat some Philistines, and David ends up taking out twice as many as he needed to. In the midst of all of this very confusing experience, look, turn over to chapter 20. It says there that David fled because of fear on his life, and he got in touch with Jonathan in chapter 20, verse 1, and he says, "What have I done? What is my crime? How have I wronged your father, that he's trying to kill me?" Jonathan goes on to say, "Never. You are not going to die. Look, my father doesn't do anything great or small without letting me know. Why would he hide this from me?" It isn't so. These guys had two different perspectives on this situation. David, his threat level, was like around the five. He was concerned, very, very, very concerned. Jonathan, it was pretty low. He said, "My father would tell me if there was trouble." David goes on to say in verse 3, "Your father knows very well that I have found favor in your eyes." He said to himself, "Jonathan must know this, or he will be grieved, yet as surely as the Lord lives in you, there is only one step between me and death." David said, "This is really, really serious. I am one step removed from having my life ended here." Jonathan says, "It's not that bad. It's not that bad. I would know about it. I would know about it." And David says, "I need to get you to figure out what's going on." Jonathan says, "I'll do whatever you need. What do you want to do?" He says, "Well, there's a festival coming up, the New Moon Festival. At this festival, everyone that is anyone is going to be at this festival. And so, why don't we run this little test and figure out if your father wants to kill me like I think he wants to kill me?" He said, "Here's what we'll do." He said, "When I don't show up and your father asks where I am, this is what my cover story is going to be. My cover story is going to be that I went back with my family and I'm staying with my family and we're celebrating altogether this festival back in Bethlehem where I live. That's going to be our cover story." And when you tell your father this cover story, his response will let you know whether I'm right or you're right. If his response is, "Oh, okay. That sounds reasonable, then I'll defer to you that you are right." And if his response is off the charts and he flips his lid and blows his sack, then you'll know that I'm right. It sounds like a reasonable enough plan. And as he's going out laying his plan out, David, in verse 8 says this, "As for you," he's talking to Jonathan, "show kindness to your servant for you have brought him into a covenant with you before the Lord." He said, "If I'm guilty, then kill me yourself. Why hand me over to your father?" David's saying, "If I have done anything wrong." David's like, "I do not know why this guy's trying to take my life. I have no idea, no idea." It's kind of like when your parents come home from work and they've had a bad day and they're slamming things around and they're kind of jumping down your throat and telling you to do this and you're like, "I have no idea what I did, but for some reason they're really, really upset at me." Any students ever have that experience, you don't have to raise your hand. You're all smiling at me. Somebody raises his hand back there and I'll leave him unnamed. That's kind of what's going on. David's like, "I have no idea what I did. I just showed up, killed the giant. I think that's a good thing. I went out to battle and I keep winning. I think that's a good thing. This guy wants to wipe me out. What in the world is going on?" If I'm that bad of a person, Jonathan, I'd rather have you kill me than your father. Jonathan's like, "No, no, no, no, no, that's not going to happen." Jonathan says, "If I had the least inkling what my father was going to harm you, do you think I would tell you?" Then he says, "How are you going to tell me if your father does want to kill me? How are you going to tell me?" He says, "Well, we've got to come up with the plan. We've got to come up with the plan because if my father does want to kill you, I will tell you. I will not leave it and leave you uncertain of what the future is going to be." But then look what he says down in verse 14. This is Jonathan speaking. He says, "But show me unfailing kindness, like the Lord's kindness, as long as I live, so that I may not be killed and do not ever cut off your kindness from my family, not even the Lord has cut off every one of David's enemies from the face of the earth." What's Jonathan saying there? Well, it's as if Jonathan kind of knows what's going to happen. I don't know if he really does, but it's as he has a sense that his father, King Saul, is one day soon not going to be king and David is going to be the one elevated to be king. When a new king shows up in town, what does the new king do with the old king? He gets rid of the old king and he gets rid of all of the old king's family because the last thing the new king wants is people to follow, to get the old king or someone who's a descendant of him, to get a following and to gather people around who's supportive of him to threaten the new king. So usually when the old king was done with his whole family, often would be wiped out. So Jonathan says, "Will you promise that even upon my death that you will take care of my family?" And David says, "Absolutely I will." And he made a covenant and he said, "They reaffirmed their oath out of their love for one another because Jonathan loved him as he loved himself." So then he says, "Alright, here's my plan. Tomorrow after the festival, what's going to happen is I'm going to come out in this field and I want you hiding over on the other side of the field and I'm going to shoot some arrows in this field and when I shoot these arrows in this field, I'll bring a little guy out with me and I'll send him to go retrieve the arrows and what's going to happen is I'm going to give you a message in my words, know whether it's safe. If I tell him the arrows are close by, then it's safe for you to come. If I tell him the arrows are way beyond him, then you know it is not safe for you to come. And so that's the plan that they had come up with. So in verse 24, the festival occurs and as the festival occurs, David doesn't show up the first day. Not uncommon for them to not show up the first day. The texts is real clear to indicate to us that Abner, another military leader, showed up on the scene. So it was expected that the military leaders, one of whom was David, would be there. You say, "Why wasn't unusual? They might not show up." If he had been in a battle recently or even come back from war for this festival, which often was the case, they might have had to go through a cleansing process because of contact with dead bodies before they could be in the festival, be in places of worship, all those kinds of things, the Old Testament ceremonial law. So not unusual. He wasn't there for day one. Day two shows up and he's not there. And Saul says to Jonathan, "Why hasn't the son of Jesse? He's not even using his name now. Why hasn't he come?" So Jonathan gives him the cover story. He said, "David asked for permission." He said, "Let me go because our family's having this sacrifice in the town and my brother has ordered me to be there. If I've found favor, let me get away to see my brothers. That's why he's not there." And so Jonathan saying, "I gave him permission to go." Doesn't seem too unreasonable, does it? I don't think so. So look at Saul's response in verse 30, "Saul's anger flared up at Jonathan and this is what he said to his son. He said, 'You son of a perverse and rebellious woman, don't I know that you have sided with the son of Jesse to your own shame and the shame of the mother who bore you?'" Wow. It's a little bottled up rage there. I mean, he not only tears into him but he tears into his mother, his son's mother, his wife, and reams her out in the process. I mean, this is a perfect picture of what happens in our lives when we do not deal with anger. You know, when you are angry about something and you don't do something about that anger, it doesn't just disappear. It gets buried. And what happens to anger over time is anger seeps or anger leaks out. It has to go somewhere if it's not resolved. We've all been in those kinds of situations where we blow up at someone and then we follow up by saying to them, "Oh, it's not, I'm sorry, it really isn't you." Just anger seeping out at someone it was never intended to be directed towards. And that's what's happening here with Saul. Saul has a block goal. Saul wanted to be king. Saul was designated to be king. He wanted to be the ruler of the land. He wanted the allegiance of the people and what has happened. All that allegiance has gone to where? To David. And so where is his anger at? To David. Who does he throw the sword at? David. And then out of the blue, out of nowhere comes this rage. And his son, who simply says, "I gave the guy a request which didn't seem to be too unreasonable." And he explodes in a venomous rage at his son and his own wife, accusing him not only of siding with Jesse, betraying his own father and shaming his own mother. What could he go on to say in verse 30, 31, "As long as the son of Jesse lives on this earth, neither you nor your kingdom will be established, now send someone to bring him to me, for he must die." There it's out. So David was right. The threat level is at a five. The risk for him is incredibly high. And now Jonathan knows it. And Jonathan attempts to speak up. Look what he says in verse 32, he said, "Why should he be put to death? What has he done?" Exactly the words that David was asking earlier. But Saul hurled his spear at him to kill him. Then Jonathan knew that his father intended to kill David. He throws his spear at his own son in a jealous rage over what has happened. Jonathan got up from the table in a fierce anger. On that day, he couldn't even eat because he was so grieved to his father's shameful treatment of David. Saul's anger was an unrighteous anger because it boiled up out of simply what he wanted. Jonathan's anger was a righteous anger because it was against an injustice of this man who had done nothing wrong but was putting, having his life being threatened. And he lost his appetite and he was full of grief over the situation. The next morning Jonathan goes out just as he and David had pre-arranged. They took a little boy, took him out to the field, shot the arrows, said the arrows are far beyond you signaling to David that the threat level was high just exactly as he thought it was. The little boy retrieved the arrows, took them, went back into town, didn't know anything that had happened. David came out of hiding and it says at the end of the story there that he bowed down before Jonathan three times as a way of honoring him. They kissed each other, wept together, but David wept the most. I'm not sure why he wept the most, but they both seem to have an indication that something that they had experienced, this friendship, this bond, this covenanting to protect and take care of and be there for one another even in death beyond the grave was going to change. Jonathan says to David in verse 42, "Go in peace for we have sworn friendship with each other in the name of the Lord, saying the Lord is our witness between you and me, between our descendants and my descendants forever." Second Samuel 7 and second Samuel 21 indicate that David kept his word, that David honored this friendship even after Jonathan's life was taken that David when he was in the position of king took care of Jonathan's family when others were trying to potentially take their lives which would have been very risky. David was a man of his word, he was a man of character, he was a man of relationships. And last week I pointed out a verse in 1 Samuel 13 where Samuel is talking about the kind of person that God wants to lead the people of Israel and the kind of person that God wants he says, he said he wanted a man after God's own heart, that's what he is looking for, a man after God's own heart and one of the traits that becomes very clear in this passage that is important to God is the trait of relationships, relationships. And when you think about that the reality is that's always been important to God. The Bible says that God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit exists perfectly in this thing called the Trinity, unique yet different. And in reality they could have existed forever in perfect community and perfect oneness but God wanted to create people that would have relationships not only with Him but with one another. And so he made man and he made woman in his image, in his likeness and then he gave them the choice to choose to follow God, to choose to enter in a relationship with God but mankind turned and walked away by sinning in the garden. God so longed for a relationship with mankind that he was willing to send his one and only son Jesus to this earth, to die on a cross, to take away the sinfulness of mankind and make it possible for them to have a relationship with God. When Jesus was here on the earth he said, "I want you to have a kind of oneness with one another that the Father and I experience, relationship is something that was very, very important to God." And one of the traits that seems to be highlighted over and over again by David and Jonathan in these stories is the relationship that they had. I had the opportunity to get a glimpse of that this past weekend as we celebrated my aunt's life. Friday night Friday afternoon we were at the retirement community that she lived at in Lancaster, Calvary Holmes and we met a number of ladies who had, and gentlemen, who had become friends of hers in the last six years. We also met individuals that were friends of hers when she volunteered at how high retirement community down in Honeybrook and they were there to honor her life as well. And then yesterday we were down in Maryland at the gravesite service and we met friends of hers that she worked with for 30 years in the city of Baltimore. She hadn't seen most of them in 10 or 12 years, talked to them over in the phone but hadn't seen them. And then we met friends that she, people that had met her in the 70s and in the 60s and even in the 50s and had known her that whole long period of time and they came out to honor her life and we met all of these people who called her a friend. And one of the characteristics of David's life was his friendship with Jonathan and you could call him a friend for life is what you could call him, a friend for life. The Bible has a lot to say about friendship and one of the individuals that writes about friendship is David's son Solomon and I wonder if he learned a little bit about this from his father. He doesn't even know. But he writes about some of the characteristics of relationships and when he writes in Proverbs chapter 6 about the things that God hates and the things that God says should not be a part of our lives, every single one of them is about relationships. Look at the list on the screen. The things that God hates, haughty or proud eyes, that's relationships, a lying tongue that shows up in relationship, hands that shed innocent blood, you do that in a relationship, a heart that devises wicked schemes that's towards other people, relationships, feet that are quick to rush into evil, it's a relationship, a false witness that pours out lies of a person who stirs up conflict in community. The things that God hates are things that happen in relationships. God talks about this in Proverbs 13, Solomon writes about this, excuse me in Proverbs 13, he says, "Walk with wise and become wise for a companion of fools, suffers harm." You have to think about your relationships, you have to think about the kind of relationships you will have. And the people that you have relationships with, they're going to rub off on you. And this is really, really critical for our students to understand because you sometimes befriend people who befriend you. But if you have a friend that's making the same bad decision over and over again, they're probably not wise, they're likely more foolish. And even though you might not make the same decision, bad decision, they make what happens is when you're around people who are foolish, is they make decisions that blow up and make a mess, and that mess gets on you. And so that's why Solomon says, "Hang out with wise people," and you know what? You're going to become even wiser, but you hang out with foolish people that make the same mistakes and make a mess of things, it's going to affect you. He goes on to talk in Proverbs 17 about a old friend who loves at all times. All times, all times. And then in Proverbs 27, 17, he talks about iron sharpening iron. You know what happens when iron hits iron? What happens? What does produce? What's produced when iron hits iron? A spark, right? A spark. And a friend who loves you, a friend is there through thick and thin, is not a friend that always tells you what you want to hear, that never says anything that's hard for you to hear. That's not really a great friend, that's a nice person, it's not a great friend. A friend is someone who has the courage to say to you, something that's hard to hear, and something you really don't want to admit is true about yourself, but they love you too much to ignore that, and they're willing to say, this is what you need to hear. That's what a friend does, and they sharpen one another. Makes me wonder if Solomon gained a little bit of insight about friendship from his father David, and the relationship that he had with Jonathan. If you think about David's situation, David's life was in jeopardy. His life was in jeopardy, and he turned to his friend Jonathan. If your life was in jeopardy, who would you turn to? Who would you turn to? If you made a bad decision in your life, and you just created an absolute mess, who would you turn to? If you were in a difficult situation, you did not know how to get yourself out of. Who would you turn to? Who would you turn to? Is there someone in your life beyond a spouse that you would turn to if that were to happen? That's the kind of relationship that Jonathan and David had. The kind of relationship that when life falls apart, they're people that you can turn to. They're people that you can turn to. When I think about relationships, and what relationships would look like, one of the things that's helped me over the years is looking at the relationships that Jesus had, and Jesus had relationships on different levels. Everybody wasn't on the same level, because as much as I would like to be great friends with every person in this room, I can't possibly do that. It's not humanly possible, and Jesus didn't attempt to do that either. But I was challenged about this a few years ago, and I realized a lot of my relationships were all at the same level. I kind of kept everybody at the same level. But Jesus had a couple of his followers who were very close to him. Is anybody to know the names of the three followers of Jesus who were closest to him? Peter? Who else? James and John, right? Three of his disciples. They were there on the amount of transfiguration, and they saw Jesus in all his glory. Nobody else saw that. They were there in the garden, and unfortunately they fell asleep. Sometimes friends do that on you. They fall asleep on you, but they don't come through when you need them. But he had them there. He had them there. And then beyond that, Jesus had a circle of individuals called his disciples, and they were known as the Twelve, and what did the Twelve do? They experienced life with Jesus. They went through the ups and downs, and they were not there at the most critical moments, but they were there in a lot of the moments of life, a lot of the moments of life. And then the Gospel writers record that Jesus had a larger group of people who traveled with him, known as the Seventy. And so when you think about your life, are there people that might fall into these buckets of relationships? Guys especially, but this affects ladies as well, but guys especially, are there one to two individuals other than your spouse that you would consider a close friend that would be there for you no matter what, no matter what. That's one of the reasons we have our Knights program, because one of the major things that men have to learn that our culture takes them the opposite direction is that you are not designed to do life alone. You are not designed to do life your own. It is arrogant and proud and selfish to think that you can. So there are people in your life that will be there. How about a group? We talked about this in small groups, we talked about community groups, we had plugged in last week, and we had over 20 people there, and three different groups that kind of came out, and people that are excited about stepping into relationships and just kind of experiencing life with people. People that kind of know that they know the ups and downs, and they are kind of there with you, they are the support that are there when life is going through the challenges that you are going to face. And then lastly, people that you know from all different walks of life, who you share and experience life together. The example from the life of David and Jonathan, I think is truly one that even though there is just these little snapshots of it that give us a sense of, man, that is the kind of relationships I would really like to have. Someone said to me after first service, they said, "They are hard work, aren't they?" I was like, "Yeah, they are not as easy as I am making them sound up here this morning." It is hard work, it is hard work, it is sacrifice, it is time, it will result in disappointment because, as much as we want to be there for people that are closest to us, the truth is we will not always be there all the time for each other, we won't. And one of the things that Jesus was very clear when he was here on this earth is he was very clear that as much as relationships are important all throughout the Bible, that Jesus was offering a kind of relationship to us that was different than any other relationship we could have. Because as much as I want to be there all the time for my wife and my friends, the reality is I can't, I can't. It is not physically and humanly and even emotionally possible to be there all the time for them. But you know what God says when we enter a relationship with him? He says, "I will never leave you and I will never forsake you. I will always be there for you. No matter what you face, I am in it with you." And David seemed to get a sense of this because he wrote about this over and over and over and over again in the Psalms about God being there with us and for us. And we got a glimpse of what that was like when Jesus was here on the earth and he was with his followers and he offers that kind of relationship to you today. We're going to close with a song that just reminds us of the meaning of that relationship, the significance of what Jesus offers to us. And it's a song we've sung here before and if you know the words feel free to join in and be reminded of the powerful truth that it communicates.