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The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. And also with you. Will you join me in the prayer of confession? Lord, we come before you today once again struggling with our pride and vanity. A renewed hunger for spirituality in our world and a war which has turned so many people to prayer has made you and those who follow you more popular lately. God, we rejoice in these
victories for you and your kingdom, but we worry that our faith has become too easy, even fashionable these days. We've basked in this newfound respect, but are in danger of forgetting what it means to be prophetic, to be fools for Christ in this world. Lord, in so many ways we have already forgotten. The things that we take joy in are not always the same things that you take joy in, although we say that they are. When
an advance for your kingdom is made, we are mostly concerned that we are given proper credit for our contribution. And when a setback occurs, we are quick to deflect the blame to another. Lord, it is such a privilege to be active participants in your will. Forgive us, Father, when we abuse that privilege. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Hear these words of assurance from the book of Zechariah. I will signal for them and gather them
in, for I have redeemed them, and they shall be as many as of old. Though I have scattered them among the nations, yet in far countries they shall remember me. And with their children they shall live and return. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Just one of my soul. Just one of my soul. And all that is within me. Just is one of his name. Join me in the Old Testament lesson,
Psalm 26, page 477. Vindicate me, O Lord, for I have led a blameless life. I have trusted in the Lord without wavering. Test me, O Lord, and try me. Examine my heart and my mind. For your love is ever before me, and I walk continually in your love. I do not sit with deceitful men, nor do I consort with hypocrites. I abhor the assembly of evildoers and refuse to sit with the wicked. I wash my hands
in innocence and go about your altar, O Lord. Proclaiming aloud your praise and telling of all your wonderful deeds, I love the house where you live, O Lord, the place where your glory dwells. Do not take your soul away. Do not take away my soul along with sinners, or my life with bloodthirsty men, and whose hands are wicked schemes, whose right hands are full of bribes. But I lead a blameless life. Redeem me and be merciful
to me. My feet stand on level ground. In the great assembly, I will praise the Lord. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. This is now the sixth sermon in a series of messages that we've been preaching on David the King. During the last few weeks, we've been looking at the early life of David. We're trying to understand some of the ingredients of greatness in David's life. Last Sunday, we actually looked at
three of the experiences David had in that early period of his life that contributed to his greatness. We noticed that these experiences he had came at a time in his life when his life was very hard because of the pressure of the conspiracies of Saul against him. And yet in that, you might say, hostile environment, in that very hard lifetime, David made some great discoveries. He discovered the tender care of God, those two themes that are
in all the Psalms. We saw it in Psalm 26. It was read just a few moments ago. David's thankfulness for the goodness of God and his faithfulness, which becomes such a major theme in David's life. And it is the resource that David has that holds him in a hard time. His confidence that God is good and that God is faithful. And that he discovered in the hard times of his life. Secondly, the second discovery is almost
mysterious in a way. Why in such a hard time would David discover what he calls the joy of his salvation? But David is described to us by Samuel as the sweet psalmist of Israel. And he writes all these songs. He is the songwriter of Israel. And he writes these songs of praise and songs of joy during this hard period in his life. And we reflected on that last week too. That he discovered the joy of the
Lord, the joy of his salvation in the middle of that hard time. And the third discovery that he made during this hard period was that he was gifted in this time of his life with a great personal friendship. And it's that that I want us to talk about today. We want to explore the contours, the dimensions of that friendship that existed between Jonathan the son of Saul and David the son of Jesse. First Samuel, the whole
book of First Samuel really narrates these hard period, this hard period in David's life and some of the early adventures of David's life. And they also narrate for us that friendship, that amazing friendship between Jonathan and David. I want us to reflect on that. And I'm going to take you on a tour now through First Samuel. So if you have a Bible, take one of the pew Bibles and open up to First Samuel. It'll help you
a lot if you can see for yourself these texts. As you know, I've assigned First Samuel. You all should have read it anyway. And if you haven't now, well, that's your problem. But now I'll try to take you on a journey through, Samuel, so you can track with us a little bit on some of these narratives. I'll give you some high point narratives. Before we talk about the friendship of David and Jonathan, we have to first
meet Jonathan. Jonathan appears earlier in the text than David does. We meet him first in Chapter 13. He's identified as a warrior, as a very brave warrior, not even the son of Saul. We only discover in Chapter 14 that he is the son of Saul. He's listed among the children of Saul as the oldest son, as the first. So we assume he's the oldest son. And in First Samuel 14, we get our first, you might say,
major encounter with Jonathan. I can't read the whole account, but I will read the final paragraph of that account. Look at First Samuel 14, verse 43, and I'll read a very fascinating account to you. Saul, in this particular period in his life as the king, as the popular king of Israel, was trying very hard to have the people hold a devout stance toward Yahweh. And so he had issued decree that they would fast, and especially on
the Sabbath day. And then he discovered that the fast had been broken by one of the soldiers. And then Saul stated that whoever broke the fast would be executed for having broken the fast. And then it turns out that it's Jonathan, his own son, who broke the fast. And so Saul, this will give you some insights into Saul's nature. Saul said, well then, Jonathan will have to be executed. And now I'll pick it up at that
point, verse 43. Saul said then to Jonathan, tell me what you've done. And Jonathan told him, I tasted a little honey with the tip of my staff. He took his staff and stuck it in the beehive and took the honey and ate it. His other soldiers did not do it, but Jonathan did. And how much he knew that he was breaking the king's command, we don't know, but now he admits it. So I tasted a little
honey with the tip of the staff that was in my hand. Here I am, I will die. And so Jonathan says, if you've decreed it, now I'll die. And Saul said, God, do so to me and more also. You shall surely die, Jonathan. And so now Saul decrees that his son shall be executed for this breach of the king's command. Then an amazing thing happens. Then the people said to Saul, shall Jonathan die who has wrought
this great victory in Israel? Far from it. As the Lord lives, there shall not one hair of his head fall to the ground. The people actually come between Saul and his command and Jonathan. And they will not allow Saul to execute Jonathan. This gives you, the reason I wanted you to see this passage, it shows you the popularity and the high esteem that Jonathan is held by the people. The people will not allow the king, imagine
the courage of the people, to stand up to the king and say you're not going to execute Jonathan. And notice they go on to say, for he has wrought with God this day. In other words, he's on God's side. So the people ransomed Jonathan and he did not die. That word ransom, they set him free. They rescued him. And he did not die. And then Saul went up from pursuing the Philistines and the Philistines went to
their own place. That's a very major, you can read the whole chapter there, that whole paragraph, several paragraphs there about Jonathan and his great victories. And this amazing show of popularity that he had with the people. Well, the next few chapters deal with David, the anointing of David by Samuel and then the astounding chapter 15 where David comes up. He's the youngest of his family. Jonathan is the oldest in his family. David comes up and wins
the battle against Goliath. That's in chapter 17. And after that, Saul notices him and Saul is very impressed with David. And notice the end of chapter 17, we're over now to 17. So Saul said, who is this man who did this brave deed? And David then identifies himself to Saul and says, I'm the son of your servant, Jesse, from Bethlehem. And so then Saul is very impressed with David. And so notice chapter 18, verse one. And
when he finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David. Now we meet Jonathan and David together and we see that David and Jonathan, Jonathan feels a great soul maintenance. His soul is bonded to David. It was knit to David and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. And Saul took David that day and would not let him return to his father's house. So he asked him now to live in
the castle or in the palace with Saul. And then Jonathan made a covenant with David because he loved him as his own soul. And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was on him and gave it to David and his armor and even his sword and his bow and his girdle. And David went out and was successful wherever Saul sent him. And so David, so Saul sent him, sent him over men of war. And this was
good in the sight of all the people and also in the sight of Saul's servants. And then we have narratives. In fact, I read this next part to you a couple of weeks ago. We have narratives now of David having great success. But there's one problem about David's successes. When he comes back from his successes, the crowds shout, Saul has his thousands. David has his ten thousands. And now that's the passage I read to you a
few weeks ago. And Saul, verse 8, and Saul was very angry when he heard this and this saying displeased him. And he said, they have ascribed to David ten thousand and to me they have ascribed thousands. And what more can he have but my kingdom? And so Saul eyed David from that day on. And that begins the intrigue of the dominates the whole rest of first Samuel. Saul's determination to do away with David. Even though he's
brought David in, David's his servant. David's in the palace and he now tries to plot. And I've already covered some of those plots with you in the last couple of weeks. All right, but now we're not finished with this narrative of what happens between David and Jonathan. Open up now to chapter 18, I mean chapter 19, verses 1. We get another interesting glimpse into the relationship of Jonathan not only with David but with his father. Saul
spoke to Jonathan, his son and to all his servants, that they should kill David. Saul at this point tries to actually include Jonathan in the plot to kill David. But Jonathan, Saul's son, delighted much in David. And Jonathan told David, Saul, my father, seeks to kill you. Therefore, take heed to yourself in the morning. Stay in a secret place and hide yourself. This is the beginning of an incredible tight wire act or balancing act that Jonathan
has to follow the rest of his life. On the one hand, his loyalty to his father and Jonathan stays loyal to his father. He dies at his father's side and his loyalty to David. So that on the one hand, Jonathan is alongside of his father but doesn't approve of what his father's doing. And on the other hand, he tries to protect David and always lets David know the plots of his father. So that Jonathan, at great
personal risk, and you already saw earlier that Saul would not even hesitate at all to kill his son. He was willing to kill his son for eating some honey. He would kill his son if he thought his son was telling David the plots. And so Jonathan does both of these at the same time. He stays loyal to his father and he stays loyal to David. And you can see it's an amazing thing that Jonathan does. So
Jonathan comes to David and says, take heed of yourself in the morning. I'll go out and stand beside my father in the field where you are and I will speak to my father about you. And if I learn anything, I will tell you. And Jonathan spoke well. Now listen to this very interesting passage. This is Jonathan now speaking to his father. And Jonathan spoke well of David to Saul his father and said to him, let not
the king sin against his servant David. Notice how bold Jonathan is with his father. You fathers, are you lucky enough to have a son that's that bold with you? That calls you up and tells you when he thinks you're wrong? Jonathan did that with his father. Unfortunately, he didn't do any good with Saul, but he did it. He tried his best. So David, Saul said to David, I mean, Jonathan spoke to his well of David to
Saul his father and said, let not the king sin against his servant David because he has not sinned against you and because his deeds have been of good service to you. For he took his life in his hand and slew the Philistines and the Lord wrought a great victory for all of Israel. You saw it and you rejoiced. Why then will you sin against innocent blood by killing David without cause? And Saul harkened to the voice
of Jonathan and then Saul swore. And this is the beginning of many great pledges that Saul makes to do good, all of which aren't worth the paper they're written on. It's one of the sad things, isn't it? Jonathan and Saul is very good at saying, I'm so sorry, but he doesn't mean one word of it. And that's why I guess from that moment on, repentance in the Bible has never been just something you say. In fact,
let me tell you something about a marriage or any other relationship. You can ruin a relationship more by saying you're sorry all the time. What's that supposed to mean? Do something. Repent. Change. Jonathan says, I mean, David, Saul says all the time how sorry he is and he'll never do that again. And then he turns right around and does it. He does it several times in this first Samuel. I read two of them last week. Here's
the first one. So this beautiful and notice how beautiful it is. Wow. He pours it on as the Lord lives. He said, David shall not be put to death. In other words, I promise as God lives, I promise David shall not be put to death. So Jonathan then called David and Jonathan showed him all these things and Jonathan brought David to Saul. And he was in the presence before them. So Jonathan is playing this role with
his father and with David. And he does it all the way through the whole of this narrative. Well, open now to chapter 20 because we have a very famous passage in chapter 20 between Jonathan and David. I can't read the whole chapter, but notice verse 12. We have the beginning of this covenant that these two men make. Jonathan said to David, the Lord, the God of Israel, be witness when I have sounded my father about this
time tomorrow or the third day. Behold, if he is well disposed toward David, will I not then send a disclosure to you? Again, he's trying to play that mediator role toward Saul for David. But should it please my father to do you harm? The Lord do so to Jonathan too. Jonathan now puts his lot in with David and says, if my father tries to do harm to you, I'll stand alongside of you so that harm will
come to me too. And he makes his covenant with David. So may the Lord be with you as he has been with my father. And if I am still alive, show me the loyal love of the Lord that I may not die. And do not cut off your loyalty from my house forever. And here comes this wonderful covenant that Jonathan makes with his friend David. And notice, we can't read the rest of it, but go all
the way to chapter 40. The same chapter up to verse 42 comes a very famous line. And then Jonathan said to David, this is chapter 20, verse 42. Then Jonathan said to David, go in peace for as much as we have sworn both of us in the name of the Lord, saying the Lord shall be between you and me, between my descendants and between your descendants forever. And then he arose and departed. And that's the great
covenant that Jonathan and David made. And they kept it. Finally, of course, the plots of Saul get so heavy and so impossible that David has to leave the country. And finally, his own soldiers engage Saul in battle. Jonathan stays loyal to his father while he's still loyal to David. And in a battle, Saul is killed and Jonathan is killed. David, when he hears the news that Saul and Jonathan have been killed because David never wanted Saul
killed, he gave orders. He wanted no one to put their hand on Saul because he felt Saul had been anointed by God and should never have been killed. And he was absolutely grief stricken when he discovered that Saul had been killed. And so now open to second Samuel, the beginning of the second book, we have the final passage I'll read to you where David laments the death of Saul and Jonathan. Verse 17. So David lamented with
his lamentation over Saul and Jonathan, his son. And then he sang a song. And I can't read the whole song to you, but the first two strokes of the song, he tells about the battle that occurred and how these men died. And then in the fourth stroke, he sings a song to both men. Saul and Jonathan, starting with verse 23, Saul and Jonathan, beloved and lovely, in life and in death, they were not divided. Notice how
David recognized that Jonathan was always loyal to his father. And Jonathan and David honors Jonathan for that. They were swifter than eagles. They were stronger than lions. Ye daughters of Israel weep over Saul, who clothed you daintily in scarlet and put ornaments of gold upon your apparel. How are the mighty fallen in the midst of battle? And David grieved at the death of Saul. And then we get this beautiful grief over the death of Jonathan. Jonathan
lies slain upon the high places. I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan. Very pleasant have you been to me. Your love to me was wonderful, passing the love of woman. How are the mighty fallen? And the weapons of war perished. And that's the end of their friendship. I want to do some reflections on friendship from this passage, these passages. I want to reflect on the gift of friendship that these two men experience. But I want
to do it also in terms of our lives today and see what we can learn from this. What is friendship? And how do we define friendship? And what would friendship mean for us? And what does it mean for us as Christians? Well, I want to make three main reflections on the friendship that we see in these narratives between Jonathan and David. The first is a very simple and obvious point that comes out very early on in
the passage. And that is a friend. And one way to define a friend is that a friend is someone who wants the best for you. And you know you're a friend to someone when you want the best for him or for her. You know your friendship when you want the best for that other man or woman who is your friend. Notice it's exactly the way it's portrayed in the early passages of Jonathan. The interesting thing about
the friendship, this element of the friendship between Jonathan and David, is that by all ordinary reckoning, they should be competitors, not friends. Jonathan is the oldest son of Saul. Jonathan should be king. He's the one that stands in the tradition that should be the king following Saul. Yet Jonathan protects David and honors the anointing of David and helps David to become the king. He wishes the best for David. By all counts, if you think of just
ordinary human relationships, you would think that when Jonathan first met David, he would treat David as a competitor. But notice from the very first, he takes his robe and puts it on David. He identifies totally with David. His sword. It's Jonathan who's the great warrior. And he honors David and wishes the best for David and protects David. It's an amazing friendship. And Jonathan plays this role. And it's a costly role to wish the best for David.
It doesn't seem to make sense. Remember in the Rome Olympics, Rafer Johnson from the United States did the decathlon event. And remember how the world was shocked when it was at C.Y. Yang, T.Y. Yang, C.T. Yang. C.T. Yang from Taiwan was also a decathlon competitor. And while Rafer Johnson was doing his events, C.T. Yang was running alongside, pacing him to try to speed up Rafer Johnson and his events. And they were
competing. But what the world didn't know is that they were both very close friends at UCLA. Rafer was representing the United States. C.T. Yang was representing Taiwan. But they were very good friends. And Yang wanted Rafer to do his best. And actually finally Rafer Johnson won the decathlon. It doesn't seem to make sense. Why should you want somebody else to do their best? Even if it means you're not going to win. And that's Jonathan. Jonathan
does not get to be king. David gets to be king. Jonathan should have rubbed him out. He should have allowed his father's plots to work, if you think of it by human standards. At least by the way a lot of people think of competitors. But for some reason they were friends. And this definition of a friend is fundamental. A friend is someone that wants you to succeed. And you know you're a friend when you want someone
to succeed. By the way I could give a whole sermon in here about what it means to be a good son too. But that's not a sermon on sonship. But Jonathan is also a darn good son. And by the way let's have none of that nonsense about fathers and sons. Where sons are supposed to slavishly obey their fathers. You don't get it from this text. A good son sometimes countervenes his father. Especially if his father's wrong.
And Jonathan foils all his father's treachery. And actually has the guts to stand up to his father and say why are you sinning against this innocent man. And yet Jonathan stays loyal to his father. And dies with him. And I think it's an amazing passage on sonship. A good son, a good daughter is not someone that just says yes yes yes yes yes to mother or dad. And I know I'm opening a huge Pandora's box here
for all of you that want to be parents and want to be children. But you don't just say yes to your father or your mother to be a good son. You try to find out what God's will is. And what is the just thing to do and then stand up to your parents. And that's what Jonathan did. So I could but this is not a sermon on being a son. It's a sermon on being a friend.
So we'll go back to friendship. Notice that his friendship toward David is wishing the well well for David is the definition of loyalty. Okay let me make a second observation. This friendship this friend Jonathan and David toward Jonathan. This friend keeps his own integrity and his own personhood intact. And this is also the ingredient that makes the relationship equal. And that's another another you might say ingredient in friendship. In friendship there's an equal relationship. In other
words a friendship is not slavish but it's intelligent and healthy. And there's an equality in it. Jonathan and David are equals and they relate to each other as equals. And that's the meaning of this covenant where the Lord is between you and me. And from a theological standpoint that's the great gift that your Christian faith gives you. It enables you to have equal relationships with another human being because the Lord mediates between us. And notice that's
exactly the way David and Jonathan put their covenant. The Lord is between you and me and we feel a sense of equality. In fact they call themselves soul mates. That's where you know the idea of soul mate comes from Jonathan. It's Jonathan who says from his soul he felt toward David. David's soul my soul we were equals. And it's that wonderful equality that you see in Jonathan toward David. It's again a beautiful part of this beautiful
ingredient in this friendship that we call friendship. And it doesn't mean that Jonathan will agree with David on everything or agree with his father on everything. Jonathan keeps his integrity in the friendship. But there's a sense of equal relationship. Now the third reflection I'd like to make is and this also comes out in the text. A friend is someone you like and who likes you. There is a resonance. That's how I understand that soul to soul
too. Not only are they equal but they resonate. There's a resonance of spirit between friends that makes it possible to be vulnerable. It makes it possible not to be defensive in the relationship. So that you are in a sense equal and you are able to resonate. And that is the another one of those wonderful mysterious ingredients in what makes a friendship. A certain kind of resonance of spirit. By the way let's clear the air on one
thing too. This is not a sexual attraction. Jonathan and David were not lovers. They were friends. They had a friendship and friendship and sexual attraction are two different things. And you need to know that. Sexual attraction. God is also made of sexual creatures. But sexuality is exclusive and possessive by nature. Sexual relationships are possessive relationships. Now this is not a sermon on marriage and a sermon on sex. But let me just say this on the side.
That a sexual relationship is by its nature possessive and exclusive. This is why when you have a sexual relationship with someone with your wife, your husband. And a third person comes in and you say oh well let's just enlarge our family and have an open marriage. We'll have three way sexual relationships. And then we've got four or five. It doesn't work. A third person that comes into the bonded marriage of two people is a spoiler in
that relationship. Because sexuality requires exclusivity. It's an exclusive relationship. And there is that possessive nature of sexuality. When you're sexually related to someone there's a kind of possessiveness. You don't set them free. You're bonded in a different way. By the way even the human body physiologically and emotionally signals this to us. It's interesting how even the literature now on sexuality is pointing out a very obvious fact. That there's evidence now even physiologically that the human body
was not made for multiple sexual relationships. The whole crisis in sexually transmitted diseases right now is a crisis of multiple sexual relations. We were not made for multiple sexual relationships. But we are made for multiple friendships. We are made for many friendships. We are not made for many sexual relationships. Sexuality is more exclusive by its nature. There is a kind of possessiveness in sexuality that's different than friendship. David and Jonathan are not lovers. They're friends. In
fact David says, Jonathan was my brother. That's not a sexual term. He was my brother. He was a borrowed extended family brother. Now you can have many brothers and sisters but you only have one lover. It's the way your body was made. It's the way you're emotionally been made. One lover at one time. It's the way we're made. And on the other hand friendships can be, we were made for many friendships. So they're different. God has
made us for friendships. It's interesting to me that Samuel, the historian prophet that writes 1 Samuel, devotes so much of 1 Samuel to a narration of that friendship between Jonathan and David. And if you want to know what I think is one of the great tragedies of David's life, and there are several tragedies in David's life, and one tragedy in David's life which he himself laments with great sorrow, is the death of Jonathan. Because the tragedy
for David is that he goes into the period of power in his life with no friends. As far as we can tell from the narratives that we now are going to read from now on, and we'll be preaching on that in the next few weeks, we'll discover no friends for David. He has many people that fawn over him. Many people that bow and scrape before him. Many generals that will do anything he says to do, but
no friends. The closest person to a friend that David has is Nathan the prophet. But even Nathan has to keep a kind of prophetic distance from David the king. He has no friends. He has no Jonathan. And what a sadness that Jonathan died. What a sadness that David did not have more Jonathans, more friends that could have spoken up to him like Jonathan could do to his father and say don't sin against an innocent person. That
could be a check and balance. That could call you up and on the other hand stay loyal to you. Be your equal and not your yes man. And that's the great sadness in David's powerful period of his life which we'll see later. I have a New Testament text for you too. Let me just read it to you as we close. Take 2 Timothy and open to it, would you? This is the very end of all the
Pauline letters. It's the last letter Paul wrote. It's his letter, his second letter to Timothy. Paul is in Rome. He's about ready to die a martyr's death in Rome. And he writes a letter to Timothy and I think it's very touching. I wonder if you think it's as touching as I do. That he spends the last two paragraphs of his last book talking about friends. The friends of Paul dominate the final words of Paul for all
time. Let me just read it to you. It's very touching. And you get a kind of omnibus, total portrayal of friendship. Both its pluses, its minuses, its weaknesses, its greatness. In this one little two paragraph section. Let me read it to you. He says do your best, he's writing to Timothy. He says do your best to come to me soon. For Demas, in love with his present world, has deserted me. Have you ever had a friend
desert you? You know friends are weak too, just like anybody else is weak. And many times in life your friends let you down. Demas, in love with his present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica. Cretians has gone to Galatia. Titus has gone to Dalmatia. Luke alone is with me. Thank God for Luke. Thank God for someone. It's good that he was a doctor too. And Luke stayed around. Luke stayed with me. Get Mark and
bring him with you. It's interesting, Mark was Paul's friend and then became his enemy and now is his friend again. You can read about that in the book of Acts. But Mark and Paul had a falling out. And now Mark and Paul are great friends again. That happens too, you know, friendships go in and out sometimes. Sometimes there isn't resonance. And then when you lose the resonance, you have to wait a while and then the resonance
comes back. So get Mark and bring him with you. He's very useful in serving me. Tycheus I have sent to Ephesus, that's one of Paul's friends. And when you come, bring the cloak which I left at Carpus at Troas. And also the books and above all the parchments. You know it's a funny thing, one thing about friends is you can ask favors of friends. They'll do things for you. Alexander the coppersmith and also you warn friends.
So he gives a warning now about Alexander. Alexander the coppersmith did me great harm. The Lord will requite him for his deeds. Beware of him yourself for he strongly opposed our message. So he wants Timothy to watch out for Alexander the coppersmith. At my first defense no one took my part. All deserted me. There are times in your life when there are no friends around. May it not be charged against them. If you've experienced grace you're
able to ask God's forgiveness. Even when friends let you down. And Paul does that. But the Lord stood by me. You know Jesus Christ is your best friend. And he never abandons you. But the Lord stood by me and gave me strength to proclaim the message fully. That all the Gentiles might hear it. So I was rescued from the lion's mouth. The Lord will rescue me from every evil and save me for his heavenly kingdom. To
him be glory forever and ever. Amen. And then the final paragraph Paul probably wrote with his own hand. Because that was his tradition was to take the pen and write his own final greeting. And notice again all he can think about are his friends. Greet Prisca. That's the shortened affectionate form for Priscilla. And Aquila. Those are his best friends. This couple he met at Corinth. And he was so devoted to that couple. And they took him
into their home. He wasn't their lover. He was their friend. And they loved him as a friend. Priscilla and Aquila. He always mentions Priscilla's name first. This great couple. Greet Prisca and Aquila. And the household of Onesiphorus. Erastus remained at Corinth. Trophimus I left ill at Miletus. Do your best to come before winter. Eubolus sends greetings to you. As do Pudens and Linus. And Clawdia. And all the brothers and sisters. The Lord be with your spirit.
Grace be with you. That is a story of friendships. Brothers and sisters let me tell you something. It's God's will that you have friends. Do you have friends? Let me tell you something. Where are you going to get your friends? There's one great place to get friends. It's right here in this fellowship. I want to tell you something that's dangerous. We're living in a highly isolated age. When it's hard to have friends. Because it takes time
to have friends. And it means you have to wish well for someone. And that takes time. It means you need an equal relationship. And that takes time. And it means that you need to resonate. Well you don't resonate with everyone. But you have to find some people you resonate with. Okay. You can come to this church. And many of you come every single Sunday. And you can stay right on the surface of this fellowship. In fact
you can almost be like an onlooker. Don't do that. Let me urge you to go beneath the surface of this fellowship. And get into some sort of ministry. Or some sort of work. Or some sort of fellowship group. And then I'll make you a promise. If you do that. I promise you. And I know it's true. Some of you right in this room have had this experience. You can make friends in this fellowship. That will be
friends for the rest of your life. And some people you actually resonate with. There will be a kind of a liking that will occur. And they will wish well for you. You'll wish well for them. And you will have the Jonathan and David experience. The Priscilla and Paul experience. You can have it. And I just wish it for every one of you. We're talking now about a kind of resonance that God wants you to have because
you are not meant to live alone. You're meant to have friends. You need them. Look at Paul at the end of his life. How many friends that man has. And some have let him down and some haven't. That's part of the story too. Amen. By the way, our Lord is our friend too. I made one statement about that. He said, Paul says, All these friends left me but the Lord didn't leave me. He's the best friend
of all. In fact, isn't it marvelous in the Thursday night discourse, Jesus actually said it himself. He said, I don't call you slaves. Slaves don't even know what the master's doing. I call you friends. You're my friends. So Jesus Christ is your best friend. Heavenly Father, thank you. For your friendship of us and that you want us to have friends. And you want us to have people that wish well for us. That would help to pace
us in a decathlon event and want us to win. And some people that we want to win too. Lord, take away the intense competition that sometimes drives us away from one another and give us a sense of loyalty and friendship where we can have an equal relationship and resonate with people. Help us to pay the price to have those friends. And then the wonderful benefits that come from them. Lord, we know it's your will. But we
know it's hard to do. It took a lot of courage for Jonathan to set aside his own ambitions to be David's friend. But we're so grateful that he was because he modeled something for us that we need to see modeled. All these things we pray in Christ's name. Amen. For this morning's anthem, we are singing Set Me as a Seal by Renee Klassen. This text comes from the song of Solomon and reads as follows. Set me
as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm, for love is strong as death. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it.
[hymn]