The gift of friendship

We live in a world of loneliness and isolation. It's something that is more and more present in our culture. And it's not just something that we feel on an individual level, but that we feel as a society in many ways. And it's becoming more and more because of changes in the society and in the world around us, and in some different shifts and breakdowns that have happened over the course of time. We've found that more and more increasingly so people feel isolated. They feel alone. They feel unseen, unloved, and unheard.

And I think I've thrown some statistics up that with a quick Google search, you can easily find a multitude of different sources. Not one survey, not one poll, not one source, but all over the place different people experiencing feelings of loneliness on a repeated basis. And it's just the opposite of what you might think. The younger you go, oftentimes the more isolated, and the more lonely, the more unseen, the more unheard, the more unloved people often feel in these studies. So, something is going on in the world around us. And it's even so much so that, as I put here, the surgeon general actually issued a warning a couple years ago that there's an epidemic of loneliness and isolation in our world today.

Today we're going to be talking about friendship, the gift of friendship. And we're going to be looking at a very famous friendship that's found in 1st Samuel chapter 20. As I looked at it, I didn't really intend to teach on friendship. It felt more topical. It's not something I've really thought a lot about from the scriptures, but we do see that the Bible talks in many places about friendship, about deep friendship. And we see this very famous and close bonded friendship in the lives of these two men. And I believe it reveals some things for us today.

And it really ultimately can reveal something that we really need that can be, in a way, an answer to some of the loneliness and the isolation that we feel in our world, that challenges the behaviors of our life where we are so individualistic, where we move into the safe confines of our own homes. We pull into our driveways and shut our garage doors. We turn on tech and TV. We binge Netflix and aren't engaged with the world around us. We don't receive it. But more importantly, this is not a conversation about how to receive it, but how to give it, and why we should give it, and why followers of Jesus, more than ever and more than anyone, should offer that to the world around them.

So, let's take a look today. I'm going to be reading from 1st Samuel chapter 20, looking at the first 16 verses of our passage today.

Scripture reading 1 Samuel 20:1–16

You'll remember that David is fleeing for his life. As we studied last week, David has been on the run. Saul is trying to kill him. He's kind of run around Israel a little bit. He ran to Samuel and now we pick up here in verse 1:

Then David fled from Naioth in Ramah and came and said before Jonathan, "What have I done? What is my guilt, and what is my sin before your father, that he seeks my life?"And he said to him, "Far from it! You shall not die. Behold, my father does nothing, either great or small, without disclosing it to me. And why should my father hide this from me? It is not so."But David vowed again, saying, "Your father knows well that I have found favor in your eyes, and he thinks, 'Do not let Jonathan know this, lest he be grieved.' But truly, as the Lord lives and as your soul lives, there is but a step between me and death."Then Jonathan said to David, "Whatever you say, I will do for you."David said to Jonathan, "Behold, tomorrow is the new moon, and I shall not fail to sit at the table with the king. But let me go, that I may hide myself in the field till the third day at evening. If your father misses me at all, then say, 'David earnestly asked leave of me to run to Bethlehem his city, for there is a yearly sacrifice there for all the clan.' If he says, 'Good!' it will be well with your servant. But if he is angry, then know that harm is determined by him. Therefore deal kindly with your servant, for you have brought your servant into a covenant of the Lord with you. But if there is guilt in me, kill me yourself, for why should you bring me to your father?"Jonathan said, "Far be it from you! If I knew that it was determined by my father that harm should come to you, would I not tell you?"Then David said to Jonathan, "Who will tell me if your father answers you roughly?"And Jonathan said to David, "Come, let us go out into the field." So they both went out into the field.And Jonathan said to David, "The Lord, the God of Israel, be witness, when I have sounded out my father about this time tomorrow, or the third day, behold, if he is well disposed toward David, shall I not then send and disclose it to you? But should it please my father to do you harm, the Lord do so to Jonathan and more also, if I do not disclose it to you and send you away, that you may go in safety. May the Lord be with you, as he has been with my father. If I am still alive, show me the steadfast love of the Lord, that I may not die; and do not cut off your steadfast love for my house forever, when the Lord cuts off every one of the enemies of David from the face of the earth."And Jonathan made a covenant with the house of David, saying, "May the Lord take vengeance on David's enemies." And Jonathan made David swear again by his love for him, for he loved him as he loved his own soul.

This is a story that has been unfolding over the past several chapters. You'll remember even after David killed the giant Goliath, Jonathan first sees David and enters into a covenant and into a friendship with him. And this has begun to evolve over the course of time and deepened over the course of time in their friendship. And we see ultimately this picture of friendship between these two men.

Friendship ultimately in our world, it is something that we all need. It's a gift from God that we can be to one another. Jonathan is ultimately a gift, and he offers the gift of friendship to really the shepherd boy, someone who was far beneath him. Jonathan is the heir to the throne. He is the firstborn, the king's son in all the kingdom. And yet, he has approached David and he's offered him... he's loved him, and he's been in his corner, and he's been for him. And we see all of these beautiful things that begin to happen.

And as Christians, in the same way, because God loves us, because ultimately God has revealed himself as our friend—he called Abraham his friend, Jesus says, "I no longer call you servants, but friends"—we have this friendship with God. This unconditional love... God obviously reveals himself as a Father and all these other ways, but God also reveals himself as a friend. He calls us his friend as well, and he loves us sometimes in spite of ourselves. It's unconditional that he invites us to be known, to be loved, to be accepted by him. And he looks into our life and sees all that we are, and yet still loves us wholly, wonderfully.

In that, from that wellspring of our own hearts in our own lives, as a follower of Jesus, you're filled. I am loved. I am known by God. He is my friend. He is for me. He is working in my life. And through that, we can then turn to others around us, and with that sense of fullness and affirmation, we can extend love towards others. We can extend God's love and God's friendship. We don't just exhaust it on ourselves, but we turn and hand and give and extend it to the world around us. We extend it in the community of faith in the church to those around us, not because we need to fill some sort of deep void within our own hearts, but because we want to extend and give something to people around us. And as they give it to us, especially within the church, there is this love and friendship that builds itself up as people come and they serve and they gain bonds of deep friendship and fellowship and all of the elements that come from it.

And let me just say, because if you don't get anything else today, this is one thing I really want you to get: as the church, as Christians, when we begin to extend friendship to one another like that, when we know who we are and that we are fully loved by God, and to extend that love in the form of friendship to another in our midst, and others reciprocate and do that for us in these beautiful bonds that begin to develop, the church becomes a community. This community of love and service and loyalty and devotion, and it's unconditional. It's based upon who I am in Christ and what he's called me to do towards my brother and sister in the church.

And the church in many ways becomes a sign. The church becomes a sign of an ultimate reality that one day God will gather all of his people together around himself. He creates a new heavens and a new earth, and we will be fully and perfectly loved in this fullness that we can't yet understand in this life. And yet through that affirmation, that love showered down, we will turn to God and love in return and reciprocate, but we will therefore also turn to the people around us, to our brothers and our sisters, our friends, and that love will flow through us towards that. That's the beauty of God. That's the beauty of what is in store for all those who are in Christ.

Until that day, when we begin to form friendship and community like that, we begin to be a sign of an ultimate reality that is in store for God's people. But it's not only a sign, it's a bridge. What I mean by that is that when we begin to live that and extend that, we can turn to people even outside of our congregation into the world and invite people to have that. We can be the face, we can live as Christ would, coming into the world, and extend the offer of friendship to people around us in this world: to be loved, to be known, to be invited into something, and not based upon your value, not based upon your good luck or your income status or any of these things, but besides all of that, because you are someone created in the image of God. God invites you into this thing, and we are the extension of that.

So the people of God, they live out a sign, but they also live out a bridge, a bridge to the world around them where God through us and through our friendship invites people to be known, to be loved. This is the mission of God's people. It's powerful and it's wonderful, and I want us to see, even as we look at friendship today, that piece to it.

What Is Biblical Friendship?

So let's take a look as we journey here. I've broken this down because I wanted to think deeply about this. But the first thing is: what is it? What is friendship?

The reason that I wanted to actually look at this is because we can call all sorts of things friendship in this world. We misdefine or maybe misuse that word. And so, as I reflected on the scriptures, reflected on this passage, reflected on other passages throughout scripture, I began to come up with a working definition for myself on this:

A friend is someone who reaches out, invites you in, gets to know you, loves you unconditionally, and points you ultimately towards God—towards the things of God, towards the goodness of God, towards the way of God.

Now, we could quibble and maybe you define it different ways, but just from a spiritual friendship standpoint, the way that I've defined it for us today is that a friend is someone who reaches out, invites you in. They extend their lives to you. They come to you regardless of any of your capabilities, or the value or the things that they can get from you. It's not about that. It's the extension of love.

Ultimately, as a believer, it's the extension of God's love through that offer, through that invitation into people's lives. And there are different levels of it. There are some that are very deep, very close, and we can only have a few of those, but there are some that are on a lighter level. But as God's people, it can be unconditional.

In fact, we're charged in our relationships with one another to live in certain ways in which we bear one another's burdens, we care, we exhort, we speak truth to one another, we encourage one another—all of these things that we're charged to do as the people of God.

I want to say, though, I've defined it because it's not "Facebook friends." That may not be a friend, right? I'll just say that right out. It may be somebody that you know, but you don't really know. You talk, you're around them. A lot of times I have co-workers in the business world, and I'll get on video calls and know lots about their lives, but I wouldn't call us friends. Some of these things are missing. We know each other on a superficial level—they know statistics about me, they know I'm married and that I have kids and things like that, but I'm not saying that a co-worker can't be a friend, but I do have lots of people that I know who are really acquaintances.

There are just general friendships, but a lot of the context that we're going to be looking at today, especially, is spiritual friendship: the friendship between God's people and us towards the church, as well as those who are outside of the context of the church and how we also extend that to them.

How True Friendship Is Established

How is friendship established? One of the things is that friendship is ultimately established by common interest, common values. As I reflected upon this, this is what I ultimately saw: in chapter 18, Jonathan pursues a friendship with David. He comes and goes after David.

I thought, as I reflected upon this, why would he do that? What's going on? It's ultimately because he sees something in David's life that he sees in himself. He sees some commonality there that becomes the foundation on which they begin to connect, and everything begins to build upon that.

You'll remember from chapters earlier, before David goes out in the field and faces Goliath, Jonathan stood before a garrison of Philistines, and he had one sword and one guy with him. This is what Jonathan expressed in that moment: "The Lord can save by many or by few. It really doesn't matter. So let's inquire of the Lord, let's see if he gives us a sign, and then we're going to go out and we're going to fight if God gives us his blessing on it."

So Jonathan right there has courage, he has boldness, he has a faith that God can save by many or few. He doesn't look at the size or how many people are in front of him. He's like, "I got one sword, one guy with me, and there's 30 men over here, but we can still win this battle." He has a vision and desire to see Israel thrive, to see God's people advance.

That day when David walks out on the field as basically a shepherd boy with a slingshot, and he shows courage and he shows a conviction that God can save no matter what the size or no matter what kind of weapon I'm holding in my hand—that I have this trust and reliance in God and what he does, not what my skill can do—when David begins to exhibit those character traits, Jonathan sees something in David. Very quickly there's that bond, and it says that he loved David as his own soul.

Friendships are oftentimes like that. We find some sort of commonality, we find some sort of place, and the friendship is built upon that. One of the things within the people of God, the church, is we all have incredible commonality. We share a common faith, a common hope, a common Lord, a common baptism. All of these things unite us, that through that, we are united and linked at these very core, fundamental, essential truths that we hold to.

So there's already the opportunity for connection on a deeper level. That's why sometimes I meet somebody... I remember one time being in a Panera Bread in uptown Charlotte and I met this guy from Uganda. He was here as a refugee, and he was wiping the tables. I just said something to him and we talked for a few minutes, and I realized he was a believer and we talked for the next 10 minutes. Now, we didn't become friends, but the foundation of connection was already there. We were deeply linked just on that, and that's what Jonathan begins to see in David. He connects with him, and their friendship begins to grow and to birth out of that.

It's just the same for us: this opportunity for us as Christians to bond and to connect and to build off of those things. It allows us to develop friendships because of that with a wide variety of people, because that's one of the beauties of the church: we can be different, and our friendships can be different and diverse in all sorts of ways. There could be a guy that comes in here from Uganda, and we're immediately connected and the Lord just builds upon that in these deep relational connections.

Key Marks of Friendship

What are the elements of friendship? I'm not going to be comprehensive, but I'm going to try to pull today some of what I saw through this text as I looked at the friendship between these two men.

1. Trust 

The first thing that I saw through here is trust, because friendships require trust. They fundamentally require trust if you're really going to be a friend to someone. Jonathan and David have trust in their relationship.

I thought about this: David comes to Jonathan. David is being identified as a threat to the throne. He's been going out in victory, he's been growing in strength. Jonathan is the heir to that throne. So what is David to Jonathan? A threat. He's a threat to his inheritance, he's a threat to his kingship. Yet, because of their covenantal bond and their deep trust in one another, David is vulnerable enough in his moment of need not to run to his family, but to run to Jonathan—to run to the king's son, the very guy that should hand him over or kill him himself to eliminate this threat. And yet, he comes because he trusts his friend. He discloses and reveals, "I'm afraid your father's coming to get me."

Jonathan doesn't even agree with him at first: "No, it can't be." And that's okay! Friends should be able to disagree at times and yet still trust and be vulnerable with one another.

The ability to trust someone provides the opportunity to be transparent, to be vulnerable. You can't know someone, and you cannot be known, unless trust exists, because it is the gateway through which we can be open and honest and vulnerable. Cause all you're going to know about me if I don't do that is just facts. You won't know my heart, you won't know my joys, you won't know my passions, you won't know my fears, you won't know my sorrows. But if I begin to trust you and open those things up, it creates the bridge between us, and that is the basis for what we have in friendship.

I was an Eagle Scout. Scouts honor! One of the things I learned in scouts was the scout handshake. The scout handshake is with the left hand. If you learn the history of scouting, you actually find that the guy that started the scouts went to the Ashanti people in West Africa at one point in his travels, and he met these warriors. These warriors would always greet each other and shake with the left hand. The reason being was because a warrior had to put aside his shield in order to shake hands. They lowered their defenses.

So there was a symbolism that was communicated between warriors, in essence saying, "I am lowering my defenses. I am trusting you. I am respecting you, but I'm also being vulnerable. Now, I got a club in my hand or a sword, but so do you. And we can grab hands, and this could get really dangerous, but I'm going to communicate an openness, a trust, a respect to let you in." So this is the way that warriors would show that between one another, by shaking with their left hand in that case.

And so it is with friendship. There have to be relationships in our life where we just take that opportunity, that chance. We find that commonality, we see that bridge in place, and then we're just willing to trust.

We don't live in a world where we like to be vulnerable. We live in a world that is polished, that says you need to have it all together to be loved and to be accepted and to be valued. But among the people of God, it doesn't have to be that way; it should not be that way. In fact, among the people of God, we find that we are already loved, fully loved and known in an unconditional way. It's not based upon anything that we've done to deserve it—it's oftentimes in spite of it. And yet, God loves us.

With that confidence, we can go into relationships and feel like, "You don't need to fulfill a deep void in my heart for this friendship. I'm here to offer you, and I'm opening up because I want to build the gateway in our friendship. I trust you in this moment. You may stampede on it, but I know who I am, and I know whose I am, and I know how he feels about me." It creates a confidence to trust God, but also it allows me to be open and vulnerable with people around us. We have such an opportunity to communicate that.

It's really in many ways remarkable that Jonathan does this, that he extends himself in a way like he is a trustworthy person to David. Why would he do something like that? He should eliminate David! Yet Jonathan shows this remarkable way that he lays aside his kingship and his throne. He communicates it here, hinting at it: that one day the Lord would be with David as he has been with his father, the king. He's already hinting about this: whenever this all goes down, don't kill me.

You know why he's saying that? Because he knows that if he's alive, one day David will be king. In that day, you know what you did? You eliminated the prior dynasty. This was very common in the ancient Near East: you took out all the other people. Jonathan is actually pleading, saying, "I'm giving you your life. We are friends, and we are loyal to each other, and I'm going to uphold my end of the deal. And I'm asking you to do the same, to show that same loving kindness to me."

2. Loyalty 

That's really the second mark that we find here: loving kindness or loyalty. Jonathan is loyal not to himself, but to David. He shows a radical devotion, that even when David flees to him, he's like, "If I knew what my father's intentions are, wouldn't I disclose it to you? Wouldn't I make it known? I'm in your corner, David. I'm for you." He shows this incredible loyalty not to his own self-preservation, not to his own throne, but ultimately to David.

Why would he do that? Really the reason is because of a covenant. David and Jonathan are in a covenant. Covenants in the Bible are incredibly binding, incredibly meaningful, and incredibly powerful. If you are in a covenant with someone, then you do not alter or change or defy that, because it speaks something about who you are. How can you be known, and who are you besides the covenants that you stand for? It's the very essence of who you are. To defy that or deny that is to deny something about your own identity, your own self and personhood, the very core truth of who you are. Jonathan ultimately, because he's in covenant, will be loyal and will put his own self-interest and his own self-preservation before that of David.

In verse 8, David says this:

"Therefore deal kindly with your servant, for you have brought your servant into a covenant of the Lord with you. But if there is guilt in me, kill me yourself."

That word—we can't see it in our modern translations where it says "deal kindly with your servant"—that word kindly there... different Bibles translate it "loving kindness," "loyalty," "love." That word is hesed. It's a word in Hebrew that has a combination of two aspects: loyalty and faithfulness, and love and devotion. Modern translators often struggle to communicate the depth and the breadth of that word.

That word usually in the Bible is used to communicate God's love. Most of the time, the Bible doesn't use ahav, the general word for love, because God's love is deeper. God's love is this loyal love, this faithful love, this devoted love that doesn't turn away. It's always pursuing and chasing.

David is coming here to Jonathan and saying, "We're in covenant. Show me hesed. Show me that loyalty, show me that devotion. You should eliminate me, you should take me out, you should be against me, you should consider yourself before me. But I'm asking you to be loyal to the promise that we made to one another, to the covenant we made to one another." And Jonathan chooses to show that loyalty.

One of the other remarkable things about this is that Jonathan is such a loyal person that he does this loyalty in a careful, balanced way, in which he could have shown loyalty only to his father and killed David and eliminated him, because in that day family ties were the most important thing, way above friendship. You didn't betray your family for a friend; you honored your family, you honored your lineage, and you honored your parents. But by the flip side, he could have partnered so much with David that he could have led a coup and tried to have his father killed, which would have also been very common in the ancient Near East as well.

So he's trying to be loyal in many ways to both: to show his father his sin, but also to defend and be loyal to his friend who he is in covenant with. In this remarkable way, Jonathan actually is loyal to both people as he balances this tension in his life.

3. Selflessness

The third thing that we actually see here is selflessness. Selflessness in that Jonathan is just completely for David regardless of the circumstances, regardless of how it reflects on his own self. In essence, he's saying in verse 4, "What do you want me to do for you? Whatever you say, I'll do it. I'm here to show up for you. I'm here for you. I will honor it, I will be loyal, I will be trustworthy, I will be these things. I will put my own interests and everything in front of that in order to meet the promise and the covenant I've made with you." It's this radical selflessness.

In many ways, even in our world today, we should have this selflessness and this availability that we extend to people around us in friendship. In a way, we look to others around us not for what we can get from it, because we are consumers. We are consumers, and relationships are always about what I can get out of this, what it can give me, the value that they drive, the entertainment maybe that they provide, their likability, or all these other things. But that's not deep covenantal friendship.

Friendship is: regardless of the circumstances, even if it's to my own harm, whatever's happening, I'm here for you. It's selfless, but it's also selfless that even if it makes you look bad, I will risk our relationship in a way to be honest with you, to be available to you. You can be honest with a friend—a true friend—and it may sting them, but you know that within the trust of that relationship and the loyalty of that relationship, you can put aside being liked by them to being honest with them, honest to tell them the truth.

I have in my life been in scenarios where friends are telling me something in their life, and it's a bad course of action that is not the will of God for their life. It's all sorts of things, and they're just being vulnerable in that moment. I could just say, "You do you. You be good to you, you do what's best." But I know that's not what's best for them. I know that what they've got playing out in their own head, that scenario and this course of action they're down, is going to be destructive to them and to their families around them. The best thing I can do in that moment is not self-preservation, not "I need you, so I'm going to preserve this relationship." I'm going to risk it to be honest with you, because true love and true friendship is deeper than that. Faithful are the wounds of a friend. Proverbs says a friend loves at all times. Proverbs says there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother, is what the Bible tells us.

God has given us this gift as we extend ourselves to others. This is what Jonathan's done. He's going to find that in David's life, David is going to reciprocate the same—that even after Jonathan is dead and gone and passed, David is not going to kill off his lineage and his family. He's going to show that faithfulness and that loyalty that extends to generations. It's not just for the moment, selflessly. They both put aside their self-interest, even if it costs them, even if it harms them, in order to be a friend to one another.

Pointing to the Ultimate Friend

So why is this important? There's so much here, and I feel like there's so much I want to say in this passage, but I really just want us to understand. I know we know what friendship is, but I just wanted to sharpen our understanding of it. I want us to see from a biblical standpoint this really deep friendship that exists here between two friends that are completely devoted to one another, that trust one another, that are loyal to one another, that are for one another. And I want to see how God really places this especially within Jonathan's heart to be that kind of friend to David.

Jonathan knows who he is. He trusts whatever the plan of God is for his life and for David's life. That allows him to sidestep his own self-interest in order to say, "Whatever God has for me... if it means not being king, if it means me not being on top, if it means that I have to lay aside this thing or put it aside because I trust God, because I know that I am fully loved in him, I am fully accepted in him, because he is for me and not against me... through that, I can be the kind of friend that I need to be."

Jonathan leads out of that towards David. As I study this text, most of the time the Bible actually identifies David as this type for Christ, but Jonathan actually in many ways reminds us of Christ. He stands as a figure here of who Christ is to us.

Why is this important? Friendship is rooted in God's friendship with us. As I said, it's rooted fundamentally in his friendship. Through that, we don't befriend others or extend ourselves out of some sort of need that they can sort of fill these deep needs for love. We can enjoy friendship, we can extend ourselves to people, we can trust people, and not necessarily need to drain or try to get something, or have them fulfill some sort of ultimate desire that really only God can fulfill in our lives. We can befriend them with grace because we've been given grace.

We can pursue people who might not fit because we are fully loved in Christ, and we see people as they are unconditionally loved by God, and we can extend that to them regardless of who they are, their background, their value, any of that stuff. Just as a person created in the image of God, we can speak truth and love, and we can become a channel of God's friendship.

Our friendship provides an incredible witness to the world. We show the depth and diversity of friendships within the people of God, within the church, that people are invited openly to receive of the Lord's friendship through us. Through friendship with other believers, we experience some of God's love, but it's only a reflection of the love, life, exuberant joy we will one day experience in God's kingdom fully—fully!

Until then, church, you belong to one another. You are not alone. You are called to be a friend, to extend the gift of grace, to make room in your life so that you give friendship, and then you will find that you receive friendship, and your life becomes a sign, but also a bridge to others around.

Now, Jonathan, as I said, was not only self-sacrificing, he was loyal. He's loyal to his father, but he's also loyal to David. And because he's loyal to both of them, it cost him his life in the end.

Who does that remind you of? John chapter 15, Jesus says:

"No longer do I call you servants, but friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends."

Are you looking for that kind of friendship that will redefine your life, that will redefine the kind of friend you are to others? He's right here.

Let's pray.