1 Samuel 20:12-17 | Biblical Friendship Part 3

And I think we find the answer to those questions in Jonathan and David here. They show us that friends are the ones who choose one another, who commit to one another. Friends are the ones who show up when you need them and they stick around. They're not just around the table when it's fun. They show up in a field when you feel like you're dying because that's where David is in this text. And if you remember where we are in this story, David's gone through a roller coaster. He's just killed Goliath. He's on top of the world. He's the people's champion. And Saul gets jealous and now is after his life. And in this specific passage, David is scared David's going to kill him at a specific new moon festival that's coming up.

And so him and Jonathan come up with an alibi for why he's not going to be there. David plans to hide in a field and Jonathan is to determine at that dinner whether Saul means him harm. And David's fear really boils into one question in verse 10. David asked Jonathan,

who will tell me? if your father answers you roughly?

Who will tell me if Saul is dead set on killing me?"

And that's when Jonathan steps up. And in our text tonight, he essentially says, I will, and he holds himself accountable to God to do that. Listen to what he says to David in our text. Starting in verse 12, he says,

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 towards 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. And if I'm still alive, show me the steadfast love of the Lord that I may not die. And do not cut off your steadfast love from 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.

And as we go now and work through this thing together, this is the one thing I really hope we're stirred to do. It's what Jonathan and David do here, which is to commit before God to image his love to one another.

Sacrificial and accountable before God

That's the main call I hope we see. Commit before God to image his love to one another. So with that in mind, we're gonna break this passage in half. We're gonna look at 12 and 13 first. And both of these sections show us what the love of a friend looks like. And verses 12 to 13 show us that the love of a friend is sacrificial and accountable before God. And we see the accountability right off the bat. Immediately as Jonathan is answering David, he brings God into the picture. He calls God as witness to this covenant, this promise to hold him accountable to do what he says. Find out whether Saul's dangerous and find out a way to tell David.

That's the substance, I'll read it again. He says, And the negatives implied, right? If he means harm, of course I'll tell you. And while Jonathan speaks of it as a guarantee, I think it's worth slowing down and recognizing that what he's promising isn't really an easy thing to pick up.

He knows his dad is unstable, violent, and has his crosshair set on David. He knows Saul actually sees David as a threat to his dynasty and sees David as a threat to Jonathan's own future as king. He says this knowing it'll cost him his comfort. maybe relationship with his family and maybe even his safety.

And that's why verse 13 comes with the weight it does because even knowing that, Jonathan holds himself accountable to God to do it and invokes a curse upon himself if he does not. Look at verse 13 again. He says,

May 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.

So Jonathan looks at a hard and difficult, costly task with life and death stakes, and he says, God, kill me if I do not do this.

May the calamity that would befall my friend and even more come upon me if I do not help him. And it's not just a situational cost, it's his future he's giving up, right? He knows it's going to cost him the throne he was born and raised to sit on. And that's what he says he's giving up in verse 13. He says,

may the Lord be with you as he has been with my father.

And it may not be explicit, but right there he's really handing over the keys of the throne. He blesses David as king and advocates the throne in light of the will of God.

And in light of all that, if we look in the mirror of God's word, if we compare our own hearts to Jonathan, I think it's pretty easy to find that the level of sacrifice we are willing to make for our own friends pitifully small. Jonathan gives up safety, comfort, and a monarchy.

We are, on the other hand, hesitant to give up the smallest portion of our time, our energy, our pleasure and leisure. In our sin, we may even avoid friends who feel like they are needy. We might create distance the moment a relationship becomes difficult because people in need are generally harder to be around, right? They're less fun, more difficult, less consumable.

And so it's worth asking ourselves, would we ever really say anything close to what Jonathan says here? If we saw a friend in real need, would we say with Jonathan, may the Lord do so to me and more, if I do not do you good when you need me. And I challenge you to say that, to think that way, to promise that to your friends.

Jonathan shows us that to be a friend is to commit to action when we see others in a situation we would never want for ourselves, even at cost. And we as Christians should be eager to do that because we know more than anyone what that looks like. We have a friend who made a greater sacrifice than Jonathan, one who laid down his life that we might be safe, not only from death in this life, but from the very jaws of hell. A friend who took on the calamity we deserved, that we might dwell in safety for all eternity. The call for us is to image that, to image that sacrificial love to our friends.

Steadfast and enduring

And I hope Jonathan reminds us we're accountable to do that. So that's verses 12 and 13, first half. And Jonathan's promise shows us that the love of a friend is sacrificial and accountable to God. The back half, verses 14 and 17, show us more. They show us that the love of a friend is steadfast and enduring. And so we'll start with verses 14 and 15. Jonathan says, And again, it's worth stopping to notice the stakes.

Jonathan, too, is afraid he might die. And I don't think it's just because of Saul, even though that's certainly part of the picture. Jonathan would be concerned that when David became king, David would actually kill him. And that may sound strange to us because of how close friends they are, but in that time and in that culture and place, when there was a regime change, the new king would usually wipe out the old line. You'd remove the threat. And so Jonathan is worried that the man whose life he's about to save will kill him and all his descendants when he actually takes the throne. And he pretty much asked David to promise he's not gonna do that. But he doesn't ask solely on the basis of the friendship or David's love, he asks for it on the basis of God's.

And notice how those run parallel to each other in the text, right? He says,

show me the steadfast love of the Lord, and do not cut off your steadfast love from my house forever.

And that word steadfast love there is a singular word, and it's a loaded word, hesed. Chesed is how God himself describes himself to Moses when Moses asked to see the glory of God. It's how he describes himself when he gives his people his name. He says he's

merciful, gracious, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.

So Jonathan is asking David to love him like that. to love him with a love that reflects the glory of God, his loyalty, his covenant faithfulness, to love him with a love that remembers, endures, and results in action. And he makes him swear to it. That's how this section closes in verse 16 and 17. God's Word says,

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 his own soul.

And that last verse is bookending this whole section that precedes this text.

It's a callback to when Jonathan and David first meet. When Jonathan is described as loving David as he loved his own soul. And while it was a true statement then, I think through this narrative we're supposed to see the proof that it's true. Because by the end we're looking at a man who gives up everything he was born to have for a friend that he loves.

And he makes David swear to return that. He makes him swear again. And I don't think he's just asking for reassurance. He's asking for continuity of the promise they made a long time ago, for remembrance, endurance, deliberate and volitional faithfulness.

And The cool thing is David does remember, and we'll see this in more detail when Hoon teaches in a couple weeks. But sadly, Jonathan dies alongside Saul before David even comes to the throne. And David, when he does become king, actually remembers what they say to each other here. He remembers and he asks,

is there not still someone of the house of Saul that I may show him the kindness of God to him?

He finds one man, a crippled son of Jonathan, lame in his feet, and he gives him all the land of Saul. And it's written that he always sat at the king's table. So even when Jonathan was dead and gone, David was faithful to the house of Jonathan to show the steadfast love of the Lord to him.

And again, in light of that, I think it's worth reflecting on our own love for our friends, how enduring or how not steadfast that can be for our friends, because if you're anything like me, it's not really that steady. Friends are easily forgotten when they're not in our eyesight, or we're talking to them all the time, and even if we do, The more you get to know someone, they're not really more lovable. You find out everyone's warts. The longer you know someone, just ask anybody who's married. But that's kind of the point, right?

The more we get to know each other, we know the sins they struggle with, what we're like when we're tired, the ways we fail, and the love of a friend should be committed to enduring all of that. Seasons, changes, cycles of hurt and reconciliation. Because that's the love, again, we've received in Christ. We are those who have a love that endures through every season of our lives, our sin, our failures to love him, our unbelief even, and he stays steady and gracious and merciful. That's the love we are to reflect towards one another, one that images the steadfast love of the Lord. So as we close, I think we can probably find ourselves in the shoes of one of these two men.

Show them the steadfast love of God

Maybe you're like David. You're out and alone in a field, uncertain about your safety or your future or life or whatever you're going through. And if that's you, it's a simple invitation I have for you, but often hard, and that's just to tell someone. Because think about David approaches Jonathan early in the chapter. He comes to his friend, shaking him, saying like, I feel like I'm gonna die and I'm afraid no one's gonna help me. And that's a really hard thing to tell someone. And if you find yourself in need of a friend, it's worth asking whether you've been vulnerable enough to tell someone where you actually are. David found a friend who met his need because he cared it to him.

And some of us may feel like we're alone in a field right now because, not because nobody would come, but because nobody actually knows what we need. And this church, praise God, is full of people who would happily walk beside you. On the other hand, maybe you're like Jonathan. Stable, privileged, comfortable. And you have a friend within arm's reach who's struggling, maybe even struggling to tell you that they're not good or okay. And if that's you, the question is simpler and harder. What are you gonna do about it?

What can you do to show them the steadfast love of God? And most of our friends probably aren't running from a murderer like David, but the burdens they carry are no less real, both great and small. And if we find those people around us, I hope we will commit ourselves to show them the sacrificial and steadfast love of God and act accordingly.

And as Jonathan showed us, we are accountable before God to do that, to show up to sacrifice ourselves. And if you're a member of this church, we've actually already made a covenant with one another to do that. It's laminated right in front of you. And it's one we swear again to each other every time we say it to fulfill it. It's a promise we make to each other.

to watch over each other in brotherly love, to pray for each other, to participate in each other's joys and endeavor with tenderness and sympathy to bear each other's burdens and sorrows, to forgive one another, and to be eager to seek swift and lasting reconciliation.

We should do all that as Jonathan and David show us, not just on the basis of our own affection, but on the basis of the love we've received in Christ. And so, as we close, I want to leave you with the words of the Apostle John from 1 John 4. He wrote,

In this, the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

My hope is that we will all leave here tonight committed to imaging that love to one another. Thank you. Please pray with me. Father, we thank you that in Christ we have friendship with you. We thank you for your steadfast love that showed us grace while we were yet sinners. We thank you for your faithfulness to us as we continue to fail you on our journey back to you. Father, we ask for the grace to show even a glimpse of that to those around us, those of us who are in need, and to our friends. And we ask that in Christ's name, amen.