Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Jesus, what a friend for sinners.
Him number 161.
Sing it out together now.
Hallelujah.
Jesus, what a strength in me.
Let me hide myself in him.
Death and pride and sometimes failing.
With my strength my victory wins.
Hallelujah.
Jesus, what a friend for sinners.
Him number 161.
Sing it out together now.
Hallelujah.
Sing it out together now.
Hallelujah.
Sing it out together now.
Hallelujah.
Sing it out together now.
Hallelujah.
What a Savior.
Hallelujah.
What a friend.
Saving,
helping,
keeping,
loving.
He is worthy
to the end.
Jesus,
what a
helping
song.
Helping sorrow
while the
billows
o'er me
roam.
Even when
my heart is
breaking.
In my comfort
out my
soul.
Hallelujah.
What a Savior.
Hallelujah.
What a friend.
Saving,
helping,
keeping,
loving.
He is
worthy
to the end.
Jesus,
what a
garden
keeper.
What a
Savior.
Hallelujah.
What a
friend.
Saving,
helping,
keeping,
loving.
He is worthy
to the end.
He is worthy
to the end.
He is worthy
to the end.
Saving,
helping,
keeping,
loving.
He is
worthy to
the end.
Jesus,
I do
doubt
more than
all in
my life.
He has
granted me
forgiveness.
I
am his
and he is
mine.
Hallelujah.
What a
Savior.
Hallelujah.
What a
friend.
Saving,
helping,
keeping,
loving.
He is
worthy
to the
end.
Thank you.
We want to go before
the Lord and ask for his
blessing on the service.
Father and Lord, thank you for allowing us to be
gathered here tonight.
We pray that you would bless all aspects of the
service and fill Pastor Anderson with the power of
Jesus.
Amen.
Up to him, number 233.
Tell me the old, old story.
Him number 233.
We'll begin on that first verse together.
233.
Tell me the old, old story of
unseen things above.
Him number 233.
Lift it up now.
Tell me the old, old
story of
Jesus and his
glory of
Jesus and his
love.
Tell me the story
simply
as to a
little child.
I am
weak and weary
and helpless
and defiled.
Tell me
the old, old story
of
Jesus and his
love.
Tell me the old, old
story.
Tell me the old, old
story of
Jesus and his
love.
Tell me the story
slowly that
I may take
it in.
That wonderful
city
for sin.
Tell me the story
of him
for I forget
so soon
the early
dew of
morning
and grass
will be happy.
Tell me the old, old
story.
Tell me the old, old
story.
Tell me the old, old
story of Jesus
and his
love.
Tell me the story
softly with
earnest
songs and
praise.
Remember I'm the
sinner
whom Jesus
came to save.
Tell me the old, old
story always
if you would
really be
any time
of trouble
a converter
to me.
Tell me
the old, old
story.
Tell me
the old, old
story.
of Jesus and his
love.
Tell me the same
old story
when you have
cause to fear
that this world's
empty glory
is causing
me to fear.
Yes
and when that world's
glory is
dawning on my
own.
Tell me the old, old
story.
Christ Jesus
makes me whole.
Tell me the old,
old story.
Tell me the old,
old story.
Tell me the old,
old story
of Jesus
and his
love.
If you don't have a
bulletin slip up your hand nice and high
we'll get to you with one. On the inside
we have our service time. Sunday mornings at
1030 is our preaching service.
Sunday nights at 6. Wednesday nights
at 7 is our Bible study.
But this week we will be having a
special guest preacher, Pastor
Aaron Thompson from Sure Foundation
in Vancouver, Washington.
And so you won't want to miss that so
plan to be here this Wednesday night to get
to say hi to him and hear
him preach in person. Also
across the page of course congratulations
to the Furbays on their wedding
yesterday and thank you to everybody
who came and celebrated.
Pray for the ladies that
are pregnant that they'll have a safe and healthy
pregnancy and delivery.
On the back we've got the note about the baby shower
coming up two weeks from now.
Sunday afternoon right here
2 to 4 for all ladies and
teenage girls to attend. And
then other upcoming events
I'm going to be preaching that's
supposed to say Friday, January
31st in
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
at Anchor Baptist
Church, Pastor Dylan Oz
and so I'm going to be preaching there
on Friday, January
31st if you know anyone in that region let them
know. We'd love to have them there
for that. And then we got
Pastor Jonathan Shelley preaching here
on Wednesday night
February the 19th.
So that's about a month away.
And then the Bahamas cruise
missions trip is coming up
on March 23rd through 28th.
And here's the thing
really the whole thing
behind these cruise missions
trips is that really they're
flexible, they're scalable
meaning that you don't necessarily
have to go with a big group
or the big group because
we're thinking that they're probably going to be a lot
of these trips happening throughout the year.
This is just kind of one that
we're putting out there as an example
because it can be kind of overwhelming
sometimes looking at all the
cruises trying to figure out which ones are going to work
good for missions and which ones are the
good deals and have the right logistics
and everything. So basically we just
found one that
is going to be hitting at least
three really good ports
in just a five
night cruise. It's going to hit three
really good ports. So
there should be a ton of great soul winning.
I think it's going to be extremely
productive. We've got like 20 people signed up so far
and so you know
20 people at these receptive
places. I have a feeling
God's going to bless my delete. It's going to be
a huge harvest
of people getting saved.
And so this is just an example
if there's another if you find another
good deal or a good place
and you want to just
you know let us know about that
and you can start another one
you know and we'll get another one going and we'll
advertise in the bulletin
other options and cruises
that different people find. And really all
you need you really could just get one other person
and the two of you could just go
do it on your own in fact
because it's so easy and if you want more details
about it you can ask us. We've done
some videos where we kind of explained
the concept, explained the methods
give some tips and things and I'm sure we'll
make more videos in the future going over different
tips and things that we learn as
we kind of go on this adventure this year
doing these mission strips mainly
in the Bahamas but lots of other places
as well. And so let
us know if you have any questions but this is one
that a bunch of people are going on
so if you think it'd be fun to go with a whole
bunch of other people and I'll give you
more confidence then this is a good one to think
about March 23rd through 28th.
Alright and that is about it
for announcements. Let's go and count up the soul
winning from the past few days. So going back
to Thursday. Anything from Thursday?
Yes.
Okay.
Got it.
Okay. How about Friday?
Okay.
Got it.
And then Saturday.
Okay. Got it. Got it.
Gotcha. Gotcha.
Okay.
Alright. And then today, Sunday
got boom.
Is that a three or a two?
How many is that? Okay. Two. Sorry.
Okay.
Brother Scott, main group.
Alright.
And then any other groups
gotcha here?
Got it.
Okay. Did I miss anybody?
Alright. Very good. Keep up the great work on
soul winning. And with that let's sing our
next song. Come lead us.
Alright. Very good. You should find the insert in front of your hymnal
with Psalm 19.
If you don't have an insert you can raise your hand.
And we'll sing it on that verse together.
The law of the Lord is perfect.
More to be desired
are they than
gold, yea, than much fine
gold.
Sweeter also
than honey
and the honey
gold.
The
statutes of the Lord
are right.
Rejoicing the
heart.
The commandment of the
Lord is pure.
And lining
the eyes.
More to be
desired are they
than gold, yea, than
much fine gold.
Sweeter
also than honey
and the honey
gold.
The
fear of the Lord
is clean.
And
enduring forever.
The
judgments of the Lord
are true.
And righteous all
together.
More to be desired
are they than
gold, yea, than much fine
gold.
Sweeter also
than honey
and the honey
gold.
Jesus
poor
of all
nature
O thou
of God
and
the
Son
thee
will I cherish
thee
will I
honor
my soul's glory
joy
and proud
fair
are the
meadows
fairer still
the
woodlands
roped in
the blooming
garb
of spring
Jesus
is
fairer
Jesus
is purer
who makes
the woeful
heart to
sing
there
is the
sunshine
fairer still
the moonlight
and of the
twinkling
starry
host
Jesus
shines
brighter
Jesus
shines purer
than all
the angels
and
can boast
beautiful
Savior
Lord
of the
nations
Son
of God
and Son
of
man
glory
and honor
praise
and
oration
thou
and forever
more
be
thine
man
good singing tonight
alright
at this time we'll pass our offering plates around
as the plates go around let's turn our Bibles
to first Samuel chapter 19
first Samuel chapter
number 19
as we always do we'll read the entire chapter
beginning in verse number 1
follow along silently with brother Dan as he reads
first Samuel 19
beginning in verse number 1
first Samuel 19 the Bible reads
and what I see that I will tell thee
and Jonathan spake good of David unto
Saul his father and said unto him
let not the king sin against his servant
against David because he hath not
sinned against thee and because
his works have been to thee were very good
for he did put his life in his
hand and slew the Philistine
and the Lord wrought a great salvation for
all Israel and thou sawest it and
didst rejoice wherefore
then wilt thou sin against innocent blood to
slay David without a cause
and Saul hearkened unto the voice of Jonathan
and Saul swear as the Lord liveth
he shall not be slain
and Jonathan called David and
Jonathan showed him all those things
and Jonathan brought David to Saul
and he was in his presence as in times
past and there was war again
and David went out and fought with the Philistines
and slew them with a great slaughter
and they fled from him and the
evil spirit from the Lord was upon Saul
as he sat in his house with his javelin
in his hand and David played with his hand
and Saul sought to smite David
even to the wall with the javelin
but he slipped away out of Saul's presence
and he smote the javelin into the wall
and David fled and escaped that night
Saul also sent messengers
unto David's house to watch him and to slay him
in the morning and Michal, David's wife
told him saying if thou
if thou save not thy life tonight
tomorrow thou shalt be slain
so Michal let David down through a window
and he went and fled and escaped
and Michal took an image and laid it in the
bed and put a pillow of goats hair for his
bolster and covered it with a cloth
and when Saul sent messengers to take
David she said he is sick
and Saul sent the messengers again to see
David saying bring him up to me in the bed that I
may slay him and when the messengers
were come in behold
there was an image in the bed with a pillow of goats
hair for his bolster and Saul
said unto Michal why hast thou deceived me
so and sent away mine enemy
that he has escaped and Michal answered
Saul he said unto me let me go
why should I kill thee so David
fled and escaped and came to
Samuel to Rama and told him
all that Saul had done to him and he and Samuel
went and dwelt in Naoth
and it was told Saul saying behold David is at
Naoth in Rama
and Saul sent messengers to take David
and when they saw the company of the prophets
prophesying and Samuel standing as
appointed over them the spirit of God was
upon the messengers of Saul and they also
prophesied and when it was told Saul
he sent other messengers and they prophesied
likewise and Saul sent messengers
again the third time and they prophesied also
then went he also to Rama
and came to a great well that is in
Siku and he asked
and said where are Samuel and David
and one said behold they be at Naoth
in Rama and he went thither
to Naoth in Rama and the spirit of God was
upon him also and he went on
and prophesied until he came to Naoth in
Rama and he stripped off his clothes also
and prophesied before Samuel in like
manner and lay down naked all that day
and all that night wherefore they say
is Saul also among the prophets?
Dear Lord thank you for faithful
Baptist Church Lord and I pray that you would
help us all to love you more
and love one another more and
Lord I pray that you would fill Pastor Anderson
with your Holy Spirit and give us all yours to hear
and help us to grow in the Lord in Jesus' name
Amen. Amen. This evening
I'm going to be continuing my sermon
from this morning where I preached about being
loyal to your friends
and in that sermon of course we looked at the dictionary
definition of loyal
and every one of the dictionary definitions
contained the word faithful
or faithfulness and that's a Bible
word even if the word loyalty
is not in the Bible
faithfulness is in the Bible
and we saw a ton of scripture this
morning about being loyal
to your friends. One of the
verses that was the
main thrust of the sermon this morning
was Proverbs 27 10
thine own friend and
thy father's friend forsake not
right. Do not forsake
your friends. Don't abandon
your friends and we talked about in the book of
Job those fair weather friends
that are like the deceitful brooks that are just
seasonal and when you need
them the most they aren't
there. It's funny I was thinking about it
and you know I was a famous preacher from the
20th century brother
Hiles and there's a famous
quote from Dr. Jack
Hiles where he said
I will be loyal to principles
not to institutions
and so that's a quote that you hear people
repeat from him a lot but what's funny
is that I feel like a lot of times people are
misusing or misapplying that quote
because I personally listened to like
probably seven or eight hundred hours
of brother Hiles' sermons
back in the day just on recordings because
you know I never heard him in person or anything
like that but just listening to
recordings of literally seven or eight hundred
of his sermons
and in his sermons he
talked a lot about loyalty and about
being loyal to people
and being loyal to friends and being loyal
to mentors and people that have
blessed us and so I think
people are misunderstanding that when he said
I'll be loyal to principles
not institutions
he's talking about like organizations
institutions he's not saying I'll be
loyal to principles but not to people
that's not what he said okay
because he wasn't teaching that you
shouldn't be loyal to your friends
or people that have invested in you because
he taught the opposite many
many many times because I
listened to a lot of his preaching and I heard him talk about that
but this is
an important subject because
friendship is something that
should be a part of our lives and
if we think about it when we're in the local
church we're amongst friends
right a lot of our friend circle
is the local church itself
a lot of our social life takes place
here and so we want to
make sure that we
are the type of friend that people can
rely on and that
we're going to be there for people when they need us
and it's more important to
be a friend than to have friends
and so that's what we talked about this morning
but tonight I want to
really focus in on one
specific example of friendship
which is that of David and Jonathan
in the Bible it's kind of a
classic example of friendship
and really of loyalty among
friends but before we do that I just want to read
for you a couple more verses because
being stabbed in the back by
your so-called friends
is a very sad part of life
but it's something that virtually
everyone's going to experience at
some point or another and
Jesus Christ himself went through the exact same thing
he was tempted
in all points like as we are yet without sin
and if you remember Judas Iscariot
of course who Jesus
called friend
stabbed him in the back, betrayed him
and so of course that's
something that's going to happen to us as well
as Christ's followers
but I found this passage interesting in
Psalm 55 verse 12
you don't have to turn there but it says
for it was not an enemy that reproached
me then I
could have borne it. He said look if it were an enemy
that were reproaching me then
I could have handled it would be another way
of saying that right? If it were an enemy
I could have borne it.
Neither was it he that hated me
that did magnify himself
against me then I would have hid
myself from him but it was
thou a man mine equal
my guide
and mine acquaintance we took
sweet counsel together
and walked unto the house of
God in company he said you know
we were friends we went to church
together and that's what makes
us so grievous that you
have stabbed me in the back
I mean think about that he says look if it would have
been an enemy I can handle that
but it hurts more when it's
friends or so called
friends stabbing you in the back
and then he says in the next verse let death
seize upon them let them go down
quick into hell for wickedness
is in their dwellings and among them
as for me I will call upon God and the Lord
shall save me and so
he's pretty upset in this psalm obviously
there's the human psalmist speaking
David or whoever
but then there's also
kind of the prophetic element
about Jesus being betrayed
by Judas Iscariot who is also
supposedly his friend
and close associate
the Bible also tells us in
Luke 21 about the end
times you shall be betrayed
both by parents and
brethren and kins folks
and friends and some
of you shall they cause to be
put to death right so we
have even parents and relatives
and friends betraying you
unto death in the end times and then of course
elsewhere we have the flip side where it says
the children shall rise up against their parents
and cause them to be put to death and so
this betrayal
lack of loyalty lack
of fidelity lack of faithfulness
is also an end times
phenomenon when men are lovers
of their own selves and so
they will prioritize themselves
over their friends and
they would rather throw their friends under
the bus betray a friend than
to suffer any inconvenience
themselves
alright let's get into this example of David and
Jonathan tonight look at 1 Samuel
chapter 18 verse 1 just one
chapter back from where you were
1 Samuel chapter 18
verse 1 it
says and it came to pass when he had made
an end of speaking
unto Saul that the soul
of Jonathan was knit
with the soul of David and
Jonathan loved him
as his own soul so this is a great
example of friendship in the
Bible and of course we know the end of the story
Jonathan and
David are going to remain loyal to one another
all the way to the end they're going to remain faithful
to one another and it starts out
here with their souls being
knit together and it
says that Jonathan
loved David and of course the
key to fidelity and
loyalty is that if you actually
love someone you're not going to betray them
you're not going to stab them in the back as we
said this morning love worketh
no ill to his neighbor
and so we see that
this friendship starts in chapter 18 verse
1 it says and Saul took him that
day he took David that day
and would let him go no more home
to his father's house because he's basically
recruiting him into full time service
in the military then
Jonathan and David made a covenant
because he loved him as
his own soul now what is a covenant
a covenant is an agreement
a deal a
contract and the
idea here is that they
are going to be loyal to each other
as friends now here's the thing
friendship does not always
contain this kind of an explicit
agreement or
coming out like hey you're going to have
my back right and I'm always going to have your
back right you know you might never
exchange those words but
in friendship there is an
implicit idea that yeah
we're going to be there for each other
we're going to love each other we're going to help
each other out through thick and thin
and I'm going to be there for you when
you need me and vice versa
even if these words are not
verbally expressed that is
implicit in the very idea
of what friendship even
is in this
case though it's actually made
explicit they actually tell
one another you are my friend
and I'm going to
stand for you and so forth
and it says that they made a covenant
because he loved him as his own soul
Jonathan stripped himself of the robe
that was upon him and gave it to David
and his garments even to his sword
and to his
bow and to his girdle it's funny how it says
even the sword because you know obviously
this is kind of personal to him I guess
his sword is special
to him you know obviously we can't really relate
to that because we don't walk
around carrying swords but obviously this
is something just really personal to
him and he gives it to David
now think about it Jonathan's the son of the king
so Jonathan is probably very
richly appareled he's got
the robe he's got the fancy
kingly garments and the sword
and the bow and the girdle whereas
David's profession is
that of a shepherd so he's a very
humble rustic
kind of a guy probably in some really humble
clothes and so Jonathan basically
strips himself of his
wealthy lavish garments and gives
them to David and sets him up
outfits him like a
king and so this is
the beginning of a beautiful friendship
between David and Jonathan flip
over to chapter 19 verse 1
now of course we know it doesn't
take long for things to
go sour between
Saul and
David not Jonathan Jonathan and David
are fine but Jonathan's father
King Saul becomes envious
of David almost right away
right right after David kills Goliath
it doesn't take long before
David starts to get a little too popular
and it makes Saul uncomfortable
and Saul starts to feel a little bit
threatened in his position as king
thinking that he's going to lose the position
and what's so ironic about this
is that it becomes a
self-fulfilling prophecy because here's the thing
you know Saul
in his envy and that wicked
desire to hang on to power
of course ironically
that's what caused him to end up losing power
you know is trying
to cling to
that power and here's the thing he could've
obviously had that power
if he would've just obeyed the Lord
kept his heart right with God
he could've just kept on being the king
and Jonathan could've followed in his footsteps and everything
but he ended up messing it up
he ended up becoming his own worst enemy
and because of his envy for David
he goes downhill fast
and so that relationship
goes bad right away
between David and Saul and so it says
in verse 1 of chapter 19
Saul spake to Jonathan his son
and to all his servants that they should
kill David so there's really no
question about how Saul feels about David
in chapter 19 verse 1
he's telling Jonathan you need to kill
David he's telling the soldiers we're gonna
kill David but Jonathan
Saul's son delighted
much in David and Jonathan told David
saying Saul my father seeketh to
kill thee now therefore I pray thee
take heed to thyself until the morning
and abide in a secret place and hide
thyself and I will go out and
stand beside my father in the
field where they're out and I will
commune with my father of thee and
what I see that I will tell
thee so Jonathan's
number one concern here is for
David's safety so before anything else he says
look the first thing we need to do is just get you
to safety cause everyone has just been
instructed to kill you even I've
been told to kill you and so the first thing he says
is you need to go hide right away
so the first thing he wants to do is protect
David okay
but then next he's gonna
actually jump to David's defense
and actually speak on
David's behalf to try to remove
the danger in general so he says
you go hide and then I'm gonna go
talk to my dad and then we'll see how this all
turns out verse four
Jonathan spake good of
David unto Saul his father
and said unto him let not the king
sin against his servant against
David because he had not sinned
against thee and because his works
have been to thee word very
good he did put his
life in his hand and slew
the Philistine and the Lord
wrought a great salvation for all Israel
thou sawest it and didst rejoice
wherefore then
wilt thou sin against innocent blood
to slay David
without a cause and you see here when you have
real friends who actually love you
they are going to just
not just sit back and say well
you know dad told us all to
kill David I'm not gonna kill
David because David is my friend
I'm not gonna do it but I'm just gonna
sit back while everybody else kills David
and sit back and let no
he not only doesn't
participate in hunting
and trying to murder David
but he actually fights back
and says hey this is wrong
this is sin leave
David he goes to bat for David
and he brings up of course you know
the fact that David has been a loyal servant
of Saul and has done these great works for God
and everything and that there's no reason
for it and Saul actually
listens to him you know it says in verse number
six and Saul
hearkened unto the voice of Jonathan
and Saul swear as the Lord
liveth he shall not be slain
and so you see that speaking
up for your friends actually
can make a difference
it's not that it just doesn't matter and
that you can just kind of sit back and see how
things turn out kind of like Peter
right before he denied the Lord Jesus Christ
he's following afar off
to see what would be the end thereof
you know just kind of seeing how it's gonna
turn out and just
oh I don't know him and so forth
no because actually
standing up for
your friends helping your friends
being there for your friends can make a difference
in the life of your friends
and that's what we see here that there's an actual difference
in the outcome because
Saul and his men they call off
this hunt for David
and it says Jonathan called David
and Jonathan showed him all those things
and Jonathan brought
David to Saul and he was in
his presence as in time passed so David
gets totally restored to his position
everything's fixed
everything's resolved and
David is again serving
Saul why
because Jonathan actually
helped him out when he was
in a bind he went to bat for him
now you say well yeah but you know in the long run
you know there's gonna be more problems
down the road with Saul of course there are
because here's the thing life is a
series of tests life is a series of
challenges life is a series of
setbacks we're always gonna have trials
and tribulations and problems
that's not the point the point is
though that for now
things have been fixed
now David can live a normal life
now he can continue serving
God and serving the king and so
this is a great outcome because
Jonathan actually stands
for his friend and stands up and
helps him in his time of need
now let's go to chapter 20 and we're skipping
a lot for the sake of time obviously we can just read
every line of the story and
comment on it and think about it and everything
but I'm just kinda hitting the main highlights here
just to show you some principles
that the Bible is giving us on friendship
because what you have to understand is that in the
New Testament we have a lot of
statements that are made in the
epistles and the apostle Paul
talks about friendship and we have
statements made by Jesus Christ
and we have some stories in the
book of Acts but the
real story book of
the Bible is more kind of in the Old Testament
you have a lot more stories to go on don't you
I mean
how many examples do we really have in the New Testament
of things like marriage
child rearing
sibling rivalries
do we really have a lot of stories
like that in the New Testament to go on no because
the New Testament is much shorter
and the New Testament is really focused on
doctrine it's really focused
on ideas and
thoughts and
Jesus Christ and the gospel
and salvation right a lot of
the stories of
the Bible are found in the Old Testament
the Old Testament is much longer
and just has lots of stories
and so I think people make a mistake
when they don't really
spend enough time reading the Old Testament
and looking at those stories
because those stories are
illustrating and bringing to life
the statements and principles
and doctrine of the New Testament
so the New Testament explains the doctrine
but then when we go back into the Old Testament
and read all these stories then we
kind of see those things playing out
in real life and
you have to understand that the Old Testament
is written for us in 2025
a lot of people have this
attitude of well it's not really as
relevant because we're in the New Testament
now and so those things
aren't quite as relevant but if you stop and think about it
that would mean
that this giant chunk of the Bible of the Old Testament
was only relevant for like a really short time
because a lot of these books
were only written a few hundred years
before Christ if you
think about it right a lot of it was written maybe a thousand
years before Christ obviously the oldest portions
of it were written around 1500 years
before Christ but a lot of it was only
written a few hundred years before Christ
you know and if you think about it
a lot of times it wasn't even
really always compiled in one place
you know it's really in the New Testament
that we have it all kind of bundled
up real nicely 39 books
of the Old Testament leather
bound coupled with our New Testament
right and what does the Bible say in
1 Corinthians chapter 10 it says all these
things talking about Old Testament stories
in particular the
stories in particular it says all
these things were written for our admonition
upon whom the ends of the
world are come and
so let me ask you this question
how many Christians
have read the story of David and
Jonathan versus
Old Testament Israelites read the story
of David and Jonathan
I mean stop and think about it you know
and I know that probably
a thousand times more Christians
or ten thousand times more Christians
or a hundred I mean way
more Christians are
reading these stories about
David and Jonathan than any ancient Israelite
ever got these before Christ
ok
so the reality is that
these stories are
more relevant even in my
opinion I think they're more relevant to us
than they even were to the Old Testament Saint
the Bible says these things were written
for our admonition upon whom the ends of
the world are come and if you think about it the Old Testament
Saints they didn't even have
as good of tools for understanding these things as we do
we have the New Testament lens
to look at the Old Testament
through the lens of the New Testament
and have a much greater
understanding of what's going on in these stories
much deeper understanding
much clearer understanding
than the Israelites of the
Old Testament who were really
just seeing things through a glass
darkly as it were and not as
clearly as we can see them now in the
New Testament and dwelled by the Holy Spirit with the
whole book Genesis to Revelation
and all this New Testament
teaching to explain it to us
and so these stories in the
Old Testament are there for a reason
why are we reading about David and Jonathan
why does the relationship between David and Jonathan
matter?
it matters because friendship matters
because we're supposed to be
taking verses about friendship
from Proverbs verses about friendship
from the New Testament and then looking
at these things playing out
in the lives of David and Jonathan
you know and understanding
what does it mean to love your
enemies and seeing David's
interactions with Saul and so
forth and so you know I just want to really
emphasize that because it's really important
to understand that this is not just me
grabbing a random Bible story from
the Old Testament hey let's just talk about the story
hey these stories are meant to be
instructive they're written
for our admonition
upon whom the ends
of the world are coming what does it mean to admonish someone
right and an admonition
is saying hey you need to be doing
this or hey
you need to stop doing this
that's what an admonition is and
so this story is not meant
to just be an entertaining story although it is
an entertaining story it's a great story
but you know what it's also to admonish
us we're supposed to look at
it as a mirror
and reflect upon
our own situation and our
own lives and you know what's funny is I've
heard some people say oh you know these preachers
are always putting themselves into the Bible
you know it's like they're projecting
themselves in the Bible like as if they're
Jesus or as if they're David or as if they're
Jonathan folks that is the only right
way to read the Bible
so I don't even know what these people are
talking about well you think
you're Job yeah I do you know
oh you think you're Jonathan yeah
actually I do
you know oh you think you're Jesus I
don't think I'm Jesus but let me tell you something
I'm supposed to walk
in his steps
I'm supposed to realize okay
he's done it he was
tempted at all points like as we are yet without
sin he left us an example
that we should follow in his steps and
so how can you not read the Bible and
try to relate your own
situation to Moses' situation
or Aaron's situation
or Miriam's situation
or fill in the Joshua's situation
and it's not that we're thinking that we're as
good as these people or something because
you know some of these people are better than us
some are worse than us honestly some of these
Bible characters I'm like you know
they're not that great
of people they did some
stupid stuff or some rotten things but the bottom
line is it's not about
comparing yourself to them
it's more about seeing
the things they did right and doing
likewise seeing the things that they did
wrong and doing likewise
seeing them go through something painful and say
oh I went through something painful that was similar to that
so what can I learn
from the story
and so you know of course
preachers get up and put
themselves in the story and the
audience is putting I hope you guys are putting
yourself in the story and thinking
about these things and making it real
in your life so that
that's a very uh absurd
criticism that I've heard over the years it wasn't
it wasn't I don't think anybody's ever said that about me
but I've heard people say that about other preachers
that you know that they're putting
themselves into the story or something
it's like well yeah
you know that's the whole point of reading the
Bible is to apply it to your
life you know that's what you should
be doing every single time you read it
and so uh back to the story here
uh we're
jumping forward we just looked at a little bit of chapter
18 chapter 19 let's go to chapter
20 okay verse 8
and it says in chapter
20 verse 8 therefore thou shall
deal kindly with thy servant
for thou has brought thy servant
into a covenant of the Lord with thee
and we talked about that earlier
notwithstanding if there be in me iniquity
slay me thyself for why
shouldest thou bring me to thy father so
David's basically saying look man if I'm
a traitor if I've committed
treason then why don't you just
execute me right now let's just save a step
don't even deliver me to your father
because he's trying to tell Jonathan
look your dad is
trying to kill me again
and Jonathan's like no man he promised
he was never gonna do that
he wouldn't do that and David's like
look he's going to
and if you bring me to dad
then I'm just gonna be killed
so if I've done wrong then just kill me yourself
let's save a step because if you
bring me to him I'm gonna be killed
verse 9
Jonathan said far be it from thee
for if I knew certainly that evil
were determined by my father to come upon thee
then would not I tell it thee
and so we see that Jonathan
as a good friend
he's worried about his friend
he wants to look out for his friend's safety
number one we saw that
number two we saw that he was willing to speak
in defense of his friend go to bat for his friend
help his friend out of
a predicament that he was in
but now we also see that he
is ready to warn his friend
of impending evil
or doom he's not just gonna sit back
and let something bad happen to his friend
he's gonna warn him and he says look if I knew
that something bad
were gonna happen to you I would have told
you that I would let you know that
right I wouldn't just let it happen to you
I would warn you
and of course we as good friends should do the same
thing for our friends if we see
evil coming upon someone we give them
a heads up we warn them
look what the Bible says in verse 13
the Lord do so much
the Lord do so and much more to Jonathan
but if it please my father to do
the evil then I will show it
thee right that means
that a good friend if somebody's talking bad
about you if somebody's conniving
and conspiring against you you know what they're gonna
do they're gonna come and tell you about it
and they're gonna warn you about it and say hey
this person is devising
evil against you they're not just gonna
sit back and say well I'm just neutral
I'm just gonna let it happen no they're gonna
warn you and bring it to you and that's what
Jonathan says but if it
please my father to do the evil then I will
show it thee and send thee
away that thou may as go in peace
and the Lord be with thee
as he hath been with my
father we're in verse 14 of first Samuel
chapter 20 and thou shalt
not only while yet I live show
me the kindness of the Lord that I die not
but also thou shalt not cut
off thy kindness from my house forever
no not when the Lord has cut off the enemies
of David everyone from the face of the
earth so Jonathan made a covenant
with the house of David saying
let the Lord even require it at
the hand of David's enemies and Jonathan
caused David to swear again
because he loved him for he loved him
as he loved his own soul and again we
see that friendship is supposed to be a
two-way street
not a one-way valve
this friendship is not just
Jonathan going to bat for David
Jonathan warning David when
people are conspiring against him Jonathan
trying to convince other people
that David's a good guy and trying
to fix David's problems and protect
David it's not one-sided because
Jonathan says hey I expect the same from
you I'm going to bat for
you well guess what someday you're going
to be in power David and I
want you to show kindness unto me
and even after I'm dead
you know I want you to show kindness
even beyond that to my seed
after me because
friendship's a two-way street
it's mutual it's reciprocal
it's not supposed to be a one-way valve
and I think that probably
many people have experienced this kind of one-sided
friendship in our lives
people that take and take
and take but then they
don't want to give
and you're always the one who's
having to make all the effort
you're always the one who's doing stuff
for them and then when you need something from them
they're not there
and so this is not the case with
David and Jonathan it's a two-way street
now again
for sake of time we're going to jump ahead
but as you know
King Saul gets worse and worse
and he ends up spiraling
out of control ultimately
he's killed by the Philistines and
unfortunately his sons
are also killed with him the same day
including Jonathan so Jonathan ends up
dying in battle fighting with
King Saul against the Philistines
so in second Samuel
chapter one if you want to flip ahead there
second Samuel chapter one David is
eulogizing Saul and Jonathan
when he finds out that they've been killed
and as
David is eulogizing them
he says in verse number
23 of chapter one
second Samuel Saul and Jonathan
were lovely and pleasant in their lives
and in their death
they were not divided they were swifter
than eagles they were stronger
than lions ye daughters of
Israel weep over Saul
who clothed you in scarlet
with other delights who put on
ornaments of gold upon
your apparel and you know what the
main thing that stands out here to me is that
David was loyal
to Saul even
after Saul had tried to kill him
even after Saul had been
hunting him and making his life very difficult
David remained
loyal to Saul all
the way to the end and
even after Saul is dead
he still is
saying good things about Saul and he's saying
hey you got to admit Saul
was great on the economy you know
whatever you say about any of us you know
foreign policy or what
you know him persecuting me
he clothed you in scarlet and other delights
he put ornaments of gold upon your apparel
that Saul economy
was great you know hopefully
we're about to head into like a Trump economy
here you know we can all have more money
you know in our pockets just don't
let it go to your head
but here's the thing about that
is that if anybody
would have had the right to be
disloyal
disrespectful
and to dishonor
his elders and people who
had invested in him it was David with King
Saul because King Saul is
conniving conspiring lying
and even trying to murder
him repeatedly
David does not do
anything to harm Saul at all
David flees from
Saul and
David has two different occasions
where he has the opportunity to
kill Saul and not only that and I mean Saul
is trying to kill him you could say oh it's self defense
people
in David's entourage are begging
him please
let me kill Saul I can kill him
right now and we can just end this whole thing
and he says nope
I'm not going to put forth my hand and touch
the Lord's anointed
now here's the thing David
went from being a shepherd boy
right who's just out
there as a shepherd obviously we know that
it was God that was the one who anointed him
and Samuel the prophet poured oil on his head
and everything like that but you know Saul is the
one who actually hired him and
brought him into the military and made
him a general and put him in a position
of power made him the king's son
in law and did these things and so
because of the fact that
Saul had done these things for David in the past
David's loyal to him
and not only that he's loyal to
God and the Israel
of God because of course
Israel in the Old Testament was God's
chosen people and so
their anointed king is
special in the eyes of God he's the king of
Israel even if you don't like the person
even if you don't respect
necessarily the man and his behavior
he's in a position that should be
respected just like the high priest
was supposed to be respected you know
and he's the king of Israel you
know you're not supposed to just kill the king of Israel
he's not going to take it upon himself to do that he's very
loyal to
King Saul even in spite of everything and I
think it's such a beautiful example of loving
your enemies because if anybody was David's
enemy it's Saul I mean he's after
him he's trying to kill him and yet David
still loved Saul still
respected Saul and
is loyal to him and you know
I've had a mentor in my
life somebody who invested
in me spiritually in the past
and taught me a lot of things and who
frankly I wouldn't be here if it weren't
for him you know and I think
that we all have people like that in our lives
that have put
into us their spiritual
teachings and they've invested in us
with the work of God and so
you know I look back at a certain guy who
really invested in me and mentored me
and I wouldn't be here without him and
you know this guy later became an
enemy unto me and just
slandered me attacked
me lied about me treated
me very ill
and it was it was it was a lot
like King Saul to be honest
in many ways there were a lot of parallels
with kind of the back and forth of oh
I'm so sorry I'm proud of you you're a good boy
and then it's just like you know
more attacks and
slander and so forth and the thing about that is
that you know I've never
spoken ill of him
you know I've never gone out and
attacked him or tried to harm
him in any way and I never would
because I will respect
and honor him
and his investment in my life
until the bitter end
okay and it's just one of those
things you know your parents
have raised you taught you
made sacrifices for you you don't
go out and attack your parents
you don't go out attack
the person that won you to Christ
you don't go out and attack your spiritual
mentors and Sunday school
teachers and pastors and people
that have taught you and invested
in you and made you who
you are you don't bite the hand
that feeds you okay
and so if anybody had an excuse to
do it it's David
and look the Bible gives us these really
extreme stories just
so that you don't think well my situation's
different
it's like oh okay so your Sunday
school teacher's trying to kill you now
is
that what's going on
so mom and dad trying to murder you
you know but that's the kind of
thing that we see
in the Bible that's so extreme like
Job's situation is so extreme
where he's covered in boils head
to toe and everything and just loses
everything loses all his money
and it's like the most extreme situation
in every way so that nobody
could come along and say
like you know hey
I'm going through something
that's beyond this
and so therefore you know
I'm in a special circumstance
the Bible doesn't apply or something
and you know I think that
some people could maybe look at the Job story
and maybe say well
my situation's worse than this one area
cause you know I'll be honest with you I looked at the
Job story before and thought well in some ways
what I went through is worse than what Job
went through but then I read the part where the boils
and I'm like no
I'd rather have my situation
than to be covered in boils
you know and I mean think about it
he's scraping himself and all this
horrible stuff
so it's like if the financial
part doesn't get you if the family
part doesn't get you if the wife
telling you to curse God and die
doesn't get you if the you know
the boils will get you something
in that story you're going to be like okay that's it
Job had it worse at some point
in that story you know
something's going to resonate with you there
and so
the point is God gives these
extreme stories and I think that David
being persecuted by Saul is a really
extreme story where you have
extreme loyalty on the side of David
and just extreme
persecution coming from Saul without a cause
and I think this is
instructive to us to say
okay David's a man after God's own heart
if David can show
some loyalty to Saul
if David can be respectful to Saul
if David says I'm not going to harm
Saul I mean what did David do to harm
Saul you know what he did? He just cut
a little piece off of his clothes
right? Saul goes into the
cave to use the bathroom
and while he's in the bathroom David
sneaks up on him and just
cuts off a little piece
of the cloth just to show
him and say I could have killed you
because I had you
on the john and
I cut this off and I could
have cut your throat I could have killed you so easily
but he shows him that but you
know what the Bible even says? The Bible even says that
David felt bad about
even cutting his clothing
he even felt bad about that
and his heart smote him
just for having cut his
clothes he didn't even
cut his body he didn't even do anything
to him okay and
and again is this just a fun story
or are we supposed to be reading
this as an admonition
right and and and again
how do we know in these stories who's right
and who's wrong we take the Bible statements
of the New Testament the Bible
statements in the book of Proverbs
and we use them to interpret the story
and to let the story admonish
us in our lives
and so we see that David's loyal
to Saul and Jonathan
look at verse 25 how are the mighty
fallen in the midst of the battle
oh Jonathan thou was slain
in high places I'm distressed
for thee my brother Jonathan
very pleasant hast thou been unto me
thy love to me was wonderful
passing the love of women
how are the mighty fallen
the weapons of war perish now of course
perverted filthy minds will say
oh you know uh David's
a homo because he said that Jonathan's
love was better than the love of women but you know
what unto the pure all things are pure
but unto them that are defiled
and unbelieving is nothing pure
but even their mind and conscience
is defiled because
they have a wicked mind a wicked conscience
they will read those kind of things
into this what you don't understand uh
is that this whole faggoty
society we're living in has not been normal
throughout history it's a new phenomenon
and I'm not I don't think I'm
that old but
this is something that I've seen happen in my lifetime
I'm 43 years
old and when I was in
elementary school junior high
and the first few years of high school
homosexuality might as well not have even existed
it was not a thing
it was like non
existent and you say well you know
pastor Anderson you know when I go back
and listen to old time preachers I don't
hear them preaching a bunch of sermons against homos
that's because they didn't have to
it's the same reason I don't get up and just
preach week after week against incest
you know
bless god I'm gonna keep ringing this bell
as much as I have it's just like whoa
buddy we get it like
you know I'm bestiality
my friend I'm just like what
why are you even talking about that
folks let me tell you something I was born
in 1981
okay I lived in
California not
exactly the bible belt or the most conservative
place and
living in California in the 1980's
it might as well have
not existed it was something that you just
never encountered
the first time I ever met someone
who was a sodomite I was like
15-16 years old
and the guy was just
seemed like a completely normal person
you would have never known in a million years
the only reason I knew is because someone told
me I know this guy
and I know him to be a homo
and I was like whoa this is like the first
homo I've ever even
heard of in real life
besides just some joke on a
tv show or you know they've obviously
Hollywood's been promoting this garbage
even before that but in real life
and you know what anybody who's my age or
older knows that I'm telling the truth
that this just wasn't a thing it just
didn't exist we could have
all said like president Akhmedina
there just are no homos here you know
but basically
I remember in
we were talking about this this morning in 1998
uh I remember
Ellen DeGeneres
was a sitcom
that I'd never seen or watched
but I remember she comes
out as a lesbian and
it was pulled from the tv
they removed the show they pulled it off the air
because people freaked out
and said we will not have a
a homo character on prime
type tv get rid of it
it was
it was pull it was yanked from the air
it was like I was like amen
but then a year later
it came back
a year later they brought it back and
crammed it down everybody's throat and then the year
after that every single
sitcom had a homo character
before that none of them did
and I remember going to high school
I'd never known one
in my life until I
get to my senior year of high school
and all of a sudden I had one in
every class all of a sudden
just open sodomites in
every single class in the year
1999 and it
I mean it was like one year to the next
it was just that fast it just went
from something that you just never saw
never heard of to just
now all of a sudden it's just there's one in every
but even then
it would pale in comparison to now
fast forward 25 years later
they're everywhere
does everybody understand?
and so here's the thing if you're living in a normal
society amongst normal people
this is not something that you're thinking about
it's not something that's on your radar
you're just kind of going through life and it's just
it's something that you only hear about like when you
get to Leviticus 18 in your Bible reading
and you're like what the heck
God why are you even bringing that up?
I remember the first time I read
Leviticus 20 I was like God
why are you bringing up all this weird stuff?
and now
fast forward and I'm like man I wish God would have
said more
I used to think he said too much
too much
I'm like why does he keep bringing this up it's gross
but then I got to the end of the chapter and said
oh well the nations in Canaan
have done all these things I was like what?
they actually did this stuff?
because it's not on the radar
so here's the thing normal people
throughout history when they read the story
about David and Jonathan and David said
oh man my love for you Jonathan was so
pleasant and it was passing the love of women
they're not having some weird faggoty thought
they're just thinking
wow he really loved his friend
now you have this agenda
to go back all throughout history
and to just find any historical
figure who had a close male friend
and to declare them a homo now
and that's where you get these stupid
ideas that oh King James was a homo
or this guy is a homo there's no evidence
for these things except for the fact that
they had close male friends
well guess what men
throughout history have had close friendships
with other men
just normal dudes and it had nothing
to do with being a pervert it just
had to do with companionship
friendship and so forth
and so that's what we see with David and Jonathan
is that
they had a close relationship and in fact
you know David's relationship with Jonathan
surpassed the
relationship that he had with women in its
emotional depth
okay and this isn't really
a shock because David
you know didn't necessarily have normal
marriage relationships in his life
so you know
maybe this isn't the highest possible
praise to say
that it was greater than his love you know
of women because of the fact that
of course his first wife
Michael we know how that ended up
she's estranged with him
she ends up being given to another dude
then she comes back and then she's
talking smack and then he's just like
okay well I'm never going to touch you again with a
ten foot pole because I already got a couple other wives
going and you know it's a mess
but the point
is though that
this is a male
friendship that meant a lot
to him and he was loyal to Jonathan
Jonathan was loyal to him
now flip over to 2 Samuel
chapter 16 let's get off of
David and
Jonathan for a moment but I do want to
bring up this one thing though years
and years later in 2 Samuel chapter
9 right because 2 Samuel chapter
1 is when Jonathan has just died
in 2 Samuel chapter 9
David asks his servants
is there
yet any that is left of the house of
Saul that I may show him kindness for
Jonathan's sake?
So notice that David
is looking for ways
to be loyal to his friend even after his friend
is dead and gone he's looking
for ways to be loyal but you know
a lot of people they're looking for
excuses to be disloyal
they're looking for excuses
to throw their friend under the bus
to turn on their friend to stab their friend on the back
you know it really should be the opposite
where we're looking for ways to be loyal
looking for ways to be a good friend
even after Jonathan's
gone he's still looking for ways to be a blessing
to him that's a real friendship
here's an interesting
story also from
the life of David
about Hushai the Archite
okay now Hushai the Archite
was a friend of David's
that in this passage we're going to look at
is accused of being
a disloyal friend he's accused of
being a bad friend
now he's acting like a really bad
friend but in reality he's
being a good friend he's
undercover and so
let's look at it quickly but this is where Absalom
has rebelled against
David and David had
to flee Jerusalem
and he's out in the wilderness with his
man and the people that were loyal to David
they followed him into the wilderness
but Hushai the Archite
is sent in as
a spy and so Hushai
the Archite is pretending to be
disloyal to David in reality
of course we know that he is David's
loyal friend but it's interesting
what we see in these verses look at 2 Samuel
chapter 16 verse 16 it says
and it came to pass when Hushai the Archite
David's friend was
come unto Absalom that
Hushai said unto Absalom
God save the king
God save the king and of course
it's an act
but he's pretending like he's
excited about king Absalom
and Absalom
said to Hushai
is this thy kindness to thy friend
he's like really
why you know
why are you being disloyal to your friend
is this thy
kindness to thy friend
why winnest thou out with thy friend
excuse me
why winnest thou out with thy friend
like why didn't you go with your friend
David is out in the wilderness
his buddies all followed him
people that were loyal to him
people that loved him, people that cared about him
is this your kindness to your friend
that you're just going to just side with Absalom
against him
and remember this is Absalom talking
Absalom's like
I mean I'm glad you're on my side
you're just going to just forsake your friend
David and just jump on my bandwagon
and Hushai said unto Absalom
nay, but whom the Lord
and this people and all the men of Israel
choose, his will I be
and with him will I abide
and again whom should I serve
should I not serve in the presence of his son
as I've served in thy father's presence
so will I be in thy presence
now obviously we know he's a
spy and he ends up
tricking Absalom into doing something stupid
and he ends up being instrumental
in David's success
over Absalom because he's a spy
but let's just pretend for a moment
that Hushai
is really being sincere
we know that that's not the truth
but let's just pretend for a minute
that he is and so stop and think about this
Absalom says to him
oh is this your kindness to your friend
why winnest thou not with thy friend
you know and Absalom's
obviously right in that sense that
and you know Absalom should have gone with his gut
that this guy's not really
that disloyal because he's shocked
he's surprised he's like what what are you doing
I thought you and David were like this
you're that quick
to throw him under the bus
and then look what Hushai says
he says nay, but whom the Lord
and this people and all the men of Israel choose
his will I be and with him will I abide
you know a lot of people will sometimes put a little
spiritual slant
on their disloyalty
and unfaithfulness
right they'll have a little spiritual
slant that says well I'm
only loyal to God
I'm only faithful to God
you know I'm not going to be loyal to
people I'm only going to be loyal to
God right
and this is their way of kind
of putting a spiritual veneer
on their disloyalty
unfaithfulness and really
wickedness in many cases
and this is what people do
and again this is what I was kind of
talking about with the brother Hiles the famous brother Hiles
quote I will be
loyal to principles
not to institutions
okay what he's talking about is
he's not going to be loyal to
the Southern Baptist Convention
okay because if you actually get the context
of where that quote came from
it had to do with the Bible
college that he attended the seminary
that he attended and the organization
that he started out being a part of
the Southern Baptist Convention
and so he's going to be loyal to
his principles
standing on the word of God not just
well whatever the Southern Baptist Convention
does you know I'm just going to be loyal to that
that's the actual context of that quote
what he's not saying is well I'm
going to be loyal to my biblical principles
therefore I'm not going to be loyal to my parents
I'm not going to be loyal to my friends I'm not going to be loyal to
my church my pastor that's not what he's saying
and again like I said I've
listened to seven eight hundred hours of his preaching
that's not what he taught that's not what he
believed you know and so it's
sometimes a misuse of that idea
where people have this idea
of well you know
my only loyalty is to God
now here's the thing obviously our
primary loyalty is to God
no question about that
our number one primary
loyalty is to God
okay
and what does the Bible say he that loveth
father or mother more than me
is not worthy of me he that loveth
son or daughter more than me is not
worthy of me that's what the Bible
says right you've got
to be willing to
sever any relationship you've
got to be willing obviously to follow
Christ even to the point of death
he says you've got to hate
oh let's go there quickly let's in fact let's just
finish the sermon there because we're low on time
but let's go to Luke chapter 14
I think that's where it is
hopefully
it's not in my notes this is kind of
popped into my mind but
Luke chapter 14
it's got
to be right
verse 26 yeah
verse 26 of Luke 14 if any man
come to me and hate not
his father and mother and wife
and children and brethren and sisters
yea in his own life also
he cannot be my disciple
and whosoever does not bear his cross
and come after me cannot be my disciple
now this is not about being saved
being saved is really
easy believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved being
saved is receiving a free gift but being
a disciple of Christ
folks there were very few disciples of Christ
right people who actually
were following Christ you know you got
the 12 disciples that's not really a lot
when you think about Jesus preaching to
thousands and thousands of people at a time
he's got 12 disciples and then
in Acts chapter 1 the early church
in the upper room is only 120 people
including women and children that means
that our church is way bigger
than the church in Acts chapter 1
ok so what you have to
understand is that there's a big difference between being
saved and being a disciple
of Christ because being a disciple takes a huge
commitment you know being a really
serious sold out die hard
follower of Christ
is a big difference from just accepting the free
gift of salvation thank God
there weren't just only 120 people
saved in Acts chapter 1 there had already
been tens and thousands tens of thousands
hundreds of thousands of people saved throughout Christ
and the apostles ministry ok
but what do we
see here if any man come to me and
hate not his father and mother and wife
and children and brethren and sisters obviously
this is hyperbole it's not
saying necessarily that
literally hate those people but the idea
is that they are
put at such a lower priority
like Christ is
number one and
everything else is
expendable
if it comes to it even your own life
just Christ is
number one and you've got to be willing
to forsake anything and everything
if it becomes necessary to do so
you got to count the cost if you really
want to be a die hard
follower of Christ
now look this is a pretty strong statement
isn't it and that's why
the word hate is used even though it's hyperbole
and exaggeration in that sense it is
still making a very strong point
that there is no doubt
that Christ comes before
your spouse period like how
can you read this verse and say no I think your
marriage comes first Christ second really
you can't read this verse and come away with
that that's why the strong language
is used even though it's hyperbole ok
we could also say hey there's
no way that God wants you to
put your children before Jesus
or to put your parents before Jesus
or to put your spouse or anyone else
before Jesus he says if any man
come to me and hate not his father and mother
and wife and children and brethren and
sisters yea in his own life also
he cannot be my disciple very strong
statement here about the fact
that Jesus Christ is
number one so
obviously we know that is our
number one loyalty right
is there any question about that
no
but is Christ our only
loyalty is that what the Bible says no
it doesn't because
elsewhere the Bible is very
clear on being loyal to your spouse
like we saw this morning like we talked about this morning
so I'm loyal
not just only to God
only to Jesus only to the word of God
no I'm also loyal to my wife
as a person
I am loyal to her as a person
I'm also loyal
to my friends
I'm also loyal to my parents
ok I am loyal
to people
who I consider my friends
who have been loyal
to me I'm going to reciprocate and be loyal
to them people who have been loyal to me I'm going to be
loyal to them ok
people that the Bible is telling me to be loyal
to I'm going to be loyal to the Bible is telling me
to honor my father and mother I'm going to do it
ok people who have invested
in me I'm going to be loyal to them
ok and obviously
Obviously if I want to have friends, I gotta show myself friendly, I gotta be loyal to friends and expect that to be reciprocal.
Now here's the thing, when you have friends stabbing you in the back, betraying you, pulling a Judas Iscariot, pulling an Absalom, pulling a whoever, pulling a Job's three friends or whatever, you know, obviously those people aren't your friends anymore.
You're not necessarily gonna stay friends with those people once they've shown you that the friendship is meaningless to them.
Once there's kind of that material breach of contract, you kind of realize the kind of people you're dealing with in many cases and you move on.
And it's sad, but that's life.
But the Bible's clear that Jesus Christ is number one, he's our number one loyalty, but the twisting and perversion of this doctrine would be that he is our only loyalty and that is not true.
Okay, because obviously we are supposed to be loyal to these other people in our lives too, right?
I mean obviously we should be loyal to family, we should be loyal to friends, we should be loyal especially to our spouse for crying out loud, but Christ is number one.
But what people will often do though is they will burn people in their lives, they will throw friends and family under the bus, they will harm, hurt, and destroy people that have been good unto them and say,
Well, this is me just taking a stand for what's right, putting a spiritual veneer on their wickedness.
And that's what we see with Hushai the Archite who's obviously of course not actually saying this, but he's basically dissimulating and saying like,
Oh yeah, well, you know, whoever God chooses, and you know, I'm just here to serve God, and so if this is what God wants, then I'm just gonna follow the Lord.
When in reality, if he were really doing this, this would be super wicked and ungodly on his part.
The only reason he's not wicked is because he's faking it.
And so beware of this kind of hyper spiritual veneer that basically says, Oh, you know what, I had to discard my wife because she just didn't want to serve God, you know, so I just had to move on to someone else that wanted to serve God.
And you know, you think that people don't say that, they actually do say that.
I've literally heard, and you know, the followers of Peter Ruckman, these hyper dispensational types who follow Peter Ruckman, they will say that from the pulpit.
I've heard them say from the pulpit, if your wife doesn't want to serve God, you need to ditch her and find a woman that will serve God with you.
I've literally heard those exact words, verbatim, out of some of these rucktards mouths, and I'm telling you, you know, that's horrible teaching.
But again, it's putting a spiritual veneer on someone who just wants to discard their wife, or discard, Oh, my husband's so ungodly, I had to separate from him because he, you know, smoked a doobie or whatever.
What is that? It's putting a spiritual veneer on your disloyalty and unfaithfulness.
Okay? And again, people will do this all the time, you know, because I could sit there and I could find all the false doctrine and things that I don't like about all of my former pastors, and all of my Sunday school teachers, and Christian school teachers, and people that invested in me spiritually, mentors, people who taught me how to go soul winning, and people who did all this.
If I could find things wrong, and then attack them, criticize them, hurt them, make their lives miserable, and say, Oh, I'm doing it for the Lord because they have some wrong doctrine or something.
I'm not going to do that because I'm not a wicked person.
And so, again, we want to make sure that we realize that, yes, Christ is our number one loyalty, but he is not our only loyalty.
Look, I love Jesus Christ more than I love anyone else. I love Jesus Christ more than my wife, but that's not an excuse to not love my wife.
No, because guess what? I can love Jesus and my wife. And other than Jesus, I love my wife more than anyone else in this whole world.
But guess what? I love Jesus more. If I had to choose between her and Jesus, I'm going to choose Jesus every single time.
But if I had to choose between her and anyone else, I'm going to choose her every single time.
That's the way it's supposed to work. So we have to understand that, yes, our supreme loyalty is to Christ, but we also need to be loyal to Jonathan.
And we also need to be loyal to Saul. And we also need to be loyal to our wife, husband for you ladies, parents, pastor, friends, people who've taught you, people who've invested in you, people who've been a blessing to you.
Don't bite the head that feeds you. Be loyal. Be a good friend. Be a good child. Be a good parent. Be a good spouse.
We should strive for loyalty and faithfulness in our lives. So I hope that between this morning's sermon and tonight's sermon, this has really sunken in with you that you need to think about, hey, how am I treating the people who've done good unto me in my life?
Have I rewarded them evil for good? Or am I loyal to them? Am I faithful to them? Do I honor that implicit agreement of what friendship means?
Right? Which is to do each other no harm. To love one another. And love worketh no ill to his neighbor. And so just like Jonathan and David had that love that was reciprocal and that loyalty that was reciprocal, that's what we should strive to have in our friendships.
Now look, the sad truth is that, you know, really good David-Jonathan friendships, they don't come along very often in life. And so if you're a child or a teenager and you say, man, I really wish I had a friend like that, I don't have a friend like that, don't feel bad because most people don't have a friend like that when they're a teenager.
You know, and it's like, and don't ever look at the public school kids and think, oh man, they have this cool social life that I'm missing out on. Let me tell you something, I've been to Christian school, I've been to public school, and let me tell you what it is, you're surrounded by a bunch of people that you kind of pretend to like and hang out with and a lot of those relationships are really shallow.
And in fact, they almost leave you with an emptier feeling than no relationships at all because sometimes they're so shallow and so empty, they almost make you feel more lonely in some ways.
And so don't just assume that everybody down at the public school or the Christian school or whatever is just having all these really deep meaningful relationships.
The truth, and look, I'm a very social person. When I was a teenager, I had a lot of friends and I was doing stuff constantly. I wasn't a person, I wasn't sitting around in my room or anything.
I mean, I was literally going somewhere like every night I was going to like church youth groups, church youth activities. I was involved in like five different churches at a time.
When I was 16, 17, I'm going to this Bible study over here, this youth activity. I'd be looking up, does any church have a, you know, church service on Thursday night? Because I just wanted more church.
And look, yeah, I wanted to study the Bible, but I also just wanted to make more Christian friends. That was a big reason why I'm going to these, you know, Bible studies and church services, youth groups.
It was mainly because I wanted to, you know, meet people. So I'm a very social person and I've made a lot of friends over the years. But let me tell you something, though.
I've had very few of these really good, meaningful friendships that last for a long time. And it's not for lack of getting out there and meeting people. It's just the reality of the human condition.
And so here's the thing. When you do, and I want to leave you with this thought, don't miss this. When you do find that Jonathan in your life, when you do find that deep, meaningful friendship, don't screw it up.
Are you listening? Don't screw it up. Because let me tell you something, those relationships are few and far between. They rarely happen. Listen to me.
They rarely come along. They are gold. So when you do have that deep relationship where your souls are knit together and you have that meaningful friendship that lasts for years and years and even decades, and you have those deep friendships, don't just sell your birthright for a bowl of chili.
You know what I'm saying? Don't just be ready to just give up that friendship for your convenience or whatever. You know what? You should be willing to pay a high price to hang on to that friendship.
If that friendship is real, you better hang on to it. And if you screw that up, you're a fool. Because other people, man, they wish for those relationships. They long for those relationships. And they don't come along very many times in life.
And you know, if you have a deep relationship with your spouse, you should be thankful for that. You should cherish that. And you know what? Yeah, maybe your spouse is going to be a pain sometimes, but you know what? Just remember those connections that you've had. Remember those moments that you've had. Remember that bond that you've had.
That's worth hanging on to. Even if they go through a weird phase or something or a stupid phase or a dark phase, hang on to that bond. Because it's something rare in this world.
Whether it's a marital bond or even just a friendship, like between a Jonathan and a David. Do not screw up the friendships in your life because they're valuable. And man, someday you're going to think, oh man, I was so stupid to sacrifice friendship for whatever. Whatever the reason.
Hang on to those friendships. Be loyal. Be faithful. And you know what? You're going to want to have those friendships later, so don't screw them up. And especially don't screw things up with your spouse.
I really hope you don't have just a shallow relationship with your spouse. Maybe you do now or something, but I hope that at some point you had some kind of a connection.
Hopefully you don't marry someone that you don't have any kind of a connection with. Hopefully you should have a little bit of that connection even before you get married. And then you know what? When that person is maybe at a low point, remember that connection.
And how rare it is. And how valuable it is. How precious it is. And don't just be ready to ditch that person because you're ashamed of the chain. Whatever the chain is in their life. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for your Word. We thank you for, obviously, the Lord Jesus Christ who sticketh closer than a brother. And he is the greatest friend ever.
But Lord God, help us to find some good friendships in this life. Friendships with the same gender, Lord. And ultimately a marital relationship that has value and meaning.
Lord God, help all of us as your people to be able to develop and cultivate some meaningful friendships in our lives. And when we have them, help us not to disdain them. Not to devalue them or fail to realize how precious they are.
Lord, help us to hang on to those things and be faithful to our friends. Be loyal to our friends. And hopefully have some friends that will be loyal to us. And in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
Amen. All right, ladies and gentlemen, take your hymnals, please, and go to Hymn 261. Hymn number 261.
Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Hymn number 261. Begin together on that first verse.
Oh soul, are you weary and troubled. Hymn number 261. Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Sing it out together now.
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.
In the light of his glory and grace. Through death into life everlasting, we pass and we follow him there.
Over us and no more have known him yet. For more than comforts we are.
Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full in his wonderful face. And the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.
His word shall not fail you, we promise. Believe him and all will be well. Let him go to a world that is dying. His perfect salvation to tell.
Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full in his wonderful face. And the things of earth will grow strangely dim
in the light of his glory and grace.
We've had excellent things tonight. We are dismissed.
We are dismissed.