(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. 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. 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. 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 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. We are dismissed.