Friends

looking at 1st Samuel, chapter 20, and you have part of the text in your order, worship. We have a really long text and a really short time to get through it, and so I'm going to do something a little different. So let me read the first few verses here. I said, you hear the Word of God. Then David fled from now and Rama and came and said before Jonathan, what have I done? What is my guilt? And what is my sin before your father that he seeks my life? He said to him, far from it, you shall not die, behold, my father does nothing, either great or small, without disclosing it to me. And why should my father hide this from me? It is not so. But David vowed again saying, your father knows well that I found favor in your eyes, and he thinks, do not let Jonathan know this, lest he be grieved. But truly is the Lord lives, and as your soul lives, there is but a step between me and death. And Jonathan said to David, whatever you say, I will do for you. Let us pray. Father, I pray this morning that you would come and open the eyes of the blind and the ears of the death that as we seek to know Jesus better, you would show us the gospel even in this Old Testament text, and that you would make it clear to us, I pray that you be in my head and in my thinking, in my heart, in my understanding, in my mouth, in my speaking. In Christ's name, we pray these things, amen, amen. And over a few several times as we have been looking at first Samuel, the relationship of Jonathan and David is sort of emphasized, and I was thinking this week, what does this remind me of? And one of the things immediately came to mind was the Lord of the Rings. You have seen the first Lord of the Rings movie, you remember who are the best friends in the Lord of the Rings, right? If you haven't seen the movies, you should, and if you haven't read the books, you have had about 60 years, so I don't feel guilty for spoiling anything. But Sam and Frodo are best friends, Frodo is the hero or the anti-hero and Sam-wise Gamji is his best friend, and what is it that has them so committed to each other? Remember the last part of the movie, and the first movie, when Frodo decides that he has to take basically the ring of power into Mount Doom, or into the bowels of hell, basically to throw it in there to destroy it, and the orcs are overrunning he and all of his fellowship and he decides that if these people stick with me, they're all going to die, so he's going to go alone and he decides to leave them and go to Mordor by himself, and he gets in this little canoe on a lake and just as he's leaving, he hears someone yelling, Mr. Frodo, Mr. Frodo Frodo looks back and it's Sam-wise, and he says, Sam, I must go alone. He says, I know, and I'm coming with you. And then Sam plunges into the water to go out to Frodo, to go with him into the bowels of hell, and if you haven't read the book, you don't know that Hobbits cannot swim at all. And so Sam is basically drowning and Frodo reaches down and pulls him up into the boat and he gives him this look as to like, you're crazy. What is it that would make you risk death to come with me to more death? You remember what Sam says? He said, again, dog told me. He said, don't you leave him Sam-wise, Gamji, and I don't mean to. I made a promise. What is it that would have Sam risk his life in order to be Frodo's friend? He made a promise. There's lots of things that are involved in being friends or being in a relationship with someone and there's an infinite number of things, but there's one glue that holds them all together and it's this concept of promise. The Bible, it's called by a different word, oftentimes, and that word is covenant. In other words, in order to understand relationships, in order to understand what holds things together in the Bible, relationally, whether it's God and man or man and man, you got to understand the concept of covenant. So before we jump into the text, let me give you a brief overview on just the two big covenants in the Bible. They're basically two big covenants in the Bible and everything else, there are lots of little ones that fall under the other ones. In the first covenant you see in the Bible, theologians call the covenant of works. And that was made between God and Adam and basically the covenant of works goes something like this. Adam, if you don't eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you'll live and I will bless you. If you eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you'll die and I will curse you. In other words, the covenant is always initiated by a greater to a lesser and the greater dictates the terms of the deal and in the covenant of works, it basically works like this. If you obey, if you do the right thing, you will be blessed and if you do the wrong thing, you will be cursed. And if you want to know what the covenant of works feels like, the covenant of works feels like if you've ever had to go to court or even if you've seen it on TV or if you've been deposed ever and you put your hand on the Bible and they say, do you swear to tell the truth, tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth, so help me God and you say, so help me God. You see the covenant of works is based in fear. Why did they make you swear on the Bible? They're basically hoping that you care that if you lie that God's going to smite you, I guess. But at the end of the day, it's based in fear. It's sort of 50-50. You do your end of the deal and I'll do my end of the deal. You obey and I'll bless you. And we know how that worked out if you've been in church for more than a few days. Adam, eight of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and immediately, God comes into the garden and begins to discipline them. But he also immediately institutes what theologians call the covenant of grace. And what does the covenant of grace say? It's still initiated by the greater to the lesser. But with the covenant of work said, you obey and you'll be blessed. If you fulfill your end of the bargain, you'll get the blessings. What the covenant of grace says is that we're going to be in covenant together and there's still blessings and cursings, but here's the beauty of it, I, the greater, God, I'm going to fulfill 100% of this covenant. In other words, I'm not only going to fulfill my promise to bless, but I'm going to fulfill your promise to obey. And you say, but I can obey and you say, well, that's why it's called the covenant of grace. The God promises that He will provide 100% of what it takes for the covenant to be fulfilled. And so if someone needs to be punished, God will provide the land. If someone needs to be blessed, you get the blessing. It's a win, win situation for us. And what is an example, maybe, of the covenant of grace? There are lots of them, but marriage is the first thing that comes to mind because the marriage, you don't have a greater making a covenant with a lesser, you basically have two equals making a couple and when two equals make the covenant, what are they both promising to do? To fulfill 100% of the obligation in this marriage. It's not 5050. Whoever says 5050 is lying, they haven't been married, I don't think. From time to time, one spouse or the other is providing 100% of what it takes to fulfill this covenant. So that's what the covenant of grace feels like. Someone is providing 100% of what it takes. And when you understand that, then you can begin to understand what's going on in the text. We're going to look at three things today. We're going to look at them quickly quicker than I would like to. But the three things we're going to look at in the text are basically the power of the covenant, the permanence of this covenant, and finally the peace of the covenant. So what is the power of the covenant between David and Jonathan? If you haven't been here, if you remember a little background, is Jonathan and David are best friends, and Jonathan, a few chapters ago, it says he loved David and so Jonathan initiated Jonathan the greater, the son of the king, initiates a covenant with David. You see, covenant of grace and covenants that are based in grace are motivated by love, not fear. So the one who has all the power says, I'm going to be committed to you. Jonathan did that. And then, you know, a little bit of time passes and Saul begins to try and kill David because he feels jealous of him. He feels threatened by him. And the last time we saw Jonathan was last chapter. And Jonathan went and interceded for David and talked to Saul and Saul said, I'm not going to kill him. I swear to God. And so Jonathan brought David back and said, hey, things are good to go with my father. That's the last time we heard from Jonathan. And then as soon as Jonathan walked out the room, we assumed Saul gets upset. He tries to pin David to the wall again and then tries to kill him at least three more times. And now David is on the land. And now David being on the land from a human perspective and from a political perspective and from an ancient near Eastern perspective, the last place in the world that David would go to seek help would be the heir to the throne of the king who's trying to kill him. In other words, Saul is trying to kill David. The last place you would go is to the his son because his son stood to lose everything by letting you live. In other words, if Jonathan would just kill David, his life would be pretty sweet because we know that Saul's crazy. So eventually Saul's going to do something that gets himself killed or taken out of the equation. Jonathan's a pretty decent guy. He seems to be godly. Saul's out of the equation. Jonathan becomes king automatically and life is sweet for Jonathan. So the smartest thing from a human perspective, the easiest thing from a human perspective would be for Jonathan to just kill David when he sees him. And yet the power of the covenant between Jonathan and David you see in the very first verse. Let me read that to you. He says, then David fled from Nyoth and Rama and came and said before Jonathan, what have I done? What is my guilt and what is my sin before your father that he seeks my life? You see Jonathan and David have made a covenant together. Jonathan initiated it. So Jonathan promised, I am going to be for you no matter what. I am going to be your advocate. I'm going to be your champion and I will bear any kind of harm that comes you will come to me instead. And that covenant is the basis upon which that David has all the security in the world to go back to Jonathan. Because if David thought of things from a political perspective or from a human perspective or a secular perspective or a common sense perspective, Jonathan would be the last person he went to. And yet from a grace perspective and a covenantal perspective, Jonathan is the first person he would go to because Jonathan is the only one who has promised David he's not going to fail him or forsake him. That's who you need to seek when you're in the midst of trouble, not everyone else, but the person who's made you that promise, the person who's made you that covenant. And that's what the gospel says to us as well. I know it's counterintuitive, but if you think about it, if you're a sinner and you know of yourself that you're broken and you're needy and you have all these anxieties and all these troubles, common sense would tell you that the very last person you should go to is God. Why? Because common sense is God is holy and I'm not. God expects perfection and I'm not. God says that he will punish every single sin and I seem to be made of nothing but sin. So why would I go to him? He's the last person unless he's made a covenant unless there's a promise where God says I don't care what anyone else thinks about you. What I think about you is that you are completely loved, completely accepted more than you could ever imagine. And you said, what about my sin? And he says, your sin was taken care of on the cross. Your comfort and your solace and your power are here. Now the last person you would think you should run to is the only person who has made you a promise and that is God himself. And what he has promised is that if you put your faith in Jesus, he will know wise cast you out. In other words, he's never going to kick you out of the house. No matter how badly you behave, if you're willing to come back to him, he will always take you. And the question is, do you go back there? When you sin big and when you sin in an embarrassing fashion, do you go back to God or do you sort of avoid him for a while? Thinking maybe he'll forget about it. It doesn't work that way. Go to him whether you're a Christian or not a Christian, run to him and he will take your sins away. That is the power of the covenant. Now in the story with David and Jonathan, just to be faithful to the narrative, David goes back to Jonathan because he feels security to do so. And he basically says, what have I done? Your father's trying to kill me. And Jonathan's remarks seem curious unless you remember that the last Jonathan knew, David, everything was good. And that's why Jonathan says, that's crazy talking. David, my father tells me everything. And I know he's not trying to kill you. And David says he didn't tell you this because he knows we're friends and he knows you'll take care of me. And Jonathan says, I don't know about that. And David says, I swear. David appeals to the covenant between them as well. I'm going to tell you the truth. That I'm a step away from death. And Jonathan says, well, that's the case. I'll do whatever you need me to do. And so what do they decide? They decide that David cooks up a scheme that he's going to to not go to the new moon festival or the harvest dinner at Saul's house, which that's a conflict for me, by the way, because you think was he really planning on going in the first place knowing that Saul wanted to kill him? I don't know. But what the story says is, I'm not going to go. And if your father reacts, reacts well to that, then you'll know everything's okay. And if your father reacts poorly to that, you'll know that everything is not okay. And so that's the plan that they hatch between them. And so what's the power of the covenant is this promise that can never be revoked. What's interesting next is the permanence of the covenant. And what's interesting is that it's Jonathan who invokes the permanence of the covenant, not David. You see, the covenant is made between the greater and the lesser and up to this point. This is a turning point in the whole book because up to this point in the book, Jonathan is the greater, at least on paper. And once Jonathan has committed to support David, and especially support David, against Saul, now Jonathan is the lesser. And now Jonathan appeals to the permanence of the covenant. Let me read to you what he says here in verse 12. So the Lord God of Israel be witness. When I've sounded out my father about this time tomorrow or on the third day, behold if he is well disposed toward David, shall not them, shall not then send and disclose it to you. But should it please my father to do you harm the Lord do so to Jonathan and more also if I do not disclose it to you and send you away that you may go in safety. May the Lord be with you as he has been with my father. If I am still alive, show me the steadfast love of the Lord that I may not die and do not cut off your steadfast love from my house forever. When the Lord cuts off every one of the enemies of David from the face of the earth and Jonathan made a covenant with the house of David, saying may the Lord take vengeance on David's enemies. And Jonathan may David swear again by his love for him for he loved him as he loved his own soul. You see if Jonathan was crazy from a human perspective for honoring his side of the covenant with David and not killing him. David is crazy from a human perspective for not doing the same to Jonathan right here. In other words, Jonathan has admitted and knows David, you are going to be the next king of Israel. In the ancient Near East, what kings would do once they took the throne is they would kill everyone of the potential contestants to the throne that existed. In other words, the person from whom they took the throne and anyone else who had any relationship to the throne. If they killed all the sons, then they would assure that no one would be constantly pecking away at them to take their throne from them. In Jonathan asked something that's really just crazy. In fact, some commentators use these two things as an example that the Bible may not even be true. Because that's how crazy it is. Because in the ancient Near East, no king or no heir to a throne would actually promise another heir to a throne who is taking over. He's going to take care of him forever. It wouldn't do it. This isn't just the ancient Near East. This is the Bible and then the Bible things are motivated by a little different standard, namely by Grace. Jonathan basically says, I am admitting that you are going to be the king. I am blessing the blessing bearer and now I am appealing to you to take care of me, less than I die, or take care of my family forever. And what does David say? Yes, basically. He swears that he does it and it says that he does it because he loved him as his own soul. The covenants of Grace are motivated by love. They're not motivated by fear. David could have said no. David was in complete control here to say, yes, I will promise you that I will take care of your family forever. Or he could have said, you know, let's see how it pans out. Let's see. Once I become king, we'll see how loyal you are. Once we become king, we'll see what a good subject you are. And if you're good for a certain amount of time, I'll let you stay. And if you're not good, I will have you killed. David doesn't say that. He promises him, I will take care of you and your family forever. And that's the same thing that the gospel says to you and me. Most of us, we tend to think of things in terms of common sense. Okay, God, I've trusted God. He's made this covenant with me. Jesus has taken away his sins and there's power in that because supposedly I'm acceptable. But am I really? Is there permanence to God's covenant with me? And on one hand, there's a theoretical answer. Yes. The question I have for you is what's the practical answer? In your own life, you live as if God's covenant with you is going to last forever. And it is a covenant forever that he will take care of you forever and for always. Or do you act like someone who says, you know, okay, he accepted me, but now I better keep my nose clean. He accepted me, so now I better be good for some probationary period in case I die in the meantime, because then at least I'll know I'm going to heaven. Or do you trust that no matter what has happened in your life and what happens even now or in the future, that God's covenant with you is not going to change? You believed that because if you really believed that, it changes everything. Then instead of struggling to be free from your sins, now you're free to struggle with your sins. You're free to deal with things because you know God's not going to kick you out. And it's only in that context do you have peace? Right? Everyone longs to have some kind of peace in their lives and the only way to get it is from this understanding of covenant with God. And that's how the text ends today. I mean, basically, I'm going to have to give you the reader's digest the version of the whole story. Jonathan does go to Saul's house and David does skip the dinner and Saul says, where is David? Which is this Saul really expecting to show up? I don't know. Did they put the story out of order? I don't know, but he asks him, where is he? And Jonathan says, I gave him permission to go visit with his family in Bethlehem. As a member of the royal household, Jonathan had the ability to do that. I gave him permission. I signed his leave form and the Saul says, well maybe he's unclean. That's why he didn't go. And the second night he asked him, where is David? Same answer. And if that Saul becomes furious and he tells Jonathan all of the things he's given up. Do you notice what he said? How he acts to Jonathan? It says, Ben Saul's anger was kindled against Jonathan and he said to him, you son of a perverse rebellious woman. I do not know that you've chosen the son of Jesse to your own shame and to the shame of your mother's nakedness for as long as the son of Jesse lives on the earth, neither you nor your kingdom shall be established. Therefore send them bring him to me for he shall surely die. And Jonathan answered Saul, his father, why should he be put to death? What has he done? But Saul hurled his spear at him to strike him. So Jonathan knew that his father was determined to put David to death. And Jonathan rose from the table in fierce anger and ate no food for the second day of the month, for he was grieved for David because his father had disgraced him. So they do the scheme but it doesn't fool Saul. Now Jonathan can either start talking fast or he can run or he can stand up and say I have thrown my lot in with the blessing bear. And that's what he does. He says, what are you going to do about it? Saul tells him you've lost everything by doing this. And he throws in some really choice language that in English they don't translate really that well but probably for the better in church. He calls him pretty filthy names and basically says you've blown everything. Jonathan says what has he done? And Saul tries to kill his own son. He tries to pin him to the wall and at that point Jonathan says maybe David wasn't talking crazy when he said my dad was trying to kill him. And so then the latter part of the scheme Jonathan takes a young boy out in the field. Remember how they were going to communicate was I'm going to shoot some arrows and if I shoot arrows to the side of where you are you things are good and if I shoot arrows beyond where you are things are bad. So Jonathan goes out and he shoots the arrows beyond where David is. And it says he shouted to the boy hurry go now. He's probably really shouting to David you need to get out of here quickly. And apparently no one else was around and they felt safe enough so Jonathan sends the boy home and they have one second to last meeting which they're weeping greatly. Let me read that to you. As soon as the boy had gone David rose from beside the stone heap and fell on us face to the ground about three times and they kissed one another and wept with one another David weeping the most. Then Jonathan and said to David go in peace because we have sworn both of us in the name of the Lord saying the Lord shall be between me and you between my offspring and your offspring forever. You can understand the weeping and part of what the author is doing here remember he's making a case that David should be king and that David didn't steal the throne from Saul. David was grieved that all this was happening but then Jonathan from many people's perspective says something again that would be crazy. Did you notice what he said to David? He said go in peace. How can he say go in peace when all the world is trembling down around them? He's got a crazy father who's trying to kill his best friend. Israel's being beset on every side by the Philistines everything that could possibly go wrong is wrong and Jonathan says go in peace. How can he say that? The answer is pretty simple if you understand the concept of covenant. The peace here is not peace that's outside but the peace here is the peace that is inside and relational. You see you can't have an inner feeling of peace unless you actually have a relational peace with the one who made you. You can't have peace in your family, peace within yourself unless there's peace in your family and the place that that peace comes from is from the power and the permanence of God's covenant with you. That's where it came from with them. Jonathan can say peace in other words he's saying no matter what happens around us, no matter what happens with my family, no matter what happens with the Philistines, no matter what you become king or not become king, there will be peace between us and the reason there is peace between us is because of this covenant. We have sworn one to another and that's the same way that you and I understand peace ultimately. You get the way we have peace is not because things around us are going well. Most of the time if you ever think about it, things are almost all the time. It's not going well around us. Those of you who have lived not just 20 years or 30 years but 40, 50, 60, there is always something going on that makes you think the world is going to come to an end. There's always politicians who don't seem to know what they're doing. All this stuff is constantly going on so how can you have peace? And the answer is the way you can have peace is by having a relationship with God, a right relationship with God. One that is based on covenant with God and not a covenant where you say, God, I'm going to do something good if you do something good for me, but a covenant from which God says, Tommy, I'm going to do everything good for you. I'm not only going to bless you but I'm going to take away your sins and all I require from you is for you to come my direction. Pursue me, trust me. Will you trust me? And what's the greatest way that you can hurt that relationship

is either by scorning it or not having it at all? I was actually thinking about it this morning. You know the end of this remind me of, if you've ever seen the movie Shrek, now the movie Shrek 1 and Shrek 2 are two of my favorite movies of all time. Shrek 3, they sort of lost me with the promotional items and things, but however, if you don't know what Shrek is about it's basically about this huge green ogre and his friend Donkey and they become front Shrek. Shrek, to be honest with you, he's a little bit of a misanthrope. What I mean by that is he doesn't really like other people that much. Part of it's because he lives in a swamp and whenever he sees other people, they usually have torches and pitchforks and so he doesn't have a good experience trusting folks. And over the course of Shrek 1, he has to go rescue a princess and basically face all these dragon and all these other things and Donkey goes with him, a talking donkey and they become friends over the course of the movie and as they've done everything they're supposed to do and they're coming home and Donkey says to Shrek, hey Shrek, what are we going to do when we get back to our swamp? And Shrek looks at him and he says, our swamp, you may my swamp, I'm going to build a 10 foot fence around the whole thing to keep everyone out. And remember how Donkey responds to him?

He says, you hurt me real bad, Shrek, you hurt me real bad. And then he goes on to tell Shrek, Shrek, you just don't get it. What it means to be a friend is that you promise one another, you're always going to be there and we have been there for each other and now you're saying you're going to kick me out and now you're saying you're going to build a wall so I can't get it, you hurt me real bad, Shrek. And you know one of the greatest sins that we commit all the time? Is when we got all these issues and all these problems and all these sins, whether you're a Christian or not and God says, you know, let me take care of it and we say, you know what, I'm building a 10 foot wall around this swamp. It's a swamp but it's my swamp and you know what God says back? You hurt me real bad, Shrek. That's just as big a sin as lying, cheating, stealing, adultery to scorn God either to not trust in him when he begs you to trust in him as a Christian or to not trust in him for the first time to forgive your sins. That's the only thing that's unforgivable is not trusting in him. Would you trust him today? Would you trust him today? Let me pray for us. Father, I pray that even now you would come and you would open our eyes to see where it is we do not trust you and open our eyes to see the power and the permanence and the peace of this covenant you have made with us. Jesus himself said that in the world we have trouble but because of him we have peace and I pray, Father, that you would give us that peace not only with yourself but with one another. In Christ's name we pray these things. Amen. Amen.