A Heart for Friendship
SUMMARY
Karl Ihfe delves into the topic of spiritual friendship, using the Biblical relationship between David and Jonathan as a prime example. He highlights how their covenant friendship became an anchor for David's soul, even amidst difficult circumstances with King Saul. The sermon explores three key questions: What is a spiritual friend? How do we find one? And is it worth the effort?
Ihfe defines a spiritual friend as someone who helps us pay attention to God and challenges us to live up to our calling. He suggests that finding such friends requires prayer, putting ourselves in positions to meet like-minded people, and carefully testing potential friendships. While acknowledging that deep spiritual friendships are rare and can lead to heartbreak, Ihfe argues they are ultimately worth pursuing for their life-changing potential.
He concludes by drawing a parallel between Jonathan's willingness to give up his claim to the throne for David and Jesus' sacrifice to become a friend to sinners. He encourages the congregation to take steps toward cultivating these transformative friendships, emphasizing their power to help us become the people God created us to be.
TRANSCRIPTION:
Well, we're in the middle of a series on King David. I want to begin this morning by asking, just by show of hands, how many of you have a best friend or would be considered by someone else to be their best friend? Anybody out here have a friend? Yeah, I would hope so. There was a poll done last November, 2000Americans born anywhere from 1925 to 2006, and just asked them about, do you have a best friend?
83% said, yes, I have a best friend. That's a pretty good number. In fact, the average person who says, I have a best friend would actually apply that to two people. Said, I actually have a couple of people that I might consider my best friend. The Pew Research Institute conducted a study in 2023 and was asking Americans about a thriving life.
What does it look like to have a thriving life? And they offered them different elements to say, if you had this, if you had that in your life, would that help you become more thriving? When they asked about a few different characteristics, it was interesting. Said, how many of you think to be thriving in life you have to be married? Well, they found 23% folks said, marriage.
If I was married, what about if I had a kid? Maybe you had a family like children of your own, then you'd be thriving. 26% said that. When they asked about what about if you just had all the money you could spend, you just had enough, you didn't need any more, you just had a lot of money.
24% said, I'll be thriving. When they said, what about close relationships? 61% said, having close relationships is an integral part of a thriving life. There's nothing like the wonder of friendship in our lives. We're going to spend a little time thinking about that.
We want to look today about David and Jonathan and their incredible friendship. One of the great friendships in human history. John Ortberg, one of my favorite preacher teacher writers who inspired this series, he said this. He said, I'm not sure anyone can have a great friend and be called poor. And I'm not sure anyone could lack a great friend and be called rich.
I think there's something to that. In fact, some of you may be sitting next to your best friend right now in this moment. You may just want to reach over and just squeeze a hand or grab a shoulder or just turn and make eye contact, wink and dab them up. Some of you may be sitting next to a really attractive stranger. And I would say, don't do anything that would be weird.
O there's Nothing like the power of friendship in our life. It's an incredible thing. This morning as we look at David and Jonathan's relationship. You heard the words from 1 Samuel 18. If you have your Bible, invite you to turn over there.
This morning we think about this section or this time in David's life. There are a couple of relationships that are brought to the forefront in this passage that Laura read for us just a moment ago. The first one was Saul. If you were here with us last week, you got to hear from Nolan, our youth preaching intern this summer. He did a great job talking to us, kind of comparing this idea of Saul's unrepentant heart and David's repentant heart.
Well, we know the story of Saul, that he gets David to come and play for him. He hires him. In fact, we learn in this passage that after this moment, he'll be in Saul's service and won't go home to be a shepherd anymore. But we also learn over the course of several chapters in one Samuel that Saul tries to kill David three times with a javelin. Two times he offers one of his daughters in marriage to David and makes the bounty, or not the bounty, but the.
What do you call that? The dowry. Thank you. Some may say it's a bounty, but it's really more of a dowry. But he makes it so great that he's like, surely David will die trying to accomplish this task.
And it doesn't work. And so finally, Saul just sends assassins to try to do it, and they can't do it. And yet, even in the midst of this kind of acrimonious relationship, I mean, how many of you have ever had a really tough boss to work for? It's a little different picture here. When you think how many javelins have they thrown at you?
Anybody had an assassin hired? No. No, no. Ok. David had it pretty rough.
And yet even in the midst of this season of life, he's given this incredible friendship with Jonathan. In fact, we're told that they were one in spirit, which is kind of. They used some pretty intimate language. I want us to think about that because I know in our day and age that language kind of gets twisted and turned around. We get confused by it.
A lot of it, in fact, because we live in such a sexualized culture, it gets sexualized. And that's not at all what's happening in the story. And I want to demonstrate that for you. Jonathan says he's one in spirit. He loves him like he loves himself.
Pretty powerful language, which it's also kind of strange, isn't it? I mean, Jonathan is the son of the king, he's the prince, he's next in line to the throne. David is a shepherd boy who plays a good instrument. Both are mighty warriors. We find out just a couple of chapters before this in chapter 14, how Jonathan takes on a whole group of Philistine soldiers.
They're both incredible warriors. They're both stubborn and strong willed. But somehow David is now the golden boy and Jonathan is kind of the left going, well, what do I do? This guy is after my position. How will he respond?
It's a pretty amazing thing. What are the odds of a close friendship happening in a situation like this? Maybe put it in perspective, how many of us expected Donald Trump and Joe Biden to be best buddies by the end of that election? Nobody expects that. We wouldn't expect it here.
And yet somehow, in this mysterious way, they become best of friends. It says, Jonathan loved David as he loved himself. And I think that became an anchor for David's soul all throughout his life. And we'll see that in just a couple of different ways. But it became this anchor for him.
In fact, Eugene Peterson, who translated the Message Bible, but he said this about the story of David and Jonathan, he said, Jonathan's friendship entered David's soul in a way that Saul's hatred never could. There's just something about the wonder of friendship when we have that in our lives. And we're told in verse three that David and Jonathan make a covenant together. Again, kind of strange language, we might use the word commitment, but they commit together. And then Jonathan gives him his robe and his tunic.
He gives him his belt and his bow and his sword. Now, we don't often do that in this day, right? When we meet your best friend and we kind of make your best friend, we go, I'm so glad we're friends. Here, take my shirt. But in that day, that was kind of their way of cementing this relationship.
In fact, some scholars have said that when Jonathan took off his robe, that it was a sign that he understood the calling that God had put on his friend's life. And it was his way of saying, I agree and I bless it and I want you to live up to it. So take my rope and take my sword and take my bow, take my tunic, take it all. I want you to know that I believe in you. Imagine the kind of impact that would have on Dave.
Think about a time when you're a friend, a friend of yours has blessed you in a deep way. It changes You. It changes how you see things and how you operate. It's powerful. Well, their friendship wasn't easy and it wasn't convenient.
In fact, if you flip ahead just a couple of chapters to 1 Samuel 20, we'll see. Saul is in one of these murderous rages, and David knows he's out to kill him. And so he tells Jonathan, and Jonathan doesn't believe him. My first. No, no, that's not what's going on.
He. Yes, that's exactly what's going on. And so Jonathan's kind of put in this precarious situation. I love my friend. I care deeply about.
I see. God has this incredible calling on his life, and yet I love my father. I want to be faithful to him and to that relationship. So he says, let me go find out. Let me go find out what's really going on here.
And we're told in chapter 20, verse 16. So Jonathan made another covenant, a second covenant with the house of David, saying, may the Lord call David's enemies to account. Now notice the price that Jonathan is willing to pay for his friend. Jonathan stood up for David rather, when he found out Saul's level of hatred for him, Saul's anger flared up at Jonathan, and he said to him, you son of a perverse and rebellious woman. Don't I know that you have sided with the son of Jesse to your own shame and to the shame of the mother who bore you.
Just a deep wound.
Your behavior right now, not only is shaming you, it's shaming your mother who gave you birth. I just feel the weight of those words, dad. Sometimes we say things that are really not helpful, and I would firmly put this one in that category. The weight of our words and the weight of Saul's words to his son. As long as the son of Jesse lives on this earth, neither you nor your kingdom will be established.
Now send someone to bring him to me, for he must die. Notice Jonathan's response. Why? Why should he be put to death? What has he done?
Jonathan asked his father. But Saul hurled his spear at him to kill him. That same spear that got hurled at David three different times now is hurled at Jonathan. Then Jonathan knew his father intended to kill David. So he got it from the table in fierce anger.
And on that second day of the feast, he did not eat. Because he was grieved at his father's shameful treatment of David. Jonathan was willing to risk everything. His position, his place in the family, his own father's anger at him, his future, his throne, now even his own life. Because of his friend David.
See, there's nothing in the world like the power of friendship. David and Jonathan have to say goodbye to one another, we're told a few verses down. In verse 41, they had put together this little scheme of how to connect again. After the boy had gone, David got up from the south side of the stone and bowed down before Jonathan three times with his face to the ground. Then they kissed each other and wept together, together.
But David wept the most. Jonathan said to David, go in peace, for we have sworn friendship with each other in the name of the Lord. The Lord has witnessed between you and me and between your descendants and my descendants forever. And then David left and Jonathan went back to the town. This incredibly intimate friendship we see right here.
Deep love, we're told. They kissed and again, that's kind of weird language. We don't think about that. I don't know about in your family. In my family, this German beer drinking family, I grew up and kissing was the thing.
That's what siblings kissed each other on the cheek. Moms and dads kissed each other. So I grew up getting hugged and kissed on. In fact, if you watch my dad when he's around me, he's pinching the pod and pull, kissing. I'm like, dad, back off, pal.
You know, personal space. A lot of families don't. My mom did not grow up in that family. I remember having a few conversations with my mom, who she could remember maybe three times in her life where she saw her parents holding hands in public. They were very stoked.
We don't do that kind of thing. So you can imagine the first time my grandma, my dad's mom, laid a kiss on my mom. The first time they met. Not just on my mom, on my mom's face when they met, not just on my mom's face, on her lips.
Very awkward. Awkward. You know, there's something about the intimacy of putting your face next to someone's face that you care deeply about. It's about as vulnerable as you can get. And David and Jonathan cared so deeply that it wasn't a thing for them to say.
We can be that close. We can not just physically, butly. We can be vulnerable with each other. And they wept and says David wept the most. In fact, when Jonathan dies and Saul dies, as 2 Samuel opens up, there's this wonderful lament that David writes that he says over a psalm, he says over the situation.
And with Saul, he laments the man that he could have been in kind of this professional business. But Jonathan, he says his love was more precious to me than a woman. You’re like, well, okay, John, David, that's kind of weird language. What are you talking about? Well, have you known anything about David's marriages? You ever follow him around like, David had a really hard time knowing how to treat women.
It was very awkward. In fact, he wasn't very good at. As a husband, he really struck. We're going to look at some of these stories and kind of ask, okay, so what does that mean about a heart for God? But in this moment, he recognized the power of the friendship that he had with Jonathan.
He says, it's more precious to me than these relationships that should be, but they're not. And. And I'm not sure I know I'm part of the problem, but there's something about our relationship. It's precious to me. After this scene we just read in chapter 20, David and Jonathan will only see each other one more time in chapter 23.
And again, Saul's out to try to kill David. And so David and Jonathan meet up. And Jonathan says, or rather we're told in verse 16 of chapter 23, Saul's son Jonathan went to David at Horish and helped him find strength in God. There's a spiritual friend. Help them find strength in God.
Don't be afraid, he said. My father Saul will not lay a hand on you. You will be king over Israel, and I will be second to you. Even my father Saul, he knows this. He may not be ready to accept it, but he knows it.
And then once again, the third time they made a covenant, Jonathan went home. David remained there after this. They wouldn't see each other again.
David ends up living a pretty long life. He becomes king. He's there for a while. In fact, under his rule and authority, Israel experiences its greatest victories. And I wonder sometimes if in the castle, David would sometimes pull that box out under his bed.
He stores all his keepsakes, all the things he wants to hold on to, and he pulls out that robe. Or maybe he goes to his armory, he grabs that sword. His buddy Jonathan gave him his own sword and just remembers who it is God called him to be and the kind of friend that Jonathan was to him and the way it forced him to look at reality in his life. As David is an old man, he's thinking, is there anyone left in Saul's family that I could be kind to for the sake of my friend Jonathan? He finds out about his son Mephibosheth, who's crippled.
And so David brings him into his home and he Feeds him at his table and he takes care of him just like he was his own son. Every time he sees Mephibosheth at the table or around the palace, you think of his friend Jonathan, the love they had for one another and their willingness to be a deep friend. Is there something about the power, the wonder of friendship in our life? So we can have to ask ourselves this morning and our time rem how are we doing at this church? How are you doing it?
Being a spiritual friend to another person? Do you have some spiritual friends in your life?
I think God desires us to have these kinds of spiritual friends. I want to look at just a couple of questions that Ortberg offers to us to reflect on and think about as we're considering. What does it mean to kind of hear these stories, to see these stories of this friendship and to develop that kind of heart for God? One just Carl, what is a spiritual friend? What is a spiritual friend?
Because there are all kinds of friends that we have in life and we're going to have many over the course of our lives. But a spiritual friend is simply this. It's an intimate, life giving friend who helps me pay attention to God.
Who are those people, those friends in my life that help me pay attention to God? We have all kinds of people in our lives who are the ones that help you pay attention to what God is doing in your life and what God is doing in the world around you. You see, if we don't have these kinds of friends, we drift into spiritual mindlessness. If you track through David's life and you see the times where his life was ebbing up and to the right, where he's just locked in with God and he is doing all kinds of powerful things in the name and for the sake of God. And those times when it's just disaster, when it's just a train wreck.
See, David found something in Jonathan that Jonathan helped to see in him and to open him up to these realities. He needed a friend in his life to help him, especially at his worst. And that's what Nathan became for him. We'll read about that story. But see, if we don't have those kind of people in our lives, we can just drift.
Have you ever read a book and got through the end of a page and then couldn't remember what you just read? Or maybe you've been at church and you were paying attention at the beginning of the sermon, but about halfway through you lost you and you just kind of woke up. What, what? How many of you right now have no question what I'm talking. No idea.
See, if we don't have somebody who holds us accountable, we just drift. We just drift. A spiritual friend helps you pay attention to God. David needed that. And Jonathan challenged David to live up to the calling that God has put on his life.
I see this in you, David. You're going to be king and I'm going to be number two. Meaning I recognize my place in the world and it's next to you. Helping, supporting, encouraging, challenging. That changed David's life.
Spiritual friends help us to stop and think about when we're facing important decisions. What do you think God thinks about this? How would God want you to respond to this person, to this decision, to this situation? What might he be asking you to give up to sacrifice like Jonathan was?
Not only do they help us pay attention to God, but how do I find one? I mean, if this is so important as it seems to be, how do I find a spiritual friend? And this is one of the bigger challenges. What says it's part of this mystery.
There's not an Amazon prime account membership that would say send me a friend once a month on Tuesdays between 4 and 6o if you could deliver it. I was going to say there's not a website for spiritualfends.com. there is a website, friends. It's not what you think. It's not forering about it, but it is not what you think.
There's not a way we can just say, well, I'm just going to stumble and fall into. It's kind of like sleep. Anyone ever had trouble sleeping? Have you ever tried to make yourself go to sleep? Like, I'm going to sleep.
It's impossible. Like sleep is a gift. It just happens when it happens, it happens. Now there are things you can do to help and assist in that process. Kind of prepare yourself, you know.
So like in our house, we like dark room, nice and cool, comfortable bed, warm blanket. You we kind of not getting all jazzed up right after watching the tv, just having a chance to calm down, to think through. There are ways that you can help put yourself in a position to receive it. The same is true with friendships. You can't make a spiritual friendship happen.
How many of have ever had a friend who wanted you to be their friend and they were working hard to make it happen? You don't go, that's so sweet. I want to spend more time with you. You go, back off, bro. Take a breath, sister.
Like, this is not how that goes. But there are things we can do to put ourselves in position to receive that this friendship, it's a gift. And so Ortberg points to a 12th century monk who wrote this book called Spiritual Friendships. He's not the only one who's written, but he's one of the first ones to write about this. And he says there are kind of these three phases of how to develop spiritual friendships in your life.
And the first step, he says, is just the searching. He of course, it begins with prayer. God, would you raise up a spiritual friend for me? Someone who I can trust, who can trust me, Someone who I can talk to, who can talk to me, someone who I can listen to and who will listen to me. And then the second part of that search process is put yourself in a position where you might run into those kinds of people who could be that kind of friend.
I grew up thinking you go to church because you want the star in the book. You know, when you got dying, how many did you min. No, no, no. I want to put myself in a position where I might encounter the kinds of people who could become a friend for me the way that Jonathan David were friends for one another. So when you hear us talking to you, you need to join a Bible class.
We want to get you in there. Not because we're trying to pound some doctrinal stance into your. No, no, it'we want to get you around other people who love Jesus and who love his Word and who want to know and learn and grow and become the best version of themselves. We want to follow Jesus as best they can and then say our hunches. If we can just get you around, you're going to find some spiritual friendships coming up out of that.
Wednesday nights we're gathering in the summer. One of the reasons we did that is we said, man, in the summers, we tend to take a break and we kind of lose connection with folks. What if we didn't have to lose that connection? What if we could just gather and just spend the bulk of our time together just praising God and then there's a little thought, devotional thought at the end. This week, Cameron from our Atlas Ministry is going to talk to us about peace.
Do you know anybody in your life who could use a little peace? Say, what if you came and worshipped with us? That's no magic solution to that. It doesn't mean a spiritual friction is going to happen. But you put yourself in the kind of place where those kinds of relationships happen.
It's more likely to. So we say we pursue God and we build community, not because we have to. Because we long for the kind of relationships where we can be real people, where I don't have to just be the fixed up version of myself, but I can just be honest, that I can allow someone, a place in my life to tell the truth. In fact, that's the second one. He says, once you find someone who seems like the kind of person who could be this for you, then you do a little tests.
This is in the most positive way possible, meaning you kind of watch the character of their life. And then this. Then we make a little reveal to them. It may not be our deepest, darkest, but it might be just like that first step. Say, man, I've been struggling with this.
Would you pray for me? We just watch. Are they kind of people who listen, oh, I've seen this before. Here, I got the answer for you. Have you seen the TikTok on that?
Or do they go, I'll be praying for you? Is there something specific? Okay, I want to follow up with you later this week. Are the kind of person who honors confidentiality? Do they hold on to the things that are precious to you?
Ok, it might be time to make a next step. And then he says the third phase is the commitment. The word that we're told in one Samuel is covenant. Three times David and Jonathan stopped and made this covenant. And again we think, well, that's kind of strange language, but we do this all the time.
We just may not voice it the way that scripture does for us, but it's interesting. It's simply a way of just making the implicit explicit. We have these in our relationships all the time. When you get married, you stand in front of a church just like this, and you make explicit the things that I will and won't do in this relationship. And those aren't the only ways, but those are certainly some of the most deep commitments.
Others, when friendships, we kind of. We have this deal where we go, hey, I'll check on you. You check on me. I'll ask you hard questions. You ask me hard questions.
I came across a book a number of years ago that helped solidify this in my mind a little bit. Said, who's got refrigerator rights in your life? Have you ever heard of this? Refrigerator rights? Who's the person who can walk in your house straight to your fridge and grab anything they want out of it?
And you don't go, hey, buddy, I paid for that, right? Who are the people in your life that have refrigerated rights? I can just walk right in the door and say, carl, how are you doing with this? And I don't get to say, none of your business. How dare you?
A ela, I'm the preacher at Broadway. No, not in that relationship. You're Carl and you're standing before a friend who cares about you and who's going to ask you the truth and expect you to do the same. Well, those don't just happen. There's no guarantee that that happens.
In fact, that kind of is the next question. How many can we expect to these in our life? Well, I'm not sure I can tell you. Probably at any one time you can maybe have two, three, four of these going on. I have a group that in my life right now.
I've had seasons where I've struggled to find that. In fact, I've had seasons where I've had to come to people here at Broadway, like my friend Aaron and say, Aaron, would you be my friend? I don't have any friends right now. Would you be my friend? And he said, no way, man.
No. He said, sure, of course I will be your friend. There are seasons where they come really easily in there seasons when they don't. We look at the life of Jesus. He called all these people to follow him.
Of all those people, he had 12 that were most closely around him. But even of that 12 he had how many? 3. Peter, James and John. There's a reason.
Because those relationships, they take time and energy and effort and intention and communication and regular input and cultivation. We can't do that with 50 people. 50 people cannot have refrigerated rights. We have an empty fridge. It doesn't work that way.
You can have two, three, maybe four. And over time, sometimes they change. Will they last a lifetime? Not always. We see here in David and Jonathan's life, it didn't last all of David's life.
Some they will. It's amazing how God can work in and through these relationships. If we're willing to say, God, would you raise up that spiritual friend in my life? And last question, we'll finish here. Some of you may be asking ye, but is it worth it?
I mean, refrigerated Rio, I'got to keep going to the grocery store and buying stuff. I've got to open up my life to people. It seems like a lot. Is it really worth it? Well, certainly it's going to take patience as God continues to shape us into the kind of people who could be a spiritual friend for someone else.
Trusting and believing that as that work happens in us that it's happening in someone else. And God will help us connect and find that relationship. Now, you can choose to go this route to really work on yourself, to open your heart up and say, I'm going to try to be in a place where I can meet some of these kinds of people. And as I do, I'm going to try to say some test or lay out a couple of tests to see if they're trustworthy. And then I'm going to make a commitment and say, hey man, I'll stick to this if you will stick to this.
And if we can do that, you, I can promise you it. You're going to end up with a broken heart at some point, I can tell you that.
Is that worth it though? Well, I can tell you there's another choice you can make. You can choose not to. You can say, no way, not interested, not looking for any more heartbreak. I got enough of that on my own.
I promise you this. Your heart's just going to get harder. It's just going to shrink and shrivel.
Spiritual friends are life changing. As David experienced, they awke in us the reality of needs we have in our life that we can't always see just in ourselves.
The only way we do that is by trusting and opening ourselves up. You know, in the story of Jonathan and David, Jonathan was an incredible warrior. And I think he would have been an incredible king. Mean we look at his life and the way that he treated his friends, the people around him, he would have been an incredible king. But you know what?
Jonathan wanted more than being king. He wanted to be a friend. He was willing to give up his ability to be the king so that he could be a friend. That's incredible sacrifice.
In God's kingdom, it's called greatness. Now, I don't know about you, but does that sound familiar to you? Of someone who is s in line to be king, but yet was so willing to give that up that he could beri friend. He was willing to do it. Number one answer in church, Jesus.
Jesus had all of heaven and earth, but he gave it up because he wanted to be friend. There was a slur of Jesus back in his day that the religious leaders would use on him. You remember what it was? Friend of sinners. I think Jesus wore that proudly.
I am a friend of sinners. I'm willing to give up my life so I could be your friend.
So if we ask Jes was it worth it? I think you would say absolutely, absolutely worth it.
Wherever you are in this process, church, if you're at the searching end or you're at the commitment end and wondering. We want to help you take your next step on this journey because we believe God has created us to be in relationships like this, to have the kind of spiritual friends who will help us not only be the best version of us, but continue to draw our minds, to pay attention to God and what he's doing in our lives and in the world around us. I think it's worth it. It's going to cost us, but it's worth every penny. Because you'll never regret having those friends who are with you in the good and in the bad, who help you become the person, the man, the woman that God is called and created you to be.
Got to pray for our church family here, that we would become known in our city as a church of incredible love. Who is so willing to give up any advantage or privilege we have so that we might become friends with those who are far from you, who don't know you and those who do that we would become known for our way of life in Lubbock, that we just love people radically, that we are friends.
Got some of us that's dangerous ground because we have been burned. And so for this to happen again in us, we're going to have to open ourselves, our hearts open to this. God, would you help do that work in us? Whether it’s talking with a trusted friend or getting into some therapy, some counseling with a trusted Christian therapist who can help us navigate God, would you give us the courage to take our next step? Lord, for those of us who have been a part of this community, but have just kind of been tiptoeing around the outside, just dipping our toe in God, would you help us to jump in and actually begin showing up in places where we might encounter the kinds of men and women who could be spiritual friends for us and God, for those who are here and who are in God, would you give us the courage to take that next step, just to make a commitment, a covenant to be that kind of friend and to have that kind of life together?
Thank you for leading it by example in this, of being willing to give up and sacrifice your place, your position, that you might be our friend? God, would you help us to live in light of that beautiful promise, Help us to be great spiritual friends? We pray in Jesus name.