Heart of Kings - David 13: Sacrificial Friendship

And Jonathan said to David, The Lord, the God of Israel, be witness.

When I have sounded out my father about this time tomorrow, or the third day, behold, if he is well disposed toward David, shall I not then send and disclose it to you?

But should it please my father to do harm, the Lord do so to Jonathan, and more also 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 made David swear again by his love for him, for he loved him as he loved his own soul.

This is the word of God.

Please be seated.

Good morning.

Well.

Still there.

Got it.

Welcome to church this morning.

Thank you for joining us.

Thanks for joining us and participating in the lectio.

It's the first time we've done that.

And that's been a practice that at certain seasons in my life has been extremely helpful.

Moving through the Psalms, really taking the time to work the word into our hearts.

It's part of our intention through this season in the church that this time together and our time together in our redemption groups throughout the week, because there's two ways to be connected at Redemption Church Denver, we gather large and we gather small, are uh that this time would not just be like a concert hall where we come and receive something, but it would actually be like a gymnasium where we come in and together we're formed by the word, to be Christ's church active in the world.

And so we want to take these times uh to pursue that end together.

We believe that God speaks to us through his word, and so to come to it humbly and mole it over in our hearts and practice meditating on it as we're called, practice praying it back to the Lord as we're called to do, uh, that by doing that together as a practice becomes something we incorporate into our personal lives as well, such that we actually become formed by Scripture more and more into the image of Christ as a church.

So thanks for joining us in that this morning.

Um we're excited to continue doing that.

A couple of announcements before we get started.

Uh April 21st is Easter.

Woo! Woo.

Uh and we're also doing baptisms on Easter.

So we're gonna have a real sort of celebration Sunday.

If you would like to be baptized, then uh download the app and we're actually able to baptize you digitally now.

I'm just kidding.

There's a sign-up form.

There's a sign-up form in the app.

Somebody on LinkedIn endorses you for being baptized, is how it works.

Uh in PowerPoint.

I love endorsing for PowerPoint.

Um there's a uh you can sign up uh in the app to be baptized, uh, and we'll follow up with you and we'll ask you some questions and go through a bit of a uh song and dance, and then we'll say, yeah, it's a good idea to be baptized now.

Uh and you'll be baptized on Easter.

Uh also April 19th is Good Friday.

That service will be at 6.30 p.m.

here.

So 6.30 p.m.

is our Good Friday service.

Um also, today, the applications for the Gotham Fellowship are open.

So the Gotham Fellowship is a nine-month-long uh intensive that we do uh that we offer as a church.

Um it's one of the one of the clearest investments that we make in our congregation in terms of real in-depth intentional discipleship for a distinct period of time.

It matches a school year, so the 2019-2020 year is coming up, and it will start after Labor Day and then end right at Memorial Day.

So it's nine months long, you go through it with a small cohort, and it answers questions like how do I integrate my faith with my work?

How do I integrate my faith with all of these other areas of life?

Little secret about faith and work conversations, that's a Trojan horse for us to demonstrate that faith impacts every part of life.

So when you hear someone talking about faith and work, they're tricking you.

They're trying to show you that your faith impacts everything, including your work, where we often neglect it.

And so uh the curriculum, we do things together like the Lectio.

In fact, the content that we have in the app describing the Lectio Divina, we, with permission, uh took from the Center for Faith and Work out of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York, who uh uh uh wrote the Gotham curriculum.

So uh applications are open, really looking forward to next year.

Uh so go into the app under groups and you can sign up for that.

All right, uh that's our announcements for the day.

Let's go ahead and pray and get into the text.

Father, we pray that you would attend this time so that your spirit would continue to apply your word to our hearts.

Lord, we stand before you completely bare, in front of the face of God.

And you know everything about us.

You know the depths of the pain that we're experiencing now, the heights of our joys.

Father, there are no secrets hidden from you.

There's nothing that we need feel compelled to hide from you because you know it all already.

Lord, I pray that you would speak to us in that nakedness and that we would be prepared to receive it.

That we might know that what you have for us is good, even if it feels wounding at first.

Father, we trust you.

We praise you for your care for us.

Lift this up in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Okay, so here's a hypothesis.

Friendship and happiness have this thing in common, which is that when you when you're a kid, you think that that friendship and happiness, those being components of your life, are just inevitable.

And you're gonna you're gonna you'll lose friendship and you'll lose happiness only if you make some catastrophic mistake.

But then as we grow up, those move from the necessities, those things that bring life meaning lists, over onto the nice to have list.

The I could have my life completely in order, and yet I could not have friends that are really a part of it, or they're loosely affiliated with it.

And yet my life could still be completely in order.

And then if I have friends that are really close, really a part of my life, that's just sort of icing on the cake.

That's a nice thing to have.

Well, for the Christian, friendship is a necessity.

A friendless Christian is a contradiction in terms.

And I think we've done this sort of sleight-of-hand trick in the church where we use these cover-up words for friendship.

Uh so we have in the church world a sort of corporate speak where we don't talk about friends, we talk about community and we talk about fellowship.

And community and fellowship, look, those are great words in and of themselves, but I think they've kind of lost their meaning.

Because the reality is I I don't experience community.

I experience a friend.

That's the thing that I touch is the friend.

It's like I don't experience the government, I experience the DMV.

Right?

That's the thing that I touch.

And community is this thing, like, look, as leadership of the church, we're concerned about it.

We want there to be community in the church.

But what does that really mean for your experience?

It means you have a friend.

It means that there's friends in your life that look into your life and they speak truth into it, and you speak truth into theirs, and there's a safety and a connection and a mutual encouragement, a mutual enjoyment, and a worship.

A type of friendship that generates good things into the world.

That's what we're talking about, and today's sermon is all about friendship.

And because we see one of the best pictures of friendship in all of Scripture is between Jonathan and David.

Jonathan is Saul's son, and David is David.

And they form almost immediately this incredible, deep, lasting, meaningful friendship.

A type of friendship that actually saves David's life.

Where we left off, Saul was in hot pursuit of David.

The jealousy of the king had been kindled towards David.

And so David's life is being threatened right now, and he makes it out barely.

He makes it out just by the friendship of Jonathan.

So today we're going to look at friendship.

We're going to look at David and Jonathan's friendship.

We're going to look at how their friendship was discovered.

And then we're going to examine the shape of their friendship.

So that is how in practice their friendship plays out in the world.

And then we're going to look at the height of their friendship, which is it is sacrificial.

It is a sacrificial friendship.

I think we're used to using that term for sacrificial love, but we see a sacrificial friendship in David and Jonathan.

So we're going to step back from where we've been in our story, in our series.

We're going to move to the moment right after Goliath was slayed.

And David and Jonathan have this first meeting, this first connection.

So here's how that's recounted, as their friendship is discovered.

First Samuel 18, 1 through 4.

Says, as soon as he had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David.

And Jonathan loved him as his own soul.

And Saul took him that day and would not let him return to his father's house.

Then Jonathan made a covenant with David, because he loved him as his own soul.

And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was on him and gave it to David, and his armor, and even his sword, and his bow, and his belt.

So there are two types of relationships that form that are described in this verse.

One is the relationship between Jonathan and David, and the other is the relationship between David and Saul.

Saul just fulfills what Samuel warned kings would do.

Kings will take your sons, and they will conscript them to work on their behalf.

And so what does Saul do?

He takes David.

But in this mechanical relationship between David and Saul, something organic grows out.

And that's the relationship between David and Jonathan.

Jonathan just saw David bravely go up against the Philistines.

Now that's something we've actually seen Jonathan do before.

Jonathan took just him and his armor bearer, and they went and they slayed 20 Philistines and like an acre of land.

It was like 300.

And they, except for 299 didn't die, spoiler alert.

And they rally the whole army of the Israelites to defeat the Philistines.

So Jonathan had done something like this before.

In that they have this sort of kindred spirit, David and Jonathan.

They both approach the kingdom as something so valuable that it's worth rushing out into imminent danger because they trust that the Lord has the kingdom in mind and will protect them, and that the kingdom is worth defending, even worth losing your life over.

And so at this sort of mutuality of love for the kingdom, there that's demonstrated in each of their characters, their souls upon meeting and after hearing David speak, their souls are immediately knit together.

And the description is like this says, their souls were knit together, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.

And then Jonathan demonstrates that in action.

What he does is he takes off all of the trappings of his princely position.

He is the prince of Israel, Saul's son.

And so he takes off his royal robe and he gives it to David.

And all of his weapons and his armor, his sword, his bow, his belt.

And he gives these royal trappings to David.

The reason he does that in the text, it says in verse 3, it says, because he loved him as his own soul.

In their relationship, we see this incredible beauty.

Where Jonathan thinks, even my royal position, it would be just as joyful for me to see you in this royal position as it is for me to be here.

He loved him as his own soul.

So why does friendship look so glorious?

Why is friendship something that really at our core, I think we desire so completely, and when we see it, we make movies about it.

Like, look, we don't like movies about cops.

We like movies about buddy cops.

That's what we like.

And why is that?

Because friendship is something glorious to behold.

Two people risking their lives for one another, funny banter.

I'm just talking about cop movies now.

Here's what friendship does.

In this amazing way, in a way that feels so natural we almost miss it.

And that's why I think it's one of the most glorious gifts of the Lord.

Friendship demonstrates us, demonstrates to us in a way that seems uniquely joyful.

The fulfillment of the law.

What is the fulfillment of the law?

But to love your neighbor as yourself.

To love someone, a fellow human, as though the benefits to them, they feel the same as the benefits to you.

To desire their position in advancement in the same way that you would desire it for yourself.

What we see in friendship, in a friendship like this, is the glory of God's law demonstrated.

Flesh is put on it.

And so the world looks in at friendship and sees something just transcendent.

It almost makes us more than human when we see real friends.

So you can't talk about friendship without talking about C.S.

Lewis.

Because he he writes so well on friendship.

And I think it's because he had great friends.

Him and J.R.R.

Tolkien were just like creating worlds together.

Can you aren't you just so jealous of that?

Friendship?

Man.

So of friendship, Lewis says this thing, and I quoted this before in our series on 1 John.

He describes this aspect of friendship, which explains why it was able to be kindled so quickly between Jonathan and David.

And it's because friendship is something that isn't made, it's discovered.

Here's what he says.

He says, friendship arises out of mere companionship when two or more of the companions discover that they have in common some insight or interest or even taste which the others do not share, and which, till that moment, each believed to be his own unique treasure or burden.

It is when two such persons discover one another, when whether with immense difficulties and semi-articulate fumblings, or with what would seem to us amazing elliptical speed, they share their vision.

It is then that friendship is born, and instantly they stand together in an immense solitude.

So there's what he's saying is that friendship is discovered when both people see something that they thought they were perhaps the only ones that saw, but it but it's something that's that's worth enjoying, a good thing that's worth praising.

And when they both see that other thing, then they are knit together in friendship.

That's why Christianity, Christians, should be uniquely predisposed towards incredible friendships.

The structure is there, the mechanism is there.

What we have is we see something like Christ, something so glorious and so amazing to behold, and we see that with other people, and we're both beholding this incredible thing, which is Christ, the very glory of God.

And when we see that together, it is as though our souls are knit together.

Knit together in ways where we could be considered something like a body.

Saul, excuse me, David and Jonathan see together this incredible glory, this kindred spirit of a nation worth defending.

And their souls earn it together.

How much more for us?

This is why friendship isn't made, it's discovered, but our contribution to discovering that friendship as a church is beholding Christ together.

Because it is something so glorious that when we see it, it must be shared.

And it must be enjoyed together.

There's something about friendship that even multiplies our joy in it.

So the depth of the wonder of what we behold becomes the depth of our friendship together.

That's how we make it.

Now, Lewis continues on, and he describes how, look, we see a lot of friendships though that sort of center on the wrong things.

And friendship has this unique danger in that it unites people towards action, but it can unite people towards a pretty terrible action.

And it can also create in it this type of environment where you become so enraptured by your choice of these people that says so much about you and who you are that the friendships become prideful and insular, and they become defined by who they are excluding.

That's a danger of friendship.

We use words like clicky.

Now, there's this other element that Lewis points out that we have to bring in in order to understand just how different a Christian friendship is.

That's this idea that friendship for a Christian is never something that we've chosen.

We haven't chosen these people that we're going to be friends with, which means they don't say something about me.

That's typically the way that we envision friendship in the world.

Is that I'm going to choose the right people, be surrounded by people that could advance me in some way or add something to me in some way, and then I'll surround myself with those people.

Otherwise, they're negative, toxic friends that I just need to shake off and get rid of, and that's gonna be my Facebook post.

No more toxic people.

If I had a quarter for every Facebook post that said, no more toxic people in my life, I don't know what the end is.

Just a bunch of people alone now.

So there's this danger of reveling in the exclusion and the superiority.

So that those friendships become degenerative to a community.

They tear it apart.

Rather than being something.

That actually generates community.

Here's the thing to remember that Lewis points out.

He says, But for a Christian, there are strictly speaking no chances.

A secret master of the ceremonies has been at work, Christ, who said to the disciples, Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you.

Can truly say to every group of Christian friends, You have not chosen one another, but I have chosen you for one another.

The friendship is not a reward for our discrimination and good taste in finding one another out.

It is the instrument by which God reveals to each the beauties of all others.

So you see, Christian friendship is discovered, but it's provided.

It's something that's given to us by God.

Christian friendship is the design, it's the mechanism of the church, something that God Himself gives to us to demonstrate His beauties in the world.

And so that means Christian friendship can move outside of the boundaries of any of the things that we would normally expect.

Because you would expect that, and this is typical, your friends basically look just like you.

We have redemption groups and we plane them geographically.

The idea being that they aren't based around a demographic.

So it's not, you know, young singles, young married, old singles, old married.

We're not gonna compartmentalize people like that.

Because look, look at normal life.

You do that anyway.

When we walk into a group and it's like, okay, everybody, everybody here looks like they'd just be hanging out anyway, it kind of makes me think like, okay, then there's probably maybe the spirit, we don't even really need the spirit to bring this group together.

Perhaps we don't even really need to behold something so glorious as Christ to transcend these boundaries.

When you look at a group and it's like, how could that person, in what context could that person possibly be friends with that person?

It doesn't make any sense.

They must be beholding something together that transcends all of that.

And have this understanding that they're given to each other.

And so a church, in considering, like, look, we've we've been given to each other to be friends, who could possibly that leaves no one who you could look down on.

Because you don't think, oh, well, I'm the type of discerning person who was able to see the value of this group, and that's what you all talk like when you're together, right?

You give me 10 minutes with close friends, and all my opinions all of a sudden become 100% right.

But you don't consider, oh, we're together, because there's we're the ones who get it.

And if you come in and you bounce off and and you aren't able to be a part of this fellowship, well, it's obvious.

You're just you don't get it.

So self-select out.

Christian friendship doesn't allow for that type of posturing.

We didn't choose each other.

We were given to each other.

And we're bound together by holding something far more beautiful.

So that's the wonder of Christian friendship.

It becomes part of the given joy.

So now let's look at how this friendship plays out between David and Jonathan in particular.

Uh I want us to see just kind of the mechanics of their friendship and how it is that their friendship actually makes David's survival possible.

And if it weren't for friendship, I don't think there's any other relationship that could do this.

So in 1 Samuel 20, verses 1 through 4, this is just a snapshot of them being in practice.

1 Samuel 20:1–4

I'll provide some context.

Uh this is now long since Goliath.

Saul has turned on David, and uh on six different occasions, by six different means, Saul has sought to kill David.

Most of them in secret.

And this last time, Saul was foiled because he ran to where David was hiding, and then the spirit fell upon him and he started prophesying.

That's a weird way to thwart a murder.

But it that's what happened.

And so Saul is still at that other place, and David runs back to Jonathan.

And David's question is, what is happening?

And this is the conversation that they have.

1 Samuel 20, 1 through 4.

It says, Then David fled from Niath and Ramah and came and said before Jonathan, What have I done?

What is my guilt?

What is my sin before your father that he seeks my life?

And 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 have found favor in your eyes, and he thinks, Do not let Jonathan know this, lest he be grieved.

But truly, as the Lord lives, and as your soul lives, there is but a step between me and death.

Then Jonathan said to David, Whatever you say, I will do for you.

Let's look at the breakdown of that conversation.

The way that David approaches it.

David approaches his friend completely open.

He opens his hand, which means that he expects his friend to speak truthfully into the real questions that he has in his life.

What's David's thought?

What am I doing?

Is this me?

It seems I don't remember doing anything to Saul, but he's trying to kill me.

He's like six times trying to kill me.

So what did I do here?

The posture of the friendship is this incredible openness with each other.

That's what it looks like in practice.

And Jonathan is able to put forward his opinion with no fear of being wrong, even risking that it might be.

Jonathan says, Well, look, my dad doesn't do anything without talking to me about it.

And he hasn't told me that he's gonna kill you, so he's not gonna kill you.

But then David is able to catch Jonathan's blind spot because there's this area that Jonathan simply couldn't see because of the person that he was.

What that blind spot is, David explains, he's like, Look, your dad knows that you and I are great friends.

And so he's not gonna tell you, of all people, that he's trying to kill me.

It's just not gonna happen.

And the argument convinces Jonathan.

What's Jonathan's response to that?

But whatever you say, I'll do for you.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Of course I wouldn't know.

Why would he tell me?

Whatever you say, I will do for you.

Look at the symmetry of this relationship and remember who's talking.

We're talking about the prince, the one who deserves the throne, the one who is heir to it, and David, the one who might possibly usurp that position, the one who will end up taking the throne.

We're talking about the son of the king who is looking to kill this potential threat to the throne.

And they're having this conversation as though those roles, those positions, don't matter at all.

They are completely naked people before each other.

And so their conversation has this amazing symmetry where David shows up and he opens up and he says, Look, is it me?

Is there something wrong in me?

And Jonathan has this misguided perception of the events, and because he listens to David, he says, Okay, whatever you say, I'll do.

I'm in.

Both the nobody, potential usurper, and the son of the king who is headed towards the throne, have this amazing openness towards each other.

And it saves their lives.

There is no other relationship, nothing other than friendship that allows people to see the world so clearly.

It's in this type of friendship that they're able to come to discover the true intentions of Saul, uncover reality together, and examine the best ways to move through it, completely removed from politics.

Again, C.S.

Lewis.

He says that is the kingliness of friendship.

We meet like sovereign princes of independent states, abroad on neutral ground, freed from our contexts.

This love essentially ignores not only our physical bodies, but that whole embodiment which consists of our family, job, past, connections.

Eros, that type of love, erotic love, will have naked bodies.

Friendship, naked personalities.

See, that's what we're looking to see in our Christian friendship.

Is that you're beholding this person just as they are, in a sort of disconnected way from their politics.

So it's not what can this person do for me, what can they give to me or provide, how can I use this person to get to something else or to validate me in some way.

Instead, you're mutually uncovering reality together.

By the openness in the friendship, by the love of one another, you're able to catch each other's blind spots, move with each other.

It's glorious.

So this friendship hatches a plan.

And the plan is, okay, here's how we're going to discover what Saul's intentions really are.

Because that's what we need to find out.

If Saul's intentions really are to kill you, David, then you need to get out of here.

But if it turns out he's just had a rough couple of days and the spear keeps slipping, then you don't need to stick around.

Or excuse me, then you can stick around.

And so the plan is, David, excuse me, yeah, we'll start there.

David is going to skip a celebration that Saul is hosting.

It's a three-day-long celebration.

And when David's place at the table is recognized, then Jonathan will say, I gave David permission to go back home for a sacrifice that they were hosting in David's hometown of Bethlehem, a town which will become increasingly more important.

And Jonathan will identify with David in that way.

Why is David absent?

Because I gave him permission to be absent.

And so then Jonathan will get to experience firsthand what it is that Saul really thinks about David.

This is where friendship becomes something other than a thing that we enjoy when we're together.

Something that goes beyond the conversations of when we're face to face.

But what we're about to see is Jonathan become, I love this expression, Jonathan is David's friend behind his back.

Jonathan's willing to identify with David the person, even when it amounts to incredible harm.

So that's what happens.

And Jonathan says, I gave David permission to be absent.

I let him go and miss this calling to our court so that he could attend to his own family.

I thought that was best for David.

And this is Saul's response.

This is the sacrifice that Jonathan bears.

1 Samuel 20, 30 to 33.

Then Saul's anger was kindled against Jonathan, and he said to him, You son of a perverse, rebellious woman, do I not know that you have chosen the son of Jesse to your own shame, and to the shame of your mother's nakedness?

This is father talking to his son.

For as long as the son of Jesse lives on the earth, neither you nor your kingdom shall be established.

Therefore send and bring him to me, for he shall surely die.

So Jonathan answers Saul, his father, they're in totally different paradigms here.

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.

Jonathan talks to his father, and he's considering David.

He's considering, look, for David to be put to death, he must have done something wrong.

And Saul is just thinking, Jonathan, this is to your shame.

You're so foolish.

Don't you realize it's your throne at stake?

This friendship, this love between David and Jonathan is incomprehensible to someone like Saul.

Because what Saul doesn't understand is the very thing that we saw when David and Jonathan's souls were knit together upon first becoming friends.

For David to become a king is just as joyful to Jonathan as if he were to become king himself.

He loves him as his very own soul.

He's already taken off the robe and put it on Jonathan.

He's already given him his sword and his belt.

He loved him as his very own soul.

Jonathan, as the story continues, returns to David.

They have a little plan involving an arrow and a kid who fetches an arrow.

You can read it.

Basically, Jonathan relays to David, My father's trying to kill you, we have to leave.

And they know that they can no longer enjoy the company of each other.

And they weep bitterly, each understanding the sacrifice that must be made.

It says that David wept more.

And I think it calls that out because David understands the love that had just been demonstrated to him, the benefit that he's receiving from the sacrifice of Jonathan.

That is a transcendent type of friendship.

In one of his final discourses with the disciples, Jesus says what we read in our lectio this morning.

He says, This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.

Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.

You are my friends if you do what I command you.

No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing, but I have called you friends.

For all that I have heard from my Father, I have made known to you.

The church exists because Jesus called us friends.

And what greater love is there than that a friend should lay down his life for his friends?

Jonathan's friendship was a protection for David.

Jonathan stood in before the wrath, identified with David, and bore the same wrath.

That way David might be rescued and set free.

Our church is the same.

We see that Jesus stood in and bore a just wrath, identified with us.

He was a friend behind our back.

Even when we would have denied him, even when we were bad friends in our sin, Jesus was a friend toward us.

And he laid down his life.

That way we might be brought together.

We have a glorious thing to look at.

A glorious friend to behold together in Christ.

That's something that brings us together.

Imagine if at our church you didn't describe it as that place has great community, that place has great fellowship.

Those are nice words.

I hope you do.

But imagine you said, I've got real friends there.

Those people are friends behind my back.

When things go crazy, they identify with me.

When I wrong them, they forgive me.

See, that's a picture to the world.

That looks glorious because it upholds the law.

What is his commandment, but that we would love one another.

So the question is, how do we do this?

And I want to be practical.

I want to try and be practical with this.

But there's some principles here that we can't step on the toes of.

Like I want to say, just go make friends, just go make friends.

But there's reality here to where you can, I think you can go make community, but it's a difficult thing to go make friends.

But one thing's for sure, friendship is not the type of thing that you can experience in a disembodied way.

You have to be there.

You have to call people and answer the phone.

You have to be there for people.

You have to have a surface area in your life where you're actually around people.

Then imagine the friendships that could develop if you're beholding together the glories of Christ.

That's an incredible witness.

It generates a lot of good in the world.

I'll take one question.

We'll wrap it up.

How can we make friendship more of a priority in our lives when other things, work, family, etc., tend to be more of a priority?

Yeah.

So you whenever we're talking about friendship, it becomes, somehow it becomes like a calendar conversation.

And it that makes sense.

Like it there's one of the hardest parts of friendship is that it's it's not on our calendar and there doesn't seem to be much space for it.

It's really hard to keep life just going.

That's why there has to be the pursuit of Christ in our lives has to reorient our priorities.

If our priorities look the same as our neighbors, then then our lives are likely the same.

But if the pursuit of Christ reorients our priorities, it would feel something like this.

It's like, man, you know, I've I just read this thing.

I gotta talk about it with someone.

There are certain movies like if Christopher Nolan comes out with a new movie, please, soon, there's like three people I'm gonna be on the phone with talking about it.

You know, after the Michigan State game last night, you were talking about it with people.

It's like I gotta share this.

I gotta experience this with some other people.

I I I need to bring someone in almost it it's it's it's stunted until someone else can see this with me.

And that's why our pursuit of Christian friendship, friendship like we see with Jonathan and David, it has to be oriented by our pursuit of Christ, where we're beholding consistently glories in his word.

It's like, man, there's there's three or four people that I know just kind of get this with me.

I gotta call and talk with them about this.

I've gotta make this a complete thing.

So I I'm really bad at managing even my own schedule.

So I can't answer a calendar conversation.

I don't know how to reorient this on your calendar.

But I know that you will follow those things that you think will bring you joy.

You'll share them.

And if you discover that to be Christ, and if two of you discover that together, you will be friends.

Uh that's how you make it a priority, by making Christ a priority.

That's the model.

Okay.

We're going to take communion together.

And we'll remember, as we take communion, that Christ shows us the perfect example of friendship, of what it means to have a friendship that sustains us.

Let's look to Him, that we might be drawn together.

Father, I pray that you would attend this time of communion.

God, I pray that you would give us a language of friendship, an expectation, a longing for it.

Lord, that we might see glories in you that are things that we desperately want to share, and that in the sharing we might be built up, that the body would knit itself together in love, to use Paul's language.

Lord, let our friendship that we seek to develop in the church, Lord, let it demonstrate the glory of your command that we love one another.

Let that be a beacon.

A beacon in a lonely city with a bunch of people who just got here and thought they'd be fulfilled by adventure.

Lord, let the demonstration of a friendship between us show a city.

Those people have been with Jesus.

Father, we lift this up in Jesus' name.

Amen.