The Power of the Covenant

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Don Filcek; 1 Samuel 20 The Power of the Covenant

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to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsak preaches from his series in 1
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Samuel, Timely Prophet, Tragic King. Let's listen in. Well, good morning,
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Recast Church. I'm Don Filsak. As Dave said, I'm the lead pastor here. And I wanna start off by welcoming everybody.
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I'm glad that you're here on this foggy Sunday morning. Kind of crazy, crazy weather out there.
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A little bit different than what you expect for this month. But I'm glad to be back. We had a vacation.
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My family had a vacation in the Smokies a couple weeks ago. God gave us a great time away. And just a good time of refreshing and chilling in the mountains.
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We actually got to see a black bear while we were down there. It was kind of cool. And I'm so thankful for Dan DeVries being willing to step in and preach in my absence last week.
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I'm just grateful for godly men here in the church who can just kind of jump in and fill in and do such an excellent job.
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And so I'm glad that he was willing to do that. And I hope you were blessed by the message last week as well.
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This morning, we're gonna be digging back into 1 Samuel and we're gonna continue to follow the life of King Saul and David throughout the remainder of this book.
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And we know that kind of, those of you who know the stories, those of you who have been part of like a church for a while or something, you kind of have some notion about where things are heading.
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But some of these accounts in 1 Samuel may not be as common or as routine for us.
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And so as we dig in, hopefully you're gaining insight as we go. Those of you who have been here for this series for a while now already know that the tensions have grown high between Saul and he is serving as the first king of Israel, so King Saul, and David, who is going to replace
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Saul. And we know that because he was anointed in a private ceremony by the prophet
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Samuel, who the book is named after. And he is going to be the next king, but we're seeing an intermediate time.
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During the rest of this book, David knows he is called by God to be the next king of Israel.
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And we're seeing that gap time. Now many of us have experienced a gap time in our lives where we have a notion or a sense of what
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God desires for us to do, but there could be months, weeks, years. Sometimes it feels like decades between the time that what we feel
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God has called us to do and what it's actually realized and comes to fruition. And so that's kind of the period of time that we're looking at here for the remainder of this book of 1
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Samuel. And what we're gonna see in our text this morning centers around a couple of themes.
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We see these themes woven all throughout the remainder of 1 Samuel, but a new theme, well the way that the author seems to write is that he weaves these themes in a tapestry and then highlights one of the cords, highlights one of the strands or one of the strings and brings it to light for us in a way that makes it shine.
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And that's what we're gonna see here this morning. Some of these common themes, one theme in the text this morning is the theme of friendship.
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We'll see the theme of humility, the theme of eyes of faith, that is like trusting in God and seeing things as they really are.
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We saw that theme spelled out with David and Goliath. We saw that theme spelled out when Jonathan and his armor bearer took on the
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Philistines, just the two of them, and they were able to see things that other people were not able to see because they had eyes of faith and trust.
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And so we'll see that theme again crop up in our text. But the theme that comes over the top in the text this morning is the surprising theme of covenant faithfulness.
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Now, that doesn't seem to be a theme that you would expect the covenant faithfulness of God to show up in this context where David is running for his life and things are not going well for him and we see
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Saul's animosity and anger towards him and we're gonna see some intense discussion about the covenant faithfulness of God.
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We see a steadfast love and help coming to David from the last person we should expect covenant faithfulness to come from.
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Now, I wanna suggest to you that if Charles Darwin was right, if survival of the fittest is the true and honest operating principle in nature, if the way that the world really operates is on this fundamental principle of survival of the fittest, then what we read about here is kind of ignorant.
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It just flies in the face of the way that Darwin says that life ought to go. If Frederick Nietzsche was right and whatever comes from weakness is evil, then
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Jonathan, in our text, is going to prove himself to be one of the weakest and most evil. But when
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I look around at the world around me, I cannot account in any material sense for the good that I see without God.
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Nietzsche and Darwin could account for the evil, but they really struggled to account for sacrifice, for good, for covenant keeping, like we're gonna see in our text, for genuine humility, for sacrificial friendship.
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They struggled to account for these values of noble sacrifice, noble things that we sense in our chest, that we feel deeply when we see it.
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When you see the soldier, you hear the story of the soldier who falls on the grenade and saves everybody in his group.
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When you hear about the sacrifice of a mother for her daughter or who gives up a kidney for her own child or all of the different things that you can think of and conceive of that have moved you in your spirit regarding human good and self -sacrifice for others, they struggled to account for those things.
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So what do you feel when you hear those stories? What do you feel when you read about those kinds of sacrifices where true heroes lay down their lives for others?
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See, Scripture points to another way of understanding the world around us other than Darwin and Nietzsche.
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When we see sacrificial friendship, when we see true humility, when we see covenant keeping, we are encountering signs that there is more value to this life than the sum of its parts.
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Ask yourself this question. Who would give up their rightful kingdom in order to bless another?
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Who would be next in line for the throne and would step aside and allow somebody else who is better than them and more equipped than them and called by God to enter into that role instead?
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We see in our text an amazing example of humility and we're gonna read it here in a second. We're gonna see in this text a model of true and genuine friendship.
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We see in our text this morning the eyes of faith that believe that God is going to do exactly what he says he will do.
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And most importantly, we're gonna see a covenant faithfulness that reflects the very faithfulness of our
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God toward his covenant people. His covenant people being anybody who has come to him by faith through his son,
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Jesus Christ, who made the covenant of grace on the cross. So let's open our
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Bibles, if you're not already there, to 1 Samuel chapter 20, 1 Samuel 20, and it's a longer text.
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We're gonna read it all, so I'm just gonna encourage you to navigate into your device over to that or open in your Bible or grab the
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Bible and there's a seat in front of you. Find 1 Samuel 20 and follow along and listen and take this in and with your eyes of imagination and with eyes of faith, take this in as God's very word to us.
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Recast this is what God desires to communicate to us this morning. And so listen for him.
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Listen to what he is saying in the pages of scripture. 1 Samuel chapter 20.
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Then David fled from Naoth and Ramah and came and said before Jonathan, what have
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I done? What is my guilt? And what is my sin before your father that he seeks my life?
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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?
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It is not so. But David vowed again, saying your father knows well that I have found favor in your eyes.
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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.
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Then Jonathan said to David, whatever you say, I will do for you. David said to Jonathan, behold, tomorrow is the new moon and I should not fail to sit at table with the king.
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But let me go that I may hide myself in the field till the third day at evening. If your father dismisses me at all, then say,
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David earnestly asked leave of me to run to Bethlehem, his city, for there is a yearly sacrifice there for all the clan.
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If he says good, it will be well with your servant. But if he is angry, then know that harm is determined by him.
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Therefore deal kindly with your servant, for you have brought your servant into a covenant of the Lord with you.
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But if there is guilt in me, kill me yourself, for why should you bring me to your father? And Jonathan said, far be it from you.
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If I knew that it was determined by my father that harm should come to you, would I not tell you? Then David said to Jonathan, who will tell me if your father answers you roughly?
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And Jonathan said to David, come let us go out into the field. So they both went out into the field. And Jonathan said to David, the
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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
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I not then send and disclose it to you? But should it please my father to do you harm, the
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Lord do so to Jonathan more also if I do not disclose it to you and send you away that you may go in safety.
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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
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Lord that I may not die. And do not cut off your steadfast love from my house forever when the
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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
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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.
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Then Jonathan said to him, tomorrow is the new moon and you will be missed because your seat will be empty. On the third day, go down quickly to the place where you hid yourself when the matter was in hand and remain beside the stone heap.
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And I will shoot three arrows to the side of it as though I shot at a mark and behold, I will send the boy saying, go find the arrows.
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If I say to the boy, look, the arrows are on this side of you, take them, then you are to come for as the
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Lord lives, it is safe for you and there is no danger. But if I say to you, look, the arrows are beyond you, then go for the
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Lord has sent you away. And as for the matter of which you and I have spoken, behold, the Lord is between you and me forever.
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So David hid himself in the field and when the new moon came, the king sat down to eat food. The king sat on his seat as at other times on the seat by the wall,
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Jonathan sat opposite and Abner sat by Saul's side, but David's place was empty. Yet Saul did not say anything that day for he thought, something has happened, he is not clean, surely he is not clean.
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But on the second day, the day after the new moon, David's place was empty and Saul said to Jonathan, his son, why is not the son of Jesse come to the meal either yesterday or today?
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Jonathan answered Saul, David earnestly asked leave of me to go to Bethlehem. He said, let me go for our clan holds a sacrifice in the city and my brother has commanded me to be there.
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So now if I have found favor in your eyes, let me get away and see my brothers. For this reason, he has not come to the king's table.
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Then Saul's anger was kindled against Jonathan and he said to him, you son of a perverse rebellious woman, do
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I not know that you have chosen the son of Jesse to your own shame and to the shame of your mother's nakedness?
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For as long as the son of Jesse lives on the earth, neither you nor your kingdom shall be established.
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Therefore send and bring him to me for he shall surely die.
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Then 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.
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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 the second day of the month for he was grieved for David because his father had disgraced him.
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In the morning, Jonathan went out into the field to the appointment with David and with him a little boy. And he said to his boy, run and find the arrows that I shoot.
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As the boy ran, he shot an arrow beyond him. And when the boy came to the place of the arrow that Jonathan had shot,
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Jonathan called after the boy and said, is not the arrow beyond you? And Jonathan called after the boy, hurry, be quick, do not stay.
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So Jonathan's boy gathered up the arrows and came to his master, but the boy knew nothing. Only Jonathan and David knew the matter.
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And Jonathan gave his weapon to his boy and said to him, go and carry them to the city. And as soon as the boy had gone,
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David rose from beside the stone heap and fell on his face to the ground and bowed three times. And they kissed one another and wept with one another,
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David weeping the most. Then Jonathan said to David, go in peace, go in peace because we have sworn both of us in the name of the
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Lord saying, the Lord shall be between me and you and between my offspring and your offspring forever.
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And he rose and departed and Jonathan went into the city. Let's pray.
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Father, I thank you so much for your word. Sometimes we encounter texts and it can be confusing to our minds, like what is the point?
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Is this just connected material? Is this just a story for us to take in about two friends?
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Father, there's a richness and a depth to your word that by your spirit, you can transform us and change us as we come into contact with the humility that we see in this text, the way that you work in history and in people's lives and bringing them together.
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And Father, the way that you have reconciled us by covenant keeping, by being faithful to the promises that you have made to your people.
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Which is reflected in the faithfulness of Jonathan to David and David to Jonathan. Father, I thank you that you are a
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God who keeps what you promise. You do exactly what you say you will do and you promise that there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in your son.
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And so Father, I pray that that would move all of our hearts to rejoice. Father, I recognize that some people have had really rough weeks.
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Some are just stressed. Some are just disengaged right now and disconnected a little bit or even distracted.
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But Father, I pray that you would allow all of us to come to sing these songs here in just a moment based on genuine joy and genuine awe and genuine delight that you have loved us with a steadfast love.
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That you are never letting go of your people. And that is our hope, Father. And that is our motive for worshiping you.
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That is the foundation of our worship is that we love because you have first loved us.
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It's first your act toward us, your initiation. And then our response.
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And so Father, I pray that you would allow our worship now, the praise that comes out of our mouth to be genuine praise that's in response of your great and awesome salvation deeds that you have done in our history.
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And I ask this in Jesus' name, amen. You can go ahead and be seated. And I encourage you over the remainder of our time to get comfortable and keep your
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Bibles open to 1 Samuel 20. We read it earlier, but some of you weren't in here yet.
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And so turn over there and you'll be able to see that the flow of what I'm talking about is coming from that text.
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That wasn't me. You didn't do it, okay. Damn. Wasn't me either.
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So yeah, and then if you need it at any time to get more coffee or juice or donuts while supplies last back there, take advantage of that.
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But yeah, I mean, really we need to catch up to where we're at.
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If you haven't been a part of these messages so far, you need to know fundamentally that David, when we come to this text,
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David is on the run. And he's gonna be on the run during the remainder of this, during the remainder of this book.
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So we're gonna see him always just one or two steps away from Saul catching him.
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Now last week we saw, or two weeks ago rather, we saw his wife, Michael, tipped him off that King Saul, that is her father, was planning to kill
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David in the morning. So she helped him escape out the window of their house and he fled to visit the prophet
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Samuel in Ramah. Now go to Samuel for some protection. Go to Samuel for some advice probably.
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And while Saul was on the way there to Ramah to arrest and murder David, the spirit of God came on Saul and put him in a trance -like state to buy
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David some more time to escape. So now David is now fleeing from Ramah. And that's where we pick our text up in verse one.
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David fled, it says, from Ramah, where Saul is passed out for the day and night in a trance -like state. And again, he's able to escape there now.
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And David fled to the one who he hoped could provide answers for him. Now in reality, chapter 20 is the final last -ditch effort on David's part to reconcile with King Saul.
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It's a last -ditch effort to try to heal this relationship and try to really say, is there any potential here for this to be resolved?
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Is there any potential here for this to be healed and fixed? And he goes to his covenant friend who is also on the inside, presumes is on the inside of all of Saul's plans, that is
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Saul's son Jonathan. And so he goes to him and goes to this guy who has covenanted friendship to him, and covenanted his loyalty to David, and he goes to him.
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And if you put yourself in David's shoes at the start of our text, you would be just as confused as he is.
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What have I done wrong? Why in the world does the king want me dead? He has no understanding in his mind and is actually racking his brain to figure that out.
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And some of you actually write just direct application to your life. You could potentially be there right now.
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I don't know your week, I don't know who you work with, I don't know your family situation, but some of you, right now, there's somebody in your life that doesn't like you and you don't even know why.
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Now I'm not gonna ask for a show of hands on that, but you know that if that's you, there's a lot of confusion involved in that, and it can be really hard to determine why in the world would people have it out for me.
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I don't know what I've done wrong. And I'm sure that all of us can think, well, we speculate, maybe that offended them, maybe this put them off,
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I don't know. But sometimes the truth is that people don't like you because of an issue of jealousy in them.
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How many of you know that that's a reality? You know that there's some times that jealousy just crops up and people just kind of get a burr under their saddle and get all upset about you?
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But how many of you know that at times you can be annoying? You can raise your hand on that one. I think all of us should. You're not raising your hand, come on,
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I mean, really? Some of you are really, really got it all together. But we can all be annoying at times and there's a difference between, obviously, there are times where we ought to know why people are upset with us and we don't because we're thick, and then there's some times where we really just don't get it.
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But often I would point out that pain in life is often coupled, like to add insult to injury, is confusion on top of it.
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Not knowing why the bad is happening, not knowing what is causing it is often the problem.
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That's where we see David at at the start of our text. David doesn't know what he's done to warrant the wrath of the king.
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Why in the world does Saul want me dead? I've served him. I killed the giant, didn't
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I? I've served God to the best of my ability in the service of the king.
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I've taken it on as though I'm serving and rendering my service unto the Lord, and the king wants me dead.
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I'm rewarded with spears chucked at my head and threats of murder. Like what in the world is going on?
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So can you see, you ought to start this text with a sense of David's correct confusion.
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But Jonathan is equally confused because the last interaction that Jonathan had about this subject a couple of weeks ago in our sermon was his dad swearing an oath that he would not put
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David to death. Jonathan had reason, went for a walk with his father, the king, out in the field, and they talked for a while, and he rationalized and said, he's innocent.
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Hasn't he only blessed you? Hasn't he only ever done good to you? And Saul pledged an oath.
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There in the presence of his son Jonathan said, I swear by the living God, by the very life of God as much as God is alive,
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I swear that I will not put David to death. So that's the last interaction that Jonathan had. How many think that Jonathan might be confused when
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David says your dad still wants to kill me? Jonathan's going, no, I was there. I heard his oath.
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He said he wouldn't. He swore by God Almighty himself, of course. And so Jonathan's a little bit caught in the middle here.
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Like what is true and what isn't true? And so this entire text is trying to figure out what is indeed the truth of Saul's heart.
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And we probably already have some issues, or I mean, already have some understanding because we know how the text ends and we know where everything is moving in David and Saul's life.
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Many of us do anyways. And so Jonathan is confident that his father, by the way, in the text would tell him if he was seeking
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David's life. He's like, me and my dad are pretty tight. Like, I mean, if my dad was going to kill you, he would tell me. He assumed that the animosity had been buried between Saul and David and that the hatchet had been buried.
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So David swears in verse three. He says, honest to goodness, cross my heart, hope to die. Stick a needle in my, whatever.
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But he promises that Saul is indeed trying to kill me. He is indeed trying to take my life.
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And Saul just isn't including you, Jonathan, in the plan because he suspects that you're on my side, says
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David. So Jonathan and David came up with a two -part plan that we see woven throughout this text to find out where Saul really stands regarding his servant,
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David. So the next day was gonna be a new moon festival that would often take two to three days, depending on where the new moon fell.
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And it included evening feasting together, banquets, that kind of stuff, celebrated by the king. And so some people find it strange, and you might have as well, that knowing what we know about the text of 1
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Samuel, that Saul would expect David to even show up for this meal. Didn't he threaten to kill him?
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Wasn't David let down through a window because he knew that Saul was going to kill him?
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So why in the world would Saul expect him to show up for a banquet at his place? That doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense, and some people find that strange.
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But David was still under, as we are in this text right now, David is still under Saul's leadership.
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He hasn't been dismissed from his duty as a military commander. So you might have it out with your boss on a
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Friday, but if you're scheduled to work Monday, does your boss expect you to show up on Monday?
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Yeah, and that's what we've got going on here. So that makes sense of the expectations here, that David is gonna show up to this festival anyways.
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It's his duty, it is his responsibility. So Jonathan and Saul decided that David should hide out in the field and stay away from the banquet, because David is confident that Saul is attempting to kill him.
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So if Saul asks what in the world is going on, why is David not there, they come up with a lie that David had to return home for a celebration to make a sacrifice in Bethlehem.
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Now, this is not a lie in order to save somebody's life.
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At the end of the day, this is a convenient lie that gains them something, and you can get into all of that. The interesting thing is the narrative of Scripture often just tells us what happened, and doesn't moralize too much about it.
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So it's not gonna tell us the consequences of this lie in David's life, but Jonathan and David come up with a lie to tell
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Saul. And they say, if Saul is okay with David's not being there, then they will take that as a sign that all is well between Saul and David, they're okay.
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And Saul and David could come back and work for Saul. But if Saul loses his temper, then they will take that as a sign that Saul does indeed have it out for David, and that's the direction that things are gonna go.
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But in the middle of this planning, there's a reaffirmation of the loyal covenant between David and Jonathan, a covenant that they had already established when
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Jonathan gave David his royal robes. Basically saying, I acknowledge that God's call on your life is to be the next king.
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Even though I'm next in line, even though I'm the crown prince, says Jonathan, I'm gonna give you my sword to show my pledge of allegiance to you.
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I'm going to give you my bow and my belt and the royal robes. And in a formalizing ceremony,
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Jonathan gives his throne away to David. That had already happened.
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And so in verse eight, David appeals to that previously ratified covenant, a political loyalty between David and Jonathan.
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He reminds Jonathan of the binding power of a covenant. You pledged to me, he says.
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In essence, kind of turning in the chips for a favor. Have you ever had somebody kind of owe you something?
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Even just to say, I owe you one? And there comes a point where you need to make good on that? And that's kind of what's going on here in this text.
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He says, you've made a covenant with me and that's binding on you. And reminding ourselves of covenant is meant to be a powerful force in our lives, routinely and regularly.
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God has a hard and fast covenant with those who come to him by faith and trust, particularly in this new covenant through his son,
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Jesus Christ. That's why I constantly encourage you to remember the cross, to reflect on the cross, to think about the cross, to meditate on the cross.
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The cross is the place that the covenant was struck. The cross is the place where our sin was dealt with and we were brought into a forgiving relationship with the
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Almighty. And that by faith in that activity on the cross, by his sacrifice and his death for us, our forgiveness was sealed and the deal was brokered, so to speak, and he paid the penalty that we owed.
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And so we need to be reminded regularly of the covenant that God has made with us, being under God's covenant should move us out to live lives of relief.
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You should have a sense of relief when you think about the covenant. When you think about the forgiveness that's been given to you at the cross, it's like a whew, oh, that's right.
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How many of you need a routine, regular reminder of that? Because you live in your sin and in living in your sin, you have a weight that you keep heaping back on your shoulders, a weight that's been taken from you on the cross.
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That's why you need to keep coming back to the cross, to remember, oh, that's right,
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I don't bear that anymore. He bore it for me. That's the beauty of coming back to the covenant.
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It's a life lived in relief, a life lived in joy. Now, how many of you, when you have that weight and you're reminded of your sin and you're sitting under it and it just feels like you're being crushed, live with joy.
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Do you live with joy in that? Not at all. How could you ever live with joy if you had your own sin on your shoulders?
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When you come to the cross and you come back to the place of the covenant, you remember, oh, that's right,
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I'm set free from the bondage of sin. I'm set free from the weight of that guilt and I can live today in joy only because of the cross, only because he struck that covenant and we live lives of obedience for him.
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Why? Because we've been set free. We've been set free by the covenant that he's made with us.
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Further, it's not just that covenant, but there's all different kinds of covenants in life. There's a covenant in marriage that is not a minor thing, for those of you who have entered into that.
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And in our text, it is a covenant here, particularly a specific type of covenant, a political loyalty that we're looking at, a loyalty that David is appealing to.
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Jonathan gave a formal covenant to David to protect him and recognize David's authority. And David, in some amazing statements of humility, even though he's in the point of having received the authority from Jonathan, he calls himself
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Jonathan's servant and even opens up the possibility, think about this level of humility and how often do we do this, to reflect on when we're criticized or when there is something that's going on or when somebody doesn't like us, do we ever consider that we could be maybe the problem?
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Jonathan does. Jonathan says, maybe I have indeed incurred some guilt. Maybe indeed there is something that Saul rightly has against me.
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And maybe it's even so extreme and my eyes are so blinded to my own sin and to my own failures that it's deserving of the death penalty, according to Israelite law.
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And if so, Jonathan, take my life. Put me to death right here if that's what I deserve.
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And I think David is not just being facetious, I think David is being honest in his humility.
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If I deserve death, then put me to death. If I have done something that is that egregious and that much of an affront that the king wants me dead, then by all means.
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And by the way, how many of you can identify in the flow of this storyline that this is an ultimate test for Jonathan?
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Jonathan, who is the next in line for the kingdom, is being told by the guy who is the usurper, the one who is going to take the throne in a humanistic way, being said, kill me if you want to.
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How many of you know that down through history, many have taken up that offer to kill the person who would come behind, who ought to be behind them and is coming ahead of them?
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And they, I mean, Jonathan is being tested here. And I also want to point out David's attitude.
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I mean, David and Jonathan, this beautiful picture of humility intertwined in this. Jonathan, I mean,
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David, never once, never once in this text does what he could rightfully do.
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He doesn't spout off his credentials. I killed a giant. I'm the one who's been anointed by Samuel.
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I'm the best commander in the army of Saul and the most victorious on the battlefield. You see,
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David's anointing doesn't come up regularly in his daily conversations. He was humble.
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We see this powerful theme of humility in the life of David primarily in that he never appeals to his rights over the entire course of this book where he's running and fleeing and has been anointed to be the next king of Israel.
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He doesn't bring it up. He never appeals to what he deserves. He doesn't appeal to his rights.
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He never appeals to the things that were promised to him. Every indication is that David is intentionally serves for us in scripture as an excellent model of humility for us.
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We live in a culture that clamors for attention. Am I wrong? We live in a culture that everybody wants to go viral, get their 15 seconds or 15 minutes of fame.
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Everybody wants to be recognized. We want to be rewarded. We want to be revered. We shout for our rights at every term.
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The fries are cold. I need to talk to a manager. Right? Right? We demand what we think we deserve.
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David's humility is a part of his integrity. How many of you, I mean, yeah, no ribbing the person next to you, no,
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I mean, you're gonna think of a name when you hear this and I want you to more focus on yourself, but a person always demanding to be recognized and rewarded seems like a person who's trying to compensate for what they know is weakness inside.
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You know what I'm talking about? Unfortunately, all of us have a name. There's somebody in your life who just is constantly always touting their accomplishments and showing off their trophies and still wears their varsity jacket.
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And sorry, maybe that's somebody in the room. Anybody got a varsity jacket on? But you know what
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I'm talking about? And it's that winning touchdown. And they like to tell that at every party they go to.
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It's the state championship, man. And I threw it and it was like up in the air for 15 seconds.
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It was like, oh, and we won. You know what I'm talking about. I've practiced that, so I know.
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But David had a strength that came from his connection to the Almighty. And therefore, he could stand by in humility awaiting the
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Lord's timing in his life. And we're gonna see intense patience and humility over the course of the life of David.
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You see, David didn't have to make it happen. He knew that God would fulfill his promises in his timing.
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And that made him patient and willing to wait on the Lord. I think many of us, we're bombarded with messages that we need to make it happen.
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We need to go, we need to just do it. We need to take it on. We need to plan it out and make everything and just make it work for us.
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That's not what we see in the pages of Scripture. That's not what we see David doing here. All that we can do,
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I believe that all that really, ultimately, is up to us is to remain faithful in the everyday things that God brings to us and allow him to work out the bigger picture plan that he wants for our lives.
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But the next theme we come to in the text is shown beyond the humility. In verses 13 through 15, here we see
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Jonathan ask David for a covenant favor of friendship. He, in essence, says, in the future, when you come into your kingdom,
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David, please be faithful to my family. Don't count my offspring, says
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Jonathan, as your enemies, because I know that God is gonna give you victory over your enemies. Don't count my offspring, don't count my family line as your enemies, please.
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In your covenant faithfulness, please preserve my family line, says Jonathan. And I would suggest to you, the only eyes of faith could make
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Jonathan request something of David right now in the text. David is running for his life.
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David is not in a place of strength. He's coming to Jonathan because he has nowhere else to turn. No one else to trust except this covenant friendship that he remembers and therefore flees from Rama to Gibeah to meet with Jonathan.
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And Jonathan believes that God is going to make good on his promise to make David the next king.
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And so he asks something of him by faith. And twice,
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Jonathan requests from David the word that is translated in our text in the English Standard Version. It's translated as steadfast love.
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One of my favorite phrases in the entire Bible, steadfast love. The Hebrew word, I don't throw Hebrew at you very often.
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I'm no language scholar. I'm self -taught when it comes to any Hebrew or Greek that I have.
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And I've got a lot of good resources in my office to help me get down to the bottom of these words. But the word is hesed.
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It is the steadfast love of God. It means covenant faithful love. An unwavering, steadfast love.
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The word is most often used for God's covenant toward his people. Those who are in Christ as God's chosen, forgiven, and blood -bought people receive his hesed, his steadfast covenant love.
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Unending, unending, unending love. Salvation is nothing if there's not a future promise in it.
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If there's not a guarantee of the future. I am not set free if I still have fear that I might come under condemnation.
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And that's why Paul is so crazy clear in Romans chapter eight, verse one, where he says that there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
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It is this promise of his steadfast love, his hesed, that seals us with hope and gives us the strength to go out and offer that same brand and flavor of love to others.
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In verse 14, we see that the steadfast love of the Lord should not reach a dead end with us.
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Notice that Jonathan asks for some of the Lord's steadfast love from David. David was a recipient of it, and Jonathan says, could you share it with me?
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David has received it and now has it to give to others. In other words, if you have been the recipient of the steadfast love of the
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Lord, then you now possess it to share with others. Those loved by the faithful covenant love of God are the only ones in the world who have hesed to offer.
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We truly bring light. We truly bring a good flavor. We truly bring a benefit to the world around us because we have received the steadfast love of the
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Lord. Why do we love? Because he first loved us.
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Without covenant grace that resulted in a sacrificial and faithful friendship, this passage, by the way, would be a battle royale.
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It would be a death match, a fight to the death. If Charles Darwin was right, and survival of the fittest is all that matters, if Nietzsche was right, and the only good is the good that comes from the exercise of power and might, then this should be
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Jonathan shooting arrows at David, not shooting arrows to communicate with David.
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David and Jonathan renew their covenant loyalty to one another, and the covenant loyalty to Jonathan's offspring in verse 23.
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Jonathan reaffirms that the Lord is the covenant between both of them. The Lord is between you and me forever.
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They at least, come what may, whatever the result of this test with Saul might be, they have the hope that the
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Lord is with them. And Jonathan commits to communicate to his friend what he finds by using a discreet method of communication, a strange communication that we'll see here played out throughout the text.
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They're gonna use a secret code involving the shooting of arrows and command an errand boy as he fetches the arrows and those commands to the errand boy are going to be the code that they use.
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And really, it's ultimately, so in case Saul sends spies to follow Jonathan or he needs an alibi to say where he was at this time, he can say
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I was out in the field and the boy can vouch for him that, yes indeed, Jonathan was out in the field shooting arrows.
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So in verses 24 through 34, David hides himself in the field. Jonathan went to determine his father's intentions and here in these verses, everything comes to a head and we actually come to realize more deeply and more clearly what we already had speculated, already had pretty good understanding that Saul was completely, utterly has it out for David and wants him off the face of the planet.
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The first day of feasting goes off without an issue since Saul thought that David was probably absent due to ritual uncleanness.
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The food that would have been served at this banquet would have been sacrificed and therefore, only those who were clean ritually according to Leviticus and Deuteronomy and the
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Old Testament law, only those who had been ritually purified and gone through all of the washings and all that so he's like, well, he's unclean so he can't participate.
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But certainly by the second day, he would have gone through those rituals. And so the second day,
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Jonathan tells the lie that the two of them had planned, almost exactly and in verse 30,
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Saul saw through the lie and he erupts and when he erupts, he erupts in a way that makes translators uncomfortable.
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He erupts with harsh, vulgar insults towards his son, translators, commentaries, refused to put into professional print, even in footnoting in the, well, you don't really want to say this phrase.
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Like literally saying that in commentaries and some of the words that they used in the commentary. I took a picture of one and sent it to my wife in the middle of the week.
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I was like, can you believe that a commentary actually uses these words right here? These are the words. So I think we all have an idea about how you can insult a person by saying something about their mom.
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Like some jokes about that, right? But this is no joking matter. So I'm gonna just use an acronym that many of you in the room know.
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Saul insults his own wife and his son by calling Jonathan an SOB. And that would really be an accurate, good translation of this.
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We just don't like to put that into print. So yes, I am talking about son of a Baptist, just in case you were. I figured you didn't know what the acronym was, so I thought
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I'd share that with you. But yeah, that way you can just pass that along to your children. Happen to be here.
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That's always great, the way that it works. You know, the weeks that we've got the kids in here. There we go. And the reason for the insult, though, is made clear.
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And Saul, you know, a lot of people want to say Saul was literally off his rocker. That he had mental instability.
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I don't think so. I think he had just jealous rage. I think he had a fairly reasoned jealous rage.
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I think that any one of us with mental health intact could act like Saul.
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I think he had pretty decent reasoning here, and he's chucking spears because he's angry.
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Certainly had a temper problem, but at the end of the day, this is, I mean, he's able to express why he's angry.
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He's able to express exactly his insult to his son and what makes him really irate.
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And that is that Jonathan, his son, is so weak, and so mamby -pamby that he's chosen loyalty to David above his own throne.
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You weak, pathetic little boy, he says to his own son, who is demonstrating covenant faithfulness and loyalty to the one that God has chosen.
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And in verse 31, Saul utters his clearest verbal intentions.
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As long as David lives, Jonathan, you will never be king, so David must be put to death, and you, if you have a pair, will come and bring him to me and we'll put him to death together, and then you can be the king.
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Jonathan once again tries to reason with his father. What in the world has this guy who has done nothing but serve your kingdom, what has he done to deserve and warrant the death penalty?
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And Saul, with his ever -present spear, he's at a banquet and he's still got a spear close by. You get a picture of this guy?
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He's just always got a spear just in case I wanna chuck it at someone. He tried to skewer his own son.
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And I wanted to just point out, Jonathan's response to me as a man who has struggled with temper and anger my entire life, yeah, that's a confession, you can pray for me on that, his response is amazing.
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Crazy amazing, because verse 34 tells us, using the most emphatic expression of anger, that the
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Hebrew language can muster. I mean, we really oughta add some adjectives to this type of anger to really get out what the
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Hebrew is trying to communicate to us. White, hot, enraged, fierce anger, it says.
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This is a lose -your -head kind of anger that's attributed to Jonathan in this situation.
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How many of you, when somebody chucks a spear at your head, might be tempted, I actually wanna see a show of hands, this is just authenticity moment, how many of you might return it with some pace?
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I mean, just know, somebody chucks a spear at you, it's going back the other direction if they happen to miss, right?
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But not Jonathan, not Jonathan here. He certainly is upset, he can't eat the rest of the day, he leaves, he goes out with just this rage.
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And what about Saul's accuracy? Anybody calling that into question? Four times, I assume it was close range,
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I mean, we're talking about him in a banquet hall, and he can't even hit his son, who's probably sitting fairly close.
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I mean, this guy, I'm benching him if he's a quarterback, right? Like, I mean, he's not playing the next game at this rate.
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But the remainder of the text expresses the final parting of Saul and Jonathan, they've got this great friendship and this covenant relationship together.
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Again, think in terms of a professional, there's a professional element to it that's political, but there's also an emotional side of it that is actually, they really like each other, they both trust in the
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Lord, they're both warriors, and so they've got a lot of things that connect them together, but the fundamental thing that connects them together is the covenant of God Almighty.
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And so Jonathan worked out, worked the plan to shake off any spies, and so he fires arrows well past the errand boy the next morning, while David is hiding out behind a pile of rocks.
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The errand boy runs to retrieve the arrows that Jonathan sends out there, and he says, they're further out, hurry up and get going, code language, you need to get out of Dodge, my dad does indeed want to kill you.
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And the errand boy knows nothing about David hiding and can report back to the city that Jonathan was just out practicing in the field.
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And if you ever wonder what I'm gonna talk about next, you read this and you go, they come up with this code and they do that, and then they send the boy back into town and then they embrace, they hug, they talk face to face, like, what was that code all about?
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But you see, real life happens in a way that, how many of you ever come up with a plan and then you alter it in the middle because you look around and you're like, well, there's nobody here, and there's nobody here to watch us and it's worth taking the chance to actually say our final goodbyes.
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And that's what I believe actually, they had every intention of making the shooting of the arrows their only communication.
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But when the finality of this parting lands on them, they risked revealing themselves to say their final goodbyes.
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David bowed three times to Jonathan in thankful respect and honor, they wept with one another, realizing that this was the end of serving the kingdom of God together.
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They kissed, which just makes me really glad that I live in the culture that I live in now. They embraced, and Jonathan offers, go in peace.
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Now, if you know what's coming in the life of David, this ought to be somewhat humorous to you, the notion that Jonathan would bid
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David to go in peace when his life is going to be turmoil for the next decade. But the only reason he can evoke peace in the turmoil is that the
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Lord was between them and their offspring forever. Their hope was in the Lord, not in their circumstances, not in better days ahead, but their hope was firmly placed in the
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God of steadfast love and faithfulness. How can you have peace? How can
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I have peace? Come what may in our workplace, come what may in our families, come what may in our health or our finances or whatever it is, whatever affliction that we face, peace in the covenant of God, peace in the hope that we gain from the cross and the forgiveness that's given to us.
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A genuine peace, not a chintzy and flippant peace that comes and goes with circumstances, but a deep and abiding trust that the worst that can happen to me, really, is that I die and go to heaven and be in eternity in a place where there's no sin or suffering forever and ever and ever.
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I don't sound that bad. Let's draw some applications from these themes we find expressed in this text as we wrap up.
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We find, once again, the theme of friendship here, a very fundamental theme that I think really ought to apply in our context where we are increasingly isolating ourselves, increasingly turning to social media and pretending that we have friends.
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And I mentioned last week or two weeks ago that I feel like we live in a day and an age where you can have 1 ,000 friends on Facebook and nobody to spend
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Friday night with, right? And it's increasingly so, and we are isolating and isolating and isolating.
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David had a covenant friend to turn to in times of hardship, and this was possible because they were both friends that had a covenant with the
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Lord in common. They both were men of faith. Now hear me carefully, they were men of faith, not merely men of Michigan football, not merely men of car shows or men of CrossFit or men of basketball or men of whatever trivial thing we love to shoot the breeze about and talk about in our casual, really shallow, pretend friendships.
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But their faith in the Lord is what held them together. And faith and steadfast love in the
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Lord is what made them trustworthy and a place to turn in times of stress and duress.
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Look around you. Seek out friendships here. I'm not saying that just because I love
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Recast Church and I'm not saying that just because I think this church is the only place that you can have friendships.
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But man, this is a family. This is the church body that God has brought you to.
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Seek out friendships here. Stay for the picnic. Go out of your way to connect with someone here. And when difficulties strike, we need others who understand the covenant love of the
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Lord to hold us up and to speak the cross into our lives and to speak of that covenant of grace that can sustain us.
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Theme of friendship. What kind of friend are you being? What kind of friends are you pursuing?
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Second, we find the significant theme of humility all throughout the life of David. Despite what the world around us tells us, you have not been brought here to planet
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Earth to grow your own kingdom. That's what all the commercials will tell you. That's what the world will tell you.
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That's what many of your coworkers will tell you is that it's all about gaining stuff to make your kingdom better, to make your life more posh and more fun and more entertaining and on and on.
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But it's not that you've been brought here to succeed for yourself.
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Instead, we should be about the work of God's kingdom in this world. And should we be called to step aside to allow another more qualified or capable, we should do so and support them with enthusiasm.
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And that is not an American message. That is not an American message, but that is indeed a biblical message.
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I love how
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David Davis puts this in a commentary on this passage. Life doesn't consist in achieving your goals, but in fulfilling your promises.
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Life doesn't consist in achieving your goals, but in fulfilling your promises.
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And I would add to that, in other words, to qualify that or to make it, to really bring it home for us, the most significant things that we do, when we get to the end, if God grants us a deathbed and we have an opportunity to reflect back on our lives before we take our last breath,
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I believe that the most significant things that you have done will have been in the service of another and not in the service of yourself.
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The things that you will look back on with gratitude over your life will be ways that you have been able to be used in the lives of others.
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Serving others, reaching out to others, loving others, remaining faithful to others.
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Not in the service of yourself. You're not gonna be really glad about the cars you owned and the ways that you blessed yourself with a really good, blessed yourself with really good things and a second house and all those things.
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Those things aren't terrible, they're not the end, and they're not sinful, but that's not gonna be the sum of your life.
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Are you serving others? And lastly, let's wrap up. We see again in our text the theme of eyes of faith.
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Jonathan knows David will be the king and he knows this by faith. You see, because God has revealed it to David and this faith moves
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Jonathan to ask for mercy, love, and grace when the king comes into his kingdom. Now this is an interesting dynamic that we've got going on here.
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It reminds me of another time that someone asked a favor of someone who appeared to be in dire straits. You see, the reason
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I'm even talking about this is we usually don't walk up to someone who was just hit by a car and ask for a favor.
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That's not the way it usually goes. We don't usually find somebody who's just been sucker punched in his down and say, hey, but bro, could you help me here?
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But Jonathan asks David to save his family line while David is running for his life.
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While he's at one of the darkest places of his life, Jonathan is there saying, hey, bro, when you get into your kingdom, could you remember me?
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Does that sound like an echo of something else you've heard before? It makes me consider another man who looked with eyes of faith and saw past the current suffering to a future kingdom and asked a favor.
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The thief on the cross turned to the bloody, tortured, and dying Jesus, and with eyes of faith said, remember me when you come into your kingdom.
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He asked a favor of a dying man. Imagine those eyes of faith that said, this guy dying next to me is not dying a normal death like everybody else.
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He is the son of God and he will be king soon. How many of you know that Jesus didn't look like a king on the cross?
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How many of you know that only faith could move that thief to say, when you become a king, could you remember me?
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And his faith was rewarded. Truly, I tell you today, you will be with me in paradise.