Turn our Bibles to First Samuel, chapter 18.
First Samuel, chapter 18.
We're just going to pick up where we're normally studying.
You know what?
Take, just take a quick little step back there to chapter 17, starting
in verse number 57 says, and as David returned from the slaughter
of the Philistine, Abner took him and brought him before Saul with
the head of the Philistine in his hand.
And Saul said to him, whose son art thou, thou young man?
And David answered, I am the son of thy servant, Jesse the Bethelite.
So where we pick up in our story of David in the life of Saul
and the life of the people here at Israel at this time in their
lives, we pick up at the end of the battle of Goliath, and we
end it here with David, a young man presenting himself before
King Saul to basically tell him who he is.
And what in the world have you done that you could do this great
feat?
I want to know who you are.
Not only have we promised things to you, but I got to know
more about your story.
And then we go in chapter 18.
And it came to pass when he had made an end of speaking unto
Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of
David.
And Jonathan loved him as his own soul.
We're going to focus on three main characters tonight.
We're going to talk about the character of Jonathan, character
of David, and the character of Saul, and how these three people
all had very different responses to what God was doing in
their lives.
So let's pray and we'll start.
Our heavenly Father, for we come to you and we ask for help to
understand your word.
We ask that you would show us what it means, what it is that we're
supposed to glean from it tonight.
Lord, how we can look at these men's lives and see how they reacted
to the circumstances of life in a way, but reacted to how what
you were doing in their life.
I just pray and ask that you would help us.
Give us your grace in Jesus name.
We pray them.
So what we have are three men that are in a way, bound together.
Their character.
All three of them have in some ways a little different character.
One is completely different than the others.
But we have an honorable son, a successful servant, and an insecure,
guilty king.
That's your spoiler alert for every single one of those three people
tonight.
That is the context of how we are going to look at them.
So what we see in this chapter is we see number one, a bond is formed.
We see jealousy in Saul, begins in his Life, we see that jealousy
breed contempt, murderous plots.
And now Saul's beginning to try to kill David.
In this chapter, we see Saul trying to lay traps.
And then finally we see the betrothal that David was promised
for killing Goliath and that betrothal to Saul's daughter.
But in this, all three men come to a realization, I believe,
of what is going on in their life.
Now, has that ever happened to you?
You know, you're.
You're trying to go and do different things.
The things start adding pop.
And then all of a sudden it hits you.
That's kind of the awakening, the light bulb moment that is going
on in all three of these men.
And in their mind, that awakening.
Jonathan in this has a reaction and a response.
David has a response.
As if you will, destiny is thrust upon him.
But as God's plans are enacted in David's life, David has a response.
And then, of course, Saul has a response to all of this.
Look there.
Let's look first though, at the bond.
All three of these people eventually realize what God is doing.
But the question I want to pose to you tonight is what do you
do when the will of God changes your position?
This can come through a host of different ways.
This can come through job placement, this can come through
people taking your job.
This can come through just the circumstances of life.
But that is the question I want to pose to you tonight that
I think that we will see in the lives of these three men.
What do you do when the will of God changes your position?
So there in that very first verse, he says, it came to pass when
he made an end of speaking unto Saul, that the soul of Jonathan
was knit with the soul of David.
And Jonathan loved him at his own soul.
So we're going to look at Jonathan first.
The friendship that is formed at this time.
It says that Jonathan, the soul of Jonathan, was knit with a
soul.
This is very similar actually to in the book of Ruth with Naomi
and Ruth.
You know, Ruth said, I'm clinging to you, Naomi, and that
form, that mother and daughter in law bond to where they were in
that point, inseparable.
And with this, these two characters, there are some things
that we can kind of clear up right away.
But there is a bond, a friendship that is happening.
But so in the life of Jonathan here, we have to kind of take a step
back and look at him as we assess this bond as friendship.
So in this friendship, I mean, I grew up with flannel graph.
You probably all grew up with flannel graph, right?
I'm not alone in that.
And these two little figures on the flannel graph were two little
boys, you know, frolicking together, comrades in arms.
That's kind of the idea that people often get, that these are
two young men that were just going to be best friends for life.
But that's not exactly the, the truth though.
That's not very accurate picture of what is actually happening.
David was not old enough to go out to battle.
He was at home taking care of the sheep.
His brothers treated him with pure disdain.
Why are you here, David?
Little boy, you know, so, you know, I've seen things get taken
way too far and it's a little 10 year old boy out there throwing
a sling.
I don't think he was quite that young because he's considering
marriage here at the end of this chapter.
But David is a young man for sure.
I would like to say that, you know, I think he's probably 17, 18
years old.
His brothers certainly think that he's not old enough to even
be on the battlefield.
Why aren't you with the sheep like you're supposed to be?
But we could leave room here.
We say he's about 16, 17.
Jonathan, however, is completely different.
Jonathan is in Saul's army.
You had to be at least 20 years old to be in the army at this
time.
And Jonathan was leading men into battle.
It actually says that he, in, in, in one portion, that he was already
establishing warriors, commanding over a thousand men.
Whenever we first meet him, he's that warrior, a seasoned warrior
who's going out and conquering already.
You remember the, the, the story there in chapter 14, I believe
it is, where he goes with his armor bearer and fights by themselves
against the Philistines in a battle that the Lord gives him the
victory of.
So Jonathan is not a youth.
And in first Samuel David is called that youth.
Jonathan is already that successful military commander and
he had been that way for some time.
A lot of commentators, and which is most likely accurate, think
that at least 10 to 15 years separate Jonathan and David.
So at the best that we have here, for a calculation of age, you
have a 16, 17 year old boy with a 30 year old grown man.
And this friendship, this bond takes place.
What I see in this is a bond of discipleship.
I mean Jonathan is knit with David and he sticks and holds fast
to David.
This is that bond of I want to spend time with this individual.
And this picture that we get, it just parallels so much on how
discipleship needs to happen amongst Christians in general and
especially in our church.
We, as a body of believers grow the most whenever discipleship
is happening.
You know, I can read and study the Bible on my own.
I can, you know, find different helps.
I could even go to YouTube at times.
But number one, is any of that personal?
Is that any of that strengthening the body of Christ
here, if I'm listening to some outside source?
And then number two, the amount of experience that is received
by someone else pouring in to another individual's life, that experience
being poured into that life is something that should not be taken
lightly.
And so all of us in here have something to give, something to pour
into the life of a younger person.
Now, it doesn't always have to be this 15, 20 year old gap of, you
know, the old man taking an apprentice.
All right?
Discipleship is also peer to peer.
You know, you know, something that I probably don't know that you
could possibly share that.
Sharing is what discipleship is about.
And as we approach the New Testament, that is what Jesus commands
us to do.
He commands us to go forth and teach all nations.
That is what the Great Commission is, is a commission to
go and make disciples.
I fear that so often churches have gotten caught up that on that
Great Commission, meaning something other than what it is.
And I would be careful here because I don't want you to get the
wrong idea of what I am saying.
The Gospel is preached, souls are saved, but that is not the end.
And so many times we get so consumed with, well, how many people
have you won to the Lord this year?
Have you won anyone to the Lord this year?
No, unsuccessful Christian.
That's not really the question that we should be asked.
The question is, have we decided someone this year?
Have we made it our intention to decide someone this year?
Because we're already halfway through the year.
The purpose of the New Testament church is to go forth,
preach the Gospel, see soul saved.
But God is the one who is in charge of that fruit.
God is the one who is the Lord of the harvest.
He is adding to the church daily, such as should be saved.
As is said in Acts, you and I are not in charge of the harvest.
Apollos watered, Paul, Paul planted, Apollos watered, but God
gives the increase.
You and I are our servants going forth to teach and to number
one, be able to teach.
I would probably be the first requisite.
You have to be growing your own relationship with God.
But to teach people, to teach everyone that we come in contact
with and to have that grow in discipleship lesson.
And so that's really what I see here.
Two people getting together Jonathan has experienced, you know,
David doesn't really have per se war experience.
Jonathan does.
But the one thing that David does have is he has trust and faith
in God.
And that's really what I believe.
We see that Jonathan takes notice of.
So it works in this thing, this, this relationship.
You know, you would ask him how in the world does this ever even
happen?
It works because of the character of John.
He is a person ready to do this work.
And that's part of the question that you really have to
ask yourself a year from now.
Can you see yourself discipling someone and pouring into
someone else's life, let's say just for a second that you imagine
that yeah, I can see myself, I'm discipling a person and I'm in
their life pouring in.
How does that even work?
It works because of the character that you already possess.
And there, there are three character traits here that Jonathan
really shows I want to focus in on.
And these are different areas that we can imitate as well because
Jonathan is really, he's imitating what Christ imitates.
He represents a godly character.
Now there's three different categories here.
There's a love of godlies, godliness number one.
There's a self giving love number two.
And then lastly a humility that Jonathan really possesses here.
First of all a love of godliness.
And this is very important.
You know, there's different definitions and everyone really likes
to have their own definition.
So I'm not going to be any different.
I'm going to give you my definition of what godliness is.
Godliness is the, the definition I would assign to.
It is God minded.
Okay, God minded.
You're mindful about what God wants.
That's your question.
Is this what God.
Is this how God wants me to.
Is this what God wants me to do?
What if God was right here, would he want me to do this?
You're constantly.
That is your meditation of your heart.
And Jonathan, he has a love of godliness.
What does that mean, a love of godliness?
Well, you love the things of God by application.
You love those who love God and have a godly mindset.
Love of godliness can't stand to be in the presence of, of the
proud ful, the arrogant, the wicked, those who curse and blaspheme
God.
I don't want to be anywhere near that.
I love godliness and I have that love of God.
I want to be around people who love God.
Those are the people I want to spend my time with.
So we asked this question.
Why is the bond form.
Why did Jonathan care for this young David?
Because he killed Goliath.
And Jonathan, too, was a person who was a conqueror as well.
But how did Jonathan conquer his battle?
He asked for a sign from God.
He said, God, we're going to trust in you for this victory.
He told his armor bearer, we'll go and we'll say, we'll ask
them if they want to come up or if we should go down.
And we will take this as a sign from God, because God is the
one who is going to fight our battles.
That was Jonathan's mindset.
Now we look here.
When did Jonathan attach himself to David?
It's not, wow, David just killed Goliath.
I gotta go meet this guy.
No, it says that after, when he made an end of speaking unto Saul,
that the soul of Jonathan was then knit with the soul of David.
It's after the speech Jonathan wanted to hear.
What does this person have to say about this victory?
Are they going to boast?
Are they going to say, you know, saw you, saw me in my great
works.
Hey, give me the things that you promised me because I'm worth
it.
Was there going to be a humility?
Perhaps, Jonathan thought, I gotta know how this person did that.
No different than Saul.
Saul had to know.
He had to know how this young man had done this.
So whenever we see this explanation, you know, first of all,
it ends there at the end of chapter 17.
And then it begins at verse one.
But, you know, David didn't just say, well, you know, my father's
the son of Jesse, I'm a shepherd boy.
I trusted in God.
And that was it.
You know, there had to be a conversation with that that wasn't
all the end.
You realize we don't have every single conversation fully written
out in all of its glory.
It would be neat, but this book would never end.
That's what John says, I reckon, that the entire world could
not fulfill even all the works that Jesus did.
We don't have everything.
But clearly there was a lengthy conversation that could have.
That had to have happened.
I mean, surely Saul wanted to know, does this guy have superpowers?
Is he some sort of skilled?
Is he always been this.
What, you're a shepherd?
I mean, there's a lot of stuff here that's happening.
So Jonathan heard David give this extended explanation of his
heart, his faith in the living God, because that's what was built.
This was built on.
It was built on David saying, how does this Philistine would.
How could he defy the armies of the Living God.
How can he say such blasphemy against the living God?
That was the thing that David spearheaded as he went out to fight
this guy.
And so this speech comes out.
Now people judge us by the speech that comes out of our mouth.
You know, I think James tells us very plain that the tongue is
a very small thing, just as that rudder is a very small thing.
And yet it turns a ship that is hundreds of thousand times its
size.
I mean, it is a huge thing.
You ever seen how small rudder is in comparison to the biggest of
ships?
It's nothing.
And it's just a small little thing.
It's the same thing with our speed.
Be careful how we talk.
Jonathan hears this and then the knitting, if you will, happens.
And with Jonathan, that love of godliness comes out.
Jonathan knew that he and David had the same heart at this
point.
That's really what bonded their hearts together.
That's really what bonded their souls.
There could be no such close friendship until Jonathan knew that
one part about God.
And that's pretty good advice.
Sometimes we get ourselves in trouble because we will become such
close friends with people who don't care anything about God.
And this is not necessarily speaking about, you know, trying
to witness to some people.
You know, I've had close friends, so to speak, but they're
not friends that I want to spend all my time with because I
know what they're, what they're doing and vice versa.
I don't think that I'm the kind of friend that they want to
spend their time with because there's an awkwardness to them.
That was one of the first things that happened after I got
saved.
All the friends deserted me like that, just gone.
I had one friend who stick or stuck around until the bitter end.
And then it just was kind of like just a silent departing, the
silent understanding of, all right, this, this is, we're not going
the same direction.
That that was it.
And that's what Jonathan here, he sees.
This is a guy who's going in the same direction as me.
This is a guy who cares about the same thing as me.
His heart reveals that heart full of love, trust and joy in their
God.
So what we do with our words, that it reveals our heart, but then
there's also a self giving love.
And in that self giving love, this is something that all of us
should be trying to imitate with Christ.
That's what real love is.
That's what the.
That's a fruit of the spirit love.
Not the opposite, the work of the flesh, which would Be self love,
but real genuine love that expects nothing in return.
James says that again, pure and undefiled religion is this taking
after widows and orphans.
Why?
Widows and orphans don't have anything to give back.
You and I, if we give to a widow or for an orphan, they can't
pay us back.
They can't supply some need.
I'm going to do this fair for you, but then you, I need you to
come in through for me.
You know, that's not it.
Widows and orphans have nothing for the most part.
So you understand what real love is, what real religion is?
It is caring for those who cannot do anything for you in return.
And this is kind of what Jonathan imitates.
You see the self love that he says there.
He says that he loved David as his own soul.
You know, some of us, in some ways we kind of have a problem with
this.
We don't exactly love ourself that much.
I understand there's an aspect of humility, but there's a lot of
people who don't even really love themselves.
And I think that in order to love someone as your own soul, you
got to love yourself a little bit, you know.
And Jonathan, he loves him as his own soul.
He cares for him and he does for David in such a way that what
he would have done for himself, he would do for others.
And in the life of David, that self, that selfless love, that self
giving love comes out.
It says that this relationship is obviously a mutual feeling.
Both of them loved one another.
It says in 1st Samuel, chapter 20 that David loved Jonathan, loved
David better than his own life.
That's self sacrifice.
That's the sacrifice that says, I'll give you anything.
I will lay down my life before you.
In 2nd Samuel, chapter 1, verse 26, it says that Jonathan and
David had a love.
And David compared that love more than a woman.
He couldn't, said I couldn't even imagine loving a woman as much
as I love my friend.
I would do anything for this individual.
Now we have to address the elephant in the room because this
is a conversation that you will often have with people as you
talk about Jonathan and David.
Many have tried to interpret this as a homosexual relationship.
And in this world and day and age, you and I cannot avoid that
question.
This is going to come up.
You and I cannot avoid that.
And there's tons of debate about, well, what isn't?
You know, that you get.
People say that, well, God never commanded that in the New Testament.
And you know, there's just tons of arguments about God God doesn't
hate people.
And especially in today's politics, we have a lot of that of
saying, why can't we just, you know, let people live together?
And why is this such a big deal?
Why can't.
Why do you Christians have to hate me so much?
What we see here in the life of Jonathan and David is a deep friendship.
There's nothing that is that way of this.
The same idiom is used in Deuteronomy, chapter 13, verse 6,
actually.
This love for another person with such deep affection.
And there's much modern cultural pressure to accept this
lifestyle, if you will, as an appropriate alternative lifestyle,
something that is is acceptable.
The Bible, though, lists it as a destructive lifestyle out of the
will of God for his creation.
Now, we cannot answer the question of why are people like this?
Why do they have this inclination?
The one thing that I would tell us is that every single one
of us are sinners and every single one of us struggle with some
sin.
That's it.
Every single one of us are born a certain way.
We have lusts and fights of the flesh.
And every single one of us don't struggle in the same way.
It is a struggle against the flesh to resist doing sin.
That is at the end of the day.
But we understand that this violates the commands of God.
It violates number one, the command of Joseph, chapter one, to
be fruitful and multiply.
That's got to be a mom and daddy in order to multiply.
It has to be that command.
Then of course it's judged in Genesis, chapter 19 beside and Gomorrah.
We understand there from that story what Sodom and Gomorrah was
doing was great wickedness.
Now this is a great opportunity for the skeptic to say,
but Sodom and Gomorrah wasn't destroyed because of that.
They were destroyed because of pride.
It says so in Ezekiel.
It says they were destroyed because they were evil and they were
had prideful hearts.
And I would say that, yeah, they probably were.
That was part of the equation of why they were destroyed.
Second Peter says that they turn that God turned the cities of
Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them with an overthrow,
making them an example unto those that should live ungodly.
That was the problem with Sodom and Gomorrah.
They lived ungodly lives.
They lived lives that did not care about who God was, what God
wanted.
They wanted to do their own thing.
It says they delivered just lot vexed with the filthy conversations
of the wicked for that righteous man dwelling among Them
and seeing and hearing vex his righteous soul from day to day with
their unlawful deeds.
And then in the book of Jude, it talks more about what this sin
is.
In verse number seven says, even as Sodom and Gomorrah and the
cities about them in like manner giving themselves over not
to pride, not to wickedness and just doing bad stuff, but to
fornication and going after strange flesh are set forth as an
example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.
If there's any doubt.
I think Jude 7 is a really good indicator of why they were burnt
up.
It's because of the fornication and the going after a
strange flesh.
So Sodom Gomorrah is one argument that is used a lot, I feel
like, to say that, oh well, they weren't killed for that, they
were killed because of their pride.
No, the rest of scripture says why they were killed as well, says
that they were killed because of this chapter number three, or
point number three rather of that.
It characterizes pagan worship and culture.
It reveals a self centered in independence from God.
And so there's many different things that are tools in our belt.
This is definitely not, I don't want to go to tons and tons
of details.
This is not what I'm preaching about tonight.
Just a side note here about Jonathan and David in the relationship.
But as I said, God's love and forgiveness is to all fallen creatures,
all fallen beings, all humanity.
I mean, homosexuality is not the unpardonable sin.
And Christians do have to handle that sin no different than
we handle all sin.
We have to act accordingly.
We have no right to act hateful or arrogant towards that
particular sin.
Especially when it is obvious that all of us sin.
You know, everyone can look at someone else and say, well, their
relationship with God's horrible.
Have we looked at our own relationship with God lately?
You know, the beam in our own eyes sometimes cloud our judgment.
That doesn't mean that we should as a church affirm and say,
you know, it doesn't matter what you're doing, if any one of
us sins, the other should call that sin to obedience.
That is a person to person action.
It's called church discipline.
And it starts with you seeing sin in that person's life and you
going to that person and saying, hey, I noticed this.
That's where it began.
And so we are called to holiness.
We are called to godliness.
We are called to edify one another.
We are called to disciple one another in that discipleship, in
that edification.
There's no wiggle room if you will to allow sin to continue to
fester.
Now, I understand that there are things such as stronghold.
All of us have stronghold, by the way.
There are things that are hidden from other people that other
people can't see because it's not on the outside.
There are some sins that are on the outside and everyone sees
it.
It's easier to work with those people because it's so blatant what
they're doing and they can see it so easily.
We as Christians are to approach every single sinner, if
you will, with prayer, concern, meekness, humility and compassion.
This is where that gift of mercy extends to all believers, even
the hardest black and white perceiver who knows what truth and
wrong are and wants to call that out and wants to address that
even they have to be tempered with a compassion that is able to
tell that person what they are doing is wrong and yet still able
to show the love of Christ, because that is exactly what Jesus
did as he dealt with individuals.
So as we go forward, it's a good topic to study along with the
many other debates that people like to talk about in the workplace.
That question is going to come up to you.
You're just going to be sitting there working, mind your
own business, and they're going to say, wait a minute, you
over there, it's a church, don't you.
What do you think about it?
I've been there before.
It's quite uncomfortable if you're not prepared.
But Jonathan genuinely loved David and had decided that this love
would make him do anything for him.
And that's the type of love here.
Love that would protect, love that would give, love that would
give anything.
And that's what we're going to see here next.
If the issue of who will be the next king were not settled in
the hearts of Jonathan and David, they never could have had
this kind of close love and friendship, because that was certainly
going to come up.
Because at this point in time, David had already been anointed as
king.
Jonathan, knitting his soul with David, would have learned this
information quite early.
And it's perhaps at this moment that God even told John, this
is the next man that I have crowned to be king.
Saul knew that he no longer would be king.
It was not an if.
It was really just a matter of when.
Samuel had already come and told him, the kingdom has been rent
out of your hand because of your disobedience.
And what we see here in the life of Jonathan David, the story
of Jonathan David shows so many enduring principles about what
real love is.
Real Love wants a commitment, and commitment will show itself in
covenant.
Real love will not hide its covenant or commitment.
Their friendship was for everyone to see.
Everyone had that open understanding of, wow, the king's
son has taken an interest in raising up this young man in Saul's
army.
Real love will give and receive gifts.
Real love will clothe the poor with robes of royalty.
And David was a poor shepherd boy.
Real love will give armor to fight with.
And this kind of brings us to the gifts aspect of it.
And Jonathan's last trait is humility, is humility.
So we gather that this time Jonathan understands that David is
going to be king just because of the gifts that Jonathan gives
to.
To David.
It says that Saul took him that day and would let him go no
more home to his father's house.
He's not going to be a shepherd for anymore.
Saul wants this man in his army.
He is way too valuable.
Saul probably wants to look good.
I got to have good men.
I've been looking for men like this that can fight in battles and
can win them.
I want you.
You don't get to go home anymore.
You're in my service.
Says in verse three.
Then Jonathan and David made a covenant because he loved him as
his own soul.
And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was upon him and
gave it to David into his garments, even to a sword, his bow
and his girdle.
This is the whole package of royal attire, royal armor.
I mean, I feel like some people would be attached to their
sword, especially since Saul and Jonathan were the only few people
who actually had iron weapons and iron armor at this time.
This would be kind of an attachment.
And Jonathan doesn't look at it as that attachment.
He gives it to David freely.
It says here that he made that Jonathan and David made a covenant.
The Hebrew word karath is more properly cut a covenant, not made
a cup.
Now, obviously it's the same thing, but there's some nuance there
that you miss whenever you have this word translated.
It's to cut a covenant.
Why was that?
But covenant, covenanters, covenanters, they first they swear
and then they cut the beast in twain, passing between the parts
thereof and wishing so to be cut in piece pieces themselves.
If they ever falsified.
You remember the covenant that Abraham made with God.
Abraham took the beast, cut it, and then went to sleep.
God put him to sleep, and God made him stay over here.
And God walked in between.
The spirit of God moved in between those pieces to signify that
this covenant was something that God was doing that wasn't how
covenants were.
That's not the covenant that Jonathan and David made here they
both went in between the cov.
The pieces of the beast and the Old Testament there with Abraham
and God.
God went through it to show that this is his covenant and that
there was no works on Abraham.
There was no hey, I'm going to do this and you do this and then
we'll, we can come together.
No, it was Abraham.
You sit right here.
I'm doing this all by myself.
That's not the government that Jonathan and David made.
But they do cut a covenant nonetheless.
They pass through wishing to be cut in pieces if ever they falsified
from that covenant.
Jonathan's willingness to surrender his position.
It also symbolizes the self emptying that the humility of Christ.
You reread in Philippians chapter two.
Who being in the form of God made himself of no reputation, but
took rather the form of a serpent.
John, the battles he must increase, but I must decrease.
That was humility that he had.
And when Jonathan gave David his robe and his armor, he was basically
saying, you're in it, you're going to be the next king.
I'm wearing royal clothes.
But David, you're the one who's going to be royal.
You're the one who should be wearing these things.
God's hand is on you.
These things rightfully belong to you.
Because Jonathan surrendered to God, he could see the hand of
the Lord upon David.
He knew David's destiny and he was perfectly fine willing to lay
ambition aside to honor God's choice.
You and I as believers, how do we react with God honors someone
else?
Because Jonathan, he had every.
He was the expected next king.
He was David's, Saul's son.
He was the one who would naturally inherit the throne.
That was an expectation that he had probably up to that point.
Whenever he saw David's speed, the slaying of Goliath, that was
his every expectation of yeah, Dad's ruling and reigning and one
day he's going to step down and allow me to take the throne.
I'm the next in line.
All that went away when David stepped on the scene.
It really has to ask make you ask that question.
What would you do if this person took your place?
Would you go and make this person your best friend ever?
Or would there be some resentment to that?
Clearly self ambition is laid aside.
And then we get these, these, these three responses here we get
the response of Jonathan surrendering to what God was doing.
We get Saul later in these next verses resisting what God is
doing.
And David, he's in the middle of all.
He wasn't expecting any of this.
He was a poor shepherd.
So now we kind of have to ask the question, what is David's response?
David's response to all of this is completely new.
And this is where it begins, the jealousy of Saul.
It begins with the successful servant of David, because that's
what David is.
He is a successful servant, says in verse number five.
And David went out whithersoever Saul sent him and behaved
himself wisely.
This all set him over the men of the war.
And he was accepted in the sight of all the people and also
in the sight of Saul's servants.
And it came to pass as they came, when David was returned from
the slaughter of the Philistines, that the women came
out of all the cities of the Israel singing and dancing to meet
King Saul with tablets, with joy, and with instruments of music.
And the women answered one another as they played and said Saul
had slain his thousands and David his ten thousands.
This says here that David went out wherever Saul said, now David
knew I've been anointed king.
And here he was underneath some other king.
What was going on in David's mind was his mindset, a mindset of,
you know, I'm this next crowned king.
When's God going to get rid of this guy so I can step up?
I mean, aren't we supposed to go ahead and get be done with this?
It's highly unusual that I get anointed while Saul's in power.
You be asking questions like, is he going to die soon?
Is God going to kill him?
God's got this thing all prepared out, right?
It's his sovereignty.
It's his will.
God's the one calling the shot and saying, when is this going to
happen?
And yet he just goes and continues doing whatever Saul wants
him to do.
And it says his attitude and all this is one of behaving wisely.
David was fully submitted to Saul, and he sought to serve that
master Saul wisely.
He sent him all over the people of war.
And in this remarkable promotion that we see here, you know,
this is like, this will surely make all the other employees mad
at work.
You know, you get the one new guy that comes in and they, they.
He does one day on the job, and then they set him over everybody
else.
Like I've been working here for 15 years pouring into this guy's
back pocket, making him a dollar.
And this is what happens.
You know, you.
You would think that would be the case, that all the Soldiers in
this army are like, this is.
This is horrible.
How dare he set this guy over us.
But that's exactly what he does here.
It says that he sets him over all the men of war and in this remarkable
promotion, they're all pleased with it.
They all love him.
Now, surely it wasn't everyone, obviously, but for the
most part, surely this is a consensus of the, the hearts of the
people.
They love David.
They are happy.
It says he was accepted in the sight of all the people and also
in the sight of Saul's servants.
The.
This is a gaining popularity for David.
And we see two different reactions to that popularity.
You see David react and you also see Saul react.
And this is kind of that whole proverb of if you want to test a
person in their character, give them power, give them wealth,
give them influence, give them something like this that is in so
many ways greater than themselves.
Give them that power.
That's what David gets here.
And then we see his reaction.
We see Saul's reaction to this.
Of course, in verse eight, you know, these people come in, they're
singing and dancing there in the streets as they would normally
do with the, the, the, the armies would come in and they're
saying, saul's slain a thousand, but David, he's slain 10,000.
There's this great popularity swelling for David.
And it says here in verse 8 that Saul was very wroth of this.
The saying displeased him.
And he said, they have ascribed unto David ten thousands,
and to me they have ascribed a thousands.
And what can he have more but the kingdom and Saul?
I, David from that David from that day and forward.
So what we see here is the life of someone who is envious, proud,
confused.
Maybe it's a typical overreaction seen in the proud, the
arrogant, the insecure, if you will.
That's what we're looking for.
Insecure.
Saul could have thought in this moment, well, David has done
well.
He killed Goliath.
I've set him out over the, the men of war.
He's going out, he's fighting battles for me.
This is good for David.
This is the man that I hire.
This is the man that I got.
This is exactly what I want him to do.
He'll get his glory today.
He deserves it.
I'll continue serving the Lord, and then I'll have that praise
and popularity one day.
But that's, that's just not the attitude that comes out for Saul.
Instead, he overreacts and it says, now what more can he have but
the kingdom?
There's that insecurity that happens.
There's that insecurity that happens in the mind of those who
compare.
Saul shows us the poison of comparison.
Ever heard of that?
Comparison is the thief of Jordan.
Start comparing yourself with what you have or with what someone
else has.
It's a thief of joy.
Yeah, I can do this, but they can do so much better than me.
And the mindset is completely wrong.
It is a poison.
But in this, there's also another dynamic work in the life
of Saul.
And that's lastly, a guilty conscience.
He knows.
He remembers the prophet Samuel telling him, the Lord has
rejected you from being king over Israel.
Saul knew his sin had disqualified him from being king.
And he was hanging on the throne by a thread, by the energy
of his flesh, what he could do.
He was hanging on to the throne.
An honorable man may would have sat down.
But if Saul was an honorable man, he wouldn't be in the mess to
begin with.
Instead, Saul constantly worked.
Is today the day?
I don't know about you.
I've.
I've lived like that in different ways.
Have you ever lived your life looking over your shoulder, just
waiting for judgment to come?
Living your life waiting for that one person to finally notice?
You know, it's kind of like when you go back to your hometown
and you try to go into the Walmart and you see.
You're just hoping you don't see your high school friends or the
people that you used to see.
You just don't want to see them.
Is anyone else in here like that?
Am I the only one that's like that?
I don't want to see those people anymore.
Those are bridge chiefs that I have one person who agrees with me.
Those are bridges that have been long burned.
They burned them.
I don't want to say.
I just want to get in, buy my milk and then leave.
That overlooking of the shoulder can come from many different
reasons in your life.
In the life of Saul, it was the guilty conscience.
It was the understanding that God has decreed that I am no longer.
But how serious was he?
Surely he is serious.
When is that day going to come?
And as David begins to rise in popularity, as Saul says, sees and
fears, we'll see later on.
He had the anointing of God on his life and that was the indicator
for Saul.
He realized, this is it.
This is the person that I've been waiting.
The day has come that I have feared for so long.
God is finally going to take the kingdom from my hands.
And this, you can think of it.
Saul's like 45, maybe 50 years old.
It's like this boy is coming to take my place.
How dare you.
Just see the hate, the rage building.
And Saul, we see the rage building us all in the next few verses
of this.
But the poison that is seeping through.
Saul.
Saul, you can write a novel, a dark novel about the character of
Saul.
The poison that is raging in this king's mind, the hate that he
began to have for David.
And yet this man was someone that he would have admired in any
other circumstance.
He would have delighted to have this person as one of his servants
in any other circumstance.
And yet the knowledge that God is with this person and this person
is probably going to take my place, that just destroyed Saul.
And we see David, who's in the position of receiving such praise,
his response in all this, it says that in verse number 14, David
behaved himself wisely in all his ways.
Though pride could have entered in, David handled this situation
wise.
And so that is where we see the three characters in this book,
if you will, really come to.
Really come to the surface.
We see Jonathan surrendering to what God has done and what God
is doing.
We see David just stewarding what God had done in his life and
had commanded him to do.
And then we see Saul resisting what God was doing with every fiber
of his being.
We see these people and we have to ask ourselves, where are
we at?
Where do we fit at?
Because, no, you don't have a king that is trying to kill you today,
perhaps.
No, you don't have someone who is usurping your position and taking
what, by all rights should technically be your position.
Maybe that's not it.
And no, maybe you don't have some whippersnapper coming up and
taking something out of your hands because of your dumb deeds.
Maybe that's not your situation.
But God still is changing things in our life.
God is still directing.
God is still moving.
The questions that we have to ask ourselves is, what do you do
when the will of God does change your position in such a way?
What do you do whenever your life goes pop?
What do you do whenever what your plans that you may have so meticulously
laid out?
What do you do when those things just fall apart and things
don't go your way?
That is the question that we have to ask ourselves tonight.