A Heart Like Jonathan Series

HEART TALKS:

A Heart Like Jonathan

(Friendship)

1 Samuel 20

Long before there was a Batman and Robin,

long before there was Calvin and Hobbes,

long before there was Tom and Huck,

Charlie Brown and Snoopy,

Bert and Ernie,

Ren and Stimpy,

Beavis and Butthead,

there were two friends

whose friendship was so strong,

so loving,

so loyal,

so perfect

that it has become the standard for measuring all friendships.

Long before the Fresh Prince & Jazzy Jeff,

long before Pinky & the brain,

long before there was Simba & Nala,

there was Jonathan and David.

Jonathan was the original Fresh Prince, in a way;

his father was the king,

he was a “golden boy,”

an accomplished warrior,

a respected leader,

the heir to the throne.

David was the youngest son, not of a king, but of a shepherd named Jesse;

he and Jonathan probably became friends sometime after David defeated the giant Goliath, probably after David came to the palace as a court musician to the king, Jonathan’s father.

Their friendship is the kind of friendship everyone of us--male or female- really longs for in our heart of hearts;

they were close friends,

each one devoted to the other.

They probably finished each other’s sentences,

and absorbed each other’s mannerisms.

It was probably one of those friendships where they were just as comfortable sitting in silence as they were talking and laughing together.

That’s the kind of friendship we all want,

especially as we become teens and young adults.

We want friends

who will laugh with us and cry with us;

We want friends

who know our faults and love us anyway;

We want friends

who will accept us

and understand us

and challenge us

and stick by us.

We want friends like Jonathan,

especially in these crucial years of high school,

as our relationships with our parents are changing,

and we’re coming to the realization that fulfillment now involves more than pleasing Mom and Dad;

it involves developing and deepening other relationships,

relationships that will assume ever-increasing importance as we move out of our teens and into adulthood.

And a key relationship

during the coming years of your lives

is going to be your friendships,

particularly your closest friendships,

and it’s so important for your continued growth and fulfillment

that you find a friend like Jonathan. . . .

That kind of friendship is like a flawless diamond or a string of perfect pearls--

it is rare. . . . and priceless.

But how can you find a friend like Jonathan?

I mean, after all,

there aren’t many real princes left, you know?

Well, let me begin my answer to that question by asking you to turn to 1 Samuel chapter 20,

because I am fully convinced that

if you truly want to develop a friendship like the one that David and Jonathan shared,

if you truly want to find a friend like Jonathan,

then you need, more than anything else, to cultivate a heart like Jonathan’s heart. . . .

You’ve probably heard that old saying that, if you want to have a friend, you’ve gotta be a friend. Well, it’s true; if you want to find a friend like Jonathan, you’ve gotta cultivate a heart like Jonathan.

And 1 Samuel 20 will help us understand just what that will mean.

So, let’s look at that 20th chapter of 1 Samuel, and in that story of Jonathan’s love for David, we’ll be alert for the four characteristics of Jonathan’s heart that will, if you cultivate those characteristics in your own heart and in your friendships, help you experience that rare and priceless degree of friendship that few people ever know.

So let’s get started. Look at 1 Samuel 20, and I’ll read aloud verses 1-4:

Then David fled from Naioth at Ramah and went to Jonathan and asked, "What have I done? What is my crime? How have I wronged your father, that he is trying to take my life?"

"Never!" Jonathan replied. "You are not going to die! Look, my father doesn’t do anything, great or small, without confiding in me. Why should he hide this from me? It’s not so!"

But David took an oath and said, "Your father knows very well that I have found favour in your eyes, and he has said to himself, `Jonathan must not know this or he will be grieved.’ Yet as surely as the LORD lives and as you live, there is only a step between me and death."

Jonathan said to David, "Whatever you want me to do, I’ll do for you."

Those four verses reveal a key characteristic of Jonathan’s heart that made him such an incredible friend to David, and that is:

I Loyalty

Jonathan was the prince, man, he was next in line to the throne of Israel!