Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - David’s Friend

Episode Date: May 28, 2025

The friendship between Jonathan and David is rightly famous. Because we have so much information about the life of David, the narrative arcs are long. So to follow David’s friendship with Jonathan, you have to see it over multiple passages. We’re going to look at four passages in 1 Samuel to see what the Bible tells us about the importance of friendship.  From the friendship of David and Jonathan we can learn 1) the absolute importance of friendship, 2) the necessary elements of friendship, and 3) the requisite power for friendship. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on May 17, 2015. Series: David: The Man of Prayer. Scripture: 1 Samuel 18:1-4. Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

Welcome to the Gospel in Life podcast. This month we've put together a special set of sermons from the nearly three decades that Tim Keller preached at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City. While this month's sermons cover a variety of scripture passages and topics, each message points to one central truth, the gospel can change every aspect of your life. After you listen to today's teaching, we invite you to go online to GospelInLife.com and sign up for our email updates. When you sign up, you'll receive our quarterly journal and other valuable gospel-centered

resources. Subscribe today at GospelInLife.com. A reading from first Samuel chapters 18, 19, 20, and 23. As soon as he had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. And Saul took him that day and would not let him return to his father's house. Then Jonathan made a covenant with David because he loved him as his own soul. And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was on him

and gave it to David and his armor and even his sword and his bow and his belt. And Jonathan spoke well of David to Saul, his father, and said to him, Let not the king sin against his servant David because he has not sinned against you, and because his deeds have brought good to you. For he took his life in his hand, and he struck down the Philistine, and the Lord worked a great salvation for all Israel.

You sought and rejoiced. Why then will you sin against innocent blood by killing David without cause? And Saul listened to the voice of Jonathan. Saul swore, as the Lord lives, he shall not be put to death. And Jonathan called David and Jonathan reported to him all these things. And Jonathan brought David to Saul, and he was in his presence as before. And Jonathan gave his weapons to his boy and said to him, Go and carry them to the city. And as soon as the boy had gone, 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, David weeping the most. Then Jonathan said to David, Go in peace, because we have sworn both of us in the name of the Lord, saying, The Lord shall be between me and you, and between my offspring and your offspring forever. And he rose and departed, and Jonathan went into the city. David saw that Saul had come out to seek his life. David was in the wilderness of Ziph at Horesh and Jonathan Saul's son rose and went to David at Horesh and strengthened his hand in God. And he said to him, do not fear for the hand of Saul my father

shall not find you. You shall be king over Israel, and I shall be next to you. Saul, my father, also knows this. And the two of them made a covenant before the Lord. David remained at Horesh, and Jonathan went home. The word of the Lord. We're looking at the life of David, and the life of David's a little bit of a challenge for a preacher because we have more information in the Bible about the life of David than

about any other figure. So we have all this material, and if you're going to follow, therefore the narrative arcs are longer in this part of the Bible than normally. So if you're going to follow out David's relationship with Saul or David's relationship with Jonathan or anything like that, you've got these multiple texts. And so we did something a little unusual today and we gave you four texts.

And we're going to show you how they tell us about the rightly famous friendship between Jonathan and David. And what these texts here, and what the Bible tells us about the importance of friendship. So let's take a look at what we learned from the relationship of David to Jonathan

about the absolute importance of friendship, about the constituent elements of it, what is it made of, and the power requisite for friendship. So the absolute importance of it, what is it made of, and the power requisite for friendship. So the absolute importance of it, the necessary elements of it, and then the requisite power in order to be a friend and to have friends.

So to start with the absolute importance, let me just trace out these four texts. Essentially, right after David slays Goliath, you can see at the very beginning here, this is the first verse of chapter 18, chapter 17, is about David slaying Goliath. Jonathan perceived that God had anointed David as the great future leader.

He had anointed David to be the king after Jonathan's father, King Saul. So, Jonathan perceived that God had chosen David to be the future after Jonathan's father, King Saul. So, Jonathan perceived that God had chosen David to be the future king, not Jonathan. And he accepted that, he recognized it, he accepted that by taking off his robe, that was essentially the same thing as giving David his crown. But then, during the next few,

we're not quite sure how long, but the next couple of years, David lived in Saul's house. He lived in the royal court. And while Jonathan perceived that God had anointed David, and Jonathan loved that, Saul also perceived it, and he hated it. And he envied David, and he became murderous. And during the time in which David was staying with Saul,

Jonathan did everything he could essentially to constantly protect and save David from his father Saul. You see the second snatch there in chapter 19 shows a place where Jonathan was successful and he turned Saul's heart back toward David. And he calls David and Jonathan reported him all these things and Jonathan brought David to Saul, he was in his presence as before.

But then chapter 20 tells about a time in which he failed. Saul had invited David to a feast, Jonathan goes there and recognizes that if David had made it, he didn't make it, Saul would have killed him. So through his, the little boy who fetches his arrow during target practice, Jonathan signals to David it's not safe to come. And then finally the last passage is in chapter 23, the last time David and Jonathan ever see each other. They renew their covenant of friendship and after that, Jonathan follows his father, Saul, into a very, very ill advice and foolish military action on Mount Gilboa where

Saul and Jonathan and his brothers are killed. And that's the narrative arc of the friendship. Now, what do we learn? One commentator, Eugene Peterson wrote a commentary on First Second Saving, and one commentator, Peterson, says, what's interesting is, notice in chapter 18, at the beginning of 18, Saul and David and Jonathan make a covenant, a friendship. Then down in verse 23, chapter 23, they make another covenant,

they renew the covenant. This is the most dangerous time in David's life. He's young, he's vulnerable, he's still in court, Saul's out to kill him over and over again, back and forth. It's the most dangerous time of David's life. And what Peterson says is that Jonathan's friendship with David brackets the evil. Now literally, it's true in that the most dangerous time is bracketed by a covenant of friendship here and a covenant of friendship

here in chapter 18 to chapter 23. But what Peterson is saying is it's Jonathan's friendship that contained the evil. That the only reason why David survived was because of his friendship with Jonathan. The only reason he got through the most dangerous and perilous time in his life was his friendship with Jonathan. And there is a place in Proverbs 17 where it says, a friend loves at all times and a brother is born for adversity. Now here's the first point.

You can't get through adversity without friends, the Bible says. You'll never get through adversity without friends, the Bible says. You'll never get through your hardest times without friends and you'll never get through life without adversity and therefore you'll never get through life without friends. You've got to have friends. You say, well wait a minute, if you mean friends is what gets you through suffering

and difficulty and danger, what about brothers and sisters, what about siblings, What about spouses? And the answer is, yeah. But the only spouses and siblings that get you through times of suffering are ones who are also friends. Sexual chemistry's not going to get you through times like this. Having common hobbies and having a lot of fun together,

when people say, oh, I love her, I want to marry her, you know, it's great sexual chemistry, have a lot of hobbies having a lot of fun together. When people say, oh, I love her, I want to marry her, you know, it's great sexual chemistry, have a lot of hobbies, a lot of, there better be more to it than that. What gets you through these tough times is friendship, whether pure friends or family members or spouses who are also friends. Without friendship, you will never get through adversity.

Without friendship, you'll never get through adversity. Without friendship you'll never get through life. And if you say why, I can give you a good theological answer briefly. Go back to the Garden of Eden. One of the most important aspects of the teaching of Genesis chapter two is that when Adam is in the garden and everything's perfect, he's in paradise, and there's no sin,

there's nothing wrong with the world, it says it's not good that Adam be alone. He's lonely, and God makes a companion for him, Eve. Now usually, especially today in our time, period, in our time and moment, when people look at Genesis 2, they immediately look at what are the implications of God making Eve for Adam, what are the implications for sex, what are the implications for gender, what are the implications for marriage,

but I'd like to give you the most basic implication. Here's the most basic implication. Even the Garden of Eden wasn't enough without friendship. Even the Garden of Eden, even paradise, wasn't enough until Adam had a friend. Why? Because we're made in the image of God, and I know this boggles everybody's mind,

the Christianity teaches that God is tri-personal. God is Father, Son, Holy Spirit. God is three persons in one God, loving and knowing each other and delighting each other in relationship from all eternity. And that means because Adam was made in the image of God, even when he was perfect, even when there was no sin in his life,

even when there was nothing wrong with the world, he was lonely. See, to be lonely is not to be imperfect, it's to be like God. Because he was built, he was made in the image of God. Even the Garden of Eden isn't enough without friends. And without friends, you'll never get through life. You see the absolute importance of it.

And by the way, my most favorite, and it's, you know, it's, yeah, kitschy, but my favorite example of this important principle is the 1935 movie, The Bride of Frankenstein. Yeah. Where Boris Karloff, playing the monster, is being hunted, of course, and he goes into the forest, and in the forest he finds a cottage,

and in the cottage there's just one old blind man, one old poor blind man. And of course, when the monster comes into the cottage, the blind man can't see how horrible he is, so he's not afraid of him, but the blind man also perceives that whoever this person is that's just coming to his cottage can't speak. And he says, are you afflicted?

I cannot see and you cannot speak. Are we both afflicted? And then he says, maybe we could be friends. And he gets down on his knees and he says, oh Lord, I thank thee that you have finally answered my prayers and sent me a friend to comfort me in my terrible loneliness. And of course the monster's rather lonely too,

everybody's trying to kill him. And over the next period of time, it's a short episode in the movie, but of course the blind man not being able to see him starts to befriend him and feed him and talk to him and play music for him, and the monster having never experienced anything but hostility, starts to soften and actually starts to begin

to use some English words, begin to speak a little bit, and then of course the hunters find him, go in, they see him, and they burn down the cottage, and he goes lurching off into the woods saying, friend, friend, what's the point? There's nothing more humanizing than friendship. In fact, it's very theologically right. If we're made in the image of God

and the image of a triumphant God, you're never going to become fully human without friends. You'll never make it through life without friends. You'll never become all you ought to be without friends. So there's the absolute necessity of friendship. So secondly, what is it? All right, of friendship. So secondly, what is it? Alright, if it's that important, what is it? And actually, Jonathan and David here,

and of course other parts of the Bible, which I'm going to keep referring to, tell us what those elements are. There's really three, there's two and a third. And I'm going to call them constancy, transparency, and sympathy, though when we get to sympathy, you'll see I'm using that word more literally. It's not quite what you think.

Constancy, transparency, and sympathy. First, constancy. Jonathan and David make a covenant with each other. Now that's not the norm, a formal covenant, by the way kids very often do that, you know that. Kids they say you want to be my friend they often do something in which they make a kind of covenant. It's not the norm and it's not necessary. However it gets across the idea that friendship is covenantal. In other words a friend is not a user. A user is conditional.

A friendship is unconditional. So for example, my wife and I have lived the same place for over 25 years and right practically across the street is a Gristiti's store. And we have a friendly relationship with the Gristiti's store. They know who we are and we're friendly to them and they sometimes do deliveries for us and we're very nice to each other and that's very nice. But you know, it says in Proverbs 18, what is a friend? Proverbs 18 says, there's a friend that sticketh closer than a brother. You stick. And one thing I know that the Christides, and we know too, they know and we know,

that we are under no obligation to stick with them no matter how bad their products get or how high their prices get. We actually have a user relationship with them. We're friendly, but that doesn't mean we're friends. A user relationship always has a cost benefit little calculator connected to it. It's always going.

When you're in a user relationship, you're always calculating. Is this worth it? Am I getting more out of this than I'm putting into it? That's a user relationship. And you know, economic relationships are user relationships and they do not expect us to stay sticking to them no matter how badly they serve us, they know that. But friendships should be different,

and I must tell you, over the years, as a pastor here, I've had person after person over the years that I've talked to who, in New York City, thought they had a lot more friends than they really did. They had a lot of users. See, we network here. We hang out here. And we usually network and hang out with people

that we think are helpful to us. Sometimes it's pretty overtly calculating. We know that these people have the ability to open doors for us. These people have connections. Sometimes it's actually a little bit more implicit. You are smart enough and cool enough and hip enough and good looking enough that hanging out with you

makes me feel better about myself. That's more implicitly calculating. But the point is, I've talked to many people over the years that thought they had friends and when they lost their position or when their own life became trouble enough that what they needed from the people around them was a lot more input.

And they weren't going to be giving those people a whole lot of output because they were hurting. Suddenly the little calculators, little cost-benefit calculators went off and people just started to just avoid them and they realized they didn't have the friends they thought. A friend sticks. A friend sticketh is the old King James version of Proverb 18 verse 24 I think it is. A friend sticketh closer than a brother. God has worked through Tim Keller's teaching to help countless people discover Christ's redemptive love and grow in their faith as they learn how the gospel is the key to every aspect of life.

This month, we're featuring a brand new book by author Matt Smethurst titled, Tim Keller on the Christian Life. In it, he distills biblical insights from Tim Keller's nearly 50 years of sermons, books, and conference messages, including each of the sermons we've highlighted on the podcast this month. The book explores foundational theological themes from Tim Keller's work, like grace, idolatry, justice, prayer, suffering, and more.

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of today's teaching. Jonathan was constant with David to the point of sacrifice, we'll get back to that. So first of all, constancy. Friends never let you down. A brother is a friend loves at all times, Proverbs 17, 17. But secondly, transparency. Now you see this in Jonathan and David

because it says, when it talks about the soul, then Jonathan made a covenant with David and he loved him as his own soul. Twice it says that. Now to love someone with your soul is an image, most of the commentators say it's a metaphor for transparency. You're letting a person into your soul. You're letting a person see your soul. And transparency means vulnerability. Transparency means letting in. You know, if you look at transparency and constancy,

friends always let you in and never let you down. They always let you in. They're vulnerable, they're open. They never let you down. Now you say, what do you mean by transparency? What do you mean open? Well, let me give you four ways. Four ways that real friends, not users,

but real friends are open to each other. One is they're open about their feelings. You know, it's, there's a number of places in the Bible, you know, like Acts 20, where Paul was saying goodbye to the Ephesian elders, and you have all these men weeping and kissing each other, and here you again have men weeping and kissing each other. And I read an interesting commentator some years ago

that said, what's interesting, back in ancient times when men really were warriors, I mean they really were warriors, they were always actually out there with their life on the line, could be killed any time. They were actually going out into the forest hunting and having to kill wild beasts with little more than their bare hands, back when men really were warriors,

they didn't need to keep up a front of being tough. When men knew they were tough, they didn't have to worry, they could just weep and be open with their feelings. Today we don't know we're tough and so we're afraid to. Friends are open with their feelings. Secondly, friends are open also, by the way, with their common life. You don't dress up for a friend.

In fact, you must not dress up for a friend. And what that means is you've got to let friends into your common life, into your daily life, into your regular life, and that means that takes time. You've got to open up your schedule to your friend. You have to open up your feelings to your friend. Thirdly, you have to open up decisions to your friend. What do I mean by that? Sometimes you think your feelings to your friend. Thirdly, you have to open up decisions to your friend. What do I mean by that?

Sometimes you think a person's your friend and then you realize the person's made a major decision and hadn't even talked to you about it. Then that person's actually been a user, not a friend. You say, well wait a minute, don't I have the right to make my own decisions? Yes, of course, in the end. But if you're not willing before you make that decision

to be open with your friend about your motives, about the values you're probably using in order to make the decision. See, if you're not willing to take counsel, if you're not willing to get advice, if you're not willing to be open before you make that decision, what that shows is you're not transparent.

Your arms are not open to your friend. You're a user. You are managing what they see of you. And lastly, you need to be open not only but with your feelings, with your time and common life, with your decisions, but also with your flaws. Ultimately, if you tell somebody you think is your friend about a problem they have in their life

or some place where they need to change, and they say, I'm out of here, that person was a user, that person was using you, as long as cost benefit, but now, uh-oh, cost. I'm out of here. And now this great verse, which is one of the great verses of the Bible, is I think Hebrews 3.13,

where it says, exhort one another daily, lest you be hardened by the deceitfulness of your sin. See, on the one hand, it says, our sin deceives us. You can't see your biggest flaws and problems. But on the other hand, it says, you should have a group of people around you who every day are talking to you about your flaws, and that doesn't probably mean literally every day, but who would those people be? They have to be friends. They have to be people that

are, they can't be colleagues. They have to be people that you in a sense have deputized to talk about that. And you know, Proverbs 27, 5 says, faithful are the wounds of a friend, But Proverbs 27, five says, faithful are the wounds of a friend, but an enemy multiplies kisses. Now we know we're really into transparency. Now we know we're into friendship. When we're willing to wound each other and take it. See, that's the reason why the Frankenstein monster

starts to become more human. Because there's nothing that changes you more than friendship. And don't forget, transparency and constancy. The constancy is necessary to get you through the suffering of life. You've got to have friends who are there. But the transparency is what will actually help you

change and become who you're meant to be. Otherwise you won't. You'll be blind, you'll be deceived by your sin. So transparency and constancy. Friends, always let you in, never let you down. But there's one more, and it's important. I said sympathy, partly so the three things could be remembered, you know,

transparency, constancy, and sympathy. But I'm using the word, literally, you know what the word simpathos means? Common passions. What makes you a friend, at bottom, something you can't create, something you must discover, did you hear that? You can't create this, you can only discover it, is to find someone with a common passion, a common vision, and crucial foundational common belief. C.S. Lewis in his famous chapter on friendship

in the four loves says the essence of friends, or friendship, I think he means this, friendships start when one person says to the other, you too? I've read all those same books and I love them too. Really? That happened to me when I was a child too. It did. So that's how friendship starts.

Some common vision, some shared historical experience, some common passion, some common belief. And you say, does that mean friendships, friends have to be people who agree on everything? Oh no, as a matter of fact, the opposite. It's when two people become friends because they have something in common, some incredible passion in common, and that brings you together as friends.

They'll always be different in other ways. And because of that common passion, you will actually listen to your friend's views on areas that you don't agree with. And people you would never listen to otherwise you'll listen to your friend. And it expands your mind. The best way to become broad-minded is to have friends on whom you really agree on basics. That's the best way. And that's the reason why Lewis at one point, CS Lewis says, by the way, Jonathan and David both

loved the God of Israel and wanted the prosperity of the nation. They had that common purpose even though it meant that Jonathan had to abdicate. There's one place where CS Lewis says in that chapter, that is why those pathetic people who simply want friends, quote unquote, can never have any. The very conditions of having friends is that we would want something else besides friends.

If the truthful answer to the question, do you see the same truth, is I don't care about the truth, I just want you to be my friend. No real friendship can arise. There would be nothing for the friendship to be about. Those who have nothing can share nothing. Those who are going nowhere can have no fellow travelers. And that's actually how friendship happens.

Did you see this? Sympathy, transparency, and constancy. Sympathy means you discover somebody who's got a common passion with you. And then you can't create that, you can only discover that. But then you must add transparency and constancy. Letting them in, not letting them down.

So if you add transparency and constancy to this layer of common passion and sympathy, you've got a friend and you can't live without a friend. So finally, how do we get the power to got a friend and you can't live without a friend. So finally, how do we get the power to be a friend and how do we get the power to conduct friendships? Because let's face it, these things are hard. Transparency, always letting people in. Do you really want people to look inside?

You know if a full transcript of all of your thoughts of the last two days was suddenly put out on the internet, end of your life of the last two days was suddenly put out on the internet. End of your life, you know? So you really want, you want to let people in, transparency? It's not easy. Never let you down. That's hard to do too, that's hard to give too, because of course that costs a lot.

That costs a whole lot to be faithful to a friend when they're going through adversity. So where do you get the strength to do that? Well you can look at Jonathan, and you can see one of the things that's amazing about Jonathan was he was covenantal. He was a non-user in all of his relationships. See on the one hand it would have been very easy

to side with his father against David, have David killed and get the throne. But it would also have been easy to side with David against his father in such a way that he overthrew his father or assassinated his father. That happened all the time in those days. And then Jonathan could have been prime minister and he would have made out pretty well. But it was because Jonathan was absolutely faithful, constant, to both David and his father, because he was loyal to both as the reason why he died.

Does he remind you of anybody dying for his friends? In John chapter 15, David says that, Jesus Christ says this to his disciples, I no longer call you servants because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends. For everything that I learned from my father,

I have made known to you. Greater love is no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. David was saved through Jonathan's sacrificial friendship. And you can only be saved through Jesus' sacrificial friendship. He saved you through his friendship. How so?

Friends always let you in and never let you down. Jesus Christ, look how vulnerable he made himself. Jesus Christ, his arms are open to you. More than that, they're nailed open. How much more vulnerable do you want somebody to be? So friends always let you in, but also they never let you down. And when Jesus Christ was on the cross, I mean, they were over and over, there were

places where Jesus says, any moment I could snap my fingers and legions of angels would come, and my suffering would be over. But Jesus Christ looks down from the cross, he sees people denying him, betraying him, mocking him, forsaking him, and in the greatest act of love in the history of the world, he stayed. He stayed on the cross. He was constant. He was a true friend. Now, do you believe that?

Do you not just see Jesus Christ dying on the cross in general for people, but for you? Do you see that you're saved by that friendship? If you do, his transparency can become the basis for your transparency and his constancy can become the basis for your constancy. See, for example, what does it take to really be transparent to somebody? You've got to know your sins are forgiven. You've got to know that God sees all the way into the bottom of your heart and he sees all the stuff and he forgives it. And then it doesn't bother you so much

when other people see some things that aren't very, very flattering. And therefore it's Jesus' radical transparency that saved you so you could be forgiven. It's the basis for your transparency. And then on the other hand, it's Jesus' constancy that can be the basis for your constancy. Look at Jesus Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane.

He's seeing, he said, please don't fall asleep on me, and they fall asleep on him, and he dies for them anyway. Why? He's a friend, and he's actually dying for you, because you and I have fallen asleep on him. We always do, and you have to say, oh dear Savior, oh my friend, if you'd laid down your life for me,

when I was not giving you what I should have given you, when you lay down your life for me, when I was letting you down, I can lay down my life now for others, and be their friends. Look, we are all like that monster, Look, we are all like that monster, groping through the forest saying, if I could just find the friend my heart longs for, I could be all that I should be.

If I could only find the friend my heart longs for, then I could come into my own. Well, you looking for that friend? Here he is. Let's pray. Our Father, we ask that Jesus' saving friendship could be the basis for us to make one another friends. Friends to our neighbors,

friends to our brothers and sisters. Oh Lord, how exciting it is that Christians can become friends because they share the common vision and passion and experience of salvation through Jesus Christ in spite of all the other differences in our lives and that friendship can be, those friendships can be so transforming. But it's also possible for us to be friends

with people who don't share our beliefs. Father, turn us into a radically friendly people. Turn us into people that don't use, but befriend. And we will be different, and we will attract people to your glory and ultimately to your son, Jesus Christ, through whose friendship we now live. It's in His name that we pray. Amen.

Thanks for listening to today's teaching. It's our prayer that you were encouraged by it and that it helps you apply the wisdom of God's Word to your life. For more resources from Tim Keller, visit GospelInLife.com. There you can also subscribe to the Gospel In Life newsletter to receive free articles, sermons, devotionals, and other helpful resources. Again, it's all at GospelInLife.com. You can also stay connected with us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter.

Today's sermon was recorded in 2015. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel in Life podcast were recorded between 1989 and 2017 while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.