Michael Youssef - Closer Than a Brother
Everything I read of late indicates that we live in a time when genuine friendship, becoming rare. The level of loneliness has been so on the increase, and social media that's supposed to help us is making it worse. True, lasting loyalty and friendship is becoming few and far between. I mean, read the statistics and I'm not just building on statistics, and that's why I thank God for the light in this place. Today, most relationships are built on self-interest. What can I get out of it, not what I can give to it. And that is why the story of a genuine, godly, selfless friendship between Prince Jonathan and young David is truly an uplifting, encouraging story.
I want you to think about this with me, okay? Jonathan was the oldest son of King Saul. Jonathan was King Saul's heir apparent. Jonathan was Israel's future king. Jonathan was the crown prince of Israel. I want you to think about this because this is not just an ordinary friendship, this is not just ordinary loyalty and commitment. And yet, when Jonathan saw God's hand of anointing to be on David, he gladly submitted to him. When Prince Jonathan recognized God's anointed man, he committed himself to him. Jonathan's deep spiritual sensitivity led him to humble himself before God's anointed. Think of how easy it was for David, this newly proclaimed hero.
How easy for him to feel cocky, arrogant, contemptuous, and declare himself to be the wonder kid. But none of that happened with David. None of that. Why? Because David's faith was in God. David's trust was in God. David comforter came from God and because he knew that his courage is not of his own, but from God, and God gave favor to David with all of the people and with the crown prince Jonathan, but he did not have a favor with the king, Saul. In fact, Saul wanted to kill David instead of thanking him for saving his hide. The God who calls you to a task is the God who will equip you for the task. The God who called you to a task is the very God who will use you, even uses inconceivable people and events, to fulfill his purpose for you to accomplish the task that he called you to do.
Please understand. Do not undermine God's favor in your life. Please do not minimize God's favor in your life. Please do not take God's favor for granted and think that all of your blessings and all of your successes are due to you and to your ingenuity. Why am I saying this? Because when you understand this favor, when you comprehend this favor, when you appreciate deeply, continuously, that favor of God is gonna keep you humble before God. The reason David's courage and victory never turned into contempt is because he knew that the Lord is my shepherd. See, when you do not only believe but also practice and wholeheartedly live in the fact that God is the source of all of your blessings, he is the giver of every success you have, you're not gonna despise yourself. You're just gonna praise God.
David's success was great success by any standards. David recognized that his success, that his victory, was of the Lord, through the Lord, and to the glory of the Lord. I want to show you how easy it was for David, so easy, to feel enamored. You know what I mean by that? Enamored by Prince Jonathan's recognition of his success. Man, even the Prince Jonathan took off his princely robe with his armor and gave it to David. You know what Prince Jonathan is doing here? You know what he's doing? He was taking off the insignia of his princely life in the palace. He was taking off the armor of his profession as a warrior. He was taking off whatever rights and privileges he had as a prince, as a crown prince, and willingly surrendering it to God's anointed.
This is enormous in the context of the day. Someone said, "What's the big deal"? It's a big deal. Trust me. When Jonathan gave David his sword and his bow, these were the weapons that represented his responsibility as the second in command in the palace of the king. Not only that, but Prince Jonathan also gave David his belt.
Now you gotta understand. This belt, this is just, it's not a leather belt that he just took off and handed it to him. This is the most prized possession for a wealthy warrior because, in the belts, they stored, these rich warriors kept their money and their treasure. And that belt represented Prince Jonathan's wealth. It doesn't matter how many times you say, "I love God, I love Jesus". It doesn't matter. You can say it all day long. Without sharing your blessing that he has given you, it's all talk. Without opening your treasure house and your treasure box and giving back to God's anointed Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ, all of the sanctimonious talk will be just that: talk.
Back to David. After victory over Goliath, every poll in the land showed that if David runs for office, he would get 90% of the vote. That's right, Gallup did it. You say, "Well, how come"? Well, not only did the crown prince gave him allegiance and paid him homage and loyalty, but David became extremely popular. He really, he became very popular with the masses. Ah, but that comes at a price. That comes at a price. Dear old King Saul, he sees all of this and he gets totally bent out of shape, to put it mildly. So what does he do? You know the saying, "Keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer"? That's what he did. He kept him in the palace and he kept him under the thumb. One day, King Saul and David were going to Gibeah.
Now that is 15 miles away from the Valley of Elah where the fighting was taking place, where David slayed Goliath. Fifteen miles away. I mean, you would think that the further away from the battlefield, particularly those days when the news, they did not have radio and television, but the news doesn't spread that fast, but here they are, 15 miles away, and yet people knew what happened in the battlefield. They heard the news as far away as Gibeah. And then, to everyone's surprise, the women in town wrote and composed a song and it was number one hit in all of the charts. It really was. I mean, every disk jockey was playing that song. It was that popular. It went viral on Facebook and Twitter and Youtube, and the song went something like this. No, I'm not gonna sing it. I don't even know the tune.
"Saul has slain his thousands, but David his tens of thousands". How do you think Saul was feeling? Well, you already heard it in the scripture. I think smoke in the eye, sand in the teeth, wouldn't hurt that much than this. So when they arrived to the next town, away from hometown, they found that the souvenir shops selling those T-shirts and David caps with the slogans like "David did it," "I saw David do it," "David has my vote". Replicas of David's sling. Man, I mean, they were in demand. Every kid wanted to have one. Why I'm spending time exaggerating... well, really, I'm not exaggerating. A friend of mine said I'm just blowing it up so you can see it. Why am I doing this? Well, there's a reason for that. It's a reason for that.
I wanna communicate to you as much as you can in the 21st century, the enormity of what the success did for David and for Israel, the enormity also of the anger and the bitterness of King Saul. Twice in chapter 18 of 1 Samuel, can you see them? Twice, Saul's throw his spear at David, wanted to kill him, and twice God saved him. Instead of Saul being grateful to David, Saul wanted to kill him. I know that many of you will understand what I'm going to say. Sometimes, the people that you help the most are the ones who turn on you. What do you do? You go to God. You give him all the glory, and I'm gonna show you here from the life of David.
Remember the last message I told you that fear destroys your abilities, fear destroys your dreams, fear destroys relationships? Here, you see fear blinds Saul, blinds him with insane jealousy, so much so that he wanted to kill the very man who saved the nation. Whenever you experience triumph in your life, remember that. Remember when it comes and remember where you heard it, you heard it from me. Whenever you have a triumph in life, be ready because trouble will follow. Trouble always follows at the heel of triumph. The praise of the women's song gave way to the pain that Saul inflicted on David. The popularity of yesterday led to dodging bullets today.
I wanna tell you, and this is true of life. I know you know that. It's true of life. One day you'll be riding high, and the next, you're having a hard time getting out of bed. One day you're on top of your proverbial world, and then a few days later you're down at the dumps. One of the old puritans put it this way. Listen carefully. "Build not your nest in any earthly tree for the whole forest is doomed to destruction". People can praise you one day and then curse you the next day. That's why people are fickle. People generally are fickle. They can lift you up one day and they can try to pull you down the next. People by nature are fickle. They will flatter you one day and then they will knife you the next. People can thank you one day, ignore you the next. People can honor you one day and then dishonor you the next.
And this was true of Jesus. On Sunday, they said "Hosanna, Hosanna," and then four days later, they said, what? "Crucify, crucify". And that is why the only person that you seek to please with all of your life is Jesus. He never lets you down. He never leaves you nor forsakes you. He will stick to you closer than a brother. His friendship to you is for all of eternity. And there is nothing that you can say or do that makes him stop loving you. Talk about friendship. There is no friend like Jesus, there is no companion like Jesus. There is no comforter like Jesus, there is no lover like Jesus. And when you place your whole affection on Jesus, you will find that people's praise or criticism are equal to you.
And that is why to David, people's praise or Saul's hatred did not embitter his spirit. It didn't embitter his spirit. His courage never gave way to contempt. Please listen to me and take this to heart. When you are in God's protection program, you can be absolutely sure that nothing and no one will touch you or harm you. When you have God's favor, no matter who does what, you are untouchable until God takes you home. When you are enlisted in the army of the living God, your commander in chief will ensure that you are invincible until time to go home. When you have God's anointing, the enemy of your soul might huff and puff, but you stand, amen.
Look at verse 12 with me. Look at verse 12. It's an amazing verse. Underline it, meditate on it. Not just for today or the week or the month, I want you to meditate on it for the rest of your life because it's a powerful verse. "And Saul was afraid of David". Think about this. Why? "Because the LORD was with him, and he departed from Saul". Saul, the king, with all of the regalia and the power of the king, he was afraid of a shepherd boy. Think about it. Now beloved, when you are in with your Lord, you have nothing to fear. Let me repeat that. When you are in with the Lord, you have nothing to fear.
In fact, the very people who hate you, we don't hate anybody, but the very people who may hate you, they will fear you. The very people who plot against you will fear you. The very people who set themselves as your enemies. We don't set ourselves as enemies of anybody, but those who set themselves as your enemies, they will fear you. The very people who resent you, they're actually standing in awe of you. David was contented to wait for God's timing. I wanna repeat that. David was contented to wait for God's timing. I've told you before, and I'm gonna say it till I die because it's my testimony.
Every time I mess up, every time I get into trouble, it is the time when I take matters into my own hands. When I go ahead of the Lord, when I don't wait for his timing, when I don't wait for his program, when I don't seek to serve his purpose in my life, instead of trying to go to business for myself and do things my way. King Herod, powerful king over Judea, was terrified of a peasant by the name of John the Baptist. Why? Because of John the Baptist's blazing integrity. Beloved, listen to me. When you walk in the righteousness of Jesus Christ, even those who do not fear God will fear you. Can you imagine that? And that's really what the text is saying.
And so, when that plan did not work out, Saul came with a second plan, plan B. Second plan to get rid of David is that he reneges in giving his eldest daughter in marriage to David. You remember last time, there were three times, David would ask, you know, what does the promise, the king promise to give the one who kills Goliath? And three times they tell him, you know, get his daughter's hand in marriage and tax holiday for life and fortune. Three things. And the first thing was to have his daughter married to David, but he reneges on that and he wouldn't give him his daughter. Do you know what Saul is doing here? Most likely he wanted to provoke David into mutiny. Most likely he wanted to provoke David into rebellion. He wanted to provoke David and give him the excuse to publicly execute him.
But I want you to notice what David said. Listen to me, this man messed up royally and now we will see that. But listen, listen, this is precious. This is absolutely priceless. "Who am I? Who am I to be considered the king's son-in-law"? The hero, the one for whom everybody is singing. I want to speak to that person who may be just now tempted to take things into their hands. I want to speak to that person who want to settle accounts, his or her way. I want to speak to that person who has moved into the driver's seat and pushed God out into the passenger seat. I want to speak to those who are getting tired of waiting and they want to do something. Wait for God's timing. His plan for your life is far better than you can ever imagine.
And I'm so glad that I can stand here those many years later and testify that my plans were rotten. They would have gotten me dead by now. God's plan is much better. Don't be tempted to sin in your heart because you have waited and God had not answered you yet. Here's the word "yet". Someone here watching around the world might be tempted to make the clock strike before the hour. Are you listening to me? Trust in God's timing, not yours. Do not let your impatience and haste bring you trouble, instead of triumph. Be like Jonathan: Hand over your armor to God's anointed Messiah. Can you do that today? Like Jonathan, hand over your belt, the source of your inner security, give it to Jesus. He'll give you greater security than you ever hope. Like Jonathan, recognize the Savior of your life. Like Jonathan, surrender what you perceive to be yours and just watch out and see what God will do.