True Friendship

• Welcome to [music] this weekend’s InTouch podcast with Charles Stanley. Social media has redefined what it means to be a friend. But today’s podcast [music] points to a different description of true friendship with a look at one of the most beautiful relationships in all [music] the Bible. >> 1st Samuel 18.
• I want to read want us to read the first four verses 1- of chapter 18. And you’ll recall at this point, David has just uh killed uh Goliath. And standing out there with the army somewhere uh was Jonathan. And the scripture says in verse one, “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. And Saul took him that day and would let him go no more home to his father’s house, that is the Jesse. 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 and his garments even to his sword and to his bow and to his girdle.
• Now tonight I want to talk about uh genuine friendship and I want to talk about the three aspects that are involved in true friendship. And if I should ask you tonight, how many of you have at least one genuine I mean absolutely genuine super friend? How many of you could raise your hand? All right, some of you could, but half the people in here could not. Well, let me ask you this.
• How many of you think you’ve ever been one of those absolutely super genuine friends to someone else? Less people could raise their hand. The reason all of us couldn’t raise our hand the first time is because a few of us could raise our hand the second time. Because in order to have a friend, the Bible says we must show ourselves friendly.
• And what I’d like to do is to take you through this aspect of David and Jonathan’s life because it is a beautiful concept of friendship. And I think there are three things that are absolutely essential to any genuine friendship. So, I want you to get a pencil out in case you want a friend or if you want to be a friend to somebody and keep your Bible open because I want us to go right through these scriptures here to see what are those three qualities that are found in genuine true friendship.
• And it may be that uh as you uh examine these scriptures tonight, you might have to ask yourself the question, have you ever been a real friend to someone? Now, all of us talk about our friends, but there are different levels of friends. There are many of them out there, how’s the weather? How you doing? Come by to see me, glad to see you at church kind of a deal.
• But that’s not true friendship. Then there are those over here that we talk to a little bit more often and and say a little bit more intimate things. And then there are a few more up here. But then there’s just such a just a very very few maybe one or two up here real close where you can open your heart, bear your whole soul to that person.