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War Buddies | Week 1 · Rewind

Rock Point Church

Pastor Bill Bush · Jan 28, 2018 · 75 min watch · 2 min read

War Buddies | Week 1

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In this message

Big Idea
Key points
Application

Scripture in this message

Proverbs 17:17
1 Samuel 20
1 Samuel 20:30
1 Samuel 23:15
1 Samuel 14
1 Samuel 23:16-17

Big Idea Key points Application

Big Idea

Real friendship — the kind God designed — means having friends who have your back through every battle, just as Jonathan had David's.

Drawing on the friendship of David and Jonathan, this sermon argues that God designed friendship not for peacetime comfort but for adversity. True 'war buddy' friendships — modeled on Jonathan's loyalty to David — require three commitments: staying loyal even when it is costly, rooting for a friend's success even when it is personally painful, and pointing one another toward God's hand in the midst of hardship. Jesus is the ultimate war buddy, and His example calls believers to pursue and cultivate this kind of intentional, covenant friendship in every relationship.

Key points

1
1True friendship is designed for adversity, not just peacetime comfort.
2
2Real friends are loyal even when loyalty is costly.
3
3Real friends root for your success even when it is personally painful, stepping back so you can step forward.
4
4Real friends look for God's hand in your life and encourage you to stay strong in your faith, especially in the wilderness.
5
5Kingdom-minded friendship — not self-focused alliance — is the foundation of the kind of bond God calls us to.
6
6Jesus is the greatest war buddy: He laid down His life for us and calls us to model that sacrificial friendship.

I've never had friends like that again

A story from life

Video clip of Rock Point combat veterans sharing their experiences of bonds forged in war, used to open the series

A story from life

The preacher's father, a World War II, Korea, and Vietnam veteran, and the discovery of his Korean War buddy's post on a veterans' website

Application

The sermon's challenge is both personal and practical: don't settle for a life of acquaintances and fair-weather allies. Examine your closest relationships and ask honestly whether anyone in your life would stay loyal when it costs them something, root for your success even at their own expense, and point you back to God when you're lost in the wilderness. Then ask whether you are that kind of friend to others. The pastor calls listeners to enlist — not drift — into covenant friendships, beginning with the relationships already in front of them: their spouse, their kids, the people in their small group. Jesus modeled the ultimate war-buddy friendship by laying down His life, and that example is the standard. Start by choosing to become the friend you wish you had.

Take it into your week

Made by Rewind AI from the sermon transcript. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

Scripture in this message

From the transcript
“Theme verse of this whole series, Proverbs seventeen seventeen. Here's what it says. A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity”
Read the whole chapter →
From the transcript
“So the first story we're gonna pick up on is is in, first Samuel chapter 20. And what's happening here is David starts to get the idea the tension builds and he starts to realize Saul wants him dead”
From the transcript
“So the party happens. Saul finally goes, hey, where's David? His son tells him and here's what happens. Verse 30, it says, Saul boiled with rage at Jonathan”
From the transcript
“and he talks to him. And here's what he says to him in in chapter 23 starting in verse 15. He says, one day near Horus, David received the news that Saul was on the way to Ziph to search for him and kill him”
From the transcript
“All you have to do is read the rest of the story. Go back to first Samuel 14 and read that. There's a story where where Jonathan has a David and Goliath moment that saves all of Israel too”
From the transcript
“There's one last thing in verse sixteen and seventeen. I jumped over it fast. It says, when Jonathan first talked to David, he said, he encouraged him to stay strong in his faith in God”

Made by Rewind AI from the sermon transcript. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

7-day devotional

A personal reading plan from this message — scripture, reflection, and prayer for each day.

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Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5 Day 6 Day 7

Most of us have plenty of people to grab coffee with when life is good. But the sermon opened with a question that cuts deeper: who shows up when things fall apart? Proverbs 17:17 draws a sharp line — a friend loves at all times, but a brother is born for a time of adversity. That word 'adversity' isn't incidental. It's the point. God didn't design close friendship as a bonus for easy seasons. He designed it as a lifeline for hard ones. Jonathan didn't become David's closest ally during a celebration. Their bond was forged in the shadow of a king who wanted David dead. That's the kind of friendship this proverb is describing — not fair-weather loyalty, but the kind that holds when holding is costly. It's worth sitting with that honestly today. Think about the relationships in your life right now. Are they mostly peacetime friendships — enjoyable, surface-level, built for good weather? There's nothing wrong with those, but the sermon's challenge is not to settle for only those. God has more in mind. He wants you to have at least one person — and to be at least one person — who was made for the hard days. That kind of friendship doesn't just happen. It's chosen, cultivated, and sustained over time.

For reflection

When you think about the hardest season you've walked through, who actually showed up — and what made their presence feel different from everyone else's?

Pray

Pray for honest eyes to see your friendships as they actually are, and for a willing heart to pursue the deeper kind.

Loyalty sounds noble in the abstract. It's much harder when it costs you something real. In 1 Samuel 20, Jonathan doesn't just quietly support David from a distance — he defends him to his father's face, knowing full well what that means. Saul's rage turns on Jonathan himself. The spear thrown in verse 33 makes clear that Jonathan's loyalty to David put his own life at risk. This is not a small moment. Jonathan was the crown prince. Standing with David wasn't a minor inconvenience — it was a direct threat to his future, his standing, and possibly his life. The sermon named this clearly: real friends stay loyal even when loyalty is costly. It's easy to be someone's friend when friendship requires nothing of you. The test comes when staying loyal means absorbing some of the cost your friend is carrying. Maybe that looks like defending someone's name when the room turns against them. Maybe it means showing up during a season that's inconvenient for your own schedule. Maybe it means saying a hard truth instead of the comfortable one. Jonathan had every reason to protect himself. He chose David instead. That's the kind of loyalty the sermon is calling us toward — not reckless, but rooted in something deeper than self-interest.

For reflection

Is there a relationship in your life right now where loyalty is asking something of you — and what would it look like to lean into that rather than pull back?

Pray

Pray for the courage to stay loyal in a specific relationship where it feels costly right now.

There is a moment in 1 Samuel 23 that is easy to read past but shouldn't be. David is hiding in the wilderness, exhausted and afraid. Jonathan finds him there and, according to verse 17, tells him: 'You are going to be the king of Israel, and I will be your second-in-command.' Think about what Jonathan is actually doing in that sentence. He is speaking David's future out loud — a future in which Jonathan steps back so David can step forward. Jonathan was the heir apparent. By every human logic, he should have been the one wearing the crown. Instead, he looked his closest friend in the eye and said, your success is worth more to me than mine. The sermon called this one of the most striking pictures of kingdom-minded friendship in all of Scripture. Real friends root for your success even when it is personally painful. That's not easy. We live in a world that quietly rewards comparison and competition, even among people who care about each other. Celebrating someone else's promotion, platform, or recognition — genuinely, without reservation — takes something out of us. But Jonathan shows us what it looks like to want God's best for a friend more than you want your own comfort. That's a high bar. It's also a beautiful one.

For reflection

Is there someone in your life whose success you find quietly difficult to celebrate — and what might that reveal about what you're holding onto?

Pray

Pray for a genuinely glad heart toward a friend whose life seems to be moving forward in ways yours isn't right now.

A single verse, easy to miss. But the sermon pointed to it as the heartbeat of what Jonathan did in the wilderness: 'Jonathan went to find David and encouraged him to stay strong in his faith in God.' Not 'Jonathan texted David a motivational quote.' Not 'Jonathan told David to think positive.' Jonathan went to find him — he made the trip — and when he got there, he pointed David back to God. That's the third mark of a war-buddy friendship: real friends look for God's hand in your life and call you back to it, especially when you're lost in a hard place. David was in the wilderness. He was running for his life. He couldn't see a way forward. And Jonathan didn't try to fix the situation or minimize the danger. He helped David see that God was still present and still at work. Sometimes the most important thing a friend can do is not solve your problem but help you find God in the middle of it. That's a ministry, really. It requires knowing someone well enough to know where their faith is wavering, and caring enough to go find them — not wait for them to come to you. Think about who in your life needs someone to make that trip.

For reflection

Who in your life is in a wilderness right now, and what would it look like for you to go find them and point them back to God's faithfulness?

Pray

Pray for the attentiveness to notice when a friend's faith is flagging, and for the initiative to reach out rather than wait.

Before the famous friendship, there was a battle. First Samuel 14 shows us Jonathan before we see him as David's closest ally — and what we find is a young man whose confidence is placed entirely in God rather than in the odds. With only his armor-bearer beside him, Jonathan approaches a Philistine garrison and says, essentially, 'God can save by many or by few.' That's not bravado. It's faith. It's worth remembering this earlier picture of Jonathan when we think about the friendship that comes later. The loyalty Jonathan showed David, the self-giving generosity, the ability to point a friend back to God in the wilderness — none of that appeared from nowhere. It grew out of a life already oriented toward God. The sermon described this as kingdom-minded friendship: an alliance built not around what you can get from each other, but around a shared confidence in what God is doing. That kind of friendship is only possible when both people are looking in the same direction. You can't consistently point a friend toward God's hand if you've stopped looking for it yourself. Jonathan's courage in chapter 14 and his covenant faithfulness in chapter 23 come from the same source. Who you are when no one is watching shapes who you are when your friend needs you most.

For reflection

How would you describe the direction your own heart has been facing lately — mostly toward God, or mostly toward managing the circumstances around you?

Pray

Pray for a fresh orientation toward God's activity in your life, so that you have something real to offer the people closest to you.

Related passage

The sermon didn't leave the David and Jonathan story as a human ideal. It pushed all the way to Jesus. John 15:13 — 'There is no greater love than to lay down one's life for one's friends' — isn't just a beautiful sentiment. It's a description of what Jesus actually did, and an explanation of why He did it. He called us friends. He went to the cross for us. Every quality the sermon traced through Jonathan's life — costly loyalty, selfless investment in someone else's future, the willingness to go find a person in their wilderness and point them back to God — Jesus embodied perfectly and completely. He is the ultimate war buddy. He didn't stay loyal to us because we earned it. He stayed loyal while we were still wandering, still resistant, still far off. He rooted for our redemption at the cost of His own comfort, status, and life. He comes to find us in our wilderness — not with condemnation, but with the reminder that the Father is still at work. The friendships the sermon calls us into are, at their best, small reflections of what Jesus has already done for us. We don't earn that standard. We receive it as grace, and then we give it away.

For reflection

How does knowing that Jesus has already been this kind of friend to you change the way you feel about becoming this kind of friend to someone else?

Pray

Pray in gratitude for the specific ways Jesus has shown up as a faithful friend in your own story — and let that gratitude move you outward.

Related passage

This week began with a proverb and has moved through a battlefield, a wilderness, and a cross. Today, come back to where the friendship of David and Jonathan actually started — the moment in 1 Samuel 18 when Jonathan made a covenant with David and gave him his robe, his armor, his sword, his bow, and his belt. That's not a casual gesture. In the ancient world, you gave a person your armor when you were telling them: I'm with you. Whatever comes, I'm in. The sermon's closing challenge was essentially this same invitation, addressed to you: enlist. Don't drift into the friendships that happen to be convenient. Choose the people already in front of you — your spouse, your kids, the people in your small group — and decide to be the kind of friend Jonathan was. Not because you feel ready. Not because they've earned it. But because Jesus modeled it, and because that kind of friendship is one of the most tangible ways God's love becomes visible in the world. The week is behind you. The question is simple: who do you need to go find? And what does it look like to give them what you've got?

For reflection

Looking at the relationships already in front of you, what is one specific step you could take this week to move from acquaintance to covenant friend?

Pray

Pray for the courage to stop waiting for the right friendship to appear, and to start becoming the friend someone near you needs right now.

Made by Rewind AI from the sermon transcript. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

Small-group discussion guide

For leading a group conversation about this message.

Open

Think about a friendship that held up under real pressure — not just good times, but a season when something was actually at stake. This message asks what that kind of friendship is really made of.

Discussion questions

1
Proverbs 17:17 says, 'A friend is always loyal, and a brother is born to help in time of need.' What do you think the writer means by linking loyalty specifically to 'time of need' rather than to ordinary life?
2
In 1 Samuel 20:30-33, Jonathan's father Saul turns on him — verbally and physically — for siding with David. What does Jonathan's response in that moment reveal about what drives his commitment to David?
3
In 1 Samuel 23:15-18, Jonathan seeks David out in the wilderness and tells him he will be the next king — even though that means Jonathan himself gives up the throne. What does it look like for a friend to genuinely root for someone else's success when it costs them something personally?
4
First Samuel 23:16 says Jonathan 'encouraged David to strengthen his faith in God.' The message described this as one of the marks of a true 'war buddy' friendship. How might that kind of encouragement look different from just cheering someone up or telling them things will be okay?
5
The message drew a contrast between self-focused alliances and what it called kingdom-minded friendship. How would you describe the difference between the two in practice — what would each one look like inside a marriage, a family, or a small group?
6
The message held up Jesus as the ultimate example of this kind of friendship and called us to 'enlist — not drift' into covenant relationships. What might it look like for a group like this one to move intentionally in that direction, starting with the people already in front of us?

Pray together

Ask God to make us the kind of friend to others that He has already been to us in Jesus — loyal, selfless, and pointing each other back to Him

Made by Rewind AI from the sermon transcript. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

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War Buddies

Week 1 · 5 messages

Where these passages are preached

Proverbs 17 1 Samuel 20 1 Samuel 23 1 Samuel 14

Explore related topics

Covenant Friendship David and Jonathan Loyalty in Hardship Sacrificial Love

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