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John Senyonyi: Thank you very much. And may I say thank you very much to Moore College for giving me the opportunity share from God's word. I've already been introduced. I go by the name John and that's enough: John Seyonyi.

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And I always tell people, you know, with all the other titles, how will Jesus introduce me to his Father? He'll just say, "John Senyonyi", and period. All the titles will drop off. I came with my wife, Dr Ruth Senyonyi.

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And please stand up. People won't see you. We are both retired, and of course I want to thank my friend and my dear brother in Christ Simba, who made all the arrangements enabling us to be here in East Africa. If you're familiar with the East African Bible, the very first thing that you have got to say is, well, first of all, we may say, praise the Lord, and people respond, praise the Lord, or amen.

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But secondly, just for you to know I am saved. The Lord saved me. It's coming out 50 years in this coming month. I was a young university student at the University of Nairobi.

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Had come out of Uganda and the East African community and I had had the gospel through the East African revival since my childhood Really? Even at our local church, and it was when I was at university that the Lord then saved me. And I must say that is a transformation that would take a whole sermon for me to even speak about, but I'm so thankful for this Jesus marriage, or even the children and everything that we have done, even my career. It's because of the love of Christ.

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Now, we did read from First Samuel chapter 18, verse one to five, and I have titled My Message The Covenant of Love. I have had a few people say, we want to hear what you'll say about that, that story of Jonathan and David. One of the most complex words in human vocabulary is the word love. I challenge you to take some time and look in a dictionary to find out how many definitions there will be.

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So one of the most difficult, many will describe it, others call it a feeling or whatever they want to call it, but it's not an easy word to actually define. But love is a mystical bond, and we know it when we have it, don't we? We know it. When I first saw my wife, I was actually a student at the University of Melbourne.

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Went home for only two months, and I met her and when my heart was drawn toward her, I knew I had love. I knew I had love. It's that relational experience so difficult to define. Which builds relations and exists in the most intense of relationships.

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We desire it more than we actually give it. In fact, what I fear is we tend to ration it to others, this love, you know? So when we read a story like this between Jonathan and David, for me it's a very, very special story and in our day. Where there is so much individual self-actualization, everything is safe, safe self, and we make it the goal of our life.

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Love is much less understood because love cannot be defined simply because of me. It's relational. There must be a relationship with someone else, and so. When we talk about love, we are talking about an experience that can only be known where there is two or more people, not just one person.

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But what does genuine love look like? And that's what I want to look at this morning. As we look at Jonathan and David. We know that at this particular time in chapter 18, God had already forsaken soul because of his disobedience.

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As we read in First Samuel chapter 13 verse 14, God say to him, but now your kingdom shall not continue. The Lord has sought out a man after his own heart, that man, after God's own heart, we get to understand his David. That's the man that God had sought out, and now he brought him into the limelight through the killing of Goliath. As we read in the chapter just before this, but there was a problem, Jonathan was the question.

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He was the crown prince, not David. Although David had been anointed in chapter 16. As we read Samuel doing it, Jonathan was the man to take over from King Soul. So how was David to access the throne?

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How was he going to access the throne? Now, the good thing is like David, Jonathan was also a man of faith and a man of courage. If you read about him in chapter 14, Jonathan actually enters a Philistine camp and routes them to the chare of soul. And so Jonathan was that kind of manner, you know, he was saying to himself, maybe God.

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He had faith in God that if God is with me, that will happen. And I'm sure he knew that if God was with him, he would also become king. His father had been rejected, but of course he did not know who this man after God's own heart was. This unknown shepherd boy called David.

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Is then ushered into the presence of Jonathan. So it's like for us who are looking at it now, thousands of years later, it's like you now have two people vying for the kingship of Israel. Which one would it be? How would it go?

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What would actually happen? But God brings in love. That love is what brings them together and allows Jonathan as we read on, to relinquish the kingship to give it back. So once, look at this, love this, love that.

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Later on, after Jonathan's death, David. Wept about as he moaned his friend Jonathan. And you know, it's a beautiful text there in two Samuel chapter one, when David is mourning his brother, his dear friend Jonathan, and he is looking for a figure to describe the kind of love that they had and what does he use? He uses my love with Ruth as an example.

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Now, some people may misinterpret that, but that's not what it is because he wants to give us a figure of the depth of the intensity, of the beauty, of the love that they had, the bond that they had for marriage is arguably the closest human bond that we can ever have for any of us who is married. I'm sure you know what happens. You love someone. You are drawn irresistibly by love to choose a covenant relationship with that person.

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And you stand before a priest and you pledge your life, your lifetime to this person as I did 41 years ago. And I said, I'm going to live with you no one else until death has do part. And so David. He's now bonded in the text that we have here with Jonathan in a very mysterious way, and God uses this covenant of love to allow David to access the kingship.

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Now, in our text, I'm going to mention three things. The first thing that we immediately see in the first verse that when David had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was knit. The soul of David was knit to the soul of David. In other words, Jonathan was drawn toward David.

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We may even say irresistibly, but the question is why? Why? In our day and age we tend to think that they were drawn together because of their compatibility. Indeed, they had some compatible qualities, their fear for God, for one, their common faith.

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Common love for their nation. They were of course, closer in age. Maybe we could say peers, but I wanna suggest it took more. They also had their incompatibilities, and among them, Jonathan was a crown prince.

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And was David a Village Shepherd boy from Bethlehem, nothing much. Sometimes we misjudge love. And fall woefully short if we base it solely on compatibility. Compatibility does not define love.

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They either, can I establish my marriage or a love bond with another person merely on compatibility? The differences are also important. Now, the Hebrew word that is used there for knit is a very interesting one. It means that they were bound together with a bond that transcends self-interest and self-preservation, where the eye had now been taken over by the we.

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We are together because of love. Or if what used the words of Jesus would say, love your neighbour as yourself. He commands in Mark chapter 12, verse 31. It is that Christ like love, he who did not count equality with God.

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Something to be grasped as we are told by Paul in Philippians chapter two, verse six and seven, but when we needed to be rescued because of his love, this Jesus paid the price to cover it. It's that love that cannot bear the misery of a friend. Rather a self denial for the good of another. That is the kind of love that we are talking about here.

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So when we hear that they were knit together, in other words, Jonathan was not only looking at preserving his Crown Prince position and neither was David thinking, I'm now a hero. I have killed Goliath, and that's enough. They were looking at much more than that. Their hearts were neat together.

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But the second thing that we immediately note here is that this love gave David proximity to the throne, and that was important in Gold's economy. May not have been as far as Jonathan and David were living, he was just going to work in the King's palace. Nothing very important. But in God's understanding, in his purpose, in his goal, when he anointed David, he knew how to move him slowly, by slowly to the throne so he can be mentored to be the next king, not just a shepherd.

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So we read that Saul kept David, and when he kept David, Jonathan found a mate, a friend. I remember when I lived in Melbourne, people would greet good day mate. So here was a mate. Jonathan had someone to greet and say, good day, mate.

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Actually it's good day, not good day. So both did not know God's greater purpose. They did not. When I look at it, it was a period of mentorship for David for his future in inheritance as a king.

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He was going to take over the kingship. How did they live? How did they conduct themselves in the palace? He didn't know he was a shepherd.

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That was unimportant experience for his kingship, but he also needed to know what royalty is all about. And that's what God was doing at this particular time. The shepherd boy whose weaponry was a sling and a club needed to learn the royal ropes. What do you do when you're the king?

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And I think I see something else here. Keeping him with a soul was an opportunity for David to learn obedience. That's a good lesson for leadership. I have always said that if someone doesn't learn leadership, don't give them leadership.

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If they don't learn obedience, don't give them leadership. Obedience is a very important lesson for all of us. Before I was appointed vice chancellor of a university, I spent almost 10 years under another vice chancellor. And when I got to know that he was leaving, I did not even want to apply.

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I was so happy, comfortable to obey whatever he wanted me to do, and I can tell you that served me well. So David here comes immediately after the killing of Goliath, but that success was not going to be what he needed most in the kingship. And like it is said of Jesus, it was necessary for him to learn obedience through what he suffered in Hebrews chapter five, verse eight. And so even David, and we know the story better now, centuries later, that he himself had to go through suffering and learn what it means to be obedient.

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You know, success is a lethal weapon. We've seen it again and again among leaders. It's lethal poison if it does not land. The humility to obey.

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Because if you don't learn to obey, you don't know how to wield authority, it becomes impossible. And so without obedience to authority, success usually tempts us to pride. And so this part of David's life journey made him visible and also gave him renowned. And that was important too.

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But the third point that I want to make is that love willingly surrendered. That where there's love, you willingly surrender. And in this case, it was Jonathan surrendering his royal inheritance as we read in verse three and four. Then Jonathan made a covenant with David.

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You see, he is the one who initiated the covenant. We read in verse four that he stripped himself of the robe that was on him and gave it to David and his armour, and even his sword, and his bow and his belt. What was all that? First of all, we see Jonathan initiating the covenant because love does not wait.

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Love initiates, love reaches out even before we are loved. We know that in the gospel that God reached out to us. We did not ask him. In fact, one of the interesting stories for me is the case of Adam.

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Adam didn't ask her wife, but love said it's not good for him to be alone. That's love that was being expressed there. And so Jonathan had something to give. What did David have?

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Nothing. You don't hear anything being given by David. Absolutely nothing because all he could have given would've been the sling and the club, nothing else. But Jonathan didn't need a sling.

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He probably didn't even know how to use it. What we see here is royalty stoop to the, to the common. That's what happens there.

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It's a beautiful story of love. Jonathan surrendered his personal rights to David. What I'm saying to you, my brothers and sisters, is that the covenant of love supersedes personal rights, supersedes whatever investments we may have, supersedes anything at all that we may have. He surrendered everything.

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We cannot build a love relationship on rights, on status, or even on shareholding. I remember our president in Uganda one time talking about his wife and the children and so on, and he says, I am an equal shareholder with my wife in our home. No, I'm not an equal shareholder. Shareholder.

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Shareholding is not what this is built on. I give everything. That's what love does, everything. And there's nothing that's left behind.

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So Jonathan's love sold, not limits, but outlets, and that's what he did with David. It was like he was saying to David, I love you so much. I give you what I have. Everything that I have.

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Isn't that what we do when we are being married? All that I have, I give to you. Everything. Nothing is left behind.

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That's what I did on April 18th, 19 7, 19 85, I stood with her in a cathedral, being married, and then they were saying all these words, all that I have, and friends, it's no joke in the relationship because that covenant must be built on self-giving rather than on taking. So Jonathan gave his royalty and the only thing that David gave to Jonathan was loyalty. I hope in my accent, you, you know the difference. Jonathan gave his royalty and David gave his loyalty.

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That's what happened. And Jonathan say to David, take my kinship. And what did David say? I'll care for your family in chapter 20 of the same book we read about that, that is the covenant of love.

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Jonathan loved sacrificially, and so did David when love demanded his inheritance by stripping himself of those things that identified him as a crown prince. He was saying there's nothing. I cannot give you my brother David, and isn't that what love is supposed to be? That is the true covenant of love.

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Good relationships and marriages are built on a love that gives up not on a love that takes. That's what builds our relationships. Jonathan and David have matched to teach us today. Like I said at the beginning, in our generation, in our day to day, not just in Australia, not just in the US but even in Africa, in our day to day, we are losing the meaning of love, but if we fail there, at

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least we can look at the cross and we can say that Jesus has manifested to us the greatest love of all. He has loved us so much. He has covenanted himself with us and he'll never leave us. May God bless you.