For any building, the foundation is the least remembered because it is not seen.

And yet the foundation is the most important thing in the building, the most important part of the building.

You can have the most expensive interior decoration. You can have the most elegant exterior facade.

You can have the best of moldings and the greatest of design.

If the foundation is not right, all of that stuff means very little because it won't stand.

And in building of godly friendships, the same principle applies.

The foundation is the most important thing, the most important part of building godly friendships. Without the right foundation,

all of our friendships are shallow and superficial and mean nothing. Godly friendships, you see,

do not just happen by chance. Godly friendships have to be built very carefully and very gingerly and prayfully.

And Jonathan and David's friendship, which we have been looking at, was an enduring friendship.

It was a lasting friendship. Why? Because it was founded upon biblical principles. Now, we saw in the previous message how Jonathan was a man who was God-centered. We saw how Jonathan, despite of his terrible past, despite of his besmal present circumstances, despite of his bleak future.

He was a man after God's own heart. He trusted God. We saw that he stood alone for God when everybody else was running away.

David, too, had come to trust the living God and develop this God-like characteristics.

And David was able to develop these God-like characteristics by going through the fiery

furnace of suffering and adversity. Let me tell you a little bit about David very quickly.

David was ignored by his father and he was hated by his brothers. David was the runt of the

litter. He lived all his life with rejection.

David's father was so ashamed of him that he forgot to count him among his sons when the prophet Samuel came to ask about him.

When David came to bring food to his brothers instead of gratitude, they verbally abused

him.

As far as the brothers were concerned, David was good for nothing except sort of chasing

after a few scraggly sheep in the wilderness.

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