Today, in our sermon series from 1 John, we come to 1 John 2:18-27. It relates to last week. Last week, in v. 12-17, John told us that those who know God don't go after the world. This week, in v. 18-27, he tells us that those who know God don't go after antichrists.

Today in our sermon series in Samuel we come to chapter 21. This the continuation of the account of David's rise to the throne. To the onlooking world, it certainly does not look like he is being raised up to reign! Presently, King Saul is trying to kill David. David is a fugitive, trying to avoid death. We see David brought to desperation, but we see God at work in times of desperation.

We often speak about covenants in the church with good reason. Without covenant promises from God, we could not be sure of His intentions toward us. In our text today, God gives us a beautiful picture of how covenants work.

In our Sunday Afternoon Services, I have been preaching through the First Epistle of John. John explains that He has written this letter so that the reader might learn of Jesus Christ and have fellowship with Him and with the Father. John is especially concerned in this letter to help us know that we know Him. Today, John declares to us as believers that we do know the Lord

In the passage we are looking at today, John shows us that if, in fact, we do not keep God's commandments, it shows that we have not come to know Him. We are still in the darkness.

Last week we saw how God gave Goliath, the Philistine giant into David's hands. The focus of the story in the Bible is not to bolster self-esteem, but esteem for God! David was disturbed that God's name was being dishonoured. His trust was in God. Today, in 1 Sam 18, we see how God begins to raise up David as a faithful leader. We learn God's way of raising up leaders to bless His church.

God's way of making Christ known to us is through the word of the Apostles. So John and the others spoke and wrote that we might know God whom they know, that we might have fellowship with them whose fellowship is with Jesus Christ.

Many people who know next to nothing about the Bible know this story. It charms and encourages them. If David can conquer and overcome, so can they. The story is constantly misapplied to be about self-esteem. It is about God-esteem.

Our new sermon series on Sunday afternoons will be from 1 John. I plan to preach twelve sermons in this series. The telos or purpose of this book is to instruct us about knowing God. Today, in the first four verses, we see that John tells us how we know God. This is a very important topic to me personally. I did not come to know God in a saving way until I was in my third year of university. In 1 John, John speaks specifically about what it means to know Him. He opens his letter by telling us how we can know Him. His answer is that it is through the Word of life revealed.