When are Strangers Not Strangers?

30 January 2022 Sunday Morning Service

Bible
1 Samuel 20:1-17
3 John 1:1-14

1 Samuel
20:1 Then David fled from Naioth at Ramah and went to Jonathan and asked, “What have I done? What is my crime? How have I wronged your father, that he is trying to take my life?”
20:2 “Never!” Jonathan replied. “You are not going to die! Look, my father doesn’t do anything, great or small, without confiding in me. Why would he hide this from me? It’s not so!”
20:3 But David took an oath and said, “Your father knows very well that I have found favor in your eyes, and he has said to himself, ‘Jonathan must not know this or he will be grieved.’ Yet as surely as the LORD lives and as you live, there is only a step between me and death.”
20:4 Jonathan said to David, “Whatever you want me to do, I’ll do for you.”
20:5 So David said, “Look, tomorrow is the New Moon festival, and I am supposed to dine with the king; but let me go and hide in the field until the evening of the day after tomorrow.
20:6 If your father misses me at all, tell him, ‘David earnestly asked my permission to hurry to Bethlehem, his hometown, because an annual sacrifice is being made there for his whole clan.’
20:7 If he says, ‘Very well,’ then your servant is safe. But if he loses his temper, you can be sure that he is determined to harm me.
20:8 As for you, show kindness to your servant, for you have brought him into a covenant with you before the LORD. If I am guilty, then kill me yourself! Why hand me over to your father?”
20:9 “Never!” Jonathan said. “If I had the least inkling that my father was determined to harm you, wouldn’t I tell you?”
20:10 David asked, “Who will tell me if your father answers you harshly?”
20:11 “Come,” Jonathan said, “let’s go out into the field.” So they went there together.
20:12 Then Jonathan said to David: “By the LORD, the God of Israel, I will surely sound out my father by this time the day after tomorrow! If he is favorably disposed toward you, will I not send you word and let you know?
20:13 But if my father is inclined to harm you, may the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if I do not let you know and send you away safely. May the LORD be with you as he has been with my father.
20:14 But show me unfailing kindness like that of the LORD as long as I live, so that I may not be killed,
20:15 and do not ever cut off your kindness from my family–not even when the LORD has cut off every one of David’s enemies from the face of the earth.”
20:16 So Jonathan made a covenant with the house of David, saying, “May the LORD call David’s enemies to account.”
20:17 And Jonathan had David reaffirm his oath out of love for him, because he loved him as he loved himself.

3 John
1:1 The elder, To my dear friend Gaius, whom I love in the truth.
1:2 Dear friend, I pray that you may enjoy good health and that all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well.
1:3 It gave me great joy to have some brothers come and tell about your faithfulness to the truth and how you continue to walk in the truth.
1:4 I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.
1:5 Dear friend, you are faithful in what you are doing for the brothers, even though they are strangers to you.
1:6 They have told the church about your love. You will do well to send them on their way in a manner worthy of God.
1:7 It was for the sake of the Name that they went out, receiving no help from the pagans.
1:8 We ought therefore to show hospitality to such men so that we may work together for the truth.
1:9 I wrote to the church, but Diotrephes, who loves to be first, will have nothing to do with us.
1:10 So if I come, I will call attention to what he is doing, gossiping maliciously about us. Not satisfied with that, he refuses to welcome the brothers. He also stops those who want to do so and puts them out of the church.
1:11 Dear friend, do not imitate what is evil but what is good. Anyone who does what is good is from God. Anyone who does what is evil has not seen God.
1:12 Demetrius is well spoken of by everyone–and even by the truth itself. We also speak well of him, and you know that our testimony is true.
1:13 I have much to write you, but I do not want to do so with pen and ink.
1:14 I hope to see you soon, and we will talk face to face. Peace to you. The friends here send their greetings. Greet the friends there by name.

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