Children’s Sermon: Love Your Enemies Like David Did – Saul and David

Use this children’s sermon about David and King Saul to teach kids how we should treat our enemies.

Scripture: 1 Samuel 24

Needed: a torn piece of cloth

Children’s Sermon

Hold a torn piece of cloth in your hand as you speak. Ask children, Has anyone ever been mean to you?

Do you ever feel like getting back at someone when they do something to you? Like if they hit you, you want to them back? Or if they call you a name, you want to call them a name back?

We all feel like that sometimes. But it’s interesting what David did when King Saul was trying to kill him.

King Saul was the first king of Israel. He was a good king for a while, but then, he started disobeying God. So, God chose someone else to be king. He chose David. David was going to be king after Saul died.

And David started becoming more and more popular. He was a great warrior, and all the people loved him. Of course, that made King Saul jealous. The people liked David more than they liked him, so he went out with his army to try to kill David.

One time, King Saul and his army almost caught David. They were very close. David and the men following him were hiding in a cave. King Saul went into the cave to go to the bathroom.

While King Saul was going to the bathroom, David snuck up behind him and cut off a piece of his clothes. King Saul didn’t even notice! Some of David’s followers told David that he should kill Saul because Saul was trying to kill him. But David wouldn’t do it.

David let King Saul leave the cave. After King Saul walked out of the cave, David followed him. He shouted to King Saul’s attention. Then, he showed him the piece of cloth he had cut off of King Saul’s clothes.

Saul knew that David could have killed him, but David said…

(Read 1 Samuel 24:12.)

“May the Lord judge between you and me. And may the Lord avenge the wrongs you have done to me, but my hand will not touch you.”

David was saying that he wouldn’t hurt Saul. Instead, he would let God punish Saul.

And that’s what God wants all of us to do too. When someone does something wrong to us, God doesn’t want us to hurt them back. He wants us to leave it up to Him. God will take care of it.

Closing Prayer

Father, we know that You are the good and wise king. You can punish people when they need to be punished, and you can forgive people when they need to be forgiven. Help us not to hurt people when they hurt us but to leave it up to You to deal with. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.

You can also find this children’s sermon for Kindle or in print in my book, Children’s Sermons about Samuel and David.