Gracious Lord, we do indeed need you bring yourself present
powerfully to us into our hearts, Lord, to change who we
are. We pray through Christ our Lord,
we ask, Amen. Today we are looking at one of
the very key biblical passages that I'm sure many of you know,
David and Goliath, bound to be one of the more popular texts in
the Bible. I would urge you, please to read
the passage. It's in First Samuel chapter 17.
It's a long text, but I need you to read it after the service to
be sure that what I say accords with the word of the Lord.
So please attend yourself to 1st Corinthians First Samuel chapter
17. We are going to look only at a
few minutes. This is when David and Goliath
come face to face with one another.
They come and confront one another.
Beginning of verse 42. When Goliath of Philistine
looked and saw David, he disdained him, for he was but a
youth, Ruddy and handsome in appearance.
And the Philistine said to David, Am IA dog, that you come
to me with sticks. And the Philistine cursed David
by his God. And Philistine said to David,
Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air
and to the beasts of the field. Then David said to Goliath, the
Philistine, you come to me with a sword and with a spear and
with a javelin. But I come to you in the name of
the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you
have defied. This day the Lord will deliver
you into my hands, and I will cut you down and cut off your
head. And I will give the dead bodies
of the host of the Philistines this day to the birds of the air
and to the wild beasts of the earth, so that all the earth may
know that there is a God in Israel, and that all this
assembly may know that the Lord saves not with a sword and a
spear, For the battle is the Lord's, and He will give you
into our hand. And this is the word of the
Lord. Thanks be to God.
The grass Withers, the flowers fade, but the word of our Lord,
it stands forever. Amen.
Please be seated. If you would turn your Bibles to
First Samuel 17, it will be helpful to have it available as
we go through this. We are doing something where
we're summarizing a whole chapter here, a long chapter
really. It will take you about 8 minutes
to read it. And I strongly encourage again,
you take some time today to do so and see if those some of the
themes that I pull out are the some of the themes that the
scriptures speak powerfully to. If I was being provocative
today, I thought about this, that I would title the sermon
Stop trying to be like David. Stop trying to be like David.
But I didn't. Most of you, most of you know
the cultural nature, the the meme or the cliche of David and
Goliath. Here we've got the scrappy
little guy who's fighting against this big, massive,
powerful force in front of him. And yet by virtue of his
strength and tenacity and his faith, he goes ahead and
conquers the small victorious 1, conquers against all odds,
against the most favored, favored force in the all of
nature. And you can see this played out
in sports teams, in politics and economic situations and nations.
The David and Goliath motif is a really powerful one throughout
our society and much for many Christians it is as well.
For a lot of us, David is a bit of a hero, and he should be.
He's a hero of the narrative, and there's a hero of the
narrative. Many of us get caught up with
the idea of confronting the powerful forces that are before
us. We are overwhelmed with so much
that happens in our life that is only natural for us to seek some
kind of a model for us that we can follow after that would
allow us to conquer faithfully some of the challenges that are
before us. We can see those challenges in
numerous different ways. One is external.
The forces of this world are broken.
Our chaotic, our chaos in general.
And we see the wickedness, we see the depravity of the world
around us. And we, in our smallness, sit
there and think, how in the world are we able to confront?
How are we able to do something with the vastness of the world
that is before us? Or we are overwhelmed by the
brokenness that's within our own hearts.
We're confronted daily with the frustration that we have with
trying to conquer, trying to get over top of the sins that so
easily plague us, the temptations that overwhelm us.
And why it is that we, like Paul himself, Saint Paul, cry out
consistently. Why, oh Lord, do I do the things
that I don't want to do? We're aware of the brokenness.
We're aware of our own sinfulness and our attitude and
our grouchiness and our offenses to the Lord.
And in the midst of all of that, we seek some type of a promise
of a victory, some type of an assurance of a of a model for
us. And so we look to David as the
hero, the scrappy young one who comes along, oh, completely
overmatched by the forces that are around him.
And yet, nevertheless, by relying upon the Lord, he's able
to pull it off. And we identify with David, but
I think it's a completely case of total mistaken identity and
we should stop trying to be like David.
Couple of comments here on context, just to help us out a
little bit. The context of the Texas, the
continual wars that existed between Israel and the
Philistines ever since Israel came and occupied Canaan land
and conquered Canaan land, they butted up against the
Philistines. And the Philistines were
continually at war with the Israelites.
And it's sad to say, but it is true that the Philistines were a
much more superior culture in almost every way, economically,
politically, and militarily. Technologically, they were far
advanced for the Israelites. The Israelites were still stuck
using stone implements and wood implements during this time, and
the Philistines had already moved into a period of using
iron. They were at the forefront of
the Iron Age at this point in the game.
The Israelites were far in the back of this case.
And so consistently between the wars of the Israelites and the
Philistines, the Israelites consistently came out on the
short end of the stick. The Philistines were consistent
winners for through the decades, almost centuries of conflict
between the Israelites and the Philistines, and this caused the
Israelites to look longingly at the way the Philistines were
doing things and try to do things the same way.
So they tried to gain iron implements in order to build up
their military. They tried to do economically
some principles that would advance themselves.
They tried to capture some of the cultural ideas, including
some of the religious ideas of the Philistines, and incorporate
some of those. And one of the things they
strongly yearned to do was try to get a king like the
Philistines. The Philistines had a military
leader that would lead them and they would be a king and roll
over the Philistines. And the Philistines were so
successful in battle and so successful in their abilities
that the Israelites yearned to be like the Philistines.
And so they too hired a king. They too went out and got a
king. They pushed Samuel to get a king
for them, and they hired and they got King Saul.
And King Saul was exactly a king like all the other nations.
He actually did lead them to some military battles,
victories, and some victories over the Philistines.
He succeeded there in part, but he was also a massive failure in
so many different ways. Culturally, he led the he led
the Israelites further and further away from their Lord
until the point where God then says he rejects King Saul as
king over the Israelites and instead anoints a young boy.
We looked at this last week if you were with us in worship,
where God makes that wonderful pronouncement, man looks on the
outside upon the appearance. Man judges by the appearance,
but God judges by what he's doing in the heart.
And then it's almost like we have a living parable after
chapter 16 where God makes that pronouncement that he, unlike
man, does not look at the appearance, he looks at the
heart. Immediately following that, we
have the living parable of the story of David and Goliath,
where Goliath is everything that you would want from the outward
appearance, and David is nothing at all according to the outward
appearance. And yet David has what it takes
in the heart. David is where God is working in
his heart. And so it's easy for us to say,
I want to be like David, I want to model my life upon David.
But that's a complete mistaken identity.
So we have the two armies at war with each other.
They line up across the valley and across one side is the
Philistines, one side is the Israelites.
And they are looking at each other, taunting one another.
And daily, every day outcomes From the Philistines army comes
this massive warrior, this overwhelming warrior, this
Goliath, and he's powerful in every way.
He carries a 60 LB spear, 60 LB spear, 125 lbs of armor.
He's this mighty force that comes upon the Israelites.
And he comes out and taunts the Israelites and says over and
over again to them, you come, send me a champion, send me a
warrior, and I will defeat them as the Philistines will defeat
the Israelites. And he taunts their God.
He taunts the Israelites culture.
He taunts the Israelites king over and over again and nobody.
Verse 11 in the text is a verse that you should note well.
Verse 11 after having this introduction of Goliath, verse
11 tells us that King Saul quaked with fear and all the
people were shattered. It says dismayed, but the word
there is a shattering, a complete broken because I, I
can, I've been dismayed in my life, been dismayed where I've
kind of been downhearted and discouraged and disappointed.
That's not the word here. The word here is completely
fractured, broken into little pieces.
The people are dismayed because of Goliath and they are full of
fear. The the word greatly fearful is,
is the most strong adverb that you can get here in text.
It's the strongest emphasis about how bad the fear is.
It totally crushes the Israelite people.
And that's who we are. If you're looking for your place
in the story, our place in the story is not the champion.
It's not the hero. We are God's people.
We are God's people that are confronted by the forces of
wickedness, by the forces of evil that are overwhelming the
forces of evil that are outside, that are out of our out of our
ability to control and can confront that overwhelm us.
That we look at this society and saying, what are we supposed to
do with the societal trends right now that are so terrible?
What are we supposed to do with an endemic poverty that is
crushing our nation? What is what are we supposed to
do with the racism that is all around us?
What are we supposed to do with the political chaos and the
difficulties that are confronting us?
What are we supposed to do with all of this?
And it's a Goliath in our eyes, and it is supposed to be a
Goliath in our eyes. And what do we do in light of
that? If we have any sense of
righteousness, if we are paying attention at all, if we have any
compassion and care for this world that God has made, we're
crushed. We're overwhelmed.
We sit there and think, what what can I do?
I can vote, I can protest, I can write a letter.
What, what can I do? I've got nothing.
And that doesn't compare to what happens when I look inside and I
see the depravity, the brokenness, the character that I
so don't want anybody else to see.
And I and I've been a Christian for how long have I been a
Christian? 40 years.
I've been a Christian for 40 years and still I struggle.
I'm calculating in my head while I'm talking 38.
And still I'm dealing with these things that that horrify me,
that embarrass me, that I know that I stand before my Lord and
shame before him. And I sit there and think the
Goliath of the sinfulness in my heart.
What can I do? What can I possibly do?
And so many people say we'll be like David, grab a hold of the
reins of faith and stand before your Goliath and say Goliath, I
sin in this world, sin in my heart.
I defy you in the name of the Lord Jesus and said it and
completely misses the point of the story of David and Goliath,
which is that I am crushed, I am helpless, I am hopeless, I am
powerless before the brokenness in my world.
What I need is not to try harder.
What I need is not to be encouraged to work more
diligently, to only learn how to trust like David Truss, to be
that little scrappy individual that never gives in, never gives
up. What I need is a champion.
I need somebody that will come out of the Israelite lines and
say I will fight for you, I will fight for you.
The story of David and Goliath has convinced us that we are the
hero of the narrative. We are not the hero of the
narrative. We are the people that need a
champion. We are the people that are
finally confronted by the devastation of our own sin and
the sin of this world and realize that there's nothing
that we can do. What we need to do is lean
rather on somebody else, is to look to somebody else, is to
turn our lives over to somebody else because it's not on us.
It can't be on us. If it's on us, we are doomed.
It's not. If we work harder, we can get
it. We are doomed.
And so, like the people of Israel, we quake in our fears,
we shake in our brokenness before the Goliath, the
wickedness, the evil of this world, and we ultimately cry out
God. We need a savior.
And of course, that is exactly what he sends us in Jesus
Christ. Not somebody that helps me live
a better life, Not somebody that helps me try harder.
Not somebody that boosts my confidence when I need it.
Not somebody that helps me out when I'm in trouble, but
somebody that fights the battle for me, that struggles the
victorious way when I cannot, when I am crushed and broken and
feeble, when I have no ability. That's when God sends his
champion. That's when he sends his
victorious one in my life. Stop trying to be David.
That's not your rule. 55 times or more in the Bible, in the New
Testament, Jesus is associated with David, not you, not me.
David is the champion that comes to fight the battle on your
behalf and any Israelite that ran out in front of David and
said no, no David, not you, not you, me instead is bound for
death. It was only those Israelites
that then allowed David to stand in their place before Goliath
that experienced the salvation of the champion.
First, stop trying to be like David.
Recognize your need for a champion, somebody who will
stand in your place, and realize that that's exactly what we have
in Jesus Christ. Secondly, please notice that the
battle is done in weakness, not in strength.
The champion fights in weakness, not in strength.
And this is something that I know that we haven't yet learned
because of what I have picked up from interacting with so many of
you individually. We haven't learned that God's
ways are not our ways. And we need to lean to to to
throw out our ways, to throw out our assumption about what is
right and lean purely on his ways.
So the opening verses of the chapter, chapter 17 here in
First Samuel go out of their way to paint this massive picture of
Goliath. He is portrayed as as powerful
and as mighty as a victorious warrior, everything you could
possibly imagine. The the author falls over
himself trying to give you this picture of the physical, the
worldly powers that Goliath wields.
They talk about the size of his spear, the power of his sword,
the force of his armor. You are overcome by the worldly
power of Goliath. Then the following verses
reintroduce us to David, and the following verses go out of their
way to talk about how small and weak David is.
We meet David's brothers, his older brothers.
That said, you're just an annoying boy.
Get away from us. You're annoying.
Or then we meet King Saul who tries to dress him up in the
worldly armor. King Saul meets with David as
David's going out to battle Goliath and he says, well, you
can't go like you are. You have to at least wear the
the worldly implements. You have to bring the sword.
You have to bring an armor out there.
And David says, I can't do any of those things because he's too
small, he's too inability. And Goliath himself looks at
David and says, you're too puny. You're even too puny simply even
to fight. And yet David comes not.
Look at how he phrases it again. If you have the text in front of
you in verse 45, you come with me with a sword and a spear and
javelin. OK, We hear military force.
What we're supposed to hear is the overwhelming power and
forces of the world's power, The world's weapons are being
brought to bear here in an overwhelming way.
But I come to you, David says in the name of the Lord, not the
name Lord, but the character of Lord, the essence of the Lord.
I come to you as a champion for the Lord.
This is where he comes with all of the the weaknesses and he
battles in weakness before the powerful and the might of the
world's champion of Goliath. And so we have with Jesus
Christ. Who could picture the kindness,
compassion, gentleness, grace would be the weapons that Christ
would wield against the forces of sin in this world.
Who could picture that the greatest weapon of choice?
Is his own self sacrifice. No one could imagine this.
And I know that solid Christians can't imagine this today.
Because when confronted with the worldly opposition and the
forces of evil in this world, I hear all too often, well, you've
got to fight fire with fire. Well, if they're going to do it,
then my side's going to do it too.
Of course it's a terrible thing to do, but I've got to justify
it somehow. God's ways are not our ways.
God fights with the greatest weakness in the world, his own
sacrificial death, and with that weakness he cuts off the head of
Goliath. With that weakness, he is
completely victorious. We need brothers and sisters, we
need fellow Christians that are able to come alongside us and
say, but have you seen the way of the Lord?
It's not the way of this world. We don't fight with the enemy's
tools. We don't fight with worldly
weapons. We don't have a sword or a
javelin. And yet, nevertheless, we fight
with the tools of weakness. Indeed, we fight with the tools
of weakness. I have a aversion to being
misunderstood. I, I, I don't care if you
disagree with me, but I want you to understand me.
When somebody doesn't understand me, I get so frustrated.
And I barreled down and I pinched down on it and I
reiterated over and over and over again.
And I I want to make sure that I am being understood above all
else, because that's the key. That's the most important thing.
And in those few rare moments in my life where I sit there and
say, you know what? My Lord was misunderstood.
My Lord suffered quietly when he was abused, when I
misunderstood. Perhaps it's just OK just to
take it. It is in those few moments where
I'm truly following my champion, the champion who fights in
weakness, not with the world's tools, not with the world's
weapons and strength. Finally, the text goes on to
talk about what happens after Goliath slaying, after David is
victorious, the whole Israelite army rises up and of course goes
charging across the valley floor.
And the Philistine army rises up and runs away and they run
somewhere between 15 and 20 miles.
But the gather Ekron, the cities of gather Ekron, which are about
15 to 20 miles away, they run 15 to 20 miles away.
The Philistines do, dropping dead all along the way as they
go in the in the Israelites charge after them totally is
celebrating the victory of our Lord.
Then they come back and they loot the camp.
And this is of course one of the great big things.
You gather the plunder of your enemy and you are blessed
overwhelmingly with all of the spoils of war that the
Israelites gained, not on their own behalf, but because the
champion was victorious for them.
And we too live a life of victory because our champion has
won it for us. All too often we are trying to
fight for victory. We, my friends, fight from
victory. Christ has been victorious on
our behalf. Our champion has won.
And so it is incumbent upon us to celebrate that victory.
What would have been like if the Israelites continued to cower in
fear long after the Philistines had fled the field?
Why is it so often that we cower and fear when we're confronted
by the brokenness of this world, when we're confronted by the
brokenness of our own hearts? Why is it so much so that we do
not like the Israelites, rise up and celebrate the victory and
live within the light of the victory.
Our champion has secured it for us, not is calling us along for
the ride, but is already is already sustained the victory on
our behalf. This is what it means to be a
champion. This is what it means to be a
follower of Jesus Christ. We follow him.
Yes, of course we are seeking to model our lives after him.
Yes, of course we seek to be faithful according to his call.
Yes, of course we want to be faithful like he is faithful.
But my friends, we are called to live in the victory that he has
sustained, that he has already won for us.
That's what it means, that we have a champion that is not
fighting the battle, but has fought the battle and has won
the battle, and he's done so with the weapons of his Father
in heaven, God Himself. Stop trying to be like David.
Instead, look to David. Look to the descendant of David,
the Greater David Jesus Christ, who was the champion on your
behalf. Realize that his weapons are the
weapons that we should experience as well.
They are weapons that by all accounts look like weapons of
weakness. Nevertheless, they are the
victorious weapons. And then live your life in a
victory. Live your life in the victory
that the champion has already provided for you.
Nothing should model this so well as when we come to the
table, when we come to the table of the Lord, this is where you
should see the champion who has fought for you.
This is where you should see the weakness of the Champions
weapons in light of the Lord, in light of this world's
brokenness. And this is where we should see
the fullness of the victory of our Lord.