David & Goliath | Life of David Part 3 | Nathan Lawson

Hey, thanks for hitting play. The following is a message from Northside Christian

Church in Yorktown, Virginia, where we really do believe that hope changes everything.

Whether you're just curious about faith or you've been walking with Jesus for

a while, we hope this helps you take your next step.

So we are in the middle of a series where we are going through the life of David.

And if you remember, we've got all these panels up because we know more about

David's biography, like what he did and like how he went more than anyone else in the Bible.

And in a sense, David is kind of a zoomed in example of this relationship with

God that's going to be really important, not only for the specific life of David

and how that's going to foreshadow the coming of Jesus, but also for some of our own struggles.

And so you remember that when we open the story of David here on this panel,

right, the story of David, oddly enough, does not begin with the story that

we're going to talk about today, David and Goliath.

Like that's the story most people know, but it's not the actual beginning.

In fact, this is going to be in first Samuel 17.

And you don't have to be a Bible scholar to know that's 17 chapters in,

like there's a lot that has already gone on.

And so the story of David actually begins with a story of who?

So come on guys, you haven't had your coffee. Let's try it again.

Begins with a story of who?

There you go. It begins with the story of Saul. And that's going to be very

important because God is going to say over and over again, whenever he tries

to raise up somebody, gives them power and support and strength.

The problem is, is that empowerment, even if it leads to short-term goods where

Samson rescues somebody or Gideon rescues or Saul has some early successes,

that power can cause a person to become more prideful and selfish and start

setting up monuments to themselves.

And so what we see in Saul's life is actually going to be repeated in many future

kings in Israel and is just part of what happens to people when they're put in positions of power.

And that's why when we talk about David, what makes him an important person

that God is going to pick is not because of the battle we'll talk about today.

It's because of first and foremost, God is looking for someone who is after his own heart.

And so we know from a lot of the prayers and Psalms that are recorded by David,

David is passionate about his worship with God.

He's honest with God. He is out there praying to God and playing whatever instrument

name that they call it, a lyre, a harp, but he's out there worshiping God.

And this is going to be critical to explain why David doesn't go the exact same

way that so many other kings and leaders, both in Israel and if we were being

honest, even in today's culture struggle with.

And that brings us to then perhaps the most famous of all the David stories,

that story of David and Goliath, the one that even if you didn't grow up in

church, you know the story of David and Goliath, right? I mean,

this is the one that's well known.

It is the longest of the stories that we have recorded about David, 951 words in Hebrews.

I mean, just a huge amount of detail because of how important what this event represents.

And Actually, I don't know if you've been paying attention, but if you look

at all the archaeological digs, they've actually found skeletons that look like

maybe the original skeleton of a Goliath.

And I have here an exact replication of his face, what it definitely looked

like historically. Right. Here we go.

OK, I made that up. They didn't find a skeleton. But we're just for the sake

of argument, if you were standing on the ground, this isn't too bad.

We've got our Goliath over here and it becomes even more shocking when you look

at it. Now, if you look at your footnotes, you'll note that some are going to

say Goliath, some manuscripts will have seven foot, some have over nine and a half feet.

Either way, he's huge because the average person in the Iron Age,

and we know this from thousands of graves that have been excavated,

the average male is five foot three inches, which means David is like massively

larger than everybody else by a long shot.

He's carrying hundreds of pounds of, if you count his armor and his weapons,

I mean, he is just moving with incredible volume of material and he is being

put forth as this champion.

This is one of those stories that when, at least when my kids have heard it

at VBS, it's a little bit like when they just finished a Ninja Turtle movie

last night, not the newer one, the classic, right, Canon, 1990,

they are karate chopping it up as they go to bed, right?

They're fighting back Shredder invisibly and kicking and jumping off the couch

because we like to imagine ourselves as the hero.

And so when we tell the story of David and Goliath, and I promise there was

a time in your life where when you heard the story of David and Goliath,

your response was, I could take him.

If I had been back there, man, I would go down. I would get my handy dandy slingshot.

Doesn't look so tall to me from here.

I could take him down. And so using my environmentally safe ammo here,

you could imagine at least as a kid in your backyard, right,

going up to a giant and shoot. Okay, I missed. Hold on. One more time. One more time.

It's harder to aim these things than you might think about, right?

But we're going to get him, going to get him. Second time's the charm.

Second time's the charm. We're going to get him.

And okay, third time's the charm. Third time. Father, Son, Holy Spirit.

Here's the thing that happens, though, between a kid and an adult.

Is honestly, we're afraid that what if I do miss?

I mean, that's not how you pretend when you're the hero and you're a kid.

You know you're gonna make it.

But the thing that starts to transition between when you were in elementary

school and you started going up higher is, but what if I miss?

And you can start to see that when we talk about courage, it's so inspirational

until you're in a situation that really calls for it.

It's a lot harder than it sounds.

I was at camp last week, Oak Hills. It was elementary week, third,

fourth, and fifth graders.

And on the last night, Heather, who's the youth minister up at Compass Christian

Church, she's just laying it down.

We can't make our decisions here and let them stay here. They need to affect

how we live our lives. And all the kids are like, yeah!

And they're singing and dancing. Half of them can't talk because they've worshiped

so passionately. Their voice is hoarse.

And she asked this question. She goes, so when you, some of you rising sixth

graders going into middle school next year.

That great jungle of middle school. The social experiment that I know you feel

a little nervousness about.

Because when you're there, there's going to be that kid who's awkward in the

corner and sitting by himself.

Are you going to be the kind of kids who love and trust Jesus enough to go and

sit by that lonely kid who willing to remind them that that person is also made in God's image?

And you can imagine the response in a worship service.

All the kids are like, yeah, we'll follow Jesus no matter what.

And that was her phrase. I'll follow Jesus anywhere. I'll follow Jesus no matter what.

And they repeat it. And it's so good that without 80 kids, plus all the other

camps and church services, you would know, right, that there can't be a lonely

kid at any middle school in the peninsula, right?

Because they all said that they would step up in courage. And you probably said

that because I said that when I was in elementary school till I got to middle school.

And the thing about it is, is when you're really there and now it's,

it might cost you something.

The popular kids may turn against you. I wasn't at the top of the totem pole.

I don't know how much risk I can take here. I could, I might get something negative happen to me.

Plus those, those kids are a little bit hard to get along with.

They, they're, maybe they're over there for a reason and maybe somebody should

say something or do something.

But when you're actually on the battlefield, it's that thought that,

I don't know, I believe in God. I trust in him.

I'm just, I'm not so sure about me in that moment.

And you can see how, when we talk about courage, even though we believe it and

we praise it and we say it, there are so many cases where it doesn't look like

the conviction always makes it to Monday morning, whether it's standing up for

what's right or following through.

Because like all of us, when you're actually looking at a giant,

it doesn't feel like VBS at all.

You see, when David went on the battlefield, he did not know how it was going to turn out.

And maybe he picks up those five smooth stones in that babbling brook,

according to the song that I heard when he picked them up.

Maybe it's because each one was for one of Goliath's siblings.

I've heard that story. Or then again, maybe he's like, look,

if I don't get them on the first one, I'm going to keep running around and have four more shots.

I don't know what the reason, but David didn't know the outcome before he stepped onto the field.

You know, obedience doesn't require full knowledge of how it's going to work

out. It requires commitment.

And we don't always know that it's going to work on the first time.

And it's important to step back into the mindset of this story and remember

that from David's perspective, what is it that he knew before the battle even

began that makes all the difference?

I mean, it isn't just like he was going along one day and then all of a sudden

he just goes into this battle. There's a conversation that takes place.

And so if I was going to look this morning at what we're going to walk through,

it's not going to be what happened in this story. you know what happens, right?

You know that a giant is taken down, even though he is fighting someone who

is much smaller and weaker than him. You know what happens.

The question for a lot of us is how, like how, what is it that his faith is

doing that my faith isn't?

What does he know that I don't know? What is his habits that I don't have? Help me.

What is it that I need to be doing with my faith?

Because David wins because he trusts God, but he trusts God in a certain way.

And the things that he is doing as he trusts God perhaps will help some of us

as we think about the challenges and the battles that seem overwhelming in our own lives,

things that we're up against where I feel like I'm one person going against

an entire current of culture pushing the wrong direction.

How can I stand strong? How can I hold a slingshot when there is ground thundering

and it seems like the consequences of missing are catastrophic?

How can I be willing to go onto the battlefield when no one else is.

Well, some things we want to look at David's faith. David has the kinds of faith

that teach him, number one, not to swing at shadows.

It's going to be an important part if you follow through this in chapter 17,

and I would challenge you to do it this week.

You just press that play button on your Bible app, and you can have it read

to you on your way to work.

There's themes in this story that are repeated several times.

And anytime the Bible repeats itself, usually it's because it's adding an important

emphasis where it wants to make a point.

Whether it's God saying Abraham, Abraham, or Jesus truly, truly,

the Bible will sometimes repeat phrases because for a culture that is hearing

this story told out loud, he doesn't want you to miss certain things.

You see, David shows up on the battlefield there in 1 Samuel 17 verse 28.

1 Samuel 17:28

He was sent by his father to bring food to his brothers. And the first person

that David comes up to see is Eliab.

Now, if you don't remember, you weren't here last week.

Eliab is the oldest of David's brother. He's the one that when Samuel saw him

said, ah, here's the future king of Israel.

So we don't know much about him other than he must be a physically impressive

person, a natural leader, the kind of guy that has bearing.

And so he goes up to bring food and support to Eliab, his oldest brother.

And his older brother says, ah, little brother, thank you so much.

I appreciate the support.

That's not true. And any of you who have a little brother knows that that would

never happen. That is not what you would say.

What he says perhaps brings a little bit, I think, truer to life. Here's what he says.

When Eliab, David's oldest brother, heard him speaking with end,

he, Eliab, burned with anger against David, against him, and asked, why have you come here?

And with whom did you leave those few sheep in the wilderness?

Don't you love that? He's both questioning him leaving and also saying your

job is dumb to start with. like those tiny little job of sheep you have in there

in a way that only a sibling, an older sibling can do.

Who did you leave your few sheep with in the wilderness?

I know how you are conceited you are and how wicked your heart is.

And you came only to watch the battle.

And David responds, what have I done? Said David.

Can't I even speak? I love that the Bible here is recording us an account that

would not make sense if the only purpose of the Bible was to wax eloquently

about the legend of David like an early King Arthur.

Instead, his older brother is saying, what are you doing here?

You're conceited. You're too young.

Now we don't know why Eliab is saying all this.

Perhaps he remembers that anointing from Samuel and he's resented that he was

never the chosen. He wasn't the chosen one.

Maybe there's some jealousy and some tensions that can creep up.

And I'm sure it's never happened in your family, but there can be some competitiveness

when it comes to recognition and honor.

And I don't know, you guys would not know anything about that,

but certainly in biblical families, that comes up again and again,

even to the point of sabotaging relationships.

And the thing about it is, is we may expect David having been anointed by Samuel,

if I was in his shoes, having God put oil on his head by a mighty prophet to

turn and say, all right, Eliab, we're going to have some words.

You and me right here, right now, before we talk about that giant over there,

I'm going to have me some older brother and it's time to get some things straight.

You can imagine launching into a verbal defense. My older brother and I were

experts at physical altercations. There came to a point we didn't even need a reason.

It was just a lead over from the last time we fought. We would just jump into

it. Furniture in our basement had no chance of survival.

We grew up during the era of WWF and the rules of WWF are all furniture is fair

game. And we operated under those principles.

So we would expect perhaps David to at least defend himself to say,

I'm here to think about the anointing that God put on my life.

But instead he does what many of us forget to do. and knew this next verse.

He, that is David, he then turned away to someone else and brought up the same matter.

Before we get to what happens next in the rest of that verse, just that key phrase.

For some of you, you don't need anything else in the sermon,

but this one part of the text you need to underline because there is a potential

to become distracted where you begin to fight against a brother or a sister

or somebody who is not really your main enemy, but you're treating them like they're an enemy.

When the truth is they're just a little irritating or they just disagree with

you on something. But in God's eyes, they're not the enemy.

They're not the ultimate point. They're not the great victory.

In fact, sometimes families, because we know each other, we are experts at cutting

each other down. Did you hear the things Eliab knows about David?

I know how conceited you are. I remember what you did last year.

I know all the embarrassing stories about you. Like siblings just know all the

right buttons to push and it can create an impression.

I don't know if you've had this where you're trying to have conviction.

It can sometimes feel like the biggest people in the way are the people you

love the most. And if you're not careful, if you're not careful,

you will engage with those moments as if they really were an enemy.

Now, Eliab certainly is being a person who's a hindrance to what God is calling

David to do here. But David chooses not to engage.

David turns to somebody else. And I just wonder how many of you,

whether it comes to what you're seeing online and it got you so distraught,

you spent your whole day going over it because I can't believe they posted that

or I can't believe they said that.

And you're playing it in your mind again and again. And in God's eyes and what

you're going through right now, they're not really your main enemy.

They're not the main thing that God wants you to be worried about,

but you're allowing it to consume your time and your energy when all you have

to do is turn away, which in modern times means unfollow and don't worry about it.

Sometimes that means not responding the moment you're at a family get together

and somebody makes the sarcastic comment about who had it easy growing up and

you choose to, I'm turning away.

Because you have greater battles that you need your energy for,

that are your highest priority.

And if you allow yourself to get distracted, think about what would have happened

in this story if David had actually fought Eliab.

And missed out on Goliath. Like he could have spent his whole energy defending

and then getting a group of people together.

And everyone who hates older brothers, we're going to band together and fight

in the name of God against oppressive older brothers.

Like you could imagine this distraction could have led the story to a very different ending.

But instead, he had the wisdom to turn away. And we're in a cultural time where

it is too easy to take people who are close to us, a church that is just a little

bit different from ours, but they make a statement that is not something we agree with.

And suddenly we act like that church is the enemy or that group's the enemy

or that sibling who disagrees with me on this is the enemy or they don't agree

on baptism or they don't agree on social issues.

Therefore, and we launch into people who are not our primary enemy.

And they're certainly not the enemies that God has asked us to take down at

the moment. There are Goliaths out there.

And this, it is easier to fight a battle inside of a family than it is to go

out there and be on God's mission in the world.

He turned away. Let's read the rest of that verse real quick.

The rest of that verse is going to say this, that what David was asking,

he's asking about what's the deal with that big guy out there.

And he's asking, and here's what it says. What David said was overheard and

reported to Saul, who is still king.

And Saul sent for David. The next thing we want to realize is that,

is this next moment, is that if you see it different, that you'll fight different.

That twice in this section, David is going to describe what he sees on the battlefield.

So he shows up, he looks around, he makes some observations and they sound a little bit like this.

David was asking the men standing near him, what will be done for the man who

kills this Philistine and removes this disgrace from Israel?

Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?

Twice in this single chapter, in a part of the Bible that does not repeat itself

often, David is heard saying, who is this uncircumcised Philistine?

If I were going to imagine some of the nicknames given to Goliath over the decades

by his own peers, I bet there's a lot of them.

Goliath the Huge, Goliath the Thunder, Goliath the Enemy Slayer.

I bet you not a lot of people went with Goliath the Uncircumcised,

though. I don't think that was probably in his high school yearbook even one time.

David does not, everyone else is describing, look at this giant,

they said. Look at this warrior who that we can't possibly oppose.

And as they're saying it, they feel their own fear getting solidified.

And yet David reclassifies the whole scene.

Who, the uncircumcised guy over there?

It's almost like everyone else is looking at the height and David's vision seems

to be drawn a tad lower than that, if not awkwardly.

But it is important to realize that David's heart, which we already have emphasized

last week, was already following after God and listening to God.

And that allows David to frame up the situation in a way that makes it more

obvious what God's people are called to do.

Rather than calling him a giant, rather than calling him fierce and oppressive,

he says, let me just make this clear for you. Let me repaint the picture.

We have mighty God on this side with our people and we got that loser over there.

Now, who's willing to fight that guy?

Well, when you frame it up like that, it sounds a bit different, doesn't it?

You know, sometimes the way you describe a situation, how you see it,

how you choose to see it changes, right?

Changes based on like what you start to tell yourself about it,

that the words that you use can change how you approach a conflict.

A number of years ago in the late 70s, early 80s, there was a series of experiments

done with psychologists where they showed two groups of people a car accident.

It was the same car crash. It was the same accident, the same video clip.

And they asked the two groups similar questions.

One group, they asked, how fast was this car going when it hit the other car?

And the other group, they asked, how fast was this car going when it smashed into the other car?

One basic word difference. And the group that heard the question smashed reports

the car going 15 miles an hour faster than the other group, even though they

both saw the exact same scene.

And if that's true, if what we say, if a single word could change how we're

going to explain what this memory is or what it means,

then how much more when you are guiding your teenage children who are perhaps

in a state that is frustrating you and you might be tempted to use labels like

they're being lazy or they're ungrateful or they're entitled or they're whatever

the fancy terminology is for Gen Y or whatever, like you're using these words,

would it not change the conflict?

If you went to them and instead of saying, stop being lazy or don't be entitled,

if you said that God has given you so many gifts, I'd hate for you to squander them on entertainment.

Like you have so much that God wants to do with your life. And just by saying

it a little different, you could see how immediately that recasts the conflict in to something else.

If you said to yourself, well, I'm struggling to cut back on my social media

because I know it's consuming a lot of my time. That's one way to frame it.

The other way to frame it is how long am I going to let flashing pixels rob

me of perhaps the greatest stewardship that God has entrusted with my own children?

How long are you going to let flashing pixels take that away from you?

When you frame it up, it changes it, doesn't it?

It suddenly pushes it to a sharper contrast and a point of decision.

How you describe a situation can change.

When you begin to say, I don't know if I want to be involved in a community

group. I'm just too tired in the evening.

It's different when you begin to say, if you frame it up in a different way

and begin to say, you know, I'm not sure that I need to be watching more shows

instead of connecting and growing deeper with God's people.

There's a way to frame it in your head, even before the battle takes place,

that looks at the situation through the lens of faith. How is God looking at it?

You see, when it comes to the battle, we have to focus on the eternal,

not just the external. We have to think about the people that we're working

with and the classmates that we're learning alongside.

That when you have a student who's saying to themselves, everyone's using chat

GTP, it's no big deal. It's hardly even cheating anymore.

And anyway, when I cheat on this quiz, like what does it really matter in this

scheme of things that God forgives us and the cross reminds us that God called

us not to judge people or something like that, and we move it on.

It is different if you frame it up and you say, are you willing to trade your

integrity in Christ and your witness as a Christian for a B on a quiz?

Like that's your exchange? You're gonna trade your character,

the very thing that God has given you to represent him in the world as an ambassador of Christ.

And you're gonna trade that for a B on a quiz?

Really? Is that a valid fair trade to you? When you frame it up different, it changes the battle.

And as we think about what David says again and again about Goliath before he

ever stepped on the field, he says, let me tell you how I see it.

David is going to shout, you come at me with javelin, you come with spears and

sword, but I come at you in the name of the Lord.

That was something that had already happened, not just in the moment,

but how he chose to read the situation even before he stepped out.

And I just wonder when you think about the conflicts that you're dealing with,

if you changed how you define who an enemy is, if you began to change how you're

framing it up, how would, if I were to take a step back, how would I describe

this in terms of the spiritual importance of what's going on?

It might change the way that you approach the battle.

The next thing we're going to notice about David is, is not only does he see

things differently, right?

The next thing we're going to notice is that we have the same rules, but different plays.

The same rules, but different plays.

So Saul is talking with David and David's a young guy full of zeal and energy. I can take him.

Just sick me on him. Sick me on him, Saul. I'm ready for him.

I'll take him down. I got iron in one hand and thunder in the other.

I'm going for it. And Saul's like, settle down there, young man.

And then he goes on. David explains, look, I've killed a bear.

I've killed a lion. Like I'm not without, you know, some experience here.

This isn't just idealism.

David really knew that he could handle himself in this situation.

And Saul says, all right, if you're going to do it, you got to do it the right way.

And you're going to need the best armor and you're going to need the best weapons.

And so he tries to put him in his own armor. But as we read when Mark preached

about Saul, remember, he was

a head above everyone else. He's quite a bit bigger than everyone else.

And so imagine David putting on this armor that looks like he's wearing his dad's suit to work.

And he picks up a sword in a culture that didn't have a lot of swords.

And he's trying to use it, but he's never used one before. and Saul looks at

him, gleaming armor. Ah, now you're ready.

What if David had listened to that voice? You need to go out there, but fight like Saul.

And of course, David responds differently. David is going to be the one who

says, I can't use these because these aren't the way that I fight.

This isn't me. This isn't my convictions. This isn't my style. This is imitation.

And the thing that's important to recognize is even though all Christians use

the same rule book, we don't all have the same playbook.

All the same strategies for every

one of our lives is often unique to the gifting that God has given us.

Just like in an NFL team, right? Every team has to honor the same rules of what

you are and are not allowed to do in a game.

But different teams develop plays that play to their strengths,

whether speed or size or a quarterback who has these certain skills.

You see, the plays have to reflect the uniqueness of the team.

And in the same way, it's gonna be important to realize God doesn't bless imitation.

That a lot of things that hold us back on the battlefield is we are trying to

be a Christian just like we saw somebody else doing.

This is why following the Bible is a critical part of being a Christian,

but that also has to be supplemented with the relationship with the actual God who wrote the Bible,

whose voice is unique and personal and calls on us with our own giftings and

uses people of different backgrounds with different skill sets to work in wildly different ways.

And what we have in the story of David is somebody who takes off the armor,

who puts down the sword and says, I'm not fighting like Goliath.

I'm not fighting like Saul.

I'm fighting like I have been trained to fight. He has his own strategy.

You don't have to look around church very far to see that this holds true again and again.

That if you had a model of what it means to serve God and everyone has to be

on a stage and preaching for 30 minutes and you're like, well,

that's not my skill set. So I don't know what I'm going to do.

And it's like, well, I guess you can find something else in the meantime until

you get comfortable speaking.

But if you've been around church for any length of time, you'll have seen ministries

that thrive under vastly different personalities and giftings.

People who are overcoming addiction, who are then using that experience,

not because of their eloquence, but because of their life experience,

consistency, and discipline to help others get over addiction.

You'll find people who are experts in talking one-on-one and revealing problems

in marriage because of the things they have gone through.

And God is going to use that gifting to help bring life where other people have

written it off saying our relationship has no hope.

You're going to feed people who are passionate about going to work to help alleviate

poverty in the peninsula.

And if you have not been in that situation, it requires huge amounts of compassion

and patience because broken people, this is a newsflash, are broken people.

Like it's hard to work with. They require something.

And yet God is going to use different giftings.

And the one thing about the Bible when you go through it is how rarely God repeats himself.

Like God doesn't do one miracle and then the people say, okay, we figured God out.

If we do a worship service this long and you preach for this long and we play

this music, that's when a miracle will happen, guaranteed.

We do not see that in the book of Acts. And in fact, it almost seems to push

against that entire notion that David, our motion is not to all train how to use slings.

Our notion is to listen to God's voice on our own lives.

You see, God can't anoint the you that you're pretending to be.

And some of you, the struggle that you've had is that you're trying to live

out a faith story that is copying from someone else instead of listening to

God's unique calling on your own life.

For a long time, I'm not a huge fan of like upper room devotions.

And I have nothing wrong with people who love those.

I grew up where that was the only style of devotion you were going to read.

There's going to be a cheesy story about a kid in a red wagon,

and it's going to end with a prayer and a scripture.

And I grew up and I'm thinking, I don't like these at all, but I'm just,

I mean, that's what you have to do. My preacher said, you have to do devotions.

And this was the only thing we had available. And so we read them and it was,

it was about as good now as I thought it was then like, it's fine,

right? It's fine. It wasn't.

But the thing about it is, is I was copying a style that was not well-suited

for the questions I was wrestling with.

And some of you, whether your worship time in the morning should be 10 minutes

of worship alone, whether it is reading through this or questioning through

that, or you like the devotions that help you to flesh out what this looks like in your life.

God has given each one of us a unique gifting.

We all have the same rules, but different strategies for the conflicts that God has.

For the Goliaths that need to be taken down in your life, you need to show up

as a first-rate version of you, not a second-rate version of someone else.

And the final movement we wanna look at is David has the kinds of faith that

is going to not get distracted by calling a brother an enemy.

Even though that person wants conflict, David says, that's not my main enemy.

He ignores the side conflicts that aren't really what God wants him to be worried about.

We notice that David is the kind of guy that his whole mind is being framed

up to see things through the lens that God would want him to see it.

We noticed that David leans and trusts his own gifting and his relationship with God.

And as he goes out there, he takes that sling and he swings it round and round and round.

Well, not in the text, but in my VBS song, he definitely did, and he lets it fly.

And well, to quote my mom, something like that had never entered Goliath's mind

until that exact moment. Thank you, I appreciate the chuckle.

So he hits with a stone, right square center, and immediately Goliath goes down.

You can almost picture this scene, can't you?

Philistines were shouting insults before. Squish the bug! Squish the flea!

That's what Goliath had called David.

You're a dog, you come at me with fleas, so you can imagine. Squish the flea!

Squish the flea! Philistines shouting, and then Goliath falls.

And there was just silence for a second. Wait, what just happened?

He didn't even get out there. He didn't even get a chance to swing his sword.

Like, what in the world? Did he just struck down? What in the world?

And you can just imagine that moment of silence.

But that's not where it ended because David didn't stop at the knockdown.

And perhaps my, at least as a young man, and certainly my kids' favorite verse

when they read this text is this next one from 1 Samuel 17, verse 51. Here's what it says.

1 Samuel 17:51

Here's what it says. David ran out toward this giant who's down,

and he doesn't know how long he's going to be unconscious. He runs over and stood over him.

He took hold of the Philistine sword and drew it from his sheath.

Think about this for a second. This sword, how many people had this sword killed?

How many families had this left the parents dead and the kids running and hiding

in the fields? How many men and women had been killed at the hands of this sword?

This tool of death of an enemy of God's people right there.

And yet David is going to take this weapon that was intended for destruction to hurt God's people.

And he uses it to destroy the enemy.

David pulls out Goliath's own sword. It's heavy. The text tells us it's weight.

And it says, if David struggled with Saul's sword, I don't even imagine what

he's doing with Goliath. And he picks it up and he carries it over.

And this next part, you can't miss this.

He says this, he took his sword from its sheath. And after he killed him,

he cut off his head with the sword.

And when the Philistines saw that their hero was dead, they turned and they ran.

David takes the head of Goliath in a scene that is not rated PG,

I'll tell you that, and shows it to people as evidence that the very thing you

were terrified of was not so scary after all.

And the very thing that made the enemy look undefeatable is,

well, apparently awfully defeatable after all.

But it's important for this story because David finishes what he started.

When Saul went up against the king of the Amalekites, there was a temptation to take a trophy.

And what a tempting trophy this would be. Like with Samson, remember when he

was captured, they gouged out his eyes and they tied him to a thing and made

him walk around so they could mock him. What a great trophy this could be.

Like knock Goliath down a few pegs, let everyone take a sack out of him.

Like we're gonna use this guy as an example to say how amazing David is.

But that's not what God told him to do.

And so unlike what Saul did with the king of the Amalekites,

David here is going to finish the job.

It's a hard thing in our spiritual walks because sometimes when we start to

have success, like you're going through a rough patch and so you come back to

church and you start praying or you start going to grow and things get a little bit better.

And as they get better, rather than deepening your conviction,

you can begin to say, well, I mean, it's not much of a crisis anymore.

I don't know if we need to go like every week. Let's not be,

we're not gonna be zealots about it. We don't wanna be extremists.

And suddenly you find yourself not following through on the conviction that

God gave you at an earlier point.

Whether it's the habit that at first you were saying, I'm gonna quit this habit.

And then it's like, well, I'm not gonna quit it necessarily.

I'm just gonna cut it back a little bit. I'm gonna keep it in its place.

It's really not that bad compared to most other people.

The Bible study plan that you start and it's hard to finish.

There's hard in a world where it's just so easy to wanna be drawn toward the

new and the exciting and the next and this trend that to finish and to do the

very thing that God has asked you to do is a hard thing.

It's hard to say, I made this conviction and this is what God has called me

and my family to do. And this is what we will do.

And I'm not putting it off anymore.

There are moments where we just allow a half dead enemy to kind of lie dormant.

And so the addiction comes back up. We don't put the filters on the phone and

the apps get re-downloaded.

And now once again, we're drawn into watching things we should not watch or

consuming things we should not consume.

And we are going farther and farther because half defeated battles become full-blown giants.

As I read the end of this story, I just wonder how many of us are here this

morning and you have some conviction.

You probably came this morning with some ideas of what Goliath is in your life right now.

There's very few people I've met that if push came to shove,

when you were walking into this space this morning, you felt conviction saying,

you know, I've known for a while I needed to deal with this,

but I mean, not like right now,

or I knew that this has been a problem, but you know, all things considered,

my life is manageable at the moment.

So I don't know if I would consider it to be urgent and it gets put off and it gets put off.

And I just wonder how many of you are hearing this story saying half fought

battles create full-blown giants.

There are things that need to be changed in your life and it needs to start today.

Some of us have tried, you've tried to get over addiction and it just seems

to be so difficult that you now have almost resigned yourself to saying,

I guess this is as good as it gets.

And this story is a reminder that the battle is not over.

Renew the courage that you began at the beginning.

Do not grow weary in doing good, Paul says, and in time you will reap a harvest.

How many of us needed today's message to be a statement that's saying,

I don't need a wounded giant.

I need a defeated giant. I need people who are not going to tell me that they're

working on it, but they're saying, this is how far it went and no farther.

This is when I took it seriously enough because my family was worth it.

My ministry was worth it.

This is what God was calling me to do and I have put it off for too long. It stops here.

How many people have sat on the sidelines in that field saying somebody should

do something about that giant and they were waiting for someone to act?

Well, perhaps today is that day for you.

Thanks for listening. If you're near Yorktown, we'd love to see you in person.

Services are Sundays at 9 and 1045 a.m. And wherever you are,

keep leaning into hope because it really does change everything.