Facing Life's Goliaths: A Journey of Faith, Unity, Courage, and Steadfastness from King David's Life

Please, lord, please, thanks.

I tell you that's talent.

They've been working on that for 38 minutes.

Some of you recognize the old group Steelers Wheel Wrote that a long, long time ago Still a popular thing.

Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right.

Here I am stuck in the middle with you.

Ever felt like you are in the middle, surrounded by like drama on all sides, whether it's within your family?

Can't get my son to get along with my spouse, can't get my in-laws to get along with my parent, can't get my co-worker to get along with our boss.

It's just a never-ending thing that we feel like we're in the middle.

You're not alone.

The Bible is full of people who were very close to God, but they also were in the middle of a lot of drama within their families, within extended relationships that they had.

One of those we're going to look at today David.

Of all people in the Old Testament, he finds himself in the middle of a lot of drama and a lot of conflict as a brand new king, and we're going to see how he deals with that and what his solution is, because it's going to be very, very instructive to all of us.

So we're continuing a series called Mountain Men.

Thank you out there for watching, appreciate you, tuning in today as we look at people who God calls up to a hill or a mountain, a high place, for one purpose or another to meet with him, to have a revelation, to fight a big battle that's today in order for the greater good.

So if you have your Bible and thank you for bringing it, I don't have my Bible, I got so carried away with the song that it's over.

Here we're in 2 Samuel, chapter 5, just a short section today, verses 6 through 10.

2 Samuel 5 · chapter mention

So whether you feel like you're caught in the middle or whether you are trying to support a lot of people who are David is going to be very instructive.

So what does David do to get out of the middle?

He decides, as a new king, but also the military leader and also later he will earn the right to be the spiritual leader of this country, he decides to take a huge risk.

He is about to go attack the one city in their whole territory that has been unconquered for hundreds of years.

It's never been taken, it's fortified, it's thought to be impregnable.

And as he decides to take this for the greater good, politically he is taking a huge gamble, because, as he fails as a new king, the old king's family is still around waiting for a slip up, waiting for a mistake, and he could plunge.

If this does not work, he could plunge this entire nation into civil war.

But here's what he has on his side.

He knows something that a lot of people in the region do not know, and that is this With God, all things are possible, and that's where we'll come back to today several times.

It's actually a direct quote from Jesus, as you see on the screen itself, and he should know With God, all things are possible.

I want to give a quick shout out.

We have some folks all over the place that watch every single Sunday, and one of them is Cheryl Lindsey.

Cheryl, we want to say hello to you.

Cheryl's fighting a big battle medically, with her help, and she's got a surgery coming up.

She's unable to come here.

Well, she lives in Manning, south Carolina, but she watches every week.

So, cheryl, we're praying for you too.

Speak enough.

Can we pray together?

Let's do that, lord.

Wemost days are short on answers, but hopefully we're long on trust and faith.

We believe that with you, all things are possible.

Though we're very finite, you are infinite.

Though we are limited.

You are unlimited.

Though we change constantly and if we admitted it, some days we're just a mess, you are unchanging and we call on that today and we ask you today to make us better Christ followers, so that when we leave today we will be more useful to you and to your kingdom.

So please do what only you can do, and now please come, holy Spirit, amen, all right, well, let's plunge right in.

Let me read verses 5 and 6.

Are you there?

Well, what's taking you so long?

Get there.

2 Samuel 5, 6,.

We'll read 5 in part of verse 6, because we're going to learn with God.

It's not so much that we believe that all things are possible, it's how are we going to live in a broken, fractured world and broken, fractured families that everybody has their moments, including us.

So let's the first thing we'll learn is with God, you have the ability to bring unity from division.

That's in every part of society today.

How do we unify what's been divided?

So, verse 5, in Hebron he reigned over Judah this is David seven years and six months.

And in Jerusalem, he reigned over all Israel and Judah 33 years.

The King and His men marched to Jerusalem to attack the Jebusites who lived there.

That's what I was alluding to earlier.

So here's the setting.

You notice, real, how it's worded.

That's very important.

He's the new King.

He's been there about seven years, I guess.

It says he's in Hebron as the capital.

That's in the territory of Judah.

Some of you know your history, bible history.

There were 12 original tribes of Israel.

They all get their territory, their real estate.

They're still there.

They have become a very disjointed, not unified, sometimes dysfunctional, loose confederation of independent, autonomous tribes, partly because the leader, the King before David, did a terrible job.

He brought a lot of disunity, a lot of pettiness, a lot of poor leadership.

He was indecisive when he should have been decisive when he was decisive.

Many times he was decisive in the wrong way.

David at 30 years old, and here it's a mess Now.

He is from the tribe of Judah, the farthest region to the south.

Hebron is in the south region of Judah, but he has 11 other tribal groups to the north of him that are still trying to figure out.

Am I going to be loyal to this guy or not?

Maybe they were, but they are one mistake from walking or creating a civil war.

And so David decides to do a very strategic thing.

I think it's brilliant.

But in a political sense, he leaves Hebron and he travels north to a place called at that time Jabas.

We call it today Jerusalem.

It was within the tribe of Benjamin.

This, who was of the tribe of Benjamin, the previous king Saul, his family's all there.

He's walking right into the lair, if you will, of the enemy, politically but also physically, with this group of Jebusites who I'll explain who they are because if he can establish a new capital there, it's a great act of concession to him to say I am the unifier, I'm leaving my homeland to come into this area.

It's more neutral ground, it's more central to the whole kingdom and I'm going to set up stake here.

There's only one problem the Jebusites live there, they have lived there for hundreds of years and nobody's ever knocked them off that hill, and that, therefore, is the great problem that we have.

But David brought unity from division, and so can you.

I've mentioned Saul.

David was in many ways the opposite.

David is young, he's talented, he's creative, he's a very intuitive leader, but the biggest thing he has going for him is at this stage of his life.

He knows what he does not know, and he knows that because he knows what he does not know, he better be really dependent on God, because God knows everything.

And so we find time and time again, whether it's to go into battle with the Philistines, whether it's to do something politically, whether it's to deal with his own family, he says Lord first.

He says Lord, should I do it?

Should I go fight Lord?

Should I go to the capital to make this my capital?

Lord, should I do this?

And God either gives him permission or he doesn't, and so he is only as good as he is walking and step with God.

And that's a great learning for all of us, because Jerusalem is seeing y'all at that day we're talking about 1000 BC as the trophy of the whole region.

Man, if we could just live there, if we could just set up a base of operations there.

It's some of you have been there.

It's surrounded by a valley on three sides.

It's like a plateau on the top, but there's these finger at that day at least there were these finger-shaped hills just all making a crown, a flat crown, on the very top.

And if you could perch yourself on top of that hill, you had it made.

Nobody can take that, nobody can run you off of that hill.

So that's what he's after.

How about you?

How's it going with you?

One good verse to kind of take to heart and meditate on this week and pray over is, I think, james 4-8.

If you draw near to God, he will draw near to you.

That's that David example of dependence on God for everything, big and small.

Because in this day and age, chances are you are in the middle of some drama that you did not create.

Some of us may be in the middle of some drama we did create, but either way you feel the pressure of man.

It's incumbent on me to work through this and to try, if at all possible, to redeem a situation and bring unity from division.

That's what the gospel, the good news about Jesus, really is all about.

Matter of fact, in a few minutes, when we get to observe the Lord's Supper together that is exactly the point, one point of many of the Lord's Supper Jesus comes to the cross and then is resurrected as the incarnate Son of God, fully God and fully human.

But when he does it and he's resurrected, it's a whole new day, because now God is not only the God of the Jews, god is the God of the Gentiles, and that ought to be really good news for most of you, unless you're Jewish, because the rest of us are all Gentiles, aren't we?

So we're really thankful for that and that's one of the reasons why this makes so important.

But the incarnation of Jesus is the ultimate unifier.

Later His followers come along and they say things like there is no different race, creed or color.

That is inferior.

All men are created equal.

Our nation was founded on that principle.

He says there's no Jew, no Gentile, there's no different race and all like that.

We're all the same in God's view and it should be like that.

And that is when that happens.

That is a huge unifier and not just a division.

Romans 15.5 is another verse you might want to write down and read later.

Romans 15.5,.

May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus.

He links following Christ to endurance and encouragement, but also mainly unity.

A church ought to be a unified body of believers, very different people.

Y'all have different backgrounds.

There's four generations under this roof every single week.

People are from all over, literally all over the world.

Did you know that?

Last time I tried to count it up.

We have either 12 or 13 countries represented here, let alone all the different states.

I love that Among that diversity we should expect unity, though it doesn't mean we're all the same.

It means we maintain our different identities and backgrounds and all.

But we all have a common cause, and that common cause is Jesus Christ.

And so Jesus, through the incarnation, led as the greatest leader ever by saying it's not about me, it's about the other people.

I came to redeem humanity.

Every room Jesus walked into, he looked around at who he could redeem and unify with his father.

That's why our little slogan is on the wall there bless the rest.

That's our mission and yours too, every room you go in.

We have to do sometimes the mental exercise of saying, hey, just a reminder, it's not about me, it's about somebody else in here.

I'm here and maybe the Holy Spirit will leave, maybe not.

But whether it's a simple act or a pretty complicated thing, or whether it's to get in the middle of a bunch of drama that you did not create just to be a God used instrument of peace, that's blessing the rest, and some of you have great experience at that.

This I know, this I know.

You walk into that room, knowing with God all things are possible and we can't lose sight of that.

David did not lose sight of it.

So there's a second thing, though.

First thing was bring unity.

The second thing is to beat some long term enemies, and that's in the rest of verse six and seven.

So check that with me.

The Jebusites.

He comes up to challenge them.

Jebusites say to David you will not get in here, even the blind and the lame can ward you off.

They thought David cannot get in here.

Could it be possible that Jebusites were a tad bit complacent, a little bit overconfident?

Now check this out.

You got David a warrior who has already killed a bunch of people.

He's killed a lot of wild animals.

He's killed Goliath.

They had to know some of those stories.

So David walks up to the base of that mountain that they're defending and they start talking trash to him.

How smart is that?

How wise is that?

To poke the bear, as they used to say?

Verse seven nevertheless, david captured the fortress of Zion, the city of David.

Hey y'all, this is the first time that the word Zion is used in the Bible.

Total, it's used, I think I read, over a hundred times.

It starts to be referred to as what we call today the city of Jerusalem, and this day it was that hill that the Jebusites lived on.

They called it Jebus earlier and it becomes Zion.

Zion is listed many times in the Old Testament and even in the New Testament, the book of Revelation uses it symbolically to even talk about the second coming of Christ when he returns to Zion.

Now for you scholars, how many of you know what the word means?

What does Zion mean?

Anybody?

Well, we don't know what it means.

So if you do know, you can make a lot of money over that, but really we don't.

Theologians don't know what it means.

That's not the important thing, but it's not about that word either.

Look back at verse seven again.

What do you think is the most important word in that whole short verse?

I think it's the first word nevertheless.

That means this is how things are going, but God gets involved nevertheless.

Is your God a nevertheless God?

Is you're a God that you believe can do anything, even against all odds?

Is your God a God that, if you feel like he's calling you to take a terribly big risk, where you put everything on the table and you're all in with that and if he doesn't deliver.

You're in big-time trouble.

Nevertheless, he will do it.

That's the kind of God that we worship and that should be our attitude toward Him not to be flippant and haphazard and thoughtless, but when led to dealing with a long-term enemy, we're not afraid to go there.

I pictured David saying you know what?

I've been king now a while.

There's this elephant in the room living right in the middle of our territory.

They've been here hundreds of years.

It's time to deal with them.

It's time to go take on this long-term enemy.

Let me tell you how long.

All the way back in Genesis 10, the Jebusites are listed for the very first time, because in Genesis 7, when Noah comes out of the ark, he does so with some sons.

One of those sons was named Canaan.

The Jebusites were descendants of Canaan.

That's why that whole region was called the land of Canaan, later the promised land.

It was from him.

In Genesis 15, though, abraham gets a promise from God.

He says you're going to occupy, your people are going to occupy that whole area.

Everywhere you have walked in height, it's going to be real estate that your people have.

It's an amazing covenant and amazing promise.

In Exodus 23, moses is told okay, we're getting ready to go into this promised land.

You need to destroy every people group that gets in your way there.

And he starts naming them.

Guess who's named the Jebusites?

Well, moses messes up, he's got anger issues.

Moses doesn't get to go, so Joshua takes over as the leader.

Same thing is told to Joshua Deuteronomy 7, 1, and 2.

Joshua does go across and they do battle.

Joshua wins actually he kills the king of the Jebusites.

But a group of them got holed up in a fortress area in what is now Jerusalem and they were able to hold them off because at the end of Joshua, chapter 23, I think it's verse 16, it says Joshua was not able to dislodge them, and that was hundreds of years earlier.

Joshua 23 · chapter mention

And now David walks into this arena, he walks up to the walled fortress city called Jerusalem and they're talking trash to him because they are really confident.

Now, to his credit, david gets close enough to hear it.

But because he's a creative, intuitive, imaginary leader who believes with God all things are possible, he's also checking out what he can use for his advantage.

He's looking for any military advantage that he might have, because right now there are none.

They have every military advantage that they can possibly have and they have for hundreds of years.

But this is a long-term enemy that needs to be dealt with.

What's that or who is that in your life?

I'm not suggesting that we go make enemies.

I'm suggesting that some come naturally.

If you are a serious Christ follower, you're going to have a little bit of conflict in your life.

It's just the way it works.

You're going to be misunderstood, you're going to be misrepresented.

That is a test of us, not them.

If we remain strong and we remain who we are and we continue to try to bless the rest of the community, god will honor that and we will see long-term enemies sooner or later fall by the wayside, and that's a great promise from God, because he made that promise.

Let me get a little bit more personal.

Some of you are fighting a long-term battle, a long-term enemy within your marriage, because some of the enemies are external, but nowadays I think most of our enemies are internal.

There's stuff a little bit out of whack with me, or there's stuff a little bit out of whack with the person I married, and we can continue to either ignore it and let it fester, or we can decide it's time to take on that enemy not against each other but link arms and we are going to attack this problem now unified together, not divided anymore.

But once we get unified and Christ is truly leading us, guess what?

With God, all things are possible.

We'll defeat long-term enemies, even within our family or within our marriages.

Sometimes God will defeat the enemy and we get to have the party and rejoice and do that.

Sometimes the enemy stays, but we still maintain despite the enemy.

Paul had an internal enemy.

We don't know what it was, but he called it the thorn in the flesh.

And Paul said I've repeatedly prayed.

He prayed and other people got healed.

This one in him.

He could not pray away.

God left it.

He had his theory on why Keep me humble, keep me dependent on him.

So therefore, when I am weak, I am strong.

But I'll tell you this he let that enemy ride along with him the rest of his life.

But that enemy did not stop him from being who God created him to be and that enemy did not stop him from seeing a whole bunch of people be blessed by the gospel of Jesus.

And that is instructive for all of us.

Galatians 5.16 says simply this walk in the Spirit and do not gratify the desires of the flesh.

So there's something in me that would just rather not go fight those enemies.

I'd rather just sit on my couch and I'd rather just pretend they're not out there.

And you might have a little bit of that in you.

I don't love conflict and I sure don't go looking for it, but there are certain things that are unavoidable and there are certain things that we know God has led us for, and here's where it gets really, really important.

The battle is always going to be worth fighting.

If you are fighting for your family, the battle will always be important enough to do.

If you're fighting for your church family, the battle is always something that you should not avoid if you are fighting the biggest enemy who wants to destroy everybody.

You see, I love Lord Supper for a lot of reasons of what it symbolizes.

One of the things today we're reminded of Jesus the night before the crucifixion is basically telling his followers there's going to be a big fight tomorrow.

I'm going to ascend a hill, just like David did a thousand years ago, but it'll look a lot different and it's going to be a lot different.

But I am attacking the longest term enemy in history.

His name is Satan and it's high time somebody took him down and I am here to defeat the work of the devil and tomorrow it won't look like it, but tomorrow he goes down and I'm thankful for one that Jesus thought that was a battle worth fighting.

And we have those internal things inside of us that we just need to attack.

So let's look at verses 8 and 9.

There's one more.

You know, we do defeat long-term enemies, we do bring unity.

But the third thing is sometimes we're all called to obey, but sometimes we have to obey non-specific directions.

So let's look at that in verse 8 and 9.

On that day David said anybody who conquers the Jebusites will have to use the water shaft to reach those lame and blind who are David's enemies.

That is why they say the blind and the lame will not enter the palace.

David then took up residence in the fortress and called it the city of David.

He built up the area around it from the supporting terraces inward.

He does this building project to expand that plateau afterwards from the 12 acres we think it was.

So let's back up On the eighth day.

He's walking around, he's close enough to see what looks like to be a water shaft and he says looks like to me the only way to get in here is somebody's going to have to climb up through that water shaft.

They had a spring called the spring of Gahan and it was down in the lower elevation.

The thought is they had bored the Jebusites over years, had bored a tunnel through solid rock so that, if they were ever put under siege, they could get to their water supply in safety back and forth.

Some of our folks today and you might be some of them they're a little bit skeptical.

Like you know, these are a lot of.

These are fictitious stories.

They're good stories and they prove a good point.

But you know how in the world could he have done that?

That didn't really happen.

Well, can you put that picture up there, jim, in 1860, an archaeologist by the name of Warren discovered some stuff on the spot on the hill which is Jerusalem now.

He got to excavating it and he found a 50-yard long tunnel that had been drilled a long, long time ago through solid rock and it's called now Warren's Tunnel or Warren's shaft y'all.

That is the tunnel that David's men came up to take the city that was called at that time Jebus.

It really happened.

Some of you also are thinking well, that's just so easy?

Duh Well, it must not have been too easy.

Nobody had done it for 400 years.

See, here's the deal.

As a leader, you've got to wade into the fight close enough to see what you're fighting.

David did that.

He hears the taunts.

He sees the opening of what could be a water shaft, which will be probably unguarded.

Why?

Because the Jebusites are overconfident.

And so he does what nobody else had been willing to do.

God didn't tell him to go look for the water shaft.

God didn't tell him to do all that, but he did it because his mission was clear, and this is important to me and you.

His mission was clear, but how he got there was not a step-by-step procedure.

Usually that's how God operates.

Here's where I have you and why I have you here.

Your job is to use the brain I gave you to figure out how creative or how diligent or how hardworking you ought to be to get the job done, and sometimes it's even trial or error.

There are times.

He's very specific, jericho.

He says march around seven days in a row, blow the horn, march around.

He was very specific.

This time not so much.

He just says there's where the capital needs to be, go get it and David is intuitive enough and brave enough and risky enough to do it.

Why?

Because he believes that with God, all things are possible.

Are you an intuitive person when it comes to following Christ?

What is intuitive?

The best definition I've heard is you know some things but you don't know why you know them or how you know them.

That's intuition, right, I believe.

In this case, it's sponsored and authored by the Holy Spirit.

So many times what you do that ends up being the right thing.

You really can't even take credit, nor can I.

It's the Holy Spirit, but you end up at the right place.

But you have to be under the authority and the power of Jesus to see that happen.

Our mission here if you're a guest, I just you know.

I feel like I need to tell you this.

Our mission here.

I feel like it's crystal clear Now how we're getting there, step by step, is a daily process.

I wish I had a map.

I wish I had all the answers.

I do not.

I probably will not, but I have never been more sure of anything in my life, of where we are going as a church body, because I know who gave us the vision and he's the only one who knows the future.

But that is tremendously exciting to me.

It's a little bit scary, but it's exciting, and so, even with the non-specifics, we've got to be okay with that.

So can I give you one little it's not a piece of advice, it's straight from the Scripture of what will make you better at.

That makes me better, make us all a little bit better.

Leaders of our families and whatever we're in, do the small things very consistently.

David is a shepherd.

As a boy he does it very consistently, very obediently, very seriously.

It's small potatoes.

It's just walking around with a bunch of dumb sheep and making sure they stay alive long enough to get either wool from them or slaughter them.

That's not a glamorous job.

But then there's the tax, the lion and the bear.

Because he's been obedient in the little things, he's now got a big thing to deal with and he is faithful and successful.

Next thing he knows is a teenager.

He's going to see his brothers on the battle front and he realizes, oh, there's even a bigger enemy.

And he pulls out his slingshot and he makes history because he was successful with the sheep and he was successful with the predators of the sheep.

Now there's a predator coming after his own nation and he treats him just like the lion.

Then he's made king and he's got a fractured, diverse group of people running all over the place.

They don't know if they like him or not, they don't know if they trust him or not.

And there's this one big enemy right in the middle of their territory the Jebusites.

He does what he has done his entire life.

I'm going to take care of little details.

I'm going to walk around that place until I see a weakness and I'm going to exploit it, just like I did with the lion, just like I did with Goliath.

They'll fall too, because with God all things are possible.

That's my job and that's your job.

Be consistently obedient in the little things, and the big enemies will fall one day, not because we're so special, but because God is, and I take great heart in that Y'all.

Without the resurrection that night, the upper room night, they would have just been doing another religious symbol.

That's all.

That would have meant There'd be no power in it.

But when he took the meaning to the and made it, the Lord suffered that night.

He knew all the power of the universe was behind it because he knew God was and he knew that with God, all things are possible.