Worshipper Warrior IX: David & Goliath - A Battle for your Imagination Part 1 - Worshipper Warrior

You're listening to the road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.

The enemy is always doing his greatest work in your life to divide your mind.

He wants to divide your mind.

He wants you to be unsure of yourself.

He wants you to be unsure of your Christianity.

He wants you to be unsure of being a Jesus disciple.

He wants you to be unsure of something God's told you to do.

Because if he can divide your mind and cut you in half, you'll do nothing.

It always leads to paralysis.

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We hope you are encouraged by today's message from Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.

In the final chapter of Surprised by Joy, C.S.

Lewis writes briefly on his transition from a pure and simple theism to Christianity.

It was on a walk with J.R.R.

Tolkien, on Addison's walk along the Thames River at Oxford, that the subsequent discussion that followed.

The problem with Lewis, according to Tolkien, quote, lay not in his rational failure to understand the theory of Christianity, but in his imaginative failure to grasp its significance.

Tolkien argued that Lewis ought to approach the New Testament with the same sense of imaginative openness and expectation that he approached pagan myths in the professional studies of his lectures.

Tolkien said, quote, the story of Christ is simply a true myth.

A myth working on us in the same way as others.

But with this tremendous difference, it really happened.

And as Lewis began to use his imagination as he read the scriptures, they came alive.

They popped off the page, and he truly got saved and became one of the great apologetic writers, if not the greatest, of the 20th century.

I want to give you a definition for imagination.

Imagination is the faculty or action of forming new ideas, new images, or concepts of external objects not present to the senses.

I want to talk about a God-saturated imagination.

And I'm so intense on this, and I'm so focused on this message today, more than usual.

If we don't get through it, we'll do part two next week because I'm not going to compromise on some things that I want to share.

It's just a lot here.

I want to dedicate this message, and I don't normally, you guys, I don't know if I've ever done this, but I want to dedicate this message to everyone in this room who's going through the valley of the shadow of fear and death.

That have gone through divorces, abuse, firings, and betrayal that you thought would never happen to you, but it did.

And I speak out of the power of what God's done in my heart through the betrayals that I've experienced over the last few years that have set me to a new place of reimagining the scriptures and reimagining Jesus and reimagining the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

And we're going to look at an ancient story that all of you in this room know.

It's a story that really actually, because we know it so well, it actually hinders us from grasping the anointing that's really on it.

And it's the story of David and Goliath.

And so would you look at 1 Samuel 17?

Many of you know we've been in a series, you that are regular members of the road, called worshipper warrior on the life of David, we find ourselves at this juncture of chapter 17 of 1 Samuel, looking at a situation that has now been illustrated in every Bible, children's Bible, every Sunday school class probably has some poster somewhere of this kid there with a sling, and the one I remember as a kid, and the one I talk about in my book, Worshiper Warrior, you know, with six-pack abs, wearing a loincloth, young, curly, Jewish-looking hair, you know, tanned, good looking, sling, and this massive nine-foot giant with 125 pounds of armor on.

And I remember looking at that going, I want to be like him.

I mean, Elijah, beard, old, wrinkled, uh.

Moses, longer beard, whiter hair, uh.

David, that's the ticket.

I want to be like that guy, you know?

And uh, and so here we see that, and what happens is, you know, it becomes almost fodder for the locker room talk when you've got this little team.

You know, how many saw the movie Hoosiers?

You know, great movie, Hoosiers, you know, true, based on a true story of this little team that goes all the way to the Indiana um state finals in basketball, and the chaplain gets up, you know, I just, it was like so predictable.

So the chaplain gets up and he goes, like David and Goliath, he took his sling and he slew the giant.

You know, let's drop that.

Let's just drop that.

And I want us to look at this story from the perspective of a new imagination.

I want you to look at it from the perspective of not just the story, we know the story.

And if you don't know the story, you know, you're gonna become familiar with it today.

But from the perspective of our life here in the 21st century.

Now the Philistines gathered their armies together to battle and were gathered in Sukkah, which belongs to Judah.

They encamped between Sukkah and Azekah in Ephesdamim.

And Saul and the men of Israel were gathered together, and they encamped in the valley of Elah, and drew up in battle array against the Philistines.

The Philistines stood on a mountain on one side, which would have been the southern side of the valley, and Israel stood on a mountain on the other side, which would have been the northern elevated side of the valley, with a valley between.

That's the valley of Elah.

So, the Shephalah, you guys, is a mountainous region that runs from the coast, the Mediterranean, up through, up into Bethlehem.

And what the what the Philistines were doing is they were part of and had their encampment, and we know archaeologically lived at right there on the Mediterranean.

They were called the sea people.

Some believe they came from Cyprus and Egypt.

Probably came from both, we believe.

But they were made up, in some cases, of these giants.

And we and we have beds.

We have nine-foot beds that have been found in archaeological digs that would indicate that there were these giants in the land that because of a physical disorder actually grew to huge size.

And Goliath came out of it.

We believe Goliath was actually not a Philistine, but that he was a mercenary working with the Philistines and getting paid.

So this Shephalah that went up through is a storied valley that runs right through the middle of Israel.

And so what the Philistines were doing is they wanted to cut Saul's nation in half.

So it went straight through, and it went right up into Bethlehem.

And Bethlehem's about 10 miles away, and we're going to see where David is running a mini marathon every day, bringing supplies to his brothers and to the captains of thousands at that time.

But here's what's significant about this first set of verses.

The enemy is always doing his greatest work in your life to divide your mind.

He wants to divide your mind.

He wants you to be unsure of your Christianity.

He wants you to be unsure of being a Jesus disciple.

He wants you to be unsure of something God's told you to do.

Because if he can divide your mind and cut you in half, you'll do nothing.

It always leads to paralysis.

So let's see what happens next.

And the champion went out from the camp, verse 4, of the Philistines, his name was Goliath from Gath.

That's the reason we believe he was probably not a Philistine, but a mercenary, whose height was six cubits in a span, which is a little over nine feet tall.

He had a bronze helmet on his head, and he was armed with a coat of mail, and the weight of the coat was five thousand shekels of bronze.

That's about 125 pounds.

And he had bronze armor on his legs and a bronze javelin between his shoulders.

Now the staff of his spirit was like a weaver's beam.

And his iron spearhead weighed 600 shekels, and a shield bearer went before him.

Okay, so here's what I want to do today.

And I'm going to do this next week if I'm looking at time and I want to be sensitive to time for next week, because this might be part one and part two.

Here's what I'm going to do first.

Let's look first at a Goliath-saturated imagination.

Because that's what the soldiers of Israel have, and that's what Saul their leader has.

They are saturated with Goliath.

I mean, it just dominates the valley.

This one guy, this one issue, and every one of us have it.

This one thing that's out there that's creating within us almost like a temple of doom.

A temple of doom over our life.

We're saturated by it and we are paralyzed by it.

Here's the first thing.

Number one, it seems insurmountable.

It seems insurmountable.

I think it's interesting that Samuel gives so much information, church, about the armor, about the about the staff.

I mean, we don't have anywhere else in Scripture where so much detail is given to one opposing soldier as Goliath.

Why?

Why?

Because the inerrant, infallible Word of God is causing us to encounter with our imagination issues in our life.

How many of you know exactly the details of all your fears?

You were reminded of those things when you were a little kid.

You're a failure, you're a loser, you'll never amount to anything.

Right?

And it echoes through the hearts and the minds of our life, even today, as young adults and even seasoned adults in our life.

And so the Goliath-saturated imagination are those issues within our life that seem huge and insurmountable.

That's the Valley of Elah.

And some of you in this room are going through the Valley of Elah.

Some of you are being divided by the enemy.

You know that temptation, and you're here today.

Because God's going to break that thing off.

God's going to break that off, and he's going to set you free.

And if we don't get it all in today, you better come back next week.

Because that's when we really get into a God-saturated imagination.

Verse 8.

Then he stood and he cried out to the armies of Israel and said to them, Why have you come out to line up for battle?

Am I not a Philistine?

And you, the servants of Saul, choose a man for yourselves and let him come down to me.

Now that in ancient terms was called single combat.

Whoever won the battle, whoever won the fight, won the battle.

Second issue of a Goliath-saturated imagination is you're all alone.

That you think it's single combat.

What am I gonna do?

I'm on my own.

I don't have anybody with me.

I don't have anybody who will find.

I don't have any friends.

I can't share that.

It's called shame, church.

We carry that shame, and so we don't share it with others.

Around here we talk about having blood-stained allies.

Men and women, if you don't have blood-stained allies, you are alone.

Now you've got the Lord, but guess what?

That's not the way it was supposed to be.

Unbeknownst to most of the theology of Western Christianity, it's kind of this cavalier maverick, um, I can do it alone kind of mentality.

It's not biblical.

It's not biblical.

It's not biblical.

When we look through the pages of scripture, we see in every case, leaders that God uses always having someone next to them, someone beside them that believes in them, that they have a heart for, and Moses had Aaron.

And Elijah had Elisha.

And David has Jonathan and his 400 men, and Jesus had his disciples.

And Peter, James, and John, it is his closest bloodstained allies.

Men and women, you are not alone.

But the but the Goliath-saturated imagination, which some of you are going through right now, says, I'm alone.

He creates fear in the hearts of Saul and the armies of Israel because he just wants one guy.

I just want one guy.

And that's how Satan and demons work.

They pick you off and they pull you out.

See it all the time as a pastor.

Been a pastor for 25 years?

Saw it on the mission field.

People just they're just not around anymore.

Well, where are they?

Well, you know, they got offended about this, or they got hurt, or or this thing was said in a sermon, or whatever it might be.

How many of you have been offended at church before?

Raise your hand.

All right, the rest of you, it's coming.

I promise you.

I will offend you on a regular basis.

It's my job.

It's part of my job, is to offend you.

I'm being tongue-in-cheek, but the reality is that God comes and he does offend our spirit to reveal our heart.

Sometimes he offends our spirit to reveal our heart.

Because he wants us to think differently.

I'm challenging you today to think differently.

You can't have revival and revolution with Jesus in your heart naturally.

It is a supernatural work that begins between the ears.

As we begin to renew our minds and think with a God-saturated imagination, God can use you just as much, if not more, than this young 13-year-old in the Valley of Eli.

So, first it's insurmountable.

Second, you're alone, you're all by yourself.

He says, If he's able to fight with me and kill me, then we will be your servants.

But if I prevail against him and kill him, then you shall be our servants and serve us.

And the Philistine said, I defy the armies of Israel this day.

Give me a man that we may fight together.

And when Saul and all Israel heard these words of the Philistine, they were dismayed and greatly afraid.

Goliath, saturated imagination, always creates fear.

Always creates fear.

Listen, gang.

Listen to this.

Fear is to Satan what faith is to God.

Let me say that again.

Fear is to Satan what faith is to God.

Here's what I mean by that.

What fear, do you guys realize that fear has anointing on it?

Fear is anointed by demons.

Faith is anointed by God.

So when we let fear come in, it has an anointing on it, and it anoints us toward the direction of paralysis.

It paralyzes your mind.

It paralyzes your heart.

You don't know what to do.

And you're sitting there, you thought you knew what to do.

You came out of the house ready to go do it.

And then you hear something on the radio, or one of the guys in your company calls and says, Do you know about this and that and that and this?

And suddenly fear starts to take over, and Satan and demons use it to bring paralysis.

That's what's happening here.

That's exactly what's happening here.

Do you think these guys all signed up to go into a valley and go, oh, oh, yeah, yeah.

Because it keeps saying they're screaming, they're screaming, they're hollering, and then just stand there.

But you see, faith is to God because when we allow faith to start working in our life, it breaks the power of paralysis and it moves us forward with power and anointing.

So fear is to Satan what faith is to God.

That's what shame does.

Shame creates fear, and fear creates paralysis.

What happens in our lives is we hear the scripting going through our mind that we're a loser, that will never amount to anything.

Oh, the same thing's gonna happen again that happened in the last company, or the same thing's gonna happen in this marriage that happened in the last marriage, and suddenly paralysis comes, you're overwhelmed with fear, and you do nothing.

You do nothing.

Now, underline, highlight, circle, verse 12, because now the story's gonna change.

This is the God saturated imagination through a 13-year-old boy, a 13-year-old young man, like the young men and women right now, down below your feet in the children's ministry that are leading worship and teaching the word.

Why can't we have 12 and 13 and 14-year-old Davids, man or woman, being mightily used to God right now in the 21st century in this church?

It's only because we don't have faith for it.

Guess what?

They've already got more faith than us.

You hang out with those kids?

Why can't God save grandma?

Why can't God heal my uncle?

And you're well, you know, cancer's a really bad thing, and you know, um, we need to do chemotherapy.

I'm not against chemotherapy.

That I'm not gonna apologize for that next week.

I can promise you that.

My point is how we think.

You understand?

We think scientifically when our kids think spirit-filled.

I'm not against science.

I'm for science.

Science is school.

I have a growth on my neck.

War.

I went to Walmart, and I got this Dr.

Scholes thing, and let me just tell you what I really did.

I all my knives are razor sharp.

Need I say anymore?

So I cut that sucker off, man.

It was a little painful for like about two seconds.

It was boom, it's gone.

Bled a little bit, but then I did the Dr.

Schollz thing.

So all right, look at verse 12.

Now, David.

Alright, here's what I want you to do.

Listen, everybody, listen up.

Now, David, I want you to put your name in there.

If you're using one of these old timey Bibles like I use, you can still write in them.

Look at mine, it's all written up.

Right in there.

It's where it says, now, David, I want you to put now Pam.

Or now Liz.

Or now put your name in there.

Put your name in there.

This is about you.

This is not about David.

Yeah, it's historically about David.

But with a God saturated imagination, this is about you.

Now Steve.

Now David.

Now John was the son of that Ephraith of Bethlehem, Judah, whose name was Jesse.

He had eight sons.

And the man was old and advanced in years in the days of Saul.

The three oldest sons of Jesse had gone to follow Saul to the battle.

The names of his three sons who went into the battle were Eliab, the firstborn next to him, Abinadab, and the third.

Third Shaman.

Now here's what we know.

We know by historical fact that you had to be 20 years old to fight in the army of Saul, to fight in the armies of Israel.

Could be that these three are the only ones that are over 20.

That gives veracity to what I've been saying, that David is very, very young.

And I'm going to say about 13.

The reason I say that is because it's about 17 years before he became king, and he became king when he was 30.

So I believe he's 13.

David was the youngest.

And the three oldest followed Saul.

Verse 15.

But David occasionally went and returned from Saul to feed his father's sheep in Bethlehem.

Bethlehem's about 10 miles away.

And the Philistine drew near and presented himself 40 days, morning and evening.

So this is a really, this is a really bold bunch of soldiers.

I mean, this is some guys that are ready to go out and take it on, man.

40 days.

They all get arrayed and they go, ha, and maybe they click their spears together or whatever they do.

For 40 days they haven't done anything.

Can anybody relate?

The church is great at this.

I mean, the church in America is great at this.

Don't do anything, but just but just be mad about it.

I can't believe Republicans did.

I can't believe the Democrats did.

I can't believe that Supreme Court can't.

But don't do anything about it.

Just get all mad about it.

Don't get involved.

Just get red-faced and upset.

I believe God wants to do a kingdom revolution, folks.

I believe God's calling us to be engaged in the community and love like Jesus loved.

To pray as Jesus prayed.

To see healings and power like Jesus saw healings and power.

To be Jesus in our city.

You already have a mission field where you work.

You have a mission field.

Some of us, our mission field needs to start right there with our marriage because our marriage is in such shambles right now.

And God wants to bring a kingdom revolution there.

Don't shout about it, don't complain about it.

Start engaging in it.

And loving that person.

That's your first bloodstained ally, is your spouse.

Well, if that makes you feel bad, just remember that a thousand years ago they were doing the same thing here, like ah! 2,000 years ago, they were ah 3,000 years ago, ah.

This is 3,000 years ago.

It's our way, it's what we do.

But David occasionally went and returned from Saul to feed his father's sheep at Bethlehem, and the Philistines drew near and presented himself forty days, morning and evening.

Then Jesse said to his son David, Take now for your brothers an Ephah of this dried grain and these ten loaves, and run to your brothers at the camp, and carry these ten cheeses to the captain of their thousand, and see how your brothers fare, and bring back news of them.

Now Saul and they and all the men of Israel were in the valley fight fighting.

Boy, that's a little bit of license by Samuel, fighting with the Philistines.

I guess screaming is fighting.

So David rose early in the morning, left the sheep with the keeper, and took the things that went as Jesse had commanded him, and he came to the camp as the army was going out to the fight, and shouting for the battle, shout, shout, shout.

For Israel and the Philistines had drawn up in battle array, army against army.

This was going on for forty days and forty nights.

And David left his supplies in the hand of the supply keeper, ran to the army, and came and greeted his brothers.

Okay, here's the first thing.

A God-saturated imagination is faithful with what you're already called to do.

Just be faithful.

Be faithful to you know the right thing to do right now.

Dave is just being faithful to Jesse.

And if you remember chapter 16, which we covered a few weeks ago, I mean, his dad didn't even remember his son.

Had to call him in for the anointing from Samuel.

And I think actually the older brother Eliav is still smarting from that.

We're going to see that in just a moment.

But the God-saturated imagination is not looking for the next big thing.

It's the big thing of what you're doing now.

Be faithful at your job.

Show up on time.

Work a little longer than the others.

Put in the effort.

Be there.

Be faithful at that.

And so David enters in faithful.

He's running 10 miles, sometimes every day, twice, almost a marathon, going there and back.

And it says he ran.

He ran.

And so he's being faithful to his dad, no accolades.

This is the guy who just a few weeks before had been anointed with oil that came down, that he's going to be king over Israel, and he's still being faithful to Jesse.

Isn't that amazing?

Then, as he talked with them, there was a champion, the Philistine of Gath, Goliath by name, coming up from the armies of the Philistines, and he spoke according to the same words, so David heard them, and all the men of Israel, when they saw the man, fled from him and were dreadfully afraid.

So the men of Israel said, Have you seen this man who has come up?

Surely he has come up to defy Israel.

And it shall be that the man who kills him, the king, will enrich with great riches, will give him his daughter, and give his father's house exemption from taxes in Israel.

Then David spoke to the men who stood by him, saying, What shall be done?

He goes on to say, For who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?

And the people answered him in this manner, saying, So shall it be done for the man who kills him.

Now Eliab, his oldest brother, heard when he spoke to the men, and Eliab's anger was aroused against David, and he said, Why did you come down here?

Huh?

What's your problem?

And with whom have you know your pride and the insolence of your heart?

For you've come down to see the battle.

Man, that's the way we talk in the South, man.

Okay, here's the thing.

When we start to have a God-saturated imagination, you'll always have an older brother.

I promise you, you'll always have an older brother.

It says, You can't do that.

What's your place?

That's not your place.

What are you talking about?

This is the way we've always done it.

This is the way the church has always done it.

That's not church.

That's not the way the Smith family does it.

That's not the way the Holt family does it.

When we start to have a God-saturated imagination, you better expect kickback.

You better expect there to be the works of the enemy that's going to challenge the motives of your heart.

Now, if your motives aren't right, you need your motives checked at the door.

David's heart is a God-saturated imagination because listen, he doesn't live in the valley.

Everybody listen to me.

Important.

David doesn't camp in the valley.

David camps in the hills of Bethlehem.

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