Win The World: Spiritual Perspective

Hello, and welcome to the Kalamazoo church of Christ podcast.

Thank you so much for listening.

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We just planted in September, 2020 and at the Kalamazoo church, we believe that Christianity is done best when it is done together.

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We pray that you are inspired by what you hear today.

So we are going to read amazing chapter in Bible, like absolutely outstanding.

And I actually love Old Testament so much.

I love it, maybe even more than New Testament, honestly, though, you know, Jesus is the New Testament.

Yeah, right, right, right.

But I just, I'm a fan of old history, right, of this wars on, you know, with swords and the bows and everything like this.

And so we will open 1 Samuel 17, which is первое царство, if in Russian, right?

1 Samuel 17, первое царство, семнадцатая глава.

And we will start with, so what is the, what is the background of this whole situation?

Basically, Saul, the first ever king in Israel, was picked by God and appointed by his priest, right?

By God's priest or prophet.

Either way, yeah.

And Saul was the first ever king and this first ever king faced the, you know, let's say the trouble, the big issue, the country, global issue, right, is fighting Philistines, right?

Philistines, this is the spelling, all right.

And what they do, they sort of make two camps on the hills like this, right?

And there is this valley between them.

So they stay on two camps.

And basically, you know, the spirit of the war is very, very, I mean, people are frightened.

People are terrified before war, specifically in those times, you had to go face to face with other people and basically kill them, right?

You would have to, and there was a lot of psychology behind it, okay?

Like the spirit of the army was everything, was everything.

Because in actual wars, would fight only or would die, the losses or casualties of the war would be like maximum 5% before the armies would rout, right?

So they fight a little bit, a little bit, just 5% of people, okay, that's maybe more.

People would die.

Yes, this is sad.

But only 5% of the army would die and the people would rout just because they would lose morale.

And now this situation, let's read, 4-7, a champion named Goliath, who was from Gath or Gath, I don't know, came out of the Philistine camp.

His height was six cubits and a span, which is three meters.

He had a bronze helmet on his head and wore a coat of scale armor of bronze, weighting 5,000 shekels, which is 58 kilograms.

On his legs, he wore bronze graves and a bronze javelin was slung on his back.

His spear shaft was like a weaver's road and its iron point weighted 600 shekels, which is 6.9 kilograms, right?

And his shield bearer went ahead of him.

So now further you would see, 11th verse, on hearing the Philistine's words, Saul and all the Israelites were dismayed and terrified.

They were already lost, okay?

This very point, Goliath went in front and he was cursing and saying all the words, right?

And basically destroying the morality of Israelite.

They already lost at the very point.

Saul was the king, the very first king, and he already lost the war just because of the morality, right?

They would not stand a chance.

They would fight for five minutes and would run away.

And the result of running away, I will tell you later, I mean, how devastating it was for the army.

So what are you terrified in your life?

This is an open question.

This Goliath was super scary for the army, for Saul specifically also the king, the leader who has to be like, hey, yeah, let's do it, we can do it, who should actually believe in God.

And let's see this amazing situation here, 16th verse, 16 and 17.

So for 40 days, 40 days, the Philistine came forward every morning and evening and took his stand, like taunting Israel's army.

Now Jesse said to his son David, take this ephah, ephah is actually a lot.

I was surprised.

Ephah is 16 kilograms, okay?

16 kilograms of roasted grain and these 10 loaves of bread for your brothers and hurry to their camp.

Take along this 10 cheeses, cheese, cheeses, like cheeses, to the commander of their unit.

See how your brother are and bring back some assurance from them.

So 40 days, I mean, imagine the first day they already be like absolutely shuddered, right?

These people.

40 days Goliath would come forward, imagine the atmosphere in this camp.

I would imagine people to leave the camp like the very first day and the next days they would leave more and more people.

Imagine the atmosphere after 40 days.

And the father, of course, he was like, well, you know what?

I want to know how my kids are doing because they're almost in the war.

And he sends David there.

And you know what David does?

He goes there and yeah, you know who David is, by the way, King David, yeah, young boy, basically 15, 18 years old, just taking care of the flock, right?

He's a shepherd and he's the youngest son, the eighth and the youngest.

And the father is like, okay, go and just serve your brothers because definitely you are not a warrior.

You know, you have, you know, all you can do is just to serve and take, take a look for the flock.

And let's see what he heard when he's at the camp.

So 23rd verse, as he was talking with them, with his brothers, Goliath, the Philistine champion from Gath, stepped out from his lines and shouted his usual defiance.

And David heard it.

I love that Bible says David heard it.

Whenever the Israelites saw the man, they all fled from him in great fear.

40 days in a row.

Now the Israelites had been saying, do you see how this man keeps coming out?

He comes out to defy Israel.

The king will give great wealth to the man who kills him.

He will also give him his daughter in marriage and will exempt his family from taxes in Israel.

Now David hears it and he asks people around for three times in a row, hey, is it right that he will give this and that?

Is it right?

He'll give this and that.

And everyone, yes, yes, that's true.

Now imagine his situation.

He's like a poor guy, basically.

He is a shepherd.

He has eight brothers, you know, huge family.

They do some business.

They still have, you know, a lot of grain, like 16 kilograms of grain, you know, easily bringing there or cheese and so on.

But I imagine them being in need anyway, or not being so wealthy, just like typical, you know, family in a way.

And David is really allured by this whole situation.

He's like, what, really, really?

And the daughter, really in marriage?

And he was going, asking people around, which was a funny situation.

And then, and his brother, David, his, let's say, heart, really, in this whole, that he just came to see how they're fighting over there and not really being a part of this amazing best plan, you know.

And then let's see the 32 verse, David said to Saul, so yeah, Saul called him to his place and wanted to have, I mean, Saul called David, yeah, and wanted to have this conversation here.

So David said to Saul, let no one lose heart on account of this fellow's time.

Your servant will go and fight him.

Now think about it, 40 days, they were frightened.

And just a small fellow comes forward, like, hey, don't be frightened.

I'm 15 years old, 18 years old.

I can, I can go and fight him.

Sure, sure, you can do it, you know, yeah.

Imagine, imagine what Saul would think about him.

He's dead.

He's dead, you know, but we don't have other people who would go for it, right?

So you know what, let's give him armor at least, something to defend him.

And he couldn't wear it.

It was too much for him.

He wasn't used to this armor.

So he said, you know what, I'm going without armor.

I bet Saul would think he's dead.

He's dead, like, 100%.

And look at this.

He explains.

Saul replied, you are not able to go out against this fellow's time and fight him.

You're only a young man, and he has been a warrior from his youth, right?

And then look at what David says, and this argument is not spiritual.

Maybe, let's see.

But David said to Saul, your servant has been keeping his father's ship.

When a lion or a bear came and carried off a ship from the flock, I went after it, struck it, and rescued the ship from its mouth.

Yeah, that's a big thing.

When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it, and killed it.

Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear.

This uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them.

And here is the punchline, because he has defied the armies of the living God.

The Lord who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of the Philistine.

Saul said to David, go and the Lord be with you.

Amen.

You know?

Now, you see this whole perspective.

So, in a way, David made an argument with Saul.

Saul was like, yes.

You know what?

If God blessed you before, He will bless you this time.

And then this whole armor thing happens.

Then let's see further.

41.

Meanwhile, the Philistine with his shield bearer in front of him kept coming closer to David.

He looked David over and saw that he was little more than a boy, a kid glowing with health and handsome.

And he despised him.

Being healthy and handsome, you know, not always great.

He said to David, am I a dog that you come at me with sticks?

And the Philistine cursed David by his gods.

Come here, he said, and I'll give you, and I'll give your flesh to the birds and wild animals.

Now, I can imagine David not seeing maybe the Goliath, you know, being like, hey, yeah, I can do that.

I can do this, being courageous.

Now he's in the field all alone, you know, no brothers, no people around, right, helping him out.

Right in front of the giant, three meters high, you know, all the armors and everything.

And the giant starts to curse him and taunt him in this way.

And this is very scary.

I mean, think about moral, every single aspect of this, like morality or his moral level, right?

What David answers him, he says, David said to the Philistine, you come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied.

This day, the Lord will deliver you into my hands and I will strike you down and cut your head off.

This very day, I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds and the wild animals, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel.

All those gathered here will know that this is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves, for the battle is the Lord's, and he will give all of you into our hands.

As the Philistine moved closer to attack him, David ran quickly toward the battle line to beat him.

Reaching into his bag and taking out a stone, he slung it and strung the Philistine on the forehead.

The stone sank into his forehead and he fell face down on the ground.

Now, I do believe, you know, it's kind of hard from 100 meters to just throw a rock and kill a guy.

Probably he would see the stone flying, so he would, you know, evade.

So I would imagine that David come so close, like maybe 10 meters max, maybe five meters, and right away into his forehead, so that he wouldn't have even time to actually, you know, like evade the hit.

So this whole battle is all about being crazy brave, maybe insane.

I mean, you have to be insane to not be scared by this kind of situation.

And David's motivation was God, was the confidence that God will deliver his enemy to him, right?

And do you feel confident like this in God?

You know, are there aspects in your life that you're like, oh my goodness, this is too much.

I can't do it, this is too scary.

You know, like preaching to people, for example, like sharing faith.

Oh my goodness, right?

The first time is always so scary.

And yet David was so crazy, so confident, and he came close to Goliath and just sent this.

He knew this is his only chance because one hit from the spear, one move from Goliath would just kill him in the place, right?

The sweetness, this very chest, just one stone actually made the whole difference.

Did you try to run when you were scared?

How does it feel?

Did you try to run when you were scared?

Did you have this experience?

I couldn't, I would fall.

When I was a kid, I saw the car moving towards me and I would just fall on the ground and like crawl away because I was so scared that the car would hit me.

How are you alive?

Right?

I just crawled away.

Like the legs are like so weak at this point.

And you're like, what are you doing?

Like start working, right?

David wanted to Goliath.

I mean, think about this situation.

Oh my goodness.

I don't know if you fight ever in your life with someone.

This is, I mean, I don't know.

Maybe guys fought.

I fought like once or twice.

Okay, once it was real.

And like you try to hit him, but your arms are like so weak.

You're so scared of this situation.

You're, I mean, you wouldn't expect.

And he willingly went for it.

He ran into the face of Goliath.

He came close and he threw the stone in his forehead.

Okay.

And he won right away.

I mean, think about it.

That this win, this braveness was the actual glory.

Okay.

What let's say gave him this result.

And this braveness come not from him, but from confidence in God.

And that was enough to win.

And that's usually the situation in our lives.

We are small and weak, not very talented.

Okay.

Not very powerful, not very energetic, not very wise, not very, you know, smart.

Maybe we don't have the looks of the guy who would bring confidence and maybe respect from other people.

Maybe we are not, you know, really made for whatever aspect, you know, is coming for us.

And yet the confidence in God made something impossible like we discussed before.

Absolutely crazy.

Possible.

Yes.

And the results of it, the results was that the whole army routed in the very second Goliath fell on the ground.

And you know what it means for the army to rout?

So before we were talking 5% would like fight and die.

And the other army would just run off, right?

What it means is that the winning army would pursue the routing army.

And at this very stage of war is the most casualty pool, right?

60% of the army would die.

60% of people would die at the very moment they would route.

This is the moment when Israel army won, really.

And then they took all the spoils of war.

They took, they, you know, like went through the camp of Philistines and so on.

So this very single small, small win over there of David influenced the whole impact of the war.

And Philistine army fell broken and dead.

One person, one person's faith changed the whole route, right, of the war.

And the outcome was, you know, devastating for Philistines and so big for Israel, right?

And it could be you.

It could be you every single day.

And you might think this one win is nothing, but God's perspective is much bigger.

He knows, God knew that David has to come there.

God actually planted in David's heart so much trust in him, right?

Because David knew from the very childhood how God protected him, right?

He gave him this confidence that God can actually give him this win in this fight.

And it could be you.

It could be you every single day.

And you might think this is just one small win.

It's just me against my Goliath.

But the whole big spiritual perspective of it is actually, you know, it will bring so much fruit afterwards.

It will bring like a hundred times more fruit that you think you will do right now.

And I love to think about this as, I love to think about cycles in church, cycles of people, basically, that we are a student group, but in 10 years we will be a young professional group and married group, right?

But all the people, all the teenagers, all the students we baptize today, they will be, they will continue onwards the work we are doing here.

And basically I'm 25 years old, you know, and then after a while I will be older.

And then even Sandoz says, at some point you will be too old for a student group.

You're like, oh my goodness.

Yeah, and that's why we have to prepare leadership you know, for that.

So we plant seeds here.

We share faith here, you know, with completely strange people for us, strangers, right?

And then, and then they come here, they do, and they hear this small message.

They hear, they hear just like, they have a couple of interaction with us, but the fruit of it, imagine they will get baptized and they would bring their friends like, like Carlos did, right?

Carlos got baptized, Noah got baptized right away.

And then Patrick got baptized.

It was a whole chain of events because they were very good friends with each other.

They would influence in a very good way each other.

The same way it could happen with our guests.

The same way it could happen with you influencing your friend, you know, this whole spiritual perspective.

At first, it's super scary to come forward to people who share faith, you know, to go out of your comfort zone.

I know some people are scared to talk even, to socialize, but imagine the spiritual perspective of this wind, of this small wind, how much things it will change.

Thank you so much for listening to the Kalamazoo Church of Christ podcast.

If you're in the Kalamazoo area, we'd love to get connected.

Please go to kalamazoo.church and fill in your information to come to a Sunday service or any other event that we have going on.

In any case, you'll be hearing from us next week.

Come on! So busy saving souls.