1 Samuel 17 | Round 1: David vs. Goliath

This is City Post Church. We're about three things.

Build equipped and send all under the Lordship of Jesus

Christ. A small church plant in Fort

Worth, TX. Who decided to do things a

little differently? Adoramos Ajesu Cristo I love

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We truly preach the Word. I love City Post because of the

community we've been able to build.

To do ministry like Jesus. For light to push back darkness.

This is City Post podcast. Amen.

Coming out of high school, I went to one of the most disaster

of a wedding that you could think of.

It was somebody I knew from our old church.

Her older sister was getting married and from start to

finish. It was the hottest mess of a

wedding. And I mean, it was so bad.

The family shows up and I remember sitting in the back of

this little church and they're yelling at each other and the

older brother is cousin, his mom and all this stuff.

And then the groom shows up and he is blitzed, like he is

wasted. I mean, like, like his friend

had to carry him to the door of the church.

Like that's how bad it was. And I remember like, we're

watching this and, and everybody's panicking and

freaking out. And even the pastor that was

marrying them had to hold him up because he's about to fall over.

And but after the ceremony we went to a different church.

It was a hall. And we're sitting there and the

older brother starts to follow me around.

I'm, I'm, I'm confused. I don't understand why.

And he's, he's following me around with his little buddy.

And because, you know, every bully has like the one, the

friend that's way too short, that just talks and he's just

following me around. And he's like, yeah, man, I bet

you won't say nothing now. And I'm just like, what is going

on? Like, I don't, I have no idea.

So the whole entire ceremony, this kid is following me

everywhere. And he's talking under his

breath, but he's doing it so I could hear.

He's like, yeah, this punk won't do none outside this.

And I'm just ignoring him. I was like, I have no idea who

this kid is, but it got to a point where now I'm starting to

like, OK, it's going to go down. Like, like I'm starting to size

them up and I'm like, I play football.

I wrestled. I was like, man, this guy's like

$1.35 wet. I think I could, I could fold

them. You know this ain't too hard.

I could do. This and then I'll start looking

outside and then I even like out my my razor.

That's how long ago it was. And I text my friend, hey bro,

I'm about to get in a fight. Like you think you'd come up

here? And he's like.

Bro I get off work at 1:00. I'm I'm there, so I might not

fight, but I know people can. All right.

So like, so I start texting up my boys.

I'm about to get in a fight with this kid.

I don't know what his deal is. And it got so bad that I

remember I was like, OK, I'm about to go outside.

I'm going to hit him. I'm going to go punch this kid

because he won't leave me alone. So finally I went to my dad.

I remember my dad was sitting there and I went to my dad and I

was dad. I'm about to go outside and I'm

going to get in a fight. With this kid.

And my dad looks at me and he kind of chuckles and he goes.

Did you just ask him why? I was like, no, I don't want to

talk to this guy. And as I'm talking to my dad, he

sits right next to me and my dad's like, he's right there.

Just talk to him. And I remember looking at this

kid and he's just like, man, are we good?

He's like, man, my boy says, you were talking smack about me.

And I was like, I didn't say anything.

I just said, like, you shouldn't be cussing at your mom.

And he's like, OK, cool. And then like he dabs me up and

like leaves. And the whole time and my dad

just looks down and he just kind of.

Cracks up a little bit and I'm just here like what?

World what? Happened.

You know, it's funny, when it comes to our battles and our

fighting, going to the Father is always the last resort for us.

We always try to handle things ourselves.

We always kind of jump to the worst common scenario.

We start sizing up our situation and our fathers.

Over here, who knows who is wise and is.

Strong and he's just waiting for us to come to him and be like,

Lord, I'm about to go to this battle, like I need your help,

but what we do what? We tend to do in a fight is that

we go by ourselves because our pride gets in the way and we

think we got this. But what we need to understand

is that the enemy is so much stronger than you and I, and

that the Lord. Is the only?

One who could bring victory in the battle.

We don't want to do that. So what we're going to look at

the next couple of weeks, we're going to go through a series

called Fight Club where we're going to look at all all these

fights that happened in Scripture.

And today is round one. And the tale of the take is on

one side we have Goliath for the heavyweight championship, 9 foot

9 inches, 600 plus pounds. He has a power driver finisher.

I don't know, I'm just figuring that up.

Down the other side we have David Shepherd Boy, 5 foot two,

$1.25. His finisher is He'll kick your

shins and we have. This battle that's about to go

down. And I think as we see this,

there's something that we could learn when we look at fights in

the scriptures and there's something all of us could learn

about fighting. And the main thing that I want

us to take away from today is that you cannot win by yourself.

Wasn't meant for that to happen. So we need the Lord to fight for

us. And David understood this.

So let's go. I'm going to run through some

things and then I'm going to summarize some things.

But y'all just have to keep up because this is a long chapter

and we don't have a lot of time. All right, so here we go.

Look at First Samuel chapter 17. So real quickly, the first 3

1 Samuel 17 · chapter mention

verses what we see. Let's set the scene here a

little bit. We have the Israelites on one

side. The Philistines show up at their

camp and the Philistines don't show up to battle.

The Philistines show up to invade.

They're uninvited. They're bullies.

Like they show up and they're like, we're taking your land.

Because that's where the Philistines were.

They had about 5 regions in or five sects of the Philistines in

the area. They show up and on one side of

the hill you have the Israelite camp.

And on the other side of the hill you have the Philistines

who just showed up. And in the middle there's a

valley, right? Like so it's almost like a pit

like like if you think of like a.

Cage like the Octagon, It's all in the center right now and

that's where the battle is going to happen but the philistines

are smart. They know how to intimidate and

what they do is brilliant like we still see this today in

fighting. You know like when y'all watch

boxing matches and like the smack talking happens.

There is a strategy behind this and look at verse 4.

Let's go ahead and just start from verse 4.

I'm going to read verse 4 through through 7 here and this

is a champion named Goliath who was from Gath came out to the

Philistine camp. He was, I mean his height was 6

cubits and a span. He had a bronze helmet on his

head and he wore a coat of scale armor of bronze weighing 5000

shekels and on his legs were bronze grieves and bronze

javelin was slung on his back. His spear shaft was like a

weaver's rod and it's iron point weighed 600 shekels.

His shield bearer went ahead of him.

Goliath stood this verse 8. Goliath stood and shouted to the

ranks of Israel. So this is I'm just punking out

the leaders. He goes, why don't you come out

and line up for battle. I am not a Philistine.

Am I not a Philistine? And you are the servants of

Saul. Choose a man and have him come

down to me. If he is able to fight and kill

me, we will become your subjects.

But if I overcome him and kill him, you will become our

subjects and serve us. I like how he threw that in at

the end. Right there.

Then the Philistines said, this day I defy the armies of Israel.

Give me a man and let us fight each other.

On hearing the words, on hearing the Philistines word, Saul and

the Israelites were what dismayed and what terrified.

How crazy is this? Goliath shows up, got 2 armies

on each side. Goliath shows up, he's like,

send me one person and then we're going to settle this in a

duel. Now if I'm Israel, I'm like,

release The Archers, snipe that fool like that, he's done, it's

over. But fear was struck in the

hearts of the Israelites. And you know what's interesting

about this text is that in first Samuel, they describe Goliath.

They give his height light was a giant guys.

Giants existed the the largest the tallest man in the United

States was 8 foot 8 inches. I mean 8 feet 11 inches.

Shaquille O'Neal 771 Andre the giant like these guys like these

are real people. But the problem with with

Goliath, he wasn't just tall, he was large, too strong.

He had a vest that weighed 125 lbs.

Some of y'all can't even pick up a 35 LB dumbbell and walk with

it. Some of y'all can't even walk 20

feet. Goliath is walking with all

this. Weight.

He has a spear where the head of the spear is 15 lbs.

That doesn't include the staff. And then he has a javelin on his

back and he has all this armor and then he has a shield bearer

who we'll talk about here in a little bit.

That's a little bit of an advantage.

I mean, this guy is set for battle.

He could kill you like that. And they send their their best

fighter. And the Bible says in verse four

that he's the champion man. The word champion is not really

used anywhere else in Scripture except here.

The word champion actually means a man in between two.

He means that there's someone who steps in to fight on behalf

of so champion. The word champion does not have

anything to do with winning or losing.

The word champion has everything to do with you stepping out and

representing a people. Now the winning or losing that's

that's a different legacy. But the fact that you're

stepping out to fight, he says, send me your champion who's

going to be your boy that's going to take us on.

And then it let's let's keep going down.

Now if you look at verse 11. This is interesting because it

specifically says that Saul and hearing is Saul and all the

Israelites were dismayed and terrified.

Why would? Why did?

They call him out. Another fun fact is that if you

look, if you read the, the Hebrew Bible doesn't really go

into detail like this. Like I say, like in the

beginning, like God created the trees and the trees were 50 feet

and the circumference was 80. No, like when you read the

Hebrew Bible, there's not that kind of detail.

But for some reason, in this story there's this kind of

detail. So Saul was dismayed and

terrified. You know why?

Because the Bible says in First Samuel Chapter 9 that Saul was

1 Samuel 9 · chapter mention

head and shoulders above all the Israelites.

Saul was about 6566. He was tall.

And listen, when you have a big old boy that's coming to fight,

you know what you do on your side.

You know who you look for the biggest guy you have that's just

just battle one-on-one. And Saul should have been the

one that stepped up and took on Goliath.

It was his responsibility. He should have been the one.

He was tall you he was heading shows about everybody else.

Why didn't he? Step in, because what we're

going to learn today is that fear, This is .1.

Fear is the strategy of the enemy for all believers when it

comes to fighting. When it comes to fighting our

enemy, the enemy inflicts fear in our lives because once he has

fear that takes a hit on our faith.

It only takes a little bit of fear to freeze you up.

I love what Mike Tyson says. Everybody's got a plan until you

get hit in the in the face. You can have all your plan, you

can have all your go get it, you can have your training.

But get popped in the mouth one time and see that thing go away.

The same thing happens with us with fear.

The enemy uses fear. The Israelites already lost the

battle. The battle is over.

And the way that the Philistines won the battle, it wasn't by

their weaponry, it wasn't through military strategy, it

was through fear. The battle was over.

The Israelites had nothing after this.

They were influenced and the Israelites had a problem because

the Israelites were always looking at the outer appearance

of a person. They always did.

They had this issue. The outward appearance always

influenced and feared the men of Israel.

Goliath defeated the Israelites on fear alone.

This was a great strategy from the Philistines.

And listen, you see this a lot in boxing.

If I could inflict fear in you before we fight, you're either

not going to show up or you're going to show up hesitant and

scared. And it's going to throw off your

whole strategy. So if I could talk smack, if I

could get in your head, if I can make you scared, if I could talk

about your Mama, whatever it takes, you're going to show up

discombobulated and you're going to lose your your arms are going

to drop. I love UFC.

And if you talk to Conor McGregor, they interviewed him

once and that's he said that's his whole strategy is if he

could get into the head of his opponents, it throws him off.

We saw that with Jose Aldo. He knocked him out 13 seconds.

Why? Because he spent three months

talking trash about this guy. And when the fight came, Jose

Aldo was so mad and so. Ready to go?

He dropped his left and Conor McGregor popped him in the chin,

laid him out 13 seconds, fight was over.

Why? What happened?

He got into his head, he put fear into his head.

It threw him off. Man.

The Philistines understood this, and it's.

Wild, he says that they were dismayed, they were distressed,

they felt fear, which I also think will lead us to our.

Second point is that fear and distress create a stagnant life.

Fear and distress, it creates A stagnant life.

So look at if we keep looking at the story, David, the shepherd

boy, his son, he's the son of Jesse.

Jesse has eight other sons. The three oldest sons are

actually fighting in the army with Israel.

So what Jesse does is Jesse tells David to go check on his

brothers. And David goes and he's checking

time to time on his brothers because his dad told him to.

So he's leaving his sheep, right?

Remember, he's a shepherd and he's going and he's checking on

the brother, his brothers. And what he sees is so

interesting because look at, let's start on verse 16, just to

speed things up a little bit, right?

So David went back and forth to Saul's camp.

This is verse 15. But look at 16 says For 40 days

the Philistines came forward every morning and evening and

took this stand. So think about this for 40 days,

y'all. For 40 days the armies of Israel

went to line up to fight. For 40 days the Philistines came

out to fight. 40 days Goliath came up and said, send me your

champion. Send me your.

Boy, and if you guys lose, you're going to serve us and I'm

going to own you. 40 days this went down, but it gets worse.

It wasn't just for 40 days. The Bible says that Goliath did

it in the morning and in the evening for 40 days.

That's 80 times. And what the enemy does is the

enemy doesn't just inflict fear. The enemy continues to show up

and continues to message and continues to tell you and

continues to show you and continues to keep you in your

fear. And when you are kept in your

fear, your life becomes stagnant.

You don't move, you show up, but you don't do anything.

How in the world does this message come?

Think about what's the first thing you do when you wake up in

the morning? What's the first thing you do

when you go to bed at night? The enemy shows up.

The messages of fear and doubt. You know what if if you even if

you study the people that suffer with anxiety the most are

usually on their phones the most.

There is a correlation between depression and anxiety and with

you comparing your life to everything that you're watching

on social media. And some of you're like, well,

Ricky, I'm not on social media. Yeah, but you consume it.

And it keeps on coming. Think about all the stuff that

you're you're putting in your mind, the stuff that you're

allowing to get into your brain and your heart, the stuff that

you're you're allowing to consume you.

It's fear. And then you wonder why you

can't move. And the Israelites showed up

time and time again. Look at verse 20.

I read this and I'm like, bro, this is crazy to me.

Look at verse 20. Early in the morning, David left

the flock loaded up and set out as Jesse had directed.

He's just following when his dad told him he reached the camp.

As the army was going out to its battle positions, shouting the

war cry, Israel and the Philistines were drawing up

their lines facing each other. David left his things with the

keeper of supplies, ran to the battle lines and asked his

brothers how they were. And look what look, look at the

response. This is crazy.

Verse 23 And as he was talking to them, Goliath, the champion

came, stepped out from the battle line, shouted as usual,

defiance, and David heard it. And whenever the Israelites saw

the man, they all fled. From him and.

What fear bro they did this for 40 days.

So just because you show up to the fight doesn't mean that

you're effective. And what fear does is that fear

keeps you from being Kingdom effective, which meets #3 fear

makes you Kingdom ineffective. So when you become Kingdom

ineffective, when fear creeps in, all of a sudden your

obedience to God takes a hit. And instead of obeying God and

what he's calling you to, you play things safe.

You show up, but you don't show out.

You show up and you're like, I'm here thinking that everybody's

like, yay. But you do.

Absolutely nothing for the Kingdom and what God is calling

us to is something so much greater.

And God's like, I need you to obey me.

I need you to obey me. Listen, you got to get rid of

your fear and you got to start getting into your faith because

I'm calling you to something so much greater.

And if you still, if you're too scared to follow me, you could

show. Up.

But there's nothing that's going to happen.

The Israelites showed up and did absolutely nothing.

And I just felt like the Spirit told me, like, man, I got to

talk to us for a second. Because fleeing and passivity

are the same thing. And when we have men who are

passive and don't decide to do anything and we just sit there

and stare at the TV while your family's, it's just a mess.

Listen, you are fleeing. You are bound by fear.

And sometimes what scares us is because we don't.

Want people to know how much we're struggling, maybe

sometimes what scares us. Is that we do.

Need help and for some weird reason.

We don't ask, we don't run to the Father.

We think we could do it. We think we could control it, we

think we can handle it and all, all you're doing is being

passive. And being passive is the same

thing as being disobedient to what the Lord called you to.

As a man of the house, guys, we have got to operate outside of

our fear. And yes.

It is scary. Yes, it's hard.

And listen, we do the same exact things.

And even if we're in ministry, even for the Lord, we stay in

our boxes. We don't want to.

Grow. We don't want to move, we don't

want to do new things because we're scared.

Fear has crept into our lives. And God is like, no, I'm a

bigger God than this. I'm doing a new thing.

I want you to come to me. I'm not going to tell you

everything what it looks like. I need you to trust me.

Stop being scared. But the enemy is like, no,

Ricky, don't. They're going to laugh at you.

It's not going to work. People are going to dog you,

people better. You're going to go viral.

People are going to keep messing with you guys that that's a lie

from the enemy. Listen to what God is calling us

to. And you know how I see that

we're ineffective because Saul was so shook.

He did absolutely nothing to the point where Saul was like, I

want somebody to do it for me. Look what he does in verse 25.

Now the Israelites have been saying, do you see how this man

keeps coming out? He comes out to defy Israel.

The king. Look, look, look what Saul

offers. The king will give great wealth

to the man who kills him. He will also give him a daughter

in marriage. And this is the best part right

here. He will be exempt from family.

Him and his family will be exempt from taxes for the rest

of their lives. Sign.

Me up. What do I got to?

What do I got to go do right? No taxes.

What crazy. So what is Saul offering?

Saul's like? Dude, I, I got to, I'm getting

desperate here. It's been 40 days, man.

You have one of my daughters in marriage.

That means that you are in the family.

That means that the throne is yours, man, I will give you

great wealth. I'm going to hook you up.

But also, man, you're not going to pay taxes.

You have a free ride the rest of your life.

Sounds pretty good. And then they kept in and then

verse 27 says they kept repeating this.

They repeated to him what they have been saying to and told him

this is what will be done for the man who kills him.

Pretty good. So David is like, wait a second,

David's starting to see there's something wrong here.

How come this guy keeps coming up talking about Israel, the God

of Israel? Nobody's moving.

Saul is not moving. You guys are petrified in your

fear. What is happening?

And then just to summarize a little bit, David, he's like,

man, who's this uncircumcised philistine who keeps the.

Defining the armies of the living God.

Isn't it funny? David is the only one who brings

the theological lens to the to the picture.

He sees it beyond it. David's the only one that brings

the anointing to the situation. See, the problem is Saul.

He lost his anointing a few chapters.

Back when he rebelled against the Lord.

And it says that the presence of the Lord was removed from Saul.

So you know what's interesting? That when the presence of the

Lord is removed from things, fear creeps in.

And many of us are like, no, Ricky, it's the situation, it's

my environment. No, it's your relationship with

the Lord that took a hit. That's why you're stagnant in

your walk. That's why you're stagnant in

life. And that's why you're unable to

move in fear. And that's why your Kingdom

ineffective. But mostly, look at #4 that's

why. Your faith is shrinking.

Fear shrinks faith. Look what Saul says.

So David goes to Saul and he's like, man, listen, I'll take

him. I'm going to do this, man.

Like I could do this. And even David's brother

started. Hating on him a little bit

because this is his. Older brother, you know, when

like little bro goes to the older brother and like tries to

tell him something and older brother's like, man, I can't let

you show me up. He got kind of mad at him.

David's like, no, like I've done this before.

I protect sheep. So David, he goes to Saul, like

he gives this speech and they're like, hey, this guy named David,

he's going to take on this giant Saul.

We need a, We need to move. Like there's been 40.

Days already like this is not going anywhere.

Verse 32 David said to Saul, let no one lose heart on account of

the Philistines. Your servant will go and fight

him. Here's David, little shepherd

boy. King Saul, don't lose heart.

Your boys got handled. I'm going to.

I'm going to take care of it. Y'all need a champion?

I got you. And how do we see Saul's faith

shrink? Because look what it says in

verse 33, Saul replied. You.

Are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him

because you are a young man and he has been a warrior from his

youth. Saul's concern is not the size

of Goliath. Saul's concern is the

inexperience that David brings to the table.

Saul does not have faith in David.

No worse. Saul does not have faith in the

faith David has. No worse.

Saul does not have faith in the faith David has in the Lord that

he serves. Peel the onion back guys.

This goes deeper with Saul. His faith is shrunk, man fear

has creeped in so hard with Saul that his faith is like, so David

has to step in and then what Saul does Well, actually, you

know, I think this is pretty cool.

David and verse 34 and 35, David gives Saul his strategy for

defeating Goliath. Check this out.

This is so. Cool.

And I want. Us to remember this because when

David does defeat good life is going to make a lot of sense.

Look at their verse 34. But David said to Saul, Your

servant has been keeping his father's sheep.

When a lion or a bear came and carried off the sheep from the

flock, I went after it, I struck it, and I rescued the sheep from

its mouth. Three things.

I went after it, I struck it, and I rescued the sheep from its

mouth. And when it turned on me, you

know what I did? I seized it by its hair and I

struck it and I killed it. So I went after the enemy and

when the enemy comes after me, I do not run.

When the bear, when the lion, whatever it is, when it think

turns on me, I grab that thing by the hair and it's a mantle.

It's. A rug, and I don't know about

y'all, but this is the total opposite of fear.

Because what David is saying is like, man, I don't care.

Like this dude is nothing but a lion and a bear for me.

I've man, I've seen this. This is the same old story.

But David, David does something here that we need to understand

because look what he does. Let's keep reading.

Look at verse 36. Your servant has killed both the

lion and the bear. This uncircumcised Philistine

will be like one of them because he has defined the armies of the

living God. This ain't about Israel.

This isn't about you, Saul. This ain't about me.

He's disrespecting my Lord. He's disrespecting the God the

the God who created it. David's bringing a theological

lens to this. And then check this out, verse

37. And 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. Listen, this ain't nothing for

my God, which leads me to the next one.

So I just talked about four things about that fear does to

us. But how do we fight fear?

Look at this. The your faithfulness to God

will put fear to rest. I love this because as David is

talking about the Philistine, as David is talking about Goliath,

as David is talking about what he's about to go face.

You know what he does? He doesn't talk about his skill

set. He doesn't talk about what his

armor is. He doesn't talk about like, Oh

well, I killed 50 bears last year.

You know what he does? He dresses the one that did it.

And listen, when fear creeps up in our lives and we start

feeling and we start shrinking, what we need to do is we need to

remind. Fear who our God is.

We need to talk, to talk to fear.

Like no, that's not from God. That's not from me.

I get this all the time. Like I'll start getting like

some thoughts or some things where I'll be like, Lord, that's

not from you. That's not from you.

Like man, why am I going to hit on my brother for it?

Like that's not from you. Like get out and you've got to

start doing that same thing, faithfulness to God.

When you put your faithfulness to God, start talking about the

faithfulness of the Lord, and that puts your fear to rest.

We also see this in Philippians. We talked about anxiety whenever

we have anxious thoughts. What are you supposed to do?

Pray. Exchange them?

Start talking about God and His greatness?

I got to go. So Saul is dressed, David in his

tunic. So Saul gives David all his

armor. He gives David his sword.

And David's like, I can't move like this because David

understands that what I'm about to go do, this fight that we're

about to throw down has nothing to do with my armor.

My hardware has nothing to do with anything.

It has everything to do with the God that's with me.

So I'm going to show up the same way that God has gotten my back

in the past with my sling and my staff.

That's why I took off. That's why I took out the bears.

That's why I took the lion. And that's when we'll take this

Philistine because I'm not going to change.

So Fast forward, it's about to go down here comes David tail of

the tank, 5 foot 2125 weapons of choice staff slingshot, 5

stones. I love them.

Like why would he pick up five stones and with some of the.

What they were saying is that Goliath has five relatives.

So just in case your boys want to jump in, I got some for them

too. Like this shows David like he's

not scared. He's thinking ahead.

He's like, hey, your people want to jump in.

Once I'm done with him, I'm going to take them out as well.

I got 5. So Goliath shows up and David

shows up and I love what happens here.

They meet each other. Verse 40 says then he took his

staff in hand, chose 5 some stones from the stream, put them

in his pouch and then he took put them in a shepherd's bag

with his sling in one hand. He approached the Philistine.

Look what David does. David does not wait for Goliath

to come and talk his slap his mess.

David's like, all right, I'm going let me go handle this real

fast. David meets him out in the

battlefield and Goliath then shows up in verse 41 it says

meanwhile the Philistine was with his what shield bearer

which was in front of him. He kept coming closer to David.

David's waiting Goliath is showing up with all his armor,

but he has a little. Cheat code with him.

It's called the shield Bearer. And I was like, what's a shield

bear? Why does the shield bear show

up? Does this guy just hold his

shield? So there's a few thoughts behind

this. Some people were thinking that

Goliath had terrible eyesight. And if you look at people that

are really tall or enormous growth, usually there's

something that happens in their pituitary gland that causes them

to grow. And one of the side effects is

vision. Loss.

So some people were saying that that the shield bearer helped

Goliath with his vision, but honestly, I did more digging.

Shield bearers are crucial to military formations,

particularly those that are involving with Spears and

spikes. Goliath had a javelin and a

spear. This was normal and they would

protect themselves and others around them with their shield.

He wasn't just holding the light shield for him, he was also

helping protect Goliath as well. A handicap match that's two on

one. But you know what?

David showed up with somebody too.

Because look at #6 David. Goliath had his shield bearer,

but David had his strength sustainer.

So so Goliath shows up and he has a shield bearer, little

like, little additive. And David's like, that's cool

because I got the one that's going to sustain my strength.

He's the one that's going to sling this rock for me.

He's the one that's going to knock this Goliath out.

It's not going to be me. So David shows up to the

battlefield and then the trash talking begins because this is

what Goliath does. Remember when fear, He's going

to try to infuse fear. So look at verse 42.

I got to run all right. He looked David over and saw

that there was little more than a boy glowing with health and

handsome, and he despised them. He said to David, Am IA dog,

that you come with me with sticks.

And the Philistine cursed David by his gods.

Goliath was insulted that there was some little kid, but what

Goliath said was actually true because Goliath is like am IA

dog and David's like yes, I'm about to shush you.

Away dogs in those times were nuisance.

So it's amazing. Like even what Goliath was

saying, God was showing us. So Goliath begins the

psychological battle. Come here, he said.

And I'll give you I'll give your flesh to the birds and to the

wild animals. Now listen, David was not like

Saul. David was not like the

Israelites. You know what David does?

David talks Mag back because the next thing how you want, you

want all you confront. Fear.

You confront fear with faith. That's what you do.

You confront fear with faith. How do we know that?

Because when David showed up and Goliath starts talking all this

mess and starts to dog him out, look what David said to the

Philistine verse 45. You come against me with the

sword and the spear. I come against you in the name

of the Lord Almighty and God of the armies of Israel, whom you

have defiled to this day. I will deliver you into the

hand, into their hands, and I will strike you down.

I'll cut off your head this very day.

I will give your carcasses to 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 it is not by sword or spear that the God that the Lord

saves for the battle is the Lord's.

And He will give you, and He will give all of you into our

hands. So David is like, no, no, no,

no, you're not that, that fear ain't going to play with me.

So listen, when fear starts to creep into your life, you're

confronted with your faith. When you start becoming scared,

you're like, no, I'm not, I'm no God.

God took care of me. Let I remember when the Lord, I

didn't have anything and he came through.

I was in trouble and God bailed me out.

I was alone and and he made, he brought people into my life.

I didn't have a job and he provided me for me.

Fear, creeps, sin, God's calling you to something.

You you reply in faith, you confront it in faith, you fight

it in faith. And then what ends up happening

to Phillip, verse 48? The Philistine moved closer to

attack him. David ran quickly toward the

battle line to meet him. David took his bag.

He flung his stone, hit him right in the forehead and he

fell down on the ground. It was funny they never

mentioned the shield bearer. He was probably like, we're

moving on too fast. David ran at that guy.

Wow. Out exactly that ground price

shook 8.8 earthquake in Russia. I'm joking, all right, so y'all

watch the news, all right, cool. But but there's something that

happens here. So David triumphs verse 50 over

the Philistine with a sling and a stone without a sword in his

hand. He struck down the Philistine

and he killed them. You know, when God's involved in

something, it makes absolutely no sense.

How in the world did you get what happened?

God? But I love verse 51.

This is awesome. Right here, verse 51.

David ran and stood over him. He took hold of the Philistine

sword. He drew it out of the the.

Sheath probably huge sword after he killed him.

OK, Goliath is already dead. He took.

The sword and he chopped off his head with the sword because

that's how David was trained to kill those who come after his

sheep. Remember he talked about in

verse 34, when they come at me, I grab him by the hair and I

kill him. I love that man.

That's so cool. You know, And there there was

AUFC fight George Massidov versus Ben Askren UFC 239 and

George Massidov like they, they've been talking smack.

To each other going at it and this fight, George Massidov as

Ben Askren, he's a wrestler as he comes at him, George and you.

And remember we talked about getting in the head, getting in

his head. He came at him, he did a flying

knee, popped them in the head. One of the fastest knockouts in

UFC history. But when people knew about the

fight was after George knocked out Ben Askren.

George got on top of him and socked them in the face three

more times, and then the referee came in and broke it off.

And then in the press conference when they were interviewing

George, he said something that that went viral, like it was on

people's T-shirts. It was everything the reporter

asked him. George, when he was knocked out,

you hit him a few more times. Was that really necessary?

And he looks at them as he's eating pizza and he goes.

It was super necessary because my job as a fighter is to go

until the referee pulls me off. David wasn't necessary to cut

off his head. It was super necessary because

my job as a servant of the Lord is to go until God says no more.

And David cut his head off. And then through the rest of the

story, it says that when they saw Goliath fall and David had

his head, the army of the Israelites ran and took the

battlefield and they chased the Philistines away.

And then the rest of the story talks about in verse 54 how

David took the Philistines head and he brought it to Jerusalem

and he put the Philistines weapons in his own tent.

But David don't fight with weapons like that.

David has a slingshot and a staff.

Why does it need all the other Philistines weapons?

Why does it need Goliath's head? Because this is the last point

right here. Because God will take your

greatest fears and he'll make them trophies.

The stuff that like we're like Crowley, like we're, I'm scared.

Like, Lord, help me. And whenever we put our faith in

God and we shrink our fear, guys, like, remember that thing

you were scared of? Walk around with his head.

Be a testimony to me. You're walking around and you're

showing off. And it's not because of what you

did. It's what God did.

So Rick, how do we end this thing?

You know, I've, I've heard this sermon done many times and I and

I recall in 1996, we are in 95, probably earlier than that, we

were at a camp called Ridgecrest.

It was like a youth camp and there was a somebody given the

sermon and usually when they talk about the story.

Of David and Goliath, they usually say something like this.

Goliath represents your problems and your fears, right?

And you're David, and David is you.

And your job is to kill your fears.

So Goliath is your eating disorder.

You must kill. I mean, right.

It's like Goliath is like your anxiety and you must kill it

and. Goliath is is like your

heartbreak and you must kill it. And the whole time it's like

this, this message, pump up speech that everybody's getting

riled up upon. And it's like, yeah, we got to

kill our Goliaths in life. And then there's sermons of

like, how do you kill the giants in your life?

And then like in my time, there was like a a come to the altar

song, you know? And it was like like by Al

Denson, it was like, will you be the one to answer to the call?

Will you stand right? And then there's a massive key

change and it's like, and I will be the one to answer to the

call. And everybody's at the front and

he's even this massive altar call because we love altar

calls. You want to call?

Come to fight your giants, come to the front.

You want to follow Jesus, come to the front.

And if nobody's moving, you got to keep adding.

You want ministry? Come to the front.

Y'all want to go to Whataburger after this?

Come to the front. I'm so good.

They're like, we gotta get people up here and then you go

to these. Places and it's this massive

pump up. Speech of Kill your.

Giants. But then you go home and I love

what Tim Keller says. Tim Keller says I can't.

I ain't scared of nothing. Because when you're in places of

high faith, it's easy to commit. It's easy to say things.

But the reality hits when you go home.

So then you go home, and then you face friends that mock your

allegiance to God. You find yourself alone in your

room after you promised that you were going to kill the giant of

pornography. If you tell God like Lord I feel

like I shouldn't be in this relationship.

You get home and that girl like gives you like her whole love

story. So instead of will you be the?

One, it's all my life. You're just like.

I'm supposed to break up with you.

And we fall and, and it, it begins to pile up on us, and our

temptations easily begin to assault us.

And the problem is not as easily fixable as we thought it was

going to be. And fear creeps in and it begins

to mount. And yes, you could defeat 100

Philistines, but there's always. One that you're not going to be

able to win. And instead of David showing up,

giving you like a pump up, like you could do it, work harder,

like you could do it, you could beat the the giants.

And I was like, man, you're not, you're not David.

We're not David. And he's like, man, I got five

rocks. You're going to miss all five

times. We're actually Israel in the

story. Israel is the one who's scared,

who's cowering, who's who's breaking their own promises to

themselves. And what God does is that God

does not send a cheerleader in David.

God sends a substitute. And God says you can't do it,

but I'm going to send someone who can.

And that's why Jesus is the greater David.

David was from Bethlehem and listen, there was another from

Bethlehem who showed up and stepped in our place to fight

death and all of his cronies and all the Philistines and all the

little deaths that we fight with.

And instead of David going up to his room like you guys can do

it, you guys can do it, you could do it.

David's like, I'm going to do it.

I got this guys. That's what Jesus does.

And listen, we don't need a pump up speech.

We don't need some emotional, no, we need a hero.

We need someone that's going to fight for us and listen, that's

someone. His name is Jesus and Jesus came

and he killed Goliath. He killed the Goliath in your

life. He killed the Goliath of death.

So now we are empowered with the spirit of the.

Hero. Where we now, whenever we feel

attacked, we can use faith to fight our fear and send it home.

Cut the head off of show it around and point everybody back

to Christ is the one who took it for us.

So listen, how do I win a fight? How do I kill my own giants?

How do I do it? Listen easy.

Don't even step in the ring. You go to the Father, you go to

Christ, you let him do it and he will fight for us and he will

take our giants. He's like, I got you.

All you have to do is trust me. That's how you fight and that's

how you slay your giants. And that's how you kill the

Goliaths in your life. It's not you, it's him.

And the faster you recognize that the.

Easier it's going to be for you. Studies show that those who

fight the hardest have been fought for.

And even when you study history, the Spartans, you know why the

Spartans fought so hard? Because they had a king who went

ahead in the battlefield. He didn't rule from the back.

He ruled from the front. And when they saw their king

fighting for them, it took fear away.

Guys, why do we fight hard? Like what how do how do we

eliminate our sin? How do we not lose heart?

We have a king who's fighting for us.

Hebrews 12. Fix your eyes on Christ, the

often perfector of our faith. Read Hebrews chapter 4 how

Hebrews 4 · chapter mention

Christ came in the flesh and he took flesh and He lived life.

So that way He knows what we're going through and we could look

to Him because He went first. So don't fight on your own.

Give it to Christ. Let Him fight for you.

And if you lose heart, understand John 1633, don't lose

heart. They hated me first.

But actually take heart because I've overcome the world and I've

also overcome your Goliaths. We pray for us.

And born of his.