How to Overcome Fear With Faith: 1 Samuel 17:1-31

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I'm Chris. This is Wesley. Jeff's out of town and

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Week and day. This is the last day.

It has come to an end, my friend, until next time,

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Yeah, in the blink of an eye.

So, hey, today, Desiree has given us a draft list

she wants us to draft.

Get this.

She says, if you could choose any character from the

Bible to be, who would it be? Play Rock paper scissors?

Who goes first? And do it until you draft three

each sow what crazy thing?

Yeah, this is gonna be in state.

Yeah, I like, we can't say Jesus because that feels sacrilegious.

Let's just let's just let's just determine Jesus is off

the table. Okay, so Bible characters, let's just pick humans.

All right, so we got rock paper scissors. Right, we'll

say one, two, three shoots.

Okay, okay, ready, one shoot, all right, I'm rock. I

get to go first.

Okay, all right, I'm gonna say that I want to

be the apostle Paul.

That was one I was thinking to. Yeah.

So Number one, he travels a lot. Number two he

plants churches, which is fun. Yeah right, because you know

I love planting churches, you know, being a part of

a church plant anyway, and then and then I would

also say Paul definitely lived in interesting times.

Yea.

His life was, you know, riddled with danger, so that

part wasn't fun.

But I think I would have liked to have seen

and lived the life Paul lived. To get to the

end of your life and say I fought the good fight. Yeah,

that's a pretty That's not a bad day right there. Yeah,

So anyway, that's my choice.

Okay, So if I had to pick, I might say Peter,

and I'll explain why Peter was. Peter is like that

one friend you don't dare to do anything, you know,

the one that hey, jump over that rock, he'll jump.

So that's the part I liked about Peter. The fact

that I feel like Jesus could have told him to

do anything and Peter would have just been like.

Hey, let's do it, you know. So that's the aspect.

Yes, he was rough around the edges and some other stuff,

but I like that aspect of Peter.

Yeah, yeah, for sure, that's great. All right, I'm gonna

choose Solomon, Okay.

For wisdom, Yeah, he was.

The wisest man who ever lived and one of the

richest men who ever lived. Right. Of course, his downfall

was you know, wives and concubines, right, so that that

part wasn't good. But in terms of the experience, think

about all the wisdom you have and all the things

you get to experience and a life like really none

other rights.

That's crazy. So yeah, Solomon would be fun.

My second one would probably be I don't want to

say Moses. And the reason I say.

Moses is because Moses felt that he wasn't qualified for

the job, right, And I know there have been times

in my life in ministry and my corporate background that

I had where I didn't feel qualified for the job,

Like God, what call somebody else?

Why are you calling me to do this?

Right?

So that aspect I would say Moses.

Okay, that's good, And then I would say my third

choice is Elijah, because that's good. Yeah, because honestly, he

definitely had his share of troubles. Yeah, he was in trouble.

He had depression. I believe he probably struggled with mental health,

you know, going from you know, one chapter to the next.

You know, he goes from the mountain high to the

record low, you know, wanting to die and all these

different things. But even in spite of all that, I

think that to be a part of the most epic

challenge that this world probably has ever seen.

On Mault Carmel with bail.

In the in the in the pillar of fire, it

just seems like to me he was this rough, rugged

man's man, kind of a man who experienced things that

were just unbelievable. Right. Plus I want to be able

to run as fast as he was. Yeah right, that's

a cool bonus.

Yeah right, Yeah.

The last one that's going to be tough. There are

a lot of Bible characters, new and Old Testament. I

would probably say Abraham in terms of his faith, Okay,

that one section of the Bible where it talks about

how God told him to sacrifice his son. Yeah, and

his reply was that me and the lad will come back, right.

You know, God had just said that you're going to

sacrifice your son, but he had enough faith in belief

that some kind of way this was going to work

out for my goods.

So the faith of Abraham.

That's great. Yeah, yeah, that's right. And God will provide

a ram, right, Yeah, yeah, that's great.

As my grandmother would say, God's got a ram in

the bush and all the time.

That's awesome God for her. That's great. Well, hey, that

was that was fun.

Yeah?

Right, So so mine were Paul, what was it, Paul, Solomon, Elijah.

And Elijah. Those are pretty three pretty good ones. Yeah,

what are yours?

Yeah?

I had Moses, Abraham and who's the other person, Peter Peter.

Yes, yeah, yeah, those are I mean, they can't get wrong. Yeah,

although I like that's better.

Yeah.

Well when you said Elijah, I was going to say, okay,

I will raise you Elisha, I'll see your Elijah successor.

That's great. So all right, well any thanks, that's ray.

That was really fun.

Yeah all right, so we're going first Samuel again.

Yeah, and we're getting back to first Samuel and uh,

we're actually going to be talking about Goliath challenging the Israelites,

and this is going to be a a heck of

a thing. So first, Samuel seventeen versus one through thirty one,

is that, Yeah.

That's correct, that's where we're at.

Yeah, And this is new living translation, okay. And it

says the Philistines now mustered their army for battle and

camp between Soko and Judah and Azeka at e f

s demein jobb. Saul countered by gathering his Israelite troops

near the valley of Ela. So the Philistines and the

Israelites faced each other on opposite hills, with the valley

between them. Then Goliath, a Philistine champion from Gath, came

out of the Philistine ranks to face the forces of Israel.

He was over nine feet tall. He wore a bronze

helmet and a bronze coat of mail. Weighed weighed one

hundred and twenty five pounds. He also wore bronze leg

armor and carried a bronze javelin on his shoulder. The

shaft of his spear was as heavy and thick as

a weaver's beam, tipped with an iron spearhead that weighed

fifteen pounds. His armor bearer walked ahead of him carrying

a shield. Goliath stood and shouted a taunt across to

the Israelites. Why are you all coming out to fight?

He called, I am a Philistine champion, but you are

only the servants of Saul. Choose one man to come

down here and fight me. If he kills me, then

we will be your slaves. But if I kill him,

you will be our slaves. I would defy the armies

of Israel today. Send me a man who will fight me.

When Saul and the Israelites hurt this, they were terrified

and deeply shaken. Now, David was the son of a

man named Jesse and Ephrathite from Bethlehem in the Land

of Judah. Jesse was an old man at the time,

and he had eight sons. Jesse's three ODIs sons, Elie,

app A, Benadad, and Shamiah, had already joined Saul's army

to fight the Philistines. David was the youngest son. David's

three ODIs brothers stayed with Saul's army, but David went

back and forth so he could help his father with

sheep in Bethlehem for forty days. Every morning and evening

the Philistine champion strutted in front of the Israelite army.

One day, Jesse said to David, take this basket of

roasted grain and these ten loaves of bread, and carry

them quickly to your brothers, and give these ten cuts

of cheese to their captain. See how your brothers are

getting along, and bring back a report on how they

are doing. David's brothers were with Saul in the Israelite

army at the Valley of Ela, fighting against the Philistines.

So David left the sheep with another shepherd and set

out early the next morning with the gifts. As as

Jesse had directed him. He arrived in the camp just

as the Israelite army was leaving for the battlefield, with

shouts in battle cries. Soon the Israelite and Philistine forces

stood facing each other, army against army. David left his

things with the keeper of supplies and hurried out to

the ranks to greet his brothers. As he was talking

with them, Goliath, the Philistine champion from Gath, came out

from the Philistine ranks. Then David heard him shout his

usual taunt to the army of Israel. As soon as

the Israelite army saw him, they begin to run away

in fright. Have you seen the giant? The man asked?

He comes out each day to defy Israel. The king

is offered a huge reward to anyone who kills him.

He will give that man one of his daughters for

a wife, and the man's entire family will be exempted

from paying taxes. David asked the soldier standing nearby, what

will a man get for killing this philistine and ending

his defiance of Israel? Who is this pagan philistine anyway?

That he is allowed to defy the armies of living God?

And these men gave David the same reply. They said, yes,

that is the reward for killing him. But when David's

oldest brother, Ellie, app heard David talking to the men,

he was angry. What are you doing around here anyway?

He demanded, what about those few sheep you're supposed to

be taken care of. I knew about your pride and deceit.

You just want to see the battle. What have I

done now? David replied, I was only asking a question.

He walked over to some others and asked them the

same thing and received the same answer. Then David's question

was reported to King Saul, and the king sent for him.

Yes, we're not going to get to the battle today.

We're still from there.

But there's a lot here though, even leading up to this. Right, so,

Goliath challenges the Israelites. You know, one of the first

things that stands out to me is that many people

don't realize is that it's not as if Goliath stood

in front of everybody and said, hey, send champion, I'll

be the champion, we'll fight, the battle will end, and

then nothing happened. In fact, when when the Israelites refused

to end the battle that way, there was an actual

army against army every day, which is why it says

that that Elliott was in there battling the Philistines because

or Aliab or whatever his name is, Because you know,

Goliath would get out every morning and say, hey, we

get in this battle right now, send me a champion.

They didn't have a champion.

They go up against Goliath, taunt them, mocked them, killed them.

But then when nobody, you know, took the challenge to

end the battle, then they would battle every day and

it was in a valley, which means they were up

on one end, they were up on the other end.

You know, Goliath was down in the middle. And then

when nobody took the challenge, they would all meet down there,

they would fight, they would go back up. So this

went on day after day after day. There was fighting,

there was killing, but nobody wanted to, you know, take

the challenge and say, okay, let's consider you know, the

victory to be determined by you know, these two champions,

because everybody's like, there's no way, yeah, because you know,

we can't defeat their champion, right, isn't that crazy?

Yeah, yeah, that's that's crazy. But it talks about well,

let's back up a little bit and just deal with Goliath.

He was well armored for this.

Battle, well, goodness gracious, nine foot tall.

Yeah, nine feet tall, and bronze. So this isn't bronze

like some kind of a thin, cheap bronze. This is

battle armor bronze, right, which is very different.

It said that his chest of armor was one hundred

and twenty five pounds.

Yeah, and the tip of the spear was what twenty.

Fifteen fifteen pounds yeah, So yeah, and then and then

and his shield was so big he had to have

a shield bearer. Yeah, right, And so think about this

if you're nine, and it depends on how much you

think a cubit is and so cube it is the

distance between your fingers and your elbow, right, yeah, so

everybody's everybody's that distance is, you know, it varies a

little bit. Yeah, but when it measures cubits, that's basically

it was. You know, it was a it was a cubit.

So some translations actually, you know, sort of guess on

the average cubit and they say that he was nine

feet nine inches tall, and then other translations just say

he was over nine feet tall.

But either way that's tall.

That's a big yeah either way, right, yeah, And so yeah,

we know that his suit of armor was just one

hundred and twenty five pounds just for his chest plate,

his spirits fifteen pounds. I mean, this was a very

strong man who is a soldier from birth, which means

which means he was so confident that he actually taunted

the entire army. You know, you know how confident you

have to be to entire army.

That's pretty bad.

And then the fact where did it say it that

he struted in front of him verse sixteen. The philistine

champion strut it in front of the So it's one

thing to just taunt them and you know whatever, whatever,

But now you're strutting like a peacock in front of them,

basically because you feel like you can destroy all of

them at any time.

Yeah, you know what, there's a sermon in here somewhere.

Did you notice how he said, I am I am

a champion of Warrison's birth, and you are just merely

the servants of Saul.

And what he did was he got them to believe.

That all they were was just these these guys who

served this tall king that was mildly popular.

So he's getting in their heads.

And then and then David comes along and says, who

is this uncircumcised philistine who's allowed to defy the army

of the Living God.

So he puts the perspective back in the right place.

Yes, at least at least to the people he's having

a conversation to. But the point is is David has

the right perspective. Hey, we're not just the servants of Saul.

We're the army of the Living God who has promised

us victory. Who has promised us fail, who has you know,

who goes you know, into every battle with God's strength

and might and favor and spirit and battle because remember

it's war, which is ugly, but but remember that God

is wiping out the people who are defying Him. Who

are who are you know, defying the belief in Him,

who are living for false gods and false idols. The

Philistines were famous for worshiping Diagon as we saw back

with Samson, right, and so there's all these false gods.

And and and it's, uh, you know.

God has declared that war is what Israel would do

to wipe out God's enemies and at the same time

declare victory and build God's kingdom that way. So so

so yeah, they were shaking in their boots. And and

by the way, as we're about to see, is that

Saul is fearful himself. Saul is the tallest among all

the at least you know, recorded wise anyway, he's the

tallest among all the soldiers. And yet he himself is

you know, shaking in his armor in his tent. Yeah right, So,

so hey.

If your leader is doing that, you're really going to

be scared.

Chances are nobody's gonna challenge Goliath.

Yeah right, Yeah.

Verse eleven sticks out to me when it says when

Saul and the Israelites hurt this, they were terrified and

deeply shaken.

So when they.

Hurt the taunts from Goliath, they were terrified and deeply shaken.

There's another verse in the Bible that talks about how

the devil is like a.

Roaring lion, seeking whom he may destroy.

Right, And if you ever watch a lion like on

nat Geo National Geographic, the lion will sometimes roar to

stun or disorient its prey, right, you know, it's kind

of like a battle tactic. The lion is like trying

to get into the head of the people. So I

think that's exactly what Goliath was doing here, that that

he's trying to disorient them, strike fear in their hearts

so they can be kind of paralyzed, stuck in the

exact spot that they are in. But I think it's

very important to remember that during those times when there's

that roaring lion, God's got our back, right, So, yeah,

that lion might be roaring, but I'm not living my life.

We talked about this on another day I'm not living

my life based on what I hear and what I see.

I'm living my life based on my faith. I know

God's going to come through for me. So let the

lion roar, let Goliath strutt and taunt. I know that

God's got my back, right.

Yeah.

Well, there's a Christian author I don't remember who it was,

but he just wrote a book on this recently in

the last several years.

It was called Run Toward the Roar. Yeah, are you

fami with this?

Yeah, I've heard that book before. I've never read it,

but I so.

The idea was is that the lion, the male lion,

roars to scare the prey to run backwards. Yeah, to

run away from the roar, because they have surrounded the

prey and little does the prey no that behind him

are all of the hunting lionesses who are basically weighing

to pounce. And so when he roars in front of them,

he's trying to get them to run away from the

roar so that they can run into a trap. Right,

And so the book is saying run to the roar

because the lion's job isn't The lion's job is just

to scare you. That's the only job of the lion,

and chances there's only one lion to deal with right

ahead of you. But if you run away as a coward,

and you run in fear, not believing that God's going

to give you the victory, then you're going to run

backwards into more trouble.

So run towards the roar. Isn't it a great concept?

That's awesome?

Yeah, the book is built on that.

Battles are one.

You can talk to sports athletes and they will tell

you that battles are one.

In the mind.

You can have two pro athletes, same skill level. One

believes that they're a world champion, the other one believes that, yeah,

maybe being a world champion is possible, and the one

who truly believes that they're the world champion will I'll

play the other one even if they're at an equal

skill level. Right, It's all in your belief in what

you believe that you can do.

Right.

Yeah, isn't that crazy the way that that happens, But

that is absolutely true for sure. So so anyway, as

we look at this setup for you know, the battle

of David Goliath, we know that you know, first of all,

we know that David is only sent there just to

bring loaves and cheese.

And I love how the cheese was for the captain. Yes,

I love how so he's giving the cheese to the captain.

That's over the brothers or the sons in that case.

And I kind of look like, you know, hey, just

this is for the captain. Make sure he takes care

of my son's kind of a thing. So I thought

that little subtle thing was interesting.

That's really interesting. And who knows, maybe it was intentional.

Maybe maybe Jesse said, let's give you an excuse to

go talk to the captain so that he can you know,

you know, recognize how I see you, David, which is

which is impressive. Right, So he didn't know how I

was going to play out. But but either way, David

gets there and what does his brothers do, same thing

they always did.

What are they doing here?

And notice how they minimize his worth? Who's watching those

few sheep, right? I mean it's not even just you know,

you're the lowest. The shepherds were the lowest of all

the jobs, right, So it wasn't enough just to give

him calling the shepherd and demean him.

It's you're the lowly shepherd of the couple of sheep.

Yeah, and he says, I know your pride coming to

see the battle, and and maybe that's their pride, because

what they're doing is they're deflecting because here's David. Uh.

It's basically announcing and saying, like, hey, how come nobody's

standing up to this? This uh, this philistine And basically

that's an embarrassment to every mighty warrior who's listening.

To David, which is why he's deflecting. And he's saying,

he's like, what are you doing here? Anyway?

Golden watched those few sheep, but let the men do

their work, right, you don't know anything about it. Why

are you making fun of us? And he's really embarrassing

his brothers. But you know, hey, he's not trying to

embarrass his brothers. He's trying to, you know, inspire. He's

trying to proclaim what is true. He's trying to demonstrate faith.

He's trying to announce that he has enough faith to

kill the giant. And so David isn't trying to be

rooted in pride. It's actually Elieb's pride that is actually

deflecting his embarrassment, and so think about that. You know,

when people make fun of you, when they put you down,

it's probably a whole lot less about you. It's probably

a whole lot more about them. Because people hurt people,

because people really act out in their brokenness. And if

you're at a situation at your workplace and your boss

lashes out at you, just know the chances are that

person is probably acting out in a dysfunctional way because

of a hurt or some kind of of unprocessed wound

that they had when they were a child. And it's

hard for us to have that perspective.

Sometimes there's a term called misplaced anger.

That's right where you will see people who I lash

out at you, but it really has nothing to do

with you. It's about something that happened earlier in the

day with me. Yeah, so I'm giving you this response

based on that.

Yeah, it's totally displaced.

It has nothing to do with you.

Yeah, that's right.

Yeah, and so and so all of these things are

are present, so we see that. You know, there's a

song by remember that old band they were really popular

back in the nineties.

What are they called Casting Crowns.

You remember a Voice of Truth so the chorus says,

in the voice of Truth will say a different story. Basically,

it says there's a voice it talks about Peter, and

it says the voice of the waves say you're going

to crash, But I'm gonna listen to the voice of Truth,

which is Jesus in front of me. And then the

second verse says, I'm standing in front of a giant,

and I could choose to listen to the voice of

the giant telling me I'm just a servant of soul.

Or I could listen to the voice of Truth. Right,

it says that you'll be for my glory.

You know. I want to sing it, but basically it's

which voice are you going to listen to? That's the

challenge of the horse right And and it really is

a great song because it reminds us that you know,

even though the world says that this is who you are,

just remember really who you are right, who you are

in Christ, who you are with God at your side,

what you can do what God has promised for you,

believing in the promises of God and recognizing you know

just who it is that God says you are, because

really the one who designed you is the only one

who has the power to define you. Right, Yeah, that's

really good.

You need to repeat that one again. The one who

does design you.

The one who designed you, is the only one who

has the power and the right to define you. It's

it is, it is right there. So hey, well, looks

like that is our time together. And so we will

pick up on Monday, of course, with the Battle of

David and Goliath, and I think Jeff will be back then.

Who knows whether I'll be here or not, Probably.

Jeff will be here, So hopefully we'll see you next

time on the Bible.

Guys,