Facing the Giants | FGW | October 18 2026

I want to ask you guys a question this morning as I get started, as I often do.

Does anybody else's car have an oh shoot handle in the passenger side?

You know what I'm talking about?

We have another word for it, but I can't use it here.

So it's the old shoot handle at church.

Okay?

My wife is a wonderful driver.

And I have a really clean driving record.

But those two things don't go together when she sits in the passenger seat and I drive.

She uses the the oh shoot handle a lot when I drive.

Anybody else have this experience?

When you're not the driver, do you use the oh shoot handle?

Uh-huh.

Yeah.

There are certain things you discover about yourself when someone else is driving, aren't there?

Right?

You may think of yourself as a really relaxed person, easygoing, happy to let other people make the decisions.

But when they approach that roundabout and the cars are going through, you think differently than you usually do.

Suddenly your foot is pressing an imaginary brake.

And the oh shoot handle, right?

Is gripped very tightly.

Your bicep is bulging because you're trying to hold on, right?

And you know it's funny, the person uh that you're driving with, they know.

They can see how much you don't trust them.

Right?

You know, but you know that they need your supervision.

And so that's how you behave, right?

Years ago there was a popular bumper sticker that said, Jesus is my co-pilot.

Does anybody remember that?

The intention, I think, was good.

Like I think the idea behind it was good.

God is with me, God helps me.

I don't have to travel through life alone.

But but it also kind of gives us a picture worth thinking about, right?

Because if Jesus is the co-pilot, who's driving the car?

I'm driving.

I choose the destination, I make the plans.

And Jesus is just there to help me if something goes wrong.

If I don't turn where I'm supposed to turn.

Then maybe I'll ask him for help.

Where can I take the next U-turn?

Trust is easy to talk about when we're the ones holding the wheel.

And I think sometimes that's how we approach our faith.

We have an idea, we have a plan for how our lives are supposed to turn out.

And we want God's help getting there.

We want Him to help our plan succeed.

Keep the people we love safe, remove the obstacles, and make the difficult decisions just work out.

And we pray, God, I trust you.

But I wonder if we don't mean I'm trusting you to make my plan happen.

And when the plan doesn't happen, we wonder what went wrong.

Did I not pray enough?

Did I not believe enough?

Was God not listening to my prayer?

Last week we began to revisit some popular, famous, familiar Bible stories, right?

We're gonna look at three of them over the course of the three weeks.

So last week we talked about Noah and the flood, and this week we're gonna talk about David and Goliath, and next week we're gonna talk about Jonah and the whale, right?

We ask what happens when we know the plot, but we haven't understood the God that's revealed by the story.

Right?

So last week we looked at Noah.

In a world full of violence, God is grieved by evil.

And we see a God who preserves life and commits himself to our future.

And our main thought was this: God takes evil seriously.

And he hasn't given up on us.

Now, notice in that entire description of the story, I did not use the word animals, two by two, boat, flood, or any of the things that we often focus on when it comes to that story, because those things aren't the point of the story.

And today, as we turn to look at David and Goliath, this story I think is gonna challenge some other assumptions that we can carry about God.

That is, his main role is helping us become the hero of our story.

Right?

Because we know David and Goliath is a story of courage.

But as we look more closely, I think what we're gonna see is what is the source of that courage and why does that matter so much?

And why the people who were there watching that whole thing unfold probably have something to teach us as well.

So before I open the scriptures, before we read it, and it's gonna be like last week, you know, we'll be in 1 Samuel chapter 17.

1 Samuel 17 · chapter mention

If you want to quickly flip there, if you've got your Bible or get it up on your phone.

Um I'll be there in a minute.

But but before we get to actually reading any parts of it, let's think about the version of David Goliath most of us already know, right?

And I don't think this is a story that if you're not familiar with church, if that's this is not your regular habit, you don't have to have grown up to kind of know this story.

In fact, you know, lots of books and movies and whatnot have borrowed this metaphor over time, right?

The story that we see is the one that we reach for whenever someone small takes on somebody powerful.

Right?

A little company challenges a huge corporation.

An underdog team beats the favorite.

Brewers and the uh Dodgers, anybody?

Someone says that's a real David and Goliath situation.

You know, a one one hundred and twenty-five million dollar payroll versus a$500 million payroll, right?

If you did grow up at church, you might have heard the story like this.

You know, a young shepherd faces a giant.

Everyone else is afraid, but but David trusts God.

He takes his sling, his weapon, he defeats Goliath, and he saves the day.

And the lesson that we often take away from that is be like David, right?

Be like David, have faith, be brave, face your giants.

And there is something that we can learn from David's trust in God, but we can also turn that lesson into a promise that the story never gives us.

Which is this if you believe strongly enough, my problem will go away.

If I'm courageous enough, I'll always get the outcome that I need.

And while that sounds really inspiring and looks good on a poster, the problem, right, is that doesn't always happen.

Right?

The diagnosis doesn't always change, regardless of how much you believe that it can.

The relationship doesn't mend, no matter how much you want it to.

The person you love makes decisions you cannot control.

And the grief is still there when you wake up tomorrow.

Then what do you do with the assumption you made based on the story that we came to believe?

You know, sometimes we even turn it against ourselves.

David won, I didn't.

And maybe the difference is I just don't have enough faith.

And we turn away from God, right?

I trusted him.

I tried, it didn't work.

Maybe this whole thing just isn't for me.

And that is a heavy burden to put on a person.

You or anybody else, when they're already hurting.

So we need to ask ourselves, does that burden even belong in this story?

That's what I want you to understand.

David's victory is not a promise, right?

That sufficient confidence or courage will give you the outcome you always want.

I wish I had different news for you, friends.

Right?

And do you notice that that in that version of the story how quickly we made ourselves the main character?

Right?

We ask ourselves, who am I when we read these stories?

And we we should, you know, we should look for ourselves in these pieces of wisdom.

We almost always automatically choose David.

Right?

Nobody volunteers to be one of the soldiers standing in the background, wondering what to do, shaking in his boots, or worse.

Nobody says, I'm the guy who avoided Goliath for 40 days.

But what if beginning with David isn't the only way to hear this passage?

What if we pay some attention to people who need deliverance?

And the king that they've been trying to rely on.

Last week we gave ourselves three questions for the series, and I want to bring those back to your attention as we start to dive in this morning.

What is happening?

What does it reveal about God?

And how should we respond?

Let's look at those again.

Let's listen to the story before we decide what it's asking of us.

Right?

So remember the setting.

The setting is a military standoff.

And there's much more at stake here than one person learning how brave he can be.

Two armies standing on opposite hilltops with a valley in between.

On one side are the Philistines, Goliath's people.

And on the other side are the Israelites, God's people, led by King Saul.

And Goliath steps forward as the Philistines' champion, right?

If you've ever watched the movie Troy, you saw this kind of uh thing play out between Brad Pitt and some monstrously enormous fighter, right?

Okay?

They come and it's like, hey, instead of everybody dying, let's just fight these two guys, and you know, whoever wins, their side wins, right?

And the passage, you know, as Goliath steps forward, describes his size, his armor, his weapons, and everything in the description is supposed to make you believe no one stands a chance against this dude.

Right?

Here's what it says in 1 Samuel 17, starting at verse 8.

Goliath stood and shouted to the ranks of Israel, Why do you come out and line up for battle?

Am I not a Philistine and are you not 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.

Then the Philistine said, This day I defy the armies of Israel.

Give me a man and let us fight each other.

On hearing the Philistines' words, Saul and all the Israelites were dismayed and terrified.

Goliath is proposing a contest in which one man decides the fate of everyone.

And how do Saul and the Israelites respond?

Dismayed and terrified.

Goliath does this for 40 days.

He comes out and he says the same thing.

Morning and evening, Goliath comes out.

The same threat, the same fear, and no one steps forward.

Think about the effect of that.

Think about the effect of hearing that challenge again and again.

Right?

Sometimes a problem gets bigger and bigger in our minds because it's the first thing we think about in the morning and the last thing we think about before we go to bed at night.

And that challenge begins to set terms for everything else going on in our lives.

We organize our life around it.

We stop imagining anything beyond it.

That can help us to understand the fear, right, that's in this scene.

Remember, remember, this is an actual conflict involving an entire nation.

It carries a threat of death, defeat, and servitude.

And when we read it, we should give it that kind of weight.

That's the scene that David walks into.

Quite innocuously, actually.

His father, Jesse, isn't come to do anything for the army.

He comes because his dad sent him to give food to his brothers.

Right?

And he asks them to bring back some news.

So David leaves his role as shepherd and goes to see his older brothers who are in Saul's army.

And this is what he says when he arrives.

Whenever the Israelites, this is uh chapter 17, verse 24 and 26.

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

Now, the Israelites have been saying, Do you see this man who 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.

Man, that would get me out there.

No more taxes?

David asked the men standing near him, what will be done for the man who kills the Philistine and removes this disgrace from Israel?

And then he insults him.

I love this.

Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?

If anybody ever calls you an uncircumcised Philistine, he's not trying to make friends, just so you know.

Notice the difference, right, in what David sees?

The soldiers see a man they fear, and David, David sees a man defying God.

Goliath is enormous.

But David's understanding of the situation is that God is bigger.

And that doesn't mean that David is oblivious to danger.

When he finally does seek and speak with Paul, he describes dangerous encounters that he has already faced when caring for his father's sheep.

You know?

So his trust has a history.

He's not walking in blind, but David does volunteer to go.

Which Saul objects to.

We're going to talk about Saul here in a little bit.

Objects that David is young and Goliath has been a warrior from his youth.

But listen to what David says when he answers Saul.

David said this to Saul, verse 34, same chapter.

Your servant has been keeping his father's sheep when a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock.

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

When it turned on me, I can't even imagine this.

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, 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 this Philistine.

David's confidence is in God.

In the God who has already delivered him.

He's not simply giving himself a motivational talk.

Right?

He's not writing his own poster.

Saul.

Saul agrees to send him.

And he gives David a huge wealth in his eyes.

Gives him his armor, right?

His weapons.

And David's like, I can't even move in this stuff.

And he takes it off.

And then he goes down and he chooses five smooth stones.

And he puts them in a little satchel that he would carry it as a shepherd.

And approaches Goliath with his sling.

Now this is a sling, okay?

It's not the thing that, like, you know, we give kids with the rubber bands and stuff like that, right?

It's like literally two pieces of rope and some dried-up skin that you can set a rock in and twirl it around and whip it out at somebody.

That's what he decides to go after, Goliath, who's dressed in full armor, has a massive sword and a huge spear.

This is what he goes out with.

Right?

David uses what's been familiar to him.

Right?

And we don't need to pretend that he has no skill.

Right?

He's given us his resume.

I mean, anybody here fought a lion and won?

I'm guessing if you fought a lion and lost, you probably wouldn't be here.

Right?

Or bear, you know?

We're lucky here in Maple Ridge.

Our bears are kind of scared.

Winnie the Pooh, you know, they run away from us.

You know?

But imagine a bear that wasn't afraid of you.

So David, David, he knows how to use this thing, right?

It's fine for us to admit that.

But but David doesn't put his confidence in his skill with a sling.

Right?

He depends on God.

He's aware that before he enters the situation, God is gonna have to win this one.

And you know, I mean, for Goliath, it seems like the fight is over before it starts.

Right?

He looks down on him and he continues to threaten him.

Listen to how David responds.

Verse uh 45 to 47.

David said to the Philistine, You come against me with sword and spear and javelin.

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'll strike you down and cut off your head.

Somebody was mentioning this morning how they forgot that that's what David does after he beats Goliath.

Again, when we tell kids the stories, we don't actually give them all the details, right?

And he continues, I'll cut off your head.

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

Yeah, that's not on any of our posters either, right?

Land full of slayed bodies that have been eaten by bears.

All those gathered here will know that it is not by the sword or the spear that the Lord saves.

The battle is the Lord's, and he will give all of you into our hands.

Davis, Davis, David tells us, thank you, what the victory will reveal.

Right?

That there is a God in Israel.

And the Lord saves in ways that do not depend on the normal systems of strength that we have come to rely on.

That is the center of David's confidence.

God's name and God's reputation.

David understands that that's what's at stake.

And because God cares about those things, God will act.

Right?

This is a far bigger story, far more cosmic, far more spiritual than a young man coming into his own.

And the confrontation, it's over really fast.

Right?

David runs down towards the battle line, uses the sling, strikes Goliath in the forehead, Goliath falls.

David picks up Goliath's huge sword, cuts off his head.

And the Philistines scatter.

And at that moment, the Israelites decide oh, maybe we should do something.

Maybe we should help out.

So they get up off their scared rear ends.

And pursue the Philistines, right?

Those guys who had stood in fear now move forward.

Because their champion has won.

One person steps into the confrontation.

A whole people benefit from the victory.

To really understand, though, why David matters so much, there's another character in the story we have to look at.

The man who should have been leading Israel the whole time.

King Saul.

And Saul is not a minor background character.

If you read this part of scripture, right?

Saul is Israel's king, their first king.

The army is his army.

And the challenge has left him terrified along with everyone else.

See, earlier in 1 Samuel, Israel didn't have a king.

Right?

But they went and they asked the prophets to anoint a king.

This is part of what they said they wanted their king to do.

1 Samuel 8.

We want a king over us.

Then we'll be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and go out before us and fight our battles for us.

They wanted to be like everyone else when God had set them apart to be different.

They wanted a king, a man, to lead them, to go out before them, to fight.

God tells Samuel in that same chapter that their demand amounts to rejecting him as their king.

The issue at hand in that moment is the rejection of God's rule and the kind of security that they're demanding.

Because God's intention was to be the one who leads them, to be the one who fights for them, to be the one who goes before them.

But they look for all the things that we tend to look for.

You know, Saul, we're told, is an impressive guy.

He's taller than other people around him.

He's a good-looking guy, right?

He looks like somebody who could lead you into battle.

But now the battle's come.

An appearance is not enough.

The king they wanted to fight their battles cannot bring himself to face this one.

The thing they thought would make them secure has reached its limit.

Right?

And it's fair, we shouldn't imagine everything that came before Saul was a peaceful success, right?

Like Israel's, you know, growth up to this point includes failure and disorder.

But the people's request reveals something important about their confidence.

They wanted the visible arrangement that the other nations have.

Give us what they have, and then we will feel safe.

And I hope that's a temptation somebody else in the room recognizes, just not me.

Sometimes we look at somebody else's life and decide that whatever they have is what we need.

In fact, I was having this conversation with Sully after last week.

We were talking about how frustrating it can be to see somebody who's not living the right way seem to get all the right things.

Right?

You ever feel that way?

Why is that guy rich?

He's a total.

He's not a nice person at all.

He doesn't love people, he doesn't care for people, he doesn't do any of the things that I love and respect.

Why does he win the lottery?

You know?

Why did that guy get the easy hand?

Something we need to recognize is that sometimes we're bad at recognizing when we've adopted a worse set of wins than we're supposed to.

Because that theory only works if like money and success are the primary thing we're supposed to chase after.

That's us seeing the world from a broken perspective.

Just as much as it is the world giving a broken reward to somebody who doesn't deserve it.

Right?

Oh man, if I only had their income, I could stop worrying about it.

If I had their opportunities, I would be that person.

My future would be secure.

If only we had the right person on our team, we would finally be okay.

And look, the world we live in is ordered a certain way.

And so there can be real benefits to those things.

Don't get me wrong.

If somebody wants to give me a million bucks, I'm not saying no.

You know?

But even though financial stability matters and healthy relationships matter and competent leadership matters, right?

The good in those things has a limit.

They cannot carry every expectation that we place on them.

Money can give you options.

I can't guarantee you that nobody you love will ever suffer.

Right?

A good leader can make wise decisions.

They cannot control every event.

Another person can love you deeply.

They cannot repair everything that's broken in you.

And so part of what we should ask ourselves as we read this story is what have I been relying on to make me feel that everything will be okay?

Sometimes it's our own ability, right?

You're usually the person who figures out a way to work things out, make the phone call, solve the problem, find the money, keep things moving.

And that ability may have served you really well.

Eventually, eventually you're going to find something that doesn't yield to your effort.

And in that moment, I've been frightened.

Because now I have to ask some really tough questions.

How do I solve this?

Right?

And who am I if I can't solve this?

Think about a parent watching a child make choices.

You can love them.

You can speak honestly, you can make your home a place where conversation is possible.

You can set appropriate boundaries, but you cannot live their life for them.

At some point, love requires us to recognize the difference between our responsibility and our control.

And we can trust God while still fulfilling our responsibilities, but we cannot turn those responsibilities into a guarantee that nothing will ever go wrong.

We need to recognize the limits of what we are trusting.

This is part of what the contrast between Saul and David reveals.

Saul has the position, it's got the appearance, it's got the money, it's got the armor, it's got the weapons, he's got all the stuff that he shouldn't need.

And he's frightened.

David has the one thing that he needs confidence in God.

In the previous chapter to this, God had already chosen David to be the anointed as the future king.

The king that, look, if you're going to have a king, have this guy, not that guy.

Right?

Now in this scene, we see why God declared that.

David's victory shows us that God delivering his people through someone who acts on their behalf.

And that prepares us to look for a greater king.

Imagine hearing this story as one of the Israelites standing on that hillside.

I don't think that you would walk away from that saying, I need to find five stones.

Right?

That's what I didn't have before.

Ah, only I had five stones.

David only needed one.

Right?

David's already won.

The victory already changed their situation.

If you were one of them, you were facing defeat.

Now you can move forward.

You benefit, you benefit from what someone else has done on your behalf.

Right?

And this is important.

We can learn from David's faith, but we also need to recognize the deliverance the people receive.

Their hope rests in the one who goes to battle for them.

David is the future king.

He steps into confrontation while Saul remains afraid, and God brings deliverance through him.

As Christians, we read this within the larger story of Scripture, right?

At least we should.

David's kingship becomes part of the background for understanding Jesus.

The promised king that comes through David's line.

We don't need to assign secret meeting to every stone or every piece of armor, right?

The connection is in the role.

A deliverer acts for a people who need rescue.

And his victory changes their future.

And Jesus, Jesus takes that role further for all of us than David ever could.

Because David is also a man who needs mercy.

You know, sometimes I often think we love to say David is a man after God's own heart.

Really?

I think he said that about himself.

I'm not sure many other people looking back on David's story would say that about David.

David has a guy killed so he can steal his wife, right?

Is chased down and his own son tries to murder him because he's not very good.

He's got blood all over his hands.

If David is the best king Israel ever had, they needed something better, didn't they?

Jesus is the king that we need.

And the enemies that he confronts on our behalf are sin and death.

I know that those words sometimes can sound abstract until we think about the realities that they describe, right?

Sin includes all the wrong things we do, the good we refuse to do, and our estrangement from the God who made us.

We see its damage in the world, we encounter it in our own lives, and we can change our habits.

We can make restitution, we can learn healthier ways to live.

And those things matter, and you should do that, but we cannot erase the wrong that we've already done or reconcile ourselves to God by becoming impressive enough.

We need forgiveness and we need grace.

We need God to do for us what we cannot accomplish for ourselves.

We will never erase all the sin in our life on our own.

We will all die with unresolved sin.

Right?

And that that death confronts sorry confronts the limits of our control.

We can improve our health, practice good habits, you know, receive excellent care, and we should, but someday my body and your body is going to break down.

None of us are immune to death.

The Christian hope addresses these realities.

It's more substantial than a promise that believing in God will help all of our plans succeed.

That is not what we come to Jesus for.

Remember Romans chapter 5, we read it last week.

Romans 5 · chapter mention

If you don't, that's okay.

We're going to read it again.

You see, at just the right time when we were still helpless, Christ died for the ungodly.

Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person.

Though for a good person, maybe somebody would dare to die.

But God proves his own love for us in this while we were still sinners.

Christ died for us.

Notice the people that Jesus died for, the powerless, the ungodly, those who do wrong.

He comes to us in our need.

It isn't stand at a safe distance calling, try harder, be braver, have more courage, have more faith.

You've got this.

He came and he gave himself for us because he knew that we needed it.

At the cross, right, the death and resurrection, Jesus took on the consequences of our poor decisions.

He dies, and through his resurrection breaks the power of death that opens the way to life with God.

Paul said in 1 Corinthians this, but Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

For since death came through a man, Adam, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man.

For as in Adam all died, so in Christ all will be made alive.

That is the hope of our faith, friends.

Jesus lived, died, and was brought back to life.

The truth of Christianity doesn't rely on anything else but that.

That is our hope.

Your relationship with God does not begin with you winning a contest to prove that you're worthy.

That's every other religion on the planet.

It begins with what Jesus has done for you.

He has given you grace.

Put your trust in him.

Follow him.

Our hope.

Our hope rests in the King who rescues us.

As we wrap up, do you remember the co-pilot sticker?

If Jesus is King, he gets to do more than ride along.

If you need a meme for how it really works, Carrie Underwood probably had it more correct.

Jesus, take the wheel.

If you gotta get a bumper sticker, get that one.

Okay?

Because Jesus doesn't just ride along.

Jesus tests the destination.

We can pray, Jesus, help me with this, and Jesus, how do you want me to live through this?

Those questions can lead to important, different decisions.

But we may need to stop pursuing something.

We may need to listen.

We may need to remain faithful in an ordinary responsibility instead of waiting for a dramatic rescue.

Today's story has given us more than just an inspiring underdog.

Right?

We've seen a frightened people, a king who is not able to deliver, and David putting his faith in God as he steps forward on the people's behalf.

And within the larger story that Scripture is telling, we look towards Jesus, the King who gives himself for us, reconciles us to God, and overcomes death through his resurrection.

And in so doing, teaches us how to live with each other in a way that is so much better than what we would come up with for ourselves.

So I want to invite you to consider this question as we go out.

What would trusting Jesus change about my week this week?

What if he's the hero, not me?

Maybe you prayed for a victory that didn't come.

Maybe there's a version of faith that you are giving that makes you feel like that's a failure on your behalf.

Or proof that God isn't real.

I don't want to minimize what happened to you in your story, but I do want to invite you to continue to look to Jesus.

Christian hope doesn't rest in every problem of life getting solved magically by faith in Jesus.

It rests in the death and resurrection of Jesus.

And in the meantime, you are encouraged to bring your disappointment to him and explore what giving him your hope means.

Today, your next step might be an honest prayer or a conversation about the questions that you feel haven't been asked or answered.

I want you to know this is a place where you can have that conversation.

You can come talk to me about it.

There are people here who would love to engage in that conversation with you.

You don't need to win your relationship with God.

You just need to receive what Jesus has done for you.

Let's pray together.

Jesus, help us all to recognize and admit that there's so much we can't do for ourselves.

And no matter how much how much courage we muster, how much faith we produce, we do not have the means with which to save ourselves.

We need Jesus.

You gave us Jesus.

And just as David fought on behalf of Israel, so Jesus has fought on our behalf to defeat our wrongdoing and death.

Help us this week.

Help us to shift our perspective.

Help us to keep our eyes on Jesus.

Help us to be free of the feeling that we have to be the hero.

That we have to win all the battles.

Help us to be like David.

Have confidence in the name of Jesus.

Walk with us.

Guide us and teach us, we ask in Jesus' name.

Amen.