Motivational Quotes

All the rage online.

You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.

Zig Ziglar

You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.

Wayne Gretzky

Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right.

Henry Ford

I like motivational quotes… but they don’t sustain motivation. Not for long. If you’re not careful, you’ll spend more time looking for inspiration than doing inspirational work.

Our text this morning is often used like one of those inspirational quotes. Give you courage to face obstacles, giants.

David & Goliath

One of the most famous stories of all time.

If you grew up going to church, probably one of the first Bible stories you remember learning, possibly on a flannelgraph.

Even outside the faith, it’s so well known that it’s become a phrase people use for any time an underdog is going up against someone much more powerful. (“Do you believe in miracles? YES!”)

The danger of a story being so well known is that we think we know all about it, so we don’t pay as much attention. Like a movie playing in the background.

Ask the Spirit to give you fresh eyes/ears this morning.

The Giant

Verse 4, “six cubits and a span”, that’s around 9 ft 6in. All manuscripts don’t agree, could be “four cubits and a span.” Which would still make him 6ft 9in—he’s still a giant, especialy considering the average male height in that area was around 5 feet.

He challenges them to a war by proxy, representation. Much more efficient that way.

Every morning and evening for forty days the
Philistine came forward and took his stand.

1 Samuel 17:16

80 times he did this. 80 times they ran.

David in Bethlehem

The story switches scenes, about 12 miles east, to Bethlehem.

If Frankfort is Ramah and Marion is Bethlehem, Valley of Elah is around Crab Orchard.

Chronology

David is reintroduced to us in verses 12–15. Which seems strange, because if you remember we were introduced to him last week.

Even stranger is the second half of the chapter, which we didn’t get to last week, because there David becomes King Saul’s personal musician and armor bearer.

Again, less concerned about chronology than theology. Skipping time to make a point. The Spirit of God had come on David, and left Saul.

David’s sent on an errand to run some bread and cheese out to his brothers.

So David got up early in the morning, left the flock with someone to keep it, loaded up, and set out as Jesse had charged him.

He arrived at the perimeter of the camp as the army was marching out to its battle formation shouting their battle cry. Israel and the Philistines lined up in battle formation facing each other. David left his supplies in the care of the quartermaster and ran to the battle line. When he arrived, he asked his brothers how they were. While he was speaking with them, suddenly the champion named Goliath, the Philistine from Gath, came forward from the Philistine battle line and shouted his usual words, which David heard. When all the Israelite men saw Goliath, they retreated from him terrified.

“Just who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?”

1 Samuel 17:20–24, 26

Just as he arrives, here comes Goliath out for one of his daily taunts. The Israelites are once again terrified, but David is indignant.

Just who is this uncircumcised Philistine that
he should defy the armies of the living God?”

1 Samuel 17:26

His oldest brother, Eliab, isn’t too thrilled with his line of questioning.

David’s oldest brother Eliab listened as he spoke to the men, and he became angry with him. “Why did you come down here?” he asked. “Who did you leave those few sheep with in the wilderness? I know your arrogance and your evil heart—you came down to see the battle!”

1 Samuel 17:28

Typical older brother.

David & Saul

First interaction.

What David said was overheard and reported to Saul, so he had David brought to him. David said to Saul, “Don’t let anyone be discouraged by him; your servant will go and fight this Philistine!”

But Saul replied, “You can’t go fight this Philistine. You’re just a youth, and he’s been a warrior since he was young.”

David answered Saul, “Your servant has been tending his father’s sheep. Whenever a lion or a bear came and carried off a lamb from the flock, I went after it, struck it down, and rescued the lamb from its mouth. If it reared up against me, I would grab it by its fur, strike it down, and kill it. Your servant has killed lions and bears; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, for he has defied the armies of the living God.” Then David said, “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.”

Saul said to David, “Go, and may the Lord be with you.”

1 Samuel 17:31–37

How pathetic.

David sees differently than Saul. (last week)

Then Saul had his own military clothes put on David. He put a bronze helmet on David’s head and had him put on armor. David strapped his sword on over the military clothes and tried to walk, but he was not used to them. “I can’t walk in these,” David said to Saul, “I’m not used to them.” So David took them off.

1 Samuel 17:38–39

Same old Saul.

Instead, he took his staff in his hand and chose five smooth stones from the wadi and put them in the pouch, in his shepherd’s bag. Then, with his sling in his hand, he approached the Philistine.

The Philistine came closer and closer to David, with the shield-bearer in front of him. When the Philistine looked and saw David, he despised him because he was just a youth, healthy and handsome. He said to David, “Am I a dog that you come against me with sticks?” [Sheldon Cooper?] Then he cursed David by his gods. “Come here,” the Philistine called to David, “and I’ll give your flesh to the birds of the sky and the wild beasts!”

David said to the Philistine, “You come against me with a sword, spear, and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord of Armies, the God of the ranks of Israel—you have defied him. Today, the Lord will hand you over to me. Today, I’ll strike you down, remove your head, and give the corpses of the Philistine camp to the birds of the sky and the wild creatures of the earth. Then all the world will know that Israel has a God, and this whole assembly will know that it is not by sword or by spear that the Lord saves, for the battle is the Lord’s. He will hand you over to us.”

1 Samuel 17:40–47

That last sentence is the key to understanding this whole story. Two audiences: (a) the whole world, and (b) God’s own people.

The Battle

Doesn’t actually take up much space, didn’t last very long either!

When the Philistine started forward to attack him, David ran quickly to the battle line to meet the Philistine. David put his hand in the bag, took out a stone, slung it, and hit the Philistine on his forehead. The stone sank into his forehead, and he fell facedown to the ground. [last thing to ever go through his mind!] David defeated the Philistine with a sling and a stone. David overpowered the Philistine and killed him without having a sword. David ran and stood over him. He grabbed the Philistine’s sword, pulled it from its sheath, and used it to kill him. Then he cut off his head. When the Philistines saw that their hero was dead, they fled.

1 Samuel 17:48–51

“Excuse me, could I borrow this for a second. Doesn’t look like you’re going to be using it anytime soon. Thanks.”

What’s the Point?

Jesus is the point of the story!

Jesus is the True & Better David

His Father would send him on a mission to the battlefield.

Almost a thousand years after this, a baby would be born in Bethlehem, David’s hometown. And turns out, his Father was sending him on a mission into the battlefield as well.

He entered the fray as our representative, to do battle with our enemy, the giant that was way too big and too menacing for us to do anything about ourselves.

Satan, our Goliath, despises us. And he mocks the name/glory of our God as he roams around the battlefield of this earth—territory that he currently occupies, but does not belong to him. Day and night he’s pacing back and forth like a lion, seeking whom he might prey on, pounce on, and destroy. He says, “Come out and fight me, and if you win, I’ll be your slave.” But that’s never the way it works out.

Oh, and he’s just the one out in front, he has thousands of foot soldiers behind him, ready to charge at his command. He tempts with invitations to join his side, he taunts with how weak and scared we are, and he flaunts his sheer power and strength—he’s got thousands of years of combat experience. He’s seen it all. Worse yet, he’s got some seriously fearsome weapons. He’s got the his spear with the heavy tip of our guilt/shame, and he’s the best of all time at hitting his intended target. But even worse than that, he’s holding the sharpest, most painful, devastating sword of all time: death.

Imagine how you would feel, going up against this seasoned warrior right now, and then multiply that by a few thousand. You’re outsmarted, outmatched, outnumbered, outmaneuvered in every way.

He looks down at you in your warm cozy, fully stocked kitchen this morning, slowly sipping your hot coffee from a mug with the gold painted words “Not today, Satan!”, and he sneers. “What am I, an annoying coworker, that you come at me with snark? Please, by all means, bring it on, and I’ll show you whose got the upper hand. I’ll feed you to those birds you’re watching outside your window.”

He laughs at our “war cries”, because they’re exactly like Israel’s those 40 days… just noise. He knows full well that on your own, you haven’t got a snowball’s chance in the place he’s headed one day… so he might as well take you with him if he can.

Do you see why the point of this story is decidedly not “Buck up! Think about David, how he faced the giants in his life. Be more like David!”

No, we’re not David in this story—we’re Israel! Standing on the sidelines,
shaking in our combat boots, unable to do anything but run.

But then the Shepherd arrived from Bethlehem, and everything changed.
While we were running away from the battle, he was running toward the battle. It’s about Him, not about us!

The answer to their problem was not another pump up speech—if those were going to do any good, wouldn’t they have by now? David doesn’t come onto the scene to help the soldiers believe in themselves: “Aww, come on guys, you can do it! Israel’s Number One!”

God didn’t send a cheerleader; He sent a substitute.

Jesus was anxious in the hours before the cross. He couldn’t sleep, didn’t want to. He struggled to the point that there was blood mixed in with the sweat and tears.

But he comes to the point of saying, “Not my will, but yours be done. I’ll fight this battle, and I’ll win.”

Except Jesus didn’t just risk his life, he lost his life. On purpose. For us. We didn’t need a cheerleader or an example; we needed a substitute. One to fight our battles for us, to set us free from the fear that dominated us. Look at Hebrews 2:

Now since the children have flesh and blood in common, Jesus also shared in these, so that through his death he might destroy the one holding the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who were held in slavery all their lives by the fear of death.

Hebrews 2:14–15

He used the giants own weapon against Him!

We follow him into victory.