Conflict With A Giant Part 1

Notes most of us have a healthy fear of danger.

We know enough to avoid conflict when there's no way we can win. But then there's David young man whose courage when facing a giant earned him the respect of the nation today how it all happened from the Moody Church in Chicago this morning with Dr. Erwin looks her whose clear teaching sauce make it across the finish line Esther lutes are kids, take risks, grown-ups have the sense to avoid but surely David knew that Goliath had him gone. There's absolutely no doubt that David is out on but the key is this new member. He said I come to you in the name of the Lord. It is a remarkable story of US children what their favorite Bible story is almost always they will mention David and Goliath, but it's also a true story, Dave. I know that you have been to Israel as I have been several times and in some instances, we've actually gone to the valley where this battle took place and we both picked up stones rehearsing the story, but we have to keep in mind that it is a true story and it was the means that God used to give David the kind of attention that he needed to eventually ascend the throne. Let's learn from the story I've written a book entitled, growing true conflict talks about David with the conflict that was existing in his family is conflict with the giant for a gift of any amount.

It can be yours.

Here is what you do go to RTW offer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337 ask for the book, growing true conflict lessons from the life of David now let us learn some of those lessons. All of us. I believe from time to time come across obstacles in our lives that are at least 10 times our side. Maybe it is a bankruptcy. Maybe it's a failed marriage. Maybe it's bad health and a diagnosis that you hope to God you would never have to some tragedies, some personnel difficulty being laid off on a job and you are going through that experience and you say to yourself, where is God in the midst of it and how do I combat it. Today were going to look at one of the most familiar stories in the Bible. It's the story of David and Goliath found in verse endnote chapter 17 first Samuel chapter 17. It's a difficult story to preach on for two reasons. First of all because it's so familiar. Many people who know nothing about the Bible. People who have never picked up a copy of the Bible or read a page know that David the shepherd boy conquered the big giant Goliath, everybody knows the story and that means that it's difficult to get across because people sit back and say I already know this one I could preach this one is a second reason and that is I think sometimes we misapply the story. You see, we think that God is not to take our giants and then we define them according to our own liking and that God is going to make sure that those giants are taken care of and all that we need to do is to come to people or situations in the name of the Lord and God will take care of them. Maybe there's somebody here today who says that you know my Goliath is my boss sees a pagan I don't like them tomorrow morning I'm going to come to him in the name of the Lord and I'm gonna watch God sap him well your boss might zap you, but God might not zap him now if we can get by all that if we can get by the familiarity and the misapplication of this passage we can uncover a truth that I will be sharing with you in just a few moments we can uncover a truth that will help us to never see any situation in life quite the same again. It can transform our attitude toward events and people and transform our attitude about God and we can learn a lesson that we can take with us until the day we die all that from this passage of Scripture.

But before I lead you into that truth. I need to paint the picture here is Goliath on a hilltop and that if your Bible is open to first Samuel 17 I shall read a few verses beginning at verse four.

Then a champion came out from the armies of the Philistines named Goliath from Gab whose height was six cubits and a span that means that the guy was 9 feet tall. If you can believe it, and he had a bronze helmet on his head and he was clothed with scale armor which weighed 5000 shekels of bronze. That's about 125 pounds and he had a bronze grieves on his legs and a bronze javelin slung between his shoulders and the shaft of his spear was like a weaver's beam and the head of the spear weighed 600 shekels of iron. That's about 17 pounds and his shield carrier also walk before man this guy was a walking tank. There is all dressed out in his armor. Someone said that he indeed was a scintillating mass of brass glittering.

There in the morning sun and for 40 days he comes out any defies God.

He wants to make an agreement it says, rather than all of our armies getting involved. Let's do it this way, you find a representative man I am representing the Philistines and let us fight and then the whoever loses. It is their team that will become the servant of the other verse nine. If he is able to fight with me and kill me. Then we shall become your servants but if I prevail against him and kill him. Then you shall become our servants and service.

Again, the Philistines said I D5 the ranks of Israel.

This day give me a manner that we might fight together and when Saul and all Israel heard these words of the Philistine they were dismayed and greatly afraid, greatly afraid so Israel was having difficulty finding a volunteer on no doubt they put notices in the bulletin and that they had conferences on volunteerism and its benefits and what it can do for communities and what it can do for armies but nobody seemed to be showing up now. Saul himself should've stepped to the challenge. He was, after all, the king, but he prayed about it and decided it was God's will that that maybe somebody else do this and it's in the midst of the story that we encountered David for years had now passed since he was anointed to be king at the age of 15. He is now 19 years old and that he is running back and forth between herding the sheep and playing the harp in Saul's court. That's what he was doing and his dad said to him, David, that would you go see your brothers and find out what's going on because there's this Philistine there who is giving the people a hard time and so David does and that you'll notice that the text tells us that David said in verse 26 he spoke to the men who were standing by him saying will be done for the man who kills this Philistine and takes away the reproach from Israel for who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should taunt the armies of the living God, and last time we looked at the conflict within the family the sibling rivalry. The fact that his brother chewed them out for this. The older brother a liar and some of you alas Bourns you know how difficult that can be when you're older brother gets on your case and David speaks to Saul in verse 32 and says to him, let no man's heart fail on account of him, your servant will go and fight with this Philistine and soul who perhaps love David. At this time.

Later on he'll hate him, but for now, he loves the boy he he wants to talk him out of it, because in effect what he saying if you can read between the lines is David.

Don't commit suicide. You don't want to do this you, you might want to rethink what's going to happen and then David says to Saul you know actually I'm not is on evenly matched as you might think, because one day I was said tending the sheep and a bear came and wanted to take one of the sheep and I actually kill the barren.

On another occasion I killed the lion and David says your servant. Verse 36 has killed both the lion and the bear and this uncircumcised Philistine will be one of them since he is taunted the armies of the living God. And Saul says to David in the last part of verse 37 go and may the Lord with you, which is to say, being interpreted will be behind you.

David really we really will buy about a thousand yards. God bless you. God bless you and so we have the story. Now I have to stop and ask this question, what is it that made David different from his contemporaries out. Why was it that David was able to withstand the giant and being willing to take upon when nobody else was.

I'd like to suggest that the reason was because David had a dog size imagination Eugene Peterson in his book on David points that out. I think it's a wonderful way to say it had a God sized imagination. I she knew that the size of your God determines the size of your giant small God big giant big God small giant you know it was toes or who said that to what a man believes about God is the most important thing about if you believe that God is holy are gonna live a righteous life. If you believe that God is uncaring with the way in which you live. You are going to trust him and you're going to basically do as you please. What you think about God is that which is most important to you and David had a big God, a big imagination because he had a big God, where did he learn that will I tend to think that it began out there herding the sheep and playing the harp day after day. David played songs of praise to God in the choir members are behind me today will confirm this that the more you saying about God's greatness and his praises, the more these lines get into your heart, the greater your faith unbelief oftentimes is squeezed to the edges of your life as you begin to focus on the Lord your God and I believe the David walking out under the stars and seeing God in nature's faith was enlarged and then of course he began even as a youth to write those Psalms of praise to God. David many many faults and will be uncovering some of them in this series of messages, many more than people realize it's it's much greater than just the Bathsheba and the Uriah affair but one of the things that he did do is he.

He kept, he kept this desire for God. In fact, as I mentioned, it is the hollowness of his own life in the sense of failure and emptiness that kept driving them to God. And that's what made the difference. And so what I'd like to suggest to you today is that a God sized imagination does several things for us. First of all, it gives us faith. Faith with action faith with action. Notice that Saul tries to get David to wear his armor it says in verse 38 then Saul clothed David with his armor put garments in a broad's helmet on his head and clothed them with armor and David girded his sword over his armor and tried to walk, for he had not tested them. I think if we do see videos in heaven someday this is surely going to be one of the ones of the Lord is going to show us when we need a little a little levity in the midst of the celebration because this is really funny.

Here's a boy of 19 trying to wear the armor of a very tall experienced soldier, namely Saul and David said I can't wear them because I haven't tested them. What does a God sized imagination, help us with. First of all, you'll notice that David understood that the issue was not the size of the giant.

It was ultimately the size of his God versus the size of David's God.

You'll notice in verse 45. Well, let's pick it up in verse 41 then the Philistine came on an approach David with the shield bearer in front of him. The Philistine looked and saw David. He disdained him, for he was but a youth and ready with a handsome appearance and the Philistine said to David dog that you come to me with sticks.

The Philistine cursed David by his gods, and may I say that one of the gods would probably be Beelzebub, the Lord of flies and I will spare you the in delicacy of giving you a reason why their gods were called the Lord of flies.

The Philistine said to David come onto me and I will give your flesh to the birds of the sky and the beasts of the field, but verse 45 is the key verse. Then David said to the Philistine, you come to me with a sword in his spear and a javelin. But I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel with whom you have on Ted and that is the key difference between David and everyone else who is running from the giant David said you are coming to me purely in human strength, and even though I'm good at my sling. I'm not confident that I can overcome you.

In fact, David goes on to say that the issue is not really who has the best weapons in this case. He said the real issue is which God is going to prevail on the Bible, the Lord of hosts is but one term among many Jehovah Gyro the Lord will provide Jehovah shalom God is our peace Jehovah knit see I believe it is the Lord our banner.

In fact, full studies have been done to show that whatever you need for a particular situation you have in God, the Lord of armies, the Lord of hosts. This represents God as a warrior one day when Elijah was there at Joseph and he said, Lord, open the eyes of the servant that he might be able to see all of your armies that were surrounding the oath and and these were a just this morning, and my devotional reading I was reading the Psalm that says the angel of the Lord encamps around about those who fear him, and God protects them.

So what David is saying is, is that because this is a battle a spiritual battle.

What I will do is to trust a God who is the Lord of all that, my dear friend, today I want you to know that the invisible God, the invisible God was more real to David than the visible giant on the hilltop and David says I am willing to have faith and action faith and action. I know what I have done I have said Saul I'm not volunteering, but I am than a prey and I'm gonna pray that the giant died of a heart attack that I would've been my prayer.

David says I'm looking pray that I'm going to go and I'm going to attack him with what I have, like the boy who brings his loaves and fishes to Jesus and and to see what God can do with gifts that I have honed and developed and used in different contexts. Now I'm going to put them to use were the greatest challenge of my career and I will come in the name of God in the name of God, the Lord of armies. So what you have is you have faith with action. You also have faith with authority. We pick it up in verse 46 this day the Lord will deliver you up into my hands and I will strike you down and remove your head from you and I will give the dead bodies of the Army of the Philistines this day to the birds of the sky and the wild beasts of the earth that all the earth might know that there is a God in Israel and that all this assembly may know that the Lord does not deliver by sword or by spear for the battle is the Lord's and he will give it into your hand and then comes the shock you imagine the army of Israel off in the distance. Seeing this boy unarmed. Apart from his sling and they watch the shepherd boy run not away from the giant, which they had been getting good at for 40 days, but rather to and David comes and you know the rest of the story.

I David takes his sling and puts a stone in it and so far as we know it's the very first stone and it hits the giant in the four head and something like that had not entered into his head before and he is dad is dead on the battlefield, but folks, I want you to get the sense of authority with which David approached the giant.

First of all, he was confident God was going to give him the victory. This was not presumption, it wasn't well all take my sling and I'll try to shoot a stone in his direction and will see whether or not God will come through that kind of faith and David would've been the one whose head would've been cut off by the end of the day. No these as I come to you in the name of the Lord of armies, whom you have defied. Now catch this. The giant had no right even to be standing on that land that part of the territory had been deeded to the tribe of Judah. God had said through Moses and then through Joshua. Every place that the sole of your foot steps I have given that to you and it belongs to you and then the tribes had the land divvied up and it belonged to them what in the world. Was this pagan doing on soil that belong to Jehovah.

Someday in heaven like to talk with David about that experience and ask him what he was thinking when he went up against the giant because even though we bring God into the picture. And, of course, God is actually the one orchestrating this story.

Still, you have to wonder about this young man being willing to take on the giant with justice sling and five stones and then ending up not needing the other four stones. It's a remarkable story but it's one that teaches us lessons about faith, how to fight battles. That's why I've written a book entitled, growing through conflict lessons from the life of David. I think that this book is going to be of great help to you. We make these kinds of resources available to all who listen to the ministry of running to win because we want to help you grow in the Christian life, and as we frequently say we want you to be able to run all the way to the finish line and to do so successfully asked for the book, growing through conflict. Now here's what you do go to RTW offer.com that's RTW offer.com. By the way thanks in advance for your generosity.

Thanks for holding our hands as we continue to share the word of God through this ministry go to RTW offer.com or you can call us at 1-888-218-9337, as I think about the ministry of running to win.

I visualize in my mind a large family of people thousands upon thousands who listen. Also, thousands who support this ministry. Thanks in advance for helping us and we want to bless you ask for the book, growing through conflict. RTW offer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337 it's time once again for you to ask Pastor lutes or a question about the Bible or the Christian life.

The church is divided about how God currently treats the nation of Israel. Mitch has been looking into this and wants your take on an issue.

Dr. lutes or asks do you believe in replacement theology that is that the church replaces Israel and that God no longer has any special plans for the Jewish nation amidst the answer is no, I do not believe in replacement theology and you're absolutely right replacement theology says that the church actually takes the place of Israel in God's economy and God is totally finished with the nation Israel but you know when you read the Old Testament and you might want to read.

For example, Jeremiah 33 and other passages where it says so clearly that as long as sun and moon endure the nation of Israel shall remain before me and then think of it this way. Think of the words of the angel to Mary, he shall be great, he shall be called the son of the highest. The Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David, and he shall rule over the kingdom of Judah, etc. now has that been fulfilled. I don't think so. And yet Jesus is going to be sitting on the throne of David.

I interpret that to mean ruling from Jerusalem. Someday and so I don't believe in replacement theology. There are other implications to this. I could go on a long time but just read the prophets of the Old Testament read the continual repetition of God is saying again and again. I will bring the remnant back into the land.

Then ask yourself is this been fulfilled now because even after the Activities after Israel has been so disciplined by God. You still have those promises. So I believe in a future fulfillment for Israel.

Thank you Mitch for your question. Thank you Dr. lutes or if you'd like to hear your question answered.

Go to our website@rtwoffer.com and click on ask Pastor lutes or or call us at 1-888-218-9337 that's 188-218-9337 you can write to us at running to win 1635 N. LaSalle Boulevard Chicago, IL 60614.

This is Dave McAllister. Next time, what one boy did with the simple sling and five stones running to win is sponsored moody churn