David’s Giants

Israel already had a king and David was going to face some issues with that, but on his journey there the first thing he did that we saw last week after keeping the sheep was he played lyre for Saul, soothed the spirit that tormented him and the spirit would leave him when David would play, when the Holy Spirit would come through the music that would come from his hands. David was anointed to be king. Now here he came, here was his job.

His brothers were in the field fighting. They were older. He was home taking care of the sheep which was his duty and his dad had him out there and every once in a while he’d send him with some food and he went and took the food to his brothers and the fighters and when he got there he saw Goliath came out, taunted them, defied the armies of Israel and David’s looking around going what’s going on? Why isn’t anybody fighting him? Did you hear what he just said? You can’t trash talk God’s chosen people and they were telling him about it and one of his brothers came out to him and he said you have evil in your heart.

The only reason you came here was to see the battlefield, was to see people fight. You just wanted to watch that like it’s for your entertainment and David started going I’ll fight this giant. I don’t care who he is.

So they took him to Saul. Saul gave him his armor. He couldn’t even see with the helmet falling down over his face and he took it off and went out to the battlefield and it says in verse 40 which comes right before we left.

Then he took his staff in his hand and chose five smooth stones from the brook and put them in the shepherd’s pouch. His sling was in his hands and he approached the Philistine. Now if you are a champion of war how scary would David be to you? He comes out there with a shepherd’s staff which he calls a stick.

You send someone with sticks and what do you think he’s gonna beat me like I’m a dog and chase me away? You’re just making me mad. You know it’s like all the trash talk about Patrick Mahomes. You don’t want to make him mad or you’re gonna pay.

He walked out there on the battlefield with a staff, a pouch, five smooth stones, and a sling. Pretty scary huh? I mean when I read this as a kid and we went over it, it sounded like a slingshot. Like a kid’s weapon.

Like a kid’s toy. With a stick and with rocks against a champion of war who was bigger than anyone in Israel had ever seen and he comes out there with these things. Now shepherds tools and the weapons are the rod, the staff, and the sling with the stones.

Now the rod, Psalm 23, thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Now the rod some say it’s part of the staff, others say it’s like a short part, like a baton, like a police baton that is short and solid and anything that would get close, any animal, any wolf, any lion, he would beat it. Now David when he went to Saul to try to plead his case for fighting the giant, he said hey when I was out in the field and the lion would come to take the sheep, I would grab that lion by the hair and give it a good whack.

Now you have a rod, you have the staff that we talked about at children’s time that is there to protect the sheep, that keep them, pick them up when they fall down, bring them back when they come off the beaten path and get them back in the line. And then David also had a sling, which this is more like the sling. You put a rock in there and then you time it just right, don’t worry I’m a good animal, and then you sling it and the rock comes flying out, it takes a skill.

And this is what David had. I mean let’s just compare David the shepherd, Goliath the champion. A sling, a staff, a sling, a pouch, it said he had a shepherd’s pouch that he put the five smooth stones in, versus armor, sword, spear, and javelin.

If you were going to war, would you choose item A or would you choose item B? Real scary. Goliath was insulted. And David came running out there, and as he was running to face the battle, he’s got to be thinking these words, I will fear no evil for you are with me.

Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. He runs and he says, you come with a sword and a spear and a javelin, but I come in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel. Now which set of weapons would you choose? God’s a little bigger than a sword and a spear and a javelin, even for a giant.

Now David faced many giants on his way to becoming a king. The first giant that I would say he faced was his own father. When Samuel came to anoint the next chosen king of Israel, he brought his sons he was so proud of, but no David.

Samuel had to ask, don’t you have any other sons? And he goes, well, there’s this other one, but you know, he’s too young, he’s too inexperienced. These guys, these guys got him going on. His own dad didn’t believe in him.

I mean, he might have even pictured him being a shepherd forever, which there is something to that, that in a sense he was the shepherd, the shepherd for Israel, not just a warrior. He had his brothers, his brothers who knew he was their little brother. They could do their thing.

They were bigger, they were stronger, they would let him go out in the field with the sheep and they could go on to war because they were stronger. And when David showed up, his brothers got mad at him for even talking about what was going on. Basically saying, David, this isn’t your business.

The sheep are your business. And then they accused him. They said, so what did you do? Just wander off and leave the sheep for themselves? And the Bible tells us that David found someone to watch the sheep while he went to give them food.

So the accusations they made just weren’t true, but he had to fight those giants. He had King Saul. Not only did King Saul think of him at this point as a shepherd and a, what? Musician.

So he had to convince King Saul that he could do this. And then there’s a whole other set of giants that David faced while becoming king, where Saul tried to kill him day in and day out. And then he also would face temptations, temptations of fear, temptations with Bathsheba, temptations that could destroy everything he had without the grace and strength of God.

And of course, finally, David faced Goliath. No one in Israel wanted to fight Goliath. Everyone knew they had more experience than me to know that if they ran into him, that they were just falling back, that they were done.

Now, just as Saul and Goliath had certain kinds of weapons, so did David have certain kinds of weapons. Now, if you look at David’s weapons, his tools, the staff, is this for close up or is this for a long ways away? The rod, close up, long ways away. The pouch to hold the stones, which one article I read called it a man purse.

Man, it’s not embarrassing enough for David being a shepherd as it is. Now, the sling, is it for close up or is it for farther away? What did David use? The sling, okay? David used the sling for further away. What would have happened if he would have fought the giant hand to hand combat? He would have been smashed, but he knew better and he knew that God said when we face our enemy, we don’t want to fight just hand to hand combat.

We want to fight the enemy, the giant in our life, further away. We want to start by surrounding ourselves with people who pray in our lives, who pray for us and with us to put a hedge of protection around us, to guide us, to give us words to say to one another, to encourage one another, and keep us on the right path and stay together. I mean, last week we sang about how our hearts, about how we tend to wander.

Lord, I wander, wander, oh, I feel it. And sometimes when we wander, we may notice it, but we don’t do something about it soon enough. It’s fighting those battles from a distance that can protect us from the evil one, that can protect us.

And if we surround ourselves with people who will be there with us to give us prayer and guidance, then we keep the devil at bay. Now, sometimes he can get in close. Now, we have this unrealistic thinking that we, on our own, are stronger than evil.

It’s hard to break it to you, but on our own, we don’t have a fighting chance. We got nothing. We need our shepherd.

We need the one who gives us strength, who guides us, who lifts us up. Now, Goliath. David was facing Goliath back earlier in 17 and talking about Goliath.

Philistine’s a champion named Goliath of Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span, whose spearhead weighed 600 shekels, and whose coat of mail weighed 5,000 shekels. What does all that mean? 5,000 shekels is about 126 pounds. 600 shekels for just the spearhead was 15 pounds.

Six cubits and a span is about 9 feet 9 inches. Now, say the average height of an Israeli man at that point in time was about 5 feet or so. We’re talking about Colin versus Shaq with a couple more feet.

Don’t let Shaq get near you if you’re going to play badly. 9 feet 9 inches. I mean, sometimes we see, let me just break this down, we see depictions of giants that are like 30 feet, 40 feet, 50 feet tall.

9 feet 9 inches. Still, not the record holder of all time, but close to 10 feet tall. Probably twice as big as David.

Probably weighed four times as much as David. His armor alone, how could David penetrate that armor that weighs 126 pounds? He got out his sling and he ran, and he swung it around and around, and you can just picture Goliath going, what is this kid thinking? And he swung it around and he threw it. They didn’t tell me this part in Sunday school when I was a kid, but the stone hitting right in the middle of the forehead sunk in there.

And David won the battle for God. Did he do it because of his weapons? He did it because of his greatest weapons. Now let me tell you about God with any giant you face.

God lifts valleys, Isaiah 44. He lifts the valleys. You know when you go down and you walk through the valley or the valley of the shadow of death where it seems like you’re never going to make it.

God lifts those valleys in our lives. He lowers the mountains so we can get over even the steepest things that are blocking our path. He levels the ground so that all the roughness clears the way for us.

He shepherds the sheep as in we are the ones who wander. We are the ones who fall. We are the ones who need Jesus.

And he slays the giants, as David said in 1 Samuel 17, 50, that today was a victory for God. That every time we face giants, that it’s God who can get the victory, that it’s God who can overpower them. I mean even if the giants get close, we have a rod with prayer and with scripture.

And it’s more intense and we can fight off evil in every way, shape, and form. Now I don’t know how many of you have followed on Facebook, but Laurie had posted about how we’re so thankful that the Central Korean Global Methodist Church has done so much for us and hosted us the last two years. And that this has kind of been a giant to start something new and move out on our own.

And then there was kind of a celebration for overcoming that giant. Now if you walked into the new space right now, you would still see a giant. There’s a lot of mess right now.

But we’ve got a week. How much can God do in a week? God can do more than you can even ask or imagine. God is the one who lifts us up, who strengthens us, who carries us through.

I don’t know all the giants you’re facing, but I know none of them are too big for God. Let’s pray. Almighty God, thank you for the Good Shepherd.

Thank you for being our strength. Help us to have faith when we have something in our life that seems insurmountable, that is tough, that is difficult, that is bigger than us. To know that when we fight the battle, we fight in the name of the Lord our host, the God of the army of Israel.

And you will take the sword. And you will pull it from the sheath. And we will follow you and run to face the battlefield.

We will pray. We will study. We will grow closer to you and know that nothing compares to you.

You are our strength and our shield. In Jesus’ name, amen.