Samuel 17 New International Version (NIV) David and Goliath 17 Now the Philistines gathered their forces for war and assembled at Sokoh in Judah. They pitched camp at Ephes Dammim, between Sokoh and Azekah. 2 Saul and the Israelites assembled and camped in the Valley of Elah and drew up their battle line to meet the Philistines. 3 The Philistines occupied one hill and the Israelites another, with the valley between them. 4 A champion named Goliath, who was from Gath, came out of the Philistine camp. His height was six cubits and a span. [a] 5 He had a bronze helmet on his head and wore a coat of scale armor of bronze weighing five thousand shekels [b] ; 6 on his legs he wore bronze greaves, and a bronze javelin was slung on his back. 7 His spear shaft was like a weaver s rod, and its iron point weighed six hundred shekels. [c] His shield bearer went ahead of him. 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 the 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 9 overcome him and kill him, you will become our subjects and serve us. Then the Philistine 10 said, This day I defy the armies of Israel! Give me a man and let us fight each other. On 11 hearing the Philistine s words, Saul and all the Israelites were dismayed and terrified. 12 Now David was the son of an Ephrathite named Jesse, who was from Bethlehem in Judah. Jesse had eight sons, and in Saul s time he was very old. Jesse s three oldest sons had 13 followed Saul to the war: The firstborn was Eliab; the second, Abinadab; and the third, Shammah. David was the youngest. The three oldest followed Saul, but David went back 14 15 and forth from Saul to tend his father s sheep at Bethlehem. 16 For forty days the Philistine came forward every morning and evening and took his stand. 17 Now Jesse said to his son David, Take this ephah of roasted grain and these ten loaves [d] of bread for your brothers and hurry to their camp. Take along these ten cheeses to the 18 commander of their unit. See how your brothers are and bring back some assurance from [e] them. 19 They are with Saul and all the men of Israel in the Valley of Elah, fighting against the Philistines. 20 Early in the morning David left the flock in the care of a shepherd, loaded up and set out, as Jesse had directed. He reached the camp as the army was going out to its battle positions, shouting the war cry. Israel and the Philistines were drawing up their lines facing each 21 other. David left his things with the keeper of supplies, ran to the battle lines and asked his 22 brothers how they were. As he was talking with them, Goliath, the Philistine champion from 23 Gath, stepped out from his lines and shouted his usual defiance, and David heard it. 24 Whenever the Israelites saw the man, they all fled from him in great fear. 25 Now the Israelites had been saying, Do you see how this man 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. 26 David asked the men standing near him, What will be done for the man who kills this Philistine and removes this disgrace from Israel? Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God? 27 They repeated to him what they had been saying and told him, This is what will be done for the man who kills him. 28 When Eliab, David s oldest brother, heard him speaking with the men, he burned with anger at him and asked, Why have you come down here? And with whom did you leave those few sheep in the wilderness? I know how conceited you are and how wicked your heart is; you came down only to watch the battle.
29 Now what have I done? said David. Can t I even speak? 30 He then turned away to someone else and brought up the same matter, and the men answered him as before. 31 What David said was overheard and reported to Saul, and Saul sent for him. 32 David said to Saul, Let no one lose heart on account of this Philistine; your servant will go and fight him. 33 Saul replied, You are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him; you are only a young man, and he has been a warrior from his youth. 34 But David said to Saul, Your servant has been keeping his father s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, 35 I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it. 36 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. 37 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 the LORD be with you. 38 Then Saul dressed David in his own tunic. He put a coat of armor on him and a bronze helmet on his head. 39 David fastened on his sword over the tunic and tried walking around, because he was not used to them. I cannot go in these, he said to Saul, because I am not used to them. So he took them off. 40 Then he took his staff in his hand, chose five smooth stones from the stream, put them in the pouch of his shepherd s bag and, with his sling in his hand, approached the Philistine. 41 Meanwhile, the Philistine, with his shield bearer in front of him, kept coming closer to David. 42 He looked David over and saw that he was little more than a boy, glowing with health and handsome, and he despised him. He said to David, Am I a dog, that you come at me with 43 sticks? And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. Come here, he said, and I ll give 44 your flesh to the birds and the wild animals! 45 David said to the Philistine, You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but 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 46 LORD will deliver you into my hands, and I ll strike you down and cut off your head. This very day I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds and the wild animals, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel. 47 All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the LORD saves; for the battle is the LORD s, and he will give all of you into our hands. 48 As the Philistine moved closer to attack him, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet him. Reaching into his bag and taking out a stone, he slung it and struck the Philistine 49 on the forehead. The stone sank into his forehead, and he fell facedown on the ground. 50 So David triumphed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone; without a sword in his hand he struck down the Philistine and killed him. 51 David ran and stood over him. He took hold of the Philistine s sword and drew it from the sheath. After he killed him, he cut off his head with the sword. When the Philistines saw that their hero was dead, they turned and ran. Then the men of 52 Israel and Judah surged forward with a shout and pursued the Philistines to the entrance of Gath [f] and to the gates of Ekron. Their dead were strewn along the Shaaraim road to Gath and Ekron. When the Israelites returned from chasing the Philistines, they plundered their 53 camp. 54 David took the Philistine s head and brought it to Jerusalem; he put the Philistine s weapons in his own tent. 55 As Saul watched David going out to meet the Philistine, he said to Abner, commander of the army, Abner, whose son is that young man? Abner replied, As surely as you live, Your Majesty, I don t know. 56 The king said, Find out whose son this young man is. 57 As soon as David returned from killing the Philistine, Abner took him and brought him before Saul, with David still holding the Philistine s head. 58 Whose son are you, young man? Saul asked him. David said, I am the son of your servant Jesse of Bethlehem.
Intro Before i started writing my sermon I did a bit of research and googled David Vs Goliath, some pretty great images came up:(show slideshow of images). In our society people usually think of where an underdog who looks like they have no chance of winning defeats a much more fancied opponent especially in sport. And from the outside this is not a bad explanation of David vs Goliath, except that its missing the most important bit: God. We will see in this story that the only way David even gets the idea of facing Goliath, let alone actually going out to battle and defeat him is through God. The theme of tonight is walking in faith and I am going to focus on 3 aspects: we need to Seek God first, Trust in God s strength and step out in confidence. Seek God first The first step in learning how to walk in faith is to seek God first and we are going to look at how David sought God first. At the beginning of this story David was out in the field taking care of the sheep like he usually did when his Dad called him and sent him to the Israelite army to drop off some bread, cheese and other snacks. So David does what his Dad asks, he turns up to the battlefield, drops off the goods and is catching up with his brothers when Goliath strides out and yells his daily defiance of Israel and the challenge to fight him. This was common in those days, instead of 2 armys fighting and killing each other, they chose 1 warrior representative each and they fought to the death, with the losing warrior s army surrendering. We read that Goliath was about 3m tall and was seriously built, his armour alone weighed 60kgs, that is probably more than what David weighed and more than what swilli can bench press. The Israelites were terrified of Goliath and cowered in fear and I guess this is understandable as to go and fight him would seem like certain death and not only your own death but your whole nation would have to surrender! David hears Goliath s shouts and is shocked. He can t believe that no one is doing anything about this guy who is defying God. He calls Goliath a disgrace to Israel and questions who he thinks he is to defy the armies of the living God? David is convicted to do something about this and full of passion he puts his hand up and says Ill fight Goliath. But I want to take a step back and look at how at this point how David reacted differently to everyone in the Israelite army. We read that when Goliath came out and shouted his defiance against them, the israelites were dismayed and terrified verse 11 and they fled from him in great fear verse 24. So how is David different? David seeks God first in every situation, he lives with God at the forefront and centre of his life. When Goliath has everybody wetting themselves in fear, David goes this guy is defying God! He cant do that! King Saul and the army of Israel are distracted by the deadly image the giant Goliath portrays with his huge muscles, deadly weapons and defiant shouts. They are swept up in his earthly appearance and don t even stop to think that he is insulting God or that their God could be greater and stronger than him and this situation. Not David, David walks into this situation with God at the forefront of his heart and was able to recognise straight away what no one else was seeing - that Goliath was defying God and that is not cool. That even though Golaith looked mighty and tough - He knew that God is far, far greater and more powerful.
Illustration: When we seek God first we are able to see things in a different light? Its like before I got glasses, I used to squint a lot to be able to see things like this (do squinting) and i knew i looked a bit stupid so I invented a few ways to get around it like yawning, like going oh the sun is bright. Somehow I even passed my L Plate drivers license seeing test squinting in this manner. Then a few years later I got glasses and I felt a bit nerdy at first being a four eyes but it was soo good, I could see! No more squinting and thinking I saw people and yelling Hey Mate to strangers. I wear my glasses all the time now, everything I see is through my glasses and it makes a world of difference. Its the same with seeking God first, putting him first is like viewing the world through a set of glasses that makes everything clearer and make more sense and opens up so many awesome opportunities that otherwise we would ve missed. application: The first stage in being able to walk in faith is to seek God first. We need to seek God and live with him at the forefront of our lives, we need to go into situations with a Godly attitude and not focus on the earthly things, If david wasn t seeking God first he would have cowered like the rest of the army at the sight of Goliath and never even had the chance to fight him. If we want to walk in faith and see the amazing things God will do, we need to truly know him and seek him before all others. Trust in God s Strength Explanation: The second thing we need to do is trust in God s strength. David recognises that something has to be done about Goliath and he has no fears about putting his hand up and saying Ill fight him. King Saul is pretty surprised by this and questions but you are only a boy, you ve got no chance against this warrior Goliath. But David fully trusting that God will give him the strength to defeath Goliath and rescue his people replies your servant has been taking care of his fathers sheep, whenever a lion or a bear attacked us I struck it and killed it and 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 lion and the bear will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine. Even so, David did not have the worldly qualifications to take on Goliath, he was not tall and strongly built, only a boy and had not been trained to be a warrior like Goliath. In fact, by worldly standards it should have been King Saul to go out and fight Goliath, we read in 1 Samuel 9 that Saul was a head taller than everyone else, he was warrior and had been extremely successful in battle as the commander of the Israelite army. King Saul agrees to let David fight Goliath but doesn t trust in Gods strength and tries to dress David up in his own armour and bronze helmet. David throws off the armour of Saul and tells him he cannot go to face Goliath in them and instead chooses 5 smooth stones from the stream and put them in his bag. He then walks out to face Goliath and they trash talk each other a bit, Goliath curses David and says he will feed his flesh to the birds. But David responds powerfully with You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the LORD Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. 46 This day the LORD will deliver you into my hands, and I ll strike you down and cut off your head. This very day I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds and the wild animals, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel. 47 All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the LORD saves; for the battle is the LORD s, and he will give all of you into our hands.
Its pretty powerful stuff, David wholeheartedly trusts in Gods strength. Goliath faces David with Sword and Javelin but David comes in the name of the Lord Almighty. Its like worldly strength vs Gods strength. God is not going to be stopped by a spear and sword, he is the creator of the heavens and earth, the battle is his and he is far far more powerful. Example: In my life I have really felt God s strength when I am at my weakest or when I have no idea what I m doing. Some of the best examples I can give of this are from my time teaching scripture at Davo. When I first started helping at scripture, I would turn up and support the person teaching the class. I did this for 2-3 weeks and then we were short on teachers and I was thrust into leading and teaching a class by myself. Now Davo is not the most friendly school towards christians and I was packing it, standing at the front of a year 10 class by myself. I didn t really know the material very well that we were supposed to be teaching and I really felt like I had no idea what I was doing. Its got to be one of the most nervous Ive been in my whole life. So I prayed and prayed for Gods strength and for the holy spirit to fill me and speak through me because I felt like I had no idea what to say. And i can say I really felt Gods strength come over me, I went to say good morning to the class and instead of a wishy washy good morning my voice was strong and when I spoke the kids actually shut up and listened, I was quite surprised even. In myself I didn t really have too much good to say but the spirit really spoke through me and worked in the class. I feel like I ended up having heaps of really great classes at Davo where I got to meet all sorts of top quality people like Ryan Packness, Mikayla, Jason, Jasmine among many others. Application So the second step in walking in faith is to trust in Gods strength. We need to put our faith in him and trust that he will strengthen us and work through us. If David hadnt trusted in God s strength there is no way he would have gone out to face Goliath without a sword or armour, in physical, earthly terms there is no way he should have even considered facing Goliath! Through this David shows us that Gods strength is far more powerful than a sword and spear and he will rescue us when we trust in him. This brings me to my 3rd point, only by trusting in Gods strength was David able to step forward in confidence against Goliath. Explanation So david had made it all the way, he saught God first and realised something needed to be done about Goliath, he volunteered himself to fight Goliath, trusting that in Gods strength it was possible to defeat him. The last thing for him to do was step out on that battlefield and actually fight Goliath and as we read in verses 48-49 David ran out to meet Goliath in battle, reached into his bag, took out a stone and slung it at him hitting him right in the forehead and Goliath fell face down. That s it! Battle over, David wins! Its a massive anti climax, we have 47 intro verses and then the big fight is all over in 2 verses! The battle ends up being a bit like this fight that I will play for you: Conor McGregor vs Jose Aldo. Jose Aldo was world champ, there had been weeks and months of build up to this fight, the main event of the night: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxuhtpgiumg Its a massive anti climax, the fight is over in 7 seconds, who wouldve thought!
And Lets admit with David vs Goliath we were all hoping for some massive dual like where 2 gladiators face off like Arnold shwarzenegger vs the predator or Batman V Superman, Iron man vs Captain America. But this battle is over in 2 verses, goliath is no match for God. People often refer to a battle of David vs Goliath like David is the underdog, well actually if you have the God of the universe on your side its actually Goliath who is the underdog even though he would appear in worldly view to be the favourite. So it actually makes complete sense that the battle is over so quickly, We read in Romans 8:31 If God is for us, who can be against us? God is a powerful God, when he is with us we have nothing to fear and we can step out in confidence knowing that he will take care of us. Illustration/application So there is a bit of a difference between having faith in God and stepping out in faith. Let me give you an example of a friend of mine who I wont name, lets call him Curt D, wait that s too obvious, C Daniels. Curt had gone on a mission trip up the north coast and a bunch of the guys went to a jump rock - an impressive place you could jump off a cliff and into the deep water below. Anyway Curt saught out the spot with his mates, had a look and thought awesome, this will be heaps of fun, no worries, he climbed to the top full of strength but when he tip toed out to the edge his knees started shaking and he was overcome with fear. All his mates jumped but Curt was stuck there at the top and couldn t do it frozen in fear. He had found the jump rock, he had climbed to the top, seen all his mates do it, he knew he could do it but he just couldn t bring himself to take that step and jump. Application: So It s the same with our relationship with God, we can trust in God in our heads but we actually need to take a step forward and put our faith into action. Many Christians succeed in seeking God and in trusting in him but they stop there and don t step out and don t put their faith into action, they don t walk in faith in their everyday lives. So I want to challenge you guys to be like David and take a step of faith, knowing that God will protect and deliver you. But before we step out we need to be prepared, we need to seek God first and trust in his strength, we need to be prepared and ready to step out in faith when the time comes. David had grown up walking in faith, he had trusted God and seen him save him from the lion and the bear, he was prepared and confident in God when he stepped out to face Goliath. In our lives stepping out in faith could be as small as standing up for God when your friends are bagging him out, or answering a need at church like teaching scripture or helping on the sound and visuals team. In saying this, there are also big moments that we face in life, like a once in a lifetime opportunity that we can either step out in faith like David did against Goliath or cower in fear like the israelite army. Outro So its good, we can really learn a lot from David about seeking God, truly trusting in him and stepping out in faith, but there is actually a bigger picture here that is often misinterpreted. We can learn a lot from David and learn a lot about how we can walk in faith through his story, but we are not David, we have not saved our nation from an invading army and defeated a giant in hand to hand battle, we are not the saviour of Gods people, we are God s people and in fact we actually need a saviour. And that s where Jesus comes in. David is a forerunner for Jesus. No no, David didn t drive a 4runner. No, What i am actually trying to say is that David precedes Jesus, his life prepares the way for Jesus, he is a forerunner. Definition of forerunner is a person or thing that comes before another of the same kind. They are similar in that both defeat an enemy and are saviours of
their people, David defeats Goliath and saves Israel from the philistines where Jesus defeats the ultimate enemy of death and sin on the cross, saving all of mankind. Both David and Jesus faced certain death and both overcame it in miraculous ways, David defeated Goliath and Jesus defeated death and rose from the grave. David is the hero in this story but Jesus is the ultimate hero and we are saved through his blood. I want to challenge you all tonight, are you walking in faith with Jesus? Are you seeking him first? Maybe you trust in him but haven t really ever stepped out in faith? Is God calling you to step out in faith and do something amazing for him? I want to challenge you tonight to ask God to fill you up with his strength and give you the confidence to step out in faith. Let me pray.