CALL TO CONFESSION

1 John 2:15-16

Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world.

PRAYER OF CONFESSION

Merciful Lord, you have chosen us in Christ to belong to you, set apart from all others in this universe to worship you as our Savior. Left to ourselves, we would still be your enemies, strangers to your love and compassion. Thank you for rescuing us. Yet, Father, we continue to sin against you day after day. We are strongly attached to this world and would rather linger and enjoy the simple delights that it offers than flee from it into your presence and love. Lord, you know all of our sinful innermost thoughts and desires. Forgive us, we pray. 

And yet in your mercy and kindness, Father, you've given us a new birth in spite of our sin and rebellion. Part of us longs to be holy and sinless, but there is much in us that still cherishes our sin and clings to it. Help us to hate our sin and run from it. Open our eyes and help us to see how offensive our sin is to you, and how damaging it is to us. When we are dazzled by the alluring temptation of sin, teach us that you are the only feast that satisfies our souls deeply and permanently. Fill us with awe and wonder that you give us the radiant robes of your Son’s perfection to wear. Thank you that you have begun a good work in us that nothing can stop, and that one day we will stand before you in the bliss of sinless perfection as Christ’s beautiful bride. We give thanks for this in Jesus’ name, Amen.

“Take a few moments to personally confess your sins to the Lord.”

ASSURANCE OF PARDON

“Hear these words of comfort and assurance.” 

Ephesians 1:7-10

7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, 8 which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight 9 making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ 10 as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

• We’ve all prayed for deliverance, and when we pray, we usually have an idea in our mind of how God is supposed to answer. 
• Then the answer comes and it does not look at all like what we expected. 
• Have you experienced that? Praying for years for something and when the answer comes, it is not at all what you imagined.
• God saves in his own way.  And his way is not always the way we would have chosen. 

• Last week, as we began 1 Samuel 17, we saw Israel standing on the hillside, paralyzed by the giant they could not defeat, and a king who would not fight. 
• Israel needed a champion. And so do we. 

• Today, we’ll see the champion God raised up. 
• He walks down into the valley. He faces the giant. 
• And he wins the victory that Israel could not have won for themselves. 

• Pay attention to how he wins. What he does. Watch what he refuses to do. Listen to what he says. And watch how the battle is actually fought. 
• Because the way the champion fights tells us something about the God who sent him. 
• What we’ll see is that the Lord saves his people in a way that nobody expected. 
• He saves through his anointed one, who fights in his name, and for the sake of his honor. 

• The message of this passage is right there in David’s own words. “The battle is the Lord’s!”

• As we walk through this passage, I want you to keep in mind the One greater than David. 
• Our true Champion. The greater Son of Jesse who walked down into a deeper valley, in his Father’s name, to fight a battle we could have never fought. And he won a victory that belongs to his people forever.

1 Samuel 17:31-49

• V31 picks up where we left off last week. David was asking questions of the men in the camp. 
• “Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?” 
• Word starts to spread and eventually his words caught the king’s attention and Saul sends for David.
• The young shepherd from Bethlehem is before the king and listen to what he says. 
• V32 “Let no man’s heart fail because of him. Your servant will go and fight with this Philistine.” 
• Forty days Israel has been waiting for a champion and no one from the Israelite camp has been willing to go out and fight. 
• The king will not fight. The army will not fight.
• And now a young man walks into the king’s tent and says, “I will go.” 

• David says to the king, “Fear not! I will fight!” 
• The Israelites had been demoralized for forty days. Their hearts had indeed failed because of the sight and words of Goliath.
• Their only response so far had been to flee and hide out on the hilltop. 
• Even Israel’s biggest and best, Saul, wouldn’t take on the Philistine monster. 
• For a youth to stand before the king and tell him not to be afraid anymore because he will go and fight the Philistine sounds preposterous. 

• Saul’s response is exactly what you would expect. 
• “You can’t do it. You are but a youth. And he, from his youth, has been a man of war."
• On the surface, Saul is right. Goliath is a seasoned warrior, never mind his terrifying size and weaponry. There is now way David could win against Goliath. 
• But Saul sees as man sees. Anyone looking at the situation honestly would agree and come away thinking what Saul thought.

• But now, watch what David does in his response to Saul’s skepticism. 
• He does not argue with Saul about the military and tactical disadvantages of the matchup. 
• He tells Saul a story about sheep and his past exploits of delivering his sheep from deadly danger. 
• “While I was keeping my father’s sheep, a lion, or a bear would come and snatch a lamb from the flock. I went after them and struck them and delivered the lamb out of their mouth. And if the lion or bear turned on me, I caught him by his beard and struck and killed him. Your servant has struck down both lions and bears…” 
• David was displaying in some sense, his credentials as a skillful and courageous fighter. 
• He goes on, “And this uncircumcised Philistine shall be like one of them, for he has defied the armies of the living God.” 
• Just like the lion and the bear were struck down and killed, so shall it be with this man who has blasphemed the armies of the living God. He too shall be struck down.

• But David is not done. He goes on to clarify that this is so much more than a testimony to his bravery and abilities. 
• What has underscored David’s ability to deliver has been the delivering hand of the Lord. 
• V37 “The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion, and from the paw of the bear, will deliver me from the hand of the Philistine.” 
• That’s how David was able to do it. He invokes the covenant name of the Lord, Yahweh.
• The covenant-keeping God has been behind David’s past exploits and he will be with him in the present one to deliver from this Philistine. 

• The fear that had gripped Saul’s heart and had all the Israelites cowering reflected their failure to know and trust Yahweh. 
• David saw everything differently because he knew that the Lord delivers. 

• That was the key. The Lord delivered me. The Lord will deliver me. 
• David’s confidence is not in his strength or skill with a sling and stone. 
• He is telling Saul that the Lord has been faithful in the past, and so the Lord will be faithful in the present and the future. 
• He is reasoning from God’s character to God’s action. 
• He has seen what the Lord has done, and he is letting that shape what he expects the Lord to now do. 

• That’s what faith in the living God does. Faith remembers. 
• David is remembering. He is taking the past acts of God, the deliverances he has already seen with his own eyes, and using them as the foundation for present and future trust. 

• What do we do when we face a great trial? Oftentimes we do the opposite. 
• We stare at the trial before us and ask, “Can God really get me through this?” 
• And the bigger the trial, the smaller God seems to us. 
• Israel started from the giant. David started with God.
• He remembers what God has already done. And then he looks at the giant from there. 
• The giant is still the same size. He still has all of that impressive armor and deadly weaponry. 
• But what is Goliath to the God who has already delivered him multiplied times? Nothing!

• We need to cultivate the spiritual discipline of remembering. 
• The whole Old Testament calls Israel over and over again to remember. 
• Remember that the Lord brought you out of Egypt. 
• Remember what he did at the Red Sea. 
• Remember how he fed you in the wilderness. 
• Remember how he gave you His word at Sinai. 
• Remember how he delivered you from your enemies. 
• The soul that remembers what God has done can trust what God will do. 

• Some of you came here today finding it difficult to trust God for what you are facing. 
• And that might be because you’ve been staring at the giant and failing to remember. 
• Start remembering. Has the Lord been faithful to you? Has he been faithful to his church across the centuries? 
• Then he can be trusted with whatever you are going through. 

• David remembers. And Saul relents. 
• Saul says more than he realizes, “Go, and the Lord be with you!” 
• The Lord is with David because David is the Lord’s true anointed. 
• Notice, Saul doesn’t go. He doesn’t fight. He stays behind. 
• The king who refuses to fight will let someone else fight on his behalf. 

• Saul tries to put his armor on David. He tries to equip him like Goliath.
• Saul was the tallest man in Israel. David is a youth. Imagine what this must have looked like.
• David tries to take a few steps and it’s apparent this isn’t going to work. 
• So he takes the armor off and picks up what he came with, his staff, sling, and stones.

• Don’t miss the theological significance of what Saul’s armor represents. 
• His armor is the equipment of the king who refuses to go out and fight. 
• His armor is what the people have been trusting in for forty days, hoping Saul would be their champion. 
• Saul’s armor represents everything Israel had asked for back in chapter 8 when they demanded a king like all the nations who would go out before them and fight their battles. 
• Saul’s armor represented the visible, impressive, military strength of a man who looks the part in every way.  

• Saul, the king, unwittingly places his royal garments on David. 
• Saul is the king on the way out and David is his replacement. 
• But David takes it off. He cannot fight in it. He will not fight in it. 
• David would not be a king like Saul. He was not to be king like all the nations. 

• The Lord’s deliverance will not come through Saul’s armor.
• The deliverance the Lord will bring about will come through a shepherd boy with a sling and stone.
• When God saves, he saves in a way that gives no glory to human power. 
• He chooses weak and humble instruments. Unimpressive tools. 
• He chooses the shepherd’s staff over the king’s sword. 

• God will not share his glory with another. 
• I am the Lord; that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to carved idols. (Is. 42:8)
• If David goes out in Saul’s armor and weapons and wins, the people will say it was the king's armor and the weapons. 
• But if David goes out with a sling and stones, and the giant falls, there can be only one explanation. It was the Lord! 

• This is the consistent Biblical pattern. 
• God saves through means that look ridiculous to the watching world. 
• He saves Israel through a stuttering shepherd named Moses. 
• He defeats Jericho with trumpets and a shout. 
• He saves the world through a baby in a manger. 
• He defeats sin and death through his Son’s sacrifice on a Roman cross. 
• The Lord saves through means that make the watching world ask, “What just happened?” 

• We are tempted to fight our spiritual battles in Saul’s armor.
• We try to win the culture war for Christ with political power. 
• We try to grow the church through marketing strategies and worldly tactics. 
• We try to defeat our personal sins through sheer willpower. 
• We try to fix our marriages with techniques. 
• We try to walk through grief by staying busy and productive. 
• We are constantly reaching for Saul’s armor, and the Lord keeps inviting us to take it off and pick up the staff and the sling. 
• Faith refuses the wrong means to fight spiritual battles that only the Lord can bring us through. 
• It’s not that strategies and techniques are wrong. 
• David picks up his sling and uses it. He has real skill. 
• But the weapons David picks up are the ones the Lord has trained him to use as a shepherd. 
• They are the means the Lord has placed in his hand. 
• David isn’t trusting in his ability and skill with the tool. He is trusting in the name of the Lord of hosts. 

• What armor have you been reaching for? What are you trusting in to fight your battles? 

• David takes off Saul’s armor. He picks up his staff and sling. He chooses five smooth stones from the brook. 
• V40, “And he approached the Philistine.” 

• Goliath has been waiting forty days for a challenger. 
• Now finally an Israelite has stepped forward to meet him in the valley. 
• V42 records the moment Goliath sees David clearly. 
• And when he saw David, that he was youth, a ruddy and handsome boy with a stick, he despised him. Goliath is offended.
• He’s been waiting for a real opponent and this is what Israel sends. 
• Goliath, like everyone else, is seeing as man sees. 
• V43 “And the Philistine said to David, ‘Am I a dog, that you come to me with sticks?’ And the Philistine cursed David by his gods.”
• He voiced the insult that this was to him.

• He curses David by his Philistine gods.
• Goliath calls down the power of his gods against David. 
• This signals the true dimension of this confrontation. 
• This is more than just David versus Goliath. 
• This is more than Israel versus the Philistines. 
• This is the gods of the Philistines versus the living God. 

• He utters an ancient battlefield curse. “I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field.” 
• To die on the battlefield, and to be left unburied, with your body exposed to scavengers, was the ultimate disgrace. 

• David doesn’t flinch. He opens his mouth and gives the longest speech in this chapter. 
• Vv 45-47 “You come to me with a sword and with a spear and with a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied.” 46 This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you down and cut off your head. And I will give the dead bodies of the host of the Philistines this day to the birds of the air and to the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, 47 and that all this assembly may know that the Lord saves not with sword and spear. For the battle is the Lord's, and he will give you into our hand.”

• There are three profound truths declared in these verses.
• First, David declares that Goliath is coming in his own strength, with sword and spear and javelin. But David is not coming to fight in his own strength. He is coming to fight in the authority of the Lord. He is carrying the Lord’s name into battle.
• David is showing what true faith actually looks like. It’s not bravery. Faith isn’t believing you can handle everything that comes your way. Faith is going into the battle in the name of someone bigger than yourself. 
• This is exactly how the Lord Jesus Christ described himself. 
• Jesus said he has come in his Father's name, that the works he does he does in his Father's name, and he has made his Father’s name known to all whom the Father gave him. (John 5:43; 10:25; 17:6)
• Our Lord went into the greatest battle ever fought, in his Father’s name, on his Father’s mission, for his Father’s glory. 
• David in the valley is but a faint picture of Christ’s battle on the cross. 
• The Champion comes in a name that is bigger than himself. 

• Second, David says Goliath has defied the God of the armies of Israel.
• The reproach is on the name of the Lord. And the Lord will not let his name be reproached. 
• David is not fighting to save his own life nor is he fighting for Israel’s freedom only. 
• He is fighting for the honor of the name of the Lord. T
• Goliath is the embodiment of the wicked in Psalm 2. 
• Goliath is the embodiment of every antichrist figure, and every one of them will meet the same end as Goliath. 

• Third, David repeats Goliath’s curse back at him. He is saying, “What you intended for me is going to fall back on you.” 
• The shame and disgrace the enemy intended for God’s people is going to fall on the enemy. 
• This is a pattern that runs all through Scripture. The trap set for the righteous catches them. (Haman/Pharoah/Joseph’s brothers). What the enemy intended for evil God meant it for his people’s good. 
• This is also gloriously true for us in Christ. Satan’s plan at the cross was to destroy the Son of God. Silence him. Shame him. Leave his body exposed. Disgrace him.
• The very means the enemy used to try to destroy Christ became the means by which Christ destroyed the enemy.

• David gives the reason that he is fighting. It's for the sake of two audiences. 
• First, “That all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel.” 
• David is thinking about the name and fame of the Lord spreading beyond this valley. The whole earth needs to know that the Lord lives and that he saves his people. 
• For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. (Hab. 2:14)
• Second, “and that all this assembly may know that the Lord saves not with sword and spear.” 
• All the men of Israel that have been cowering on the hillside for forty days, need to be reminded of what they have clearly forgotten. 
• Salvation comes from the Lord. He is the God of Israel. 

• That’s why your faith is not a private matter. Every battle the Lord wins through you, every trial he carries you through, every prayer he answers, is meant to be a witness to the watching world that there is a God in heaven who saves his people. Our faith must resound! 
• And we are this assembly. We need to be told again, just as Israel did, that the Lord saves not with sword and spear, not with our strength or our wisdom, but with his mighty hand. 

• The most important lesson to remember in the whole story of David and Goliath. 
• “For the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give you into our hand.” 
• The battle is the Lord’s! The fight that is before you, the giant looming over you, the war you have been fighting in your own strength for years. The battle is the Lord’s! 
• The Champion who walked down into the valley said it out loud for everyone to hear: the Lord is the one who fights. The Lord is the one who saves. We fight in the name of the One who saves, but the battle belongs to him. 

• Everything David proclaimed in his speech is true of Christ in a deeper and more permanent way. 
• The cross looks like a Roman execution to the watching world. To the eyes of faith, the cross is the means the Lord of hosts used to crush the head of the serpent. 
• It is the battle for the honor of the Lord’s name. 
• It is the answer to the defiance of every Goliath that has ever taunted the people of God since the garden. 
• And the victory won there goes to the ends of the earth, so that the nations may know there is God in Israel.

• Christ won the battle by means that magnified the power of God and shamed the wisdom of men. 
• Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians, “But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong…so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.” (1 Cor. 1:27)
• That is the doctrine of the cross. The Lord saves not with sword and spear. 

• And Christ won the battle that you and I could never have fought and won. 
• You are not David. You cannot defeat your own Goliath. 
• You cannot pay for your own sin. You cannot satisfy the wrath of God.  You cannot crush the head of the serpent. 
• The Lord saves not with sword and spear, and he does not save by your own effort either. 
• The battle is the Lord’s. He won it. 
• On a hill outside Jerusalem the Champion fought in his Father’s name, for the honor of his Father’s glory, by means that humiliated every human wisdom and strength. And he won! 

• After the long buildup, the knockout blow is delivered quickly. 
• David runs toward Goliath. He doesn’t hesitate. He runs toward the giant. 
• That is the opposite of what has happened for forty days. 
• Now, the Lord’s anointed is running into the fight. 

• This is the picture of the life of faith. A faith that is in motion.
• Faith is running toward the battle because the Lord is with you and the battle belongs to him. 
• Luke writes that the Lord Jesus, “set his face to go to Jerusalem.” 
• Our Lord did not flinch. He didn’t run from the cross.
• He goes to the cross because the battle belongs to his Father. 

• That’s what Christians are supposed to do also. 
• “Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith.” (Heb. 12:12)
• The Christian runs the race with eyes on the Champion who has already finished it. 

• David put his hand in his shepherd’s pouch, withdrew a stone, slung it and struck the Philistine on his forehead, and the giant fell on his face to the ground. 
• One verse. One stone. One strike. 

• The stone hits the one unprotected part of Goliath, the most heavily armored man in the Philistine army. 
• There is no doubt David was skilled with the sling, but the reality is that it was the Lord who guided that stone. 

• And Goliath fell on his face to the ground! The one who came in the name of his gods to defy the Lord now lies face down before the Lord’s anointed. 
• Goliath is like his false god Dagon who was found face down before the Ark of God.  (1 Sam. 5)
• False gods and those who worship them cannot stand before the Lord. 
• And one day, every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess, that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Phil. 2:9-11)

CONCLUSION

• When God saves his people, he saves in a way that magnifies his name and shames human strength and wisdom. 
• It’s the pattern of the cross. 
• David was but a flickering shadow of the One who was coming. 
• A real victory was won in the Valley of Elah. But the deeper victory it foreshadowed, the victory the whole story of Scripture has been moving toward, was won by the true and greater Son of Jesse. 
• Born in the same town. Sent on an errand by his Father. Despised by his own. Treated with contempt. Outwardly weak yet inwardly consumed with zeal for his Father’s name. 
• He descended into a deeper valley than David ever saw and faced a bigger giant than Goliath. 
• The enemy he met was sin, the wrath of God for our sin, and the grave. 
• He walked into the valley alone. And he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquity. The punishment for our peace was laid upon him. (Isaiah 53:5) 
• His body was nailed up to be a public spectacle; to be mocked and scorned. 

• And in the very moment the watching world thought the Champion had lost, he actually won!
• The cross looked like sword and spear had finally beaten the Lord’s anointed. 
• But the Lord saves not by sword and spear, and the cross was never the failure it looked like to those who see as man sees. 
• It was the victory.
• And on the third day, the Champion walked out of the grave. He is alive forevermore and is the Exalted King of glory! 
• The battle is the Lord’s! 

• If you’ve been trying to fight your own battles in your own armor, remember:
• The Lord saves not with sword and spear. You were never meant to be the king who fights. You were meant to be the people that the King fights for. Take off the ill-fitting armor and stop trying to be your own deliverer.  Trust your King who fights in his Father’s name, and let him do what only he can do. 

• If you’ve come weighed down by the size of your enemy, remember: 
• The Lord who delivered me before will deliver me now. Look back at what God has already done. Look at the cross. Look at the empty tomb. Look at the years of the Lord’s faithfulness in your own life. Look at the way he has carried you through losses you thought you would never survive. The God who has delivered you, will deliver you. The battle is his and he does not lose. 

• And lastly, if you’ve never trusted Christ as your Champion and Deliverer:
• The reason the story is in the Bible is so that you would lift your eyes from David and his victory to see the greater One who came down into the valley for you.  Your battle with sin and death, and the curse of God is not one you can win. But there is a King who has already fought the battle in your place and won the victory. He took your curse on himself. He gives you his righteousness as a free gift. Come to him today.

• The good news is not that we are stronger than we thought. 
• The good news is that the Lord has not left his people without a champion. 
• He fought the battle. He won the victory. 
• The battle is the Lord’s and he is offering you his victory today. 
• Come.

APPLICATION AND REFLECTION

In light of today's message....

• What did I learn about the gospel?
• How can I apply what I learned about the gospel to my life?
• With whom can I share the gospel this week?