CALL TO CONFESSION

Ephesians 5:15-16

Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, 16 making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. 17 Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.

PRAYER OF CONFESSION

O Lord, in whose hands rest life and death, by whose power we are sustained, and by whose mercy we are spared, look down upon us with your tender pity. Forgive us, Father, for we have so often neglected the sacred work you have assigned to us. We have allowed the days and hours, for which we must one day give account, to drift away, without any true endeavor to accomplish your holy will.

Awaken our hearts, O God, to remember that every single day is your gracious gift, meant to be lived according to your command. Grant us, therefore, such a deep and sincere repentance for our past negligence, that we may find your abundant mercy. Enable us to spend whatever time you yet allow us in the diligent, joyful pursuit of your purposes, carried by the strength of your Holy Spirit, and through Jesus Christ, our gracious Redeemer. Amen.

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

ASSURANCE OF PARDON

“Hear these words of comfort and assurance.” 

Psalm 32:1-5

Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,” and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. 

• For two Sundays now we have been standing with the army of Israel on a hillside in the Valley of Elah. For forty days they were paralyzed by a giant they could not defeat, under a king who would not fight.  We said, Israel needs a Champion. And so do we. 
• Last Sunday we saw David, the Champion, go down into the valley. We heard the most important words spoken in the whole chapter: “The battle is the Lord’s.”
• We watched the stone fly and the giant fall. But what happened next? 
• After the moment of victory, most stories come to an end.
• But Scripture is interested in something deeper than the victory itself. Scripture is interested in what the victory does. 
• How has the world changed because the Champion has won?

• In the closing verses of chapter 17 we will see that the Champion’s victory transforms everyone connected to him. 
• The enemy is publicly disgraced. The people who could not fight for fear now pursue and plunder the enemy. 
• And one question hangs over the whole scene at the end. Whose son is this? 
• The answer to that question is going to change the whole story of Israel. 
• The youth with the sling is not just some random Israelite. He is the son of Jesse the Bethlehemite. 
• And from this moment forward, the house of Saul begins to fall, and the house of Jesse begins to rise. 
• What we are about to see unfold is the rise of the house of David. 

• That same question is one of the most important ones we will ever face. 
• Whose son are you? Whose family? Whose house? 
• Everything in your life depends on the answer. 
• Because the man who fought the battle in your place did it as the Son of God. 
• And the real question for each one of us is: do you belong to his Father’s house?

1 SAMUEL 17:50-58

 So David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and with a stone, and struck the Philistine and killed him. There was no sword in the hand of David. 51 Then David ran and stood over the Philistine and took his sword and drew it out of its sheath and killed him and cut off his head with it. When the Philistines saw that their champion was dead, they fled. 52 And the men of Israel and Judah rose with a shout and pursued the Philistines as far as Gath and the gates of Ekron, so that the wounded Philistines fell on the way from Shaaraim as far as Gath and Ekron. 53 And the people of Israel came back from chasing the Philistines, and they plundered their camp. 54 And David took the head of the Philistine and brought it to Jerusalem, but he put his armor in his tent.

55 As soon as Saul saw David go out against the Philistine, he said to Abner, the commander of the army, “Abner, whose son is this youth?” And Abner said, “As your soul lives, O king, I do not know.” 56 And the king said, “Inquire whose son the boy is.” 57 And as soon as David returned from the striking down of the Philistine, Abner took him, and brought him before Saul with the head of the Philistine in his hand. 58 And Saul said to him, “Whose son are you, young man?” And David answered, “I am the son of your servant Jesse the Bethlehemite.”

• V50 gives a quick recap of the brief encounter between David and Goliath. 
• The narrator gives us an important detail: there was no sword in David’s hand. 
• Remember back in v47, David said that Goliath’s defeat would proclaim to everyone that “the Lord saves not with sword and spear.” 
• David went out to fight without the conventional weapons of warfare. 
• He ran out against Goliath with a staff, a sling, and five smooth stones and the giant fell. 
• The narrator gives us that detail so that the reader would know beyond any doubt what just happened. This was the Lord!

• But Goliath had a sword. David ran over and drew Goliath’s sword out of its sheath and cut off his head.
• The enemy was killed with his own weapon. 

• This event points to a deeper theological truth. 
• There is a recurring pattern in Scripture of the enemy being ruined and defeated with the same weapon intended to bring about the defeat of God’s people.
• Hebrews 2:14, The writer of Hebrews says, “Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil.”
• The enemy of God’s people has always wielded the same weapon. From the moment the serpent said in the garden, “you will not surely die,” death has been Satan’s instrument. 
• Death has been the threat. Death has been the sword in the enemy’s hand. 

• What did the sovereign Lord do? 
• He sent his Son to strip the sword out of the enemy’s hand and used it against him. 
• Christ defeated death by dying. 
• Through his death, the enemy who had the power of death was destroyed. 
• The Champion didn’t come with a sword in his own hand.  He took the enemy’s sword and turned it back on him. 

• The cross, an instrument of death, was the sword in the enemy’s hand. 
• It was meant to be the instrument of the Champion’s defeat. And it became the instrument of the enemy’s destruction. 
• And God used the weapon meant for his death to bring us to salvation and life. 

• V54 closes out the scene. “And David took the head of the Philistine and brought it to Jerusalem, but he put his armor in his tent.” 
• Jerusalem at this point in the story is not the City of David. He hasn’t conquered it yet. All of this comes much later in 2 Samuel. 
• But the narrator tells us right here that the Goliath’s head is taken as a trophy and it ends up in Jerusalem. Why does he do that? 
• Because those later events are being foreshadowed in David’s victory. 
• Jerusalem will become David’s city. The trophy of his first great victory ends up in the city that will be his. 
• And the armor goes in his tent.  The thing that Israel feared, all of the bronze and iron that had terrified them for forty days will sit in the corner of David’s tent; the spoils of the Lord’s anointed. 

• Colossians 2:15 “He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.”
• Jesus disarmed the enemy. The enemy has been publicly humiliated, paraded as defeated enemies.  
• The armor of the enemy was stripped away by Christ and held up as a trophy of his victory in the heavenly Jerusalem where Christ now reigns at the right hand of the Father. 
• Praise God our enemy has been disarmed and defeated. 
• That means the fear of death has been broken.
• That means Satan, though still active and prowling around like a roaring lion, is a disarmed and defeated lion.
• Because the enemy has been disarmed, we do not fight for victory. We fight FROM victory. 

• “When the Philistines saw that their champion was dead, they fled.” 
• The whole army that had been cheering their champion for forty days now sees their champion’s severed head hoisted in the air. 
• Their hope was wrapped up in one man who had gone out as the embodiment of their power and the representative of their gods.
• And when he fell, the entire army collapsed. They lost all hope. 
• But look what happens on the other side of the valley. 
• The men of Israel and Judah rose with a shout of triumph and they rushed down the hillside and pursued the Philistines all the way into their territory.
• Do you feel the contrast? These men have been hiding for forty days, demoralized and afraid.
• And now they rise with renewed vigor and courage and they pursue the enemy. 
• The army that had been pinned down on a hill for six weeks is now driving the enemy all the way home. 
• What changed? Their Champion won! 
• That is the only thing that changed. Nothing about them was different. 
• The only thing that changed is that one man, on their behalf, went down into the valley, stepped in between them and the giant, and won! 

• And because their Champion won, the ones who previously could not fight are now pursuing and chasing the enemy into the gates of his hometown. 

• What a glorious picture this is of what union with Christ does for a believer. 
• We are by nature like the Israelites, who hide in our tents. We are not by nature the kind of people who can pursue the enemy. 
• The Bible tells us that apart from Christ we are dead in our trespasses and sins. (Eph. 2:1)
• Apart from Christ, we are slaves to sin and fear. (John 8:34; Rom. 8:15a)
• Apart from Christ, we are slaves to the one who has the power of death. 
• We could no more defeat sin and Satan and death than the Israelite army could have defeated Goliath. 
• Apart from the Champion, we are paralyzed. 

• But because our Champion has won, everything changes. 
• Romans 8:37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
• It is through him. We do not become conquerors by becoming great warriors. 
• We become conquerors through Christ, through the Champion who has fought the battle in our place. 
• His victory becomes ours. His triumph is credited to our account. 

• That’s how the Christian life works. 
• We do not stand in our own strength. We stand in the strength of the One who has already crushed the head of the serpent.
• We do not pursue holiness as if we have to try to earn the victory. We pursue holiness because the victory has already been won. 
• The whole Christian life is the life of a people whose Champion has gone before them and broken the neck of the enemy. 
• We do not fight to win. We fight because he has won. 

• The pursuers come back and plunder the camp of the Philistines. 
• The very tents they could see from across the valley that had terrorized them for forty days are now standing empty, being picked clean by the Israelites. 

• Ephesians 4:8 “When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men.”
• The risen Christ leads a host of captives. He spoils the camp of the enemy. 
• And the gifts he distributes to his people come from his plunder. 
• Every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places that you have as a believer, every grace, every measure of faith and hope and love, is a piece of plunder from the camp of the enemy.
• The spoils of a war that Christ has won. 
• It belongs to you because your Champion has won. 

• Some of you have come this morning tired and weary. Spiritually exhausted. 
• Maybe fighting what has seemed like an unending battle. 
• Wrestling with the same temptation for as long as you can remember. 
• Praying for someone for what feels like an eternity and nothing has changed. 
• The battle is not yours to win by your own strength. You are not the Champion. Christ is! 
• And because he has won, the strength to pursue, the strength to endure, the strength to plunder the enemy’s camp one day at a time, belongs to you, in and through him. 
• Lift your eyes off your own weariness and look at your victorious Lord. 

• I believe if we would do that, we would rise with a shout of praise and pursue! 

• As Saul saw David go out against the Philistine, he turned to the commander of his army, Abner, and asked, “Whose son is this?”
• Saul doesn’t seem to know who David is. We read in chapter 16 that David came to play the harp in Saul’s court and we read that Saul loved him greatly and David became his armor-bearer. 
• How is it that now Saul has no idea who David is? 

• Commentators have answered this question in different ways. 
• Some have suggested that the events of chapter 17 actually happened before some of the events of chapter 16. 
• Others have pointed out that Saul is not asking, "who is this person," as if he doesn’t know who David is. But rather, he is asking, "whose son is this person."
• Remember earlier in the chapter when David arrived at the camp he heard soldiers commenting on what Saul will give to the person who defeats the Philistine. The king will give him great wealth, give his daughter in marriage, and his father’s house will be made free in Israel. 
• So when Saul looks out and sees this young man heading toward the giant, he is asking the question that matters for what he has promised. Whose family does this boy come from?
• So he tells Abner to find out. As soon as David returns from striking down the Philistine, Abner brings him before Saul. And David was still holding Goliath’s head in his hand. 

• And the king asked him, “Whose son are you, young man?” 
• And David answered, “I am the son of your servant Jesse the Bethlehemite.” 

• Why does the narrator choose to end the story with this exchange?

• Because the whole story of the rest of the Bible is going to turn on the answer to that question. 
• From this moment forward, the house of Jesse begins to rise. 
• The house of Saul has been on the decline since chapter 15 when Saul was rejected. 
• But until now, it has all been hidden. 
• David was anointed in secret. David has been playing the harp in Saul’s court. David has been tending sheep.
• And then, one afternoon, in the Valley of Elah, the new king is publicly revealed. 
• The question Saul asked him, the question that will be continually asked, is the question of his father’s house. 
• Whose son?
• The most important thing about David, according to this passage, is whose son he is. 
• He is identified by his father. 

• The greater Son of Jesse, who came out of Bethlehem generations later, is also identified by his Father. 
• Matthew 22:41-42 Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them a question, 42 saying, “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?” They said to him, “The son of David.”
• That is the question. Whose son is the Christ? 
• And he proceeds to show them that he is at once, the Son of David, as the genealogies prove, and the Son of God, as Psalm 110 declares.

• The whole gospel turns on the question of whose son Christ is. 
• He is the son of David, born in Bethlehem.
• He is the Son of God, sent from his Father. 
• And to be his disciple is to know whose son he is, and to be drawn into his Father’s house. 

• Whose son are you? 
• Every person in this room is the son or the daughter of somebody. 
• Some of you carry that with joy. 
• Some of you carry that with grief. 
• And some of you are fathers wondering how your own children will one day answer that question. 

• The good news is that every soul who comes to Christ is given a new house, a new family, and a new Father. 

A WORD TO FATHERS

• The chapter ends with David identifying himself by his father’s name. 
• And here is something worth noting. We never see Jesse really as an active character in the story. Jesse never goes to the front. 
• He is the quiet father in the background of the whole story. 
• But the chapter ends with his name. The giant slayer is known as the son of Jesse. 
• Men, this is the kind of father every godly man should want to be. 
• A man whose name is honored by what his children grow up to become. 

• Some of you who came today are carrying a heavy weight. The words said in anger you cannot take back. The hours you spent at work that you wish you spent with your children. The prayers you did not pray. The patterns from your own father you swore you would not repeat, and you have repeated some of them. 
• But hear what this chapter has been reminding all of us of, over and over again. You are not the Champion. You never were. Christ is the Champion. 
• Your call as a Christian father is not to be God for your household.  Your call is to point your household to God. 
• Jesse didn’t need to be the most impressive man in Israel. 
• Jesse just needed to raise a son who knew the Lord. 
• And fathers, that’s what you’re called to do. 
• Not be the Champion but to point your wife and children to the Champion. 
• It’s the small, faithful, ordinary moments that actually shape your child. The bedtime prayer, they’ll remember thirty years later. The open Bible in your home, the dad who said he was sorry to his child after losing his temper. 
• Let them hear from your mouth and by your life, again and again, “the Lord saves not with sword and spear, and he does not save by the strength of your father. But by the blood of his Son who fought the battle for us.”

• For the younger men. You are watching what the older men around you do. You are deciding what kind of man you want to be. The kind of man worth becoming is not the man with the loudest voice or the most accomplishments or the most impressive résumé.
• The kind of man worth becoming is the one whose children, when they are grown, will say his name with gratitude.
• Like Jesse, hidden in Bethlehem, raising a son who would change Israel forever, while the Lord wrote his name into a thousand sermons that would be preached about a boy with a sling coming against a giant in the valley.

• For some of you, Father's Day every year is a hard day.
• But hear the good news of this passage. Even though David was identified by his earthly father, the greater Son of Jesse is identified by his heavenly Father.
• And every soul who comes to Christ is given a new Father. And he is a good and loving Father. 
• If you are in Christ, your deepest identity is not in your earthly father. It is in your Father in heaven.
• The Father, who never fails. The Father, who never sins. The Father, who never abandons. 
• That is your Father.

CONCLUSION

• The chapter ends with a question. Whose son are you? And the answer matters more than anything else in this world. 
• Because there are finally only two houses any of us can belong to.
• There is the house of Saul, which is to say, the house of every fallen and failing human kingdom, every human champion we have ever leaned on, every human father, who has loved us imperfectly, and every human strength that cannot finally save us.
• The house of Saul is, and has always been, on its way down.

• And then there is the house of the true Son of Jesse. The greater David. The Champion who walked down into a deeper valley and fought a bigger battle.
• He did not bring his own sword to the fight. He took the enemy’s sword, which was death, and turned it against him at the cross.
• He won the victory. He rose on the third day. He ascended on high. He led the host of captives. And he is gathering to himself a people who will share his victory forever.

• Which house do you belong to?
• Some of you can answer that question with joy. You know the Champion. So rise up out of your tent. Come out of hiding. The battle has been won. Pursue the things of God this week with the confidence of a people whose champion has already crushed the head of the serpent.

• Some of you have been trying to be your own champion for too long. You've been wearing your own armor, fighting your own giants, carrying weight that the Lord has never asked you to carry. Lay it down today. The battle is the Lord’s. He is offering his victory. 

• Some of you have never come to this champion at all. You do not know whose son you are. Hear the invitation of the Lord Jesus today. He stands ready to receive you. He has already fought the battle in your place. The blood has already been shed. The victory has already been won. All that is left is for you to come home by trusting Christ today.

• The chapter ends with David, standing before Saul, holding Goliath's head in his hands, declaring whose son he is. 
• The greater Son of Jesse stands at the right hand of his Father today, holding the spoils of every defeated enemy of God's people, calling out to every weary soul in this room. 
• Come home. There is a house. There is a Father. There is a Champion. And the battle is won!

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?