Jesse’s Son, God’s Champion: The Messianic Hope - 1 Samuel 17:51-58 Series

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1 Samuel 17:51-58

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 scabbard. 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. 52 Then the men of Israel and Judah surged forward with a shout and pursued the Philistines to the entrance of Gath and to the gates of Ekron. Their dead were strewn along the Shaaraim road to Gath and Ekron. 53 When the Israelites returned from chasing the Philistines, they plundered their camp. 54 David took the Philistine's head and brought it to Jerusalem, and 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, O king, 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." …18:6 When the men were returning home after David had killed the Philistine, the women came out from all the towns of Israel to meet King Saul with singing and dancing, with joyful songs and with tambourines and lutes. 7 As they danced, they sang: "Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands."

Self-reliance vs. God-Reliance

Review: Desire power because of love

We have been studying the account of David and Goliath in 1 Samuel 17, and last week we examined the connection between empowerment from God and human effort. We found that God exerts His power in our lives not instead of human effort, but through human effort. And so His grace in us is not without effect, it causes us to work hard. And when we work hard while relying on Him and not upon our own strength, we are enabled to realize great success, but the source of that success is not us but God.

We also found that we are commanded by God to desire and seek after greater power and strength in our lives. You should want to be strong and powerful. You should want that – not out of pride (so that people will be impressed with your strength), but out of love. If we love people we will want God’s strength to work powerfully within us, because God’s power brings about good for people. And if we love God that will be another reason we will desire power from Him, because the more you love Him the more you desire to experience His attributes and His grace flowing through you. If God says, “I have a delightful gift for you” and we say, “I am not really interested in that” we dishonor God and show Him to be undesirable and unable to generate worthwhile gifts.

So if you want power you seek grace from God. And you act as though God’s promises are absolute guarantees. When you are acting on a promise of God use earnest effort (David ran); use wisdom (David picked the best weapons); use skill (in verse 39 it says the reason David used the sling is because he was used to the sling – literally, “he had proven” the sling. He had practiced and was good at slinging.); use backup (David took five stones, not one. And he brought his staff – just in case.); use your gifts mostly (David didn’t try to be Saul. Do not try to be someone else. Just be you. God gave you the gift mix He gave you for a reason.)

When you are acting on a promise of God use earnest effort, wisdom, skill, backup, gifts - but do not rely on any of those to be the source of success.

The importance of relying

I have showed you some passages that show that relying on your own strength is a very serious sin. But I still feel like I did not do a good enough job showing you how important this really is to God. Let me show you one more passage to underscore how God really feels about this.

2 Cor.1:8-9 We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. 9 Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death.