Facing The Giants Of Life Series

INTRODUCTION

• VEGGIE TALES VIDEO CLIP

• SLIDE #1

• I do not think it happened quite like that. 

• We have a lot of things that happen in life that can put a lot of pressure on us. Each and every day we can be faced with gigantic problems, conflict, stress, failure and even dealing with success. These things are pressure points for us.

• As we face each of these things, how do we deal with them?

• Over the next five weeks we are going to be looking at one of the most fascinating people in the Old Testament.

• As we to look at some of the issues David dealt with I pray that we can learn some lesson from him. All the pressure points we deal with today in life were dealt with by David.

• David was a complex yet simple person; he is a good person to study because God said that David was a man after His own heart in 1 Samuel 13:14 even though David was far from perfect.

• I have always gained strength from the honesty at which the Bible deals with both David’s successes and his failures.

• Today we are going to start with the obvious when it comes to the life of David as we look at facing giants in our life.

• The way we face giants in our life will say a lot about us and our faith.

• As we work through 1 Samuel 17, we will see some things that will help us to overcome the giants we face in life.

SERMON

• SLIDE #2

I. Facing the giants of life can invoke great fear.

• When we come up against difficult problems it can really scare us, we can look at problems and be shaken by fear.

• There are times when we look at problems and they look so big to us that they over take everything else that is before us.

• Have you ever been so fearful of a situation that you could not even think straight?

• In 1 Samuel 17, the Philistines and the army of Israel were poised for battle.

• The Philistines were encamped at SO COOW and the Israeli was encamped in the Valley of E-LAH. The Philistines stood on one mountain and the Israeli army stood on the other with a valley in between where the battle was to take place.

• So far so good, Israel had fought many battles and won them. I do not think the prospect of war was a big giant deal for them, BUT something was about to change to make this battle a GIANT problem.

• SLIDE #3

• 1 Samuel 17:4-10(ESV) 4And there came out from the camp of the Philistines a champion named Goliath of Gath, whose height was six£ cubits and a span (9’9”) . 5He had a helmet of bronze on his head, and he was armed with a coat of mail, and the weight of the coat was five thousand shekels£ of bronze (126 pounds) . 6And he had bronze armor on his legs, and a javelin of bronze slung between his shoulders. 7The shaft of his spear was like a weaver’s beam, and his spear’s head weighed six hundred shekels of iron (16 pounds). And his shield-bearer went before him. 8He stood and shouted to the ranks of Israel, “Why have you come out to draw up for battle? Am I not a Philistine, and are you not servants of Saul? Choose a man for yourselves, and let him come down to me. 9If he is able to fight with me and kill me, then we will be your servants. But if I prevail against him and kill him, then you shall be our servants and serve us.” 10And the Philistine said, “I defy the ranks of Israel this day. Give me a man, that we may fight together.”

• Talk about having to face a giant! Goliath was making a request that was common among the ancient Greeks of which the Philistines were related. We have a similar instance in 2 Samuel 2:12-16 as an example.

• The thinking behind this strategy was that the people felt the gods were actually fighting through the 2 who were doing battle so the stronger god would win.

• One warrior from each side; winner take all.

• SLIDE #4

• 1 Samuel 17:11(ESV) 11When Saul and all Israel heard these words of the Philistine, they were dismayed and greatly afraid.

• I wonder why? Here was a HUGE man of War there were no guns, it was basically hand to hand.

• Who would want to be responsible for losing and putting their nation into slavery? Plus this was a fight to the death!