DEFEATING GIANTS
Students involved in a research project at the University of Illinois called 2000 homes at random between midnight and 2 A.M. on a Friday night in the city of Chicago to see if parents knew where their children were. In 75% of the homes called, a child answered and didn’t know where the parents were.
“The most urgent domestic challenge facing the U.S. is the re-creating of fatherhood as a social role for men.”—David Blankenhorn, Institute for American Values.
We need fathers that will take their God given places according to what God’s word says and not what Hollywood says. We need more Abraham’s, Isaac’s and Jacobs and less Archie bunkers as our models.
we are involved in a war today, and the battleground is not in Iraq or Afghanistan. The battleground is in our homes. And we’re not fighting for our land, or our property, . It’s more important than that . And it’s our children & families that are at risk.
I’m not just talking to father’s here but also to mother’s because some of them are the only one’s raising their children, and there are some grandparents here who are raising children, and maybe you’re an aunt or an uncle doing the raising…. so this is a message to everyone who’s fighting in this war
And believe me—it’s a war, it’s an important war, and in this country, we are losing the battle.
Adults & Children are turning from the faith in record numbers. And if you don’t believe me, look here this morning. And it is not only a problem here, it is all over this country.
A report by Warren Mueller revealed that where both parents attend church on a regular basis, 72% of their children continue in the faith.
If only the father attends, that percentage drops to 55 percent, but where it’s just the mother attending, that percentage drops to just 15 percent of the children remain involved in the church.
And most of the time when people stop attending church it’s because of a trial or difficult time in their lives Do you remember the times when you’ve struggled with something or you’ve been fighting a battle .
We’ve all been to the place where we’ve had to deal with giants; giants like worry, doubt, fear, anxiety, depression. Whatever it has been, we’ve wandered through those dry valleys looking for answers, and sometimes we come up empty. We feel a lot like David standing in the shadow of Goliath.
The truth is, we have a choice, and we are faced with a question:
Who are we relying on to defeat our giants?
Who are we counting on to carry our burdens?
In New York City at the entrance to the RCA building on Fifth Avenue is a massive statue of Atlas, a perfectly proportioned man who, with all his muscles straining, is holding the world upon his shoulders
There he is, the most powerfully built man in the world, and he can barely stand up under his burden.
‘Now that’s one way you can live,’ ‘trying to carry the world on your shoulders.
On the other side of Fifth Avenue is St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and there behind the altar is a statue of Jesus as a boy, maybe eight or nine years old, and with no effort, he is holding the world in one hand.”
Goliath was David’s giant to overcome. It was his distraction and his problem. In fact, Goliath was Israel’s giant to overcome.
Even though the spirit of the Lord had departed from Saul at this point in his life, he was still leading the army of the Israelites in battle.
And by this point, Saul had lost all confidence in God’s leadership, not only in his life but also in the life of his nation, and it became very evident in the way Saul led his troops against the Philistines.
For a long time, Saul and his men would wake up every morning and stand face to face with their giant.
But that was the problem.
They were facing their giant day after day after day.
There was a key element that was missing in their battle strategy that forced them to waste time dealing with the same giant every day.
Take your Bible and turn to 1 Samuel 17.
Here we read of one of the most famous battles not only in the Bible, but also in all of history.
David faced a physical giant in Goliath, but we face giants of our own all the time, whether they are
mental, physical, emotional, or spiritual giants.
So we must ask,
how do we defeat the giants in our life?
What do we learn from David’s strategy that we can use ourselves?
1 Sam 17;1 Now the Philistines gathered their forces for war …... 2 Saul and the Israelites assembled … 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. He was over nine feet tall. 5 He had a bronze helmet on his head and wore an armor of bronze weighing five thousand shekels ( about 125 lbs); 6 on his legs he wore bronze …, 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 ( about 15 lbs)). His shield bearer went ahead of him.
this guy is a monster! He’s like the Terminator on steroids.
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. 9 If he is able to fight and kill me, we will become your subjects; but if I overcome him and kill him, you will become our subjects and serve us." 10 Then the Philistine said, "This day I defy the ranks of Israel! Give me a man and let us fight each other."
And you can almost hear the Israelites saying, "Don’t look at me! I’m not going out there! I don’t want to step on that battlefield and get myself killed!"
And what’s interesting about this is that even the king of Israel doesn’t want to go out there!
According to 1 Kings 8:19, the main reason why the Israelites wanted a king in the first place was so that he would lead the armies into war. To fight the battles of the Lord. But at the end of the day the king was just as scared as the people. Verse 11 says that "
11 On hearing the Philistine’s words, Saul and all the Israelites were dismayed and terrified.
12 Now David was the son of … Jesse, …. Jesse had eight sons, and … he was old and well advanced in years. 13 Jesse’s three oldest sons had followed Saul to the war: …. 14 David was the youngest.
According to Numbers 1:3, you had to be 20 years old to fight in the army. David was probably 17 or 18.
….., 15 but David went back 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…. grain and bread for your brothers and hurry to their camp. … 18 …. See how your brothers are and bring back some assurance from them. 19 They are with Saul and all the men of Israel …, fighting against the Philistines." 20 Early in the morning David left …..He reached the camp as the army was going out to its battle positions, shouting the war cry……. 22 David…………, ran to the battle lines and greeted his brothers. 23 As he was talking with them, Goliath, … stepped out… and shouted his usual defiance, and David heard it. 24 When the Israelites saw the man, they all ran 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. …… 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?" ….
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 desert? I know how conceited you are and how wicked your heart is; you came down only to watch the battle."
Typical brothers
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 boy, and he has been a fighting man 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 delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will deliver 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, … "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 only a boy, ruddy and handsome, and he despised him. 43 He said to David, "Am I a dog, that you come at me with sticks?" And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. 44 "Come here," he said, "and I’ll give your flesh to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field!" 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. 46 This day the Lord will hand you over to me, and I’ll strike you down and cut off your head. Today I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, 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.
49 Reaching into his bag and taking out a stone, he slung it and struck the Philistine 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…. After he killed him, he cut off his head with the sword. …
Let me say this: Goliath was not the only giant the Israelites were facing. The biggest giant in their lives was their lack of faith.
Even though God had brought the Israelites out of Egypt in Exodus 14.
Even though God had raised up Joshua to lead them into the Promised Land.
Even though God had given them many victories along the way, they didn’t have faith that He could give them victory over one person!
They were focused on the size of the giant. Instead of being focused on the size of their God.
When do your circumstances terrify you?
When they are GIANTS ? –
When, from your perspective, things look HOPELESS, you see no possible way to defeat or overcome what you’re faced with.
I pause to ask you this question: What are the giants in your life?
What does your battle front look like?
What are the obstacles that leave you dismayed and discouraged?
Maybe your giant is financial. You have a stack of mortgage payments and car bills and doctor bills. It seems that as soon as you pay off one, another one comes along.
The problem seems so large that you just can’t see how God can help you.
Or maybe your giant is an addiction. You’ve been struggling with it for years and years. You’ve done everything in your power to try and break the habit. But it’s become such a large problem that you’re starting to wonder if you’re ever going to have the victory in this life.
Are you facing the enemy of Cancer or some other life threatening disease?
Or maybe your giant is a person. Not because they’re 9 feet tall. But because they intimidate you. Their personality is strong. Or their tongue is sarcastic. Or their position is powerful.
Or their ability so great is that you feel like a mental midget in their presence.
How many of you are dealing with a giant in your life right now?
The normal reaction to the giants in our lives is to get discouraged .
LISTEN , instead of saying,
"Look how big my giant is,"
you should be saying,
"look how big my God is compared to this giant!
Look at how awesome He is compared to this little problem in front of me!"
David more than likely had no idea who Goliath even was. But that’s the way it is with giants that we battle. We never expect them, they just show up., and we get so caught up in the battle that we don’t see beyond ourselves.
But we must remember that God is bigger than our problems; God is bigger than our giants; and that day, God was bigger than Goliath.
When you look at this scenario , there seems to be a sharp contrast in how to battle a giant.
Notice how Saul approached the situation. They kept putting it off, and the more they delayed, the more intimidated they got . And the more intimidated they got, the harder the problem became for them to handle.
It’s the same thing when we battle our giants. We wake up every morning and walk to the battle line.
We look across the valley and see the problem standing there. And it happens day after day, and the more we delay in battling the giant, the more intimidating the problem becomes, and the harder it is to handle later.
I’m sure you have figured out by now that your giants are not going to go away by themselves. The Israelites can relate to that. The Bible says that every day for forty days Goliath would get up early, walk down to the valley, stare up at the rocks behind where the soldiers of Israel were hiding.
And he would call them out.
He would taunt them. Deep down, they must have hoped that Goliath would get fed up with the situation. And walk away.
But David made them realize that the only way this was going to be resolved was by going up against the giant.
3 STRATEGIES FOR BATTLING YOUR GIANTS…
1. Number one: God used all of David’s previous experiences as a shepherd to prepare him to face this giant challenge.
Everything that’s happening in our lives is being used by God to make us into the people He wants us to be. You might think that going to school is a waste of time. You might think that the job you have right now is a waste of time.
But God is using these things to get you ready for the giants further down the road. He wants you to be faithful in the little tasks of today. So that you will be prepared for the giant tasks of tomorrow.
David’s confidence was not in his own abilities, but in GOD’S ABILITIES (verses 34-37)
: Some ancient warriors were known to be deadly accurate with their slingshots. A skilled slingshot artist could fire those stones at more than a hundred miles per hour. Judges 20:16 says that the Benjamite army had 700 chosen men who could sling a stone at a hair and not miss. David was that good.
David had been delivered by God before when he faced a bear and a lion; and like them, this “beast – Goliath ” would be no match for God either.
Have you had had prior experiences with God?
David defeated the giant in his life. If you want to slay the giants in your life,
Make a decision that you’re going to go up against that giant.
Maybe you’re giant is an insubordinate child. They don’t respect you. And they don’t respect the rules of the house.
And God is saying, "it’s time for you to face that giant. It’s time for you to take back your house. It’s time for you to lovingly and firmly reassert the parental role in the relationship."
Use what God has given you, your faith, prayer, his Word and the way he has made you.
Our church needs these kinds of leaders… parents, father’s , mother ‘s grandparents……; those who’ve been in combat with the enemy before and have slain a giant or two in their time in God’s strength.
These people know God’s Power and his Promises from their past experiences.
Number two: strategy David’s strong faith in God stands in sharp contrast to King Saul’s LACK of faith in God.
Hebrews 11:1 says that "faith is being sure of what we hope for, and certain of what we do not see."
David couldn’t see victory with his eyes. But he could see it with the eyes of his faith. He was absolutely certain that he was going to defeat this giant.
Faith knows that REGARDLESS of the size and strength of your giant, God can and will give you victory, for he has the ability –
The Is. were “dismayed and terrified” because they saw the fight as between themselves and Goliath and the Philistines;
instead of between God and their enemies.
What I want you to see today is that no matter what you are facing, if you will trust God to deliver you, you will be able to face it with confidence.
Rely on God’s resources: David didn’t ask for a sword like Goliath’s sword. He didn’t ask for a coat of armor like Saul’s .
He simply used what God gave him. Sticks and stones and slingshots.
Sometimes when we face problems we say, "God if I just had ’something’ else, I’d get through this?
If I had another educational degree, I’d get through this.
If I had better friends, I’d get through this.
If I had more money, I’d get through this."
But 2 Peter 1:3 says that "His divine grace has given us everything we need for life and godliness."
When we have Jesus Christ in our lives, we already have everything we need to go up against the giants in our lives.
We simply need to take God at His word.
Number three: David’s biggest advantage of all is that he has God on his side!
And he counters Goliath’s tauntings with a little talk of his own: "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 LORD will hand you over to me, and I’ll strike you down! 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."
We need to trust in God’s power.
At the end of Romans 7, Paul is ready to give up the Christian life because of the law of sin at work within his members. But in one last desperate cry, he says in verse 24, "Who will rescue me from the body of this death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!"
Could this be why you are feeling hopeless in your situation today?
Are you wanting God to serve you;
or are you, like David, wanting God’s will to be done? Are you facing your situation in SUBMISSION to Him; are you relying on Him?
David understood this while Saul and the Army of Israel saw themselves only as a human army gathered against a stronger human army.
David was seeing things from God’s PERSPECTIVE and things looked very different. Goliath was “only” 9 ½ feet tall while David was a gigantic force in God’s hands.
“God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise;
God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.” 1Corinthbians 1:27 –
David knew that he was not alone. He knew that he was God’s instrument.
Goliath, as well as all of your giants, are totally unprepared for the real battle they are facing when they fight against God’s anointed ones.
All superior strength and military muscle are useless against God’s true warriors for they are fighting in the Name of their Lord, Jesus!
You can even resist the Devil himself in the Name of Jesus and he will flee from you!
One thing I’ve learned in life and in spiritual warfare is that bullies always back down when you stand up to them in the strength of the Lord!
David triumphed with just a sling and a stone, because he was full of faith and confidence in His Lord. Goliath was not prepared for this. He didn’t even get one shot off at David! Then David took Goliath’s own sword and cut off his head – a sure sign that the battle was over!
Don’t ever be surprised that you will be called upon to face some Goliath’s in you life; some impossible situations that will defeat you if you face them alone! These are opportunities to reveal God’s Presence and Power, not only to your enemies, but to God’s people who are trembling in fear and are dismayed.
David faced a choice – to stand and fight in the Power and Name of the LORD and under His authority, or to cower in fear and run away from the battle knowing, like Saul and his Army did, that in their own strength, they were already defeated. David, in childlike faith, chose to stand alone with God!
That’s your choice today too.
Do you see your giants and your battles from God’s perspective or only from your own?
Are you trying to defeat the giants in your own power?
If so, you are defeated already.
Are you facing your giant alone ? Then You know what defeat is like if you are.
All of the giants that we battle are designed to bring us closer to God.
We can’t go into battle to build up an impressive record of wins or go thinking that we’ll fight the battle under our own strength.
This is simply a call from God to stand up to the giants in our lives, and to be faithful to him as we battle.
Have you given your battles to God? Or are you still fighting your giants on your own?
We need to echo the call of David, “…the battle belongs to the Lord.”
God has given you the resources to go up against the giants in your lives. But at the end of the day, it all comes down to faith.
Do you believe that God has the power to help you?
Do you believe that the battle belongs to the Lord? Let’s go before the throne of God. And ask Him to help us defeat the giants in our lives.
When it came time for David to die
Conclusion: 1 Kings 2
1 David’s Charge to Solomon 1 When the time drew near for David to die, he gave a charge to Solomon his son. 2 "I am about to go the way of all the earth, he said. "So be strong, show yourself a man, 3 and observe what the Lord your God requires: Walk in his ways, and keep his decrees and commands, his laws and requirements, as written in the Law of Moses, so that you may prosper in all you do and wherever you go, 4 and that the Lord may keep his promise to me: ’If your descendants watch how they live, and if they walk faithfully before me with all their heart and soul, you will never fail to have a man on the throne of Israel.’
Today is Father’s Day and a special time to pause and honour our fathers: these very special people in our lives and families. I want to use this opportunity to challenge men to be the servant leaders, the prophets, priests and kings in the homes.
To be men of integrity, rising boldly in their anointing and God given role in the homes, church and workplace.
Let us pray
