Overcoming Your Giants
Opening; Illustration:
Mama eagles are caring loving creatures. Somewhere along the line the mama eagle decides it’s time the baby eagles learn to fly. She takes the little eagle out of the next and flies up as high as she can go. At this point, she drops the fledgling, and he falls fast. The fledgling has never flown in his life. The ground is coming up, his heart is ready to burst, and he knows there is no way he is going to survive. But, the mama eagle is watching closely and at the last moment she swoops down and catches the baby eagle. The mama eagle then flies back up and lets go again. She does this until he learns to fly.
The Lord bore the Israelites on eagle’s wings. When they had no water or food, He swooped down and provided it for them. When Moses faced the Red Sea, God swooped down and parted it. When the walls were falling down, He swooped down and saved Rahab and her family. When you were wandering lost in life, He swooped down and saved you. When David was facing a giant, He swooped down and dropped him with one stone.
Proposition: If God is all powerful and He’s on your side...how can you lose?
Anyone here ever faced a giant? Financial pressure, loss of a job, a quarreling neighbor, a daunting teacher?
Let’s see what we can learn of how David handled his giant.
Text: I Sam. 17:1-11, 16, 23, 24, 37, 45, 47
There stood the giant, out front and center. The scene was meant to be very intimidating. This is how our enemy approaches us. Like a lion appearing as a "giant" in our life.
refer to 1 Peter 5:8
Our enemy prowls around, roaring at us to freeze us with fear. (new Christian, weaker Christian, the worrier)
It roars to add confusion to our thinking...until we feel weak and spent of energy.
And through his deception he leads us down a road of hopelessness and then despair.
When we are fearful, we often run. That’s what the Israelites did. (vs. 23, 24)
That’s how it is with our giants!
They come again and again.
Morning and night.
Relentlessly plaguing our minds.
They want to intimidate us. To get us to back down, to feel defeated...helpless...hopeless.
Intimidation is the hardest to overcome when we are faced with a giant.
Comes in the form of a person or pressure
There’s no letting up
We try to sort through it in our own strength...our own way.
David heard the challenge for the first time and the others, 41st time. They ran, he accepted the challenge. Saul’s army heard this challenge morning and night for 41 straight days!
Maybe you’ve found yourself in that same kind of position.
When a giant of worry, fear, doubt or grief confronted you over and over and over and you chose to run or hide from it rather than deal with it.
Proposition: If God is all powerful and He’s on your side...how can you lose?
What a blessing to have God’s Word before us to show us a better way. God compares us to an Eagle. That great majestic bird with strength and keen vision. To see what’s far up ahead and prepare for it. When an Eagle faces a storm it heads right into it. It doesn’t tuck tail and run or hide in a cave. It heads toward it, undaunted, unafraid and then begins to fly up and above it! God empowered the Eagle to fly above the storms in life. That same power is available to us!
Bible tells us that God gives strength to the weary (Is. 40:29). And when we hope in the LORD we will gain a new inner strength and we will mount up with wings like eagles, we will rise above our giants and we won’t become tired. (Is. 40:31) Our strength comes from God.
When David heard the challenge, he wanted to face it.
When Saul tried to convince David that he was too young, David recounted how God had delivered him from the paws of a lion and a bear and confidently assured Saul that God would deliver him from the hand of this Giant (vs.32- 37). He’s confident that God did it before...He’ll do it again. Is your trust in God like that?
Don’t you just want to stand up and shout and applaud David for his unwavering, bold, confident faith in God!
We all know & believe God is Omniscient...all knowing.
We all know & believe God is Omnipresent...everywhere
The ?? is do you know and believe that God is Omnipotent...all-powerful. And omnipotence can’t lose!!
Proposition: If God is all powerful and He’s on your side...how can you lose?
David faced his giant in the name of the LORD (vs. 45)
His faith wasn’t in the stones and the sling.
His faith was in what God was going to do through the tools He gave him to use.
If we’re not alert, we can easily lose focus of where our strength comes from. And with that we’ll allow the giant that stands before us to immobilize us by fear.
The next time you face a giant ask yourself where is your focus? Is it on the resources of God or the size of your giant?
Before I came to the Lord, I was in all the wrong places and hanging with all the wrong people. I was running life my way going in the wrong direction. Then, God, swooped down and saved me. The giants of the past try to rise up before me and intimidate me. They try to choke out my dreams. They try to show me how imperfect I am. Then, I look to my God and know He loves me, He’s there for me...and He’s bigger! He’s stronger! He’s greater...and they all fall. We can read in God’s Word the secret to it all.
David tells us the "secret" to victory. " The battle is the LORD’s" (vs. 47)
Are you trying to outsmart your giant? Do it your way? Fix everything and everyone involved in your own strength? Are you relying on other people?
If you are, it’s time to surrender to God and let Him handle your giant.
In the end there was only the sound ...swoosh...swoosh...swoosh and K---lunk! And the giant fell.
You and God. That’s all it takes. And they all fall...one at a time...every time.
Next time a giant stands before you, listen. Listen for the swoosh, swoosh, swoosh...and know God is with you.
Closing:
You can start today. Put your trust in God. Know that the battle is His and He will bring the giant down.
If you have never believed that God would be there for you like this, swooping down to save you from your giants, perhaps you’ve never taken the step to come closer and have that personal relationship with Him. You can do that today.
To come before a holy God, you need to be cleansed. That cleansing comes through the blood of Jesus.
