Title: The Power of Small Is the Power of God
Text: I Samuel 17 :( 1, 4-11, 19-23), 32-49
Thesis: God can do big things through little people.
Introduction
Today the message is classic Sunday School 101. From our earliest childhood Sunday School experiences we were told the story of David and Goliath and all of those stories were illustrated in the Sunday School curriculum and in take home papers.
This is a rather well-done example of those Sunday School illustrations.
Project classic biblical image
It isn’t very true to the biblical narrative because in the biblical story the Philistine and Israelite armies are arrayed against each other on opposite hills with a broad valley in between. It is with both opposing armies watching from their respective hilltops that David and Goliath met in the middle on the expansive valley below both hills. In this picture you can see that David and Goliath are portrayed as doing battle on a hilltop with the army looking on from below. Anyway, that’s how it might have looked back then…
Perhaps this is how it would look today.
Project humorous image of large man /small boy
I want to unpack three principles that may be extracted from the story of David and Goliath, with the understanding that when I speak of Davids and Goliaths I am speaking metaphorically. We are like David in life and in life there are Goliaths or giants that threaten our well-being. And of course, there is God who is as much involved in the dramas of our lives as in the drama of the life of David and the army of Israel.
The first principle is this:
I. It is not so much who we are, it is who God is.
“You come to me with sword, spear, and javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, who you have defied.” I Samuel 17:45
The story is a contrast / comparison of David and Goliath. The story exaggerates the largeness of Goliath, the evil enemy and smallness of David, the good defender of God’s honor.
A. Goliath was a seasoned warrior.
Goliath is described as a giant of a man. Commentators say he was somewhere between 6 ½ and 9 ½ feet tall. His helmet was made of bronze as were his leggings. His torso was covered by a coat of mail weighting 125 pounds. He carried a javelin slung over his back and a spear with a shaft of 2 ½ inches in diameter and a spearhead weighing 15 pounds. (I Samuel 17:4-7)
In addition to all that he also carried a sheathed sword. (I Samuel 17:51) And Goliath is described as a career soldier, having been in the army since he was a boy. (I Samuel 17:33)
Added to all that is his image as something of a bully who for 40 consecutive days strutted his stuff twice a day in front of the Israelite army… mockingly inviting someone to come out and fight him. (I Samuel 17:16) And then on the day he actually faced off with David he roared at his young opponent saying, “Am I a dog that you come at me with a stick?” Then he cursed David by the names of his gods saying, “Come over here, and I’ll give your flesh to the birds and wild animals!”
B. David was a boy shepherd.
David on the other hand, is described as a boy who shepherded sheep in I Samuel 17:33-34. In his defense he told Saul that he not only shepherded sheep, he defended them against lions and bears by seizing the predators by the jaw and dispatching them with a club.
As the story progressed in 17:40, David is said to have stooped and selected five smooth stones from a stream and placed them in his shepherd’s bag. Then armed with his shepherd’s staff and a slingshot, he went out to fight Goliath.
In response to Goliaths bluster David yelled back, “You come to me with a sword, spear and javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied.” (I Samuel 17:45)
The scenario posed is that of a boy armed with a bb gun going to war against a career military man driving an M1 Abrams Tank with a 125 mm smoothbore gun capable of firing both conventional ammo and anti-tank missiles. The contrast established in the story is about power and weakness; largeness and smallness; sizeable weapons and slingshots; a seasoned soldier and a boy shepherd.
This whole story is about the folly of a boy who was ridiculed by his older brother who angrily asked, “What are you doing around here? Why aren’t you watching the sheep like you are supposed to be doing?” (I Samuel 17:28) He was doubted by his king who, upon learning of David’s willingness to fight Goliath said, “Don’t be ridiculous!” And then there was the mocking of Goliath…
Everyone in the story makes “who” the players are the primary consideration. And in their estimation “who” Goliath was, is a lot more impressive than “who” David was. But in the mind of David, it was all about the honor of the Lord Almighty – the God of the armies of Israel. The battle was not between Goliath and David. The battle was between Goliath and the Lord God Almighty to whom David was merely a servant.
In his book Fuzzy Moments, Jack Handley writes: “There used to be this bully who would demand my lunch money every day. Since I was smaller, I would give it to him. Then I decided to fight back. I started taking karate lessons. But then the karate lesson guy said I had to start paying him five dollars a lesson. So I went back to paying the bully.” (Sherman L. Burford in Fresh Illustrations for Preaching & Teaching (Baker), from the editors of Leadership)
Too many people feel it is easier to just pay the bully than it is to learn how to defeat him.
Two times every day for 40 days the Israelite army had endured the bullying of Goliath. They put up with it because it was easier to just pay the bully, so to speak, than do anything about him. Young David decided they had paid the bully long enough and he stepped forward to do something about it. Perhaps one step in learning how to defeat the bullies in our lives is to get a proper perspective.
I wonder if there is some wisdom in not taking the Goliaths in our lives, personally. I wonder if there is wisdom in understanding that when a Goliath mocks and threatens our well-being, the threat is really in defiance of the God whom we serve. I wonder if there is wisdom in grasping the big idea that when a Goliath presumes we are just another meal on the food chain or fair game in the pecking order… that bully has mistakenly bit off more than he can chew and pecked the neck of the Lord God Almighty.
The first principle we need to know is this:
• First of all, when Goliaths roar at us, we need to understand that he is not just roaring at us, he is really roaring at God. It is not about who we are; it is about who God is.
David understood that it is not about us, it is about God.
II. Self-confidence is no substitute for God-confidence.
Today the Lord will conquer you and deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you down and cut off your head.” I Samuel 17:46
In our story David is quite graphic in his response to Goliath’s bluster. He tells Goliath that the Lord will defeat him and that he will kill him, cut off his head, and then give the dead bodies of the Philistine army to [feed] the birds and wild animals. (I Samuel 17:46)
And that is pretty much how it unfolded immediately after that. As Goliath moved to attack David, David put a stone in his slingshot and buried it in Goliath’s forehead. And when Goliath fell, David quickly ran forward, drew Goliath’s sword from its sheath and dispatched the giant.
David was indeed the player in this confrontation. David was the one in the thick of things. David demonstrated considerable self-confidence and courage, but David’s confidence ultimately rested in God.
Tucumcari is a small town located on Interstate 40 which was formerly Route 66. Because it was and is a strategically situated for travelers who need overnight accommodations, a lot of people stop there.
Billboards east and west of Tucumcari announce to motorists, “TUCUMCARI TONITE!” I stayed in Tucumcari when the city boasted some 2,000 motel rooms. I think the number today is 1,200.
Today the accommodations found in Tucumcari are very nice… but that was not always the case. I think Verizon filmed their Dead Zone Commercial in Tucumcari thirty years ago.
In the commercial, a weary traveler is checking into a flea-bag motel late at night. It is an eerie scene with a spooky guy tending the desk. The spooky guys says to the traveler, “Only got one room left and I doubt you’d want it.” The traveler asks, “Why?” And the spooky desk clerk says, “It’s a dead zone. You can’t catch a call in there. It’s like you don’t even exist.” “But,” the traveler protests, “I’ve got the Verizon Network.” In the background are the Verizon guy and the Verizon Network people who give him the thumbs up assuring him that there is no dead zone. The desk clerk, a bit disgruntled that there is no dead zone needs to leave the traveler with some kind of bad news so he says, “Well, the towels are kinda scratchy!”
The point of the Verizon Commercial is to assure the Verizon user that he is never abandoned in a dead zone… he always has the Verizon Network acting in his behalf. His confidence is not in himself or the Blackberry in his hand. His confidence is in the larger net work. He has Network Confidence, so to speak.
That is what David expressed when he confronted Goliath. By all accounts, David was entering a dead zone. The odds were stacked against him. He did not have a snowballs chance in hell. Yes, he had slain some predators and he was pretty good with a slingshot… but he was no match for Goliath even in his most prideful, vain, self-assured moment. David knew that. That is why he said, “Today the Lord will conquer you…”
The first two principles we have unpacked so far are:
• First of all, when Goliaths roar at us, we need to understand that he is not just roaring at us, he is really roaring at God. It is not about who we are, it is about who God is.
• Second, when Goliath threatens us, we are most safe when we are less assured of our own strength and more assured of God’s. Self-confidence is no substitute for God-confidence.
This is the third principle:
III. Big power demonstrated through small people ultimately honors God.
“And everyone will know that the Lord does not need weapons to rescue his people. It is his battle, not ours.” I Samuel 17:47
The dispatching of Goliath and the ensueing rout of the Philistine army by the Israelite army would seem to be the point of the story. The defeat of evil and the victory of good makes for a good story. The underdog dispatching the champion is fodder for a great story.
In 1967 Israel went to war with Egypt, Jordan and Syria. In just six days the war was over and a cease fire was signed ceding to Israel the Gaza Strip, the Sinai Peninsula, the West Bank, the Golan Heights and the 1 million Arabs who occupied those territories.
I remember thinking, “This had to be a God-thing.” However the lesson learned or the point made was that Israel was willing and able to initiate strategic steps to defend itself.
It is a short sighted conclusion whenever we assume the honor goes to human intelligence, initiative or power. It was and always is a God-thing when a Goliath is slain in our lives. The purpose is not to exalt our great faith or our great effort or our great insightfulness and strategic planning… the honor is always Gods.
In I Corinthians 10:13 Paul wrote, “Whatever you do, you must do all for the glory of God.” And in Colossians 3:17 a slightly different variation of the same principle, “And whatever you do or say, let it be as a representative of the Lord Jesus Christ, all the while giving thanks through him to God the Father.”
In 2004 Anne Hjelle was interviewed by Inside Edition. She had been attacked by a mountain lion while riding her bike. As she was being drug into the undergrowth by the lion, her friend Debbie Nicols entered into a tug-0f-war with the lion. Two other bikers also came to the rescue and eventually the lion released her and backed away.
She was airlifted to a hospital and would later require extensive reconstruction surgery. This is what she said on Inside Edition, “I was terrified. My first words, as soon as he grabbed on to me were, ‘Jesus help me.’ It was a conscious decision; I’m in serious trouble and I need help soon.”
Anne would be the first person to thank her friend and the two bikers who came to her assistance, but she will not budge an inch when it comes to acknowledging that it was the power of God that intervened in her behalf.
Paul wrote in I Corinthians 1, “The foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom of man. The weakness of God is stronger than the greatest of human strength. God deliberately chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. He chose those who are powerless to shame those who are powerful. God chose the despised things of the world, things that count for nothing at all, and used them to bring to nothing what the world thinks is important, so no one can ever boast in the presence of God!”
The third principle in this story is that whenever we face a Goliath the ultimate credit and honor for the power that sustains us through the crisis belongs to God.
Conclusion:
In his book Facing Your Giants, Max Luccado writes of a sprawling, shade-bearing, 80 year old American Elm tree in Oklahoma City. People pose for pictures beneath this tree. Arborists carefully protect this three. There are other larger, fuller and greener trees. But this is the tree that endured the Oklahoma City bombing on April 19, 1995 when Timothy McVeigh parked the bomb-rigged truck that took the lives of 168 people and injured 850 others. The tree was buried in rubble and no one expected it to survive. It was a dusty old, branch stripped tree. And then she began to bud. Sprouts pushed through damaged bark and green leaves emerged earning her the name: The Survivor Tree. (Max Luccado, Facing Your Giants, W Publishing Group, 2006, p. 43-44)
Over the years we all encounter metaphorical bullies and bombings in life and we will either emerge from the bullying of a Goliath or the bombing or a Timothy McVeigh defeated and destroyed. Or we will emerge to tell stories of the goodness and the grace of God. Of course it all depends on God but it begins with us and the way we practice our faith in the face of the giants.
The three principles we may take with us and practice when we are up against a giant are:
• First of all, when Goliaths roar at us, we need to understand that he is not just roaring at us, he is really roaring at God. It is not about who we are, it is about who God is.
• Second, when Goliath threatens us, we are most safe when we are less assured of our own strength and more assured of God’s. Self-confidence is no substitute for God-confidence.
• Third, when the crisis is over, God gets the credit. Big power demonstrated through small people ultimately honors God.
