Shaq-Sized Problems Require God-Sized Miracles

Shaq is a personal friend of mine. I had the privilege of being his team pastor for the 2 years he was with the Suns. But I remember when I first saw him and met him in person…

About 10 years ago - I was down at the arena for Phoenix Suns chapel and I was going through my normal pregame routine. I went into the Suns locker room, reminded the players that chapel was about to start…checked to see how everyone’s doing…make myself available, pray with some guys, talk to some guys…you know…ministry stuff. Then, I go through the visiting team locker room and do the same thing with them.

That particular game happened to be against the Los Angeles Lakers. By the way…side note: I hate the Lakers. I’ve always hated the Lakers – grew up in Phoenix. Do we have any Laker fans in here today? (Security, please escort them out the building!) It’s going completely against my flesh and my better conscience to walk into the Laker locker room and invite them to into the Lord’s house at chapel.  AND, I was in a hurry. Chapel was about to start. I remember run-walking down the hall – toward the visiting team locker room and there was a problem. I couldn’t get into the locker room because there was something in my way…something that took up the entire hallway and his name was Shaq… For the first time, I saw Shaquille ONeil “live and in person” from 2 feet away. He was standing outside the Laker locker room and had about 15 media crowded around him with recorders, cameras, and microphones.

I had a problem. I needed to get into the locker room – but his size, along with the media - was blocking the entire hallway. From that moment forward, I’ve always referred to the big problems in my life as “Shaq-sized” problems.

I remember calling my wife and telling her – So, I just saw the biggest man I’ve ever seen in my whole life and his leg is as big as my entire body! She laughed and said, “Trav, everyone’s leg is as big as your whole body!”

Shaq sized problems. You ever had any of those? I have. Shaq is big. He’s 7’, 1” . 325 pounds. And wears a size 22 shoe! He’s big.

I’ve had some problems that felt that big. Maybe bigger! Maybe you have one today!

Did you know the tallest guy on record in modern day history is eight foot eleven according to the Guinness Book of World Records. He died in 1940.

There’s a another Shaq-sized problem that I wanna talk about this morning. His name was Goliath. Goliath was bigger than Shaq…and a half-foot taller than that Guiness Book dude. He was somewhere between nine feet and nine feet nine inches tall.

You know the story…David and the Giant.

It’s about a teenager named David. He faces one-on-one the giant known as Goliath. Most of us know at least something about this story….

It’s a story about 2 armies, the Philistines and the Israelites. Both armies were camped out on two different hills with a valley between them. The Israelites had Saul – and the Philistines had a champion giant named Goliath. You know the story. Goliath was over 9 feet tall and wore over 125 lbs of armor. He had bronze leg armor, a bronze javelin, a huge spear, and an iron spearhead that weighed 15 lbs. He also had an an armor bearer…a dude…that walked ahead of him carrying a shield. (How cool would that be?!)

The Israelis were afraid! And rightly so…Even though the Israelis had some military victories - The Philistines entered the Iron Age before the Israelites did. Their weapons of war were far superior. Very notorious. The Philistines would put swords on their chariot wheels so their chariot riders could go through an infantry and mow down soldiers like you and I could cut through grass. Recently, just before this event, the Philistine army had slaughtered 30,000 Israelite soldiers in a battle. This is still fresh in the minds of these other soldiers. They were greatly afraid of the Philistines. AND What the Philistines were doing on this day was not uncommon. Rather than putting their whole army into battle the Philistines would choose one champion to go out and taunt and challenge the other army to see if they would send out one champion and these guys would go at it one on one. They would each represent their army. Whichever side won, the losing side would either retreat or surrender.

And so the Philistines had chosen this champion well. Here is this nine-foot guy, a very skilled warrior. He had his PhD in assault and battery. Goliath was bad to the bone. He was no joke. Legit. And he’s taunting and challenging the Israelite army, “Send somebody out to fight me.” But nobody would.