The Challenger - CG

Five Smooth Stones

Week 1: The Challenger

Good morning and welcome to worship again! It is a true honor to get to preach here in Common Ground over the next few weeks. Just as an update for you on our Pastoral Search, we have reviewed 14 candidates, interviewed 3 and are prayerfully considering who God is calling to serve here at First Brownwood.

We covet your prayers as we seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit, both on the Cabinet and in the local church leadership. Like I’ve said, God is on the move and doing something new here at First!

Over the next few weeks, I’ll preach most often here in Common Ground, but Next week you will get to hear from a friend of mine named Bill Killough. Bill is a retired Lt. Col. Of the Army Chaplaincy Corp… and Bill is one of the few people that Alex Bingham will have to look up to. He is actually preaching in the Sanctuary today. While I’m preaching here the other weeks, Alex, Pricilla, and Esme are preaching in the Sanctuary.

5 Smooth Stones Series Slide

But today… we are kicking off a new series talking about one of the most familiar stories of the Bible. I remember sitting in Mrs. Windle’s Sunday School class at Lone Star Baptist Church; little felt board and all, learning the story of David… how he was so brave to fight off lions and bears… how little David the underdog faced off against the giant Goliath.

If you were like me, the lesson you learned was that God is bigger than the giants we face, right? A good lesson, but an incomplete lesson. I always learned that David was the underdog… I mean, here’s little 16 yr. old David, facing the huge warrior… sure, he was the underdog – in human terms. But when you look at the fact that God was on David’s side, then it was really Goliath who was the underdog. When we face the giants in our life, we need to remember, we aren’t the underdog – they are, because with God, who can be against us…. Amen. OK, I’m getting ahead of myself.

We are going to look at the story about an unlikely hero named David, defeating a mighty giant and enemy named Goliath. But there is so much more to be learned from this story than a simple statement, “God is bigger than my giants.”

Let’s unpack the whole story to see what we can learn.

As we kick off the series, first, we need to learn about the larger than life challenger, Goliath. That’s right, David wasn’t the challenger, Goliath was. Goliath was the one who came and challenged the Army of Israel… not David challenging Goliath. David was just the only one courageous enough to accept the challenge.

Turn with me to 1 Samuel 17. Over the next few weeks, we will cover the entire story, but today we are just going to get started.

1 Samuel 17:1-11 (NLT)

Sermon Slide

Now, take a moment to picture this man Goliath. The Bible says he was over nine feet tall, some estimates say he was 9 ½ feet tall. To put that in perspective, we all think Alex, our Youth Minister, is tall, right… put another 3 feet on top of Alex. Next week, you will meet Bill – he’s taller than Alex, but still no where close to the size of Goliath.

Maybe this gives you an idea of what it might be like to face a giant.

Princess Bride Video

Sermon Slide

Yes, I know, one of the greatest movies of all times… but even André René Roussimoff, or Andre the Giant was only 7’4”. A full 2 feet shorter than Goliath. Robert Wadlow, the tallest man to have been verified by Guinness Book of World Records was just under 9’ tall.

I can see why the men of the Israelite Army were intimidated. I can see why they would look across the ravine at this towering man. He was a daunting enemy.

Kinda like when we look at our own giants that we face. But, I want us to recognize something. All the Goliaths in our life, all the giants we face… all the temptations and trials that come our way… all the things that would come between us and our relationship with God and one another pale in comparison to the real enemy.

The Bible tells us in 1 Peter that we need to:

“Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.” 1 Peter 5:8 NLT

We need to remember who and what our challenger is. One of the first rules in combat is to know your enemy… and don’t kid yourself… we are in a battle – we are in a combat – it is spiritual warfare just a Paul reminds us in Ephesians when he tells us to suit up!

Ephesians 6:12-13

For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.

Therefore, put on every piece of God’s armor so you will be able to resist the enemy in the time of evil. Then after the battle you will still be standing firm.

Interestingly enough, our present-day enemy sounds a lot like the Israelites ancient enemy.

The first thing we see from Goliath is…

The Enemy Will Question

Did you notice what Goliath asked the Israelites in verse 8? “Why are you all coming out to fight?”

Why are you coming out here… you don’t have a chance to beat me.

Why are you wasting your time… you’ll never conquer this problem.

Why are you even trying… you’ll never overcome this challenge…

Why do you try… you’re not smart enough…

Why are you fighting… you’re too weak…

Do you hear the enemy? Asking the questions that make you doubt?

Doubt is one of the devils’ strongest tactics against us.

We all doubt and if the Devil, the enemy, the adversary, can take that little doubt and make us question God, he will.

Look back at Genesis 3:1 in the story of Adam and Eve and the fruit:

It says, “One day he (The Serpent) asked the woman, “Did God really say you must not eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden?”

Which, that isn’t what God said, but it made her question…

If Satan can make you doubt, then he can stop us in our tracks. Right.

In the case of Goliath, can’t you just see the Israelite heads dropping after this question? “He’s right, we are wasting our time. We can’t defeat him. We can’t fight against him.”

And they couldn’t. In and of themselves, they couldn’t defeat an enemy that big and that strong… but with God… with God on our side, anything is possible.

This is something we can’t miss. Some of us have allowed discouragement and doubt to slip in because we have the wrong perspective on our battle. The Bible makes it clear we were never meant to fight the enemy on our own. In fact, if we try to do it all on our own, we will fail.

Just like we’ve talked about before, we don’t have to fight on our own, because God goes before us and our God is with us!

Amen?

Here is the next thing we learn from Goliath when we think about the way the Challenger approaches us.

The Enemy will Condemn

Goliath starts with a question, then he moves into condemnation. He says, “I’m the champion, but you’re only the servants of Saul!”

You hear that… you are only…

But You are only an old man…

But You are only a little girl…

But You are only a high school student…

But You are only an addict…

But You are only … fill in the blank.

The word “but” is extremely important in the Bible. Every time we see it, we can assume it is in between two different (and often opposing) statements. For instance, in Acts 1:8 (NLT) Luke writes, telling how Jesus told the disciples to stay in the Upper Room and hide, …

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

That’s a big but!

And in a similar sense, here in verse 8 Goliath is seeking to elevate himself above the rest of the Israelite army.

One on one, Goliath truly did have the advantage. He was bigger… he was stronger… his armor was tougher… his weapons were sharper…

He knows it… so he speaks with condemnation. He speaks with confidence.

First he makes them doubt, then he says they are only servants of Saul.

This gets to the issue of trust.

When condemnation comes our way, in whom do we place our trust? Who do we look to? Who do we align ourselves with.

I want to tell you, the enemy wants nothing more than to divide us as people of God and to have us place our trust in an organization… a political party… a denomination… an oppressed group… The devil wants us to identify as a nation… as a creed… as a sexual orientation… as a race… ANYTHING to keep us from identifying as a beloved child of God. Anything to keep us from placing our identity in Christ!

As we will see next week, the difference between David and the rest of the Israelite army is perspective. Whose he was more than who he was… but we’ll get into that next week.

When we hear a voice of condemnation, do we automatically just believe it to be true? If we claim to follow Jesus, that means we serve a risen Savior, He’s in the world today… I know that he is living whatever foes may say… I see His hand of mercy, I hear His voice of cheer…

And just the time I need Him, He's always near. He Lives! Amen.

That is the voice we need to hear, not the voice of condemnation. We need to hear the voice of our risen savior, not the defeated enemy!

This dialogue between Goliath and the Israelite army comes to a temporary close in verse 11. The Bible says, “when Saul and the Israelites heard this, they were terrified and deeply shaken.” The final thing we must realize this morning about the evil one is an overall tactic…

The Enemy will Strike Fear

Without fear, none of the other tactics of the Devil will work. The enemy, the challenger, whether it is Satan or Goliath, wants us to be afraid.

I previously shared the story of our climb up the Tooth of Time at Philmont on our Scouting Trek in 2021. For those that didn’t hear the story, we were hiking to our next campsite. We knew the final part of the day was going to be rough, so we stopped in this little notch at the base of the final climb of the day. After our break in the shade and coolness of this beautiful place, we took off on the trail. We were climbing up this hill, that kept getting steeper and steeper, until we realize that we were on the wrong trail. There came a point where I didn’t think I could keep going. I was listening to the wrong voice. I was letting fear interfere with reality. You see, adults and youth ahead of me had made it, but I was there, quivering in fear thinking I couldn’t make it to the top. We are here on this near shear face, if we leaned back, the weight of our packs would pull us backward… I had slipped a couple of times and, at one point, I looked back at Doc – that’s what we call Rance Boren, and I said, “Doc, I don’t think I can make it. I don’t think I can keep going.” And in a way that only Rance could say it, he said something to the effect of, “Well, we aren’t going down.”

Rance became a voice of reason for me. My fear was spiraling out of control, I was believing the lie that I couldn’t, when there were 9 people ahead of me that did! I was listening to the wrong voice.

I took a deep breath, heard a voice of reason, and I reached out in faith for the next handhold, and found the next foot hold, and hand by hand, foot by foot, I climbed on.

Fear will often try to keep us from stepping out in faith. Of all the Disciples, Peter learned this first:

Matthew 14:24-29

…But by this time the boat, battered by the waves, was far from the land, for the wind was against them. And early in the morning he came walking toward them on the sea. But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying, “It is a ghost!” And they cried out in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.”

Peter answered him, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” He said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came toward Jesus.

I know, I know, Peter took his eyes off Jesus and began to sink… But Peter took the step of faith!

He heard his savior say, “Don’t be afraid.” And he stepped out in faith. He had the confidence he needed because of the voice he listened to.

That’s the question we must be confronted with today: which voice are we listening to in order to trust?

Over and over, we read the words of David from the Psalms, that we “hide God’s Word in our heart that we may not sin”… that “God’s Word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path”… That we are to “soak and bathe in the Word of God.”

That is how we deal with the enemy. We immerse ourselves in the Word of God… not relying on human strength, but on the power and majesty of God… not trusting so much in who we are, but in Whose We Are.

Doubt and condemnation and fear are not the voice of God…

Stop listening to them! Stop fighting on your own.

You were never meant to fight this battle alone. Just as He was with David on that battle field, God is with you on your battle field!

As the Praise Team comes back up, I want to invite you into a moment of prayer…