The Response to Victory

Five Smooth Stones

The Response to Victory

Good morning and welcome to worship today!

Today I am finishing up my series on the early days of King David. If you recall, we’ve talked about the Challenger – Goliath and the tactics he used… the same tactics our enemy, Satan, uses today… that he will make us doubt… that he will make us questions… that he will make us fear… If the Devil can get in our heads in these ways, he will be able to keep us from doing what God has called us to do… he will be able to keep us from being who God called us to be.

Then, last week, we looked at the fact that David was looked down on for his youth, but he didn’t let that limit him… He pushed ahead to be who God called him to be and he gave the glory to God.

If you think back to Ash Wednesday, we looked a little more at who David was as he stepped up. If you remember the story, David volunteered to battle the enemy and King Saul tried to dress him in the King’s armor and give him the King’s sword, but David refused them. David wasn’t going to battle as Saul, he was going to dress up, Instead, David took the tools God had given him and went to battle. So often, we try to use someone else’s gifts, someone else’s tools, someone else’s blessing instead of what God has given us. Don’t try to be someone you are not! God made you to be you…

Now, today, we are going to see the response to victory!

If you’ve got a Bible, turn with me one final time to 1 Samuel 17. I want us to pick up at verse 40…

1 Samuel 17:40-52

Wow… that’s epic! Makes me think of the 300 Spartans or something. But, these verses show us clearly that Israel was the victor in this battle. So, we are going to take a few minutes to look at the victory.

Here’s the first thing I want us to see about victory…

Victory Sends the Enemy Running

The Philistine Army had a plan… they were going to taunt the Israelite Army: keep them running back and forth trying to figure out how to defeat the giant Goliath, and then eventually attack once they were worn down and full of fear. But David messed up their plan. They didn’t expect anyone to fight Goliath, but David did!

David walked out thumbed his nose at Goliath and said, “This isn’t a physical battle – you defied the Living God… and my God will fight for me!” Then, When David defeated Goliath… it broke the spirit of the Philistine Army.

You see, they had placed their hope in Goliath. He was their hero. He was their warrior. He was how they were going to win that battle and all the battles that followed… but when he was defeated, they lost all hope!

The same thing happens to you and me. We place our hope in a person. We place our hope in a political party. We place our hope in a denomination. We place our hope in an organization. We place our hope in all these things of earth, things that will fail… things that can be defeated. When we misplace our hope – sooner or later, we will be disappointed… sooner of later, we will loose hope.

That is why we must place our faith in the one who had defeated the enemy, who had overcome sin and death. We must place our faith in Jesus Christ. When we place our hope in Jesus, we will never be disappointed.

Here’s the thing about that though… We don’t always see and feel and know what God is doing in our lives. We don’t see the battles taking place and being won in the spiritual realm. It’s like we sing in the bridge to the song Waymaker:

Even when I don't see it, You're working

Even when I can't feel it, You're working

You never stop, You never stop working

Your God will never stop working for you!

We may experience seasons where we simply don’t know where God is. But I’m here to tell you - God is still working, and He’s working for our good and His glory.

That’s the next point I want us to see about the response to victory is that it is God’s victory and God gets the glory.

The Victory Belongs to God and God Gets the Glory

Verse :52 tells us that the men of Israel and Judah gave a great shout of triumph.

They knew they had done nothing to earn that victory, the shout was not a shout of their ego and their pride… it was a shout of triumph because God had done something they could not do. It was a shout of praise in the living God!

There was no way, in and of himself, that 16 yr old, 5 ½ ft tall, 125# David could defeat the 9’ giant Goliath. Goliath’s armor weighed more than David.

They knew that victory belonged to God! They knew that God gave them that victory! And with that knowledge they were ready and willing to charge ahead to defeat the enemy.

Let me ask you this… do you really believe that anything is possible with God? Because I want to remind you of a few things.

When a little 14-year-old girl named Mary heard that she would become pregnant with the Savior of the world, and she asked, “how can this be?” AND What did the angel tell her?

“With God, Nothing is impossible!”

Or think of when the Disciples are discussing Jesus words about how hard it is for a wealthy man to get into heaven, and what does Jesus tell them? “With God, all things are possible.”

Or what about Paul’s words in Philippians that some of you learned in Vacation Bible School years ago… and some of you have it on the back of your Letter Jackets… or posted on your homes… “I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.”

We face impossible obstacles sometimes. We face insurmountable odds against us. We face battles that in and of ourselves, we cannot win.

Right now, some of you are worried about debt that seems impossible to overcome.

Some of you are dealing with a medical diagnosis that has you down.

Some of you are looking at your marriage and can’t see how you can keep it together.

We are all facing different Goliaths! We are all facing things that seem impossible… and in and of ourselves… they are impossible… but not for God!

I want you to hear something that David wrote in one of his Psalms.

Psalm 108:10-13

This was written some time after his encounter with Goliath, but I bet his experience on that battle field affected him the rest of his life.

I don’t care what you or I face… with God’s help we will do mighty things! Amen!

We can never forget… the victory has already been won! We just need to finish the fight. And that’s my final point today…

Victory Requires us to Finish the Job

How many of you like MMA? I know, it’s one of my indulgences… one of my guilty pleasures.

There was a big fight several years ago by two champions, We’ll call them Jon and Mike. Mike came into the fight as the definite underdog against Jon. At one point in the fight, Jon hit Mike with a flying knee to the chin and Mike collapsed to the mat. Jon turned and walked away, thinking he had won. I mean, fight after fight, that is exactly what happened, but not this time. Mike got up and got back in the fight. In the end, it was Mike’s hand that was lifted in victory. He didn’t give up and he won the fight.

We can’t give up until the battle is over!

When we think about David walking onto that battlefield, he didn’t come to participate in the war. I mean really, he was delivering cheese and crackers to his brothers and their commanders. I love the way that David Nasser tells it in the Right Now study on David. Nasser puts it this way, “David said, ‘I didn’t come here to fight, but I’m going to finish it.’”

That has to be our attitude. God has given us the victory, we just need to finish the fight!

As we read this story about David and the Armies attacking the Philistines, we read about chopping off heads and slashing with swords… It is a violent end to the story. You know, I wish we didn’t have violent stories in the Bible. We live in a civilized society where we don’t have violence right… OK, maybe not.

Maybe we do live in a violent world where school shootings and terrorist attacks happen. Maybe we do live in a world where wars and rumors of wars still happen.

Maybe, just maybe, we read the stories like this because it helps us to understand that some things never change and we still need God in our lives today.

If we removed all the violence from the Bible, then we wouldn’t have the story of our salvation. We wouldn’t have the story of our Savior telling us “It is Finished.”

You see, The victory has been won. It was won 2000 years ago when Jesus suffered and died a violent criminal’s death as an innocent man! We are going to be talking about that more and more in the next couple of weeks… But we need to realize, the victory wasn’t in the death that happened on Good Friday.

The victory happened when Jesus rose from the dead and walked out of that tomb.

The victory happens in your life and mine when we realize that Jesus has already won the war, we just need to finish the fight in our battles.

Yes, the enemy will still come at us. The enemy will still try to make us doubt and question. Yes, the enemy will use fear and intimidation to keep us from being who we were created to be.

Yes, we will still be looked down on from time to time. We will still be told we are not enough… we just need to remember that Jesus tells us that we are a precious beloved child of God.

Yes, we will be tempted to be someone else... to fight as someone else… when God has already given us the tools to win.

We just need to go finish the fight. With God on our side, who can be against us.

As we wrap up this short Study of King David, we need to realize that David’s dependence upon God continued throughout his life. Yes, he messed up. He made mistakes, but he was still a man after God’s own heart.

What was the “secret” behind his success as the future king of Israel?

I thing it’s summed up in what we read earlier…

1 Samuel 17:45-47.

“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. This day the Lord will deliver you into my hands…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.” 1 Samuel 17:45-47

Consider this line, “All will know that it is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves for the battle is the Lord’s…”

The story of David is like so many other stories throughout scripture. They remind us that God used and is using improbable people to accomplish extraordinary things.

He does this so there is NO question as to who is responsible for the victory.

You know what… As a follower of Christ, you and I are some of those improbably heroes.

There will always be Goliaths in your life.

And when you face them, remember what God has already done in your life… God has already given you the victory.

I would be remiss if I didn’t add one more point. The victory in your life, the victory in your eternity has already been won, you simply need to accept the victory. If you do not know Jesus Christ as your Savior… If you haven’t said, “God, I give my life to you, I want you to fight my battles, I want your victory”… If you have never accepted the gift that he offered on the cross some 2000 years ago… Now is the time to respond to that victory…………. That’s why I am here…. Come to Christ….

Come to this table…

Let’s pray together.