The Valley of Breakout

Introduction

In 1958, America began its spaceflight program. And it was John Glenn who became the first American to orbit the earth on February 20, 1962. And then as spaceflights continued, we made some advancement as to what we can do in space,and it was Ed White who became the first American to venture out of the spacecraft on a space walk on June 3, 1965. We continued to make progress and on March 16, 1966, Gemini 8 completed the first space docking maneuver. But the breakout moment occurred on July 20th, 1969 when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first men to set foot on the moon during their Apollo 11 flight. It was indeed our space programs finest moment; it was indeed their breakout moment.

In our Christian lives, I am afraid that we want to be like everyone else. We don’t want to be seen as different; we want to fit in with everybody else; we don’t want to be seen as a Christian fanatic. But I am here today to tell you that God wants you to breakout from the pack. He wants you to experience that breakout moment in your Christian life- where you move ahead with Him by leaps and bounds even if means leaving your comfort zone behind.

My question to you is this: Have you experienced one of those breakout moments in your Christian life? Have you prayed God send me a breakout moment in my Christian life? Today, we are going to venture into the Valley of Elah to look at a young man named David who had a breakout moment and see what we can discover about those breakout moments.

So, turn with me in your Bibles or look on our bulletin as we read from various places in 1 Samuel 17.

Scripture

1 Samuel 17:3-11 (NKJV) 3  The Philistines stood on a mountain on one side, and Israel stood on a mountain on the other side, with a valley between them. 4  And a champion went out from the camp of the Philistines, named Goliath, from Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span. 5 He had a bronze helmet on his head, and he was armed with a coat of mail, and the weight of the coat was five thousand shekels of bronze. 6  And he had bronze armor on his legs and a bronze javelin between his shoulders. 7  Now the staff of his spear was like a weaver's beam, and his iron spearhead weighed six hundred shekels; and a shield-bearer went before him. 8  Then he stood and cried out to the armies of Israel, and said to them, "Why have you come out to line up for battle? Am I not a Philistine, and you the servants of Saul? Choose a man for yourselves, and let him come down to me. 9  If he is able to fight with me and kill me, then we will be your servants. But if I prevail against him and kill him, then you shall be our servants and serve us." 10  And the Philistine said, "I defy the armies of Israel this day; give me a man, that we may fight together." 11  When Saul and all Israel heard these words of the Philistine, they were dismayed and greatly afraid.

1 Samuel 17:20-26 (NKJV) 20  So David rose early in the morning, left the sheep with a keeper, and took the things and went as Jesse had commanded him. And he came to the camp as the army was going out to the fight and shouting for the battle. 21  For Israel and the Philistines had drawn up in battle array, army against army. 22  And David left his supplies in the hand of the supply keeper, ran to the army, and came and greeted his brothers. 23  Then as he talked with them, there was the champion, the Philistine of Gath, Goliath by name, coming up from the armies of the Philistines; and he spoke according to the same words. So David heard them. 24  And all the men of Israel, when they saw the man, fled from him and were dreadfully afraid. 25  So the men of Israel said, "Have you seen this man who has come up? Surely he has come up to defy Israel; and it shall be that the man who kills him the king will enrich with great riches, will give him his daughter, and give his father's house exemption from taxes in Israel." 26  Then David spoke to the men who stood by him, saying, "What shall be done for the man who kills this Philistine and takes away the reproach from Israel? For who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God?"

1 Samuel 17:31-37 (NKJV) 31  Now when the words which David spoke were heard, they reported them to Saul; and he sent for him. 32  Then David said to Saul, "Let no man's heart fail because of him; your servant will go and fight with this Philistine." 33  And Saul said to David, "You are not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him; for you are a youth, and he a man of war from his youth." 34  But David said to Saul, "Your servant used to keep his father's sheep, and when a lion or a bear came and took a lamb out of the flock, 35  I went out after it and struck it, and delivered the lamb from its mouth; and when it arose against me, I caught it by its beard, and struck and killed it. 36  Your servant has killed both lion and bear; and this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, seeing he has defied the armies of the living God." 37  Moreover David said, "The LORD, who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear, He will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine." And Saul said to David, "Go, and the LORD be with you!"

Points

#1

You will never have a breakout moment in your life if you look at what everybody else is doing or listen to what everybody else is saying. In other words, you got to fight through the negative junk to have a breakout moment with God.

Picture in your mind the scene. The Philistine fighting champion, Goliath, comes down off his mountain into the valley and starts shouting at the Israelites to send one person out to fight me and let the winner take all. And the Bible says that Saul and all Israel were greatly dismayed and afraid. That is another way of saying that they did nothing. They sat on their hands. And the Scripture confirms that in vs. 16 for forty days the giant Goliath taunted the Israelites about sending someone to fight.

Isn’t that sort of how the church is today? The devil and this world is stealing from us all the time (we lost prayer in schools and before high school athletic events; we lost the ten commandments in the courtrooms, and we lost nativity scenes at the courthouse during the Christmas season)and what does the church do, it sits on its hands and does nothing.

So, you have the picture in your mind, the Israelites are sitting on their hands and doing nothing. And here comes David, from tending his sheep at home, to bring supplies to his brothers and he hears the challenge of the Philistine. Now, if David wants to fit in and be like everyone else, he sits on his hands. But instead, David saw the challenge of the Philistines as an opportunity to show off the greatest of his God.

If the majority sitting on their hands were not enough to discourage David; he had those who spoke against him telling him that he could not do it. Eliab, his oldest brother, tells David you ought not be here but you ought to be home tending the sheep. Eliab was putting David in his place and there are people that you will come across in your spiritual life who will attempt to put you in your place rather than let you have a breakout moment with God.

David goes and talks to King Saul. And he tells David that he is not qualified. He is too young. And people do that to us all the time. You can not teach a Sunday School class, you don’t know that much about the Bible. You cannot witness to that person, you are not going to know what to say to them. You cannot take that role at the church, you are too new a Christian.

Hear me! If you are going to have a breakout moment, you can not let what others are doing dictate what God wants you to do; and you can not let the voices of others drown out what God is telling you to do.

#2

You will never have a breakout moment in your life if you don’t fully trust that God will see you through.

How is it that none of the other Israelites were willing to fight Goliath but David was? David fully trusted God and they didn’t. I am not saying that the Israelites did not trust God some; they just didn’t trust Him fully.

A lot of Christians are exactly the same way as the Israelites; oh, we trust God for some things some we don’t trust Him fully. If I were to talk about eternity, I would say that most Christians trust God for eternity and that is because we, as Christians, know that they cannot do anything about it anyway. That is 100% in God’s hands. But, when it comes to day to day life, how many Christians trust in their talents and skills to make something rather than trusting in God. I would say a lot.

David trusted God fully in day to day life. In vs 26, David says who does this Philistine is coming against the armies of the living God. And in vs 32 David tells Saul God has been with me when I fought the bear and the lion and He will be with me when I fight this Philistine.

David knew and believed what Paul wrote about in 1 Corinthians 1:25 (NKJV) 25  Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

David knew no matter how strong or how big Goliath was; he was no match to the strength and biggest of our God.

And it is those who fully believe that whatever comes against them is no match to the strength or biggest of our God, those are the ones who will have breakout moments in their life. Don’t trust God fully, breakout moments will be few and far between.

#3

You will never have a breakout moment in your life if you hesitate. When God says it time to move forward, you need to move forward.

Let me read you verse 40 and part of verse 41. 1 Samuel 17:40-41 (NKJV) 40  Then he (David) took his staff in his hand; and he chose for himself five smooth stones from the brook, and put them in a shepherd's bag, in a pouch which he had, and his sling was in his hand. And he drew near to the Philistine. 41  So the Philistine came, and began drawing near to David...

David ran to the battle. David was not waiting for the Philistine to get in position. Instead David was in position first; David took the first action; there was no hesitation with him. And then the Philistine came down to his position. This was David’s breakdown moment and he was going to miss it by hesitating.

I know in my life that I have missed some breakout moments in my life because I hesitated. Jesus tells us in the Gospel who missed out on their breakout moments because they hesitated. One man says that he bought a field and he had to go see it. One man had bought five oxen and had to go try them out. And the third man said, I can not come now I just got married.

No excuse is a good excuse when it comes to a breakout moment with God.

I was amazed in seminary, how many men did not want to go somewhere to preach on Sundays. They would tell me that they will have plenty of time to preach when they get out of seminary. The problem is that if you hesitate you might miss that breakout moment.

As a pastor, I would hate to think about the number of people who will die and go to hell because when they heard the Gospel message said I will wait, I got plenty of time. You hesitate you might miss your breakout moment.

Let us pray!