Hope Is Here- Hope for the Underdog
Hope Is Here • Sermon • Submitted
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BTCS - Hope Is Here: Week 3
Hope for the Underdog
Scripture: 1 Samuel 17:20-50 / Ephesians 6:12
Good morning, Church. I want to thank you for joining us this morning for the second week of a series called Hope Is Here.
Turn in your Bibles to our text in 1 Samuel 17
We will get there in a moment.
We believe in a different kind of hope than those outside of relationship with Jesus have.
We believe in a Biblical hope that is a confident expectation that God will do what He says He will do.
We believe that God-given, faith affirming hope is HERE.
It is here in time — not somewhere in the distant past or way off in the distant future — it is right here, right now.
We believe hope is found as we gather together
To encourage one another — as we pray for one another.
So don’t leave here hopeless.
There’s no reason to do so.
Let God the Holy Spirit, the third Person of the Trinity, fill you with the hope you need right now, right here in this gathering.
Last week we looked at the hope we can have in times of discouragement and brokenness.
Ancient Israel’s King David talked about that hope in Psalm 31. He said:
23 O love the Lord, all you His godly ones! The Lord preserves the faithful And fully recompenses the proud doer. 24 Be strong and let your heart take courage, All you who hope in the Lord.
Today we want to talk about the hope that God can give us when we feel like we are facing more than we can handle and we are the underdog.
Because life is full of challenging situations, isn’t it?
Parenting children can feel incredibly overwhelming.
Navigating a global pandemic can be more than we can handle.
Juggling careers and family can be hard to do well.
Growing in our faith and defeating sinful habits can be a challenge.
I would argue that is because these things are not meant to be done alone.
The Bible is full of accounts of people like you and me who, against all odds, experience victory.
There is a common thread in all these Bible accounts.
Not fictional stories of fictional super heroes — but factual accounts of real people.
Each of these people are fully aware that without God on their side, there is no hope of a favorable outcome.
Left to themselves, they would face defeat.
One of the classic stories of an underdog is the story of David.
This is very familiar account takes place long before David is King of Israel.
At this point, he is just a young boy.
READ 1 Samuel 17:20-21
Just hours before David arrives at the front lines of a massive conflict between the Israelite and the Philistine armies, he is in the fields taking care of sheep.
It is clear from the beginning of this story that David has found himself in a position that is above his paygrade.
The first readers of this text would have been overwhelmed by the change of scenery.
From the fields to the fight.
POINT #1 – WE ARE RARELY PREPARED FOR THE FIGHT
The truth is that we are hardly ever prepared to handle what life throws at us.
It’s a phone call with a diagnosis.
It’s a discovery of infidelity.
It’s a temptation we did not see coming.
No one asks to be placed in a position where there is no clear route to victory.
This is where David finds himself within the first few verses, and it might be where you are today.
When we find ourselves in this place, we need some kind of hope.
Story: Last year Sandra and I found ourselves in that place of facing an unexpected challenge.
As some of you know, the day after Labor Day last year, because of illogical, ridiculous covid restrictions, I had to let Sandra off at Piedmont Hospital alone to go in and have a heart cath.
I was not allowed to be with her in the hospital before a very serious test.
She had to face it alone.
As I let her out of the car, we had prayed and were hopeful — feeling that since it had been over 5 years since her first stents were put in, and that she has a family history of heart blockages, that, yes she was having some issues, but the doctors would put in some more stents and she would be good for another 5 or more years.
After being delayed for hours, which as you can imagine was in itself nerve-wracking, they finally got her to the cath lab.
I was sitting in a Home Depot parking lot a few miles away when I got a call from the doctor who had performed the cath, a seasoned expert who had himself invented new types of stents.
I was completely floored when he said, “I cannot can’t put in stents. I have referred her to one of the nation’s top thoracic surgeons so that he can schedule her to have bypass surgery
This caught us completely by surprise.
Another doctor had led to believe that open-heart surgery was basically a thing of the past.
Stents were the answer to everything.
That is unless they could just use a pill to fix the problem.
Just a few weeks prior to Sandra going to the doctor, Bro. Bob had a heart cath.
The doctor prescribed medication for him.
But now I have one of the top stent doctors telling me my wife has to have her chest split open and they are going to have to stitch in veins that they harvest from her legs — isn’t it marvelous that God gave us spare parts?
(Sorry, that’s my sarcasm again!)
But before she can undergo the surgery, she had to wait a week to get medications out of her system — during which they said if she went home she could have a heart attack and die.
She had to be in the hospital alone and I still couldn’t be with her or even visit her.
A week later she has the surgery and a few days later comes home.
She is NOT doing well!
It’s everything I can do to try to help her when she develops breathing difficulties.
Taking her first to her primary care, then the UGH ER where they determine she has a blood clot and they put her on heparin, then back to Piedmont by ambulance.
Where she develops an allergy to heparin and has to be put on an IV med that doesn’t allow her to come home.
After over 5 weeks in the hospital she was finally able to come home.
Needless to say, it was a rough time that — to a large degree — came out of the blue.
What she had to go through was very unexpected.
It is at times like this when we have to decide how we will respond.
Do we give up and accept defeat, or do we trust in God to give us the strength to carry on?
David arrives at the front lines to check on his brothers who are fighting in the Israelite army.
And he faces an unexpected challenge.
He gets his first look at what the Israelite army was facing.
READ 1 Samuel 17:23-26;32-37
You can hear David’s determination in this passage.
Though he is just a boy, he knows someone has to stand up to this threat.
This threat is a massive man named Goliath.
Goliath was a decorated warrior from Philistine.
He struck fear into the hearts of all who saw him.
Fear was a force multiplier for Goliath.
Whatever warrior abilities he may have had were multiplied by the fear he caused.
Think about that when a challenge suddenly appears in front of you.
Fear can cause you to be hopeless — to give up on the promises of God.
Goliath was a giant.
He was terrifying.
The whole of the Israelite army was paralyzed with fear.
No one was willing to take on this giant.
However, someone has to do something, and David is willing to take that on.
What causes a young boy, an underdog, to take on such a mountainous task?
Hope.
Hope that he will not fight this battle alone.
Hope that with God’s help there is nothing that is impossible.
Hope that what little he has to offer is enough.
David’s reasoning for this hope comes from God’s faithfulness in the past.
God was with him when he was protecting sheep in the field from lions and bears, surely the Lord would protect him now as well.
Like the song that the trio just sang says:
Just remember when you're standing
In the valley of decision
And the adversary says give in
Just hold on, our Lord will show up
And He will take you through the fire again
POINT #2 – IF GOD IS FOR US, NOTHING CAN STAND AGAINST US
When we find ourselves in seasons of struggle, sometimes we have to remind ourselves of how God has been with us in the past.
Hope is a derivative of trust.
When we believe that something or someone is trustworthy, it gives us hope.
Like David thousands of years ago, are you trusting in God, today?
Trusting Him with the challenges you are facing — that you MAY face?
David’s confidence comes from God’s faithfulness, and it is the drive he needs to overcome.
READ 1 Samuel 17:40-47
Saul, the King of Israel at the time, tries to fit David with armor and weapons to protect him in the conflict, but none of them fit.
As if David being a boy did not make him disadvantaged enough, now he is going to fight Goliath with nothing but a slingshot and five smooth stones.
After Goliath breathes out threats to this little underdog, David responds by telling him that though Goliath fights with sword, spear, and javelin, he is letting God fight his battles for him.
POINT #3 – THIS IS HOW WE FIGHT OUR BATTLES
Maybe you don’t feel equipped to overcome the things that you are facing.
You are in good company.
Maybe you know that your trial is too much for you.
This is a good place to start.
It is only when we realize that our battles are NOT waged in conventional ways, but rather in the spirit, that we will begin to experience God fighting for us.
For David, this is a spiritual battle, and it takes God’s involvement to experience a victory.
Paul speaks to this in Ephesians 6:12.
12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.
Paul reminds his readers that if our battles are not really about the physical world around us, then we can’t overcome by physical means.
It takes a spiritual approach.
We fight our impossible battles by submitting to the will of God.
We fight our most difficult circumstances by bring them to God in prayer.
We fight the evil that we come against by inviting God to intervene on our behalf.
David calls upon God as he engages Goliath on the battlefield.
With a single stone, a precise throw, and the power of God, David’s shot flies straight and true and connects with Goliath’s forehead.
The giant falls to the ground.
This single victory turns the tide of the entire war.
The Philistines run, and the Israelites pursue.
READ 1 Samuel 17:51-52
51 Then David ran and stood over the Philistine, and took his sword and drew it out of its sheath and finished him, and cut off his head with it. When the Philistines saw that their champion was dead, they fled. 52 Then the men of Israel and Judah rose up and shouted, and they pursued the Philistines as far as the valley, and to the gates of Ekron. And the Philistine dead lay along the way to Shaaraim, even to Gath and Ekron.
Suddenly, the once frightened Israelite army is emboldened by a little boy and his sling.
Because of David’s bravery and trust in God, they are all given hope that they too can be a part of the triumph of God.
POINT #4 – HOPE IS CONTAGIOUS
David’s hope in God spreads like wildfire.
The trajectory of the account changes.
The entire narrative takes a new tone.
It is no longer about defeat; it is now about victory.
There is something that happens within a fellowship of faith when just one person has the audacity to believe God for great things.
The church benefits greatly from just one person with a little hope, because hope is contagious. It spreads.
It begins with one person in the congregation who believes that God can use them to lift others out of impossible situations.
It starts with one person who wants to see children in the community impacted by an unique outreach to children.
It takes one person with a heart for overseas missions.
It takes one person who believes that prayer changes things.
It could be the spark that ignites a whole congregation of hope.
That person could be you.
Ancient church father Thomas Aquinas said it this way,
“Faith has to do with things that are not seen, and hope with things that are not at hand.”
Even though you cannot see how God might come through, faith is believing that it is still possible.
When a whole church begins to function in this way, that is when the world changes.
Your Need
Next week we will look at how hope can overcome doubt.
But right now, like David of old, you are facing challenges.
Maybe they are challenges that have come out of the blue — completely unexpected.
I want to invite you to come forward so that we can gather around you and pray.
So that you can be infused with the hope of God.
The Lord’s Supper
The Lord’s Supper
Sermon Tie-in
This morning hope is here in the Person of Jesus.
He died for our sins.
But He isn’t dead.
He rose from the dead and defeated death.
He wants us to remember what He did.
To lean on Him.
So, He gave us a “supper.”
A way of remembering His sacrifice for us.
A sacrifice that gives us victory.
Preparation
Jesus invites you to open the door of your heart and invite Him in to share this “meal” with Him.
20 Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me.
Before we partake of this meal we need to examine ourselves.
We don’t partake lightly or flippantly or just out of habit.
We prepare:
2 Corinthians 13:5 (NCV)
5 Look closely at yourselves. Test yourselves to see if you are living in the faith. …
Prayer
Receive Elements
All invited - you don’t have to be a member
Take a piece of the Bread and one of the cups and hold it until we all partake together
Hymn: Lamb of God
Bread
26 Now while they were eating, Jesus took some bread, and after a blessing, He broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is My body.”
Prayer
I. End prayer with prayer from Seder:
A. Blessed are you, O Lord our God, who brings forth bread from the earth.
Cup
27 And when He had taken a cup and given thanks, He gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you; 28 for this is My blood of the covenant, which is being poured out for many for forgiveness of sins.
Prayer
I. End prayer with prayer from Seder:
A. Blessed are you, O Lord our God, King of the Universe, who creates the fruit of the vine.
Jesus is Coming
This meal reminds us that Jesus is coming soon. Jesus told us in:
12 “Behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to reward each one as his work deserves.
Hymn: He’s Coming Soon