I sat down to prepare for this message in 1 Samuel 17, and my first thought was, “How in the world does one preach a sermon about David and Goliath?” Next to Noah’s ark, this may be the best known story in the whole Bible—among churched and unchurched people alike. This story is so familiar that the temptation might be to tune out the message because you already know how the story ends. Big Goliath—little David—little David defeats big Goliath with a stone—end of story—ho, hum—let’s go home. Yes, the story really is that simple, but the significance of the story is not at all simplistic. As we saw last week in the previous chapter, David had come onto the scene for the very first time when he was anointed by Samuel. David was now the anointed king, but Saul was still the ruling king. The Holy Spirit was with David but the Holy Spirit had left Saul. You see, we always call this the story of David and Goliath, but it is actually much more about David and Saul then it is about David and Goliath. The giant-killing part of the story serves not just to show David’s faith, but to show the stark contrast between David’s faith and Saul’s lack of faith.

But before we get into the heart of what this story means, I want to point out some things that this story does not mean. First of all, this story is not about the size of David’s opponent. Now I don’t mean that Goliath was not a giant of a man. This chapter plainly tells us that Goliath was nine feet tall. Have you ever heard someone say that this story is obviously not true because no one could ever be nine feet tall? If so, then that person has never heard of Robert Wadlow. Wadlow reached an unprecedented 8 feet 11 inches in height and weighed 440 pounds at his death in 1940. He showed no indication of an end to his growth even at the time of his death.[i] I don’t have any trouble believing that Goliath was nine feet tall.

When I say that this story is not about the size of Goliath what I mean is that David was not at all concerned about the size of Goliath. At this time, David was roughly sixteen or seventeen years old and was probably no taller than me, perhaps even shorter. Yet David did not care if the enemy was five feet tall or nine feet tall. The rest of the Israelites did care, however. For forty straight days Goliath marched onto the battlefield and issued his challenge and for forty straight days not one single Israeli soldier dared to match his challenge. David’s oldest and tallest brother did not take the challenge. Eliab was not afraid to give a strong rebuke and accusation to David when he said, “Why have you come down here? And with whom did you leave those few sheep in the desert? I know how conceited you are and how wicked your heart is; you came down only to watch the battle.” Eliab was very brave when speaking to his little brother, but he was very afraid of Goliath. Despite the fact that Saul had offered a long list of amazing gifts for the one who would defeat Goliath, not one man stepped forward. But David did not care how big he was.

This has application to our trials and challenges. It doesn’t matter if our trials are Goliath-sized trials or if they are Aditya-sized trials (remember this guy from last week?!) It did not matter to David and it should not matter to us.

Second, this story is not about the size of David’s battle. In other words, it is not a heart-warming tale of the triumph of the underdog, kind of like the movie Facing the Giants. I actually met someone recently who has not yet seen this movie! This is a good, clean, heart-warming story. My favorite part of the movie is not the victory on the football field, but the powerful illustration of repentance and forgiveness between a father and son. In my opinion, it’s worth watching the movie just to see that part. I am sure they took the title of their movie from the story of David and Goliath. David faced his giants and we all have to face the “giants” in our life. True enough, but one huge difference is that the team who wins the football game does not stab their opponents in the heart and cut off their heads! More importantly, when you understand the significance of this chapter, we should not end up with a warm-fuzzy, feel-good attitude, like you do after watching his movie, but rather we should feel and know a far more powerful, life-changing truth.

Third, this story is not about the size of David’s faith, although this is closer than the other two. When we read stories like this, we are tempted to think, “If only my faith was as strong as David’s, then I would be able to better face the tough parts of life. If I had the faith of Daniel then I could face the proverbial lion’s den. If I only had the faith of Brittney Gordon, then I could travel all by myself to foreign lands to spread he gospel.” I hate to break it to you, but the story of David and Daniel and modern-day missionaries like Brittney Gordon are not about the size of their faith. This is an all too common misperception in the Christian life. I can understand how this misunderstanding can happen. For example, Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” This statement appears to be teaching that faith is a matter of size. A mustard seed-sized faith is sufficient to literally move mountains. So if that is true, we conclude that our faith must be the size of a sub-atomic particle!

Another thing that happens in regard to faith is when foolish people say things like, “If you only had enough faith then your husband would not have died. If you only had enough faith then you would be healed from cancer.” These are not only foolish things to say, but they border on being evil things to say, and they all revolve around the “size of your faith.” If I could kill cancer by the size of my faith I would surely like to do so, but how do I get this bigger faith? The common way to get more faith is out of sheer determination. In effect, we clench our fists and grit our teeth until the veins begin to bulge in our necks—then we barrel forward like a middle linebacker into the trials of life. We think these things and may even say foolish things to ourselves or to others, all because we do not understand the meaning of stories like David and Goliath.

This story is not about the size of the giant. It is not about the size of David’s faith. This story is about the size of David’s God. We see an immediate contrast between Saul and David in verse 32 ff. David said to Saul, “Let no one lose heart on account of this Philistine; your servant will go and fight him.” I love what David says here. He says, “Let no one lose heart,” meanwhile, perhaps a hundred thousand fighting men from Israel had lost heart forty days before this. Saul’s reply to David shows that he did not understand. “You are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him; you are only a boy, and he has been a fighting man from his youth.” One thing you cannot fault is Saul’s logic. How can a 5’5”, 140 pound David possibly fight against a 9’, 500 pound Goliath? In his ignorance, Saul hit at the heart of the matter when he said, “You are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him.” Was Saul correct? Was David able to fight the Philistine? No, it was impossible for David to fight him, but David made that clear with his famous speech before Saul.

“Your servant has been keeping his father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it. Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God. The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.”

David was not claiming to be able to defeat the Philistine, but he was claiming knowledge of the Lord who delivers. The Lord who delivered me in the past will deliver me this time. David was not interested in any of the prizes for defeating Goliath, but rather he was concerned for the honor and glory of his Lord. In verse 26 David said, “Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?” As Goliath taunted Israel’s army for forty days, David instantly realized that far more than the army was at stake. David knew that Goliath was taunting the Lord himself through his rantings and ravings.

The surprising thing to me is that Saul even let David fight. If David were to lose, the Israelites would become subject to the Philistines. Much more than David’s life was at stake. The very future of Israel was at stake. So then, why did Saul risk everything by letting this young boy fight? After forty days of taunting, perhaps he was exhausted and would have let anyone fight at that point. Maybe he thought Goliath would turn and walk away, refusing to fight a little boy. Maybe there was a shred of hope that the Lord, the Lord whom Saul once knew himself, actually would bring deliverance for David. It’s a question that does not have an answer in this story, but it is clear that David had a big God and Saul was living without God.

Can you see the important difference between the size of your faith and the size of your God? Yes, David had faith—that is undeniable—but it was not the strength of his faith that mattered, it was the strength of his God. You cannot have faith in faith. Faith must have an object. Faith must be directed toward something or someone. If the object of your faith is huge, then it naturally flows that your faith will be huge. If the object of your faith is small, then your faith will be small. There was another type of battle raging that day—it was the battle of unbelief. Saul lost that battle the first day he laid eyes on Goliath, but David won the battle the moment he saw Goliath. The difference was not their faith, but the object of their faith.

Therefore, if you need more faith, no amount of fist clenching or teeth-gritting effort will help. You need to know that God is a big God and you also need to experience the fact that God is a big God. And David had both knowledge about God and firsthand experience with God. If David had said, “God is a God who delivers,” that would have been a theological statement. Is it true? Yes, God is a God who delivers. David would have received an “A+” on his Bible quiz for giving a good answer. But David did not say, “God is a God who delivers.” He said, “God delivered me in the past and he will deliver me now.” Don’t think for a moment that David had only faced one lion and one bear. No doubt he had faced many lions and many bears, as well as jackals, wolves, coyotes, and anything else that longed to make a tasty meal out of the sheep God had entrusted to him. David knew that God was a deliverer and he also had a lot of experience of being delivered by God.

The reason that we so often seem to lack faith is because we only have good theological statements about God. We say, “God changes people.” Fine, but is he changing you? We declare that God is all sufficient. This is a very good statement, but is God all-sufficient for you right now, right in the middle of your pain and sorrow? Because we are evangelicals and we read the Bible, and we know that we have a big God. The problem is that our God is big on paper, but he is small in our real lives. When we get through the small trials in life, we need to constantly look back and say, “God did that. God delivered me.” This is what David did in the sheep pen. He would get to the end of a day and say, “God delivered me today.” At the end of the next day after fighting off wolves he would say, “God delivered me.” He did this day after day, year after year. He knew that God was a God who delivers and he experienced again and again that God delivers. Therefore, when he got the battlefield and saw Goliath taunting the “armies of the living God,” he did not have to stop and wonder if God would deliver him. He knew it immediately from the depths of his being.

You and I are in a battle of unbelief and you and I lose the big battles of unbelief because we lose so many little battles of unbelief. If we are afraid to step out in obedience in the small things in life, what are the chances that we will walk in obedience in the big things? If David had run away at the first sight of a coyote, could he have ever faced a wolf? If he had run away from a wolf, could he have faced a bear? You see, you and I run from coyotes, or even from the distant sound of coyotes, and then we wonder why we are struggling in our faith? We have never trusted God to deliver us from coyotes so you can be sure we won’t trust him with bears.

We have one more problem with the God who delivers and it is this: we have the wrong definition of what it means to be delivered. Too often we want some kind of guarantee of deliverance before we take a step forward. We say, “Lord, I’ll serve you if you protect me from all harm. I will follow you if you deliver me.” Let me show you how the apostle Paul defined the Lord’s deliverance.

But the Lord stood at my side and gave me strength, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. And I was delivered from the lion’s mouth. The Lord will deliver me from every evil attack and will bring me safely to his heavenly kingdom.(2 Tim 4)

Notice several things about this verse. First, Paul was serving the Lord when he was delivered. He Lord delivered him so that he could preach the gospel. The Lord delivers us as we serve him, not while we are sitting on the sidelines. Second, Paul said he would be delivered until he was brought safely home to God’s heavenly kingdom. In other words, our ultimate and final deliverance is deliverance through our own death as we are brought into the eternal kingdom. Death itself is deliverance. Finally, Paul said that God would deliver him from “every evil attack.” Let me stop there and ask you: did God deliver Paul from every evil attack? Paul was beaten, stoned, shipwrecked, flogged, starved, imprisoned, ridiculed and abused in almost every conceivable manner. Paul is no dummy. He is not whitewashing his own history to try to say that he was never harmed. On the contrary: he is making the claim that all of these things were examples of deliverance. On one occasion when people were trying to kill him, he was lowered over the city wall to safety. Another time when people were trying to kill him, he was beaten, dragged out of the city and left for dead. Paul is making a radical statement here which completely changes our definition of deliverance. When he was lowered over the wall, that was deliverance, and when he was dragged from the city and left for dead—that too was deliverance!

Sometimes we will be delivered from suffering and other times we will be delivered through suffering, and eventually we will be delivered through death, but in every case, we will be delivered. Therefore, with this Biblical understanding of deliverance, along with David and Paul we can say, “The Lord who delivered me from my last trial will deliver me from this one, until he brings me safely home.

Rich Maurer

March 3, 2008