Transcript
Speaker: The following podcast is a Jill dev Divine Media production.
Speaker: Thank you for hitting play on this week's episode of Normal Goes a Long Way. im your host, Stil Devine, and let's get into this week's episode, which is based on Messiah's sermon series, which is based on The book the Story. all right, as Laura and Chuck said, we are looking at chapter 11 from the story, and we're going looking at the person of David. Now, I've been watching a new series on Amazon called House of David. Has anybody else watched it so far?
Speaker: um and And I would just say, you know, a lot of times whenever there's a video version of the Bible, ah we know people take different liberties with it and things like that, and Christians wonder, is this actually helpful? I would say this one's really good.
Speaker: I would say it's really good and it's been fun following along. And especially if you're just trying to learn more about this period of time in the Bible, this period of time in the Old Testament, the historical stuff is probably as helpful as just looking at their perspective on the story of David.
Speaker: Now, his story actually begins with the prophet, the prophet Samuel. The prophet Samuel. Samuel is the one who God calls to anoint the first king.
Speaker: Anointing is literally pouring oil over someone's head and then blessing them for God's service. Samuel had already done that for King Saul. That that was the king that was chosen. And so he had poured oil over his head and he had blessed them. And suddenly ah the people of Israel become a ah ah group of tribes who now become a kingdom.
Speaker: For the first time, they have a king. ah They have a leader besides God. It's not what God wanted. God always wanted them to to follow him and him alone. But they demanded a king. And so God finally ah gave them a king. And and so so Samuel had anointed Saul.
Speaker: And Saul was the obvious choice. He was the obvious choice. But now God has watched Saul's life. And watched his rule and has decided um he's chosen another.
Speaker: And so he has sent Samuel to the house of Jesse because he says, when you get to the house of Jesse, you're going to find the new king and I want you to anoint him. And when Samuel shows up, Jesse brings out his seven sons and he figures and Samuel figures that Eliab is the obvious choice.
Speaker: He's the right age. He's big. He's a leader. He's a warrior. But then God tells Samuel, I haven't chosen him. And this is what God says to Samuel in chapter 16. He says, the Lord does not look at the things people look at People look at outward appearances, but the Lord looks at the heart.
Speaker: And then Samuel asked the Lord, well, what about the rest of the seven sons of Jesse? And none of them are supposed to be anointed the king as well. It's the same response over and over again. And finally he asked Jesse, hey, I see your seven sons. do you happen to have another son?
Speaker: Because God told me I'm supposed to come to your house. um And he says, yeah, it's just my son, the shepherd boy in the fields. He's the young one.
Speaker: And sure enough, when they bring David in, he's the guy because David ah has the kind of heart God looks for. And we know that God always looks at the heart, not the outward appearance.
Speaker: Now, the next scene is a war between Israel and the Philistines. ah The two armies on opposite sides of the valley If you've ever seen the movie Troy, ah kings at that time often would settle a dispute without a full-on ah battle.
Speaker: They would send a champion from each side and they would send them into the battle, into the valley, and then the two would battle it out. And then whichever champion won, that army would be victor. And...
Speaker: and um Think of it this way, like that way both armies wouldn't have mass casualties. Now, not all kings would agree to this, but that appears to to be what's happening between the Philistines and and with Saul.
Speaker: um Now, the Philistines, they don't send in Brad Pitt. ah There's no Achilles that's going to be going down there. um They send out a giant named Goliath.
Speaker: um And you know what happens next. David slays Goliath. um But... This should have never happened. This should have never happened.
Speaker: David never should have had to step up. See, Saul had been the champion of Israel. Early on in his reign, not only was he head and shoulders taller than anybody else, he was stronger than anybody else. He was more massive and than everybody else. He was also the most handsome. He was even for a while morally and ethically superior. He was a good example to Israel. He's the champion.
Speaker: He was courageous in battle. He was almost Samson-like. If you really read the story of Saul, he's a lot like Samson, supernatural at times. um And he was a generous king.
Speaker: But that day, in that valley, when he saw that giant, he lost sight of all his faith. And the rest of the story of Saul is all about giants taking over his life.
Speaker: ethical giants, moral giants, faith giants, just tearing him apart, which is easy to do. It's easy to do when the odds are against you.
Speaker: i mean, that giant, he's over nine feet tall. You focus on the giant and you lose sight of God. You forget God is with you. Now, David's odds are like 20 times worse.
Speaker: He's the small, cute, redheaded little brother who wasn't even recruited into the army. His brothers were recruited, but they didn't even want him. He's watching the flock. He's bringing his brother's sandwiches to the front lines.
Speaker: When Goliath starts mocking their God, mocking the living God, why is it that David's the only one who's angry?
Speaker: He's the only one that can sense that God's wrath is growing, that the power of God was standing by. Why does no one else come forward? David knows something. He knows it's not the size of the stones. It's not the size of the armor.
Speaker: it's It's not even that the height of the giant that matters to to David. This is about what you believe about God.
Speaker: What odds did David have against this giant?
Speaker: Well, sometimes maybe better odds than than we have when we face things. Like our Goliaths, they don't carry a sword or shield, but um they look like unemployment or abandonment or sexual abuse or depression Like the giant that you face doesn't parade up and down the hills of Elah.
Speaker: He prances through your office and your bedroom and your classroom. He brings bills you can't pay and grades that you can't make and people that you can't please and drinks you can't resist and junk on the internet that you won't refuse and a past that you can't shake and a future that you don't want to face.
Speaker: And those giants, they stalk you.
Speaker: Well, Goliath's family was an ancient foe of the Israelites. Joshua had driven them out of the promised land 300 years earlier. Saul's soldiers, they saw Goliath and they mumbled, not again. My dad fought his dad. My granddad fought his dad.
Speaker: In fact, when Saul eventually dies, it's in a war against the Philistines.
Speaker: And we've grown similar words. I become a workaholic just like my dad. Or divorce just runs in our family and it cuts through like a chainsaw through a tree.
Speaker: I'll never shake my past. These are the kinds of things we say. so you know your giant. And the thing is, Satan knows it too.
Speaker: Satan knows all kinds of things about you. And what Satan wants to do is he wants your giant to be the only thing you see. The only thing you focus on.
Speaker: David takes a glance and he quickly focuses back on God. He sees the giant, but that's not where his focus is. His focus is on his faith.
Speaker: And then he says two things. Basically, he says, who is this one that defies the armies of God? And then number two, the Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear, he will deliver me from the hand of the Philistine.
Speaker: See, David's a shepherd. He knows he can fight off a bear. He's done it before. To him, Goliath is just a hairless bear. Besides, if God's with them, he can't fail. He knows that.
Speaker: No one else in Israel is discussing God. David discusses nothing else but God. Acts 13, 22 reminds us that God said, David was a man after God's own heart.
Speaker: A man after God's own heart. Now, if you're a straight A Christian, you might look at the rest of David's story and be a little disappointed in him. How can he have a heart like that and do the things he did? Like Bathsheba,
Speaker: He doesn't seem to be a very good parent. Well, more on all that in two weeks. um The rest of us, though, we hear David's story and it's a little reassuring because we've made mistakes too.
Speaker: God doesn't abandon us. God still wants to use us. God still wants to love us. We ride on that same roller coaster. We're not straight A Christians. In David's good moments, nobody was better. In his worst moments, how could you be worse?
Speaker: How could you be worse? When David focused on God, giants fell. When he didn't, he did.
Speaker: I like math. I might be the only one in the room. I sometimes dream in math. And I think the key to this text is math. And I'm not talking about calculus. Don't worry about that.
Speaker: David makes two observations about Goliath. And none of them are about his biceps, his height, his skill, his age, his social standing or his IQ. David asked nothing about the weight of the sword or the size of the spear.
Speaker: ah The Bible tells us about the to Goliath's height and the weight of his armor, et cetera. And I think it's because the Israelites were so obsessed with this giant after he died that they went and weighed all this stuff. And that's the reason that we know.
Speaker: But I don't think David cared. and don't think David cared at all. He only had two observations about Goliath. He's defying God and he's just a bear.
Speaker: That's all it is. But how many thoughts does he offer about God?
Speaker: When I read through the text this past week, I counted nine. God thoughts outnumbered Goliath thoughts nine to two.
Speaker: That's math. How does this ratio compare with you?
Speaker: you ponder God's grace four and a half times as much as you ponder your guilt?
Speaker: Is your list of blessings four and a half times longer than your list of complaints? If you want faith like David, and if you want to overcome giants, then you need to feed yourself like David fed himself.
Speaker: David was in scripture. He was in prayer. He had uplifting friends. What are you filling your cup with? St. John addresses the struggles we have giants in our life.
Speaker: ah He talks about Satan and sin and worry. And he reminds us, if you have Jesus Christ, you can overcome all these things. He says this in 1 John 4. says, you are of God, little children, and have overcome them because he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.
Speaker: How many people believe that their past addiction or depression or weight problems or health problems or darkness or sadness, that they're always going to be there. They're letting the past determine the future.
Speaker: They think it's already predictive. And Jesus comes along and one of the statements, one of the words he says over and over again is the word repent. Repent. Repent.
Speaker: This Greek word is metanoia. Metanoia. You know the word metamorphosis. Metamorphosis means to change your form. Metanoia means to change your thinking.
Speaker: Change the way you think. In Greek, it literally means think in a whole new way. In Hebrew, the word repent is the word shuv, which means return.
Speaker: And it means return to the a place of wholeness, a place of strength.
Speaker: See, Jesus wants to break our thoughts. He wants to refocus our thoughts. Jesus wants to return us to wholeness and strength. He's saying your past is not you.
Speaker: I challenge you to stop filling your cup with like giant nonsense, giant punch. You're drinking it all the time. And instead, fill your cup with scripture and with prayer and with uplifting community, with friends who build you up in your faith.
Speaker: And really this whole matter, the whole story of David, the lesson we can learn can be summed up in this little couplet. If you focus on your giants, you stumble.
Speaker: If you focus on God, your giants tumble. I made that up. It rhymes.
Speaker: See, God wants you to be a giant slayer. the God who made ah miracle happen out of David stands to want do one in your life too.
Speaker: But it won't happen until you believe it.
Speaker: Christians, we often get surprised when we struggle in life. We can falsely believe that when we get faith, we get a jail a get out of jail free card.
Speaker: But it doesn't work that way. In fact, Jesus promises over and over again that your faith is going to cost you something.
Speaker: He says that people of faith are to be generous and sacrificial and to be willing servants. That's not an easy way to live, but it's a beautiful way.
Speaker: And even under the threat of persecution for centuries, followers of Jesus have faced the most broken parts of life and they've given sacrificial love and they've had mercy on people. And it makes a difference, but it's not easy.
Speaker: This is the way of Jesus. And how Christians deal with struggle says a lot about our faith. Now, sometimes our struggles are our own making.
Speaker: Other struggles are simply the result of living in a broken world. The cause is far less important than how you respond to it though. The key is to learn to struggle well.
Speaker: And few have done this better than King David. Again, far from a perfect person, but one who had a heart and knew to return to the right thing.
Speaker: He was anointed by God to be the next king of Israel, but unfortunately, Saul wasn't ready to give up his throne.
Speaker: He saw David as a threat. And so David spent years running for his life. Some biblical scholars say David might have spent seven to 10 years on the run.
Speaker: Even though David was God's rightful king. Seven to 10 years on the run. And as you can imagine, David was pretty frustrated with his life.
Speaker: He and his men spent a lot of time in caves. They subsisted on simple food they could find. And a few different times, David had a chance to take Saul's life, but he wouldn't do it.
Speaker: He didn't want to be like Saul. He didn't want revenge to become, to he didn't want to become revenge. David didn't want his struggle to turn into murderous jealousy of his king. Here's an important point.
Speaker: David didn't deserve anything that was happening to him. If anything, David did all he could to protect King Saul and to honor King Saul. And yet he still faced these troubles.
Speaker: So how how did he learn to cope with this? And how did he respond? Well, he cried out to God all the time. And most of the time, it was in song.
Speaker: have an example from Psalm 142. He says, I cry out to the Lord. I plead for God's mercy. I pour out my complaints before him and I tell him all my troubles.
Speaker: In fact, there's countless examples of David pouring out his grief and his trials and his pain and his troubles to God in the Psalms. But he doesn't seem to stay there for long because in nearly all these Psalms, David still manages to conclude by giving God his praise and his devotion.
Speaker: And many of those Psalms would have been written when David was on the run.
Speaker: when he was living in caves. David sent those years ah spent those years of struggle being refined and God is turning him into a poet and a musician. He was getting him ready to be a philosopher and a king.
Speaker: His struggle was real, but so was God. So what about you? Can you see God working in your life as well? you sense that God is with you even when you struggle?
Speaker: Can you learn to focus on God instead of just focusing on your giants? Well, next week is Jubilee Sunday. And on that Sunday, you're going to be invited to take your eyes off your giants and to put them on the Lord.
Speaker: To focus on how God has blessed you. And then your family is going to be invited to come up and to place your special Jubilee gift. At Messiah, we like to say, together, we make an extraordinary difference.
Speaker: Messiah is filled with people who are embracing generosity so that we can make a real difference. Because giving and generosity are not the same thing. So what are the barriers? What are the things that get in the way of people being generous? A big one is how you view your money. Are you an owner or a manager?
Speaker: Is it yours or is it God's? Well, it's God's. And according to one of Jesus's parables, he doesn't want you to bury it in the sand. He wants you to invest it. to be responsible for it.
Speaker: And the most common thing God says about money is be generous with it.
Speaker: Another barrier we have is debt. The key to eliminating debt is to spend less than you make. Now I know that sounds obvious, but a lot of people think, no, I just need to make more. The problem is if you go ahead and spend more, you stay in debt.
Speaker: The German root for the word debt is the same as the word for guilt.
Speaker: Debt can feel like guilt. So if you're struggling with keeping a budget or if you're struggling to really trust God with your finances, you're struggling to learn how to be a generous giver, i would say just stop and start by counting your blessings.
Speaker: How has God blessed you in this past year? And how is God calling you to be a blessing? Andy Stanley has a quote I like. He says, what you fear most will determine whether you merely save for the future or give for the future.
Speaker: So this is what we're asking, three things. Number one, ah know what you give and grow what you give. Know what you give and grow what you give. Number two, if you can turn in a pledge card.
Speaker: And then number three, bring your special gift on Jubilee Sunday. That is all next week. I started by saying David was a man after God's own heart. what it would What would it be like to be a church of people with that kind of heart?
Speaker: A church with that kind of generosity. Imagine the difference we can make. um As you continue reading through the Old Testament, you'll notice ah the kings that did a good job tended to be ones who had a heart like David's.
Speaker: um Then there's others who they're just deplorable. And here's the thing. All of these are grandsons and great-grandsons of David. But not all of them had his heart.
Speaker: You fast forward a couple hundred years from David and you get to his great-grandson Hezekiah. He watched as the northern kingdom Israel was ransacked by the Assyrians, the modern Syria, syriaria the Assyrians.
Speaker: And he knew Judah, the southern kingdom was next. So what did he do? Did he strengthen his military?
Speaker: Did he make alliances with other nations? Did he make economic sanctions? No. Those are earthly human answers to spiritual problems.
Speaker: And he knew they had a spiritual problem. He knew you couldn't fight the devil with the treaty. Hezekiah turned his people back to the scriptures, the story of their people and everything that God had done for them.
Speaker: And then he had them pray. And then he had them worship. He knew their only hope was to be fully devoted to God because a house turned against God cannot stand.
Speaker: In fact, he's the rare king who listened to the Lord's prophet and Isaiah himself, around 700 BC, personally cared for and spiritually fed King Hezekiah.
Speaker: And the king realized the value of worship and he instituted a sweeping return to a biblical practice, tithing. And he called on everyone to give the first fruits of their grain, their wine, their olive oil, their honey, and everything else.
Speaker: And he called on them to give generously. And they found that they had more. The result, Hezekiah spent the rest of his reign in peace and prosperity for his people.
Speaker: And even with some of his previous enemies. Repentance was important, but it wasn't enough. The people had to follow God. And God was a generous God.
Speaker: And he needed his people to be a generous people. This is going to be really important for us to reconcile as Christians. We serve a God of forgiveness. Yes.
Speaker: Love. Yes. And generosity. Why would we ever think that we can tap into his favor and his blessing and yet conduct ourselves any differently than he does?
Speaker: The cross is the ultimate act of generosity. Jesus gave his life in order to give you eternity. He didn't give some. He gave all.
Speaker: Now, the church around the world and the church, especially in the U.S., experienced a lot of decline. I think we're at kind of a similar place as Hezekiah. We've lost some influence.
Speaker: have a thought. Nobody cares about what you believe
Speaker: until they see if you actually love. Judah experienced revival when they returned to generosity. They got over the barriers that were weighing them down and they found God.
Speaker: And they didn't go halfway with God. God, you can have my worship. You can have my devotion. can have my prayer, just not my money.
Speaker: God called me to build churches that lost people love to attend. Not keep the organization alive on life support, but a church on mission to share the gospel of Jesus Christ. A church that my friends would be proud to come to.
Speaker: a church that all of you would be proud to bring your friends to. Friends who didn't know God like we know God. ah Friends who were searching for something bigger. Churches that believed in the power of the cross to forgive sins and to bring eternal life to all who believe.
Speaker: They would see saved people serving people. They would see faith and real life intersecting together. And that's the kind of church Messiah is being made into, ah church that makes an eternal difference, a church that makes sure that hell is empty and that heaven is standing room only. Amen?
Speaker: Amen. Please come back on Thursday with your kiddos as Ms. Hannah and Ms. April present chapter 11 in kids form with normal goes a long way for kids.
Speaker: I have a programming note about next week, no new episodes. So on April 1st and April 3rd, you usually get two new episodes, but next week we are not going to be releasing episodes, but join us the week of April 7th for two new episodes of normal goes a long way and normal goes a long way for kids.
