Meeting your Goliath: We’re continuing in our series, “Life Lessons of a King,” and how a young shepherd boy teaches us about our own Goliaths.

Goliaths still roam the world and fog our futures. It could be the Goliath of debt, the fog of yesteryear’s disaster, the Goliath of disease or depression.

Or your Goliath could be an addiction, or a habit that you just can’t break, even though it gnaws at you.

Maybe it’s an attitude that always comes upon you? Maybe it’s a job layoff, or another disaster.

Maybe it’s a gnawing problem in your marriage? Or something that you can’t resolve – like an illness.

And all of these things seem huge. In the Bible, it is said that Goliath was nine feet tall. That’s nine foot of ugly.

And sometimes our Goliaths are exactly the same.

Goliath, in the Bible, came to defy the armies of the Lord.

And the word, defy, means to taunt, to persist with, to stalk, to bite at your heels. And our Goliaths are often like that.

A bitterness that lingers… something you can’t seem to shake.

Maybe an unsettled matter from a problem in the past?

Maybe a difficult moral decision that you made in error?

And now that unsettled matter, that unsettled problem stalks and taunts you.

So, what do you do?

Do exactly as David did. He went down to the brook and got five smooth stones and put it in his shepherd’s bag.

Today, we want to talk about what you can do, and what your five “smooth stones” need to be.

Let’s read what David did:

“He took his stick in his hand and chose for himself five smooth stones from the brook, and put them in the shepherd's bag which he had ... his sling was in his hand and he approached the Philistine.” (1 Sam. 17:40)

What would the five stones be – as we face our Goliaths today? They are five decisions that you will already have had to make and have ready by the next time a Goliath rears his head.

1. The stone of THE PAST.

David’s past wasn’t all that illustrious. He was a scrawny kid and was always kept in the back and given the job of minding his father’s three sheep and the sheep of his brothers, who were always fighting up at the bloody battle as the Israeli’s continued to wage a bloody war against the Philistines.

One of David’s jobs was to run sandwiches to his brothers – that was his whole thing. And then he’d be dismissed and told to go babysit the sheep.

As you grow up, you’re going to have to deal with the good, the bad and the ugly of your past, but listen carefully; the way you reconcile your past will be the way that shapes your future.

If you don’t reconcile or make peace with your past, it will skew your motives in the present and your decisions in the future.

The way that you live, the depth of how you live, the depth of your faith, the closeness of how you walk with Christ – everything will be at risk.

The stone of your past needs to be a smooth stone.

See, David always had to stay with the sheep and I’m sure on occasions, those feelings of helplessness and frustration caused him to be more than a little upset.

Later, you know David was destined for greater things, because he was able to develop what’s known as a selective memory or a good memory.

It is the “pains of your past” that stay with you the longest, not the past itself.

And, if you’re not careful, you’ll remember everything and that will overwhelm you and leave you with only the pains of your past.

You’ll forget the good of the past and only remember the pains of your past.

Someone who has a good memory has a selective memory. In other words, you know what stuff you need to forget and what stuff you need to remember, but if you’re not careful, you’ll remember what you’re not supposed to and forget all that you need to remember.

Think about it this way, selective memory is like filling up a 50-page photo book –when you have to choose from 5,000 pictures.

You won’t choose the one that makes you look fat, or the ones that show you putting food in your mouth, or wearing that awful, dated dress.

You end up with a small stack of fifty and these are the ones you’ve selected to show the world that you are like a Baywatch Babe.

You keep the stuff you want to keep – that’s how we are.

We’d never put the discarded pictures into an album, yet that’s what we do with life and instead we should be remembering what we need to – and discarding all the bad memories.

You see, people with good memories make for heroes, and those with bad memories bring fear.

David was one who put a smooth stone for his past and he worked out issues of his past, because he knew his past needed to be reconciled.

And if he did not, he would remember things wrongly.

He was in the sheepfold, swinging his sling, shooting at a tree, probably thinking he was only killing time, but then a lion came to attack the sheep and David jumped on it and started beating the snot out of it – until it lay dead.

And then, not long after, a bear came to the pen and killed a few of the sheep before David killed the bear, too.

Now, he could have said, “God, what is this? Here I am trying to listen to You, so I can obey the commands of my father, and here You are allowing a lion and bear to try killing me. What kind of moral god would do that?”

He could have interpreted his past in that way, but what he didn’t know was that God was using his situation and location as a training ground for his duel with the Philistine giant.

His past was about to shape his future – either for good or for evil.

It’s not what happens to you that shapes you, it’s how you deal with them that defines you.

Use a smooth stone for your past – you have to work it out.

“David said, ‘The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.’” (1 Sam. 17:37).

Sometimes we can’t trust people, but we can trust Jesus in people and if you can reconcile your past, it will be a smooth stone in your bag.

The second stone or decision we need is …

2. The stone of PREPARATION.

The Bible says, “The three older sons of Jesse had gone after Saul to the battle ... David was the youngest. Now the three oldest followed Saul, but David went back and forth from Saul to tend his father's flock at Bethlehem. The Philistine came forward morning and evening for forty days and took his stand” (1 Sam. 17:13-16).

And during these forty days, David was running to and from his brothers, delivering blocks of cheese and other needed supplies.

But after this, he would again be sent to the sheep pen, where frustrations were taken out through hours of slingshot practicing.

Sometimes we think what we’re doing is so mundane, but God is preparing us with the “ingredient” we will need at a future time to make a miracle happen.

And if we’re not careful, we’ll think that what we’re doing is so redundant but God will say that it’s not redundant, it’s divinely required.

And it was on the backside of a desert that God placed everything needed that would be found for a season of preparation.

When God wanted a king, he didn’t look toward an Ivy League college, he looked in the dessert and found a little boy who was willing to prepare when no one else was looking.

It is in preparation that you build the integrity of the heart. I can’t imagine how many times David was struck down with the stress of the whole situation, but he kept overcoming the many moments when he wanted to quit.

There are a lot of people in positions of authority that have never taken the time to build that integrity, so their heart is tenuous, because they have not chosen the smooth stone of preparation.

For fun, I figured out that since I was a youth pastor, aged 22, I have preached more than 9,200 sermons and I still don’t quite have it down, yet!

Think about the hours you spend at church, at small group, in ministry work, reading your Bible. Add all this time up, and what is it preparing you for?

It’s not preparing you for your walk in Christ; it’s preparing you for the moment when you think about quitting your walk in Christ.

It’s not only for the easy times – it’s for the moments when you want to quit your marriage or your job.

That’s why we need the smooth stone of preparation.

David put that one in his bag because he knew he was going to need it.  The third stone or decision is …

 3. The stone of PERSPECTIVE.

The Israeli army was in critically bad shape when the Philistines surrounded them and this great giant came forth.

And when Goliath began taunting the armies, David overheard, and this is what he said:

“For who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God?” (1 Sam. 17:26)

Were they really the armies of the living God, though?

It is written, “When the Israelites saw that their situation was critical and that their army was hard pressed, they hid in caves and thickets, among the rocks, and in pits and cisterns” (1 Sam. 13:6).

Does this sound like the armies of the living God? No, they looked like a bunch of chickens, which is why the Philistines called them a bunch of cowards.

David had to make a choice. Either he was going to see from the enemy’s vantage point – or from God’s vantage point.

See, this is the stone of perspective. You’ll have to take a look at your life, your finances, your marriage and you’re going to have to figure out which way you will look at them because …

· What you are will determine where you will stand.

· Where you stand will determine what you will see

· What you see will determine who you will become.

Take these examples:

· If you see every inconvenience as bad… you will never see GROWTH.

Because it is often out of inconvenience that you have to practice patience, instead of impulsiveness that growth results.

· If every painful event is seen as wrong… you will never see New Birth.

· If every problem is seen as something to be avoided… you will never see MIRACLES.

· If every mistake is seen as failure… you will never experience success.

It all depends on how you see things. If you have a positive outlook, life will be better.

· If in every problem, you can see opportunity, YOU WILL ALWAYS FIND SOLUTIONS

· If you can see in every mistake a lesson, YOU WILL ALWAYS SEE MIRACLES

· And, if in every hurt you can see the cross… YOU WILL ALWAYS FIND VICTORY

You must also choose …

4. The stone of PASSION.

I love the story of the little shepherd who had the passion to stand up to a nine-foot giant. Remember, the Devil will not persist as long as you resist him.

Some people have said that we have to be nice to be everyone, but there are times when you have to stand up and resist the enemy.

“David said to the Philistine, 'You come to me with a sword, a spear, and a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have taunted. This day the Lord will deliver you up into my hands, and I will strike you down and remove your head from you.’... As the Philistine moved closer to attack him, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet him. And David put his hand into his bag and took from it a stone and slung it, and struck the Philistine on his forehead. And the stone sank into his forehead, so that he fell on his face to the ground. Thus David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone” (1 Sam. 17:45-50).

Man, I love to tell that story! I love it.

No one would have bet on the scrawny kid from Bethlehem, not his friends, not his siblings, no one except God.

God bet everything and that little lad – with the passion and honor for God – has changed the history of the world forever.

I want to encourage you to add passion to whatever it is that God’s calling you to be, because when God puts his money on you, you’ll do fine.

You will also need …

5. The stone of Persistence

You see in dealing with your past, maybe one prayer is not enough.

Maybe one apology isn’t enough?

You’ve got to stay persistent until you win.

Maybe one time a week isn’t enough to stay and grow in the faith as you read the Bible.

You’ve got to have the stone of persistence as much as any of the other stones.

Keep all the stones together and pull one out whenever you find yourself in front of a Goliath. You may not know which one it is, but you will need all of them at some stage.  David used his 5 stones to kill Goliath and “When the Philistines saw that their hero was dead, they turned and ran. Then the men of Israel and Judah surged forward with a shout and pursued the Philistines...” (1 Sam. 17:51-52).

Five stones, smooth in your pouch. When you have those, and when you meet your Goliath, you’ll always come out victorious.

Amen?

Amen!

Questions:

· What is your Goliath?

· How persistent are you?

· Which stone do you need to put into your bag?