AUG 20 2017 | The Giant Series S1E16

Sea Change Church · The Giant Series S1E16 · Adam Stadtmiller · August 20, 2017
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

Early in the morning, David left the flock in the care of a shepherd, loaded up and set out as Jesse had directed. He reached the camp as the army was going out to its battle position, shouting the war cry. Israel and the Philistines were drawing up in their lines facing each other. David left his things with the keeper of supplies, ran to the battle lines and asked his brother how they were.

As he was talking to them, Goliath, the Philistine champion of Goth, stepped out from his lines and shouted his usual defiance. And David heard it. Whenever the Israelites saw the man, they all fled from him in great fear. Now the Israelites had been saying, do you see how this man keeps coming out? He comes out to defy Israel. The king will give great wealth to the man who killed him.

He will also give his daughter in marriage and will exempt his family from taxes in Israel. David asked the men standing near him, what will be done for the man who kills this Philistine and removes this to grace from Israel? Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God? They repeated to him what they had been saying and told him, this is what will be done for the man who kills him.

When Eliab, David's older brother, heard him speaking with the men, he burned with anger and asked him, why have you come down here? And with whom did you leave those few sheep in the wilderness? I know how conceited you are and how wicked your heart is. You came down only to watch the battle. Now what have I done, said David? Can't I even speak?

He then turned away to someone else and brought up the same matter and the men answered him as before. What David said was overheard and reported to Saul and Saul sent for David. And David said to Saul, let no one lose heart on account of this Philistine. Your servant will go and fight him. And Saul replied, you're not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him.

You're only a young man. And he has been a warrior from his youth. But David said to 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 and struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. And 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 rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine. Saul said to David, go and the Lord be with you. This is the word of the Lord.

Right on. Good morning, church. Good to have you all. Today we're going to be talking about a conditioned response. We all tend to have conditioned responses. It's a dance that we develop in our lives in regard to when certain triggers happen in our life or certain situations happen in our life, when relationships go a certain way. And we can look back sometimes and see that over and over again, we have danced the same dance to the same tune for three decades.

And to all of you that are young and haven't made it to three decades yet, let me just say three decades of doing the same thing over and over again will sneak up on you very quickly. Some of us know that already. How do we change the dance? How do we change the conditioned response from living one that perhaps is dysfunctional? I went and saw Hamlet this week and I walked in.

I thought it was really funny. I said, Hamlet? I thought this was Hamilton. What? And everyone looked at me. I thought it was funny. Three hours. Long. Long. That's a lot of Hamlet nonetheless. Dysfunctional family, Hamlet. I don't know if anybody's seen that or read it. Not real functional. Some conditioned responses. What is interesting as we look at David is David had a response that was to being taunted by the biggest giant, the most well-known giant in human history, I would say.

His response was conditioned through his life as a shepherd. And he had a different translation of the events than perhaps the Israelites did. And we see that, that they had a different response under Saul, the people under Saul, than David had. And so, once again, in this sermon, we're going to be taking the book of 1 Samuel and using it as a mirror.

Now, this is our penultimate week in the book of 1 Samuel. We'll be finishing the talks on David and the giant series this week and then moving into the contentment series, which we're very excited about. Three weeks on contentment and building a culture of contentment in your life. But looking at King David now in this sermon and using it to say, hey, where are some ways I need to recondition my life?

So that when those opportunities come, the forks in the road, and they come every day, you will have a different response, a different trigger response to what happens and will be something that honors God. And I was a late bloomer growing up. I don't know about any of the rest of you. I was not eighth grade, the kid with the beard. I remember my brother, for eighth grade Christmas, got a razor.

He got, our parents got him the Norelco. I think it was Norelco. It was a razor. He could shave in eighth grade. That was not me. I couldn't shave until I was 25. Couldn't connect the beard. I still have a little bit of a, you know, kind of a thin area. I don't know if I'll ever get there. But he was not a late bloomer. He was tall. I think he grew, was it four inches, Albie, in one summer?

Yeah, four inches in one summer. That hurts. That can be painful. When I was 16 years old, my driver's license, I was 5'8", 145 pounds. So in high school, 16 years old, driving the car around. Now, by the time I was in college, I was 6'1". By the time I graduated college, I was 6'4". And as my friend would say, you really didn't get your man strength, Adam, until you were 25.

Now, I like the term man strength. I like that. It just made me feel cool. It's just not great in high school to be that guy, you know. Just baby face, small. And I would say, for all the bravado that I might have thrown out, I was pretty cowardly back in the day. I didn't get into many fights. I was better at avoiding fights. Still am. But not afraid to go toe-to-toe anymore like I was.

And I had two times where I was beat up and offered no response. It was a conditioned response. And I don't know where it came from, but actually that needed to be switched. And I'll tell you, I was playing for Francis Parker. I was in the locker room, and we had this one mean kid. He was a redhead kid. My best friend's redhead, which is interesting.

But this guy was red hair. And he looked like that kid from the Christmas story. Remember that kid? With the beady little eyes, you know what I mean? And I don't know if I remember his name. But nonetheless, he was mean. Right? No, not from the movie. From high school. And we were in at halftime. And I walked past him. There was nobody else in the locker room.

And he called me over to him. And there's nobody in the locker room to impress. Nobody else. And I was standing there. And he was like a little man. You know what I mean? In high school, those little men, they're like 16, but they look like they're 35, you know? He was on the wrestling team. And he was mean. He was just mean. And I remember two or three times he knocked kids out, you know, before we did the concussion protocols.

Like I remember one time going in at the half, and the kid was still knocked out who he had hit. He was our free safety. And we won the championship that year, probably because of him. But he called me over, and he looked at me and said some explicatives to me. I think that's how you pronounce it. And spit in my face. Right? No, it's not great. Now, you are a bully, right?

Like that is, if no one is around, I've seen some spitting. I've seen some pushing, you know, that happens. My daughter said there was a fight at middle school today. And I said, was it a fight or was it a push fight? And she goes, no, it was a fight. I said, did they swing or did they just push? I said, it was a push fight. Way different, okay? It was a push fight.

I told her, if anybody ever pushes you, end the fight with a real fight. Well, no, I didn't say that. I said, right there. Right there. Tip of the nose, right? Yeah, nonetheless. So my views on self-defense, I won't preach from the pulpit. Nonetheless, let's draw that one back. And I remember just walking back out, and I thought, this cat is a bully.

And I didn't want to mess with him. And I knew he would beat me up. You know, there's so many times in my life right now, I would love to go back to that situation. I would rather take a really good beating than have someone spit in my face with no response. I'm just to that point in my life. I would rather be beat down to a pulp than have that.

So this is this area of shame that I've worked through. My counselor, we've worked through it, so you don't need to bring it up to me later. I'm way bigger than him now. Like, I finally got big, you know what I mean? But conditioned response. I had a conditioned response. I didn't have, I don't know if it was self-respect. I don't know what it was.

But I, you know, perhaps I could have had a more godly response. I don't know. But my response was to put my tail between my legs, to go back out on the field. And I don't think I had a good second half. I'm just saying, I don't think I had a good second half. David has a different conditioned response to these things. And David hears things differently.

David sees the playing field differently. David hears the things that Goliath says. He has a different translator in his life. When Goliath says things, it computes differently in David's mind and in his soul. And offers him the ability to have a different response. Some very powerful things. We're going to look at four of them. The first is going to be a conditioned response.

Israel's response to the, if you'll look in your notes, Israel's response to the threats of Goliath was to flee. Now this was a top-down thing. We know that Saul was a fleer. The day they anointed him king, where did they find him? Hiding in the baggage. Hiding amongst the Versace. Hiding amongst, you know, the Samsonite. That's where they found him.

What is interesting, if you look at this, and Elliot shared it with me this week, is that David didn't hide amongst the baggage, but when he came to fight Goliath, it says that he left all of his things in the care of the baggage attendant. One king hides in the baggage, and the other uses it for what it's for, to put your baggage there and to go fight giants.

A conditioned response. A different soul that was fashioned on a day-to-day commitment. I believe that hearts are not fashioned in a moment. Although on occasion, God, like with Saul, can give you a new heart. But a heart for God is not a one-time event. And so David had the ability to hear things differently. Let's continue to move. Israel's response to the threats of Goliath was to flee, hide, and then show up again next day and do it all over again.

Did you see that? For 40 days, they had come to and listen to Goliath's taunts, and then flee and hid. They would flee and then hide and come back the next day and do it again. Oh, how that hurt when I read that. Because I realized how often I do that. Once again, three decades of the same dance, three decades of the same response in your marriage, the same response over and over again will come very quickly upon you.

And oftentimes, we're in that dance because it offers something to us. If you want to come for marriage counseling and meet with me, I usually do no more than three appointments because I'm not a marriage counselor. I'll try to give a few insights. But my job here is not to do marriage counseling as much. But on occasion when I do, a lot of times, one of the spouses will come and say, well, this is happening, and this person does this and that.

And I said, well, how long has that been happening? And I'll hear, oh, 20 years. And my answer will be, well, what are you getting from it? And they don't like that. And it'll generally be, well, I get nothing out of this. I'm like, well, then why have you been doing it for 20 years? Like, there must be, well, he treats me like a child. Well, then you don't have to make any decisions for yourself, right?

It tends to be a payoff, right, for all the things that we allow to happen in our lives. Not always, but let's say sometimes. Usually, marriages are a two-person dance. Sometimes we allow the mother-in-law in, and it's a three-person dance. But nonetheless, they did it over and over again. Verse 20 and 21. 20, 20B through 21. It's on the screen, probably.

He reached the camp as the army was going out to its battle positions. And what's the point of going out to battle positions if you're just going to flee? You know, and a lot of us do that. A lot of puffery, self-puffery. But in the end, if push comes to shove, you're going to be like me in the locker room. You're going to get spit in the face.

You'll just go back and hide again. But you'll do a lot of, you know, self-puffery in the beginning to do that. And so they go out to their battle positions. I don't know why. The shouting the war cry. And how often, maybe you're the person that loves, you know, when the trigger moment comes, the crossroads, you do a lot of war cry shouting. People tend to like to be loud, and they like to use whether there's certain language to control.

Language is a great way to control. But in the end, like myself, many of us just behind the scenes are just cowards. And we do that. And you'll find that with bullies a lot. They tend to taunt. They tend to speak loudly and tell you who you are and what you are. And they don't want to often fight in open conflict. We'll see that in just a moment.

Israel and the Philistines were, verse 21, Israel and the Philistines were drawing up to their lines, and they were facing each other. In the notes, you'll see Israel had a high tolerance for being taunted and showed up every 40 days, excuse me, every day for 40 days, to hear the threats of the enemy, only to do nothing about it. A high tolerance.

I had a high tolerance for being taunted. And I ask you, what's your tolerance for being taunted by the enemy? The little threats that he gives you, what he tells you about yourself, the thoughts that he tries to put in your head. I mean, what's your tolerance? Do you have a high tolerance? I know in the past I've had a high tolerance for believing things about myself that the Bible say are incorrect.

The Bible has a complete different understanding of my belovedness, of who I am to God as a child of the King. But I will show up on a regular basis and just accept what the world says or what the enemy says. This is just a question for you. How high is your tolerance? I want to say that I have been trying really hard, my wife and I, in the culture of our home and working with our children, to have a very low tolerance for things that are untrue about my position in God and who God has called me to be.

What's your tolerance? Are you Israel or are you David? David heard a taunt one time and he took matters into his own hands, into God's hands. He put matters into God's hands, excuse me, and he went off immediately. It just took David one taunt. One taunt. Just one. Low tolerance for being taunted and believing the filth and the low thoughts that the enemy will try to tell you about yourself.

You'll never be this. You'll never do that. You aren't this. God doesn't love you. Your sin cannot be forgiven. On and on we all have our tapes. That's powerful. Israel had a conditioned response. And here's their condition in verse 24, their response. Whenever the Israelites saw the man, that's Goliath, they all fled from him in great fear. So lots of puffery going out.

Lots of going to the battle positions. Lots of yelling. But in the end they're going to do the same thing every time. And I will tell people oftentimes in counseling that we have people that will come out and they will use lots, whatever tool is necessary. If guilt doesn't work to control you, then they'll use fear. If fear doesn't work to control you, they'll use silence.

If silence doesn't work to control you. I mean, I find that dysfunctional people like in Hamlet have a whole bat belt, a bat utility belt of dysfunctional tools. And they will just try to find, they'll keep button pushing, button pushing. The enemy does this as well. The devil, the devil. And will button push until you finally go back to the conditioned response.

Just hopefully you're tired of hiding in the baggage. That's all I got to say. Hopefully we build a church here who's tired of hiding in the baggage. Whether it be the baggage of your own emotions or believing what the enemy says and not stepping out to do what God has called you to do. Whenever the Israelites saw the man, they all fled from him in great fear.

And in your notes you'll see this. And this is true for the enemy because he's a creature of darkness. The devil is a creature of darkness. The devil avoids open conflict whenever possible. Okay? If you know, in Spiritual Warfare 101, the enemy is a, he thrives in shadow. He thrives in taunting. He thrives in boasting. This is key. You might want to underline this.

He would rather taunt you into repetitious inaction or tempt you to self-inflicted wounds. That is straight up Spiritual Warfare 101. Okay? And then we keep self-inflicting the wounds and blaming the devil for it. Oh, you know, it's the enemies of this, enemies of that. It's always somebody else's fault. Well, can we just find anyone in society that's willing to take responsibility for their own actions?

The devil has zero power over you because the scripture says that God will allow you the opportunity every single time you are tempted to get out. The enemy only has power that we allow because we are under God's covering. Or if God says, I will allow it for a season. God does not tempt, but he allows on occasion the enemy, us to be in situations so that we might be tested, persevered for a greater strength because perseverance in the end leads to hope, the scripture says.

I just want to read it again because it's good. The devil avoids open conflict whenever possible. He doesn't want you to pray. That will put the battle on the front lines. It will take it from, uh, inact and he'll start doing his thing when he does that. He'll start taunting you more, trying to cause little things, whatever he can do to get you to stop praying, to stop at offering forgiveness, to stop worshiping, whatever he can do, he will try to, as it says, taunt you into repetitious inaction or tempt you to self-inflicted wounds.

If you have a Twitter account, tweet that. Put it in your spiritual pipe and smoke it. They didn't like that so much at family camp. They were a little conservative up there. That's more of a, you know, you go to a charismatic or a Pentecostal conference, they laugh at that one. They're, ah, it's hilarious. You know, the more conservative of the stream, but we're about midway, so I like that.

Lost in translation. We got some full-blown Pentecostals here. We got, we got the whole gamut and I like that. I like a church that's mixed. Number two, lost in translation. This is so key. I mean, ah, when I, when I prepare the sermon, certain ones really stick out to me. And I just love this. You know, Google has a translate option, right? Google Translator.

You can translate any sentence you want into any known language that they have. You can put it in Polish. You can put it in, in British. I'm just kidding. They don't have that one. I just said that for my British friends that are here today. We have a few in the crowd today, so I'm excited about that. Put it into Cockney, you know, Queens English.

There's a translator, there's a translator option. I want to say that you have a translator option. When anything is said to you, when you hear anything, even when you hear the news, okay, you have the ability to translate that into a lot of different options for your life. And what I like to do is use the Bible and the Holy Spirit to filter everything I hear through so that I can translate it different.

David had a different set of ears. David had a different set of eyes and a different set of heart, and he had the ability to use David translate in order to get a different, to hear something different that the situation that he was in, that Israel was in, was translated and the answer computed differently than Israel heard it. That's powerful.

Israel heard Goliath taunts and believed them to be true, while David heard his God being offended and a call to vanquish his foe. Israel heard Goliath taunts and believed them to be true, while David heard his God being offended and a call to vanquish his foe. How did that happen? How does one little kid show up, everybody else hears we're going to be destroyed, everyone else hears we're going to be the servants of the Philistines, everyone else hears all the shouting of the world.

And right now, there's a lot of shouting going on in the world. Awful lot of shouting. This is going to happen. This is going to happen. If you don't have the ability to translate what you see happening in the world, and not only in our society, it's not the worst it's ever been. I mean, if you've studied history, humankind has the incredible ability to do a lot of bad stuff.

World War II was pretty bad and on and on, and you go all the way back through history. But if you don't have the ability in this age to translate what is happening on the street, in the world, with the Bible and with the Holy Spirit, you're going to be so desperate. You're going to be a desperate person being flung back and forth from the reports of the world.

The reports of the, whether it be the media, whether it be your best friend who is giving you something, whether it be a family member who's telling you something about yourself that's not true. How is your translator? If you're not spending time with the source of all translation, who makes all things new and gives truth to all things. So when you hear something, take it to the Lord and say, Jesus, in Scripture, is this true?

What is actually happening right now in society? Where are you moving? And as I know, the Scripture says, God is leading his church in a, what, triumphal procession. I don't think he's like, you know, back hiding in the baggage right now. And I don't think God looks at the headlines and goes, what are we going to do? What are we going to do? There's a different translation.

And it says, when you see these things happening in the world, which Jesus foretold 2,000 years ago, I've said it over and over again. He says, look up. For your day of redemption is near. A different response. A different translator. David asked the men in verse 26. Here's his translation. David asked the men standing near him, what will be done for the man who kills this Philistine and removes the disgrace from Israel?

Who is, that's one of my top five verses, who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God? Powerful. Powerful. I gotta say, this whole deal about translation is a new thought for me. I guess I've always thought about it, but in this context, in this scripture, really came alive for me. And I really want it to be on the front burner of my life.

Especially in an age where there's a lot of chaos in the society. Let's go to part number three. David silences the haters and carries on. Verse 28 through 30, he's got some people that are trying to discourage him. Discourage. To take away the courage through discouragement. His oldest brother, Eliab, and then also Saul himself says some things that would cause him to perhaps want to hide in the baggage or go back to a conditioned response.

For some reason, whether it be a lion, whether it be a bear, or whether it be a giant, David had a conditioned response that allowed him to translate things through the eyes of God, to not be discouraged, and rather to thrust him into not only facing the giant that was in front of him, but using it to encourage others because he brings all of Israel along with him.

And we will see that as you get free, oftentimes other people get free in your wake. God does that. He has an ability to exponentially increase your blessing. And so when God gets you free from alcoholism, when God gets you free from sexual addiction, when God gets you free from low self-esteem, when God fill in whatever your deal is here, you will have the ability to, as it says, I believe it's Corinthians, to take the comfort that you have received and offer it to other people.

That is how you live beyond the best you that you could be. Hamlet says, be true to thy own self. The last person I want to be true to is myself. I found what that looks like early on in life. I want to be true to my own God and God to give me the ability to live beyond the best me. So many of the speakers of our day, the motivational speakers will say, be the best you you can be.

It's the last thing. If I'm the best me that I can be, why do I need God? And so what I feel, the scripture is saying, be eternally great beyond what you could ever be by collaborating everything you do with God because when he kisses it, it lasts forever. David has the ability then to silence these discouragers. When Eliab, this is verse 28 and 30 for you of those online.

And when Eliab, David's oldest brother, heard him speaking with the men, he burned with him in anger and asked him, now he's jealous, right? Because remember he got passed over for the kingship a few chapters ago. Why have you come down here? And whom did you leave those few sheep in the wilderness with? That is just such an awesome taunt, right? It's like, come on, I'm here fighting the battle.

You just got a few sheep, even though he's killed a bear and a lion. He said he grabbed the lion by the mane or something and killed it, so awesome. Why have you come down here? And whom do you leave those few sheep with? I know how conceited you are and how wicked your heart is. You just came down to watch the battle. Now, remember, this isn't God's translation of David's heart.

Remember, the whole reason David has an eternal kingdom that lasts forever is because he collaborated with God and God said he was a man after my own heart and David had a heart after God. I got to say that the translator that Eliab was working did not work. Matter of fact, it says God, remember what it said about Eliab? When Samuel came to him, it says, this is not the king.

God has rejected him. It was a strong statement, but now we're seeing why. Because once again, God doesn't look at the stature of the individual, but the stature of the heart and the territory of the heart is the currency of the kingdom of God. So in verse 29, now what have I done, said David, can I even speak? So he said that, and instead of just going back to the few sheep, he turned away and went to someone else and brought up the same matter.

Persistence. You see the persistence there? His older brother shut him down. Basically, he's telling him, go back to the sheep. And he's like, no, I got to take care of business. So he just went to somebody else. He was determined, determined to serve his God. And the man answered him as before. David would not allow, as you'll see in your notes, David would not allow others to discourage him.

I think it's good to decompartmentalize that word, or to compartmentalize it, excuse me, to have discouragement. David's courage is being dissed. Discouragement, that's more of a new translation right there. Discouragement from the oldest brother in verse 28, and then from Saul in verse 33. If you go to verse 33 in your notes, if you turn the page back over, you'll see that Saul replied, you're not able to go out against this Philistine to fight him.

You're only a young man. And he's been a warrior from his youth. Saul had an inability to see that David was also a warrior. David's courage amidst discouragement encouraged others. This is so key. If you can change your response to move forward when you are being taunted or discouraged, you will have the ability to release others in freedom in your wake.

Look what David says in verse 32. It's so powerful. If you want to be a person that changes people's lives, change your own life. I've met a lot of people that are in self-help work, but their lives are falling apart. Like the whole thing, I want to help people, I want to help people. The best way to help people is to change your life. Because God will bless you in a way that allows you to have an overflow.

And then you will start working beyond the margins of your own limited gifting. I always want to highlight the gifting. You're so gifted. You have a great gift. You can do this. You can do that. Compared to eternity, what are your gifts? We have got to start working with eternal material. Eternal material that is spiritually nuclear in nature, that once it starts a chain reaction, it continues to quantify and expand like the universe does itself.

Why is the universe still expanding? Because when God touches something, it continues to expand. It continues to have his work and to go on. God wants to do that and allow you to work in eternity with the tools that are the weapons of our warfare that you can be remembered in eternity. Not you, but what you did. Your works will be remembered because they have the kiss of God upon them.

If you want to help others, help yourself. Start with the first corner that we talk about in this church, the corner of your heart. Begin to ask God to heal you from brokenness. Begin to ask God, God, I love this sin. Please change my heart. Please give me the ability to take this away. I don't want to ask forgiveness for it. I want to keep doing it.

I enjoy it. And just be honest with God. He knows where you're at anyways. Why not be honest with him? Verse 32, David said, let no one lose heart. Don't you love that? No one. I'll tell you what, when I beat this giant, I'm taking you all with me. One of the things we said here at the beginning in the first year I was here when the Israelites crossed over the Jordan, everybody went through.

We're not leaving behind any generation in this church. We are multi-generational at this church. We're not just focusing on young families and kids and 18 to 35 year olds or millennials. We're focusing on the whole package because God doesn't give up on any generation. One of the things I see on a regular basis, and I'm up on my soapbox right now, is churches saying, what about the next generation, the next generation?

I feel like God hasn't forgot about the other generations. And I want to continue to reach people in their 90s. I want to continue to reach people in their 80s. I want to continue to reach them in the crib, whatever it takes as a church, that we can have a multi-generational approach and not everybody on stage has to have great hair, be 24 years old and shiny white bleached teeth.

We don't have to have that. I don't bleach my teeth, but nonetheless, I should. Drink a lot of coffee. That was my soapbox. For you who are listening online, I was climbing the pulpit again, which I do on occasion. Verse 26, excuse me, we see at the end there, verse 32, let no one lose account on the Philistine. Your servant will go and fight him. Hey, don't lose heart.

I'm going to fight this battle. I'm not saying you're the savior of the world to everybody because that gets tiring as well. Jesus isn't asking you to be the savior of the world, okay, or to be the martyr of the world and to go throw yourself on every sword. He's saying, just do what I call you to. Retranslate, go out and make a difference and others will come with you.

Fix yourself and others will come in that. Now the final one, I love this point too. David knew before he went into the battle, he was in need of rescue. This is the final point. We are circling the tower. They have called me to come and land this thing. In the need of rescue, before he went into the battle, David knew he was going to have to be rescued.

I love that. I love that he didn't go in, hey, I'm going to go take care of business and I'm going to do it all on my own. He basically admits, and we'll see in the scripture here, I'm going to go do this and God's going to rescue me. What is that saying? It's saying that if God doesn't rescue me, I am not going to survive this. He assumed the rescue before he went in.

He assumed the need for God before going in. If you go down to your notes, it says this, David understood that he would be in need of a rescue from this battle. The willingness to throw yourself into a worthy battle for God's sake, knowing that if he does not come to the rescue, that you will be destroyed, is a mark of great spiritual faith and maturity.

It is the ability to live beyond control and in dominion. Wow. I'm just going to read it, the verses 33 through 37. Saul, as we saw, excuse me, it's 33, it says, you will not be able to go out against this Philistine and fight for him. You're only a young man, and he has been a warrior from his youth. But David said, your servant has been keeping his father's sheep.

That's just a faithful little job. Maybe God's given you just a few sheep. Just keep your sheep well. Just whatever God has given you, no matter how small, God does not measure something by the amount of influence or the size of the platform. I had dinner with a couple this week, and he said, you know, I just can't, I know I'm going to be really satisfied once God takes me to this level.

And I said, wait a second. If you're living with that type of mentality, you're never going to be satisfied when you get to that level. Because there's always another level to go to. Are you satisfied with a few sheep? And are you willing to sit in the back row until God calls you to the back row? And are you willing to be satisfied and content, even if he never calls you to the front row?

It says, your servant has been keeping your father's sheep. When a lion or a bear came, he carried off the sheep from the flock. It went after it. I went after it and struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. Wow. When it turned on me, I seized it by the hair, struck it and killed it. Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear. Bear. This uncircumcised Philistine would be like one of them.

Why will he be like one of them? Not because David was trying to be famous, but because he had defied the armies of the living God. Then he says, this is the key, verse 37, the Lord who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine. And let me just read that point again. The willingness to throw yourself into a worthy battle.

And pick your battles, please. Just pick your battles. Especially if you're newly married. Figure that out quick. Pick your battles. The willingness to throw yourself into a worthy battle for God's sake. Knowing that if he does not come to the rescue, that you will be destroyed. It is the mark of great spiritual faith and maturity. It is the ability to live beyond control and in dominion.

So four things we talked about today that I think are life-changing out of this scripture. And this has been a rich, rich teaching about it. We finally got to David, but I think it's been worth it. First is this. What's your conditioned response? Change your response. Change when you're triggered. Where do you go? Next, translation. How's your translator?

Perhaps you need a new translator. And the translator of God's heart, the word of God, and the Holy Spirit. Because he is the counselor, it says. And will give you the truth behind every situation. Number three, silence the haters and carry on. Knowing that you can take others with you. Don't be discouraged. And four, know this. You need to be rescued.

Absolutely. You need to just have a spiritual hearts platform of God. I need your rescue. As soon as you start taking the victory for yourself, God has this incredible way of letting you have an experience that allows you to know that you need him. Getting to a place where the scripture says you don't need a bitter bridle to lead you where God is leading you just because he has a soft heart.

And you are being led now more by whispers than by megaphones is a place that you want to get to. Remember early in my days, it was always a megaphone. I needed the megaphone of pain. I needed a megaphone of suffering. I needed some kind of megaphone. And now I want to hear the Spirit of God in his whisper. Amen? Let's stand. Let's stand. Let's stand.

Let's stand.