AUG 27 2017 | The Giant Series S1E17 | 1 Samuel 17

Sea Change Church · The Giant Series S1E17 · "1 Samuel 17" · Adam Stadtmiller · August 27, 2017
1 Samuel 17
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

I have a reading from 1 Samuel 17. As the Philistines moved closer to attack him, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet him. Reaching into his bag and taking out a stone, he slung it and struck the Philistines on the forehead. The stone sank into his forehead and he fell face down on the ground. So David triumphed over the Philistines with a sling and a stone.

Without a sword in his hand, he struck down the Philistine and killed him. David ran and stood over him and he took hold of the Philistine's sword and drew it from the sheath. After he killed him, he cut off his head with the sword. When the Philistines saw that their hero was dead, they turned and ran. Then the men of Israel and Judah searched forward with a shout and pursued the Philistines to the entrance of Gath and to the gates of Ekron.

Their dead were strewn along the Shuriam road to Gath and Ekron. When the Israelites returned from chasing the Philistines, they plundered their camp. David took the Philistine's head and brought it to Jerusalem. He put the Philistine's weapons in his own tent. As Saul watched David going about to meet the Philistine, he said to Abner, commander of the army, Abner, whose son is that young man?

Abner replied, as surely as you live, your majesty, I don't know. The king said, find out whose son that young man is. As soon as David returned from killing the Philistine, Abner took him and brought him before Saul. With David still holding the Philistine's head, whose son are you, young man? Saul asked him. David said, I am the son of your servant, Jesse of Bethlehem.

Word of the Lord. Amen. Good morning, church. Good to see you all here this morning. How many of you remember the movie The Mission from the 1980s? A very powerful, just a few of you. I encourage you, if you haven't seen The Mission, to watch it. It's a really powerful movie. I'm not sure. I think it came runner-up for best picture, as I remember. But it was a very powerful movie about a man, Robert De Niro, who was a soldier in South America.

And there was a group of people that were being oppressed, and they were native to that country. And he was one of the people who was oppressing them as a soldier. And he had a lot of guilt for the things that he had done in his life. And because of that, was having a lot of inner turmoil with what he felt that his life was all about. Until he met a priest and had a dramatic experience with the risen Savior.

And just decided that he was going to give up that lifestyle and follow Christ. And to become basically a servant of these people. And one of the penance, and if you grew up Roman Catholic, you will know that there's a penance. That's especially 200, 300 years ago. Where, you know, you want to do something physically to come in alignment with the spiritual freedom that Christ has given you.

And so it is a physical representation of what you believe happened in the spirit realm. A lot of people believe that the penance was actually the thing that rescued them. But if you understand Catholic theology, you will understand that it is a representation of what they believe happened in the heavenlies. Without going through all that, his penance was to take all of his battle armor and all of his swords and shields.

And to put them on his back and to climb up along the great falls. Along the wet rocks to the very top. Which he could actually lose his life doing it. And it was an incredibly powerful scene as he wept. And basically did something in the physical realm that represented the freedom in his life that he had found. Only to find out that the people continued to be oppressed.

And he felt incredibly unable to give a response. And so the story talks about a form of theology. It came out of the Roman Catholic Church. It came out of a monastic movement. Which felt like we cannot continue to let people be oppressed. And so it was called liberation theology. And I encourage you to read about it. It is when they said sometimes we have to do a little bit more than pray.

And so this form of theology or this interpretation interpreted what Jesus said. Not saying that, you know, I'm not making any stance on whether it's right or wrong. But interpreted that they needed to take up arms in order to keep people safe. And so I'll let you watch the movie. But it is a very powerful movie. And Jeremy Irons, who plays the priest friend, disagrees with Robert De Niro.

Because Robert De Niro feels like his best, what he does best is protect people. So he is in this struggle to go back to his old ways but for better reasons this way. And then you have Jeremy Irons, who's just fantastic. Who plays a priest and says, no, that's not the way. The way of peace. C.S. Lewis wrote an article called Why I Am Not a Pacifist.

Another great article that you can read. I remember the movie Gandhi. Gandhi had a change in theology and a change in history because he was a pacifist. All of this to say, not to bring up, you know, to bring this into our climate today of what is happening in the world. But to say this, that sometimes we are way too pacifistic. Is that the word?

I'm just going to make it a word if it isn't. With the giants that come upon our own lives. Let's take this back to ourselves now. Because looking at some things that have happened in the world oftentimes allow us to talk about ourselves. And so all of us have giants in our lives. And this entire series has been about how we overcome the giants in our lives.

We had Saul with the fear of man. We had Hannah with her purpose. And was she going to submit her purpose unto God? We had Eli and Phineas and Hophni and the battle for fatherhood and how to raise children. And a giant of do you ever speak to your children or let them run roughshod over you. We've had all these different giants. Fear, anxiety, panic are the giants of our day.

Worry, control. These are all the giants of our day. And sometimes when we look at the giants of our day, of our own lives, we have a tendency to pacify them as opposed to kill them and remove them from our lives. Is that not true? We have this battle of will I really take this giant out? And we have to ask our question. It's the same question that Jesus asked a man in John chapter 5.

Do you really want to do what? Do you really want to be healed? That's a great question for us. I mean, seriously, do you really want to be healed or do you just want enough margin for yourself to get about your own business? You give God a tip of the cap. You do for God what you think, you know, is enough to appease him. But you never really give him your complete self because I believe that giants have a way of becoming close confidants of us.

Here's the thing about David. David never played with a giant. David killed giants. Let me say that again. David never danced with a giant. David vanquished giants. And he was very quick in doing so. And this was a character of David's life. That when a giant would come up and defy God and defy Israel, he would immediately attack those giants. He would immediately make a plan.

He would seek God and there would be very little hesitation before he attacked that giant. One of the things that we see is, and it passed on down through the lineage to his son, is David had a difficulty. And we'll talk about this in series two coming up in February, David the fugitive. And then our third series is going to be David the king.

So we're going to take about another year or so. And we'll get back to this first Samuel in February. But David, there was one giant that he danced with. One in his life. And it was a giant of women. He had an, even towards the end of his life, as he was dying and he was old and it said he could no longer have sexual relations with women. He couldn't keep his body temperature up.

What did they do? I think it was Abishag, the Shumanite, I think is who they got. And they went. And his people knew. We know what David's all about. So they went and found a beautiful young woman to put in bed with him to keep him warm. Because they knew how David rolled. And if you look at David's life, he continued to have this. And the thing that, the reason Solomon, his son, lost his kingdom after he died, because God kept him in the kingship for David's sake, was because he couldn't control things in his life.

And God said, do not marry foreign women. And what did he do? I think he had 700 foreign wives or something like that. I mean, homeboy was rolling, okay, when it came to that area in his life. So we see that David wasn't perfect. But when it came to the major giants that were affecting Israel, David vanquished them. In your notes, you'll say, David does not play with giants.

He kills them. Too often we have an appetite for destruction. That's an homage right there for some of you. You'll get it. We have an appetite for destruction. And our giants can become our confidants. Our giants can become our comforters. And so we have an addiction. Or we have something that, you know, in the end we want it gone in our life. But it offers us something.

And I've shared many times, even last week, about when I do marriage counseling. And they'll come in. And usually you have two people that are upset with each other. Or one person who's upset and one person who's, you know, taking the brunt of that. And the one person will say, you know, hey, they've done this. And, you know, you get your 10-minute litany of what they've done and why they're so horrible and should be shamed.

And then at the end, I'll say, how long has this been going on? 25 years. And the question is, why have you danced that dance for 25 years? Well, I had no other choice. No, no, no, no, no. What, and then the question that always gets me in trouble. Ah, I shouldn't say it. What benefit are you getting from accepting this behavior? What? Ah, I'm not getting it.

There must be some benefit, you know, of accepting. And one of the examples I've given is he treats me like a child or she treats me like a child. Well, the benefit that I get is I never have to make any decisions for myself. I can always blame them because they never let me make a decision. There is a benefit and a payoff. Our addictions have a payoff.

We like being able to manipulate our moods or whatever that thing is. And so I ask you with your giant, just ask yourself a real serious question. What's my payoff and why do I allow it to continue on in my life? We don't allow things to continue in our life that we don't somewhat enjoy. I'm not talking about things that are beyond our control, like a sickness or an illness.

But if you were to put your finger into a light socket, you would probably pull it out quickly. Very few of us would lick our finger and shove it into the socket and just sit there and go, Yeah, this is good. Give me a little more. Although I had an English bulldog. Excuse me, an English bulldog. I have a French bulldog now. The French are very interesting.

Very different between the English bulldog and the French. French. He's a little more finicky with the food. The French bulldog. A little more pretentious on walks. Nose is a little higher. No offense to the French that are here. And, you know, the one thing is I had this bulldog. And so one day I had the sockets off and I was fixing the electricity.

And I had a metal desk over the socket. And I hear, bam, and I was like, oh, what just happened? And my dog went over and licked the, that's British for you, you know what I mean? Just run right in, you know, head first. Licked the socket. And then after he licked the socket, he jumped up, obviously, because imagine putting your tongue in an electrical socket.

Hits his head on the metal table. So he gets a double knock. And then he's yelping. And then he kind of wandered around the house like this for a while. He never went back. Let me just say that. It is, you know, way better than the shot caller. Why do we go back to electrical sockets that can kill us? Why do we go back to these things? Why do we, you know, allow ourselves this?

And oftentimes with our giants, there are many people that love to be players in the drama of the giants in your life. Because when you allow this drama, you know you can get a good two-hour conversation out of this said person who will sit there and talk to you and comfort you and agree with you. We love having people that agree with us, right?

So we surround ourselves with people that agree with us. I would say if you're ever running a staff or if you're ever, you know, a business leader, one of the things you want to do is surround yourself with people of varying thoughts and opinions as you'll probably get a lot better decisions. But we tend with our giants to surround ourselves with people that comfort us.

And the giant itself can become a confidant. If you look in the notes, it also says our giants can become our identity. Until one day there is no difference between the giant and us. Wow. Our giants can become our identity. And I know with my addiction days that I woke up one morning and I said to myself when I was 19 years old, as I was laying in my bed in PB, I don't know who I am anymore.

And it's been so long since I've had a sober day, I don't remember who I am. Now that's an interesting struggle. And so this comes out of personal understanding. Let's go to the first point. David did not hesitate when seeing the opportunity to vanquish his foe. Verse 48. As the Philistine moved closer to attack him, David ran quickly. How? How did he run?

Quickly. Toward the battle line to meet him. Now this is so contrary to the Israelite armies under Saul. Saul was a king who had a lot of fear that when he was called to be king, went and hid amongst the baggage. Couldn't even show up for his own coronation. Had a lot of fear of man. Had a lot of fear of others. And he led the way in the issues that you do not heal in your life.

The giants that you allow in your life have an incredible way of being passed down as little giants that will grow in the culture of your home, in the culture of your business, in the culture of your life. They have an ability to replicate into your children's lives and so into your workplace environment, into the culture of our lives. And so we want to figure out our giants.

We want to run towards them quickly and vanquish the foe. So once again, I just want to ask you, because we're using 1 Samuel as a mirror to ask ourselves, where am I allowing the giants to remain in my life? I remember it's like, you know, I go to AA and I've gone to AA a lot in my life and different 12-step groups and different things that God has used for my healing.

And you'll hear people say, you know, well, I only drink beer now. You know, not hard alcohol. That is just alcoholic talk. If somebody says that to you, they're an alcoholic, okay? Like, just from an alcoholic, like, you know what, I used to get drunk and I have a problem, but I don't, you know, I'm just going to drink beer now. Like, it's not alcohol, you know?

So there is this talk that we have when we want to keep the giants in our lives, or I'm just going to keep some around for when guests come over, if that makes sense. Or, you know, I, you know, I had a friend that he got, you know, married, but he wanted to keep contact with, you know, a lot of his old high school girlfriends. And I kept saying to him, you know, for me, that's dangerous.

I don't know. Maybe you can do it. But for me, that's not something that I want to do. David did not hesitate. When he saw something that could jeopardize his family, when he saw something that could jeopardize his country, that could jeopardize the position of Israel, that could jeopardize his church, so to speak, he wanted to destroy it. How much courage do you have?

How much determination do you have to actually kill the giant in your life? And to quit using excuses. Recently, a person asked me to pray about, you know, different things in their life. And so I spent three weeks before I answered. I spent three weeks. And they said to me each week, you know, hey, I asked you that question. You haven't shared with me the answer yet.

And on occasion, I like to pray over things. And the thing I felt like the Lord said to me was, it's always like excuses are your giant. And so I just said to him, I said, I just feel like excuses are your giant. And whenever we meet for a counseling appointment, this person, that person, that, because of this, because of that. I mean, if you're an excuse person, there's no lack of excuses.

It's like the Internet. You know what I mean? It's infinite almost in where you can go. And so David did not hesitate, and he moved quickly towards the battle. When the opportunity or courage comes upon you to rush upon your giant, you must do so with great haste. I found that when I've attacked the giants in my life, there are moments where I have the courage to do so.

With our giants, you'll find that there's moments, there's windows where God provides an escape. And the scripture says that God will provide an escape. And I know so many times, as I look back through my history, and especially in my early Christian history, when I was trying to purify my life from things, God would give me a window of escape, and I would hesitate on purpose, because I did not want to escape through the window that he gave me.

I don't know if you've ever had that in your life. For me, it was in relationships. I would have a relationship, and God would say, it's time to end this relationship. And I would have a window to escape, but it meant doing some very difficult work. And I would hesitate and wait for that time to pass. And then it would be another three months. You know, I don't know, or you have these things.

Because I really didn't want to leave the burning building. C.S. Lewis says God doesn't want to prune the tree in your life. He wants to rip the whole tree out, the roots and all. And he wants to plant a new tree there. And so, let me just once again question your determination. How bad do you want the giant removed from your life? Or is there a little bit of comfort coming from the giant?

And do you really want it gone? I think I've come to a place in my life, especially through this series, where I'm trying to get a picture of what would it look like if there was no self-imposed giants. Now, we're always going to have giants. But like I said last week in the sermon, the devil will either try to taunt you into fleeing or tempt you into self-destruction.

And I guess I just want to get to a place in my life where my side of the street is clean. Where if there's any giants in my life, they're not of my own. I didn't invite them over for dinner. Does that make sense? You ever seen those movies where, you know, the giant gets invited over to someone's house and the giant's big and he comes into the house and he can't fit into the house and the person's having tea with the giant?

I remember seeing a movie like that. And we tend to do that. You know, giants take up a lot of space in your life. They take up a lot of space in your life. And so I really believe that today, this moment is an opportunity, a window for you to say, today's the day. Whatever it is, today is the day. God is offering you a window of escape for whatever that thing is.

And I don't know what it is. I've used the easy ones to talk about today. But we all have unforgiveness perhaps or other attitudes or whatever they would be. When the opportunity or courage comes upon you to rush upon your giant, you must take so and do so with great haste. Let's go to the second point here. I love this. This is key when killing a giant.

David left no possibility of the giant's return. I mean, he took care of business, all right? He made sure that, as it says, you'll see an accompanying scripture in 2 Corinthians 10, 4, that that stronghold was demolished. It was demolished. And I've used this illustration in the giant series. But demolishing a stronghold in the New Testament sense of the word means that God has the ability to wipe it away in such a way that there is no remnant of it left that when the spiritual archaeologists come a thousand years later to say, this person, you know, we've heard that this person had this stronghold or this giant in their life, but we can find no evidence of it anymore.

They dig and they dig and dig, but there is no evidence of it anymore. And I am not saying that I couldn't go back to drinking and things like that. One of the key principles is it's one day at a time for me, but I feel like I've gotten to the point where people will say, I can't believe that that was ever in your life. And sometimes I can't believe it either because it is so antithetical to where God has brought me now.

And maybe you have had that story as well. We had people share on Friday night, giant testimonies, and it feels like the memory of the things that they dealt with. They talked about eating disorders, having to be in relationships, being in difficult and abusive relationships, and trying to get out of those relationships where it can be difficult. We had all these different stories shared about the giants, giants of fear, giants of broken marriages.

Those were shared on Friday night. People were very real and very vulnerable. But what we have seen is that God has restored the years, the locusts have eaten away. And if you have a giant that has done great tyranny in your life, I want to say that God can heal that. I also want to say if you are related to somebody or in a relationship with somebody who has allowed a giant to come into their life, that if you can have the grace to stand beside them and believe in them, that give them the opportunity like Christ does to heal their life and to become the person that they want to be, that that takes great courage as well.

And takes a lot of forgiveness and takes a lot of patience and time. And that doesn't mean continuing to take abuse, but it does mean on occasion to say, you know what, I might need some distance here emotionally or whatever it's going to take, but I'm going to be in and I'm going to give some time for this route to take place so perhaps we can restore and have the relationship that God really wants us to have.

So we want to help people fight their giants. And you will see that as soon as David vanquished the foe, all of Israel joined in, right? Well, wouldn't it have been nice if they would have joined in a little sooner? You know, the Philistines had made a promise, right? Do you remember what the Philistines promised would happen if David killed, if Goliath was killed?

Do you remember what they promised? Said they would become their slaves, right? And it's interesting that I love when the giant starts working for you. You know, they ran, they didn't become the slaves. They didn't keep up there. He chased them all the way back to Gath and through the Valley of Allah. You know, it was only like 12 miles away from the city of Gath to Jerusalem.

The giants were in pretty, pretty close proximity. And the Philistines actually took the place of the Canaanites. They had come and defeated the Canaanites. But the giants were in such close proximity. But what I like is that eventually when David becomes king, all the giants and all the Philistines and these different people became subjects to him.

And he expanded again. His son Solomon would do so even more to where your giants begin to work for you. That's a powerful thought. Do you know that if you can vanquish the giants in your life, you can overcome them, that they can start working for you and God can turn their production exponentially into kingdom bringing, life changing, peace bringing, joy work.

Do you really want to vanquish the giants in your life? Because they will turn around as we'll see and give you plunder. We'll talk about that in a moment. And so David left no possibility of the giants return. And after he killed him, he cut off his head with the sword. Now today I brought in my 54 inch broad sword, which is so cool because I just wanted a physical.

Now, if you perhaps remember this, this hangs in the office just to let you know when you come in for a meeting how it's going to go. This is Aragorn's sword from Lord of the Rings. I'm a, you know, I'm not a science fiction guy, but I love the fantasy Lord of the Rings and stuff like that. What I love about David is even though it had said that the giant was dead, he went up and made sure the job was done.

And I want to go back and read through this here as what it says. It says, after he killed him, what did he do? He cut off his head with the sword. I got to say, he made sure that giant wasn't coming back. There wasn't like, hey, I'm going to keep a little, I'm going to keep a little wine in the cupboard just so when friends come over or I'm going to continue to go to the bar with my friends just to keep up the relationships because I don't want to break the relationships.

He cut off the giant's head and then he took his weapons from him and took them as his own. I love the fact that he did what it took to make sure that there would be no coming back for Goliath. What is that going to take? What is it going to take? And do you, I mean, if you're going to kill a giant, make sure he's dead. Make sure that that, and do whatever it takes.

Do, you know, we have, I'll tell you what I've been really good at in my life. 90% repentance. Really good at it. I don't know if anybody else is good at that. I'm so good at that because 90% repentance, I mean, it's 100% when I start, but usually within a little, you know, within a week, once the guilt kind of goes away or whatever, you know, kind of back it down to 90% and we keep a little corner in our heart open for it.

God says he knows that. He says, you know, David talks a lot. I haven't left nothing in my heart. You know, David Levy spoke about the corner of the heart and the emotions of Jesus. We talk here about the first corner we want to start with at the heart. What will it take for you to make sure that giant's dead? I called all my friends the week I got sober and I called them and said, I'm not going out anymore.

And my friend said, no, I'll see you on Friday night. Well, they did not see me on Friday night. I did not leave Point Loma Nazarene's campus. I went and sequestered myself six months. It wasn't too bad. Just surf and eat and go to class. Not a bad system. And I would go to my grandma's house. I was, meet with my grandma. We'd read the Bible together and then I would drive home.

There was nothing on weekends. When God said, I want to get your dating life straight, you know, and I had two years of not dating anyone and staying at home. I went home every single night. And like I said, I was in my prime. I was 25 years old. You know, it was like, it was go time. You know what I'm saying? And it was just me, two years of me and Sega PlayStation or Sega, whatever it was.

One that Ken Griffey baseball. A lot of boring nights, you know, and, you know, it was so interesting. The amount of correspondence that we didn't have, you know, like, I don't think people, I don't think we texted at the time or whatever back then. But the amount, the amount of opportunity that the enemy I felt brought up where I could have convinced myself, you know, it's been long enough, but God kept whispering in my heart, no.

And, you know, the next woman that I would kiss at our marriage would be my wife. And, you know, I felt like God said he redeemed that and changed that. But I had to do things that said, I had to get drastic. And sometimes if you're going to kill a giant, you've got to get drastic. You know, you've got to tell somebody. You've got to find some accountability. You've got to check yourself into the program.

You have to offer forgiveness. I don't know. You know. God will tell you. I can't give you a road map because we've got, you know, 250 different stories in the building. My question is, are you going to kill it? Are you going to let it just rest out there? One of the reasons they had parlors in old homes, I heard, is because they would put the person's body in the parlor for a week.

And you know why they did that? In case they woke up. Like that, yeah, that's what I found out. In case they, because they weren't sure always that they were dead. And so, I was watching Poldark. Anybody see that show on BBC or whatever it is? I love Poldark. And the dude wakes up after three days. And so I found that out. I want to say, don't leave a parlor in your heart.

Don't leave a parlor in your heart for the Giants in your life. This is the final week of the Giants here. We'll get back to the fugitive. But perhaps today is the day. Number three, victory brings plunder. Do you realize anything about that? We often only see the death of our Giants in our lives. We see their death, but we fail to imagine the plunder that it'll bring with it once the enemy has put us under.

Do you know that victory brings plunder? Do you know when you have victory over another, you know, an enemy, you look all through history, what do they do? You own the land, you own the resources, the Giants start working for you. You know, have you ever imagined how good your life would look if that Giant is gone? Or how positive it could be, exponentially greater, and we stop being willing to live on the scraps of what a Giant-filled life offers us.

I think that is one of the hardest things to do. But once you start living in the momentum of the blessing that comes from being free from a Giant, you will see that it'll bring plunder into your life. Bring plunder back into your life. And I look now of where I've been and where I am today, and a lot of that, obviously it's God's favor, but a lot of it has to do with God giving me the ability to kill some of those Giants in my life.

Or I would be a 45-year-old guy dealing with 15-year-old problems. And I gotta say, you know, delayed maturity, or, you know, we have a lot of adults these days, I meet a lot of 65-year-old men that are still acting like 17-year-olds. Just act like men, you know. The Bible says, act like men, although a lot of versions have removed that from the Scripture. It says act like men.

Sometimes it's time to grow up and quit being a 15-year-old boy in our life. Same for women as well. It's time to grow up. Quit living on those old giants and decide that you want some plunder. Verse 53, when the Israelites returned from chasing the Philistines, they what? Plundered their camp. Verse 25, now the Israelites had been saying, do you see how this man keeps coming out?

He comes out only to defy Israel. The king will give great wealth to the man who kills him. He will also give him his daughter in marriage and will exempt his family from taxes in Israel. That's pretty solid, right? Like, no more taxes, a great spouse, you're a member of the king's family now, wealth, powerful. I want to say there is an eternal wealth of blessing.

Some of it will be physical. You'll see it in the physical realm. Some of it will be emotional. Some of you have dealt with depression your whole life and you've blamed it on a chemical thing, but sometimes it has to do with getting healed. A broken heart oftentimes breaks the mind. And I see not all, I mean, a lot of people, there are chemicals, so I'm not diminishing that.

But a lot of the anxiety of our culture, the high rise in anxiety in our culture today, why is that? Are there just, you know, the DNA, the way it's worked out just happens to be more now? No. We live in a society that is going too fast with broken hearts and broken hearts break minds. And I say that a lot of times if we can get our giants killed, you will find a peace in your life that you've never experienced before.

You'll see anxiety diminish when you get rid of the giant of control. In verse four, victory brings promotion, excuse me, point four, the final point, victory brings promotion. After David, now we're going into next chapter and we're going to give you a little taste. This is a little, the final episode before you have to wait six months till the next season comes.

But we're going into chapter 18 where we'll pick up in February and it says, after David finished talking with Saul, Jonathan, that's the son of Saul, became one in spirit with David and he loved him as himself. From that day, Saul kept David with him and did not let him return home to his family. So he became part of the royal court. Well, he was already king.

He had been anointed, but nonetheless, God was moving him closer. He could see the throne that one day he would sit upon, but he would not snatch with his own power. And Jonathan made a covenant with David because he loved him as himself. Jonathan took off the robe he was wearing and gave it to David along with his tunic, even his sword, his bow, and his belt.

You have got to be an incredible man of God that can see and hear and translate what's happening different than the rest of the others to be the prince and to give your kingly tunic and to give all of your weapons to another man. And basically, what he is saying to him is God has made you king. I will serve you. The throne was his after his dad died. Here, he was giving it away because he would not be slayed by the giant of power.

He was willing to see what God had and he wanted to submit himself into God's ways because he would rather be a servant of the true king of God's calling than be the king that is rejected by God. Verse 53, when the Israel, excuse me, so he loved him and in verse 4, Jonathan took off his robe, was wearing, gave it to David along with his tunic and even his sword, his bow, and his belt.

Whatever mission Saul sent him on, David was so successful that Saul gave him a high rank in the army. This pleased all the troops and Saul's officers as well. Well, Saul wouldn't be so pleased eventually because just a couple scriptures later you will see that the women begin singing a song that says David, Saul has killed his thousands, but David is what? His tens of thousands.

I guess the final question on the giant series is how much do you want? How much do you want now? You will eventually reach perfection with Christ if you have come underneath the suffering that he did on the cross and accepted him as your savior in your life. How much of that glory you want today is open for discussion? Because God will complete his purpose in you, but we can get as close as we want if we have the courage to move forward.

And so the question is now in your hands. We end the giant series asking you, are you ready to vanquish the giants in your life? Will you do what it takes to make sure that they don't come back? And are you ready to receive the plunder and the promotion that comes with being a faithful, obedient servant of Christ? Amen? Let's stand. We're going to do it. We're going to do it.

We're going to do it. We're going to do it. We're going to do it. We're going to do it. We're going to do it. We're going to do it. We're going to do it. We're going to do it. We're going to do it. We're going to do it. We're going to do it. We're going to do it. We're going to do it. We're going to do it. We're going to do it. We're going to do it. We're going to do it.

We're going to do it. We're going to do it. We're going to do it. We're going to do it. healing. We're going to do it.