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1 Samuel 17:31-58
31 When the words that David spoke were heard, they repeated them before Saul, and he sent for him. 32 And David said to Saul, “Let no man’s heart fail because of him. Your servant will go and fight with this Philistine.” 33 And Saul said to David, “You are not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him, for you are but a youth, and he has been a man of war from his youth.” 34 But David said to Saul, “Your servant used to keep sheep for his father. And when there came a lion, or a bear, and took a lamb from the flock, 35 I went after him and struck him and delivered it out of his mouth. And if he arose against me, I caught him by his beard and struck him and killed him. 36 Your servant has struck down both lions and bears, and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be like one of them, for he has defied the armies of the living God.” 37 And 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.” And Saul said to David, “Go, and the LORD be with you!”
38 Then Saul clothed David with his armor. He put a helmet of bronze on his head and clothed him with a coat of mail, 39 and David strapped his sword over his armor. And he tried in vain to go, for he had not tested them. Then David said to Saul, “I cannot go with these, for I have not tested them.” So David put them off. 40 Then he took his staff in his hand and chose five smooth stones from the brook and put them in his shepherd’s pouch. His sling was in his hand, and he approached the Philistine.
41 And the Philistine moved forward and came near to David, with his shield-bearer in front of him. 42 And when the Philistine looked and saw David, he disdained him, for he was but a youth, ruddy and handsome in appearance. 43 And the Philistine said to David, “Am I a dog, that you come to me with sticks?” And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. 44 The Philistine said to David, “Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and to the beasts of the field.” 45 Then David said to the Philistine, “You come to me with a sword and with a spear and with 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 defied. 46 This day the LORD will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you down and cut off your head. And I will give the dead bodies of the host of the Philistines this day to the birds of the air and to the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, 47 and that all this assembly may know that the LORD saves not with sword and spear. For the battle is the LORD’s, and he will give you into our hand.”
48 When the Philistine arose and came and drew near to meet David, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet the Philistine. 49 And David put his hand in his bag and took out a stone and slung it and struck the Philistine on his forehead. The stone sank into his forehead, and he fell on his face to the ground.
50 So David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and with a stone, and struck the Philistine and killed him. There was no sword in the hand of David. 51 Then David ran and stood over the Philistine and took his sword and drew it out of its sheath and killed him and cut off his head with it. When the Philistines saw that their champion was dead, they fled. 52 And the men of Israel and Judah rose with a shout and pursued the Philistines as far as Gath1 and the gates of Ekron, so that the wounded Philistines fell on the way from Shaaraim as far as Gath and Ekron. 53 And the people of Israel came back from chasing the Philistines, and they plundered their camp. 54 And David took the head of the Philistine and brought it to Jerusalem, but he put his armor in his tent.
55 As soon as Saul saw David go out against the Philistine, he said to Abner, the commander of the army, “Abner, whose son is this youth?” And Abner said, “As your soul lives, O king, I do not know.” 56 And the king said, “Inquire whose son the boy is.” 57 And as soon as David returned from the striking down of the Philistine, Abner took him, and brought him before Saul with the head of the Philistine in his hand. 58 And Saul said to him, “Whose son are you, young man?” And David answered, “I am the son of your servant Jesse the Bethlehemite.”
(ESV)
Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
Alright. If y'all would, open your bibles to 1st Samuel 17. We're going to read a lot of chapter 17. We're actually not going to read the whole thing because then we would run out of time. It's a long, familiar narrative.
Joel Brooks:We'll begin reading in verse 3. And the Philistines stood on the mountain on the one side, and Israel stood on the mountain on the other side with a valley between them. And there came out from the camp of the Philistines a champion named Goliath of Gath, whose height was 6 cubits and a span. He had a helmet of bronze on his head, and he was armed with a coat of mail, And the weight of the coat was 5,000 shekels of bronze, and he had bronze armor on his legs and a javelin of bronze slung between his shoulders. The shaft of his spear was like a weaver's beam, and his spear had weighed 600 shekels of iron.
Joel Brooks:And a shield bearer went before him. He stood and shouted to the ranks of Israel, why have you come out to draw up for battle? Am I not a Philistine, and are you not servants of Saul? Choose a man for yourselves and let him come down to fight me. If he is able to fight with me and kill me, then we will be your servants.
Joel Brooks:But if I prevail against him and kill him, then you shall be our servants and serve us. And the Philistine said, I defy the ranks of Israel this day. Give me a man that we may fight together. When Saul and all Israel heard these words of the Philistine, they were dismayed and greatly afraid. Go to verse 24.
Joel Brooks:All the men of Israel, when they saw the man fled from him, and were much afraid. And the men of Israel said, have you seen this man who has come up? Surely, he has come up to to defy Israel. And the king will enrich the man who kills him with great riches and will give him his daughter and make his father's house free in Israel. And David said to the men who stood by him, what shall be done for the man who kills this Philistine and takes away this reproach from Israel?
Joel Brooks:For who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living god? And the people answered him in the same way. So shall it be done to the man who kills him. Now Eliab, his eldest brother heard when he spoke to the men, and Eliab's anger was kindled against David. And he said, why have you come down?
Joel Brooks:And with whom have you left those few sheep in the wilderness? I know your presumption and the evil of your heart, for you have come down to see the battle. And David said, what have I done now? Was it not but a word? And he turned away from him and toward another, and he spoke in the same way.
Joel Brooks:And the people answered him again as before. When the words that David spoke were heard, they repeated them before Saul, and he sent for him. And David said to Saul, let no man's heart fail because of him. Your servant will go and fight the Philistine. And Saul said to David, you are not able to go up against this Philistine to fight with him for you are but a youth, and he has been a man of war from his youth.
Joel Brooks:But David said to Saul, your servant used to keep sheep for his father. And when there came a lion or a bear and took a lamb from the flock, I went after him and struck him and delivered it out of his mouth. And if he rose against me, I caught him by his beard and struck him and killed him. Your servant has struck down both lions and bears, and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be like one of them. For he has defied the armies of the living god.
Joel Brooks:And David said, the lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear will deliver me from this hand of the Philistine. And Saul said to David, go and the lord be with you. Then David Saul clothed David with his armor. He put a helmet of bronze on his head and clothed him with a coat of mail. I cannot go with these for I've not tested them.
Joel Brooks:So David put them off. Then he took his staff in his hand and chose 5 smooth stones from the brook and put them in a shepherd's pouch. His sling was in his hand, and he approached the Philistine. And the Philistine moved forward and came near to David with his shield bearer in front of him. And when the Philistine looked and saw David, he disdained him for he was but a youth, ruddy and handsome in appearance.
Joel Brooks:And the Philistine said to David, am I a dog that you come to me with sticks? And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. The Philistine said to David, come to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and to the beasts of the field. Then David said to the Philistine, you come to me with a sword and with a spear and with 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 defied. This day, the Lord will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you down and cut off your head.
Joel Brooks:And I will give the dead bodies of the host of the Philistines this day to the birds of the air and to the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, and that all this assembly may know that the Lord saves not with a sword and spear. For the battle is the Lord's, and he will give you into our hand. When the Philistine arose and came and drove near to meet David, David ran quickly towards the battle line to meet the Philistine. And David put his hand in his bag and took out a stone and slung it and struck the Philistine on his forehead. The stone sank into his forehead, and he fell on his face to the ground.
Joel Brooks:So David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and with a stone and struck the Philistine and killed him. There was no sword in the hand of David. Then David ran and stood over the Philistine and took his sword and drew it out of its sheath and killed him and cut off his head with it. When the Philistines saw that their champion was dead, they fled. This is the word of the lord.
Joel Brooks:Thanks be to God. Pray with me. Lord, I ask that you would honor the reading of your word, that this familiar story would begin to take a deep root into our heart and transform us through your spirit. Lord, my words are death and your words are life, and we need life here. We don't know need any attention or glory or anything drawn to me or to any man, but to Jesus.
Joel Brooks:So I pray in this moment that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore. The Lord, may your words remain and may they change us. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. Alright.
Joel Brooks:So we finally come to the most famous story in all of the bible. It's also the most abused sports metaphor, David versus Goliath. Actually, there's two rules concerning this story. 1, if there's a children's Bible, it has to be on the cover. You you have to have David versus Goliath on the cover.
Joel Brooks:Second, I'm not sure if you're allowed to make a sports movie and not make a reference to this. I mean, when I read this, the first thing that pops in my mind is a scene from Hoosiers. When when the preacher gets with the team and he reads through this story, or when Rocky Balboa takes on the great Russian, and it's, David versus Goliath. Actually, all the Rocky movies make, I think, a reference to David versus Goliath. And there's a danger in that this story is so familiar to us, it perhaps becomes too familiar to us, and we kind of get liberal with it, and we apply the story however we see fit.
Joel Brooks:We make it mean whatever we want it to mean, and it really does not belong in any kind of sports context. There's a few things we we really need to know about this story that I hope god makes clear. The first and the main point is this, god is the center of the story and not man. The story is not so much about David as it is about God. You wouldn't know this by the children's bibles that are out there.
Joel Brooks:I thought about bringing some, and showing you, but one of my favorite children's Bible has the the scene there and it shows David and Goliath, and Goliath is 20 something feet tall easily. And after David slays him and he falls down, David is next to him and the line says this. And the children's Bible says, David was brave. David was very brave. But he knew that god had helped him.
Joel Brooks:And and you you read that like, well, I'm glad that David knew that the god of the universe, the sovereign god, the one who speaks things into existence, who commands David's very next breath, I'm glad that that that David knew that he had God's help. And so even this children's Bible misses the point of the story. It should read, God defeats Goliath and uses small little boy to do it. God is the one sovereign. God is the one supreme.
Joel Brooks:God is the one central and not man. Now this story, it begins it begins at the scene of a battle or actually no fighting has happened yet. The 2 camps are on 2 different mountains with a valley in between. And they came up with this really unique and brilliant way of fighting the Philistines and the Israelites. They said, hey, instead of us just all killing one another and there'd be 1,000 and 1,000 dead, let's just put forward a champion to fight one another.
Joel Brooks:And literally, the word champion just means the in between. Let's bring a person to go in between us and duke it out. And they could have, you know, they could have played chess. They could have played monopoly or something. They they chose fighting here, as a way of settling this.
Joel Brooks:And whoever won, they would be the victors, and the opposing army would be slaves. Now the Philistine champion was a man named Goliath. He's he's huge. Depending on your translation, the the translations vary. He's anywhere between 6 foot 9 in some of your translations, or he's over 8 feet tall.
Joel Brooks:The point is the guy is huge. He's absolutely giant, which is probably why they decided to fight instead of do chess or something like that. The odds are in the Philistines favor. The narrator, he goes to great lengths to describe this this giant, to describe Goliath. We're used to this.
Joel Brooks:When we read stories now, kind of modern histories, we're used to them describing these things in, you know, all the minutiae, giving all the little details. But ancient Hebrew literature is not like this. They they try to paint a story with as few strokes as they can. And so when they give a whole lot of details that that stands out a lot. And look at verses 5 through 7.
Joel Brooks:When we have Goliath's armor being described. Says he has a helmet of bronze on his head, and he was armed with a with a coat of mail, and the weight of the coat was 5,000 shekels of bronze, and he had a bronze armor on his legs, and a javelin of bronze slung between his shoulders. The shaft of his spear was like a weaver's beam, and the spear's head weighed 600 shekels of iron. And he's just going on to describe every little detail about this armor. Comparison, when you get to the actual fight, it's over in a single verse.
Joel Brooks:It's like he took a stone, he slung it, hit his forehead, he dropped. It's it's very brief when you get to the actual fight, but in describing this, he really takes his time. The great Hebrew scholar Robert Alter points this out in his book, The Art of Biblical Narrative, and and what he says when an author is doing this, he wants you to zoom in close and to take a look because he's trying to point out a story within the story. This story is becoming representative of something, and he wants you to look in. This isn't just about 2 people fighting here.
Joel Brooks:This is about 2 different ways to go about fighting. 2 different ways to to conquer fear. 2 different ways of salvation. And David and Goliath in this story, they actually become something much bigger for us as we study it. So when the narrator begins describing Goliath's armor, he he wants us to zoom in.
Joel Brooks:And and one of the things that he uses to describe Goliath's armor is an unusual Hebrew word. It literally reads that Goliath was covered in scales. He's covered in scales. It's the same word that's used to describe covering a serpent. And this should immediately make you think back to Genesis.
Joel Brooks:Because it was the serpent who tried to destroy humanity. It was the serpent who tried to destroy Adam and Eve. And way back in Genesis 315, we were told that Eve would have a descendant that would do battle with the serpent. Someday, there was gonna be a huge battle between her descendants and the and the, serpents. And so here's one of the stories behind the stories.
Joel Brooks:Just like in the Garden of Eden, here comes another serpent trying to put an end to God's people. Now, every day, the serpent, Goliath, he would he would come forth and he would stand in the valley and he would make his challenge. And every day, the people would shake and fear. It's it's astonishing that nobody from Israel gets up and fights because they know that their doom is imminent if they don't do something. And yet they're they're too paralyzed with fear to do anything.
Joel Brooks:The situation is too great. Lauren and I, we recently watched this is what we do on our fun time. We watched a, a Nova special on why ships sink. I I don't know why. We will never we didn't want to go on a cruise before.
Joel Brooks:Now we never ever will. But but one of the commonalities of all of this is, the captain never trusts the captain. The captain always leaves the ship. The captain always goes in hiding, and the people don't even know that they're about to go under. It was the commonality in every one of them.
Joel Brooks:And when they interviewed some of these captains, what they realized was the situation was too great. There was too much fear and it paralyzed them and they they they couldn't cope, and so they just shut down. And that's what's happening to Israel at large. The situation before them is too great. There's there's no hope of ever defeating this man.
Joel Brooks:And so they just shut down. If anybody should be out there fighting, it should be Saul. Saul was described as a man who is head and shoulders taller than any Israelite. Saul was a big dude. He he might have actually had a fighting chance, but he's not here.
Joel Brooks:This is actually why they wanted a king. If you go back to chapter 9, it says, they say, Samuel, give us a king who will go out and fight before us. That's why they wanted a king, but their king is nowhere to be found here. Certainly, not on the battlefield. Now, when David hears this Philistine, he gets angry.
Joel Brooks:Look at verse 26. David said to the men who stood by him, what shall be done for the man who kills this Philistine and takes away the the reproach from Israel? For who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living god? Now David here is the first person in this narrative to actually mention God at all. He's the one who actually sees that God is part of the equation here.
Joel Brooks:He looks around, and he just simply can't believe that there's no other person here who's even considered God in this story. They're acting as if there is no God or they're acting like God is dead. And David says, no, The living God. We serve a God who who lives, and He moves, and He acts on behalf of His people. And that's how David sees this situation.
Joel Brooks:Last week, we looked at David's anointing, and we and we saw how god sees things differently than we see things. And really, this story is a continuation of that, is that the man of god sees things differently than we see things. The Israelite army, they looked at Goliath, and they saw a reason to fear. David looks at Goliath, and he sees a reason for action. The Israelites, they they hear Goliath and they think he sounds in invincible.
Joel Brooks:David, all he hears is blasphemy. They look, and they are full of despair. David looks and he sees a great opportunity to glorify god. And the the amazing thing is they're both looking at the exact same situation. But one knows that there's a living god, and the others have forgotten about him.
Joel Brooks:When David's brothers hear this, they are they're ticked. They're probably embarrassed too. They didn't like David's questions. And let me tell you what, if David was here, we, we wouldn't like his questions either. We we've heard some of these before questions like, Hey, if, if God is alive and God is sovereign, why are you so anxious about your job or the future?
Joel Brooks:I've heard that before. Or hey, if you believe God is in total control of everything, why are you so frustrated when things don't go your way? Hey, if you believe God is really alive and God is really at work, why won't you trust him to fix your marriage? David's questions really cut to the heart of the matter for us. You know, like his brothers, we we get angry when we hear, you know, David asking, why are you so full of fear?
Joel Brooks:Why are you so anxious all of the time? Don't you believe that God's alive? Are you are you a practical atheist? Even though you go to church. And this is So is your life defined by trust, or is it defined by doubt?
Joel Brooks:Is your life defined by courage, or is it defined by fear? The people of God, their life should be defined by courage because we have been given the spirit of God. It's the reason David had courage here. It's because he had been filled with the spirit. And throughout the bible, the spirit is is always associated with courage.
Joel Brooks:Earlier when Saul was filled with the spirit, I mean, he immediately he took on all the Ammonites and he won. Never been a fighter before, but the spirit of god comes on him and he he's filled with courage. You go to the New Testament. You know, pre spirit, you have Peter denying Jesus before a little servant girl. The spirit of god comes and fills him, and now nothing will stop him.
Joel Brooks:In acts 4, he's saying, we cannot stop speaking what we have seen or heard. Throw me in prison, kill me, but I will never stop speaking the name of Jesus. Courage. The church was defined by its courage. Courage to give up their possessions.
Joel Brooks:Courage to radically serve. Courage to share their faith no matter the cost. That's what being filled with the spirit led to. Now courage does not always mean victory. I I just wanna point that out.
Joel Brooks:John the Baptist had courage and he had faith and he was beheaded. Alright? Stephen had courage, Stephen had faith, Stephen was killed. But the spirit of god does give you courage to face any fear, any difficulty. Now the word that David was saying, the questions he was saying and what he wanted to do, that reached Saul's ears.
Joel Brooks:So he's brought forward before Saul, verse 32. And David said to Saul, let no man's heart fail him fail because of him. Your servant will go and fight with this Philistine. So the first thing David says is, do not fear, I will fight. Do not fear, I will fight for you.
Joel Brooks:Let me tell you what. That's the gospel right there in a nutshell. Now it shows an almost incredible amount of desperateness for Saul to actually agree to this. I don't know if he was moved by these words or or whether he was just really desperate. When I hear those words, it's almost impossible for me to not go forward a 1000 years and and hear the declaration of the angels who said, do not be afraid for I bring you good news of great joy for all the people.
Joel Brooks:For unto you is born to stay in the city of David, a savior. Here's good news. I will save you. It's the gospel. It's what was communicated to Saul and and maybe he's grasping at straws, I don't know.
Joel Brooks:But but he he sends a 16 or a 17 year old boy to go fight. He tries clothing David with his own armor, which shows Saul just he doesn't get it. Does he really think David's gonna beat him, you know, like on a on a skilled skill level here? You know, he thinks the way to conquer fear is to arm yourself against it. You you fight your enemy by becoming like your enemy.
Joel Brooks:You fight strength with strength. But David knows he's gonna fight with weakness. Saul doesn't get it. David gets it here. David is gonna come only in the name of the Lord.
Joel Brooks:Now Robert Alter also in his book, he says that the the narrator here, he really wants us to see that there's 2 different ways of dealing with fear here, is what the narrator is trying to point out. So Goliath arms himself with the latest technologies. You know, he's got bronze. He's got the, the latest weapons. He's got a £125 of armor.
Joel Brooks:He's got superior strength. That's one way of dealing with fear. And then you have David who deals with his fear simply by trust and by embracing his weakness and God's strength. So David refuses to wear the armor. He just goes and he grabs some stones and he goes off to fight the great serpent.
Joel Brooks:And in verse 44 and 45, we come to the climax of the battle scene. The Philistines said to David, come to me and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and to the beasts of the field. Then David said to the Philistine, you come with a sword and with a spear and with a javelin, but I come to you in the in the name of the Lord of hosts, the god of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. David comes in the name of the lord. David's actually the first person to mention the Lord, Yahweh, in the story.
Joel Brooks:He seems to be the only one who really has a relationship with the Lord. Yahweh or when you have Lord in all caps in your Bible, that's the covenant name of God. It's, the way I like to think of it is that's the the signature in which God signed His marriage vow with His people, Yahweh. What we see here is David does have a personal relationship with with the Lord. He knows him.
Joel Brooks:He understands him. God is with him. This is the name that David treasures. And here it says he comes in the name of the Lord. Now we've heard that phrase a number of times, to come in the name of the Lord.
Joel Brooks:I want you to know it's very unusual. This is the first time it ever happens in scripture right here, to come in the name of the Lord. It's only mentioned one other time in the old testament, and that's in a psalm about David. Alright? So to come in the name of the Lord is is a very strange phrase.
Joel Brooks:This is what it means. David sees himself as coming as the lord's representative here, coming as an ambassador for the lord. He's coming with the lord's power, with the lord's name to do the Lord's work. And it's here that David clearly becomes a pointer to the greater David of Jesus Christ. He clearly points us later to the one who will come and do battle with the ultimate serpent and cut off its head and give us victory once and for all.
Joel Brooks:There there's a temptation, and I certainly grew up thinking this way. When you read through the story, you know, you try to visualize it and you picture the scene, you always put yourself in David's shoes. Do you realize that? You're, like, you're always David. And and that's, you know, that's okay because there's some merit in this story of putting yourself in David's shoes and saying, yes.
Joel Brooks:We need to have courage like David. Yes. We need to trust the Lord like like David did, but really that's not who we should be identifying with in the story. We should be identifying with the people on the sidelines trembling with fear in need of a savior. That's who we should be identifying with.
Joel Brooks:We're the people doomed to a life of slavery unless someone comes to fight on our behalf? And and then a 1000 years before Jesus, which is when the story happens, a 1000 years before Jesus, we get this new I idea introduced that somebody can come and fight on behalf of us as a representative of us. This story introduces the idea of a savior coming and being representative of his people. David was the substitute for us. The substitute for his people.
Joel Brooks:He he was not just fighting for the people, he was fighting as one of the people. And his victory would become their victory. His victory would be imputed to them. His courage would become their courage. And so, instead of seeing David here as just a mere example, we really should look at him as pointing to the Savior who comes to save us.
Joel Brooks:Who are incapable of defending ourselves. And this is why the author of Hebrews, you know, he he gets this. When we we come to that great chapter in Hebrews 11 that goes through all of these, these great saints with incredible faith, and David is listed as But after it lists David, and yes, he is an example. Yes, he does stir us up some. It says, but don't fix your eyes upon him.
Joel Brooks:Fix your eyes on Jesus, the author and the perfecter. Now we're perfecter, the archigos, the hero of our faith. Don't look to David to be your hero. Look to Jesus who is our hero. Fix your eyes on him.
Joel Brooks:Now, when David cuts off the head of Goliath, he does the most bizarre thing. I I have I've racked my head about this. Every every commentator just kind of does question marks. But look at verse 54. It says, and David took the head of the Philistine, and he brought it to Jerusalem.
Joel Brooks:Alright. Now a couple things you need to know. Jerusalem is not the capital of Israel at this point. A matter of fact, Jerusalem is not even an Israelite city at this point. The Jebusites live there, not the Hebrews, not the Israelites.
Joel Brooks:Alright? This is a pagan city that he took the head of Goliath to. And so, you know, the commentators are just scratching. They're they're puzzled about this. The the best that I have heard is that maybe this is a prophetic moment.
Joel Brooks:A prophetic moment of David going to the city where a savior would come a 1000 years later and do the battle to cut off the head of the serpent. And we see that here in this moment. When Jesus came to Jerusalem to fight the serpent, he came he came in a week we call Palm Sunday. If you remember when Jesus came then, you know, the people were lining up the streets as Jesus was coming into the the city of David. Do you remember what was on their lips?
Joel Brooks:The people's lips as they chanted? Psalm 8 118, hosanna, hosanna, save us, save us. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the lord. The only new testament references we have with that phrase comes in the name of the lord are quoting Psalm 118 when Jesus is coming to Jerusalem. The people see it.
Joel Brooks:They're like, here's our hero. Here's the king to whom David points. The true king of kings coming to do battle. Going to Calvary to take on the serpent. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
Joel Brooks:Here is the warrior king coming to do battle with sin and death on our behalf. And here comes Jesus. And so Jesus, he goes into the ultimate valley of death. He faces the ultimate fear His victory becomes our victory. Jesus conquered death itself.
Joel Brooks:And because of this, we can sing with Paul in 1st Corinthians 15. Death is swallowed up in victory. Death, where is your victory? Oh, death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin and the power of sin is the law.
Joel Brooks:But thanks be to God who has given us victory in Jesus Christ our Lord. Now understanding this, we now can live a life like David. We really can, because we now can trust God in all situations and all of our fears because our ultimate fears are gone. So we can sing this song of 118, and I'm gonna close just by reading parts of Psalm 118. Out of my distress, I called on the Lord, and the Lord answered me and set me free.
Joel Brooks:The Lord is on my side. I will not fear. What can man do to me? The Lord is on my side as my helper. I shall look in triumph on those who hate me.
Joel Brooks:It's better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man. It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes. The lord is my strength and my song. He has become my salvation. Glad songs of salvation are in the tents of the righteous.
Joel Brooks:The right hand of the lord does valiantly. The right hand of the lord exalts. The right hand of the lord does valiantly. I shall not die, but I shall live and will recount the deeds of the Lord. I thank you that you have answered me, and I've become my salvation.
Joel Brooks:The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This is the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes. Save us, we pray, oh lord. Oh Lord, we pray give us success. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
Joel Brooks:Pray with me. God, I thank you that when we were paralyzed with fear, actually, our condition was dead in sin. You came and you were our champion. You came to be the in between man who came to the valley of death and you slew our greatest enemy. Sin and death have no power on us anymore.
Joel Brooks:And that frees us to live the life you've called us to be. A life with no fear. A life with courage, for what can man do to me? So free us, Lord, to live and to serve you. We pray this in the name of our hero, Jesus.
Joel Brooks:Amen.