Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Well, this morning I just want to take a few moments where we're going to be looking at some of the stones that we are going to combat the lies of the enemy. I want to start with a question.
[00:00:10] Hands up if you've ever felt scared. Anyone ever felt scared before? Yep. Young and old. Have a look around. People have felt scared. How many people? Hands up if you have felt like you're not quite good enough sometimes. Yep. Don't measure up.
[00:00:24] Hands up if you've ever felt stuck because of something that's happened in your past.
[00:00:29] Yeah. Thank you for being honest this morning. That's the reality is that so often we can look at our past, we can look at where we're at, we can look about the things that people have said about us, and that can limit us from going after the things that God has got for us.
[00:00:45] The Bible doesn't pretend that giants weren't real, but it does show us how the giants fall. And this story isn't just about a big giant being defeated by a little guy.
[00:00:55] This is a story about truth defeating lies.
[00:00:59] To set the context for the story, Goliath was a champion warrior.
[00:01:03] He stood before the Israelite army. He said, someone come and fight me. If you fight me, if you win, whoever wins the nation will win the battle. But the Israelite people were scared. And so David turns up delivering some food to his brothers. And he turns up and says, why is no one fighting this giant? He stands and he defies God, and no one's doing anything about it. And so David says, I'll fight this battle. Saul gave him armor, and we saw that the armor didn't fit. It wasn't good for him. And so David instead goes with what he knows, and he goes with what God has done in his life. And before David even runs towards Goliath, before the shouting, before even the stone flies, David bends down and we read this in 1 Samuel 17:40. Then he took his staff in his hand, chose five smooth stones from the stream, put them in the pouch of a shepherd's bag. Let me ask you a question. Why five stones when David only needed one?
[00:02:01] We're going to come back to that at the end of my thoughts this morning.
[00:02:06] But David isn't panicking.
[00:02:09] He isn't rushing.
[00:02:11] He is preparing in faith, in order to combat fear. And David knows something that the Israelite army seems to have forgotten, that the battle is God's to fight. So today I want to look at five stones of truth. And I actually had somebody come up to me at the Start of the service. A young lady, and she brought me this smooth stone. She just put it in my hand. I don't know if you're here. Still here, but she bought me this smooth stone.
[00:02:38] How wonderful. Stone of truth that God wants us to understand. These stones represent the truth from God's word, truths that still knock down giants today.
[00:02:50] So we're gonna take down some giants today, and so we. I'm gonna need some children to come and join me down the front. And maybe a couple of young adults or youth that you feel like you got a pretty good throwing arm. Cause we're gonna need you to take down some giants with me. So if you feel like you can throw a piece of paper as a stone, just come and join us down the front. You'll get the rhythm pretty soon.
[00:03:13] The first stone that we are looking to take down a giant with is God is with me.
[00:03:20] When we say God is with me, that is combating the lie that says that you're on your own.
[00:03:25] So often we can feel as though we are on our own and we have to fight the battle ourselves. But God's word says something different. This is a promise that David said, the Lord who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from this Philistine.
[00:03:42] David is remembering what God has already done in his life. David was going back to a moment when God had already won the victory for him.
[00:03:51] The battles that we fight today, God will build upon for the future as well. Sometimes we're going through a battle now as a young person. You're saying, I don't know if I can get through this. Trust me when I say this. The battle you are facing today will help you fight the battle in your future.
[00:04:10] But let's say this promise together. God is with me. You say it together. God is with me. All right, we're going to take down a giant, so come on. I need some kids to help me. All right, there's Goliath. All right, here we go. Ready to take him out.
[00:04:27] Here we go.
[00:04:30] Oh, we took him down.
[00:04:33] Come on. I know there's some young people that want to get up the front. Come on. Come on. The boys. Come on. Come on. Come on, Luke. Come on, you guys got a bit of throwing arm.
[00:04:41] Come on. Yeah. Bring a mate. Bring two of your mates. That all got it? No, it's not me. Get down the front. Come on. Grab some stones. Yeah, these guys got a good arm on them. Grab a seat. Let's see if we can slay Some more giants together. All right. Stone number two. I am chosen by God.
[00:04:58] Fear would say that I'm not good enough.
[00:05:01] Goliath looks at David and he laughs. He says, you're too small.
[00:05:07] Send out a boy to fight a man.
[00:05:10] Anyone ever felt like they were too small or too young or not able to be the one to actually achieve something of greatness?
[00:05:20] Goliath looks at David and laughs. But David doesn't defend himself. He declares who God is.
[00:05:26] He says, you come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty.
[00:05:33] David doesn't trust in his size.
[00:05:36] He trusts in God's name.
[00:05:38] Kids, listen carefully. You don't have to be the biggest or the strongest or the loudest.
[00:05:46] If God's chosen you, that is enough.
[00:05:50] So I am chosen by God. Come on, let's clear that today. 1, 2, 3. I am chosen by God. Let's take out a giant. Come on, guys.
[00:05:59] Capstone, take it down. Yes.
[00:06:12] Oh, my gosh. That was a good aim. Good throw. Good throw.
[00:06:17] Stone number three. I've got to move. Next time.
[00:06:19] My past does not disqualify me. My past does not disqualify me. This stone takes on the lie that I am a failure. Has anyone ever said that about themselves?
[00:06:30] I'm a failure.
[00:06:32] Now let me ask another question. How many people have made a mistake in their lives?
[00:06:37] Can I tell you that when we make a mistake, it doesn't make us a failure.
[00:06:41] It's what we do when we've made the failure. Do we get up?
[00:06:44] Do we go again? Do we receive God's forgiveness? Do we ask for his forgiveness to then walk again and trust him?
[00:06:51] See, David had been overlooked.
[00:06:54] Even when Samuel comes to anoint a king and he says, show me all of your sons. One of them has been anointed to be the next king of Israel.
[00:07:04] And Jesse has David sitting out in the fields, and he lines up all of his boys.
[00:07:12] Samuel says, no, none of these. Do you not have any other sons? And Jesse says, well, yeah, I do. But he's out tending to the sheep. Even his own father didn't see what was on David's life.
[00:07:24] But this stone of truth tells me my past does not disqualify me.
[00:07:30] People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. This is what Samuel declared over David.
[00:07:38] Truth tells us God doesn't define you by your worst moment. He defines you by his grace. Friends, if you made a mistake, if you've sinned, if you've dishonored God, that is not your future.
[00:07:51] Would you surrender again as we talked about today, lifting our hands? Would you surrender to God again and walk in his grace?
[00:07:59] Come on, stone number three. My past does not disqualify me. All right, I'm getting out of the way this time.
[00:08:06] All right, let's slay a giant. Come on. My past does not disqualify me. Here it comes.
[00:08:17] Oh, he's down.
[00:08:20] All right, you're doing good. Number four. Number four. Couple of low blows there, stone number four. The battle belongs to the Lord.
[00:08:30] This stone takes on the giant lie that I have to fix this.
[00:08:34] Any men in the place that like to fix things, they think they're pretty good at fixing things.
[00:08:39] Including fixing their wife. Yeah. How does that go for you? Does that go well? I don't think it does.
[00:08:46] Sometimes we think that we have to fix the problems, whereas actually God wants to declare that the battle belongs to him.
[00:08:56] 1 Samuel 17:47. The battle is the Lord's and he will give all of you into our hands.
[00:09:03] David slings the stone, but it's God who wins the battle.
[00:09:07] Parents, grandparents, adults. This is for us, too.
[00:09:13] We don't have to carry everything alone because God is with us and the battle belongs to the Lord. All right, ready to take on number four. Here we go.
[00:09:28] Oh.
[00:09:30] All right, we've got enough for one more. Got enough for one more. All right, stone number five. Are you ready, stone number five of truth. God's promise never fails.
[00:09:45] This stone takes on the lie that God won't come through. This takes on the giant of doubt.
[00:09:52] Anyone have found themselves in a place of seeing the possibility, but then the possibility seems too far away.
[00:10:00] Seems like it's impossible for us to reach that destination.
[00:10:04] That doubt comes and grabs a hold of us, and rather than believing, we find ourselves withdrawing because of the doubt in our lives.
[00:10:15] So often we see the giant in front of us and we doubt and that doubt gets in and we hear the excuses, I'm not good enough, I'm not qualified enough. All of those reasons. But the promise we have is that God's promise never fails. I love this. 1 Samuel 17:48. 49. So David ran quickly towards the battle line, slung it, and struck the Philistine on the forehead. One stone, one throw, one victory.
[00:10:48] God's truth hits its target.
[00:10:51] The Bible says that it won't return void. When God's word goes out, it will always produce a return that we can trust that God's word is faithful.
[00:11:03] David only needed one stone to defeat Goliath. The Bible says the stone sank into his forehead and he fell face down on the ground.
[00:11:13] And David picked up five stones. Why five stones?
[00:11:18] Because there were four other brothers of Goliath.
[00:11:24] These four, it says in 2 Samuel 21, verse 22, these four were descendants of Rapha, Goliath and Gath.
[00:11:35] Goliath had brothers.
[00:11:37] This tells us that David had new battles to fight.
[00:11:41] You know, David won the battle with Goliath, but I think he picked up these five stones because there were battles that he still had to fight.
[00:11:50] I could tell you as a. As a follower of Jesus, someone who's walked with Jesus for many years now, you get through one battle, you're probably walking into another.
[00:12:00] It's very seldom that you find yourself not in a battle. You're either getting. You're in the middle of it, you're preparing for one, or you've just come out of one.
[00:12:08] Life is filled with battles. But we need to understand that God's promise never fails. God prepares us not just for the giants we face today, but for the ones that we'll face tomorrow. I wonder if we could all stand this morning, and we are going to symbolically throw a stone for this final giant.
[00:12:30] And before we do that, I just wonder if we can take a moment to consider some of the giants that we've been facing.
[00:12:43] Is it fear over what's ahead of you, your future?
[00:12:48] Is it fear over the circumstances that you're facing right now? Maybe there's a health battle that you're going through.
[00:12:56] Maybe there's a real mental health challenge that you're facing.
[00:13:00] Maybe relationally things aren't where they should be.
[00:13:05] I wonder if you could take a moment just to consider those giants that you're facing right now. Just close your eyes, just say, God, I'm facing this giant of fear, of doubt, of the lies that want to rob me of the future you have for me?
[00:13:28] The Bible says that we're to act in faith, to believe in faith. Faith is a gift of God and Father, I pray right here, right now that your faith would come upon us, that we would receive faith to fight these giants in the name of Jesus.
[00:13:50] So as this next giant comes up on the screen.
[00:13:53] Come on. Symbolically, or you might even want to throw it yourself. Come on, take those giants down.
[00:14:03] Amazing. Amazing. You may grab a seat just for a moment. We're bringing it to a close, I promise.
[00:14:11] Can we thank our stone throwers? Well done.
[00:14:19] You know, if we were to fast forward from the story of David and Goliath a few Hundred years, a man named Jesus, he was in the wilderness.
[00:14:32] He'd just come out of this incredible moment where he'd been baptized. And as he was baptized, there was a voice from heaven that said, this is my beloved Son, of whom I'm well pleased. He heard the voice, and others heard the voice declaring that he was the Son of God.
[00:14:50] The moment he was baptized and filled with the Spirit, he went out. The Bible says the Spirit led him into the wilderness.
[00:14:58] It wasn't by chance. God takes us into the battles. God allows us to go into those trials.
[00:15:04] And he went into the wilderness. For 40 days. He fasted, he prayed. He was connecting with God. At his weakest moment, the devil comes to him and he says, if you are.
[00:15:16] He questions the very being of who Jesus is.
[00:15:21] Identity, purpose. He says, if you are the Son of God, you're hungry, take the stone, turn it into bread. You can do that. You've got the ability to do that.
[00:15:34] Jesus responds not with clever words, but he takes the Word of God, the stone of truth, and he says, man shall not live by bread alone, but from every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Father.
[00:15:51] Then the devil takes him up into a high place and says, you can have all of this, all of these kingdoms, you can have all of this. I'll give this to you if you just bow down to me.
[00:16:01] Jesus again takes a stone of truth. He says, it is written, you shall have no other gods before me.
[00:16:10] And then climbs to the top of the temple and says, throw yourself down and surely the angels will come and protect you. And even the devil used scripture as part of his argument. And this is what he does. He'll take a little bit of the Word of God and he'll twist it and he'll change it, try to manipulate us even with the Word says, if you throw yourself off the angels, they will protect you, they will help you.
[00:16:34] Jesus says, it is written, do not put the Lord your God to the test.
[00:16:40] See, we have the Word of God as stones of truth.
[00:16:45] My encouragement for all of us, as if we've been considering the giants that maybe we are facing, what is the truth that we speak to it.
[00:16:56] When you're in the most difficult time of your week and you feel like the darkness is really closing in and you're struggling, do you have the Word of God to combat the lies of the enemy? I want to encourage us, let's get the Word of God and maybe even this week, symbolically hold it like a stone so that when the accuser comes and Satan is our accuser. He wants to accuse us and tell us of our past.
[00:17:23] We can remind him of his future.
[00:17:26] So when he says, yeah, but what about when you did that, Mike? You can say, I've been forgiven. And the word of God says, and we declare that.
[00:17:37] Father, I thank youk.
[00:17:39] I thank youk, God, that we are able to trust yout when it seems impossible.
[00:17:46] Father, I pray for every situation and circumstance.
[00:17:50] I pray, Father, that yout would allow us to experience faith this week. Thank you. That faith is a gift that you give us.
[00:18:02] Lord, would we receive faith to begin to speak to the giants those things that have caused us to doubt, to be fearful?
[00:18:11] Father, would we trust you that your promise is true and you will fulfill your promise in our lives?
[00:18:19] God, I pray that we would take your word as a stone of truth and be able to take down the giants those lies that have been spoken over us in Jesus name, Amen. Amen.
