Hard Mode Pt 3 - The Battle is the Lord’s
This sermon was preached at Immanuel Fellowship Church in Ellisville Missouri as part of our "Hard Mode" series within 1 Samuel, exploring David’s trials and growth from the time he was anointed King until he took the throne. For more resources on faith and Christian living, visit our website or connect with our community. You can email us at hello@ifcstl.com or call/text us at 636-431-4708
Good morning, church! What a joy to be together today. Amen.
We are continuing our Hard Mode series. We've been talking about this period in Israel's history where David has already been anointed king, but Saul is still the king, right? Like this weird in-between.
We've been using these texts to consider this idea: It is oftentimes in the hardship of life—in the moments when we're experiencing trial and difficulty, and maybe even just toiling away in obscurity—that God is sharpening us, sanctifying us, and preparing us for the call that He's put on our lives.
The thing that's important for us to remember as we go through these texts (especially some of these more familiar stories) is just this: Beloved, God has called you specifically to a part to play in His kingdom.
You! And I mean that—every single one of you.
It doesn't matter if you're in the room and you feel awesome in your faith.
It doesn't matter if you feel like your faith is barely holding on.
It doesn't matter if you feel bold, or if you feel not so bold.
Every single one of us has been called by the Lord to participate with Him in His kingdom. God put you on this earth. God put you in your context, in your relationships, in your circles, so that you might join Him in His work of seeking and saving the lost. That's an exciting thing! It's a thing worth allowing God to prepare you, sharpen you, and make you better at.
Disney Movies vs. The Gospel
Today, we're going to look at one of the most famous verses in our scriptures and in all of the Bible—one of the most famous stories in all of Western society. We're going to be in 1 Samuel chapter 17. This is an extremely long passage, so we're going to do our best to get through it quickly.
I think what we're going to see in this familiar story of David fighting the giant Goliath is that all of us are a lot more like David than we think. What I mean by that is: We are weak and unable to face the challenges of life in this cursed and broken world.
That is precisely why the gospel is so powerful! Because as we'll see again in this text, it's not about David, just like it's not about us.
Which really is my main point today. This is something David says in the text, and it is so true in our life of faith as we seek obedience to the Lord:
The battle is the Lord's.
As we are following the call of God on our lives in faith, we will find continually that it is His strength, not ours. It is the Lord's ability, not ours, that empowers us to endure, to walk forward in faith, and to do the things God has called us to do. Beloved, there is so much life and freedom in that!
I think the problem with this text for many of us today is simply the cultural pressure we face when we read it. David versus Goliath is such a popular story in our culture (and in bad preaching) that we just understand it as an American underdog story. It's so easy for us to slip it into this narrative of: "Man, if we only believe in ourselves and pursue our dreams with strength and confidence, we can rise up and slay all the giants in our lives, right?"
Because that idea is just as at home in prosperity gospel churches as it is in Disney movies. And it's not actually what this text is about.
We're going to have to allow ourselves to feel that slight pressure to "Disney-ize" and Westernize this story. We're going to feel that a little bit, and that's okay. But just shove it aside—because it's garbage—and let's let the text actually inform us itself.
So why don't we pray over this, and then we'll jump into the story?
Jesus, we need You today. We need You, Holy Spirit, to be our discipler as we look at a text that, for most of us, is going to be incredibly familiar. I ask, Holy Spirit, that You would cut through our familiarity, cut through the cultural pressures and the larger meta-narrative of our society, and actually speak to us the truth of Your gospel, the truth of Your encouragement, and the truth You have in this text for us to engage. Let each and every one of us hear from You today, Lord, not our own desires and our own hearts. Let us leave here today challenged, refreshed, and encouraged in a way that only You can do, Father. We pray this in Your name, Jesus. Amen.
Setting the Stage (1 Samuel 17:1–16)
Okay, 1 Samuel chapter 17. (We spent a long time in Matthew—you have to give me a little bit of grace on that!)
The only setup I'll give it is this: Remember that Saul has shown he's really bad at being a king. He has dramatically failed his charge, turned his heart from the Lord, and God has rejected him as king. God removed His Spirit from Saul, anointed David in secret as Saul's successor, and placed His spiritual anointing on David.
Saul doesn't know any of this, and has actually brought David into a minor role in his court. So David is increasingly operating in the power of the Spirit of God at the same time that Saul is increasingly operating in his own strength and in his flesh.
Starting in verse 1, we read this:
The Philistines gathered their forces for war at Sukkot in Judah and camped between Sukkot and Azekah in Ephes-dammim. Saul and the men of Israel gathered and camped in the Valley of Elah. When they lined up in battle formation to face the Philistines, the Philistines were standing on one hill. The Israelites were standing on another hill with a ravine between them.
Then a champion named Goliath from Gath came out from the Philistine camp. He was nine feet nine inches tall and wore a bronze helmet and bronze scale armor that weighed 125 pounds. There was bronze armor on his shins, and a bronze javelin was slung between his shoulders. His spear shaft was like a weaver's beam, and the iron point of his spear weighed 15 pounds. In addition, a shield bearer was walking in front of him.
He stood and shouted to the Israelite battle formations, "Why do you come out to line up in battle formation?" he asked them. "Am I not a Philistine, and are you not servants of Saul? Choose one of your men. Have him come down against me. If he wins in a fight against me and kills me, we will be your servants. But if I win against him and kill him, then you will be our servants and serve us." And the Philistine said, "I defy the ranks of Israel today. Send me a man so we can fight each other."
When Saul and all Israel heard these words from the Philistine, they lost their courage and were terrified.
Now David was the son of an Ephrathite from Bethlehem in Judah named Jesse. Jesse had eight sons and during Saul's reign was already an old man. Jesse's three oldest sons had followed Saul to war, and their names were Eliab the firstborn, Abinadab the next, and Shammah the third. And David was the youngest. The three oldest had followed Saul, but David kept going back and forth from Saul to tend his father's flock in Bethlehem. Every morning and evening for forty days the Philistine came forward and took his stand.
To give us a little bit of context, Israel is surrounded on every side by foreign peoples who actively want to see them dead. Saul's reign was a brutal one. Every time he went to defend one area, people attacked another.
The Philistines are the really big danger because they control all the coastal trade cities, which means they control how quickly technology and trade work their way inland. They are attacking Israel again, and this time they've been incredibly successful. They're working their way down a river valley and are now only about 15 miles away from Bethlehem and Gibeah.
Gibeah is Saul's capital—that's where his palace is! They are deep inland. This is an existential threat. The Philistines are essentially saying, "Let's charge in, conquer their capital, kill their king, and the whole nation will fall apart."
So Saul musters the army in the Valley of Elah. There are two small, Ozark-type mountains with a long, flat ravine in between them. Each army sets up a defensible camp at the base of their hill with a large "killing field" between them.
Now, in ancient warfare, armies would often delay fighting for a long time. The longer they sat there, the more time they had to strategize, scout, and recruit. During this time, it was common for champions to march out into the killing field and challenge the other army to an honor duel: "Send your best one out! If I kill him, we win; if you kill me, you win!"
(Fun historical fact: We have zero historical confirmation of any ancient Near Eastern society ever actually surrendering after losing an honor duel! They did it purely for strategic delay and to pick off top soldiers.)
So both sides were doing this for 40 days, but the Philistines had one specific champion that no one was willing to go up against: Goliath.
Understanding the Monster
The author is really concerned with you understanding just how much of a monster Goliath is. The text describes him as 9 feet 9 inches tall.
(I am 6 foot 5—so put a yardstick on top of my head and go an extra 4 inches above that! That's a big guy. The tallest man in recorded history was Robert Wadlow at 8 foot 11, and he weighed over 400 pounds. Goliath is an absolute monster!)
Even if you take a shorter textual variant (some early manuscripts say 6'9"), the average Jewish warrior back then was about 5'4". Saul was a head taller than everyone else (about 5'10" or 5'11"). Put the strongest warrior in Israel next to a guy who is either 6'9" or 9'9"—that's a monster no matter how you slice it!
The description of his armor is set up to terrify you:
Scale Armor: Weighs 125 pounds.
Spearhead: Weighs 15 pounds (imagine chucking a 15-pound dumbbell on the end of a spear shaft!).
Shield Bearer: Walking in front of him to hold a giant shield and hand him extra javelins.
Who wouldn't be scared of this guy in one-on-one combat? No one is willing to engage him.
And then the story contrasts this monster with David:
David the shepherd.
David the youngest.
David the court harpist.
David had been appointed as Saul's armor bearer, but that was just for show. When actual battle came up, Saul said, "Go home and watch the sheep." David is relegated to a courier role, running 15 miles back and forth to bring supplies.
It couldn't be a more perfect setup: An existential threat to Israel, a monster enemy mocking God, King Saul cowering in his tent, and David the runt running back and forth with supplies.
A Shepherd on the Battle Line (1 Samuel 17:17–40)
Let's read verse 17:
One day Jesse told his son David, "Take this half bushel of roasted grain along with these ten loaves of bread for your brothers, and hurry to the camp. Oh, also take these ten portions of cheese to the field commander."
(Let's just stop and thank Jesse for being the kind of man who knew the leaders in his life needed cheese! If you have no other application today, think about the authorities God has put in your life and whether He's calling you to send them cheese. Show up to work tomorrow: "The Lord spoke to me at church today; here's some Gouda.")
Check on the well-being of your brothers and bring a confirmation from them... So David got up early in the morning, left the flock with someone else, loaded up and set out as Jesse had charged him. He arrived at the perimeter of the camp as the army was marching out to its battle formation, shouting their battle cry... David left his supplies in the care of the quartermaster and ran to the battle line.
When he arrived, he asked his brothers how they were. While he was speaking with them, suddenly the champion named Goliath... came forward from the Philistine battle line and shouted his usual words, which David heard. When all the Israelite men saw Goliath, they retreated from him, terrified.
Previously an Israelite man had declared, "Do you see this man who keeps coming out? He comes to defy Israel. The king will make the man who kills him very rich and will give him his daughter. The king will also make the family of that man's father exempt from paying taxes in Israel."
David spoke to the men who were standing with him: "What will be done for the man who kills that Philistine and removes this disgrace from Israel? Just who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?"
Well, the troops told him about the offer... Now David's oldest brother Eliab listened as he spoke to the men, and he became angry with him. "Why did you come down here?" he asked. "Who did you leave those few sheep with in the wilderness? I know your arrogance and your evil heart. You came down here to see the battle!"
"What have I done now?" protested David. "It was just a question."
Then he turned from those beside him to others in front of him and asked about the offer... What David said was overheard and reported to Saul, so he had David brought to him.
David said to Saul, "Don't let anyone be discouraged by him. Your servant will go and fight this Philistine."
But Saul replied, "You can't go fight this Philistine. You're just a youth, and he's been a warrior since he was young."
David answered Saul, "Your servant has been tending his father's sheep. Whenever a lion or a bear came and carried off a lamb from the flock, I went after it, struck it down, and rescued the lamb from its mouth. If it reared up against me, I would grab it by its fur, strike it down, and kill it. Your servant has killed lions and bears. This uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, for he has defied the armies of the living God." Then David said, "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 may the Lord be with you."
Then Saul had his own military clothes put on David... David strapped his sword on over the military clothes and tried to walk, but he was not used to them. "I can't go in these," David said to Saul, "I'm not used to them." So David took them off. Instead, he took his staff in his hand and chose five smooth stones from the wadi and put them in a pouch in his shepherd's bag. Then, with his sling in his hand, he approached the Philistine.
Framing the Problem Theologically
What a cinematic scene! David arrives right as Goliath comes out to give his daily threats.
The trained soldiers are running away, but David (a teenager) looks at the situation and basically says, "Wait, why hasn't anyone killed this guy yet? What's the deal?"
Verse 26 is the very first time we hear David speak in all of Scripture, and his words reveal what is in his heart: He frames the monster theologically.
"Just who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?"
David does not allow Goliath to define the terms of this challenge. He puts Goliath in the context of Israel's state as Yahweh's chosen people. David doesn't see a giant; he sees someone defying the living God. And because of that, David doesn't see an impossible problem.
Saul offers an insane reward—wealth, the princess's hand in marriage, and tax-exempt royal status—yet nobody has stepped up. When David starts asking about it, his older brother Eliab gets angry (a classic big-brother/little-brother dynamic!).
Eventually, David is brought before Saul. David is almost casual: "Hey Saul, don't let this stress you out. I'll go out there and take care of him."
Saul says, "No way. You're a kid, and he's been a trained warrior his whole life."
David responds by talking about protecting his sheep from lions and bears. To Saul, that sounds ridiculous—hunting wild animals is completely different from fighting an elite, armored warrior!
So why does Saul give in? Because of how David frames his confidence:
"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."
David doesn't say, "Look how tough I am." He puts his past experience into a theological framework: God empowered me then, and God will do it again.
To everyone else, David's time as a shepherd was wasted time—a dead-end filler job. But God used that obscurity to prepare him! It taught him how to defend against danger and trust God in violence. God was preparing David in obscurity, and He does the same for us.
Saul tries to gear David up in his own massive armor, but it's way too big. David takes it off and says, "I'm a shepherd; I'll go as a shepherd." He walks onto the battlefield in his tunic, with his staff, his shepherd's pouch, five smooth stones, and a sling.
The Clash (1 Samuel 17:41–58)
The Philistine came closer and closer to David with his shield bearer in front of him. When the Philistine looked and saw David, he despised him because he was just a youth, healthy and handsome... He said to David, "Am I a dog that you come against me with sticks?" Then he cursed David by his gods. "Come here," the Philistine called, "and I'll give your flesh to the birds of the sky and the wild beasts."
David said to the Philistine, "You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord of Armies, the God of the ranks of Israel. You have defied Him. Today the Lord will hand you over to me... That all the world will know that Israel has a God, and this whole assembly will know that it is not by the sword or by the spear that the Lord saves. For the battle is the Lord's! He will hand you over to us."
When the Philistine started forward to attack him, David ran quickly to the battle line to meet the Philistine. David put his hand in the bag, took out a stone, and slung it, and hit the Philistine on his forehead. The stone sank into his forehead, and he fell face down to the ground. David defeated the Philistine with a sling and a stone... David ran and stood over him. He grabbed the Philistine's own sword, pulled it from its sheath, and used it to kill him. Then he cut off his head.
When the Philistines saw their hero was dead, they fled...
This brings us to the core of the story. Why is David so calm, brave, and confident? Because David understands this isn't about Goliath vs. David. This is about Goliath vs. Yahweh.
Goliath might be a monster compared to David or Saul, but he is nothing in comparison to the King of Reality.
David sprints toward him and slings a stone. Now, a shepherd's sling is a deadly weapon—it can hurl a stone at over 120 mph with immense stopping power. But consider the probability of this shot:
Goliath is covered in scale armor and a bronze helmet that covers almost his entire head.
Goliath is actively moving and running.
David is sprinting at full speed while slinging (a weapon not meant for mobile use!).
If David had been off by a single inch, the stone would have bounced off bronze armor, Goliath would have skewered him, and no one would have ever written this story down!
The probability of this happening naturally is astronomically low. The author wants us to realize one massive truth:
David didn't kill Goliath. God slew Goliath through David.
God intervened. God is the true Hero of this story because God is the One who shows up and keeps His promises when all hope seems lost!
Why Disney Got It Wrong
The cultural pressure on this text is to make it about you: Believing in yourself, chasing your dreams, and overcoming your personal giants through inner strength.
I say this in love: You probably can't. You aren't good enough on your own to slay the true giants of life. Our stones miss! Our best is flawed, sinful, and weak.
If this story were about human effort, the untrained shepherd loses to the giant warrior 100 times out of 100. But in this story, God stepped in.
The extraordinary thing David did was not slaying a giant; it was taking God at His word. David believed that the God who parted the Red Sea, tore down Jericho's walls, and routed armies would keep His promises to protect Israel. David put his life on the line for God's honor.
What greater giant do we face in life than sin and death itself? What greater obstacle is there than our own mortality and brokenness?
God did the ultimate work of slaying that giant when all our hope was lost. As Paul writes in Ephesians 2:4–9:
"But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love that He had for us, made us alive with Christ even though we were dead in trespasses. You are saved by grace!... It is not of yourselves; it is God's gift—not from works, so that no one can boast."
Jesus is a better David. David stepped up to face a physical giant; Jesus endured the cross to free us from the giants of Death, Sin, and Hell!
Jesus steps in, aims the rock, and slays the giant for us.
What Comes Next? (1 Samuel 17:53–58)
The story concludes with an almost storybook ending: Israel routes the Philistines and plunders their camp. Saul sees David and turns to his commander, Abner:
"Whose son is this youth, Abner?"
"Your Majesty, as surely as you live, I don't know," Abner replied.
(Hilarious detail: David has been working in Saul's court for months, and Saul still doesn't know who his family is!)
Jonathan latches onto David in a deep covenantal friendship, giving David his own royal robe, armor, and sword. Saul makes David a permanent captain in his army.
It looks like the storybook ending: The shepherd becomes a prince!
Except David wasn't called to be a captain in Saul's army—he was called to be KING.
David's "Hard Mode" trials haven't ended; they've barely even begun. Facing Goliath was huge, but David has no clue what pressures, running, and betrayal are waiting for him in the coming years.
How Do We Apply This Today?
We Can Trust God When Pursuing His Call
David was not pursuing his own selfish desires; he was walking in obedience to the call God placed on his life. What has God called you to? Scripturally, He has called every believer to two things:
To trust Him for salvation (repentance and faith).
To join Him in seeking and saving the lost (making disciples).
When you step forward in those calls, you can move with the bold assurance that the battle belongs to the Lord!
We Can Have Confidence Because Jesus Slew Our Real Giant
When you realize Jesus killed Death for you, it puts the rest of your life in perspective. Facing a hard conversation, a difficult season, or trial on "Hard Mode" becomes manageable when you remember that your eternal destiny is secure in Christ.
You can endure hardship for a season because of what Christ has done for you.
Let's pray.
This sermon was preached at Immanuel Fellowship Church in Ellisville Missouri as part of our "Hard Mode" series within 1 Samuel, exploring David’s trials and growth from the time he was anointed King until he took the throne. For more resources on faith and Christian living, visit our website or connect with our community. You can email us at hello@ifcstl.com or call/text us at 636-431-4708
