A Giant Concern for God's Honor--Life of David Series (A First-Person Sermon)

(Note: In a first-person sermon, I speak as if I am the character whose story I'm telling. In this sermon, I spoke as if I were King David himself.)

            Good morning to all of you! I’m so glad to be here with you today. I was flattered to hear that you are studying the story of my life in the Bible. I praise God for all that he has taught people through my life – both my good times and my bad – and if he teaches you something as well, I will praise him all the more!

            I was thrilled when I heard that I would get to come here today and talk to you about one of the most significant stories from my life – the story of God and the Philistine. Ah-- you thought I was going to say David and Goliath, didn’t you? I know that’s what people call it these days, but I’ve never really liked that title. It makes it sound like this story is all about me, but I don’t want anyone to get that impression. This story is about God and his honor and how great moments can come when we care more about God’s honor than anything else.

            I also don’t quite understand why people have made this out to be the ultimate underdog story. The whole reason I marched out there was because I never thought of myself as an underdog! I had God on my side, and I knew this puny little giant was no match for him. But I suppose that everyone else who was there that day did see me as an underdog, so I suppose that description kind of fits.

            I get kind of nostalgic whenever I get to tell the story, and I suppose there are a couple of reasons for that. First, this was the moment that God used to put me on the public stage among my people. Even after Samuel the prophet had told me that I would be the next king of Israel, I couldn’t help but think, “How could that possibly happen? I’m a nobody – the youngest son in my family!” Well, this battle became the springboard that launched me into the public eye.

            Second, this story is one of the highlights of the good old days for me. Before long, you’re going to read about some moments in my life that I would rather forget. Later on, I would commit some sins that would stay with me for the rest of my life. My actions would hurt so many people; my own family would come almost to the point of ruin.

            But this story was one of the shining moments, and it wasn’t because I was so brave or so courageous. It was just because at that time, I cared more about God’s honor than anything else. I hope you’ll remember that lesson from my story today:

The most significant moments of your life will come when you care more about God’s honor than anything else.

            When you forget about that, you’re asking for trouble. But when you live to honor God rather than just make yourself happy or to build up your own reputation, then you will always be in the right place.

            Well, let me get to the story. The Philistines lived to our West, between the land of my people and the Mediterranean Sea. We had been enemies for hundreds of years, and one day, they marched their army into the Valley of Elah, which was a very strategic place to control because one of the main roads went through that Valley for people who were traveling east and west.

            King Saul marched our army down there to meet them, and my three oldest brothers joined the ranks. You might remember that I had already served King Saul with my music, and I had been appointed as one of his armor bearers. But at that point, I was still so young and small that when real battle looked likely, I was left behind. So I was back with my father’s sheep and I was also acting as a messenger between my dad and my brothers.

            One day, my father asked me to take some food to my brothers at the battlefield and to bring back word of how they were doing. So the next day, I got up earlier than before to make the trip, and that turned out to be a fateful decision.

            The trip from my home in Bethlehem to the Valley of Elah was around 13 miles. I had gotten to know the path pretty well, and I even knew some shortcuts that allowed me to save some time on my walk. Before I even arrived in the valley, I could hear the commotion of our army mustering in their ranks and shouting our war cry. I ran down the rest of the path and got to our camp first, where I left all of the food with the man who was in charge of the supplies, then I ran out to the front lines where our army had positioned themselves.

Seeing and Hearing Goliath

            When I got to the ranks, the air itself was thick with tension and suspense. The two armies were positioned across from each other on opposite hillsides with the Valley in between, and down in the middle of the Valley was one solitary man – a giant of a man, over 9 feet tall. His body was covered in bronze armor from head to toe. All that armor must’ve easily weighed over 100 pounds, but he paced back and forth in that Valley as if he was wearing nothing at all!

            But it wasn’t the sight of him that astonished me the most – it was the words that came out of his mouth. This man looked up the hillside at us and bellowed, “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 me. If he is able to fight with me and kill me, then we will be your servants. But if I prevail against him and kill him, then you shall be our servants and serve us. I defy the ranks of Israel this day. Give me a man, that we may fight together (vv. 8-10).”

            I could hardly believe the arrogance of this man! What you must understand is that at that time, we all thought of battles as not just contests between armies but also as showdowns between the gods – their god versus our God, and the armies were just the method of confrontation.

            This Philistine’s boasts made it clear that he had no fear of our God whatsoever – our God, who had humbled the Egyptians and drowned their army in the sea; who had stopped up the Jordan River and made the walls of Jericho come tumbling down!

            I couldn’t believe this man could think so much of himself and so little of our God. I halfway expected our boys to fight each other just to see who could take the first crack at this man, but to my surprise, our soldiers were moving backward, not forward. No one wanted to give even the impression that they were volunteering to fight this man.

            Then I thought, “Perhaps they’re just clearing the way for King Saul to come out.” Yes, surely that had to be it. Surely our king would go out before us and fight our battles! But Saul was nowhere to be seen.

            What was wrong with my people? Did they care so little about the honor of God that no one would even try to defend it? Did no one believe that God could once again do a mighty deed?

Conversing with the Soldiers and Eliab

            Instead of the sound of a sword being drawn from its sheath, I heard the sound of talking among our ranks. One soldier was saying to another, “Have you seen this man who has come up? Surely he has come up 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 (v. 25).”

            When our soldiers had retreated, they had come back far enough that I was now standing among them. I wanted to make sure I had heard these words correctly, so I asked, “What shall be done for the man who kills this Philistine and takes away the reproach from Israel? For who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God (v. 26)?”

            When I spoke those words, all the soldiers around me turned and stared at me with disbelief. One soldier came pushing and shoving his way through all the others, and when he got to me I discovered that I was staring right into the face of my oldest brother, Eliab!

            I was happy to see him, but it became clear right away that he wasn’t very happy to see me. His face was red with anger, and he said to me, “Why have you come down? 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 (v. 28).”

            Friends, let me tell you – that’s when I began to realize that when you, in your own heart, put a concern for God’s honor above everything else, some people just won’t understand the way you act. They’ll misinterpret your motives; they’ll think you’re trying to act “holier than thou” or that you believe you’re better than them. Until someone has come to put God’s honor ahead of their own, it’s hard for them to understand why you do the things you do. Don’t let that stop you! Remember – the most significant moments of your life will come when you care more about God’s honor than anything else.

Conversing with Saul

            Well, as my older brother was doing what jealous older brothers sometimes do, some of the other soldiers had sent word to King Saul about the confidence that I had expressed through my words. The king sent for me, and I was taken to him. I’m sure he was rather surprised to see my face, but I said to him, “Let no man’s heart fail because of him. Your servant will go and fight with this Philistine.”

            If I’m not mistaken, Saul was trying to suppress a laugh when he replied, “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.”

            But I had more experience with battle than he realized! “Your servant used to keep sheep for his father,” I said. “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 arose 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. 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.”

            I hope you can understand from my words why I felt so confident. It’s not that I was just naturally more brave or courageous than anyone else. I just had complete confidence that God would help me take down this arrogant Philistine. When my people had first marched into the land of Israel, God had promised that he would drive out the Philistines before us if we would simply trust in that promise and take action to do it. And besides, the Lord had also proclaimed through Samuel the prophet that I would be the next king of Israel. I can’t tell you why he chose me, but he did, and as I stood there among the army that day, I just chose to believe that if God made a promise, then the matter was settled. I knew I could live and act as if his promise had already come true.

            Saul could see that I was raring to fight, so he gave me permission to go. He offered to let me wear his own armor, and he even had me try it on, but you have to remember – King Saul was the tallest man in all of Israel. With his armor on, I looked like a boy trying to walk around in his dad’s shoes! I was going to trip all over myself if I tried to fight with that stuff on, so I declined as politely as I could, and I decided just to go out with the tools that had always allowed me to defend my sheep before – my staff and my sling.

The Battle

            Now you have to understand – my sling truly was a deadly weapon in the right hands. It was an overhead style sling, and I could sling a stone out of it at about 150 mph! That didn’t impress this Philistine however, because when he saw me walking out there to challenge him, he just about fell over laughing!

            “Am I a dog,” he said, “that you come to me with sticks?” Then he said something about his great and mighty gods, and I thought, “Just you wait, buddy! Your statues of stone couldn’t hurt me unless you threw them at me!” Then he said, “Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and to the beasts of the field.”

            I had had enough of him insulting my God, so I said, “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. 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 sword and spear. For the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give you into our hand.”

            I wanted to make sure that everyone knew what this encounter was really all about. It wasn’t about me or anyone else who was on the field that day. This was about upholding the honor of God and giving him a chance to put his power on display.

            I apparently got under the giant’s skin with my words, because that was all he wanted to hear from me! He started to walk toward me, and I was more than happy to oblige, so I ran toward him and got a stone loaded into my sling. I twirled it over my head and aimed it right at that big, ugly head of his, and the Lord made it fly true. The stone struck him in the forehead with such force that it sank in and lodged there.

            I don’t know if the Philistine really was this arrogant or what, but he acted like he never even saw my sling. He just kept coming at me, so when the stone struck him, his momentum caused him to fall forward onto his face. He almost crushed his own armor bearer, and when that guy saw what happened, he took off running for the hills.

            I marched right up and true to my word, I took the Philistines own sword and cut off his head. Now please don’t think of me as some brute or butcher. You might think differently about it today, but that was standard warfare back then.

            With that, the battle was on! The Philistines turned tail and started running back home, and our army chased them all the way there before they came back to collect the spoils of victory.

            As I looked out over the ranks of my people celebrating, I prayed to God that they would remember that God could be trusted and that His honor is worth defending. We are His people—and you, today, are His people—so the way we act reflects directly on Him. When we act in confidence that His promises are true and His commands are right, we bring great honor to Him.

The Lessons

            As I thought back on that day over the years, it dawned on me that in just that one event, the Lord highlighted some of the most significant lessons that he kept trying to teach my people over and over again. I wonder if you noticed any of them.

            The first was this – do not see merely as man sees. Don’t live your life based on nothing more than what you can see! King Saul and the rest of the people – all they could see was Goliath’s stature. They couldn’t see that the real battle that day was not physical but spiritual. God’s honor was being called into question, and what were they going to do about it? If they would’ve acted for the sake of his great name, he would come through for them!

            Second, do not trust in the strength of man to save you. So many times, my people got into trouble and danger because of their own sins. But rather than just confess those sins and return to the Lord, we thought, “If we just make an alliance with the Egyptians or the Syrians, then we will be okay!” We thought we could make all of our problems go away through our own strength or our own wisdom, when all we ever needed was to stop running away from God and just obey him once again.

            Third, the God of Israel is the living God; all other so-called gods are lifeless and powerless. Time and time again, we gave our worship and affection, our money and our resources to these things that could not help us at all. They held out nothing but a false hope, when all the while our God – the living God – promised to give us all we would ever need if we would just obey him.

            Fourth, God delights to work through unexpected channels. How often has God chosen the most unlikely person to accomplish something great for him! If you think there’s something about you that would prevent God from using you, think again! You might be the most likely person for him to use, so just prize his honor above anything else and get ready to see the great ways that he can use you.

            Fifth, the people of God represent God. The most shameful thing about that day was not the Philistine’s insults but the cowardice of my people. Their actions betrayed a very small view of God. Never forget that your actions reflect on the God you claim to love. Everything you do reflects on him either for the better or for the worse.

            Sixth and lastly, God acts on behalf of his people for the sake of his great name. God didn’t give me victory that day just so we could control a strategic valley, even though that did happen. He didn’t give me victory just to catapult me to fame, although that happened, too. He won the victory that day so that all the earth would know that there is a God in Israel. Everything he does for us he does ultimately to put his glory on display. God highly values the honor of his name, and so we should, too, more than anything else in life.

What's So "Great" About the Great Commission?--Baptism Sermon

            Words like “great” and “awesome” have lost a little bit of their punch in our language. We use them so often and for so many things that they’ve lost a little bit of their significance. For example, we might eat a really tasty pizza and say, “Wow! That pizza was awesome!” Or on the Fourth of July, we might rig up some kind of homemade bomb and when we set it off we say, “That was awesome!”

            I think it’s kind of humorous to put the dictionary definition of “awesome” into those statements. We’d feel kind of silly saying, “That pizza filled me with an overwhelming sense of reverence!” The dictionary does also mention an overwhelming sense of fear, so that might apply to your homemade bomb on the Fourth of July!

            Because of the way that we use words like “great” and “awesome,” when we talk in church about the Great Commission, we might wonder what’s great about it. Why do we call it the “Great” Commission, anyway? I’d like to give you four answers to that question today as we take a look at the commission that Jesus gave his disciples in Matthew 28:16-20.

            The event recorded in this passage is taking place after Jesus rose from the grave. The text says, “Now the 11 disciples went to Galilee [remember that Judas Iscariot is no longer part of the group!], to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted.”

            That statement takes us by surprise in this story. What were the disciples doubting? Were some of them doubting whether Jesus had really come back to life?

            Most likely, their doubts were about their worship. The Greek term here includes the act of bowing down to someone, and even though the disciples were coming to understand that Jesus was God and the Messiah, he was also a human being, and the thought of bowing down to a human being would have been very foreign to the minds of these Jewish men.

            So most likely, they were having questions or doubts about what they should do now in the presence of Jesus. “Does he want us to bow down to him? After all, we remember him washing our feet and telling us not to act all high and mighty. What does he want us to do?”

            Jesus doesn’t address any questions of etiquette, but instead he gives them a mission, or we might say he commissions them for a job. Starting in verse 18, we begin to see why we refer to this as the “Great” Commission.

1. It comes from a great authority

            [READ v. 18] The first part of the Father’s plan for Jesus required him to submit to various human beings. He submitted to his parents while he was growing up, then later he submitted to the Jewish and Roman authorities.

            But the days for Jesus to submit to other humans are over. The Father has declared him to be the Lord of heaven and earth, and if only all men everywhere would worship him as such! But many people have not heard that Jesus is their Lord and Savior, or some have heard and they have continued in rebellion against him. And so, there is a need for the commission Jesus gives his disciples in verses 19 and 20.

2. It has a great goal

            [READ v. 19-20] What a lofty and satisfying goal this is, to call people to become apprentices of Jesus – to call them to embrace Jesus as their Lord and Savior, then to make that fact known through baptism, then to learn from Jesus’ teachings how to navigate all the ins and outs of life.

            This is the greatest goal to which we could possibly devote our lives. What even compares to it? Accumulating a fortune that you just have to leave behind anyway? A fortune that your kids might fight over or even squander? Grasping for your 15 minutes of fame that might be gone even before you are?

            No goal could possibly be greater than this commission, and this commission also serves as the marching orders for the church. If you’ve ever asked yourself, “What should our church really be focused on?” there’s really no mystery to the answer. We are to make disciples of all nations, lead people to be baptized, and teach them how to live a life that’s based on the commandments of God. Now sure, some of the details will be different for different churches based on where they’re located and the resources they have, but our common goal is laid out right here, and it’s as plain as day.

3. It has a great scope

            Notice that Jesus told them to make disciples of all nations. Previously, in Matthew 10, Jesus had sent the disciples out on a short-term preaching tour, and at that time he had told them to stay within the boundaries of Israel.

            But now there was to be no such restriction. Since Jesus has all authority on earth, all the inhabitants of Earth need to hear the offer of peace from their crucified and risen King. The Gospel is not a message for Israel alone, but for all people. There is also no room for prejudice or racism in our efforts to spread the Gospel. The offer of salvation is made to all people, and all people need to hear it.

4. It comes with a great promise

            After giving his disciples this commission, he gives them this promise: “And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

            In may seem ironic that after giving this promise, Jesus left the Earth and returned to heaven just a few days later. But by doing so, he made it possible to be with all of his disciples all the time – at the same time, no matter where they might be. Remember that Jesus’ physical body could not be in two places at once any more than yours or mine can.

            But after returning to heaven, Jesus sent his Spirit upon his disciples on the day of Pentecost. The Spirit has come to live in every believer since that time. So Jesus has certainly made good on this promise, and he will continue to do so.

            The Spirit’s presence within us is a wonderful reality of the unity that we enjoy with Jesus through faith. Baptism is a wonderful picture of that unity as we symbolize the fact that through faith, we have died, been buried, and have been raised to new life with Jesus. Let us celebrate with those who choose to take this important step.

Phases of the Lord's Second Coming--Definite Convictions Series

            Planning a vacation with your grown-up siblings or extended family can be an interesting process. You quickly find out that even though you’re family, you probably disagree about all kinds of vacation details.

            Some people want to hit all of the tourist hotspots. The larger the crowds, the better, because crowds mean energy and liveliness. Other people want to get away from it all. They’d rather find a cabin out in Montana and spend a week with no Internet and no cell phone reception.

            Some people like to pinch every penny when they’re on vacation. It’s like a personal challenge for them to beat the system! They want to take all their own food, and they know that if everyone gets 2 ½ pieces of bread each day, they can stretch three loaves over the entire trip. Other people like to live it up when they’re on vacation. They want to see what it feels like to be Warren Buffet, so their credit card never leaves their hand.

            But despite these differences, you realize that at the end of the day, you’re still family. You can live with differences like this because they’re not the core of what really makes you a family, anyway.

            Today, as we continue through our church’s Statement of Faith, we come to an issue on which there is some disagreement within the Christian family. It’s disagreement we can live with—we don’t need to denounce other churches over this issue, but there is value to taking a clear position within our own church.

            All Christians believe that Jesus is going to return to this world someday because he said he would. There is disagreement, though, about how he will return and when he will return. The specific question is this – will the events that we call the Rapture and the Second Coming happen at the same time in one event, or will they happen at different times and thus be two separate events?

            Our church believes and teaches that the Rapture and the Second Coming will be two separate events. Thus, our Statement of Faith refers to phases (plural) of the Lord’s Second Coming. It says:

We believe in the Blessed Hope (Titus 2:13), the personal, imminent, pre-tribulation and pre-millennial, bodily coming of the Lord Jesus Christ for His Church; and in His subsequent return to Earth with His saints to establish His Millennial kingdom. (John 14:3; Acts 1:11; 1 Thess 1:10; 1 Thess 4:13-18; 2 Thess 1:7-9; Rev 3:10; 19:11-16; Zech 14:4-11)

You see a long list of verses there, and I’d like to read just a few of them – two of the main passages on the Rapture, and one of the main passages on the Second Coming [READ John 14:1-3; 1 Thess 4:13-18; Rev 19:11-16].

Why Do We Believe That The Rapture and The Second Coming Will Be Separate Events?

            All of these passages describe Jesus returning to this earth. Why do we believe that they refer to two separate events instead of just one? I’ll focus today on just three reasons.

1. The stated purpose for Christ’s return is different in different passages

            In John 14, Jesus said that he was leaving to prepare a place for his disciples and that he would come back for them so they could all live in that place together. That is a rather different purpose from Revelation 19, which describes Jesus coming to strike down the nations and to tread the wine press of the fury of the wrath of God.

            Now, this point all by itself does not make a slam-dunk case for the idea of separate events. After all, one event can certainly serve several purposes. Think of a wedding, for example. A wedding serves as a time for celebration, an opportunity for spiritual dedication as a couple takes vows before the Lord, and it marks the beginning of a legal contract between a husband and wife that is acknowledged by the government. So one event can fulfill several purposes, but recognizing different purposes in different passages at least opens the door to the idea that there could be different phases to Christ’s return.

2. Christ’s return is said to be imminent, yet many events are described that must happen before Christ returns

            Passages like James 5:7-9 teach us that Christ’s return could take place at any moment [READ James 5:7-9]. This passage pictures Jesus as being ready to step into our world right now. And yet, the Book of Revelation describes seven years’ worth of events that must take place before Christ can return. How can both of these ideas be true?

            That question is a real conundrum for Christians who believe that the Rapture and Second Coming are one event. The tension is resolved, however, when we view these happenings as two separate events. In this point of view, the Rapture is imminent, with the Second Coming then taking place seven years later.

            So the Rapture could happen at any moment, wherein the Lord will descend into the skies to take us out of the world to live with him in heaven. Then, seven years later, Jesus will return to the world with all of us in tow in order to establish his kingdom of peace on this planet.

3. The Apostle Paul calls the transformation of living Christians a “mystery”

            1 Thessalonians 4 spoke of living Christians being caught up into the clouds to meet the Lord and thus being instantly transformed in that moment. In 1 Corinthians 15, the Apostle Paul referred to that truth as a “mystery” [READ 1 Cor 15:51-52].

            Paul uses that word “mystery” a few times in his writings, and when he does, he uses it to refer to truths that had not previously been revealed to mankind. In other words, he’s saying, “I’m going to let you in on a secret,” or “I’m going to tell you something you’ve never heard before.”

            That’s significant for this discussion because Christ’s coming to defeat his enemies and establish his kingdom was clearly foretold in the Old Testament. What we read about in Revelation 19 had already been clearly predicted in passages like Zechariah 14.

            The point is that Paul could not have referred to the Second Coming as a mystery since it had already been revealed. So, when he talks about living believers being instantly transformed and meeting the Lord in the air, he must be referring to a different event than what had already been foretold in the Old Testament.

Monday Matters

            So what difference does it make for you in your daily life to know that there will be two phases to Christ’s return – the Rapture and then the Second Coming? It means that you can live with this confidence and assurance:

God has not destined you to taste his wrath.

            Why will Jesus rapture us out of this world seven years prior to his Second Coming? Because the period of time between those two events will be a time of anguish unlike anything this world has yet seen. Jesus said in Matthew 24 that it will be a time of great trouble and tribulation, and that if God did not limit that period to just a few years, no one at all would survive it.

            But God will take us out of the world prior to that time in order to spare us from it. God has a history of protecting his people in moments when he expresses his appropriate anger toward sin. He did it for Noah and his family when he flooded the earth; he did it for Lot when he destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah; he did it for the children of Israel when the plagues ravaged Egypt but left them unscathed. Apparently, he is going to do it for us before he sends judgments upon the world for our rejection of the Lord Jesus Christ.

            So God has not destined you to taste his wrath. I think that truth should also influence the way that we interpret the normal sufferings of life that we face here in a fallen world. When we face hard, painful times, it is very common for us to wonder, “Is God angry at me? Is that why this is happening? Am I facing his anger for something?”

            This truth about the Rapture should remind us of the glorious deliverance and salvation that we have through Jesus Christ. We are saved from the wrath of God through him, so when we face the trials of life, we don’t need to jump to the conclusion that God is angry with us. Since you are God’s child, his fundamental outlook toward you is one of acceptance and love and mercy. The gaze that looks down on you from heaven is always tender and compassionate, never angry and stern.

            We are saved from the wrath of God, both now and in the future when God will express his wrath toward mankind in the Tribulation. And so we look forward with great anticipation to the moment when Jesus will come to take his children out of the world to be with him in the place that he is preparing. And we will rejoice greatly on the day when we come back from heaven with him to enjoy the kingdom of peace that he will establish in this world.