Frankie Mazzapica - Throw Your Stone
Thank you for tunin' in today. My name is Frankie Mazzapica. The title of the message is: Throw Your Stone. "Throw Your Stone". Now, some of you are already ahead of me. You know the story of David and Goliath, and so you know that that's what we're gonna be talkin' about today, and so let me just dive right into it straightaway, and we're gonna go to 1 Samuel chapter 17. We're gonna read verse 40, 46, 48, and 49. Now, if you don't have your Bibles with ya, you can download the Celebration Church app. Just go to the App Store, type in "Celebration Church TW". All of my sermon notes are right there in the app, and the Scripture that we are gonna be going over is right in the app.
But this is what the Scripture says in 1 Samuel 17, verse 40. It reads like this: "And David, he, when David went to the stream", actually, it reads like this: "He picked up a rock from the stream, and he put it in his shepherd's bag. Armed with only his shepherd's staff and a sling, he started across the valley to fight the Philistine". When he was standing before him, in verse 46, he says this. He goes, "Today", listen to the confidence. "Today the Lord will conquer you, and I will kill you, and I will chop off your head. And I will take the dead bodies of your men and feed them to the birds and the wild animals". Then it goes on to say that "as Goliath began to move towards him to attack, David, abruptly, he quickly ran towards the Philistine and begin to fill his sling".
The very last verse, it reads like this: "And David took a rock out of the shepherd's bag. He placed it within his sling, and he hurled it, and he hit the Philistine in the forehead. The rock sank in, and Goliath stumbled and fell face first to the ground". And you know the rest of the story. He ran up to Goliath, and he chopped his head off. I wanna talk about three points in that passage. The first...and these are my major points. The first point is when David picked up five smooth stones. He second point is when God conquered Goliath. And then my last and final major point will be to encourage you to throw your rock. So let's dive right into it. When David picked up five smooth stones, it's fascinating, to me, that he picked up five.
Now, before I talk about the significance of five, I have a friend of mine that went to the valley that they fought in, and it's the Valley of, it's E-L-L-A-H. Let me try to pronounce it. It's "Elah". Does that sound right? I'm trying to learn Spanish. I've been takin' Spanish lessons for two years, and so now any time I see a double "L," I always think "Y," so I wanna say, "eyah," but now I don't know how to say it in English, and so I'm like, I don't know what I'm supposed to say here. But nevertheless, he picked up one of the stones. I am 100% sure that he was not supposed to grab a stone 'cause I've been to Israel, and they make it abundantly clear that, if everybody picks up a stone, there's gonna be no stones here.
But anyway, he picked up a stone, and he gave me one, and I'm certainly not gonna return it, but I'm holding one of the stones, and it's about the size of a golf ball. It's got, let me see here: one, two, three, four, five. It's got five sides to it, and it's noticeably smooth on each side. And so, when he picked up five smooth stones, the Bible says that it was with the first stone that he hurled at Goliath. And I'm goin' like this because, in our day, we've got these slingshots that shoot like this, but in their day, there was a pocket of leather, and there was two leather strips like shoelaces, and they would put the rock inside of this sling, and they would go like this and throw it.
Now, what is said is, and they know this because historians have been in caves and have seen drawings of people slinging rocks into the air and hitting birds. They were incredibly accurate. But for many years, historians and theologians have tried to figure out the significance of grabbing five stones. Now, the most popular is from a prophetic point of view, meaning that Goliath had four other brothers, and he was just grabbing four extra just in case those four other giants came running out, and he was ready to knock them down as well. And that is likely to be true, however, there's also a practical possibility that he knew that he would probably knock him down and hit him with one stone. He had been practicing his entire life, and he knew that "I believe I can knock him down with one shot".
But he grabbed four others because he knows his averages, and he knows that "hey, I'm not perfect, and my goal is to knock him down. My goal is not to hit him with the first shot. My goal is not to be perfect. My goal is to win". And he gave himself margin for error. He gave himself grace. He knew that he wasn't perfect, and he wasn't gonna stop in the middle of the battle because he messed up. He missed. The Bible really doesn't have a topic or a passage of giving yourself grace. We know that the Lord gives us grace, and that alone is a far leap. Grace and mercy are two different things.
When we come before the Lord, according to Hebrews chapter 4, verse 16, it says that we come before the throne of grace, and when we pray, we should come boldly with confidence, and every time we will receive mercy and grace, every time. Every time you pray, you receive mercy and grace. Mercy forgives you for everything that you've ever done. That happens every time you pray. Now, grace gives you strength where you're weak. Grace is the acknowledgment of "I know that you are made from dust". In Psalms 103, verse 15, actually, 14, it says this. He goes, "I remember how you were formed. I know that you were made from dust". In other words, "When you make a mistake, I'm gonna give you mercy, and I'm gonna give you grace because I know you have no chance of being as perfect as you wanna be, as being as righteous as you wanna be, so I'm gonna give you that strength to be strong in the area where you're weak".
And so, thank you for the grace, Lord. And we look to others, and we are like, "I can give you grace. When you mess up, I recognize that you're not perfect, and I can give you grace". But giving ourself grace, now, that's a completely different ball game. You know, I don't know about you, but sometimes I will think of something stupid I did, stupid I said, right in the middle of the night, and I say out loud, "Oh, Jesus". It happened 20 years ago. Have you ever been there? Say, "Yes". Come on, help me out. Say, "Yes". If you've been there, just lie. Make me feel better. If you've ever been there, say, "Yes," help me. Yes. We have problems forgiving ourself, especially if we feel like we took a detour from God's plan, and now we're believing that our entire life is not according to God's plan because of the mistake that we made.
And so, when a preacher, a friend, a family member, a loved one, says, "Look", and in their own words, in my own words, we refer to Philippians 1:6, where it says that God will make... no, it says this: God will be sure that all of his plans for you will be completed, that every plan, that his plan someway, somehow, in spite of the fact that we make all these crazy mistakes, you could look at somebody and say, "What were you thinking"? And then you look in the mirror and go, "What were you thinking"? The Lord says, "I am going to be sure that the things that I've planned for you", now, we may take, or the straight road ends up bein' a figure eight, but the Lord makes perfect. He gives you grace. But to say, "I'm going to give myself grace," to be able to say, "Frankie, you are human. Give yourself a break", this is a word for somebody in this room this mornin'. You're human. You were made from dust. Give yourself some slack. Give yourself some slack.
Second point I wanna talk about... first point being give yourself some grace, and the second point is that the Lord conquered Goliath. Did you hear what he said in verse 46? He says this. He goes, "Today the Lord will conquer you, and I will kill you". In other words, there's a partnership, but the hard part, God says, "I got him". Now, when David said, "I will kill you, and I will chop off your head," you and I could've chopped off his head. God put him on the ground. He conquered him, and he caused his rock to be guided with his finger. You know, a rock bein' planted into a skull, do you know how hard that rock had to be thrown, how it had to be hurled? You've all seen the pictures of those Roman soldiers, the helmets they wore. They're, oftentimes, you could only see their eyes and their mouth. It came down.
The force and the accuracy to get in that small crack, to split in there, the Lord's finger had to be on that rock. The Lord's finger... can I just say that the Lord's hand is so much on your life that he literally guides you and protects you. He guides you, come on, if you receive that. He guides you. Now, for those of you in the room that may think into yourself, "Preacher, it's your job to get us hyped", but the reality is that's not the story of my life. When I look back, I don't see the Lord guiding me. I don't see myself skipping from mountaintop to mountaintop. I would say to you, the fact that you're here right now is a testimony of God's faithfulness.
The Bible says this, that David started across the valley to fight the Philistine. Your greatest battles are in the valley. Your greatest victories are in the valley. You don't look back and say, "When I was havin' the time of my life, when I was havin' the time of my life, I got through the hardest season of my life". That doesn't happen. It's an oxymoron. But when you were in the darkest season of your life, that's when you look back and share your testimony. In those moments when you thought your entire life was over, that's the testimony you tell the most. You don't go around telling people, "Oh, 15 years ago, I was living the time of my life," and the person leans in to listen to you, and you go, "That's the end of the story". No, no, no, no, no, where you spend your time is when you talk about the valley, and why is that? Because now you're standing here, and that worst moment of your life, you don't know how you got from the valley to where you are, but God guided you to make sure you got out. Come out, put your hands together for that.
And remember this: You don't know how you got out of it, and you don't know how you're gonna get out of the valley that you're in now, but the same God that got you out of the last valley, the last 20 valleys, the last 50 valleys when you thought that valley was impossible to get out, and now you're in another valley, and you think, "This is an impossibility. I'm dealin' with morons all around me". In Ezekiel 36:26, it says this: "And I will give you a new heart and a new spirit. I will remove that heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh". Those morons around you, you just stay in yo' lane. That's bad English, but great theology. You stay in yo' lane and allow God to conquer it, rip out that heart of stone, and put in a heart of flesh. Come on, help me out. Last and final point for this morning is... what is last and final point? Give it, "Throw Your Rock".
The title of the message, my God. I want you to throw your rock. I want you to do your part. "Frankie, do your part. Move. Pray. Do somethin'". But we gotta make sure that we're throwin' the right rock. What do I mean by that? Oftentimes, we throw the rock at someone that they first threw at us. "You're disrespectful to me? Heh-heh-hey, baby, I can be disrespectful to you. You wanna be rude to me? I invented rude. You wanna throw rocks at me? You wanna insult me? I gotta pile of rocks sittin' right next to me. You wanna start this? Go ahead. Start it. I can promise you this, sugar bear. I will finish it". Are you with me? I can promise you that. How far does that ever get us? Have we ever truly solved a problem like that? We've ruined a lot of relationships like that. A heated discussion that should last 30 minutes end up lasting 30 days, 30 hours.
There are some people in this world that, if you saw 'em at a restaurant, you'd walk out of that restaurant, and if you had to go to Taco Bell instead of Olive Garden, you would do it. You'd eat dirt before you sat next to them in a restaurant. Why? Because we traded rocks. There are certain rocks that are gonna do nothing but hurt us. They promise us they'll work.
Many of us know or probably everyone knows that story, "Humpty Dumpty". "Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. Humpty Dumpty, all the king's men and all the king's horses could not put Humpty Dumpty back together again". Now, that childhood or nursery rhyme, I should say, that nursery rhyme always depicted Humpty Dumpty as a big egg that sat on a wall, but if you do a shallow dive into history, you'll find out that Humpty Dumpty was never an egg. Humpty Dumpty was a poem written by the English Civil War in 1640... 16... I think it was 1640 to 1644. It was English Civil War with the first king. I believe it was King Charles I, and he decided that he wanted to rule without Parliament.
Humpty Dumpty was actually a cannon that sat on top of the wall for King Charles I, and he and his army was referred to as the Royalists, and the people who were attacking him were called the Parliament? Help me. Parliamentus? Parlimentric? Palimentrist? Parliamentarian. That's what I'm lookin' for. Anyway, there was a war, and what the Royalists did is they sat a cannon on top of the wall, and every single time their opponent began to attack 'em, they would shoot this cannon, and they couldn't even get close to the Royalists. They couldn't even get close to King Charles I. Couldn't even get close to him because there was this massive cannon that sat on the wall, and they called it Humpty Dumpty. After 30 days, the ones that represented Parliament, they couldn't get any closer, and so they decided that they would get out their own cannon and shoot at the base of the wall that Humpty Dumpty sat on.
Now, Humpty Dumpty, you'd put these big rocks inside of the cannon, and it would shoot out, but they started shooting the bottom of the wall. Now you're ahead of me. The cannon, Humpty Dumpty, fell to the ground, and all of the king's men, "all of the cavaliers" is what they called them, all the king's men and all the king's horses could not put Humpty Dumpty back together again. The end of the story is they were defeated, and England today now has a Parliament that rules along with the king and the queen. But they could not put Humpty Dumpty back together again. Why? Because they were throwin' rocks that they should never have been throwing. They were throwing rocks back and forth because their own agenda was being challenged.
When our agenda and our plan and our vision of how our life should be going is bein' challenged, we feel a sense of threat, and we will do whatever we have to do to overcome that threat. If it's a person, we'll give him a piece of our mind. If it is a closed door in regards to a business, we will kick that thing and call 'em all devils for lockin' that door. We will work, and we will even work harder. I was talkin' to somebody the other day, and I said, "Is there ever a time when you're not workin'? You work in the mornin', you work in the afternoon, you work in the evening. There's never a time". All of that, I don't know what it's driven by, but I do know that there's no confidence that the Lord is going to pave your way before you. Can I just tell ya that the Lord will pave your way before you, but you have to, you have to back up and say, "God, I am not strong enough to do this myself. I need a miracle". Do you receive that today?