Steven Furtick - Keep Your Distance (01/28/2026)
This is week four of the "Sticks and Stones" series, focusing on defeating your "Goliath." The sermon from 1 Samuel 17 teaches that the constant companion of destiny is doubt, which comes through accusation, belittling, and provocation. The key to victory is your "approach": like David the "slinger," you must fight from a distance with spiritual weapons (worship, God's Word) instead of engaging the enemy on his terms with worry or worldly methods.
Facing the Forces of Doubt
This week, specifically in my message, I am assigned, I feel like, by God to help you get above some stuff that's been dragging you down. It's week four of our "Sticks and Stones" series, and this is the week, I know you've been waiting for it, where we are finally about to kill Goliath, stone-cold dead. We're about to take him out together. Next week, we'll cut off his head, but this week, we're just going to knock him out and kill him. The most violent series in the history of our church. I feel like I need to offer an apology to all the women of our church for the violence factor of this series, but we'll balance it out. I'll preach about love sometime this year or something like that. Valentine's Day.
So, if you brought your Bible, if you want to pull it up now, we also put the Scriptures on the screen. Go to 1 Samuel, chapter 17, and we studied last week about passion. Each week, we've had a different word that starts with the letter A that kind of gives a centrality to the content of our study. First week was anointing. Anointing. The things that God has called you to do, he'll also empower you or anoint you to do. That's a biblical term. You're anointed to accomplish your assignment. You absolutely are. And the second week, we talked about ability, how God puts down in you what he needs you to have to accomplish what he's called you to do, wherever he's placed you. Ability. And you've got to develop it. You've got to grow it. You've got to work it. Touch somebody, say, "work it." Work your gift and develop it and grow it so you can be all that God's called you to be.
The third week, we did talk about having a passionate attitude. That was the word attitude. And this week, I want to talk about the word approach. And I ask you to open your heart to what God wants to say, because we're going to see David on the day that he goes to kill Goliath, which incidentally he didn't know he was going to do that day. You know, sometimes you wake up and you have no idea what opportunity God might put before you that day. That's why you're wise to come to church. Because who knows, God might give you the word that you need today to make it through something you're going to go through in three months that you don't even know about yet. You never know.
You've got to be ready and be ready for whatever life brings to you. He may give you something that you can share with somebody else. Your best friend might have cancer by the end of this year, and God might show you something today that you can pass on to them. So put it in the refrigerator and label it on the top of the Tupperware and then give it to your friend. You can take the word of God and take it into every situation. So David wakes up one morning and he's instructed to take some food to his brothers who are on the battle lines fighting against the Philistines. And he's not old enough to go to war. He's a part-time sheep tender for his dad, working in a family business.
And on the side, he goes and plays harp. He's a club musician. He's a harpist. And he's kind of a jazz cat for the king. And he goes and plays his harp for Saul, the king, when Saul calls on him. And now he's been instructed by his father, though, on this day. And his father gives him some cheese and some bread and says, take this little cheese and bread supply to your brothers and the commanders of their unit and see how they're doing and bring back a report. So his dad tells him to do it. So he gets up and he goes out to do it. And when he gets there, he hears this rumor that there's this guy, real big guy, named Goliath. And he's a champion for the Philistines, and he's got all the Israelites. That's God's people. He's got them all scared.
David's Willing Spirit and the First Force: Accusation
And so David is investigating the situation. That's where we're picking up in verse 26. David asked the men standing near him, "What will be done for the man who kills this Philistine and removes this disgrace from Israel? Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?" You know, David had only been out there for a couple of hours, but the same threats that all of the other people had been hearing for 40 days that didn't move them to action moved him to action in just a matter of moments, because he had a willing spirit. So he asked this question, and verse 27 says, They repeated to him what they had been saying and told him, "This is what will be done for the man who kills him."
I need to tell you about that, because it was in an earlier verse that we didn't read. So basically Saul the king made a deal and put a bounty on Goliath's head. And he said, "Whoever kills this guy and gets rid of him, I'll give him my daughter in marriage." And his daughter was apparently hot. Otherwise, he wouldn't be using it as an incentive. You don't have to offer no ugly girl to try to motivate somebody. And then the second reward was, "If you kill Goliath, you don't have to pay taxes again for the rest of your life." It's sweet. Yeah. So, they tell him about that. They tell him about that. Now, verse 28 is where we're going to encounter the first one I'm calling force. It's a person, but we're using it to represent a force. And there are three forces in this passage that represent the same forces that will try to drag you down into doubt.
Before I give you the first one, I'd like you to write down this thought. Well, the constant companion of destiny is doubt. David is a man of great destiny. God has anointed him to be a future king and a great warrior. But the enemy will always attack what God anoints. And if you've got a great destiny, you need to get used to the doubts that come along with it. You would think if God assigned a great destiny and future and plan to your life, it would immediately eliminate all doubt. And I would suggest to you that if you have a great destiny, you're going to have to learn how to deal with great doubts. The constant companion of destiny is doubt. Now, I want to read about this first person to you in verse 28, the first force of doubt that David encounters. And I want you to look for yourself in this passage and see how this relates to you and where you are today.
It says, verse 28, "When Eliab, David's oldest brother..." A little sibling rivalry going on. You're about to see how David's family is dysfunctional, too. Just like yours. "When his oldest brother heard him speaking with the men, he burned with anger at him and asked, 'Why have you come down here? And with whom did you leave those few sheep in the wilderness? You're not very responsible. I know how conceited you are, how wicked your heart is. You came down only to watch the battle.'" What's he doing? He's accusing. He's accusing. How does the devil plant doubts in our mind concerning our destiny? By accusing us. One of the names that the Bible gives to Satan, it's only mentioned one time, but I think it's one of the most accurate, is "the accuser of the brethren," the accuser of God's children.
God will show you your sin to change you, but he will never show you your shame. He will never rub your nose in what you've done wrong in order to bring you down. That's how you can know whether it's God speaking or the devil. When God speaks to you about something in your life that he doesn't like, he'll always speak in a way that will lift you up to a higher way of living. But when the enemy comes, he comes like Eliab to drag you down. "I know how wicked you are. What are you doing here? What are you doing in church?" You know some of you while we were even singing today. That's what the devil was saying to you. "Who do you think you are lifting your hands? You know how you lived last week. Who do you even think you are being in church? Who do you even think you are trying to study the Bible? You go to the gym. Who do you even think you are getting on a treadmill? You'll be fat in October just like you were fat last October, because you never keep it up." Watch this. Accusing. Accusing. Accusing. We all have Eliabs. Accusing. Accusing. Accusing. If you have a great destiny, you'll have to face great accusations.
I can't imagine what it felt like to be David in this moment, though. Think about it. He's being accused by the very person he came to serve. Remember when Jesse sent David out? He said, "Take this cheese and bread down to your brothers." It's like, "Hey, David, I know how wicked you are." Actually, bro, I just came to bring you some snacks. Can I get a witness? And David is upset about it. Have you ever been accused by somebody you were trying to assist? It's the worst feeling in the world. You know, and I'm talking to all the moms right now. I'm talking to the moms. I'm specifically talking to the moms of teenage girls. When you tell her, "You are not going out of the house dressed like that." And she said, and she, you know, she says what she says. "I hate you," rolls her eyes, you know, stomps off, does her thing. And that's where I just separated all the white women in the church from the black women. Because when I said, "she says, 'I hate you,'" all the black women were like, "and then she dies." The white women were like, "all the time, all the time." Right? I know my audience.
How to Deal with Accusation: The Turn
Now, and, and, and, and so David, watch his response. His response is awesome. This is what you got to learn to do. That's what you got to learn to do. Verse, verse 29. He's frustrated about it. He's being accused. And he says this, verse 29. "Now, what have I done?" Can't you hear the little brother and even how he's talking here? I can hear the teenager. "Now, what have I done? Can I even speak?" And when I was reading this, it reminded me of, of, uh, my, my younger son, Graham. We have three kids. The youngest one's a girl. And then we have Graham. He's six and Elijah. He's eight and Elijah is so sharp with his words. This boy, I don't know about his athletic ability yet, but his words, that boy, the way his mind works, he can, he can beat me in an argument and I'm good at arguing.
And, and so what he does, he, he uses that against his little brother all the time and poor Graham. It gets to him every time. He hasn't really learned what to do about this yet. I'm trying to help him because, uh, Graham will come in bragging about something, you know, he's a little proud of an accomplishment or something. And he'll come in and say, "daddy, daddy, I did 10 pull-ups." And Elijah will say, "um, they weren't real pull-ups." And then Graham, he'll get so defensive and he says this every time. "Elijah." How many times have we heard that? "Elijah." So I've been teaching Graham. I'm working with him. I'm teaching him. "Your brother is extremely good at arguing and you might not want to try to beat him in an argument. What you might want to do instead is learn to get better at ignoring him than he is at arguing with you." And this is how you have to deal with Eliab. "Eliab! Can I even talk?"
Well, watch this. Watch what David does. It's brilliant. It's brilliant. He doesn't start defending himself. "Let me show you the text where dad told me to bring the cheese and the bread." No, no, no, no. Watch this. One of the most simple strategies you can get for dealing with the accusation of the enemy. Look at it. Verse 30. "He then turned away to someone else and brought up the same matter." Watch this. This is what you have to do. This is what you have to do. You have to learn the turn. Yeah. So the devil is real good at accusing you. And you know he'll use all kinds of stuff. It's not people accusing you you've got to worry about because they don't know the real dirt. It's not what people say about you. It's what you know about you that the devil will use against you to try to tell you you can't do it.
And he'll plant these seeds of doubt in your mind. And he won't speak with the voice of God trying to help you get better and change you. When God shows you your sin, repent. Change your mind. But when the devil accuses you, here's what I want you to learn to do. Just turn away. Just turn away. In your mind, turn away. "Yeah, but just turn away." "You suck." Turn away. "You're horrible." Turn away. I'm going to teach you this in depth in the series "Crash the Chatterbox," because that's what I wrote the whole book about. How do you hear that crap and turn away? Turn away. Turn away. Turn your back on your neighbor real quick. Say, "Sometimes I have to turn away. I have to turn away. I have to turn away." Just turn on. Turn on. When the Enemy accuses you, you have to learn the turn. Have you learned the turn yet? It will help you so much when he's bombarding you, when he's dismantling you, when he's getting up under your skin. Instead of screaming, "Eliab!" Just turn away.
I love it because David ultimately knew it wasn't Eliab's call whether or not he got to fight Goliath. In effect, he's saying, "I want to speak to a supervisor. I don't have to argue with you, because you're not running this show." The next time the Devil starts bringing up stuff you did and starts reminding you of your past, I have a strategy for you. Turn away and appeal to a supervisor, because he's not running the show, and Jesus already nailed whatever he's throwing in your face to the cross. So turn away, and turn to God, and turn your eyes upon Jesus, and look full on his wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace. There's an accusation. David doesn't defend himself. He doesn't go through all the details of why I'm here. No, no, no. He just turns away.
The Second Force: Belittling and Self-Doubt
Go to verse 31. Because he does, "what David said was overheard and reported to Saul the king. So Saul sent for him." Remember, Saul kind of knew David because he liked the way he played the harp. So David said to Saul… Now David is going to try to convince the king I can fight this guy. He says, "Let no one lose heart on account of this Philistine. Let no one lose heart. Your servant will go and fight him." Wait a minute, boy. "Aren't you the harp dude? Now you play the harp pretty good, but this is a fight. Your harp ain't going to help you against this guy." Because Goliath was big. We know he was somewhere between six foot nine and nine feet tall. I know there's a discrepancy, but there's a little bit of argument about the language. So somewhere between that… That's pretty big in the ancient world, either way you slice it. He's a big dude. He's wearing over a hundred pounds of armor. He's the greatest champion all of Philistia has to offer.
David's walking up asking for permission to fight the battle, to accomplish his destiny, to glorify God. Look at Saul's response. Saul replied, verse 33, "You are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him." That's the first phrase. You are not able. Then the second one. "You are only a young man." He's been a warrior from his youth. I wonder what the Devil has been telling you you are not able to do this week. Doesn't he start almost everything he says to you with that phrase? You are not able. "You're not going to be able to handle this. You're going to crack. You're going to choke. You're going to send your kids to the therapist for real. You're not able. Come on. Let's be serious. You play good, but you can't fight. This is too much for you. You are not able. You are only."
Somebody in this room who has been through a divorce, the Devil has been telling you, "you're only a divorcee. You're not a real Christian. If you were a real Christian, you would have worked your marriage out. You are only a mom. You don't even have a real job. You're only. You're not able. You're not able. You're only." What's he doing? Belittling David. I wonder what has been belittling you lately. Accusation is one thing that really speaks to your character. But when he starts belittling you in your ability, that can be quite discouraging, because a lot of what Saul said to David was correct. It's factual. This is a big guy. I'm just a little boy. What David knew how to do… He's so instructive for all of us who have ever felt about this big, who have ever felt cut down to size, who have ever looked at our experience and our pedigree and what we're good at.
You know what gets me all the time? I always think everybody is so much smarter than me. I do. I live in a constant state of thinking everybody knows all this stuff I don't know. Every once in a while I get a glimpse into the window where I find out you're not all that smart either. And then that encourages me, because I know we're all fighting. We all feel stupid sometimes. Don't leave me up here by myself. Has anybody ever felt, "I'm so stupid, I'm so stupid, I'm so stupid"? And so am I, and so are we all, and we're all trying to learn together. So the experience, the experience that you don't have, is no indication of what God can't do in your life. It doesn't matter what you don't know, and it doesn't matter what you can't do when God calls you.
David's Response: Rehearsing God's Faithfulness
So David hears that discouraging talk. Look at verse 34. I love the next two words. It says, "But David." I wanted to preach a sermon one time called, "How Big Is Your Butt?" Because when you see the word "but" in the Bible, it's always setting up a really important contrast. It says, "But David." So Saul's got all these reasons why I won't work, and Saul's got all these reasons why I can't do it, and Saul's got all these things that David doesn't have, all this experience that he hasn't acquired yet, and it says, "But David said to Saul, 'Your servant has been keeping his father's sheep.'" Oh, well, that really builds my confidence. "Yeah, so you're totally ready for this. I've been keeping sheep. I could totally kill this giant." Do you see how ridiculous that is? It's like, "I'm great with computers. I could totally play in the Super Bowl." It's like, I don't think that was it.
"Your servant has been keeping his father's sheep," but watch this. Beneath the surface, I was training for this very moment. Because "when a lion or bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock… Let me tell you what I did." Verse 35. "I went after it. I went after it." Yeah, it was kind of scary, but I went after it. That's what I hope people say about me as a preacher. I want people to say, "you know, he wasn't always the smartest, and his jokes weren't always funny, and sometimes he screamed a little too much, and we had to wear earplugs to listen to him while he preached. But that boy went after it. That boy preached until he couldn't preach anymore. That boy left it all out there in the pulpit. He went after it."
Sometimes I listen to some of the stuff I said five years ago preaching. I'm thinking, oh God, why did you say that? But at least I was going after it. I might miss every once in a while, but at least I'm moving. I went after it. You have to go after it, even if you miss it sometimes. You have to just go after it. He said, "I went after it, and I struck it, and I rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me…" Because sometimes the situation will get worse, and sometimes stuff will turn on you, and sometimes you'll be engaged in a battle, and it'll bite you. But he said, "when it turned on me, no problem, I seized it by his hair, and struck it and killed it. Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear, and this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God. So the same God who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine."
I'm trying to say it doesn't matter how big your giant is. It matters how big your God is. If you have a big God on the inside of you, magnify him, and let your troubles seem minuscule. Stay after it, man. Stay after it. Stay after it. Find three people. Tell them, "stay after it. Stay after it. Stay after it." God brought you this far, and he won't leave you in this place. Wow. I love the Bible. I love this story. This thing preaches itself. Can you feel I'm excited? I'm so excited right now. I'm telling you right now, if you can't preach David and Goliath and you're a preacher, you need to quit, man. You need to go sell something else, because this stuff will preach itself.
Now look. Saul said to David, verse 37, the same guy who about five verses ago was saying, you can't do it. "Saul said to David, 'go.'" If it's like that, go. "Go ahead. It's your bad self, and the Lord be with you." In other words, good luck, bro. There's a lot on the line, because it's not just David versus Goliath. It's Israel versus Philistia. So if David loses, the whole nation loses. A lot on the line. So Saul wants to make sure that David is appropriately attired for this battle. Look at verse 38. It says, "Saul dressed David in his own tunic, put a coat of armor on him," the original under armor, "and he put a bronze helmet on his head. David fastened on his sword over the tunic and tried walking around because he wasn't used to them. He said, 'I cannot go in these because I'm not used to them,' so he took them off."
I've used this many times to illustrate how you have to be yourself, and you can't wear the expectations of others, and you can't imitate what God has called other people to do and who he's called them to be. So it's a great illustration. David strips down, and he goes back to what he knows. Look at verse 40. It says, "Then he took his staff in his hand, chose five smooth stones, five secret weapons, five smooth stones." Five, for all of you Bible nerds, is the number of grace. "He took five smooth stones from the stream and put them in the pouch of his Shepherd's bag. With his sling in his hand, then." Now we have the sticks. Now we have the stones. "And he approached the Philistine."
Understanding the Battle: Slinger vs. Swordsman
I think it's important to realize why David approached the Philistine, because he was fighting for God. But it's equally important how he approached him, because not everybody that fights for God wins the battle. I always thought of the story of David and Goliath. It was just a total miracle. I don't know why, but for some reason in my mind as a little boy, I always thought David had something that was closer to a rubber band and a spitball. I didn't realize how sophisticated his weapon, his sling, actually was. Just as a little boy, I kind of had that image locked in. You know, like he thumps Goliath with the spitball, and God anoints the spitball, holy spit from heaven, or something, and he goes down. But I need to teach you something about David, because maybe you don't see it quite that extreme, but I think where we get this story wrong is we always see David as the underdog, but maybe he wasn't.
This is what I was telling you about week one that I read in that book by Malcolm Gladwell called "David and Goliath." He takes the story from not a biblical point of view, but just a historical point of view, and he says, was David really the underdog? See, because in ancient Israel in this time, in the Valley of Elah, where they were fighting, there would have been three basic types of warriors. So there's cavalry, the people who ride on horses to fight. There's infantry. These are the people that fight with swords and with Spears, with these short distance Spears and swords. And then there's the artillery, which is the archers, but more importantly, the slingers. Now I need to tell you about the slingers, because David was a slinger, and these slingers were bad boys. They could actually get their sling going so fast once they would get it going that they would have that thing turning at, some historians say, up to six to seven revolutions per second.
So David didn't have no rubber band and a spitball. He had some real weaponry. He was a projectile warrior or a slinger, if you prefer. We have Goliath, a big swordsman, a big old guy covered in a hundred pounds of armor facing off against a little boy with a sling. Swordsman versus slinger. They're both approaching one another. Verse 41 says that while David was getting ready with his stones, "meanwhile, the Philistine with his shield bearer in front of him…" Interesting theory. Many people believe that the same condition that caused Goliath to be a giant also made him have a vision problem, and that's why he traveled with the shield bearer, because he couldn't see until he got at close range. So the very thing that made him scary to the Israelites, his size, made him ineffective and vulnerable, because he couldn't see very well. That's going to be important in a moment. I know it sounds kind of trivial right now, but just hang on.
It says that "he kept coming closer to David. He kept coming closer to David. Verse 42. He looked David over and saw that he was little more than a boy." Here they are again, according to YouTube. Here they are again, belittling. Here they are again, provoking. That's the third thing the enemy will do. He'll provoke you. He'll accuse you, he'll belittle you, and he'll provoke you. Man, he's trying to draw David into a fight. And look at it. He sees that he's nothing more than a A little boy is glowing with health and handsome, and he despised him. Verse 43. He said to David, "Am I a dog that you come at me with sticks and stones?" And the Philistine cursed David by his gods, "you son of a Bethlehem man named Jesse." That's what he said. And he's insulting David, and he's ready to fight David, and he's coming closer to David. Verse 44 is a key, because he says, "Come here, and I'll give your flesh to the birds and wild animals."
The Key to Victory: Your Approach
You know Goliath is exactly right in verse 44. If David had come down to fight Goliath at close range, Goliath would have killed him on sight, because Goliath was a swordsman. So, if David fought the battle on Goliath's terms, he'd have no chance of, even if he fought it for the right reason. Even if he really loved God, you know you can really love God and still be losing in life because of your approach. You can really believe the Bible but still not have success in your home because of your approach. You can really love God and still be broken in debt because of your approach. You can really love God and still struggle with all kinds of health issues related to lifestyle because of your approach. See, here's what David knew, and this is what we've got to know. And y'all, this is what set me on fire from the inside, and I've been waiting for you to get together, and really the whole series was just a setup to get you to this moment to realize you are a slinger. You're a slinger.
You and David have that in common. You're both anointed. You both have ability. You both have an attitude of passion, and you both have the same approach. You fight from the air. You have weapons that come from above. Come on, touch three people. Tell him "I'm a slinger." Make sure you don't substitute out the W for the L and you mess the whole thing up. I'm a slinger. And here's Goliath trying to provoke David to fight on his level. But no, see, David knows who he is, and he knows what to do, and he has an approach that he will not compromise on. He's not fighting Goliath hand to hand. He's fighting him sling to sword, and a slinger will beat a swordsman as long as the slinger doesn't get too close. Here's what I'm trying to tell you about the enemy. He can't kill you if you don't get close. He can't kill you if you keep your distance.
Here's what we're learning how to do today. We're going to keep our distance from our enemy and sling our stones until every Goliath falls down in our lives. Oh, help me preach. David backs up to the battle line. Here comes Goliath closing in. He looks bigger than the man of God. But no, no, no, no, no. Read the rest of the story. David said, verse 45, to the Philistine, "you come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. And this day…" Everybody say, "this day." I'm not putting this off till tomorrow. We're not going to stand around for 40 more days. I'm not going to sit here and listen to this crap one more second. "This day the Lord will," I'm confident, "deliver you into my hands." I love this guy. He is the Richard Sherman of the Old Testament, just talking stuff. "And I'll strike you down and cut off your head. This very day," emphasized, "I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army." I'm not just going to kill you. I'm going to kill your whole family. "I'll kill the whole army, and I'll feed you to the birds and wild animals." Let me soften a little bit. "And the whole world will know." The whole world. That's why God lets you fight battles, so the whole world can know that he's stronger than the whole world against you.
Then the whole world will know. Now I'm giving you the gift of clarity. Now do you see why the stuff you face has to be bigger than you? So the world will know that God is bigger than it. Then the world will know. Saul, I appreciate your daughter in marriage. That's great, but she ain't all that. She ain't worth risking my life for. I appreciate tax-free, but I'm a teenager. I don't make much money right now. Lousy pay keeping sheep. But here's what I do want. I want the whole world to know. See, when you fight battles from this altitude with this approach for this reason, you're unbeatable. This is my goal. The whole world will know that there is a God in Israel. All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves. For the battle is the Lord's, and he'll give all of you into our hands.
As the Philistine moved closer to attack him, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet him, but he didn't come any closer. Why? He's a slinger. You have to learn how to draw battle lines against your doubt and say, "I'm fighting you from here." There's somebody in here. You're fighting the right battle, but you're fighting it the wrong way, and that's why you're losing. You're fighting the right war, but you're fighting the wrong way. Change your approach. Keep your distance. Run out to meet him. Draw the battle line. Then look, verse 49. "Reaching into his bag and taking out a stone, he slung it." I was confused at first because a redberry got five stones, but he only needed one. What's up with all five of them? There are a lot of different theories on it. Some people say, Goliath had four brothers. I don't know, but he only needed one. There's a lot of stuff that comes against you and a lot of contingencies, but you really only need one name, one weapon to overcome them all.
That boy took his sling, and he took his stone. This is what we'd better be trained to do this week when the doubts come, when the accusations come, when the provocation comes, when they start belittling you, when you start belittling yourself. Draw your battle line. Keep your distance. And he took out his stone, and he slung it. Touch somebody and say, "sling that thing." And he struck the Philistine on the forehead. You like my sound effects? That's what we want to hear this week. Are there any slingers in there? And the stone sank into his forehead, and he fell face down on the ground. So David triumphed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone. Without a sword in his hand, he struck down the Philistine and killed him.
The Triumph of the Cross and Your Spiritual Weapons
I was happy when I read that verse, because it reminded me of something in the book of Colossians. You got a minute? In Colossians 2, verse 15, it says this about Jesus. It says, "And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them." Just like David made a public spectacle of Goliath, the Scripture says that Jesus made a public spectacle of every giant man that came against the children of all the sin and all the shame and all the disgust and all the despair and all of the darkness. He made a public spectacle of them triumphing over them by the cross. David triumphed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone. Jesus triumphed over the devil with a cross and his blood. Will somebody get happy about the cross of Jesus? Two sticks were enough for the sin of the world to be hung upon his shoulder. Somebody shout with a voice of triumph. That's the sound we're looking for this week.
Watch this. When the devil calls you closer, don't come. 2 Corinthians 10, verse 3. It says, "For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does." Check it out. "The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of this world." We don't fight with a sword. Guess why? Because paper beats rock, and rock beats scissors, and scissors beat paper, but the sling beats the sword. "On the contrary, our weapons have divine power to demolish strongholds," to kill Goliath dead. "We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God. We take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." That's what we do. We're slingers. The slinger will beat the sword if you don't get too close. The devil can't kill you if you don't let him close. He can accuse. Turn away. He can belittle. You just rehearse what God has already done. He can draw a sword. It might be big, but it doesn't matter how big it is if I don't get close enough to let him hit me with it.
Can I use you for an example real quick? Come here, buddy. I used to do this sometimes with a little boy. You know it's pretty fun to do. I want you to just start swinging at me right there. Oh, God. He's going for it. Come on, man. Just an illustration. Just an illustration, Rocky. See, you're swinging pretty good, but I have a reach advantage, so as long as I keep you out here, you can swing all you want. Now, I know what you're thinking. "Well, Pastor Stephen…" Keep swinging, buddy. "This illustration doesn't really work, because he's smaller than you. David was smaller than Goliath, so this is illustration." But see, it's not about the size of the person in the fight. It's about the reach advantage, and it's not about the size of David. It's about the weapon. So it's about the fact that the Devil can come at you. You're doing awesome. Keep it going, buddy. With all he's got, but if you hold him out here, I promise you he can't get you as long as you keep your distance. Push somebody and say, "Keep your distance. Keep your distance." You are awesome, man. Give it up for Floyd, everybody.
Applying the Slinger's Approach This Week
Now, this week, here he comes. Here comes. Here comes the giant this week. What are you going to do? He's going to call you. "Hey, come here. Come closer." He wants you to worry about stuff. It's said that we demolish strongholds in our minds. It's one thing to fight Goliath when he's standing on a battle line and you can see him physically. But what do you do with the Goliath that's hiding in your heart? It's one thing to turn from Eliab, your brother. How do you turn from the Eliab within? It's one thing when Saul doubts you. What do you do when you doubt yourself? It's one thing when Goliath intimidates you. What do you do when the intimidation comes from within? I'm going to tell you what to do. Keep your distance. Use your weapon. You only need one. If you don't get too close, you can't be killed. The slinger beats the sword. But some of you have been fighting God's battles on your enemy's terms, and you've been worrying about something, and Goliath is calling you.
Think about what you have to do this week. See, here's what happens for me. It's like I'm trying to accomplish something in the moment, and Goliath starts talking about everything I have on my plate and how it's too much and I'm overwhelmed and all these people are depending on you. See, right now while I'm preaching to you, I'm already thinking about the next sermon I have to preach, because I have to go to Bogota, Colombia, South America, not South Carolina. I've go to Colombia this week and I have to preach. And I'm preaching through a translator, so my mind is already thinking about… So what would translate? And they'll like my humor. And someone told me to wear my bulletproof skinny jeans, so I'm already thinking about everything, about what I have to do this week. And it's like, it's going to be great. I want to minister to these people, but I'm worrying about it, and Goliath is like, "yeah, yeah, yeah, come here and worry about that. Instead of working on your sermon, worry about it, because now I've got to worry." If I can get you to worry instead of working, I can kill you dead. But if you back up… If you back up whatever you're Start worrying about, and whatever he's accusing you of, if you'll say, "Not another step. I fight from the air. I fight with a superior weapon. I don't worry. I worship. I don't worry. I worship."
When I see that fear coming and when I see it closing in… Some of you are trying to solve a relational problem right now, but you're trying to solve it with the weapons of this world. You're trying to make somebody else feel bad about what they did, or you're trying to prove something to them. That weapon won't work. Remember when Jesus was on the cross and they said, "Come down from there? Come here, they said. Prove that you're really the Son of God. Do it the world's way. If you're really the Son of God, take over. Nuke all these fools." Jesus stretched his arms. Why? Because he only needed one weapon. Amen. From up here on this cross, I can change the world. From up here, from a perspective of love, God says, "My ways are higher. My thoughts are higher," and no weapon that is formed against you will be able to prosper if you'll just keep your distance, if you'll just worship instead of worrying, if you'll just fight instead of freaking out. Just fight. Just sling that stone. Just stand in a distance. Stand still and see the salvation of our God.
I'm telling you, you've got the advantage. I'm telling you, you've got the reach. I'm telling you, this battle is the Lord's. Does anybody believe it? Are there any slingers in the house? Come on. Let all the slingers shout one good time.