Our Champion

to 1 Samuel. I was thinking about that song, as I tend to do. You know, it's not a special thing to need God. Everyone needs Christ. Where the blessing is, is to know it. If you feel If you've been made to yearn for and desire and need for Christ, what a blessing.

That is not normal. That is against our nature. That is not what we are born to be. To need God. We're the opposite. We don't want to need God. So to need him is the case for everyone. They most just don't know it. They all need him. But to feel that need, that is a blessing only among the people of God. So if you feel that need and you sing that song and you need him every hour, count that as a blessing. Because it is. I should probably also turn to 1 Samuel. We're gonna read the whole thing. all of 1 Samuel, 17, not all of 1 Samuel, that would be a week. 1 Samuel 17, and I'm gonna read the entire chapter.

1 Samuel 17, now the Philistines gathered their forces for war and assembled at Soco in Judah. They pitched cap at Ephesus, Dammam, between Soko and Ezekiah. Saul and the Israelites assembled and camped in the Valley of Elah and drew up their battle line to meet the Philistines. The Philistines occupied one hill and the Israelites another, with the valley in between them. A champion named Goliath who was from Goth, came out of the Philistine camp.

He was over nine feet tall. He had a bronze helmet on his head, wore a coat of scale armor of bronze weighing 5,000 shekels. On his legs he wore bronze greaves, and a bronze javelin was slung on his back. His spear shift was like that of a weaver's rod, and its iron point weighed 600 shekels. His shield bearer went ahead of him.

Goliath stood and shouted to the ranks of Israel, why do you come out and line up for battle? I'm not a Philistine. And are you not the servants of Saul? Choose a man, have him come down to me. If he's able to fight and kill me, we will become your subjects. But if I overcome him and kill him, you will become our subjects and serve us. Then the Philistines said, this day I defy the ranks of Israel. Give me a man and let us fight each other. On hearing the Philistines' words, Saul and all the Israelites were dismayed and terrified.

Now David was the son of an Ephrathite man named Jesse. He was born in Bethlehem in Judah. Jesse had eight sons, and in Saul's time, he was old and well-advanced in years. Jesse's three oldest sons had followed Saul to the war. The firstborn was Eliab, the second was Abinadab, tough with that one, and the third was Shammah. David was the youngest. The three oldest followed Saul, but David went back and forth from Saul to tend his father's sheep in Bethlehem. For 40 days the Philistine came forward and every morning and evening took his stand.

Now Jesse said to his son David, take this effa of roasted grain and these 10 loaves of bread to your brothers and hurry to their camp. Take along these 10 cheeses to the commanders of their unit. See how your brothers are and bring back some assurance from them.

There was Saul and all the men of Israel in the Valley of Elah fighting against the Philistines. Early in the morning, David left the flock with the shepherd, loaded up and set out as Jesse had directed. He reached the camp as an army was going out to its battle positions, shouting the war cry. Israel and the Philistines were drawing up their lines facing each other. David left his things with the keeper of supplies, ran to the battle lines, and greeted his brothers.

As he was talking with them, Goliath, the Philistine champion from Gath, stepped out from his lines and shouted his usual defiance, and David heard it. When the Israelites saw the man, they all ran from him in great fear. Now the Israelites had been saying, do you see how this man keeps coming out?

He comes out to defy Israel. The king will give great wealth to the man who kills him. He will also give him his daughter in marriage and will exempt his father's family from taxes in Israel. David asked the men standing near him, what will be done for the man who kills the Philistine and removes the disgrace from Israel? Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God? They repeated to him what they had been saying and told him, this is what will be done for the man who kills him.

When Eliab, David's older brother, heard him speaking with the men, he burned with anger at him, at David, and asked, why have you come down here? And with whom did you leave those few sheep in the desert? I know how conceited you are and how wicked your heart is. You came down only to watch the battle. Now, what have I done, said David? Can't I even speak? He then turned away to someone else and brought up the same matter, and the men answered the same as before. What David said was overheard and reported to Saul, and Saul sent for him.

David said to Saul, let no one lose heart on account of this Philistine. Your servant will go and fight him. Saul replied, you are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him. You are only a boy, and he has been a fighting man since his youth.

But David said to Saul, your servant has been keeping his father's sheep. When a lion or bear came and carried off the sheep from the flock, I went after it, struck it, and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it, and killed it. Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear. This uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them because he has defied the armies of the living God. The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.

Saul said to David, go and the Lord be with you. Then Saul dressed David in his own tunic. He put a coat of armor on him and bronze helmet on his head. David fastened on the sword over his tunic and tried walking around because he was not used to them. I cannot go in these, he said to Saul, because I am not used to them. So he took them off. Then he took his staff in his hand and chose five smooth stones from the stream, put them in a pouch of his shepherd's bag, and with his sling in his hand approached the Philistine.

Meanwhile, the Philistine, with his shield bearer in front of him, kept coming closer to David. He looked David over and saw that he was only a boy, ruddy and handsome, and he despised him. He said to David, am I a dog, that you would come at me with sticks? And the Philistine cursed David by his gods.

Come here, he said, I'll give your flesh to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field. 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 Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied.

This day, the Lord will hand you over to me and I will strike you down and cut off your head. Today I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel. And 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 will 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. Reaching into his bag and taking out a stone, he slung it and struck the Philistine in the forehead. 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, and he struck down the Philistine and killed him. David ran and stood over him.

He took a hold of the Philistine's sword, drew it from the scabbard, and he killed him by cutting off his own head with the sword. When the Philistines saw that their hero was dead, that their champion was dead, they turned and ran. Then the men of Israel and Judah surged forward with a shout and pursued the Philistines to the entrance of Gath and to the gates of Ekron. Their dead were strewn along the Shurim Road in Gath and Ekron. When his Israelites returned from chasing the camp, David took the Philistines' head and brought it to Jerusalem, and he put the Philistines' weapon in his own tent.

As Saul watched David going out to meet the Philistine, he said to Abner, commander of the army, Abner, whose son is this young man? Another replied, as surely as you live, O king, I don't know. The king said, find out whose son this young man is. And as soon as David returned from killing the Philistine, Abner took him and brought him before Saul. And David, still holding the Philistine's head, whose son are you, young man? Saul asked. David said, I am the son of your servant Jesse from Bethlehem.

So I know that's a lot to read. But I wanted to go through the whole story because it's incredible. The part that I want to notice And it's something I studied a little bit this week. This wasn't a completely uncommon way to do battle back then. For two armies to show up and instead of full force going at each other, they would each choose a champion. representing their own side. So this was not a one-time deal that this has happened. This happens, this is the way battles took place at times during that period.

So the beauty of that is that there is one champion to represent an entire people. And that is the gospel. You know, most of the time when we hear the story of David and Goliath, which is probably the most well-known event from the Bible, one of the most well-known, everyone is familiar with the story of David and Goliath.

And quite often we like to turn it into, as we constantly do with the scriptures, is turn it into something about us. We put ourselves as the star. We make ourselves the starring role. So quite often when the world is looking at David and Goliath, we put ourselves in David's shoes, and we think of it as a life lesson. We think of it as a way to stand up in the face of danger, or face your giants, to be brave, to pick up your stones. I've seen that on a shirt.

And there's some truth to that, I suppose, but it's not the point. And if that was the point, we're left with a problem because the Bible is not about good people doing things for God. The Bible is about God doing something for humanity that we cannot do. And that's what this entire book points towards.

So if we look at the story of David, it is not showing us how to be brave. It is not showing us how to be a champion for our people. It is somehow showing us the gospel of Christ. So the hero of this scripture is David. And we are certainly not a hero, so he cannot represent us. He represents the one true hero, the one true champion, Jesus Christ. So when we read David and Goliath through that lens, we discover that we are not David, Christ is. And that's the best news we can hear. Because we are those terrified Israelites who stand no chance.

If you look at verses four through seven, it says, a champion named Goliath, who was from Gath, came out of the Philistine camp, his height was Nine feet, older versions say six cubits in a span. He was big. Talks about his bronze helmet and the weight of his armor and the weight of his spear. I mean, it goes into great detail to show how scary this guy is. I don't think we really get it. Nine feet tall. That's really big. And not just gangly, this was a giant man. That's why they showed the weight of the spearhead. Like for someone to be able to throw that must have incredible strength.

To the point where the entire army of Israel, including Saul, who was a warrior of warriors, wouldn't even think about, wouldn't even entertain the idea of going out and facing this man. Everything about Goliath is designed to inspire fear. He's bigger, he's stronger, he's more armed, he's more experienced, and he did inspire fear. So much fear that not only did Israel do nothing, they did nothing for 40 straight days He came out and defied them to their faces.

It doesn't give us the details of what he said for 40 days, but I would imagine in the heights of war, it was not nice. I'm sure he said things about their country. I'm sure he said things about their king. I'm sure he said things about their God. And they stood there and did absolutely nothing. Now, I'm not picking on Israel. They were right.

If they would have gone out there and sent one of their Israelite soldiers as a champion, he would have lost, and in turn, all of them would have lost. It says earlier that Goliath says, if I kill your champion, not only do we win, you become our subjects. We rule over you. So everything is on the line. For 40 days, he came out and said everything you can imagine directly to their face, and for 40 days, they stood there and they took it.

Israel had no answer, and they knew it. Saul had no answer, no king, no warrior, no leader. No one could defeat this enemy. And in our situation, when you take this and look at it through the scope of the gospel, this is the picture of humanity and our sin and the wrath of God that comes with it. We can see it through a veil, but well enough. And we have no way of winning that fight. We have no leader, no warrior, no king on our own to defeat this enemy. Our enemy is greater than us. God's judgment of sin is greater than us.

We stand no chance, just as they stood no chance against Goliath. No amount of effort can overcome it. No amount of religion can defeat it. No amount of effort towards morality can erase one single sin. And we have much more than one. It is a deserved wrath, and just like Israel, we stand here helpless. And then David arrives.

He's not a soldier. He's not a king. He has no armor. He has no sword. He's a shepherd. Can you blame, we're gonna get into this, how he was far from received by his own people, but can you blame them? If you were one of these soldiers staring at Goliath for 40 days and 40 nights, and the man that says he's going to take care of this for you shows up and he's a small man, he's a boy, He has no armor. He's never fought in his life. He has no weapon. He's dressed like a shepherd and he has a staff. They laughed.

David says to Saul, let no one lose heart on account of the Philistine, your servant will go fight him. David does not merely fight for himself, he says he fights as a representative, and this is the champion that we talk about. In an ancient world, champions often fought on behalf of entire armies, entire countries. One victory belonged to everyone represented by that champion. One defeat belonged to everyone represented by that champion. The fate of the people rested on David, such as Christ.

Jesus did not merely come here to set an example. He came here as a representative. He came here as a substitute. He came here as the champion of his people. It says in Romans 5.19, for just as though the disobedience of the one man, the many were made sinners, that's Adam. So also through the obedience of the one man that many will be made righteous. He is the champion of his people, the representative. The victory he earns is also theirs. One man brought defeat in Adam. One man will bring victory in Christ.

So before David faces Goliath, like I said, he's mocked. His own brother dismisses him. Matter of fact, his own brother doesn't just dismiss him. I actually get a kick out of this. It says his oldest brother burned with anger towards him, which I can kind of understand. He was the oldest brother. He was a soldier. He was probably the best soldier in the family as he's had the most experience. He had obviously been there a long time. Maybe he had been in battles with Saul for years. I don't know that for sure.

But for him to be there and to experience battle after battle and day after day of all this, and then his puny, small, youngest brother, who's never stepped foot off the pasture, shows up and says, I'm gonna take care of this. says that he burned with anger.

He says, why are you even here? Who's watching the sheep in Judah? And then he called him conceited and wicked and accused him of being there just to watch like a looky-loo. And then Saul looks at David and immediately doubts him as well. He says, you are not able to go out against this Philistine.

You are a boy. You have no training. You're going out against a man twice your size who has years of battle experience and the greatest armor we've ever seen. You have no chance. Goliath sees him and he's actually offended. that such a weak champion would be presented in front of Goliath. He says, do you think I'm a dog that you would come to me with a stick? Everyone who saw this champion through worldly eyes doubted him in every way. They would not receive him. The deliverer was rejected. The savior underestimated. This could not possibly be the champion of Israel.

They expected a warrior that would rule and conquer with might and a sword. And instead, here was a champion. that according to their natural expectations, their natural, just their sight and their senses, they're looking at him and all he exudes is weakness. Another picture of Christ.

In Isaiah 53.3 it says, He was despised and rejected by mankind. A man of suffering and familiar with pain. Jesus did not look like a conqueror.

And many expected that. The coming Messiah was something that people had expectations regarding. They expected a warrior. They expected someone to show up and free them from Rome and take the throne back and all of this. Just like they were expecting with Goliath, a warrior to step forward and fight this epic battle to the death.

And then their unexpected savior shows up and no one can believe it. He looked weak, he looked defeated. To the worldly eye, Christ looked defeated. They mocked him while he hung on that cross and said he can't even save himself when in fact he was saving every one of his people at that moment.

So not only could they not, and I'm referring to both David and Christ, could they not see him for who he was, they couldn't even understand how he was going to accomplish what he came for. The disciples, the 12 closest to him, could not understand when he would say, I am going away. Why?

We are so far from understanding the ways of God. And as I said earlier, when we were praying and talking, to have the understanding of the gospel itself, to understand the truth, even as simple as it is, that you are a sinner and Christ is your only way to be saved, is such a blessing. There is no way to know that outside of the Spirit of God. It's so simple, but it is an impossible thing to know and believe without God intervening. So yes, he looked defeated. Christ hung on that cross and people mocked him. They spit on him. They rejected him. Yet God's victory was coming through what appeared to be weakness. The battle is the Lord's, and David says this multiple times.

David refuses Saul's armor. Instead, He goes out there, and he says this even multiple times when he talks, because first Saul says something, hey, I'm gonna feed you to the birds and the beasts today, little boy. And David turns that around and said, I'm gonna feed the entire Philistine army to the birds and the beasts, or the beasts today, but it will be the work of the Lord, not mine. In 1 Samuel 45 it says, you come against me with sword and spear and javelin. I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel whom you have defied. This day the Lord will hand you over to me and I will strike you down and cut off your head.

Today I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth and the whole world will know that I'm the best warrior that's ever been? The whole world will know 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. Now, humanity would say, for the battle is mine.

Look what I just did with a little rock. No, for the battle is the Lord's. and he will give you all into our hands. That's why he put the armor down. This is not my fight, David says. I am here to do the will of my father, says Christ. Utter confidence David had. The detail that David gives.

He doesn't just say I'm gonna kill you and cut off your head. He said I'm gonna feed your armies to the birds and bees. And he bookends it with the actual victorious one in that statement. He bookends it. He says at the beginning, this day the Lord will hand you over. And then he ends it with for the battle is the Lord's. This victory is not mine, it cannot come through my hands. This victory belongs to the Lord.

It cannot come through human strength. There was no human strength that could defeat Goliath. That's the point scriptures were trying to make by inspiring the fear of what Goliath was. because our enemy cannot be defeated by human strength. And the fear that's inspired by the description of Goliath is nothing compared to what humanity truly has to fear. That is the ultimate and complete and never-ending wrath of God. That inspires fear. Our victory cannot come through the strength of men. The victory can only belong to the Lord because that enemy is far too much for us. At Calvary, Jesus appeared defeated. The disciples fled, even they couldn't understand.

And we wouldn't either. I'm not picking on them. It would be, they followed him and followed him and followed him, and then to see the suffering that he was going through, and then to finally take his last breath, I would've ran too. I do not understand the things of God unless I'm shown them. And at that moment, they were not.

They ran away, the crowds continued to mock. The religious leaders celebrated. They had achieved their goal, so they thought. Yet at that very moment, when the religious leaders and the enemies of God were celebrating, and the disciples were running away, And the crowds were mocking.

At that very moment, God was accomplishing the greatest victory in history. At that moment, an unnumbered group of sinners had their slate wiped clean. At that moment, a place was secured in heaven alongside Christ for eternity for a group of people that never deserved it. At that moment of what appeared to be weakness and defeat was nothing but strength through the Father's will and absolute victory.

Going back to Samuel 1749, reaching into his bag and taking out a stone, he slung it, struck the Philistine on the forehead. The stone sank into his forehead and he fell down on the ground. One blow. No long, drawn-out battle. One blow, one victory, one champion, whose victory now belonged to all of Israel. The minute David killed Goliath, everyone behind him was a victor. One defeated enemy who will never again be a danger to the people of Israel.

And to make that clear, David does something important. David ran over, stood over him, took his sword, and cut his head off. There's a picture there. The job was finished. It was completed. The victory that David was earning for all of Israel behind him, he was showing it is done. Through me, you have won. He has accomplished that victory. And in Colossians, it says, in Colossians 2, 13 through 15, he forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness.

He has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. At the cross, Jesus did not merely make salvation possible. David didn't throw that stone and knock him out, saying, hey, he's gonna be out for a while. Quick, let's go attack. He walked up and he cut his head off. The battle is over. Salvation is not possible through my work. Salvation is accomplished. And having disarmed, and this is funny, having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle, triumphing over the cross, and at that point, the people of Israel got involved. What did Israel do during the battle?

Nothing. Not one singular thing. They stood there. The Israelites did not help David. They did not throw a stone. They did not attack Goliath. They contributed absolutely nothing to the victory that was in turn handed to them. In fact, they doubted him from the beginning. David fought alone. David didn't even fight with the confidence of the men behind him. They had no confidence in him. They told him that. He was truly alone. But for the grace of God. David won alone. But for the grace of God, the victory was God's. And Christ was on that cross alone. For the first time, he had always been with his father. Always. When I say always, there was no beginning. So for the first time, he had been left alone and he said, why have you forsaken me? Can you imagine that?

That is what your Savior has done for you. He was left alone to suffer and die. And only after the giant fell did they join the pursuit. Since then, the men of Israel and Judah surged forward with a shout and pursued the Philistines. The battle was won before they even took a step. And that is the same with salvation.

What did God's people do during Christ's work? What part of their victory of Christ's belongs to us? Nothing. We supply only the sin that needs to be forgiven. And yet we are the recipients of the grace made possible through the suffering of the Son of God who only did that because of our sin, and yet we are the recipients of grace. We are only the benefactors. We only receive the benefit of what Christ has done. He only receives the judgment according to what we've done. That's grace. Which is why it makes no sense to humanity. Because it is nothing but giving. It is nothing but love. We deserve nothing and we're given everything. He deserves everything and was given every punishment imaginable.

Just as the Israelites did not help David, we do not and cannot help Christ. Just as Israel contributed nothing to David's victory, we contribute nothing to Christ's victory. Only after David's victory was secured did Israel become a part of that victory. Goliath's head was in David's hand before Israel even took a step. And only after Christ's victory was secure, as the representative champion of his people, were we safe to enter the presence of God and receive the blessings deserved only by Christ Jesus himself.

So David, as he often does, points us forward to Christ. But David is not the ultimate hero. He is in the story, but that's pointing to the ultimate champion of ours. We have a champion. David defeated one giant. Christ defeated sin and death and hell and satisfied the very wrath of his own father. David shed the blood of his enemy.

Christ shed his own. It says in Romans 5 verse 8, but God demonstrates his own love for us in this. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. And there's an important truth there. So David shed the blood of his enemy. Christ shed his own blood for his enemies. Because by nature, That's exactly what we are. It says it just like I read in Romans 5, 8. It says Christ died for us while we were still sinners.

The Israelites looked at Goliath and saw an impossible enemy. And then a champion stepped forward and he fought the battle that they could not. He won the victory they could never win. And because he won, they shared in the victory. That is the gospel. We are in that position. We are standing facing face to face with an enemy that we have no hope of defeating. An impossible enemy.

But we have a champion. A champion who just like back then, earns a victory. that is not his and his alone. It is equally and just as much given to the people of God. The victory only truly earned by the Son of God, Jesus Christ, is given equally to each of his people. That is our champion. We stood helpless before sin and judgment and death, and Jesus stepped forward, he went to the cross.

He shed his own blood, he conquered the enemy, and he rose again from the grave victorious. The greatest victor that has ever been. The greatest champion that has ever been. The single greatest victory that has ever been belongs to your champion. And everyone who belongs to him shares in that victory.

It says in Romans 8, 37, and this gets used wrong all the time, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. People love to use that, that I am a conqueror. No, you're not. You have a conqueror. You have a champion who has already conquered the enemy that would have destroyed you. In all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loves us, not because we fought, not because we conquered, we stood there. We are more than conquerors because we have a champion who has already conquered for us. And the victory is yours.

Our Father, we thank you so much for your love, your power, your victory, your strength, the certainty of what you've done. We love, Lord, that we can look to you and see your perfection and know that that is the perfection on which our hope relies. Not on us. Our salvation hangs on the perfection of Jesus Christ. our champion who has conquered our enemy and given us his victory.

We thank you, Christ, a thousand times. And we pray this in your name, amen. You can take out your hymnal once again. What number? 690. And turn to 690. I have no idea how my bulletin disappeared in the last 45 minutes. 690 and we'll stand as we sing.

Our Champion

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Our Champion

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