Tommy Branagh:

Well, good morning. If we haven’t met, my name’s Tommy Branagh. I’m one of the pastors here at WCPC. And this morning, our scripture comes from the book of First Samuel, chapter 17.

1 Samuel 17:1–11 (NIV)

¹ Now the Philistines gathered their forces for war and assembled at Sokoh in Judah. ² They pitched camp at Ephes Dammim, between Sokoh and Azekah. ³ Saul and the Israelites assembled and camped in the Valley of Elah and drew up their battle line to meet the Philistines. ⁴ A champion named Goliath, who was from Gath, came out of the Philistine camp. His height was six cubits and a span. ⁵ He had a bronze helmet on his head and wore a coat of scale armor of bronze weighing five thousand shekels on his legs. ⁶ He wore bronze greaves and a bronze javelin was slung on his back. ⁷ His spear shaft was like a weaver’s rod, and its iron point weighed six hundred shekels. His shield bearer went ahead of him.

⁸ Goliath stood and shouted to the ranks of Israel, “Why do you come out and line up for battle? Am I not a Philistine, and are you not the servants of Saul? Choose a man and have him come down to me. ⁹ If he is 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.” ¹⁰ Then the Philistine said, “This day I defy the armies of Israel! Give me a man and let us fight each other.” ¹¹ On hearing the Philistine’s words, Saul and all the Israelites were dismayed and terrified.

1 Samuel 17:16 (NIV)

¹⁶ For forty days the Philistine came forward every morning and evening and took his stand.

Liang:

1 Samuel 17:34–40 (NIV)

³⁴ But David said to Saul, “Your servant has been keeping his father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, ³⁵ 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. ³⁶ 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. ³⁷ The Lord who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine.” Saul said to David, “Go, and the Lord be with you.”

³⁸ Then Saul dressed David in his own tunic. He put a coat of armor on him and a bronze helmet on his head. ³⁹ David fastened on his sword over the 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. ⁴⁰ Then he took his staff in his hand, chose five smooth stones from the stream, put them in the pouch of his shepherd’s bag and, with his sling in his hand, approached the Philistine.

Tommy Branagh:

1 Samuel 17:41–51 (NIV)

⁴¹ Meanwhile, the Philistine, with his shield bearer in front of him, kept coming closer to David. ⁴² He looked David over and saw that he was little more than a boy, glowing with health and handsome, and he despised him. ⁴³ He said to David, “Am I a dog, that you come at me with sticks?” And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. ⁴⁴ “Come here,” he said, “and I’ll give your flesh to the birds and the wild animals!”

⁴⁵ 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. ⁴⁶ This day the Lord will deliver you into my hands, and I’ll strike you down and cut off your head. This very day I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds and the wild animals, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel. ⁴⁷ 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 will give all of you into our hands.”

⁴⁸ As the Philistine moved closer to attack him, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet him. ⁴⁹ Reaching into his bag and taking out a stone, he slung it and struck the Philistine on the forehead. The stone sank into his forehead, and he fell facedown on the ground.

⁵⁰ 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. ⁵¹ David ran and stood over him. He took hold of the Philistine’s sword and drew it from the sheath. After he killed him, he cut off his head with the sword. When the Philistines saw that their hero was dead, they turned and ran.

Liang:

The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God endures forever.

Bart Garrett:

Well, thank you, Tommy and Liang. And I cut that reading in half, and it was still that long. What an incredible story. I’m Bart. If we haven’t met yet, I look forward to meeting you. And if you’re tuning in online, I want to welcome you as well.

We are in ONE year spending time in this one book, the Scriptures, which we believe tells one story that could shape your one life. And a couple weeks after Easter, I got an email from a woman who was here at our Easter service. And I picked it up. In her words, she said, “I used to go to church many years ago and I came back and it felt like I came home. So I’ve gone onto the website, I’ve listened to all of the ONE teachings, and I am rediscovering or discovering for the first time scripture as a book of God’s love for me and for the world.”

And that’s been something that I’ve been praying for this year. My prayer, as you know, has been threefold. That you would know the beauty of God’s love for you. That we would marvel at the brilliance of God’s scripture. And that you would know you’re invited into a bigger and better story.

And as I introduce today’s story, I just want to ask the question, has anyone heard this story before? Has anyone, not to put you on the spot, not heard this story before? It’s probably the most often told story in our scriptures and one could teach this story a hundred ways and probably 99 of them would be wrong. Certainly it’s the most moralized story in our scriptures. It’s the “be like David” motif.

And because truth is stranger than fiction, I was going on a rabbit hole this past week looking at all the ways this story has been used and these are actual versions. So one, it’s a children’s story like Jack and the Beanstalk, David and the slingshot. But it gets far worse. It’s been used as a self-esteem seminar. Words like “believe in yourself. Find your inner David. Don’t listen to your critics. Slay your Goliaths.” An actual quote. “David used visualization techniques. He manifested. He had a peak performance mindset. Visualize victory and release your inner champion.”

It’s been used as a corporate TED talk. “Be brave. Use your gifts. Identify your tools. Find your stones.” Double entendre. Probably intentional. “Slay the giant of negative thinking.” Some of you will get that at lunch.

Leadership seminar. “Be authentic. Don’t wear someone else’s armor. Lean into your personal strengths. Be your own brand.” It’s been used in a motivational retreat. “Five stones to slay five giants. Fear, anxiety, insecurity, addiction and despair.” As a wealth management seminar. “Five stones as financial principles: budgeting, investing, tithing, entrepreneurship and perseverance.” As a military tactical training course. David as a hyper-masculine Navy SEAL. “Real men run toward giants.” And finally, the giant is gluten. Goliath is all processed foods. Stock our wellness habits for health.

It’s a great and powerful story, but it’s best understood this way. And this is our big idea this morning. This is a story between two stories. It’s a story between two stories.

Now, people with high EQ or emotional quotient—and you know who you are—and people with low EQ and you don’t know who you are. No, if you have high EQ, you know when you meet people, you meet them in between two stories. Where they are is between where they have been and where they are going. Oscar Wilde famously said, “Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.” And I absolutely love that.

And here is a story that fixtures as a story between two stories. Now I want to pick it up again. I’m not going to read all of it as it’s been read, but in verse one. “Now, the Philistines gathered their forces for war.” And I want to stop right here and just point out to this point in our history, we’ve had clan leaders, we’ve had military generals. Cities have now become empires. So we had judges we talked about a couple weeks ago. We now have kings. And let’s remember the story. God’s ideal was that his people would not need a king, for he would be their king. But they ended up choosing King Saul.

And so now we have this epic battle over centuries. The Philistines versus the Israelites is the most enduring struggle we have in the Hebrew scriptures. Centuries of political, cultural and religious skirmishes. So who are these Philistines? Well, you’ll see on the map here they settled along the southern coastal plain of Canaan around 12th century BC. They settled five cities, including the city of Gath, which is where Goliath is from.

And so why are they always fighting with the Israelites? Well, one: territory. The Philistines controlled the fertile coastal land and the major trade routes. There were military power imbalances. The Philistines were really technologically advanced, especially in iron weaponry. So they sought to conquer their lesser rivals. So a couple chapters back in 1 Samuel 13, you find these words: “There was no blacksmith foundation in the whole land of Israel.” They also fought because of religious conflict. There were contests between the God of Israel and the Philistine gods.

Now, two weeks ago, I spent almost the whole sermon on conquest and holy war, which is very important to talk about in our cultural moment. So I’m not gonna go there today. But we have a sermon podcast if you wanna go back and listen to it. We also have a second podcast, the Preacher P.S., where we talk about what happens in the sermon each week.

But today, again, our big idea is this: a story between two stories. Two gods, two kings, two kingdoms—Philistia and Israel. And let’s keep going with this story. “The Philistines gathered their forces for war, and they assembled at Sokoh in Judah. They pitched camp at Ephes Dammim between Sokoh and Azekah. Saul and the Israelites assembled and camped in the Valley of Elah and drew up their battle line to meet the Philistines. The Philistines in verse three occupied one hill and the Israelites another, with the valley between them.”

So this is a story between two stories. So the Philistines are camping at Sokoh, which means thorn bush. It’s referred to as the land of thorns and thistles. Are you hearing what’s happening here? This is the land outside of Eden. And Saul and his army are camped at Elah, which means beautiful tree. It’s actually an aphorism for the word Eden. So we have in this story between two stories, Eden on one side and no man’s land east of Eden on the other. This is a battle between lands, between worlds, between good and evil.

For there are two stories that play their way into all of scripture. The story of creation and the story of de-creation, of uncreation. So let’s pick it up with this as background. Verse 4: “A champion named Goliath, who was from Gath, came out of the Philistine camp. His height was six cubits and a span. He had a bronze helmet on his head, and he 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. And his spear shaft was like a weaver’s rod, and its iron point weighed 600 shekels.”

So this is a man of impressive stature—six cubits and a span, or nine feet, nine inches tall, taller than Wilt Chamberlain, if you’re following along. Impressive strength: 125 pounds of armor, holding a spear with a tip that weighed 15 pounds. But don’t miss the main point. If you were around a campfire as a Jewish boy or Jewish girl and you were hearing this story, you’d hear the word “champion” in Hebrew: isha ben achim, which means quite literally “the man in the middle.” This is the man from the in-between.

He’s standing between the ranks. Yet so much more is going on here because this is a story, as we said, of creation and a story of de-creation or uncreation. It’s been fabled, it’s been rumored that Goliath is the illicit offspring of the sons of God, who are the fallen angels talked about in Genesis, and the daughters of women. There were these mighty warriors, the Gibboyim and the Nephilim, these heavenly warriors. And Goliath is said to be truly the man of the in-between, in between these two worlds.

So again, back to the story between two stories. We have the story of creation—God’s shalom. Imagine God’s peace for a moment. The weaving together of God, of humanity, of creation, in equity, in fulfillment and delight. It’s almost hard to imagine, isn’t it? And then imagine the story of uncreation, of de-creation. Don’t even have to imagine it. Chaos and disorder.

And so in the scriptures, and in the scriptures, around the scriptures, you had sea dragons who lived in the abyss, and snakes from below the earth. And they would come up in holes, as we know. And stories were told about these creatures of chaos and disorder. So when people bring chaos and disorder, uncreation, de-creation, they become sea dragon-like. They become serpent-like.

So did you catch it? Goliath has this bronze helmet, the choshet in Hebrew, which is the same root word for snake. And did you see he was wearing an armor of scales? It’s the same word used to describe the scales of the sea creatures in the abyss. So these were some of the more dominant stories and images that existed around the biblical authors. So they picked them up, stories of dragons and serpents and snakes, and they refashioned them to the tale of their convictions about their God and their people.

So here is this snaky giant who is defending the one true God’s name. So what will the people of God do? Well, it’s not actually what the people of God will do. It’s what God is already doing. For God is already raising up David to be the next great king. This little shepherd boy, the youngest of eight brothers. And here, this shepherd boy has come to check on his seven warrior brothers who are fighting on the hill. And he hears this giant mocking the people of God and God himself.

Now, by the way, I’m gonna give you three freebies this morning, okay? So here’s freebie number one. If you want a fantastic show to stream, you must watch the House of David. I cannot recommend it highly enough. Two seasons already. The third finale is coming out later this year. It’s already a trilogy, so it’s not gonna jump the shark. It will be done. And it’s a really great show. It traces the rise and fall of the corrupt house of Saul and then the rise and fall of the corrupt house of David and its redemption. It’s amazing.

And so Goliath has publicly denounced the army of Israel and he’s defamed the name of God. And so in verse 11, we see that Saul and the Israelites are dismayed. They’re even terrified. So David says, “This guy can’t talk about God that way.” And so Saul hears about this punk kid who’s mouthing off from the ranks. So he brings him into his tent and he puts him in his place. “You cannot fight that guy. He will squash you. You’re just a kid.” And David retorts, “Well, I’m a shepherd. I’ve defeated a lion and a bear. I can handle this.”

And David, unlike the Navy SEAL, David in our self-help seminar, is not merely a model of courage and bravery, but a model of human humility and faithfulness. Think about our leaders in the world today. A lot of courage and bravery, but if no humility, if no faithfulness, it’s bravado, it’s bluster. But here is a man who’s committed to his God. He said, “God will do this. I serve the almighty God. With us is the Lord our God, to help us and to fight our battles.”

And so he takes his slingshot and he takes the five smooth stones with him to the battle. Freebie number two: if you love brain candy, Malcolm Gladwell is your go-to author and he has many great books and one of them is David and Goliath. And he has this beautiful reframing of the actual battle tactics of the day. And he talks about how ancient warfare had different categories of fighters. So there was the cavalry, the infantry, but there were also projectile warriors who were slingers and archers. And he argues that David was actually not entering as a weak shepherd against an unbeatable warrior. Instead, Goliath was heavy infantry, he was slow. And David was effectively a highly mobile, high-range fighter. He was a slinger—we might say in our day a sniper. And a sling in the ancient world was not a toy. Elite slingers could launch stones at extremely high velocity. Historically, they were deadly military weapons. So Gladwell posits that this underdog may actually have had tactical superiority.

But again, this is not about a warrior’s might or strategy, but God’s purposes. A brave shepherd boy—no doubt David had courage—but he was a man of humility and faithfulness. So again, let’s view this as a story between stories. Did you happen to notice, as these guys were reading, the huge emphasis on Goliath’s head? Verse 5: “he had a helmet on his head.” Verse 46: David says, “I’ll cut off your head.” Verse 49: he slings the stone that strikes his forehead. It sinks into his forehead. Verse 51: “After David killed him, he cut off his head.” And later, if we had time to read the rest of the story, he took Goliath’s head into his tent. And later he delivered the head of Goliath to King Saul.

So what’s going on here? Two stories, two seeds. The seed of creation. The seed of de-creation. If you could venture back with us to January or to where the story begins, in the garden. In Genesis, after this deceptive servant—or serpent, I should say—deceives the man and the woman, God says as he curses this scaly serpent, in Genesis 3:15, what’s come to be called the first gospel, he says, “The snake will strike at the heel, but you will crush his head.”

So in verse 49, the giant falls face down into the ground. And if you are a Hebrew hearer of this story, you would be hearing God’s curse on the snake to crawl face down on the ground and eat the dust. And there’s even one more hyperlink. If you were a Jewish hearer of the story, as the stone sank into his forehead, the Israelite hearers would be remembering Pharaoh and his armies that sunk into the sea.

So what’s going on here? How is this a story between two stories? Who are the figures behind this giant and this shepherd boy? Well, the giant, the in-between offering of the fallen angels, if you will. The progeny of the sea dragons and the serpents in the garden. And there are humans who listen like the giant to the voice of the snake. And what happens to them? They become dealers of disorder and decay and death of de-creation.

Then there are rumors of this shepherd boy’s future descendant who would one day strike the head of the deceiver once and for all. The Gothic author Flannery O’Connor was once asked why she used extreme, larger-than-life characters in her writing. And she said, “To the heart of hearing, you shout. And for the almost blind, you draw large and startling figures.” And when we move to the final stories of the book of Revelation, as we will, we see these large, startling figures.

So in Revelation, chapter 12, you have this red dragon with scales who sweeps away a third of the stars when he stands in front of the woman about to give birth as he’s seeking to devour this child. Who’s this child? Third freebie here, okay? Told you there’d be three before our eyes today. I think we are witnessing the death of naturalism, the death of secularism. Death to the assumption that there is only a natural, physical, material world, which was actually quite naive, I think.

We disavow the world in the box every time we long for our life to matter. We disavow the world in the box every time we desire to be reunited to a loved one that we lost. And so scriptures, our scriptures, they speak of a realm of intelligent beings who image God in a way that’s fundamentally distinct and different from how we do as human beings. And arguably, that realm is actually more substantial than our realm. It’s a crazy thought, I know, but we could think of ourselves as living in the shadow realm, the outer realm. In other words, there are other realms where other species, if you will, can choose folly and rebellion against God just like we can.

C.S. Lewis, in his preface to The Screwtape Letters, says that there are two equal and opposite errors we make when we think about the other world. One is to not think about it at all, and the other is to give it far too much credence than it deserves. Well, in our realm, in the church, we tend to not think about these things at all. So third freebie, I’m bringing them up today. There are sinister powers at play. And occasionally the more substantial realm shows up in scripture.

So, for instance, when Joshua fought a battle, the sun stood still. And right here in this story, we have David. When he wins a victory for the people who would never be able to save themselves, he becomes the archetype for the story of all stories, a story considered too good to be true because it is so true. A story that bridges the gap between the story of creation and de-creation. It’s the story, as we conclude, of recreation.

This is why David is not merely a hero to imitate. There is no “be like David” mantra in this sermon. Instead, the emphasis becomes: you are more like the frightened Israelites than you are like David. And you need a true champion, a true one from the in-between, to stand in between, to stand in the gap, to be in the middle.

David, as many of you will know, spoiler alert, foreshadows Jesus, the Christ who defeats the enemies that we cannot defeat, and particularly death itself, which has been called the rumble of panic underneath everything. I sat with a woman who went to be with Jesus on Friday. We have family members who are battling cancer. We have health maladies that we’re not really sure what they will lead to. It’s the rumble of panic underneath everything.

So if you’re here and you’re exploring Christianity, maybe for you and Jesus, you’re going to find hope in life that can never be taken away, even by death. For all of us, maybe our useful takeaway as we come to the table is this: us humans are often terrible at recognizing where real, true power lies. We think of it as military might or cultural cachet or political savvy. But in this story, between the two stories of scripture, we see real power. A shepherd becomes a king. A cross becomes true victory. And all along the way, weakness becomes strength. Sacrifice becomes the epic battle tactic.

You know, power is not actually bad in and of itself. In fact, in this room, we are dripping with power. The question is: will we brandish brazen power like Goliath, or will we submit it and surrender it to God like David? Better yet, like Jesus. So we can steward our lives as a sacrifice for everyone we meet. In the name of the Father, Son, and Spirit, we pray. Amen.