1 Samuel 17:4-11, 32-40, 45-49 Pastor Nathan P. Kassulke
The First Sunday in Lent Sunday, March 9, 2025 “The Battle Belongs to the LORD”
Everyone loves a good underdog story. The early rounds of the March Madness college basketball tournament are so exciting for so many people because the unexpected can always happen. A team that truly believes it can win the whole thing can lose to a team that no one believes in except themselves. Announcers and reporters might call it a Cinderella story, or sometimes they take the more biblical approach and call it a David versus Goliath battle. The big, strong team seemed to have everything going for it, but the supposedly smaller and weaker team won the day. For many people, that is all that David and Goliath means to them. It is a story about an underdog coming out on top. And it is a fun and interesting story to consider, but it doesn’t really say much more than sometimes the underdog wins. Sometimes David beats Goliath. So anytime an underdog, an apparently weaker individual or idea, comes out on top over a bigger, stronger, more impressive and imposing force, that’s David beating Goliath again. Goliath could be the stronger basketball team, but it’s also been the government against the individual freedom-fighter Davids. It’s been the big pharmaceutical industry with its massive profits and overcharging against the underdog consumers who just want to afford the treatments they need and the health they so desperately want. Goliath has been the gigantic corporations that crowd out the small, local business Davids of consumer retail and restaurants. But if you think the account of David and Goliath is just a good underdog story like all the others, you are going to miss the most important points and the most important lessons. David and Goliath is a good underdog story. David was a young man. He had been anointed to be the next king of Israel, but he wasn’t even in the army yet. His older brothers were. David, meanwhile, looked after the sheep. He didn’t have wartime experience. He didn’t have armor. He was an underdog against the nine-and-a-half-foot-tall Goliath who towered over his own army, that of the Philistines, and everyone else’s, too. Even King Saul, who looked the part of a king as he stood head and shoulders above almost everyone, was dwarfed by this giant. I highly doubt you have met, or even seen someone quite as imposing as the giant Goliath of Gath. And his armor was just as incredible. This was custom work that you couldn’t even find at the big and tall store. No wonder his army was absolutely behind the idea of champions battling it out on behalf of their respective sides. And no wonder they considered themselves the favorite. Who would beat their giant? You know the answer. If you didn’t know it before today, you heard enough of 1 Samuel 17 earlier so you know it now. David stepped up. He heard the taunts and found them unacceptable. He saw the giant and didn’t feel the need to run away. He tried on the armor offered to him, but it was like a child playing dress-up in adult clothes. There was no way for him to fight like that. Instead he did what he would have done defending his sheep against the lions and bears. He had his sling. He found a handful of good, smooth stones. He marched out onto the battlefield. Now the taunts were aimed at him, and he answered back. The giant engaged. David ran. He set himself, readied his sling and his stone, and he sent a slingpowered stone bullet right into the forehead of the giant from Gath. And Goliath, along with all of the hopes of the Philistines, came crashing to the ground. This true account of this battle may be the greatest underdog story ever, but it is so much more than that. There are lessons for us and applications to our lives throughout, but I want to make sure that together today we see the most important lessons of all. I want to make sure that we don’t get caught up in minor points. Some people appreciate this story because it depicts an unfair fight. It acknowledges what they feel they go through. It’s true that sometimes we face odds that are not in our favor. We deal with situations that just don’t meet our understanding of justice and fairness. We shouldn’t expect things to always be the way we want or assume. Our sinful world is full of mismatches and unfair fights. It’s true, and we see it in our account, but that’s not our main takeaway.