Where We Focus

[0:00] Good morning, Waterpark family. The scripture reading today comes from 1 Samuel 16-17. The reading is quite broken up, so we suggest you follow along on the screen.

[0:11] Starting in chapter 16, verse 1. The Lord said to Samuel, How long will you mourn for Saul, since I have rejected him as king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil and be on your way. I am sending you to Jesse of Bethlehem.

[0:27] I have chosen one of his sons to be king. Samuel did what the Lord said. When he arrived at Bethlehem, the elders of the town trembled when they met him. They asked, Do you come in peace?

[0:40] Samuel replied, Yes, in peace. I have come to sacrifice to the Lord. Consecrate yourselves and come to the sacrifice with me. Then he consecrated Jesse and his sons and invited them to the sacrifice.

[0:52] When they arrived, Samuel saw Eliab and thought, Surely the Lord's anointed stands here before the Lord. But the Lord said to Samuel, Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him.

[1:06] The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. Then Jesse called Abinadab and made him pass in front of Samuel.

[1:17] But Samuel said, The Lord has not chosen this one either. Jesse then made Sharmak pass by. But Samuel said, Nor has the Lord chosen this one. Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel.

[1:31] But Samuel said to him, The Lord has not chosen these. So he asked Jesse, Are there all the sons you have? There is still the youngest, Jesse answered. He is tending the sheep, Samuel said.

[1:43] Send for him. We will not sit down until he arrives. So he sent for him and had him brought in. He was glowing with health and had a fine appearance and handsome features. Then the Lord said, Rise and anoint him.

[1:57] This is the one. So Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the presence of his brothers. And from that day on, the Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon David. Samuel then went to Ramah.

[2:10] Now the Philistines gathered their forces for war. The Philistines occupied one hill and the Israelites another. With the valley between them. A champion named Goliath, who was from Gath, came out of the Philistine camp.

[2:23] His height was six cubits and a span. He had a bronze helmet on his head and 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.

[2:36] His spear shaft was like a weaver's rod and its iron point weighted 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?

[2:49] Am I not a Philistine? And are you not the servants of Saul? Choose a man. Let him come down to me. 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.

[3:03] Then the Philistines said, This day I defy the armies 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.

[3:16] Now David was the son of an Ephrathite named Jesse, who was from Bethlehem in Judah. Jesse had eight sons. David was the youngest. The three eldest followed Saul.

[3:28] But David went back and forth from Saul to tend his father's sheep at Bethlehem. For forty days the Philistine came forward every morning and evening and took his stand. Early in the morning, David left the flock in care of a shepherd, loaded up and set out as Jesse has directed.

[3:44] He reached the camp as the army were going out to its battle positions, shouting the war cry. David asked the men standing near him, What will be done for the man who kills this Philistine and removes this disgrace from Israel?

[3:56] Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God? What David said was overheard and reported to Saul. Saul sent for him. David said to Saul, Let no one lose heart on account of this Philistine.

[4:09] Your servant will go and fight him. Saul replied, You are not able to go out and fight this Philistine against him. You are only a young man, and he has been a warrior from his youth. But David said to Saul, Your servant has been keeping his father's sheep.

[4:23] When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, I went after it. I 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.

[4:36] This uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God. 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.

[4:48] So Saul said to David, Go, and the Lord be with you. 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 little more than a boy, glowing with health and handsome, and he despised him.

[5:05] He said to David, Am I a dog that you come at me with sticks? And the Philistine cursed David by his guards. Come here, he said, and I'll give your flesh to the birds and the wild animals.

[5:16] 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.

[5:27] 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. As the Philistine moved closer to attack him, David ran quickly towards the battle line to meet him.

[5:42] 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 face down on the ground. So David triumphed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone, which had a sword in his hand, and he struck down the Philistine and killed him.

[6:03] This is God's holy and wonderful word. Over to you, Moly. Hi, guys.

[6:14] Good morning, Watermark. Thank you, Claire and Kevin, for reading the scripture to us. As Chris said, I've been at Watermark for the last four years, and it's just been great calling this place, this church, home.

[6:27] And it's just an honor and privilege that I get to be with us and just go through God's scripture with us. Before we start, I just want to give a quick prayer, just to quiet our hearts and just prepare us going in.

[6:43] Heavenly Father, we come before you today just acknowledging that you're God. Father, we thank you for everything you've done for us, just bringing us together as a community. Thank you for going to the cross and dying for us, because that's the reason why we're gathered here today.

[6:58] Father, we just pray for open minds and open hearts as we go through your word today. Just pray that you would just allow us to accept and understand the word. And Father, you would quicken our steps to be able to go forth and practice it and make it a part of our lives such that we can live lives of worship to you.

[7:17] We just pray that, Father, as we go through scripture, you be magnified. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. So it's great that we get to go through scripture, and without much ado, we can just get started.

[7:33] So we're going to go through scripture today, and we're going to look at where we focus. But to start off, we have an illustration.

[7:44] So the lady you see here, Elizabeth Holmes, is someone you would call a prodigy tech entrepreneur. You know, at the age of 19, she dropped out of Stanford and went to start a tech company in Silicon Valley.

[8:00] You know, she was able to raise more than $1 billion U.S. from some of the most prominent people in government and technology. But it turns out that it was all a sham.

[8:11] The company and the product that she claimed to build didn't really work as promised. And a couple weeks ago, she was investigated and convicted of multiple counts of fraud.

[8:25] Now, we've all sinned, and we all fall short of the glory of God, and so none of us are here to judge her. But I think there's something interesting that we can take away from her story, which is to just think about how she was able to pull this off.

[8:39] You know, she got people to trust her and invest in her, and some of these people never even got to see financial documents of the company. So how was this possible? Well, it turns out that those people, some of them, were just focused on her outward appearance.

[8:55] You see, the thing about Elizabeth is that she dropped out of an Ivy League college and started a company in Silicon Valley. You know, it was a kind of story that we make movies of, and that's what they saw.

[9:07] You know, they also saw that some other reputable people in the heights of government, technology, and investing had invested in the company, and so they just trusted that, based on what they saw, they could invest in this company.

[9:20] And, you know, as you can see here, she was wearing, she liked to wear Steve Jobs' style of turtleneck, you know, just to give her that sense of being a visionary tech entrepreneur. You know, the people who invested in her did so for complex reasons, but one of them is that they focused on her outward appearance, and they trusted her.

[9:40] That's something that we also do, and we are going to see that in Scripture, that human beings tend to focus on the outward appearance, but God does not. He looks past that, and he focuses on our hearts.

[9:53] We're going to see this play out in the story of how David became king, how David was chosen by God and anointed to be king. We're also going to see a play out in the story about how he went against Goliath.

[10:05] And what we are going to see are these three things, that we're going to see God's focus, we're going to see where we focus, and then we're going to turn our eyes to Jesus, our focus.

[10:17] So in the series so far, we've been going through all that glitters, let's not go through the story of 1 Samuel. And what we've seen is that, while sometimes we may have appearances that look good on the outside, deep down, there's decay.

[10:31] And what we also see is that God comes in, and he turns things around for his glory to be seen. We saw it in the story of Hannah, where she was barren, and she was just pushed aside by the people closest to her.

[10:43] But God heard her prayer, and turned her story upside down, and gave her a son, who became the last judge of Israel, Samuel. We also see it in Eli and his sons, who were supposed to be priests, serving the people and leading them to God, but they really just wanted to serve themselves, and they abused their power.

[11:01] And God saw through their outward appearance, and got rid of them. The same with Saul, where Saul was supposed to lead God's people as king, but he wanted to honor himself more than any other thing, and so God rejects him as king.

[11:14] And that's where we find ourselves in scripture today. You know, what happens is God rejects Saul as king. And so he tells Samuel to go to Bethlehem, into the house of Jesse, because he's chosen one of Jesse's sons to be king of Israel.

[11:29] And you can imagine, Samuel goes, he finds Jesse, tells Jesse to bring his sons. Jesse as a patriarch goes, gathers his sons, and brings them to Samuel. Samuel knew why he was there.

[11:41] He knew he was going to pick the next king of Israel, and so he was looking at the people that were brought before him, Jesse's sons, with an eye looking for the next king. And scripture tells us that the moment his eyes landed on Eliab, one of Jesse's sons, he immediately concluded that Eliab would be the next king of Israel.

[12:00] Why? Well, there are a couple of reasons. You know, Eliab was the firstborn of Jesse. And we learn from scripture that the firstborn son usually would have the birthright.

[12:12] And so there was a level of prominence that the firstborn son would have. And so Samuel saw this cultural reason and immediately concluded that Eliab must be the one who is chosen as king.

[12:22] Not only that, he was tall and physically good looking. You know, the people of Israel had been asking for a king, someone who would represent them. And so looking at Eliab's physique, Samuel saw him and was like, yes, that must be the one.

[12:37] He just looked good on the outside. And also he was a soldier under Saul. See, also the people had been asking for a king who would lead them into battle. And so just seeing that Eliab had the experience of being a soldier, it just kind of made sense that this person would be king.

[12:55] But you know, God is a good God. He sees past outward appearance. And so while Samuel was focused on Eliab's outward appearance, God came in and rebuked Samuel and said to him, Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him.

[13:14] For the Lord sees not as man sees. Man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart. You know, Eliab may have had an outward appearance that looked good, but God saw past that and saw his heart, which was a heart that was full of pride.

[13:31] You know, we learn later on in chapter 17 that, you know, Goliath had set up camp and he was attacking the Israelite army, taunting them. And David saw what was happening. And David started asking questions.

[13:43] And Eliab, who had a heart full of pride, heard his brother. And the Bible says that his heart burned with anger against David. Why? Because Eliab had been rejected by Samuel, God, and he wasn't anointed as king.

[13:58] And David was instead. So out of all that spite in his heart, he turned against David. And because of the pride in his heart, his heart burned with anger against him. God saw the pride in Eliab's heart.

[14:11] And so he knew that such a person would not make a great king for Israel. You know, God looks past the outward appearance. And that's the same thing that happened with Saul, as we saw last week, that God saw his heart, a heart that just wanted to honor himself.

[14:25] And so God rejected him because God looks past the outward appearance and God looks at the heart. So coming back to the story, Samuel looks at Eliab and God rejects him.

[14:38] So he looks to the other sons, but God rejects all of them one by one for all those who are present. And so Samuel, trusting God, just knew that, hey, something was wrong. And so he turns to Jesse and he's like, hey, are these all your sons?

[14:51] And then Jesse confesses that there's one who wasn't present, the youngest, David. You know, Jesse didn't invite David over because of the same outward mode that Samuel had actually looked at Eliab with.

[15:05] You see, the thing about David was that there are a couple of things. Well, he was the last born son of Jesse. And so he was on the other end of the spectrum when it came to the general idea of a birthright.

[15:17] And so Jesse was like, well, if this is not the son, if this is the son who's the youngest, maybe he's not important. And so for that cultural reason, he didn't bring Jesse. I mean, he didn't bring David in. David was also young and inexperienced.

[15:32] And so he had a boyish look about him. Physically, he looked young. You know how we, as adults, tend to have dinner and we gather on the main table and we have a separate table for the kids because probably they don't have anything important to tell us because they're small.

[15:49] You know, Jesse looked at David in the same way. Knowing that he was just small and boyish, he probably didn't have a beard at that time. You know, and so he didn't invite David to come over.

[16:00] Also, David was a shepherd boy. You see, at that time, Israel was going through a time of crisis and so any man of any repute was asked to be in the army serving and fighting for the kingdom of Israel.

[16:14] And so anyone who was doing anything aside that was probably the lowest of the low. And so that's how David found himself as a shepherd boy. And so he didn't have that status. David did not have the CV that would make him important in people's eyes.

[16:31] You know, if Samuel was a recruiter, he would have thought that Elliot had the perfect CV. And if Jesse was looking at his son, he'd probably think that David was not qualified to even be in Samuel's presence.

[16:42] I think an important thing we can take away from this is that as human beings who look on the outside, they're just as inclined to count people out as we are to include them based on their outward appearance.

[16:55] David was not invited because he did not even fit into the outward centered more than his own father Jesse had. You know, I think this is very similar to the way we relate to people.

[17:08] It's easy for us to gravitate towards people based on their outward appearance, based on how wealthy they are, or maybe based on how well-spoken, or what level of social status they have.

[17:20] On the other hand, it's very easy for us to push people away because they don't fit into an outward mode. They don't fit into the mode that we think is important in our eyes. They might not be as wealthy, or they might not be as well-spoken.

[17:32] They might not even, even in church, they might not be the people who are serving all the time, and so we might just push them aside. And even worse thing that we tend to do when we focus on the outward appearance is sometimes we tend to prop ourselves up and put on an outward appearance that covers up the messiness we know we have inside.

[17:51] You know, honestly, I confess that I do this as well. I focus on the outside when I relate to people. So I work for a company that is mostly centered around tech, and as a tech person, man, it's like heaven to me.

[18:05] But what I realize is that I've started doing this thing where in meetings, people who don't have a tech background, I tend to tune them off. You know, I tend to think that what they have to say might not be as important because I focus on the outward appearance.

[18:19] But as I was going through scripture, I was just, you know, encouraged, but also rebuked in the way I see these people because now I understand that God does not look at any of us thinking about who has a tech background or who doesn't.

[18:33] You know, God loves us all. And I think I'm encouraged just knowing that God doesn't look on the outward appearance, that I need to see these people as God sees them, as people he loves. And every voice is important.

[18:44] My perspective is changing. So coming back to the story, we see how God looks past the outward appearance of each person. And so he rejects all of Jesse's sons. But then it's at this point that we see David come into the picture.

[18:58] And I think it's important to just see how David is introduced in scripture. David is introduced as a handsome guy, glowing in health.

[19:09] And I think it's interesting and scripture is subtly pointing us to something that's very important. You know, David was described in the same way that Saul and Elliot were actually described. And I think scripture is just telling us that God looks past the outward appearance.

[19:25] And so looking good on the outside or looking bad on the outside simply doesn't matter. You know, Chris shared a quote with me earlier. He said, the quote said that the outward appearance neither qualifies nor disqualifies.

[19:37] It simply doesn't matter to God. You know, so it could be that we could be serving in church putting on the best possible physical appearance. But if our hearts are not with God, then it's all for naught.

[19:50] It also could mean that we might be at the lowest of the low in the way we present ourselves but our hearts are hearts that God looks at because we maybe have focused on him. Also, another interesting way that David was introduced was that he was introduced as the person who was tending the sheep.

[20:08] You know, to be a shepherd meant that David would have had to go into the pasture with the weak, feeble sheep. And he would have had to be reliant on God in the face of harsh weather conditions, in the face of wild animals who would have tried to attack him and the sheep that he was having.

[20:25] You know, God was building trust. He was building character in him. I think another important thing that we can take away from this is that outward appearances can be so deceiving because what we might think is a terrible time might actually be the time that God is actually shaping our hearts.

[20:42] He's drawing us to a point of desperation such that we'll chase after him and we'll learn to rely on him with all our hearts. You know, sometimes when we be at work and we have a very difficult colleague who's just pressing all our buttons and we're like, God, why?

[20:56] And we're like, God, take me out of this but maybe God is just building patience in us. So just coming back to David and the fact that he was a shepherd, you know, God was building character in him.

[21:08] Last two weeks, Alan took us through what God expected the king of Israel to be and it was someone who would care for the people, someone who would trust in God above all things, someone who would not try to honor himself or just use his position for his own advantage and that's what God was building in David at that time and so when God looked at David, he looked past his outward appearance and he looked at his heart.

[21:31] In choosing David, he wanted someone who would chase after him and so he focused on David's heart and I think at this point we've seen that God focuses on the heart over the outward appearance and so now we can segue to where we focus.

[21:50] You know, so David gets annoyed at us king but he doesn't immediately take up the official role as king. He stays serving his father as a shepherd boy and sometimes he even goes to serve Saul but all the while, Israel was still in a time of turmoil and so in chapter 17 we are told that the Philistine army was actually able to invade the land of Israel and they set up camp to fight the Israelite army and so they do this thing that's known as representational combat where they sent their best to face the best from Israel and the general idea is that the two of the best from either side of the army fight with each other and the person who is victorious shows which side is victorious and so they send what we know as the Philistines champion, Goliath.

[22:40] You know, Goliath was described as being huge. Man, it was crazy. Like, the dimensions that we mention in the scripture equate to about 9.9 feet tall.

[22:55] You know, for context, the average man is about 5.8 feet and so you can imagine this huge giant and you can imagine what the Israelites were thinking at that point seeing this person.

[23:09] They probably thought that Goliath was big. Not only that, Goliath was dressed up in the most spectacular armor. Everything that he had adorned was made from bronze and you can just imagine, like, just try to close your eyes and imagine what it would have looked like where this 9.9 feet tall guy wearing bronze was standing in the sun glistening and you can imagine what the Israelite army and the people there were thinking.

[23:33] Not only that, Goliath would come and he would throw all kinds of taunts at the Israelite army saying, hey, aren't you Saul's army? Can't you bring someone to fight me? Is there no one? I dare you.

[23:44] He taunted them for 40 days and 40 nights, the Bible says. And you can imagine what the Israelite army were thinking. You know, they were all focused on his outward appearance.

[23:56] And so, the Bible says that Goliath came against them and he said, on this day, I defy the armies of Israel.

[24:07] Give me a man and let us fight together. And scripture says that on hearing the Philistines' words, Saul and the Israelites were dismayed and terrified. Some translations say that they were greatly afraid.

[24:20] You know, they focused on Goliath's outward appearance and what they perceived was that they were faced with an insurmountable problem. To them, Goliath was big and God was small.

[24:32] But David, unlike the rest of the people in the Israelite army, heard Goliath taunt the army and he just could not accept the fact that God was being dishonored. And so, he decided to rise up against Goliath.

[24:45] Scripture says that he had a focus, I mean, so David had a focus on God that made God big and Goliath small. And so, it says that David went up and said, hey, the Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear would deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.

[25:04] That's where David's focus was. He was focused on God. And he was focused on facing Goliath to honor God. And it's unlikely that he didn't feel fear. He probably was just as afraid as the people in the Israelite army.

[25:18] But the difference is that he chose to focus on God and the way God had been faithful in previous problems that might have seemed insurmountable to David. You know, he didn't trust in his armor.

[25:29] He didn't trust in the army of Israel. He didn't trust in anything apart from God. And so, he went up with no armor. He went up with just a sling and a stone. And the Bible says that he flung the stone from the sling.

[25:41] It hit Goliath right on the head. Goliath fell and gave him the victory, gave Israel the victory and got the glory. David had a focus on God that made God big and Goliath small.

[25:56] You know, bringing this story closer to us, we may have our own versions of Goliath. Things that may seem insurmountable to us. Things that will come up against us and taunt us and test our faith.

[26:09] You know, it could be with sin where we probably have faced the same thing for so long time and time again and we've fallen and fallen and fallen. We just resign to the idea that maybe this is something I just have to deal with.

[26:21] This is an addiction I will not be able to pass. This is something that I will just have to live with for the rest of my life. You know, in times like that, we make sin big and God small. It could even be with relational issues where we may have had fractured relationships with people in our family, people we once called friends, people we work with, people in our lives, and we just feel like there's so much pain and animosity that there's nothing that we can do and so we just resign and say, que sera sera what will be with this relationship?

[26:52] We make these fractured relationships big and God small. It could even be health or financial challenges. You know, but it doesn't have to be the case.

[27:04] You know, we can shift our focus from these things that seem insurmountable to us and we can shift our focus to God. And so how can we do this?

[27:15] Well, I think it's important that the first step that we take in shifting our focus is coming with a heart of repentance. It's important to come to God with honesty and say, hey God, I'm sorry for believing in the lie that you're small and other things were big.

[27:34] You know, as I was preparing for the sermon just reading scripture, there's a song by Don Mohan called Be Magnified that just kept playing and repeating and I think the words, the lyrics of the song just point to how we can come with a heart and do that repentance and go through repentance.

[27:52] You know, the lyrics say, I'm actually not going to sing it, I'm going to read it. The lyrics say, I have made you too small in my eyes. Oh God, forgive me. I have believed in the lie that you weren't able to help me.

[28:07] But now, oh God, I see my wrong. Heal my heart and show yourself strong. And in my eyes and with my song, oh Lord, be magnified.

[28:18] It's such a great way that we can pray. A prayer of repentance from believing that God is small because it shows how we can start off and do that 180 turn and start off from the point where we say, hey God, I believe that you are big and I'm sorry for making you small.

[28:32] Father, just heal my heart and do the final 180 turn and say, oh God, be magnified such that everything becomes small. And as we come to repentance, we start to shift our focus in a way that makes God big and every other thing small.

[28:48] And coming back to how we can start to shift our focus, the next thing we can do is just succumb to God and say we know who God is. You know, if you look at the way David responded, you can tell that he knew who God was.

[29:05] God was in every single utterance that he made, in every single declaration that he made. And I think that it's important that we invest time in getting to know God because we cannot focus on someone that we do not know.

[29:22] You know, that's why Bible study, things like Bible study, study are so important because we get to know who God is. We get to become acquainted to our maker, the person who is greater than every other thing. And so as we grow in knowledge of him, we can start to shift the focus.

[29:36] That's why things like CG are so important because by doing it in community, by building each other up in scripture, we can have a focus that is shifted because we know who God is.

[29:48] And so in the face of an insurmountable problem like sin, we know that, oh God, you're the one who heals our hearts. You're the one who turns our hearts from stone into flesh. And so we know that God can take us through.

[30:01] In times of sickness, we know who God is. We know that God is a healer. And so we can hold on to that. And so we can start to shift our focus from a point where any other thing is big and God is small.

[30:14] The next point is that faith is not automatic. You know, you can imagine David in the pasture with the flock. You know, David showed that he knew who God is and his faith had been built by how God had been faithful to him.

[30:32] And so you can imagine David with the flock in the pasture and maybe he started off with a small dog attacking his flock and he trusted in God and God helped him go over the small dog. And so the next time that a lion rose up against him, he knew that God would be good because God was faithful in the previous times.

[30:48] And so he trusted in God and the Bible says that lions came and he was able to defeat them because of God. And so the next time a bear, which is bigger, came, he knew that God had been faithful with the lion and so God would be faithful with the bear.

[30:59] And so when he's faced against Goliath, he has a track record of God's faithfulness that he can lean on to. And so his focus shifted to how big God is. I think it's the same thing that we can apply in our lives.

[31:12] Where when we are faced with what seems like an insurmountable problem, we can take how God had been faithful in other parts of our life and bring them to what might seem insurmountable to us. And so if we're dealing with sin, we know that God is a provider and he's always shown himself to be true in his word.

[31:28] And so we believe that God can change our hearts from a heart of stone into a heart of flesh. If we know that God has been a healer in another time of sickness, we can trust that he will be a healer there too.

[31:39] By focusing on how God has been faithful to us and other people we can trust and we can start to shift our focus in a way that makes God big and every other thing small.

[31:51] And the last one is that David, the last one is taking action because we trust God. You know, I think one great thing to take away from David is the way he responded before he attacked Goliath.

[32:06] And the Bible says that he said, he said to the people that all those who, 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.

[32:23] That's what David said before he went up and attacked Goliath. You see, the thing is that we take action because we know that the victory has already been won for us. And so that's what David did and I think we can do the same.

[32:35] We take action because we trust in God. And so when we are faced with insurmountable problems, we should not be reduced to inaction or incapacity. We can take a step against it and so when we are faced with sin, we can say, hey sin, not today.

[32:49] Because we know that the battle has already been won against it. And so with these points, I think it's great for us to just ponder and just take a step and just think about where our focus is right now.

[33:02] Who is biggest in our eyes? And how big is God for us? You know, we've seen God work in our hearts in so many different ways. So can we focus on him? And at this point, we can segue and ask ourselves, can we focus on Jesus and look at Jesus as our focus?

[33:21] You know, David, in many ways, seems so incredible. You know, David had a heart of servitude. He was chosen by God to be the king of Israel and he put himself on the line for the sake of others.

[33:37] You know, David went up against Goliath and he won the victory for the people of Israel. Israel. But David, in many ways, is just a pale representation, a pale reflection of the true king to come, Jesus.

[33:51] You know, if we remember, the people of God, the people of Israel had been asking for a king who would lead them into battle, who would represent them and David actually fulfilled some of that. But it turns out that even David was not infallible.

[34:05] He was flawed. And so, at some point in his career as king, he actually ends up being selfish and he ends up committing adultery and abusing his power to orchestrate murder.

[34:18] You know, David was not perfect. Jesus is the only perfect king. See, with Jesus, he was the ultimate servant.

[34:29] he came down to serve all people, even the people on the farthest fringes of society. Jesus is the king of the entire world.

[34:40] You know, he's equal with God. And Jesus paid the ultimate price for our sake. He conquered sin and death and won the victory for not just Israel but all the world.

[34:52] You know, ultimately, our focus should be on Jesus. You know, in the face of insurmountable problems, in the face of things that we may consider the liars. In the face of sin, struggles, pain, can we focus on Jesus through it all?

[35:05] You know, we focus on him not so we can go do it on our own. We focus on him because he's done it for us. He's won the victory against sin, death, temptation, sickness, anything that we can think of.

[35:18] You know, Jesus is big and every other thing is small. Now, another thing that is really great about the way David approached this problem is he said something that was really, really good.

[35:34] David said in scripture to Goliath that, hey, Goliath, you come against me with sword and spear and javelin but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty.

[35:47] That's such a great stance to take and I think we can do it as well. You know, when we are faced with sin, we can say, hey sin, you come against me with all manner of temptations but I come against you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ in a way that makes Jesus big and sin small.

[36:04] You know, when we are faced with all manner of relational issues, we can say, hey, you come against me with all this pain and all this animosity and all this acrimony but I come against you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, the one who heals, the one who is love personified.

[36:21] It's a great stance for us to take because it places the focus on Jesus and makes him big and all other things small. You know, Jesus is the better David who defeats all our glads.

[36:34] They are small compared to him and that's why we focus on Jesus. You know, Jesus is in control of our story. He's the one who writes our story and that's why we focus on him.

[36:45] And as we just come to a close, we can just look at scripture that calls him the author and perfecter of our faith in Hebrews. And I pray that as we go through the scripture, we just focus on it and we see how great Jesus is.

[37:03] And so, Hebrews 12, verse 1 and 2 reads, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.

[37:17] For the joy set before him, he endured the cross, scorning its shame and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. When we are faced with things that may seem insurmountable, things that hinder us, things that easily entangle us like sin, we can fix our eyes on Jesus as scripture says.

[37:39] We can imagine him sitting at the throne and by doing that we make him big and every other thing small. Jesus is a perfect king.

[37:49] He is the only one who deserves our focus. He makes every other thing small and as we focus on him, God will be magnified. Let's pray.

[38:06] Dear God, we just come before you again and thank you for your amazing word. Your word that comes to us and it cuts through Bonamara, scripture says.

[38:17] It goes past our old appearance and it goes directly to our hearts. And so Father, as we've gone through scripture and as we've learned your word and as we now know to focus on you in a way that makes every other thing small, Father, just pray that you'll make this reality in our lives.

[38:33] Father, we just pray that you'll take us through each day in a way that you're magnified and every other thing is small. Father, we pray that you'll continue to show yourself to be true as you always have and that we grow and Father, for those of us who need to repent, we repent for making you small and we just turn our focus to you, Father.

[38:52] We thank you once again because you're a great God seated at the right hand of the throne. We thank you for winning all our battles, for defeating all our Goliaths and so we praise your holy name and we honor you.

[39:06] In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.