The Patriots versus The Giants

“The Patriots versus the Giants”

Kennard Friends Church

February 5, 2012

1 Samuel 17:1-51

I am going to be talking about football and faith this morning. First some football! A football coach was asked his secret of evaluating his new recruits.

'Well,' he answered, 'It's easy. I take 'em out in the woods and make 'em run. The ones that run round the trees, I make into running backs. The ones that run straight into the trees, I turn into linemen.'

Today, February 5, the world will be watching a football game. It’s a game that for 46 years has been called the “Super Bowl”. Here are just a few facts:
- Thirty-second spots during Super Bowl XLVI are being sold for as much as $3.5 million.
- The Super Bowl is the most watched television program of all time.
- Last year’s game was viewed in 53.3 million households or 46% of the country.
- The winning players will receive about $20,000 for this one game.
- It is the second-largest day for U.S. food consumption, after Thanksgiving Day.
- Worldwide viewing of the Super Bowl is an average of 100,000,000 people every year.

This year, the game is between the New England Patriots and the New York Giants.

What is a patriot? Dictionary says is means “a person who vigorously supports their country and is prepared to defend it against enemies or detractors”. From a football perspective, both team’s players would be considered “patriots” who vigorously support their team and are prepared to defend their goal line against their opponent.
What is a giant? The dictionary says it is “a person of unusually great size”. Again, from a football perspective, both teams have players who would be considered people of unusually great size!
But this morning’s message is NOT about football, and not about the Super Bowl. However with this year’s Super Bowl in mind I want to share a story about the very first contest between the patriot and the giant. We refer to them as David and Goliath.

That match-up took place a little over 3,000 years ago! The game was not in Lucas Oil Stadium, but in the Elah Valley. This was a stadium-like setting with the Philistines and Israelites facing each other on the steep hills with the valley in between them.
David was the patriot, who vigorously supported his country Israel as he prepared to defend it against enemies and detractors. Goliath was obviously the giant. Let’s go to the 17th chapter of I Samuel to get a physical description. Verse 4-7. Let me give you a better perspective of “over nine feet tall”. I am 6’ 4”. [hold up a yard stick up from the top of my head to get to over 9 feet]

Goliath had won all the playoff events and was ready to win the BIG one for the Philistine’s. Football teams play 11 players against each other. The team of Philistines was just one. And Goliath said to pick just one from team Israel to play the final game. The winner according to Goliath, as not the Lombardi Trophy, but the winning team got the other team as slaves. King Saul was offering a different prize of a wife (one of his daughters) and a tax break too. Did you realize that taxes were used as incentives for people to do things to benefit the government so long ago? Let’s check the Scriptures for this part of the story. Verse 25b.

The pre-game activities had lasted for over a month as the giant had come out twice a day for the past 40 days, morning and evening, and was trash-talking his opponents [the Israelites]… and God!

Let’s step away from that story and look at today. You and I are in a game. Those who are on Coach God’s team are called Christians. We are in a game against the opposing team led by Coach Satan. The field of play is our lifetime. Once the game clock starts running, it does not stop. The actual game lasts a different amount of time for everyone. But as we play the game, there is a score being kept. So what is the score in your game right now?

Did you realize that before the patriot David faced the giant, that he’d already defeated a couple of other “football” teams… the Lions and the Bears. Let’s pick up the story in I Samuel 17 verses 34-36.
I said in the beginning this message was about football and faith.
Let me show us where faith comes into the story of David and Goliath.
Even though David had never faced a giant before, he looked back in his life to recall anything similar. Thus the lions and bears. Look at verse 37… The Lord who saved me from the claws of the lion and the bear [is the Lord who] will save me from this Philistine. As we all know about the story, David did defeat Goliath. Killed him! The patriot defeated that giant forever. Game over!

David demonstrated faith by doing two things. He focused on similar situations in the past where the Lord helped defeat the enemy and by focusing on the Lord for help in defeating his current enemy.

What enemy do you need the Lord to help save you from?
• Is it something with your family?
• Your job?
• Your retirement plans?
• Your school?
• Your good friends?
• Your not-so-good friends?
• Your health?
• Your marriage?
• Your children?
• Your ______________?

Then here is the simple (not easy) solution… The Lord who saved you in the past is the Lord who will save you now. The Lord who healed you in the past will heal you now. The Lord who provided in the past will provide now. That is… IF you have the Lord in your life!

So today you have an option. If you have already asked the Lord to forgive your sins; have trusted in him and believe in him, then you have been what the Bible calls saved or born again. With that being the case, then the Lord is already a helper in your life.
However if you have NOT already asked the Lord to forgive your sins; have trusted in him and believe in him, then you have been the opportunity right now to be saved or born again. Then you will begin to have the Lord as a helper in your life.

Let’s take a moment to pray about what it is we need. And as the music plays you will have an opportunity to respond to God in whatever way he is talking to you.

After response song, close in prayer and remind everyone that Faith is Focus on the Father!!!!