Courage

Word gets back to King Saul that someone might be up for the challenge of taking on Goliath (v. 31). But as soon as David arrives, Saul takes up the same tone with him his brothers had: You don’t stand a chance (v. 33). David, however, is unfazed. He had done his real training in the pasture, and compared to a lion or a bear, Goliath was not terribly impressive.

Saul is largely absent from this entire narrative, but he shows up long enough to discourage David and to offer him some poorly fitting armor. Remember, Saul was head and shoulders above the average man, while David was short. It is no wonder David opted out of using the oversized gear. Had Saul possessed the technology of his opponents, he might have had spare armor lying around. But Saul’s armor served as the best shot for David to be protected, at least from Saul’s (earthly) perspective.

The story becomes strikingly similar to most twenty-first-century action movies, complete with trash talking and vivid graphic imagery, in verses 40-54. This is gripping stuff and qualifies as one of the first DVDs I plan to grab off the shelf when I get to heaven. But other than being a fascinating battle story, what exactly is the main lesson to learn in David’s triumph over Goliath? Contemporary audiences love to use this as an analogy about the underdog: No matter the odds, you can do it! Just believe in yourself! Christians are as prone as anyone to fall prey to this sort of interpretation, baptizing it with spiritual language: If you trust God, He will give you victory over all the “giants” in your life—cancer, a lousy job, a broken relationship. Just claim your victory, and God will give it to you!

Sadly this misses the point. God does not want us to read this story and come away with a cocky assurance that, given the right confidence, we can achieve whatever we set our mind to. Yes, David was able to overcome insurmountable odds. The interpretive problem comes not from recognizing the long odd but in identifying ourselves with David. This may strike you as bad news, but in this story you are not David. You and I are the cowering, helpless nation of Israel.

The entire scene of David’s conflict with Goliath is cast in the light of representative warfare. When David takes on Goliath, it is not merely one man against another; this is Israel and Philistia, squaring off. What’s more, the battle between Israel and Philistia represents the struggle between their gods, as both David and Goliath mention in their taunting monologues. Thus when David wins, the rout is on: the Philistines (and their god) are on the run, while Israel (and the one true God) pursues.

This helps indicate David’s confidence. When he arrives on the scene, he is immediately enraged with the situation, not because he is being disparaged but because his God is. He goes to the battle line with confidence, not because he finds himself particularly worthy but because he sees the battle for what it is, a struggle between the God of Israel and the gods of the world. And when he wins, the entire nation of Israel shares in his representative victory, even though they had done nothing to earn it themselves.

We stand in a situation similar to Israel, in need of a representative to save us from the menacing giant of sin. Humanity’s most serious and most fundamental problem—the problem behind all our problems—is our alienation from God. And just like Israel versus the giant, there is nothing any of us can do about that. In fact, there is nothing any of us, of our own accord, even desire to do about this. We are the hoards of Israelites hiding in our tents, not dealing with the threat of sin, guilt, and death. God’s judgment looms over us, as terrifying as the giant Goliath, and we are powerless to stop it. What we need, like Israel, is a representative to challenge this giant of judgment on our behalf.

The devastating Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 provides another powerful image of our helpless state before the giant of sin and judgment. I (J. D.) spoke with a friend who had been asleep on the beach the morning that tragedy happened. He and a dozen others woke up when the 7.0 magnitude earthquake shook their island, but they were unaware of the crushing wave that would follow. They walked out of their tents to see the ocean water rapidly receding half a mile away from the shore.

My friend decided to get on his motorcycle and go home to check on his parents. His friends, however, curious about what was happening, walked out onto the sand where previously there had been ocean. A few minutes later, a 70-foot wave crashed into the shore, killing every single one of them—except my friend, who by that time was on higher ground.

Can you imagine standing on that shore, watching a growing wall of water, as tall as a seven-story building and as wide as your eye can see, barreling toward you at 60 miles an hour? There is nowhere to turn. Death is all but certain. But then imagine that just before the wave swept you away, the ground between you and the wave opened up and the earth swallowed up every bit of the water coming toward you.

That wall of water, that Goliath, is the righteous wrath of God. And the pit that swallows up that water, the hero able to conquer Goliath, is none other than Jesus. Jesus was our unexpected representative, the One who fought the giant on our behalf while we stood on the sidelines and did nothing to help Him. Jesus was opposed by all His brothers, abandoned by all His friends, precisely at the moment of His greatest battle. Jesus was the only One who, like David, really believed the promises of God. And Jesus was the only One to run onto the battlefield with perfect confidence in God, winning a victory on our behalf, despite our disobedience and failure.

Until we see Christ’s victory in David’s story, we miss the central thrust of this passage. Yet once we recognize that we are much more like Israel than David, we see two practical lessons for us today.

The real menacing giant in our lives is not our present situation, however tragic. The real giant in our lives is the one that has already been defeated at Golgotha—the giant of sin, death, and separation from God. Because Jesus absorbed the wrath of God in our place, we can have confidence in the face of every other challenge.

In Christ we have no need to be afraid of death. So when cancer threatens to destroy me, there is nothing ultimately to fear. Even if cancer kills me, Jesus has taken away the sting of death. As Paul says, “For me, living is Christ and dying is gain” (Phil 1:21). Christ has freed us from the captivity to the fear of death, so the prospect of the grave simply does not have the same binding power it once did.

In Christ we have no need to be afraid of the future flying out of control. So when I lose my job, I have something more secure than a job. The real fear behind unemployment is not the job, anyway, but the fear of being taken care of. And Christ’s sacrifice on our behalf assures us that we will never lack that tender care and compassion. Thus we can answer with David that even in the darkest valley we fear no evil because God Himself is with us (Ps 23:4).

In Christ we have no need to be afraid of pain in our relationships. So when a spouse dies—or worse, walks out—we can feel the weight of grief without drifting into outright despair. We can engage in close and vulnerable relationships without the fear of getting hurt because the prospect of betrayal would not be the end of the world. Jesus Himself took the “end of the world” into His body for us so that no relational pain would ever threaten to undo us.

In Christ we have no need to be afraid of the disapproval of others. We have the absolute approval of the only One whose opinion matters. The God who created the universe with a word, who rules eternity, with all power in His hand—if that God is for you, if He treasures you and approves of you, who can rightfully be said to stand against you (Rom 8:31)? If we have His smile, we can endure the fiercest frown.

Real courage does not arise from the assurance that we will never encounter trouble. Courage is not the absence of strife or the absence of fear in the midst of strife. Instead, courage comes from having a priceless and secure treasure that strife and fear cannot threaten. That treasure is Jesus Christ Himself.

David’s story, like all narratives in the Old Testament, primarily points us to the work of Christ (cf. Luke 24:25-27). But as the apostle Paul says, these stories happened to them as an example for us (1 Cor 10:11). So like the people of Israel, when we see Jesus, the true David, conquer death, the true Goliath, we should respond as they did—by triumphantly following Christ in His victory.

There are giants in our lives, huge obstacles, areas in which the kingdom of God is prohibited from going forward in the lives of those whom He loves. For the teenager, that may be her school, where it is laughable to live with faith in Jesus Christ. For the businessman, that may be his workplace, where integrity is consistently sacrificed in the name of growing profit. For the full-time mother, that may be her own home, where her children’s future salvation looms like a giant she cannot overcome.

The kingdom of God is a kingdom of advance. But as in David’s day, so in ours, obstacles from both inside and outside God’s people threaten to hamper what God wants to do in the world. The size of Goliath was no problem to David, nor is the size of whatever giant stands before the church today. The more significant obstacle is the smallness of our confidence in God.

God expects the taunts of those who do not believe in Him, and we should not be overly anxious about those in our culture who deride followers of Christ for their faith. This may insult God, but what grieves Him more than their taunts is the church’s failure to take God at His word. We must take our eyes off the size of the giant, stop listening to unbelieving “believers,” and think instead about the size of the love and power of God. Until we do, we remain fearfully in the tents of Israel—hiding from risk but also from the work of God.