The Rest of the Story

Thank you worship team. I just, I tell Cindy all the time, I just love it when she comes! I just love it when she comes and plays the piano and we can worship together.

It just warms my heart. This morning we're being blessed by having a guest speaker.

As you know, Pastor Josh is away for a couple of weeks on holidays. And Pastor Cal from Ebenezer Baptist Church in Saskatoon.

We met with him just before the conference up there about a month ago. And one of the first questions he asked Pastor Josh is, are you going on holidays this summer?

And Josh said, yeah, I'm going the first two weeks of July. He says, do you need anybody to speak? And he just volunteered and his enthusiasm got me.

And when I heard that, yes, he was going to come. I can't say a lot about Cal. I can say that he's been in ministry for how many years, Cal? Guys, that was going to be my guess.

And you've been down east pastoring and he's been in Ebenezer now for a while. But he wants to share with us this morning. So I'm going to call you up now and I'll turn it over to you.

And thank you so much. Yeah, thank you. I don't really need a mic, right? I guess if it's close by, I'll use it. Oh, okay.

Here we go. Maybe that's not what I want. How's this? Okay. Yeah, thank you so much just for allowing me an opportunity just to share a few words with you this morning.

I actually first came to Davidson, well, in regards to our relationship with you, Davidson Community Bible Church, when you guys were looking to be a part of a denomination.

And I serve on the BGC board. And so it was about three years ago, two and a half, three years ago, when myself, our district minister, Matt Teichroben, another representative from Regina, I think you know Dallas Rempel quite well, we came together and we met with Pastor Josh, with Dave.

I think there was a Charles with us as well, too. Does that sound right? Is Charles here? Okay. Okay. So we got a chance to meet at that time. And that's when I first started to get to know Pastor Josh.

And can I just say, and Josh, if you're listening to this, make sure you catch this, okay? I think Josh is a wonderful young man. And I know he has a heart for this community and for this church.

And I know that he speaks very highly of you as a church. I know you take, he says how well he is looked after by you. And so it's a delight as a sister church, Ebenezer in Saskatoon, to be able just to spend a few minutes with you on this Sunday morning.

This is wonderful for me. I'll share it with a few others that, yes, Ebenezer is a bigger church, but, you know, there's a lot of challenges when it comes to a bigger church. And so I am delighted to be here with a smaller group of people.

I hope I can be a little bit more laid back maybe, if a little bit, not casual in a disrespectful way, but just in an interactive way. And so I hope that I can do a little bit of that because I am really excited just to share a few words from God's word with you this morning.

Let me just start with a question. How many of you make it a habit to regularly watch one of the major newscasts on TV at the end of the day or at the dinner hour? Now, I know I'm speaking to a brand new generation.

Yeah, okay, there's one hand that went up. I remember back in the day, before the internet and before all the different news sources there were, there were generally, at least in Canada, kind of only two or three really reliable newscasts that you could depend on.

And I remember my dad, every night, 11 o'clock, he would always watch the CTV news. And at that time, anyone remember who the host was at that time?

Lloyd? Lloyd Robertson. Lloyd Robertson, yes. And do you remember how Lloyd Robertson would often sign off his broadcast? He always had a catchphrase. Anyone remember?

Okay, Lloyd Robertson would close his newscasts by saying this, and that's the kind of day it's been. And then he would give the date. Now, it's starting to jog some memories. I know I had to, you know, I'm getting close to there as well too.

Now, there's a few other newscasters who are quite well known for their closing line. Another one from the U.S., Walter Cronkite, does that name ring a few bells as well?

Walter Cronkite, how would he close? Anyone remember how he would close his newscasts? He would say, and that's the way it is with a closing date.

Now, perhaps one of the most well-known closings from a broadcaster or newscaster was a gentleman by the name of Paul Harvey, who even before World War II, okay, some people are remembering that name as well too, closed his newscast with the phrase, and now you know the rest of the story.

Excellent. And now you know the rest of the story. I see the younger people are going like, I don't know where this is going, you guys. Okay. And that's okay. We'll get there. We'll get there. Okay. Now you know the rest of the story.

And this phrase became so synonymous with Harvey that he actually developed a Monday to Saturday radio program, which he appropriately titled The Rest of the Story. Now I bring this up this morning simply to say that I think when it comes to how we look at scripture, we need to remember that we need to know the rest of the story.

Now I understand it's too big a book. There's too much in it to try to sum it all up in one 30 or 35-minute message. But I think in times we've gone to the other extreme where we've pulled pieces out of it and we don't remember that a certain story or a teaching or a chapter or type of writing is part of a bigger whole.

The phrase I think sometimes is we've lost the forest for the trees. Right? We've zoomed in so much that we forget that it's part of a bigger whole. We need to remember that God-inspired word, the Bible, even though it is a collection of many stories, of many different types of genres, of different teachings and stories and so on, is still one cohesive story.

So when we look at a particular passage, chapter, or a narrative, we need to remember that there's something bigger. There's a much greater whole. The diagram on the screen behind me, I don't know if you've seen this before, but this represents the interconnectedness between the entire Bible.

The bottom line where you see the white bars that kind of come downward represents the various books of the Bible. It's stretched out by length. And then the arcs and the different colors show how it's connected together.

This is one collective whole. How many of you enjoy reading in general? Okay, how many of you ever picked up a book and said, I'm going to start in chapter 7? And then, yeah, okay, somebody does.

Start chapter 7. And then I'm going to jump to the second last chapter. And then I'm going to go back to the other. We don't do that when we read books, right? And yet our tendency is to do that when it comes to the Bible. The Bible is a collection of 66 books.

It was written over a 1,500-year period by about 40 different authors of vastly different backgrounds, different ethnicities, written from 10 different countries on three different continents and in three different languages.

But yet, and this is a miracle, it is one cohesive story. It is one cohesive story, and it is God's story. Now, this morning, I want to take a look at what I think is a fairly familiar story in the Bible.

The story of David and Goliath. Now, again, you think, okay, we've heard a million sermons on David and Goliath. Cal, it's okay. And maybe you will have heard what I'm about to say. But what I wanted to do this morning is to demonstrate and illustrate and show how the story of David and Goliath actually fits the larger narrative of Scripture.

And then, not only are there lessons from the story of David and Goliath, but there's lessons in how it fits in with the rest of the story. So if you have Bibles, I don't know if you bring Bibles or not.

I know the tendency today is to use something electronic. But we've been encouraging at Ebenezer people to bring a physical Bible because I think there's something about having the words on a page, which are very important. But follow along with me as I read for us 1 Samuel 17, and I'll read verses 1 to 11, which is kind of the introduction to the story of David and Goliath.

So if you have your Bibles, excuse me, 1 Samuel 17, and I'll begin with verse 1, and we'll stop at verse 11 for now. Here it says, Now the Philistines gathered their forces for war and assembled at Soco in Judah.

They pitched camp at Ephes-Demim between Soco and Ezekiah. Saul and the Israelites assembled and camped in the valley of Elah and drew up their battle line to meet the Philistines.

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.

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 were bronze greaves, and a bronze javelin was slung on his back.

His spear shaft was like a weaver's rod, and its iron point weighed 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?

Am I not a Philistine? And are you not the servants of Saul? Choose a man and have 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. 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. Father, as we take a few moments just to look into your word, I ask that your Holy Spirit would come and enlighten us to the truth of what you are saying to us and communicating to us, not just so that we know, but we would be transformed by that truth.

So Father, we would go out and live in your glory and for your purposes. As the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return to it without watering the earth, so is my word that goes out from my mouth.

It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purposes for which I sent it. Amen. Now, as Meridi mentioned, this might be one of the most popular stories in all of Scripture.

And even if you're not from a church background, there's a good chance that this story is familiar to you. And it's an amazing story, isn't it? It has everything. It has an impossible situation.

It has conflict between good and evil. It has a hated and seemingly undefeatable enemy. And there's an underdog hero. And if you know the story, you know that the good guy wins in the end.

Even the best Hollywood movies will have a hard time coming up with something more dramatic. But again, let's remember that this story is part of a larger narrative. narrative. So, before we get into this story, let's put the story of David and Goliath into a larger context.

Actually, a much larger context. Let's begin by going all the way to the first book of the Bible, all the way back to the first book of the Bible, which is Genesis. In Genesis chapter 1 and 2, we read of the creation story.

We read not only what was created, but who created it. But we also read of the harmony that existed throughout all of creation, specifically and particularly between God and humankind, the first two humans, Adam and Eve.

Adam and Eve had this intimate relationship with God and with each other. They had purpose and fulfillment in their work and in their roles. Creation existed as a harmonious whole with everything functioning and working exactly the way God intended it to.

Like, just take a moment and in your minds, imagine what Genesis 1 and 2 kind of may have looked like. Like, we often start with the fallenness, but there was also two chapters where everything was the way it was supposed to be.

And one day things will return to that, right? When Christ returns. But there's two chapters where everything is described as the way it was meant to be. This utopia, this paradise created by God for His glory and for our enjoyment.

And I think about the amazing dynamic is the only word I could come up with, that it would have existed between God and then Adam and Eve.

This incredible relationship that they would have had with each other. Walking together. That's the way it describes it. Walking together in the Garden of Eden. Could you even imagine walking together with Almighty God?

God, even as a non-physical person, literally walked in the Garden with Adam and Eve. But then Genesis 3 comes. And here we read about how sin entered creation through the disobedience of Adam and Eve when they ate the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Satan comes to them in the form of a serpent or in the form of a snake and he challenges God's authority. He plants a seed of doubt in the mind of Adam and Eve and presents them with a temptation to disregard the command of God not to eat.

And Adam and Eve succumb to Satan's temptation and their choice to disobey God begins a path of death and decay. a journey of shame and deficiency and a condition of brokenness and pain.

However, these were not the only consequences of sin and there would be more. Along with eternal separation from God or spiritual death and certainly eventual physical death, there were other immediate consequences for sin.

To the woman, God says this in Genesis 3.16. He says, I will make your, the woman, Eve's pain in childbearing very severe. With painful labor you will give birth to children.

Any woman who has given birth to a child understands this. Your desire will be for your husband and he will rule over you. There'll be this kind of tension between husband and wife, man and woman.

Now we're not going to get into the detail of what each curse means, but just to kind of read them and go over them very quickly. And then to the man, to Adam, he says this in verses 17 to 19.

He says, because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, you must not eat from it. Cursed is the ground because of you. Through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life.

It will produce thorns and thistles for you and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground. There's the death part, physical death.

Since from it you were taken, for dust you are and to dust you will return. So now man's work which was intended to give him purpose and meaning and satisfaction is now going to become difficult and hard.

It's actually going to work against his identity in Christ. But God curses Satan or the snake first, doesn't he? In verse 14 God says to the serpent, because you have done this cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals.

You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. Everything is cursed. All of creation is cursed through this act of disobedience, through the sin of Adam and Eve.

But notice that God, even as he is outlining the consequences of their sin and the curses that they have brought upon themselves, because of God's love brings just a sliver of hope to all creation and particularly to mankind.

In verse 15 of Genesis 3 we read this, and I will put enmity or hostility or conflict between you and the woman and between your offspring and hers, he will crush your head and you will strike his heel.

The offspring of the woman, future human beings, will be in conflict with the offspring of the snake or with Satan and his demons. The snake might strike or bruise the human's heel, but the human will crush the snake's head.

Despite the disobedience of Adam and Eve influenced by Satan the snake which punched all of creation into sin, God has already declared a promise that one day he will make things right.

One day things will be set back on the path that he intended. The problem beginning in Genesis 3 is a problem of sin and God promised a solution.

He promised a savior. There's a sin problem that required a savior. Now let's go to our key passage in our story of David and Goliath. Some historians estimate that about 3,000 years have passed since the events of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and now with David and Goliath.

Historically we understand that David was just a young teenager when he fought and he defeated Goliath. He certainly would have been under 20 years old because if he was over 20 he would have been conscripted to the army and he would have been on the battlefield with his brothers.

So many scholars would estimate that David was likely about 16 or 17 years old. Now before we get into the battle let's remember that just a few years earlier David had been chosen by God to be the next king of Israel.

The prophet Samuel was told by God to go to the house of Jesse because that's where the next king would be found. after going through all of David's older brothers David who wasn't even present at the time he was off keeping sheep is presented before Samuel and it is revealed by God to Samuel that David would be the next king.

But he was so unimportant so not even physically the right type to be a king he was so unexpected that he needed to be brought like is this all your sons?

No, no, no I have one more is what Jesse would say. Yeah, but he's off tending sheep there's no way you want him if you remember this story but he is brought and God reveals to Samuel this is the next king and with that revelation David is anointed by Samuel with oil so David who is the most unlikely of choices is anointed and chosen to be king.

Going back to 1 Samuel 17 we read of how the Israelites under King Saul are at war with the Philistines the battlefield is the valley of Elah with the Israelites camped on one side of the valley and the Philistines on the other and as we read every day the Philistine champion a giant by the name of Goliath would come into the valley and shout to the Israelite army challenging their best soldier to come and fight him if Israel's best warrior defeats Goliath the Philistines would be their slaves but if Goliath the Philistine champion wins the Israelites will become their slaves day after day this challenge is issued and day after day no one not even King Saul himself would respond now recognize that this was not an uncommon way for warring nations at that time to declare a victor and a loser did it come with risk?

absolutely it did you choose the wrong person and they fail you become enslaved to your enemies for a lifetime and probably for generations but if you choose the right person you're victorious you enjoy the spoils of victory without losing most of your army the challenge given by Goliath and the Philistines was not only to King Saul not only to the Israelite army the challenge is given as our passage says in defiance to the God of the Israelites it was literally the Philistines challenging the very God that the Israelites believed in they were mocking God they challenged his very existence and certainly even if he existed did he have the strength and the authority to defeat this Philistine army a young David comes to the camp to bring food for his brothers remember he's too young to fight but while he is there Goliath as he had been doing for the past 40 days issues once again what is described as his usual defiance David as he stands there is shocked shocked that no one would answer

Goliath's challenge and offer to take this challenge up so he does so himself I'll do it I'll go fight this guy but nobody believes he's capable of fighting this giant 16, 17 years old scrawny nothing a king looked like I don't even know if he worked out in fact I would even imagine that no one even wanted David to try because if David lost this battle then they would become enslaved to the Philistines but David makes a pretty convincing argument and finally Saul allows him to go and be the Israelite champion to represent the Israelites on the battlefield and at first they outfit him with Saul's armor but because David wasn't used to it he takes them off instead choosing only to bring his staff his sling and five smooth stones that he found in a stream nearby under trained undersized under equipped

David goes into the valley to meet this behemoth of a man some estimates would have him at over nine feet tall a warrior seasoned experienced and trained in the art of battle well most of us know what happens next Goliath has actually insulted that Israel would send this boy to challenge him but David is confident that God will bring him victory they come closer and David rushes in to meet Goliath unconcerned about his physical size his armament his experience and he reaches into his bag removes a stone puts it in his things and fires it at Goliath now before we continue let's take a note of Goliath the description of him we read says this he wore a bronze helmet on his head and bronze greaves or bronze like shin guards on his legs he wore he carried a bronze javelin on his back and a spear with an iron point that I think the estimates weigh about 15 pounds but let's zoom in on Goliath's armor in 1st Samuel 17 15 it describes his armor this way a coat of scale armor a coat of scale armor of bronze weighing 5,000 shekels about 125 pounds

Goliath wore a coat of scale armor Goliath had the appearance of a snake a nine foot tall snake and as David swung that sling and as he fired that rock at Goliath where does it say he hit him in the forehead on the forehead so hard that the passage said that the stone sunk into his head it what crushed his head Genesis 3 15 I would put enmity between you and the woman between your offspring and hers he will crush your head and you will strike his heel

David became the victor of God's people the Israelites over their enemies the Philistines the Philistine problem required a victor now let's fast forward again about a thousand years or so and we're going to go back to David and Goliath in conclusion but let's go forward about a thousand years ago and Jesus is about to be born Joseph is instructed by an angel of the Lord to name his baby Jesus why well because as Matthew 121 tells us because he Jesus will save his people from their sins it wasn't because that Jesus was going to save the Israelites from the oppression of the Romans it wasn't because Jesus was going to save the Israelites from the oppression or the captivity or enslavement of some other enemy nation it was because he Jesus would save his people in fact all people from their sin the sin brought into creation by

Adam and Eve that had eternal consequences now has a permanent solution and it is the birth the life the ministry the death and the resurrection of Jesus who is the Christ Jesus who is the Messiah Jesus who is the anointed one Jesus who is the chosen one and Satan may have struck the heel of Jesus when he thought he had him permanently killed on the cross but Jesus is the one who will crush the head of Satan in John's vision at the end of all time it says in Revelation 12 verses 9 to 11 it says the great dragon was hurled down that ancient serpent called the devil or Satan who leads the whole world astray he was hurled down to earth and his angels with him then I heard a loud voice in heaven say now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Messiah they triumphed over him by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony in the end

Jesus the Messiah is going to crush the head of Satan defeat him and sent him into an eternity of hell prior to Jesus God had instituted with the Israelites a system of sacrifices and rituals to deal with their sin but these practices were always temporary they were never meant to be lasting or final they had to be repeated regularly many of them yearly but with the coming of Jesus the sacrifice and the ritual that they had been practicing were no longer necessary because Jesus through his blood and his sacrifice and his resurrection fulfilled all the righteous requirements necessary for us to be right with God and if we put our faith in his finished work we can be reconciled and restored to him instead of an eternity apart from God through Jesus and Jesus alone we can be delivered from the eternal punishment that our sin so rightly deserves and enter into an eternity with him and with him in his presence the eternal problem required to deliver let's go back to

David and Goliath again and I hope in just a few minutes I've tried to show how the story of David and Goliath is part of a much bigger story it's a part of God's unfolding story and as much as exciting as it is and all the characters and the tension and the conflict going on it's not just about a boy and a giant it's not just about a miraculous amazing victory it's not about one nation against another it's not about a boy who is going to be king it is about the redemptive work of God through Jesus Christ which redeems and reconciles all of creation back to him God through David delivered his people from the Philistines and in the same way God through Jesus delivers each and every one of us from sin and from Satan now in theological terms we call the story of David and Goliath a type meaning simply that it's an event that foreshadows or mirrors a future event or an institution or usually referencing

Jesus so often when we read the story of David and Goliath we have to think okay this is going to be a type or a foreshadowing of what Jesus is going to do so let's again zoom in a little bit on the David and Goliath story see the tension I think for King Saul and the Israelite army was this the army for days 40 days had stayed on their side of the valley they dare not venture into the valley into the battleground right seeing the immensity of the battle before them the immensity of this Goliath this nine foot giant armored and weapon the way he was they cowered in fear the passage actually says Saul and all the Israelites were dismayed and terrified they are unable to fight the battle they are ill equipped to fight the battle but then a young small but anointed

David comes and David willingly enters the field of battle now remember if Goliath wins the Israelites become slave to the Philistines however if David wins the Philistines become slave to the Israelites and as we know David wins the battle or perhaps more accurately God wins the battle through David and because of this victory Israel God's chosen people are not subject to the captivity and the slavery of the Philistines often the truths and the applications we find in scripture depend where we place ourselves in the story or who we think we're supposed to identify with and in the story of David and Goliath our tendency even when we teach this to our kids at a young age is we want our kids to identify or we identify ourselves with the hero of this story which is David right David is the hero so even from a very young age we say well you know the key truth of the takeaway is that with God's help in our lives we can defeat any Goliath that comes our way there's nothing too big for us to overcome even when we think we're outmatched we're out armed and so on and so forth we can do it when God is with us and I'm not disputing that

I think that is very true but in this story of David and Goliath I'm not sure that we're supposed to primarily identify ourselves with David I think we're called to identify ourselves as part of the Israelite army you and I are part of that army we're standing on the far side of that valley we're watching every day as this giant of a man comes out and issues this challenge and we know we can't win and so we stand on our side we dare not step into the valley because then we're making a commitment to something we stand on our side we know we can't win the battle and every day we too are dismayed and we're terrified because we can't fight the battle ourselves and secondly we know that if David this unlikely hero loses we are going to be slaves forever to sin and Satan but the lesson of

David and Goliath is this you and I don't have to fight the battle we have a champion in Jesus Christ who has fought the battle and has won and defeated an enemy we could never beat on our own it is Jesus who went out alone and fought the battle on our behalf it is Jesus who entered the valley of Elah to confront Satan or the serpent or Goliath or whatever you want to say it is Jesus who crushes the head of the snake it is Jesus who won the battle over sin and death for us and it is only through him that we have the victory I think Paul said it best when he wrote in 1 Corinthians 15 the sting of death is sin and the power of sin is the law but thanks be to God he gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ Jesus went into the battlefield he won the battle so you and I would no longer need to be slaves to sin and evil

David and Goliath now you know the rest of the story we're entering into a time of communion and as I think Dave and there's another elder I think that will be coming forward to distribute the elements there are two ways I would encourage you to respond first if you are a Christ follower already if you have made that decision to by faith receive his gift of salvation and your desire is to walk according to his ways then as we take communion just reflect and be thankful for what God has done for us that he fought the battle for us perhaps you need to make a new commitment or a recommitment to serving his purposes and his kingdom I don't know where you're at many of you are more strangers to me than acquaintances we often call Jesus our Lord and Savior but we like the Savior part but we're not always willing to commit to the Lord part and I want to remind us this morning that the death and resurrection of

Jesus Christ not only saves us from something from sin but it saves us for something which is his purposes and his glory and his kingdom and second if you have not yet made a decision to receive the gift of salvation or if you're listening later when this is posted and you've not yet made a decision to follow Jesus then I would encourage you to talk to someone who you know is a Christ follower talk to the elders here talk to Pastor Josh I know he would be more than happy to share with you how you can begin those first steps of walking in Jesus way I'll ask the elders to come forward and I guess you'll be serving the community elements so I guess receive them and then just hold on to them and we'll take of them together if you're here and you're not yet a Christ follower then we ask you that you would just refrain from picking up the elements but this table is open to all who are believers in Jesus Christ and again this is a sacred moment for us as a church as a church family and so I'll ask the elders to pass those out and then please hold on to them maybe take a moment just to reflect on the incredible gift of Jesus

Christ and then I'll lead us as we take communion together Thank you.