Tony Evans – Defeating The Giants In Your Life – Stand Alone

a man went to the doctor and the doctor said well what's wrong what's how can I help you he said well doc I'm hurting all over from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet I am in tremendous pain the doctor said well all over he said I mean absolutely every part of my body is in pain doc said well that's a little odd let me see you touch your forehead and so the man touched his forehead and when I said that's that's all right well touch your neck touched his neck and wait oh wait a minute uh ch your elbow he touched his elbow where touch your knee touch this near with whoa the doctor said you idiot you got a dislocated finger you see sometimes one thing can be wrong but it can hurt the rest of you sometimes that can be this one thing that seems to ruin everything else in your life that was the situation in one of the most famous stories in the Old Testament that you are aware of in First Samuel because in 1st Samuel we find the story in chapter 17 of David and Goliath I want to talk to you today about defeating the Goliath in your life first of all you need to know the anatomy of a Goliath a Goliath is some situation circumstance pain or problem that looms large it's that one thing that is overwhelming we're told in chapter 17 verse 4 that Goliath is nine foot six inches tall and MBA coach's dream we're told in verses five through seven that he wore over 100 pounds of armor you see a giant of a problem is something that is so big that it is overwhelming in your existence not only that but we're told that you know you're facing a giant because it intimidates you when you think of it look at it and have to deal with it it produces emotional insecurity because we're told in verse eight and we're told in verse 24 of first Samuel 17 that when they saw Goliath they trembled in fear because a giant of a problem creates emotional instability so that you're not able to to control your emotions because the Goliath that you are facing is controlling you Goliath's come in all shapes and sizes there can be medical Goliath's that can be relational Goliath's there can be circumstantial go lives there can be career Goliath's that can be economic Goliath but whatever it is it's it's it's big and the problem with this one thing that affects everything else perhaps in your personal life in your relationships is that it just doesn't go away because we find out in this chapter that goal I have just kept coming back and kept coming back day after day after day it says for 40 days for 40 days day after day he would not leave them alone and that's what a Goliath does it just won't leave you alone there's no one here who has not faced a Goliath in your life this overwhelming problem that just won't go away you have either have faced the Goliath are facing a Goliath or you're going to face Goliath because life just happens to go that way but whatever you happen to be faced today or may face I actually want you to call it Goliath because if you call it Goliath then at least you know where it's gonna wind up and so they're facing this inexhaustible situation as Goliath has come and he has challenged all of Israel he has challenged their well-being their peace and he stood between their past and their future you see God had made some promises to Israel in the past regarding where he wanted them in the future but between the past and on the precipice of the future here this huge problem shows up that makes the past promises seem something that could never come true that could kill their future hope and that's what a Goliath does he stands between what you read in your Bible and the reality of your expectations and so they're facing this Goliath in their life enter a teenager named David this David comes on the scene and we know the story of David and Goliath so I have a question that I want to ask you today how did David kill Goliath that's the question on the floor we know the end of the story that he kills Goliath but the question that we have to ask Biblio centrically and that we have to ask you in terms of your contemporary application of Scripture since the goal of Scripture is not only to know it read it hear it but also utilize it how did David kill Goliath now I'm certainly you would say he killed Goliath with a slingshot and a stone and you would certainly be partially correct but I would like to go somewhat theologically deeper with you in analyzing what David had that actually killed Goliath and what you have in your arsenal that God has given every believer to deal and to defeat the overwhelming the looming large the the absolutely devastating Goliath's that you inevitably have faced or will face in your life now one of the hermeneutical rules hermeneutics is the science and art of biblical interpretation and one of the rules of hermeneutics is not only to read and observe but to look for repetition because repetition repetition in Scripture is always a clue to emphasis so when you see something repeated in the same context about the same event in the same story that gives you a hermeneutical clue that something is to be paid extra attention to in the New Testament you see this Jesus would say something twice truly truly or Martha Martha or he would he would he would he was saying I want you to now to go a little bit deeper than just your casual reading over the point that is being made well there is something repeated twice in this story that would be easy to pass over but if you do not pass over it and look at it around a little bit more intentionally it will help you and me and us to deal with the looming large realities in life that we face this repetition is found in verses 26 and verse 36 of 1st Samuel 17 in verse 26 we read then David spoke to the men who were standing by him saying what will be done for the man who kills the Philistine and takes away the reproach from Israel for who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should talk the armies of the Living God verse 36 it reads your servant has killed both the lion and the bear and this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them since he has taunted the army of the Living God now the one thing that you will read in verse 26 and verse thirty-six is that they were fighting against an uncircumcised philistine so while all the rest of Israel was looking up here David was looking down there say he ain't been to the doctor he is an uncircumcised philistine that brother has not been cut and because he hasn't been cut it changes the nature of the battle you see what I would like to say to you about defeating the Goliath in your life it always starts with a spiritual perspective of the problem you see if all you see is what you see you do not see all there is to be seen if all you are looking at is the visible physical and not the invisible spiritual then you will not see the invisible spiritual cause of the visible physical reality of the Goliath that you now face he began to look beyond what was causing all the rest of Israel to flee and that was the nine-foot sixth giant and he began to look down and say that man has not been cut he is an uncircumcised philistine in other words before the slingshot before the stone was a shift in his perspective how he was looking at it it's like the mother who had a son who was playing outside and he lost his contact lens the contact lens fell in the dirt and he looked and looked and looked for about 30 minutes he finally came to his mother and said mom I lost my contact lens I can't find my contact lens and she went out and in two and a half minutes found the contact lens he said how could you in this dirt find something in two and a half minutes that I was not able to find in 30 minutes the mother said well son it's like this we actually weren't looking for the same thing you were looking for contact lens I was looking for two hundred and fifty dollars that we were we were not looking at the same thing so what you're looking at is going to effect what you see and the whole point of the church and the Word of God is to help you look behind the scene because as Paul says in 2nd Corinthians 4 we do not look on the things that are seen we look on the things that are not seen so you always start with the spiritual first and work your way back to the relational circumstantial economic and whatever else whatever other visible nature of the Goliath is that you happen to be facing and that needs to be defeated in your life well let's go a little bit deeper theologically what was it about being an uncircumcised philistine that caught David's attention while circumcision in Israel was a sign of the Covenant when a boy was born in Israel they would be circumcised he or earth-death on the eighth day to be brought underneath the Covenant now this theological word is one of the deepest words in all of Scripture a covenant is defined as a divinely ordained a relational bond let me say that again a covenant is a divinely ordained relational bond when God wanted to officially establish something that he wanted to oversee he would cover mentalize it and so all through the Bible you will see the word covenant the covenant with Abraham the covenant with David the covenant with Israel the covenant with with Palestine you'll see in the new tent the new covenant at communion the new covenant of my blood covenant covenant covenant covenant covenant now the reason why the word covenant is so critical is that it is the official mechanism through which God works to render his judgments in history it is an administrative mechanism of God's kingdom by which he flows to accomplish his work everyone who's here today who has trusted Jesus Christ as your personal substitute and sin bearer are in the Covenant you're part of the New Covenant but here's the trick you can be in the Covenant and not necessarily be under the Covenant you can be in it but not under it and it is your proximity to the Covenant that you are in if you're a believer that determines the official flow from heaven to history as you live out your Christian experience and in this case as you face vigo lives in your life you can't only be in it you must be under it all of Israel was in it but only David was under it let's look at the Covenant as an umbrella because a covenant in the Bible provides a covering the goal of a covenant is few cover when it's raining outside and you have an umbrella you have a covering but if the umbrella is closed and not open and you're not under it the cover nigg the covering does not cover you even though you possess the covering until you open it place yourself under it you're not covered by the Covenant so many Christians are living uncovered not because they don't have an umbrella because if you've trusted Christ you have an umbrella because you're in the Covenant but you may not be covered that is operating underneath the umbrella because only as you operate underneath it do you get the benefit of it if it's pouring down raining the covering of the umbrella does not stop it from raining it does stop it from raining on you because you are now operating underneath the Covenant my son Jonathan my youngest son who is up it was the chaplain for the Cowboys he took my place there and so if they have a bad season he's not a good spiritual leader if he has the good season he's close to God that's how that works but uh uh he went on a trip with me and when he went on a trip with me he we went up because I'm a platinum flyer with American and I could get upgraded and you get a companion upgrade so I said would you upgrade me since you have two seats and upgrade my son with me she said okay but then she came back and she said I am so sorry I can upgrade you but I can't upgrade him but did you tell me you had two seats yeah we have two seats but I can upgrade you but I can't upgrade him how can you upgrade him and not upgrade me upgrade me but not upgrade him since you have to see she said it's it's pretty simple even though he's your son he was ticketed separately he was not ticketed with you and because he was not ticketed with you he does not get the companion benefit of you in order to get the companion benefit of you he has to be ticketed with you so even though you have a legal relationship from father to son you do not have a cover mental ticket in terms of the benefit of the legal relationship every believer here has a legal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ but you may not have been ticketed with him in terms of your covenant to relationship which means that you don't get the full benefit of the legal relationship that you have in st. John chapter 2 verses 23 to 25 it says many believed on Christ many believed in him but then it says but he would not commit himself to them for he knew what was in them so they got saved but they weren't ticketed yet in other words they were not operating under his cover mental regime and so he would not give all of himself to them so all Christians aren't equal in terms of the benefits of the cross we're all equal in terms of the legal benefits of the cross eternal life forgiveness of sins but we're not all equal in terms of the empowerment benefits of the Cross that comes because you are undercover that is you're operating underneath divine alignment when I was when I was trying to get out of my garage one day trying to get out of my garage and I pushed the button and the door would not open the door would not open I push and I push and I push and I push but the door would not open I went over to try to lift it up but the door was too heavy it would not open I called the garage guy and I said things aren't opening up for me he said to me I said can you come over and deliver me he said well before I come over do me a favor so with the cell phone he instructed me to walk over to the door he said do you see the canister on the right hand side yes do you see the canister at the bottom on the left-hand side yes which way are they pointing I said well one is pointing toward the other and the other was pointing straight he says that is your problem you do not have a power problem because the power is on you do not have a connection problem because the power is plugged in what you have is an alignment problem because the canister over here is not facing the candidates they're over there so they're not talking to each other and because they're not talking to the two each other the power is not set up to work if you will simply make an adjustment and turn the one on the left to face the one on the right you'll see the power that you already possess being coming to work on your behalf by a simple turn at the bottom to face the one over here I found power that I did not know I had when the problem was not power it was a problem of alignment whenever Goliath is allowed to rule in your life God does not promise there will be no Goliath in your life but what God says is Goliath should not be ruling your life they should not be running your life and that becomes a spiritual alignment issue it is because men refuse to be aligned under God that we have so many male problems or women refuse to be aligned under God that we have female problems leading to marriage conflicts Adam and Eve were in conflict because they left their alignment this can be applied to parents and children this can be applied to your own personal life David established an alignment and when David established and alignment it changed the nature of the battle because he was not looking at what everybody else was seeing he was seeing things through a covenant the uncircumcised philistine which meant Goliath does not have a coverings I have a covering so I have divine authority and my problem does not when you change how you see what you see it changes what you do with what you see that leads to one of the spectacular events in the Bible and that is the slaying of Goliath now when David talks about slaying Goliath he has a very interesting set of scenarios he said I was attacked not my flock was attacked by a lion my flock was attacked by a bear and when I saw my my my my flock attack he says I ran to the bear and I ran to the lion when Goliath shows up it says he runs to Goliath so now when you operate governmentally you're no longer operating in defense you are now becoming offensive Saint not a defensive Christian you see the goal of being a believer jesus says whatever you bind on earth I bound in heaven Matthew 16:19 whatever you loose on earth I won't loose in heaven in other words when you move heaven will back you up so let me explain something whenever God moves supernaturally in the Bible the most normal thing you will see is God did not move until the people moved first the people had to take an offensive posture before the supernatural showed up God told Moses hold out your rod and tell the people to start moving before he ever opened up the Red Sea God told Joshua tell the priest to put their foot in the Jordan before he ever held back the water God told Peter to cast on the other side of the boat before he ever filled the nets God told Martha to move the stone in John chapter 11 before he ever brought Lazarus from the dead you see God wants to see you walk by faith not talk about faith he wants you to see you moved by faith not mouth by faith he wants to see you your life by faith not your lip by faith he wants to see motion in some of our rooms at our church we have motion detector lighting because people were wasting electricity and people are wasting electricity and and so we wanted to put up a motion detect the lighting so the powers in the room the lights are in the room but they not designed to come on until movement is detected so when you walk in the room the lights come on when you walk out a room lights go out because they have been programmed to only respond to motion God's supernatural engagement in your life my life our lives during this time of Goliath attack requires motion because when God sees motion the power that's already there becomes activated because you're moving by faith now God also gives him a strategy he gives him the strategy and hard strategy to face this guy and that is five stones and and a slingshot and that's cuz Goliath had four brothers so he's gonna take on the whole family if necessary this is how God supernaturally works Psalm twenty five verse twelve or fourteen very interesting because it says the ones who are in my covenant shall know my ways and I will tell them my secrets so yes stuff that's not shared with everybody the Word of God is shared with everybody but his personal guidance of you is not shared with everybody that's shared with somebody because it varies from situation to situation so the secrets God has when you're under the Covenant is he gives you divine thoughts that's the work of the Holy Spirit to give you divine thoughts for what you should do in this particular situation it's the difference between a rule book and a play book in football in football all the teams have the same rule book because the rules of the game are the same for every team on the field but every team has its own playbook the teams don't share their playbook because their plays are only for their team but all the teams share the rule book what God has for us in his word is his divine play book but what the Holy spirt gives you in divine rule book but what God gives you individually is your personal playbook but if you're not under the covering of the Covenant you don't get the plays even though you may be following the rules and that's why people who believe in the Bible often don't get guidance because they may believe the rule book but they're not operating under the Covenant so they don't get the playbook and operate under the covenant means you're operating in alignment with the rule book so the holy spirit is free to give you the playbook of what he wants you to do this leads to another great theological perspective because when Goliath comes in chapter 17 and threatens David David says to him in verse 45 you come to me with a sword or spear in the javelin but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts the God of Israel whom you have taunted he says I'm gonna do a handoff here one of my books is called the power of God's names God has about 85 names in the Old Testament alone and one of the names is mentioned here calls him the Lord of hosts that's the Lord of armies and he says you come to me with the javelin spear but I come to you in the name now the name in the Bible is a powerful statement you find God changing people's names because it has to do with your identity and God has 85 names or so in the Old Testament so you pull an oar and all of these 85 names are tied to something God wants to show you about himself so when he wants to show you something they're unique he gives you a unique aspect of his person through the identification of his name so he says I come to you in the warrior name of God the god of armies because I'm in a war like situation so he draws down from heaven the name of God applicable to his practical scenario so that's why he can be Jehovah Rapha or jehova sholom or you know he can be he can be whatever name is applicable that's why he could tell Moses you tell them I am that I am because I am whatever the situation calls for so God has fluidity in his name and those names are tied to his covenant or connection with God's people so if you're facing a Goliath in your life something that is looming large over you I challenge you to identify the Goliath call it what it is find out what the Covenant or rulebook says about what God wants you to do to address it address any sin by you or somebody else that has caused it and then place yourself under divine authority by acting on what the book says and open up to the Holy Spirit to give you the playbook for your specific scenario and let's see if we can get some heads chopped off in the midst of the Goliath attacks in your life in closing my granddaughter when she was small came to me one day I shouldn't come to me she was outside playing and I heard her scream she's crying I run to the door name is Karras I run to the door I said Karras what's wrong what's wrong look out and know and behold there's a dog chasing her chasing he wasn't a big dog when she was a little girl she runs up to me and she jumps in my arms I hold her in my arms and she's heaving with tears up to my leg and he begins to nip and Bock living and she's crying she's terrified I hold it in my arms and she's holding on to me after a few moments with the dog at my foot he looks up then she looks up and he looks down at the dog still nipping still making a loud noise this she looked up at me this she look down at the dog then she looked up at me and this time she look down at the dog it went then what happened to the girl where could she get all this confidence from it's the same dog making the same noise but she's now being held by somebody bigger than the problem that she faints you got somebody bigger then the Goliath that you face and if you'll come under his covenantal covering you'll find out that under God your Goliath must fall thank you Lord for the power that's in the cross in the Christ and in the Living God in Jesus name Amen

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Keywords: gatewaypeople, Gateway, Gateway Church, Robert Morris, Pastor Robert, Savior, Dallas, Southlake, Texas, Jesus, Sermon, salvation, christ, Love, Global Impact Weekend 2018, Tony Evans, Defeating The Giants In Your Life

Id: ld7P6DQbDiA

Length: 30min 30sec (1830 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 08 2018