On June 6, 1984, at the Normandy American Cemetery D Day commemoration, Ronald Reagan said this we will always remember, we will always be proud. We will always be prepared, so we will always be free. Guys, we have a lot to be thankful for, but especially for those of you in this room and joining us online that have served in the Armed forces.

And we're thankful today because the greatest way that we can bring honor to those who have put their life on the line or made the ultimate sacrifice and lost their life protecting our nation is to live our faith in freedom and take every advantage that we have to do so.

And so I want to embarrass you and ask you to stand. So if you served in the army, would you stand if you served in the Navy, the Air Force, the Marines, now, Space Force, the National Guard or the Coast Guard? Now let's really let them know how much we appreciate them.

I think it'd be fitting that we just pray over them and pray a blessing for them for what they gave, what they give, what they saw, what they experienced, we can't fathom. I remember asking my grandfather one day to tell me about World War II and his experience there, and he was dumbfounded. He said, you don't want to hear that mess. You don't know. So let's pray for them and pray for their families and pray for those who have lost lives serving this country.

Father, we thank you so much that we live in a nation where we can do exactly what we're doing right now, where we can celebrate those who have served our nation, where we can celebrate, Father, that we have freedom to worship you, to be in this church today without persecution. But God, let it not make us lazy to the point that we get lazy in our faith. So Lord, let us capitalize on the sacrifices that were made. God, we know that you're supreme and that you're sovereign over all things. God, let us live in that freedom and make a difference for the gospel because of what these men and women did, how they served, where they served, what they experienced.

God, comfort them, heal their minds of the things that they've seen and for those that paid that ultimate sacrifice and families that know that they lost loved ones on that battlefield. God, would you comfort them today? Lord, we love you. In Jesus name, Amen. And so it's fitting for us to be where we are in this series.

I'm going to invite you to turn to 1st Samuel 17. And can I go ahead and just ask you to do me a favor? I know that you know this Story. I know you know about David and Goliath, but I want you to look at it just a little bit different today. And I want you to notice why David went to fight Goliath and what his weapon really, really was.

Because what you're going to see is God exalted as supreme and sovereign. And if we're not careful, we'll focus so much on the skill of a sling thrower that we'll forget it was God who brought the victory. Do you know that God gets your back? Do you know that God fights the battles? Well, he does when they're his battles.

You see, like I remember lots of guys in school that would go and pick fights because they knew their big brother would bail them out. You see, that's not the way we use God. God will fight our battles. Right? But they're his battles.

If we go charging into something for our namesake, our pride, for our sake, I'm not guaranteed victory. But I'm here to tell you today, when God's got the battle, your victory is guaranteed. And he paid the ultimate price so that the ultimate victory would be achieved. You see, if you remember back when we studied Exodus 17 and that first battle that Israel came into when they were fighting the Amalekites, remember as long as Moses held up the staff of God, they were winning. When his arms dropped, they lost.

And so Aaron and Hur seated Moses and held his arms up so that they overcame. But who was fighting the battle? It was God fighting the battle. God had told Abraham in Genesis 12:3, I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you. Abraham, when he went to rescue Lot with the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah and others, when God gave him victory, they said, and blessed be God Most High who has delivered your enemies into your hands.

God had promised them in the New Covenant that they would go in to possess the land of Canaan and he would go before them and he would fight the battle for them. Right, but don't you hate the but in a sentence, we get to numbers and they get to the, to the precipice of the promised land. And Moses sends 12 spies, one from each tribe. And two of the 12 was known as Caleb. And you already have met Joshua, who had been leading a lot of their military conquest.

And he sends them into the land and they come back and Caleb and Joshua said, we can take the land. How do they know that? Because God promised it. They weren't taking in the scenery and the different things. They knew God said it and they believed it.

But the other 10, they said in numbers, chapter 1331, we are not able to go up against the people, for they are too strong for us. The land, it's a land that devours its inhabitants. And the people that we saw are of great size. There they saw the Nephilim, the giants. And we became like grasshoppers in our own sight.

And so we were in their sight. In other words, they weren't even considering the God factor in this. They looked at themselves and said, well, we can't do this. We are not able to do this. We're afraid.

In the south. There's a word for that. It's skeered. S K E E R D Hooked on phonics. Worked for me.

God said in Leviticus 20:24, I have said to you, you are to possess the land, and I myself will give it to you to possess it. A land flowing with milk and honey. But in that moment, they were gripped with fear because they looked at what God was leading them to do, and they looked at themselves, and they considered themselves inadequate to do it. But. But they did not trust the word of the Lord.

And that day, because they believed those spies, God punished them. He cursed them and said, you will wander in this wilderness for 40 years until this generation, this unbelieving generation, will die. In fact, the 10 spies that reported bad, they immediately died from plagues. God was serious. They were more afraid of giants.

But they forgot to be afraid of God Most High, who holds life and death in his own hand. And they failed. They failed to heed the words of God. First, they failed to believe him, but then they were so arrogant in themselves. After God had said, you will wander for 40 years, they thought, well, you know what?

Let's go try anyway. And so in the end of chapter 14, a group of them tried to go up into Canaan. And they get whipped. You know why? Because they were fighting their battles, not God's.

See, in this room, some of you have come in here today, and you are tired. Can I just be frank? You're tired. You have fought and you have fought and you fought. Some of you have had one of those kind of weeks or seasons where it just seems like everything but the kitchen sink has smacked you upside the head.

Now, does that mean that God's not fighting for you? That does not mean. That's not what that means. I'm just saying. Hold on.

Because God is calling us to get in line with where he's leading, where he's going. And he promised he would Fight the battles for us. Do you believe that today? Because if not, then we're no different than that. As the Bible says that stiff necked people.

Stiff necked means a lot more to me now 10 years after neck surgery than it used to. Stiff neck means I'm very tunnel visioned. I'm focused on one thing and usually it's for me, it's for my benefit. It's what I think is best, never what I can see that God might be leading me to do. A stiff necked person is immovable.

Can only see one way. And when I act that way, according to Hebrews chapter four, then I will be just like those in the wilderness. I will fail to listen and fail to believe and fail to obey. And in thy disobedience, remove God's factor in my life.

But God, God fights our battles when we're in line with where he's leading us, when we're in line with where he's directing us. Paul wrote in Ephesians 6, 10, 12, if you don't think you're fighting, you know we talked about this when we Talked in Exodus 15 about the Lord, our banner, when God was raising, when Moses raised up the staff and that he was our banner. And I told you then to fight. Fight. We're in a battle.

We're in a battle for our souls. We're in a battle against things we can't see. Verse 12 of Ephesians 6 says, for our struggle is not against flesh and blood. I can see that, but against the rulers, against the powers, against forces in the darkness, against spiritual forces of wickedness in heavenly places. Like I can't see it coming.

Like in Vietnam, we learned about guerrilla warfare. Spiritual warfare is guerrilla warfare times 10. We can't see it coming. We don't know where the attacks are coming. But our God, our God, the God of heaven, the God of the heavenly host, is fighting our battles.

Do you believe it today? And if you're tired of being on the losing team, get on his team. Now wait a minute. Does that mean I won't lose my life? Let me tell you something.

You may lose your physical life, but they can never take your life from you. Every apostle except one died a martyr's death. And they did so willingly. And praising the Lord for the fact that they got to suffer for the name of Jesus Christ because of the victory that Jesus brought. You know why they did that?

Because every disciple that died knew that Jesus had promised to raise them from the dead. How much greater victory can you have that the King we serve has defeated death. He's defeated the grave, he's defeated hell, and he's been exalted to the right hand of the God of Heaven, of the God of hosts. That's where we're going to be today. I want you to look at the first blank that I want you to fill in.

It says this, the Lord of hosts, Yahweh, T' Saba or Sabaoth, means the Lord of armies. And it's a reflection of his strength and his might, his power, that he's not just the God sitting in heaven alone, but the heavenly host, the majesty of heaven that we read about in Revelation 4 and 5 with the beasts and the 12 elders and all the others who fall down before him, crying out, worthy, worthy are you? Power and riches and wealth all acclaim to you that God, the God of hosts. In fact, we see this term right at the beginning of Samuel. And when we see the phrase God of hosts, it's usually connected back to worship, but it's a praise of his strength and his majesty.

And this is the God that we serve. And it lets me know that no matter what I'm going through, no matter what battle I may be fighting, I can trust God. No matter what. I know that if I lose my physical life in his name, I can trust that I will live forever because of what Christ did on the cross for me. And like I said a minute ago, we live in a free country where we're not fearing walking out this door and losing our life, being persecuted and arrested.

But I can tell you in places around the world where that is the truth. There is more faith in those people to walk and live according to the Gospel. See, in America, the American church is a little bit on the lazy side.

We just wait for things to happen because we got things so good. While we sit in here this morning, if we take and we look at all the churches in our landscape, there's about 20,000 people in Stevens county who are sitting at home, who are in the restaurants, who are at Walmart, and they don't know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. Are you satisfied with that? I'm not. I'm not satisfied with that.

We're called to take the gospel to the nations, and it starts here with people out there. Satan is fighting for their souls, but God fights for us. We have to be like David and we have to muster up our confidence in who God is and what God has promised, and we must charge into the battle. So before I chase any rabbits, I haven't Chased any yet. I want you to stand with me.

I want to read three verses. Three verses out of 1st Samuel 17. And again. I want you to look at this with fresh new eyes. Forget that you know, David.

Forget that when you were a kid you drew little coloring pictures, David. Forget that you watched Veggie Tales and that Goliath is not a giant pickle kids.

Then David said to the Philistine, Goliath, you come to me with a sword and a spear and a javelin. But I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel whom you have taunted this day. The Lord will deliver you into my hands and I will strike you down and I will remove your head from you. And I will give the dead bodies of the armies of the Philistines this day to the birds of the sky and the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know. Listen.

That there is a God in Israel and that both assemblies may know that the Lord does not deliver by sword or by spear, but the battle is the Lord's and he will give you into our hands. Amen. Father, I pray that you speak to our hearts today and you would give us supernatural courage that we would not live this life in such fear, that we would live in bold, humble confidence in the King of kings and the Lord of lords. In Jesus name. Amen.

Wow.

I did not drink caffeine this morning.

By the end of 1st Samuel 15, God has taken the kingdom of Israel from Saul. When you read the book of first Samuel, I want you to notice something. You get this introduction. And Samuel, the last judge of Israel, comes in to lead. And under his leadership, King Saul comes to be king.

King Saul, who is described in 1st Samuel 9 as being a head taller than everyone else in the crowd. But we're already getting a sense that he's a coward, that he's not a man who will fight the battle, that he tends to shrink back. God gives him instructions in one battle, said, listen, I want you to destroy everything. And Saul gets this idea, gets a little greedy, keeps some things for himself. Samuel shows up and he hears the sheep buying, and he's like, oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute.

What is this? And Saul's like, oh, well, I saved it back so we could make a sacrifice to God. No, he didn't. He was greedy. And because of that act, the Bible says that the kingdom was taken from Saul.

And so we began to read about how Samuel makes a little journey to a place, the house of Saul. Jesse in chapter 16. And God chooses David, but not without a little bit of drama, because it says that God says, I'm going to choose somebody after my own heart. Somebody who's got a heart like mine. And so he goes.

And Jesse parades his sons out there. Beautiful. Just specimens. When I was 14, I am going to confess to you that I went to a WCW wrestling match. And I went for one reason.

I wanted to see a guy by the name of Sid Vicious. Y' all are laughing. So y' all are as guilty as I am. You know, back then, I lived near Gainesville, and you had the Georgia Mountain Center. They'd come by about every three or four months.

So I just wanted to see this dude. I mean, 6 foot 9, 320 pounds. I mean, like. I mean, specimen, you know? So when it came time for him to come out, I ran over to the gate.

Cause I wanted to be right up there close. I wanted to see this guy. And he comes out of the curtain and he's coated with baby oil. It's disgusting. But I'm standing there and I went.

Because, I mean, I was about 100 pounds, wringing wet, and his bicep was the size of my waist. And he's. He's breathing hard and steam's coming off his back. I mean, he'd be scary. No different than Goliath.

But he was all show and no talk. Because Goliath didn't know the God of hosts. God didn't know. He didn't know the God of angel armies. And so when David is selected to be king, you know, Samuel's like, oh, well, this brother will be foolish suitable.

Look at him. He's a specimen. He's like, nope, nope, nope. And he reprimands Samuel and say, look, you, like. All men are looking at the outward appearance.

I. I look at the heart. If you are a Marvel fan and you watch Captain America, Steve Rogers, before he became Captain America, was that 100 pounds, sick weakling.

But the doctor in charge of transforming him said, I chose you because of your heart, your integrity. Because he knew that whatever was in the heart was going to be amplified, just like his body. David was chosen to be king. And so when we read this awesome description of Goliath, 9 foot 7 inches, most likely. Y' all realize that in NBA basketball, the goal is how high?

10. He's just a few inches under the goal at his head. If he reached his arm up, he probably could touch the top of the backboard. I mean, last week we saw a young man playing for the Florida Gators who? You're welcome, Jimmy.

The place for the Florida Gators that stepped in at 7 foot 9 inches and broke a collegiate record. If you watch a video of him, he stretches his hand up and touches the goal, and he's still two feet shorter than Goliath. His armor weighed 175 pounds. I'm not too much above that. He wore a man for armor.

The end of his spear weighed maybe 15 pounds. Have you ever taken a stick and held a weight out on the end of it? This man was massive. And one on one, he knew no one could match him except God Almighty. They arrayed for battle, the Philistines on one hill and the Israelites on the other.

And not to do a Star wars quote, but you know where I'm going with this. The reason that one side didn't go down against the other is because they both held the high ground. Anakin, I have the high ground. They knew. Like, they knew.

Even Goliath knew. If I come down, I'm a target. With his massive armor, he was a specimen. But no one could take them one on one. But God.

And God had promised. I will fight your battles for you. David said after he's caught, he shows up to bring his. Bring his brothers some lunch. They're all hiding.

The king's hiding. King didn't even have his own. His armor. Y' all see that, right? The king was such a coward.

He didn't even put his own armor on. He just sat in his tent waiting to see what was gonna happen. And so David comes like, well, who's gonna take this guy out? He is taunting the God of the universe by taunting the Israelite army. Where are his chosen people?

He believed it with all of his heart. Christians, do you believe that the son of God put his own spirit inside of you and gave you power? Acts 1:8 power to be his witnesses to the world. We've got dynamite living inside of us, but we live like kittens, coward in a corner because we're afraid somebody's gonna not like me if I'm a Christian in front of them. Where's the boldness?

Where's the confidence? I'm not saying be arrogant. There's a difference in being confident and being arrogant. And I'm gonna tell you the difference. The difference is you.

Am I putting confidence in myself or am I putting my confidence in God humbly? Because if I put it in myself, I'll lose every single time. You can't argue your way out of a box. The only hope that you have is that the God of the universe illuminates somebody's heart. And you say, well, wait, you know, I've gone to this person.

There's this person in my life, and I have debated them, I have apologized to them, I have tried to love on them. I've done all these things to try to mend our ways, but they just keep coming back. There's one thing you haven't done yet. Lay it down and let the God of the universe take care of your problem. Because the more you try to fix it, probably the worse you're making it.

David knew. I'm gonna go into this battle with the confidence that God is going to fight my battle. So let me give you, I'd say, like, four commitments. Four commitments, I think, that we hold if we truly want to see God fight our battles. And the first one, I'm going to say this, and then I've got to give a caveat for it.

Recall how God has acted before. Now, here's the caveat. You're going to sit there. Some of you just received that and went, you know what? God's not done anything for me.

I've asked him 15 times to do X, Y, or Z.

You're not the only human being on this planet. You know that, right? Recall what God has done. You know what? You do need to probably look back in your journals at the time that there was some event in your life, and you put it to prayer and God answered, maybe you need to put it in your life where you realize, you know what?

I've been sharing my faith with this person, inviting them, and they showed up. Celebrate every victory that God has brought in your life, and don't be quick to forget it, because God doesn't answer the way that you think he should answer. I mean, in our household, we look back at times when God answered certain prayers that we prayed. And we're like. Then we get into a season where we don't sense God answering the way we've prayed it.

And we're like, but remember how God answered. But ultimately, remember what Jesus Christ did on the cross. Do you know anybody who. Who stepped out of their grave after they died a horrendous death? Nope.

But I know one. His name is Jesus. And he defeated the grave because he came back to life. He didn't die again. Saul didn't believe that David could do this, and he failed.

Saul still failed to see what God was able to do. But by this point, Saul was mad. Not mad angry. He did get mad a lot. He had gone insane.

By the end of this chapter, he can't even remember who David is. David's been playing the harp for him for years. Like Saul, just, he's checked out. And a lot of times, spiritually, when things come on us, we check out. But I'm here to tell you that the greatest weapon you and I have is to recall what God has done in the past.

David looked at Saul and said, listen, I know I don't look it. I killed a lion and I killed a bear, and I will kill this uncircumcised Philistine. Why did he have to say uncircumcised? As we read that and we're like, why in the world did he call him that? Because he was outside of the covenant.

David knew he could stand on the covenant promise of God going back to Deuteronomy, that God said, I will give you this land and I will, will fight your battles. Paul wrote in 2nd Corinthians 1:10, he who delivered us from so great a peril of death will deliver us. He on whom we have set our hope, he will yet deliver us. Do you believe today? No matter what you're in right now, no matter what you've gone through, no matter how hard it is, do you believe God can deliver you?

And if you do, let's extend thankfulness to God through for what he can do and focus on what God can do, not what you see him not doing. Because the more you focus on that, the less your faith is going to grow. Hope and hope. And when hope is out, hope again. Give it to the Lord.

Paul said in Philippians 1:19 20, when he was in jail, he said this. He admitted, christ will even now, as always, be exalted in my body if I'm delivered. But whether I'm delivered in my life or I'm delivered in my death, he trusted God. We need to recall. Here's the second thing we need to do.

We need to rely fully on God to act now, not on myself.

We need to rely fully on God. Not partially, not when it's inconvenient, not when it's my last ditch effort. What would it look like in your life if starting today, if you wake up tomorrow and you have tension, you have conflict, you have something that comes in your life, rather than saying, well, let me go try to fix this, or let me call. What if the first thing you did is you dropped on your knees right there and said, lord, I don't know how to work this out. I don't know how it's going to work out.

I don't have the power to work this out. What if you admit it? Even if you think you have the power to work it out? What if you admitted you don't and you say, lord, I need you to work mightily in this situation the way you want to work in this situation. Fight my battle.

Look at verse number 37. Look at verse 37. David said, the Lord will deliver me who delivered me from the paw the lion, and from the paw the bear. He will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine. And Saul said to David, go, and may the Lord be with you.

It's almost kind of trite the way that Saul just says, well, all right, see how this plays out. But for a moment, though, let's give Saul credit. Because Goliath said, you come out, send your champion, and if he loses, you serve us. So they were putting again. They were gambling on this little shepherd boy to go out there.

So maybe he was at the point, like, I'm just ready for this to be over. If it means we're gonna have to serve him, let's just go serve him. But that's not the hope David had. David was fully convinced he was about to walk out there and kill Goliath. He was convinced.

That's called confidence. That's not cockiness, that's confidence. If I walk out on that field going, well, you know what I mean? Look at, look at some of the football that we're watching right now on tv. I mean, with, with, with the way they had that transfer portal.

Portal. You don't know what team you're going up against, but I'm telling you, you can look at a team and they were like, they're a specimen. They're the Sid Vicious. Like, you know, man, I don't know that we can beat this team. And then you see them get upset, upset.

Top ranking team getting upset by other teams. Because here's the thing, size matters not. That's my second Star wars reference for the day.

Yoda said, judge me by my size. Do you? I mean, and I mean, never mind, go watch Star Wars. Because Yoda, Yoda was. If you judge Yoda on his size, he was not nothing to, to mess with, but he proved he was more than you saw.

Don't judge a book by its cover. So in 1738 through 39, David thinks, I'm looking at the way that David is described is kind of comical. But they describe him as ruddy, which means he was either reddish skinned or Red haired and handsome. So it's almost like you get the tactic. He's going out there and his locks are flowing.

He's like, look at me like I look good. Like his locks didn't do anything for him. But they kept describing him as handsome. But I think the reason the writer did this was because they were showing that militarily he brought nothing to the table. He was not of size, he was not a big man.

He was smart. He knew Proverbs 1:7, the fear of the Lord was the beginning of wisdom. He knew Proverbs 3:5, not to trust on his own understanding, but, but to lean onto God for his wisdom. He knew that if I got in a situation, and this is what happens to us when we're stressed, we go, either fight, we flee or we freeze. When we're stressed, we either fight, flee or freeze.

What God is telling us to do is not do any of those. He's telling us to stop and stand still. Just like he told the Israelites when they were at the Red Sea, stand and, and see the salvation of the Lord. He fights for us. When he gets to Deuteronomy 3, he says, I will go before you into the land and I will fight for you guys.

Do you hear the message today? That God wants to fight your battles. He doesn't want you to lose. And in his name and for his glory, he wants to work through you to declare his glory to the world. He doesn't want you to lose.

But why do we lose? Well, there's only two reasons I can think of why we'd lose a battle. Number one, we're focused on ourself. Or number two, there's sin in our life. Like I don't wake up tomorrow morning and go, well, you know what?

There's that giant. I'm gonna go over there and test the Lord, see if he'll bring me glory, bring me victory. A lot of times the reason we lose is because we can't get me out of the sentence. See, Paul wrote in Philippians 3:3 to put no confidence in the and he was talking about in relation to righteousness, but none of us, our righteousness is filthy rags. We bring nothing to the table.

But if I'm going to fight the battles that the Lord is leading me into and that he's fighting for me, I have to deny myself and fully rely on Him. And the one I'm relying in is Jesus Christ, who is the same yesterday, today and forever. Do you know that Christ? Not that feel good, squishy Jesus Sometimes we see in American culture, I'm talking about the King of kings and the Lord of Lords, who in Revelation 19 will come in on a steed and that inscription will be written on his thigh as he brings about a final conquest of all of his enemies. Psalm 110 says, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool.

Our God, the God of hosts, the Lord of the heavenlies, will bring about victory. Number three, resign control to God to fight the battle. A lot of us this morning, the greatest thing we could do is let some things go. The greatest thing you and I could do today is let some things go. Let the Lord take your battle.

Look at verse number 41 again. We pick up here in the text and it says, the Philistine came and approached David with his shield bearer in front of him. So it wasn't just David and Goliath on the field. You ever see that? Right.

Can't always trust the coloring page. The Philistine came to David and said, am I a dog that you would come at me with sticks? Again, he was just. He was cursing him and mocking him, this little bitty teenage boy with this massive specimen of a man. And he said, come to me and I'll give your flesh to the birds of the sky and the beasts of the field.

David said to the Philistines, you come at me with a sword, a spear and a javelin. He said, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have taunted. There's the first reason we see that David gives. You've taunted the covenant people of God, and I will not stand for it. And then he says, and I will deliver.

The Lord will deliver you into my hands. And they've seen this. They saw this early on in Samuel with the Philistines, when God sent a sound and dispersed. And we saw it with Gideon in the battle that he fought, where he diminished the size of their army. And then he confused them like God intervened and brought victory.

Why won't he do it for you? He will. When we rely on him, we deny ourselves and we resign to let God take the battle. See, David, he responds. This is how he responds.

He acknowledges Goliath's ability. He affirms the name of God. He adjudges Goliath for cursing God by cursing Israel. But then he announces victory because God will be the one that brings about the work and assault, that the victory will glorify that God is supreme. See, this is how you can tell if I'm doing it for me or for God.

When it's all over, who gets the credit?

You know how we do this every Sunday? Y' all know why we gather on a Sunday? Because it's the Lord's Day. Do you know how we celebrate the Lord's Day? It's Easter every Sunday.

Where's the eggs? Anybody got some boiled eggs this morning? No, I'm serious. Like, we think Easter is just a once a year thing that we come and kind of liturgically celebrate. I'm telling you, we celebrate the Lord's Day on Sunday because it celebrates his resurrection.

The ultimate victory is the victory over sin, death, hell and the grave. And Jesus Christ bust forth out of a tomb to prove that he had beat all of it victorious. The Lord, he said, will fight while you keep silent. He said, don't fear, for I, the Lord, am fighting for you. We must resign control to the Lord.

Romans 8:31 says, what then shall we say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? You need to. Again, some of y' all are taking my word at face value. Write that on a note card and.

And plaster it on your dash. If God be for me, who can be against me? Well, there is one person you need to fear that's against you. It's the Lord himself. The writer of Hebrews said in Hebrews 10:31, it's a terrifying thing to fall in the hands of an angry God.

Because if you don't know Jesus Christ, if you don't know the Lord, through faith in Jesus Christ today, in the repentance of your sin and faith in him, the full Son of God who died on the cross and was raised again. If you don't know Jesus Christ had been forgiven of your sins and born again, then you, my friend, will fall into the hands of an angry God. And no one wants that for you. God doesn't want that for you. But if you're still trusting in your own righteousness, if you're still trusting in your own ideas, if you're still trusting in you, period, then today's the day that you can cry out to God, say, God, I repent of my sin.

I am a sinner. I need forgiveness so that I can have a right relationship with you. And it be more than geography, heaven versus hell, but it be that I have peace. Right, Fred? I have peace with God through Jesus Christ, my Lord.

Last point there. Rejoice, knowing that God has triumphed. Rejoiced it says that David ran into the battle and he took that stone and. And he planted that stone squarely between his. In his forehead, between his eyes, in the exact place.

What's the odds? Well, there is no odds. There is no coincidence. God guided that stone. God dropped that giant on the ground.

God led David to take his sword and cut that, that, that giant's head off and he put it in a bag. Don't go cutting people's heads off and put it in bags. That's creepy. But that was the evidence. You imagine what that giant's head.

Our heads weigh about 20 pounds, so his was probably about 25, 30 pounds. He's carrying sack creed on his side to prove God had delivered Israel. And Israel chased after them and smote the Philistines. Don't stop at the little spots. God gives you victory.

Keep on fighting. Oh, well, let's go a little bit further. Let's fight for one another. Look around this room right now. There's people that aren't here that used to be here.

Stop judging them for why they're not here and go after them. I'm not content with that. Well, they got their feelings hurt, right? Okay, go after them.

Well, they just. They've gotten caught up in travel ball. Go after them. Let's fight for one another. Because you know why?

Because God fights for you. Our God. If he loves you so much, he'd fight for you. Why won't we fight for someone else? Paul went on to say in Romans 8, verse 35, who will separate us from the love of Christ?

Will persecution, tribulation, distress, famine, nakedness, peril. Sword. Just as it is written for your sake, we are being put to death. All day long we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered. But then he says, but all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through him who loved us.

Fighting for God may cost you your life, but they can't take your eternal life.

Jesus promised those men they believed wholeheartedly in the resurrection, especially after Jesus come back. You can take my life, but you can't take my life. Is that your cry today? We have hope because God fights for us. We have hope because God fights for us.

The enemy may kill me, but he cannot take my life. So what do we do with this? Well, let me give you a couple things I think we can do with this. Number one, start having courage in your faith. Start having courage in your faith.

Step out in faith. You may fall flat on your face. But I'd rather fall flat on my face trying to do something for the Lord. Than not do anything for the Lord. Have courage in your faith because he will fight the battle.

Number two, trust in God's might and resources. He's the God of hosts, the heavenly hosts. We read about it in Revelation, chapter four and chapter five. We read this innumerable group of people that are consistently worshiping God and lifting him up. What would it look like?

What would it look like if instead of gripped in fear that I'm free to worship God and declare his goodness, his righteousness, his holiness, his love for you and for me in the gospel? What difference would it make? Here's what I think. You wouldn't walk out of here dragging yourself. You'd be walking out of here with a march in your step.

And number three, we need to be careful to differentiate between his battles and my battles. I don't need to be going and picking fights. That didn't work out well for the seven sons of Sceva in Acts, chapter 19, who tried to cast out an evil spirit, and that evil spirit ended up whipping them.

But don't be so scared to fail that you don't try. Don't be so scared to fail that you don't try.

There's no telling what God can do if we would just give the battles to Him. Stand in confidence, not cockiness, because he is the God who fights for us. So in this invitation, Fred, Randy and others will be down here at the front if you want to come and talk to one of us about being saved. I don't want to take for granted that we have an opportunity. Somebody in this room may not know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

You've never been born again. You've never trusted in Christ to take away your sin and to give you new life, to give you the gift of the Holy Spirit. Maybe you're here today and that's your need. Don't leave this place that way. Maybe you say, you know what?

I just. I'm struggling. I've been fighting and fighting and fighting and I'm tired. Well, let some people come around you and fight with you. Because remember, we're fighting a spiritual battle.

We can't see, so we need to arm ourselves with the one who does.

Maybe this morning you just need to come down and say, lord, thank you. You've brought me through it. Thank you so much. Like, just because somebody comes and prays doesn't mean there's a problem. Come and worship.

Bring your worship to the Lord. So stand with me, Father. Thank you so much. God, give us joy, give us courage, give us passion for your ministry, for your work. Knowing God that you will.

You promised you would fight our battles. So God, through the spirit of God, give us a boldness and a courage that we can trust you no matter what. In Jesus name, amen.