“How God Uses the Ordinary to Accomplish the Extraordinary”

I Samuel 17:32-37

     Dear Friends in Christ,     

   “God loves to use the unusable to accomplish the impossible.”  That’s a great statement, isn’t it?  It’s a statement that I came across recently and that I discovered was made by a fellow named Greg Stier, whom some of our men here today might recognize because he was one of the speakers at a Promise Keepers gathering we attended in St. Louis some years ago.  Well, this morning I’d like to take that statement and alter it just a bit to fit my sermon theme.  I’d like to have it say this: “God loves to use the ordinary to accomplish the extraordinary.”  And what a great example we see of that in the ladies organization that we especially recognize on this particular Sunday of the year known as LWML Sunday.

   I don’t know how much you know about the LWML, the Lutheran Women’s Missionary League, but they’ve been around a long time, since 1942 in fact.  Comprised of common, ordinary ladies from common, ordinary congregations of our Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod, from the very beginning they adopted a verse from Ps. 100 as their biblical motto.  That motto is “Serve the Lord with gladness” and sure enough, that’s exactly what they’ve done throughout their existence.  They currently have over 250,000 members in the United States.  They’ve managed to raise millions of dollars over the years that have funded hundreds of mission projects worldwide.  Most of that money has been raised through these little boxes called mite boxes into which the women place their coins which then add up in a phenomenal way, making it possible for this organization to set mission goals amounting to more than $1 million every two years.  Yes, God loves to use the ordinary to accomplish the extraordinary.

   And the Bible is full of examples that illustrate this for us.  I think of Noah who wasn’t famous or prominent or powerful in the eyes of the world, but whom God deemed worthy enough and righteous enough to save from the destructive waters of the Flood so that he could use him and his family to start the human race all over again.  Or what about Moses, who had spent the last 40 years of his life tending sheep on his father-in-law’s ranch out in the middle of nowhere, but whom God used in extraordinary ways to deliver his people from slavery.  And then there was Esther, a lowly, humble, beautiful Jewish maiden whom God allowed to become the queen of Persia so that he could use her influence to save the Jews at a time when orders had been given to destroy them.  In fact, if you want to read a great story this week, just open your Bible to the book that bears her name and you will find yourself engrossed in a historical narrative that reads like a John Grisham novel.

   But on and on it goes.  God loves to use the ordinary to accomplish the extraordinary.  And perhaps the best example of this that we see in Scripture can be found in a young shepherd boy named David who went on to become the greatest king Israel ever knew.  And this morning on this LWML Sunday I want to spend our time studying one small segment from the life of David in which we will see in a very convincing way how God really does use the ordinary to accomplish the extraordinary.

   Most of you know this story well.  The Israelites were having a stand off with the Philistines and neither one seemed to want to make a move.  I Sam. 17:3 says: “The Philistines occupied one hill and the Israelites another, with the valley between them.”  And each day we’re told that a champion warrior of the Philistines named Goliath would swagger his way down into the midst of that valley and challenge the Israelites with these words: “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."  But no one among the Israelites would accept the challenge.  And understandably so.  For Goliath was a giant.  He stood over 9 feet tall.  The armor he wore weighed a hefty 125 pounds while the head of his spear weighed about 15 pounds, meaning it was able to penetrate anything he threw it at.  And you can be sure that Goliath knew how to use that spear for he was a seasoned warrior.  So we’re talking about a fellow here who would make Shaquille O’Neal of the NBA look like a Doug Meyer of Salem Lutheran Church.

   But when David shows up on the scene to deliver some food items to his brothers who are part of this stand off and he hears Goliath taunting the armies of Israel, it’s more than he can stand.  He wants a piece of him.  And to make a long story short, he gets his chance.  I love how our text describes Goliath’s reaction to David when he sees him for the first time.  It says: “He looked David over and saw that he was only a boy, ruddy and handsome, and he despised him.”  I’m sure Goliath was a bit disappointed that the Israelites didn’t send out to him a more formidable foe, one who might provide more of a challenge for him.  But little did Goliath know that God takes great delight in using the ordinary to accomplish the extraordinary.  And when all was said and done, it was David who stood victorious over the fallen giant, holding Goliath’s severed head up high for all to see, a head that David had removed from Goliath’s body using the giant’s own sword.

   Now that’s a great story.  It’s a familiar story.  But what can we learn from David to help us defeat the giants in our lives?  And no, I’m not talking about literal giants like Goliath, but rather the modern day giants of worry, fear, anxiety, depression, stress, sin, temptation, and so on.  Well, the first thing we can learn from David is how important it is that we spend time with God.  As mentioned before, long before David became great, he was just a lowly shepherd boy, the youngest of 8 sons born to a man from Bethlehem named Jesse.  In fact, when the prophet Samuel was sent to Jesse’s home by God to anoint the future king of Israel, they didn’t even bother to call David in from the field because no one even remotely suspected that he would be God’s choice for this exalted position.  Yet God made it very clear to Samuel: “The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart."  And when God looked deep into the heart of David, you know what he found?  He found what the Bible calls a man after God’s own heart.  He found a heart that was humble, a heart that was full of praise and appreciation to God for the beauty and wonder of nature that he beheld in the back hills of Bethlehem where he tended his father’s sheep.  He found a heart that loved to spend time in the presence of the Lord.  Though David did not write Ps. 42, I believe vv.1-2 very accurately describe him when it says: “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?” 

   And what about you, my friends?  Do those words describe you?  Do you long and love to spend time in the presence of the Lord?  “Oh, but I’m so busy,” we say.  “I just don’t have any time that I can give to God right now.”  We’re so good at convincing ourselves of that, aren’t we?  And yet statistics I recently came across would seem to indicate differently.  They reveal that the average American adult watches nearly 3 hours of television each day.  That averages out to more than 1½ months a year sitting in front of a television set.  And that doesn’t include time we spend on Facebook, surfing the Internet, checking our e-mail, or the time we spend talking on our cell phones.  So there is time available.  It just boils down to how we use our time, or better yet, how we prioritize our time.  David made sure that time with the Lord was the topmost priority in his life.  And we would do well to follow suit because it is only by spending time in the presence of the Lord that we can find the strength, the tools, the wherewithal we need to fight and defeat the giants in our lives.

   Then a 2^nd lesson we can learn from David is to serve God with integrity.  Somebody once defined integrity as “doing right in the little things and doing the little things right.”  When David was asked by King Saul in our text why he thought he could defeat the giant, he said: "Your servant has been keeping his father's sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it.”  Now David could have very easily allowed that sheep to be carried off and not worried about the loss of just one animal.  But he took his job seriously and carried it out with integrity.  Even though nobody else may have been watching what he was doing, he knew God was.  And he knew that if he shirked his responsibilities, maybe nobody else would know about it, but God would.  And it was that understanding that he was always under the watchful eye of God that led him to do right in the little things and do the little things right.

   So what about you, my friends?  Would you identify yourself, or better yet, would others identify you as a person of integrity, a person of character?  Somebody once said that character is what you are when nobody else is looking.  So what are you when nobody else is looking?  How do you handle temptation when it rears its ugly head in the pornographic opportunities that pop up on your computer screen or the adult movies that are just begging to be watched when you’re on a business trip in a motel room all by yourself or the opportunity arises to cheat on a test in school or to slander somebody’s reputation in the work place?  Or how about when you’re doing something as simple as driving down the highway in your car?  I know I’m going to step on some toes here, but do speed limit signs mean anything to you at all?  Or do you just ignore them and then use the excuse that everyone else is speeding?

   Listen, my friends, if you’re going to overcome the giants in your life, it would do you well to be a person of integrity, to take seriously all of God’s commands, not just the ones you like; not just the ones that are easy or convenient for you to keep. Because when you don’t do that, when you pick and choose only certain commands to keep and ignore the rest, do you know what we call that?  We call it sin, in particular a sin of omission – failing to do the things that you should do.  And that sin can create a wall that separates you from the One who can best help you defeat those giants.  

   And that really takes us to the final lesson we can learn from David and that is to look past the giants in our lives and see the real Giant who stands head and shoulders above them all.  And that Giant, of course, is God.  I love how David does this in our text.  After telling Saul about the times he killed a lion and a bear that tried to steal his sheep, he doesn’t puff out his chest and brag about it.  Instead he gives credit where credit is due.  He says: “The LORD who delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine."  Isn’t that great!  While all the other Israelite soldiers were staring only at this overgrown hulk of humanity that was taunting and challenging them every day, David looked past Goliath and kept his eyes focused on the One whom Moses wrote about in Ex. 15 when he said: “The LORD is a warrior; the LORD is his name…Who among the gods is like you, O LORD? Who is like you-- majestic in holiness, awesome in glory, working wonders?”

   And as you battle the giants in your own life, may you always keep your eyes fixed on that same heavenly Giant.  And may you never forget that it was he who loved you so much that he was willing to come down to this earth some 2000 years ago in the person of Jesus Christ to do battle with the greatest giant we could ever face, that giant of evil named Satan who wanted to claim our souls as his for all eternity.  But Jesus would not have it.  He would not allow it.  So he gave his all, he gave his best, he gave his life to defeat our archenemy Satan and secure for us and all who would put their faith and trust in him a place in his heavenly kingdom. 

   And if he would do that for you, you can be sure that he will be there to help you with any other giants you may ever find yourself faced with.  And I firmly believe that if you will give your heart to him as David did – and I mean totally and completely give your heart to him – who knows?  You might be the next David.  Or at the very least, you might become another example of what we’ve talked about today, an example of how God can take that which is ordinary and use it to accomplish that which is extraordinary. 

     Amen.