1 Sam. 17: 45-51
A Faith That Works
The world around us—the people around us cannot see the faith that is inside of us. But what they can see are the good works, the good deeds that you do because of the faith that you have.
Remember when you were first learning to ride a bicycle; it was all about balance. Many aspects of life are about balance. We need a balance between work and play
between waking hours and sleeping hours and so on.
We need a balanced theology as well.
We need faith---It is impossible to please God without faith. Faith means that we believe God is! We believe that He is who He says He is and can do what He says He can do.
But the balance comes in when have our faith on one end of the scale and our works (what we do because of our faith) on the other end—so that the scales are balanced.
Faith and Works operate like a seesaw—up and down is a smooth movement of balance.
But if one gets off—there is no balance—no more smooth up and down—Plunk! No more seesawing.
James 2:17 says: Thus faith by itself, if it does not have works is dead!!
In James’ day some people spoke the language of Christianity---talked like they had a lot of faith but you couldn’t tell it (could not verify) it by what they did.
They did not have a faith that works! What about you? Do you talk your faith or do you live it out?
Throughout the Bible you see men and women, average people just like us, who lived out their faith in the middle of the circumstances that they found themselves in. Look at Hebrews 11. You will see a host of faith heroes listed—people we know who found themselves living life and then God called and interrupted all that.
Noah, who had never seen rain, had to be obedient to God and build an ark in the midst of the desert with people laughing at him and calling him crazy.
Abram, who became Abraham and then Sarai became Sarah and together travel to a distance land to affect the world population, having a child when they were far past child-bearing age.
Moses who forsook Egypt and a life of ease to save his people.
And so on.
Read it for yourself. And then at the end of Hebrews 11, it says that all those people who obtained a good testimony through FAITH, did not receive the promise. Why? Because God had something better in mind for them that they should not receive it apart from us. He wants us in on the reward.
So, God is giving you and me an opportunity to show off your faith, by our works.
The poet Edgar Guest once wrote:
I’d rather see a sermon than hear one any day.
I’d rather one would walk w/me than merely show the way.
So let’s look at 1 Sam.17. We see the well-known story of David and Goliath. Today I want you to look at this story through the lens of the faith of David---that David did not just talk his faith, but he courageously, fearlessly, and almost recklessly lived it out.
That is the kind of faith that I’m striving to have---a bold, fearless, reckless faith in God.
Chapter 17 begins by telling us that Saul is king of the Israelites, and they are in a battle with the Philistines with a valley in between the two armies. The Philistine army isn’t doing much because they have a giant man of war on their side named Goliath that is nine feet tall. Shaq is 7’1’, so just imagine an average guy – an average soldier against Goliath.
And not only was Goliath tall and big, but he was also decked out in all this bronze armor—bronze helmet, iron on his legs all total weighing about 125 lbs.
His spear was this 12-foot-long instrument with an iron point. And a smaller spear—called a javelin was slung on his back.
Goliath was the Philistine army’s assault weapon, who came not to just kill h
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