Momentum For Monday, April 28th 2025

“And when the Philistine looked and saw David, he disdained him, for he was but a youth, ruddy and handsome in appearance.” (1 Samuel 17:42)

This week I have taken some snippets from a message by the late theologian, Tim Keller, on the story of David and Goliath (we’ll probably have another week or two from this message by Tim because the message is too long to keep in a devo format). I encourage you to take the time to read the entire story to truly get a full grasp of his points. Enjoy!

He [Goliath] had the latest in military hardware. He was high-tech. And David couldn't even handle Saul's tech. And so he's out there without armor. He's small. He's not trained. And Goliath has lots and lots and lots of courage. Why? Because he despises David. And he looks at himself and looks at David.

And this is the world's way of getting courage. High self-esteem. You banish your fears. You look at your assets. You see what your talents are, your strengths are, your hardware, whatever. And you say, look at what I've got.

You banish fear. You visualize success. You can't even visualize defeat. And that's how, in a sense, the world does it. Look at yourself. Have high self-esteem.

And the reason Goliath failed, by the way, why did he fail? He had too much self-esteem and too little fear to see the danger. 

The fact is, in those days, a sling was something that, you know, the Romans actually not only had archers, they had people who knew how to use a sling. Because you know how a sling, you can hurl a stone three inches in diameter over 60 miles an hour, and if you are good at it, in some ways it can penetrate in places that arrows can't penetrate. And it can absolutely indefinitely kill you.

And in that sense, tamp down your fears and go do it. That's Goliath's way. That's the world way. That's the way it's been done. And there are great problems with this way.

We really don't need something that helps us banish our fears because then we're out of touch with reality. What we need is something that enables us to do the right thing in spite of our fears. You need to keep your fears, otherwise you're, you're not going to make good decisions.

“Through You we will gore our enemies [like a bull]; Through Your name we will trample down those who rise up against us.”

(Psalm 44:5)