A Bold Heart

SUMMARY

Original Artwork by Alice McNeill. :)

In this sermon, Karl Ihfe delves into the famous story of David and Goliath, examining David's bold heart as a key characteristic that made him a man after God's own heart. Ihfe contrasts David's boldness with the Israelite army's "learned helplessness," highlighting how losing heart leads to false beliefs, misguided attitudes, and self-defeating behaviors.

Ihfe identifies three situations where David demonstrated boldness: everyday challenges (like facing lions and bears), opposition and criticism (from his brother Eliab), and pressure to conform (rejecting Saul's armor). He applies these lessons to modern Christian life, encouraging believers to face their own "Goliaths" – whether at work, in relationships, or in sharing their faith – with God's help. The pastor emphasizes that boldness grows through small acts of courage and trust in God's presence, even when facing challenges alone.

TRANSCRIPTION:

Well, welcome. We're so thankful that you're here. If you're visiting first time or first time in a long time, we're so glad that you're here with us in person or online. We're so excited about this series. I'm excited to get to study the life of King David.

We began last week of launching into this series of the heart of a King. What does it look like to have the heart of a king? David was a Renaissance man. We talked a lot about his different giftings and how incredible he was at so many different things. He was also a Renaissance sinner.

And over the summer we're going to get a chance to see just how much he struggled in all the different ways that he struggled. Last week we remembered how none of those things were what drew God to David. Rather, it was his heart. So we want to spend some time thinking about his heart. Samuel, when David was being anointed, we looked at last week, God had to remind Samuel what really matters to him.

He says people look at outward appearances, but I look at the heart, I look at what's going on deep inside. And so this summer I want us to spend some time looking at our own heart. Last week we looked at a couple of aspects, a couple of things about David's heart just in general that made him so open and available to his heart being shaped by God. We talked about this sense of wild abandon that with David there was passion, there was this unguarded didn't hold back before God. But not only that, there was this deep reflection that he was willing to stop and think and consider.

David wrote the prayer book of the church, the Psalms. So many of them are attributed to him and his struggles. And if you've ever spent much time in the Psalms, you know it's not all “happy clappy” as a friend of mine likes to say, that there's some truth there. There's some truth telling God, where are you and what's happening? And struggles with pain and hurt.

This wild abandon and deep reflection added up to this just incredible stubborn love that we saw and see in the life of David that when David loved you, you just stayed loved. We'll look at some of the lives of people that were in David's life, of Saul, who many times tried to kill him. And yet when Saul dies, David grieves over him. We'll look at some stories of David and his best friend Jonathan and their friendship. Jonathan could have been his number one adversary and yet they had this deep loving friendship together.

But David's most stubborn love was for God, that he kept coming back time and time again, even in his darkest days, the biggest struggles in his life, David continued to come back to see God. So I wanted to spend some time this summer thinking about what is it about David that would have him characterized, named the only one in scripture, as a man after God's own heart. What does a heart that looks like God's heart? What does that do? So today we're going to look at a story that I think most everybody here has at least heard of.

You hear it in all parts of our culture. Whenever there's an underdog taking on an overwhelming opponent, they always call it a David and Goliath story. Why? Because it's this incredible story that resonates with us. Maybe one of the most, if not the most famous story.

And Tracy gave us the beginning of that story just a few minutes ago. If you have your Bible, invite you to turn over to 1Samuel17. As we walk through this story, it's maybe a familiar one, but I hope it will be made new as we look at this quality of David's heart called boldness. What does it mean to have a bold heart? We learned early in chapter 17 that Saul and the Israelite army are camped in the valley of Elah, and they’re on one side and the Philistine army is on the other.

And every morning and every evening, this giant of a man, nine feet tall, Goliath comes out and he bellows these taunts. And we're told not Only is he 9ft tall, his armor that we read about in scripture as shekels, when you convert that to pounds, that's 150 pounds. That's just his armor that he's wearing's 150 pounds. A mountain of a man. And each morning and each evening, he taunts the Israelites.

And as verse 11 tells us, every time that this happened, we're told Saul and all the Israelites were dismayed and terrified. And again, we learned this 40 days in a row. This happens day after day. Now, in the meantime, as chapter 16 ends and David is anointed king, he sent back out into the fields to keep tending sheep that we'll see in the life of David, it's going to be another 15 years before he actually gets a chance to ascend the throne. And so all this time he has waiting out in the wilderness, he's spending some time in the palace, soothing Saul with his music.

But a lot of time he's out in the fields. One day, his dad calls him in and says, hey, I want you to go check on your brothers who were out in the Valley of Elah with Saul and the army. I want you to bring them some supplies, get a report and bring it back to me. And so David does just that. Now, this deal with Goliath has gotten so bad that Saul has told anyone in his army.

He says, any of you who will take on Goliath and defeat him, not only will you have incredible wealth, but I'm going to give you a tax exemption for the rest of your life. No taxes, no new taxes. No taxes. And I'm going to give you my daughter's hand in marriage, which sounds like a pretty amazing deal. All the money you can imagine.

You never have to pay a dime of taxes on it. Plus you get to marry the king's daughter. It's a pretty sweet deal. Up to this point, nobody's willing to take the deal. Well, David finally shows up.

He's got the supplies. He drops them off with the guy who takes care of those, and he starts talking with some of the men around the campsite. And all of a sudden, Goliath comes out and he bellows this huge taunt. And David's response is, I love it. Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that should defy the armies of the living God?

Who is this guy? And how come nobody has taken this bozo on? Who does he think he is standing out there yelling and screaming and defying God and his armies? And word starts to spread amongst the camp, like, who is this boy who's just shown up from the field? And now he's wondering why nobody will take on Goliath?

What is happening? Well, word eventually gets back to Saul. And so Saul sends for David and brings him to his tent, and they have this conversation. But David kind of points out something that, again, as we know in the story, kind of reading through it, it's kind of a Captain Obvious moment, but I think it's an important thing. He says, let no one lose heart on account of this Philistine.

David nails it on the head. The Israelite army, as we saw in verse 11, they're terrified, they're dismayed, they don't know what they're going to do. They're starting to lose heart. What does it mean to lose heart? Have you ever lost heart?

I spent my time in undergrad studying psychology. One of the seminal studies of psychology happened in the late 60s by a couple of American researchers named Martin Seligman and Stephen Mayer. And they were studying behavior of animals, specifically dogs. What they were trying to do was, was pair this tone and shock. Would the dogs learn that whenever they hear this tone, they're going to get a shock?

And so they teach them that. And then once they've taught them that, they put them into a box, and in this box there's a little wall. And so they bring the tone shock. And if the dog will jump over the wall when they hear the tone, then the shot goes away. So they're trying to teach the dogs, can we teach them when they hear that tone, to automatically jump because they know a shock is coming?

And so they theorized, yeah, this is going to happen, and most of the dogs will do that. What they found was two thirds of the dogs never jumped. They just lied there whimpering. And they started to realize somewhere in their little doggy brain, they began to associate. There's nothing you can do about the shock.

It's coming when you hear the tone, shock is coming. It's out of that study. They coined this term learned helplessness. Right. I know it's inevitable, and there's nothing I can do about it.

So I'm just going to have to deal with it, just give up. And what they found, two thirds of the dogs just gave up. Even though there was a step they could take, they just had to hop over this little wall and the shock would go away. And what they found was they wouldn't do it. Learned helplessness then, has now become this idea behind a lot of the research and study into depression and fear and why folks give up with stuff because they learn there's nothing I can do about it.

I guess this is just the way life is going to be. We certainly get that sense that the Israelite army has developed a little learned helplessness over these last 40 days as they've been hearing these taunts and responding in fear to Goliath. It sure seems like that. If we look at the story, number one, a couple of things that are involved in symptoms of losing heart, we'll see. The first one is this false belief.

There's nothing I can do. There's nothing that I can do. When Saul calls David into his tent, and David trying to convince Saul to let me go fight this guy, Saul's response is, you're not able to go against this Philistine and fight him. You're only a young man, a boy. And Goliath has been a warrior from his youth.

There's no way you can do this. There's no way any of us can do anything. We're just going to stay right here. Not only do we see this false behavior, we see some misguided attitudes with that. Typically it shows up in the form of fear or negativity or resentment.

Whenever someone's losing heart, they get stuck in this false belief cycle. But they also have some misguided attitudes. We see that was true here of the Israelite Army. In verse 28, David's older brothers are there. And when his oldest brother Eliab finds out that David has come here is his response.

He hears him speaking with the men he burned in anger at David. And he asked, why have you come down here? And with whom did you leave those few sheep in the wilderness? I know how conceited you are and how wicked your heart is. You just came to watch the battle.

What are you doing here? David? Who's watching the sheep? That's your job, pal. You just came to see what would happen.

You just came to fight. In a minute we'll look at David's response to that. But all of a sudden you see this misguided negativity and resentment coming out. Not only do we see that, but then the self defeating behavior. We going to have this belief that's not true, this attitude that's misguided and sow it leads to this behavior that's often either paralysis or passivity.

I guess this is just how it's going to be. In verse 24 we learn whenever the Israelites, Saul, Goliath saw the man, they all fled in fear. Their only response was just to keep running away. You see, when you give up, when you lose heart, you're never going to see what God might do in your life because you could quit trying. Instead, we see there's another way to live.

David lives a very different way. When everybody else saw Goliath, they ran. David ran toward him, they ran away. David runs toward him. I think every one of us would love to live with a bold heart.

I've made a lot of pastoral visits in 25 years of ministry. I've never met anybody who said, I just wish I was a little more of a fraiy cat. I just wish I wasn't so risk taking. I've talked to countless people who said I wish I had more courage right in that moment when I wish I would have stepped up and I wish I would have said that thing or I wish I would have done that thing. I wish I would have stepped in and helped that person and I wish I would have a little more courage just to Share my faith with my friend.

When I was in college, I had a roommate and a couple of roommates and they were great friends of mine. I'd grown up with them and one of them was not a follower of Jesus. And so one day I was feeling kind of courageous and I just said, hey man, I'd love to tell you my story of faith. Just thinking he would say 'm not interested. He goes, okay, sounds good.

And I was like, agh, how about maybe next week sometime? That sounds good. He's like, yeah, sure, no problem. I cannot tell you how many days I've lied in my bed. Like, why didn't I do it then?

God? Why didn't I have the courage to say, well, here's my story, right? I wasn't expecting. I had this misguided belief, like, he doesn't want to know the story. And he gave me the worst answer possible.

Sure, I'd love to know. I thought, I'm not prepared for that answer. Israel is looking at this situation and Goliath keeps giving them an opportunity and none of them are willing to face him. You see, sometimes folks mistakenly believe that the way I get courage is just by facing Goliath, just by showing up in the moment just going to happen. It's just going to just happen.

That's not how courage is built, France. That's not how bold heart is built. It takes time, it takes nurturing it and developing it. And we'll see that here in David's life. In fact, in a couple of situations I want us to look at that David dealt with, that we learn about.

But I think it's situations that we deal with all the time as well. And in these situations, you're going to have a choice. Will I lean in? Will I try to live with a bold heart? Or will I run away?

You see, every time we run away, our heart shrinks a little bit. Then that boldness just shrinks a little bit. See, the first situation that David finds himself in, just everyday situations. And these are some of the worst, right? It's like with my friend.

Do you want to hear about it? Yep. I wasn't prepared for that. Everyday situations, they are the most annoying and maybe the most important just everyday life situations. You see when David was standing before Saul.

Saul kind of telling him, you're not the dude, you're a kid.

David explains it this way. He says, saw your servant has been keeping his father's flock. A sheep. And when a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, I went after it and I struck it and I rescued it from the mouth. When they turned on me, I seized it by its hair and I struck it and I killed it.

Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear. This uncircumcised Philistine will be just like one of them because he has defied the armies of the living God. The Lord who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bearer will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine. Now, I don't know about you, but imagine you're a shepherd out in a field and a bear shows up. What do you do?

What do you do when a mountain lion comes to grab one? What do you do? David could have run away. The sheep are not going to be like, dude, David got this. Back off, buddy.

Right? The sheep aren't going to tell anybody. They're not talking. David could have run off and been like, well, you know, bathroom break, you know, whatever. Next thing I know, their herd'gone I don't know.

Flock is destroyed. That's not what he does. He stays. He stays and he fights because he recognizes he's not staying by himself. There's a power with him.

Did you catch that last verse? The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the bear and the lion is, the Lord will deliver me from this Philistine, David. It wasn't so much that David learned how to fight bears and lions, although he did. What he learned was, when God is with you, God fights too.

And when God's fighting, there's nothing impossible. And so who is this uncircumcised Philistine? God delivers these. You see, now that's something that you and I can hear and read about in other people's lives. And we can go, that's awesome.

That's amazing. Did you hear that story? It's another thing for us to actually believe it and live it. This kind of boldness that grows in us, it doesn't come through intellectual understanding. It only comes through living it out by resting our weight down on that belief and saying, God, I'm going to trust you.

Because lions and bears show up in our lives all the time. Maybe for some of us it's a tough work or school situation. We're going to be tempted to avoid it or procrastinate or just kind of push it off. There may be a tough conversation that we need to have, but we just let it go. Or with God's help, we can turn and face it.

We can acknowledge this is a hard situation. God, could you help me here? And maybe some of us are facing a parenting challenge, right? A kid acting out, and the temptation is just to ignore it and hope that it will go away. To just sweep it under the carpet, just pretend it only happens at this time.

And so we'll just try to avoid those circumstances. Or we could turn and face it with God's help. God, would you give me the strength? Would you give me the wisdom? Would you give me the insight?

Would you help us as a team acknowledge and deal with this problem? Would you help us def find the right people who can help us deal with this problem? Maybe it's with a spouse or a loved one and they're making some bad choices, some bad decisions, they're heading the wrong way, and you can avoid it, and you can pretend that it's not really happening that way, or you can wish it weren't happening that way, or you can turn and face it with God's help. God, would you give me the strength? Would you give me the wisdom?

Would you help connect with the resources? Would you create an opportunity? And God, would you give me the courage to. When my roommate says yes, I want to hear about your faith. To say yes, I want to tell you and not shrink back in fear.

See, David faced everyday moments with lions and bears. Now, I'm sorry, this is just a loose association here. All week long, I've been thinking about the not too terribly theological movie, the Three Amigos. You guys remember this movie? At the end of the movie, they got to face El Guapo, right?

And Steve Martin's character says, everyone's got to an El Guapo in their life. For some of people, it's shyness. For others it's a lack of education. For us, El Alpo is a big, dangerous guy who wants to kill us. I just imagine David standing before the Israelite army.

Our Goliath is a big, dangerous guy who wants to kill us. Will we have the courage? God, will you give me the courage to face this with you? Church, how are you dealing with your everyday challenges? Are you facing them with God's help?

Every time you do, your heart will grow a little more bold. That doesn't mean it's always going to work out the way you want it to work out. It just means, God, would you help me to grow a little more bold, a little more willing? The second kind of situation that David faces is opposition and criticism. Just by show of hands, has anybody in here ever been criticized before for any reason?

Right? We Know how that feels? How do you respond? What's your go to move when someone criticizes you, what do you do? David's been sent by his father to check on his older brothers.

And he takes the supplies and he starts asking questions. Why isn't but anybody facing Goliath? And his brother hears about this and we read his comments. Why have you come down here? With whom did you leave the sheep?

I know how conceited you are, how wicked your heart is. You only came to watch the battle alive. Takes a couple cheap shots at David. I know why you're here. You're not really here to help.

You're here to make fun. You're here because you're. You're here. We know why David has come.

He's being obedient. He's doing what his father asked him to do, and yet people are taking cheap shots at him. Why? Well, I think that's part of a symptom of losing heart. Every day, Eliab heard the taunts.

Every morning, every night. If you're a man, come face me. And Eliab runs away in fear, right? There's only so many times you can run away in fear that it doesn't start to shrink your heart and change how you see yourself in the mirror in the mornings, right? When we're facing our Goliath and we shrink back, it does something to us.

It did something to Eliath. And in those moments when we feel terrible, he's okay, when it's just his buddies because they're all in the same boat, they're all shrinking back in fear. And so he feels safe there. But when David, an outside or somebody who doesn't know the situation, calls in and starts to call him on his cowardice, Eliab doesn't like that. So what does he do?

He lashes out. Church, I promise you, when you start to face one of your Goliaths, somebody in your life is going to oppose it because it threatens them. And they're going to push back and they're going to take some cheap shots.

How are you respond? David could have responded in a number of ways. This is how he responds. Verse 29. Now what have I done?

Said David. Can't I even speak? He then turned away to someone else, and he brought up the same matter. And the men answered him as before. Now, David could have spent time fighting with his brother.

Hey, come on, man. I'm just doing what dad told me to do. Lay off. He doesn't do that. He could have pulled out that slings slot.

I'll show you who's ready to, you know, he doesn't do that and said. He's like, dude, can I not have a conversation? And he turns and he starts a conversation. He doesn't give in. He doesn't get mad.

He just moves on. Church. How do you deal with criticism in your life? How do you deal with it when someone opposes you? Can you hear the sliver of truth and deal with that and move on?

Or does it cause you to lose heart? Yeah, you're right.

David could have lost heart. He didn't see, if you get serious about trusting God and facing the Goliath in your life, it's going to threaten somebody's life. It's going to threaten them, and they're going to try to power up on you. How will you respond? Not only that, the third situation will finish here as pressure to conform.

When David finally gets Saul's blessing to go out and fight. Saul says, here, why don't you wear my armor?

What's David going to do? How is s he going to respond? The king is offering his own personal armor for David to wear in this battle. David says, I can't do it. I can't go in these.

I'm not used to them. So he takes them off. He took his staff in his hand. He chose five smooth stones from the stream. He put them in the pouch of a shepherd's bag and a sling in his hand, and he approached the Philistine.

David was facing some pretty serious pressure. Saul is the king. David is just a boy. Saul is a warrior, has been for a long time. David is a shepherd.

Saul is a grown man. David is a young boy. He could have said, well, Saul, you've kind of done this a few more times than me. I'll try to make it work. But he doesn't do that.

David knew himself and he knew who God was. David knew that when he went to face his Goliath, nobody was coming with him. Eliab was certainly not going to be there. Saul was certainly not going to be there. Jesse wasn't going to be there.

He was going to have to face his Goliath alone, with God's help. And the truth is, church, the same is true for you and me. When we face our Goliath, we're going to do it alone. We're not going to have anybody else with. No one can face our Goliath for us.

We have to do it. We have to face it. How will we face it? Some of us at work, or maybe in the Classroom where you're facing some pressure to do some unethical stuff. How will you respond?

Some of us are facing some pressure to gossip. We get in these circle of friends and we start to talk about people who aren't there. And that pressure is going to build. Will you participate? God's wanting you to stand up and not do anything that would tear down community, that would tear down another person, maybe some of you, of an opportunity, but are feeling some pressure to hold back.

Talking about your faith. I'm not supposed to. You shouldn't. Nobody wants to hear that. But God wants you to take a stand.

Say, would you be willing to take a risk and tell somebody why you are the way you are?

You see, so much of the way that the evil one works is the way Paul talked about it to the church in Rome. It says, don't be conformed. Don't give in to the pressure around you that wants to shape you and form you into its mold. He says, be renewed by the renewing of your mind. Be transformed.

Don't be conformed. You know, the story goes, Goliath sees this young boy out in the middle of every where was the stream at the bottom of the valley, two armies on either side. David walks out, Goliath walks out. You know the taunts that are thrown out.

David knows God is with him. So his response is, you come against me with sword and spearit javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. And we're told, so David, because of that, he triumphs over the Philistine with a sling in a stone, without a sword in his hand, he strikes down the Philistine. David's whole life had led him to this moment. Those 15 years in the wilderness weren't wasted years.

That time alone with God when his heart was being shaped. And each day, facing everyday circumstances, facing criticism and opposition, facing the temptation to give in into pressure, Right? Those moments shook his heart, making him ready for this moment.

I don't know what kind of Goliath that you are facing these days, but let me tell you this. With just a small stone and a sling, a little faith, God can do amazing things. God can show up in powerful ways. You see, the amazing thing about this story is that David, the safest place David could be was with God in the middle of those two armies.

Now, let me be clear. He wasn't out of danger, friends, and neither will you. Facing Goliath is hard to do. That's why most people don't do it. Facing and doing the right thing in your life is hard to do.

That's why you struggle to do it. That's why most of the people around you don't do it. If it were easy, everybody would do it. David knew no God. With your help, I can do anything.

I hope this summer is as God continues to shape and form our hearts, that will grow more bold, that we will keep facing those everyday, ordinary situations at work, at school, at home, in the neighborhood, with my family and we'll keep leaning into God. Would you just help me to a little courage here to help me to lean in instead of leaning out? That when you're facing criticism in opposition, you just keep leaning in, trusting and believing, right? We're not going to give in. We're not going to get mad.

We're just going to acknowledge, state our position and keep moving forward. Why? Because we know God is with us. And so no matter what we face, God is there. We don't have to give the pressure to conform.

We don't have to look like everyone around us. God will grow our heart more bold, more courage. See, I think everybody wants to live with bold heart church. Will you grow a bold heart with me this summer? That's what I'm be praying for you and I invite you.

Would you be praying it for me? Because I'm hoping for another opportunity to circle back to my roommate, say, hey, you remember 20 years ago when we had this conversation? I'd like to finish that conversation. God, may it be true for us this summer that you would help us to grow a heart more like yours. A heart that's bold, that's willing to take risks, that's willing to stand and face hard things, to confront criticism and opposition not with anger and resentment, but rather with just the stoic willingness reserve to hold on to that belief that you're with us and God with you.

With us. There's no Goliath we can't overcome. And many of us are facing pressure these days, maybe for some of us in unprecedented ways. Give. Would you give us courage to stand?

Would you remind us that we're not alone, that you are with us and God here in this place, in this community, we gather together to encourage each other as we go out into the world, to stand as your people and shine light into the world? God, help us not to be conformed to the way of the world, but to be transformed by your life in us. Holy Spirit, would you help us? Would you meet us right where we are today. Help us take our next step in growing a bold heart.

For you and for the sake of Christ, we pray.