Like Goliath, he taunts the people of the living God and all those made in his image. “Who will come down and fight me?” he dares the trembling crowd watching from the hills. “I defy you. I defy your people. I defy your King.”

Church, look down at what’s in your hands.

Like young David, you are holding only a shepherd’s staff, a few stones, and a sling-shot. “Am I a dog, that you come to me with sticks?” Goliath sneers.

But, even as the giant looms larger and closer, do we have faith that the battle belongs to the living God, that he will prevail, and that he will not be mocked?

You have no protective armor, no tactical training, no special skills to commend you as a worthy warrior up to this task, and neither do I. You are not prepared for this.

But you have been given a staff, a few rocks, a seed of faith, and the spirit of a living God who is radically committed to defeating deep-seated evil. You have never been more prepared for this.

Church, look down at what’s in your hands.

What are you holding? Take heart in these ordinary things, unique to only you. For the living God has given them to you for this exact time. They are precisely what you need to stand firm and resist the kingdom of darkness in your own place. They are what is needed for God’s will to be done on earth today as it is in heaven always.

“You come to me with a sword, spear, javelin, and fear…” we can say with David directly to evil. “But I come to you in the name of the the living God, whom you have defied. He has already defeated you soundly, in Christ. He will give you into our hand.”

What is in your hands, saints?

It has been put there ‘so that all this assembly may know that there is a living God’ that saves the world – not with a sword or spear – but through the most unexpected and upside-down ways.

Peace to you as you use the small things already in your hands, and the faith that is rooted in your heart, to resist the darkness and strengthen the saints for service.

Kim