Through and in the Bible, God has related to mankind for generations. He’s spent time talking to man and putting things in their hearts, motivating and challenging them. Many of those men and women over the generations have responded in obedience and as a result of that, God has done some remarkable things with some basically unremarkable people.

            1 Samuel 17 talks about an old man in Israel at that time, his name was Jesse; he had eight sons. Three of them had joined the battle against the Philistines and another, a very young man by the name of David, was actually taking care of the sheep at home. One day Jesse went to David and asked him to visit his brothers and bring along some cheese and bread. He got there just in time to hear the battle cry sounded and he was excited; and so he left the stuff with the keeper and went over there where the Israelites were standing. He sees this giant of a man, shouting and boasting. David looked down at him and asked “Who’s he? Who is he that he should defy the armies of the living God?”

            Finally David walked in, stood before King Saul and said “King Saul, do not let anybody’s heart faint because of that man down there. I will go and fight him.” Something about David’s demeanor and heart would not be denied so Saul said “Go and may the Lord be with you. But you should put on my armor before you go. ”So David put on all the armor only to take it off. He went down and he chose five smooth stones and put them in his shepherd’s bag, took his staff and his shepherd’s rod and went to the edge of the hill and began to walk down. For forty days, no one had done that.

            So Goliath looked up at this boy that was coming at him and says, “Am I a dog that you would come at me with sticks? Come here, little one, and I will feed your flesh to the beasts of the field and the birds of the air.” David by this time had made it down to the valley, looked at Goliath and he said “You come to me with sword, and shield and javelin. But I come to you in the name of the Lord God Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel whom you have defied and this day the Lord will deliver you into my hand and I will give the dead bodies of the entire Philistine army to the birds of the air and to the beasts of the field, and then the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel. And all those gathered here will understand that the Lord does not save by sword or by spear, for the battle is the Lord’s and He will deliver you into my hand.”

            Goliath roused himself and walked towards David; David actually took a little stone, put it in his sling and ran toward the giant. While he was running, he let one of the stones go, it hit Goliath right in the head. David didn't have a sword as he forgot to bring one to the battle and so he had to go and get Goliath's sword and used it to behead him. It was a great victory that day as Israel came to understand where victory really comes from.

            In spite of that awesome and applause-inspiring job that David did that day, David was only an ordinary man. There was nothing outstanding about David, nothing that frightened Goliath on that day; just an ordinary man, but an ordinary man in the grip of an extraordinary God. He might be described as just a shepherd taking care of a flock of sheep, or maybe a musician but if we gather that image, we kind of miss the point. Because David actually says that one day he killed a bear and another day he killed a lion. It seems that being a shepherd back in those days involved, at least part of the time beating up ferocious animals to protect his flock.

            How many of us have found a way to make our lives remarkably comfortable? We've found a way to stay in control of our lives where showing up for work doesn't include fighting “ferocious animals” because we've made our lives so safe and comfortable. Imagine that you’re up on a balance beam and it's time for you to do the routine of your life. We see people doing their balance beam routine and they do that spinning, kicking, twisting stuff. Oftentimes we tell ourselves, “I don't want to take that kind of a risk because some of those people fell off when they tried those and some even got hurt. So I'm not going to do that, in fact, because I'm feeling kind of insecure standing here like this, I think what I'll do is just get down and wrap my legs around the beam and my arms like so. That's much safer!”

            Then the time comes when we appear before the Judge and we slip off our balance beam after our safe life, our predictable, comfortable life and realize for the first time that the Judge has been watching the whole thing. We don’t expect on that day that He will look at us and say “Well done” if all we’ve managed to do is keep ourselves safe and comfortable throughout the course of our life. The enemy is going to do what he can to prevent the work of our Lord from being done, to prevent us from being involved in what we’re supposed to be doing for Christ. We could have won the prize but we were unwilling to take the risk. Is that what you want?

            The apostle Paul likened the Christian life to a sporting event; one day he said walking with Christ and serving Him is very much like running a race. In a race, all the runners run. They start out the race as ordinary people who want to compete; all the runners run but only one receives the prize, and that’s when he writes the immortal words, “So, run to win.” Run to win the prize if you want a heavenly prize. If you want a heavenly prize, you have to run a heavenly race. What about the man or woman who does the routine on the balance beam that God assigns to them? Those people will almost certainly, at some time in their lives, fall off the balance beam just like David and other great men in the Bible did. They will almost certainly, at some time in their life get hurt because they’ve fallen off the beam. What will they learn from all of that?

            Noah’s going to say one day God came to him and asked him to build an ark which took him a hundred years, and he built it and because of his faith, mankind was saved from extinction. And looking over at David, he’s going to say one day he took on a giant and because of his faith and obedience, the whole world knew that there was a God in Israel. Abraham will say God told him to take his only son whom he loved and offer him up in the land of Moriah and when He obeyed (although God stopped Abraham before he killed his son), he had the privilege of becoming the father of faith to all mankind. And at the finish, every one of them will say “I was just an ordinary man in the grip of an extraordinary God.”

            So what does all this mean to you today? Do you want to live your life so predictably, so comfortably, so risk-free that all you’ll be able to say at the end of your routine is “I didn’t fall off the beam?” The church has places for you to be involved, D-Groups that need to be joined, D-Groups that need to be led, Sunday school classes that need to be taught. The vision of the church is “to see a movement of millions of committed followers of Jesus Christ meeting in small groups, transforming lives, families, communities, and nations for the glory of God.” But you have to make the decision that the ordinary, and normal, and usual, safe and comfortable and predictable life will just not be enough for you. Make the decision and make it today because you don’t know when your routine will come to an end.