COURAGE

Pastor Hope Flask

February 2, 2025

Main Scripture: 1 Samuel 17:32-50

Additional Scriptures: Hebrews 12:1-2 (NLT), Isaiah 41:10, Psalm 34:4, 23:4, Joshua 1:9, John 16:33, Isaiah 53 (MSG)

POINTS:

• Five Core Fears: extinction, mutilation, loss of autonomy, separation, & ego death.

• Fear Cycle: Fear - Avoidance - Short-term Relief - More Anxiety

• Shallow interpretation of this text: Goliath symbolizes our fears, while David serves as a model for confronting them.

• Goliath and David embody two distinct approaches to courage: counterfeit courage and true courage.

• Counterfeit Courage: choose to have high self-esteem, visualize success, banish all possibilities of failure, and then confront your fear using a burst of adrenaline.

• Problems with Counterfeit Courage include being out of touch with reality and having too much self-esteem to see the danger.

• We must see ourselves first as the frightened Israelites in this story.

• God gives frightened people a Champion.

• God saves His people through weakness.

• David didn’t just fight for his people; he fought as his people.

• True courage: Fix your eyes on Jesus, your Champion, who is with you, and know that joy is on the way.

• True courage is not the absence of fear but the presence of joy.