00:00:00.000 - 00:00:53.000

Let us continue in worship by giving attention to the reading of God's Word as it is recorded in the first book of Samuel, the 17th chapter. I begin the reading at the verse number 25. "And the men of Israel said, 'Have you seen this man who has come up? Surely he has come up to defy Israel, and the man who kills him the king will enrich with great riches, and he will give him his daughter and make his father's house free in Israel.' And David said to the men who stood by him, 'What shall be done for the man who kills this Philistine and takes away the reproach from the Lord? For who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God?'

00:00:53.000 - 00:01:28.000

And the people answered him in the same way, 'So shall it be done to the man who kills him.' Now Eliab, David's eldest brother, heard when he spoke to the men. And Eliab's anger was kindled against David, and he said, 'Why have you come down? And with whom have you left those few sheep in the wilderness? I know your presumption and the evil of your heart, for you have come down to see the battle.' And David said, 'What have I done now? Was it not but a word?' And he turned away from him toward another, and spoke in the same way, and the people answered him again as before.

00:01:28.000 - 00:02:18.000

When the words which David spoke were heard, they repeated them before Saul. And he sent for him, and David said to Saul, 'Let no man's heart fail because of him. Your servant will go out and fight with this Philistine.' And Saul said to David, 'You are not able to go against this Philistine, to fight with him, for you are but a youth, and he has been a man of war from his youth.' But David said to Saul, 'Your servant used to keep sheep for his father. And when there came a lion or a bear, and took a lamb from the flock, I went after him and smote him, and delivered it out of his mouth. And if he arose against me, I caught him by his beard and smote him and killed him. Your servant has killed both lions and bears, and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be like one of them, seeing he has defied the armies of the living God.'

00:02:18.000 - 00:02:51.000

And David said, 'The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.' And Saul said to David, 'Go, and the Lord be with you.' Then Saul clothed David with his armor. He put a helmet of bronze on his head and clothed him with a coat of mail. And David girded his sword over his armor, and he tried in vain to go, for he was not used to them. Then David said to Saul, 'I cannot go with these, for I am not used to them.' And David put them off.

00:02:51.000 - 00:03:17.000

Then he took his staff in his hand and chose five smooth stones from the brook, and put them in his shepherd's bag or wallet. His sling was in his hand, and he drew near to the Philistine. And the Philistine came on and drew near to David with his shield-bearer in front of him. And when the Philistine looked and saw David, he disdained him, for he was but a youth, gruddy and comely in appearance.

00:03:17.000 - 00:03:50.000

And the Philistine said to David, 'Am I a dog, that you come to me with sticks?' And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. The Philistine said to David, 'Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and to the beasts of the field.' Then David said to the Philistine, 'You come to me with a sword and with a spear and with a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you down and cut off your head.

00:03:50.000 - 00:04:26.000

And I will give the dead bodies of the host of the Philistines this day to the birds of the air and to the wild beasts of the earth. But all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, and that all this assembly may know that the Lord saves not with sword and spear, for the battle is the Lord's, and he will give you into our hand.' When the Philistine arose and came and drew near to meet David, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet the Philistine. And David put his hand in his bag and took out a stone and slung it and struck the Philistine on his forehead.

00:04:26.000 - 00:04:50.000

The stone sank into his forehead, and he fell on his face to the ground. So David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and with a stone and struck the Philistine and killed him. There was no sword in the hand of David. Then David ran and stood over the Philistine and took his sword and drew it out of its sheath and killed him and cut off his head with it.

00:04:50.000 - 00:05:10.000

When the Philistine saw that their champion was dead, they fled. And may God bless to us this reading from his word. Amen. Pray with me.

00:05:10.000 - 00:05:32.000

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, amen. I was standing beside her in line in the delicatessen. She had just bought a one-dollar lottery ticket. I asked her if she bought tickets often.

00:05:32.000 - 00:05:54.000

She said she bought one every day they were sold. I said, "That's a lot of money to throw away, isn't it? A dollar a day?" She said, "Well, one dollar is not much for 24 hours of hope." There is a lot of hopelessness in our time, a lot of pessimism. I'm sure you'll all agree.

00:05:54.000 - 00:06:32.000

There are many who look at the portraits of those who have come before us and see those individuals as strong and tall and resolved and powerful in character. And then they look at our own generation and think we look more like Woody Allen or Samuel Beckett. But as I survey the human scene, it seems to me that human capacity is no less today than it has been in any previous generation. It is still true that a grand vision mixed with a strong faith in God can accomplish remarkable things.

00:06:32.000 - 00:07:06.000

It is still true that audacity plus faith can work miracles. I call this mixture of audacity and faith "zunch." Now that word is not my own, and it does not come from the Bible as was suggested by our theologian in residence, Phil Ailey, this morning. Actually, the word was coined by Paul Taylor, who is the founder and the director of the Paul Taylor Dance Company.

00:07:06.000 - 00:07:40.000

In an article about him in Time magazine, he is quoted as saying to his dancers, "Zunch is opening up. Zunch is turning the burner on. Zunch is going beyond what you think you can do. Zunch is what makes a dancer out of a pedestrian." Well, I rather like that single onomatopoetic syllable, "zunch." It means to me that one is open to and ignited by the fires of God.

00:07:40.000 - 00:07:53.000

It is a mixture of courage and commitment. It is a blending of audacity and faith. Zunch. Now, David had zunch.

00:07:53.000 - 00:08:17.000

And in the experience of David with Goliath, we can see those elements which are most important if we are to develop zunch in our own lives. The first thing you have to have if you're going to know zunch is this. You have to be where the action is. Those are the beginning key words, to be there.

00:08:17.000 - 00:08:28.000

Two old men playing golf. One swung, missed the ball, made a divot. Swung again, missed the ball, made a bigger divot. Did what most golfers do under such an occasion.

00:08:28.000 - 00:08:46.000

Having made an error, he added to it by adding energy. Result, bigger divot. And at this point, two little ants stuck their heads up out of the ground and one said to the other, "If we want to get out of this place alive, we better get on the ball."

00:08:46.000 - 00:09:05.000

Being on the ball is being where the action is. You see, most people make the mistake of believing that motivation comes before action. Now, I'll admit that that sounds logical. We have to be motivated to do something before we do it.

00:09:05.000 - 00:09:31.000

But in actual fact, that reasoning is fallacious. In almost every instance in our experience, it is after we begin to act that we become fully motivated. Some action, no matter how small, begins to prime the pump of motivation. If you wait for a good mood to come to you to do something, chances are you'll never do it.

00:09:31.000 - 00:09:51.000

But if you begin doing the thing which is before you, you will often find coming into you after you have begun a strength and an urgency which leads you to complete the task. Haven't you ever faced the assignment of having to write something and you just don't feel like it and you really don't have anything to say

00:09:51.000 - 00:10:05.000

and the whole task seems odious to you, but you sit down and you start to write whatever comes into your mind, perhaps just words or random thoughts, and as you begin to write, you suddenly are taken over by motivation

00:10:05.000 - 00:10:22.000

and you produce the thing that you're seeking to produce. But you see, action came before motivation. In other words, you have to be there before something's going to happen. You can't beat Goliath if you don't meet Goliath.

00:10:22.000 - 00:10:37.000

David was not off in the hills taking care of the sheep. He was down where the battle was. His brothers were irritated because he was there and they rebuked him because he was there. But he nonetheless was at the scene.

00:10:37.000 - 00:10:57.000

I remember some years ago hearing Bob Richards speak. You remember he was the man who held the world record for the pole vault for some years. And in this speech he talked about meeting a young girl, rather plain young girl, dumpy in appearance, somewhat on the stout side,

00:10:57.000 - 00:11:13.000

and she informed him that she was going to be a great athlete. And he commented in his speech that the only sport at which he thought she might excel would be bobbing for apples. But this young girl was serious.

00:11:13.000 - 00:11:25.000

The sport she was interested in was tennis. And she made it a point to be regularly on the courts. She read about tennis. She thought about tennis. She went and took tennis lessons. She played tennis.

00:11:25.000 - 00:11:40.000

At every opportunity she was there. And we know her today as Billie Jean King, one of the great women tennis players of all time. In that same speech Bob Richards talked about a boy from Southern California

00:11:40.000 - 00:11:54.000

who lived and breathed swimming. He was always there, always at the pool, always beside the pool, always talking about swimming, always learning about swimming, involving himself at every level in swimming.

00:11:54.000 - 00:12:10.000

And that young man turned out to be Mark Spitz, who brought back seven gold medals from the Olympics. Now the same characteristic is present in Billie Jean King and Mark Spitz and in David. They are where the action is.

00:12:10.000 - 00:12:26.000

And unless you're there, you're not going to be able to move on to have zunch. To put it as I put it a moment ago, you can't beat Goliath if you're not going to meet Goliath. First principle then, be there.

00:12:26.000 - 00:12:41.000

The second principle is to stay there. And by that I mean scorn negative counsel. Notice that David's brother said you shouldn't be here, you should be at home. Now it may have been because he was pesky

00:12:41.000 - 00:12:53.000

or it may have been because they feared for his safety, we do not know. But in any case they said you shouldn't be here and when they took David to meet King Saul, Saul said you're much too young and much too inexperienced to be here,

00:12:53.000 - 00:13:06.000

you ought to go home. Now that's very heavy negative counsel. David was hearing from his brothers whom he loved and from his king who he respected.

00:13:06.000 - 00:13:29.000

And both of these were saying to him you ought not to be here, that's negative counsel. Goliath is too much for you, get away. But David stayed. And the reason he stayed was because he had a strong sense of his own self-worth.

00:13:29.000 - 00:13:47.000

Now your sense of your self-worth depends entirely upon yourself. Let me say something to you which may sound rather astonishing, but which I mean in the most literal sense. Nothing that is ever said to you has given you any discomfort.

00:13:47.000 - 00:14:09.000

Nothing that has ever been said to you has given you any discomfort. "Oh, you say to me, why many people have said things to me which made me very uncomfortable." No, their words did not make you uncomfortable. You made yourself uncomfortable by the way in which you responded to their words.

00:14:09.000 - 00:14:23.000

When someone comes to you and makes some critical remarks or tells you to head for the hills or pack it in or get away, there's only two possibilities. Either they're wrong in what they're saying or they're right in what they're saying.

00:14:23.000 - 00:14:47.000

Now if they're wrong, you can ignore their counsel altogether. If they're right, you still have the option of deciding whether you will follow that counsel or not. In other words, the words are not so important, but how you respond to the words is. Now David had a strong view of himself.

00:14:47.000 - 00:14:59.000

And so when told to scram, he refused to move. He stayed there. Let me hold before you the examples of two men. The first man's name was Reeves.

00:14:59.000 - 00:15:21.000

The second man's name was DeForest. Now George Reeves played the part of Superman on television. You remember, those of you who are old enough, that Superman was one of the earliest regular television shows. And he is the man who played the part of Superman, faster than a speeding bullet.

00:15:21.000 - 00:15:42.000

But eventually the show lost popularity and was canceled. And George Reeves went about trying to find some other part and was consistently turned down. His manager said to him, "You're never going to be able to get another acting job. You are so identified with that role that you will never be called upon for any other."

00:15:42.000 - 00:16:00.000

That's very negative counsel. But George Reeves accepted it. And one day he stepped into a telephone booth in Southern California. And after writing in trembling hand a farewell note, he put a pistol to his head and ended his life.

00:16:00.000 - 00:16:17.000

The man from Krypton, who was to be faster than a bullet, died from a suicide bullet. That's George Reeves. Now the other man's name was DeForest. He was the son of a rather affluent New York family.

00:16:17.000 - 00:16:33.000

He was supposed to go to Yale University, but his grades were not good enough to get in. He tried to make it in the Navy, but failed. He was thrown into the brig there. He was in the brig. He was in a fight one night, and he got hit in the mouth, and it permanently affected his lip

00:16:33.000 - 00:16:51.000

so that he had a mild but noticeable lisp from that time on. When he got out of the Navy, he went to work for Nabisco, and that didn't work. And then he tried to be a tugboat inspector, and he failed at that also. He decided that he would try acting, and he did rather well at it.

00:16:51.000 - 00:17:10.000

He eventually made his way to Hollywood, and he was offered a part in a very, very low-class picture called The Return of Dr. X, one of these vampire horror story movies. And all of his friends said to him, "Now look, don't get in that movie. It's a very poor movie, and if you get into that kind of a film, you'll be stuck there.

00:17:10.000 - 00:17:25.000

You'll never be able to get out of it." But DeForest had a strong view of his own capacities and of his own worth, so he did the film, and he did it rather well. He had a rather sallow complexion and sunken cheeks, so he fit the role,

00:17:25.000 - 00:17:45.000

and completed the movie, and from that time on, went on to do a lot of other B and C and D movies. His friends told him again and again, "Don't do that kind of film. You'll never be able to get out of that rut." But he, out of his own understanding of himself, persisted, and eventually,

00:17:45.000 - 00:18:02.000

better parts started to come along. So that today, we don't remember him as some vampire coming out of a cemetery, but rather as one who owned a nightclub in Casablanca. We don't think of him as a vampire.

00:18:02.000 - 00:18:19.000

We think of him as a detective chasing a Maltese falcon. His name, of course, was Humphrey DeForest Bogart. Two actors. One heard negative counsel and accepted it, and died in a phone booth.

00:18:19.000 - 00:18:32.000

The other heard negative counsel, but because he had some confidence in himself, persisted in what he was doing. Folks will tell you to quit. Folks will tell you to pack it in. Folks will tell you that you can't make it.

00:18:32.000 - 00:18:53.000

Folks will tell you that Goliath is too big for you. But remember, whether you respond to them or not is always your choice. And if you want to defeat Goliath, if you want to have Zunch, first you have to be there, and then you have to stay there.

00:18:53.000 - 00:19:12.000

Now, the third principle in Zunch is to perform there. And by this I mean, use the talents and the skills which God has given to you. Make the most of what you've got. You remember how in the story, Saul tried to get David to wear his armor.

00:19:12.000 - 00:19:28.000

Gave him his bronze helmet and his sword and his coat of mail. And David tried to move around in these things, and they were much too big for him. They were not his. And so he laid them aside. He said, "I'm going to rely on my own skills."

00:19:28.000 - 00:19:47.000

Now, I don't know if you know much about slings and stones as they're used in the Middle East. A sling stone weighs about a pound and a half. It's about that big. They're smoothed so that they have more accuracy. I've seen Arab young men hit their targets again and again and again,

00:19:47.000 - 00:20:05.000

over and over and over with these slings. It's not this kind of a slingshot. It's this kind of a slingshot. And when that stone, which is about the size of a baseball and weighs a pound and a half, comes out of that sling, it's going at about 90 miles an hour.

00:20:05.000 - 00:20:26.000

And when you get hit in the forehead by a rock that weighs a pound and a half that's going 90 miles an hour, it gets your attention. It was really a very, very deadly weapon. And so David, knowing how to use that weapon, decided to focus on his own talents and his own abilities and his own skills.

00:20:26.000 - 00:20:43.000

So he goes out. He picks up some smooth stones from the brook Elah. I've been to that brook and it's covered with smooth stones. The waters, you see, have eroded the stones. All the sharp edges are gone. Perfect sling stones. And he picks five of them up and he goes out onto the field of battle.

00:20:43.000 - 00:21:09.000

Now here's Goliath, big, heavily armored, powerful, but moving very slowly. The idea, of course, is that he expects to face someone who's armored just as he is, who's slow just as he is. And relying on his own size and strength, he expects to defeat whoever will come out. But David is light and quick.

00:21:09.000 - 00:21:33.000

He wears only the shepherd's tunic and the sling. You have a picture here of Goliath moving like some doomed dinosaur, some mighty triceratops. And over against him, David, who leaps from stone to stone, who keeps Goliath off balance, who dodges one way and another, and as he moves closer, moving around, I suppose, until he got Goliath's eyes into the sun.

00:21:33.000 - 00:21:52.000

Then when he gets to that position, he reaches into his shepherd's wallet and he pulls out a stone and he begins the gyrations of that sling and it takes a while to get up full speed. And all the time he had to be moving. This isn't easy. This is a skill. This is an art. But eventually, Goliath is where he wants him and the swing is going as it is to be going.

00:21:52.000 - 00:22:14.000

And with that, he lets go of the stone and zunch. Goliath falls. What happened? David used his own skills and talents. He performed there. Remarkable things happen when you do that. Do you know, for example, about Dr. Evan O'Neill Cain?

00:22:14.000 - 00:22:38.000

Evan O'Neill Cain was chief of surgery at Summit Hospital in New York City. This happened when he was 60 years old. He'd been a practicing surgeon for 37 years. He was engaged in an argument with the medical community of the day. He believed that you could do major surgery using only local anesthesia.

00:22:38.000 - 00:22:59.000

And that would have been a great advantage, you see, because some people are allergic to anesthesia and it would be less stress on the heart of the patient and great doses of anesthesia often have adverse effect on the kidneys. But the general medical community opposed Evan Cain's ideas.

00:22:59.000 - 00:23:17.000

They were afraid that the patient would be too fearful being awake during the process of the surgery and they were also afraid that the anesthesia might wear off during the course of the operation. Well, the argument went on for some time and it became clear that the only way in which the case would be proved

00:23:17.000 - 00:23:38.000

would be if someone volunteered to have major surgery with only local anesthesia. And eventually a volunteer was found. A man who needed an appendectomy. Now at that time, Evan O'Neill Cain had performed more than 4,000 appendectomies.

00:23:38.000 - 00:24:08.000

But on February the 15th, 1921, he went in to do an appendectomy different from any one he'd ever done before. The patient was wheeled in and given only a local anesthesia. And then the doctor made the incision, clamping off the blood vessels as he entered, found the appendix, lifted it up, excised it, sewed it off, bent the breast down inside,

00:24:08.000 - 00:24:28.000

and made his retreat from the wound, sewing as he went. The operation was a success with only some minor discomfort for the patient. A few days later, on February the 17th, 1921, the patient was released from the hospital to complete his recuperation at home.

00:24:28.000 - 00:24:47.000

Now the interesting thing about the story is this. I've told you the name of the doctor, Evan O'Neill Cain. But I haven't told you the name of the patient. And what's remarkable about the story is that the doctor and the patient had so much in common.

00:24:47.000 - 00:25:06.000

They were, in fact, the same man. Evan O'Neill Cain took out his own appendix using local anesthesia. That's zunch. That's the courage to go ahead and confidence in the skills which are yours.

00:25:06.000 - 00:25:21.000

You've got to be there, you've got to stay there, and you've got to perform there. Use what God has given you. And there's just one last principle. You've got to praise God there.

00:25:21.000 - 00:25:35.000

Notice how again and again in the story, David praises God. You know, we hear that phrase, "Praise the Lord," so often today. I was in a meeting two weeks ago, and I heard that phrase 11 times, "Praise the Lord, praise the Lord." And that's altogether right and good.

00:25:35.000 - 00:25:52.000

Both the Old Testament and the New Testament call us to be praising God with our tongues, with our words in song and acts of worship. But the Scriptures also make it clear that the noblest praise of God is not mere words or not acts of devotional ritual.

00:25:52.000 - 00:26:14.000

The most meaningful acts of praise are when one offers one's whole life as an act of devotion to God. Paul says, "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service or your reasonable praise."

00:26:14.000 - 00:26:28.000

And that's what David is doing, you see. He's offering his whole self as an act of praise. He says at one point in the story, "Goliath, you have come out not against men, you have come out against God.

00:26:28.000 - 00:26:45.000

Goliath, I'm going to succeed over you because of the strength of my God. Goliath, the Lord is going to deliver you into my hands." To David, the whole act, you see, was an act of praise. He was opening the burners.

00:26:45.000 - 00:27:06.000

He was turning up his full capacity and he was doing it to defend the honor and glory of God and that's an act of praise. Whenever you do that, whenever you blend audacity and faith to the glory of God, the results will be magnificent.

00:27:06.000 - 00:27:26.000

Aubrey Schultz was a young man who played football for Baylor University. At that time the coach was Grant Teef. And Coach Teef used to have every one of his players come in to meet with him privately before the season began and to announce to the coach what his goals for the coming season were.

00:27:26.000 - 00:27:43.000

And Aubrey Schultz came in and he said he had six goals. First, he said, "I love the Lord because of Jesus Christ and I want to glorify God in everything I do." Now notice, that was first. Second, he said, "I want to be graduated at the end of this school year."

00:27:43.000 - 00:28:00.000

Third, "I want to get married to the girl I love next summer." Fourth, "I want to be all-conference center." That was a pretty amazing thing because at that time he only weighed 210 pounds and he was playing second team offensive guard.

00:28:00.000 - 00:28:22.000

But he wanted to be all-conference center. And incidentally, Baylor had not won a single conference game the season before. His fifth wish was, his fifth goal was, that he would be elected an All-American. And his sixth goal was that Baylor would win the Southwest Conference Championship,

00:28:22.000 - 00:28:52.000

which it had not done for 50 consecutive seasons. But notice, please, that every one of these goals was subordinate to, came after, submitted to the primary goal, which was to honor God through Jesus Christ in everything that he did. And Aubrey Schultz went to work, and living his faith, and using his skills,

00:28:52.000 - 00:29:10.000

and staying there, and performing there, and being there, he met every single one of them. He was elected to the All-American first team. Baylor won the conference championship. All of it, everything happened.

00:29:10.000 - 00:29:26.000

That is Zanch. Let me share with you four sentences, and then I'm done. And these four sentences, I think, sum the whole matter. And if only we as Christians would learn these sentences, our whole impact on the world would be changed.

00:29:26.000 - 00:29:54.000

The four sentences are these. You will get nothing out of life unless you go after it. Second sentence, you may have as much out of life as you are willing to trust God for. Third sentence, you will have as little out of life as you are satisfied with.

00:29:54.000 - 00:30:19.000

And the fourth sentence, you right now have exactly as much out of life as you really want. Get in the game. Stay in the game. Perform in the game. And do it all to the glory of God. That's Zanch.

00:30:19.000 - 00:30:44.000

When you do that, you don't march through life. You dance through it. And Goliaths cannot stand against you. Let us pray. [Silence]