Goliath Must Fall: Winning the Battle Against Your Giants

by Louie Giglio

We’re facing some sort of insurmountable challenge or problem that rips into our lives. Maybe it’s fear. Maybe it’s an addiction. Maybe it’s anger. Maybe it’s the feeling of rejection, a feeling that permeates so many areas of life. Maybe it’s the sneaky giant of complacency.

Have you ever felt like King Saul and the Israelite army did? Some kind of giant stands before you, taunting you, harassing you, insulting you. Day after day this giant robs you of your power. You’ve tried any number of approaches to stop the taunts, but you feel immobilized. Held back. Slowed or stopped from moving forward in a healthy way. Ultimately, you know you’re not living the kind of life you want to live.

Goliath must fall.

Wanting to steer toward great outcomes is noble. But trying to control the world is disastrous. In time, controllers crack under the reality that none of us are in control.

Jesus didn’t come to earth to die on the cross and be resurrected from the grave so we could settle for a reduced amount of God’s best. Jesus intended for us to “really live” (1 Thessalonians 3:8). And that means we can live freely in the power of what he has accomplished for us. It starts with seeing and believing that whatever giant we’re battling might be big—but it’s not bigger than Jesus. Nine feet tall is nothing to him. And he intends to set you free.

Whatever giant we’re battling might be big—but it’s not bigger than Jesus.

David had survived many harrowing, life-threatening battles. He knew these victories happened thanks to the power of God.

God doesn’t want us to be demoralized if we face more than one giant that needs to be taken down. He’s able to take them all. And we’ll soon see he already has.

If some form of bondage is in our lives, if some attitude seemingly can’t be shaken, if some character flaw apparently can’t be overcome, if some thought darkens our mind, if some problem has sunk its teeth into our life and we can’t shake it as we move through our day, then take heart, because none of these giants are a match for Jesus. All these giants can—and will—fall.

The message of this book is that God extends his grace and favor toward us to allow us to experience his supernatural power. It’s about us agreeing with him and letting his Holy Spirit work in our lives to put us on right paths, right ways of thinking and living.

Jesus is David in the story of David and Goliath. Jesus is the giant killer. Does that fact not wake us all up? Hello? We are not David. You are not David. I am not David. Jesus is David! Jesus fights the battles for us. Jesus stares down the face of impossible odds. Jesus takes up his sling. Jesus selects five

smooth stones. Jesus takes aim at the giant. The giant falls because of the work of Jesus.

God wanted victory to come simply because one young man trusted in him.

Worship is simply a shift of attention that allows us to see God better. Worship is like corrective lenses for our souls, bringing God clearer into view. That’s important for all of us, especially when life goes off the rails. Worship puts God in focus. When the Almighty is in view, our giant’s power over our thinking begins to flicker and fade.

He is the all-sufficient source for all we need, available every step of the journey and in every hour of our battle.

One: Satan was defeated on the cross. Jesus has won the victory. End of story. And two: the snake still wriggles. The snake still has venom. It’s a now-and-not-yet reality.

Paul says in Romans 6:9, “For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him.” Jesus can’t die again! That’s actually a very good thing, and we need to immerse ourselves in that awesome reality. Jesus died one time—for all time. Jesus never needs to go to another cross. Period.

Satan’s power was broken on the cross.

It was forged in the fires of his holiness. It was handed to us by the power of his Spirit. It’s available for us to wear anytime we wish. All that’s required of us is to put it on.

One big problem we often have as followers of Jesus is that we want to function as if life all depends on us.

If we truly want to change, then we need to understand our dependency on the all-sufficiency of Jesus Christ. Our change is more about trusting and less about trying.

Christ always does the real work.

Just imagine if Bill Gates walked up to you one day and handed you a check for a billion dollars. You could do a ton of noble things with that amount of money. Not to mention buy a condo tower for you, your family, and your friends to live in. But what if you just let that check ride around in your pocket for the rest of your years? Would you still have the benefit of that gift? Theoretically, you’d be rich. But practically, you’d be a billion dollars poorer. When we follow Jesus, he hands us unlimited riches, but we need to cash the check too.

“His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness” (2 Peter 1:3).

See, whenever a problem is concealed, it finds power in the darkness. But when a problem is confessed, it loses that power. Confession brings the light of Christ to shine upon that problem.

Your giant might not disappear in an instant. But you have the name, and the power, and the authority of the blood of the risen Lord Jesus Christ. You have the power of the cross, the power of Jesus’ resurrection.

fear grips us whenever we believe that apart from, or in spite of, our best efforts, something undesirable is going to happen and we can’t stop it. Sometimes fear is irrational, and sometimes it’s rational. But no matter what kind of fear it is, it always affects us.

Fear is a big deal in the story of us and God. In Scripture, the commandment repeated the most is the commandment to fear not. Someone added these up, and apparently there are 366 “fear nots” in the Bible—one “fear not” for every day of the year—including Leap Year.

All through scripture God tells us to Fear Not. That can be harder for us to say based on the issue and on who we are. But not for God. As he is bigger and stronger than anything or situation we face. He can truly say-FEAR NOT.

Fear is a giant. One of the most common giants that must fall.

Fear can demoralize us and ultimately diminish God’s glory in our lives.

But the way we reflect God’s glory gets diminished. The way we show the world who God is and the way we show ourselves who God is—that’s what is lessened.

There is no stronger witness that God has us than for others to see our strength, God given, during tough and challenging situations. It is a testament that WE believe that God is who we say and have been saying HE IS!

Sometimes fear is flat-out terror. It’s shake-in-your-boots fright.

fear can taunt us, but it doesn’t have the ultimate power.

Jesus has the ultimate power.

But the giant of fear is already dead.

faith is the antidote to fear.

The opposite of fear is faith. And faith begins by us saying, “I have confidence in God that he is bigger than this giant.”

Any time we conceal something major under the hood of our lives, fear is allowed to flourish.

Some people want to control everything. The outcome of circumstances, the outcome of conversations, the outcome of other people’s lives. They soon realize that much of life can’t be controlled—particularly how other people act. So fear, stress, worry, and anxiety are born.

The antidote to fear is faith, and the soundtrack of faith is worship.

Let’s go back a little and look at 1 Samuel 17:4. It says, “A champion named Goliath, who was from Gath, came out of the Philistine camp.” Stop right there, because there’s something important in that phrase. The word champion means that Goliath had a record. He had a history, and that’s significant because a lot of us have history with our giants. These giants didn’t just show up this morning.

Giants are relentless. They don’t take days off.

What’s the solution? The solution is not more determination. The solution is faith.

A storm is a multisensory experience, similar to how the giant of fear can attack us. We feel fear in the pit of our stomach, in the clamminess of our hands. We hear fear in the negative self-talk we use. We see fear as a situation plays out either in our minds or in front of our eyes.

But there is good news. As soon as Peter said, “Lord, save me,” immediately Jesus grabbed him. There was no hesitation. No delay. It says “immediately.” Jesus was closer to Peter than he thought.

Jesus can be with us immediately when we have a need. So many times however, we never asked or we never called out and we try to get through it alone. We just need to remember that all we have to do is ask and he will immediately be there.

The storm didn’t stop immediately—that happened after Peter and Jesus reached the boat. No, the storm was still raging when Jesus caught Peter. On the way to the boat, I think Jesus probably said to Peter—just like Jesus says to us, “It’s okay. I’ve got you—even in the midst of this storm. You have nothing to fear.”

God reminds us again and again that he always has a plan. He’s bigger than anything the world can throw at us. We might grow afraid. We might start wondering if a problem will ever be solved, or we might become fearful because we don’t know the outcome. But God reminds us that he is God and there is no other God besides him.

Psalm 16:8. David said, “I have set the LORD always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken” (ESV).

We don’t minimize the situation; we maximize our view of the only One we can totally trust.

We don’t simply deny the problem we are threatened by; we relocate it to the hands of the only One who can manage it well. And we leave it there as we close our eyes to sleep.