by As I was studying David and the battle of Goliath, it occurred to me that David had many, wonderful character traits. While I was compiling a few of his character traits, I realized that I could make them all begin with the letter “R.” Now, I’m going to date myself some. I remembered the 3 R’s as a child in school “Reading, Writing, (A)rithmetic.” However, now we have a Biblical 3 R’s “Responsible, Respectful and Reliance.” Below we will study how these character traits helped to make David a strong person to be used mightily by God.
- Responsible
Webster’s 1828 defines responsible as: “Liable to account; accountable; answerable; able to discharge an obligation”
As I am aging – to me – there seems to be less and less people taking responsibility for their actions. Too many people are blaming others, their bosses, their co-workers, the government, and many others and making excuses for failures in their lives. However, this was not the case for David. As a shepherd boy, he was responsible for his sheep and when he left to take food to his brothers, he made sure the sheep were cared for.
I Samuel 17:20 “And David rose up early in the morning, and left the sheep with a keeper…”
Even after David sinned with Bathsheba, he admitted his sin to Nathan. He took responsibility for his sin.
II Samuel 12:13 “And David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord…”
Nowhere in the Bible, will anyone find God excusing someone else’s sin because they pointed a finger at someone else and said, “They made me do it.” Through David, we can learn to become responsible for our own sins and actions.
- Respectful (respect)
Webster’s 1828 defines respect as: “To regard, to have regard to, to view or consider with some degree of reverence; to esteem as possessed of real worth.
Again, as I am aging – to me – there seems to be less and less of the younger generation showing respect for authority. Children race past adults and almost knock people over, no one holds a door for anyone anymore, and people don’t seem respectful for any positions of authority. I remember when people were respectful of authority regardless as to who was in those positions.
My daughter worked her first job this past summer and she would call her boss “Mr.” as a sign of respect. He was not use to this since it seemed to be a thing of the past. She kept doing it though because he deserved the respect for the position he held at the company.
When David came to his brothers, he had respect for them in their position of battle. He followed the instructions of his father to deliver food to his brothers in battle. When he got to them, he did not just walk up and say, “Hey Brō, how ya doing?” Out of respect, he saluted his brothers.
I Samuel 17:22 “And David left his carriage in the hand of the keeper of the carriage, and ran into the army, and came and saluted his brethren.”
Christians need to show respect for people in certain positions in life. When the world is lacking respect for one another, this is an area that Christians should step up to the plate and respect their bosses, their elders, their preacher, etc. A Christian should never say things like, “Hey Brō, how ya doing?” Plenty of people have excuses for why they think they should not respect people in certain positions. However, according to the Bible, we need to respect people whether we want to or not just because God’s Word teaches us to respect others.
For example, if the Queen of England promenaded through your door, you would not say, “Hey Liz, how ya doing?” People would not even address her by her first name. I’m not sure of the exact protocols for addressing the Queen, but you better believe that you would know it ahead of time; and when her presence graced your door, you would be expected to do the protocols properly and to the “T.”
We can learn a lot from David in his respect for his brothers and others in his life. Even when David had the opportunity to kill Saul, he only cut off Saul’s robe. David felt horrible about that because he acknowledged that Saul was the Lord’s anointed man, even though Saul was seeking to kill David.
I Samuel 24:5-6 “And it came to pass afterward, that David’s heart smote him, because he had cut off Saul’s skirt. 6 And he said unto his men, The Lord forbid that I should do this thing unto my master, the Lord’s anointed, to stretch forth mine hand against him, seeing he is the anointed of the Lord.”
- Reliance
Webster’s 1828 defines reliance as: “Rest or repose of mind, resulting from a full belief of the veracity or integrity of a person, or of the certainty of a fact; trust; confidence; dependence.”
David had full reliance in his God to help him defeat the mighty Giant.
I Samuel 17:37 “David said moreover, The Lord that delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine…”
Notice, David did not say, “If God will, he can deliver me.” Or “I’ll try to fight Goliath; but if God allows me to die, Oh well.” David said, “he will deliver me.”
This seems to be a tough area for most Christians I know, including myself – to have full reliance in our Lord. Our faith wavers way too much. We pray and walk away from our prayers thinking, “Well, that probably won’t happen, but I prayed anyway.” Or, we just pray those blanket prayers, “God’s will be done.”
There have been numerous times, I’ve seen other Christians really “get a hold” of God and move mountains in their life. They truly had the “faith as a grain of mustard seed.” They had full reliance in their Lord to answer their prayer as they prayed their specific prayer.
Matthew 17:20 “…If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.”
Have you ever seen mustard seed? I have and it is incredibly tiny. (see photo). I think God used the mustard seed as an example to show us that we do not need much faith. We only need a little, but that little has to have a full reliance in God as David had to defeat the mighty Goliath.
For people reading this, there should be times in your life when you should be able to say, “God certainly answered that prayer exactly as I prayed.” I have had many times like that (Praise the Lord) and it is so amazing to genuinely see the power of God in action as he speaks about in His Word. If you have not, then use this as an encouragement to have full reliance in God and have faith the size of a mustard seed and see what mountains in your life God “will deliver” you from.
Quick summary. The 3 R’s for the Christian life:
- Responsible
- Respectful
- Reliance
Apply these 3 R’s to your life today to become a better Christian for your Lord.
