August 7, 2025 • 55 mins
Have you ever confidently thought "I've got this" only to discover you're completely out of your depth? When the bike chain falls off, the GPS would've been better, or your strength simply fails you - these moments of humility reveal a profound spiritual truth.
Looking at the infamous story of Samson from the book of Judges, we discover a biblical superhero who possessed extraordinary physical strength but catastrophic character weaknesses. Despite being miraculously conceived and set apart for God's purpose, Samson repeatedly chose his own desires over divine direction. His life follows the tragic cycle we see throughout Judges: idolatry leads to oppression, which eventually leads to crying out for deliverance.
What makes Samson's story so compelling is how it foreshadows Jesus in reverse - everywhere Samson failed, Jesus fulfilled perfectly. Where Samson used riddles to deceive, Jesus used parables to teach. Where Samson pursued relationships for self-gratification, Jesus sacrificed himself for his bride. Where Samson used God's power for personal pleasure, Jesus channeled divine strength for others' salvation. Both were ultimately humiliated and killed, but with profoundly different attitudes and outcomes.
The message rings clear: our human strength will always fall short, but Jesus stands strong. This isn't about mustering more personal willpower or developing greater self-confidence. It's about recognizing that the foundation matters more than the feeling. As the sermon illustrates, a person with enormous confidence standing on thin ice faces certain disaster, while someone with tentative faith standing on solid ground remains secure.
Are you trying to navigate life's challenges through your own limited strength? Take the leap of faith to build your life on the only foundation that never crumbles. Because when your strength inevitably falls short, Jesus never will.
Thanks for listening! Find us on Instagram or visit our Website.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Yeah, it's been such an awesome summer, man.
It's been such a sweet summer.
We've been able to have kidscamp or kids week and summer
camp for the students, our youngadult gatherings, our
basketball camps.
I mean, it's been one thingafter the other and I'm so
thankful that I get to servealongside all of you.
As you can see, I'm not PastorChip this morning.
(00:21):
Pastor Chip is having a muchneeded vacation with his family,
but he's actually here thismorning.
So if you wanna go bug him, youcan go bug him after the
service.
But if you wanna hear some goodpreaching, you got one to two
options.
One you can come back next weekwhen Pastor Chip is preaching.
Get some good preaching nextweek.
Or the other thing you can dois you can come tonight to our
young adult gathering.
(00:42):
If you're a young adult 18 to35, and you're looking for
community, you're looking for aplace to belong.
We would love for you to bewith us here tonight in this
exact room, from six to 7.30.
We're gonna have free dinner.
We're gonna get to hear a greatword from Pastor Chip tonight
as he talks about really whatGod is doing in the next
generation of our young adults,the revival that we've seen
(01:02):
sweep across campuses in thecountry and really the world
just to see what God is doing.
And so I'm excited because thismorning we get to talk about
one of my favorite stories inscripture, probably one of the
most infamous people in all ofscripture, and that is Samson.
And so the title of the sermonthis morning is when excuse me,
(01:23):
it's not up there, it's up onthe screen.
It says when your strengthfalls short, how many of you
have ever thought, oh, I gotthis, I got this, like I don't
need any extra help, I got it.
I feel that way whenever Idon't use a GPS and my wife can
attest to this, the amount oftimes she has told me, christian
(01:44):
, just use the GPS, we will getthere on time and I say no, no,
no, I got this.
My famous last words before 15minutes late, I got this.
That's often how I feel is Ifeel like I got it.
I feel like, oh, I've beenthere once, or I kind of know in
general where it's at, and so Iend up getting us there.
I would say most of the time ontime, but maybe not all the
(02:07):
time on time, and so, in mystrength, I feel like I got this
.
Another story that I can kindof share this morning is the
story of just a few weeks ago.
Actually I was.
I decided to go on my nextathletic adventure, right, this
is what happens whenever youdon't play organized sports
anymore.
You just kind of live yourmidlife crisis all throughout
(02:27):
your life.
You just got to find a newhobby all the time.
And so in January I decided I'mgoing to sign up for a half
marathon.
I always hated running.
I didn't like it.
My mom was a marathon runner.
Football it was always apunishment, right.
If you know, if you playfootball, if you played any
organized sports, you know yourfirst line of punishment is
(02:49):
always running.
And so I decided I'm going todo something that I don't enjoy
to make myself enjoy it.
So I ran a half marathon in May.
I actually did enjoy it.
But I thought, naturally thenext thing after 13.1 miles is
to start training for a halfIronman.
Right, just go ahead and justtack on 56 miles on a bike and a
mile swim, and just go aheadand take that big leap, right.
Well, here's where I washumbled.
About a week ago, I got on theSilver Comet.
(03:10):
Most of you kind of know wherethat's?
At the Silver Comet.
I got out there to get my bikethat I bought on Marketplace.
I did some research.
I thought, oh, this is a goodbike.
I got a good deal.
But I triathlon bike beforePeople.
There's a difference betweenlike a regular, like ching ching
bike, you know little tassels.
There's a difference betweenthat bike and like a triathlon
bike.
The things weigh like an ounce.
(03:35):
The tires are paper thin.
I'm a big, bigger dude, right.
So the tiny frame of the bike,when I got on it I was starting
to wobble like crazy.
It was very, very humbling.
But I thought you know what?
I'm going to start slow.
I got this.
I got this.
I didn't even make it to thetrail church.
I didn't even make it on thesilver comet.
I got out there the chain felloff.
I thought, okay, well, I'vefixed the bike chain before.
So I get down and I start to dothe chain and try to pop it
(03:57):
back in place.
Well, then it falls off.
On another part of the bikeI've got grease all over my hand
.
There's grease all over myshirt.
There's grease everywhere.
It's a hundred degrees.
I'm sweating.
I'm really angry, I'm reallyupset, and it was in that moment
that I realized I don't gotthis.
And so I call Laura and I'mlike, hey, babe, I'm frustrated,
I'm headed home.
She's like how was your ride?
(04:17):
I don't want to talk about itand I just decided to go home
and go for a run and use my legsbecause those are a lot easier
than the bike.
But that's also my hey.
If any of you know how to ridea bike, please teach me, because
I need to know how to ride abike in order to even be able to
do this thing.
So when life humbles you, it'ssometimes hard but it's
necessary.
And this morning that we'regonna see in the book of Judges,
(04:39):
we're gonna look at the life ofSamson.
Samson was probably the mostfamous judge, but definitely the
worst judge by far.
I mean, if you look throughverses excuse me, chapters 13,
14, 15, 16, the guy doesn't doone thing right.
He's an awful person, he's aterrible judge, he doesn't do
(05:00):
anything for the people.
But we're gonna see in his lastmoments is what mattered the
most for his life and for ourlife and for the faith of us.
And so we're gonna see in allof this really the repeated
cycle that we've been seeing inthe book of Judges we're gonna
see in the life of Samson.
The first thing that kind ofhappens that we see is God's
people forget God.
We see this in the book ofJudges.
(05:22):
The next thing that happens inthe book of Judges, in this unit
that we're looking at thismorning, is that's really
finicky.
There we go, there we go, boom.
God lets them face theconsequences.
Right.
And so not only do they have togo in, they're delivered over
into their actions, they facethe consequences of those
actions, and the next thing wesee is that God raises up a
judge to rescue them over andover and over again.
(05:44):
And we have a good visual ofreally what this judge's cycle
kind of looks like is that itstarts out with idolatry.
It starts out with there'ssomething that I want, there's
something that in my heart thatI say I got this, I want it, I
gotta have it.
And so idolatry to Samson washis own strength, it was his
ways, it was his pleasure.
Idolatry may not be yourstrength.
Idolatry to Samson was his ownstrength, it was his ways, it
(06:05):
was his pleasure.
Idolatry may not be yourstrength, idolatry may not be
the certain pleasures thatSamson shared, but your idolatry
.
May be your phone, it may beyour free time, it may be just
you in general, it may beanother organized religion or
belief system, but we know ifit's not Jesus it's always gonna
(06:26):
lead to oppression.
We see this in the book ofJudges that it always led to
oppression.
There was never once where theIsraelites did what was evil in
the sight of the Lord and it ledto freedom.
Church sin will never lead youto freedom, ever.
And then we see that in this,in the oppression, in the
enslavement, in the sin, it isnatural for us to cry out to God
(06:48):
because we realize we don't gotit and in that God is good to
deliver, that God is good tofree us.
You see, samson is probablyagain the most famous judge, but
the worst.
And we see in his story in thebook of Judges, in Judges
chapter 13, we're introduced tonot even just Samson first, but
his parents.
It says and the people ofIsrael again did what was evil
(07:12):
in the sight of the Lord.
So the Lord gave them into thehands of the Philistines for 40
years, again did evil in thesight of the Lord.
And so this shows us that Godwill give us what we want.
God is not always.
Some people have this view ofGod that he is a dictator in the
sky with a great white beardand he's about to strike you
(07:35):
with lightning the first timethat you sin, the first time you
mess up.
But sometimes he lets you getwhat you want.
He lets you try it out on yourown first and see.
The Israelites did what wasevil in his sight and so what he
does, he hands them over for 40years to be enslaved by the
Philistines.
40, we see this number inScripture.
It often symbolizes a time oftesting.
(07:57):
40, we think of the 40 yearsthat the Israelites were in the
wilderness in the book ofNumbers.
40, we think of the 40 days andnights of Noah in the ark, in
the flood, in the test to seewhere his faith would lie.
Or we think of the 40 days thatJesus fasted and prayed and the
devil himself tempted and triedJesus.
And over and over and overagain, jesus said it is written,
(08:19):
it is written, it is written.
Church, it is a good reminderfor us that you are going to be
tested, and James talks aboutthat.
To count it all, joy right whenyou face those tests, because
in those tests, you can turn toJesus, but that's not what
Israel does.
Israel doesn't turn to theircreator in these moments.
They turn to an earthly judgeand in turn, that earthly judge
(08:40):
more often than not turns tohimself or their ways.
And so, despite their testing,israel failed, even with a
superhero in their midst.
I mean, samson, by all means,was a biblical superhero.
The feats of strength thatwe're gonna see a little bit
later shows us that he was noordinary man and God did not
create him ordinary, and God didnot create any of us ordinary
(09:05):
to just blend in.
And so what we're going to seethis morning is Samson gives us
a flawed, broken preview of theMessiah to come.
So everywhere Samson fell short, jesus fulfills Everywhere,
right In his deliverance and theway that he approaches the Lord
and the way that he approachespeople.
He messes up over and over andover again.
Church myself, we mess up overand over and over again, but God
(09:29):
is faithful to deliver.
Let's pray before we go into ourmessage this morning.
Heavenly Father, I pray rightnow that you would give us
humble hearts, god, that youwould be with us as we listen,
as I teach Lord, as we justapproach your word this morning.
I pray that we would notapproach it with a.
I got this type of mentalitythat, lord, we would not take
(09:53):
anything for granted, lord, thatour faith would not be in
ourselves and in our power andin our might, but would be in
the words of the living God.
So, lord, I pray that you wouldjust speak to us this morning.
Give us hearts and ears toreceive and hear.
It's in Jesus' name, amen.
Well, this morning we're goingto see a few different points.
I've got six.
I know what that sounds like.
(10:13):
It sounds like we're going tobe here for an hour and a half.
You know typical Baptistsermons three points, I'm going
to go six.
So if you do the math there,it's a little bit longer than
normal, but I promise I'll begood with your time.
The first thing I want us to seethis morning in all this is the
first point is going to be herein Judges, chapter 13.
It says you were born by God,for his purpose.
You were born by God for hispurpose, not your purpose.
(10:36):
Again, so contrary to really usas people that we feel like we
live this life for our purpose,for our glory, for our benefit.
Us, us, us.
We're a me-centered people.
That's what we do, we just, welove ourselves.
Judges 13, three again, where wesee for the first time it says
(10:56):
the angel of the Lord appearedto the woman and said to her
behold, you are barren and havenot born children, but you shall
conceive and bear a son.
And so what we see?
Samson is set up for miraculousthings.
He has a divine foretelling.
He is not like a normal kid, heis set up to lead and see, in
(11:20):
this there's this divineforetelling also for Jesus, as
we see in Luke, chapter one.
It says and the angel Gabrielsaid to her do not be afraid,
mary, for you have found favorwith God, and behold, you will
conceive in your womb and bear ason and you shall call his name
Jesus.
We see two similarities.
These stories almost are likethe same as we see an angel.
(11:40):
But I want you to notice andPastor Chip shared this last
week about the angel.
But I want you to notice, andPastor Chip shared this last
week about the angel, right whenwe see the angel of the Lord in
the Old Testament, it is whatwe call a Christophany.
It is where Jesus most likelyJesus himself is showing up on
the scene appearing to hispeople.
And so what we see here in thelife of Samson and the life of
his parents, manoah and his wife, is that they didn't even
(12:03):
recognize the angel of the LordBecause, like we said earlier,
in the testing for those 40years, the Israelites were mixed
and merged with the Philistines, they were mixed and merged
with the pagan Canaanite culture, and so Samson's name even
means that, if we look at bothof the births and both of the
names, samson means son or childof the sun, s-u-n, because they
(12:28):
believe Shemash the God, theCanaanite God of the sun, was
their power source.
And so they were confused onwho the true God was, because
Manoah and his wife never reallyraised Samson to be a believer,
because how could they lead himto something or to someone that
they did not know himself?
That's the difference betweenthem and Mary is that Mary knew
(12:52):
God, mary knew the teachings ofGod.
You see, both again weremiraculous.
But Jesus was going to deliverhumanity from spiritual
oppression, not just physicaloppression.
That was the role of Samson andJudges was to deliver his
people from the physicaloppression.
That was the role of Samson andJudges was to deliver his
people from the physicaloppression.
But Jesus said there's morethan the physical.
I've come to deliver us fromdeath.
(13:12):
And see, jesus delivers us fromdeath and he is the son of God,
and even the name we see there,the name of God, is in this, in
the book of Judges, chapter 13,verse 18, we don't have it on
the screen, but it says and theangel of the Lord said to him
why do you ask my name?
Seeing it as wonderful.
What we see in the book ofIsaiah is saying that he is the
(13:34):
wonderful counselor.
You see his parents, manoah andhis wife.
They should have known who Godwas, they should have known his
teachings, but they were soinfluenced by the culture that
they did not know how to raiseSamson.
There's a lesson for us in thatchurch is that it can be so
easy as parents raising our kidsin 2025 in this modern world,
(13:55):
to think, oh, I've gotta give mykids the modern taste of this
world that I wanna give them agood life.
I want them to know what it'slike to be everybody else, to
have every other kid's life.
But we were not created forthis world.
We were not created to fit intothis culture.
We were made to stand out.
What's so important to notice,you guys, is that holiness is
(14:17):
greater than happiness, is thatwe are created to be happy in
this world.
Our culture says be happy, dowhat you think is right.
But, as we're gonna see in thestory of Samson, his happiness
never led him to freedom.
You see, god's word isincredible.
It is so incredible.
And we're gonna see again thecomparisons, the back and forth
(14:37):
between Samson and Jesus, andSamson is ultimately leading us
to Jesus, because everywhere hetried he fell short, because it
was only ever about himself.
And see in that, in God's word,church, you will find your
purpose.
Probably the greatest questionthat not even just young adults
but humanity has always asked islike what is the point?
(14:58):
What is the point of myexistence, what is the
importance of my being?
What am I here for?
And so we all wanna know whatis our purpose.
Well, in God's word, we findour purpose.
The second point we see is youwere born by God to be led by
him.
As we see over in the nextscripture, it says Samson went
(15:19):
down to Timnah and at Timnah hesaw one of the daughters of the
Philistines.
And then he came up and toldhis father and mother I saw one
of the daughters of thePhilistines at Timnah.
Now get her for me as my wife.
There's two things that Samsondoes incredibly wrong here in
this passage.
First, he went down to Timnah.
(15:39):
This was a place of pagan roots.
This was not to be a placewhere he should have been mixing
and mingling and being in.
But he went there and then itsays he saw one of the daughters
.
So he saw someone that he wasnot supposed to be with, to be
associated with, and he said Iwant her, give her to me.
(15:59):
And you see, his parents didn'tknow the right to tell him yes
or no, because they wanted totell him hey, what about one of
your relatives?
But they never reallyimplemented the authority there.
You see, he was led by his eyes.
We're gonna see.
The comparison between him andJesus is that he was led by his
eyes and that was his downfall.
(16:20):
But Jesus, however, was led byhis father.
As we see that in the book ofJohn, chapter six, Jesus gives
us a verse of what he has done.
He says for I have come downfrom heaven not to do my own
will, but to the will of him whosent me.
I want you to notice the phrasethere going back is Samson went
(16:40):
down to Timnah.
Samson was physically goingdown to sin.
Samson was physically going toa place where he should not have
been, he should not have beenassociating with.
But I want us to see is, longbefore church, long before we
ever do the physical of the sin,it's in our hearts, it brews in
our hearts.
That's why Jesus on the Sermonon the Mount said before you
(17:03):
ever commit adultery physically,it started in your hearts.
That's why Jesus on the Sermonon the Mount said before you
ever commit adultery physically,it started in your heart.
Adultery starts in the heartLong before you ever murdered
someone.
The hatred that was brewing inyour heart is what led you to
that and that's sinful.
I know most of you have probablybeen on Instagram or Facebook
and you've seen the latestscandal that was out there with
the CEO and the woman that heworked with.
(17:23):
They were at the Coldplayconcert.
You know what I'm talking about.
Yeah, it's all over the placeand there's been all of these
different memes and things thathave been kind of like even
poking fun of it and stuff.
But long before they were everat that concert, sin entered
into their hearts Right Longbefore they ever bought the
tickets or went there or decidedto commit adultery and be in an
(17:46):
affair that started in theirhearts.
You see, that's what sin does.
It's a slow fade.
It's a slow creeping up.
It's a slow.
I'm gonna start here and thenI'm gonna push the limits.
I'm gonna push the limits alittle bit more.
That was Samson's life.
He was pushing the limits alittle bit, over and over and
over again.
Why?
Because he said, I got this.
He relied on his own strengthmore than he relied on the
(18:08):
strength of his heavenly father.
You see, samson's heartfollowed his eyes.
He said I'm gonna go there, Iwant her, give her to me.
You see, he blurred the linebetween sacred and secular.
Heathen and holy, however youwant to phrase it, don't let
that be you.
Heathen and holy, however youwanna phrase it, don't let that
(18:28):
be you.
Church, don't let that be you.
Whenever you wanna kinda get alittle bit of sin and a little
bit of Jesus, you were notcreated for a little bit of sin.
You were not created to mix andmatch your sin and Jesus.
Jesus says you can only serveone master.
It's either gonna be fill inthe blank or it's gonna be him
and I promise you, and just likewe saw in the cycle, if that
(18:50):
idol at the top, if the thing atthe top is not Jesus, it will
lead to sin, it will lead tooppression, it will lead to
death.
And you see this in Judges,chapter 14, verse three, with
Samson's dad trying to kind ofspeak some sense into him.
He says but his father and hismother said to him is there not
a woman among your relatives oramong all our people that you
(19:12):
must go to the uncircumcisedPhilistines?
Do you know what sin does?
Sin makes you do things thatyou know you're not supposed to
do.
It takes logical sense out ofthe equation and it just gives
you over to that primal, sinfulinstinct, that instinct that you
were not created for.
You were created to follow andlove Jesus.
(19:33):
And so again, this theme that wesee.
It's not up here, but in Judges21,.
It says that everyone did whatwas right in his own eyes.
This is the overarching themeof all of scripture.
Eve, the very beginning, thevery first sin.
What does she do?
She saw the fruit, she wantedit, she took it.
Every sin that has followedafter that has been I see that,
(19:55):
I want it, I'll take it and italways leads to sin and death.
You see, god did use Samson'smistakes.
However, samson was not perfect, as obviously we're going to
see all throughout this, and Iwould encourage you, church, go
back and read Judges 13, 14, 15,16.
I'm not going to be able to hitevery single verse, but in this
(20:17):
story you're going to see wherehe messes up over and over and
over and over again, and Goddelivers over and over and over
again, not because of theperfect nature of Samson, but
because of his perfect nature.
And so Samson makes the mistakeand God delivers.
It's like the story in Genesiswhen Joseph's brothers sold him
into slavery and at the end ofthe story, his brothers are
(20:42):
apologizing and they're worriedto death that he's gonna put
them to death, and he's like, no, no, no, what you meant for
evil, god used it for good.
There's a lot of things,probably in your life that you
can think of that are just evil,that are just not the way that
you had in mind.
Maybe it's a relationship youhad with somebody, maybe it's
the circumstance that you'recurrently in, maybe you are 100%
(21:07):
innocent in this and it justseems like the enemy is
attacking you over and over andover again.
Church, stay faithful, becauseGod is good to deliver you from
that, and God will use every bitof bad in this world for his
good, because he is undefeatedand he is untried.
In that.
The third thing I want us tosee this morning, the point of
(21:27):
all this, the point of versethree or, excuse me, point three
, is that you were born by Godto believe his truth.
You were born by God to believehis truth.
And the differences we see inSamson and Jesus in this one is
Samson used riddles to deceiveand Jesus used parables to teach
.
I noticed similarities betweenthese as I was looking through
this teaching.
I was looking at Judges,chapter 14.
(21:50):
There's this story whereSamson's first wife is being.
They're trying to get her toentice Samson to give them the
answer to this riddle.
Because Samson is in this wagerthat if they don't get the
riddle then they're gonna owehim some stuff.
They were gonna owe him somegarments, some changes of
clothes, but if they do get itthen he owes them, and so he
(22:14):
gives this riddle.
Out of the eater came somethingto eat, out of the strong came
something sweet.
And so Samson kind of gets hisDr Seuss on and he's trying to
create this funny little storyand this funny riddle.
And only he knows the answer tothis, because it was just him
there.
Only he knows he wasn't tryingto give this riddle for them to
actually solve.
He was doing this so that theywould be deceived.
(22:35):
You see, samson concealed thetruth to gain power, but Jesus
in his parables, uses them toteach, to give life.
Do you notice most of scripture, when Jesus is teaching, he
doesn't leave with a.
And here's the answer hedoesn't leave with a.
Oh, by the way, the whole thingthat you're wondering and
thinking about, I'm gonna giveyou every single answer to that.
(22:58):
Most of the time he leftaudiences and people with
questions because he wants themand wants us to seek him, truly,
truly seek him.
And you see, his parables werenever straightforward.
You know, it's possible to benot straightforward with
somebody, but for them to eitherget the answer or for them to
be deceived.
You see, samson, the wholepoint of his riddles was to
(23:19):
deceive.
He had something that theywanted.
He had something that he saidif I keep this from them, then
I'm going to have the power.
I'm going to have this.
But Jesus in his parables,especially the parable of the
talents that we see in Matthew25, he used this parable to
teach.
He wasn't straightforward, itwasn't something that completely
(23:40):
made sense.
And there were two audiencesthat, after Jesus' parable, did
two different things.
One said what does all of thatmean?
And they walked away and theydidn't care about the parable
anymore.
And there was another audienceyou and me, and maybe us
churches that they saw what hewrote in scripture and they
thought what does that mean?
And it was there where Jesusmet them in their questions, in
(24:03):
their doubts, in their concerns.
And he says seek me.
You'll find me when you seek mewith all your heart.
And so it's important to seekJesus because he is not
concealing his truth to givehimself power.
He is revealing truth so thatyou will have that Holy Spirit
power.
You see, jesus used storiesagain, like the parables and all
these, so that we can see him.
You see, when used storiesagain like the parables and all
(24:24):
these, so that we can see him.
You see, when Jesus looked downfrom the cross.
I want us to notice that whenhe looked down from the cross,
he forgave, he prayed for people, he loved the people, the
people that were spitting in hisface, that were mocking him,
that were beating him, that werekilling him, and think about
all of that power that he had.
All of that he had.
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He could have easily wiped themout and would have been
justified in doing so, but heloved them instead, that when he
was on that cross, he thoughtof you, he thought of you and he
thought of you and he thoughtof me, because he loves us.
So this leads us to our fourthpoint in all this is that you
were born by God to love likehim, not to love like this world
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, not to love like the worldtalks about love.
There's a lot of love talk inthis world, but the thing is
that the truth of the matter ischurch, that this world does not
know what love is in itself.
They don't.
There's love that this worldwill try to say is love, but
it's really just lust.
Or there's love that peoplewill say, but it's really just
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pride and greed.
And I want us to notice thesimilarities between Jesus and
Samson here.
See, samson sought to marry apagan woman for himself, but
Jesus gave himself for the bridefor the church.
We looked at the very firstverse that we looked at.
It said that Samson went downto Timnah.
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But he went there to find apagan wife.
He went there to indulge in hispleasures.
He went there to give somethingto himself.
That's not love.
A lot of people will say well,if I feel it and I want it, I
gotta have it.
That's love.
There's a whole culture thatsays act on your feelings,
because your feelings equal love.
That is never the way thatJesus defines love and Jesus
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defines love by sacrifice.
Jesus gave himself for hisbride.
You see, both of them went downand stooped into sinful places.
The difference between Samsonand Jesus was Samson went to a
sinful place to stay there inthe mud, to stay there in the
sin, to say this feels good tome.
But Jesus went down into sinfulhumanity and said I'm going to
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bring them up.
I love them too much to letthem stay in their sin, and some
people will choose sin too muchto let them stay in their sin.
And some people will choose sinand some people will choose to
not follow Jesus.
And he still did it.
You see, in this, this paganwoman, samson should have not
married her.
He should not have even soughtout a pagan woman, he should
have sought out an Israelite or,like what his parents said, one
of the relatives among him, buthe sought out someone that he
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knew that he was not supposed tohave.
So I'm gonna tread lightly, butI'm gonna speak boldly from
scripture and I'm gonna givesome relationship advice.
Now I'm not perfect.
I'm not about to write a bookon matchmakercom or anything
like that, although I will sayI'm pretty good at matchmaker
Our brother-in-law's getting, ormy brother-in-law's getting
married this weekend and I sethim up, so I'm doing pretty good
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on that end.
But I will not write a book onrelationships.
I got to give that another likea hundred years until I'm
married.
But I will say what scripturesays.
I will speak boldly about whatscripture says when it comes to
relationships, to anyoneconsidering marriage or dating.
I know we have some youngadults in the room and I know
that's kind of on the forefrontof your mind all the time, like
when am I going to get my wife?
When am I I gonna get my wife?
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When am I gonna get my husband?
When, when, when?
Like you're just wondering whenit's all gonna happen and I
know that.
Look, trust me, I was in thatseason and I know what it's like
to want a spouse.
I know what it's like to notwant to be alone.
I know what it's like to want.
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But my first in everyrelationship, but especially
those of a future spouse orcurrent spouse, Seek Jesus first
, seek him first.
Because here's the thing churchis if you are not faithful to
seek Jesus and serve Jesus, youprobably won't be faithful to
seek and serve your spouse.
If you're always about yourself.
It's not a healthy foundationfor a marriage.
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Serve your spouse, serve theother.
That's what Jesus did.
And see my encouragement.
And what God's word says isdon't marry someone who doesn't
follow Jesus.
Don't enter into a relationshipwith someone who doesn't follow
Jesus.
I can say the last church that Iwas at, when I was acting as
just the young adult pastor, themajority I would say 90% of the
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conversations I had with youngadults was them come up and
asking hey, man, I really likethis girl.
You know she's beautiful, we'vegot a lot in common.
She likes to do this, I like todo this.
You know, we're a match made inheaven, but she's not a
believer.
What do I do?
And I said in the most lovingyet truthful way you don't do
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that, you don't enter into thatrelationship, not because that
person's probably not a goodperson or because they are great
and they are beautiful, butbecause is that what you want in
a relationship?
Is someone who doesn't seek asavior, someone who doesn't
point people to a, is someonewho doesn't seek a savior,
someone who doesn't point peopleto a savior, who doesn't know
the savior themselves?
Because Jesus designed us forlove and we can only find love
(29:32):
in him.
And so I know for some of youthis is a touchy subject,
because you might be in the roomhere alone, your spouse might
not be here with you, becauseyour spouse might say I don't
understand all this.
None of this makes sense to me.
This whole church thing doesn'tmake sense to me.
Why do you follow Jesus?
Why do you get up every Sundayand go to a place full of
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hypocrites Sorry, we're allhypocrites.
Why do you go to a place whereeverybody's all messed up?
Yeah, we're all messed up.
That's kind of the point of whywe're here.
Why would you go and do that?
And I understand that that's atough subject because that might
be your reality, that yourspouse, your husband, your wife,
they may not follow Jesus.
But I wanna encourage you whatscripture says about that for
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the husbands and wives, and thisprimarily talks to the wife
first.
But it says in 1 Peter 3, itsays wives be subject to your
own husbands so that even ifsome do not obey the word, they
may be one without a word by theconduct of their wives.
Husbands, you can do the samething, but what I do notice is
most of the time it is the wives.
I know that from kids' ministryto student ministry is the
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majority of the time it's thewife that is in the room and
it's not the husband.
And so, church, I can't speakfor this church.
I know that there aredefinitely churches there that
I've been a part of or I'veserved at or I've met at or
whatever, where the majority ofthe volunteer base is women.
They are women, it's just themajority of them are, and the
men don't step up.
But I can say I am encouraged,especially this past weekend,
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seeing all of the men who are atour men's breakfast and all of
the men who get up and servehere in this church.
And obviously none of us areperfect, but we can see that we
are a serving church and thatwe're trying and that the Lord
has called us to do more thanjust sit at home.
And so, church, I wannaencourage you, if you are the
wife that is here alone, or thehusband here alone, that it's
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not too late, that, while theyare still breathing, there is
time for them to follow Jesus.
And, just like it says in hisword, the way that you live your
life may get them to ask why doyou still love me, why are you
still faithful to me?
Why do you still treat me theway that you treat me and I
don't treat you the way that youshould be treated?
And the answer is because Jesusdoes.
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Because Jesus was faithful tome when I was a sinner and he
still loves me while I am asinner and he died for me while
I'm still a sinner.
And you can serve the otherperson while they're still a
sinner.
Because you see thefaithfulness that was
implemented by Jesus.
You see, christ gave himself toand died for imperfect people
like me and like you, notbecause we're perfect, but
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because he is, and he sought tosave us by his power, which
leads us to our fifth point isthat you were born by God for
his power.
Now, judges, chapter 15, showsoff all of the strengths and the
feats of Samson.
Samson was a just to be honest,he was a messed up dude.
Now, samson was a just to behonest, he was a messed up dude.
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We see here in the comparison,samson uses the power from the
Lord for his pleasure.
Jesus uses his power for ourgood and his glory.
Some of the feats that we seein Judges, chapter 15, if you're
looking along here and kind ofskimming through this chapter,
it says Samson's physicalstrength was unmatched.
Also, I didn't know this,someone came up to me at the end
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of the first service and showedthat the timeline of Samson and
Hercules were about the same.
So it talks about like there'sthese great men of strength, one
rooted in scripture and onerooted in pagan theology, and so
there was nobody on earth likeSamson and his feats of strength
.
You see, samson's physicalstrength was unmatched.
He ripped a line apart.
That's what it says in Judges.
It says he ripped a line apartas you would a baby goat,
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because you know, we're all justripping apart baby goats in our
free time.
Like I read that scripture andI'm like what do you mean?
We're all just ripping apartbaby goats.
That doesn't make any sense.
I guess that was like a pastimeback in the day.
It says he killed 300 men inAshkelon.
He killed just 300 men.
It says this one's probably themost twisted one that we see
here.
It makes no sense how his minddecided to do this, but it says
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so.
Samson went and caught 300 foxesand he took torches and he
turned them tail to tail and puta torch between them.
So he ties 300 foxes together,puts a torch in the middle of
them and says giddy up, and hejust sends him in a field and he
burns down a field.
They all burn down the field.
He was messed up.
Samson was a messed up guy andhe used all of this strength
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that he had for just his ownpleasures, things that he
enjoyed doing.
It also shows that he killed1,000 men with the jawbone of a
donkey.
He's like no, I don't need asling or a stone or a sword, I'm
going to go get a donkey'sjawbone and I'm going to take
out a thousand men, but I wantus to see churches.
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His strength did not come fromhis build, it came from the Lord
.
Now most of us have probablygrown up with the same picture
of Samson that I have.
I often picture Samson,basically the rock with a wig.
That's kind of just just me.
That's kind of how I pictureSamson, this big, buff, strong
dude who probably has like 400,500 pounds on his back every day
, just like calf walking,getting his calf built up, doing
bicep curls.
(34:34):
I just see Samson in the gym alot, but the reality of it
probably was there was reallyprobably no telling what kind of
or how his strength was what itwas, because they wouldn't have
asked the question.
There was really probably notelling what kind of or how his
strength was what it was,because they wouldn't have asked
the question where does yourstrength come from if he was
built like the rock, just beinghonest?
And so they wondered where hisstrength came from.
And that's why it says in theseacts of strength, it says the
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spirit of the Lord rushed uponhim.
And if I were or, excuse me, ifhe were jacked again, there
would not have been thisquestion.
So people often had to askwhat's his secret?
What is his secret?
What makes him so strong?
And church, that is the point.
The point of all this is thatthe source of our strength is
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not visible, it's spiritual.
Your strength.
It's not in the physical.
It's not in the monetary, it isin the spiritual, because
everything else will pass away.
There will always be somebodystronger.
There will always be somebodyfaster.
There will always be somebodyfitter and smarter and braver
and funnier and more charismatic.
There will always be somebodymore.
And so those things cannot bewhere the source of our strength
(35:39):
is.
It has to come from above, andso what I want you to know is
that you don't have to be famousto be faithful.
I think one of the worst liesthat our generation we're
talking about, like Gen Z andmillennial, and our students and
our kids that they buy into, isthat they cannot preach the
good news of Jesus because theydon't have a pulpit, or maybe
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they don't have a PhD, or maybethey don't have 500,000
followers on TikTok or Instagram, or they don't have a pulpit,
or maybe they don't have a PhD,or maybe they don't have 500,000
followers on TikTok orInstagram, or they don't have a
blue check by their name.
So I guess I cannot be faithfulwith my gifts and my talents.
Church, you don't have to haveany of that stuff to be faithful
.
It does not take any of that,and I think some of the most
obviously we revere men likeBilly Graham.
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We revere men like Billy Graham.
We revere people that we see inscripture that God anointed and
God used for all sorts ofthings.
But it's not even just thosemen, it's not even just the
people that we see with theplatforms and that speak at
Passion Conference and that getup and preach and all those
things.
It is the faithful men andwomen who every day live
faithful lives, and so I want toshare.
There's a few people here withyou this morning.
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Anybody know who this is?
Sir Isaac Newton.
Yeah, he did not discover theapple, right?
He just this is gravity.
It was used by the apple, right?
He discovered gravity.
And so he was actually aChristian, he was a believer,
and so he would often credit hisbrain, his intellect, his gifts
, his knowledge to God.
In fact, he actually wrote moreon theology than he did on
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science, and so his wholemission and aim in life was he
believed that science revealedGod's design In his intellect.
He believed that that wasn't away to deflate creation, that
was a way to reflect and open upthe gift of creation.
And so maybe you're like IsaacNewton, maybe you're smart.
That ain't me.
Maybe you're smart, maybeyou're a teacher, maybe you're
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molding the minds and stuff thatare in school and you're being
told to teach somethingdifferent from scripture and you
can use your gifts and yourtalents to lead this generation
and the next generation and allthe generations to know that
science and everything that wascreated reveals a creator Next
person I want us to see.
You probably know who this isCS Lewis.
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Many of you have probably readthe Chronicles of Narnia or Mere
Christianity or ScrewtapeLetters, but him and JRR Tolkien
, who wrote Lord of the Ringsand the Hobbit and those books.
They were pretty much like thefounding fathers of imagination,
like the reason that we haveprobably some of the books and
the movies and the comic booksand all of the fun stuff that we
have is probably because ofthose guys and this guy here, cs
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Lewis.
You see, he used hisimagination to draw people to
Christ and I want to take amoment just to highlight and
thank those who work in our kidsministry, because every day,
every Sunday, every time that mySelah and my Isaiah come out
especially Selah she can alwaystell me what she's learned from
class.
And look, I know you can't justget up in front of dozens or
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however many kids, and just sayall right, children, let's open
up the word.
You have to use imagination,right, you have to use
imagination when you teachchildren, because that's how we
were created and our teachershere do a fantastic job of using
their imaginations, using theirgifts, using their abilities to
create future pastors andfuture theologians and future
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disciples of Jesus.
And so thank you, church, forthat.
But I want to share, kind ofgoing along the lines of the
children.
This last lady you probablynever heard of her before, right
here in the middle.
Her name is Lillian Trasher.
Lillian Trasher didn't speak atPassion.
Lillian Trasher did not haveTikTok.
Lillian Trasher did not have apulpit or a PhD.
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But Lillian Trasher did nothave a pulpit or a PhD.
But Lillian Trasher wasfaithful.
In fact, she actually broke offan engagement that she knew
that she wasn't supposed to bein and she pursued missionary
work in Egypt where she raisedover 10,000 orphans, sharing the
gospel of Jesus Christ withthem.
And because of her faithfulnessnot her flashiness, not her fame
, but because of herfaithfulness, not her flashiness
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, not her fame, but because ofher faithfulness there are now
tens of thousands, if not waymore, children who grow up to
give their life to Jesus, whowould be in heaven, and there's
nothing more important than that.
And so you don't have to beflashy church, you just gotta be
faithful.
And I've heard Pastor Chipshare this, and other pastors,
that God does not call thequalified, he qualifies the
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called.
None of us are perfect.
I'm not up here because I'mperfect.
Pastor Chip is not up herebecause there's not one single
person that preaches from theword or learns from the word or
reads the word.
That is perfect.
That is just not us.
And we see this in Zechariah 4,6, talking about our might and
our power.
It says, not by might nor bypower, but by my spirit, says
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the Lord of hosts, that what wedo does not come from our power,
it does not come from our flashand from our fame, it comes
from the words of Jesus.
The final point that I want usto see in all this is that you
were born by God to be raised up.
You see, what you notice aboutSamson and Jesus is both were
humiliated, both were beatendown, both were pushed down,
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both were mocked, both were putto death, but God's power was
not done.
In Judges 16, verse 21,.
We see the verse of what kind ofhappens to Samson.
It says they gouged out hiseyes and made him entertain them
.
I think it's obviously this wayon purpose.
But what was the one thing thatalways led Samson to sin?
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It was his eyes.
It was him looking at sin.
It was him looking at somethingthat he wasn't supposed to do
or going to somebody he wasn'tsupposed to be around.
But the same thing kind ofhappens to Jesus not the gouging
out the eyes, but the mockingand the beating, it says.
Then they spit in his face andthey struck him with fists.
Others slapped him and theysaid prophesy to us, messiah,
(41:37):
who hit you?
Church, I can kind of understandwhy they did what they did to
Samson, if I'm being honest.
I mean, the guy humiliated them.
If somebody tied 300 foxes upand ran them into my pasture, I
would probably be pretty upsettoo.
I would probably wanna get myrevenge.
But, church, what I cannotfathom is this how a perfect
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savior, who never did anythingbut love them, create them, die
for them, care for them, theyspit in his face, they struck
him with their fist and theyslapped him and mocked him.
Because what we like to do iswe like to make those.
We like to put people under us,we like to have the power, we
like to feel like we've got this.
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And so when they did this toJesus, it was almost like their
way of saying, oh, he can't beperfect, because look what we're
doing, Because Jesus, obviouslyhe's not the savior of the
world, because we're able tobeat him, we're able to mock him
, we're able to spit in his face, and they thought they had won
in that moment.
But I want us to know this thismorning is that Jesus wasn't
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done and Samson wasn't done.
In Samson's defeat, his hairbegan to sprout.
There's this word, samach.
It means to sprout, to grow, tospring up, and the same word,
sort of that we see in the storyof Jesus is that when Jesus was
put in the grave, he was raisedto life by the Holy Spirit.
This word that we see is ikero.
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It is not the same word, butthere is this thematic overlap
that happens with these twowords.
That talks about the mostimportant thing, which is
restoration.
Restoration and what we see inJeremiah, chapter 23,.
It gives us a verse of Jesus Iwill raise up Samach for David,
a righteous branch.
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You see, jesus was not donewhen he was in the grave.
Church, your life is not doneif it feels like it's in a grave
, like what you're going throughright now.
You are not done because Jesushas still given you breath in
your lungs.
You are not done.
Jesus is not done with you.
There is still a raising up tobe done.
You see, samson, like all of us,believed that abundant life
(43:43):
came from abundant pleasuremoney, power, pleasure,
influence.
He believed that's where thesource of happiness was, that's
where the source of power was.
But Jesus shows us that truelife is only found in obedient
surrender.
Another way that Jesus put thiswas in Luke, chapter nine, when
he said in order to save yourlife, you must lose it.
He talks about picking up yourcross and following him.
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This is the verse that we see,that we see Samson in the end of
his life.
Judges, chapter 16.
Oh Lord, please remember me andplease strengthen me.
Only this once Now church.
I wish it would have endedthere.
I wish he would have endedthere because he would at least
have had a little bit ofredemptive quality about himself
.
But he goes on to say oh God,that I may be avenged of the
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Philistines for my two eyes.
Even in Samson's humility hemakes it about himself.
Even in Samson's redemptive arche still falls, but still, I
want you to notice God respondsthat God responds to his faith.
That he has here it's not much,but he responds to his faith.
(44:48):
And the reason that is isbecause in Hebrews 11, it says
that the only way to please Godis by faith.
It's in Jesus.
In his last moments, it says,he called out with a loud voice
and said Father, into your handsI commit my spirit Church.
I want you to know this.
In the last moments of Jesus onthe cross, as he breathed his
last breath, as he prayed forthe people, as he was on the
(45:10):
cross, he thought of you, hethought of me and he did it all
for you and all for me and allfor the glory of his father.
He didn't do it for himself.
So here's the gospel Samsonbowed in brokenness and pulled
down a building.
But I want us to see is thatJesus bowed in obedience and
opened up the gates of heavenfor all of us, so that by his
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death we may live.
And so I wanna close this upwith this is that when your
strength falls short, jesusstands strong.
When your strength, you feellike is not enough.
That's the point.
The point is not you haveenough strength or you got to
muster this up.
The amount of people that I'vetalked to that I meet on the
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streets also this is just asidebar People are wanting to be
invited to church.
People are wanting to beinvited into abundant life.
The amount of people whenever Ijust open up the word, they ask
me what I do.
I'm a pastor.
Boom, there's just all of asudden, this shell comes off,
this whatever comes down, andthey just think, man, I've been
meaning to get back in church,I've been meaning to do that,
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I've been meaning to do all this.
I just don't feel like.
You know, maybe I'm ready, oryou know, I'm trying to find a
church, and so they feel like,because they've fallen short,
that they don't feel likethey're right in the eyes of God
.
But what we notice is we don'thave to, we don't get clean and
then come to church.
We come to church.
We come to the Lord in ourbrokenness, in our sin, in our
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shame, because he loves us andbecause he wants to restore us,
because he wants to raise us up.
That's the point of scripture.
And see, it's not about thesize of your faith, but the
object of it.
It's like this verse.
You've probably heard this versebefore.
I think almost everybody has.
Even if you're not a Christian,you've at least heard like the
teachings of it.
Right, if you have the faith,like a grain of mustard seed,
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you will say to this mountain,move from here and there and it
will move.
This verse as a kid I thoughtmeant like I had to unlock a
superpower.
If I'm being completely honest,the way that the child
Christian actually, I'm going tobe completely honest until
probably I was in my 20s Ithought that's.
I was really confused by thisverse.
I was like why is it a mustardseed?
I don't understand.
Like, I feel like I've got, Ifeel like I've got a faith size.
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You know, mustard seed size,faith.
Like I feel like I've got that,but I never been able to make a
mountain move.
This doesn't make sense to me.
But that's because I wasprioritizing the wrong thing in
the verse.
You see, often we prioritizethe mustard seed, but it's never
been about the mustard seed,it's been about the faith.
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You see, it's like this I'llput it this way, the best way
that I've heard this put aboutthe size of the mustard seed and
the object of your faith is.
Imagine that there are twopeople.
There's person A.
Person A is very, veryconfident in the ice that he is
standing on.
He has created t-shirts andsocial media agendas.
He even has the top celebritiesin the world that are backing
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up the ice that he is standingon.
There's a whole month dedicatedto the pride of the ice that he
is standing on.
He thinks the ice is goodbecause he's confident.
He thinks the ice won't goanywhere and won't crush,
because he is really good atwhat he does and how he talks
about the ice and how he putsother people down about the ice.
But what matters to him, church, is that it's not his arrogance
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and his cockiness, butunderneath him there's a
centimeter thick of ice.
And then there's the person B,who also decides to take a leap
of faith, who steps on the iceand he's a little concerned.
He's never been big in hisbeliefs.
He doesn't have all the answers, he doesn't know everything,
but he's been taught that theice is good and that as long as
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he stands on it and as long ashe has faith, it doesn't matter
how he feels inside the ice thatis beneath him will stand
forever, and underneath him is athousand feet of ice Church.
The first person, person A, isthe person who builds their
foundation, who has theirfeelings, who has their
confidence in the stuff of thisworld, in the pride of their
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life, in the stuff, in thethings, in sin.
It doesn't matter how confidentyou are in your sin.
What matters is the object ofyour faith, and sin will always
lead to oppression, it willalways lead to crumbling life,
it will always lead to death.
What matters is that you liveyour life like person B who.
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You may not have all theanswers, and none of us do, but
the object of your faith isstrong.
Jesus, if he is the object ofyour faith, will never crumble.
And so you may be here thismorning and you don't know what
foundation you're on, you don'teven know where to take a step.
I would encourage you by takinga leap of faith this morning.
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Take a leap of faith to knowthat it is not about your faith,
it is about the object of yourfaith that matters the most,
jesus, or fill in the blank.
So I wanna pray for you thismorning and encourage you.
Where it says where Samsonfailed, jesus never did so.
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Don't be like Samson and buildyour life, your foundation, on
something that's gonna crumbleand fall.
Build your foundation on Jesus.
Can I pray for you this morningIf we'd all bow our heads and
close our eyes Before I pray?
I just wanna encourage you justto think for a moment.
Who or what have I built myfoundation on?
Is it good?
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Are they faithful?
Does it love me?
Do they love me?
Is that foundation willing todie for me?
Because if the answer is no,and the answer is not, jesus
friend, I would encourage you toshift your focus to a different
foundation, to focus thatfoundation on Jesus.
And so, lord, I pray for thatperson.
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Lord, I pray for that personthis morning who has not taken
that leap of faith, who has notput their hope and their faith
and their trust in you, jesus.
And maybe they don't have allthe answers and they're worried
about that leap of faith.
But, lord, give themsupernatural peace right now To
be like Samson in his finalmoments.
In all of his imperfections, hestill cried out to the Lord to
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rescue him.
Lord, I pray that we would cryout right now, lord, I pray that
we would put our hope, ourfaith, our foundation in you.
So, lord, if there's anyone inhere this morning that needs to
pray that Lord, I pray that youwould give the encouragement
right now to pray.
You can pray that Lord, I praythat you would give the
encouragement right now to pray.
You can pray something likethis it's not the words of your
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prayer.
Again, as we've all beenlooking at this morning, it is
about your heart, the posture ofyour heart, and your salvation
prayer could be Hosanna.
It could be oh, save, just saveme, lord.
You can say Lord, I pray thatyou would just save my life.
Pray, lord, that you would bethe redeemer of my life.
I pray, lord, that you would bethe savior of my life.
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Lord, I don't have all theanswers, but, lord, you do.
So, lord, I put my hope, myfaith and my trust in you this
morning and, lord, I pray for usas the church, as some have
prayed that prayer, lord, I praywe would encourage them, that
we would encourage them with asolid foundation that is, jesus.
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That we would continue to speaklife to them and to bring them
up and not push them down, andbe the church for them.
And so, lord, equip us,strengthen us and humble us when
we need it.
In Jesus name, amen, and we'llgive it up for those that said
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that prayer this morning, thatgave their life to Jesus.
And I want you to know you'rejust getting started.
I don't want a pastor to ever,or anyone to ever, tell you that
, hey, after you give your lifeto Jesus, it's just smooth
sailing For you believers in theroom.
You know that's not the case.
You know that you've now takenon the world, but greater is who
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that is in you than he who isin the world.
Amen.
So, church, I just wanna prayfor us for a second as we go.
We're gonna go into a time ofworship after this.
I wanna thank you for joiningus this morning.
I wanna just pray for us as weencourage those that are around
us, as we get into the word, aswe continue to serve throughout
this week, as our kids go backto school.
I know all of you kids are soexcited about that.
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You can't wait to go back toschool, but I just pray for us
as a church.
I'm so thankful for you.
I often see the letters when youread in scripture Paul.
Paul and the writers of the NewTestament would often say I
thank you, god, for this church.
I thank you, god, for thischurch.
I thank you for Powder Springs.
Let's pray, heavenly Father.
We thank you this morning forthis church.
I pray that we would encouragethose around us, god, I pray
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that we would continue to buildour life on the foundation that
is Jesus and not build it on anyother foundation.
Lord, I pray that you wouldequip us and strengthen us this
morning and today and as wecarry on in our life, lord, to
again not to seek out pleasuresof this world, but to seek out
the power that is you, jesus.
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And so, lord, equip us,strengthen us, and may this time
of worship be pleasing to you,as we give you our all and it's
in Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.
Yeah, it's been such an awesome summer, man.
It's been such a sweet summer.
We've been able to have kidscamp or kids week and summer
camp for the students, our youngadult gatherings, our
basketball camps.
I mean, it's been one thingafter the other and I'm so
thankful that I get to servealongside all of you.
As you can see, I'm not PastorChip this morning.
(00:21):
Pastor Chip is having a muchneeded vacation with his family,
but he's actually here thismorning.
So if you wanna go bug him, youcan go bug him after the
service.
But if you wanna hear some goodpreaching, you got one to two
options.
One you can come back next weekwhen Pastor Chip is preaching.
Get some good preaching nextweek.
Or the other thing you can dois you can come tonight to our
young adult gathering.
(00:42):
If you're a young adult 18 to35, and you're looking for
community, you're looking for aplace to belong.
We would love for you to bewith us here tonight in this
exact room, from six to 7.30.
We're gonna have free dinner.
We're gonna get to hear a greatword from Pastor Chip tonight
as he talks about really whatGod is doing in the next
generation of our young adults,the revival that we've seen
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sweep across campuses in thecountry and really the world
just to see what God is doing.
And so I'm excited because thismorning we get to talk about
one of my favorite stories inscripture, probably one of the
most infamous people in all ofscripture, and that is Samson.
And so the title of the sermonthis morning is when excuse me,
(01:23):
it's not up there, it's up onthe screen.
It says when your strengthfalls short, how many of you
have ever thought, oh, I gotthis, I got this, like I don't
need any extra help, I got it.
I feel that way whenever Idon't use a GPS and my wife can
attest to this, the amount oftimes she has told me, christian
(01:44):
, just use the GPS, we will getthere on time and I say no, no,
no, I got this.
My famous last words before 15minutes late, I got this.
That's often how I feel is Ifeel like I got it.
I feel like, oh, I've beenthere once, or I kind of know in
general where it's at, and so Iend up getting us there.
I would say most of the time ontime, but maybe not all the
(02:07):
time on time, and so, in mystrength, I feel like I got this
.
Another story that I can kindof share this morning is the
story of just a few weeks ago.
Actually I was.
I decided to go on my nextathletic adventure, right, this
is what happens whenever youdon't play organized sports
anymore.
You just kind of live yourmidlife crisis all throughout
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your life.
You just got to find a newhobby all the time.
And so in January I decided I'mgoing to sign up for a half
marathon.
I always hated running.
I didn't like it.
My mom was a marathon runner.
Football it was always apunishment, right.
If you know, if you playfootball, if you played any
organized sports, you know yourfirst line of punishment is
(02:49):
always running.
And so I decided I'm going todo something that I don't enjoy
to make myself enjoy it.
So I ran a half marathon in May.
I actually did enjoy it.
But I thought, naturally thenext thing after 13.1 miles is
to start training for a halfIronman.
Right, just go ahead and justtack on 56 miles on a bike and a
mile swim, and just go aheadand take that big leap, right.
Well, here's where I washumbled.
About a week ago, I got on theSilver Comet.
(03:10):
Most of you kind of know wherethat's?
At the Silver Comet.
I got out there to get my bikethat I bought on Marketplace.
I did some research.
I thought, oh, this is a goodbike.
I got a good deal.
But I triathlon bike beforePeople.
There's a difference betweenlike a regular, like ching ching
bike, you know little tassels.
There's a difference betweenthat bike and like a triathlon
bike.
The things weigh like an ounce.
(03:35):
The tires are paper thin.
I'm a big, bigger dude, right.
So the tiny frame of the bike,when I got on it I was starting
to wobble like crazy.
It was very, very humbling.
But I thought you know what?
I'm going to start slow.
I got this.
I got this.
I didn't even make it to thetrail church.
I didn't even make it on thesilver comet.
I got out there the chain felloff.
I thought, okay, well, I'vefixed the bike chain before.
So I get down and I start to dothe chain and try to pop it
(03:57):
back in place.
Well, then it falls off.
On another part of the bikeI've got grease all over my hand
.
There's grease all over myshirt.
There's grease everywhere.
It's a hundred degrees.
I'm sweating.
I'm really angry, I'm reallyupset, and it was in that moment
that I realized I don't gotthis.
And so I call Laura and I'mlike, hey, babe, I'm frustrated,
I'm headed home.
She's like how was your ride?
(04:17):
I don't want to talk about itand I just decided to go home
and go for a run and use my legsbecause those are a lot easier
than the bike.
But that's also my hey.
If any of you know how to ridea bike, please teach me, because
I need to know how to ride abike in order to even be able to
do this thing.
So when life humbles you, it'ssometimes hard but it's
necessary.
And this morning that we'regonna see in the book of Judges,
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we're gonna look at the life ofSamson.
Samson was probably the mostfamous judge, but definitely the
worst judge by far.
I mean, if you look throughverses excuse me, chapters 13,
14, 15, 16, the guy doesn't doone thing right.
He's an awful person, he's aterrible judge, he doesn't do
(05:00):
anything for the people.
But we're gonna see in his lastmoments is what mattered the
most for his life and for ourlife and for the faith of us.
And so we're gonna see in allof this really the repeated
cycle that we've been seeing inthe book of Judges we're gonna
see in the life of Samson.
The first thing that kind ofhappens that we see is God's
people forget God.
We see this in the book ofJudges.
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The next thing that happens inthe book of Judges, in this unit
that we're looking at thismorning, is that's really
finicky.
There we go, there we go, boom.
God lets them face theconsequences.
Right.
And so not only do they have togo in, they're delivered over
into their actions, they facethe consequences of those
actions, and the next thing wesee is that God raises up a
judge to rescue them over andover and over again.
(05:44):
And we have a good visual ofreally what this judge's cycle
kind of looks like is that itstarts out with idolatry.
It starts out with there'ssomething that I want, there's
something that in my heart thatI say I got this, I want it, I
gotta have it.
And so idolatry to Samson washis own strength, it was his
ways, it was his pleasure.
Idolatry may not be yourstrength.
Idolatry to Samson was his ownstrength, it was his ways, it
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was his pleasure.
Idolatry may not be yourstrength, idolatry may not be
the certain pleasures thatSamson shared, but your idolatry
.
May be your phone, it may beyour free time, it may be just
you in general, it may beanother organized religion or
belief system, but we know ifit's not Jesus it's always gonna
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lead to oppression.
We see this in the book ofJudges that it always led to
oppression.
There was never once where theIsraelites did what was evil in
the sight of the Lord and it ledto freedom.
Church sin will never lead youto freedom, ever.
And then we see that in this,in the oppression, in the
enslavement, in the sin, it isnatural for us to cry out to God
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because we realize we don't gotit and in that God is good to
deliver, that God is good tofree us.
You see, samson is probablyagain the most famous judge, but
the worst.
And we see in his story in thebook of Judges, in Judges
chapter 13, we're introduced tonot even just Samson first, but
his parents.
It says and the people ofIsrael again did what was evil
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in the sight of the Lord.
So the Lord gave them into thehands of the Philistines for 40
years, again did evil in thesight of the Lord.
And so this shows us that Godwill give us what we want.
God is not always.
Some people have this view ofGod that he is a dictator in the
sky with a great white beardand he's about to strike you
(07:35):
with lightning the first timethat you sin, the first time you
mess up.
But sometimes he lets you getwhat you want.
He lets you try it out on yourown first and see.
The Israelites did what wasevil in his sight and so what he
does, he hands them over for 40years to be enslaved by the
Philistines.
40, we see this number inScripture.
It often symbolizes a time oftesting.
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40, we think of the 40 yearsthat the Israelites were in the
wilderness in the book ofNumbers.
40, we think of the 40 days andnights of Noah in the ark, in
the flood, in the test to seewhere his faith would lie.
Or we think of the 40 days thatJesus fasted and prayed and the
devil himself tempted and triedJesus.
And over and over and overagain, jesus said it is written,
(08:19):
it is written, it is written.
Church, it is a good reminderfor us that you are going to be
tested, and James talks aboutthat.
To count it all, joy right whenyou face those tests, because
in those tests, you can turn toJesus, but that's not what
Israel does.
Israel doesn't turn to theircreator in these moments.
They turn to an earthly judgeand in turn, that earthly judge
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more often than not turns tohimself or their ways.
And so, despite their testing,israel failed, even with a
superhero in their midst.
I mean, samson, by all means,was a biblical superhero.
The feats of strength thatwe're gonna see a little bit
later shows us that he was noordinary man and God did not
create him ordinary, and God didnot create any of us ordinary
(09:05):
to just blend in.
And so what we're going to seethis morning is Samson gives us
a flawed, broken preview of theMessiah to come.
So everywhere Samson fell short, jesus fulfills Everywhere,
right In his deliverance and theway that he approaches the Lord
and the way that he approachespeople.
He messes up over and over andover again.
Church myself, we mess up overand over and over again, but God
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is faithful to deliver.
Let's pray before we go into ourmessage this morning.
Heavenly Father, I pray rightnow that you would give us
humble hearts, god, that youwould be with us as we listen,
as I teach Lord, as we justapproach your word this morning.
I pray that we would notapproach it with a.
I got this type of mentalitythat, lord, we would not take
(09:53):
anything for granted, lord, thatour faith would not be in
ourselves and in our power andin our might, but would be in
the words of the living God.
So, lord, I pray that you wouldjust speak to us this morning.
Give us hearts and ears toreceive and hear.
It's in Jesus' name, amen.
Well, this morning we're goingto see a few different points.
I've got six.
I know what that sounds like.
(10:13):
It sounds like we're going tobe here for an hour and a half.
You know typical Baptistsermons three points, I'm going
to go six.
So if you do the math there,it's a little bit longer than
normal, but I promise I'll begood with your time.
The first thing I want us to seethis morning in all this is the
first point is going to be herein Judges, chapter 13.
It says you were born by God,for his purpose.
You were born by God for hispurpose, not your purpose.
(10:36):
Again, so contrary to really usas people that we feel like we
live this life for our purpose,for our glory, for our benefit.
Us, us, us.
We're a me-centered people.
That's what we do, we just, welove ourselves.
Judges 13, three again, where wesee for the first time it says
(10:56):
the angel of the Lord appearedto the woman and said to her
behold, you are barren and havenot born children, but you shall
conceive and bear a son.
And so what we see?
Samson is set up for miraculousthings.
He has a divine foretelling.
He is not like a normal kid, heis set up to lead and see, in
(11:20):
this there's this divineforetelling also for Jesus, as
we see in Luke, chapter one.
It says and the angel Gabrielsaid to her do not be afraid,
mary, for you have found favorwith God, and behold, you will
conceive in your womb and bear ason and you shall call his name
Jesus.
We see two similarities.
These stories almost are likethe same as we see an angel.
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But I want you to notice andPastor Chip shared this last
week about the angel.
But I want you to notice, andPastor Chip shared this last
week about the angel, right whenwe see the angel of the Lord in
the Old Testament, it is whatwe call a Christophany.
It is where Jesus most likelyJesus himself is showing up on
the scene appearing to hispeople.
And so what we see here in thelife of Samson and the life of
his parents, manoah and his wife, is that they didn't even
(12:03):
recognize the angel of the LordBecause, like we said earlier,
in the testing for those 40years, the Israelites were mixed
and merged with the Philistines, they were mixed and merged
with the pagan Canaanite culture, and so Samson's name even
means that, if we look at bothof the births and both of the
names, samson means son or childof the sun, s-u-n, because they
(12:28):
believe Shemash the God, theCanaanite God of the sun, was
their power source.
And so they were confused onwho the true God was, because
Manoah and his wife never reallyraised Samson to be a believer,
because how could they lead himto something or to someone that
they did not know himself?
That's the difference betweenthem and Mary is that Mary knew
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God, mary knew the teachings ofGod.
You see, both again weremiraculous.
But Jesus was going to deliverhumanity from spiritual
oppression, not just physicaloppression.
That was the role of Samson andJudges was to deliver his
people from the physicaloppression.
That was the role of Samson andJudges was to deliver his
people from the physicaloppression.
But Jesus said there's morethan the physical.
I've come to deliver us fromdeath.
(13:12):
And see, jesus delivers us fromdeath and he is the son of God,
and even the name we see there,the name of God, is in this, in
the book of Judges, chapter 13,verse 18, we don't have it on
the screen, but it says and theangel of the Lord said to him
why do you ask my name?
Seeing it as wonderful.
What we see in the book ofIsaiah is saying that he is the
(13:34):
wonderful counselor.
You see his parents, manoah andhis wife.
They should have known who Godwas, they should have known his
teachings, but they were soinfluenced by the culture that
they did not know how to raiseSamson.
There's a lesson for us in thatchurch is that it can be so
easy as parents raising our kidsin 2025 in this modern world,
(13:55):
to think, oh, I've gotta give mykids the modern taste of this
world that I wanna give them agood life.
I want them to know what it'slike to be everybody else, to
have every other kid's life.
But we were not created forthis world.
We were not created to fit intothis culture.
We were made to stand out.
What's so important to notice,you guys, is that holiness is
(14:17):
greater than happiness, is thatwe are created to be happy in
this world.
Our culture says be happy, dowhat you think is right.
But, as we're gonna see in thestory of Samson, his happiness
never led him to freedom.
You see, god's word isincredible.
It is so incredible.
And we're gonna see again thecomparisons, the back and forth
(14:37):
between Samson and Jesus, andSamson is ultimately leading us
to Jesus, because everywhere hetried he fell short, because it
was only ever about himself.
And see in that, in God's word,church, you will find your
purpose.
Probably the greatest questionthat not even just young adults
but humanity has always asked islike what is the point?
(14:58):
What is the point of myexistence, what is the
importance of my being?
What am I here for?
And so we all wanna know whatis our purpose.
Well, in God's word, we findour purpose.
The second point we see is youwere born by God to be led by
him.
As we see over in the nextscripture, it says Samson went
(15:19):
down to Timnah and at Timnah hesaw one of the daughters of the
Philistines.
And then he came up and toldhis father and mother I saw one
of the daughters of thePhilistines at Timnah.
Now get her for me as my wife.
There's two things that Samsondoes incredibly wrong here in
this passage.
First, he went down to Timnah.
(15:39):
This was a place of pagan roots.
This was not to be a placewhere he should have been mixing
and mingling and being in.
But he went there and then itsays he saw one of the daughters
.
So he saw someone that he wasnot supposed to be with, to be
associated with, and he said Iwant her, give her to me.
(15:59):
And you see, his parents didn'tknow the right to tell him yes
or no, because they wanted totell him hey, what about one of
your relatives?
But they never reallyimplemented the authority there.
You see, he was led by his eyes.
We're gonna see.
The comparison between him andJesus is that he was led by his
eyes and that was his downfall.
(16:20):
But Jesus, however, was led byhis father.
As we see that in the book ofJohn, chapter six, Jesus gives
us a verse of what he has done.
He says for I have come downfrom heaven not to do my own
will, but to the will of him whosent me.
I want you to notice the phrasethere going back is Samson went
(16:40):
down to Timnah.
Samson was physically goingdown to sin.
Samson was physically going toa place where he should not have
been, he should not have beenassociating with.
But I want us to see is, longbefore church, long before we
ever do the physical of the sin,it's in our hearts, it brews in
our hearts.
That's why Jesus on the Sermonon the Mount said before you
(17:03):
ever commit adultery physically,it started in your hearts.
That's why Jesus on the Sermonon the Mount said before you
ever commit adultery physically,it started in your heart.
Adultery starts in the heartLong before you ever murdered
someone.
The hatred that was brewing inyour heart is what led you to
that and that's sinful.
I know most of you have probablybeen on Instagram or Facebook
and you've seen the latestscandal that was out there with
the CEO and the woman that heworked with.
(17:23):
They were at the Coldplayconcert.
You know what I'm talking about.
Yeah, it's all over the placeand there's been all of these
different memes and things thathave been kind of like even
poking fun of it and stuff.
But long before they were everat that concert, sin entered
into their hearts Right Longbefore they ever bought the
tickets or went there or decidedto commit adultery and be in an
(17:46):
affair that started in theirhearts.
You see, that's what sin does.
It's a slow fade.
It's a slow creeping up.
It's a slow.
I'm gonna start here and thenI'm gonna push the limits.
I'm gonna push the limits alittle bit more.
That was Samson's life.
He was pushing the limits alittle bit, over and over and
over again.
Why?
Because he said, I got this.
He relied on his own strengthmore than he relied on the
(18:08):
strength of his heavenly father.
You see, samson's heartfollowed his eyes.
He said I'm gonna go there, Iwant her, give her to me.
You see, he blurred the linebetween sacred and secular.
Heathen and holy, however youwant to phrase it, don't let
that be you.
Heathen and holy, however youwanna phrase it, don't let that
(18:28):
be you.
Church, don't let that be you.
Whenever you wanna kinda get alittle bit of sin and a little
bit of Jesus, you were notcreated for a little bit of sin.
You were not created to mix andmatch your sin and Jesus.
Jesus says you can only serveone master.
It's either gonna be fill inthe blank or it's gonna be him
and I promise you, and just likewe saw in the cycle, if that
(18:50):
idol at the top, if the thing atthe top is not Jesus, it will
lead to sin, it will lead tooppression, it will lead to
death.
And you see this in Judges,chapter 14, verse three, with
Samson's dad trying to kind ofspeak some sense into him.
He says but his father and hismother said to him is there not
a woman among your relatives oramong all our people that you
(19:12):
must go to the uncircumcisedPhilistines?
Do you know what sin does?
Sin makes you do things thatyou know you're not supposed to
do.
It takes logical sense out ofthe equation and it just gives
you over to that primal, sinfulinstinct, that instinct that you
were not created for.
You were created to follow andlove Jesus.
(19:33):
And so again, this theme that wesee.
It's not up here, but in Judges21,.
It says that everyone did whatwas right in his own eyes.
This is the overarching themeof all of scripture.
Eve, the very beginning, thevery first sin.
What does she do?
She saw the fruit, she wantedit, she took it.
Every sin that has followedafter that has been I see that,
(19:55):
I want it, I'll take it and italways leads to sin and death.
You see, god did use Samson'smistakes.
However, samson was not perfect, as obviously we're going to
see all throughout this, and Iwould encourage you, church, go
back and read Judges 13, 14, 15,16.
I'm not going to be able to hitevery single verse, but in this
(20:17):
story you're going to see wherehe messes up over and over and
over and over again, and Goddelivers over and over and over
again, not because of theperfect nature of Samson, but
because of his perfect nature.
And so Samson makes the mistakeand God delivers.
It's like the story in Genesiswhen Joseph's brothers sold him
into slavery and at the end ofthe story, his brothers are
(20:42):
apologizing and they're worriedto death that he's gonna put
them to death, and he's like, no, no, no, what you meant for
evil, god used it for good.
There's a lot of things,probably in your life that you
can think of that are just evil,that are just not the way that
you had in mind.
Maybe it's a relationship youhad with somebody, maybe it's
the circumstance that you'recurrently in, maybe you are 100%
(21:07):
innocent in this and it justseems like the enemy is
attacking you over and over andover again.
Church, stay faithful, becauseGod is good to deliver you from
that, and God will use every bitof bad in this world for his
good, because he is undefeatedand he is untried.
In that.
The third thing I want us tosee this morning, the point of
(21:27):
all this, the point of versethree or, excuse me, point three
, is that you were born by Godto believe his truth.
You were born by God to believehis truth.
And the differences we see inSamson and Jesus in this one is
Samson used riddles to deceiveand Jesus used parables to teach
.
I noticed similarities betweenthese as I was looking through
this teaching.
I was looking at Judges,chapter 14.
(21:50):
There's this story whereSamson's first wife is being.
They're trying to get her toentice Samson to give them the
answer to this riddle.
Because Samson is in this wagerthat if they don't get the
riddle then they're gonna owehim some stuff.
They were gonna owe him somegarments, some changes of
clothes, but if they do get itthen he owes them, and so he
(22:14):
gives this riddle.
Out of the eater came somethingto eat, out of the strong came
something sweet.
And so Samson kind of gets hisDr Seuss on and he's trying to
create this funny little storyand this funny riddle.
And only he knows the answer tothis, because it was just him
there.
Only he knows he wasn't tryingto give this riddle for them to
actually solve.
He was doing this so that theywould be deceived.
(22:35):
You see, samson concealed thetruth to gain power, but Jesus
in his parables, uses them toteach, to give life.
Do you notice most of scripture, when Jesus is teaching, he
doesn't leave with a.
And here's the answer hedoesn't leave with a.
Oh, by the way, the whole thingthat you're wondering and
thinking about, I'm gonna giveyou every single answer to that.
(22:58):
Most of the time he leftaudiences and people with
questions because he wants themand wants us to seek him, truly,
truly seek him.
And you see, his parables werenever straightforward.
You know, it's possible to benot straightforward with
somebody, but for them to eitherget the answer or for them to
be deceived.
You see, samson, the wholepoint of his riddles was to
(23:19):
deceive.
He had something that theywanted.
He had something that he saidif I keep this from them, then
I'm going to have the power.
I'm going to have this.
But Jesus in his parables,especially the parable of the
talents that we see in Matthew25, he used this parable to
teach.
He wasn't straightforward, itwasn't something that completely
(23:40):
made sense.
And there were two audiencesthat, after Jesus' parable, did
two different things.
One said what does all of thatmean?
And they walked away and theydidn't care about the parable
anymore.
And there was another audienceyou and me, and maybe us
churches that they saw what hewrote in scripture and they
thought what does that mean?
And it was there where Jesusmet them in their questions, in
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their doubts, in their concerns.
And he says seek me.
You'll find me when you seek mewith all your heart.
And so it's important to seekJesus because he is not
concealing his truth to givehimself power.
He is revealing truth so thatyou will have that Holy Spirit
power.
You see, jesus used storiesagain, like the parables and all
these, so that we can see him.
You see, when used storiesagain like the parables and all
(24:24):
these, so that we can see him.
You see, when Jesus looked downfrom the cross.
I want us to notice that whenhe looked down from the cross,
he forgave, he prayed for people, he loved the people, the
people that were spitting in hisface, that were mocking him,
that were beating him, that werekilling him, and think about
all of that power that he had.
All of that he had.
(24:44):
He could have easily wiped themout and would have been
justified in doing so, but heloved them instead, that when he
was on that cross, he thoughtof you, he thought of you and he
thought of you and he thoughtof me, because he loves us.
So this leads us to our fourthpoint in all this is that you
were born by God to love likehim, not to love like this world
(25:08):
, not to love like the worldtalks about love.
There's a lot of love talk inthis world, but the thing is
that the truth of the matter ischurch, that this world does not
know what love is in itself.
They don't.
There's love that this worldwill try to say is love, but
it's really just lust.
Or there's love that peoplewill say, but it's really just
(25:29):
pride and greed.
And I want us to notice thesimilarities between Jesus and
Samson here.
See, samson sought to marry apagan woman for himself, but
Jesus gave himself for the bridefor the church.
We looked at the very firstverse that we looked at.
It said that Samson went downto Timnah.
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But he went there to find apagan wife.
He went there to indulge in hispleasures.
He went there to give somethingto himself.
That's not love.
A lot of people will say well,if I feel it and I want it, I
gotta have it.
That's love.
There's a whole culture thatsays act on your feelings,
because your feelings equal love.
That is never the way thatJesus defines love and Jesus
(26:16):
defines love by sacrifice.
Jesus gave himself for hisbride.
You see, both of them went downand stooped into sinful places.
The difference between Samsonand Jesus was Samson went to a
sinful place to stay there inthe mud, to stay there in the
sin, to say this feels good tome.
But Jesus went down into sinfulhumanity and said I'm going to
(26:37):
bring them up.
I love them too much to letthem stay in their sin, and some
people will choose sin too muchto let them stay in their sin.
And some people will choose sinand some people will choose to
not follow Jesus.
And he still did it.
You see, in this, this paganwoman, samson should have not
married her.
He should not have even soughtout a pagan woman, he should
have sought out an Israelite or,like what his parents said, one
of the relatives among him, buthe sought out someone that he
(27:00):
knew that he was not supposed tohave.
So I'm gonna tread lightly, butI'm gonna speak boldly from
scripture and I'm gonna givesome relationship advice.
Now I'm not perfect.
I'm not about to write a bookon matchmakercom or anything
like that, although I will sayI'm pretty good at matchmaker
Our brother-in-law's getting, ormy brother-in-law's getting
married this weekend and I sethim up, so I'm doing pretty good
(27:21):
on that end.
But I will not write a book onrelationships.
I got to give that another likea hundred years until I'm
married.
But I will say what scripturesays.
I will speak boldly about whatscripture says when it comes to
relationships, to anyoneconsidering marriage or dating.
I know we have some youngadults in the room and I know
that's kind of on the forefrontof your mind all the time, like
when am I going to get my wife?
When am I I gonna get my wife?
(27:42):
When am I gonna get my husband?
When, when, when?
Like you're just wondering whenit's all gonna happen and I
know that.
Look, trust me, I was in thatseason and I know what it's like
to want a spouse.
I know what it's like to notwant to be alone.
I know what it's like to want.
(28:04):
But my first in everyrelationship, but especially
those of a future spouse orcurrent spouse, Seek Jesus first
, seek him first.
Because here's the thing churchis if you are not faithful to
seek Jesus and serve Jesus, youprobably won't be faithful to
seek and serve your spouse.
If you're always about yourself.
It's not a healthy foundationfor a marriage.
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Serve your spouse, serve theother.
That's what Jesus did.
And see my encouragement.
And what God's word says isdon't marry someone who doesn't
follow Jesus.
Don't enter into a relationshipwith someone who doesn't follow
Jesus.
I can say the last church that Iwas at, when I was acting as
just the young adult pastor, themajority I would say 90% of the
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conversations I had with youngadults was them come up and
asking hey, man, I really likethis girl.
You know she's beautiful, we'vegot a lot in common.
She likes to do this, I like todo this.
You know, we're a match made inheaven, but she's not a
believer.
What do I do?
And I said in the most lovingyet truthful way you don't do
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that, you don't enter into thatrelationship, not because that
person's probably not a goodperson or because they are great
and they are beautiful, butbecause is that what you want in
a relationship?
Is someone who doesn't seek asavior, someone who doesn't
point people to a, is someonewho doesn't seek a savior,
someone who doesn't point peopleto a savior, who doesn't know
the savior themselves?
Because Jesus designed us forlove and we can only find love
(29:32):
in him.
And so I know for some of youthis is a touchy subject,
because you might be in the roomhere alone, your spouse might
not be here with you, becauseyour spouse might say I don't
understand all this.
None of this makes sense to me.
This whole church thing doesn'tmake sense to me.
Why do you follow Jesus?
Why do you get up every Sundayand go to a place full of
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hypocrites Sorry, we're allhypocrites.
Why do you go to a place whereeverybody's all messed up?
Yeah, we're all messed up.
That's kind of the point of whywe're here.
Why would you go and do that?
And I understand that that's atough subject because that might
be your reality, that yourspouse, your husband, your wife,
they may not follow Jesus.
But I wanna encourage you whatscripture says about that for
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the husbands and wives, and thisprimarily talks to the wife
first.
But it says in 1 Peter 3, itsays wives be subject to your
own husbands so that even ifsome do not obey the word, they
may be one without a word by theconduct of their wives.
Husbands, you can do the samething, but what I do notice is
most of the time it is the wives.
I know that from kids' ministryto student ministry is the
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majority of the time it's thewife that is in the room and
it's not the husband.
And so, church, I can't speakfor this church.
I know that there aredefinitely churches there that
I've been a part of or I'veserved at or I've met at or
whatever, where the majority ofthe volunteer base is women.
They are women, it's just themajority of them are, and the
men don't step up.
But I can say I am encouraged,especially this past weekend,
(31:00):
seeing all of the men who are atour men's breakfast and all of
the men who get up and servehere in this church.
And obviously none of us areperfect, but we can see that we
are a serving church and thatwe're trying and that the Lord
has called us to do more thanjust sit at home.
And so, church, I wannaencourage you, if you are the
wife that is here alone, or thehusband here alone, that it's
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not too late, that, while theyare still breathing, there is
time for them to follow Jesus.
And, just like it says in hisword, the way that you live your
life may get them to ask why doyou still love me, why are you
still faithful to me?
Why do you still treat me theway that you treat me and I
don't treat you the way that youshould be treated?
And the answer is because Jesusdoes.
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Because Jesus was faithful tome when I was a sinner and he
still loves me while I am asinner and he died for me while
I'm still a sinner.
And you can serve the otherperson while they're still a
sinner.
Because you see thefaithfulness that was
implemented by Jesus.
You see, christ gave himself toand died for imperfect people
like me and like you, notbecause we're perfect, but
(32:05):
because he is, and he sought tosave us by his power, which
leads us to our fifth point isthat you were born by God for
his power.
Now, judges, chapter 15, showsoff all of the strengths and the
feats of Samson.
Samson was a just to be honest,he was a messed up dude.
Now, samson was a just to behonest, he was a messed up dude.
(32:25):
We see here in the comparison,samson uses the power from the
Lord for his pleasure.
Jesus uses his power for ourgood and his glory.
Some of the feats that we seein Judges, chapter 15, if you're
looking along here and kind ofskimming through this chapter,
it says Samson's physicalstrength was unmatched.
Also, I didn't know this,someone came up to me at the end
(32:46):
of the first service and showedthat the timeline of Samson and
Hercules were about the same.
So it talks about like there'sthese great men of strength, one
rooted in scripture and onerooted in pagan theology, and so
there was nobody on earth likeSamson and his feats of strength
.
You see, samson's physicalstrength was unmatched.
He ripped a line apart.
That's what it says in Judges.
It says he ripped a line apartas you would a baby goat,
(33:08):
because you know, we're all justripping apart baby goats in our
free time.
Like I read that scripture andI'm like what do you mean?
We're all just ripping apartbaby goats.
That doesn't make any sense.
I guess that was like a pastimeback in the day.
It says he killed 300 men inAshkelon.
He killed just 300 men.
It says this one's probably themost twisted one that we see
here.
It makes no sense how his minddecided to do this, but it says
(33:29):
so.
Samson went and caught 300 foxesand he took torches and he
turned them tail to tail and puta torch between them.
So he ties 300 foxes together,puts a torch in the middle of
them and says giddy up, and hejust sends him in a field and he
burns down a field.
They all burn down the field.
He was messed up.
Samson was a messed up guy andhe used all of this strength
(33:52):
that he had for just his ownpleasures, things that he
enjoyed doing.
It also shows that he killed1,000 men with the jawbone of a
donkey.
He's like no, I don't need asling or a stone or a sword, I'm
going to go get a donkey'sjawbone and I'm going to take
out a thousand men, but I wantus to see churches.
(34:14):
His strength did not come fromhis build, it came from the Lord
.
Now most of us have probablygrown up with the same picture
of Samson that I have.
I often picture Samson,basically the rock with a wig.
That's kind of just just me.
That's kind of how I pictureSamson, this big, buff, strong
dude who probably has like 400,500 pounds on his back every day
, just like calf walking,getting his calf built up, doing
bicep curls.
(34:34):
I just see Samson in the gym alot, but the reality of it
probably was there was reallyprobably no telling what kind of
or how his strength was what itwas, because they wouldn't have
asked the question.
There was really probably notelling what kind of or how his
strength was what it was,because they wouldn't have asked
the question where does yourstrength come from if he was
built like the rock, just beinghonest?
And so they wondered where hisstrength came from.
And that's why it says in theseacts of strength, it says the
(34:56):
spirit of the Lord rushed uponhim.
And if I were or, excuse me, ifhe were jacked again, there
would not have been thisquestion.
So people often had to askwhat's his secret?
What is his secret?
What makes him so strong?
And church, that is the point.
The point of all this is thatthe source of our strength is
(35:16):
not visible, it's spiritual.
Your strength.
It's not in the physical.
It's not in the monetary, it isin the spiritual, because
everything else will pass away.
There will always be somebodystronger.
There will always be somebodyfaster.
There will always be somebodyfitter and smarter and braver
and funnier and more charismatic.
There will always be somebodymore.
And so those things cannot bewhere the source of our strength
(35:39):
is.
It has to come from above, andso what I want you to know is
that you don't have to be famousto be faithful.
I think one of the worst liesthat our generation we're
talking about, like Gen Z andmillennial, and our students and
our kids that they buy into, isthat they cannot preach the
good news of Jesus because theydon't have a pulpit, or maybe
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they don't have a PhD, or maybethey don't have 500,000
followers on TikTok or Instagram, or they don't have a pulpit,
or maybe they don't have a PhD,or maybe they don't have 500,000
followers on TikTok orInstagram, or they don't have a
blue check by their name.
So I guess I cannot be faithfulwith my gifts and my talents.
Church, you don't have to haveany of that stuff to be faithful
.
It does not take any of that,and I think some of the most
obviously we revere men likeBilly Graham.
(36:23):
We revere men like Billy Graham.
We revere people that we see inscripture that God anointed and
God used for all sorts ofthings.
But it's not even just thosemen, it's not even just the
people that we see with theplatforms and that speak at
Passion Conference and that getup and preach and all those
things.
It is the faithful men andwomen who every day live
faithful lives, and so I want toshare.
There's a few people here withyou this morning.
(36:44):
Anybody know who this is?
Sir Isaac Newton.
Yeah, he did not discover theapple, right?
He just this is gravity.
It was used by the apple, right?
He discovered gravity.
And so he was actually aChristian, he was a believer,
and so he would often credit hisbrain, his intellect, his gifts
, his knowledge to God.
In fact, he actually wrote moreon theology than he did on
(37:08):
science, and so his wholemission and aim in life was he
believed that science revealedGod's design In his intellect.
He believed that that wasn't away to deflate creation, that
was a way to reflect and open upthe gift of creation.
And so maybe you're like IsaacNewton, maybe you're smart.
That ain't me.
Maybe you're smart, maybeyou're a teacher, maybe you're
(37:31):
molding the minds and stuff thatare in school and you're being
told to teach somethingdifferent from scripture and you
can use your gifts and yourtalents to lead this generation
and the next generation and allthe generations to know that
science and everything that wascreated reveals a creator Next
person I want us to see.
You probably know who this isCS Lewis.
(37:53):
Many of you have probably readthe Chronicles of Narnia or Mere
Christianity or ScrewtapeLetters, but him and JRR Tolkien
, who wrote Lord of the Ringsand the Hobbit and those books.
They were pretty much like thefounding fathers of imagination,
like the reason that we haveprobably some of the books and
the movies and the comic booksand all of the fun stuff that we
have is probably because ofthose guys and this guy here, cs
(38:16):
Lewis.
You see, he used hisimagination to draw people to
Christ and I want to take amoment just to highlight and
thank those who work in our kidsministry, because every day,
every Sunday, every time that mySelah and my Isaiah come out
especially Selah she can alwaystell me what she's learned from
class.
And look, I know you can't justget up in front of dozens or
(38:40):
however many kids, and just sayall right, children, let's open
up the word.
You have to use imagination,right, you have to use
imagination when you teachchildren, because that's how we
were created and our teachershere do a fantastic job of using
their imaginations, using theirgifts, using their abilities to
create future pastors andfuture theologians and future
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disciples of Jesus.
And so thank you, church, forthat.
But I want to share, kind ofgoing along the lines of the
children.
This last lady you probablynever heard of her before, right
here in the middle.
Her name is Lillian Trasher.
Lillian Trasher didn't speak atPassion.
Lillian Trasher did not haveTikTok.
Lillian Trasher did not have apulpit or a PhD.
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But Lillian Trasher did nothave a pulpit or a PhD.
But Lillian Trasher wasfaithful.
In fact, she actually broke offan engagement that she knew
that she wasn't supposed to bein and she pursued missionary
work in Egypt where she raisedover 10,000 orphans, sharing the
gospel of Jesus Christ withthem.
And because of her faithfulnessnot her flashiness, not her fame
, but because of herfaithfulness, not her flashiness
(39:44):
, not her fame, but because ofher faithfulness there are now
tens of thousands, if not waymore, children who grow up to
give their life to Jesus, whowould be in heaven, and there's
nothing more important than that.
And so you don't have to beflashy church, you just gotta be
faithful.
And I've heard Pastor Chipshare this, and other pastors,
that God does not call thequalified, he qualifies the
(40:05):
called.
None of us are perfect.
I'm not up here because I'mperfect.
Pastor Chip is not up herebecause there's not one single
person that preaches from theword or learns from the word or
reads the word.
That is perfect.
That is just not us.
And we see this in Zechariah 4,6, talking about our might and
our power.
It says, not by might nor bypower, but by my spirit, says
(40:28):
the Lord of hosts, that what wedo does not come from our power,
it does not come from our flashand from our fame, it comes
from the words of Jesus.
The final point that I want usto see in all this is that you
were born by God to be raised up.
You see, what you notice aboutSamson and Jesus is both were
humiliated, both were beatendown, both were pushed down,
(40:53):
both were mocked, both were putto death, but God's power was
not done.
In Judges 16, verse 21,.
We see the verse of what kind ofhappens to Samson.
It says they gouged out hiseyes and made him entertain them
.
I think it's obviously this wayon purpose.
But what was the one thing thatalways led Samson to sin?
(41:17):
It was his eyes.
It was him looking at sin.
It was him looking at somethingthat he wasn't supposed to do
or going to somebody he wasn'tsupposed to be around.
But the same thing kind ofhappens to Jesus not the gouging
out the eyes, but the mockingand the beating, it says.
Then they spit in his face andthey struck him with fists.
Others slapped him and theysaid prophesy to us, messiah,
(41:37):
who hit you?
Church, I can kind of understandwhy they did what they did to
Samson, if I'm being honest.
I mean, the guy humiliated them.
If somebody tied 300 foxes upand ran them into my pasture, I
would probably be pretty upsettoo.
I would probably wanna get myrevenge.
But, church, what I cannotfathom is this how a perfect
(41:59):
savior, who never did anythingbut love them, create them, die
for them, care for them, theyspit in his face, they struck
him with their fist and theyslapped him and mocked him.
Because what we like to do iswe like to make those.
We like to put people under us,we like to have the power, we
like to feel like we've got this.
(42:20):
And so when they did this toJesus, it was almost like their
way of saying, oh, he can't beperfect, because look what we're
doing, Because Jesus, obviouslyhe's not the savior of the
world, because we're able tobeat him, we're able to mock him
, we're able to spit in his face, and they thought they had won
in that moment.
But I want us to know this thismorning is that Jesus wasn't
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done and Samson wasn't done.
In Samson's defeat, his hairbegan to sprout.
There's this word, samach.
It means to sprout, to grow, tospring up, and the same word,
sort of that we see in the storyof Jesus is that when Jesus was
put in the grave, he was raisedto life by the Holy Spirit.
This word that we see is ikero.
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It is not the same word, butthere is this thematic overlap
that happens with these twowords.
That talks about the mostimportant thing, which is
restoration.
Restoration and what we see inJeremiah, chapter 23,.
It gives us a verse of Jesus Iwill raise up Samach for David,
a righteous branch.
(43:22):
You see, jesus was not donewhen he was in the grave.
Church, your life is not doneif it feels like it's in a grave
, like what you're going throughright now.
You are not done because Jesushas still given you breath in
your lungs.
You are not done.
Jesus is not done with you.
There is still a raising up tobe done.
You see, samson, like all of us,believed that abundant life
(43:43):
came from abundant pleasuremoney, power, pleasure,
influence.
He believed that's where thesource of happiness was, that's
where the source of power was.
But Jesus shows us that truelife is only found in obedient
surrender.
Another way that Jesus put thiswas in Luke, chapter nine, when
he said in order to save yourlife, you must lose it.
He talks about picking up yourcross and following him.
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This is the verse that we see,that we see Samson in the end of
his life.
Judges, chapter 16.
Oh Lord, please remember me andplease strengthen me.
Only this once Now church.
I wish it would have endedthere.
I wish he would have endedthere because he would at least
have had a little bit ofredemptive quality about himself
.
But he goes on to say oh God,that I may be avenged of the
(44:28):
Philistines for my two eyes.
Even in Samson's humility hemakes it about himself.
Even in Samson's redemptive arche still falls, but still, I
want you to notice God respondsthat God responds to his faith.
That he has here it's not much,but he responds to his faith.
(44:48):
And the reason that is isbecause in Hebrews 11, it says
that the only way to please Godis by faith.
It's in Jesus.
In his last moments, it says,he called out with a loud voice
and said Father, into your handsI commit my spirit Church.
I want you to know this.
In the last moments of Jesus onthe cross, as he breathed his
last breath, as he prayed forthe people, as he was on the
(45:10):
cross, he thought of you, hethought of me and he did it all
for you and all for me and allfor the glory of his father.
He didn't do it for himself.
So here's the gospel Samsonbowed in brokenness and pulled
down a building.
But I want us to see is thatJesus bowed in obedience and
opened up the gates of heavenfor all of us, so that by his
(45:31):
death we may live.
And so I wanna close this upwith this is that when your
strength falls short, jesusstands strong.
When your strength, you feellike is not enough.
That's the point.
The point is not you haveenough strength or you got to
muster this up.
The amount of people that I'vetalked to that I meet on the
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streets also this is just asidebar People are wanting to be
invited to church.
People are wanting to beinvited into abundant life.
The amount of people whenever Ijust open up the word, they ask
me what I do.
I'm a pastor.
Boom, there's just all of asudden, this shell comes off,
this whatever comes down, andthey just think, man, I've been
meaning to get back in church,I've been meaning to do that,
(46:15):
I've been meaning to do all this.
I just don't feel like.
You know, maybe I'm ready, oryou know, I'm trying to find a
church, and so they feel like,because they've fallen short,
that they don't feel likethey're right in the eyes of God
.
But what we notice is we don'thave to, we don't get clean and
then come to church.
We come to church.
We come to the Lord in ourbrokenness, in our sin, in our
(46:36):
shame, because he loves us andbecause he wants to restore us,
because he wants to raise us up.
That's the point of scripture.
And see, it's not about thesize of your faith, but the
object of it.
It's like this verse.
You've probably heard this versebefore.
I think almost everybody has.
Even if you're not a Christian,you've at least heard like the
teachings of it.
Right, if you have the faith,like a grain of mustard seed,
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you will say to this mountain,move from here and there and it
will move.
This verse as a kid I thoughtmeant like I had to unlock a
superpower.
If I'm being completely honest,the way that the child
Christian actually, I'm going tobe completely honest until
probably I was in my 20s Ithought that's.
I was really confused by thisverse.
I was like why is it a mustardseed?
I don't understand.
Like, I feel like I've got, Ifeel like I've got a faith size.
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You know, mustard seed size,faith.
Like I feel like I've got that,but I never been able to make a
mountain move.
This doesn't make sense to me.
But that's because I wasprioritizing the wrong thing in
the verse.
You see, often we prioritizethe mustard seed, but it's never
been about the mustard seed,it's been about the faith.
(47:44):
You see, it's like this I'llput it this way, the best way
that I've heard this put aboutthe size of the mustard seed and
the object of your faith is.
Imagine that there are twopeople.
There's person A.
Person A is very, veryconfident in the ice that he is
standing on.
He has created t-shirts andsocial media agendas.
He even has the top celebritiesin the world that are backing
(48:06):
up the ice that he is standingon.
There's a whole month dedicatedto the pride of the ice that he
is standing on.
He thinks the ice is goodbecause he's confident.
He thinks the ice won't goanywhere and won't crush,
because he is really good atwhat he does and how he talks
about the ice and how he putsother people down about the ice.
But what matters to him, church, is that it's not his arrogance
(48:30):
and his cockiness, butunderneath him there's a
centimeter thick of ice.
And then there's the person B,who also decides to take a leap
of faith, who steps on the iceand he's a little concerned.
He's never been big in hisbeliefs.
He doesn't have all the answers, he doesn't know everything,
but he's been taught that theice is good and that as long as
(48:54):
he stands on it and as long ashe has faith, it doesn't matter
how he feels inside the ice thatis beneath him will stand
forever, and underneath him is athousand feet of ice Church.
The first person, person A, isthe person who builds their
foundation, who has theirfeelings, who has their
confidence in the stuff of thisworld, in the pride of their
(49:16):
life, in the stuff, in thethings, in sin.
It doesn't matter how confidentyou are in your sin.
What matters is the object ofyour faith, and sin will always
lead to oppression, it willalways lead to crumbling life,
it will always lead to death.
What matters is that you liveyour life like person B who.
(49:36):
You may not have all theanswers, and none of us do, but
the object of your faith isstrong.
Jesus, if he is the object ofyour faith, will never crumble.
And so you may be here thismorning and you don't know what
foundation you're on, you don'teven know where to take a step.
I would encourage you by takinga leap of faith this morning.
(49:58):
Take a leap of faith to knowthat it is not about your faith,
it is about the object of yourfaith that matters the most,
jesus, or fill in the blank.
So I wanna pray for you thismorning and encourage you.
Where it says where Samsonfailed, jesus never did so.
(50:19):
Don't be like Samson and buildyour life, your foundation, on
something that's gonna crumbleand fall.
Build your foundation on Jesus.
Can I pray for you this morningIf we'd all bow our heads and
close our eyes Before I pray?
I just wanna encourage you justto think for a moment.
Who or what have I built myfoundation on?
Is it good?
(50:40):
Are they faithful?
Does it love me?
Do they love me?
Is that foundation willing todie for me?
Because if the answer is no,and the answer is not, jesus
friend, I would encourage you toshift your focus to a different
foundation, to focus thatfoundation on Jesus.
And so, lord, I pray for thatperson.
(51:02):
Lord, I pray for that personthis morning who has not taken
that leap of faith, who has notput their hope and their faith
and their trust in you, jesus.
And maybe they don't have allthe answers and they're worried
about that leap of faith.
But, lord, give themsupernatural peace right now To
be like Samson in his finalmoments.
In all of his imperfections, hestill cried out to the Lord to
(51:23):
rescue him.
Lord, I pray that we would cryout right now, lord, I pray that
we would put our hope, ourfaith, our foundation in you.
So, lord, if there's anyone inhere this morning that needs to
pray that Lord, I pray that youwould give the encouragement
right now to pray.
You can pray that Lord, I praythat you would give the
encouragement right now to pray.
You can pray something likethis it's not the words of your
(51:44):
prayer.
Again, as we've all beenlooking at this morning, it is
about your heart, the posture ofyour heart, and your salvation
prayer could be Hosanna.
It could be oh, save, just saveme, lord.
You can say Lord, I pray thatyou would just save my life.
Pray, lord, that you would bethe redeemer of my life.
I pray, lord, that you would bethe savior of my life.
(52:05):
Lord, I don't have all theanswers, but, lord, you do.
So, lord, I put my hope, myfaith and my trust in you this
morning and, lord, I pray for usas the church, as some have
prayed that prayer, lord, I praywe would encourage them, that
we would encourage them with asolid foundation that is, jesus.
(52:26):
That we would continue to speaklife to them and to bring them
up and not push them down, andbe the church for them.
And so, lord, equip us,strengthen us and humble us when
we need it.
In Jesus name, amen, and we'llgive it up for those that said
(52:46):
that prayer this morning, thatgave their life to Jesus.
And I want you to know you'rejust getting started.
I don't want a pastor to ever,or anyone to ever, tell you that
, hey, after you give your lifeto Jesus, it's just smooth
sailing For you believers in theroom.
You know that's not the case.
You know that you've now takenon the world, but greater is who
(53:07):
that is in you than he who isin the world.
Amen.
So, church, I just wanna prayfor us for a second as we go.
We're gonna go into a time ofworship after this.
I wanna thank you for joiningus this morning.
I wanna just pray for us as weencourage those that are around
us, as we get into the word, aswe continue to serve throughout
this week, as our kids go backto school.
I know all of you kids are soexcited about that.
(53:27):
You can't wait to go back toschool, but I just pray for us
as a church.
I'm so thankful for you.
I often see the letters when youread in scripture Paul.
Paul and the writers of the NewTestament would often say I
thank you, god, for this church.
I thank you, god, for thischurch.
I thank you for Powder Springs.
Let's pray, heavenly Father.
We thank you this morning forthis church.
I pray that we would encouragethose around us, god, I pray
(53:48):
that we would continue to buildour life on the foundation that
is Jesus and not build it on anyother foundation.
Lord, I pray that you wouldequip us and strengthen us this
morning and today and as wecarry on in our life, lord, to
again not to seek out pleasuresof this world, but to seek out
the power that is you, jesus.
(54:09):
And so, lord, equip us,strengthen us, and may this time
of worship be pleasing to you,as we give you our all and it's
in Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.
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