Hi, and welcome to the Willow Ridge Church weekly podcast.
This is where you can find audio for our current and past sermons.
We hope that you enjoy this week's installment, and be sure to check back next week to hear
the latest message.
Thanks for listening.
If you've got your Bibles with you, go ahead and open up to Judges chapter 4.
As we are continuing on in our study as we work through the book of Judges, today we're
going to look at chapter 4 and chapter 5, kind of tell some stories of what's going on
there and draw out some of the verses that we want to focus in on.
And these two chapters, I want to be honest with you, it kind of created for me a little
bit of a challenge this week to kind of work through and pull what seems to be some separate
narratives and to pull them together into one story.
And so I want to give you a concept or an idea to kind of focus your mind on, to centralize
and to think about this as we work through this study this morning, all right?
In all things, in all moments, and in all times, do you acknowledge God and glorify Him?
So here's what I want you to think about.
Like, as you are going through your everyday journey and your battle and your suffering and
your joys, the highs, the lows, and everywhere in between, as we're going through these, are
we noticing, are we acknowledging, are we responding and giving God glory?
Because what I found about me, and I shared this during our first service, kind of sitting
there this morning and just kind of had a moment of brokenness and repentance that even in my life
and where I find myself, that I find myself kind of lost in the weeds of the world, right?
That with everything that's going on around me, I can allow that to consume me and not only
consume my thoughts and consume my reality, but maybe even more importantly, right?
consume my glory, right?
So that in moments of success, in moments of victory, in moments of achievement, I find
that I give my glory in wrong places.
And in moments of defeat, in moments of frustration, in moments of the battle where I can find myself
doing is missing out on what God is actually doing in it, all right?
And so as we read through this this morning, I want us to kind of navigate through and see
what are these people doing?
How are they responding?
But more importantly, what is God doing in it, okay?
So in Judges chapter 4, we find that once again, right, a common theme that Israel is doing
what is evil in the sight of the Lord.
And so God responds to his evil people by allowing some difficulties, by allowing some persecution,
by allowing some suffering to invade their world so that he can draw them back to himself.
And so Judges 4 tells us that now Israel is held captive under King Jabin, who's going
to use his commander, like his key general, Sisera, to keep the Israelites oppressed, right?
And so God's going to respond to the cry of his people and to their oppression, and God is
going to call Deborah to be the judge.
And so let's start reading Judges 4, starting in verse 4.
Scripture tells us,
Now Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lapidoth, was judging Israel at that time.
She used to sit under the palm of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim.
And the people of Israel came up to her for judgment.
And she sent and summoned Barak, the son of Abinoam, from Kadesh Naphtali, and said to him,
Has not the Lord, the God of Israel, commanded you?
Go gather your men at Mount Tabor.
Take 10,000 from the people of Naphtali and the people of Zebulun.
And I will draw out Sisera, the general of Jabin's army, to meet you by the river Kishon, with his chariots and his troops.
And I will give him into your hand.
So we meet a new judge.
We meet the new judge that God is going to appoint, that God calls, and that God positions to use in order to set the people free.
And we learn very quickly there's going to be some unique parts about Deborah and her leadership, all right?
Now, this word Deborah is not a weird name for a man in the Old Testament, all right?
When you read Deborah, Deborah is a woman.
That's important for us to know, okay?
I know sometimes we read these names and it's hard to figure out, but just like today, Deborah's a female.
And so this is going to be a different piece that we see as she is going to lead God's people, all right?
Deborah is a prophetess.
So before Deborah is a judge, Deborah is already being used by God.
So when we read through Scripture, a lot of the books of the Bible that come right before the New Testament are about the prophets and what the prophets would share.
Well, Deborah was a prophet known as a prophetess, so she was a female prophet.
Now, here's what she would do.
She would hear from God.
Now, a prophet, when they would hear from God, had a very distinct responsibility.
So it wasn't that they would hear from God and then hold that to themselves.
It wasn't a personal word from God to them, but they were then tasked to communicate from God to his people.
Now, this won't be the case with all of the judges, but it's what we've seen from Deborah, right?
Prior to Deborah being a judge, Deborah is already seen as a leader within the community.
And we see this in chapter 4.
It says that she's judging people as people are coming to her.
And so it's not just what God has tasked her to do in this world as a judge, but even prior to that, people are coming to her.
Now, unlike many of the leaders that we're going to see and that we're going to learn about and that we've already learned about, Deborah is not a warrior leader, okay?
She is not one who comes through her physical presence and is going to establish her authority.
The exact opposite.
Deborah is going to lead God's people not through her physical abilities, but because of her wisdom, her character, and her intimacy with God.
That this is what she is going to be known for, not as the warrior queen who would come in and dominate and take.
And we're going to see in this chapter what women are capable of doing as God empowers them to work and to move.
But instead, Deborah is going to lead out of her wisdom from God.
The character as she submits herself to God, where both of these lead to an intimacy with God.
This is the perfect, beautiful picture of what we see.
And Deborah, in this nature, is going to point us to Jesus, all right?
We talked about this last week, and when we read the Old Testament, that God is constantly giving us individuals that we can see that while they are strictly human,
through the power of God, they're able to lead God's people, and they're able to point and to teach us about who Christ is and the character and nature of Him.
And so what we see from Deborah, as she points us to Jesus, is that Deborah will be seen as a ruler, not as a rescuer, right?
We're going to begin to understand and walk through how Deborah is going to rule, not rescue, and how that's going to point us to Jesus.
Remember, I said Deborah's not going to be the one that storms the battlefield.
Instead, that's going to be this guy named Barak.
Barak's going to lead the soldiers to go in and to fight.
And in fact, the one who will fully rescue God's people won't even be Barak.
It'll be another woman that we meet named J.L.
Who comes in and who redeems and rescues God's people.
And so what I want us to get through as we begin to understand this is the concept of saving and surrendering.
And we begin to see this as Deborah establishes her rule and the rule and reign that will come in of Christ.
You know, I know it's hard to believe, but it's dropping down to 50 degrees, which lets us all know, right, that Christmas is right around the corner.
Now come Christmastime, it may be 85 degrees again, right, but we know that Christmas is coming.
And when Christmas comes, we will tell stories, we'll have Bible verses that all point to the fact that our Messiah, the Savior of the world, has come to save us.
And one of the passages of Scripture that we oftentimes look at, that we read, we quote, and we even maybe put it on Christmas decorations is a passage in Isaiah chapter 9.
And when we read this passage, we think about our Savior who has come to save us.
But what we're going to see more in there is not in the saving nature of Christ, but in the response of us in our surrenderance to Him.
In Isaiah 9, starting in verse 6, it says,
For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government shall be upon His shoulder, and His name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
And so, as Isaiah writes this, as Isaiah talks about this coming child who will save the world,
There is the salvation that's there, but there's the rule of His kingdom that He's talking about, right?
He talks about a government that's different than the earthly government.
He talks about a rule that's different than any other rule, that there will be peace, and that this peace will be of no end,
And so, for you and I, as we begin to wrestle with, and evaluate, and repent even, in our relationship with God,
We need to begin to balance out and to understand our saving and our surrendering.
Because in our salvation, Jesus saves us.
And in our response, we surrender to Him.
Salvation happens in a moment.
I want you to think back, for all of us who were saved,
I want you to think back to that moment when God saved you.
Maybe you were a young child.
Maybe it's when you were an adult.
Maybe it was in a church.
Maybe it was at your home.
Maybe it was in a conversation with a friend.
But at some point in time, for all of us who were a part of the kingdom of God,
God saved us.
Salvation happened in a moment.
And where we find ourselves moving from that point forward,
as God fully saved us, is now surrendering to Him.
Find ourselves positioning in ourselves under Him.
And so, for so many of us, we begin to have this conflict.
And here's what the conflict is for us.
We want the salvation, but without the surrender.
We want the salvation.
And what I mean by that is, we want our past taken care of.
We want the forgiveness that comes with Jesus to be credited toward us.
We want our future ensured.
Like, we want that moment that when we breathe our last breath,
that we will be with Christ for all of eternity.
And so, we want our past.
We want our future.
The difficulty with all of us who call ourselves believers are not with those.
It's with the right now.
God, I want you to have my past.
I want you to have my future.
Save me from those.
But God, the right now, that's still up to me.
We want Jesus to save us.
We want Jesus to save us, but we want to hold on to what we feel is ours right here.
You know, Jesus, the Bible tells us, is our king.
And the king has subjects.
And the way we become the subjects is to surrender to the king.
You know, Deborah doesn't come in as the ruler.
I'm sorry, Deborah doesn't come in as the rescuer.
But Deborah comes in as the ruler, where people would sit beneath her to have her judge them.
Not just for the past, not just for the future, but for the moment.
And as we begin to wrestle through this, just a simple question as we go, as that sets the groundwork for all of us will be,
as we talk about where we're going to give God the glory, right?
We can't go back in time and give him the glory from the past.
We can't jump to the future and give him the glory that's there.
But what we have in the moment is the opportunity in the right now of where we declare our glory.
Let's keep reading in Judges 4, verse 8.
So she comes, I'm sorry, she comes and shares with Barak what Barak is to do, that Barak is to go, and that the Lord will deliver them.
And so starting in verse 8, Barak said to her,
If you will go with me, I will go.
But if you will not go with me, I will not go.
And she said, I will surely go with you.
Nevertheless, the road on which you are going will not lead to your glory.
For the Lord will sell Sisera into the hand of a woman.
Then Deborah arose and went with Barak to Kadesh.
Here's what it means to give God glory.
Here's what it means in the uncertainty of time for you and I to glorify God with our life.
To give God glory by trusting in his sovereignty.
So Barak on the surface does everything that he's supposed to do.
Barak hears from Deborah and Barak will go.
Barak will know what God has called him to do and Barak will respond to that in doing all of the correct things.
But let's notice what he says when Deborah tells him what he's supposed to do.
He says, look, look.
I'll go.
I'll be obedient.
I'll do what God told me to do.
But you've got to go with me.
Deborah, I know that God called me for this and he called you for that.
But if I'm going to do what God has told me to do, that my obedience to him is dependent not on him but on you.
Who is Barak fully obedient to?
God.
But in that, who did he place his trust in?
Deborah.
When it comes to giving glory, we must ask ourselves, we must evaluate and begin to understand whose glory you and I are living for is oftentimes determined by who we give credit to.
You see, Barak in his obedience is placing his trust, is determining the faithfulness and the sovereignty, not of by God, but through Deborah.
So let me ask you this question with where you are, with where you find yourself today, and the successes of your life, and the accomplishments that you've made, and the character that is within you, and the integrity that exudes from you, and everything that is good,
and the obedience that comes from you, and the obedience that comes from you, where do you place that credit?
Ultimately, where are you going to give glory?
You see, for Barak, he wanted to trust in Deborah.
I'll do, but you've got to go with me in order for this to happen.
Instead of trusting and knowing that God is faithful, instead of knowing that God is trustworthy, instead of knowing that God is sovereign,
he places his faithfulness, his trustworthiness, and the sovereignty in Deborah, and in doing so, imparts his glory to her, and completely misses.
But the battle goes on.
The battle will happen, and God will be faithful.
So Barak and his soldiers go into battle against Sisera, and 900 chariots, all right?
So let me explain this, of what it means for men to go into battle with chariots, all right?
So I want you to think of going into battle with a bunch of rocks versus tanks, right?
Who's going to win, all right?
The tanks.
And so this is what God's people are going to face.
They can't overcome this in themselves.
They're incapable of gaining the victory.
And so God shows up.
Later on in chapter 5, we'll get there in just a second, but it tells us what happens.
That God sends, in order to defeat the chariots, God sends a rainstorm.
You see, where the battle would take place had been going through a dry season.
So think back to our summers here in South Carolina, right?
Like, I'm glad that I've got sprinklers at my house, because when a dry season comes, I can just water a little bit more to take care of my lawn, to take care of my garden, and everything is taken care of.
But they didn't have that.
And so when they go through a dry season, when they go through a drought in this area, in this part of the world, we're not talking, right, about like two weeks.
We're talking about four to six months of no rain.
And what happens during that time, if there was any grass that would be there, it would die away.
Any dirt that had any moisture in it, the moisture would evaporate, and it would become like this hard clay.
And then when rain would finally come, right?
We're not talking about mud.
But what would happen, it was almost turning, like if you think about mixing clay with water, and what becomes is this very difficult substance to even move through.
And so as the two armies come into the battlefield, the ground would have been like our tile floor, that hard that the chariots could just roll and dominate.
But then God sends the rain.
And all of a sudden, 900 chariots that would wipe out the army completely become useless.
And Barak and his army succeed.
But they don't get to Sisera.
And so they're still held captive because the general is still there.
But Sisera flees.
And he finds himself at a tent, the husband and a wife.
And the wife's name is Jael.
And she invites him in.
And it's obvious that he's exhausted.
It's obvious that he's tired.
It's obvious that he is worn out.
And without a ton of explanation from Scripture, what the Bible tells us is she brings him into the tent.
She gives him something to cover up so that he can dry off.
She gives him something warm to drink.
And then he lies down, right?
And because of one of the more graphic parts of the Bible, we're just going to leave it to she kills him.
Right?
And who gets the glory?
If we're there in the moment, if these seasons are playing out in front of us, if we're Deborah, if we're Barak, who gets the glory?
Do we give it to ourselves?
Look at what I did.
Man, God told me what to do, and I did it.
Look at how faithful I am.
Look at how trusting I am.
Look at me and what I've done.
And so that in our obedience, we can become where we reflect the glory that was never ours back onto ourselves.
Can we give the glory to someone else?
Oh, well, we were there.
We were almost there.
But Sisera fled.
But if not for Jael, if not for her faithfulness, if not for what she would have done, then where would we find ourselves today?
Thank you to all that she has done.
And so we take the glory that was never intended to be cast onto another individual, and we do that.
Or, or maybe even more confusing, but probably more problematic of our hearts, is do we give glory to chance?
Well, thank goodness that that rain came out of nowhere, because if not for the rain, then where would we find ourselves today?
And church, as I read this this week, as I studied through this, what I found was that so many times in my life, I'm given glory to chance.
I'm given glory to so grateful this happened, it came out of nowhere, I didn't see this coming, and God stopped me.
And he said, who do you think sent the rain to begin with?
Who do you think called the battlefield in which it would take place?
Who do you think stopped the rain six months ago so that the ground would become this way?
Who do you think allowed them to function in their arrogance so much that only 900 chariots came, and so their troops would be limited?
Who do you think did all of that?
Do you think it was by chance, or do you think it was God who did this?
I don't know about you guys, but as I read through this this week,
what I find is that in my life, time and time again, in the mountaintops and in the valleys,
in the victories and then the defeats,
I'm looking around, and what I'm doing and where I'm placing my glory
is on myself and on others and on chance.
But it's God.
Verse 23.
So on that day, God subdued Jabin, the king of Canaan, before the people of Israel.
And the hand of the people of Israel pressed harder and harder against Jabin, the king of Canaan,
until they destroyed Jabin, the king of Canaan.
Who did it?
God.
Who did it?
God.
Time and time again.
So yeah, through Deborah, through Barak, through JL,
what we see, what we begin to understand is God is faithful.
God is trustworthy, and God is sovereign.
And we respond by giving glory to him.
So what does that look like for us, right?
Giving God glory is a, that's kind of a churchy phrase, right?
Like we talk about that a lot.
Like it's in the songs that we sing.
It's on bumper stickers that we have.
I just want to go and give God glory.
But then we say, well, how do we do that?
And I think oftentimes we make it more complicated than it needs to be.
We try to think of all of these things that need to be done.
We try to think through these religious requirements that we place in on ourselves.
But what I want us to begin to understand is that in the moments in time,
what it looks like as you and I are responding to God in the everyday moments of our lives.
Because right now, whether you know it or not, God's drying up a field so that six months later,
he can send the rain.
What we don't understand is that right now, God's sending a Deborah so that we can be Barack and be a part of this.
That right now, God is working and moving in everyday moments.
And if you and I aren't careful, we completely miss it.
I'm online, we're here.
You know, guys, I have a hard time just being truthful and blunt sometimes.
But I found over the last six months that what I'm struggling with,
I've kind of branded for myself, Eeyore Christianity.
Right?
I mean, things aren't going the way that I hope they would since March 15th.
You know?
Like, let's watch the news.
Let's jump on social media.
Let's have conversations with our neighbors.
And here's the breaking story that's going on.
There's a lot of nasty out there.
There's a lot of evil out there.
There's a lot of brokenness that's out there.
And the sin that I've been struggling with for the last six months that I feel like God is trying to open my eyes to and bring me to repentance.
It's like, man, man, man, you're wandering from me.
And I'm just letting this dry up.
And one of these days, I'm going to send the rain.
And I'm going to set you free from what you're incapable of even seeing what's going on.
But we just won't stop and acknowledge it.
Because we're lost in the junk.
We're lost in the weeds.
We're lost with what's going on.
And in doing that, we've taken our eyes off of God.
Quick little survey for everybody here and everybody at home.
For everybody here, I'd like you to raise your hands.
How many of you went to sleep last night?
Raise your hand.
How many of you took the time and stopped and ate this morning or had a cup of coffee or something, right?
How many of you sometime today just paused?
Like you just kind of had a moment where you did nothing.
Raise your hand.
Like some of y'all, the people that got their kids here, you're like, no, I ain't paused in months, right?
God doesn't do any of that.
Every day, he's working, he's moving, he does not stop.
And maybe you're like me, right?
You're stuck in this Eeyore pattern of difficulty and frustration of life.
And in the character and the nature of God, when it comes to you, maybe God wants us to be reminded of this, that God is all-knowing.
With what's going on in your life right now, God's not waiting to find out.
Maybe you need to be reminded in your life that God is all-powerful.
That which you think you cannot defeat, that which causes you every morning to use this phrase,
I just got to find the strength to get through today, he doesn't have to.
He's all-powerful.
Maybe you need to be reminded that God is everywhere, right?
Like, he's with you.
Barack said, Deborah, would you come with me?
But God was with him.
And God's with you.
Right now.
Right in this moment.
He's with you.
And he's not going anywhere.
And he's not leaving you.
Because that's who he is.
And so God's people, they respond.
They're going to give him glory.
And I want us to look at what it means to give God glory.
Judges 5, 1 through 3.
It's a song, the whole chapter is.
It says,
Then sang Deborah and Barak, the son of Abinoam, on that day.
That the leaders took the lead in Israel.
That the people offered themselves willingly.
Bless the Lord.
Hear, O kings.
Give ear, O princes, to the Lord.
I will sing.
I will make a medley to the Lord, the God of Israel.
Church, let's give God glory.
When we think about it, right?
It's pretty simple.
All throughout scripture, we begin to see moments and times of interactions with people
when they begin to reflect the glory that they have back to God.
And it's not filled with religious loopholes.
It's just three things that we see.
That if we continue to read all the way through chapter 5,
we find this evident in this as God delivered them.
First thing is, we give God glory when we pray.
We give God glory when we pray.
Right?
The scariest word for so many Christians.
Pray.
What if we removed all the religious thoughts and false ideas about prayer?
And we just acknowledged that to pray is to talk to God.
To give Him glory in our communication with Him.
To make sure that in our not missing Him that we're directing all that He has done to Him.
Several weeks ago, Emma came up to me and she was talking to me.
And she did something that I don't know that I communicated very clearly to her how much it meant to me.
But she had been noticing, you know, just in the routine of life, of the busyness for Aaron and I.
And she just thanked me.
She said, thank you.
She just said, thank you.
And for me as a dad, in that moment, it clicked.
She notices.
And she cares.
You know, when we talk to God, what would it be like if we just noticed?
You know, today, the sun came up.
Thank you, God.
You know, today, your eyes opened.
You continued to breathe.
Your heart still beating.
Thank you.
Today, you sat down at your table and were able to do something that many people all over the world can't do.
You ate a plate of food.
God, thank you.
Today, you find yourself here amongst God's people.
God, thank you.
The simplicity of the prayer for God.
We see praise that is offered to God.
We see here that it's offered in song.
When we think of praise, what I want us to think through is the sacrifice of what it means to come before God.
And here's what I mean by sacrifice.
God, this which is mine, it's yours.
God, these words that were mine, I offer them back to you.
And so, God, this day that you have given me, God, let me praise you with it by sacrificing it, by saying, God, this day today is yours.
Do with it as you please.
God, this paycheck that you've given me, Lord, have me spend it in the way that is going to glorify and honor you.
Lord, these children that you have given me, Lord, I present them back to you.
They are yours.
God, I praise you.
And in that, I give you all of the glory.
But then what this song does, we're called to pray.
We're called to praise.
But we reflect.
We reflect.
And when we reflect, we remember.
That's what Deborah and Barack do.
The whole song in chapter 5 is talking about what God did.
And so, they reflect back and they declare of his goodness.
They declare of all that he has done.
But it causes them not only to remember, but when they reflect, it causes them to think ahead.
Jump down to verse 31.
Toward the end of their song, they sing of the future.
So may all your enemies perish, O Lord.
But your friends be like the sun as he rises in his might.
And the land had rest for 40 years.
When we find ourselves in the weeds, when we find ourselves in the distractions, when we find ourselves standing there on the desert plains, praying that the rain will come.
And God is faithful.
When we reflect back on those moments, we have the great confidence in what the future holds.
Because of the simple story that's being told from Genesis to Revelation, God wins.
God wins.
We're going to see more through Judges of the people forgetting.
The people acting in evil.
And what we find time and time again is the victorious God redeeming and saving his people.
It's tough.
Right now, we've all got our battles.
And in those moments, what can happen when our glory and our eyes are fixed on anything but him?
Those become our gods.
And God says, I'm here to set you free.
Would you pray with me?
Lord, we thank you so much for who you are.
Lord, if not for the dry season.
If not for the numbers stacked against Israel.
If not for the doubt that would have been to creep in.
Lord, they wouldn't have been able to fully see your faithfulness of who you are.
And what you've done.
And what you're continuing to do.
Lord, I pray for us as we are here.
Some of us standing on the edge of the battlefield.
Some of us standing in the middle of the battlefield.
Wondering when the rain is going to come.
And Lord, I pray that if that's where we find ourselves.
That today we would not put our confidence in the rain.
But the one who sends the rain.
In you is where the victory is found.
God, I thank you for who you are.
For what you're doing.
What you're going to do.
And what you've done.
Lord, in a moment.
Lord, as we praise you.
Lord, I pray that it would come.
Out of the heart of understanding the victory.
And in Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.
Just a second.
We're going to stand.
And we're going to sing a song.
It may have been a long time since we've sang this song in here, right?
But if you grew up in church, right?
Some of us have.
Some of us didn't.
It's okay.
You've sang the song before.
And as I was having the opportunity to sit here during rehearsal this morning.
There was a lyric that hit me this morning.
That's never hit me this way before.
And it was the power of the truth of it.
And the writer of the song says,
Morning by morning new mercies I see.
Oh, the goodness of that.
That we would have the eyes to see the mercies of God that he grants us today.
Just don't miss it.
We'll stand as we sing to him.
Thanks again for listening to the Willow Ridge Church weekly podcast.
We hope that you enjoyed listening to this week's message.
If you'd like to learn more about who we are or explore additional resources,
visit us online at www.willowridgechurch.com
or by searching for Willow Ridge Church on Facebook and Instagram.