Hi, and welcome to the Willow Ridge Church weekly podcast.
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Thanks for listening.
Hey, good morning.
Glad that you guys are here with us, whether you're joining us online or whether you're
here on campus with us.
I'll ask you if you've got your Bibles, go ahead and open them to Judges chapter 13.
As you turn there, a couple of things I want to go over before we dive into our scripture
this morning.
First, I just want to say it is good to be back.
Only missed a Sunday, but it feels like an eternity, and so it is good to be here with
you guys this morning.
I want to thank all of the staff, Dave, Joel, Berger, Dawn, everybody else that kind of rallied
last week to continue on and everything that was going.
You know, as we got ready to roll back kids' ministry and make some changes around the
building, it was probably the worst Sunday, at least for me, to wrestle with being gone,
but God had great plans.
And Dave, man, thank you for stepping in and speaking last week.
You did an absolutely wonderful job, faithful to the scripture.
That was, in all honesty, the most complicated passage to go through in Judges, but man, you
crushed it, and so thank you so much.
So I had a lot of people ask.
Bradberries are doing good.
God is gracious to us through our little COVID situation that we had in our house.
Relatively speaking, our symptoms were mild.
I had the mildest out of all of us.
So God knew that my wife, son, and daughter are tougher than I am.
So he gave me the least amount, but we're still lacking a little energy with us, but we are
back and going, and so it feels good.
This week, we are getting ready to head down the stretch of Judges.
Beginning today, we've got this week and then three other weeks.
And so today's message is going to kind of do two things.
It's going to recap a little bit thematically of what we've been talking about, but also be
an introduction, as you'll see in just a little bit as we kind of move to this next season
in our life and stages as we walk through Judges.
Now, also, this morning's message is going to be a little bit shorter because of that,
but also we've got a special opportunity at the end of the service for you guys to get
to be a part and experience something.
As many of you know, we are a Southern Baptist church, and being a Southern Baptist church,
we're part of the International Mission Board, which is the world's largest international
Christian missions organization.
And with us this morning, we have an IMB missionary who's going to come up and share where he and
his family, where they serve and what that's like, and thank us for being a part as we partner
together in the Great Commission.
Now, I do want to say this.
If you're here on campus with us, you'll get to experience all of that.
If you're joining us online, I'm sorry because of where this family serves and because of the
safety of those that they serve with, we will have to end our recording and end our online
stream during that time, and we will not be able to make it available.
But it is going to be a wonderful time that God's going to bless us and remind us of what
all He is doing all over the world.
So, it's been an interesting couple weeks to be at home, to be there with the TV, with news,
and with social media.
Getting on and reading about Facebook, on Twitter, on Instagram.
There's been stories, there's been comments that kind of define the culture and the situation
where we find ourselves right now.
And what I want to do in a moment of honesty, in a moment of transparency, for all of us in
here and for all of us at home, I want to ask you a question based off of what I've been
reading, based off of what I've been seeing.
And it's a question that I want in here for you to be honest and transparent and public
in a very controversial topic.
How many of you have started decorating for Christmas?
Y'all thought I was going to ask something else, didn't you?
All right.
So, I don't know about at home, but in here, raise hands if you started decorating for Christmas
so far.
We've got one in here in the building with us, right?
Like, I know it's hard to believe because it's 85 degrees outside, right?
But, like, Christmas is approaching, right?
So, we're still in our shorts and t-shirts, some of you in your tank tops.
South Carolina fall, right?
It'll be over.
It'll be 20 degrees next week and then 85 by, like, 3 o'clock.
But we're starting to experience Christmas, right?
One of the things, when Aaron and I, right before we had the code thing at the house, we'd
gone out grocery shopping, and we'd gone into one of these grocery stores, and part that
just helps me remind me that it is the Christmas season of what I love is there's a coffee that
I can only get around this time of year, and it's Starbucks Holiday Blend, and I know a
lot of you don't like that, and I'm sorry.
I'll pray for you, but I deeply, deeply love it.
And we walked into a grocery store.
I'm not sure if they mispriced it, but they had it priced at $4.98 a bag.
And I looked at Aaron, and I said, we're buying everything they got.
Cleared the shelves with it, got there, so then later on when we find out we've got to
quarantine for a while, she's like, do we have everything food-wise that we need?
Because we've got people asking what we can do.
I opened up the pantry.
I showed her the entire shelf at Starbucks, like, we're covered.
Like, we're good.
We've got this.
This can get us through two weeks, right?
But it's Christmas season, and I love that people were decorating already.
Well, we're normally, we decorate our house the Saturday after Thanksgiving, but we've even
talked about doing it earlier, but we're real tree people, right?
We couldn't get one, but as soon as we can, we're going to go ahead and decorate inflatables
for the front yard.
I can't wait.
I love the fact that it's Christmas season.
I love the fact that it's what people are beginning to talk about.
And what I'm hoping that God is going to do is that in the other seasons of life that we
find ourselves in, and the other things that maybe you thought that I was going to talk
about just a second ago, and it got really awkward in the room, right, is the phrase that
we use is the reason for the season.
It's the catchphrase.
It's been talked about for years.
And what God's going to point us to in Judges, and what we're going to come through, I hope
it reminds us of that.
As we even look forward to our Christmas series, that will be what we start after this series
is over with.
And as we look at Judges 13 in the life of Samson, as we talk about the birth of Samson
today, it's going to give us some foreshadowing into the Christmas season, some foreshadowing
into the birth and the life of Christ, and what God's trying to stir our hearts for as we
look for this Savior, Redeemer, that's come to set us free from the sins of the world.
And so I hope for you, where you find yourselves this morning, whether you've started decorating
your house or not, I hope what you find yourselves is getting into being reminded of this season
that we will celebrate, but it won't be a season that is marked by dragging decorations out of
the attic and then one day putting them back up, but it's a season that resides in our heart.
And it's who we are, and it's what we're about.
So in Judges 13 verse 1, it says,
We find ourselves back at where we were before in almost every message as we've gone through.
This is week 8.
We begin and we find ourselves in the same pattern again.
Israel finds herself where she has been so many times before, stuck in a pattern of sin.
So many times in Judges, what we see is this pattern, and it's not, it's noted by the pattern
of the pattern of again.
Again, again, Israel does what's evil.
Again, Israel does what's evil.
And so what I want us to kind of look at as we, as we go through this, as we look back on what
we've talked about and looking forward to what we will see, we hope that we find ourselves
right where Israel finds herself.
Are you and I again stuck in the pattern of sin?
Are you and I again find that we're doing evil in the sight of the Lord?
And this is what we are seeing.
This pattern found in life.
We're God's people.
In spite of all that they know, in spite of all that they've experienced, in spite of all
that they claim true, yet again, we find ourselves doing evil in the sight of the Lord.
And I know that for me, as I navigate through this, it's so easy for me to pick up the stone
of judgment and cast it at Israel.
But I find that so many times, this is where I find myself as well.
If I'm being honest and open and transparent, in spite of what I know, in spite of what I've
experienced, in spite of what I've done, again, again, again.
And so here God does.
He turns them over.
He turns them over in the Philistines so that they can feel, they can experience and grow
through and be redeemed from the bondage of their sin.
And so it's again, it's again, it's again.
Again, they need God.
Again, they need him to come rescue them.
Again, they need the Lord.
Again, he must intervene.
One of the things that I have noticed on social media over the last several days is the phrase
being used by some to explain the feelings in which they feel when they say things like,
we need Jesus like never before.
I want to talk about that phrase because that phrase could be put on Israel.
In chapter 13, again, they need the Lord like never before.
I think when that phrase is used, the intent is okay.
I think the heart of the heart of the individual of what they're trying to proclaim is the reminder
that we need Jesus.
But the theology of it is incorrect.
Because the truth of the statement is not, we need Jesus like never before.
The truth of the statement is, we need Jesus.
That's where it's 20-20, 18-20, 17-20, no matter what point in time in which we find ourselves
post the fall, guess what?
We need Jesus.
And it's where we find ourselves and it's where Israel finds itself in Judges 13.
Why?
Because the continual problem of man is the depravity of the heart of man.
And so again, Israel does what's evil in the eyes of the Lord.
Again, they live in their bondage of sin.
And again, they need the Lord where we find ourselves.
And so the theme of Judges of what we've seen in the past, what we will see in Samson and
continue to see as we close out this book over the next several weeks is God in the impossible.
Now, I want to say this so that I'm equally correct theologically.
God works in both the impossible and in the possible, all right?
God works in both.
God doesn't just step in and say, oh, you can't do anything now, so watch what I can do, right?
God works in the possible when we think that we're the ones achieving it.
And God works in the impossible when we've given up and realized that it's got to come from Him.
God is equally at work.
God is equally moving.
God is equally working us in the path of His plan to redeem for Himself a people.
But oftentimes, what God graciously does is when we see these experiences of God working in the impossible,
is it opens our eyes to acknowledge that it came from Him and Him alone.
Two times in Scripture, Jesus is confronted with a problem.
And the problem that He's confronted with is that there are large thousands of people who have been listening to Him speak, watching Him heal.
And in that moment, they are hungry.
A problem.
A problem that can be fixed in the possible.
God could have rallied His disciples and sent them into the market to explain what was going on and to get enough food to come back and take care of the needs, but He doesn't.
Instead, He's able to get His hands on an insufficient amount of food and then multiply the food to feed the masses.
God could have worked through the possible of what made sense, but He chose not to.
He worked through the impossible, and in doing so, eyes are open to understand who He is as He explains and as He displays His divinity.
God working in the impossible.
And so it's what we've been seeing in Judges time and time again.
The impossible situation in which Israel finds itself and God says,
Watch what I'm going to do because I'm a God who works in the possible, but I'm also the God that works in the impossible.
As your eyes are aware, as your eyes are opened.
Well, the story of the impossible is going to be so filled into Samson's life.
Let's keep reading verse 2.
It says,
There was a certain man of Zorah of the tribe of the Danites, whose name was Manoah, and his wife was barren and had no children.
And the angel of the Lord appeared to the woman and said to her,
Behold, you are barren and have not born children, but you shall conceive and bear a son.
Therefore, be careful and drink no wine or strong drink and eat nothing unclean.
For behold, you shall conceive and bear a son.
No razor shall come upon his head, for the child shall be a Nazarite to God from the womb.
And he shall begin.
I want you to focus that.
If you're like me and you underline things in your Bible, underline he shall begin.
To save Israel from the hand of the Philistines.
What we're going to see in this passage of Scripture are the similarities that we're going to find in the gospel narrative
between the birth of Jesus and the birth of Samson.
But the writer of the text gives us these three words, he shall begin, as a reminder so that we don't get confused that Samson and Jesus aren't on the same playing field.
So that we understand what we are seeing is a foreshadowing of what took place, but that Samson in and of himself is an insufficient redeemer to do what needs to be done.
Because in these three words, he shall begin, but he will not be able to complete.
You see, found within the limitations of Samson, in all of these, it is a work that God is going to put in place.
But it is not a work that is going to be done eternally.
And so we begin to see and understand.
So let's look at the comparisons.
Here we see an angel of God appears to a woman who was without child and should not be able to have children based off of the condition in which the angel comes to her.
We see that with Samson, right?
For Samson's mom, she's barren.
She's not able to have kids.
She's tried for years to come to her elderly moment and says, this is what's going to happen.
This is what's going to take place in your life.
In the story of Jesus, right?
Appears to Mary at a different age, but finds that she's a virgin.
Unable to have children based off of the conditions they find themselves in.
But the angel of the Lord comes and says, God has a different plan for you.
With here, we see that from the very beginning, before life even exists in flesh, God has a plan for the deliverance of his people.
Every other judge that we look at, they're established.
They have character.
They have history.
They have a past.
People know who they are.
But here in the life of Samson, it is declared before he is even conceived that he will deliver.
And the exact same thing.
That God sends his son.
The life of the two, even though they are different from each other, they will be different from the norm of what's there.
The life of Jesus will be a life marked by a sinless nature and action of who he is, unlike anyone who has ever lived and anyone who will ever live.
But for Samson, while he doesn't have the sinless nature, he takes the Nazarite vow that he cannot drink from the vine, that even his mother cannot.
That he cannot cut his hair, that he cannot become spiritually unclean, so that both of them, that when you see them, you'll be reminded of the fact that they were chosen for a purpose and for a reason.
Now, Samson, we're going to see next week.
He's got his struggles.
He's going to have his issues.
He's going to have his failures.
Unlike Jesus, who's sinless and perfect, but both marked from the beginning, we see in their similarity the fact that they were set apart.
Samson set apart from the womb, but Jesus set apart from the beginning.
Jesus set apart not in the moment where the angel declared it to Mary, but Jesus set apart before time began.
So that in Genesis 3, when sin enters into the world, that God speaks and declares the deliverer who will set him free.
We begin to see the similarities that begin to link through in the birth of Samson, in the life of Samson,
and it foreshadows to the future of what we can see in the person and the life of Jesus.
But there is a difference.
What we will find is that in Samson, it is a beginning, it is a process because of the imperfection that is in him.
But in Jesus, we'll see the perfecting work that doesn't just reach for a generation, but as we just sang,
from generation to generation to generation to generation.
In the book of Judges, there's been a theme that we're going to see, and we're going to see in the life of Samson's parents.
We're going to see that of obedient faith, of what we've talked about and what we will continue to work through.
That an obedient faith that these two words combine bring us to what we are called to be in our lives.
Obedience, what we do, faith in what we believe, and when we put these things together, it doesn't just define what we do,
but it's an explanation of who we are, of what God is calling us to.
Oh, I'm obedient.
Oh, I've got faith.
But are they together working in your life so that in obedient faith, you're walking and doing what God has told you to do,
because you've put your faith and trust in Him and who He is.
So let's see what this begins to look like in the life of Samson's parents.
Start verse 6.
And the woman came and told her husband,
A man of God came to me, and his appearance was like the appearance of the angel of God.
Very awesome.
I did not ask him where he was from, and he did not tell me his name.
But he said to me,
Behold, you shall conceive and bear a son.
So then drink no wine or strong drink, and eat nothing unclean.
For the child shall be a Nazarite to God from the womb to the day of his death.
And Manoah prayed to the Lord and said,
O Lord, please let the man of God whom you sent come again to us and teach us what we are to do with the child who will be born.
So Samson's mom, whose name is never given, comes to her husband and says,
Hey, here's what's going to happen.
Here's what's going to take place.
I know that I've been barren.
I know that I haven't been able to have a child.
Like, what every family would have worked for and pushed for.
This was what was going to take care of them.
This is give their mark and culture and society what we've longed for and kind of surrendered that this isn't for us.
God came to me, and God said,
This is what is going to happen and what is going to take place.
And God is setting him aside for a purpose.
Right?
We see the faith in this woman.
We see the obedience in this woman.
And then Manoah begins to pray.
And here's what he responds with.
I mean, imagine your whole life, you've come to the realization that this won't happen for me.
You've gone through the struggles when it happens in other people, those closest to you,
with times where you think this may could, and then it's taken away from you.
And his response is, Lord, what do we do with this?
Lord, how do we respond with this?
Lord, what is required from us?
I remember when Aaron and I found out that we were going to be parents for the first time.
What we needed the most was help.
You know?
Like, help me.
I don't know.
Right?
I've barely been able to keep our dog alive.
And now we're going to have kids.
Right?
Help us.
And now in the weight of this, Manoah comes and he asks God for help.
And look down at verse 18.
And the angel of the Lord said to him,
Why do you ask my name, seeing it is wonderful?
And so Manoah took the goat with the grain offering and offered it on the rock to the Lord,
and to the one who works wonders.
And Manoah and his wife were watching.
And when the flame went up toward heaven from the altar, the angel of the Lord went up in the flame of the altar.
Now Manoah and his wife were watching, and they fell on their faces to the ground.
Verse 21.
The angel of the Lord appeared no more to Manoah and his wife, and then Manoah knew that he was the angel of the Lord.
But Manoah said to his wife, We shall surely die, get this, for we have seen God.
But his wife said to him, If the Lord had meant to kill us, he would have not accepted a burnt offering and a grain offering at our hands,
or shown us all these things, or announced to us such things as these.
So Manoah here in this moment, right?
He understands what we see happen so many times in the Old Testament.
This wasn't just an angel of the Lord.
This was God.
That God appeared before us.
And he knows that when human eyes see the Lord, that what should come is death.
But God had a different plan of what was going to happen.
God had a different plan as we begin to see the pieces of the gospel woven through this Old Testament scripture.
That as Manoah came and he said, Look, Lord, I need help.
Look, Lord, I need to know what to do.
Lord, help me follow the rules that needs to be done so that I don't mess this up.
And instead of doing that, God reveals to them something more important than the rules.
Something more important than a behavior modification.
Something more important than getting their act together.
Instead, God says, Look, this is me.
And he doesn't point them to anything else other than God's glory.
And so Manoah is concerned.
Now, don't miss this.
That by seeing God, by God revealing himself to him,
Manoah's concern is that he'll receive death.
But instead, what does he gain?
Life.
That when people see and experience and are introduced to God,
God doesn't give them death.
What God does is he gives them life.
And this is the narrative that we're going to see in Scripture.
This is the hope that we're reminded of for where we find ourselves.
Is that what we deserved as we do what's evil in our own eyes.
What we deserve as we're confronted with the truth of who God is and the truth of who we are.
What we deserve is death.
But what God gives is life.
And so for them, a deliverer is born.
Verse 24.
And the woman bore a son and called his name Samson.
And the young man grew and the Lord blessed him.
And the spirit of the Lord began to stir him and Manadan between Zorah and Eshtol.
So Samson will be born.
And we're going to look at his life next week, right?
And his life is going to have some ups and his downs.
Some moments of obedience and some moments of failure.
But Samson will be born.
And we'll see this as it's gone through the judges.
And we know that before the judges, we saw the lineage of God's deliverers that he sent his people.
He sent them Moses and he sent them Joshua.
And then after the judges, we'll go through the period where God sends them kings.
And the kings will lead God's people and the kings will lead them into battle.
And we'll see the victories that take place from the kings.
And we'll be introduced to men of faith a lot like David.
And after the kings, there will come the prophets.
The people who speak for God and declare the truth and call God's people to repentance and point them.
But we see this cycle that goes on and goes on and goes on.
And people look at these as they're sent.
They look at Moses.
They look at Joshua.
They look at the judges.
They'll look at the kings.
They'll look at the prophets.
And the failure comes when they remove their eyes off of the Lord and they place their eyes on the men.
They place their eyes on their circumstances.
They place their eyes on themselves.
They place their eyes on the false gods that they've held up.
And what we see, what God gives us an opportunity right now as we roll into this season of time,
as we look at the story of Samson, which points us to a greater story,
is that a deliverer is born.
We want to focus.
What we want to see is the deliverer who doesn't begin,
but the deliverer who began and who completed.
I want to tell y'all a story.
And it's a story that I hope can speak some life,
maybe into where you find yourself in life right now.
Like I said, you know, the last two weeks,
we've been stuck at home with time for lots of conversation,
lots of prayer, lots of reflecting, and just talking and looking.
It reminded me of a story from my childhood.
My best friend growing up was a guy named Joe Timmerman.
And Joe lived like three houses down.
We lived on the same street.
And Joe had the best driveway in the neighborhood.
Here's why his driveway was really impressive.
It started off like a normal driveway,
but his driveway then turned for his parents to be able to go in the garage.
And so it opened up into a flat and a wide level of concrete.
And very quickly, we learned where the exact spot was in the driveway
to place a basketball goal,
where we could have a full three-point line
so that when we would go to play,
this was the place that we could play,
and we could get five-on-five in Joe Timmerman's driveway
to play basketball.
And so almost every single day,
the poor Timmermans, even when they wanted to nap,
had to hear the thump, the thump, the thump,
with basketballs constantly at their house, right?
Well, we love playing basketball there.
Well, Mr. Timmerman one day,
I don't know who he thought he was as the owner of the house, right?
But decided on the side of the driveway to plant some crepe myrtles.
Well, at first, they didn't bother us.
But over the years, they got bigger.
And the branches began to hang over into the driveway,
which greatly inconvenienced us
if you wanted to take a three-point shot
from the left-hand side of the court.
And so some days, it was all right,
and you could work through,
and you could get a shot.
But then occasionally, right,
you'd work your way over there,
and you'd take a shot,
and the ball would just graze one of the branches.
Now, if it went in,
you acted like everything was fine.
But if it didn't, right,
you'd go, no, no, no, redo.
Redo, interference.
Interference, the branch.
Show your dad shit and planted that there.
We get a redo.
And so what would happen is you didn't get the ball
right where you found yourself before, right?
You got the ball back at the top of the key.
And so it wasn't necessarily a redo.
It was a reset.
It was like what just happened didn't happen.
And now you find yourself,
in spite of missing the shot,
you find yourself in a reset
where you can go back and do anything that you want to do,
anything that needs to be done.
As we go into this season,
2020 has been marked by so many of us,
by myself, as different seasons.
We've had everything that's gone on with politics
and going on with politics.
We've had everything that's gone on with COVID
and that will go on with COVID.
We've seen so many things stop and shut down.
We've seen it be phrased,
and I've used this myself more times
than I could even remember
as just the year that we got to get through
and got to get over.
But I'm hoping that as we look at this,
I'm hoping that as we conclude this time
and judges this season of life,
that what we can see is not a redo.
What we can see is a reset.
That God, as we move forward,
remind me that a deliverer is born,
a deliverer that begins and that sees through,
where my hope is found.
That if my life is like a grain of sand
compared to all of the beaches of the world,
that I understand that this moment in time
is so brief compared to the greatness
and majesty of who you are.
So right now with what we're trying to figure out
what to do, maybe our obedience says,
God, just let me rest and let me focus
and let me point people towards your glory.
Would you pray with me?
God, I thank you so much
for this opportunity that you give us.
Lord, this journey that we found ourselves on,
this what we're walking ourselves,
what we're going through, Lord,
this season,
it may have surprised us.
But it did not surprise you.
Lord, for some of us, for so many,
our hearts are unsettled.
We're struggling through.
We feel like we have a loss of hope
in our life.
Lord, I pray that we could remember
not just the scripture that we've read
and the message,
but Lord, even the songs that we proclaim.
Lord, as we sang before the message
that the Spirit of God is with us
and is within us.
Lord, that we could be reminded of the fact
that we have access to
a relationship with
an audience of one,
of the King of Kings
and the Lord of Lords.
Lord, that as we pull
our decorations out,
as we put our trees up,
as we prepare our list for Santa
or that we could be reminded
during this season
that a Deliverer was born
and that this Deliverer
was born,
lived,
died,
and rose again.
And so that in Him
we find life
and a hope
and meaning
and purpose.
Lord, may so many times
when the narrative of our life
reflects the narrative of Israel
in Judges 13,
that again,
your people did
what was evil
in the sight of the Lord.
Lord, that we could be reminded of,
that our hearts could be drawn to
the faithful obedience
that you've called us,
that you've chosen us for,
that you've saved us for.
For your name,
for your glory.
Jesus, we love you.
We praise you.
It's your name we pray.
Amen.
Thanks again for listening
to the Willow Ridge Church
weekly podcast.
We hope that you enjoyed
listening to this week's message.
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