Let's pray quickly, we'll jump into the sermon.
God, thank you for your grace and mercy to us.
Thank you for those little ones that they remind us of how we need to have childlike faith just to be able to receive so easily.
That you are with us and you're for us, how easily we try to overcomplicate it and try to prove ourselves to you with our religious commitment.
Forgive us for all the ways that we rely on ourselves instead of you.
As we look at this story in the book of Judges, help us to see something that would be incredibly helpful for our hearts.
Help us this morning to be chief repenters, freely admitting all the ways we fall short, and help us to be chief rejoicers, rejoicing in your goodness and forgiveness for us.
Have mercy on us, especially the one who speaks.
In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.
So back before we study 1 Thessalonians in the summer, a good portion of that I was gone on sabbatical.
Before that, we were in the book of Judges.
And my hope was we were gonna have all that kind of neatly packed up before I left, but that's not what happened, and it just ran longer than I thought it might and my outline.
So we had this one big, great story left at the end of the book of Judges.
So we're gonna take a few weeks to look at it.
It's the book, it's the story of Samson.
So we're gonna work our way through these verses.
Judges 13, 1.
And the people of Israel again did what was evil on the side of the Lord.
So the Lord gave them into the hand of the Philistines for 40 years.
So if you remember the pattern in the book of Judges, it might be a pattern that you kind of feel like you know personally, I do.
Israel keeps running away from God, and then again and again God would raise up a leader, a judge, to pull them back and woo them back, lead them back to him.
So that's the pattern, Judges 13.
It's actually the pattern of the Old Testament, and it's actually the pattern of humanity.
And then we get verses two and three.
And 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.
So, verse one's the bad news.
I mean, it's it's a it's a diagnosis, right?
Like it's true, but it's still bad news.
It's not something that we enjoy hearing all the time.
That these Israelites ran away, did their own thing again, away from God.
But then verses two and three, a baby, a baby is coming.
It was almost 15 years ago when Christy and I first began to try to have children.
And so that was a particular set of activities that's none of your business, and then waiting, right?
This is how this works.
Activities, waiting, activities, waiting.
And in that waiting, that waiting can be at first not a big deal.
And then that waiting, if it goes on long enough, it you get anxious.
And then that waiting can actually, if months become years, it can become incredibly, incredibly painful and filled with pain.
Here's what we do know.
When the waiting's over, whether it's been for you or for a friend, and you hear, and we hear, you are pregnant.
Man, that that's it's like relief and joy, right?
Because a baby, a baby's coming.
We've had four babies.
We lost our first baby before we met her, and then our three daughters arrived.
Here are pictures of our three daughters as little babies.
There's one, and here's two, and then here's three.
Uh, pretty much we reproduce reproduced the same child over and over again.
Like, don't shuffle the pictures up and ask me to to uh to interpret which child is who, which picture of it.
That's hard for me.
They they look so much the same.
Now, when these babies came, when they arrived, I can tell you, and if you had a baby, you know it's true, maybe you've just been around a baby, you've just seen a baby, right?
Like you don't have to just saw a baby.
If a baby shows up, a baby changes things, right?
Like it just things change when a baby comes.
So hold on to that, and then point number one is this even when there is no cry for help, this is point number one, even when there's no cry for help, God helps.
So in other places in judges, sometimes the people cry out and God helps.
Now, here's the situation.
The people are in apathy in their slavery.
They don't even care that they're enslaved.
They have accepted that this is their lives.
They don't even realize how free they can be in relationship with God.
And yet, in these verses, God helps.
Anyways.
Man, that's right that's fresh air to me.
Like, I need that.
Like, that's a message I need to hear.
I love that God helps when I cry out, but man, it's fresh air to hear that even when I don't cry out.
How many times is that?
Right?
How many times is it that we are unable to realize how free we could be in the gospel because we're so busy and distracted?
Or maybe we're just pursuing things that we shouldn't pursue?
And even in my lack, even in my lack of concern for God, lack of crying out that He is with me and for me.
Point number two is this God loves to begin in our helplessness and humility.
So back to thinking about babies.
This use of a baby arriving to a barren woman.
This is a repeated biblical storyline.
It's not new in Judges 13.
In Genesis 11, all the way through chapters 21, we have the story of Sarah, anguishes over her lack of child, and then Isaac arrives.
Genesis 25, Rebecca experiences 25 years without child, then Joseph arrives.
1 Samuel 1 is the story of Hannah, same story.
Luke 1, story of Elizabeth, same story.
Now, sadly, this doesn't mean that if you haven't been able to have a baby, that you will miraculously have a baby.
I wish it meant that for you.
It doesn't mean that.
Now, maybe that's sad news to you, maybe that's like really good news because you don't want a baby.
You're like a baby in my life right now would not be good.
What this is, is this is a lesson.
This is God, this is God teaching something in the biblical story.
That He brings salvation for our hearts, that He's the one who brings it.
And it comes into our nothingness, into our barrenness.
See, whatever you are hoping for God to do in your life, most likely it will begin in your helplessness.
Most likely that's where it's going to start.
And that's really good news.
Because when we need God to do something in our lives, usually we're helpless.
I've been watching the Olympics, we've been watching the Olympics, right?
And sometimes you turn it on and you're watching Badminton for a while.
Anybody get into badminton?
They're swinging so hard, right?
I mean, did you see how hard they swing?
A little thing didn't go anywhere.
A lot of effort.
And then you feel bad for them because you're like you're swinging so hard and the thing goes like five feet.
I love swimming though.
That's the thing I like to watch.
Most of us like swimming, it's a lot of TV airtime, right?
Because we get the hero stories, we get the narratives, we get the little media packages about how hard they train, and then we get to see them race, and then they win by like one one hundredth of a second.
Like, like we love that.
So I was watching, I think it was last week, I was watching Katie Ledecki swim a race, and like I'm all into it, and I think she won it, I'm all into it.
They go to commercial break, and then I see this commercial, and I've seen this scene before.
I think the commercial was a PG commercial, but I'm not positive.
Actually, I don't even remember what the commercial is for.
Um it's this from 2016 Rio Olympics.
And a New Zealand runner, she stumbles.
Do you remember this?
The American runner falls over her to the ground.
The New Zealand runner stops her race and says to the American runner, hey, get up.
We have to finish.
The American runner goes on and stumbles again.
And the New Zealand runner helps her up, and then the New Zealand runner waits at the finish line to hug her.
I've seen this probably 20 times, like in the last four years, several times in this Olympics.
I have no idea who won that race.
You have no idea who won that race.
Like, unless it's like your sister, right?
Like, other than that, you're like, that was my cousin.
I do know who won.
You have no idea.
You remember that.
And the reason why we remember that is seeing help arrive from outside of our resources, like into our nothingness and our barrenness.
Man, that's powerful.
And if you're like me, you need that.
It's our story.
This is the story of Judges 13.
The Israelites in slavery, they don't even care.
They don't even care.
It's the story of the gospel.
We have nothing to offer but our beautiful and broken selves.
We're down on the track with nothing.
And God shows up.
Here's what theologian Dale Ralph Davis writes about Judges 13.
I think he puts it together pretty well.
He, God, brings help, his salvation, or relieves their distress in the face of impossible human odds.
He displays his power precisely when and where they can contribute nothing.
And all in order, here's why, to lift our eyes to himself so that we will have no illusions or delusions about where our help is found.
That's why in the days when the Philistines ruled, the angel of Yahweh paid a visit to a nameless, childless woman.
So this woman's gonna have a baby.
Baby's coming.
Babies change things.
Verses four and five.
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 Nazirite to God from the wound, and he shall begin to save Israel from the hand of the Philistines.
Now, this is where things get interesting.
We could just read over that, but if we want to nerd out, Bible nerd out for just a little bit, we go to Numbers 6, verses 1 through 4, because this explains what does that mean that Samson would be a Nazirite.
And the Lord spoke to Moses, Numbers 6, 1 through 4.
And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, when either a man or a woman makes a special vow, the vow of a Nazarite, to separate himself, so that means to consecrate himself to the Lord, he shall separate himself from wine and strong drink, he shall drink no vinegar made from wine or strong drink, and shall not drink any juice of grapes or eat grapes, fresh or dried, all the days of his separation, he shall eat nothing that is produced by the grapevine, not even the seeds or the skins.
All right, so to be the Nazarite was to take a special vow.
And the Nazarite vow was to separate oneself.
It meant to consecrate, to dedicate oneself to God alone.
So this person probably had some, felt some calling to do this.
Maybe something's going on in their lives for them to feel that they want to go through this spiritual journey.
Maybe something's incredibly difficult in their lives.
Maybe they're in a helpless state.
They need to rearrange everything in their life to get right with God or what's possible with life with Him.
When we look at what the vow is, Numbers 6.4 says, no wine.
It's already some of you are like, not interested.
Good.
6.5 says, no razor shall touch their head.
Verse 6, can't go near a dead body, not even for family.
Verses 13 through 15, you need to bring one male lamb without blemish, a one-year lamb without blemish, one ram without blemish, a basket of unleavened bread, unleavened wafers, grain offerings, drink offerings to the temple for offering, and then verse 18 says, shave your head in the temple and burn it as a sacrifice.
Now that's an odd list, right?
Let me read that.
We're like, this is odd, this is crazy stuff, Old Testament, weird.
But to them, to them, this list would have signaled when they read it, they would have understood that this meant you were reorienting your entire life into your faith commitment to God.
No wine meant that your entire social life just rearranged.
No razor meant everyone would know you've made a special vow.
Now there's no funeral homes, there's no hospice, there's no extended care.
So the older generation lived with the younger generation.
So if somebody's made this vow and their older generation lives in their home with them, maybe they have to move out.
Because they can't risk that person dying and them being there.
And if somebody did die in their family, they can't even go and be a part of preparing the body and the funeral.
They're rearranging their entire life.
All these animals, all this sacrifice.
I mean, they would have read this.
This was a major financial sacrifice.
See, they're giving up everything for this vow.
And then we get that verse 18, number 6, 18, and the Nazirite shall shave his consecrated head at the entrance of the tent of meeting, and then shall take the hair from his consecrated head and put it on the fire that is under the sacrifice of the peace offering.
So this person goes into the presence of God one way and comes out looking completely different.
Have you ever been so desperate, so worn out, burned out, beaten up at the end of yourself, that you want to walk in one way, and you want to come out like a different person.
And then imagine that you lived thousands of years ago and you hear there's a vow that you could take.
A special vow to be consecrated to God.
Now, before we all go and do something crazy like that, point number three.
All of our up and down commitment to God is inside his enduring commitment to us.
So the Nazarite vow was built upon the law.
I mean, when we read that list in number six, it's built upon the law.
What it meant to be a faith person by your behaviors, what you should eat and shouldn't eat, what you should bring as the sacrifice, not God bringing sacrifice to you, what you should bring as a sacrifice.
It's Old Testament laws and rules meant for us to see what a committed and pure person of faith might be.
A lot of times it's weird stuff for us.
But it's created for us to understand that we're sinners in need of God's grace to us.
His covenant love, his acceptance, his commitment to us.
Hebrews 10, always a good chapter to put all this together.
This old covenant, new covenant, old testament, new testament.
Hebrews 10, here's verses 6, 7, and 13.
But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old, as the old covenant he mediates is better.
The covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises.
For if that first covenant had been faultless, I was talking about the law, there would have been no occasion to look for a second.
Skipping to verse 13.
And speaking of the new covenant.
So this is life in Jesus.
He makes the first one obsolete.
That's because he fulfills the law.
It's what he does for us, not what we do for him.
And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.
See, the Nazarite vow reveals how we should be surrendered and committed to the Lord.
We need God's limitless grace to us.
That's the actuality of it.
Because the external behaviors that we see in the Nazarite vow, it's not enough.
A performance-based faith is never enough.
Samson actually, that's what we're going to see in coming weeks.
He actually goes on to break every one of the vows.
Why?
Because a performance-based faith is not enough.
There's nothing wrong with the law.
What's wrong is us unto the law.
We need God toward us.
One last takeaway point.
Point number four.
Relationship with God is open to ordinary people.
And here's what I mean by like this is at this time there's all this religious hierarchy.
And the Nazarite vow was open to just anybody.
Any man, any woman who wanted to give their life to God.
It's a beautiful picture.
Where often it's so easy for us to begin to think that, like, oh, a really close relationship with God is reserved for somebody other than me.
I'm too broken for that.
I'm too messed up.
I have too much doubt for that.
It's for somebody else, like somebody who knows the right Christian words or has the right upbringing.
Rich relationship with God's for you.
It's for you.
A few weeks ago, I was watching TV, I was nerding out watching Rick Steves Tours, France.
You ever watch Rick Steves?
I mean, we're we're really nerding out when we're watching Rick Steves travel stuff.
And so I was watching that.
And he he takes a train up from Chamonet, France, up into the French Alps, over these glaciers, over Mount Blanc, into uh into Italy on the other side.
So if you're on this gondola, going up out of Chamonet, here's a few pictures of this gondola.
These are like the stops on the gondola that you are on.
And you're on this gondola going over these massive glaciers.
At one point, the length of the cable run between mountain peak to mountain peak is 3.1 miles long without a structure.
It's all cable.
You're just floating.
Like you are floating over beauty.
Can you imagine?
Can you imagine sitting on that gondola, looking out?
Can you imagine how easy it would be to enjoy all that beauty and forget that you're being held by a cable?
Like probably at some point in 3.1 miles, it's about a 40-minute ride, and you'd forget.
But the whole time you're being held.
The whole time.
And now you may be inside, you may never forget.
Like you might be the kind of person who's like, I ain't forgetting.
This is one long cable.
Like, I'm not gonna overenjoy this.
And you're tight gripping, right?
Because that's who you are.
You're the tight gripper, you're tight gripping.
But even your grip, right?
Like even your grip is inside the fact that you're being held.
See, our faith commitment is inside God's commitment to us.
The Israelites are in slavery, but God's committed to them.
The Israelites don't care that they're in slavery, but God's committed to them.
He's gonna bring Samson.
He's gonna bring a leader.
He's gonna pursue them.
See, sometimes we're the Israelites, right?
Sometimes we're the ones who run away and wander, and we don't care.
Sometimes we're a Nazirite and we are committed, we are all in, and we are full on for God.
And what this story gives us is the reality of ourselves.
That's sometimes we're either of these.
In either way, we need God's grace to us.
That we exist inside his hold of us, his pursuit of our hearts.
See, this is why while we were still sinners, Christ comes and dies for us.
Our sin is put upon the cross, his righteousness is given to us, so we're forever God's beloved children.
And all of our faith and all of our surrender, which is so important and needed, is our expression of relationship with God.
That is being held inside of God's commitment, the pursuit of us.
Let's pray together.
God, thank you that you tenaciously pursue us as we wander.
And you pursue us as we are faithfully committed to you.
Thank you that you pursue us in our greatest moments and in our worst moments.
Thank you that you love us and accept us, not because of what we bring to you or what we do, but because of what you have done for us in Jesus.
May that be the birthplace inside of our hearts of a new life, of a surrender to you that is filled with grace and freedom and a transformation that comes not from external behaviors of enough religious commitment and pull up our uh pull up our bootstraps, but may it be from the heart outward, a changed heart by your grace.
And that all of our transformation and effort and faith would come with such gratitude and love for you.
Because you hold loyal love for us.
In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.