Samson: A Man After His Own Heart

Today, we've had quite a number of people who share God's Word up on the stage.

But today we have somebody who most of you know.

Jeremy is going to come and share God's Word to us.

And some of you will know Jeremy because he's up the front leading us in some worship much of the time.

But also you may not know that he's also very involved with a lot of the stuff that goes on behind the scenes

in terms of the mission outreach to poor neighborhoods that we're involved with,

to connecting organizations and people together.

And so he's going to come and share some of God's Word to us.

So let me just pray for us, for him.

And yeah, Father, thank you that your Word is powerful.

Thank you that even though your Word sometimes seems crazy,

it seems like so different from what we're used to,

yet your Word is like a two-edged sword which is to cut us to the heart.

Pray for Jeremy now as he speaks to us.

I pray for our own hearts that you'd give us soft hearts to hear your Word

and to listen to you and to obey you.

Thank you in your name.

Amen.

All right.

Here we are.

How's the weather doing for everybody?

I don't think I've seen a morning of sunshine in a while.

I was like rudely awakened this morning at about maybe 6 or 7 a.m.

I don't even remember.

But I have an air conditioner that kind of sticks out, not inside.

So, you know, when things hit it, it makes a noise.

And it felt like this morning maybe the person above us, you know,

had a fit of rage and decided they hated carbs

and started emptying bags of rice onto my air con.

And it just woke me right up and it was just like hail.

I didn't know what it was.

And, yeah, so this weather is not happy for me.

But it's good.

It's good to preach from the Word

because I honestly think that I'm just pointing me

and I'm pointing us to the Word of God.

You know, it's fundamentally I'm not making this up, hopefully.

I'm not a motivational speaker,

so I haven't kind of come up with this material on our own.

You know, the fact that we took such a long passage of Scripture.

And if you've noticed the last few weeks,

they have been long passages of Scripture.

But these stories about the judges,

they're telling us something important.

And so we really want to kind of get into the Word

and into the Scriptures.

And we live in an age of unprecedented access to information.

You know, iPhones or Google, Android,

you know, if that floats your boat.

iPads, Internet.

Even, I think some of you guys still have physical Bibles lying around too.

But, you know, there was a time not too long ago in history

where God's people actually didn't have their own access to the Word.

So, you know, this is really a privilege, I think,

to be able to dig into the Word yourself.

So I encourage you, you know,

go home tonight, read the entire passage,

see how the story escalates after Samson, you know,

has this fit of rage and murders a bunch of Philistines,

and continue letting God speak to you through His Word.

If you've been doing that regularly already, then that's great.

You can shut off now.

You don't have to listen to me anymore.

But, you know, if you're anything like me,

and you're anything like the people I think I've met in life,

I think we're constantly forgetting that who God is,

certain attributes of God, you know.

And I think I find myself at any point in time,

my heart is overemphasizing a certain attribute of God

or underemphasizing.

And they might be, you know, perfectly true things about God,

but if I'm only just focusing on this one thing over and over again,

this develops a very kind of skewed view of God

and a skewed theology.

So I just think it's great that when we get together as a church,

when we dig through the Word together,

He's drawing us back to seeing Him in all of His beauty,

all this splendor.

It's a chance for, I think, the Word of God to remind us

and for us to remind each other as you continue talking about it,

what is it that we might have forgotten?

And I really believe this morning,

every single one of us here is something that God wants to remind us about Him,

something that He wants to teach you about Him.

So for me, you know, when I reread a story like Samson,

that we just read,

the first thing that strikes me is like,

whoa, you know, this is not that storybook Samson

that I learned about in Sunday school when I was a kid, right?

I mean, who here has kind of learned about Samson before

in some shape or form or maybe sung a song about him?

Anyone?

Yeah, come on, you know who you are.

Does anyone want to sing the songs that they learned about Samson

when they were kids?

But I look at this and I forget every time I read it

because I do it once in a while.

I'm like, he was actually a pretty lousy character.

You know, this ain't the stuff that children's songs are actually really made of.

We're having VBS this week with the kids,

and I encourage you guys to pray about that and think about it.

But if you're a volunteer here and you're planning to serve this week,

you know, my challenge to you, try and write a children's song

that is actually accurately based on the scripture that we just read, you know?

It'll be challenging, you know?

Childish, immature, violent, you know, just very indulgent,

disobedient to parents, you know, womanizing sex addicts.

You know, that's Samson.

And so I think when we look at that in sort of his true color,

you know, a couple weeks ago we learned about Gideon,

and Graham was talking about Gideon having warts and all.

You just see this complete picture of who Samson is.

He was not a paragon of virtue.

He was not a model, a role model by any measure.

But hold on a sec here.

When we kind of take a step back and we look at the society,

the context in which Samson was growing up,

I think we can actually start to understand, maybe,

and maybe even sympathize with them.

Maybe why did Samson turn out the way he did?

So chapter 13, verse 1, we start from the top right there

that Chris just read wonderfully.

It says,

The Israelites again did evil in the sight of the Lord.

And what happened?

They ended up being ruled by the Philistines for 40 years.

And as we've gone through this series on Judges,

we're in our fourth week right now,

you might have noticed a pattern in these scripture readings

over the last few weeks, you know, with Jephthah, with Gideon.

There's this pattern that we see.

God's people turn away from him.

Turn away from him.

They turn to all these idols from the Canaanite culture

and religion around them.

And then God comes and graciously disciplines them

by actually giving them in to these oppressive people.

And he kind of gives in to them

and delivers them into these hands of the four nations.

And the Israelites are like,

What have we done?

We're enslaved.

And they cry out.

They're distressed.

They say, God, help us.

And then God graciously raises up a judge to save them.

But look at the beginning of chapter 13.

You notice something different?

The cycle is broken.

Because this time,

the Israelites don't cry out for help.

They don't think they're in distress.

The story of Judges is that God is actually faithfully saving his people again and again.

But in the entire book, they're on this downward spiral.

And we get to this point now where they're so integrated and so absorbed into the Canaanite culture around them

that they don't even know that they're enslaved.

They just want the status quo.

It's complete apathy.

And some scholars even think that maybe within a few generations,

the Israelite sort of nation and culture would have disappeared altogether

because they were getting completely absorbed into the culture surrounding them.

And this Canaanite culture, you know, in general and simple terms,

was about all these different gods that people, they served.

But they served them in the belief that the gods would actually bless them.

So, for example, you know, having sex with the temple prostitutes in Canaanite religion

was often seen as a ritual.

And that connected them to bring fertility to the land or to other things.

Even children were killed and sacrificed as last week, if you remember,

the story of Jephthah, very tragic.

Child sacrifice, human sacrifice was not uncommon.

It was a violent culture, as we just read.

Chapter 14, verse 15, you know, the Philistines threatened to kill their own people

just to get what they want, those 30 men.

And if you continue to read on, you find that they ended up,

they did burn Samson's wife and her father.

So, in essence, that culture, this Canaanite culture,

was about doing what's right in your own eyes by their own standard.

And sadly, that's how the Israelites are actually described

by the time you reach the end of the book of Judges.

It says, every man did what was right in his own eyes.

Their actions were governed by the goal that everything they did,

they had to get something in return.

They were willing to sacrifice a lot and even hurt the people around them

in order and in the name of pursuing something greater.

That's the Canaanite culture that Samson grew up in.

And it had spread through all of Israel.

You know, there were Philistine settlements everywhere.

And his parents, you know, in the opening account,

his parents, although they appear to be relatively godly people,

they also display some characteristics of that Canaanite influence.

You know, in their interaction with the angel,

you know, when you read closely and kind of parse through it,

there's some spiritual dullness in the fact that they fail to recognize,

especially Manoah, the father, that this is the angel of the Lord.

This is literally God's presence before them.

And it takes so long for them to really kind of get to that.

It kind of reminds us of Gideon when he was asking for more signs and more signs and more signs.

The mother, the angel had to explicitly remind her that you have to stay away from this ceremonially unclean food,

you know, which suggests there's a general disregard all throughout culture

because it should have been just the norm to stay away from this ceremonially unclean food.

It should have just been commonplace.

But he had to remind her of that.

God had given his people these laws for a reason.

And this has a lot to do with this special identity that the Israelites have been called to.

So why about this ceremonially unclean food?

Why did she have to abstain from it?

God's people had given them a special identity.

In his graciousness, he had chose this people of Israel and made a promise to them to set them apart.

And he says, be holy, for I am holy.

Be holy, Israel, because I am holy.

And there was this calling on them was to worship God

and to reflect God's amazing character through developing this society.

And this society was to be established on God's attributes, you know, his love, his justice, his mercy.

A genuine concern for human dignity.

This was the calling, the identity that was graciously given to Israel.

And, you know, human dignity, guys, and human rights,

it's just another reason that I personally believe,

you know, one of the many reasons why I personally believe that God,

the one true God, there's one true creator and he's real.

Because, you know, I've worked in, having worked in like the legal field and in human rights,

you read documents like the UN's Declaration of Human Rights.

And it says, you know, you have words like inherent dignity and worth of a person.

And don't get me wrong, that's great.

And it sounds great on paper.

But I think unless there's this transcendent, God-given moral absolute that says,

this really is how I created you because people are made in my image.

Honestly, if you don't have that, I think those words are really open to interpretation.

I think the Philistines probably would have disagreed with the UN.

Because they would have said, well, yeah, the human beings are worth something,

but they're also worth sacrificing on an altar to our gods

because we believe that we need that for God to bless us.

I think they would have disregarded that.

So the Israelites were called to be this light in this dark world,

this calling, this identity on them.

And similarly, when we read the story of Samson,

he's kind of like a microcosm of that.

He's kind of like a small individual example of what was going on in Israel on the whole.

So this identity of the Nazarite that we read about, that's very important.

It's based on the book of Numbers, chapter 6, verse 1.

Numbers 6:1

And Tim Keller does a really, I think, really great summary

of what the Nazarite identity and the vow was all about.

He said the purpose of the Nazarite vow was to ask God for special help during a crucial time.

And if you notice what the angel said, there was three kind of rules,

three stipulations that came with it.

He said, keep your hair uncut, basically.

Don't drink anything made from vines.

So, you know, wine would be a really great example.

And lastly, don't have any contact with any dead body.

And there was some purpose, some meaning behind this.

The first two, the not cutting hair and not drinking wine,

it shows that you are really focused and pursuing a goal, a special purpose.

Because wine, for example, it was meant to be enjoyed.

It was a good thing, and it was associated with celebration,

which is why you would refrain from that when you're doing this special training for this goal.

And then by not touching dead bodies,

you were actually adopting these strict rules of ceremonial cleanliness

that the priests of Israel followed.

So basically, what God is saying for the Nazarite is that Samson was essentially called

to live in God's presence, his immediate presence daily,

just like the priests did when they were working in the tabernacle,

and just like they did later on in the temple.

And he was in training towards this special goal.

Chapter 13, verse 5,

he will begin to deliver Israel from the hands of the Philistines.

And as we see in the story, you know, this supernatural power,

you know, had nothing to do with his hair, really.

You know, it wasn't like those Pantene commercials

where it's just like this lustrous, shiny hair,

and there was something magical and shiny and beautiful

that every woman and maybe man wants.

It had nothing to do with that.

The hair was actually just a symbol,

a representation of this Nazarite vow.

The fact that God had set him apart to serve him for a special purpose.

So we have this identity of Israel, of Samson as a Nazarite.

And now when we actually look at Samson's early life,

when we actually look at what he did,

we really kind of see a contrast.

We follow Samson through these early stages of his life,

and it's, wow, couldn't be a different picture.

Samson was basically a man who lived by his selfish impulses, right?

His desires.

And among his many flaws,

he had a particular weakness for foreign women.

You know, the first, and his own sexual lust.

And, you know, you'll see it in the rest of the passage

when you read it tonight.

But, you know, the Philistine wife,

this first woman that he sees,

and he's like, looks good to me.

That's just the first of several women.

So after his failed marriage with this Philistine woman,

you'll see in chapter 16 that he sleeps with the Philistine prostitute.

And then obviously we all know about, who is that?

Exactly.

Delilah.

Foxy Delilah.

And so he really seems to have this weakness.

And I don't really know, actually,

what about Philistine women that was so enticing to Samson.

I didn't Google, are Philistine women attractive or hotter or whatever.

But I don't know.

Maybe you guys, some of you guys can relate.

I was just thinking maybe a modern analogy.

Like, you know, frankly, like all my white friends that come here,

from, you know, like British bankers or whatever,

they come here and you have like Asian girlfriends or Asian wives.

Maybe it's kind of like that.

Maybe.

I don't know.

You see this Asian girl and it's like,

I don't see that at home.

This is, I'm just kidding.

It's, I'm just kidding.

One of, some of my best friends, obviously Chris Thornton,

made an excellent choice.

I was a groomsman for a good friend not too long ago.

American guy, white guy, married an Asian girl.

And I actually, I love, I think interracial relationships.

Joe and Tracy, I love you guys.

I think interracial relationships are a beautiful thing

because Christ transcends language and nation

and transcends just cultural differences too.

But actually the,

the passage isn't about interracial marriage actually,

if you look carefully.

It's not.

It's not at all.

So don't mistake God saying anything about interracial marriage.

If you look at chapter 14, verse 3,

Manoah's response to Samson is about the uncircumcised Philistines.

And that's really important because it shows that the main issue,

the main issue was the fact that they didn't worship God.

These Philistines were uncircumcised

because circumcision was the covenant sign between God and his people.

So Manoah's concern isn't based on race.

It's actually based on God's explicit command in Exodus 34,

that his people are not to marry those who worship other gods.

But we come back to Samson, you know, he retorts.

We're still in verse 3.

He said,

Get her for me, for she looks good to me.

And first of all, this,

other than the fact that that sounds ridiculous in my mind,

this would have been actually massively disrespectful in that society.

I mean, in terms of not even just talking back to your father,

but in such a patriarchal ancient society,

that the patriarch, the father's word,

was basically law in a sense.

And this really just shows Samson's sort of arrogance

and his childishness.

And I can just imagine him being this kind of brute caveman.

You know, I see, I like, I want.

You know?

The scary thing, though,

is that you can actually also look at this response that he says,

and some can also translate it literally as,

She is right in my eyes.

Does that sound kind of familiar to you?

It's basically what we see as this case for all of Israel

by the end of Judges.

Every man did what was right in their own eyes.

It's very ominous.

It kind of reflects in Samson

and what's happening on a broader scale.

You know, if it looks good,

guys, if it feels good,

do it.

I decide what's right for me.

That's basically Samson in a nutshell.

Continuing the story,

afterwards,

he probably breaks the two stipulations

of the Nazarite rules already,

you know, when he handled the lion's carcass.

And guys, you know something's up there

because the narrator's very smart.

He puts in,

but he didn't,

he gave this honey to his parents,

but he didn't tell them.

Like, you know,

I think he's just subtly saying

he knew something was off there,

but he didn't tell them

that he got the honey from the lion's carcass.

And then he threw that wedding feast,

if you remember,

like all the young men typically do.

And you can literally translate that

as a drinking party,

the word for feast.

And so we can be pretty sure

that he also was involved

with drinking from the vine

or wine during that time.

And then Samson,

that silly little riddle at his wedding,

I mean, I don't know

what you were thinking, Samson,

but it was his own idea.

You know, and then in his own weakness,

he gives in to his wife's pressure.

The whole thing quickly escalates

into him, you know,

in a fit of rage and anger,

murdering a whole bunch of Philistines.

And then this just escalates

from there.

It gets more and more intense.

More lives are at stake.

You know, his weakness

with his first wife

that we read about,

it foreshadows his relationship

with Delilah

that I think we're quite familiar with.

The two incidents are so similar,

but with Delilah,

after she kind of presses him

and seduces him,

he actually betrays God

completely with Delilah

because with her,

he reveals the true source

of his power,

essentially that the Nazarite identity

that God gave him.

He sacrifices that.

When he let his hair get cut,

he was essentially

totally giving up

his God-given identity.

He gave it up for Delilah,

for his love for Delilah,

and ultimately his idolatry of sex.

And I think that was convicting to me

because I was thinking for us,

I remember how often

do we kind of do this trade-in?

How often do I look

maybe to the hope

of a significant other

or if you're married,

to your husband

and to your wife

or whoever,

a father, a mother,

someone you care about,

you look to them

to be your functional savior,

to be my functional savior,

to be the person

that only God can be

and only God can do?

I think at this point,

at this juncture,

it's important for us

to kind of pause and contemplate

because this is ultimately

a story not about Samson,

not about Delilah.

This is a story about God.

So where is he in this?

You know,

where is God at work

in all this?

And it's obvious,

if you remember,

the angel comes,

he speaks to Manoah,

he speaks to the wife,

so if it's not clear already,

you know,

God initiated something here.

But just in case

that wasn't clear enough,

verse 4 in chapter 14

was so,

it's actually really important.

What does it say?

It says,

it was of the Lord.

It's like God telling me,

telling us,

it was of the Lord.

It being Samson's pursuit

of this Philistine woman.

For he was seeking an occasion

against the Philistines.

Now at that time,

the Philistines were ruling

over Israel.

And here,

I think we see this mystery

of how God's sovereign will

kind of intersects

with our human will

and our free will.

Because certainly,

God didn't make Samson

do something

illicitly against

God's own commandment.

He didn't do that.

But God's promise,

what was it?

He promised that

he would use Samson

to begin saving Israel.

And in God's amazing mercy,

he was even using Samson's

own sinfulness

and his idolatry

for his amazing purposes.

Likewise, you know,

when we see the Holy Spirit

coming onto Samson

and supernaturally empowering him,

I don't think this has anything

to do with whether Samson

deserves those gifts,

actually.

To be kind of

simply stating it,

the gifts of the Spirit,

the gifts of the Spirit,

they're functional.

They're for achieving purposes.

They're for doing something.

Whereas the fruit of the Spirit,

that's about

a person's character.

So I don't think

we're seeing God

endorsing

Samson's choices.

I don't think we're seeing God

endorsing

Samson's character.

I think what we're seeing

is God faithfully

using this final judge,

even as Samson

is personally

and callously

disregarding his identity,

disregarding his calling.

And even as Israelites

are just so apathetic,

indifferent,

they want to remain

under slavery.

God is there.

It's not on every line.

But the narrator says

in verse 4,

it's a reminder so clearly

that behind the scenes,

even when we don't know,

when we don't see,

when we don't feel

he's at work.

Samson's life

is convicting for me,

you know,

as I was reflecting on this.

Because I see my life.

I see the culture around me.

I see Hong Kong.

It's beautiful metropolis.

But it's eerily similar

to the time of Samson.

That's what I think

as I was reflecting on this.

You know,

remember how I described

the Canaanite culture

at the beginning?

Well, why don't I just

kind of replace it

from my own eyes?

My culture is about me

doing what's right

in my own eyes.

That's what Hong Kong's

telling me.

My actions are governed

by the goal

of getting something

in return.

I'm actually willing,

if I'm honest,

to sacrifice a lot

and even hurt the people

who are close to me

in the name of pursuing

something greater.

Does that sound familiar

to you?

Is that a familiar story?

You know,

when I think about

Samson's life,

I also see

this idolatry of sex

in Hong Kong.

You know,

it's pervasive.

It's ubiquitous.

It's everywhere.

You know,

this phrase,

sex sells,

was obviously coined

for a reason.

I see it on billboards.

I see it in commercials.

I see it on the internet.

I see it on websites.

I see it in movies.

I see it in popular culture.

And I think,

ultimately,

Samson's idolatry of sex,

it was much more

than literally

the act of having sex.

It's actually,

I think,

much more to do

with everything

related to romantic

and sexual love.

You know,

the Greeks called this

eros.

It's where we get

the word erotic from.

And you may know

that,

unlike in English,

the Greeks actually

had multiple words

for love,

and they called

this type of love

eros.

And I think

what I've experienced

in my own life,

if I'm honest,

is that I definitely

think we have a tendency

to idolize

this kind of love.

You know,

I enjoy watching movies,

and I must say,

I'd probably say

maybe 99.9%

of the movies

I watch are,

they're pretty solid

like bro movies,

you know,

like,

you know,

action,

adventure,

Schwarzenegger,

a good drama,

a good suspense,

maybe some sci-fi

for that geek in me,

you know.

But then I realized

as I was thinking

about this

that actually

maybe the remaining

0.1%

is usually

inhabited by

romantic comedies,

and they're usually

watched on the plane.

And so I can say

to, you know,

my friends,

oh yeah,

I watched

How to Lose a Guy

in 10 Days

on the plane

because, you know,

anything you can do

in the name of

passing time

on a flight,

you know,

that's fine, right?

I'd already watched

all the other movies,

so I kind of just

had to watch

all those rom-coms.

So even in my own heart,

if I'm honest with you,

there's something

about rom-coms

that is appealing,

as manly as I am.

And honestly,

if I had more time,

I might even indulge

in those invitations

to watch

The Bachelorette

with some of you

who will remain nameless.

Maybe if I had

an infinite amount

of time to spare,

I would indulge that.

See, guys,

sex and romance

is everywhere.

Even in my sort of

older Chinese uncles

and aunties.

And just hold on a second.

I'm not going

where you think

I'm going.

See, you hit

a certain age.

Maybe for guys

it's your late 20s

or early 30s.

And the inescapable question

I get asked

to dinners

and family gatherings.

You know what it is, right?

For you non-Cantonese initiated,

it's basically

when are you going

to start dating

or get married?

You know, guys,

it's just there.

It's expected.

We think about it.

You know,

we like talking

about who's hooking up.

You know,

there's this whole sector

of journalism.

If you can call it journalism,

that's dedicated

to celebrity crushes

and, you know,

who's dating who

and who's with who

and excellent journalism.

OK Magazine, maybe,

or People.

I don't know.

It's good.

And let me be clear.

I'm not actually saying

any of this

is inherently bad.

But I think, actually,

you've heard this before.

Most of our idols

come from things

that are inherently good.

But we make them

more important than God.

And that leads us

to do very tragic things

as a result.

And like Samson,

who elevated his love

for Delilah

above his God-given identity

as a Nazarite.

And Scripture tells us also

that God actually created

a romantic love.

You know,

He created sex

to be enjoyed

in the context

of a godly marriage.

God is the author

of romance.

He created it for us,

His people.

So I'm not saying

any of that is bad,

actually.

It's a good thing

that God made.

But here's the thing.

Church,

when we look at

the life of Jesus,

you know,

when we look at

Jesus Christ,

God in human form

coming to earth,

when we look at

the New Testament,

when we look at

the lives of Christ

as a single man

for all of His life,

and we look at

people like Paul,

we don't see

the pursuit

of sexual love

actually as a calling

or a goal

of the people

of God.

And certainly,

we don't see God

put any,

you know,

real value

on marriage

and singleness

as your identity

as a Christian.

He doesn't.

Well,

you might say,

well,

Jeremy,

what about Adam

and Eve?

What about God's command

and His calling

on them

to be fruitful

and multiply?

And to that,

I would say,

yes,

that's true.

But what does Christ say

is the true essence,

the true measure

of fruitfulness

and multiplication?

In the kingdom of God,

what is it?

It's spiritual.

It's spiritual birth,

spiritual children,

spiritual relationships

in the family of God,

us.

Matthew chapter 12,

Matthew 12:46

verse 46,

a powerful passage.

While Jesus was still

talking to the crowd,

His mother and brothers

stood outside

wanting to speak to Him.

Someone told Him,

your mother and brothers

are standing outside

wanting to speak to you.

Jesus replied to Him,

who is my mother?

Who are my brothers?

Pointing to His disciples,

He said,

here are my mother

and my brothers.

For whoever does

the will of my Father

in heaven

is my brother

and my sister

and my mother.

Do you remember

the implications

of that

when you read that

for the first time?

It's a radical

reordering

and transformation

of this nature

of family

and relationship

in the kingdom of God.

Because unlike Israel,

the people of God today

were not tied

to an ethnic group.

we don't need

procreation

to propagate

this plan of salvation

and to maintain

the family of God.

We are a people

whose hearts

have been transformed.

Our hearts

have been circumcised

through faith

in Jesus Christ.

So whether

you're married

or single

now actually

does not affect

our ability

to live out

this calling

that God has given us.

our calling

as a church

is to be fruitful

and multiply

by bringing people

into the spiritual

family

of God,

the church.

You can do that

biologically

and you still need

to do it spiritually

but you definitely

need to do it

spiritually.

So just kind of

think with me

for a second here.

What,

guys,

what if we shifted

this paradigm

altogether?

When we talk

about the idolatry

of sex

and relationships

and love,

what if we shifted

the paradigm

in the church

instead of our identity

being so intimately

tied to

our relationship

statuses?

What if we think

about this calling

that God has given us

and we start asking

these questions

instead of,

you know,

it's still an important

question,

it's valid,

but what if the main

thing we're asking

each other

and asking ourselves

is this,

you know,

am I a spiritual

parent?

Who am I a spiritual

father or mother to?

You know,

when we do this,

this was really

convicting for me

because when we do

this Father's Day

thing or Mother's Day,

you know,

if you've been with us

for any number of time,

we usually give out

these little gifts

kind of as to honor

all the adult men

or women

in the congregation

and,

you know,

whether they have

biological children

or not.

And I always feel

a little kind of

tentative.

I'm like,

should I be getting

one?

Am I a spiritual

father?

Am I a father?

But I think,

honestly,

if I had that identity,

if that calling

was so real to me,

I would,

and if I saw myself

as having the role

of a father

to the fatherless,

a spiritual father

because I was

investing my time

and my energy

and I loved

those kids around me,

I think I would be like,

right here,

give me one of those

water bottles

because I'm a spiritual

father,

right?

But I'm not.

And that's always

a time for me

to kind of dwell on that

and think about that.

I think if Jesus was here,

he wouldn't think twice

about receiving

one of those

because he knew

in his heart

that his calling

was to be a spiritual

father

to those around him.

You know,

what would our community

look like

if I devoted

the majority of my time

to the spiritual lives

of the people around me?

You know,

whether you're single

or married,

how much time

do you actually spend

bringing in

and nurturing

a new generation

of spiritual children?

You know,

is it as much

as you would expect

a parent would spend

parenting

and nurturing

their own child?

single and married people.

How often

do you actually

spend time

together

as an extended

church family

with the kids

and whoever else?

Because your identity

isn't rooted

in your marital status.

We're just an extended

family of God

and we can walk

alongside each other.

You have authority

from God

to speak into

each other's lives

no matter where

you're at

in your life journey.

Now,

I imagine

God's church,

it's kind of like

the vision

that I have.

I imagine

God's church

being a community

that is just

striving,

striving to be

a community

in which every

single person

is proud

of their singlehood

and every married

person is proud

of their marriage

even when

things are rocky

and not going well.

Why?

Because the church

is so content,

so fulfilled

by God's love.

And singlehood

and marriage

are both equally

cherished

and celebrated.

You know,

where we've stopped

looking to dating

and we've stopped

looking to marriage

and sex

to fulfill

the true purpose

of the human heart

and that's to receive

and share

the unconditional love

that God,

our creator,

gives us.

when I think

about our mission

as a church,

man,

I think that would

be so appealing

to a world

that is

just sex crazed

and yearning

for happiness,

for contentment.

and I think I'm

a pretty realistic guy.

I know,

guys,

I know we'll always

yearn for something,

for things that we

don't have.

You know,

I do.

I catch myself,

I catch myself,

you know,

still in times

of discontentment,

of loneliness.

You know,

the grass is greener

on the other side.

I need this.

The question,

some of the questions,

like one test

that I kind of

ask myself is,

man,

if God

kept the status quo

in my life right now,

no more,

no less.

Maybe no more

career advancement,

you know,

no more changes

in my social status,

in my relationship status.

If nothing happened,

nothing changed

for the rest of my life.

I keep aging,

of course.

But would I still

be content

because I have God?

Because I have

His love for me?

I don't know,

to be honest with you.

It hasn't happened

to me yet.

But I think there's

something we can strive for

and when I look

around me,

when I look at this,

when I spend time

in community

with my friends

in community group,

my brothers and sisters,

my family in community,

when I see you guys

and I experience

the family God,

I actually start realizing

and God reminds me

that this,

guys,

this is actually

the most important thing.

What I see God doing

in this spiritual family.

So I don't know exactly

where each one of you are

in your spiritual journey.

I don't know the idols

that you might be wrestling with.

I mean,

maybe you guys

don't even know yourself.

Maybe you're not really sure

what's going on

in your heart.

But I know that God knows.

chapter 14,

verse 4,

that incredible reminder.

God says,

he's basically telling us,

he's there.

He's at work.

He loves you.

He's pursuing you.

While we were still sinners,

the Bible says,

Christ died for us.

While we were still unaware

and ignorant

and blinded

by our own idolatry,

blind to our spiritual slavery,

just like the Israelites

where God was at work.

He died for us

on that cross.

And that cross,

that beautiful cross,

is the monumental

declaration

of God's love for us.

If you ever are in doubt,

just remember the cross

because that is just

historical,

incontrovertible proof

in history

that God loves you

so much

that he died for you.

And he's working

out his purposes.

And guys,

if he's doing that

while we're far away,

like Samson,

when we're ignorant

like the Israelites,

how much more amazing

will it be for us

when he's actually

working out his purposes

when we're walking

with him,

when we're pursuing him,

when we're actually

worshiping him?

How much more amazing

would it be us

as a family

to be worshiping God

and seeing him

working out

his amazing purposes?

And I honestly

can't imagine,

in my own heart,

I can't imagine

anything in life

that can bring

as much genuine joy

and contentment

as knowing this,

that I have

everlasting life.

I will have

and I do have

everlasting life

in the presence

of a God

that loves me

unconditionally.

I'm going to ask

the band

to come on back up

and let's just

take this time

in prayer.

Let's pray for,

speak to God,

you know,

as we fix our eyes

on Christ.

I believe that hymn

is,

that old hymn

is true.

You know,

when he says,

turn your eyes

upon Jesus

and lead me

to the cross.

And the things

of this world

really will grow,

start to grow dim.

The things

that entice us,

the things

that worry us,

that burden us,

they start becoming

dim because

it might not be

overnight,

it might be

a lifelong journey

and it probably

will be,

little by little,

but those things

start to grow dim.

And I just

imagine God

holding us

and me

in his hands.

It's so secure,

so secure

than the things

that we hold

on to

so tightly,

things that we

think we need,

that we must have.

We can just start

letting go of those

things.

I don't know what

those things are

for you exactly,

but just take this

time to reflect on

that and pray.

Pray to him,

maybe for the first

time,

God,

show me who you

are.

Show me the power

of the cross

and power of

Jesus Christ

and what he did,

how his love

poured out for us.

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