Judges: Father's Day: Leadership and Our Need for Jesus

Happy Father's Day to all you dads.

We have for you just a little gift on the way out when you exit soda pop.

You get a pop for you.

You can grab one of those on the way out.

I want to begin by us pondering, like Charles talked about, the perfect father.

And if you remember two years ago we looked at this painting for several weeks, it's Rembrandt's painting, the prodigal.

And this is coming off the story of the prodigal son, of course.

If you remember a couple years ago, as we broke this painting down, because it's an incredible painting for us to ponder, not just us as broken down children in need, but also our heavenly father.

If you remember the story of the parable, the boy takes his inheritance, runs off, he embarrasses his dad, he wastes the money, he lives lavishly, he's broken, he's beaten up, he's starving to death.

Finally, he comes back home.

He's nothing.

He has nothing but his confession.

He has nothing but his emptiness.

And his loving father wraps him up.

The story actually says he comes off the porch and runs toward him and wraps him up.

And if you remember, we learned that in this painting, if you zoom in there, one hand is a masculine hand representing the strength and the hold of God.

And Rembrandt painted the other hand as a feminine hand representing the tenderness and the nurturing heart of God.

And that's what we have in the perfectly, the perfect Heavenly Father.

We have both a strength and a hold and a faithfulness in God to us, and we also have this tender heart that's nurturing toward us.

So even while we are imperfect fathers in this world, and we have imperfect earthly fathers, we have a heavenly father that always cares for us and always parents us rightly, even while we're not understanding and even while we live in an imperfect world.

Now, today in Judges 11, we're gonna see clearly an imperfect father and an imperfect guy and a dysfunctional family.

And a story, one of those, another story in the book of Judges, as we make our way through it, that we just read and we could read it just as history.

And that's something just in and of itself, but there's a lot in this story for us to pull into our lives.

So let's revisit a few of these verses that Charles read for us.

Judges 11, 1 through 3.

Now Jephthal the Gileadite was a mighty warrior, but he was the son of a prostitute.

Gilead was the father of Jephthah, and Gilead's wife also bore him sons.

And when his wife's sons grew up, they drove Jephthah out and said to him, You shall not have an inheritance in our father's house, for you are the son of another woman.

Then Jephthal fled from his brothers and lived in the land of Tob, and worthless fellows collected around Jephthah and went out with him.

So Jephthaw was the son of Gilead, his dad, and a prostitute.

So the other brothers at a certain age, they're putting it together that Jephthal is not just from dad and mom, but a prostitute, but he's in the father's house, and therefore he would take a share of the inheritance.

So the brothers, of course, get together and then decide this guy's got to go.

We'll each get more money.

And so they run him off.

They kick him out.

So Jephthal's out of the house.

He's out of the security of his home and his family.

He is out in the middle of the wilderness and is gets mixed up with basically a bunch of criminals.

And that's where Jephthal is at.

And yet, eventually, these people of Gilead come back to him and beg him to lead them in battle.

Now, what we don't get in these verses is any sort of record of concern by the dad.

We actually don't, like, what's the dad?

Is the dad aware of this?

What's going on with dad?

Right?

The poor child's kicked out of his home.

It's not even his fault that his father slept with the prostitute to be in the home in that way.

And yet there's no record of the dad like going after him or punishing the brothers.

I'm not a fathering expert, and certainly I'm not a fathering expert to the ancient Near East thousands of years ago.

But it just seems to me, just seems to me that the dad should know where one of his kids are at, and if he figured out how his son was booted out of the family by the brothers, that he would go after his son.

I mean, we could just kind of call this an epic dad fail.

So speaking of dad fails, that made me curious.

I have a few images to share with you this morning.

This was the first epic dad fail I liked.

Because it felt efficient, uh, it's the kind of thing I would do.

Um I think a lot of us would be like, yeah, that works.

Hopefully she can breathe under there.

Uh but it's creative, and I like that.

The second, here's the second dad fail I appreciated.

Much more creative.

I mean, oh, you know, with different culture, let's not be too judgmental, but I still think it's over the line of creativity.

Um, moms, don't get too excited because I found this one just for you.

I mean, the thing looks really soft, so I'm sure, I'm sure the baby's fine.

We all fumble, don't we?

Get it?

See what I did?

How we did that?

See, we all fumble, right?

When it comes to parenting, we we all fumble.

That's this parenting thing.

We're we're all imperfect parents trying to do a good job.

And in Judges 11, we get an imperfect parent, a dysfunctional family, and a crooked past, and yet God raises up this kid, this guy, Jephthal.

I mean, he's been a criminal to be the savior of these people.

And the point number one is this such good news for us.

Leadership does not require pedigree or perfection.

I mean, think about Jephthal's story.

Kicked out of his family's house, runs around with criminals.

I mean, he doesn't have it.

Like he's the least of the sons to pick, and yet he's the one who steps into leadership.

I think that means a lot whether that means for you something of being a leader just as being a Christian, or whether that means of being a parent, or whether in your workplace, that it you don't have to degrade yourself and say, oh, well, I could never be because of my pedigree, or I could never be because of my past.

For application to dad's, my heart went straight to Ephesians 6, 4.

Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

So guide and teach, but don't wear them out.

Don't provoke them.

Which means you're in relationship with your child.

Because if you think about this, for you to know the moment before you've provoked them into anger, it means that you know your child well enough that before anger happens, you know when to discern, when to teach, when to listen, when to push, when to embrace, when to punish, when to absolve.

Right?

It presumes relationship.

Here's the application, I think, for dads this morning.

Number one is this coming off this Ephesians 6.4.

When their hearts into relationship, win their hearts into relationship, instruct along the way.

What I mean by that is this my instruction to my child is inside my pursuit of their heart.

I think that's what Ephesians 6.4 is saying.

How would we know?

How would we know the moment before our child moves into anger unless we know our children?

Ephesians 6.4 presumes the relationship of winning their hearts.

Win their hearts.

The second point of application: be present when you are present, but confess along the way.

I think that has to do something with what it means to and how to win the relationship and win the heart of your child.

There were years, and Christy will show pictures.

I'll have no memory.

I'll have no memory of the event.

And some of those pictures, I'm in the picture.

No memory.

Like I was there and not there.

Right?

Now, some some of the pictures, I'm not even in the picture.

Right?

It just took me too long, and I'm still learning it.

My kids are not waiting for me to be impressive.

They're waiting for me to be present with them.

Here's how confession fits into that.

Every single time I mess up as a father, which is often, maybe I'm impatient, maybe I'm not listening, maybe I just mishandle it, maybe, you know, whatever.

Every single time that I go to my child and confess, how I mess that up.

It never causes them to respect me less.

Actually, it deepens the relationship.

And I actually gain legitimacy for the future.

I think this is all about what it means to win the hearts of our children.

And that our instruction is in the context of this type of relationship where we know our children so well that we would know the moment before they move into anger.

Now let's go back to Judges 11.

That was my bit of Father's Day tangent.

Back to Judges 11, we pick up in verse 12.

Then Jephthal sent messengers to the king of the Ammonites and said, What do you have against me that you have come to me to fight against my land?

And the king of the Ammonites answered the messengers of Jephthal, because Israel on coming up from Egypt took away my land from the Arnon to the Jabak and to the Jordan.

Now therefore restore it peaceably.

So this guy says, I want my land back.

You have my land.

And this little argument forms.

The king of Amon, he argues that the land belonged to his people, and the Israelites stole it.

So Jephthah, he argues back.

He says, No, no, no, we came out of Egypt, and the Ammonites and the Mobites, they lived in the east in Arnan, and Israel asked permission, can we pass through?

They said no.

So, just a bit of the history here.

So they traveled to the land that's in question, and the Amorites were there.

And so Israel asked the Amorites, hey, can we pass through?

And the Amorites said no, so that battle happens.

The Israelites beat out the Amorites, and so they gain the land by conquest.

And this is Jephthaw's argument.

Now here's the point.

You go, what does that have anything to do with anything?

Well, here's the point.

Point number two God desires to redeem all parts of our stories to form us into compassionate and wise leaders.

See, one reason that Jephthaw is able to step into this leadership role so well is the shrewdness he learned as a criminal.

Right?

I mean, he brought in that shrewdness, that ability to argue, that ability to stand boldly in front of somebody else and to argue and hold the line.

Like his survival coping was actually a thing, a tool that he brought in to this leadership, and he brought it back to his people.

Isn't that interesting how we'll learn unhealthy things because of an event in our lives and that actually that can be restored and used for good?

So let's think back to a quote I read last week by Dan Alender.

I want us to think about this and to contemplate as I read it, Jephthal's life, but also contemplate your life.

Because it's this idea of God restoring and redeeming the parts of our lives that we think, oh, that could never be of use.

Nothing good could come of that.

Here's what Dan Alender says, and we read it last week.

Let's contemplate it again.

In those moments of unnaming when we have lost ourselves, we must remember to return to our past redemptions to find God's mark of glory on our abandonment, betrayal, and shame.

We wrongly believe that we will be happy if we can escape the past, but without our past, we are hollow and plastic beings who have only common names and conventional stories.

When we enter into our story at the point we lost our name, we are most likely to hear the whisper of our new name.

Now that's really beautiful language to say our past do not have to define us.

But we can become free of them and we're formed by them.

We're defined by our identity in Christ, not our sin, and also not the unnaming events that happened in our lives.

Our redemption story is that we have this relationship with God, that we're secure because of Jesus, we're held for eternity, and there's a restoration of our past that's moving us into greater character and compassion and wisdom.

That Jephthal brought what he learned in the wilderness with a bunch of crooked criminals, and he brought it into leadership, into the well-being for the people.

And yet the story turns.

The Ammonites don't listen to Jephthal's argument and his reasoning.

So off to battle they go, and Jephthal he makes a vow.

Here's what it says Judges 11, 30 and 31.

And Jephthal made a vow to the Lord and said, If you will give the Ammonites into my hand, so if we win, if we win, if you'll let me win, then whatever comes out from the doors of my house to meet me when I return in peace from the Ammonites shall be the Lord's, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering.

Okay, what an absolute unreasonable prayer.

If you give me this, then when I come home, just whatever comes out the door, I will kill it for you.

That's what this is saying.

Well, the good news is that the Israelites route the Emonites and they keep the land.

The bad news is when Jephthal comes home, his sweet daughter comes out the door to celebrate with him.

To celebrate with him.

She's so proud of him and so happy.

And we get verse 35.

And as soon as he saw her, he tore his clothes and said, Alas, my daughter, you have brought me very low, and you have become the cause of great trouble to me, for I have opened my mouth to the Lord, and I cannot take back my vow.

Alright, so if you picked up on it, the guy's gonna, he's gonna kill his daughter.

I mean, the context here is the Israelites live around pagan people who have developed pagan fertility sex worship, perhaps how Jephthal came into the world through Gilead and a prostitute.

And then also there's human sacrifice being done in the context here at the time.

So this guy is caught up in his culture to begin to think that this would even be appropriate on any level.

And then the story gets worse because he tells the daughter, and then the daughter affirms that he can't take back the vow.

I mean, that's how messed up.

The vow is messed up, everything's messed up here.

When they've already been told, they have scripture, Deuteronomy 12, 31, you shall not worship the Lord your God in that way, for every abominable thing that the Lord hates, they have done for their gods, for they even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods.

It's already clear.

And that's how far he's been wooed away from what it means to worship God, caught up in his culture at the time.

And he goes and he kills his daughter.

I mean he kills his daughter.

And he thinks he's doing it for God.

I mean, again, it's one of those stories.

It's one of those stories in the Bible that if you isolate it, then just read it.

So how easily we go, well, that's why I don't like the Bible.

Like, that's why I don't read the Bible.

Look what the Bible teaches.

Or in fact, the story is actually teaching how messed up humanity is.

When we don't listen and look at the scriptures for what is right and wrong, this is where we end up.

Overly influenced by culture.

And point number three is this we are all, we are all more affected by our culture than we want to admit.

All of us.

We're constantly being transformed, molded like clay, and our thinking and our opinions and our beliefs, by the news, by our friends, by entertainment.

I mean, this is why Paul writes to us in the New Testament in Romans 12, too: do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

So this is about our starting point of truth and the trajectory of that and our heart and mind as we process and we think about beliefs and values and opinions.

And the question is, is are we seeking the scriptures for that?

And then once we ask that question, the second question would be: are we seeking the scriptures to a point of studying them to actually understand what they mean?

Right?

Like I said, like we could just read Judges 11, but if you don't take the time to break that out, as how does this fit into the redemption story, we could come away with this story with all sorts of craziness.

And I say that not to shame us that we read the Bible in a lazy way, but just to say, you know what, as you read the Bible, also get a study Bible, also get a commentary, get a good devotional book.

If you need help with that, email me.

I'd love to help you with that.

For us to become a Bible literate church, that we are seeking what is right and wrong, what is true and false in the scriptures.

Last point.

Works righteousness bounds us.

Christ, the God of grace, frees us and grows us.

Here's where this fits into this story.

Jeff all things.

I'll make a deal with God.

Give me the victory, and I'll give you X.

I'll give you X, you give me Y.

Right?

Like God as a vending machine in the sky.

And we want to control Him like that, don't we?

I mean, because then we can have control over our lives.

And the problem is, of course, as soon as your life starts to break down, what does that mean about God?

The whole thing's toxic.

The whole thing puts us to work to have to sacrifice more and more and more, do more and more, be more and more righteous, and then God will finally smile upon us or finally bless us.

So you're tired even while you're doing it.

And then if your life actually begins to break down, you go, well, is God not faithful?

Where the whole time we've built out a performance-based faith, that's just not true.

It's just not true.

It's a works righteousness that binds us.

But the God of the Bible, He never asks people to sacrifice themselves to gain God's acceptance.

No, no, no.

We don't have to work harder in faith to cause God to smile upon us.

And that's such good news.

We are delighted in by God because of Jesus.

So we get to serve Him and others.

That distinguishment is huge because one way is freedom and growth, and the other way is a religiosity, a performance-based religiosity.

We end up with all sorts of weariness and exhaustion.

But the story of the redemption story is that Jesus is the final sacrifice.

God provides.

Church, we have a heavenly father who comes off the porch for us.

We have nothing.

If we ponder back to that painting, Rembrandt's painting.

Jeff didn't quite believe this.

That God was a provider.

Right?

Because he returns into this works righteousness.

I'll give you something.

If you give me something, I'll give you something.

And you'll give me something because I give you something.

Or the redemption story in the gospel is that we come with nothing.

We come with our emptiness.

Like in this painting.

This is how we show up.

We are created beautifully.

We have the image of God in us.

But in our sin, we come with open hands, with our emptiness, nothing more.

And he accepts us.

He accepts us in his strength and in his tenderness.

Let's pray together.

God, thank you for the story that we can contemplate just for a few minutes to be reminded that you desire to redeem all parts of our stories and that you will use them for where you've placed us in our lives.

Whatever that means this morning, that we're a parent, and we need to learn what it means to be more present with you, or whether it means we're a child, or whether it means in our workplace or friendships.

But just because we don't have pedigree, or just because we're not perfect, doesn't mean that you do not want to have us in a place of influence.

And God, how we're so thankful that we don't have to live in a transactional relationship with you.

But we are in a relationship of grace, not works righteousness, but Christ's righteousness.

That all of our sin has been placed upon the cross and your righteousness has been given to us, and we are forever secure.

Always your beloved.

Help us to trust in greater ways of your goodness for us and not live in the ways that we see in the story.

Overly influenced by our culture and committed to a way of faith that is weary and exhausting, help us to trust greater in the full sufficiency of Jesus that you are enough.

Our relationship with you is secure, and out of that security, we get to serve you and serve others.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.