Judges: Asking for Help

So we are in Judges chapter four and five, like we've been saying as we've been studying our way through the book of Judges.

This is one of those books that we oftentimes just sort of skip over.

It's filled with a lot of strange stories.

We're trying to make sense of these stories.

Last week, uh, Brad helped us make sense of these stories as he preached, and he talked about patterns, right?

And he talked about how Mandy makes him go eat tapas food, which we learned is Spanish for not enough food for Brad.

Uh, and then the pattern is his dessert is uh swinging by five guys on the way home.

Christy, and my date night pattern, it's also very clear, and that's Thursday nights, and for us it means we drive to Atlanta.

It's the end of the week for us, Sunday through Thursday, uh work week, exhausted, tired, been all over the place.

We can barely talk, we're kind of comatose as we drive down the expressway, and we go eat at Tacaria del Sol, where waiting for us is guacamole and cheese dip and a margarita.

It takes about halfway through the margarita before life is returning into us, and we start having functional, like relational conversation.

That's our pattern.

Like it's the story that we live by over and over and over again.

It's a pattern.

Right?

Well, these stories and judges, it's a pattern.

This pattern that we saw last week is actually the pattern we're gonna see this week.

It's the pattern that we see in the story of the Old Testament.

And that is that we're God's people.

We often forget God.

We become enslaved to sin, and in that slavery, at some point we cry, Uncle, I've had enough.

Please, Lord, rescue me.

And God is gracious and he shows up.

So Judges 4 starts out with Ehud, their leader, he dies.

And Ehud must have been providing some amount of leadership to keep everybody in line because he dies, and then the text says the people begin to forget God and rebel.

And then this King Jabin shows up with this really horrible army commander, and his name is Sesera.

And these two, for 20 years, they just wreck havoc, they enslave the people.

Finally, finally, like the pattern, the people cry out to God for rescue.

And then this lady shows up, this leader, Deborah.

She shows up on the scene and she's savvy and she is wise.

People go to her for counsel, and she gives counsel to this guy named Barak, who's one of the leaders of the army.

And so we jump into Judges 4.

We're going to read verses 8 and 9 and then verses 12 through 14.

Barak said to her, okay, so she had said to him, Hey, you need to take the army and go into battle.

That's what she said to him.

And now this is Barak speaking back to her.

Barak said to her, If you will go with me, I will go, but if you will not go with me, I will not go.

And she said, I will surely go with you.

Nevertheless, the road on which you are going will not lead to your glory, for the Lord will sell Seserah into the hand of a woman.

Then Deborah arose and went with Barak to Kadesh.

Then verse 12.

When Seserah was told that Barak, the son of Abanoam, had gone up to Mount Tabor, Seserah called out all his chariots, 900 chariots of iron, and all the men who were with him, from Hereshet, Hagoim, to the river Keshon.

And Deborah said to Barak, Up, for this is the day in which the Lord has given Seserah into your hand.

Does not the Lord go out before you?

So Barak went down from Mount Tabor with 10,000 men following him.

And he said, Okay, what are we going to get out of this?

Well, we're actually going to get a lot out of this.

Deborah becomes this wise counselor to Barak, tells Barak what to do.

Thus saith the Lord, sort of thing, is what Deborah's doing.

Thus saith the Lord, take your men and go.

And Barak says, I'm not going unless you go with me.

And here's where we get our first point.

We get two points this morning.

Point number one is this our growth in grace leads us to asking for more help.

Not less.

Right?

It would be easy to conclude, man, this guy, he lacks faith.

Like he won't do the thing he's told to do.

But the story's bigger than that.

And we learn that in Hebrews 11, 32 and 33.

And what shall, what more shall I say?

For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, there he is, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel, and the prophets, who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions.

So Barak, this guy, he is listed as a great hero of faith with all these other heroes of faith.

So he probably, he probably recognized Deborah had a skill set he didn't have.

I mean, it was something like that.

We don't know exactly why, but something like that.

But what we do know is it was not a lacking of faith to ask for help.

It was an act of faith.

It wasn't weak faith.

Do you remember the story of 2 Corinthians 12?

Paul's wrestling with this thorn in his side.

There's some issue.

We don't know what the issue is.

Something, something in his life that's not going well, something that made him feel inadequate or not enough or in pain.

He's begging God, like, hey, relieve this.

Take this away.

Right?

I mean, that would be nice.

Just to not be in pain.

Or to not feel needy.

I saw this uh fake CDC update this week.

This is a fake CDC update.

It may actually hit pretty true.

If you're fully vaccinated, the only mask you need to wear in public is the elaborate system of defense mechanisms you've built around your true self out of fear that if people knew the real you, they'd decide that you're not worthy of love.

And I saw that, and I sort of wanted to laugh, kind of like you want to laugh right now, but you didn't laugh because it just stung too much, right?

You're like, ow, like what, like, okay, got me, right?

Because we realize, like, we're all in the mask wearing business.

Some of us took our mask off this morning, but we're all still in the mask wearing business.

We have these defense mechanisms built up inside of us.

Because we wonder, just like that faked update says, like, we just wonder, if we're fully known, will we be fully loved?

And especially when it comes to faith, like, could God actually, not just like theoretically love me, like, does he does he really love me?

In my weakness, with this thorn, with this pain, with this woundedness.

Like, if he really knew me, would he love me?

Would he have me?

Would he delight in me?

And then we get that verse in 2 Corinthians 12 when Paul's speaking about his weakness.

9 and 10.

But he said to me, this is what Paul heard from the Lord, my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.

Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

For the sake of Christ, then I am content.

Isn't that crazy?

Content, like at peace with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities.

For, like, wow, how in the world could he get to that conclusion?

For when I am weak, then I am strong.

See, here's the goodness that all this gives us.

It's the sufficiency of Christ for us, is what it is.

You are perfectly loved by God and Jesus.

And because of that, you don't have to be afraid to face your weakness or your woundedness.

And you don't have to pretend to be strong when you're not.

Isn't that freeing?

That's what Barack teaches us here.

We can be people of faith who ask for help.

He says, I'm not going into war without you, I'm not going to that battle without you, Deborah.

Like you're coming with me, and Hebrews affirms that he was a person of faith.

I think for us, what this could mean is it means like the more sad you are, the more disappointed you are, the more you call your friends.

Not the less.

I think also what it could mean is that going to therapy and going to counseling, we would normalize it more.

We would deem it healthy to do.

Like it would make me incredibly happy if we were like the most counseled church in the city of Marietta.

That would be unbelievable.

Like, maybe they got so many people in counseling.

We'd be like, yes, amen.

Like we're so secure in Jesus that we can work through our weaknesses and woundedness.

That would be such good news.

And that is not a lack of faith, that is faith.

The story of Judges continues to go.

A bit of reading here, verses uh 17 through 22.

Judges 4.

But Seserah fled away on foot to the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, for there was peace between Jabin the king of Hazor and the house of Heber the Kenite.

And Jael came out to meet Sesera and said to him, Turn aside, my lord, turn aside to me.

Do not be afraid.

So he turned aside to her into the tent, and she covered him with a rug, and he said to her, Please give me a little water to drink, for I'm thirsty.

So she opened a skin of milk and gave him a drink and covered him.

And he said to her, Stand at the opening of the tent.

If any man comes and asks you, is anyone here?

Say no.

But Jael, the wife of Heber, this is kind of right at the point of the story, like, what's this lady gonna do?

Took a tent peg, took a hammer in her hand.

Then she went softly to him and drove the peg into his temple until it went down into the ground while he was lying fast asleep from weariness.

Okay, do you get that?

What she did?

Okay, I just want to make sure we're all on the same page.

And in case we didn't get it, so he died.

Okay.

Verse 22.

And behold, as Barak was pursuing Sesera, Jael went out to meet him and said to him, Come and I will show you the man whom you are seeking.

So he went in to her tent, and there lay Sesera dead with the tent peg in his temple.

Alright, now listen to Judges 5.

So Judges 5 is a song that Deborah wrote.

Judges 4 is the narrative.

Judges 5 is Deborah writing a song about the same events.

Verses 26 and 27, this is Deborah writing a song about this.

She sent her hand to the tent peg and her right hand to the workman's mallet.

She struck Sesera, she crushed his head, she shattered and pierced his temple.

Between her feet he sank, he fell, he lay still.

Between her feet he sank, he fell.

Where he sank, there he fell dead.

Right?

Like fierce Beyoncé women.

I mean, you have to remember these people are at war.

These people are at war, and this is Osama bin Laden.

Like these people are at war, and this is a this is a horrible human being, not somebody not deserving of love.

But this man and his armies, they stole and they raped women and girls.

That word girl or womb in verse 30, it could be girl slave.

So girls were taken from their moms and their dads.

Just before you get too judgmental about JL, I'm just trying to set the setting here, right?

So girls were taken from their moms and dads, held, enslaved as sex slaves to soldiers where they were raped over and over again.

This might be why JL did this.

Right?

It gives us the context of this moment.

The Bible's not morally weighing in on this individual one-to-one violence, but it is setting the story in front of us.

Now back to the battle itself.

Barak is told to lead an army into battle against an enemy that is superior in every way.

And the scripture is very clear to tell us, like, they had iron chariots, 900 that could just mow down the Israelites.

The Israelites had 10,000 men, but not 900 chariots of iron.

I mean, these chariots would just run them over.

But somehow Barak, it's probably why Hebrews 11 esteems him as a person of faith.

He humbles himself before what the Lord has said, and he says, I'll we'll go.

Maybe he realizes he doesn't know the whole story.

Something could happen.

And point number two is this rescue and relief is always found in our surrendering to the God fighting for us.

I just say that point over and over again pretty much every Sunday.

I just do it in different wording, right?

Like you're catching on, but this is it.

It's a victory outside of us given to us.

This is the pattern.

This is the pattern.

It's the pattern in judges, the pattern of Old Testament, it's the pattern for our own hearts.

I could say it this way: faith is not a fight for God or for his approval or for delight or for the kingdom to come.

Faith is a fight from God, from his kingdom coming, from his delight, from his approval.

It's not a fight for the cross, it's a fight from the cross that's given to you.

Listen to the end of the song in Judges 5, 20 and 21.

From heaven the stars fought.

From their courses they fought against Sesera.

The torrent Kishon swept them away.

The ancient torrent, the torrent Kishon, march on my soul with might.

So in the song, this is where we get kind of the clue of what happened here.

Like, what happened?

We get the clue that the star of heaven and there was a rising river that swept them away.

Barak is not mentioned.

Not here.

So somehow Israel gained this victory, and the credit's not given to Barak.

Deborah says something happened in the heavens and the river flooded.

So a rain came.

Now, what's interesting is Sesra would have never brought out his 900 chariots that would have never moved in a rainy river and riverbed.

So it must not have been rainy season.

That's what the commentator says.

It probably wasn't rainy season, but it rained.

So this is probably why Deborah, she saw those clouds, that rain starting, and she yelled out to Brock, like, go, go now.

Like this is the moment.

Like we are receiving something from God, a breakthrough.

Something unimaginable just happened.

It reminds me of the verse in the New Testament where Paul is giving an explanation of his life, of his own transformation, of being bound by a performance-oriented spirituality and faith to faith by grace and grace alone.

And he says this in 1 Corinthians 15, 10.

Explaining his life, explaining his work, his transformation.

He only has one explanation, but by the grace of God I am what I am.

And his grace toward me was not in vain.

On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them.

So he said, hey, I'm fighting from this position I am with God, but I'm not fighting for it.

I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.

But by the grace of God.

Friday, I took my girls and a few of their friends to my mom's lake house.

And apparently there was a gas shortage.

I don't know about the gas shortage.

I was a moron.

I didn't know a lot about it.

My mom told me about it.

She keeps me up on these current events, sends me texts about these types of things, as a mom does.

And I thought to myself, I need gas.

I can get some gas.

Like, I mean, come on.

Like, how hard can it really be to get some gas or find some gas?

So I'm a little bit below a quarter of a tank.

I have two little girls in my car, and we're gonna go about 30 minutes up north from here, and then later that evening, I'm gonna need to get 30 minutes back.

And so I get in the car, we start on our way, and I realize about after five minutes of driving, like I don't think I have enough to get back.

Like I can get there, and I get back, and I think to myself, I can get gas.

Like I can handle this, right?

Like I can do this.

I've done this a million times before.

First gas station, second gas station, third gas station.

I'm looping through.

Any of y'all looped through this week and just little baggies tied up on those handles, right?

Just rejection, rejection, rejection.

Fourth gas station, fifth gas station, nothing, nothing.

Sixth gas station.

I'm starting to get a little concerned.

Like, okay, I'm a moron.

I should have gotten gas like two or three days ago when I heard about it, and I had plenty of gas.

Like, I should have done that.

I'm powerless now.

Like I really am stuck.

I'm feeling I'm starting to feel a little stuck at this point because I can't do anything to solve this problem.

I'm through six gas stations, and I'm going, like, I don't I don't know what's gonna happen.

Like, okay, so we're gonna I'm gonna leave my car up there, we're gonna pile in another car, and I don't know, I'm gonna get on a bike at some point.

I'm trying to like figure all this out.

Then the seventh gas station came.

The Chevron Bells Ferry in Town Lake Parkway.

Like, like the Messiah was waiting for me, is what this was.

And I'd swing that thing in there, my girls are screaming, you know, like push old lady out of the way.

And I gas up.

It was like$53.

Did anybody gas up during those days?

I must have spent on gas in my entire life, right?

But by the grace of Chevron, I was stuck.

I mean, I I had like if they if it had not been there for me, I was stuck.

I mean, I, you know, we go through those seasons where things are easy, and you go, like, it's easy, I can do this.

I can get gas.

I got it.

And that works until it doesn't work anymore.

Like your coping works until your coping doesn't work.

Your performance-oriented faith works until it doesn't work anymore.

Then you're crushed, you're condemned, you're exhausted.

You really need something from outside of you to fill you up.

Right?

I mean, maybe you're here and you've already lost it all.

You've been in the valley, you came out the other side, you get it.

Like you already went through performance-oriented faith, and you came out the other side, and you're out of guilt and shame, and you get it, and you're all Jesus because of that, and you get that.

Or maybe you still feel a lot of that weight.

Like 900 chariots of weight on your heart and soul because you're still trying to live to earn God's approval or earn forgiveness or earn validation.

That's exhaustion.

That feels like 900 chariots, is what it feels like.

It feels like you're getting mowed down.

I was walking with my little girl this last week, and I asked her, I don't know what we were talking about to get to this question.

I said, um, hey, if you could pick between um being rich and famous, being powerful, or being always at peace, like which one would you pick?

So she didn't talk for a little bit.

We took like about you know 10 steps.

She said, I know which one I'm supposed to say.

But I pick rich and famous.

Yeah, I think I kind of pick that sometimes too.

Right?

Don't we all like don't we all like I know which one really works, but I sort of want to try the other.

It's like that old cliche, it's like you never see anybody crying on a jet ski.

Like everybody looks happy on a jet ski.

It's like I just really want to try out the rich and famous thing.

Like, I know the being at peace every moment of every day at all times should be my answer, and like, you know, collapsing into Jesus should be my.

I'm gonna keep trying this other thing that's not working for a while.

Right?

I mean, that's so and that's our sin, right?

That's our sin.

That even when we know the right thing to do, we make choices that aren't the right thing.

Our hearts do that.

We do we do that out of self-justification, we we do that out of selfishness.

We do that out of just trying to think if we can achieve more or earn more, then we'll be okay.

But by the grace of God.

Right?

That's the story.

That's your story.

I don't know what happened, but something happened.

But by the grace of God.

Paul gives us his gift in these two passages, right?

Think about these two passages.

One that's talking about a thorn in him he can't get beyond, and the other one that he's saying, but by the grace of God I am what I am.

What a great, what a great gift to us.

That that it's not being welcomed into perfection.

You're not perfect.

It's being welcomed into a relationship where God has deemed you perfect, even while you're gonna have a life that has pain and discomfort in it, and even sin in it.

We have a loving Abba that delivers us, that fights for us.

Ultimately, this story judges in the Old Testament is leading us to understand our need of Jesus, not to win these battles and our lives all the time on the exterior, but on the internal at the heart, at the core of us.

Forgiveness, worth, belovedness, identity.

And that these things are given to us in Jesus.

We are forgiven, we are welcomed.

And we don't become superhuman Christians, right?

We just become rooted in our belovedness.

The good news is clear for us, and I close it with Deborah's song that she declared, march on my soul with might.

Let's pray together.

God, would you help our souls to march on with might because you showed up.

Just like you sent the rains at that battle.

And it must not have been rainy season, chariots wouldn't have been there.

And God, we know the feeling of 900 chariots on our hearts.

We know what that feels like when we're living in condemnation from the world or from ourselves.

We know what that feels like when we're believing lies.

We know what that feels like when we're trying to perform our way into relationship with you or perform our way into worth in this world.

It's all 900 chariots.

And God, how we need how we need you to show up into that, and that you do help us to rest in the fact that the rain already came.

That we have the cross.

That no matter how we're feeling this morning, it is secure in Jesus, that we are forgiven forever forgiven and forever your beloved.

We pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.