Sermon
Judges Week 2 • Judges 3:7-31
Publisher transcript
Transcript
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Hi, and welcome to the Willow Ridge Church weekly podcast.
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This is where you can find audio for our current and past sermons.
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We hope that you enjoy this week's installment, and be sure to check back next week to hear
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the latest message.
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Thanks for listening.
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How about those puppets, right?
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My mind is always blown by what we clap for, you know, it's just fantastic.
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So, hey, but we appreciate you guys letting us think outside of the box and be a part
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of that, and I know that our team that did that had a blast.
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So, I'm not going to tell you who's in the videos, but as you figure it out through their
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voices, I want to make sure that you give Joel Van Ham a thumbs up and encourage him and Alexis
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as they work through these.
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But, hey, just love the fact of what we're doing and what God's given us the opportunity
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to do.
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If you've got your Bible, open up to Judges chapter 3 as we continue on in our series that
Judges 3 chapter mention
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we started last week.
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And so, last week we looked at Judges 1 and Judges 2, and Judges 1 and Judges 2 is a preview,
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but it's a preview not in just telling you what had happened amongst Israel, but it's also
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going to give us a kind of theme of what it's going to be like throughout the book of Judges.
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And so, I want you to picture Judges 1 and Judges 2 from last week, it's like you're going
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to the movies.
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And so, you're sitting down, right, you've got your popcorn, you've got your drink, and
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the advertisements go away, and now the previews come on.
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And right, so the previews kind of give you some details about what is going to happen in
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the other movies that you're not yet to sit down and to watch.
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And that's what Judges 1 and Judges 2 were all about.
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And so, we got to see this baseline of rebellion that exists within God's people.
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And so, now what we're going to look at from Judges 3 on are the judges that God sends to
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both to redeem, to point in the right direction, to save, and to remind His people of who He
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is and who He's called them to be.
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And this is kind of the same, but a little bit different than what God's people are used
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to, right?
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God sent them Moses, God sent them Joshua, but then instead of there being one individual
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that will mark a season of time or a book of the Bible, it's going to be this group known
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as the Judges.
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And we're going to read about some crazy stories.
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We're going to see some really amazing things that happen and that take place.
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And as we read through them, every single week, there's pieces that I want us to begin
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to think through.
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You know, oftentimes when we read the Old Testament, we kind of view the Old Testament
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as the list of stories, right?
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It's what we most commonly find in like children's storybook Bibles, and we think of the things
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that happened with that.
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And then when we get to the New Testament, we're like, all right, cool, now we're at Jesus.
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Now we get the Gospels.
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Now we really see the things that we're to take in and to use and to apply our life.
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But the truth is with Scripture is that's the truth from the Old Testament all the way
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through the New Testament.
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That as we look at these, we don't want to view them as stories, but we want to see the
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Gospel that comes out in them.
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Even though chronologically, since this happened before Jesus, there's so much truth of God
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as He points us to the Gospel, as He points us to Christ, and the power and the work of the
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Gospel in this.
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So as we read about these Judges, as we see all that is taking place, don't separate your
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mind, don't separate your heart from the Gospel narrative that is unfolding through the book
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of Judges.
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So each and every week, that's what I want to point out.
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That's what we're going to be looking at.
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It's not simply understanding Old Testament stories, Old Testament culture, Old Testament
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law, but understanding the truth about who Jesus is, understanding how the Gospel impacts
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our life and how we can apply it.
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And so let's start reading in Judges chapter 3, verse 7.
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It says,
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And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord.
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They forgot the Lord their God and served the Baals and the Asheroth.
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Therefore, the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and He sold them into the land
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of Cushan Rishatham, king of Mesopotamia.
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And the people of Israel served Cushan Rishatham.
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So what we see here is a reminder of what we read last week, that the people of Israel,
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they're doing evil.
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And they're doing evil in the eyes of the Lord.
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But what God does is He doesn't just tell us that they're doing evil.
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God defines evil in this.
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And it's very important that we see and begin to understand, okay, what is evil?
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Like, we look out into our culture, there are behaviors, there are characteristics, there are
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people who we can define as doing evil.
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And that can look different based off of your perspective or my perspective.
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But God looks in this in Judges and He establishes, this is what it means that my people have done
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evil in my sight.
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In verse 7, it says, they forgot the Lord and they served the Baals and the Asheroth.
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You know, the theme that is going to continue on in the evil that Israel partakes in is first,
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it's the evil or the sin of forgetting God.
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And we talked a little bit about this last week.
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That doesn't mean that they had completely forgot something, like I've forgotten, my kids
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are doing the online school, right, on Wednesdays and Thursdays in the virtual, and they're starting
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pre-algebra.
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And so if they have questions about their pre-algebra, there's certain things that they come
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to me and I say, oh, I remember how to do that.
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And then there are other things that they come to me and I'm like, hey, I do not remember how
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to do that, but there's this wonderful thing called Google, right, that we can check out
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and figure out how we're to do this, right?
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Which I also find out, parents, like you can enter in the equation and get the answer.
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I'm just saying.
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So make you look way smarter than you really are.
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Kids, you didn't hear that at all, all right?
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Got to show your work.
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And so it's not like they forgot that, like all of a sudden one day they woke up and go,
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huh?
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No, I don't remember that.
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When it says that they forgot the Lord their God, what that meant was to know God as the
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depth of intimacy and to know his heart and to know his person of who he is, to know and
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desire for his mind and his will.
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And then out of response of that in knowing them is to obey them.
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And so husbands and wives, I want you to think about that a little bit, right?
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It's like in the course of your marriage, the more that you know each other, the more
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that you intimately know their mind and their heart and everything about who they are, right?
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It doesn't become a list of rules of, I need to obey my wife, but it does begin to resonate
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within the heart of, no, no, no, I want to do the things that obey her because I want to
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please her, right?
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And that's what we see the Israelites have moved away from.
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They knew, but they didn't obey.
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They hadn't forgotten what God had done at the Red Sea.
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They hadn't forgotten what God had done at Jericho.
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They hadn't forgotten about any of these, but there ceased to be a lack of intimacy with God.
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So they forgot him, so they didn't obey him.
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But they also fell in what was evil as to a sin of false gods.
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So again, they knew, but they didn't serve.
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Again, they knew, but they didn't surrender.
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So they had taken, they had looked at the culture, they had looked at everything that had surrounded
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them, and they said, then these are the things that are more important than him.
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And so instead of pursuing my life after who he is and after what he has done, now I'll pursue
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my life for these things and what they can do for me.
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And so as we read through Judges and as we hear time and time again, and we will, that they did
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what was evil in the sight of the Lord, these are the patterns that they fall into.
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So what does God do here?
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What does God do in Judges 3 as they forget who he is, as they fall into the sin of forgetting
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him, the sin of false God, God sells them into slavery.
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Now that's a harsh thing for us to think about.
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We think of the cruelty of slavery, historically speaking, taking a man or woman or child and
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saying, you have no worth other than being an object which I will possess.
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But this is what God does to his people.
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And when we begin to try to wrap our mind around that, right, that's a difficult part for us
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to understand with God.
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Then God's anger was kindled against Israel and he sold them into the hands of the oppressors.
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So the question for us who have a hard time wrapping our mind around that is why would God do that?
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Why would a God who is supposed to love his people, why would he sell them into slavery?
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And what we're going to see, what we're going to understand time and time again is that God
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is working to a greater good as he calls their hearts back.
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And what God is doing in the heart of his people, what God is doing in this nation that he has chosen
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for himself, is God is going to bring revival from suffering.
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Now that's a hard part for us to really think about.
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Revival from suffering.
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Now I grew up, I don't know if very many of you did, but I grew up in a church and once a year,
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right, we had revival.
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Maybe some of you that are watching at home, maybe you had that.
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Quick, quick question, quick poll for those of you who are joining us today.
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How many of you grew up at a church, right, that had revivals?
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Go ahead and raise your hand.
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Yeah.
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So we had revivals growing up.
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And revivals, I can remember they were kind of surrounded by two things.
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Our church, Calvary Baptist Church, we typically ate together every night for revival.
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So everybody could get out of school, get out of work, and then we'd come to church, and
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then we'd eat, and then we would go in and have a worship service together.
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And it started on Sunday for us, and it ended on Friday.
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So Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, we had church every single night as
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we came for revival.
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And what we would have within there, it was a time for us to be reminded of who God is,
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of what God had done, and it was a calling back to Him.
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It was a time where we would begin to get our priorities in order.
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It was a time to refocus and to eliminate the things that had distracted us.
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And it was a moment and an opportunity as the revivalist, right, the outside pastor came in
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and preached for us.
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And that's what revival looked like.
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But God's going to do a different type of revival for His people.
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And the means by which He's going to bring revival for them is going to begin in suffering.
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And so as we begin to wrap our minds around that, we have to begin to understand that God
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graciously, right, God lovingly allows in your life and in mine moments, times, or maybe
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even seasons of suffering for a reason, to point us to Him and to navigate our hearts into a posture
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and position of obedience.
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And so God looks at His people who are in rebellion from Him.
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They're pursuing all that they want.
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And God goes, fine, if that's what you want to pursue, then have at it.
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You see, they were already enslaved.
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They were enslaved to the culture.
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They were enslaved to the false gods.
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They were enslaved to the disobedience.
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Physically, I'm sorry, spiritually speaking, that's where their hearts were.
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And so God says, if that's spiritually where you're going to be, or if that's physically where
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you're going to be, then that's spiritually where you're going to be as well.
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And so God turns them over to what their hearts were already pursuing.
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And He allows this to happen.
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And so God's people enter into a season of pain.
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God's people enter into a season of difficulty.
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They enter into a season of slavery, of suffering.
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And what's going to come out of this is going to be a revival.
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Let's keep reading verse 9.
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But when the people of Israel cried out to the Lord, the Lord raised up a deliverer for
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the people of Israel who saved them.
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Othniel, son of Canaz, Caleb's younger brother.
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And the spirit of the Lord was upon him, and he judged Israel.
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So what we see is God hears them, and then God delivers them.
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And He delivers them through the judge.
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So not only do we see that revival comes through suffering, but we begin to understand that revival
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comes from repentance.
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That God's people, the Bible says, they cried out to Him.
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All right, we're going to ask for a moment of us being vulnerable here in the room.
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And if you're watching online, hopefully you're watching with someone, maybe you can be vulnerable
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there for just a second.
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How many of you can remember the last time that you had a really good cry?
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Raise your hand.
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You remember the last time.
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Now I'm going to define a good cry, all right?
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Now, I appreciate that.
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I see some guys raising their hands with me, right?
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More ladies than not.
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So guys, we're going to work through this together, okay?
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All right.
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Here's what I mean by a really good cry.
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I mean ugly cry, right?
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Like not a tear that comes down, but like where you make the face like, ooh, right?
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I'm talking about where you're crying so hard that your belly, if you got one like mine,
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it just kind of jiggles like Santa Claus, right?
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Like you got that going on.
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I'm talking like big tears, snot bubble cry.
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When we hear that they cried out to God, this is the picture of what was there.
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For me, I remember one of the times, which I've had many of these moments, but I remember
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one of the times that I had this level of crying.
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Aaron and I, we were living in Sumter at the time and talk about some things that kids,
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I don't know if y'all are aware of, but before, like we couldn't just turn on the TV and stream
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movies, right?
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In fact, check this out.
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At our house, we didn't even have the internet, right?
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I know that is unbelievable.
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We had a phone called a Razor.
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We didn't have the internet.
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And so what we would do is we would go down to a movie store and we'd have to rent movies.
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Now, we were a little bit more modern, so we had DVDs at this time, but we would go get
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a DVD.
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And on one side of the movie store, there was the discount movies.
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And I always liked to go to the discount movies because they were 99 cents, right?
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And you could usually keep them for a little bit longer.
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Well, I go down.
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Aaron is pregnant with Emma and Grayson.
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So she sends me to the store to rent a movie.
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And I go to the discount section and I look and there's this movie called Father of the Bride.
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It was the Steve Martin version of Father of the Bride.
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And it was 99 cents.
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So I rented that.
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My wife, who's on bed rest at the time, like I know that she will absolutely love this movie.
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So we come home, we got our little 19-inch tube TV with the DVD player built into it sitting
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there on the top of our dresser.
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And I put that movie in and we began to watch this family romantic comedy, I guess, of this
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movie called Father of the Bride.
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And toward the end, I started to get a little emotional, right?
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It was the wedding scene.
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And Steve Martin, the father of the bride, is having this moment where he is going to walk
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his little girl down the aisle and give her away to some guy, right?
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And Aaron says,
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Are you okay?
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No?
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What's wrong?
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Just thinking about this movie and I've got a little girl that's on the way and one of these
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days I'm going to have to do that too.
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And I had to get up and walk out.
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Like I couldn't handle it anymore.
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And here's what happened.
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In that moment, right?
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I think we were about two months away from Emma and Grayson being born.
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In that moment, I'll never forget this.
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In that moment, my reality changed.
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And I fell in love with a little girl that I'd never met.
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You know, I was excited to be a dad.
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I was excited to get a son and a daughter.
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But in that moment, as I sat there, reality became real.
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Okay?
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Reality became real.
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That one of these days, I'm going to be that dad standing in the back of a church and my daughter's
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going to come out in her dress and I've got to walk her down the aisle and give her away.
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And reality became real.
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When you cry out to God.
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When you cry out to God, your reality becomes real.
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Right?
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Whether it's because of the depth of the sin that you're in, your reality becomes real.
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Whether it's because you're experiencing his grace for the first time, your reality becomes real.
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Whether it's because for the first time in your life, you've always felt unloved and rejected and not valued.
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And you understand that he loves you and accepts you and values you above all of creation.
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Right?
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Your reality becomes real.
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And that's when revival begins to happen for God's people.
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In that moment, they see their brokenness.
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They see their sin.
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They see God's faithfulness.
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And they begin to cry out to God.
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They would never have done it if not for the suffering.
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But God in his grace brought them into captivity so that they could have a reality moment and cry out to him.
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We also see, though, that not only does revival come through suffering, not only does revival come through repentance,
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but that revival comes from the Spirit.
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It comes from the Spirit.
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Oathnil brought freedom.
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It's important.
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Because the Spirit of God was with him.
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That's how.
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Because it's the work of God.
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It's not a structure or a scheme of man.
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It's not freedom that is found in what we can create.
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But it was found because the Spirit of God rested on him.
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And so we see God's people set free.
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And in verse 11,
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So the land had rest for 40 years.
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Then Oathnil, son of Canaz, died.
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And so we see this spiritual and practical peace that happens.
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That God hears their cries.
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That God sends his Spirit.
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That God saves his people.
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But that his people obeyed.
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That his people listened.
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That his people repented.
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It's the beautiful aspect of what happens in the practical nature of the aspects of our life.
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And the spiritual nature and connection of God.
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So you think they get it right.
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They've understood.
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They're never going to do this again.
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They're going to make sure generation after generation after generation obeys the Lord.
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But then let's keep reading in verse 12.
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And the people of Israel again did what was evil in the sight of the Lord.
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And the Lord strengthened Eglon, the king of Moab, against Israel.
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For they had done what was evil in the sight of the Lord.
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He gathered to himself the Ammonites and the Malachites and went and defeated Israel.
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And they took possession of the city of Palms.
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And the people of Israel served Eglon, the king of Moab, 18 years.
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Then the people of Israel cried out to the Lord.
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And the Lord raised up for them a deliverer, Ehud, the son of Gera, the Benjamite, the left-handed man.
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All right.
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How many left-handed people do we have in the room?
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I'm not.
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We got a handful.
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All right.
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I know I've got some good friends that are left-handed.
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And if you ask any of these left-handed people that are here, is it easy being left-handed, right?
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The answer is no.
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We live in a right-handed world.
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Everything is geared toward and pointed toward right-handed people.
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I was arguing with a guy one time about that.
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And I said, no, no, no.
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I don't think you're right.
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I think it's equal.
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I think it's fair.
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Like, how is the world more difficult for left-handed people than right-handed people?
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And he simply said, go to Walmart and buy a notebook.
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And it clicked with me, right?
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Like, you've got a right on things there.
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We're moving left to right in this.
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Well, in this time, as difficult as it is for many of us today, being left-handed was difficult then as well.
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And so God is going to call, God is going to appoint a judge, and this is very important, that he is left-handed.
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You see, for him in the culture, being left-handed was considered a weakness, right?
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Like, he would have been viewed as being less than, that he was not capable of doing things because he was left-hand dominant.
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Now, that's crazy, right?
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But also, when we read through this, we understand that Ehud, that it wasn't just simply his natural bent to use his left hand because his right hand was fine,
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but actually that his right hand was almost withered and incapable of doing things.
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And so Ehud, not only was he left-handed, but he would have had a disability.
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Now, in this time, not only would he have been looked down on because he was left-hand dominant,
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not only would he be considered a weakness and not capable of doing what right-handed people were capable of doing,
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now there's a spiritual peace that's cast onto him, right, that God is punishing him because he has a disability
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for either the sins of his parents or his sins.
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So we get this guy that is now going to be the leader, and he's in culture and time for them,
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just not a very impressive leader, not who you would have picked out.
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Let's keep reading in verse 15.
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The people of Israel sent tribute by him to Eglon, the king of Moab.
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And Ehud made for himself a sword with two edges, a cubit in length,
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and he bound it on his right thigh under his clothes.
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And he presented the tribute to Eglon, king of Moab.
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Now, Eglon was a very fat man.
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And when Ehud had finished presenting the tribute, he sent away the people who carried the tribute,
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but he himself turned back at the idols near Gilgal and said,
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I have a secret message for you, O king.
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And he commanded silence, and all his attendants went out from his presence.
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So Ehud, being a left-handed man, he knows that he has to attack and fight the king.
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And so what he does is he gets a sword, and he puts the sword on his left hip.
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Now, here's the depth of them not believing what this man can do.
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In order to be in the presence of the king, they had to search you to make sure you didn't have any weapons.
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But if you think about it, if you've ever had to or seen someone draw a sword, right,
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a right-handed person will reach to the left to pull their sword out.
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But left-handed people would have to reach to their right to pull their sword out.
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But left-handed people were weak.
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Left-handed people weren't capable of doing anything.
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So when you came before the king, they only patted down the right side.
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And so Ehud was able to come in.
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He was not seen as a threat.
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Even to the point when Ehud announces to the king, hey, I've got something to tell you.
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The king sends his guards away.
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And so let's start reading verse 20.
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And Ehud came to him as he was sitting alone in this cool roof chamber.
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And Ehud said, I have a message from God for you.
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And he arose from his seat, and Ehud reached with his left hand, took the sword from his right thigh, and thrust it into his belly.
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And the hilt also went in after the blade, and the fat closed over the blade, for he did not pull the sword out of his belly.
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And the dung came out.
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Then Ehud went out onto the porch, and closed the doors of the roof chamber behind him, and locked them.
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When he had gone, the servants came.
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And when they saw that the doors on the roof chamber were locked, they thought,
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Surely he is relieving himself in the closet of the cool chamber.
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And they waited till they were embarrassed.
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But when he still did not open the doors of the roof chamber, they took the key and opened them.
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And there laid their lord dead on the floor.
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Ehud escaped while they delayed, and he passed beyond the idols and escaped to Sirah.
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When he arrived, he sounded the trumpet in the hill country of Ephraim.
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Then the people of Israel went down with him from the hill country, and he was their leader.
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And he said to them, Follow after me, for the Lord has given your enemies, the Moabites, into your hand.
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So they went down after him and seized the fords of the Jordan against the Moabites, and did not allow anyone to pass over.
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And they killed at that time about 10,000 of the Moabites, all strong, able-bodied men.
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Not a man escaped.
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So Moab was subdued that day under the hand of Israel, and the land had rest for 80 years.
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So here's Ehud.
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Thought less of.
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Not capable of doing.
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Unable to perform what everyone would think would need to be done.
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And let's be honest.
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When you would look out over all of those that God could have selected, that God could have chosen, Ehud was the unlikely choice.
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Disability.
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Not able to lead well.
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Never been a person of someone to fear or to even respect.
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He was looked at so little that when the king of the oppressing country had him in his presence, he said, Nah, guards, you just go away.
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I got this.
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He can't do anything to me.
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The unlikely choice.
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So could there have been a better choice?
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Absolutely.
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Look at verse 31.
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And after him was Shamgar, the son of Anath, who killed 600 of the Philistines with an ox goad, and he also saved Israel.
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So sometime later, there's this guy named Shamgar, who was such a skilled warrior, was such skilled at battle, that when it came time to fight the Philistines, he alone defeated, killed 600 of them with a farming tool.
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It was a rod that was about eight feet high, and at the very end had a small hook with a point on it, and that he was able to do that.
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So why didn't God choose someone like that?
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Why did God choose Ehud?
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And I think the point all through for us as we look at the narrative of coming through the gospel of what God is calling you and I to surrender our lives to is not always going to be found in the likely.
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But it's going to be found in the unlikely.
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Because when we look at and we understand who Jesus was and who Jesus is, Jesus was unlikely.
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When we think about the time in which he was born, can you imagine the story of the narrative that he would share?
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The people in his community that would see him and understand and know where he came from.
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Oh, oh, pay no attention.
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Don't hang out with that kid.
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That's Jesus.
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Right?
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His mom claims that his dad is God, virgin, when he was born.
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He was adopted by a simple carpenter.
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Not a mayor, not a king, not a person of influence.
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He was from a poor, uneducated city.
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Jesus would have come from the part of town that you stayed away from.
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The people that he would have associated with at that time is who we would often tell our kids,
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I don't know if you should be over there with them.
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When people use the phrase, oftentimes, hey, don't get around those people.
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All right?
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That's where Jesus came from.
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But this is what scripture points us to.
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Isaiah 53, starting in verse 2.
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For he grew up before him like a young plant and like a root out of dry ground.
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He had no form or majesty that we should look at him and no beauty that we should desire him.
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He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
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And as one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised and we esteemed him not.
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If we were living in the time of Christ, right?
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And there would have been a group of people that were there.
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And if you're the person that sits back and you like to people watch, right?
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It's not hard to notice the person in the crowd that exudes confidence.
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It's not hard to look at the person in the crowd who people are just naturally drawn to.
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Scripture tells us that wasn't Jesus.
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Scripture even tells us, right?
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Like you didn't look at him and see beauty that flowed from him.
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You didn't look at him and see leadership that was there.
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In fact, he was so common in his appearance.
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He was so common in his leadership that he would have been despised and rejected.
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Oh, he is not capable of doing any of these things.
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And then Jesus, the unlikely, begins to surround himself.
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And let's get something clear.
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Jesus surrounds himself with the losers and the failures of society.
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Jesus surrounds himself with that crowd.
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He says, no, no, no.
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Come and walk with me.
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The outcasts that no one wanted.
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Philippians 2 says that in this, in this unlikely Savior, he emptied himself by taking the form of a servant.
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Being born in the likeness of men and being found in human form.
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He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death.
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Even death on a cross.
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You see, Jesus didn't come as the king coming to take over.
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Not yet.
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Jesus didn't come as the warrior to break the chains and set the captives free.
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Not yet.
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Jesus didn't come as the intellectual looking to blow the minds of the religious elite.
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Not yet.
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But Scripture tells us that he came.
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Not as a king, not as a warrior, not as an intellectual.
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But that he came as a servant, and more specifically, a suffering servant.
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From the least likely.
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From the foolish.
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From the no.
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No, not us.
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Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 1.
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He said, but God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise.
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God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong.
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God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are.
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So that no human being might boast in the presence of God.
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And because of him, you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption.
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So that, as it is written, let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.
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You know, Ehud, he came as the unlikely.
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He came as the one that, nah, he can, no need to worry about him.
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He came as the one that we wouldn't want to follow.
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He came as the one that there would be questions around him.
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But God chose him, and in that, he set his people free.
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And it points us to something else.
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You see, God's people chose the likely.
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They chose the earthly king and the earthly kingdom.
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They chose the earthly gods, and they chose the earthly rules and the earthly standards.
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They chose the likely time and time again.
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This is what you should do, and this is who you should be.
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But in this, what we see is God tells us to stop chasing the likely and instead to surrender to the unlikely.
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To surrender to Jesus.
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You know, when we surrender to him, it doesn't look like what the world points us to.
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When we surrender to him, it's not what's going to make sense to everyone.
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But when we surrender to him, it's what God has called us to do and who God has called us to be.
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Would you pray with me?
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Lord, we come to you.
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Lord, we thank you for these judges.
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We thank you that time and time again, what we see, Lord, is you working in their life for a purpose and a reason.
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Lord, we thank you, Lord, to bring you to set your people free, to bring them back to you, to call them to a depth of love and obedience because of who you are.
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Lord, we thank you, Lord, that even though everything, every religion points to something different, Lord, a relationship with you is a little bit with the unlikely.
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So, Lord, I pray for us today that wherever we find ourselves physically, whether we find ourselves at our home or here in the auditorium,
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that spiritually speaking, if we find ourselves on the mountaintop or in the valley,
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that eternity speaking, if we find ourselves positioned in your hand, or, Lord, far from you.
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Lord, you're a God who loves us, God who cares for us, God who calls us.
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That is not found in our works.
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It's not found in what we can do.
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It's found in Jesus and Jesus alone.
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That every head bowed, every eye closed.
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Most people thought that the cross was the defeat of Jesus, the victory of sin.
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But it was just a part of the narrative.
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Because the victory would not be found in the people who mourned the loss of Jesus.
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But the victory would be found in that three days later, the tomb would be empty.
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And in that we find freedom.
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Now, God doesn't have to send a Moses to save you, a Joshua to save you, a judge to save you.
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But he sends Jesus to save you.
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And maybe today, your whole life, you've chased after the likely.
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The likely God, the likely religion, the likely culture.
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Maybe God today is calling on your heart to have a break, to cry out from him, from the likely,
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and instead to surrender to the unlikely.
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The adopted son, a carpenter, born of a virgin, to die for the sins of the world.
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But just as he was raised in newness of life, so too can we.
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Jesus, we love you.
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We praise you.
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It's your name we pray.
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Amen.
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Thanks again for listening to the Willow Ridge Church Weekly Podcast.
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We hope that you enjoyed listening to this week's message.
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If you'd like to learn more about who we are or explore additional resources,
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visit us online at www.willowridgechurch.com
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or by searching for Willow Ridge Church on Facebook and Instagram.