Summer with Jesus Sunday Gathering

Hey, good morning.

Welcome to Church on the Live.

Man, it's a great day.

It's a great day to be alive.

The sun's still shining.

When I close my eyes.

You know, it was such a good day in the neighborhood.

Yeah.

Why can't every day be just as good?

Yeah.

Some people say that I'm living my best life.

Hey.

Waking up with the sunrise.

There you go.

I'm Ben Rector also says that.

My name's Cody.

We're so glad you're here.

And uh we do have a great day planned.

It's gonna be uh an awesome morning.

And we just want to say thank you.

About as awesome as Travis Tripp.

Yeah.

Awesome.

Awesomer.

It's probably more awesome.

Yeah.

Um I don't know him.

He's probably a great guy.

I just uh never met.

Um we got a great morning planned, and uh we're just so excited you're here.

We want to say thank you.

We know that you could be anywhere doing a million different things, and the fact that you're deciding to spend part of your weekend worshiping with us, man, it means the world.

So thank you, and uh hope that things are well where you're at.

We're gonna be diving into the message.

We got a guest speaker this morning, yeah, which uh we're really excited about.

Good friend of mine.

Yep.

Yep, Dr.

Josh Stewart.

Doc.

Doc, Doc Stewart, yep.

Yep.

He's a good old dude, and um he's a smart one.

Yeah.

He's a smart one.

Really knows his stuff, like, really smart.

Yeah.

Um I wouldn't I would never tell him to his base, and he probably won't watch the live stream, so he'll never know.

But he's really smart.

Um fluent Hebrew.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He's I want I want it, like I need you guys if you are watching, please let me know if I'm right.

But I'm willing to bet that he's gonna start off the first thing that he says is gonna be Yom Tov, which is a Hebrew greeting.

Oh yeah?

Yeah.

We'll see.

We'll see.

But that's my that's your prediction?

That's my prediction.

So let me know.

Let us know in the comments.

But yeah, um, he's a real awesome dude.

He's a uh he's a uh a professor, theologian.

Um he's written and been part of editing uh a really um impressive piece of literature, yeah, the Hebrew scriptures, um, and so he's just a wealth of knowledge.

Yeah.

Uh and a really good dude, and he's been around Walton County his entire life.

Yep.

And so um, so it's gonna be you guys are in for a treat.

Yeah.

So we're excited to learn from him today um as he takes us uh into God's word, and so we're pumped about that.

But before we get there, a couple of things we want to mention this morning.

Uh, as always, if you haven't uh already, download the Church of the Grove app.

Uh that's hands down the best place to stay connected.

And we know a lot of you guys are traveling over the summer, we got vacations and all that kind of stuff happening with the summer schedules, and so uh it's important, it's vital to make sure that you're staying connected with everything that's going on in the life of the church and within the church family.

And so the app is the best way to do that.

So you can track along the sermon notes today, you can fill out prayer requests, we would love to be praying for you.

Um, you can join community groups, uh, take any next steps, like if you want to be uh take steps toward baptism or anything like that.

It's all found right there on the app.

You can sign up for fish kids uh to help deliver fish lunches, and so tons of ways for you to stay connected and keep taking next steps towards Jesus, even in the midst of the crazy summer.

Also, we got camp.

Camp, yes, summer camp.

So make sure you're praying for our kiddos.

Yeah, they're gonna be gone.

What are they?

They're leaving this week.

We got student camp happening this week, uh, and also uh kids camp happening this week as well.

And so make sure you're praying for those, for our kids and our students that would encounter so much going on.

And as always, for the summer we got fish for kids going, so please you've heard us talk about it.

Well, if you know if you haven't, then here we are going to talk about it.

Um, so just uh you can go to the app or our website, find out more information about how you can donate, help go deliver food um to some kiddos who um don't really have food deep because school's out.

So um so it's a really cool thing that they're doing, and it's a really great way to um partner um in your local community.

And so uh please hands and feed the chance.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

So just go find out everything that you need to know about that um on the app or the website, or you can probably Google Fish for Kids and that'll pop up too.

Yeah.

You should get involved.

Yeah.

Love it.

Yep.

So we're gonna dive in.

We're gonna link up with our Wanna Grove campus, Dr.

Josh Stewart, bringing the words, so grab whatever you need and uh lean in this morning.

Uh I know God's gonna teach us something to so like really lean in.

Really lean in.

It's gonna be good.

Bring in the notes.

Yeah, it's gonna be really good.

So uh let's keep it.

You didn't know, probably.

Probably in a different language.

And more specifically, probably Hebrew.

Yeah.

He's a Hebrew scholar, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

We're excited about the channel.

Is that like a Hebrew scholar?

Is that like a um like the pinnacle or the apex of a barista?

Oh, because Hebrews.

Hebrews.

A week late.

Leo the badger, a week late.

Anyways.

Nice.

We're gonna jump in with uh Dr.

Show.

We'll see you guys in a bit.

Yeah.

Church of the Grove.

For those of you that I haven't had a chance to meet, my name is Rosh Butcher, and I'm one of the pastors here at Church of the Grove.

And um, my wife is Jill, and we are on a little getaway for the weekend.

Um, and I want to introduce to you our guest preacher for the day.

Um, his name is Dr.

Josh Stewart.

Um, he is a friend and an associate to me.

He was actually my advisor uh for my recent uh doctoral degree that I finished at Luther Rice University.

He is an interesting uh fellow.

He used to be a professional bull rider, he's native to Walton County, grew up here, um, and and he is a Hebrew scholar.

He's an extremely smart man.

Listen, he and Pat Hardin go way back.

And so number one, it tells you how old Pat is, and um, and and it tells you uh how young uh Dr.

Stewart is, but I'm telling you, he is going to bless us with a word um that the Lord has put on his heart um from the scriptures today, and I want you to lean in and listen to what God has to say to you.

That's like the best introduction I've ever had.

So kind and gracious, and you know.

And but let me tell you get one thing out of the way about the Pat Hardin thing.

Um, I promised him I wouldn't tell any stories um about him.

I love him, him and Miss Joy.

Miss Joy is really my favorite, probably, but don't tell him I said that.

Um, but anyway, great people.

Y'all's pastor, man, he's a great guy.

It was such an honor to work with him on his uh doctor and ministry project and just see his heart for discipleship in this church.

And so I know y'all have heard that word discipleship a lot since you've been here, probably, right?

That's like a very, very important thing.

And uh so I enjoyed doing that.

Alright, so this morning, um, as well, let me clarify one other thing.

I wasn't a bull rider, I was a bullfighter, like the clown, the guy that gets in between the bull and so I which depend on I was either dumber than they were or they were dumber than I was.

I still can't figure that out in all these all these uh years later.

But anyway, so alright, so this morning, um as as Russ mentioned, I am an Old Testament um guy, Hebrew guy or whatever.

So you automatically assume I'm probably weird, right?

I mean, who wants to spend their life studying the Old Testament?

Old Testament?

Nobody wants to read the Old Testament.

We just want to hear these good stories out of the Old Testament, right?

That everybody knows and just kind of move on from there.

But one of the things I like to do when I do have the opportunity to preach or to speak somewhere at a church or whatever, is to obviously take an Old Testament text and look at it because I found in my in my life, and that's one of the reasons I went into doing uh work in the Old Testament, is that a lot of the stories we think we know of the Old Testament, we really don't know them that well.

And there's this theme this morning I picked up on in a lot of the songs that were sung, and it's the faithfulness of God.

And sometimes when you read a lot of these Old Testament stories, you ask yourself like, where is God in this story?

Where's his faithfulness?

And you've probably all heard the myths kind of application of, oh, well, the you know, Old Testament's full of law and punishment, and the New Testament's full of grace and mercy.

Well, if you say that, you're wrong, okay.

Just get that out there.

The Old Testament is so full of God's grace and his mercy and his faithfulness.

But oftentimes you have to be a good reader to see where it's at and to pick up on that.

Okay?

So this morning I want to talk about somebody who's my absolute favorite uh Old Testament kind of character.

When I get done talking about him, you're gonna be like, why is he your favorite?

Well, we'll see, hopefully, maybe.

But let me alright, so he's this guy that we'll see if y'all can guess who I'm talking about.

Without giving away too many clues.

Um, when it's always hard to do that.

Everybody thinks he's like some buff stud.

Like, um, I can't remember the guy's name.

Like Rico Suave, like, you know, buff.

Yeah, if you do if you know what I'm talking about, just bird it out.

Um, nothing yet.

Somebody say it.

Yeah, Samson, says the man with no hair.

Um, good job.

So it's always, you know, the guy, you know, when you remember when I was in high school, the guys with the long hair, new football coaches, all right, what do you think you are?

Samson?

You know, whatever, right?

Long hair, we think he's ripped and buffed and strong.

But probably the reality is he was just a regular looking dude.

Like, you know, whatever.

So I'm gonna talk about Samson this morning.

You got it.

Samson is what I call and who I call the biggest punk in the Bible.

The biggest jerk, the biggest, whatever.

You pick your favorite negative adjective about Samson.

This guy is not a great guy, but you think about a lot of stories you've heard about, particularly like BBS.

I remember showing my age, the flannel boards, you remember those?

Right, about Samson.

Oh, Samson's so great.

Everybody loves Samson.

You know, Samson would be such a good friend to have.

Well, no.

Have you read the story about this guy?

He is a punk and a thug.

Samson is arrogant, he's full of hubris, he's myopic.

I'm using those big words for Pat.

Okay?

You know Pat, he likes to do that, impressive with his big words.

Um, so he he is just this, uh, he's this guy who um he's he's very disrespectful, he's a brat, he's rude to people.

He you wouldn't want your your kids, your sons to hang out with him, and you sure wouldn't want your daughters to date him.

Okay?

That's just the way he is.

Now, let me just talk a moment about who these judges are supposed to be.

Obviously, Samson judges chapter 13 and judges chapter 16.

Judges 13 · chapter mention Judges 16 · chapter mention

Alright.

Um, but oftentimes that, you know, that that term judges, it kind of uh, it kind of throws us off.

Right, right?

Modern day in the West, whatever.

It throws us off because when we think of judges, you might think of of uh uh uh like Jeff Foster, right?

Uh wearing the black robe, making legal decisions, that kind of thing.

Um that's not what these judges in the book of judges are, right?

These mishots.

Uh that's the Hebrew term for them.

It's it's they were s they were like these uh uh charismatic leaders, right?

You know what charismatic leaders are like somebody you really would want to follow, like you would really want uh to to uh yeah to kind of lead you in your cool group or whatever.

The biggest thing, they were military leaders.

Now, that's even somewhat of a miss characterization, too, because we don't see them uh any of the judges like leading a great military, except for maybe Gideon, right?

Leading some kind of military force.

But here's the biggest thing about these judges, and I think this helps us think about Samson and all of them is their number one job, their number one task.

Us to deliver Israel, to be a deliverer of Israel.

Because as you read the book of Judges, you see the you know the Canaanites, the Pezzerites, the Philistines, the Jebusites, the Mosquitabites.

You see all these ites, right?

Mosquitobites, that's not a real one.

In case you didn't catch it.

Anyway.

But these judges were supposed to deliver Israel from these pagan foreign nations that were trying to put them in bondage.

Because Israel just came out of Egypt, really, 250 years, 400, 300 years, something like that.

But all these people around him were trying to put them into bondage.

So let's get to Samson, okay?

That kind of gives you a picture.

Charismatic leader, deliverer, deliverer.

Remember that.

He's supposed to be a deliverer.

But I'm saying he's a punk.

Okay?

He's a thug, he's a jerk, he's a whatever you want to call him.

So what I want to do is I want to count down in the life of Samson from five to one and look at things about in Samson's life that kind of makes this point of why you wouldn't want to hang out with him.

Alright?

Or you might want to, but you would wind up in a lot of trouble if you did.

The first thing is five heroic exploits.

Five heroic exploits.

And I put heroic in quotes for a reason.

Because again, we think about it and we think, oh, you know, these he's such a great hero or whatever.

So, but as we let's let's just look at these, all right?

The first one, and I'll try to move quick through these first five, maybe, but in chapter 14, verse 19, um, well, no, in chapter 14, he kills 30 men.

This is his uh, and I'm not I'm not gonna spend too much time on Samson's birth in chapter 13.

Uh just I will say that they expected something great of him because of this miraculous birth.

If you read it, uh it reminds you of the birth of like um Isaac, for example.

Um but anyways, five heroic exploits.

Uh the first one, he said he killed thirty men.

Verse 19 of chapter 14.

Then the Spirit of the Lord rushed on him, and he went down to Ashkelon, he killed 30 men of the town, um, and took their spoil and gave them armor and gave the armor to those who had explained the riddle.

In hot anger he went back to his father's house.

Now we read that story in chapter 14, the details of that.

But if you remember, um, he makes this riddle up and he kills these men, but why does he kill these men?

Because he's his pride's hurt.

He had this riddle that he told, and somebody figured it out.

So that's why he kills all these people.

Not to be a deliverer of Israel, but because his own pride's hurt, out of his selfishness and his anger, he kills these men.

The next one in chapter 15, and I won't read these verses, but you know the story uh where he takes the foxes and he ties their tails together and uh and he lets these foxes go and they run out into the field and he ties their tails together, lights them on fire, they run out into the field of barley, I think it is, and it burns all the field down.

And you're like, right?

And oh, that's cool.

He tied two foxes' tails together, blah, blah, blah.

It's not.

Because stop and think about that.

What did he just do?

He destroyed a crop.

And most of us aren't farmers in here, are we?

A crop doesn't mean much to us when we stop and think about it.

But if you were them, that's the way you're going to eat for the next, you know, six or nine months.

And out of his arrogance, because his wife was given, or this lady he liked, or whatever his wife, was given to another man, he gets ticked off about it, catches the foxes, burns down the crops.

And he puts these Israelite people at risk instead of saving them and delivering them.

Out of his anger and his arrogance and his pridefulness.

The next one, um, it's related to this, to this other one, to the one I was talking about about the foxes, but where he touched the jawbone of the donkey, right?

We've all heard that story.

Oh, it's cool.

He had a jawbone and the donkey and he killed, what was it, a thousand men?

Right?

Like that dude's bad.

Right?

He's tough.

Well, why to do it?

Yeah, he's tough.

I mean, you know, you'd it'd be whatever.

But he does it because he's mad.

He's upset that somebody got something over on him.

And there's another problem here.

He's touching something dead, and we'll get to that later.

But um, and then it says in this text in chapter 15 that he put 3,000 of the men in Judah in danger.

He put them in danger.

Instead of delivering them, he puts them in danger.

Um, chapter 16, he went goes into this prostitute.

You read the story, he gets mad about the whole deal.

And I don't know so much mad as it's just like, look what I can do.

And he goes and he rips the gates off and he drags them through the town, and he's just taunting these people, which further endangers the Israelites.

He's like, Look what I can do.

He's taunting them.

He's antagonistic.

And then the fifth one, the final one, uh, when he tears down the temple of the Philistines, uh, he kills a thousand men.

Um and we'll come back to that one because that one's very important.

But all these exploits, these heroic exploits, uh, they're all carried out because of selfless ambition, bradiness, um, arrogance, um, only caring for himself.

You get the picture of this guy?

You wouldn't want to hang out with him.

Number four.

And one of the things here, it starts getting sadder and sadder here.

Okay?

We start off, Samson's a jerk, Samson's a jerk.

This is where a story really it kind of starts getting sad.

Okay?

And you feel, you realize what kind of person he is, but you also feel bad for him.

You ever been around somebody like that?

But you know, you're like, this guy.

But then deep inside, you're like, I feel bad for this person.

Right?

Is this the four movements of the spirit, the spirit of the Lord.

The four times the spirit moves within Samson.

And let me just tell you a couple interesting things here.

I'm a professor, I like facts sometimes, okay?

But there's um in the book of Judges, um, there's only four characters in the book of Judges that the Spirit of the Lord.

The Spirit of the Lord is the Holy Spirit, okay?

We'll just make that pretty simple.

Uh, that moves only four times.

To Othnel, Gideon, and Jephthah, one time apiece.

Now you get to Samson, it's four times.

So out of all these judges, all the major judges, as we call them, only four of them does the Spirit of God directly work with.

And this is important, I think.

And let's look at the ones with Samson.

In chapter 13, verses 24 and 25.

Um the woman bore a son, and she named him Samson.

The boy grew, uh, and the Lord blessed him.

And the spirit of the Lord began to stir in him in Menehadan, which is between Zorar and Estoel.

That's where most people are like, what?

Who?

Like, what are these places?

It doesn't really matter.

It does, but you don't need to know where they're at.

I'm not going to show you a map or anything like that.

But the point is, is in this very beginning of Samson's life, when he's born, as he grows, begins to grow, it says the Spirit of the Lord began to stir in him.

To stir in him.

But I like this Hebrew word because in this idea here, it's not just like a little kind of, you know, stirring or a little whatever.

But it's like that music that they were playing earlier.

It's pa'am, it's to beat within.

And if you watch a movie, which when you watch movies or dramas or whatever, the music and the kind of feel from that, you can get like anticipation.

It builds up anticipation.

You know something's about to happen or whatever.

Y'all know what I'm talking about.

Yeah.

And sometimes that's done through like background music.

But just think about this.

The spirit begins to beat within him.

Right?

And so when you read this and you hear this, you think, this guy is going to be something great.

This guy's going to be something great.

He just has this miraculous birth story, his mother and father being barren, this angel coming to him.

You can read that story.

Manoah, his dad.

You really I kind of say sometimes, well, the apple didn't fall far from the tree because Manoah, his dad, was just a bonehead.

He's just oblivious, doesn't get anything that's going on.

But in the very beginning, this spirit begins to beat within Samson.

And it sets the story up for you as a reader to say, pay close attention to this.

Something great is about to happen with this guy, with this child.

And then the second time in chapter 14, verse 6, it says, the Spirit of the Lord rushed on him, and he tore the line apart barehanded as one might tear apart a kid.

Not like a little kid, like a kid goat.

But he did not tell his father or his mother what he had done.

So this is the second time.

He's attacked by this lion as he's walking through a vineyard.

Now here's the problem with Samson.

Samson had, he should not have been in that vineyard.

In Numbers chapter 6, it talks about the Nazirite vow.

Numbers 6 · chapter mention

And Samson, if you read 13, he's set apart to be a Nazirite.

A Nazarite means they couldn't drink wine, they couldn't touch grapes, they couldn't eat grapes, they couldn't touch anything dead, and they couldn't cut their hair.

Right?

These are the main things about being.

And a Nazirite was like one of the most holy classes of people within Israel.

The priest and the Nazirite.

They were the only ones that couldn't touch a dead body and be defiled from that.

Everybody else could, but they had to go take a pretty much take a bath afterwards, except for the priest and the Nazirite.

They were the most set apart by God, and that's who Samson was supposed to be.

So that sets up the problem.

He's in this vineyard, walking through the vineyard, and you can kind of get the picture of Samson probably walking through there just grabbing grapes, you know, like nothing, no care in the world.

He's all that matters in his mind is him.

Right?

And this line runs apart.

And we love this part of the story, right?

Samson, he's bad, dude.

He grabs this line and he just rips him apart.

You know, whatever.

Um and that is cool.

I'm not saying that's not.

I mean, that's part of, you know, this allure, this kind of of Samson and of this story for us in the Old Testament.

But the point here is, was it his strength that did that?

Where did that strength come from?

The Spirit of the Lord.

It and here the Hebrew is uh Salak, it it rushes upon him.

Again, think about that movie, like you hear the wind coming in, you're like, oh, something's about to happen.

And this spirit just rushes upon Samson, and all of a sudden, it's kind of maybe like the Hulk, I don't know, you know, because the Hulk's just a normal-looking dude, and then all of a sudden something goes wrong in his head or whatever, and he's like ripping his clothes off, and it's kind of like that.

The spirit of the Lord comes upon Samson, and all of a sudden he's got this strength and he kills this line like it's no big deal, like it's no problem.

The third one, uh, the spirit of the Lord in 1419, when he goes to Ashkelon and he kills three men, 30 men.

We talked about that after he loses this bet.

Um, and uh he he you know he kills his men, uh, but it says that uh that the spirit rushed upon him again and basically gives him the strength to do this.

Now, I think this one's interesting because um it I like to think every time the spirit of the Lord works within within Samson, um it's the Spirit, the Spirit is I don't want to get into a long discussion of the doctrine of the Spirit, but the Spirit is always task-oriented.

That's a good way to think about the Holy Spirit.

Even in the New Testament, he's always coming into, or he's in us as a believer, but for a particular task.

He's there to equip us for a particular thing.

And that's to spread the good news of Jesus, right?

So even in the Old Testament, it comes upon him for particular specific task.

And so when Samson comes upon him, I mean not Samson, the Spirit here, in this case, and maybe in the last one in 15, 14, it's the Spirit's way of always trying to keep Samson on task of what he's meant to be doing.

It's always trying to keep him on task.

And what is he meant to be doing?

To deliver the people of Israel from the Philistines.

It's almost like God's always trying really, really hard to get Samson to do what is good and what is right, and to remember that he's a Nazarite and to deliver the people.

The spirit moving is a good thing.

Right?

But when we look at this spirit moving within Samson, um, we see that the spirit's trying to help Samson out when he's sinning or he's doing something that's selfish or arrogant and he's getting off task.

And it's the spirit's way of kind of saying, Come on, dude.

Come on.

Remember what you're supposed to be doing.

God's still gracious, even though Samson is his punk.

He's still sending his spirit to work within Samson and to help him deliver the people of Israel.

The third thing about Samson is his encounters with foreign women.

And you may be like, so what?

That's no big deal, right?

Well, it is.

In the Old Testament, that's always a stinking problem.

Always a problem.

I mean, Abraham was scared to death that one of his sons would marry a foreigner.

Ezra, when they come back out of exile, preaches and teaches against it.

Don't marry a foreign woman.

Solomon, the reason Solomon falls from being king of Israel in uh, you know, 1 Kings 1 to 11 is because he marries all these foreign concubines, these foreign women.

Now, ladies, I'm not saying women are the problem.

I promise.

But for Samson, these foreign women are some ones that kind of get him off of his task, off of his purpose and what he's supposed to do.

Um, the woman in Timnah in chapter 14 is the only one that's called his wife.

Uh, we've talked about the story.

Uh, we see his selfishness.

Uh, he only wants her because of her beauty.

If you go and read the story, he's like, look at her.

She's gorgeous, she's beautiful.

And what does he do?

This is this is like his braddiness par excellence in this story.

He says, Mom, dad, I want her, go get her for me.

And they're like, Well, she's a foreigner.

I don't care.

I want her, you go get her for me.

And just total like braddiness, whatever, in my mind.

Um, and he gets what he wants.

I was just talking to one of my friends, Natasha, where are you at earlier?

We were talking about teaching.

And she goes, the problem is nowadays, these parents just let their kids get everything they want.

And I'm like, yeah, exactly.

I have, I know kids that age, and how they, that's what they do.

They just get whatever they want.

And does that help them out?

No, it makes them worse.

It makes them like Samson eventually.

And but the text does say that this was uh from Yahweh, from the Lord is what it says.

Now, God is, that's a that doesn't necessarily mean that God wants him to marry it.

He's just saying this divine initiative and God's involvement in this life of Samson, he's involved with it, but that doesn't necessarily mean sanctioned or approval of him marrying this foreign woman.

And you know the other the other two, this harlot in Gaza.

I've already talked about this prostitute in Gaza, how he just goes into her, goes in and lays with her.

It's kind of a short little story, but it's like he just goes in and gets something that he desires.

Right?

Some pleasure, and he leaves.

Just wantoness of Samson, the wantonness of Samson.

And then the final one, Delilah, chapter 16, verse 4.

He does it, it says he falls in love with her.

He falls in love with her, but she's a foreign woman.

And you see, does Delilah have his best interest in heart?

No.

So even if he really falls in love with her, this unreciprocated love that she doesn't love him, she doesn't reciprocate it, and she becomes his downfall.

The two, number two, the prayers.

And this is always shocking to me that Samson even prays.

Because he's like he doesn't give a rip about God or about his task or about his job or anything like that.

Chapter 15, verse 18.

And then, and by then, this is after he killed all the people with the donkey with the jawbone of the donkey, uh, he was very thirsty, and he called on the Lord, saying, and then it has his prayer.

But listen to his prayer.

You have granted this great victory by the hand of your servant.

I think that's kind of a um his way of just saying whatever needs to be said or what he thinks needs to be said to get what he wants.

Am I now to die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?

So God split open the hollow place there and water came out, and he drank it, and he was revived.

This is the first time that Samson calls on the Lord.

The first time that he prays.

He prays for water.

Now, is it a bad thing for thirsty to pray for water?

Even if you had prayed for like years.

No.

You know, you need water.

So it's not a bad thing, but it's the way that he does it.

Uh and he hasn't shown care before about any of these exploits.

Never does he ask God for anything or to help him with anything.

But here he does.

And it's God, I've done, look at all these great things I've done.

Please give me some water.

And it's just this tone of like selfishness involved in it, I think.

Um, but he does pray for, pray uh to the Lord.

And then the next time in 1628, and uh we'll kind of come back to that.

I keep saying that about the end of chapter 16 because obviously it's important.

Uh this is uh so I won't say too much about it here, but it's where he's, you know, it's the final part of his life, and he's between the two pillars, right?

And his hands are stretched out between the two pillars, and he says, you know, he prays to God, give me strength one more time.

But what's interesting about that, and I'll just kind of throw it out here, is he does it, he doesn't say so that I can deliver Israel.

He says, because they gather my eyes out.

So it's a selfish prayer again.

God do this because they've done this to me, right?

Um something along those, something along those lines.

So at this point, in my mind, there's nothing we can say or very little positive we can say about him.

As I've mentioned.

He's rude, flippant, um, lustful appetite, even, just lustful, arrogant.

The one thing, the final thing here, is death.

One death.

One death.

Now, I want to, because I think it this is like the important, not that other stuff's not important.

I want to read this to you.

1628 to 31.

And as I read it, think about some of the things kind of what we've talked about here already.

Then Samson called to the Lord and said, Lord God, remember me and strengthen me only this once, O God.

So that when that so with this one act of this one act of revenge, I may pay back the Philistines for my two eyes.

And Samson grasped the two middle pillars on which the house rested, and he leaned his weight against them, his right hand on the one, and his left hand on the other.

Then Samson said, Let me die with the Philistines.

He strained with all his might, and the house fell on the Lord's and all the people who were in it, so those he killed at his death were more than those he had killed during his life.

Then his brothers and all his family came down and took him and brought him up and buried him between Zoar and Estoel in the tomb of his father Manoah.

He judged Israel twenty years.

Now, I said, you know, I start off with Samson's just this jerk, right?

But I said it gets sad.

As many times as I've read this and talked about this, Samson, it still always just kind of makes me pause for a moment.

Of the sadness of this.

Just think about what I just read.

This wasted life, a vow ignored, a life and a calling to be delivered of Israel, forgotten and ignored.

And the narrator tells us, and you may say, this is the sad part.

In his death, he killed more than in his life.

Think about that for a second.

In his death, he killed more than he did in his life.

What was his task?

To be a charismatic, military-type leader and deliverer of Israel.

And when the Philistines bore down on the Israelites, he was to lead people out to battle.

Now, we don't, you know, we want to be nice, right?

We want to do battle.

But to do battle and to kill and to fight in the name of the Lord to protect the Lord's people.

And the narrator said, When in his death he did that.

Not in his life.

He had all the tools, all the ability, the Spirit of the Lord, the grace of God, everything to be successful as a deliverer of Israel, but he just treated it like it was no big flipping deal.

And he just ignored it.

And it's a sad life.

Only here in his death does he even come close to being what he was born for as a Nazarite.

A deliverer of his people.

The only good that can come from his life is even God empowers him and drives Samson to the task of delivering his people.

What is interesting to me is that the spirit doesn't come upon him, or that um the spirit doesn't come upon upon him in this text.

Here, the end, the story of his death.

Where it does the other times in these great exploits.

I think this is the narrator's way of showing that something totally external from Samson helps him.

The spirit doesn't come within him to help him.

It's just totally external that helps him.

And so all his hair grew back.

Well, the hair thing, just throw this out there, was the final straw of the Nazarite stuff, remember I mentioned?

And when it was cut off?

So it's not that his strength was in his hair.

It's that the hair was a sign of God with him.

God with him.

And when it was removed, you know the rest of the story.

But the saddest thing for me here in this final part is that last line between Zoar and Eshtoel.

And the reason that's sad is to go back to chapter 13, verse 25, where it says that the Spirit of the Lord began to pa'am to beat within him.

And he did, where did the spirit do this?

Between Zoar and Eshtoel.

And now here at the end, Samson's dead, and they bury him in the very place where God tried to start working in Samson's life for him to do things.

And that's kind of part of the sadness to it.

The Samson story was set up to give us the impression that Samson would be, and here I want you to think of this context of this idea, the perfect Israelite.

The perfect deliverer of Israel.

The perfect one in every way.

To follow the vows that were given to him as a Nazarite, to follow the Lord, to deliver his people, yet he was an absolute failure in that.

Sad.

Of a wasted life when he could have been the perfect Israelite.

Now, I bet you y'all all look like very good, astute Bible readers, right?

And you have a great pastor that teaches y'all the Bible.

And so how many of you are sitting here listening to me talk about Samson?

And you're maybe seeing some, okay, yeah, you're right.

He is kind of a jerk, he is kind of bratty.

But you're thinking about something in the New Testament, aren't you?

I bet a lot of you are.

And we can do the next slide here.

But, but, but what about, what about the book of Hebrews?

Like, Dr.

Stewart, you're obviously getting this wrong because you obviously don't know anything.

You don't know what Hebrews chapter 11 says about Samson.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

Well, let's read it.

Um chapter 11, verses 32 to 34, and then 39 and 40.

And what more shall we say?

For time will fail me if I tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, or David, and Samuel and the prophets, who by faith considered king conquered kingdoms, performed acts of righteousness, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword from weakness, were made strong, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight, and all these, having gained approval through their faith, did not receive what was promised, because God had provided something better for us, so that apart from us they would not be made perfect.

That part of Hebrews.

What about Samson?

Now, one of the things I like to do with my students all the time is say, name an old testament character, and I'll tell you some of their flaws.

Because oftentimes we, you know, we idealize all these people in the Old Testament.

And so sometimes we go around and play this game and they get mad at me by the end because even they're like most saintly person in the Old Testament, you know, with this and this and this about them, right?

But the book of Hebrews, um, in Judges, Samson is portrayed in an absolute negative light, an utter failure of his high calling.

But in Hebrews, he's seen in a positive way.

Now, Hebrews, the book of Hebrews isn't meant to be an exegetical or an exegesis or, you know, talking about the details of the life of Barack, Samson, Gideon, Jephthah, David, Samuel, any of them.

It's a it's a uh it's a sermon on faith.

And we can see, if we go back just to Samson in particular, Samson, despite all his flaws, God working externally with him, when he's standing there between the two pillars, he's making this arrogant prayer for his eyes, really also, what he's even doing, and I don't think he means to, is he's showing trust and knowledge and allegiance to Yahweh, to God, and knowing that the only way he stands a chance of pushing these pillars over and getting revenge for his two eyes, is if something external to him, that is Yahweh, the Lord of the Bible, the Lord of the Israelites, helps him do it.

And he exhibits a little bit, a very small, little bit amount of faith that God would give him strength this one more time.

But what that tells us, what that shows us, is anything positive to come out of these dark days of the judges, it was only by the work of God.

Now, I guess we can go to the the next uh the next slide here and we'll wrap this up.

So, what does this have to do with us or with Jesus or whatever?

Um Samson's arrogance, his hubris, his you know, nearsightedness, those kind of things, um, really symbolizes, I think, or maybe it's just me.

Okay?

Maybe I'm an arrogant jerk, and uh I need to be reminded of this story all the time, which there's some truth to that, and I'll be honest about that.

And I think we all should be, that Samson's life symbolizes all of our struggle with sin and ultimate victory and those kind of things.

Um I would say, and I know this is kind of a pithy, I guess, way to say it, don't let your faith or trust in Christ Jesus only be defined as positive in your death.

Like Samson's.

Another way we could say it is don't wait to see God for who he really is when your eyes are gouged out.

Or it takes your eyes being gouged out to see that.

But what about Jesus?

That's what I always get as Old Testament professor talking about these texts.

What about Jesus?

What about Jesus?

Well, here's what about Jesus?

Here's what about how he fits in with all this.

Um Jesus comes, and as we well, hold on.

As we read judges, we were looking for this perfect Israelite that would deliver.

And you're always, the people, the Old Testament people are always looking for that, and they never get one.

Never get one.

Um finally comes.

A perfect in his life and in his death.

A perfect Israelite, because Jesus was an Israelite, a Jewish Israelite, y'all know that, right?

That delivers God's people once and for all.

We don't need a Samson, we don't need a David, we don't need a Solomon or Nezrah, because we have the perfect one in Christ Jesus.

And I think that the book, this Samson story points us to the failures of mere humans trying to do that.

And in the goal and the aim and the end of the Old Testament, it points us to Christ.

Even as you read Judges, you can see not Christ in Judges, but the necessity of this perfect Israelite in Christ Jesus.

He is the perfect one.

He is the perfect holy one of God, Samson, with Jesus Christ.

Um let's pray, and then we'll uh close out.

And uh as as I as I pray and as um we we've um play the final song, um I just want you to think about who about you personally, right?

Are you an air and jerk?

Right?

Uh do you ignore God's calling in your life?

Or is that something that's constantly before you, that you constantly work hard and think about?

Right?

So think about those things as we finish uh this morning.

Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for thank you for these odd stories of the Old Testament that uh portray these people in ways that kind of make us stop and think.

As odd as some of them are, they are wonderful in that they show us your grace and your mercy and you being constantly at work throughout the history of the world to bring us to a true knowledge of who you are and a true faith in Christ Jesus.

So we thank you for this weird story, if you will, in the Old Testament.

But ultimately we thank you for your Son Jesus, who is the perfect Israelite, who is the perfect deliverer, who on him all the sins of the world was laid, and he's delivered us from the pains of death.

And we thank you for that.

It's in Christ alone.

Amen.

And this morning, man, we hope that God spoke to you and you were challenged by Dr.

Stewart and uh the message this morning, and we pray uh that um that we we want to be the people that James tells us not to just be hearers of the word, but to be doers.

And so uh any next steps that you feel like you need to take towards God and what he's asking you to do uh in obedience to him, we would love to partner with you in that.

So if that's wanting to find out what it means to follow Jesus for the first time, or uh maybe you are you've been following Jesus for a while and you just you know there's a next step for you, we'd love to give you some resources.

And so if you would text start to follow to 97000, start to follow all one word to 9700.

And again, we'd just love to come alongside you and help you continue taking your steps towards Jesus.

Man, so good.

And again, we're there's so many um different churches that you can visit online, and the fact that you guys uh spent some time with us this morning is so cool.

Um, and just a reminder um anything that's going on in Life Art Church is on the app on the website.

I don't know why I'm doing this, but hooray, let's do it.

Um and so just go and make sure that you uh you check those out.

So that you can be plugged in, um, and then remember kids are going to camp um pretty much all ages, so just be in prayer uh for them, and then don't forget to uh see how you can partner with uh fish this week or that weekend the rest of the summer.

Um and so we're again so grateful for you guys.

I hope you have a great week.

If there's anything that we can do for you, please let us know.

And uh yeah, we'll probably see you next we next Sunday.

I like how you're really championing that out there.

That's good.

That's what we do.

That's what we do.

All right, go braves, go braves.