VIA | Same God | Samson | Clayton Heath

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Hey everyone, my name is Manny.

If I haven't had the privilege of meeting you, welcome to VF.

I'm so happy you guys are here tonight.

So today I get the chance and opportunity of reading our scripture for tonight.

But before I do that, I want to share a little bit about my testimony.

Before I understood who the Lord was, I believed that the Lord was a wrathful God.

I believe that every mistake, everything that I messed up was I should be ashamed for myself.

I should be uh having so much insecurity in myself.

But because of the Lord, I know how much of a loving father he is for me too.

He calls me his son, and he calls us his beloved.

So today, tonight, we get to read Judges 16, 26 through 30.

Samson said to the young man who was leading him by the hand, lead me where I can, feel the pillars supporting the temple, so I can lead against them.

The temple was full of men and women.

All the leaders of the Philistines were there, and about 3,000 men and women were on the roof watching Samson entertain them.

He called out to the Lord, Lord, God, please remember me.

Strengthen me, God, just once more.

With one act of vengeance, let me pay back the Philistines for my two eyes.

Samson took hold of the two middle pillars supporting the temple and leaned against them, one on his right hand and the other on his left.

Samson said, Let me die with the Philistines.

He pushed me with he pushed with all his might, and the temple fell, and the leaders and all the people in it.

And those he killed at his death were more than those he killed he had killed in his life.

Here's the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Can we thank many for reading the scripture for us tonight?

Y'all can go ahead and take a seat.

Hello and welcome to Via.

It is so nice to see you.

If we haven't met, my name is Clayton, and I get the privilege of being a part of our team here at Silverdoll Young Adults.

And tonight I have the privilege of sharing with you God's word.

But before we start, you know the drill.

If you know the drill, I want you to look at the person to your right, behind you, to your left, and in front of you.

And I want you to tell them, I'm so glad to be a via with you.

I am so glad to be a via with you.

If you uh have your Bibles, I'm gonna invite you to turn with me to Judges chapter 16.

Judges 16 · chapter mention

Judges is in the Old Testament, which is the part of the Bible that contains the things that happened before the life of Jesus.

And uh hopefully on your way in, you got a worship God from our home team who so planning well, we're already ready for Jersey night tonight.

So shout out, Go Birds, that's a sick jersey.

Uh we're so happy to have you.

Uh I want you to take those, if you got one of those worship gods on your way in.

We we give those to you for lots of reasons, but you know, if you've been at Via, that we give them to you because we believe that it is no small thing that God is the creator of the universe and that he speaks to you and me.

And so when he does, we want to be sure that we pay attention and that we write down the things that he says.

Uh, tonight we are continuing in our collection of talks here at Via that's called Same God.

And what we've been doing is we've been looking at some Old Testament stories, uh, really that most of us maybe haven't revisited maybe since we were in Sunday school, if you grew up in church.

Uh, but these big kind of theme stories in the Old Testament to see that not only is every story in the Old Testament pointing us to Jesus, that there really is this thread that gets woven in.

But because the Bible is the Bible, and all of Scripture is God breathed and useful for teaching, that we can read these stories and see some principles and truths that we can apply to our very own life.

And so tonight we're talking about the story of Samson.

And now, Samson, for many of us, maybe we know Samson, right?

If you can remember back to your velvet board days in Sunday school class, he's, you know, we know him.

He's the big Jack Strong dude with long hair that, like, you know, killed a lion.

Sick.

But what we find when we revisit this story is that the story of Samson is far from the version that lives in many of our heads.

In reality, that the lesson that we see in Samson, what I want you to know tonight, my sermon in a sentence is you will, if you will, is that God given potential cannot compensate a life without godly character.

God given potential cannot compensate for a life of without godly character.

Or to put it another way that maybe you've heard before, your gifts will take you to places, or they might take you to places that your character will not be able to keep you.

Samson, we pick up in Judges.

Excuse me.

If you know your Bibles, the story of Samson starts in Judges chapter 13.

Judges 13 · chapter mention

And where we pick up in the story, for all of you that are biblical scholars, you know the story.

What happens?

The Israelites get freed from slavery in Egypt.

Everybody remember that?

Moses and the parting of the Red Sea and all the miracles that they saw.

And so Moses leads the Israelites out of slavery.

The Bible tells us that Joshua is the one that leads the Israelites into the promised land, or the land that's promised to God, the the uh God's people.

And then when they get into the promised land, here's what we have: we have a problem, friends, because God's people are exactly where God said that they would be, but there's some problems going on.

Again, you're a biblical scholar, you know the Bible up and down, so you know that when they get into this time, there's no formal government structure, there's no permanent place of the temple.

Everyone's kind of, it's like a little bit like the Wild West.

There's still enemies in the land of Canaan, in the promised land.

And so, if you know your Bible, then this time of the Bible is called the era or the period or the time of the judges.

And so, what God does is God appoints specific men and women to be judges of his people, to help protect them, to help fight against enemies, and to help do what God is calling them to do.

And Samson is one of those judges.

But here's the problem: you know your Bible.

Samson and really every other judge stinks.

He's a scummy guy.

Samson is not this hero of the Old Testament that you might think lives in your head.

He's a scumbag.

The dude stinks.

He's not just a strong guy who beat up the Philistines with his bare hands.

Yeah, he did that.

But the life of Samson ends in tragedy.

He marries this woman named Delilah, a Philistine, an enemy of God.

She chops his hair, his eyes get scouged out, and he kills himself in order to kill all these Philistines.

This final act of desperation, and the whole building collapses.

And so, if you know Samson, maybe you've heard like, here's the lesson: with God, all things are possible, and if you're strong enough, you can push down the pillars too.

Or maybe the lesson that you heard from Samson was like, watch out for the Delilah, fellas.

You know, let's keep our eyes up.

But the lesson of Samson is that God given potential cannot compensate for a life without godly character.

If you're taking notes tonight, the first thing I want you to write down is this is that your downfall starts long before anyone ever sees it.

Your downfall will start long before anyone sees it.

In Judges chapter 13 is when we're introduced to Samson, and we're really introduced to Samson's parents.

Judges 13 · chapter mention

And an angel of the Lord comes to Samson's parents and he tells them, You are gonna give birth to a son, the woman who was barren, who had no kids, you're gonna give birth to a son, and he's gonna be set apart.

And I am giving a call, I'm placing a call on Samson's life.

This is what God says through the angel.

He says, I'm placing a call on Samson's life that his mission, he will begin to rescue the Israelites from the Philistines.

And we're like, hurrah, this is it.

We're doing it.

We're gonna get delivered from the oppressors.

And chapter 13 ends with telling us that Samson is growing up and he's blessed by the Lord.

This is good news.

We've got a good judge.

Everybody can take a breath.

The Philistines were gonna lose, dog.

We're back.

We're so back.

And then chapter 14 starts.

And when chapter 14 starts, Samson sees a woman.

And fellas, this is not a whole story about how you gotta watch out for the women.

Although you do, this isn't what this night is about, okay?

Samson sees a woman and she's a Philistine, not Delilah.

It's a totally other woman.

He goes down into Timnah, the Bible says, and he sees this woman and he wants her.

She must look really good because he says, That's the one I want.

And so he goes back home and he says, Yo, mom, dad, I found her.

Go get her for me.

She's my girl, she's the one.

And they're like, Are you sure?

A Philistine.

The enemy of God's people.

That's the one that you want to marry.

And he's like, Yep.

And look at what he says in Judges chapter 14, verse 3.

Judges 14:3

He says, But Samson said to his father, get her for me, for she is right in my eyes.

The lesson of Samson's life is that he sees it, he wants it, he takes it.

Ariana's Seven Rings is Samson's theme song, okay?

He likes it, he buys it, he gets it.

Never, not once, does he stop and seek God's will for his life.

And here's what's crazy.

Do you know what's crazy?

This is chapter 14.

Isaiah 14 · chapter mention

We got two whole chapters of the Bible before we get to Delilah.

On top of that, friend, if you know your Bible, and you do because you're a biblical scholar, because you're here at Via, Samson ruled for 20 years as a judge.

So what am I telling you?

I'm telling you that when he sees this woman and he says, This is right, I don't care what God says, I want her because I want her.

That is presumably not six months before we meet Delilah and his eyes get gouged out.

What is my point?

My point is this is long before his downfall.

The beginning of his demise begins with small compromises.

He rejects the wisdom of his parents, he ignores God's law about marriage, he sees a woman that he wants, and he takes her.

And can I just tell you for a minute, our world works the very same way.

What do you want, girlfriend?

Go get it.

Homie, what do you want in your life?

Grind it out, have some discipline.

Be a man and go take it.

Just buy it, take it, sleep with them, drink it, smoke it, try it, scroll it, just do it.

But guess what we're doing, friend?

We're following the Lord.

And following Jesus introduces us to a new philosophy that is contrary to hedonism, that is fighting the urge that just because we want something, we take it.

You're like, Clayton, you are yelling a lot, and we just got started.

What are you talking about?

Look at what Paul says in Galatians chapter 5.

Galatians 5 · chapter mention

He says this what is their command for us who are following Jesus?

Do we see something and because we want it, we take it?

But I say, walk by the spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

For the desires of the flesh are against the spirit, and the desires of the spirit are against the flesh.

For these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things you want to do.

In other words, maturity and growing in our faith, friends, is realizing that not everything you want deserves a yes.

And Samson never learns that lesson.

Because the lie that Samson believes is that he can do whatever he wants and not face any consequences.

But how many of you know that oftentimes the yes that we give now is often the yes that costs us later?

That's the first thing I want you to see.

The second thing I want you to see tonight is this small compromises are never small compromises.

In fact, I want you to turn to the person you're sitting next to you and say, hey, small compromises are never small compromises.

Small compromises are never small compromises.

Alright, Clayton, you're talking about this random dude.

I kind of remember from Sunday school, he's a judge in Israel.

I don't really know what that means.

What's going on?

Well, Judges chapters 14 and 15 give us some stories about Samson.

Judges 14 · chapter mention

And when you come across them reading in your Bible, they can just honestly read really weird.

You come across this story in Judges chapter 14, verses 5 through 9, and we get this really seemingly placed detail about Samson's life.

Judges 14:5–9

Samson, as he's on his way to go get this woman, you know, the Philistine woman that he shouldn't go marry, he's on his way to get her.

It says that a lion comes out and attacks him on the road and he kills it with his bare hands.

Dog.

First time we read it.

This guy's sick.

The Bible says he rips it apart like he would rip a little goat.

I've never ripped a little goat like that, so I don't know what that's talking about.

But that's what Samson did.

Samson tears up this lion and he leaves his dead body on the side of the road.

He goes into Timmah, this Philistine town, he does his business, he's on his way back, and when he's on his way back, this is what the Bible says.

It says that he sees the carcass of the dead lion, and in the dead body of the dead lion, this is kind of weird, there's a beehive in the dead lion.

And so Samson sees the honey and he takes some honey for himself.

And then the Bible says he takes honey and he goes home and he gives it to his parents, but he does not tell them where he got it.

And it's like, okay, I don't really understand what's going on here, but that's like in the Bible, and all about all the scripture is useful for teaching.

So maybe I'm not smart enough for that lesson.

So we'll just keep going on going.

But here's what we have to understand.

You ready?

This is so sick.

When Samson is born, the angel of the Lord.

Remember, she came to Samson's mom and she said, Hey, I'm placing a call.

I'm placing a call on Samson's life.

He's gonna be set apart for the Lord.

He's gonna begin to rescue the Israelites from the Philistines.

But here's what the angel of the Lord says: the angel of the Lord says that Samson is gonna be a Nazirite.

You're like, Clayton, I don't know what that word means.

I know Nazarene, I know Nazareth.

Does that like have to do with Jesus?

Has nothing to do with Jesus.

Nazirite, what's a Nazirite?

A Nazirite is a specific vow that a Jewish person, an Israelite would take to consecrate their life to the Lord.

We would see this, it's almost like fasting.

I would take a vow to be a Nazirite for a set period, sometimes a month or six months or maybe a year, but the angel of the Lord says that Samson is gonna be a Nazirite for his whole life.

And if you're a Nazirite, what that means is you do some things and you don't do some things.

You don't cut your hair.

That's why Samson never cuts his hair.

It's because he's a Nazirite.

He's set apart by God for God to seek after God.

You don't cut your hair, you don't drink wine, you don't uh only eat clean food, and you do all of this because you're seeking after the Lord.

And you're like, okay, Clayton, who comes up with the rules?

Guess what?

Numbers chapter six in the Bible tells us all the rules for being a Nazirite.

And guess what?

One of the rules is in Numbers chapter six, you can't touch a dead body, a carcass, whether human or animal.

And so what seems like five random verses in the middle of Judges 14, like it's weird that he just ate some honey out of the dead body of a lion.

What it's telling us is that small compromises are never small compromises.

Samson, seeing the honey, just like he saw the woman, he wants it and so he takes it.

And then he gives it to his parents, but he doesn't tell them where he got it.

Why?

Because they know the Nazirite rules.

They would say, What are you doing?

You're breaking your covenant with God.

They wouldn't eat it, let alone want him to eat it.

But he doesn't tell them, what is that, friend?

That is secrecy, manipulation, and deception.

Do you see?

Small compromises are never small compromises.

Samson's supposed to be a guy set apart to live seeking after the Lord, to begin to rescue the Israelites from the Philistines, but oh, she just makes me feel so good.

I like how she looks.

I'll go after her.

Honey, I'm hungry.

I'm walking down all this way to this road.

I'll take some of that.

I know my parents are gonna flip out if I tell them I got this out of a dead lion's body, and that's kind of weird because who gets honey out of a dead lion's body?

But I'm not gonna tell them.

Small compromises are small compromises, aren't small compromises.

It's sin, friend, and it's wasting God's potential in his life.

In other words, Samson is missing out on what he could be experiencing because he's too busy hiding things in the dark from Almighty God.

Then Judges 14 through 16 continues.

He ties fire to 300 foxes' tails and sets them off in a grain field.

First take.

New meaning to scorched earth.

Second take, he's taking revenge, and his anger gets the best of him because his first woman gets sold by his old father-in-law, and he doesn't care anything about her, and he gets so angry, so his anger just gets the best of him, and he sends the foxes into the field.

Then in chapter 16, one verse, Samson goes to Garth and sleeps with a prostitute.

So this woman had this guy has moved from just moving after women to objectifying and abusing women.

He has can doesn't have control of his anger.

He lies, steals, manipulates, and deceives the people that are around him.

And what is my point?

Samson didn't wake up one morning and go, I want to blow up my life.

We don't get to chapter 16 where his eyes get gouged out and he gets put in a prison to grind some meal, and we go, man, I wonder how we got here.

I think Samson probably just was like, I guess he got tired of it.

I guess he got fed up.

Maybe he had a mental breakdown or something.

Samson makes compromise after compromise.

Small decisions where honestly there's no consequence right away.

And if there's no consequence right away, then there must not be any consequence at all.

I can do what I want.

I'm blessed by the Lord.

Because in all this craziness, do you know what's crazy?

Samson still opens up a can on the Philistines.

The dude can't be stopped.

He's ripping them up.

He kills a thousand of them with a donkey's jawbone.

He rips off the gates off of a city and just yucks them.

He can do whatever he wants.

Seemingly he is still receiving God's blessings.

But listen to me, a small compromise is never a small compromise.

What am I trying to encourage you with tonight?

Clayton, you're still yelling an awful lot.

What are you saying?

You are not gonna wake up one morning and say, I want to blow up my entire life.

You're not gonna wake up looking at your spouse one morning and say, you know what?

I hate everything about my marriage, and I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna blow up my family and my kids and my marriage.

I'm just gonna blow it up.

You know, my business that's been really successful and I've been working really hard, my career.

You know what I'm gonna do?

I'm gonna just mail all that in because you know what?

I'm just kind of tired of it.

I'm sick of it.

I want my life to be in a ditch.

Nobody wakes up and says, I think I'm gonna put my life in a ditch today.

It's small compromise after small compromise.

I mean, think of it like this, right?

Pastors.

Everybody loves to dunk on big pastors who make four moral mistakes and fail.

Go down the list, right?

Robert Morris, Bill Hybels, James McDonald, uh uh Stephen Lawson, uh you name them.

Right here in Chattanooga, Tavner Smith, Ravi Zacharias, Carl Lentz.

We can go down the list.

Maybe you've never heard of these men, maybe you have.

Everyone's like, oh, why did they fail?

I know why they failed.

It was because of megachurch.

The church isn't supposed to be that big, and that's why they failed.

That's why they blew up their marriage.

Fame?

Really?

Acts chapter 2 says 3,000 people got saved in one day to be the first church.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

Now, is fame good for anybody?

Probably not, but there's plenty of famous people who never blow up their life, so why do they fall?

I'll tell you why they fell, because 15 years before they blew up their life, they made a small compromise.

They took the proverbial honey from the dead carcass and they never told their parents.

It's hundreds and thousands of little decisions that were just small compromises in their life, and it's domino after domino after domino, and you wake up and your life is in the dish.

Reps, you only do 13?

What's the big deal?

It's not a big deal, except that it's your life.

And every decision that you make is forming you into the person that you're becoming.

You're like, but Clayton, I don't.

Why are you making such a big deal of this dog?

I'm not ripping some honey out of a dead carcass.

I'm certainly not just taking some woman that God told me as an enemy.

I'm not getting my eyes cashed out.

It's just a show.

It's just a podcast.

It's just a whatever.

It's just partial nudity, Clayton.

Okay, well, there's no partial sin.

The Bible says, careful that you stand lest you fall.

The Bible says that God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.

Nobody wants to blow up their life.

I love the way that the pastor John Tyson says it best.

The standards you set determine the life you get.

The standard that you set, friend, is gonna determine the life that you get.

And so my question to you is what kind of life do you want?

Because our problem is we start as a Christian and we're like, okay, I think this is just what life is.

And life is all about the things that are happening to me.

And you know, there's good times and there's bad times, and there's times where I feel close to God, and there's times where I feel far from God because I know what I'm doing and I'm disobeying the Lord.

And this is just kind of what following Jesus is.

If that's the way that you view your life, you're never gonna become, you're never gonna step into the potential and the calling that God has on your life.

Friend, we are not messing around.

We're not playing church.

We're not just doing Thursday nights because we want some people to hang out with.

We believe that God has placed a calling on our life that we are stepping into to see the kingdom make waves in our schools, in our jobs, in our families, and in our city.

And so we don't just get to walk up to the, you know, Thursday night and be like, man, it's just another bad week.

Okay, well, let's talk about it.

What kind of standards are we setting?

Because the standards that you set will determine the life that you get.

And what do we need to know?

That a small compromise is never just a small compromise.

The third thing I want you to write down tonight is this is that giftedness can hide godlessness for a long time.

Giftedness can hide godlessness for an awful long time, brother.

Look at what it says in Judges chapter 16, verses 23-21.

And she said, This is Delilah.

The Philistines are upon you, Samson.

And he awoke from his sleep and he said, I will go out as the other times and shake myself free.

But he did not know that the Lord had left him.

And the Philistines seized him and they gouged out his eyes, and they brought him back to Gaza and bound him with bronze shackles, and he ground Mill at the prison.

Or in 16, Samson's finally with Delilah, his second wife, third woman, she's a snake.

And she works with the Philistines to get Samson's demise.

And verses 2 through 20 are her attempts again and again and again.

She says, Samson, what's the secret of your strength?

And he goes her, he plays her.

He's like, Well, you got to use rope that's never been used.

And so she gets rope that's never been used from the Philistines, and she ties him up and she says, Samson, the Philistines are here.

And guess what?

He rips him up because he's a dog.

Remember, he's even walking away from the Lord, still has the giftedness of the Lord, and so he can escape.

What's the secret, Samson?

You lied to me.

Actually, it's wet rope.

They get wet rope.

Samson, the Philistines are here.

He breaks the rope again.

He still has the giftedness of God, even though he doesn't have the presence of God.

And so he goes again and again, and she tells the Philistines.

And guess what?

He goes back to her every single time.

And listen, friends, this is not a dating sermon that's gonna come in November.

But fellas, let's just keep our eyes up, okay?

But here's the thing: because Samson has made so many compromise after compromise, because he is so inept at discerning how evil Delilah is, he still goes back.

And finally he tells her, it's my hair.

And so one night he has she has him sleep in some weird position.

She cuts her hair.

The Philistines are here.

And just like he had every other time, Samson thought, I'm gonna be free.

And he wakes up, and one of the scariest sentences in all of the Bible is right here in Judges 16, verse 20.

Judges 16:20

Look at it.

He says, But he did not know that the Lord had left him.

His giftedness couldn't keep covering his godlessness.

His giftedness was not the same thing as godliness.

And he's captured and they gouge his eyes out and they parade him around town like a trophy animal that they've killed.

And they say, Well, why does Samson think that he's gonna get away again on the seventh time?

Because he had every time before.

And the lie that he believed was if I'm still gifted, God must be okay with how I'm living.

But listen to me, friend, just because you are succeeding doesn't mean that the Lord is still with you.

In other words, the absence of consequences is not the same thing as the presence of God's approval.

The absence of consequences in your life is not the same thing as the presence of God's approval.

Your company, it might be growing.

You might be doing more this year than you've ever done.

You might be getting more friends.

You might have just got into that competitive program.

You're getting promoted.

You got a girlfriend.

Your influence is growing.

All that may still be happening while you drift further and further away from the Lord, but nothing bad has happened.

And so we think we think that that means that we're healthy and we're sorely mistaken.

We're reminded of scripture, friend.

You know what scripture says?

God will not be mocked, friend, for whatever one sows, one will reap.

The Lord cares far more about who we are becoming than what we are doing.

And so no matter how impressive we may appear, the words of Jesus ring in our ear.

That man looks at the outer appearance, but it is God who looks at the heart.

Giftedness is not the same thing as godliness.

I get it.

Samson things.

Great sermon, dog.

I think.

I screwed up.

I've wasted my potential.

I've tried to blow my life up.

Samson things, I think.

Great discernment.

Here's the last thing I want you to write down tonight.

The last thing I want you to write down is this is that failure does not have to be the end of your story.

Somebody say amen.

Failure does not have to be the end of your story.

In fact, I want you to turn to the person you're saying next to you.

I want you to tell them failure doesn't have to be the end of your story.

Samson is captured.

He's paraded around.

He's milling grain in the jail.

He's humiliated.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

But there's one little verse, just like 22 that is scary that gets slipped in.

There is one little verse in 22 that gets slipped in that gives us hope.

Look at it in your Bibles.

It says this.

Does his hair actually have the secret and the source of his strength?

Absolutely not.

What does the hair represent?

His consecration and his usefulness by the Lord and the call of his life.

The very thing that noted his separate sense and his life for the Lord.

It's hope.

And for the very first time since we've been introduced to Samson in Judges 13, he is dependent upon the Lord.

Here's what I want you to know.

You ready?

Samson wasted his potential.

Samson squandered his life and his calling.

He hurt other people, he manipulated, he abused, and God wasn't done with him.

And listen to me, friend, can I just preach at you for a minute?

God's not done with you either.

One final time, Samson gets led out to this festival.

The Philistines are worshiping their God, a false God, and they're parading him around.

And they're saying, Look, our great enemy has been delivered to us, and this is so raw-rah.

And they've got the good wine and they got the good steak and they're throwing the party.

And Samson gets led by a servant, and he says, We read it earlier, let lead me against the two pillars so that I might feel them.

And there he pushes over the pillars.

He cries out to God for the first time since we've been introduced, Lord, would you strengthen me?

Every other time he has exercised his gifting, he has never called on the Lord.

This time he calls on the name of the Lord and says, Lord, would you strengthen me one more time?

And he pushes over the pillars and he kills more Philistines in one night than he had his entire life, the Bible says.

And there on that night, that is where he sacrifices his life, but he makes well on the call of God on his life that he would begin to rescue the Israelites from the Philistines.

Because you know what happens?

This moment when he kills all these people is this ripple effect that over the next couple of years, the Israelites are gonna rise up and they're gonna throw off their oppressors.

And exactly what God had called Samson to do to begin to deliver them, he did.

And so much so, you know what's crazy?

That in the Bible, in the New Testament, when we get to the writer of Hebrews, we get this letter.

And in chapter 11, the writer of Hebrews, he lists this hall of faith, and he lists all the people in the Old Testament that are so great.

He lists Abraham and Moses and David and Samuel, all the guys that we've got the poster on, the chapters, the weeks that you studied in Sunday school, the weeks that we all know.

And we he goes on this letter in chapter 11, he says, Hey, I want you to be like these guys.

These guys had faith, these men and women, they are the ones that we need to impl uh you know copy as they copy Jesus.

They're the ones, these are the ones.

And do you know who gets named?

Look at it in Hebrews chapter 11, 32 through 34.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

This is what he says, and what more shall I say?

For time would fail me to tell.

We don't have enough time, friends, to talk about Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah of David and Samuel and the prophets, who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, and put armies to flight.

Hebrews 11, hall of faith.

These are the guys, these are the poster boys.

Samson?

That loser?

The sexually immoral lamo who makes bad decision after bad decision who hurts people and he's deceptive.

That guy in the hall of faith, God still used him.

And listen to me, friend, I'm gonna preach for a minute, okay?

I might need your help if you need me.

I don't care.

Listen to me.

I do not care if you smoked it, if you drink it, if you tried it, I don't care if you have the highest body count of anybody you know.

I don't care if you ruined your life, I don't care if you blew up your life, I don't care if you wasted your scholarship, had an abortion, ran away from God, failure does not have to be the end of your story.

Because my Bible says that God says what God says will happen, will happen.

That he takes broken jars of clay and he uses it for his glory, that there is no valley separate from the presence of God, and there has never been suffering absent from the Lord's purpose.

And if he has placed a call on your life, no matter how screwed up you and I may be, he is not done with you and I.

Somebody say amen.

Do you know why?

Because Hebrews 11 turns into Hebrews chapter 12.

Hebrews 12 · chapter mention

And Hebrews 11 ends with saying, they all didn't get something that you and I got.

And Hebrews chapter 12 says, to fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.

Hebrews 12 · chapter mention

You know what that means, friend?

You're not riding your story.

Almighty God is riding your story.

You are not the perfecter of your faith.

Jesus is the perfector of your faith.

And so what the enemy meant for evil, God meant for good.

And so that means just when you and I think, it's over for me, friend, I can't be used anymore.

I'm not done to be used by God anymore.

Jesus looks at you and he says, I'm riding this story, friend.

You're not writing this story.

I'm the perfecter of faith.

I'm the one who waits the test.

You're not the one who waits the test.

I am.

So so listen to me.

I want you to turn to the person you're sitting next to.

I want you to say, God's not done with you.

Listen, this is my prayer, like to my core, to my heart.

Like, there is a call of God on you.

There is a call of God on this place.

And it's why he can take a loser like me who chases getting drunk and getting high and having sex with girls, and he can turn them into his mouthpiece.

So don't listen to the lie of the evil one.

That every time you screw up, God's done with you.

Don't listen to the lie that you he doesn't have a plan for you because he does have a plan for you.

Because can I just tell you what my Bible says?

That my Bible says that God is the one who can redeem any situation.

He's the one that parted the Red Sea.

He raised Jesus from the dead, he walked on water, he fed 5,000 people with two loaves and five fishes.

He can do anything he wants, friend.

And you think you are so prideful to think that your situation, your screw up is the one thing that God Almighty can't change.

So my prayer for you is that we would step in to this call.

Maybe you're not gonna be a Nazirite.

Maybe you won't have to keep your hair long forever like Bowman.

Maybe you don't have to abstain from eating certain food or whatever.

But what I'm telling you is that God has placed a call on your life to be the mouthpiece of God where He has put you.

I believe that God has placed a call on your life to be pastors and missionaries and ministers and ministry leaders and to go build churches and make an impact for kingdom that's far greater than whatever thing we can build by ourselves.

So, yes, be warned.

God is not mocked.

Whatever we sow, we will reap.

A small compromise is not a small compromise.

There is no such thing as partial sin, and Samson was not immune from facing the consequences of his actions.

But the lesson of Samson should make us ask who am I becoming?

Who am I giving access to my heart?

And what is the call of God on my life?

Amen.

God, we're thankful for who you are and for who you've done for us.

God, we're thankful that you were God and that we are not.

God, we're thankful for your grace and for your mercy.

That you take thankfully, people like us.

We need to fix us with small compromises that we're making in our life.

And we want to walk out of EDF.

And God, would you help us to protect against the life of the evil in the ship?

You're done with us whenever we should be able to do it.

God, because there is no situation too far gone, there is no valley too far from your presence, and there is no suffering separate from your presence.

Which is we love you, we trust you, we sin you're holy, you trust you in my train.

Oh my gosh, you can say Silverdale for 18 and 25 year olds.

We gather on Thursday nights at 8 p.m.

in Chattanooga, Tennessee.