Men's Luncheon - FBC Administrator Trey Overton - April 5, 2026

I'm going to go ahead and get us going so we can get everybody out of here.

Let's go to the Lord in prayer.

Father, we thank you for this day.

We praise you, God, for this time together, this fellowship, the food.

We praise you, God, for just, you know, we just got finished up with Easter and being able to reflect on what you've done for us, God.

Not just the sacrifice, but the resurrection as well, Father, and that we have life through you.

And we just praise you for that, God.

And we just pray that you be with us today, God, and lead us in all we do in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Alright, so just kind of continuing on uh on the Bible recap.

Is everybody happy to be out of Judges?

Anybody happy?

I uh I actually, whenever we go through Judges, it just it's kind of a uh, you know, we go through Deuteronomy, you know, come out of Exodus, Vicus, Deuteronomy, going to Judges, and we're just seeing this cycle, right?

Israel, you know, they're um they submit to God and they're going good, and then all of a sudden they let something come in, and then next thing you know, they're turning away from God.

And you're just like, man, when are these guys gonna figure it out?

Right?

And then we have, and you we read through the book of Judges, and it's interesting to me how you have some judges that have chapters, full chapters, multi-chapters, you know, of information about, and then we have some that you get, you know, me and Lance were talking about the other day, you get one verse, right?

And it's just interesting.

Um uh, but today I want to spend a little time just following up.

You know, we had Easter this last Sunday, and um I I kind of want to look at um kind of the aftermath of what it looks like to be a follower of Christ and and what that looks like, and some some things that we can do as followers.

Um I mean, his death and his resurrection paid victory, uh gave us victory over death, and and and that eternal punishment that came from sin.

And we have a choice to follow him as Lord, right?

Um he gives us that free gift of eternal life, and and we have a choice to follow him.

And whether you follow him or not, whether you choose to follow him or not, um, it really, either way, you're in a spiritual battle right now.

If you're sitting in this room and you have not decided to follow Christ as your Lord and Savior, you're in a spiritual battle.

If you're a follower of Christ and you made that choice, you're in a spiritual battle, no matter what.

Right?

We're in it.

And it and you could choose to ignore the battle, you could choose to um ignore it, or maybe you don't know anything about it, well then the enemy probably has you right where you want you, right?

Um but today I want to look, use uh use Jeptah and his relationship and his battle with the Ephraimites to kind of give us some uh tools, I should say, and some ways that we can fight this battle.

Um, and just to give us some context, Jeptah, uh as we were reading, he is a judge of the nation of Israel for the uh for the Gileadites, um, for the nation or for the tribe of Gilead.

Uh Israel once again turned from the Lord and were serving other gods, just like they did often, right?

And it was like generation after generation, they were turning from God, and then they all of a sudden something happened, they'd go, they'd start being attacked, and oh God, we need you now, right?

You know, that was that was going on.

Um but to just kind of give some context to Jephthah, Jeptah was a uh he was an illegitimate child.

And because of that, is you know, he was cast out, right?

He was he he was they said you you can't partake in this inheritance and be a part of our tribe, and he was cast out.

Um and then all of a sudden the and the Ammonites and the Philistines, they were coming in and they were attacking um the nation of Gilead or the tribe of Gilead, and they were like, they didn't have anybody else.

But Jephthah was known as a mighty warrior.

That was what he was known for.

So even though he was an illegitimate child, they were like, hey, we'd like to have you back, right?

Even though we kicked you out and kicked you out of your inheritance, we'd like to have you back because, hey, we need your help to fight this battle.

And he was like, Well, um I mean, if I can have my inheritance back, right?

And I'll agree and I'll come if that's all gonna be, if we're all on the same terms, right?

Um, just like Jephthah was kicked out of his inheritance, um, he was an illegitimate child and all that stuff, but you know, we also were kicked out of our inheritance because of sin.

Right?

Because of sin, we couldn't partake in our inheritance.

That's why we needed Christ.

That's why you need Christ today.

We couldn't partake in that.

We were actually, we're we, you look in the New Testament in the letters of Paul, we're actually called adopted children, right?

We're adopted children.

And in Colossians, it says that he has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints of light.

He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sin.

Because of Christ and what he did, and this is kind of what we talked about Resurrection Sunday, because of what he did, now we have the opportunity to share in this inheritance.

Just like Jephthah, he had an opportunity.

Now he could have said no.

He said, No, y'all kicked me out of my inheritance, y'all told me I wasn't good enough because I was an illegitimate child.

You told me all this, I'm not going to accept it.

He could have done that.

But instead, what did he do?

He chose to come and take his inheritance and lead them into battle.

We have this opportunity to accept this inheritance by following Christ as your Lord and Savior.

Right?

So once Jephthah has secured his inheritance, once he secured his inheritance, um he didn't, he couldn't just say, hey, yeah, I'll be your leader and then go sit back, right?

No, what did he have to do?

He had to go fight.

That's his whole purpose.

He was going there, he was going to fight a battle.

We have to do the same things as believers.

We have to go, once we accept our inheritance, we have to go and we have to fight this battle, this spiritual battle that we are in.

Like I said, whether you like it or not.

So we're going to look at Judges chapter 12 here.

Judges 12 · chapter mention

And it says, The men of Ephraim were called to arms, and they crossed to Zephon and said to Jephthah, Why did you cross over to fight against the Ammonites?

And did you not call us to go with you?

We will burn your house over with fire.

And Jephtha said to them, I and my people had a great dispute with the Ammonites, and when I called you, you did not save me from their hand.

And when I saw that you would not save me, I took my life into my hand and crossed over against the Ammonites, and the Lord gave them into my hand.

Why then have you come to me this day to fight against me?

Then Jeptah gathered all the men of Gilead and fought with Ephraim, and the men of Gilead struck Ephraim, because they said, You are fugitives of Ephraim, you Gileadites, in the midst of Ephraim and Menesseh.

And the Gileadites captured the fords of the Jordan against the Ephraimites.

And when any of the fugitives of Ephraim said, Let me go over, the men of Gilead said to him, Are you an Ephraimite?

And he said, No.

They would say to him, Then say, Shibaleth.

And he said, Sibeleth, for he could not pronounce it right.

Then he seized him and slaughtered him at the fords of the Jordan.

And at that time forty-two thousand of the Ephraimites fell.

Jephthah judged Israel six years, then Jephthon the Gileadite died and was buried in the city of Gilead.

So just a little bit more context here.

When Jeptah was called, and like I said, the Ammonites, I said it earlier, the Ammonites and the Philistines were attacking them and were causing a lot of trouble, right?

They went to Jephthah and said, Hey, you're a mighty warrior, will you lead us?

They were doing this for 18 years.

And there were several tribes affected by this that were being attacked.

If you read right there in Judges, it includes Reuben, Gad, Manasseh, Judah, Benjamin, Ephraim.

All of these people were affected by these attacks.

They were all being, whether they were directly being attacked or whatever, they were all affected by this, it says.

And it went on for 18 years, right?

And whenever Jephthah it says right here in this passage, he said, whenever I went over to fight these people, I sought you out.

I said, Hey man, will you come help us?

And what did they do?

They turned them down.

And but Jephthah went on and he crossed the river there.

He had a cross in front of Ephraim.

So he had a cross in front of Ephraim to go over there and fight.

He crossed over and he fought, right?

So here we are in this battle.

It's a you know a battle within two tribes, right, that are fighting each other.

And what does he do?

What does Jephtha do to secure the victory?

He took the fort, right?

Does anybody here know what a Ford is?

Anybody here know what a Ford is?

When I was growing up, I I grew up in Southwest Arkansas, and we used to go ride four-wheelers on the Little Missouri River.

And uh we used to go, it was a popular place, we all of us went to it, had four-wheeler trails running through there, and they called it the Ford.

I never knew why it was called that.

I thought, well, maybe the guy that owns the property's last name is Ford, or maybe there's an old broken down Ford pickup there.

I don't know.

But it turns out a Ford is a low water crossing in a river.

That's what it means.

So in this in on the Little Missouri River, the normal river run where the normal river runs is probably about 12 to 15 feet in the center, and this is probably about the same size as the Jordan is.

You know, it's probably about 12 to 15 feet deep in the center that runs to the main channel, and it's probably about a hundred feet wide.

It's a pretty good sized river.

Um it's nothing like the Arkansas River, but it's a good sized river.

Now, the lower water cross, when we rode four-wheelers at the Ford, you could walk through it and it was knee deep.

So you could ride a four-wheeler across.

It was you were able to get across without sinking it, right?

Um this area that they captured was a low water area, it was the Ford.

Um, and it was a it was a vital piece to um to what you know, anything that they did, right?

If you were trading, if you were doing anything military-wise, this would have been a vital piece of the river.

They would have wanted protect that, right?

Because if you didn't, if you didn't have access to that crossing, then you would have to go around, you'd have to figure out how to get horses and carry uh chariots and all that stuff in across a 10 to 12 foot deep river.

You would have had to figure out all that stuff out.

So this was a shallow crossing that everybody wouldn't have to cross.

And it happened to be right there in front of Ephraim.

That was they had control over it, right?

Now, they allowed, didn't say anything when Jephthah crossed the river to go over there and fight the people that were attacking them, right?

They they didn't have any problem with that, they just pretty much ignored it.

And then when they started having disputes, they didn't pay any attention to the importance that that ford was.

Um and we have Fords in our lives, right?

These these high traffic, these high uh we spend a lot things that we spend a lot of time in, areas in our life that are overlooked, right?

That we have that impacts us on a daily basis.

Um and and I kind of I started talking about when I started this message, I started talking about the spiritual battle, but it's a huge part of this spiritual battle we're in, and it's overlooked.

I mean, how many people here drive a lot for work?

A few of us, right?

What what do you spend your time listening to on the radio?

If you spend a lot of time at home watching TV, what what's what's on the TV?

And it's and I'm not sitting here saying that you can't watch TV or listen to the radio or you can only listen to one thing, but those things make a big impact in your life.

Those things they affect you, they affect what you're listening to.

I mean, music by itself is I mean, people use it for walkout songs and sports and stuff like that because it's scientifically proven that it affects how you, your mood, it affects how you think, it affects how you act, right?

I'll tell you one, and those that's just a small example.

I'll tell you one for me, it's always been, and we were kind of just talking about this, it's always been hobbies.

Hobbies has always been my Ford.

Um, and and I say that I grew up hunting and fishing.

Like that's that's what I did.

That was my hobby.

I did it a lot, and I still do.

Um, but growing up, uh, you know, I had a lot of buddies in high school and in college that I hunt and fished with that it was it was just kind of how we socialized and stuff, but they really weren't people that I had any business spending time with.

And I'd love to sit here and tell you that I was able to preach the gospel to them.

I would love to be able to sit here and tell you that I was able to make a positive impact in their life, and and and maybe I did a little bit.

But the reality is more times than not, they drugged me down.

More times than not, I ended up just doing whatever it is that they were doing.

And in my head, I was just going and spending time doing my hobby, but really their influence caused me to do things that I shouldn't be doing, right?

Partake in sin and whatever.

Um, and so I say that's kind of my first point in this message.

What are the forwards in your life?

Like what are these areas, these things that you spend a lot of time in that you really just overlook?

Because we all have them, whether we like it or not.

And whenever we submit to Christ, whenever we give Christ our life, whenever we say, Hey, you know, I've given you my life as my Lord and Savior, we're not just giving him the few minutes in the morning when we get up and pray and maybe read our Bible a little bit, or before we go to bed and we say our prayer.

We're not just giving him those few minutes, we're giving him our whole life.

And that includes the time that you spend in the evenings watching TV.

That is that includes the time that you're driving in your car, that includes times that you're uh spending with your family and friends.

That includes whenever you go to the golf course and you make a bad swing and we want to say stuff that we probably shouldn't say, right?

That includes all those things.

And these are the fords in our lives, the things that we overlook.

And just like the Ephraimites, they overlooked the importance of this low water crossing and ended up being detrimental to them.

These areas of our life are detrimental to us.

And we overlook them every day.

And what'd they say?

No, you know, and then he had to go and take take things matters in his own his own hands.

But at this point, the Ephraimites, and I'm not gonna point fingers in here, but the Ephraimites are kind of like that friend that, you know, show up whenever the work's almost done or is done, right?

And and want us want to partake in the the victory, like, you know, um, or or you know, get the pizza when it when it all shows up after we're all done with the work, right?

They're that friend, um, at this point in time, anyways.

And uh because they did it, because this wasn't the only time they did it.

Um uh Gideon, which we just had a sermon on him, Gideon, they did the same thing with Gideon, right?

The Gideon's pretty much done with battle, and they show up and they and they come in and they fight that last little bit, but whenever he first goes over there, they weren't gonna join them, right?

But Gideon was, you know, he he kind of smooth things over and he said, Oh, I'm sorry, I should include you sooner, you know.

Hey, it's okay.

You can have, you can partake in the spoils of victory.

But here, Jeff does not have enough.

He's like, No, you didn't go over there and fight with us, right?

You didn't come over there and join us in battle.

Why are you gonna enjoy the spoils of victory when you weren't even there to help us, right?

And I say all that to say is we need to be paying attention to who our allies are.

Who are the people that are willing to go to battle with you?

Because you look at the tables in this room, the people you're sitting across from, these are guys that, you know, the people that come to these things, you they really need to be the people that are going to go to battle with you to help you fight these fords in your life.

All right, to help you fight the spiritual battles that you go in.

And it may not be, maybe, and it's not always just the fords, the things that you overlook, you know, these low water areas.

Sometimes it's big things.

We go through big things in life that we need to be helping each other through, right?

And it and it doesn't need it doesn't need to be a friend that's just gonna show up when all the work's done and say, hey man, that was awesome.

I'm glad you got through that.

That was great.

No, it needs to be somebody that's willing, whenever you bring it up, is willing to step into battle with you, check in on you, call you in the morning and text you in the morning and say, Hey man, I'm praying for you this morning.

I know that you're dealing with this.

You've got this today.

You know, just encouragement, right?

We need to be doing that for each other.

We need to be allies for each other and be willing to step in to battle.

And that kind of goes back to this bottom part right here.

Are you an ally?

You know, we're always searching for that in our lives, but are we being that for somebody else?

When somebody reaches out to you, are you just saying, hey man, I'll pray for you, and then not reaching back out and not checking in with them or anything else?

Because we're easy, that's easy to do, right?

Hey man, I'll pray for you.

That's man, that's an awful thing.

I'm so sorry.

And then we may see them at church the next week and we didn't give another thought about it.

We do that all the time, right?

Are you being an ally?

Are you reaching out to people?

If somebody tells you they're going through something, are you stepping into battle with them?

Because this is a spiritual battle.

This battle is hard enough as it is on our own to try to do it without somebody's help, without to try to do it with each other's support.

I mean, the guys in this room, this should be your support system, right?

Ephraim, they should have stepped into battle.

And when they saw Jefftah coming across the river and he reaches out to them, they should have been like, Yeah, they've been attacking us for years.

Let's go.

But they didn't, right?

They were like, I you go take care of it.

If you need any help, call us later, you know.

Jeffta took it into his own hands.

The other thing that Jepta did after, you know, of course, he gets into this interaction with Ephraim and he takes the Ford and all that.

What does he do?

He creates like this litmus test, right?

That whenever somebody's crossing the river, they have to say a word in a specific way in order to get cross that that kind of tells them whether he's an ally or not.

Um it actually more, it doesn't really identify the allies, it really identifies the enemies, right?

It identifies the enemy, which is Ephraim at this point.

It identifies who is not a part of what they're doing.

And my point in this is that we need to be just as diligent at pointing out the enemy that is in our life.

We're talking, we're talking about the low water areas, the forwards in our life, the things that we don't pay attention to.

We need to be able to name those things that are the enemy in our life right now.

You know, am I spending too much time going to play golf?

Am I spending too much time on my hobbies and not enough time reaching out to my brothers in Christ?

Am I spending too much time?

Those are things, that's that's the enemy.

That's the things that we need to be able to point across, point out, point across that's uh that that we're going across right now.

And sometimes they're easier to point out than others.

Sometimes, sometimes they're kind of hard to recognize.

Um and and this is kind of my my closing on this.

Sometimes it's hard to recognize who the enemy is.

And we saw Jephthah when they did this, it says that um if they couldn't say a word a certain way, then they then they killed him right there.

It showed it said that they killed 42,000 men.

Now, what are the odds that somebody came through and actually was part of the tribe of Gilead and just had a speech impediment or something?

You know, couldn't say it right.

And we kind of think that's silly, but I mean what it what if?

You know, how strict were they?

How strict were they?

You know, how how did they if somebody came through and they just couldn't say right at all, was it just like you can't say it right, you're done.

Um I I when I look at the number 42,000 men killed, I kind of think it was black or white.

If you couldn't tell you the word, they killed you.

Right?

And I think, and that kind of brings me to this last point, we have to be that serious about sin.

We have to be.

We have to be that serious about sin.

We have to be serious, that serious about the spiritual battle we're in, and we have to be serious about pointing out the enemy in our life, pointing out these these areas in our life that we're overlooking because we just got done with the resurrection Sunday, but God takes sin that seriously.

He took it so seriously that he had to come to earth.

He sent his only son to die on the cross for this sin.

He takes it seriously, and we need to be taking it that seriously too.

So are we compromising?

Are, you know, we may recognize, we we may recognize these forwards in our lives, these these areas in our lives where we're kind of that's our area.

That's my area.

You know, golfing on Fridays, you know, with the with the guys, that's my area, and I get to do with that however I want to.

Um what I listen to on the radio and watch on TV, you know, that's my area, and then I read my Bible and I pray in the mornings, but that's my time.

You know, I keep that separate, and and it's okay.

As long as I do good over here, then this sin is not a big deal, right?

But the reality is we shouldn't be compromising anything.

Anything.

God takes sin that seriously.

We need to be taking sin.

That's all parts of our lives.

So this week I want to challenge you to think about that.

Think about the the areas in your life that you're overlooking, that you're just keeping to yourself, that you know you are being influenced by the enemies.

Spend time pointing out the enemy.

Spend time calling it out and recognizing it and spend time finding out who your allies are, who's ready to go to battle with you.

If you don't have somebody, let's find somebody.

Let's do that together.

Let's go to the Lord in prayer.

Father, we thank you for this day.

We praise you.

We thank you for your blessings, God, for your for your mercy, Father.

Um, and we praise you for uh we just got done with Resurrection Sunday.

There again, God, your your sacrifice for us and and our ability to have a relationship with you.

I pray that um you continue to lift us up and encourage us, Father, that we um are unified as a body, as men in this body of Christ, God, in this church.

I pray that we are unified and that we are reaching out to each other, Father.

Um, give us wisdom in that in peace in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Thank you, guys.