Superman vs. Jesus

Posted on March 29, 2018 by dkoop

Who is greater Superman (Samson) or Christ?

We’ve referred to Samson as Superman because he killed a lion with his bare hands, killed a thousand enemy soldiers with a donkey’s jawbone, and ripped up city gates weighing thousands of pounds placed them on his back and walked up a hill with them.  He pushed down the pillars of a giant coliseum triumphing over his enemies while taking his own life.

Sampson is a type[i] of Christ.  Note the parallel between the life of Samson and that of Jesus Christ:

Comparison:

  1. Both births were miraculous
  2. Both births were foretold by angelic visitors.
  3. Both had the divine purpose of being a deliverer for their people
  4. Both moved in the power of the Holy Spirit.
  5. Both performed miraculous deeds.
  6. Both were rejected by their own people.
  7. Both were sold out or betrayed by a person close to them for pieces of silver.
  8. Both were mocked and ridiculed publicly
  9. Both suffered publicly and died with people watching.
  10. Both had victory their enemies.

Contrast:

  1. Samson’s mom was barren, Jesus’ mother was a virgin.
  2. Samson began to deliver his people from the Philistines; Jesus delivers all people from Satan.
  3. Samson lived a life of sin and failure; Jesus’ life was sinless.
  4. Samson had selfish motives for his miraculous deeds; Jesus motives for his miraculous were to help people and glorify God.
  5. Samson only prayed when we was in trouble.  Jesus prayed daily and often in fellowship with the Father.
  6. Samson was a loner with no friends; Jesus had 12 disciples and many followers.
  7. Samson carried city gates weighing thousands of pounds up a hill.  Jesus carried a cross up to Golgotha then carried the WHOLE weight of the world’s sin.
  8. Samson at the time of death prayed, “O God, let me get revenge on the Philistines for my two eyes.” Jesus prayed, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”
  9. In death, Samson’s arms were outstretched in revenge; In death, Jesus’ arms were outstretched in love.
  10. Samson died. Jesus Christ lives!

Christ is alive! We will celebrate this great truth on Easter!

I hope you can join us.

Darrell

 

[i] “Type” is a theological term meaning Events, persons, or statements in the Old Testament are seen as types pre-figuring or superseded by antitypes, events or aspects of Christ or his revelation described in the New Testament. For example, Jonah may be seen as the type of Christ in that he emerged from the fish’s belly and thus appeared to rise from death.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typology_(theology)

Additional Sources:  Thru The Bible with J. Vernon McGee for 4 of the 10 on this list.

Andy Edson from our Teaching Team who added, “Samson carried the gates, Jesus carried our sins.”

 

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Staying Strong After Failure

Posted on March 28, 2018 by dkoop

What do we do when we realize we’ve blown it? What happens when we realize there some things that we can’t undo? When we’re embarrassed by our actions, when we’ve hurt the people that we love, and we didn’t listen to God or anyone else?   Many of us take this kind of failure very personally.

Today we can learn from Samson, the superman of the bible what do when we fail in massive ways. Samson’s story is told in Judges 13-16.  Samson was given so much by God, yet his story shows that he did more wrong than he did right; he had more failures than victories.   He was extremely strong physically yet incredibly weak morally, relationally and spiritually.  His story shows us that it’s not so much how we start but how we end that counts.  It’s not so much about failure but what we do after that matters.

Here’s a partial list of his failures, he was set apart by God to be a Nazarite.  The Nazarite Vow is found in Numbers 6: 1-21.  To summarize: he was to never cut his hair, never touch a dead body and never to touch anything related to a grape vine.  He broke all of these vows.  In addition he didn’t listen to his parents, he was a loner without any friends, he joked with, partied with and tried to marry the enemy.   He had a temper, he killed people and he lived for revenge.  He frequently visited prostitutes and he ran to temptation instead of away from it.

What did all this get him?  He was betrayed by a woman he claimed to love, he was captured by the enemy, the Philistines his eyes were burned out and he was now a slave grinding grain with a millstone like a beast of burden.  He was mocked and ridiculed.  One commentator has said, “Sin is blinding, binding and grinding.”  For Samson it didn’t get any lower than this.   What does he do now?

23  Now the rulers of the Philistines assembled to offer a great sacrifice to Dagon their god and to celebrate, saying, “Our god has delivered Samson, our enemy, into our hands.” …
25  While they were in high spirits, they shouted, “Bring out Samson to entertain us.” So they called Samson out of the prison, and he performed for them. When they stood him among the pillars, Judges 16:23-25 (NIV)

At this low point, I believe that Samson was praying while he grinding. I believe he was confessing his wrongs.  He was getting right with God.  We will see that he comes to a point in his life where he remembers who he was created to be. “I wasn’t created to be a beast of burden, blinded and made fun of.  I wasn’t created to be entertainment to my enemies; I was created and set apart by God to do something significant.”

I pray that we all realize that we are greater than our failures.  Just because we failed at something does not mean that we are a failure. To fail is to be human.  Only Jesus is perfect.

A failure is an event, not a person.

We’re going to see in Samson’s life, a guy who failed over and over and then when it looks like he failed way too much for God to ever even love him much less use him, we’re going to watch and see a God who still accomplishes His purposes through a man that repeatedly could not get it right.

Here’s some good news. Just because you’re down, you are not out! If you failed at something, you are not a failure, because a failure is an event not a person.

Now, there are two responses to failure:

Our Natural Response is Remorse.

Remorse, “I feel bad about what I did, I shouldn’t have done it, I’m a bad person.” Sometimes remorse will turn inward, “I’m horrible, I’m no good, I’m the worst person who has ever lived, I have no future, I hate myself, I hate my life!” and it turns inward.

Other times, it turns outward to blame.  “I’m the victim and it’s someone else’s fault.” It’s, “This wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t…”, and “I didn’t ask for this!” and It’s all Delilah’s fault”

What if instead of turning inward, outward we turn upward?

Our Best Response is Repentance.

There is remorse, the natural response; there is blame, but the better response is repentance. “I own it, it’s my fault, I blew it.”

“I’m turning away from that which I did wrong and I’m turning toward that which is right.” That’s repentance.

Most of us don’t ruin our lives all at once. How do we do it? One step at a time. And if we’re going in the wrong direction, what do we do? Turn to God.   Remorse focuses on the bad. Blame focuses on other people. Repentance turns from the lower, that which is higher; ‘re’ means turn, ‘pent’ means the highest, we turn from our lower, sinful ways, and turn back to God’s higher ways. It’s not just, “I feel bad about this”, but “I’m turning completely to God to let him redeem me to his divine purposes.”

All of us, we’re going to do some things we can’t undo. One day we will all come to the horrible realization, that we can’t unsay what we said, we can’t undo what we did, but we can repent.   Not, “I’m sorry, I got caught.” But, “I was wrong, God I confess and am turning to your ways not mine.

Repentance says, “I’m not going to let what I did stop me from doing what God wants me to do.

We cannot change our past, but we can change our future. If we’re down, we’re not out.  Don’t internalize the failure; we are not what we did, we are who God says we are. And watch as Samson realizes this

26  Samson said to the servant who held his hand, “Put me where I can feel the pillars that support the temple, so that I may lean against them.”  27  Now the temple was crowded with men and women; all the rulers of the Philistines were there, and on the roof were about three thousand men and women watching Samson perform.  28  Then Samson prayed to the LORD, “O Sovereign LORD, remember me. O God, please strengthen me just once more, and let me with one blow get revenge on the Philistines for my two eyes.” Judges 16:26-28 (NIV)

“God please strengthen me just ONE MORE TIME.”   ‘I’ve blown it a thousand times, but I don’t need a thousand more chances. I’ve blown it too many times to count, but I don’t need multiple opportunities. God, all I need from you is one more chance. One time God, one time. Just find it in your mercy to give me your strength just this once more.

He’s broken. It’s no longer about Samson, now it’s all about God. “From this moment forward, whatever I have left I will give it all to the God who gave me all that I have.”  And he steps across the line and he says, ‘I’m no longer the main character of this story, my God is the main character of this story and everything that I have I will use to honor him just one more time.’

Here Samson is at the lowest point; massive public humiliation. Nobody believes there’s anything good in this guy, and internally he has a private moment with God just as some of you will have. “Just one more time God, one more chance. You give me Your strength and I will use the rest of my life to leverage what You give me for Your glory and for Your goodness.”

30  Then he pushed with all his might, and down came the temple on the rulers and all the people in it. Thus he killed many more when he died than while he lived. Judges 16:30 (NIV)

Samson was born to “begin to deliver his people from the Philistines.”  He did what he was created to do!  But he did it best when he was yielded to God.  What more could we accomplish with God’s help rather than doing it on our own?

Are you ready to repent and turn to God s ways instead of your own?

This story shows us that even in our failures, God can still use us. Even though we’ve messed up, it’s not over yet. We are not what we did; we are who God says we are.

The enemy loves to make the strong weak; but our God loves to make the weak strong!  Let’s not just try to improve ourselves to be a better people, let’s be God’s people!  People who say, “It’s no longer about me, it’s all about Him.”

In the New Testament book of Hebrews, Samson’s life is summarized by saying, “who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised.”

Samson was called faithful even though most of his life wasn’t.  Will you join fellow failure like me to turn to God and be faithful?

Darrell

 

 

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We Can Be Transformed By God

Posted on March 23, 2018 by dkoop

In the last post we saw that God often puts us through tests.   We may not like it but there’s an important point in our story:  Power in our Christian life always comes after testing not before.  We all need power to break bad habits and power to live as Christ has called us to.  The path to power is through a test.

In Luke 4, Jesus demonstrates this for us.  Luke records that Jesus was full of the Spirit and He was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil.  For forty days He went without food and He was in the middle of the desert.  And the devil tempted Him.  Jesus was perfect but was still tested.  It was a tremendous test.  Notice in below in Luke 4:1 how Jesus went into the test and in Luke 4:13 how Jesus came out of the test forty days later.

Luke 4:1 “Jesus, full of the Holy spirit, returned from the Jordan.  He was led by the Spirit in the desert.”  Does the Spirit lead us into testing sometimes?  Yes, definitely.  Sometimes God specifically leads us into a test.  “Where for forty days he was tempted by the devil.”  It says he was led of the Spirit and He was full of the Spirit going in.

But look at how he came out.  Luke 4:13 “At the end of forty days when the devil had finished all his tempting he left him until an opportune time.  And Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit.”  The way that we get power in our Christian life is by passing the tests.

How do you handle tests?  When you have a trial in your life, do you get cranky and irritable?  Cuss God out?  Say, “I’m not going to be a follower of Christ anymore!” And quit church?  How do you handle the irritations in your life?  If we handle them incorrectly, we may have to take the test again.  If we pass we grow in power!

After the test, that’s where Gideon receives God’s power in his life.  Judges 6:34 “Then the Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon.”  Now he’s ready for service, ready to be a leader.  God says, I’m going to help you. I’m going to put my power in your life.  He’d promised His Spirit, now it’s a reality.  The secret of Gideon’s life is that now God is working through him.  “The Spirit came upon Gideon” literally in Hebrew means “the spirit clothed himself with Gideon.”  It’s like saying “Gideon, I’m going to take over your body.”  God works in the world but he does it through people that are usable.  God and Gideon — one plus God equals a majority.  Now he had the power, now he had the confidence, now he had the strength to take on this mighty army. And the Spirit was going to help him.  Gideon was transformed by God’s Spirit from fearful to faithful, from loser into a leader.

Gideon responded correctly.  When we read the rest of Judges 6 and 7 we have the conclusion of the story.  Gideon was now ready. He was transformed into a leader.  He goes out, blows a trumpet and says, “Everybody rally around!” and thousands of people rallied around him — a man, who a few weeks before, was in the bottom of a wine press hiding out.  He cries out, “Who wants to follow the Lord into battle?” and 32,000 people showed up!

God says, “Gideon, that’s too many people.  I want you to thin the ranks.”  That doesn’t make sense.  It tells us that the enemy had 135,000 in their army.  They were camped out in the valley in their tents with their camels.  Thirty-two thousand is still grossly under rated compared to 135,000 in a battle.  God said, “That’s too many because I don’t want the people to get the credit for it.  I’ll take the credit.  It’s going to be a miracle.  So, Gideon, you tell every one of those 32,000 people who are afraid to go home.”  So Gideon gets up and says, “Everybody who’s afraid, go home!” and 22,000 went home. Evidently there were a lot of people like Gideon during this time.

God said, “That’s still too many.  I want you to do a test.  Take them down to the river.  Those who get down and lay on their stomachs to get a drink, drinking straight out of the water, send them home.  Those who hold their spear to their side and lap up water with their hands, and keep looking for the enemy, those are the trained ones.”  Some were careless and some were careful.

So he took them down and gave them that test and sent another 9,700 home.  That left 300 men.  God not only often uses unlikely people, he uses an unlikely strategy!  Three hundred men against 135,000 are odds of about 450 to one.

Then God says, “Here are the tools you’re going to take into battle.  Number one, give every one of those 300 men a clay pot.  Gideon must have thought,  “Of course Lord!  I’ve always thought clay pots were a very effective weapon!”  Then not only that, give everybody a horn.  Gideon could have thought “Of course!  That’s standard issue weapons a horn and a clap pot!”  And number three, “give everybody a torch.”

In the middle of the night, Gideon takes his little band of 300 men and circle around the valley and spread out into a complete circle.  Each man with his torch lit but the clay pot over it so that the light would not shine out.  God says to Gideon, “When I say `Go!’ you tell the men to blow the trumpets, to shout `For the Lord and for Gideon!’ and to break the clay pots.  Why?  That will make a noise which the enemy won’t know what it is; it will scare them.  The light will shine out and just a few men will look like thousands.  In their panic the enemy will begin to fight each other.”

That is exactly what happened.  Gideon gave the shout, they cried out, they blew the trumpets, they made the statements, they broke the pots, the light shone out and the Midianites woke up, began running around in their tents with their pajamas on, pulling out their swords and began to fight each other.  Judges records that over a hundred thousand soldiers were killed that day while the Israelites stood there and watched!  It was psychological warfare of the finest degree.  The little group looked like a thousand.  It was a tremendous victory.

Gideon became a national hero, someone who a few weeks before was afraid of his own shadow.  That’s how God works in our lives.

Do you think God could use you in a way like that?  We always live up to our view of ourselves.  If not, God has to start with a new view of you.

Some of us are at number 1 and need encouragement. We talk at church about how we need to believe in God.  True, but God also believes in you!  The Bible says, “We love because he first loved us.”  And God is saying, “I know you.  I made you.  I see your potential.  I know that you’re only using two percent of your brain capacity.  And you ain’t seen nothing yet!”

I think the whole point Gideon’s life is that we limit God by our own unbelief.  God could do so much more in our lives than we have ever imagined if we’ll be available.  Let God give us a glimpse of our potential.  We can do something significant for God.

Some of us are at number 2.  We are ready to experience God personally.  Maybe you’ve had a religion but you’ve never had a relationship.  God wants to know you.  Jesus said, `I have called you My friends.‘  He wants you to know Him personally, be able to just drive down the freeway and say, `Lord, here’s what’s on my heart today’ and talk to Him.  No thee’s or thou’s or fancy phrases.  Make a simple prayer of commitment in your heart, “Father, I want to know You.  Jesus Christ, make yourself real to me and let me have an encounter with God.”

Some of us are at number 3 and we’re getting ready to enter a test.  It’s a test of compromise.  Will you compromise what you believe?  It may be a test at work.  It may be a test at home.  It may be a test at school.  What’s going to have first place in your life?  Status?  Career?  Money?  Things? What’s going to have first place in your life?  Anything that is not God that’s in first place becomes an idol.  Maybe you need to do some spiritual housecleaning.  Say, “Lord, what is the Baal in my backyard?  What is it that competes for my time and energy, that really replaces You?”  Is it the search for a spouse?  Is it the search for a new job?  Is it trying to become famous?  What is it, Lord, that competes with You in my life?”  We like to compromise.  We want the best of both worlds. Yet God says, “I want total allegiance.”

Some of us are ready for number 4 to be transformed.  Are you trying to fight God’s battles in your power and you’re tired?  We need God’s Spirit in our lives.  If we’ve committed our life to Christ, the Holy Spirit is in our life.  Now we need to depend on His power.  It’s not only onetime experience where all of a sudden God zaps us and for the rest of our lives we’re super Christians.  It’s also a moment by moment experience where we daily say, “Lord, I need Your strength in my life.  Spirit, live through me.”

Gideon was a fearful individual who became faithful and powerful when he trusted God.  Will you join me in trusting God?

Darrell

 

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God Will Test Us

Posted on March 22, 2018 by dkoop

Struggling with a low self-esteem? Filled with fear and anxiety?  God will encourage us and God will give us his presence, but unfortunately God will also test us!  God gave Gideon a test and God will test you and me.  Before God will ever use us in a significant way He will test us.  There will always be a test before God can use you in a significant way.  It’s test of whether you’re really going to trust God and obey him.  This is what happened in Gideon’s life.

The background of the story is that during this time of oppression and depression in Israel, they had decided to take in everybody else’s false gods.  They were trying to worship God and idols at the same time.  They were compromising their faith.  God said, “Gideon, I have a task for you to do.  Before you do anything else, I want you to go and tear down the idol that your dad built — the false god that’s in your little village.”  v. 25 “That same night the Lord said to him, `Take the second bull from your father’s herd, one of seven years old and tear down your father’s altar to Baal and cut down the Asherah [which was another god.  Baal was a fertility god.  It was a sexual cult] Then build the proper kind of altar to the Lord, your God, on the top of this bluff and using the wood of the Asherah, that you cut down, offer the second bull as an offering.”  So Gideon took ten of his servants and he did as the Lord told him.”  He tore down the idol in his life.

What’s the idol in your life?  What is the Baal in your backyard? God could not bless Gideon until he was ready to obey without question.  This incident shows us the three ways that God may test you.  And God will test you one of these three ways or maybe all three ways before He can use you significantly.

  1. God may test me spiritually.

This is a test of Who’s going to be God in my life.  Exodus 20:3 the very first commandment, “You shalt have no other gods before me.”  God wants complete allegiance, total obedience.  He doesn’t want any compromise. Do you want halfhearted commitment in your marriage?   God want to be number one in your life.  A spiritual test is “What is number one in your life?  What’s the Baal in your backyard?  What’s the idol?  It may be a job or a child.  It could be a possession, a position of prominence, status.  It could be a place.  What is it that competes for your time and energy for number one place in your life?  Whatever it is it’s a god and God may say, “Cut it down.”  We need to do some spiritual housecleaning.  Clean up our own backyard.  God may test us spiritually to see what’s really important in our life.

  1. God may test me emotionally.

Notice who’s altar it was.  It was his father’s altar.  It says he went and tore it down at night because he was afraid of his family.  I mean a confrontation with tradition. He’s saying, “My whole family has been worshiping this for years.  I’m going to break with tradition.”  That’s an emotional test.  Family ties.

Do you ever find yourself limiting your Christian life because of what other people think?  Do you keep your faith and convictions to yourself because family members might become upset?  It was his dad’s idol. He goes and smashes it.  Who’s going to pay for it?   There was an emotional test here.  Sometimes following God means that we stand alone if necessary.

Service for the Lord always begins at home.  He said, “Gideon, before you can go out and take on the world let’s clean up your act right here in your own family.  Our service for the Lord starts in our homes.  It doesn’t matter what I do or what I say or what I accomplish if my family is falling apart, nothing else really matters.  That’s my first responsibility.

  1. God may test me physically.

There may be a physical test in our life that God will use to see how willing we are to follow directions and instructions. When you think about this, this was a risky move — go out at night and tear down the town idol.  It didn’t matter that his dad had built it and it was his family’s.  It couldn’t have been the most prominent family in town because he said he was the least family.  But he went against tradition and it wasn’t exactly going to win Gideon a popularity contest.  In fact, it could have cost him his life.  When we read the next few verses, we’ll find that when they woke up the next morning the town formed a lynch mob and came after Gideon because he had done this.

“In the morning when the men of the town got up, there was Baal’s altar demolished and the Asherah beside it cut down and the second bull sacrificed on the altar. They asked each other, `Who did this?’ When they carefully investigate they were told Gideon, son of Joash did it.’  So the men of the town demanded of Joash his dad, “Bring out your son.  He must die because he has broken down Baal’s altar and cut down the Asherah beside it.”   Judges 6:28-30.   This is a physical test.  He could literally lose his life.

The point is this:  If we really get serious about serving God expect tension.  We may cause people to get upset.  We may upset a few traditions.

But Gideon obeyed completely.  And it affected his father.  It influenced his father in a positive way.  His father actually came to his defense even though it was his father’s idol that had been torn down.  “Joash replied to the hostile crowd round him, `Are you going to plead Baal’s cause?  Are you going to try to save him?  If Baal is really a god he can defend himself.”   Judges 6:31  That’s smart thinking!  If he was really a god he could take care of himself.  He doesn’t need me.  How many things in our life that we put up on a pedestal we think are really important and yet when we take them off the pedestal we realize they weren’t that important at all?  How many things in our life have we thought, “I can’t live without that!” and yet when we do live without it, it’s no big deal.  Those things that we glorify and honor and work and spend our lives for and set as our main goal and then we get it and we think, “It’s not the god I thought it was going to be.  It’s not the pleasure producing item I thought it to be.”

Gideon’s father came to his defense.  Joash saw in his son Gideon something that made him proud.  Courage is contagious.  Faith is infectious. All of a sudden Joash was saying, “My son’s right.  We shouldn’t be compromising.”  Gideon passed the test will we?

After the God’s test comes the final step in God’s transforming process.  We’ll look at that in the next post.

Darrell

 

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