Faith in the Weaver

All right. Well, good morning everybody. I invite all the wild men of the room, go ahead and find your seat. All the all the domesticated men as well. And women of all varieties, you are also invited to find your seats. Yep. Yeah. Really excited about the wild game dinner coming up. It’s going to be a a great time. Seriously, for any of the guys in the room, yeah, to be be able to invite a a brother, a neighbor, co-worker, friend, a father, even a son to come with you and be part of that. And I’ll also say, for the men in the room, as we are coming up to the Wild Game dinner, you know, because it’s for men and their sons, we have some young men in the room who may not have a father figure that can invite and bring them to the Wild Game dinner. So I invite all the men to consider who is a younger guy that I could for a night adopt as one of my sons and I could bring to the wild game dinner.

Yeah, so I will say we are going to come into our time of congregational prayer. In light of some recent cultural events, I want to make a pivot for this morning. In light of the joint operation between America and Israel to make the strike on Iran, what we’re going to do this morning is we’re just going to pray for peace and the people of Iran. Yeah, if you don’t know, Iran is an Islamic government. So it’s not just a people that practice Islam that happen to have a government, but it’s a government that’s orchestrated around Islam and propagating that around the world. Take whatever you want about that. It doesn’t really matter. But what we need to recognize for this morning is that there’s a whole lot of people in Iran who do not know the Lord Jesus Christ. And we as followers of Jesus, if I can use this word, have a higher allegiance than that to our country. It is to our Lord Jesus. And what we want to do is we want to pray for a few moments that regardless of how you feel or what you think about the attack on some of the leaders in Iran a few days ago, what we’re going to do right now is ask that God would get a hold of the hearts of a bunch of people in Iran who don’t know Him as Lord and Savior. You know that at the end of the day, that’s what we’re caring about. You know, nations rise and fall. God in His Word says that the hearts of kings are like streams of water in His hand that He directs wherever He wants. What we want to pray for is that God would use these events to create peace, but in that, that God would use these events to introduce Himself to some people that don’t know Him yet. So, I invite you grab a neighbor. We’re going to pray for that for a few moments and I’ll put a bow on it here in a second. Y’all take it away.

Thank you, guys. God, we pray because we recognize that in our strength, we really can’t accomplish very much at all. God, I see this all the time in my own life where I try to live according to my wisdom, my strength, my clout, my influence, my relationships, whatever it is. And God, my wisdom turns out to be foolishness. God, my strength leads to an aching body. Lord, my clout really doesn’t go very far. My influence really doesn’t move anybody. Lord, Your Word says that we take pride in the name of the Lord our God. Not in chariots, not in horses, not in military, not in presidents. Our pride, our trust, our love, our faith is not in the things of this world. It is in You, God. The one who created all things, the one who rules and directs all things, the one to whom all things belong. Gods, we sang a few moments ago. Lord, if we would not cry out and say, “Praise the name of God. Magnify the name of Jesus Christ.” Jesus, You said that You could use rocks to call the praises of God. God, You don’t need us, but we need You like crazy. We in America, folks in Israel, certainly the people of Iran this morning, God, we all need You. We need You to create the peace that only comes through You. Please create that peace. We need You to work, God. Please work. We need You to create flourishing and to create shalom.

and to create good where so much bad has been done. Lord, I know that there’s there are a lot of Iranian citizens that are rejoicing, Lord, over some Western intervention in their country to try to overthrow the government. But God, please, in the midst of all this turmoil and turbulence, God, would You please use this to draw people into faith in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ? Yes, God, I’m I’m proud to be an American. I’m proud to come from the country I come from. But Lord, I I also know that one day America is going to be in the history books. But the kingdom of God will last forever because it’s built on the word of God which will never be erased, never go away because the word of God is Himself God. Jesus, You are the word. You came and You spoke to us and You made Your glory and Your presence and Your power known to us so we could trust in You because there is an eternal God who is holy and high and lifted up but has made Himself man to be a servant to deal with our deepest and greatest need. How could we not trust that God? We trust You. We call on You right now. Please do something in Iran and in Israel that only You can do. Do something right now at Sauldam Baptist that only You can do.

Lord, we’re all coming in this morning and we’re we’re we came onto the the airplane with a variety of baggage. God, some of us brought on some weariness from the week, just holding on. Some of us are coming in from a very in like just an incredible week and we just have joy and happiness, God. God. Others of us, we came in from just a pretty blah sort of a week and everything just seems kind of gray. And God, regardless of what we brought in this morning, I pray that You would work. You would transform us. You would make us look a little bit more like You. You’d help us to love You more. And for anybody in the room that does not yet know You as Lord and Savior, as Master and Rescuer, please get a hold of them today. We love You, God. Amen. Amen.

Thank you guys. I want to thank three other people in particular as I just thinking about local church and man just how much God is doing in our church. I want to thank Kim Mulaney for just leading our kids ministry. She’s doing a fantastic job doing all that. I want to thank you for Michael who has much more self-confidence to be able to laugh at himself in front of others than I ever could. Thank you Michael for man stepping up and leading our music. Also, I want to say thank you to Donnie, Donnie and Morgan this morning. In fact, can everybody turn around and just give Donnie and Morgan, man, just a round of applause for what they do. Man, thank you guys. People that sit in the back of the room hate being in the front of the room. So, you could tell, man. They’re just like churning on the inside. bit. Man, these three folks in particular, Kim, Michael, and Donnie. So much of how church operates owes to the fact they put in time and effort throughout the week and on Sunday mornings taking care of stuff. And just want to say we really appreciate you guys.

This morning, we’re going to continue in our series through the book of Judges. Go ahead and turn to Judges chapter 7. We’re looking at the life of a guy named Gideon. Gideon is one of these judges that God calls and raises up to lead the people of Israel during this pretty turbulent time that they were having as well. They also had their fair share of foreign invaders. They had their fair share of idols and heartlessness for God. So God would raise up these judges to both conquer the foreign invaders, give them a little bit of safety, but also to recalibrate the hearts of the people of Israel back to Yahweh and the things of God.

As I was reading this morning or as I was reading this week, thinking about Gideon, it reminded me of this poem written by a guy named Grant Kfax Tuller. Grant Kfax Tuller lived in the mid 1800s. His mom passed away when he was only two or three years old. His dad ended up passing away from the revolutionary war. This is a guy that knew a fair amount of turbulence and tumult himself. He was very well acquainted with difficulties in life. But later in life, he was at a revival and God saved him. God got a hold of his heart and God helped transform his perspective on everything that was going on around him. And he wrote a number of songs and he wrote some poetry. This is perhaps his most favorite, his most famous poem.

My life is but a weaving between my God and me. I cannot choose the colors He worketh steadily. Of times He weaveth sorrow, and I in foolish pride forget He sees the upper, and I the underside. Not till the loom is silent and the shuttles cease to fly will God unroll the canvas and reveal the reason why the dark threads are as needful in the weaver’s skillful hand as the threads of gold and silver in the pattern He has planned.

Read these final lines with me. He knows. He loves. He cares nothing this truth condemn. He gives the very best to those who leave the choice to Him. Amen.

Gideon is a guy that understood the reality of the weaver. Gideon is a guy that saw God weave sorrow with joy. Someone who understood that God would use the dark threads as well as the gold and the silver threads. You know, we all go through life and we wonder, why in the world is such and such happening? Why’d I get that diagnosis? Why is this friend hurting me? Why did I have that accident? Why is this going on? And we only see a part of the underside of all that God is up to.

We turn on the news and we say, “Man, there’s even more issues in the Middle East.” We turn on the news, we say, “Man, our country is getting even darker and darker.” And we’re like, what in the world is going on? And God is on the upper side weaving all things into a pattern that one day we will get to see.

Gideon would learn this lesson. He learns it in the passage we’re going to look at this morning. Man, I love Gideon. I love Gideon because for me as a man, Gideon feels infinitely relatable because whenever Gideon is talking with the God of the universe, Gideon has the audacity to talk back. Gideon puts God to the test. He’s honest. He’s flawed. But God, for God, He sees Gideon and He says, “That man is usable because he has the faith to follow My commands.”

Gideon comes from an insignificant family in a small town. But God calls him to be the deliverer for Israel against a foreign invader looking to oppress and kill them. Last week in chapter 6, we saw each member of the Trinity personally involved in calling Gideon to become a judge and Gideon’s initial faithfulness to follow God. This morning, we’ll see Gideon’s faith on display through a giant military battle.

Before the battle could begin though, God needs to make a change with the massive forces that Gideon has called. Look at Judges 7:1-8 with me. Jerubbaal, that is Gideon, and all the troops that were with him got up early and camped beside the spring of Harod. The camp of Midian was north of them below the hill of Moreh in the valley. The Lord says to Gideon, “Nah, you got too many troops, Gideon.” Man, who wants to hear that? “You have too many troops for Me to hand the Midianites over to them, or else Israel might elevate themselves over Me, and they would say, I saved myself.” Now announce to the troops, whoever is fearful and trembling, you may turn back and leave Mount Gilead.

So 22,000 of the troops turned back, but 10,000 remain. There was actually an allowance in the Old Testament law, the book of Deuteronomy. When God was giving the law to Moses, God said there’s three groups of people, three groups of men who don’t have to go to war: new husbands, new land owners, and men who were afraid. So God calls on that and He says, “Anybody that’s afraid, I don’t want you in the battle anyways. You’re probably not good for anything. Go on home.” 22 out of the 32,000 take Gideon’s offer. They scat.

Verse four, the Lord said to Gideon, “There are still too many troops.” What? “Take them down to the water and I will test them for you there.” Gideon’s probably like, cool, God. Okay. “If I say to you this one can go with you, then he can go. But if I say to anyone, this one cannot go with you, he cannot go.”

Verse five. So he brings the troops down to the water. And the Lord says to Gideon, separate everyone who laps water with his tongue like a dog. In your mind, imagine all fours face to the water. All right? So some guys are drinking water that way. Do the same with everyone who kneels to drink. Just one knee cup the water bringing the water up to their face. Verse six. The number of those who lapped with their hands to their mouths was 300 men. All the rest of the troops knelt like a dog to drink the water.

The Lord says to Gideon, “I will deliver you with the 300 men who lapped and I will hand the Midianites over to you, but everyone else is to go home.” So Gideon, I imagine begrudgingly, sent all the Israelites to their tents, but he kept the 300 troops who took the provisions and their ram’s horns. The camp of Midian was below him in the valley. Man, Gideon’s got to be laying in bed that night saying, “God, I don’t know what you’re doing. I see some dark threads in this weaving you’re making. I don’t see a whole lot of gold and silver.”

Immediately in this passage, we see God tests faith by rearranging the threads. If we’re to take that idea of the weaver and what God is up to, God tests faith by rearranging the threads. Man, God loves to do this. He loves to take the circumstances of your life, swap out some of the variables to test our faith. You see that all through the Bible. Do you see that? If we were just to sit over a cup of coffee and we’re we’re talk about, man, how have you seen God work in your life? Invariably, whenever we would get together to talk about how good God is, we’d have to talk about how confusing or difficult times were. That’s how it works.

In Gideon’s life, he sees God testing his faith by rearranging some of these threads. What’s amazing about this in in verse one, Gideon is starting to obey God. Chapter six is all about God saying, “Gideon, call everybody to you. Send messengers out, a crew, build, assemble an army to push back the Midianites and the Amalekites and the people of the east.” Gideon starts to obey that and immediately God starts testing him by reducing the amount of soldiers in his army.

Imagine being Gideon. Just put yourself in his sandals. God has called you to lead a military campaign against foreign invaders. You’ve got 32,000 troops, which you love. But you understand your 32,000 troops are nothing compared to what we’re going to read in a minute are the limitless, the innumerable troops of the enemy. And God tells you you’ve got too many. How crazy can God be sometimes? Right, Stephanie? How crazy can God be if we Can we be honest here? Doesn’t God tell us to do some things that just feel kind of crazy? In fact, I want to ask you a question. How do you react when God tells you to do the scary, uncomfortable, or apparently foolish? And if we’re just being real, is it yes, sir, every time? Or is it a little bit of God? Are you sure? God, really, do I do I have to do that thing? God, that’s going to cost me something. You know that, right? How do you react, man?

Thankfully, Gideon, man, this is like a high moment of his life where he is just faithfully following what God is calling Him to do. But why why would God do this? Why would God take an army of 30,000 and prune it to 300? Is because of verse two. God knows the condition of our hearts. Look at verse two with me again. The Lord says to Gideon, “You have too many troops for me to hand the Midianites over to them, or else Israel might elevate themselves over me and say,” they literally might brag against me and say, “I saved myself.”

Man, God won’t let us brag about ourselves. There’s only one king. There’s only one lord. There’s only one ruler. There’s only one God. And He won’t let us be it or Him. God won’t let us brag about ourselves. God won’t let us think that we are our own saviors. God won’t let us exercise faith in ourselves or even other people. God will instead change the circumstances of our lives in order to test our faith. So that at the end of the day when we go through the thing that God has called us to go through, we cannot brag on us. But we will have to say God did it. Gideon, he understands If he goes to battle with these 300 men against this innumerable force, he understands he would not get the credit. No way. Maybe with 30,000 the people of Israel could say, “Look at us, this meager army.” But we had a chance. Gideon and the soldiers had to understand there is no way we can do this. This is worse than David and Goliath because that was only one-on-one. This is 300 against at least three million. It would not work.

God, though, doesn’t let the people even have an opportunity to brag on themselves, and He starts making the circumstances hard. He starts testing their faith when they obey Him. Have you ever experienced something like this where you start to obey God in a new way, and then God changes the circumstances and makes it a little bit harder for you? I think Randy knows what I’m talking about. Have you ever had this where, like, maybe think about it this way. I remember being a new young husband, and Becca and I are at a church, and we’re beginning to tithe, and all of a sudden the financial details of our life get a little more complicated, and our cushion starts to get a little less soft.

Maybe you’re there right now. You’re trying to learn how do I give money to church, but then you lose an income source or you have an unexpected bill come up, and you’re like, “God, I’m trying to follow You in faith. I’m trying to do something for You, but this is getting harder. Why? What gives?” Or maybe you’re in, maybe even right now in the room, you’re like a dad, and you’re wanting to lead your family spiritually. You’re like, “I want to start praying with my family. I want to start having conversations about the Lord with my family.” But then you start doing this, and your wife doesn’t exactly start following you in your every single footstep, and your kids aren’t just like, “Father, teach us from the book of the Lord.” And you’re like, “Why am I having this friction? Why is this difficult?”

You see, sometimes this happens where, man, it’s not that every hardship in life is a test, but sometimes, man, God uses hardships to expose us and what we are trusting in, and God is just rearranging the threads of our life, trying to say, “Hey, are you really going to walk with Me in this? Are you really going to go through with this?” Gideon’s story is clear: only one person gets the credit, and it’s not Gideon. It’s God who is going to get the credit. So He changes the circumstances, and He tests Gideon’s faith to set up a victory that only God could accomplish, because here’s how it works. God loves to use weak things to shame strong things, and that way it keeps us weak things humble.

So after God tests Gideon’s faith, write this down as well: God then builds Gideon’s faith by revealing part of the pattern. God builds Gideon’s faith by revealing part of the pattern. God won’t always allow us to see the full top of the canvas that He’s working on. But every now and then, the weaver will flip a corner down and let us see what He is up to, so that He can build our faith and help us to understand where He’s going.

Look at verses 9-15 with me. Remember, this is after God has taken 30,000 soldiers, whittled it down to 300 soldiers. That night the Lord said to him, “Get up and attack the camp. I’ve handed it over to you. But if you are afraid to attack the camp, go down with Purah, your servant. Listen to what they say. Then you will be encouraged to attack the camp.” So Gideon takes Purah, his servant. They go to the outpost of the troops who were in the camp. Verse 12.

I actually just want you to close your eyes and just picture this scene with me. It’s about 10:00 p.m. You’re in the desert of Israel. The stars are out at night. You are Gideon. You crest over the hill, and this is what you see. The Midianites, the Amalekites, the people of the east had settled down in the valley down below you. It’s so many people. It’s like a swarm of locusts are covering the ground. You see all their tents. You see some of their armor. There’s some scattered campfires off in the distance. The soldiers are milling about. Their camels are as innumerable as the sand on the seashore. Gideon arrives. Verse 13, you’re good now. There was a man telling His friend about a dream. Gideon apparently is within earshot of a couple of these soldiers. And the man said to his buddy, this other soldier. They’re about to attack the Israelites. He says, “Listen, I had a dream. A loaf of barley bread came tumbling into our camp. It struck a tent and the tent fell down. The loaf turns the tent upside down so that it collapsed.” 14 His friend answered, “This is nothing less than the sword of Gideon, son of Joash, the Israelite. God has handed us over to him.” When Gideon hears these two Midianites have this dream and the interpretation, Gideon bows down in worship right there. Gets up, returns to Israel’s camp and looks at his 300 men and says, “Get up. The Lord has handed the enemy over to us.”

Man, God knew Gideon needed to see part of the story. God knew that Gideon needed to see part of the pattern for him to be able to continue to walk in what God was calling Him to. Gideon is no longer asking for signs. He’s no longer delaying the process. He’s not hiding or resisting God. Instead, he sees what God is about to do and then Gideon says, “Okay, let’s walk in it.”

Man, sometimes exercising our faith is hard because we don’t see the whole picture. God calls us to do something and we are only obsessed with the apparent difficulty of the thing God wants us to do. We don’t have the whole picture in mind. I take you back to like those examples I mentioned earlier. You want to start tithing and being generous with your money, but then you lose an income source or you have an unexpected bill. What you don’t know is that there’s a friend who sees you struggling and wants to help you out and will write a check to take care of your medical stuff. Or maybe you’re a dad and you’re trying to lead your family spiritually and they’re just resistant. What you don’t know is that the family has been wanting this for a long time, but they’ve got their guard up because they’re trying to see, is dad gonna follow through with it this time or not.

Man, when we focus only on the difficulty of the thing God wants us to do, and we miss the bigger picture, it paralyzes us. So God looks at Gideon and makes an allowance for Gideon’s fear. Pulls back the curtain, so to speak, shows him the other side of the weaving, so to speak, and God helps Gideon see the pattern. God allows for Gideon’s fear, sends a dream to a Midianite soldier, gives its interpretation to another Midianite soldier, which God then allows Gideon to hear. This dream reassures Gideon. It builds his faith. It even inspires his worship.

Man, I think that if Gideon had the full picture from the start, then God’s tests wouldn’t have felt so painful. His commands wouldn’t feel so demanding, and His promises wouldn’t feel so impossible. But God would not be getting all the credit He’s due. Man, sometimes God calls us to do something that is scary, uncomfortable, or seemingly foolish, and He withholds the whole picture to see, are we going to walk in faith or not? Frankly, sometimes I think that if God gave us the whole picture, we would be really tempted to build us up and brag on us. There’s other times when God calls us to do something and He does allow us to see what the end result’s going to be and it actually builds our faith and it helps us glorify the Lord. God in His infinite wisdom gets to sort out the difference between the two.

What’s going on right now is that God allows Gideon to see the end. And Christian, we get to see the end. We don’t have to wonder how it’s all going to end. I mean, you turn on the news and you’re looking at Israel, Iran, America. This whole thing in Russia and Ukraine’s not actually settled. Stuff’s always going on in Africa, whether we know about it or not. We’ve got Venezuelan narotists coming up. You know, it’s like, what in the world is going on? Or you look at your family and you’re like, man, my marriage isn’t in a good place. My relationship with my kids isn’t really that good. How’s this all going to happen? Or you look at your friend or your neighbor, your coworker who you have been trying to share your faith with and you’re like, “God, I don’t know what’s going to happen in the situation.” Or you look at your medical diagnosis and you’re like, “I don’t see any progress here.” And you’re like, “How in the world is this all going to resolve?” We know, man, where God is taking us is not a place of ambiguity and question marks. Where God is taking us is to a concrete home in a new heavens and a new earth where sin and suffering are done with, where we will be reconciled and made right with God in the most perfect, most whole way, where nothing ever, nothing bad will ever happen again, ever. And we as followers of Jesus have the opportunity to invite as many people to enjoy that with us as possible. We’ve got a great deal. We know what the future is going to look like and we get to bring others into it.

Man, I wish, I wish we lived like that though because we don’t. I think I’m not, I think I know a lot of Christians live as if the Bible doesn’t already tell us what the end’s going to look like. We’re so anxious or controlling or despairing, and we can live with confidence and joy and humility and faith because of what God has already told us.

God doesn’t tell Gideon everything. The dream doesn’t capture all the details, but what the dream does capture is that God is going to use Gideon to deliver Israel. God gives Gideon enough to take the next step. Man, when we don’t know the full situation, we sometimes struggle to follow God and just take the next step. But other times, God builds our faith by revealing the truth of our circumstances to us.

God has tested Gideon’s faith. He has built Gideon’s faith. Now, finally, Gideon reveals his own faith by stepping into the design. And I’m going to say that again. Gideon reveals his faith by stepping into the design. God’s this master weaver. He’s creating this weaving. God is testing Gideon’s faith by rearranging the threads. God builds Gideon’s faith by revealing part of the pattern. Now, finally, Gideon reveals his faith by stepping into the design.

Look at verses 16-25 with me. Gideon then takes his 300 men. He divides the 300 men into three companies. And he gave each of the men a ram’s horn in one hand and an empty pitcher with a torch inside it in another hand. Note the lack of swords going on here. Verse 17. “Watch me,” Gideon says, “and do what I do. When I come to the outpost of the camp, do as I do. When I and everyone with me blow our ram’s horns, you’re also to blow your ram’s horns all around the camp. Then you will say, ‘For the Lord and for Gideon.’”

Gideon and the 300 men who were with him went to the outpost of the camp at the beginning of the middle watch. That’s 10 p.m. Okay, that’s when the centuries, new centuries would have been stationed. In your mind, you remember what that picture, you had this valley filled with military tents and there’s some campfires. You should also have in your mind there’s some now soldiers patrolling around. There’s guys with swords walking around. They, Gideon and his men, they blow their ram’s horns. They break their pitchers that are in their hands.

Verse 20, the three companies blew their ram’s horns and shattered their pitchers. They held their torches in their left hands, their ram’s horns they blew in their right hands, and they shouted, “A sword for the Lord and for Gideon.” Each Israelite took his position around the camp and the entire, entire Midianite army begins to run and they cry out as they fled.

Verse 22, when Gideon’s men blew their 300 ram’s horns, the Lord caused the men in the whole army, that’s the Midianites, they caused them to turn on each other with their swords. They flee to Acacia house in the direction of Zerah as far as the border of Abel Maha near Tabbath. Then the men of Israel were called from Nahali, Asher, and Manasseh. And they pursued the Midianites. Gideon sent, sends messengers throughout the hill country of Ephraim with his message: come down to intercept the Midianites and take control of the water courses ahead of them as far as Ba Ba in the Jordan. So all the men of Ephraim were caught out and they took control of the water courses.

Verse 25, they captured Oreb and Zeb, the two princes of Midian. They killed Oreb at the rock of Ore and they killed Zeb at the wine press of Zeb while they were pursuing the Midianites. They brought the heads of Ore and Zeb to Gideon across the Jordan.

Man, God tests Gideon’s faith. God builds Gideon’s faith. And Then Gideon has the opportunity to reveal his faith. Verses 1-15 are an encouraging story where God takes the hero and He makes life hard for him, but then helps give him the confidence he needs to walk forward in boldness. But it’s an incomplete story without verses 16-25. Gideon has to act on his faith. He has to reveal his faith.

Imagine how foolish Gideon must have seemed to his 300 men. Remember, they’re left in their camp. Gideon and Phurah go off to look at the other guys. And Gideon comes back. He says, “You know what? For this battle, let’s not take our swords. Instead, we’re just going to blow our ram’s horns. We’re going to crash these pitchers. We’re going to hold torches. We’re just going to scream.” And I guess these 300 guys are like, “You know what? I’m I’m I’m in it this far. Why not?”

Gideon apparently convinces these men to follow him. And as they act on God’s promises, God does what He said He would do. God does it. God gives Gideon this victory that He had been promising all along. Gideon got to see part of the story and live it out.

As great as Gideon is to follow God in faith, we’ve got to remember God is the one behind the victory. To be a person of faith means that you trust someone else to do for you what you cannot do for yourself. Gideon and Israel needed to be reminded of how good God is, how trustworthy God is. They needed to see God deliver on His promises to do what only God could do.

So no matter where you are today, no matter what you’re coming into, no matter what you believe God is inviting you to do, I want you to remember who your faith ultimately is in. Romans 5:1-2 say it this way: “Since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. We have also obtained access through Him by faith into this grace in which we stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God.”

Here’s the deal. None of us are born in a relationship of peace with God. We are all born as sinners. Which means God has a holy law which in our in our souls. We love to transgress. We love to break God’s law. If God’s law is a line in the sand every day, all day, we are stepping across it. And we can’t stop. We can’t stop breaking God’s rules. We can’t stop living these sinful lives. We need someone to do something for us that we can’t do for ourselves. We are like 300 soldiers without a sword against three million of the enemy. And there is no hope for victory.

So Jesus, the true Savior, comes in and He lives the perfect life, always satisfying the demands of a holy God and His holy law. The demands that we were made to live under but that we can’t satisfy. Jesus accomplishes peace for us with God by giving His life on the cross, paying for our sins, and making a way for us to be made right with this holy God.

So, we don’t boast in ourselves. We don’t boast in our performance. We don’t boast in our religion. We don’t boast in our Bible reading, our tithe giving, our prayer offering. We don’t boast in our hospitality. We don’t boast in trying to be good people. We don’t boast in coming to church. We boast in the hope of the glory of God shown through the life of Jesus Christ for us.

So I invite you this morning. What is God calling you to do and you are struggling to trust Him in? That is the God that is calling us. The One who would send His own Son to live a perfect life to ransom us from our sin.

I want to invite everybody to a little bit of introspection as I close the sermon. Where do you see yourself in the passage today? Some of us are in a season of testing faith where God is rearranging the details and you’re like, man, what’s God up to? Some of us are in a season of building faith, man. God is giving you hope in what He is doing with all the difficulty and He is building your faith. He’s helping you see the end. Some of us are in a season of revealing our own faith where we’re just trying to walk in the things God’s called us to do.

Where are you at? You feel like God is testing your faith, Paula? Mr. Sunny, you feel like you’re you’re Trying to reveal your faith? Miss Claudia, do you feel like God’s building your faith? Where are we at? I want to invite you to just close your eyes, bow your heads, and pray. No matter where you’re at, you pray in accordance with that. If God is testing your faith, you say, “God, help me through the testing.” If God is building your faith, you say, “God, thank you for building it.” If you are trying to reveal your faith, you say, “God, help me walk in this.” You take a few moments and just pray by yourselves.

God, there’s a variety of people in this room, Lord. Some of us, we’re just going through a season of testing and we don’t understand why You are weaving the dark threads into the pictures of our lives. Help us, God, to not interpret challenges as Your abandonment. God, others of us, we’re in a season of You building our faith, Lord, where You are helping us. You’re giving us hope. You are preparing us for something, Lord. Help us to thank You for reassurance, but not to demand to know everything You’re doing. Just, just, just to trust You a step at a time, God.

Others of us are trying to reveal our faith. We’re trying to walk with You. Help us, God, to obey You before we see the results. Holy Spirit, please, for the person in the room that doesn’t even know You yet, God, I might as well just be speaking Mandarin up here. God, would You birth the faith in them? Would You help them have the peace with God through the Lord Jesus Christ? Help them to give themselves to You, please. Amen.