Look Who's Talking

But, we’re coming to a portion of our service where we just pray. If this already hasn’t been pushing you past your comfort zone, then man, we’re about to go all the way to 100 mph, okay? So, what we believe and what we know is that if when we try things in our abilities and our wisdom, you might get some good things. But, when you do things according to God’s wisdom and according to His power, that’s when the lasting, the good stuff happens.

So, we want to pray. Every Sunday, we take a moment of our service where we just pray. So, we’re not going to pray for us right now. We’re actually going to pray for some other churches cuz we don’t just want God to bless us with unity. We don’t just want Him to bless us with vitality. We want God to bless these other churches. So, what I want to invite you to do is grab a neighbor, pick a church on the list, and just pray for them by name. I’ll put a bow on it here in a second. Y’all take it away.

Thank you. Holy Spirit, thank you so much for bringing us here today. God, thank you for what you’re doing here in the life of Sauldam. God, new ministry starting. New folks coming in. Lord, people are meeting you here. Thank you, God. Thank you. But Lord, I I’m asking that right now you would do the same thing in some other churches today. God, I’m I’m asking that you would you would give some other churches of our area really sweet morning of gathering together.

God, I know all those other churches on that list, they’ve got lost folks worshiping with them who don’t know you, but they want some sort of satisfaction. They’ve got hurting people who are going through God, hard hellish times, and they need some comfort. God, they’ve got frustrated and confused people that need you to clarify things for them. And they’ve got joyful people who had a really good week and have a a deep abiding joy in you regardless of how their week went. And God, I’m praying that you’d give those other churches a really sweet morning. I pray that as those other pastors preach, as the other music leaders direct songs, as other people announce, and as they pray, whatever they do, God, I pray that you would just bring a vitality and a life to those other churches, please.

God, thank you for doing that here. God, thank you for 185 years. You’ve kept us, and you have established us, and Lord, you you continue generation after generation to show your kindness to us. Thank you, God. This morning, I’m asking you’d show your kindness to us again. That as I preach, it would really be you talking, not me. God, Sauldam, the last thing they need is my thoughts, my ideas. What Well, we need, God, what I need is for you to speak right now. I need you to change me. We need you to change us so that you can use us to help change this community. Thank you, God. We love you. Thank you for being so kind to us. We love you, too. Amen. Amen.

Well, go ahead and find your seats and open up your Bibles to Judges chapter 10. Judges chapter 10. We’re going to continue our series looking at broken saviors. The Bible is filled with men and women that God had had and does in some ways still use to bless and lead and care for His people. Some saviors, as it were. Saviors to help deliver people from difficult situations, saviors to direct God’s people toward where God wants them to go, but they’re also broken. They’re broken because death happens to all of us. So, eventually, we’re all going to die, but also we’re we’re broken because sin has come into the mix, and no matter how hard we try, no matter how well we do, things tend to go off course for us.

So, we’re continuing this series through the book of Judges, which we’ve named broken saviors. As you’re turning there, I’ll share with you like you, I have had a number of weighty conversations in my life. Conversations where I understood that my life is about to change in some capacity, if that makes sense. I think about when I’m 15 years old, and a buddy of mine named Luke strikes up a conversation with me in his car in my driveway on a Wednesday night after youth group. This conversation where my buddy Luke shares the hope of Jesus with me, and he uses that to draw me back to God uses that to save me and to draw me to Himself. Fast forward 7 years, I’m 22, or I guess at that time, 20 years old, and I’m sitting at the Cracker Barrel in Orangeburg. I had driven up from Charleston Southern University, and I had met David and Sheila Rush at Cracker Barrel, the one of the more relaxed places for one of the more difficult conversations of my life where for 2 and 1/2 hours they harangued me and grilled me with all these questions about how I was going to provide for their daughter, where I was asking for their blessing to be able to marry Rebecca. Eventually it won. I I I got my way that one.

I think about a couple years ago at the old the old church, where I knew I had to have a hard conversation with the man. I saw this man in his life, and there it seemed to be some warning signals on the dashboard of his life, if that makes sense, where I thought, “Hey, if if we don’t check the engine soon, I think you might end up on the side of the road in a flaming ball of nonsense.” That guy happened to be one of my bosses at that church, and that was a difficult hard conversation.

You’ve had these conversations, right? You’ve had these weighty moments in your life where you understand the words you’re about to say and the words you’re about to hear could change so much for you. This morning, we’re going to look at some more of these weighty conversations. I love how Beth you teed it up a few moments ago. So, we’re going to look at these weighty conversations. All these conversations are going to center around a man named Jephthah. Jephthah. You say that with me? Jephthah. That’s hard, right? That’s hard for us to say. So, I’m going to try not to mess that up. I might just start calling him Jeff at the by the end of the sermon, okay?

This story is marked by four crucial conversations about or with a guy named Jephthah. In fact, you just go ahead and write that down. Four conversations. The first one is going to be between Israel and God, but it’s going to lead to Jephthah. I’m going to read that passage again that Beth read earlier. This is Judges chapter 10, verses 6 through 16.

The Israelites again did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. They’ve been doing this the entire book. They again do what’s evil in the sight of the Lord, but this time it gets worse. They worshipped the Baals and the Ashtaroth, the gods of Aram, Sidon, Moab, the gods of Ammonites and the Philistines. They abandoned the Lord. They did not worship Him. So, the Lord’s anger burned against Israel, and He sold them to the hands of the Philistines and the Ammonites.

That’s interesting right there. I’ll go ahead and say the Philistines were attacking Israel from the west. Ammonites are attacking from the east. They are being crunched on both sides by God’s discipline. Verse 8. The Philistines and the Ammonites shattered and crushed the Israelites that year, and for 18 years they did the same to all the Israelites who were on the other side of the Jordan in the land of the Amorites in Gilead. The Ammonites also crossed the Jordan. They’re coming from the east. They go into the country of Israel, and they’re fighting against Judah, Benjamin, the house of Ephraim. Israel is greatly oppressed.

You get the picture here. They are worshipping false gods, so God has handed them over to their neighboring nations, and God’s using them to discipline them. Verse 10. So, they do the only thing that makes sense. They cried out to the Lord saying, “We have sinned against You. We’ve abandoned You. We’ve abandoned our God. We have worshipped the Baals, all these false gods.”

The Lord says to the Israelites, “When the Egyptians, the Amorites, the Ammonites, the Philistines, the Sidonians, the Amalekites, the Moabites, when they oppressed you and you cried out to Me, did I not deliver you from them?” Yes. “But you, you have abandoned Me, you’ve worshipped other gods. Therefore, I will not deliver you again. I’m just going to wash My hands.” “Go, cry out to those gods you’ve chosen. Let them deliver you whenever you’re oppressed.”

But the Israelites said, “We have sinned. Deal with us as You see fit, but only rescue us today.” So, they got rid of the foreign gods among them. They worshipped the Lord and He became weary of Israel’s misery.

Man, what a moment. What a moment. What a conversation between the Israelites and the Lord. You see how bad things are going for them. The author of Judges lists seven false gods that they’re worshipping. I’m not huge like into the numerology stuff in the Bible, but typically seven is the number of completion. God created the earth or He created the universe in seven days, totally complete. But also it’s seven groups of false gods Israel the Israelites are worshipping. They are completely depraved. They are completely evil. They have completely left God. So, God in His anger is burning against them, so He disciplines them. Philistines from the west, Ammonites from the east. Israel’s feeling the crunch on both sides as the moral heart of the nation has long since stopped beating. The people are so far from God, so they do the only thing they can do. They cry out to Him. God calls them on that bluff and says, “Hey, time and time again I’ve been rescuing you. You remember that time you were in Egypt and I freed you from the Egyptians in the Exodus? You remember when you were coming into the nation and I drove the nations out ahead of you? Do you remember the other times when these foreign armies came and attacked you guys and I helped y’all out? Do you not remember all this stuff? So, why in the world do you keep leaving Me? If you really loved Me, you wouldn’t leave Me.” That’s what God is saying. And the people look at God and they’re saying, “Hey, we get that. We own that. We have sinned. We have left. But, please forgive us. Deliver us.” And it says they made good on that. Verse 16. They’re repenting to the Lord. And they really do it. They get rid of the foreign gods. They start worshipping the Lord instead.

Man, one of the first things I really see when I look at this passage is this. It’s that genuine repentance always shows up in real life actions. Anybody else have that friend who you keep loaning money to? You buy their meal, you buy their coffee, you get them a little bit of gas, and they keep saying, “Hey, hey, man, I’m I’m good for it. I’m going to get that money back to you.” Anybody got that friend? Are you that friend? I’m just kidding. You don’t have to rat yourself out that way. Or anybody had the relationship with the person who keeps stepping over the line time and time again? They keep bringing stuff back up from the past. They keep hurting your feelings. And they keep saying, “Hey, I’m sorry. Really, I’m sorry.” But, they keep doing it. Anybody got that friend? The brother, the sister, the mom, the dad. You know somebody really feels bad for what they’ve done when they stop doing the thing. In other words, repentance always shows up in real-life daily actions. The people of Israel right here, if God’s looking at them and God is saying, “You don’t mean it. You’re not actually sorry for what you have done.” The people feeling genuinely repentant and broken for their sin, they make good on what they’ve said by how they put away the foreign gods and how they are returning to worshipping the Lord.

This reality is true for us. I mean, it’s like whenever you are feeling anxious and you want to turn away from that, anxiety, I mean, when you repent of your anxiety, it always leads to generosity. Or you think about how when God convicts you of your sin and He saves you, you naturally start walking away from the stuff you were dabbling in before. Or when God gives, He looks at the addict and He says, “I want to free you from your addiction and from the darkness.” And God walks that addict toward freedom. Or the person who can’t stop gossiping and slandering, you know that they’re actually sorry when they use their words to encourage and to help instead of creating division. Genuine repentance always shows up in real-life action, and that’s what you see Israel doing right here.

However, things are about to go off the rails because God’s no longer part of the conversation. After verse 16, we won’t hear God speak one any other time. We’ll see Him do something, but we won’t hear Him talk. And things because of that are about to go off the rails. Israelite repentance aside, the Ammonite problem remains because while the people of Israel are saying we’re sorry for our sin, we’re sorry for these false gods, the foreign invaders, the Ammonites, are still about to crush them. So, in steps the second conversation. Write this down. The Gilead elders and Jephthah. The Gilead elders and Jephthah. I’m picking back up in verse 17. The Ammonites were called together. They camped in Gilead, that’s the territory of Israel. So, the Israelites assembled and camped at Mizpah, that’s a town in Gilead. The rulers of Gilead said to one another, “Which man will begin the fight against the Ammonites? He will be the leader of all the inhabitants of Gilead.”

Chapter 11. Jephthah, the Gileadite, was a valiant warrior. But, he was the son of a prostitute, and Gilead was his dad. Gilead’s wife bore him other sons, and when they grew up, they drove Jephthah, their half-brother by way of the prostitute, they drove Jephthah out. They said to him, “You’ll have no inheritance in our dad’s family because you’re the son of another woman.” So, Jephthah fled from his brothers and lived in the land of Tob. Then, some worthless men joined Jephthah, and they went on raids with him. And sometime later, the Ammonites fought against Israel.

When the Ammonites made war with Israel, the elders of Gilead went to get Jephthah from the land of Tob. They said to him, “Come. Be our commander. Let’s fight the Ammonites.” Jephthah replied to the elders, “Didn’t you hate me and drive me out from my dad’s family? Why then are you coming to me now when you’re in trouble? Does this sound like the conversation the Israelites just had with God? Didn’t I help you previously? Now you’re coming to me. Didn’t you, to use Jephthah’s words, didn’t you hate me? Why are you coming to me now?

Verse 8. They answered Jephthah, “That’s true. Okay, you That’s true, Jephthah, but now we’re here. Come, fight with us. Fight the Ammonites for us. You’ll become leader of all the inhabitants of Gilead.”

Verse 9, this is tricky. Jephthah says to them, “If you’re bringing me back to fight the Ammonites and the Lord gives them to me, I will be your leader.” Not just the leader of all the other inhabitants, I will be your leader. The elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, “The Lord is our witness if we don’t do as you say.” So, Jephthah, verse 11, went with the elders of Gilead. The people make him their leader and commander, and Jephthah repeats all of his terms in the presence of the Lord at Mizpah, who presumably is no longer talking.

The elders of Gilead are desperate for a savior. They’re desperate for a military commander, so they approach Jephthah. Now, we don’t know if Jephthah was their first choice or their 50th choice. All we know is that the people of Gilead approached him now. Now, Jephthah, because his dad was Gilead, that meant that he was Jewish enough ethnically, but because his mom was a prostitute, he was probably a spiritual outsider culturally. Either his mom is a Jewish woman who made herself a prostitute, and that’s not good, or she is not Jewish and she serves as a prostitute for one of the other false god temples. Either way, Jephthah’s probably not our first pick for our next deacon or our next elder or pastor here. However, the people of Gilead, they’re like, “Hey, we need somebody and Jephthah’s there. He’s a valiant warrior. Have you been hearing about all the raids him and his band of brothers are going on? At least he can get the job done. Maybe if we can’t beat him, let’s join him or make him join us and he can lead us against the Ammonites.”

Two things are striking about this conversation. I’ve already said one of them. The first is here it is. God is totally silent. He’s a witness to the proceedings, but He is silent. I get the sense the elders they’ve apologized to God, they’ve put away the foreign gods, and then they stop talking to God. God is silent here. While their repentance in chapter 10 seemed genuine, their actions here make it look like they’re using God instead.

The second thing about this conversation that grabs me is the fact that Jephthah manipulates the elders. I’m not trying to put too hard of a nose on it, but in verse 8, they’re asking Jephthah to come and lead the inhabitants of Gilead. Verse 9, Jephthah says, “I’ll only go if I’ll be your leader.” Jephthah sees an opportunity and he grabs it.

Here’s the personal connection for you this morning. I want you to consider this. Is God speaking in your conversations? Or is He just listening? God is listening to this conversation. They repeat all these terms in the presence of the Lord. God is their witness, but God’s not talking. How about for you? Is God present in your conversations? When you’re talking With people, are you only giving them Uncle Jeremy’s advice or are you saying, “Hey, what do you think God is doing in the situation?” Or whenever people are talking around the dinner table about how good things might be going for them, do you always have to direct it back to yourself? Or do you just want to say, “Man, isn’t God so good to us?” Is God talking in your conversations or is He just listening?

Secondly, I want to ask you this question, if I could continue to step on somebody’s toes: do your words manipulate or minister? Jephthah, we’re going to see him across the rest of this story, he uses his words to manipulate. Getting his own way, trying to do whatever he wants to do. Are you like that? Constantly making other people have to side with you or somebody else? Constantly tearing others down? Or are your words like the Proverbs say, like a sweet balm to somebody’s pain? Do you use your words to help people or to hurt them? Jephthah, his words are all about helping himself.

Now, he begins his rule as a leader in the third conversation. In keeping with the theme of this chapter, Jephthah’s first strategy with this Ammonite problem is actually through verbal diplomacy. The issue at hand is whether the Israelites were occupying territory that didn’t belong to them, and which goes all the way back to the time of the Exodus. If you’re taking notes, write this down. This is the third conversation: Jephthah and the king of Ammon. Jephthah and the king of Ammon.

Let me summarize this moment for you. Basically, the king of the Ammonites is invading Israel because he believes the Israelites are squatting on their ancestral lands. He believes that the Israelites, all the way back to when Moses led them out of Egypt to the promised land, this king of Ammon believes the Israelites are occupying Ammonite territory. So, he mentions or he uses this accusation against Jephthah. Jephthah says, “Hey, that is not the situation. We made a letter to the king of Ammon back then. We made a letter to the king of the Moabites. We made a letter to the Midianites. And none of you guys let us pass through your land. We went the long way all around it. We had to cross the Jordan River just to get into this thing, even though we came from the other side. We’re not sitting in your land. In fact, you are now trespassing on our land. We will let you guys see yourselves out the door or we’re going to have words.” That’s what things are doing. That’s how things are going.

In this story, verse 12 through 28, you read it later, Jephthah will continue to emphasize words. You said, I said. We wrote a letter. This is what you’re saying now. Jephthah’s whole life is about his words. But, he does make a fantastic claim. I want you to look at verse 23 and 24. “The Lord God of Israel has driven the Amorites before His people Israel, and will you now force us out? Isn’t it true that you can have whatever your god Chemosh conquers for you? And we can have whatever the Lord our God conquers for us?” Bam.

I look at this guy Jephthah, who continues to just teeter on the brink of some bad decisions, and I recognize that even guys like Jephthah, God can use to say true things. Jephthah makes a fantastic claim, “If your God really is God, then wouldn’t you have the land? If our God really is God, is that why we have the land?” Man, a strong belief in God, that’s an incredible bedrock truth to live by. But, here’s the deal, anybody can say anything. Later in the New Testament, we’ll see demons confess Jesus Christ as Lord. Anybody can say anything. The question is, does your life line up with what you say is true about God? Jephthah here is saying God is powerful, He’s great, He’s sovereign. But, we are going to witness that he doesn’t actually live by that truth.

Long story short, the Ammonite king is going to reject Jephthah’s claim, which means war is inevitable. What begins as a loose thread in Israel’s moral fabric will become a total unraveling in this final conversation. Write this down. This is conversation number four: Jephthah and his daughter. Verse 29 says, “The Spirit of the Lord came on Jephthah, who traveled throughout Gilead and Manasseh, and then through Mizpah of Gilead. He crossed over to the Ammonites from Mizpah of Gilead.” We see the Spirit of God come down on Jephthah.

God’s voice has been silent for the better part of this chapter, but His presence comes on Jephthah this one time. Now, the Spirit’s presence on Jephthah is not a seal of approval on His character, but it’s a guarantee of success for the mission. We see this in the Old Testament: the Spirit of God will come on an individual for a period of time to accomplish a specific task.

Yet, when Jesus comes on the scene and lives the perfect life that we can ever live and dies a sacrificial death in our place that we deserve but don’t have to, and after Jesus dies, He rises back from the grave, totally defeating Satan and sin and darkness for us, securing for us a life and eternity of freedom, Jesus then sends the Holy Spirit into the souls of everybody that God makes come to life because of this message. What we see now and in the New Testament is that the Holy Spirit doesn’t rest on an individual; the Holy Spirit is inside of every believer, not just temporarily for an assignment, but for all of life, and not just to guarantee success in defeating an enemy, but to make us new creations. That’s the role of the Spirit in us now.

What we see here is the Spirit of God comes on Jephthah and is starting to guarantee success. But regardless of God’s Spirit’s in the mix, Jephthah opens his mouth one more time. So far, Jephthah’s words have manipulated the Gilead elders and attempted to pull diplomacy with Ammonites, but now Jephthah’s words are going to make a promise that he’s not going to want to keep. Verses 30 through 33.

Jephthah makes a vow to the Lord: “God, if you hand over the Ammonites to me, then whoever or whatever comes out the doors of my house to greet me when I come home safely will belong to you, and I will offer that person as a burnt offering.” Jephthah crossed over to the Ammonites and defeats them. The Lord handed them over to him. Jephthah knew this was going to happen. He knew God was going to win. Verse 33, he defeated 20 of their cities with a great slaughter. The Ammonites were subdued before the Israelites.

Man, the language could be a bit ambiguous maybe in your translation in particular, but Jephthah’s intent is clear: God, whatever comes out of my door is to greet me when I go home, I’m going to slaughter to you. So, what happens? Verse 34, Jephthah goes to his home in Mizpah. There was his daughter coming out to meet him with tambourines and dancing. She was his only child. He had no son, no other daughter besides her. When he sees her, he tears his clothes. “NO! NOT MY DAUGHTER! You’ve devastated me. You’ve brought misery on me. I’ve given my word to the Lord. I can’t take it back.”

What she says is astounding. “Dad, Daddy, you gave your word to the Lord. Do to me as you have said, for God brought vengeance on your enemies, the Ammonites. Let me do this one thing. Let me wander for 2 months through the mountains with my friends and mourn my virginity.” Go, he says. He sends her away for those 2 months. She leaves with her friends, mourned her virginity as she wandered through the mountains, and at the end of the 2 months, she returned to her dad, and he kept the vow that he had made about her. She had never been intimate with a man.

Now it became a custom in Israel that four days each year the young women of Israel would commemorate the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite. Jephthah in his words write a check that his daughter will have to cash with her own life.

God hates this. Let me reiterate. God hates this. Multiple times in the Old Testament, God explicitly condemns offering people as a burnt offering sacrifice in any capacity. In fact, one of the most beautiful aspects of Yahweh in the Old Testament is that His character and His demands were so different than the other nations’ gods because they would command child sacrifice, they would command sacrificing women. Yahweh never does that. Yahweh in fact offers a way to buy your way out of a rash vow. Not only does He hate human sacrifice, He hates stupidity. And He makes a way for Jephthah to get out of his stupidity with this rash vow, but Jephthah doesn’t take it. Jephthah thinks it’s better to keep an ungodly word, so he disregards God’s offer for mercy through God’s good word. And it leads to the death of his daughter.

commemorated every year by the women of Israel. Man, where does this story lead us? How are you supposed to apply something like this? As I was studying this week, there’s this this one truth that jumped out to me over and over again. God’s word gives life. Man’s word takes it. God’s word gives life. Man’s word takes it. Man, don’t you see that in your life? Where you get a little upset or a little too upset with a family member and you yell at them, you raise your voice, or maybe you’re real cold and kind of condescending. And it just kind of kills the vibe of your home or your relationship. Or whenever you live according to your own—I’m—I’m seeing some nose in the room. Maybe some nudging going on. Or maybe positively where you choose to hold your tongue. And you don’t say the thing that you know they deserve, but you choose not to say, and it actually brings life to the moment. You know this is true. God’s word gives life. Man’s word takes it.

Do you want more proof? I’ll give it to you, okay, Ms. Donna? All right. Lifeway did this study called The Power of Four, all right? If you’ve been with us any length of time, you’ve heard me say this so many times. I’ve got to keep saying it because this was amazing. Lifeway, in conjunction with the Center for Biblical Literacy, I think is what it’s called, they studied over 100,000 participants across years. Some as young as 8 years old, some as young at heart as 80 years old. And what they wanted to study was how much Bible intake actually produces a measurable change in your life. So, that’s why they looked at the same people across years. You know what they found? If you read your Bible just one time a week and you meaningfully read it, like you’re like taking notes, you’re saying, “God, how can I apply this? What sort of difference does this make in my life?” Just one time a week, you know how much that’ll change you? Zilch. No change whatsoever.

Two times a week. I’m saying Monday and Thursday, you get up, you have your coffee, you do your little devotional, you’re praying, “God, help me to apply this today.” You know how much that’ll change your life? Nada.

Three times a week. You’ve come Sunday morning to hear a decent sermon, you’ve woken up on Tuesday to do your quiet time, you do it again on Friday. Man, you’re checking all the boxes, you feel so good about yourself. No change whatsoever.

Something happens the fourth time. When you get into the Bible intentionally four times a week, these are all the things that stop happening in your life. It might be a little difficult for you. We can post these online later. Fear and anxiety goes down by over 20%. Excessive drinking goes down by over 60%. Destructive thoughts that Satan is putting into your mind goes down almost 40%. Loneliness goes down over 30%. Lying and gossiping, they go down 30%. Lashing out at anger, hello self, that goes down 35%. Gambling, sex outside of marriage, viewing pornography, neglecting your family, difficulty forgiving yourself, overeating or under eating, every arena of your life in the negative sense will go down once you start reading the Bible four times every week.

But it gets better than that because it’s not just bad things going down, it’s good things coming up. Giving to other causes, like giving your money, you will give to other things by over 200% more. Sharing your faith, anybody want to be able to share your faith with somebody else? That will go up by over 200%. Discipling others, that just means helping people love Jesus too. Memorizing scripture goes up by 400%. Giving to church. Amen. That goes up by over 400% too.

Man, when you get into your Bible and you you read it, I’m not saying you open the verse of the day, you scan it to say that you did it, and then you get to Instagram. That don’t count. I’m saying the phone is in the other room and you are reading the Bible and you’re praying about what you’re reading. That’s what I’m talking counts. When you do that consistently, when God’s word gets in you consistently, it produces life. Who doesn’t want that? Everybody here, I’ll put both hands up for me and for y’all. Everybody here wants a life filled with joy, peace, hope. Right? Why else would you be here? Why else would you give a couple hours on Sunday morning to come and listen to me and Al drone on about the Bible if you weren’t hungry for something that could carry you through the week. Why else would you be here? You want this. You want a life filled with forgiveness. You want a life filled with love and kindness to people. You want to live a gentle, self-controlled life. You want those things. And the way you get them is not by gritting your teeth and trying harder and telling people all their problems. The way you get that is by letting God expose you to yourself and letting His word work in you. So what? God’s word gives life, man’s word takes life.

I want to give y’all three specific applications, okay? You give me a few more minutes. I know I’ve gone past. Number one, God is speaking. So join the conversation. Jephthah left the conversation with God a long time ago and it didn’t end up in the death of his daughter remembered every year by the people of Israel. Sure, they had the victory over the Ammonites, but I bet Jephthah, if you could talk to him, he would rather have his daughter than the success he had in military, right? God is speaking, so join the conversation.

Personally, every single member of our church is supposed to be having a quiet time. We talked about this in Discovery. Every single member is supposed to be having a time every day with the Lord. I know you’re doing that. I’m just going to go ahead and call you up to it. I know you’re doing that. As well, if God is speaking, I want you to join the conversation in Sunday school and on Wednesday nights. If you help lead a Sunday school class for us, can you just raise your hands, please? All right. Yeah, of any capacity. Kids, adults, students, any capacity. If you help lead a room where the Bible is talked about on a regular basis. Okay. If you’re not yet in one of these classes or if your kids not, want to find one of these half-heartedly raised hands after service, okay? We care about this. God is speaking, so join the conversation, man. And we need you there.

The second one. Trust and obey cuz there’s no other way. We show God how serious our spirituality is when we actually obey God’s word. James 1:17 says, “Don’t be hearers only, but doers of the word.” And I confess, there’s some uncomfortable doing in the Bible. Titus 3:10-11, “Have nothing to do with divisive people.” Matthew 6, “When you fast, when you give, when you pray.” In other words, God expects us to fast. He expects us to give. He expects us to pray. Luke 9:23, deny yourself and take up your cross daily. 1 Corinthians 16:18, flee sexual immorality. Whenever it comes up, I run away from it. Throw the phone, delete Instagram, get off social media, stop talking to that co-worker, whatever that means. James 5:16, confess your sins to one another. There’s some uncomfortable doing in the Bible, but I would tell you when you trust and obey, man, there is no other way to be happy in Jesus but than to [inaudible].

Here’s what I’ve come to find. As I share the gospel with people, non-Christians usually don’t reject the gospel because they disbelieve there’s a good God. They reject the gospel because so-called Christians don’t live according to the Bible. They look at us and they say, “Man, this is a bunch of hypocrites.” It must not be a very compelling faith if your own members don’t practice it. Man, how many of us are living that way? We call ourselves Christians, but we don’t actually obey the Bible. And how many Christians are living unsatisfying, joyless lives because the life-giving words of God are not active in their souls. God calls Himself a farmer and He wants to cultivate some living fruit in you. And the way you get yourself in proximity to the farmer is by reading the word. So, let God let God take care of you. Read the word.

Finally, the the final application is be happy in Jesus. Psalm 16:11, the psalmist says, “God, you make known to me the path of life. In your right hand are pleasures forevermore. in your Sorry, at your right hand pleasures forevermore. In your presence there’s fullness of joy. Got it. Thanks, Spirit.” God wants you to live. You know what God has planned for your life? Joy. Arthur, you know what God wants for you? Pleasure. Ricky, you know what God wants for you? Life. And man, we get that when we take this up and we read it. God’s word brings life. Not man’s, not Satan’s, not Jeremy’s, not the world’s.

So, choose today to trust that God’s word will give you the life you’re craving. And we know that’s true because there was another only child that gave their life as a sacrifice. The daughter of Jephthah was really just a signpost for us of another only child that would willingly give themselves up for the sake of another. While we were still sinners, God died for us. While we were hating God, we were enemies to Him and we were walking against Him, Jesus from before the time before the foundations of the world made a plan to save you. A plan to call you to Himself, a plan to give His soul for you. In this divine exchange where God would look on people and say, “I love them and I forgive them because of my son.” And God would look at the son and say, “I’m going to punish you for their sin.” A punishment you don’t deserve, but you are willingly taking on yourself.

So, for anybody that doesn’t know that yet today, for anybody who has not trusted in Jesus Christ, that living sacrifice for them, and please, let today be the day you give your life to Him. Let today be the day that you offer your soul to Him, where you claim that forgiveness, say, “Yes, God, I want that. I don’t know all the details for it. I don’t know what this means for my day-to-day life yet, but I want life. I want security. I want hope. I want joy. I want peace. Give that to me, please, Lord.”

In fact, please bow your heads and close your eyes. I’m not going to—I’m not going to manipulate anybody. I’m not going to ask you to do anything you don’t want to do. But, I’m going to invite people right now. If you don’t yet know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you just take a moment right now. You say, “Jesus, I think that you love me. And I’m tired of this darkness and the sin and the frustration in my world. I’m sorry for how I’ve hurt you. Please, forgive me.” Give yourself to Him right now. Me and Pastor Al will be here down at the front after the service to be able to pray with anybody who’s praying that prayer or wants to pray that prayer. We’ll be with anybody who already knows Jesus as Lord and Savior, but you just need prayer for something. Your back hurts to a family relationship that’s just torn apart. We’d love to pray with you.

God, we give you ourselves. We need you to work in us. We need you to transform us, to make us new people. Do that by your word. For anybody in here that doesn’t know you as Savior yet, please get a hold of them over the next few moments. Thank you. Amen.