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Private Notes
After 430 years immersed in the paganism of Egypt, the people of God were finally delivered from their bondage. It was relatively easy getting the people out of Egypt; the hard work would be getting Egypt out of the people. For nearly four decades they wandered through the deserts of the Sinai Peninsula, circling, walking, waiting and learning the hard lessons of obedience. Day after painful day they learned to trust God.
Then under the leadership of Joshua these freed slaves entered the Promised Land and were confronted by the fertility cults there. They fought to remove this influence from the land, but to no avail. As they fought, obedience became an afterthought, and they stumbled into their second failure: the breakdown of the family. Their disobedience and family breakdown triggered a cycle of chaos that repeats throughout the book of Judges.
Tempted by disobedience and witnessing the unraveling of the family, we find tremendous similarities to our modern era. If we're not careful to learn the lessons from the past, we too are plunged into chaos.
Othniel, whose name means “Lion of God,” was the only Judge with no inherent flaws spoken about him, and he was at least 60 years old when God raised him up to be a Judge. Though he was an unlikely Judge due to his age, he had seen God’s faithfulness over the years. Through his short story, we learn that you are never too old to be used by God and your best days spiritually should never be behind you. So take what you’ve learned and pass it on. There should always be new stories of faith in action. What’s yours?
Ehud was a judge who was "left-handed." The Hebrew phrase for this is "weak or restricted in the right hand," which seems to communicate what Ehud couldn't do well rather than what God was able to do with him. He was physically different than most people and possibly disabled. This week we take a look at how God uses people in spite of their physical weaknesses or restrictions, or even uses people because of those weaknesses. Every restriction we have allows the world to see how unrestricted God is in using us.
Jephthah was the illegitimate son of a prostitute mother and adulterous father. He was despised and rejected by his half-brothers, stripped from his rightful inheritance, and forced out of his home and onto the streets, where he would eventually join a gang and commit to a life of crime and rebellion from God. Sadly, his life would forever be marked by a tragic vow that would cost him everything. He was unlikely in every way to have a life of significance, let alone be used by God as a hero and deliverer for his nation. Yet his is a story of redemption. This is a story that reminds us that none of us are beyond God's power to save, and none of us are beyond God's grace to restore.
Driven by his flesh and motivated by his passions Samson is a true Unlikely. Taught for years in Sunday School classes as a hero of the faith, he is immortalized in the text as a man of unbridled lust. Though exposed to the things of God, Samson’s life is defined by poor decisions, rash judgments and carnal desires. Yet through all of the compromise and moral failure God used him in a powerful way, and we will take a peek into the life of Samson to reveal the Samson in us.
We continue our series with a look at an unlikely trio (a prophet, a military leader, and a foreigner's housewife) that God used in tandem to deliver Israel. Of these three, the most unlikely is Jael, and yet she is the heroine. In her, we see someone who didn't allow a lack of training, experience, resources or status stop her from taking the opportunity to serve God and His people. It is unlikely people like Jael who continue to be the heroes in the church today.
Faithless and doubting. These terms describe the next unlikely, Gideon, a man who was terrified by circumstances and doubted God’s ability to deliver. Test after test ensued as Gideon tried to ensure that God was with him. Even in faithless duty God used Gideon and delivered the people of God from their oppression. However, at the pinnacle of his influence, Gideon finds himself initiating an egregious act of idolatry that becomes a snare to those he had so reluctantly delivered. Gideon serves as an example of how God continues to use unlikely leaders to serve His purposes and also cautions us that our greatest times of weakness often occur during our moments of greatest victory.
In this series we have studied unlikely people and how God used them in unlikely ways to bring about deliverance for the nation of Israel. Hopefully we have also been able to see ourselves in these stories as unlikely individuals who God can redeem, restore and use for His glory. But more than stories about unlikely people, this series has really been about an unlikely God – a God who is full of grace and mercy, and serves as the true hero and deliverer in our lives. This week’s message will seek to point us all toward full surrender and trust in this unlikely God.
