I wonder, pals, how long has it been since we heard those stories? I bet it's been a while. And if we could tell them again, I wonder if we would find out that those stories aren't really kids' stories at all, but they were meant for grown-ups all along. And that there's still lessons we can learn from them today. Let's find out together. Speedy delivery. For me? Thanks mailman Kyle. Today, Samson. All right. Well, good morning, everybody. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. It's been a minute since I preached. The elders were kind enough to allow me to take the month of July off from preaching. And as I said last week, thank you so much for being a church that lets me do that. I'm sure that as I converse with people and continue to process what the month allowed me to do, one of the things that I'm coming out of July with is a profound gratitude for you. I'm so grateful that I get to be your pastor and that I get to be in this place. It is one of the most profound joys of my life. So thank you for letting me serve you in this way. As we jump back into the series, Kids Stories for Grownups, it's kind of born out of this idea that there's these stories. If you grow up in church, there's these stories that we learn all along the way, right? David and Goliath and Noah and the Ark and Jonah and the Whale. We hear those stories and then when we grow up and we still sit in church on Sunday mornings, we don't talk about kids' stories. We talk about important theology and Romans and things like that, but we don't revisit the kids' stories. Sometimes when I put Lily to bed, my six-year-old daughter, she'll ask me for a Bible story, and I love telling Lily Bible stories. I love telling Bible stories to anyone, especially if they haven't heard them before. And it's funny how I'll remember the stories that I liked when I was a kid and I'll think, oh, I'll tell her about Noah and the ark. Oh yeah. I mean, the animals are cute, but like the whole world dying. That's, I don't think she's ready for that yet. So let, not that one. And then, well, maybe I'll tell her this one. Ooh, that's a, that, that, that, that, um, the holy war is, is tricky right now. Let's, uh, let's, let's wait on that one. And then, well, maybe I'll tell her this one. Ooh, that Holy War is tricky right now. Let's wait on that one. And you kind of realize, my goodness, these are not intended for kids at all. These are intended for adults. And there's no story to me that personifies that better than the story of Samson. When you read, when you're a little kid, if you grew up in church, and this isn't everyone's experience. Not everyone grew up in church, and I understand that. And maybe if you didn't grow up in church, you've heard of Samson before, and you know he was like superhuman, like Bible Hercules, that was him. But when you're a little kid and you grow up in church, especially if you're a little boy, Samson's the best. Samson was the Hercules of the Bible. He accomplished things of superhuman strength. He killed 1,000 people with the jawbone of a donkey. And when you're eight, that sounds amazing. When you're 41, you're like, but why did he do that? What's the matter with Samson? That's awful. And when you revisit this story, you realize this guy was a jerk. And I'm saying he was a jerk because it's church and I'm on the stage and there's children in the room. But that's not the word I want to use. I would like to string together more colorful words to describe who Samson was. And so when you go through the story of Samson, overshadowing everything is this constant why. Why did God use him? Why is he in the New Testament referred to as one of the heroes of the faith? How? Why? Why does God continue to use him and bless him? This doesn't make any sense. And I'll just tell you up front, the goal for this morning is not to answer the why question. The goal for this morning is to see what we can see in the life of Samson and how God interacts with him and how that might inform how we interact with God and how God pursues us. But we're going to take a stab at that as we go. But the story of Samson is not the story of a hero of the faith to me, or at least not what you would think it would be. We pick up Samson's story in Judges chapter 13, where we learn that there is a, and I would encourage you to grab a Bible. There's one in front of you. Judges 13 through 16 is where we're going to be today. If you're at home, follow along there. But just double check me and make sure I'm not making this stuff up because it's going to sound like I am, but I promise you I'm not. His life was just nuts. So in Judges chapter 13, we pick up Samson. We learn of a woman who was married to a man named Manoah, and she was not able to have children, but she desperately wanted some. And so she's praying to God that God would allow her to have some children. And this is what God says to her. In Judges 13, verses 3 through 5. Okay, so there's a couple of things going on there. First of all, you see that he can't, no alcohol, no touching unclean things. You cannot cut his hair ever. It's a Nazaritic vow. He was going to make a vow of the Nazarite. And that just means someone who is set aside intentionally and purposefully from birth to be used by God. And so the vow incorporates no alcohol, no haircuts, no touching unclean things and following God's law. So before Samson is born, God goes to his mom and says, I'm going to give you a son and your son is going to be used by me. He's going to take the Nazaritic vow and he can never drink and his hair can never be cut. And I am going to use him to overthrow the Philistines. At which point it's helpful for me to explain that what is going on in the period of the judges. As we read the book of Judges, we're in an era of Israel called the Judges before they had kings. So it's after they wandered into the desert, they've established themselves as a nation, or rather God has established them as a nation. And now they do not have a king or a ruler, rather God is their king. And in his rule, God appoints a judge to sit and do just that, to settle disputes, to help people figure things out, to say you're right and you're wrong and you have to pay them punitive damages and all those things. He appoints a judge during peaceful times to keep everything harmonious. But the role of the judge was also at times to overthrow the other tribes oppressing God's people in Israel. Because the cycle of the judges is God would establish them and freedom and they would be in charge of themselves. He's their king. They would have a judge and they serve him well and in peace. But eventually they would forget about the blessings of God. They would begin to make their own choices, follow after their own gods and go into a stage of rebellion against God. And to get their attention, God would allow them to experience the consequences of their actions by removing his hand of blessing from his nation of Israel. And they would get oppressed again by the Midianites or the Amorites or the Philistines or some other ites until they would cry out to God, we've messed is, I'm going to give you a son who will take the Nazaritic vow, and he is going to become a judge over Israel and will begin to overthrow the Philistine oppressors. That's the promise God makes to this woman. So she has a son. They name him Samson. And we don't know a lot about his childhood. When we see him come on the scene, he's walking back and forth to this village that was, I guess, a neighboring village to where he was, except it was a Philistine village. And one day on his way, it says a young lion attacked him. And it says that the spirit of the Lord came upon him and he ripped the lion apart with his bare hands. So this is where we see Samson's gift from God is this kind of superhuman strength. And while he's in this village, he meets a girl. And he goes back to his parents, and he says to his parents, hey, I've met a woman, and I want her to be my wife. Will you please make the necessary arrangements with her parents, which fellas, if only it were that easy, right? So they say, and this is the response. I love this response. You can find it in the text. When he says, I want to marry this woman over here from this Philistine village, his parents are troubled because he's supposed to marry an Israelite girl. He's supposed to marry a Jewish girl. That's kind of part of the deal. When you're part of the Jewish faith, you don't intermarry with other faiths. You stay with your faith. This is something that's really important to God and the Old Testament. It's really important to Samson's parents, but Samson doesn't care. And so their response when he says, hey, I've met this Philistine girl and I'd like to marry her. Can you make the arrangements? His parents' literal response is, Samson, have you considered your cousins? That's the response. Now imagine some of you have kids that are of marrying age. Let's say they bring them home and you guys are talking and that person goes off to bed or they go to the restroom or whatever it is and you lean over to your child. How bad would that person have to be for you to say, have you considered your cousins? Like what about your family at least? They didn't want to marry her, but he did. And for whatever reason they allowed it. You get the impression that Samson's not the kind of person that you can say no to, so they make the arrangements. And he's on his way to the village for the marriage celebration. It's like a seven-day celebration. It's like a seven-day long wedding reception, which is my nightmare because I hate wedding receptions. But there, which I'm sure no one's surprised by that. Like, I didn't see that one coming, Nate. Yeah, I don't like dancing. All right, they're the worst. So it's a seven day reception to go to for a wedding. And on his way there, he passes by the lion that he killed, except now it's a carcass and some bees have built a hive in it. And there's some honey in there. And so he's like, well, that looks nice. And so he scoops some honey out and he eats some of that honey, which seems like an inconsequential thing, except it's a violation of his Nazaritic vow. He's not supposed to touch unclean things and that was dead. So it's unclean. So Samson already is pretty cavalier about the vow that he made to God, that his parents asked him to make to God, and about his fidelity to this God that's empowering him to rip lions apart with his bare hands. And he gets down there, and at the reception, he's been assigned 30 companions. They've chosen 30 men from among the town to be his companions, to be his friends, which that's 30 is a lot. It's a large wedding party and also does not sound very fun. Like, hey, to celebrate your wedding, here's 30 people that you're going to spend the week with that you don't know. But that's how they did it. So those are his companions. And on the first day of the celebration, he says, hey, I'll make you guys a bet. I'll bet you that I'll give you a riddle. And if you can solve it, then I'll give each one of you a set of clothes. And if you can't solve it, then each of you, all 30 of you, has to give me a set of clothes. And apparently, this was a pretty high-stakes bet, all right? There was no Old Navies. We're not running to the store to buy shorts for $12. Clothes were very expensive. They were handmade, and having one or two sets was a pretty big deal in life. So betting 30 of them is a pretty large gamble, except, and you can read it, it's kind of a dumb riddle, honestly, but it's a riddle that's impossible to solve. The answer to the riddle is this carcass that has honey in it down the street, but you're never going to guess it. So it's a totally impossible riddle. And now you're just going to beat your heads against the wall for seven days. And then I'm going to take all of your money. This is great. So he's made a jerky, impossible bet to his new friends. So as the celebration goes on, the 30 companions are really putting pressure on Samson's fiance to tell him, hey, figure out what the answer to this riddle is and tell us. Like, he's going to come in here and embarrass all the Philistines ever. So you got to figure it out. You got to figure it out. So she's pressing on him to figure it out. He won't tell her. He won't tell her. Finally, on the seventh day, he tells her. So she goes and she tells the guys, and then the guys publicly say, hey, we got it. And they give him the answer to his riddle. And he's so incensed and so angry that they used his fiance to figure it out that they came about it in an unfair way. They didn't just figure it out on their own. They had to cheat to win and now they've won and now he owes them 30 sets of clothes. So Samson, in his rage, goes into town and murders 30 people, and then takes their bloody clothes and goes and pays off his bet like that. What? He just goes into town and kills 30 people, and then takes their, I'm sure, blood-stained clothes and goes and gives them to the people to pay off the bet and then storms away. Samson's evil, man. That's crazy. That's maniacal. That's like the first three murders, okay. But then 27 more. Are you kidding me? That's so bad. So after a period of time, I don't know what kind of cooling off period you need after 30 murders, he goes back to the father of the bride and he's like, okay, I'm ready to take my bride now. And the father of the bride's like, oh, you were, you were so angry that I didn't think you wanted anything to do with the family. I gave her to one of your companions. I have another daughter if you'd like to talk about her, which seems like a totally reasonable response. I just did a wedding this weekend. I went to rehearsal on Friday morning, and then the ceremony was yesterday afternoon. If in between the rehearsal and the ceremony, the groom murdered 30 people associated with the bride, I would just assume that the wedding was off. Like, I don't need a confirmation email on that one. I'm just not going to go. So it's a reasonable response. And Samson is so mad that he then goes, the Bible says, and he captures foxes, 300 of them, we are told. And he ties their tails together and he puts a torch in their tails and he sends them through the fields of the Philistines. Now, I'm not an animal lover, okay? You guys know this about me. That's still crazy. That's still wildly evil to just do that to animals and burn down all the crops of the whole city. These farmers didn't have anything to do with Samson. Just the huge impact that would have on that town. Now, yes, God has raised him up to be a judge and to overthrow the Philistines, but like this? When the Philistines hear about what happened, they send an army after Samson. Samson's cornered, and all he has is the remains of a donkey, so he grabs the jawbone of the donkey, and he starts fighting, and God's spirit was with him, and he slayed a thousand Philistines that day. Now, it's wild to me that after the first, like, 20, he didn't grab one of their swords and make it a little easier for himself. He's like, no, I'm riding with this jawbone, man. It got me here, so let's go. And he kills 1,000 Philistines with the jawbone of a donkey. And in the aftermath of that battle and that life lived so far, we have these verses that kind of sum up this place where the story pauses. And he was very thirsty. No kidding, Samson needed some Gatorade. And he called upon the Lord and said, you have granted this great salvation by the hand of your servant and shall I now die of thirst and fall at the hands of the uncircumcised? God split open the hollow place that is at Lehi, and water came out. And when he drank, his spirit returned, and he revived. Therefore, the name of it was called Enhachor. It is at Lehi to this day, and he judged Israel in the days of the Philistines 20 years. How about that last sentence? I bet you didn't see that coming, did you? This guy that just murdered 1,030 Philistines and burned down their crops and in no way at any point in his life has honored God or seemed to care about him at all. Doesn't care to marry a Hebrew girl like he's supposed to. Doesn't care to honor his vow like he's supposed to. doesn't care to try to be tempered and measure in his character at all like he's supposed to, and then, great, let's make him the judge of Israel for 20 years with God's blessing. What in the world? How can God use Samson? How is that allowed or fair or right? You know, I don't know. But at this point in the story, when you see who he is, you see his stripes, and yet he ruled Israel peacefully for 20 years that God gave him. I can only conclude that it's because God faithfully uses the profoundly broken. He faithfully uses the profoundly broken. We see this over and over again in Scripture. Moses was a murderer. David was an adulterer. Noah was a drunk. And on and on it goes. But we, all of us, ought to be grateful that God faithfully uses the profoundly broken. Because there is not a person in here who isn't. There is not a person within the sound of my voice who has not been at different times in their life for different reasons profoundly broken. Scripture says that God's law is a mirror that we hold up and essentially see our ugliness and therefore need for God. You cannot be a Christian and walk with God for any period of time and not be well acquainted with just how sinful you are. And not at some point be disgusted with what's in here and what you're capable of. Every one of us has walked through a season and gotten to the other side of it and turned around and thought, who was that person? If you have never been profoundly broken, I have good and bad news for you. You will be, and it's for your better. So lest we look at Samson and think it's unfair that God would use him, let's be reminded that God faithfully uses the profoundly broken, those wandering far off, those who do not seem to have a life that's in harmony with the faith that they claim. God still uses those people, and we ought to be grateful for that. We sang, all three songs that we sang up to this sermon were about that. It was about God's pursuit of us, how God doesn't give up on us. This God of revival, pour it out, pour it out. There was no one in need of revival more than Samson, and God continues to faithfully use him. And I've told you guys before, I tell you as often as I can, Ephesians 2.10, we are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works that we might walk in them. God has a plan for you. God has a purpose for you. God designed you and intended you to be used and deployed in his kingdom. Who cares if it's in a big way or a small way? They don't matter, but it's in a way. God intends to use you and he will continue to use you despite your brokenness, despite your rebellion, despite your wandering. And the other reason, the other thing that we see in God using the profoundly broken is the fact that he is a God who keeps his promises. He promised that woman before she ever had Samson, I will use him to overthrow the Philistines. He made a promise. And we serve a God that keeps his promises. That's what this means. That's what that tells us. That's what that reminds us of. The cross is a symbol of the fact that we have a God who keeps his promises. There's a scholar named N.T. Wright who defines God's righteousness. If you want to say, what does it mean that God is righteous? How do you define God's righteousness? It's his commitment to keeping his promises. The cross is a reminder that God keeps his promises. That's why I say that to be a Christian is to believe that Jesus is who he is, that he did what he said he did, and that he's going to do what he says he's going to do. That he kept those promises and he's going to keep the ones in the future. God made a promise to that woman. And so despite Samson's best efforts, he keeps it. He keeps his promises to you too. We pick up the story 20 years later. Samson's in Gaza. And in Gaza, he goes and he sees a prostitute and he's like, yep, she looks nice. And he goes and he lays with her. They find out that he's there. They want to kill him. He leaves. He rips the gates off the hinges of the town and he throws them into the ground. I don't know why he does it or why it's in the Bible. It's just kind of showing off. Look at this thing I can do that God lets me do. So he just does the gate thing. And we all probably have gifts that God gives us that we've misappropriated somewhere. That's definitely one of them. But the casual nature in which it's written tells me that this was not the first time that Samson went to see a prostitute. If you think that just because it's the first time it shows up in Scripture that it was the first time he did it, then I think that you are stupid. From there, he meets a woman named Delilah. We often think that Delilah was a prostitute as well, but there's nothing in the text to indicate that, that I saw. So she was a Philistine woman. And you guys know how the story goes. The Philistines saw that they were in a relationship and the officials come to Delilah and they're like, hey, we'll pay you a lot of money if you'll figure out what the secret to his strength is so that we can subdue him. She's like, all right, I'll figure it out. So she goes to Samson. Samson, if you love me, if you trust me, if you really want to be with me, you know, all the things, then will you please tell me the secret to your strength? And after a little bit, he relents. And he says, sure. If you get seven fresh bow strings and bind me with them, the strength will leave me. I'll have none of it and I'll be easy to subdue. But don't tell anybody. I added that last part because it makes sense for him to say that. He goes to sleep that night. She gets seven fresh bow strings. She binds him with them. And she tells the Philistines, I've got him. He's in big trouble. And they come in and she says, Samson, Samson, the Philistines are upon you. And he breaks the bow strings like they're nothing. And he takes out his assailants and he defeats them and he's not arrested. And then she goes to him, and this is remarkable. And she says, Samson, you've embarrassed me in front of my friends, okay? You told me that it was bow strings, and it wasn't. And now, don't I look like an idiot? I have no idea about this exchange. Why, Samson was like, yeah, yeah, I mean, that's fair. I did lie, but you also tried to have me murdered, so. So he's like, you're right, baby. I'm so sorry. Here, let me tell you the real secret. Weave my hair into a loom and then that's going to get me. So that's what she does. Falls asleep. She weaves his hair into a loom. Samson, Samson, the Philistines are upon you. He breaks out of there and he defeats them. The assailants are defeated and he's not arrested. And she again, Samson, man, I'm so mad at you. I've got a bone to pick here. You've embarrassed me in front of my friends again. What are they going to think? She presses on and presses on him, and Samson says, okay, fine, listen. If you cut my hair, it's never been cut. The Spirit of the Lord will leave me. I will not have any strength. I'll be like a baby. Which I can only guess. Like, why would Samson tell her that? She's done the other two things to him that he said, and he knows what's going to happen. She's going to do it. The only reason can be that after 20 years of Samson doing what he wanted in the spirit of the Lord being with him, that he started to think he was the man. And he forgot he wasn't. And he forgot he was reliant upon God for that strength. And so he said, yeah, you know what? Forget it. Yeah, cut it. See if I care. I'll be fine. So he tells her. And she cuts it. And they come in. Samson, Samson, the Philistines are upon you. And they take him because he has no strength. And they pluck his eyes out and they put him in a mill grinding grain to live out the rest of his days like livestock. And he is brought low. And it's at this low point that my favorite verse in the story occurs. If you just read the story yourself, my guess is, like I did the first several times, you're going to miss this verse, but I want us to stop and look at it at this low point where his head is shaved, he is bald, he has broken every vow that he's ever made, his eyes are plucked out, he has been forced to live out his days like an ox in a mill. And he was supposed to be the leader of Israel. We get this gem of a verse at the end of chapter 16. But the hair of his head began to grow again after it had been shaved. Just this little pause. Just this little transition in the story. Yeah. Yeah, God says they shaved his head. They didn't scalp him. That hair is going to grow back. And my promises are still true. And I'm still here for Samson to call on whenever he decides he needs me. And I love that verse because it reminds us that at our lowest, God still sees a future for us. At our very worst, at our very least, at our bottom of the barrel moment, whenever that is and whenever it occurs, wherever we are, God still sees a future for us that we have not forfeited. He still envisions a purpose and a plan for us that our sins are not too great for. At our lowest, at your lowest, God still sees a future for you that's better than the one that you would imagine for yourself and it's better than the one that you deserve. While Samson was milling, they came in and got him. There was a large festival going on wherever the Philistines had festivals to their God. And we're told that he was placed in between two pillars for the people to gawk at. He was the entertainment. Look at the mighty Samson. Look at the one who's killed thousands. Now look at him. Look how pathetic he is. And he's placed between two pillars, and on the top of this roof was a couple thousand Philistines, and in the courtyard was a couple thousand Philistines. And Samson asked the girl next to him, can you place my hands on the stones? I just want to feel them. And he cries out to God right as a last act in Judges 16, 28, then Samson called to the Lord and said, Oh, Lord God, please remember me and please strengthen me only this once. Oh, God, that I may be avenged on the Philistines for my two eyes. So there's like some positive and negative there. Oh, God, please be with me this one last time. Like he remembers. He remembers what he was supposed to do. He remembers that it was God who provided him the strength. And so he cries out to God. But then he tacks on to the end of it, so that I may avenge my two eyes. Not like, so that I may avenge you, God, not so that I may bring judgment on the Philistines, not so that I can be your servant once again, but so I can get them back for me to the very end. Samson, jerk. But he cries out to God, and God blesses him. And it's interesting to me, and I missed this, we're going to go back and get it, but it's interesting to me that God only allowed Samson to experience the full consequences of his action once his betrayal was complete. Did you catch that? That hair that Samson allowed Delilah to shave was the last thing tethering him to his God in any way. It was the last acknowledgement, either implicit or explicit, that Samson was tethered to God in any way. It was the last symbol of his fidelity to a God that he had long rebelled against. When he scooped up the honey out of the carcass, he doesn't care about his vow. You're trying to tell me that Samson never had wine? When he's sleeping with the prostitutes, he doesn't care about his vow. When he's marrying the Philistine woman, he doesn't care about his vow. Nothing in his life shows that he cares about his God and fidelity to his God at all, except his hair. It was the one thing tethering him to his father. It was the one symbol in his life that God still mattered to him. And when Delilah shaved it, he said, yeah, you can have that too. And his betrayal was complete. And it's just interesting to me that God did not allow him to experience the full consequences of his actions until he had completed his betrayal. This is not for everybody what I'm about to say, but for some of us who think we've been getting away with things and that we'll never really have to experience the consequences of those actions. Maybe God is just giving us enough space to see if our betrayal will be complete. As he continues to pursue us, and we continue to make rebellious choices. When I saw it as I prepped, I paused. And so I wanted to pause here too. And just submit that to you for you to consider. Now from the life of Samson, what do we learn? What do we see? What can we take from that? I think we're tempted to look at Samson and to look at what he did and to say like, I'm not capable of that. I can never do those things. I'm not going to murder 30 people and sleep with a bunch of prostitutes. I'm not going to do all that stuff. Know what? I would say you're probably right. But here's what Samson did. Samson did whatever he thought he could get away with. Samson did whatever he wanted that he thought he wouldn't have to suffer the consequences for. You've done that, right? We've all done that. Had seasons of life where, you know what, we're just going to do, I'm just going to do whatever I want to do that I think I can get away with. And in that way, we're all like Samson. Because of that, I think we need to acknowledge this morning that a rebellious life is built on small rebellious choices. A life of rebellion is built on small rebellious choices. Look at the progression of Samson. He just wanted to marry the girl he shouldn't marry. He wanted to break that rule a little bit. It's just scooping the honey. It's not that big of a deal. Everybody likes honey. It's got a little sweet tooth. Who cares? It's all going to come out in the wash. I'll just give this impossible riddle and take their money. I'm taking advantage of them. But, you know, everybody does this sometimes and then it's murder and then it's theft and then it's sleeping with people that he shouldn't, and then it's a total betrayal of all of his fidelity to God until one day he breaks the last tether. And he ended up with a life of rebellion, but that life was built on small rebellious choices. I'm going to cheat here. I'm going to lie over there. It's just small lies. It's not that big of a deal. I just need to save face in front of my boss. Just a little flirtation there. I'm out of town. It's not a huge deal. I'm never going to see this person again. We're not going to actually do anything. I don't think I really need to go to church. I'm just going to hang back. I'll catch it online when I can. Not this week. Not small group this week. Not reading my Bible this morning. I'll start that next week. This week's busy. A full life of rebellion is built on just small, inconsequential, rebellious choices, where before you know it, this is just our MO. And here's what I would say based on the life of Samson, that a life of rebellion will always come crashing down around you. A life of unrepentant rebellion will always come crashing down around us. We cannot continue to take these rebellious steps. We cannot continue to move away from God, to wander away from him, to have these seasons where we just don't have any faith and we have very little fidelity to the one that is faithful to us. We cannot walk like that forever and not have that life come crashing down around us. So when I look at the story of Samson, to me, it's a story that's very confusing, very tricky to understand, but also it's a story that's incredibly sad. Because when I look at Samson, I think of the life that could have been. What joys did God have stored up for him that he could have walked in? I think of what if Samson had believed the Psalm of David that would come generations after Psalm 1611 that says, you make known to me the path of life. In your presence there is fullness of joy. At your right hand are pleasures forevermore. What if Samson had chosen a life of obedience rather than rebellion? What if he would have trusted, yeah, I want these small joys now, but God, I know that you have a much better plan for me. I know that that's who I want to marry, but God, I know that if I follow your plan and your path, that in your presence there is fullness of joy. At your right hands there are pleasures forevermore. I know that the life that I envisioned for myself could never be the life that you have for me. And when I look at the life of Samson, I wonder what goodness did he forfeit? What did he give up? What kind of peace could he have had with the family? What kind of peaceful reign could he have enjoyed? What kind of children could he have had around him? What kind of goodness could he have built in a community of nurturing and loving? Kindness. What did he miss out on by choosing that life of rebellion? I think that we each have a choice too. We have a choice to live a life of small rebellious choices. Or we have a choice to live a life of faithful obedience to the God who is faithful to us. I would put to you in reflection on the story of Samson, which are you going to be? Which life will you choose? Because that life can begin to be built this week. If you, up until this very morning, have lived a life of rebellion, let the hair on your head begin to grow back. God still has a plan for you. God still has a purpose for you. Anytime you want to choose him, you can. He's there. He's waiting. Many of us live a life where we try to straddle the fence. Seasons of rebellion followed by seasons of repentance and obedience. Get off the fence. Let us take the story of Samson as a sobering warning to choose a life of obedience where there are pleasures forevermore, where we'll sit at the right hand of the Father and experience the fullness of his joy. Where from his goodness we have all received grace upon grace. This week we looked at a life of rebellion and we see the results of that. Next week we come back and we talk about Gideon who lived a life of fearful and faithful obedience. And you're going to find out exactly what happens for those who choose to build their life that way. But for now, I would press on you. Which will you choose? You can start building an obedient life anytime. Let's pray and then we'll worship together and close out. Father, you are so good to us and patient with us. Lord, if there are people who hear me, who have wandered, who have left you, who have allowed you to be faithful to them while they are not faithful to you, would you bring them back? God, if there are people who hear me who have lived a life of rebellion, God, would you pull them back to you before they experience the full consequences of their actions? Would you save them in their wandering? Could this morning be a marker for them? Where their hair begins to grow again? And God, would you strengthen those saints who are living lives of faithful obedience? May they experience the depth of joy that you promise us when we walk there too. It's in your son's precious name we pray. Amen.