Samson's Godly Parents (Judges 13)

[Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] turn with me to judges 13 judges 13 in the Old Testament if you're using one of the Bibles in the racks in front of you it's page 201 a lady named Shirley Ratcliffe tells the story of taking a parenting class at her church and then trying to explain that to her six-year-old daughter so she said to her daughter that I'm taking this class to help me be a better mommy a little later that week there was something that the little girl did not get her way and she blurted out mommy you said you were taking this class to be a better mommy it's not working so many times as parents we've come to the conclusion that something isn't working but maybe that should force us to ask what I hope is the right question what is the goal of a Christian parent is the goal of the Christian parent a raising godly kids or B being a godly parent is the goal results in our children or is the goal of Christian parenting that we would be growing in godliness as a parent we look at the story of Samson today specifically his parents we you may have heard of Samson as the supernaturally strong man that he was but we may not know a lot about his parents his parents are actually a bright spot spiritually in the time of the judges which is a dark season in the life of Israel this is about 1100 BC Samson used was used by God to bring amazing victor to the nation of Israel over their perennial enemies to the West the Philistines but Samson really ends up with kind of a spiritually mixed review of his life so if we were to evaluate his parents based on results in Samson you I don't know would you give him a c-minus or D even because of some of Samson's Samson's antics or could it be that God would say to Manoah and his wife Samson's parents well done verse one again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord so the Lord delivered them into the hands of the Philistines for forty years this had been kind of a continuous cycle in the time of the judges that Israel because of lack of spiritual leadership went into a spiritual tailspin and God would allow the discipline of the surrounding nations defeating them until things got so desperate and this is how we are so often so desperate that they ended up crying out to God and because they cried out to God God being a gracious God responded he responded usually by sending a particular person to be a judge or leader that would then be empowered to conquer whatever enemies they were facing so that has happened again and this is God's answer it's the birth of Samson verse 2 a certain man of Zorah named Manoah from the clan of the Danites had a wife who was barren and remained childless the angel of the Lord appeared to her and said you are barren and childless but you are going to conceive and have a son now see to it that you drink no wine or other fermented drink and that you do not eat anything unclean because you will conceive and give birth to a son no razor may be used on his head because the boy is to be a Nazarite set apart to God from birth but you may have the word womb which is probably more accurate and he will begin the deliverance of Israel from the hands of the Philistines we're gonna look at a number of principles of what a godly parent really is the first trait we're going to see is that a godly parent is obedient and sacrificial obedient and sacrificial so it's the angel of the Lord who appears not to the couple but just to Samson's mom manoah's wife she is called her name is never given that kind of reminds us that being a godly mom doesn't get you a lot of glory sometimes right but she is the main character really I think of this this chapter but the angel of Lord appears to her the age of the Lord probably means God Himself appearing in human form and that might seem kind of remarkable but when the angel of the Lord appears throughout the Old Testament in in most of the stories narratives the age of the Lord equals the Lord and they're used interchangeably the story of Hagar the angel Lord appeared to Hagar Genesis 16 angel the Lord appeared to Abraham in Genesis 18 and 22 the angel of the Lord appeared to Moses Exodus 3 and appeared to Gideon judges 6 and so repeatedly what the angel Lord said somewhere in the same context it says that God said or the Lord said it's also observed that in several cases the angel the Lord receives worship where as in Revelation an actual angel says don't worship me right so it seems to be that this is God himself the term the age of the Lord does not appear in the New Testament suddenly that ceases so it is most likely that the appearance of the angel of the Lord is actually Jesus Christ in a pre-incarnate pre-christmas form so this is remarkable to think of this as as Jesus before the Incarnation she was childless so this was going to be a miraculous birth some of the godliest moms of the old of the Old Testament scripture were unable to bear children initially and then through God working in their time of of infertility he does this miracle and Sarah has Isaac Rebecca has Jacob and Esau rachel has Joseph and Benjamin Hannah has Samuel as we referred to earlier and Elizabeth bears John the Baptist God specializes in the impossible manoah's wife received some rather an unusual instructions to us but it was something known by the Jews that it was a to be a Nazarite numbers 20 numbers chapter 6 points out that a Nazarite is a person who in some sense will have a special calling of God upon their life for their entire life a total dedication of their life to one single task or purpose and part of the rule of Anna's right then was that they would have these characteristics that the angel was asking actually of of Samson's mom a Nazarite vow was to abstain from any any fruit drink or fermented drink any have any contact with the dead body and never to cut their hair that's why usually you see a sunday-school picture of Samson they has very very long hair did not cut his hair Samson is a Nazarite Samuel was also a Nazarite in the New Testament John the Baptist was a Nazarite and these were lifelong Nazarite vows but they also they're also evidently was a temporary kind of Nazarite vow which Paul took in the later parts of the book of Acts but it says here that if Samson is going to be a Nazarite the angel the Lord says you mom also have certain limitations at least during pregnancy so she could not drink anything of the fruit of the vine and she could not touch any unclean thing Sampson is going to be an unusual and miraculous deliverer for Israel and so we we see the miraculous birth but I'd like to suggest to you there is a miracle taking place here in previous years that is not specifically stated and that is the miracle that there is a couple a man and a wife who are spiritually prepared to do what God is asking them to do this is the time of great spiritual decadence decade decadence and a time of spiritual spiral downward and yet God was preparing Manoah and his wife to have this special role because God knew that they would be obedient and sacrificial and I think it's the first issue we should be asking ourselves as parents whether we are anticipating being parents we are parents or we have parents of adult children whatever it might be is do I have a heart of full obedience and sacrifice what was Samson's mom to do its what she shouldn't do nothing fermented no other unclean food or otherwise that left her with just water or goat's milk probably so nothing of flavor or refreshment there would be a sacrifice and a and having the the avoidance basically like it like a priest would have parenting is always sacrificial and I know you get that because when that first baby comes into your life suddenly everything changed and you you give up a lot of things a lot of freedoms and and they are the they are going to be on your minds the rest of your life there's always sacrifice in parenting this was a particular one though because there was a spiritual focus to there sacrifice so it's not just that they are a parent but they are seeking to be godly parents their sacrifice in that the fact that you're here this morning suggests that you are making sacrifices for spiritual priorities you could be sitting at Smith Brothers or Javadoc right now you know that better coffee than we have here at church I bet you could be sleeping looking at Facebook not that those have never been done in this room but you will make sacrifices in addition to taking kids to soccer and everywhere else you will be bringing them to youth group and because why because you have a spiritual priority in your life that you want to see accomplished it's a sacrifice if you were here the hour before to come to an adult Bible fellowship or if you're in another Bible study in fact you might have people actually say you go to church every week yeah you go to church like two hours I might do I get that right well kind of not trying to impress anybody this is just my life God is preparing us always to be used by him and Manoah and his wife for those people that to me is another miracle verse 6 then the woman went to her husband remember she was by herself and told him a man of God came to me he looked like an angel of God very awesome I didn't ask him where he came from and he didn't tell me his name but he said to me you will conceive give birth to a son now then drink no wine or other fermented drink do not eat anything unclean because the boy will be a Nazarite of God from birth until the day of his death so she goes in reports to him look at what manoa says then manoa pray to the Lord O Lord I beg you let the man of God you sent to us come again to teach us how to bring up the boy who is to be born did you notice that God did not ask them if they wanted to do this didn't make a suggestion to missus Manoa and and and when she reported it to her husband he doesn't say honey you saw what you sure and he doesn't say I'm not sure if I want to sign up for this because again God has prepared both of them to be people who will respond to him godly parenting is first of all about being a godly parent it's not about it's not about seven steps it's not about doing these things it's a recipe and this is what comes out godly parenting is first of all about being a godly parent obviously we care God cares about the outcome as well but our focus is on being the godly parent one of the most important parenting verses I think of the Old Testament puts it in proper perspective I'm convinced when it says this in Deuteronomy 6 love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength these commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts What's it saying number one this is the this is the godly life love God God wholeheartedly and if you love him wholeheartedly you'll obey Him completely that's the simple version that's when it says next verse impress them that is these Commandments I give you upon your children so if they're on your hearts impress them on your children talk about them when you sit at home when you walk along the road when you lie down when you get up daily family life the things that you love should be communicated to them that that's what we should love the things that you do are communicated that is what God wants us to do verse 7 is powerless though without verses 5 and 6 do you ever listen to that announcement when you get on the airplane says about those oxygen masks what do you do first put your own on right because only if you put on your own mask in that emergency will you be able to help your children and so first of all it's my obedience to God then it's teaching my child about Oh being paying God and any impact we have will depend upon whether we are loving the Lord our God with all of our heart soul in mind so I think we need to ask ourself the significant question what do I love what I love John wrote don't love the things of the world or the things in the world because if you do the love of the father is not in them so there are going to be a lot of choices where our life is narrowed wonderfully around our love for God first priority he didn't say in those verses to bring your child to Sunday school of course they didn't have Sunday school then but you see the the community of faith that we've just celebrated even this morning with child dedication is is no replacement for the family the community the one another's that we've been talking about in our in our series are a reinforcement of that which we as a family or individual believe and so you can go to a Sunday School class and make it a child can learn what the Bible says about obeying God but it's you as a parent who will show them what obedience is and they see right down to our motives it's caught more than taught so manoa says please teach us Lord how to bring up the boy who is to be born godly parents are obedient and sacrificial what we see in Manoa is that godly parents are humble and teachable humble and teachable he's all-in he's ready to obey he's simply asking for wisdom he doesn't question God if I'm going to do this I'm going to but I'm gonna need your wisdom I can imagine that / hitting heaven and God thinking now that's what I like to hear because they aren't having these thoughts of I don't know if I want to do this or not I know God wants me to do this but I don't think I really need to and I don't do you know we sometimes reason almost in prayer but that's not what you had a humble teachable heart says God just teach us how we're supposed to raise this child I think one of the worst parenting mistakes we can make is to pretend that we don't make parenting mistakes where we are not humbled and teachable about the process and the thousands of decisions to assume that we know what's right and there's this there's this pride that saturates our parenting sometimes sometimes it's kind of like a competition you know what what what what my wife thinks my husband thinks and you know who's right and and then even if we're kind of proven wrong and we have to still defend well I still think it was a right thing did you know that pride does humble teachable I think one of the things that that personal and I learned through the years that our kids were at home that one size doesn't always fit all situations I had some of those ideas I think and and the child comes through different stages and then the different nature of children in different stages different birth order different situation different friends and it becomes like overwhelmingly complex to know what does God really want us to do is that okay to struggle to know that yeah because then we're going to pray this prayer teach us how to bring up this boy and we're gonna find ourselves dependent and it's okay the more desperate we are the more we pray sometimes so Sanson had the privilege of a mom and a dad who were on the same page spiritually teachable parents will be united in their spiritual priorities and then they can work out the details when you united on the priority of being godly parents if the goal is simply I think this will work I think this will work you can all think of arguments right but our our priorities as a parent what is God teaching us I think that's one the most profound things we ever had to learn was instead of thinking what can we do to make this happen in our child's life was when we when we I think experienced this principle what is God doing in us maybe we need to focus on that what work is he doing in me and that can then brings marital harmony marriage issues always parenting issues parenting issues are married marriage issues in a in a family like that if spiritual unity is not possible for you right now be encouraged that God can use you on your own Yunis the mother of Timothy second Timothy 2 verse 5 or 1 verse 5 Timothy's mom was a believer Yunus but not his dad and yet Timothy is this spiritual leader this also tells us though when you think of the value of unity in the home if you're in a position where you're not married yet the number one thing you want to look for is spiritual unity that you'd have that right same biblical spiritual priorities on and all the things of attractiveness or beauty and skills and popularity that can seem so important at age 18 will fade very fast over the and you'll experience the value of being able to kneel beside your spouse and ask God for wisdom on the myriad of things you'll face parenting or or otherwise God lets us guess get desperate I think so that we are drawn to him and the primary goal of being a Christian parent not just accomplishing results of the many myriad of books that there are available about parenting and even Christian parenting one of my favorites as Gary Thomas who wrote sacred parenting talks about this God focus he says parenting will lead us to confront spiritual sins that we never even knew existed anybody say Amen to the head we were married for seven years before before Eric was born and and you know we just learned some things in marriage and and you know I was going to Bible school I must be spiritual and I'm kidding on that so but anyhow so I kind of thought I was kind of on a good path in my sanctification and then we had kids and all kinds of issues arose in my own heart just through parenting God uses our children as holy teachers who spit up on themselves in us as well okay here's another one by him the ultimate issue is no longer how proud my children make me but how faithful I've been to discharge the duties God has given me to pin our hope and joy on the response of any given sinner is a precarious move at best to pin this same hope and joy on the response of a sinner in his or her toddler years or teen years is to beg for disillusionment and to risk waking up in despair yeah hey men the first goal of parenting is to be a godly parent and so manoa said teach us and so we didn't just ask the question what will work but what will you teach me about what I should do so the first work is what God does in us and really that relieves the pressure of a results oriented performance oriented view of Christian parenting so instead of asking will this work the question is is my heart right and that's a profound difference and our kids will know the difference because when we are simply results oriented we will maybe guilt force manipulate you know maybe if I make this comment it did my adult child built the davidic know but if our heart is right we will care less about how good we look and care more about what God sees in us kids hate the hypocrisy of just trying to make mom and dad look good they won't buy it they won't go for it and so I think we need to ask those questions and my performance-oriented or a my heart oriented and here's the real bonus of being heart oriented and focusing on what is God teaching me and what is my motive in what among what I'm doing is that if we are heart oriented know what our kids see heart orientation and that speaks to them at their level of heart and motivation so they can at least see if they reject it they can see what they're rejecting then they're rejecting our heart not our rules they're ejected our heart Manoah says god I need to learn does God answer of course God heard manoa verse 9 and the angel of God came again to the woman while she was out in the field but her husband manoa was not with her God in a special way is focusing on mom here the woman hurried to tell her husband he's here the man who appeared to be the other day Manoah got up and followed his wife when he came to the man he said are you the one who talked to my wife I am he said some annoy I asked him when your words are fulfilled what is to be the rule for the boy's life and work the angel answered basically I already told your wife but the same thing that the the wine the unclean verse 15 Manoah said to the angel the Lord we would like you to stay until we prepare a young goat for you so he he offers good Near Eastern hospitality that it was expected that you would invite someone to lunch the angel the Lord replied even though you detain me I will not eat any of your food but if you prepare a burnt offering offer it to the Lord Manoah did not realize that it was the angel of the Lord so he does not eat their food not that the angel the Lord God appearing pre-incarnate could could not eat food because the angel the Lord did he with Abraham back in in Genesis 18 but God's plan was that Manoah needed to what worship the first mark of the godly parent is first of all obedience and sacrifice secondly humility and teachableness thirdly it's worship offer it to the Lord right now you don't need more information Manoah I know you'd like all the details right now you need to worship you're wondering about the future of your child you need to know the God who holds the future I remember our missionary bill keel some of you know them bill and dev for many years he shared publicly a number of times that when they were going through some times of struggle as a parent what it seemed that God was teaching him and Bev was just worship me right now you can't fix this just worship me I think what what Manoa is experiencing God's greatest goal in our parenting is that our relationship with God becomes the greatest goal and when that is in focus then we have something to impress upon our children as well if we focus on godliness hearing him worshiping him no one can take that away and God can sustain us through every struggle Manoah still doesn't know who he's talking to so who can blame him he looks like a man talked like a man so he asked the angel something then Manoa inquired of the angel the Lord verse 17 what is your name so that we may honor you when your word comes true like you might do with a prophet he replied why do you ask my name it is beyond understanding then the Noah took a young goat together with the grain offering and sacrificed it on a rock to the Lord and the Lord did an amazing thing while Manoah and his wife watched as the flame blazed up from the altar towards heaven the angel the Lord ascended in the flame seeing this minoan his wife fell with their faces to the ground when the angel the Lord did not show himself again to Manoah and his wife manoa realized that it was the angel of the lord he accepts worship when you ask someone their name in the Old Testament culture especially you were inquiring about what your parents saw in your character names and character were were tied he was asking God his name he didn't realize it but what an awesome thing to do and the age of the Lord says it's beyond understanding some similar some other translations say it is surpassing it is ineffable it is secret it is unknowable it is wonderful there's one other place in the Old Testament where God is referred to as this particular Hebrew named wonderful it's Isaiah 9:6 where it says the Messiah his name will be called wonderful counselor okay that word wonderful that's it and if indeed that refers to Jesus as it does in Isaiah 9:6 and this does it that's our Christ that's our Savior that's the wonderful it's it's referring to his his other nests he's not like us there's a point at which says we worship God we can worship Him for various attributes we can understand and then we worship Him for all the things we can't understand many people reject either the existence of God or the biblical God because well that just can't be I don't see how God can be this and how God can be that and then that's a contradiction and and and we can we can like try to define God out of existence when in fact the very nature of God is that he is infinite or he is not God and so we need the unknowable God the God beyond understanding the the awe-inspiring wonderful God eight of your toe aw Tozer in his book knowledge of the holy talks about how the way we view God vertically will affect the way we live horizontally he said we tend by a secret law of the soul to move toward our mental image of God were we able to extract from any man a complete answer to the question what comes into your mind when you think about God we might predict with certainty the spiritual future of that man he was saying what you think of God to be affects the way you're going to live for example if our view of God is that he is there to give us things the santé view we tip our hat about the greediness of our nature in other words our relationship with God is give me this give me this give me this why haven't you given me this what does it say about us if we view God as angry that he dislikes us like a critical or abusive father maybe we're gonna avoid God don't it's good I'm out of here will avoid God if we see him that way eventually if our view of God is that he wants us to be happy just like that whole row of books at the bookstore on self-help you know this is how you're gonna self actualize or whatever if happiness is your goal what are you gonna spend your life doing trying to be happy and that'll become the number one goal of your life but what if God is wonderful unknowable he's praiseworthy and so our life will be devoted to doing things that glorify Him doing things that please him because we understand his centrality his primacy in our life if we see him as gracious how can we not be gracious to others if we see him as holy why would we not pursue purity that's why we need to be thinking about everything we can understand about God and then relish in the fact that there's so many things we cannot understand about God and he deserves praise for it all Manoah seems to be that man alongside his wife in this incredible experience as the angel the Lord this ascends back to heaven Manoah verse 22 says we're doomed to die he said to his wife we have seen God second part was true they had seen God but his wife who seemed at the moment to be a little more stable says if the Lord had meant to kill us he would not have accepted a burnt offering and grain offering from our hands nor shown us all these things are now told us this honey calm down we're still here he didn't mean to kill us but it was God and this is what we need to do the last two verses fast forward nine months the woman gave birth to a boy and named him Samson he grew and the Lord blessed him and the Spirit of the Lord began to stir in him while he was in Mohannad an between zorah and eshtaol and so God is going to use this boy in a unique way and it is authentically the Spirit of God working in him that's going to accomplish this supernatural strength and accomplish God's purposes even though he didn't do everything right yet in his death even if you know the story even his death it seems there was a repentance and God used him one final time as most of you know Tuesday was my mom's funeral in Kansas and we really did have a valuable good time celebrating her life several of us shared different things about her and and it's kind of remarkable how we were sharing about the same things it was the same woman right even from different perspectives and and one thing that came up I think three times was her prayer life mom was sometimes prone to worry which is not good for a farmer's wife but it is that trait where she tended towards worry that brought about that characteristic of devotion to prayer because of her view of God she would talk to him about everything one of my most abiding memories will be seeing her leave the back porch and going out to the pasture and taking the path you could see it from different places in the yard the path going clear to the corner of the pasture she wasn't going there to get away from the kids I don't think she wasn't going there for exercise she was going there to talk to the Lord about the weather often I think there if you're a farmer in Kansas you you if you believe in prayer you often pray for rain except for the times you pray for it to stop but the livelihood depended on weather and grain prices but but she prayed about more than that tough times came into her life through those years her oldest child my sister died at 13 my other sister was divorced with three young children and came and moved home and those three kids grew up in in the same farmhouse where their mom and and us to God others were raised mom continued to pray and one thing that the pastor noted at the if the funeral was that when he went to visit her in some of these final difficult months her prayer turned to Lord take me home and so just a couple weeks ago God answered that precious prayer I imagine God saying to her well done good and faithful mom but not on the basis of how her four children nine grandchildren and twenty-one great-grandchildren turned out don't really know even how they'll all turn out right but that would be an unfinished scorecard I believe what God says is well done because you continuously turn to me and you sought to walk godly before me and that is what a godly parent is and then it's on God's heart is on our heart to see those same principles that we seek to model we we pray for those things to be impressed upon and lived out in our children and we will continue to pray for those for our children won't we let's pray Heavenly Father we we are so results-oriented and we we want to see things happen we use we're impatient we want to see things happen now and and so I pray you'd give great patience to us to the parents here today that I have young children and and seeing different traits that they are seeking to help by by discipline and love and teenage years and the different struggles that different ones are facing Lord that as they seek to make their faith their own Oh Lord I pray that they might see in in us as parents something genuine and heart driven that they could follow and then I pray for those of us as we see our children as adults and and raising their own families perhaps Lord again we release them to you and we pray Lord to be the support of prayer and modeling and watching now your spirit work individually in in their lives but lord I pray that every stage that we would be devoted first to you we'd be those who are obedient and and teachable and and worshiping you that there's something genuine happening in us and in whatever is going on in our families and whatever our worries may be that we don't we don't draw back or or consider it not worth it to walk with you but they would continue to walk with you and then to trust you with the results we pray in Christ's name Amen

Channel: Open Door Bible Church

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Length: 40min 48sec (2448 seconds)

Published: Sun May 12 2019