Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Foreign.
[00:00:07] This is Rick. Welcome back to the Nomad Pastor Podcast.
[00:00:10] All right, today we are going to jump right back into Judges. This is going to be episode seven. We're going to talk about Jephthah, and what we're really going to talk about is when. When, like, a broken identity leads to reckless faith. And so what I want to do is jump right into it. And. But before we do that, I want to kind ground us in where we were last time with Gideon. And I think, because if you don't understand Gideon, you're going to really miss what's going on and what's happening here.
[00:00:43] Again, I do want to remind you that I'm not going to be reading the scripture. I highly recommend that you go back and you read the Book of Judges.
[00:00:52] I think this is going to kind of COVID judges 10 through probably 12, but it's a good read. And Judges is packed full of stuff that we have to understand today.
[00:01:04] And so, again, if you don't understand Gideon, you need to go read it. Go listen to the last podcast because you're going to really miss what's going on.
[00:01:12] And so where we started with Gideon was Gideon was hiding. He wasn't leading people. He wasn't strong.
[00:01:20] He certainly wasn't confident. He's hiding.
[00:01:23] And God calls him a warrior before he ever acts like one.
[00:01:30] But here's what God did with Gideon that matters.
[00:01:34] Before he was a warrior, God reduced him. He stripped him of his army from 32,000 down to 300.
[00:01:42] And a lot of people ask why he did that.
[00:01:44] And the reason he did that is because if God.
[00:01:47] Because God didn't want Gideon thinking that that victory was his, God removed every place Gideon could lean on himself.
[00:01:59] And so the only place that Gideon could look for and lean to it was left to God. That was the only thing Gideon had left. And God gave him a victory. But because he reduced his numbers, the only thing he could do is say that it was because of God that he was victorious.
[00:02:20] But then we see something pretty important, and that is that Gideon didn't finish well after the victory. He made decisions that led people right back into the spiritual mess that he was supposed to take to protect them from.
[00:02:38] And there's a reason for that. This is the truth.
[00:02:42] Winning a battle doesn't mean your heart is right.
[00:02:46] And I think throughout our lives, we win battles, but that doesn't mean we're fixed. Success doesn't fix identity.
[00:02:54] And so that's where we are today, because now we're going to deal with a man who needed to be reduced. Like Gideon, we're dealing with a man who was built in rejection, and that man is Jephthah.
[00:03:12] And so this one, I think, is maybe going to be heavy. But I'm going to say it straight.
[00:03:19] To me personally, and you guys have heard me say this before, I didn't go to seminary. I'm not a theologian.
[00:03:28] I'm just a biker dude sitting behind a mic telling you how I interpret things. And they could be right or wrong. But to me personally, this is one of the harder stories in judges, and it's not because it's confusing.
[00:03:46] It's one of the harder stories because it's honest.
[00:03:50] And so if we look at Jephthah's background, scripture doesn't ease us into, just tells you right away, Jephthah is the son of a prostitute. That's how his life starts.
[00:04:07] And in that culture, that label sticks with you forever.
[00:04:12] His brothers grew up with him, but they never accepted him.
[00:04:17] And eventually they said it out loud. They're like, you're not one of us.
[00:04:21] So they pushed him out, they cut him off. They told him he had no place there. And so what happened was Jephthah left.
[00:04:29] And in life, when you get rejected like that, you don't generally walk away clean.
[00:04:35] You carry it with you for as long as you can, I guess.
[00:04:43] And so when he's carrying that with him, what does he do?
[00:04:48] Well, he surrounds himself with people just like him. Other outcasts in Scripture, it calls them worthless men. And so he became a fighter.
[00:04:58] Not a leader, a fighter, a survivor.
[00:05:02] He was strong on the outside, but deep down, like, he was a broken man.
[00:05:11] There are a lot of people walking around, you know, today just like that, broken. They look strong on the outside, but underneath they are just broken.
[00:05:22] They are functioning every day. They are working.
[00:05:26] Sometimes they are even leading.
[00:05:29] Before I came to Christ, I mean, I have been doing what I do for a long time, and I have been in leadership for a long time outside of ministry work, just in my professional career.
[00:05:41] And for a large part of that, I looked strong on the outside, but I was broken.
[00:05:47] But God, right?
[00:05:52] And so.
[00:05:54] And the reason for that is that I was still carrying that rejection that I felt.
[00:06:01] So here it is again, right? Just like that, same cycle in judges, right? Israel's in trouble again.
[00:06:08] Over and over, they've walked away from God, and now they're feeling it.
[00:06:16] And who do they get as their. Their judge, right? Jephthah, the same guy they rejected.
[00:06:25] Isn't that how it works sometimes in our lives, right? The people we reject are the people who save us.
[00:06:33] People don't want you when. When things are going good in their life, but when everything falls apart, now they need you.
[00:06:41] That's when they say, hey, come help.
[00:06:45] They go to Jephthah and say, come lead us.
[00:06:50] And. And so what does he do? He doesn't just say yes, he calls it out.
[00:06:55] He says to him, you push me out now you want me back?
[00:06:59] That wound was still there.
[00:07:02] They promised him leadership, they promised him authority. They promised him a position.
[00:07:08] And he agrees.
[00:07:11] But the one thing I don't want you to miss is he's not just stepping into leadership. He's trying to prove something.
[00:07:21] He's trying to secure something he never had.
[00:07:27] I think in a lot of people's lives, we are driven by what people have said we can't do.
[00:07:37] I know in my life, you know, I had people say, you'll never amount to anything.
[00:07:43] So I was trying to prove something.
[00:07:47] I was trying to secure something I never had.
[00:07:51] And that's what Jephthah is doing here. I think that's why when I look at the Book of Judges, I look at these judges that God has called over and over and over again.
[00:08:00] Don't misinterpret what I'm saying.
[00:08:04] That's not me.
[00:08:06] But I can see through my walk, what they're going through, because I've went through similar things. And I'm telling you that if you read the Book of Judges, and I don't mean just skim through it, I mean really read it to understand it, you're going to see yourself, too.
[00:08:23] And so as we jump into this, right, this is where it gets kind of tricky, because Jephthah knows the story of God.
[00:08:32] He can talk about what God has done just like I could.
[00:08:36] He understands Israel's history.
[00:08:40] So on the outside, it looks like he, you know, spiritually, he's got it all together.
[00:08:45] But there's a difference between knowing God and.
[00:08:49] And trusting God.
[00:08:51] It's not the same thing.
[00:08:54] You can know the truth and still be driven by your own insecurity.
[00:09:00] And so before the battle, right, Jephthah makes this vow.
[00:09:06] And I'm just going to say it as plainly as I can, but this is where he messes up.
[00:09:14] He tells God, if you give me victory, I'll sacrifice whatever comes out of my house to meet you.
[00:09:23] You see, God didn't ask for that. God didn't require it.
[00:09:27] That was not something that came from God.
[00:09:31] That came from a Man trying to control the outcome.
[00:09:36] How many times have you heard of people, maybe they were sitting in a jail cell and they're like, God, if you get me out of this, I'll do whatever you want me to do.
[00:09:48] That's insecurity.
[00:09:51] That's people trying to earn something from God.
[00:09:55] And we do it all the time.
[00:09:57] God, if you fix this, I'll get right with you.
[00:10:01] God, if you come through one more time, I'm going to change you. See, the hard truth is that's not surrender.
[00:10:10] That's you trying to make a deal with God.
[00:10:12] And God doesn't work on deals.
[00:10:17] But even though he made this deal, Jephthah, God gives him the victory anyways, because that's grace.
[00:10:25] The enemy's defeated. The battle is over.
[00:10:28] And if the story stopped right there, you would think everything was fine.
[00:10:34] But it doesn't stop there, because Jephthah goes home and his daughter walks out to meet him.
[00:10:42] And that was the moment Everything hits hard.
[00:10:47] We don't need to overcomplicate it.
[00:10:50] A decision he made created a consequence he couldn't undo, and someone else paid for it.
[00:10:59] That's the weight of this story.
[00:11:02] It's not about a bad vow. It's not about a broken identity.
[00:11:08] His whole life, Jephthah, spent trying to prove something, trying to earn something, trying to be something he was told he wasn't or he could never be.
[00:11:22] And when our identity is not grounded in God, we will try to prove our worth through what we do.
[00:11:30] We will try to prove it through performance.
[00:11:33] We will try to prove it through decisions. We will try to prove it through whatever extremes there are.
[00:11:40] And eventually it is going to cost us.
[00:11:46] And it didn't stop there. Right after the victory, there is conflict inside of Israel. There is fighting, there is division, there is loss.
[00:11:55] And the reason there is is because external success doesn't fix the internal issues.
[00:12:04] You can win the battle. We've all won battles, whatever that battle looks like. We've all had an opportunity to win them. But you can win them and still lose yourself.
[00:12:18] I have seen this play out so many times at the. At the rescue mission, in ministry, homeless camps, whatever. Like at a gas station.
[00:12:34] Men trying to prove themselves, men trying to outwork their past, trying to earn value.
[00:12:47] And they go too far.
[00:12:51] They make decisions they shouldn't make.
[00:12:54] They carry things that God never asked them to carry because deep down, they're still trying to prove that they matter, that they have worth, that they have value.
[00:13:12] Listen, you don't have to prove anything. Anything to God.
[00:13:19] You're not earning your identity.
[00:13:22] You receive it.
[00:13:26] We receive who we are from God.
[00:13:30] And I know that that is a hard thing to understand because the world today tells us the exact opposite.
[00:13:45] You know, every time you meet somebody, I don't know, I shouldn't say every time, but I'll bet you 90% of the time when I'm introduced to somebody, one of the first questions they ask is, what do you do for a living?
[00:13:57] They want to know, are you successful?
[00:14:01] They don't ask, is Christ your Lord and Savior? That's not appropriate.
[00:14:11] They're trying to judge who you are because maybe they're still trying to prove they matter.
[00:14:20] Maybe they're trying to compare to what they do and who they are.
[00:14:25] But that's not what God asks.
[00:14:31] We don't prove anything to God.
[00:14:39] So if you're listening, you need to ask yourself a question.
[00:14:43] Where in your life are you still trying to prove something?
[00:14:51] Where are you making commitments God never asked you to make?
[00:14:58] Is your past still driving your decisions?
[00:15:02] Because if it is, you need to deal with that.
[00:15:07] If you don't, it's going to show up again and it's not going to just affect you.
[00:15:15] It's going to affect all of the people around you.
[00:15:21] You know, Jephthah's story is hard, but it's real and it's a warning.
[00:15:30] Because when our identity is off, everything eventually is going to follow that.
[00:15:38] You know, if you've been listening to this very long or you know very much about me.
[00:15:42] There was a period of my life that I thought I was a Christian doing all the right things.
[00:15:50] And then I read this book called Stepping A Courageous Call to Manhood.
[00:15:56] I highly recommend it because my identity was off and everything else followed it.
[00:16:14] It's important to really recognize that there are hard stories in people's lives, but they are real and they can be a warning.
[00:16:33] It's important to recognize where we are and what we do.
[00:16:43] You can't earn it.
[00:16:49] God is not asking for that.
[00:16:53] You can't carry things that God never asked you to carry.
[00:17:00] You don't have to because of the grace of God. You receive it and you got to think about that and pray about that. And go read these books and judges, these chapters.
[00:17:14] Go understand them. See yourself in the hard stories, in the real stories.
[00:17:24] Listen to the warning because it's important.
[00:17:31] Next time we're going to jump into Samson.
[00:17:34] And that's all different level, if I'm being honest. It's strength without discipline.
[00:17:40] It's calling without surrender, because this is exactly how people drift, and it is exactly why we need Jesus Christ.
[00:17:55] I want to thank you for listening today again. This is Rick with the Nomad Pastor podcast. And also, I want to tell you that I've been doing a little bit of music lately.
[00:18:06] You can go to pretty much anywhere. Itunes, Spotify, Amazon Music, iHeartRadio, and just search for Nomad Pastor music.
[00:18:16] The songs are basically all about kind of my life and what's going on and where I've been. And there's one of them called Pick her up, which is my testimony.
[00:18:25] And then, you know, it's a lot about my wife praying for me. So if you. If you want, go give it a listen and let me know what you think.
[00:18:33] And most importantly, I want you to remember to love God and love people.
