Shattered Expectations
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· 2 viewsIn today’s message we read about how to handle shatter expectations in our lives by looking at Samson in the Bible and how he did not live up to his parents expectations.
Notes
Transcript
Handout
November 19th 2023
Series: Family Talk
Sermon Title: Shattered Expectations.
Topic: When Your Dreams for Your Family Unravel. Samson and his parents
Key Passages:Judges 13:1-5 & 24-25, Judges 14:1-4 & 19-20
Sermon Blurb: In today’s message we read about how to handle shatter expectations in our lives by looking at Samson in the Bible and how he did not live up to his parents expectations.
Green in sermons means illustration, something we are looking for a response from, or a picture that goes on the screens.
Yellow means what is yellow will be on the screens and in the handout.
Sermon:
Hello Family Church!
Family Moment –
Dan / Steve we like to try and start our messages with something personal from our family life recently to help people get to know us.
Today we continue our series here at Family Church we are calling Family Talk because this whole month we are focused on families.
We are excited about this series because it was written in partnership with our NEW preaching team partners at Winning at Home!
In week #1 we talked about the power of blessing and how to shape your children’s future.
Last week we will talk about surviving the desert, what to do when your family is in crisis.
And I would encourage you….
If you missed that message to go listen to it on our app or website….
Today we are talking about Shattered Expectations…
What do we do when our dreams implode?
What do we do when our dreams for our family unravel?
What do we do when life does NOT go as planned…..
And let me encourage you…..
You will NOT want to miss next week!
Next week we wrap up this series.
Next week we end talking about how to Build a Marriage on Mission…
It is going to be a great way to wrap up this month focused on our families and our lives…..
These are all powerful messages to help your entire family not just survive but thrive!!!!
PAUSE
Let me begin with a question for you all to ponder…
What do we do when our plans for our family don’t work the way we wanted?
Repeat
Really think about that….
What is your typical response when life does not go your way?
How do you respond when things do not match your plans?
What happens when you aim to create something beautiful & and end up with something undesirable?
What happens when you follow the blueprints, and your house turns out looking….not like the plans….
What do you do when you follow the steps for the ideal family and things unravel?
What do you do when you listen to the counselor, but it still does not work?
PAUSE
How many of you have seen this show (Nailed it)
I love watching this show with my kids!
It is hilarious if you have not seen it….
It is a TV show that has the guy in the white Jacket there bake the most amazing deserts….
Then they find the most inept people in the world to try and recreate it in the same amount of time it took a professional baker and it is awesome!!!!!
This show is like life….
We have a model….
We have a plan…
We a recipe….
But then reality sets in….
And well……
Life goes different…..
Let me show you a few of my favorite Nailed it moments….
Since we are in political season…..how about this gem….
Trump by a professional….vs a person who likes creepy glass dolls…..
Or maybe this Christmas-themedone…..
Or this one for the little girls….a princess theme…
Or this one for you Shark Week fans….
PAUSE
Go back to that question…..
What do we do when our plans for our family don’t work the way we wanted?
What do we do when life seems more like a BAD episode of Nailed IT????
What happens when you aim to create something beautiful & and end up with something undesirable?
What happens when you follow the blueprints, and your house turns out looking….not like the plans….
What do you do when you follow the steps for the ideal family and things unravel?
What do you do when you listen to the counselor, but it still does not work?
PAUSE
Today I want us to look at the story of a family who is asking the same questions.
And I want to help us see what we can learn from their experience.
Because that is one of the BEST parts about the Bible!
We get to learn from others to help our lives stay on the Godly path….
PAUSE
Grab your Bible and open it up to the book of Judges…
We will start today in
Judges 13
As you are getting to Judges 13 let me give you all some background on what is going on here so that no one feels like an outsider.
This passage happened about 3500 years ago.
At that point in time in REAL human history the people of Israel were living in chaos.
Their ancestors were led out of slavery in Egypt by Moses into what God said would be the promised land.
But it didn’t take long for the people to lose their way.
It didn’t take long for God’s people to chose the ways of the world over the ways of God.
Even though God did AMAZING things proving He was REAL and active in their lives…..
As generations went by……
More and more people walked away from God….
Just like you can see happening in the church today…
And what we see in the Bible is that when they choose to walk away from God……there were consequences….
Just like we can look around us today and see the consequences of our nation slowly walking away from the Godly values we were founded upon….
PAUSE
But for the Israelites in Judges we see the consequence, God allowed to happen was neighboring countries to invaded Israel.
Neighboring countries oppress Israel.
Israel lost its identity…
Israel lost is sovereignty….
Israel became a broken, fearful, oppressed nation.
And in the book of Judges, if you read through it later this week, you will see OVER and OVER and OVER the same pattern….
When the people of Isreal get desperate…..
They CRY OUT to God and ask for help….
Then God sends a “judge” to save them.
Then they come back to God….
Then wander away….
Then CRY OUT as life goes bad….
Then God sends a “judge” to save them.
And then the cycle literally repeats and repeats and repeats….
PAUSE
Let me show you….Judges 13….starting at verse 1…..
Judges 13:1-5 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.
2 A certain man of Zorah, named Manoah, from the clan of the Danites, had a wife who was childless, unable to give birth.
3 The angel of the Lord appeared to her and said, “You are barren and childless, but you are going to become pregnant and give birth to a son.
4 Now see to it that you drink no wine or other fermented drink and that you do not eat anything unclean.
5 You will become pregnant and have a son whose head is never to be touched by a razor because the boy is to be a Nazirite, dedicated to God from the womb.
He will take the lead in delivering Israel from the hands of the Philistines.”
Now let’s fast forward to when that happens…
Drop down to verse 24…
24 The woman gave birth to a boy and named him Samson. He grew and the Lord blessed him,
25 and the Spirit of the Lord began to stir him while he was in Dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol.
14:1-4 Samson went down to Timnah and saw there a young Philistine woman.
2 When he returned, he said to his father and mother, “I have seen a Philistine woman in Timnah; now get her for me as my wife.”
3 His father and mother replied, “Isn’t there an acceptable woman among your relatives or among all our people?
Must you go to the uncircumcised Philistines to get a wife?”
But Samson said to his father, “Get her for me. She’s the right one for me.”
4 (His parents did not know that this was from the Lord, who was seeking an occasion to confront the Philistines; for at that time they were ruling over Israel.)
Let’s pause here for a minute….
Let’s try and put ourselves in Samson’s parent's shoes….
You are married.
You want to have a child….
And for YEARS you cannot conceive…
You cannot get pregnant….or stay pregnant….
I know there are a LOT of women who struggle with this…and we love you and we are here for you….
That was Samsons' parents for a season….
PAUSE
Then God sends an angel to them to let them know they will have a child BUT they need to raise their son in a special way.
Look at verse 4…. They need to raise their son to NOT drink ANY alcohol….
AND he has to learn to NEVER eat anything God calls unclean.
If you wonder what that means….there are all kinds of animals in the Old Testament God defined as unclean and told people NOT to eat like pigs for example…
So, NO bacon for Samson!!!
But it does not end there….
Look at verse 5….. their son can NEVER shave his head….
Their son needs to let his hair grow and grow…..
Their boy was to become one of the first Nazirites.
A person dedicated to God from birth….
And God wants him raised this way because God is going to use this child for a very specific purpose….
Look in your Bibles….
He will take the lead in delivering Israel from the hands of the Philistines.
PAUSE
God has BIG plans for this child who is NOT yet born….
Then verse 24-25….the boy is born and God starts working in his life….
Then in chapter 14….
Like every young man, there comes the day when he looks around and notices these majestic creatures called……
WOMEN!
Any of you who have raised boys can probably remember the day when your young boy goes from NOT noticing the girls around him….
To suddenly seeing their head follow girls as they walk by….
When they begin to notice women…
Well young samson is there at verse 1 of chapter 14….
He notices a young woman…but he is a good church boy!
He doesn’t act on it!
He goes home and tells Mom and Dad he found the one!
And like most parents…..
We are skeptical that they are good enough…in verse 3…
ADD A FUNNY STORY HERE OF ONE OF YOUR KIDS OR YOU….
Like I remember my sweet Addie….
She went off on a mission trip…
She had NEVER had a boyfriend…
She did NOT go on the trip looking for a boy…..
And on that trip Jenny noticed….a young boy kept being close to Addie in pictures…….
And Jenny said to me….ummmm…I think Addie might be becoming friends with Ryan….
Then they came home and started “hanging out.”
Then she starts telling me she likes this boy…. Like Samons likes a girl….
And I was like….ummmm….does he really love Jesus….are you sure there is not someone better Addie…..
But since…..we are NOT like verse 3…and do NOT want to encourage Addie to date a cousin…..we gave in….
PAUSE
But again…
Put ourselves in Samson’s parent's shoes….
Samson’s choices as a young adult aren’t a good look for his family.
He’s rejecting his parent’s wisdom.
He is rejecting his community traditions.
He is rejecting his faith traditions.
And as it happens sometimes….
Samson goes off and marries her anyway….
And it gets worse for him and his family….
Drop down to verse 19….
19 Then the Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon him. He went down to Ashkelon,
struck down thirty of their men, stripped them of everything and gave their clothes to those who had explained the riddle.
Burning with anger, he returned to his father’s home.
20 And Samson’s wife was given to one of his companions who had attended him at the feast.
Stop there….
The thing Samson’s mom truly feared….
That her son would be in a lifelong marriage with a Philistine, never materialized.
The marriage ended in less than 10 days!!!!
As his mom, she had to be sad to see his heart broken but relieved to see God protect him from his own reckless choices.
I know my mother could echo that to a lot of my life choices…
Most young men make a lot of terrible choices…
Which is why young men….listen to me….as much as you do NOT want to listen to your mother….
LISTEN TO YOU MOTHER!!!!
Momma really is right most of the time!!!!
As a middle-aged man, I know that now…
Middle-aged Samson could have said much the same later.
PAUSE
Judges 14:4 is the hinge verse this passage:
The key insight is that God was sovereign, even in Samson’s mistakes…..
Just like God is still in control when we run astray as well.
God redeemed Samson’s choice of a pagan girlfriend to fulfill his primary calling on Samson’s life: to be a deliverer of the Israelites from the Philistines….
It still happened even though Samson was not living into the fullness of God’s calling on his life….
PAUSE
Verses 19-20 reveal what that “occasion to confront the Philistines” was….
Samson’s bitterness about the riddle ends up being his motive to take out 30 guys!!!!
This was a tipping point in their war for Independence.
Samson stripping 30 guys of their clothes is the equivalent of our Boston Tea Party.
PAUSE
Judges 15 Samson goes into FULL on vengeance mode!
We do not have time to read it all today so let me summarize and you can read it later….
At the start of Judges 15 he ties torches to 300 foxes and sends them into the Philippines area to burn everything down!
At the end of Judges 15 he takes a donkey’s jaw bone and kills a thousand more Philistine men with it!
Samson had issues…
There is no question about that….
Samson did NOT live into the expectations of his mother…
Samson forsure shattered expections of him…
BUT God still used Samson!!!!
DON’T miss that!
PAUSE
I can relate to Samson…..
ADD AN EXAMPLE FROM YOUR LIFE how you ran from God’s plan for your life…
I know most of you know my story…
But God’s plan for my life was NOT my plan for my life.
That is why I ran from God’s plan on my life for over 10 years.
That is why I worked so hard at climbing the corporate ladder….
Because I thought if I could climb it far enough….
I would no longer hear….or maybe care about God’s call on my life….
But even when I was 29 and Director of all US Operations for a Multi-national company….
I could not run from God’s call on my life and I finally listened and went into ministry….
But I will also be honest….
When I went into ministry I NEVER thought I would use my construction knowledge again…
I was SO WRONG!!!!
God has used those 10 years I ran to teach me so much and to prepare for for this time here at Family Church!
PAUSE
And church family….
I know a lot of you have been running from God as well.
I know some of you know God has a greater calling on your life and you are afraid of that!
I know some of you are parents raising kids who are NOT living up to YOUR plan for them!
I know some of you are grand-parents and your grandkids are NOT living the way you want them to!
And we ALL need to learn from Samson….
God’s will….will be done…
And that does not mean we will not go through pain when we run from God’s plan.
It does NOT mean our kids, or grandkids, will not go through pain as they run from God’s call on them….
But it does mean God’s will….will…be done…
PAUSE
So let me close with three things we can do to help with shattered expectations..
How to overcome shattered expectations: 1. Grieve the loss.
Add some examples in your life:
Naomi’s soccer tryout
Grace’s school/ small group/ church
COVID: School/ sports/ travel/ celebrations
How to overcome shattered expectations:
2. Pray for protection.
In the early years of parenting, we can manipulate variables.
Car seats/ seat belts/ when and where they can play outside.
But as they get older, it’s harder and harder to do.
I wonder if Samson’s parents prayed for him to be protected from himself?
I know my mom did it for me!
Especially when I got to high school and college age!
Samson clearly has some impulse control issues….
Fiancé / prostitute / Delilah
Dad on his knees praying for us kids.
How to overcome shattered expectations:
3. Ask for insight.
God, please show me what I can’t see.
And that prayer may not get answered for months/ years.
Sometimes our kids are the answer to those prayers.
ADD Examples from your life….
Josiah- (tucking in) who does God say you are?
Naomi- (getting ready to move) I think I’m ready for an adventure.
Job rejection- (4 yrs later)
Jamie- Show me what you want me to know.
Radical confession: “God, I don’t believe you love my kids as much as I do.”
So let me end today with our life application…
A way for you to take home this message and apply it to your life….
Life Application: We will all have shattered expectations in life. Ask God to help you see them through His lens in the future. I will ________.
Let’s Pray…..
Offering Talk