Building

The book of Judges…. Dark. Depressing. A book that shows the depravity of the human heart, that illustrates Jeremiah 17:9, “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked….” It is a book of warning. And I in no way want to undermine that.

Yet, it is a book of hope too.

God will not abandon his people.

God will build his nation.

God will appear in the darkest of places.

Gideon's Route of the Midianites, Tiffany

God will build his nation—not because of his people. Judges 1 begins with “I the Lord have given the land into the hand of Judah.” Adoni-bezek says, “I’ve been victorious! I’ve killed defeated seventy other kings! But this God, this God I cannot come up against” (see Judges 1:7). Deborah recognizes that it was not the Israelites fighting against the vastly superior forces of Sisera, but “from heaven the stars fought, from their courses they fought against Sisera” (Judges 5:10). It was not because of his people, their wisdom, their prowess, their plans, their prodigies that they won. It was the Lord and the Lord alone!

And come I against an enemy more powerful than I? A government? A judge and court system? Slanderous words that seem to have the power of a hammer to destroy my esteem and reputation? Financial numbers that tower? A culture of tolerance? The statistics that between 4,000 and 7,000 churches close their doors each year? (1) Not because of my or our wisdom, planning, attempts to control or manipulate. Dauntless, I can go!

And come I to the Lord with my own wisdom to disciple, to teach, to build others up? Come I to the Lord with my own words to encourage? How dare I before the one who commands the stars!

God will build us, individually and as a church, not because of us, but because we have his unlimited power and favor in Christ.

God will build his nation—in spite of his people. Gideon’s fear. Samson’s promiscuity. These are not heroes to be emulated. No, these are fallen individuals. The fact that they are called “leaders” in the book of Judges is only cause to mourn! What a state! Where are the Joshuas? Where are the Moses? The Calebs? Phinehas? We’ve read this so often. Do we miss the drastic darkness of this? How it must have rent God’s heart?

And in spite of their apathy. Did the Israelites, the heirs of the blessing, the children of promise, did they know what they were missing? By Judges 11, the people seem to cease crying out to the Lord; they take matters into their own hands. Jepthah too makes a vow to the Lord, but a vow more akin to the Canaanites as if to force God’s hand. This was not a vow of the God of Exodus, the God of the Law! That God was forgotten, and instead they had collapsed their idea of God into something akin to the Canaanite gods. In the story of Samson, in Judges 13, no mention is made of them crying to the Lord. They even seem comfortable with the Philistines.

But to such a people God continued to intervene, continued to deliver.

I look into my own heart—foibles and failures, fear, doubt, pride, self-glory, despair, envy, anger, impatience, control, fear of man, people-pleasing, depression, anxiety, self-love, and the dark list of hideousness goes on in my own heart. I look at the church. How comfortable are we with the lust of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, the pride of life, the me-me-me focus of our culture? Do we moan and weep?

In spite of his people, God will build me, God will build his church. No matter the crushing darkness, no matter the apathy, God will build his church.

God used the unknown—Tola and Jair, Ibzan, Elon, and Abdon people whom we know little or nothing about. Yet, God raised them up, the little unknown people to bring peace and stability for a time in Israel.

You, me, little unknowns. But it is through the unknowns that God is faithfully building.

God used the upside down—women like Deborah and Jael, a left-handed man in Ehud, men who should have been too fearful and too sinful to have ever been considered.

You, me, the upside down, the uneducated, the nobodys, the sinful, the ones with the broken past, the ones with the illnesses, the ones whose anxiety and depression cripple them. God still uses us to build his kingdom.

The failures of the judges, the in spite of, the unknown, the upside downs, all point to the need for a perfect King. And come he did. King Jesus! The judge who never failed. The Deliver. The Compassionate Savior. The Samson who was faithful to his wife the church. The Jepthath who never made a foolish vow and kept his covenant to the point of his own death. The Gideon who went against the enemy not with three hundred but alone, and confident in the Lord instead of being dominated by fear. And for us, our perfection. Our Hope when we despair. Our Strength when we are weak. Our Perfect Obedience and our Justification and our Righteousness when we are overcome by sin.

This Jesus said he will build his church—and he went to Caesarea Philippi, the most pagan of places where the orgies of the god Pan were held, orgies that would have made us sick. The place where there was a shrine known as the Gates of Hades. The place built to honor the secular empire Caesar and King Philip, the power of might makes right, the power of politics, the power of fame and money.

Here, Jesus went.

To the darkest of places.

The most sinful of places.

He promised he would build his church.

Not because of his people—not because Peter and James and Paul were in charge.

In spite of his people—in spite of Peter’s stumbling and denials, Paul’s persecution and hatred.

Using the unknown—the cast off fisherman.

Using the upside down—the uneducated, the nobodys.

And the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. The darkest areas of our own sin. The darkest tides of history. The darkest rulers on the throne. The darkest waves of secularism.

Because God will build his church. 

In us. 

Through us. 

So wherever you are, wherever your church is--we have a God who will build his church. He called these nobodys to go. 

Will you? 

Let him.

Amen.