God's SWAT Team

Judges 3:12-31

One of the most common responses I hear when Christians talk about serving God is this: "I'm not qualified." I heard a story about this just the other day. Someone's mom said they could not share the gospel because they could not teach the Word like a professional pastor. For some reason, Christians sometimes feel that if they can't be a pastor they can't be of use to God. \r
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Or perhaps you say you don't have the personality to share the Good News of Jesus Christ with others - you aren't eloquent or forceful or have a salesman type of attitude. \r
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Or maybe you think that something in you makes you unqualified. Perhaps you grew up in a dysfunctional home and feel "marred" by that experience. Maybe you got into trouble before (or after) coming to the Lord and feel unholy and unable to respond to His call.\r
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So something about you or about your background makes you think like you just need to fill a seat at church and slip in the back door to heaven. Doing "great things for God" is not in the plan.\r
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I wonder if Ehud and Shamgar might have had similar thoughts. These two guys in Judges 3 might have felt that they were not capable or had the right training or tools to rescue Israel from their enemies. Yet they did. Not only did they step up but they accomplished a mission despite and even through their liabilities. \r
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We too can learn from these two guys about being ready, willing, and able to do God's will despite our handicaps.\r
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1. Ehud\r
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Ehud was left handed. As we talked about on Sunday, a left handed person was considered a little less than. Something was wrong with you if you were left handed. I personally take offense at this, as I am very proudly left handed. Yes, we write funny, but there are a lot of advantages to being left handed. (see article: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=498707&page=1)\r
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Ehud found himself in the unenviable position of being the Israelite who had to personally bow and pay tribute and promise obedience to a king who wanted to destroy his people - Eglon the Moabite king who had taken up residence in Jericho - a symbolic slap in the face to Yahweh, who had given Jericho to Israel as the first fruits of the Promised Land Victory.\r
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Israel had disobeyed God and that's why God allowed this to happen, but the focus of our study is on how God then used this left handed man to bring about an incredible victory over Moab and free Israel from bondage for eighty years - the longest they were at peace during this period.\r
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How did it happen? God used Ehud's handicap, his left-handedness to create unusual strategies in combating the enemy.\r
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Strategy One - The left handed sword\r
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You know how many of us left handed people have real problems with things like scissors, which, in my opinion, have been manufactured in such a way as to discriminate against those who use the correct hand. Ehud needed a weapon that he could get into the inner chamber. Most likely they would search anyone who came near the king, but since "normal" people were right handed they would only search the left side. So Ehud binds the sword he makes to his right thigh under his clothes.\r
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Strategy Two - The Secret Message\r
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Ehud appealed to Eglon's flesh that the God of Israel had a special message for him. It was a way to get alone with the king without the guards there. Surely Egon's pride wanted the message only for him - no one else should share his glory.\r
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Strategy Three - The Cover-up\r
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It wouldn't have worked real well if Ehud had cried out that he had killed the king. He had to rally Israel to overthrow the Moabites while they were confused and disheartened at having lost their king. To do that he had to make a clean get away. So he closes the door and locks it behind him. The guards think the king is using the facilities and wait long enough for Ehud to make it out of danger. He then called Israel to the fords of the Jordan - a great place to cut off retreating Moabites or fresh troops coming in.\r
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2. Shamgar\r
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Shamgar has a different problem. He may well have been able bodied and capable of killing large numbers of enemies, but lacked the tools necessary to do the job.\r
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Israel's enemies were no slouches. If you want to keep a people from rising up against you, take away their weapons. That is apparently what happened during this period. The Philistines were especially good about this, and at one point the Israelites had to go to the Philistines even sharpen their farming implements!\r
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So here's Shamgar. All he had at his disposal is an ox goad. An ox goad was basically a stick with a metal point on it. It was great for goading oxen but you couldn't cut worth anything with it and those great slashing swashbuckling moves of a swordsman just got the Philistines to laughing.\r
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So Shamgar surpises them by using the innocent looking ox goad to kill 600 Philistines. We don't know how he did it - I presume by stabbing them. Later on, of course, Samson uses a donkey's jawbone to do a similar thing. \r
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So what do we learn from these two men when it comes to serving God? \r
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1. We are all left handed\r
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Paul said "in me, that is in my flesh, dwells no good thing." (Romans 7:18). \r
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2. We have possess nothing more than an ox goad\r
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2 Corinthians 4:7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. ESV\r
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Yet God uses us anyway.\r
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Ephesians 2:10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. ESV\r
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How does this happen? Through creative strategies and creative tools. Just like Ehud and Shamgar. We are God's S.W.A.T. team!\r
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Special Weapons - Special Tactics\r
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No one suspected a man with a lame right hand would be a threat. And no one will suspect that you, the ordinary looking and acting person is actually a mighty warrior for God. You go to work, pay your taxes, work in your yard, raise your kids, do your grocery shopping - everything totally normal and unassuming.\r
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Yet in you is a treasure. Your very ordinariness will get you access into people's lives like no pastor, and into their hearts like no great salesman. \r
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See, you are the weapon that is hidden in the right thigh - you are the ox goad that no one thinks is capable of destroying 600 Philistines. \r
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2 Tim 2:20-21 Now in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver but also of wood and clay, some for honorable use, some for dishonorable. 21 Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work. ESV\r
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What are your creative strategies? Perhaps it's a cup of hot soup on a cold day to a neighbor you know lost their job. Perhaps you invite an unsaved friend out to golf so he can try out those new clubs. No hard sell, no carting a 12 pound Bible along with you. You sneak in and live a life that reflects the character of the Lord and they will notice and want to know what you know.\r
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There's a great little verse we discussed at our men's Bible discussion group this week:\r
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Acts 11:29-30 So the disciples determined, everyone according to his ability, to send relief to the brothers living in Judea. 30 And they did so, sending it to the elders by the hand of Barnabas and Saul. ESV\r
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The word "ability" there doesn't mean power or wealth or wisdom. It means "to be good for passing through." What "passes through" your life? Do you like to read or sew or play cards? Do you cook or do yard work or fix cars or computers? What are your abilities? He'll use them. What are your disabilities? God will use them too.\r
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2 Corinthians 1:3-4 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. ESV\r
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The bottom line here is that you don't have to be a Biblical scholar, a pastor, a super singer or musician or an orator to accomplish God's will. You only have to present yourself.\r
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Romans 12:1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. ESV\r
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We also have special weapons in the Spirit of God (the gifts of the Spirit) and the Word of God - and special tactics like prayer (the Christian's secret weapon).\r
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So bottom line:\r
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Bring yourself, handicaps and all, be God's SWAT team member - using yourself as a weapon along with the Holy Spirit and the Word of God in your heart to go into the defenses of the enemy without tipping him off - then rescuing those in need and sounding the trumpet call of God's victory in people's lives!\r