Determined to be Obedient

What is a feeble instrument in the hands of one man is a might instrument in the hands of another, simply because the spirit of that other burns with holy determination to accomplish the work that has to be done.

Tonight we are going to talk about one of the most little known men of the bible Shamgar in

Judges

Judges 3:31 ESV

After him was Shamgar the son of Anath, who killed 600 of the Philistines with an oxgoad, and he also saved Israel.

That is the beginning and the end of Shamgar. Many people, including me, have looked over this verse thinking it’s just one verse. But then I realized—it’s in the bible. If I did something so obedient and noteworthy to get just one verse in the bible I would be overjoyed and humbled. I have bibles with commentaries in them and the one I use most often didn’t even have a note about him.

There are several concepts we can learn from Shamgar and the first one is

Complaining doesn’t get the job done!

Theologians know that during the time Shamgar was around the Israelites weren’t allowed to own or make weapons. In fact there weren’t any trained blacksmith’s allowed around the Israeli people. The Israeli’s had to go to the town of the Canaanites and pay steep prices to get their shovels, plows, and ox goads made or sharpened.

The only feasible tool he could have used was an oxgoad which was a long point stick with a metal tip on one and and a spade of the other. One end was to correct a kicking animal while farming the other was to clean off their plows.

1 Timothy 4:12 ESV

Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.

Timothy’s tool was his youth. What people saw as a fault God saw as a tool. I have people tell me they can’t come to me for marriage counseling or counseling in general because I am young and what do I know. I can let that define me or I can look and say 12 healthy years are better than 30 miserable ones. Just because the years don’t match doesn’t mean the sum of the whole can’t outweigh it counterpart.

Some people state they don’t have enough money to give. Ben works tirelessly to ensure that this church is clean. He doesn’t make excuses for what he can or cannot do, but he uses the gift of God gave him to minister to the church. If you used the bathroom this today remember to thank Ben for it cleanliness—that’s his ministry.

People have three types of gifts

Time, Talent, and Treasure.

If we allow God to use any one of these in conjunction with the spirit of God, His heart, and His determination we can block out all excuses and find a place where we fit in.

I believe one of the Satan’s greatest tools is getting us to focus on what we can’t do instead of what we can do.

1 Corinthians 10:31 ESV

So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

If in every action your do -you do it for the glory of God your actions can never be wrong. The key to unlocking this type of attitude is to make sure it’s actually done to the glory of God and not serving yourself. People will come under the guise of doing God’s work, but before they even speak you know God had nothing to do with it. If Shamgar would have done this battle for his own good he would have lost the battle, but because he fought for God and not for himself.

C

Secondly he had

Faith

Courage without faith is stupidity. If your action begins with hold my beer instead of Lord direct me it’s not faith. We don’t know how Shamgar received the call he did, but you cannot take on 600 men without have faith. When you are stairing down the barrel and the odds are against you the normal thing to do is run, not fight, especially when you don’t even have a real weapon.

Hebrews 11:1 ESV

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

Victory is always hoped for an never seen before the start of war.

I was in a board meeting this week and we talked about things that we believed God was going to do in our church. Some even made the comments that they feel the growth and stirring of the Spirit in their bones. If we focus on the natural many of us, including myself, would have given up and thrown in the towel, but God sees what can’t be seen. We have to courage mixed with the faith to carry out the task at hand.

Charles Spurgeon once started a speech to a bunch of graduating Pastors by reading the title:

To Workers with Slender Apparatus’

God doesn’t give you every tool you need to finish a job before it starts because either we may misuse such tools, or not know what to do with them, but he gives you what you need to start what he has called you to do.

It’s your job to get it done.