Failing Forward Series

FAILING FORWARD

SAMSON, WEEK 4

This is the final week of our series called Samson.

If you have your Bibles with you, turn to Judges, Chapter 16 (pg 174)

We are looking at one of the most frustrating characters in the Bible.

This was a guy who was given so much by God.

From birth, Samson was called by God,

set apart by God,

empowered with supernatural strength from God

God did this for a specific purpose,

Samson was supposed to help free the Israelites

from the oppressive rule of the bad guys,

the Philistines.

But even though Samson was given all of this power

and this divine calling,

he, just like so many of us

messed up, again and again and again.

We said that he was an incredibly strong man

with a dangerously weak will

and again and again broke his vows to God

chasing after the wrong women,

touching things he wasn't supposed to touch,

drinking things he wasn't supposed to drink,

and getting a really bad haircut

when he was never supposed to get his hair cut.

We also looked at his emotions

and we saw that one of his problems was,

he was emotion driven, not Spirit led.

That's a problem for a lot of us,

our emotions get out of control

and we end up letting them drive us

rather than the Spirit drive us.

Last week, we saw that

most people don't ruin their lives all at once,

how do they ruin their lives?

One step at a time.

We saw that Samson

ruined his own life, step by step by step,

and this guy who had been given so much,

just like many of us have been given so much,

He pretty much blew it all.

This week we're going to pick up the story

when he's now a prisoner

he’s been blinded,

he’s in chains, attached to a grinding wheel,

that was designed for an ox,

and he's pushing this grinding wheel in a circle

hour after hour, day after day,

as everybody's mocking him,

calling him names,

making fun of him.

You just can't get any lower

than the low point where Samson is.

That raises the question,

what do you do when you realize

you have really blown it?

What do you do, when you realize

you've wasted years of your life,

you've wasted the gifts God has given you?

You've done things that you can't undo,

you've hurt people that you love,

you're embarrassed by your actions,

and you didn't do what God created you to do.

Let me talk for a second to the men here…

we take this kind of failure very, very personally,

even more so than most women,

because men and women typically find value

in different ways.

For example, women more often find value in relationships.

They’re concerned about

"Do you like me?"

"Are we friends?"

"Can we hug?"

"Can we cry?"

"You took 72 seconds to text me back, are we still BFF's?

For most women, life is very relational.

even going to the bathroom,

is relational!

Not for guys.

If a guy wants to go to the bathroom with me,

its over,

I’m never going near him again.

And if a man does happen

to see a friend in the bathroom, that’s okay,

you’re allowed to talk;

but just do not make eye contact,

There’s an unwritten rule,

you look at the wall.

if you look at another guy in there,

you lose your man card!

And its because men are just different,

we’re not as relational.

We want to be liked

but that's not as big a deal for us.

because our primary source of value

is not relationships but accomplishments.

A man wants to know,

How do I measure up?

Did I do good?

Did we win?

Did we conquer?

Yeah, we want to be liked,

but we’d rather be respected.

In fact, in the Love and Respect Marriage series,

They bring out a really interesting point.

If you ask a woman,

would you rather be loved or respected?

she will almost always say,

if I had to choose, I’d rather be loved.

If you ask a man,

would you rather be loved or respected,

he will almost always say

I’d rather be respected.

Because for men,

it's not all about relationships.

It's not so much,

"Hey, do you like me?"

it's, "Do you respect me?"

And that means that, when we fail,

and when we lose respect,

we take it so personally

that we sometimes feel like

we will never recover from failure.

And that's why generally speaking,

A Man's Greatest Fear Is Failure

And His Greatest Pain Is Regret.

Our greatest fear is

we do not want to fail,

we want to measure up,

we want to be successful.