Debra - Courageous Faith

July 20, 2003, 8:00, 9:30, 11:00 AM

Rev. Ronald Burcham

Typed from audio transcript

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

When I was in college, I worked part time for a janitorial firm in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I showed up one Friday night for work to get my assignment because I didn't have one building that I was assigned to. I was sort of sent all over the two cities that were there. I showed up, and we're all standing in line waiting to get our assignments. The boss came over to me, and he said, "Well, Ron, if it's okay with you, I'm going to send you to Ypsilanti." Now I know you don't come from Michigan, so you don't know Ypsilanti. It's not a real desirable place to be. He said, "In fact, where I'm going to send you, you're going to get there about 10:00 tonight. What I want you to do is I don't want you to park in the street, and I don't even want you to park in the parking lot." He said, "What I want you to do is I want you to drive up on the sidewalk. That's okay, the police know about this. In addition, I want you to get as close to the door as you possibly can. Get out of your car immediately, unlock the door, get inside, and lock the door again." I said, "Oh, okay, not a problem." I really did. The person next to me, after we're done, he looked at me and said, "Aren't you a little bit scared about going to this place? It sounds pretty rough." I said, "It's rough. I've been there before. It's not the neighborhood that you want to be in, especially not late at night." He said, "Well, aren't you worried?" I said, "No." He said, "Why not?" I said, "Because Dion's with me." He looked at me. He said, "Dion's with you?" I said, "Yeah, Dion's with me." Let me explain about Dion. Dion stood about 6'5" and he was 250 pounds. Now while this was my part-time job during college, this was Dion's full-time job when he wasn't in jail. Dion, the first time that he met me, just wasn't sure what he thought about this preppy little white boy working with him until he found out that I was going to go to seminary to be a pastor. Then all of a sudden, from that moment on, he saw it as his mission to protect me. From that moment on, Dion knew me as Preacher. Moreover, he'd say to me, "Preacher, don't worry. We can go anywhere we want. You're with Dion. People see that you're with Dion; they ain't gonna mess with you. You're going to be okay." Therefore, when they told me that I had to go to this youth shelter in Ypsilanti, Michigan, and drive up as close as I could to the door, I didn't worry. Dion was with me. I didn't have to stress about this. Everything was going to be okay.

I kind of wonder as Deborah came up to Barak and said to him, "Barak, listen, God has decided that you're going to go up against the army of the Canaanites. You're out numbered, you're out gunned." Barak had to say, "Are you kidding? You want me to do what?" He had every reason to be afraid. He had every reason to be scared, but Deborah had this confidence about her. What was her confidence? Was her confidence in Barak and his army? No. She said, "Don't worry about it, Barak. You got God with you. God is the one who's going to give you the victory. As long as God is by your side, you don't have to worry about it." It was almost as if God was saying to Deborah, "Don't worry about it. I'm going to take care of you. I'm going to protect you." As long as you've got God with you, everything's going to be okay. Deborah had an amazing faith, a faith that could look beyond the circumstances that she was facing and know and believe that God would fulfill His promises, that God would keep His word to her.

Now maybe as you read the story, as you listened, maybe you didn't catch all the nuances that were going there. It reads so smoothly, and it just goes through in one quick chapter. You would think that really it's kind of a no-brainer. God's going to bring them into this valley. They're going to be destroyed. Everything's going to be all right. Let's revisit the story just for a minute, just so that you can catch the flavor of really what's happening here. This is the time of history of God's people of Israel, that they don't have kings yet, so we don't have David and his triumphant reign. We don't have Solomon and his entire splendor. This is a young nation coming into the promise land, and they have judges that rule them. Therefore, the judges don't just settle disputes, but they're also kind of the leaders of the nation of Israel. And you've got Deborah who is a woman, obviously, who now is a judge of the land. Now this in itself is rather unique. If you think about the culture at that, time to have a woman who is in charge of this nation called Israel, extremely unusual. Woman at that point in time, their role was to have sons and to stay at home and take care of them. That was their role. Yet, here we have a woman who is a leader of a nation and, on top of that, God tells us that she's a prophetess to boot. So she, that is, speaks for God. She transmits what God has to say to His people. She gets it in her head, at least that's what Barak is thinking, that it's time to move against the Canaanites.

Now understand the Canaanites. The Canaanites have 900 iron chariots. You have Jabin the King, and you have Sisera who is the captain of the army, and an army of 900 chariots plus a bunch of troops. Now the chariots aren't just the things that we see in the movies. The chariots are described in antiquity as ones that had off their wheels, off the spoke, sort of some sharp, knife-type objects so that as they're rolling through the opposing forces, you get the idea. It's a little early in the morning to be more graphic of what happens to the opposing forces as they go through. There are 900 of those plus a well-trained army. On the other hand, in Israel, you have 10,000 troops but they're sort of a hodgepodge. Now, not all the different tribes are really getting along with one another. They don't cooperate with one another. So they come together, and there is really no organization. They are out numbered. They are out gunned. They are out organized. It really is set up to be a slaughter of the people of Israel. So as Barak comes over to Deborah and she says, "Listen, God has decided it's time to break this 20-year reign of the Canaanites and God's going to deliver Sisera, the captain of the army, into your hands." Is it any wonder that Barak sort of says, "Right. Sure He is. Well, listen Deborah, if you're so confident about that, then why don't you just kind of ride along with me?" His jaw must have hit the ground when she said, "Sure. Okay. However, you have to realize if you're going to go about it this way, the honor isn't going to be given to you. It's going to be given to two women." Barak doesn't care. He wants Deborah along with him.

Meanwhile, what we don't know and what Deborah didn't know, and that's important because in the story we sort of missed this, is that God is at work as He always is. How is God going to bring this about? So there's a guy named Heber. Heber gets the idea that, as he sees these 10,000 troops going over to Mount Tabor, that something is up. Now he can trace his ancestry back to being a son-in-law of Moses. But, for some reason, he's disconnected with the people of Israel and he's a friend with King Jabin. Therefore, he sends word over to King Jabin saying, "Listen. They have 10,000 troops moving over to Mount Tabor. I have a feeling something is brewing here. You might want to do something about it." So Jabin whistles over to Sisera and says, "Listen, you might as well assemble your troops. They got it in their head that they're going to do something again. Why don't you head on over and take care of them?" Sisera probably chuckles to himself and says, "Yeah, this shouldn't take long." Loads up his chariots, and he heads over into the valley. And here the 10,000 troops are up in the hills, and here comes Sisera and his army ready to just defeat them and for the slaughter that it should have been. And then there's a curious thing in scripture. It says that the Lord rooted Sisera and his troops. Another translation says that the Lord confused Sisera and his troops. In other words, in some mysterious way, God went ahead of the army; and he caused confusion among the ranks. So, all of a sudden, these 900 iron chariots proved to be useless. The mass of soldiers going up against the people of Israel, they proved to be inept. God Himself leads the charge. God Himself goes and confuses the troops, confuses the opposing army. So Barak comes down from the mountain. Sure enough, the army is being defeated. Sisera, seeing what's going to happen, decides that he's going to get out of there; so he fled on foot. He comes to Heber's tent. He thinks he's going to be safe. After all, this is the informant of what's going on. Ah, but he didn't take into account that maybe husband and wife don't agree politically. In this case, they don't. So Jael says, "Well, come on in." He asks for a glass of water. She gives him some nice, warm milk. "Why don't you lie down, take a rest." He falls asleep. She pegs him for the enemy that he really is. The story is over. The battle, the victory, is given to Deborah and to Jael.

But the amazing thing is, if you go back to the beginning, Deborah had no idea how God would accomplish this. We can't miss that. You can't miss that point. When Deborah sends for Barak and says it's time for us to go up against the enemy, she has no idea of the informant. She has no idea of Jael. She has no idea how God is going to mess with the army so that they become confused. All she knows and all she believes is that God has said that time has come. She looks at the circumstances and ignores the circumstances. She looks beyond the circumstances and sees God and believes God and trusts that God and His word is going to be faithful, even though she's faced with an impossible situation. Her faith tells her that God will be active and that God will be faithful to His promises.

We want to translate that for us today. What do we do when we're faced with either frightening or impossible situations and circumstances? How do we handle them? Are we able to look beyond the circumstances and to believe God and His word and His promises? Take a moment and think about it for just a moment. What are the impossible situations that you face in your life? Either you're facing them now or you've faced them before. What are those situations that cause you stress and unrest? What are those situations that are just a little bit scary? They just don't look like you can overcome them. What are they for you? Does it have to do with financial matters? Is it an impossible situation with your career? Is it an impossible situation with employment as you're looking for that next job and it never seems to be able to come? Is it the impossible situation with a breakdown in a relationship? Is it an impossible situation with a health issue, either your own health or someone that you love and care for? What are the things that really stress you out, that make you feel uneasy, that scare you and stir you down to the soul? What are the things that really worry you? Is the impossible situation of dealing with your kids? Is the impossible situation of dealing with your parents? How do you handle the impossible? Are you able to look beyond the circumstances, trust, and believe God and His promises? You know, it's not an easy thing to do. It's not an easy thing to do to look beyond the circumstances. Can you imagine the task before Deborah and Barak to look beyond the circumstances, to look at the opposing forces, to look at a 20-year history of defeat after defeat, of oppression by this Canaanite king and his great army and his 900 iron chariots, to look beyond that? It would be so much easier just to simply look at the fact of the matter, to analyze it and say, "We don't stand a chance." It would be so much easier to look and to feel like they were going at this all by themselves and to forget that the word of God said to them that He was going to deliver them.

How often do we face life alone? Do we face every circumstance as if we're facing it by ourselves? Convincing ourselves that it's all up to us, that you have to do it all, that you have to come up with the solutions, that you have to come up with the fix, that you're the one who's going to have to go out and find the job, that you're the one who's going to have to balance the books, that you're the one who's going to have to go out and find the specialist to make sure that the cure can happen, that you're the one who's going to have to do all the work because you're in this alone. It's you against the world. It's you against life. Is it any wonder that as a society and as a people we are so stressed out and we have all this anxiety? We're carrying the weight of the world around with us.

It's time to look beyond the circumstances. To look beyond the circumstances and to fall back on our faith, our faith that tells us we're not in this alone, our faith that tells us that God is true to His promises, that God is true to His word. King David saw that. In Psalm 27, he says, "The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear?" King David, the great warrior, who went up against battle against battle, who went up against enormous odds, whom shall I fear? He says that he doesn't fear anybody because his God is his light and his salvation. On the other hand, in the New Testament, when Paul writes to the church at Rome, he says, "If God is for us, who can be against us? He who is willing to give up His only son for us, how will He not also along with Him graciously give us all things?" One can almost hear Deborah talking to Barak saying, "Listen, Captain, if God chose us to be His people, if God delivered us out of the hands of the Egyptians, if God saw us through the 40 years in the desert, if God brought us into this promise land, do you really think that now He's going to abandon us? Do you really think that now all of a sudden He's not going to be with us? If God says He's going to deliver us from the Canaanites, He will because He can.

What I'm saying this morning is that if God was willing to send His son from heaven to live into our world, if God was willing to watch His son die so that we could have our relationship restored with Him, if God was willing to take the punishment of our sin and to place it upon His son, do you really think He'll stop there? What more could He do for us? Will He not also stand beside us in every and all circumstances no matter how impossible they may seem, no matter how frightening they might be? Will not our God be with us? Of course, He will. We look beyond the circumstances, and we see God at work. And we believe His word, and we believe His promises for us. I'm not suggesting by any way that we're irresponsible, that we just quit our jobs, we sit at home and say, "God will take care of me." That's not what we saw with Deborah and Barak. Once Barak came on board, his faith kicked in, and he believed, he was up on that mountain. He's the one that said, "Alright, boys, let's go down against impossible odds. Let's attack the Canaanites because God is with us and God will deliver us." They didn't know how. They didn't know what God was going to do, that He was going to work in some mysterious way. But their faith, their conviction was that God was with them and God would not let them down.

The same is true for us. When we face those circumstances, when we face the impossible, when we face the frightening, we're not irresponsible. We do the things that we should do and we know that we ought to do, but we face it with confidence, knowing that God is going to work in mysterious ways, that God is already at work doing things that we're not even aware of, that God is going to be true to His promises when He says that He'll never leave us and forsake us, when He says that He'll never give us more than what we can handle, when He says that all things will work together for the good of those who love and to trust in Him. We look beyond the circumstances, and we believe and we trust in God and we know that we're not going to face this alone.

Deborah had an incredible faith, a strong faith that enabled her to do just that, to look beyond the facts and to know and believe that God was with her. By God's grace, you and I can look beyond the circumstances and know that God is with us. Amen.

Copyright 2003 Gloria Dei Lutheran Church