Today's Word Radio

Brett Meador: Here's the thing that when we find success or things are going well, there's that ever so tricky little temptation to start thinking, "Well, I've done some pretty good things." You have to really realize it's not by might, nor by power, but it's by the spirit, saith the Lord up above.

Guest (Male): Pastor Brett Meador reminds us how all things are possible. This is rudimentary for Christianity to know that without Him, how much can we do? The answer to that is, how much can you do apart from the Lord? Nothing. But by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.

It's been said that when we rely on our own resources, then we don't enjoy the full supply of the spirit. The necessary resource for God's work is the Holy Spirit, just as God promised Zerubbabel to accomplish the work he'd been given: to rebuild the temple. Pastor Brett Meador illustrates with examples from Scripture for when we neglect this truth from today's word.

Brett Meador: My dad used to say, he had this saying that he and I both knew what it meant, and it had to do with an attitude in which someone receives information. And we used to call it the yeah-yeah-yeah. The what? Have you ever met a person you want to tell them something, and you start telling them, they're like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I know that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah."

And it's like there's people that yeah-yeah-yeah their whole life, and they're the clueless one. They're not the one listening or learning or hearing, just yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I worry that there's scriptures and truths that sometimes I have that same propensity because I know it, and I've known it for so long that I'm kind of like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

This is one of those scriptures you've sung, it's one of those scriptures you've read and heard. Maybe if you're not even a Christian, you might have heard this phrase because it's pretty famous. It's Zechariah, chapter 4, and it's verse 6. Zechariah 4:6 says this: "Then he answered and spake unto me saying, This is the word of the Lord unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts."

That's that phrase: "Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts." What an important theme. This is rudimentary for Christianity to know that without Him, how much can we do? The answer to that is: how much can you do apart from the Lord? Nothing. The Bible says without Him, we can do nothing.

But with Him, how much is possible? All things, everything is—it's amazing how this is just a truth from the scripture. And so, here in our text, when the Bible says it's not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord, this is something we need to acknowledge.

And the problem is, the older we get as Christians, sometimes we start to think that we have done something of our own ingenuity or our own willpower or stick-to-itiveness, and we start to take credit. And some of you might even be thinking, "Well, Brett, I have worked hard and I have done some things on my own."

But you've got to remember, when it gets down to the very basics, who gave you a brain? Who gave you lungs? Who gave you feet to walk and hands, and who made your hands work? And who keeps your heart beating? That's an amazing mystery to me. Your heart just beats. That's the Lord who does all that.

So, when we start taking credit, saying, "Well, I did this, and I did this," it's an interesting thing because, really, the older I get and the more I think about it, if I'm cognizant of it, I realize, "Wow, really, without Him, I can do nothing."

But here's the thing: when we find success or things are going well, there's that ever so tricky little temptation to start thinking, "Well, I've done some pretty good things." And every good thing in your life, if you've done anything good, you have to realize it's not by might nor by power, but it's by the spirit, saith the Lord.

In fact, James 1:17 says, "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variableness, neither any shadow of turning." I love that in James 1:17. But the idea is, every good thing that the Lord does, it comes from the Lord up above.

Well, I want to go over a few mistakes that we make when it comes to this notion: "Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts." Let's go over—you can jot these down if you want. And the first one is, mistake number one: we attempt to do what we do apart from the Lord.

That's the first one. We attempt to do what we do apart from the Lord. When you start taking a venture of faith, you've got to make sure that you're going with the Lord on this one. And it's so easy to get ahead of the Lord, or to kind of think you can do stuff even though God's not in it.

He's given you enough ingenuity to do it yourself, so you do it yourself. That's one of the big mistakes when you kind of forget this: man, it's not by our own might, our own power, but by my spirit. The classic poster child of this is Abraham. Abraham, there in the book of Genesis, chapter 16.

The Lord promised Abraham in Genesis 12: "I'm going to make of you and Sarah a mighty nation. It's going to be the Jews." And he promised the Abrahamic covenant. God says, "I'm going to give you a son through you and Sarah." But in chapter 16 of Genesis, Sarah's saying, "Man, I'm 80 years old. Are you kidding me? And you think we're going to have a child? Abraham, the Lord needs a little help here."

And so Sarah says to Abraham, "I tell you what, here's my handmaid, Hagar." Now, this is a woman they picked up in Egypt. Remember when Abraham went down to Egypt? That's a whole other story. But Pharaoh ends up giving them all kinds of stuff and sends them out, and one of the things that they got was Hagar from Egypt, her handmaid.

So, she goes, "Okay, Abraham, go into the tent and you and Hagar have a little romance, and she'll bring forth the child, and we'll kind of help the Lord along." So, Abraham's like, "Cool." And so he goes in, and he and Hagar have intimacy, and she becomes pregnant.

And it's interesting because trying to make things happen—it does seem kind of ridiculous that an 80-year-old woman would have a baby. Do you remember the story when the Lord shows up with Abraham and the two angels, and the Lord's talking to Abraham, but Sarah's hiding behind the tent door?

And the Lord says, "Sarah's going to give birth to a child." And Sarah to herself quietly kind of is laughing in her heart, going, "Am I really going to have a child?" She's laughing. And the Lord says, "Sarah," and she comes out from behind the door: "Yes?" And the Lord says, "Why did you laugh?"

And she said, "I didn't laugh." And he said, "Yes, you did." And then they just went on with their conversation. That just cracks me up. That's one of the funny places. Sarah's like, "I didn't laugh." "Yeah, you did." The Lord knows. You don't blame her, really, do you? For laughing, because she's 80.

So, she tries to make this happen with Hagar, and Hagar gives birth to a little boy named Ishmael, not the promised child that God talked about. And Ishmael and Hagar, well, as it turns out, Abraham's like, "Cool, I've got a son, this is all worked out great."

But the Lord says, "Abraham, that's not the son. It's you and Sarah." And sure enough, Abraham and Sarah end up having a child ten years later at the ripe old age of 90. Abraham's already 100 now. At 90 years old, Sarah has a child, and they name him Isaac.

You say, "Well, that's impossible." Remember, the whole Bible's full of miracles. We don't have a problem with miracles. Can a 90-year-old woman have a baby? Yes, if God wants to do it. All things are possible. And it's not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.

So, Abraham got ahead of the Lord, trying to help the Lord along. And that's the mistake we make: we attempt to do stuff apart from the Lord, thinking we can help the Lord out or get what we want even though it's not really what we need. And that's a huge mistake that Abraham made.

And by the way, classical mistake. And think about the payment of those kinds of mistakes. What do you pay when you make that mistake? Well, just ask Abraham. Isaac and Ishmael, when they were little boys, they started to quarrel, and Ishmael was picking on little Isaac and treating him badly.

And Sarah says, "That kid's got to go, and so does Hagar." And so, Abraham pulled Hagar aside and said, "Man, you've got to leave our camp, and see you later." So poor Hagar and Ishmael, they're kicked out of the camp, and where are they going to go?

Well, the Lord shows up and says to Hagar, "I'm going to take care of you guys, and your son, Ishmael, will also become a mighty nation, and he's going to be a wild man, but he's going to be a mighty nation nonetheless." And who is the father of the Arab people? It was Ishmael.

And it's interesting because if you see the quarreling that took place between Isaac and Ishmael, that quarreling never really stopped. It's the Arab-Israeli conflict to this day. The descendants of Isaac, that's the Jewish people. The descendants of Ishmael, that's the Arab people. That's Abraham's mistake, still in live color today.

I wonder about you. Have you made problems for yourself that you didn't need to make because you attempted to do what you do apart from the Lord? Always a mistake. Anything I've tried to hurry along or make happen by my ingenuity or my manipulation, I always end up paying a price for that.

And the Lord's saying, "Man, I want you to do what I want you to." That's why Jesus, who lived perfectly, he said, "I always do the will of the Father." So, all that to say, I find myself praying for myself and also for this congregation.

And my prayer—you might be a little bit offended, really, at how this pastor prays for his congregation—but I pray that you will be unsuccessful in your attempts to do things apart from God. And I pray that for me too, because that's never going to work out very good for us.

Doing stuff apart from God, you end up being Abraham and Sarah. I think I see that on so many different levels as a pastor from my perspective. One of the big ones, I think, is our poor singles who really, really want to be married. And I know not all singles are in that position, but I've noticed there's some that just say, "Man, I really want to be married," and they're willing to sort of acquiesce.

What do you mean, Brett? Well, I've seen it. The young girl, she says, "Oh, I'm getting older and my biological clock's ticking. I'm 23 and I'm old now and I need to get married." And so she goes and finds some guy with a pulse. "Yeah, but is he a Christian? Is he a leader? Is he going to lead you in the ways of the Lord and bring Jesus into your home?"

"Oh, I'm sure he will be. I'm doing missionary dating right now. I'm sure he'll be a great Christian once we get married." Ah, like that always works out. Uh, no, never. Almost never. That's getting ahead of the Lord, making something happen, and we have to be careful with that one. Rushing into marriage, a lot of people are living with that mistake even to this day.

It's tough. That's just one example. So, attempting to do what we do apart from the Lord, that's mistake number one. Mistake number two: it's this, being unaware that it was the Lord in the first place. You know, we forget that when we're doing something, and maybe even when you were starting out, you were aware of your shortcomings and your weaknesses.

And so you were praying, "Oh, Lord, help me with this." And the Lord helps you with this. But shortly thereafter, you start thinking, "Look what I've done. I've done a pretty good job here because of my ingenuity and my smarts. And I'm actually doing pretty good on my own. I don't even really need the Lord because, look, I'm doing it all by myself."

Meanwhile, the Lord's making everything happen behind the scenes, and you forget that it really is the Lord that's giving you the strength and the wisdom and the right decisions. It's all the Lord. But as soon as you forget that, oh man, it gets you into real trouble. Just ask Samson. Samson's the poster child of that.

He was given amazing Marvel Comics-level strength. This guy was amazingly strong. And it's because the Lord called him apart from being just a normal dude. He was set aside as a Nazirite. As you know the story, three main things: the Nazirite was never to let a razor come to his hair and cut his hair.

He was also not to touch any dead thing, but he's also not to drink wine or have raisins or grapes or even hang around near a vineyard. The Nazirite was to stay away from anything having to do with vineyards or wine or anything like that.

So that was Samson, and the Lord blessed him with superhuman strength. Like, it was incredible. Now, one thing that I think is a misnomer, that when you were a little kid and you colored the Samson coloring picture in Sunday school, remember he was always Arnold Schwarzenegger out, just kind of all buff and huge and stuff?

I don't think that was Samson. I bet when we get to heaven, we're going to be like, "Who's that little 135-pound dude in the corner over there?" And they'll say, "Oh, that's Samson." Why do you think that? Well, do you remember the Philistines? They were constantly asking where in the world does he get all the strength?

If he looked like Arnold, you'd look at him like he's just a really strong guy. But they always were asking, "We don't get it. How is this guy able to do that?" And it was the constant question. But we know the secret to his strength. Well, it actually is a phrase that correlates with our scripture text today.

Every time Samson did something great, it says, "And the Spirit of the Lord came upon Samson." So it wasn't his bulging biceps; it was the Spirit of the Lord. The Spirit of the Lord came upon Samson and he did this, and he did that. In fact, there in the book of Judges, chapter 14, you read this in verse 5 and 6.

Remember where he's going down to Timnath? It says Samson went down with his father and mother to Timnath and came to the vineyards of Timnath. And behold, a young lion roared against him. And the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him, and he rent him as he would have rent a kid.

He ripped this lion in half like he would have just a little tiny lamb. That's the idea. And he had nothing in his hand, no weapon. And he told not his father or mother what he had done. He'd killed this lion. And remember the story, he went later, scooped some honey out of the dead carcass of a lion.

So now he's already done a couple of things: he was walking through a vineyard—ehhh. He was scooping honey out of a lion—ehhh. Those are the first two Nazirite vows he was already breaking. Only thing he's really yet to do is cut his hair.

But the Spirit of the Lord came upon him, and so he's thinking, "Oh, that's all good." But not only the Spirit of the Lord coming upon him to kill a lion, do you remember when he wanted to marry the girl from Timnath? And he hires a bunch of friends because he doesn't really have any?

So he hires these guys to come and be his friends, 30 of them. And they were Philistine dudes. But he was really looking for a reason to thump on some Philistines. That's the true reason why he was doing all this stuff. But he's going to marry this Philistine girl, and so he gets this party together and he casts this riddle before them, saying, "If you can solve my riddle, I'll give you guys all a set of clothing, each one of you guys, like, get you all set up."

And the guys are like, "Okay." But behind Samson's back, these guys, these 30 so-called friends, go to the fiancée and say, "Tell us the answer to the riddle." And they keep going against her, saying, "We're going to kill you and burn your house down and your families."

And so she finally tells them the secret riddle answer. And then they come and say, "Samson, we know the answer to your riddle." And they told him the answer. And Samson said something I wouldn't recommend for you husbands, the way you refer to your wife. Samson said, "Someone's been plowing with my heifer."

That's a idiom of the Bible. "Somebody's been talking to my wife." Don't—don't say that for you modern-day gentlemen. Someone's been plowing with my heifer, and he knew that they got the answer from his bride-to-be. So this really makes him mad.

So now he owes these guys clothing because they figured out the riddle answer. So instead of going to Nordstrom's and putting it on the credit card, he finds 30 guys out on the street and slays them—bloody, brutally, kills them all, strips them of their clothing, brings the pile of clothes and throws it down at the 30 guys, say, "Here's your new clothes." Blood-soaked and—I mean, like, there's a little bit of a statement there, I think.

But when he did that horrible thing, you say, "That's horrible." But as it turns out—check this out, this is Judges 14:19. It says, "And the Spirit of the Lord came upon Samson, and he went down to Ashkelon and slew 30 men of them, and took their spoil and gave the change of garments to them which expounded the riddle, and his anger was kindled and he went up to his father's house."

It was again his strength came from the Lord. Not by his might, not by his power, but by the Spirit of the Lord. That's how Samson did what he did. And the story goes on and on where he does these feats of strength. We could talk about the gates being carried to the top of the mountains 30 miles away, city gates, not your little picket fence gate.

These are like gates like our barn doors back there. He carried two of those up a hill 30 miles to the top of a mountain. He tied a bunch of foxes' tails together and put torches between them and had them run all over catching everything on fire. Like, he did crazy stuff. Every time he did, "Spirit of the Lord came upon Samson."

But then, as you guys know the story, it gets kind of sad when Samson, he's just kind of doing his thing. And I think he's convinced himself—people, they read the story of Samson and think, "What an idiot. Like, he must have been stupid."

But I don't think he was stupid as much as he was like us. What do you mean, Brett? Well, remember when he finally meets Delilah, the prostitute, and he keeps going down to her house night after night? And Delilah's a hired gun for the Philistines. She's going to figure out his secret of his strength and then have the Philistines come and arrest him, kill him or whatever.

So she gets him all in the house and lulls him to sleep. "Okay, Samson, you just go to sleep there on her knee." And she says, "Tell me the secret of your strength, you big boy." And Samson says, "Well, if you tie me up with ropes, I'll be weak like any other man."

So she lulls him to sleep and ties him all up and then wakes him up and says, "Samson, the Philistines are upon you!" And he jumps up and pops the ropes off like threads and crushes the Philistines right there. The next night, Samson goes back to Delilah's house. You're like, "See, he's just dumb."

No, I think there's more to it. We'll talk about that in a second. The second night, "Samson, you've mocked me telling me—that was a great joke you played on me, the new rope thing and everything. What's the real secret?"

He said, "It's not new ropes; it's actually if you take green withes or green ropes that are freshly woven, then I'll be weak like any other man." So, "Okay, you just go to sleep, Samson. Goodnight." And she ties him up with green ropes and then says, "Samson, the Philistines are on you!"

And he jumps up and pops those ropes off like threads and crushes the Philistines again. The next night she's even more whiny, saying, "Samson, you don't really love me. You haven't told me the secret of your strength." And he said, "Okay, okay, okay. If you take my hair"—now, this is where we're getting a little dangerous; he's starting to talk about something that's a little closer to home.

"If you take my hair and you weave it up with a weaver's beam, then I'll be weak like any other man." "Okay, Samson, you just go—hey, somebody bring in the weaver's beam!" And if you look up a weaver's beam, this isn't just some little hobby thing. It's a weaver's beam: a big huge beam with a loom type thing where they would make like sweaters and stuff.

So, "Samson, you just go to sleep." So he falls asleep and there he is. He's just sleeping there and there she is. She's just weaving up his hair. Like, this is hilarious when you think about the Bible story. Come on, Brett, Samson's just stupid. I think Samson is not stupid. I'll tell you why in just a second.

Well, the Bible tells us that she does the same thing: "Samson, the Philistines are upon you!" And he jumps up, and the weaver's beam, the Bible says, is still in his hair. So he's walking around, boom, boom, boom, the weaver's beam, and he still crushes the Philistines again.

Well, the next night, Delilah's like, "You hate me, you mocked me, you don't even love me." And the Bible says that she wearied him with her talking and chiding against him so much that he was wearied unto death. I'm not going to say anything about that.

So he finally told her, he said, "Here's the secret: if you cut my hair off, there's never been a razor that's been brought to my head." "Oh, okay, Samson, you just go to sleep. Goodnight." Now, again, you say, "Brett, no, he's just stupid, he's an idiot." No, I think that he's making the fundamental error of this mistake that we make in the same way.

This mistake of being unaware that it was the Lord in the first place. I think somehow he'd convinced himself, "Forget the Nazirite vow. I already drank wine with the Philistines, I was hanging out in vineyards, I already touched a dead thing, and look, my strength is still here. It must just be that I'm the exception to the rule. I am not really going to get busted for this. Somehow, I am superhuman strength. I've just been blessed. Maybe it's the genetics, maybe it's this or that."

But somehow he'd convinced himself—I don't think he's stupid as much as he thinks, "I don't really believe that it's the Lord that is my strength. I think I've done it myself. I think it's of me." And we know that for sure because of this final thing when she does this.

In fact, I'll just read this. This is Judges, chapter 16, verse 19. It says, "Delilah made Samson fall upon her knees and fall asleep. And she called for a man and she caused him to shave off the seven locks of his hair. And she began to afflict him, and his strength went from him.

"And she said, 'The Philistines be upon thee, Samson.' And he awoke out of his sleep and said, 'I will go out as at other times before and shake myself.' And he did not know that the Lord was departed from him."

That's the sad part of this story, man. Every other time it says, "the Spirit of the Lord came upon Samson." But this is the time where it didn't. The Spirit of the Lord did not come upon Samson, and he didn't even know the Lord wasn't even in him anymore.

Verse 21 of chapter 16 says, "But the Philistines took him, poked out his eyes, and brought him down to Gaza and bound him with fetters of brass, and he did grind in the prison house." Samson is the poster child of the person that makes that fundamental flaw of not really understanding where his strength came from.

It's not by might, not by your power, but by the Spirit of the Lord, saith the Lord of hosts. It's interesting because, as you read this story of Samson, the problem is he started to believe it was his own ability. Do you do that? Do you make that mistake? Because you'll find yourself in over your head where things will happen and you really don't have the strength when you thought you did.

And a lot of the successes we have before are going to be the thing that make us think, "See, look, I'm doing this. I'm doing this by myself." All the successes Samson had before were actually just the Spirit of the Lord coming upon him. So, all that to say, man, we've got to be careful. Every good gift, every perfect gift comes from the Father of lights, the Bible says.

Guest (Male): Pastor Brett Meador has been illustrating with Samson how trusting in one's own strength only reveals our weakness in service to the Lord. And there's more to come in our study in the book of Zechariah next time on Today's Word. And I invite you to stay right there as Pastor Brett will join me here in a moment.

But first, Today's Word is the radio ministry of Athey Creek Church in the Portland, Oregon area where Pastor Brett Meador's the senior pastor. We invite you to find out more about Pastor Brett and Athey Creek Church by going to todayswordradio.com. If you missed any portion of this study, you'll find all of Pastor Brett's messages online at todayswordradio.com.

All right, I have Pastor Brett with me now. Brett, we talked many times about your teaching style of preaching verse by verse through the Bible. What impact in people's lives have you seen by teaching straight through God's word?

Brett Meador: I have to admit there's times when I reach a certain book of the Bible, I think, "Oh boy, I wonder how the church is going to receive this book." But every single time, without fail, that passage ministers to our congregation. People come up to me after the service saying, "Pastor Brett, who told you what I was going through at this time?"

And it's because that scripture specifically spoke into their heart. And I've just found that even in the minor prophets or wherever you might be in the Bible—I've had people say, "Brett, you teach through Leviticus?" And I say, "Absolutely yes." And our church, one of our biggest growth spurts in our church was when I was teaching through Leviticus.

And it's because the word of God is, in fact, living, powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword. And people are starving for the full counsel of God, not just our favorite passages, but the whole book. Lo, I come in the volume of the book, it's written of me; that's speaking of Christ. So, that's why we love it: every book of the Bible.

Guest (Male): Oh, thank you, Brett, for explaining why going verse by verse like you do is never a bad idea. Well, friend, if you'd like more information about Pastor Brett Meador or Today's Word, you can just go to our website at todayswordradio.com. That's todayswordradio.com.

Well, next time, Pastor Brett will continue in Zechariah, and we'll see an important truth revealed that God's power alone is the only way, and the accomplishments of man can do nothing on its own. Today's Word with Pastor Brett Meador is an outreach of Athey Creek Church in West Linn, Oregon.