This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Hi, this is Pastor Tom, and I want to welcome you back for week four, day four
of our look through the book of Judges. We're talking about what people who stay
strong do. You have clear boundaries.

You develop strong motives. You endure emotional pressure. You stay connected to
your calling.

You depend on others. You discipline your desires. That's what people who stay
strong do.

And now we're to the seventh thing that people who stay strong choose. Strong
people trust God's Spirit. Now this is towards the end because in many ways it's
the most important one of them.

Samson, although he had the power of the Holy Spirit available in his life, even
working in his life, he never depended upon the power of the Holy Spirit in his
life. As you read through the story of Samson's life, the Holy Spirit comes upon
him from time to time, but was never allowed to direct his life. Samson saw
usefulness before God as a task to perform, when in reality it's a lifestyle to
live.

Now, how do I know that Samson never really depended on the power of the Holy
Spirit? Because he didn't know when the Spirit left him. It was tragic what
happened.

Judges chapter 16, verse 20, "After his hair is cut," listen to what happens,
"then she, Delilah, called, 'Samson, the Philistines are upon you. ' He awoke
from his sleep and he thought, 'I'll go out as before and shake myself free. '
But he did not know that the Lord had left him.

" That last sentence is one of the most tragic statements in the Bible. He did
not know that the Lord had left him. He was unaware of what was happening, how
his lifestyle had perpetually been weakening himself little by little by little.

This gradual process, downhill, downhill, downhill, until he comes to the day
when the Holy Spirit leaves him, he has no power and he doesn't even know it.
He'd assumed that he'd always be strong and he was wrong. Now, the lesson of
Samson's life is nobody ever plans to be a failure.

It comes on gradually. It's a hundred small choices, not one big choice. Nobody
ever says, "I'm going to plan on being an alcoholic in my life.

" No, it's just one small drink after one small drink after one small drink,
little by little. Nobody ever says, "My life goal is to be a drug addict. " No,
little by little.

Nobody says, "My life goal is to destroy my marriage. " It just happens choice
by choice by choice. And it ends with one glance, one little word of
encouragement from somebody else and you fall into an affair and it destroys
your marriage, little by little.

And you come to a day when you do not know that your strength has left you.
People wake up, have these rude awakenings all the time where they realize, "I
didn't know that I was on this path. I didn't know what was happening.

" What happened to them? They weren't relying on the power of the Spirit, they
were relying on their own strength. In your own strength, you can do some good
things.

In your own strength, some of us can do a lot of good things, but your own
strength results in what only your own strength can give. The best you can get
with your own strength is your own strength. You don't get God with your
strength.

In your own strength, we tend to wander away from God's strength. We tend to
wander away from even what's best for us in life. You can't be spiritually
strong apart from the Spirit's power.

It's impossible. You might be able to have a certain measure of emotional
strength or physical strength, but you cannot be spiritually strong apart from
the Spirit's power. It takes spiritual strength to resist temptation.

It takes spiritual strength to trust God through tough times. It takes spiritual
strength when you feel inadequate to know that God is still there with you. Only
the Spirit can bring about a sense of fulfilling purpose in life.

Because so many people don't have a sense of fulfilling purpose, they chase
after this, they chase after that, and they're chasing themselves downhill all
the way. What do you do? You depend on the Spirit.

You can't be useful apart from the Spirit. You never stop depending on the Holy
Spirit. How do you do that?

How do you depend on the power of God's Spirit in your life? There's many
different answers to that. I wouldn't want to reduce it to a simple formula,
because there are different answers based on where you are right now and how God
is working in your life right now.

They have to do with God's people, they have to do with God's Word, but they
also have to do with your choices. So amidst all of those answers and the
different ways that you and I approach relying on the power of the Holy Spirit
in daily life, there are four things that are always going to be happening in
every one of our lives. Don't forget these.

You have to confess, you have to release, you have to trust, and you have to
act. To depend on the power of the Holy Spirit in my life every day, I have to
confess, I have to release, I have to trust, and I have to act. And for you to
depend on the power of God's Spirit in your life today, you have to confess.

You start by confessing. And what do you confess? You confess the truth.

Now, it might be the truth of your sin, "God, I need cleansing from my sin.
Thank you for the cleansing of the cross, what you did on the cross. " But it's
also the truth of who you are, the truth of your humility, the truth of the fact
that you need God every day of your life.

"God, I need you more than I ever will realize. " And I confess that. I don't
even see how much I need you, but I know that I need you.

So in humility, I confess my need of you in my life. I confess that this hunger
that I have inside of my life is for you, not for some of these other things
that I've been chasing after. I confess.

To depend on the power of the Holy Spirit, the second thing you have to do today
is to release. You have to release your plans to God. As long as I'm holding on
to my plans and God is a way for me to get my plans done, I'm not depending on
the power of the Holy Spirit.

I'm asking God to help me get what my spirit wants to get done, not what his
spirit wants to get done. So there's this moment of open hands where I release
it to God, where I say, "God, here it all is. I'm holding it before you with
open hands.

Not my plans, your plans. I release this day to you. I've got some plans.

I've got some things that I'm going to do, but I release this day to you because
I don't want to do my plans. They're not the greatest plan for my life. Your
plan is the greatest plan for my life.

I confess. I release. And then the third thing that I do is now I start to live
it out.

I trust. I trust what God has said. I trust his promises.

I trust the fact that he has my best interest at heart because once you've
confessed your need of God, once you've released your plans to God, you're going
to have to trust him throughout the day because, guess what, things are going to
happen that weren't your plan. So who are you going to trust? Moments are going
to come into your life that you did not expect.

Who are you going to trust? Difficulties and problems are going to come into
your life that you know you don't deserve. Who are you going to trust?

You trust. I don't know the answer to all the problems in my life or your life,
but I do know the response, and that is the response of trust. That's how the
Spirit's power continues to be seen in my life, in your life.

You confess. You release. You trust.

And then you act. You act in obedience based on that trust. Okay, God, what do
you want me to do in this circumstance?

You've put me in this circumstance. I didn't want to talk to this person today.
I didn't want him to come to my workplace, to my office, to my school.

I didn't want him to be riding in the carpool with me today, but here they are.
So what am I going to do? Confess my weakness.

I sit to God, trust that he's got something he wants to do in this, and now I'm
going to act in obedience. Now when I'm riding with somebody in the car that I
didn't want to be in the car, maybe I had planned, I'm going to sing worship
songs all the way to work, and all of a sudden somebody's in the car with me.
Some of you, you're listening to this in the car right now with somebody with
you that you didn't plan to be with you.

I'm not talking about that person, I'm sure. There's somebody in the car with
you you didn't plan. My reaction is irritation.

I don't act in obedience. I want to act in irritation. I want to shut down in
that moment, but that's not living in the power of the Holy Spirit.

That's living in the power of Tom. That's the easiest place to live, but when I
can get to this place of confessing and releasing and trusting, then I can act
in obedience, and I can ask this person about their life. I'm probably going to
find some way I need to be praying for them.

I can tell this person some way they can be praying for me, and God may bless
their prayer in a way that I never expected because I had the humility to ask.
That's how God works. I wish I could say I do this every moment of every day of
my life.

I do not, but I'm wanting to learn to do it the rest of my life, and I want to
invite you to join me in that desire, in that wanting, this desire to depend on
the power of the Holy Spirit in our daily lives. Would you pray with me? And
Father, as we pray, we do these things we've just talked about.

We confess our need of you. We release right now. We open hands.

We release our plans to you. We trust in your plans for us, even though it's
often a change in what we were thinking. And then, Lord, we choose to act in
obedience to you.

Not in response to the circumstances, not in response to our feelings. We want
to act in obedience to you. We need your Spirit's power to do that, and so we
ask for that power in our lives today.

In Jesus' name, amen. Join us tomorrow. We're going to see hope at the end of
Samson's life as we finish our study of the Book of Judges.