Okay, so this is a weird part of Hebrews because this is the part where we stop reading straight through Hebrews and we just have to refer back to the stories that are alluded to because the writer of Hebrews gets to a point where he's like, yeah, I don't even have time to talk about all the heroes I want to talk about. I don't even have time to talk about Gideon and Samson. And then Mark said last week he was like, well, they might not have time in the letter, but we have time at Auburn Community Church, at least to hit on a couple of them. So we were so blessed by that sermon on Gideon last week, but there's another guy mentioned who, when his name is mentioned, he's way less familiar than the Gideons and the Samson's and the Davids and the Samuels. It's a guy named Jephtha. Can you say Jephtha? It's a fun name to say. And if you say it to your neighbor, you might spit on him. And it's like, it's a name that you're like, oh, yeah, that looks like a Bible name, but I don't know what that story is about. And I actually want to argue today that the story of Jephtha needs to be so much more on display

because it calls us into the main battle that we fight as believers in Jesus who are becoming

more like him over the course of a lifetime.

If you need a title for this sermon on Jephthah today, the title is called trust versus

control.

Trust versus control in parentheses, Jephthah today. The title is called trust versus control. Trust versus control. In parentheses, Jephtha. Look at the person next to you say Jephtha. Do it. Annunciate it.

Jefftha. Okay. This title is really the summary of the battle that wages war on your life spiritually. And I mean that on multiple

fronts. As New Testament, Bible believing Jesus trusting Christians, we have admitted by becoming

believers in Jesus that the only way to a right relationship with the God who created us is through

trusting him to do in and

through us what we could never do within ourselves and replacing any efforts to control or

strive or do enough to get to him with simple faith and trust. It's called being saved by grace

through faith. We believe, and if you're here today, you're not a believer in Jesus, you need to know this. We are not a religious group of people who believe in culminating all

of our efforts in order to please God. There's nothing about what we're doing that is performative,

and God, if I do this and sacrifice this and get my life together like this, eventually you will be

pleased. No, we believe we are so fallen, we are so

depraved, no amount of human effort is ever going to be pleasing to God because sin is not a

problem that we have. It's a condition that we're born into. So in order to be saved,

you have to admit that you can't be saved outside of God doing it. It's an act of faith and trust that

goes, if this is at all in my hands to make this happen, I will fail. But if you are the one who I put

my trust in, and if I trust that the blood of Jesus shed on Calvary is enough and that you will

fill me with your spirit and you will raise me from the dead, it's all on you and you remove yourself from the equation. That's how you're saved.

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