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Flawed Heroes | Week 1 | Full Service · Rewind

Rock Point Church

67 min

Pastor Daniel Goulding · Mar 13, 2023 · 4 min read · 67 min listen

The big idea

In Christ, our weakness can become our weapon — the very thing we've been told disqualifies us is exactly what God wants to use.

In this message

The big idea
Point 1 of 7The nation of Israel's cycle of rebellion and rescue sets the stage for the story.
Point 2 of 7Ehud is introduced as an overlooked, disqualified man by every cultural standard.

Point 3 of 7Ehud reaches a breaking point and stops feeding the thing fighting him.
Point 4 of 7Ehud's courage fails and he runs, but remembers God's past faithfulness at Gilgal.
Point 5 of 7Ehud uses his weakness — his left hand — as the very weapon that defeats the king.
Point 6 of 7Paul's thorn in the flesh shows the same pattern of weakness becoming strength.
Point 7 of 7The cross itself is the ultimate proof that God turns weakness into the greatest weapon.
Take it into your week
Transcript

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Scripture in this message

Judges 3:12
Judges 3:15
Hebrews 4
Joshua 4
Joshua 4:20
Judges 3:21

Rewind AI drafted the Big Idea and some point headings shown here from the sermon transcript. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

Pastor Daniel Goulding · Mar 13, 2023 · 67 min watch · 2 min read

Flawed Heroes | Week 1 | Full Service

In this message

Big Idea
Key points
Application

Scripture in this message

Judges 3:12
Judges 3:15
Hebrews 4
Joshua 4
Joshua 4:20
Judges 3:21

Big Idea Key points Application

Big Idea

In Christ, our weakness can become our weapon — the very thing we've been told disqualifies us is exactly what God wants to use.

God doesn't need our strengths as much as He wants our weaknesses. Pastor Daniel walks through the strange story of Ehud, a left-handed, physically deformed man overlooked by everyone, who God used to rescue Israel — showing that our past mistakes, disabilities, or differences can become the very weapon God uses through us, if we stop hiding them and let Him take them.

Key points

1
1The nation of Israel's cycle of rebellion and rescue sets the stage for the story.
Pastor Daniel traces the history from Joseph and Jacob's twelve sons through slavery in Egypt, Moses, Joshua, and into the book of Judges, showing that after Joshua's death Israel had no leader and repeatedly chose rebellion, leading God to give them over to consequences until they cried out for help.
2
2Ehud is introduced as an overlooked, disqualified man by every cultural standard.
Ehud was left-handed, part of a small minority, and had a deformed right hand in a culture that saw physical disability as evidence of God's curse. To make it worse, he came from the tribe of Benjamin, whose very name meant 'people of God's right hand,' making Ehud the misfit among misfits — yet God chose him as the rescuer.
3
3Ehud reaches a breaking point and stops feeding the thing fighting him.
After eighteen years of carrying tribute money to the oppressive King Eglon — literally funding his own oppressor — Ehud decides enough is enough and forges a double-edged sword in secret. Pastor Daniel uses the Tiger King illustration to show how what we casually feed can grow strong enough to destroy us.
4
4Ehud's courage fails and he runs, but remembers God's past faithfulness at Gilgal.
After delivering the tribute, Ehud starts the twenty-mile walk home, convinced he's too weak and disqualified to act. At Gilgal, the site of the twelve stones commemorating God parting the Jordan, he remembers what God has done before and it gives him courage to turn back.
5
5Ehud uses his weakness — his left hand — as the very weapon that defeats the king.
Because Ehud was left-handed, the guards only checked his left thigh for weapons, so his dagger strapped to his right thigh went unnoticed. He kills Eglon with the hand everyone told him disqualified him, leading Israel into over eighty years of prosperity.
6
6Paul's thorn in the flesh shows the same pattern of weakness becoming strength.
Pastor Daniel points to Paul's repeated pleas for God to remove his thorn, and God's answer that His grace and power work best in weakness, leading Paul to boast in his weaknesses so Christ's power could work through him.
7
7The cross itself is the ultimate proof that God turns weakness into the greatest weapon.
To the world the cross looked like utter humiliation and defeat, yet through the resurrection Jesus turned that apparent weakness into the greatest weapon against sin and death, offering humanity a way back to God.

maybe, just maybe, the paradox of the kingdom of God is that it's not your strengths that God needs, but it's your weaknesses

Application

Pastor Daniel frames the charge as letting God take the weakness you've always hidden and turn it into your weapon.

Stop feeding the thing fighting you
Identify whatever you're casually feeding that could grow to destroy you, and make the decision Ehud made — enough is enough — instead of letting it keep gaining power.
Forge your weapon in the Word
Spend time in Scripture daily, not as a box to check but as the actual forging of the double-edged weapon you need to fight the sin and battles in your life.
Remember God's past faithfulness
Build your own pile of stones by looking back over your life for what God has already done, and let that memory give you courage to face what you're currently running from.
Stop hiding your weakness
Quit pretending your past mistakes, disability, or differences don't exist; acknowledge them honestly instead of burying them in shame and condemnation.
Give God your broken places
Surrender the areas you want to hide and ask God to use them as a tool for His kingdom rather than robbing Him and others of that opportunity.

Take it into your week

Rewind AI contributed study material from the sermon transcript; church-authored wording and verified sermon quotes keep their own source. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

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Scripture in this message

From the transcript
“That's the context of where we pick up reading today in Judges chapter three verse 12. Here's how the story begins. It says, once again the Israelites did evil in the Lord's sight”
Read the whole chapter →
From the transcript
“And here's how it continues in verse 15. It says, But when the people of Israel cried out to the Lord for help, the Lord again raised up a rescuer to save them”
From the transcript
“Look what Hebrews chapter four says about this Bible. It says that in Hebrews four, Hebrews four, it says, For the word of God, it's alive and it's powerful. It's sharper than the sharpest two edged sword”
From the transcript
“It says that in Hebrews four, Hebrews four, it says, For the word of God, it's alive and it's powerful. It's sharper than the sharpest two edged sword. It cuts between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow”
From the transcript
“And in Joshua chapter four, we see exactly what he saw, what Ehud saw at Gilgal. Look at this in Joshua chapter four, says here's what happened. In verse 20 it says, it was there at Gilgal that Joshua piled up the 12 stones taken from the Jordan River”
From the transcript
“Look at this in Joshua chapter four, says here's what happened. In verse 20 it says, it was there at Gilgal that Joshua piled up the 12 stones taken from the Jordan River”
From the transcript
“I like to read the emphasis into it. But verse 21, Ehud reached with his left hand. The hand that he'd always been told was the thing that disqualified him is with that hand”
From the transcript
“Paul says that every time I ask God to remove it, all he says to me is my grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness. So now I am glad to boast all about my weakness, my left handedness, my weirdness so that the power of Christ can work through me”

Rewind AI contributed study material from the sermon transcript; church-authored wording and verified sermon quotes keep their own source. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

7-day devotional

A personal reading plan from this message — scripture, reflection, and prayer for each day.

Sign in to track your progress through this devotional.

Day 1

There is a pattern in Judges that is almost painful to read because it is so familiar. Israel drifts from God, life gets harder, they cry out, and God sends a rescuer. Then the cycle repeats. Pastor Daniel named this honestly — not to shame Israel, but to hold up a mirror. We do the same thing. We wander, we realize it, we turn back, and God — remarkably — meets us every time. What strikes you about this pattern is not how many times Israel failed. It is how many times God showed up anyway. There is no verse in Judges 3 where God says, 'That is the last time.' He keeps sending deliverers. He keeps answering the cry. If you find yourself somewhere in that cycle right now — maybe you have been here before and you are embarrassed to need rescue again — that is exactly where this week's devotional begins. Not with a charge to do better, but with the simple truth that God's faithfulness does not run out. The cry for help is always heard. His track record across all of Scripture says so. You are not too far in the cycle to turn around. The same God who delivered Israel meets you exactly where you are today.

For reflection

Where in the cycle do you honestly find yourself right now — and what would it look like to cry out to God from that place today?

Pray

Pray for honesty about where you are in your own cycle, and for the courage to cry out rather than stay silent.

Day 2

Ehud did not look like a deliverer. The text makes a point of telling us he was left-handed — and in the ancient world, that was not a neutral detail. It marked him as someone physically different, likely looked down upon, possibly seen as flawed or limited. He was from the tribe of Benjamin, whose name ironically means 'son of my right hand.' Even his tribe's identity seemed to work against him. Culture had written Ehud off before he ever stepped into a room. And yet. God chose him. Not despite the left hand, but — as Pastor Daniel argued — in some sense because of it. That same overlooked hand would later be exactly what no one saw coming. Most of us carry something we have decided disqualifies us. A background we are not proud of, a body that has limits, a history that feels like it should bar us from being useful to God. We rehearse the reasons we are the wrong person. But Judges 3:15 does not explain why God chose Ehud. It just says He did. God does not owe us a rationale for His choices. He simply selects the unlikely and gets to work. The question is not whether you are the right kind of person. The question is whether you are willing to be chosen.

For reflection

What is the 'left-handed' thing about you — the characteristic or history you have assumed disqualifies you — that God might actually want to use?

Pray

Pray for eyes to see yourself the way God sees you, not through the lens of what others have dismissed or what you have disqualified in yourself.

Day 3

Pastor Daniel was direct about this: the Word of God is not a religious box to check. It is a weapon. Hebrews 4:12 calls it 'alive and powerful,' sharper than any two-edged sword, able to cut right to the heart of what is really going on inside us. That is not soft language. That is the language of something that actually does something when you engage with it. Ehud forged his weapon before he ever walked into the palace. He did not improvise in the moment — he prepared. Pastor Daniel drew a clear parallel: the daily habit of opening Scripture is how we forge ours. Not to accumulate information, but to be shaped, exposed, and equipped by something living. The honest challenge here is that most of us know the Bible is important but treat it like a supplement rather than a staple. Something we add when things get hard rather than something that builds us up before they do. But weapons are made before battles, not during them. If you have let the Word drift to the margins of your day, today is a simple and low-drama place to begin again. Open it. Read slowly. Let it do what it says it does. Not because you have to, but because there is no better tool for the life you are actually trying to live.

For reflection

What would it look like practically for you to engage with Scripture this week — not as a task, but as the kind of daily forging Pastor Daniel described?

Pray

Pray for a genuine hunger for Scripture — not discipline for its own sake, but real desire to encounter God through His Word.

Day 4

Before Ehud, before the judges, there was a moment at the Jordan River. Joshua set up 12 stones — one for each tribe — pulled from the riverbed where God had held back the water so Israel could cross on dry ground. They were not decorations. They were reminders. When your children ask what these stones mean, Joshua told them, you tell them what God did here. Pastor Daniel called these 'piles of stones' — moments in our own stories where God unmistakably showed up. And his point was this: the faith we need for today's battles is largely built on remembering yesterday's faithfulness. When you cannot see how God will come through, you look at the pile. You rehearse what He has already done. This is not wishful thinking or nostalgia. It is actually one of the most grounded things a person can do. The same God who parted a river, who delivered a nation through an unlikely left-handed man, is the same God you are walking with today. His character does not change between chapters of your story. If you have stones in your own history — moments of rescue, provision, or unexpected grace — those are not incidental. They are evidence. And evidence is exactly what courage is built on.

For reflection

What are the 'stones' in your own story — the moments of God's faithfulness you most need to remember right now?

Pray

Pray for a spirit of remembrance — that God would bring specific moments of His faithfulness to mind and that you would hold onto them as real, personal evidence of His character.

Day 5

The moment Ehud acts is quiet and strange and a little unsettling to read. He has gotten close to Eglon, king of Moab, by being exactly who no one expected. The guards never checked his right thigh — because left-handed men carry weapons on the opposite side. His difference, the thing that made him an outsider, became the thing that let him get close enough to matter. Pastor Daniel was clear: the weakness you most want to hide may be the very thing God wants to use as your greatest weapon for His kingdom. That is not a motivational phrase — it is a theological statement rooted in the logic of how God consistently works throughout Scripture. Think about what you are most tempted to conceal. The season of failure. The ongoing struggle. The limitation you have worked hard to keep out of sight. There is a reason you guard it so carefully — it has likely cost you something real. But concealment and surrender are different things. Concealment says, 'This is too broken for God to touch.' Surrender says, 'I do not know what You will do with this, but it is Yours.' Ehud did not hide the left hand forever. He used it. That is the invitation here: not to expose yourself recklessly, but to stop hiding from God what He already knows and already has a plan for.

For reflection

Is there a weakness, failure, or limitation you have been hiding from God or from others that you sense He is gently asking you to surrender to Him?

Pray

Pray for the courage to stop hiding from God — to offer Him the very thing you have been most protective of, trusting that He is a safe place for it.

Day 6

Paul did not want his thorn. He asked for it to be removed three times — which tells us he was not passive about it, not quietly resigned, not pretending it did not hurt. He brought it to God plainly and repeatedly. And God's answer was not a healing. It was something harder and better: 'My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.' Pastor Daniel brought this passage in to show that Ehud's story is not an isolated quirk of the Old Testament. It is part of God's consistent pattern. The cross itself is the ultimate expression of it — what looked like total defeat turned out to be the greatest rescue in human history. God does not just tolerate weakness; He works through it in ways that strength cannot replicate. That does not make the weakness stop hurting. Paul's thorn was still a thorn. Ehud still carried the mark of being different. The invitation in this verse is not to pretend hard things are easy. It is to trust that God's power operating in your limitation is more than sufficient — and that the grace He promises is not a consolation prize. It is the real thing, present and active in the exact places where you feel least equipped.

For reflection

Where in your life do you most need to trust that God's grace is genuinely sufficient — not as a platitude, but as a lived reality?

Pray

Pray for a real, felt sense of God's grace in the area of your life where you feel weakest — not just belief in the concept, but actual experience of it today.

Day 7

Looking back across the week, a single through-line has run beneath every passage: God does not work the way we expect. He chooses the overlooked, equips the unlikely, and raises the thing the world calls defeat into the thing that changes everything. Ehud's whole story — the cycle, the choosing, the forged weapon, the pile of stones, the surrendered weakness, the deliverance — is one picture of how God operates. Pastor Daniel's challenge was threefold and it is worth sitting with again as you close this week: Stop feeding whatever is fighting you. Begin forging your weapon through daily time in the Word. And stop hiding the weakness you are most ashamed of. None of those steps require you to have it all together first. They are steps you take with God, not before you come to Him. You carry something the world has likely dismissed or that you yourself have written off. A history, a limitation, a story with chapters you would not choose to read aloud. But the same hand Ehud was told disqualified him became the hand that delivered a nation. God is not waiting for the cleaned-up version of you. He is ready to work with exactly who you are right now — weakness, left hand, and all.

For reflection

Looking at the whole week, what is the one thing God has been most clearly speaking to you about — and what is one real step you can take this week to respond?

Pray

Pray for the faith to take one concrete step this week — whether that is stopping something, starting something, or surrendering something — trusting that God meets you in the movement, not just the intention.

Rewind AI contributed study material from the sermon transcript; church-authored wording and verified sermon quotes keep their own source. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

Small-group discussion guide

For leading a group conversation about this message.

Open

This message took a close look at Ehud — one of the Bible's more obscure judges — and found something surprising: the detail that seems most like a footnote about his weakness turns out to be the hinge the whole story turns on.

Discussion questions

1
In Judges 3:12-15, Israel falls into the same cycle again — rebellion, oppression, crying out, rescue. What does it tell us about God's character that He keeps meeting His people at that cry, even when the cycle is painfully familiar?
2
Judges 3:15 introduces Ehud with two details that would have marked him as an outsider: he was left-handed and, in the original language, physically restricted in his right hand. Why do you think the narrator includes those details rather than skipping past them?
3
Pastor Daniel pointed to the memorial stones at Gilgal in Joshua 4:20-24 and argued that the faith we need for today's battles is built by remembering yesterday's faithfulness. What are some ways a community — a family, a small group, a church — can keep those 'pile of stones' moments visible rather than letting them fade?
4
Hebrews 4:12 describes the Word of God as living, active, and sharper than any double-edged sword. Pastor Daniel framed daily time in Scripture not as a religious box to check but as the forging of a weapon. What is the difference between those two postures, and how might that distinction change the way we approach reading the Bible together or on our own?
5
In 2 Corinthians 12:9, Paul writes that God's power is made perfect in weakness. Pastor Daniel connected that principle all the way back to Ehud and forward to the cross. How does the cross reframe the way we think about what 'looks like defeat' in our own stories or in the life of our community?
6
Pastor Daniel challenged us to stop hiding the weakness we are most ashamed of, and pointed to how Ehud's so-called disqualifier in Judges 3:21 became the instrument of deliverance. As a group, what might it look like practically to create the kind of community where people feel safe bringing their 'left-handedness' — their difference, their limitation, their hard history — rather than concealing it?

Pray together

Ask God to show us the weaknesses and differences we have been hiding, and to give us the courage to place them in His hands — trusting that what He held in Ehud, and what He raised at the cross, He can raise in us

Rewind AI contributed study material from the sermon transcript; church-authored wording and verified sermon quotes keep their own source. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

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FLAWED HEROES

Week 1 · 4 messages

Where these passages are preached

Judges 3 Hebrews 4 Joshua 4 2 Corinthians 12

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