Sermon Tone Analysis

Dangerous Cycles

Do you ever just watch someone, or maybe even watch yourself, make like the same mistake over and over again and just have this overwhelming feeling of frustration?

Like what the heck man… get it together!

Albert Einstein actually labeled this phenomena as Insanity - Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

But we do tend to act this way because as humans we are creatures of habit… even if those habits are bad.

There’s this genre of TV episodes that I really can’t stand.

They don’t seem to happen much any more, but like in the 90s they were super popular.

I call them time warp episodes.

Where you watch the same thing unfold in a slightly different way over and over until the main characters finally figure out what they need to do differently in order to get out of the time loop — usually in order to not die.

Kind of like the movie Groundhog Day if you have all seen that.

Yeah you know that movie.

The same day just keeps happening over and over again.

I don’t know why, but I don’t really have the patience to sit and watch the same thing over and over again like that.

After like 2 iterations of the same thing I’m just like alright lets figure this thing out.

Which, by the way, is not a super admirable trait when you have a toddler.

Because he basically just wants to do the same things day in and day out.

And he does the same things that hurt him, or are dangerous day in and day out.

So you know, pray for me and such.

But anyway the point of all of this is to get you warmed up to the kind of literature that we are going to find ourselves looking at today.

We’re going to find ourselves in the book of Judges, which if you’ve ever read it, is kind of a train wreck.

But before we get there let’s just take a few moments to review where we’ve been the past few weeks.

My name is

We’re on week 4 of our sermon series “My Name is Hope” where we are looking at the different names that are ascribed to God in the Old Testament, and seeing how they lead us to a more full understanding of who Jesus is and how that helps us to find our ultimate hope in Him.

So far we have looked at how God was referred to as God Almighty — the God who created the cosmos and all that we see and experience in our world.

This God, all powerful, is capable of rescuing his people and creating a new future for them.

Then we saw how God was referred to as “The God who Sees Me” and the powerful message that brings into our lives as we hang on to the hope that God sees us in the midst of our trials, pain, and general human experience.

Last week in the contemporary service I preached about the personal name of God, which was given to Moses when he encountered God in the burning bush… The name YHWH.

Now if you haven’t listened to that sermon, it’s available on the church website and facebook.

But the short of it is that the name YHWH really communicates the “foreverness” of God.

God always has and always will exist, but beyond that and more personal to us is the fact that God’s commitment to humanity and God’s covenant people is deeply forever as well.

God is forever the God who can and does wield his almighty power to deliver his people and create a new reality for them.

God is forever the God who sees his people and rescues them from their circumstances, even when those circumstances are self inflicted.

God is forever on the side of God’s people, and this is an absolutely unconditional reality.

It is the essence of why we can call God good and why we can confidently put all of our hope in him.

Today we are going to continue on in this theme and look at one more name that is given to God.

Now, we are doing this because we are finding that names in the Bible tell us something special about the person that they are attributed to.

Especially names that are given to God.

They teach us something about God that we carry into our lives as we seek to follow him.

The Judges

Today we head into the book of Judges.

So at this point God has rescued Israel from slavery in Egypt and brought them into the land that he had promised to them.

And you get to thinking… finally.

Because this trip has been really hard fought.

Israel was a mess as God led them out of Egypt and it took them an entire generation — 40 years — to make an 11 day journey because they couldn’t get their act together.

But eventually they cross into the land, take possession of it, and we get to thinking like finally things are good here.

But they don’t stay good for very long.

The Israelites are consistently breaking their covenant with God.

They are deeply influenced by the cultures and gods of their neighboring nations.

Particularly they consistently built altars to and worship the god Baal.

The worship of Baal was not only in itself a deep breach of the covenant that Israel had made with YHWH, but it involved a lifestyle that was in direct contradiction to the moral and ethical standards that God had outlined for them in the law code.

And so what happens is that things don’t go well for Israel.

These practices consistently cause Israel to face the downward spiral that individual and corporate sin create.

They are attacked by their neighbors, oppressed by them, and then in their desperation they cry out to YHWH for help.

And YHWH, being a God who forever sees his people, who forever uses his power to rescue those he loves, steps into history to save them.

In the book of Judges he does this by calling and then raising up leaders called Judges.

These people call Israel to repentance and to follow YHWH.

And then they deliver Israel from whatever mess they’ve gotten themselves into.

And then Israel does the same thing again.

And the cycle continues like groundhog day.

But they don’t ever seem to figure out how messed up they are.

Today we find ourself towards the tail end of one of these cycles.

Israel has been worshipping Baal, and things are not going well.

This is Judges Chapter 6:

So things are pretty dire.

God has allowed the mess of Israel’s mistakes to impact them.

In this case they are being controlled by the nation of Midian, and the Midianites are practicing some pretty ruthless tactics, essentially acting as a siege of Israel, trapping them in the places that they have gone into hiding, cutting off their food supply.

Things are not good here.

So Israel does what Israel does when they are backed into a corner they turn to God, and the story goes on.

So Israel does what Israel does, they mess things up and then cry out to God.

And God lives up to his name thus far.

He shows up the same way he always has, and is like listen, I told you what NOT to do, and you absolutely did that.

You worshipped other gods.

But the story won’t end there, God is not resolved to leave his people in the state we find them in.

So the narrative goes on.

God shows up, and Gideon is like um hey, question.

WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?

I think that you and I can probably resonate with this right?

Like when things are really falling apart, when we feel like we are backed into a corner this is a perfectly acceptable question.

Like dude… where were you?

God’s response?

God kind of ignores the complaint and instead is like go on, I’m going to use you to fix it.

And much like Moses at the burning bush, Gideon is like “I’m not the guy.” and it goes on like this

So God’s like I’m gonna take care of this with you.

I’ll give you my power.

To which Gideon says, hold that thought, I’ve got to make sure you’re trustworthy.

And God is totally fine with it.

He’s like ok do what you must do.

I’ll be here.

And with that Gideon goes inside and makes a sacrifice, and then brings it out and puts in on the rock, and the Angel of the Lord reaches out and touches it and it’s instantly burned up.

And Gideon is like holy smokes!

(literally)

well actually this is what he really says:

Finally here we have our name for God for today.

The Lord is Peace: YHWH Shalom in Hebrew.

And so the curious thing that we have to decipher is why.

Why in this particular context is Gideon naming God - Peace?

I mean the Israelites are in the midst of a 7 year siege.

God’s solution to that seems to be for Gideon to raise up an army and conquer the Midianites, which may bring peace eventually but certainly not now.

I think that we really need to read further on in order to truly understand what Gideon is referring to.

And what I contend is that this is what Gideon really means when he names God YHWH is peace.