Sermon Prep Outline | Judges 1 & 2

Moving Forward Without God

Before The Text: Well, tonight I would like to do something that I haven’t done here before and that is start a series. Anytime I get he opportunity to preach, with the Lord’s help I am going to be preaching out of the book of Judges. I am not exactly sure why the Lord lead me to this book, because many people would say that it is pretty depressing. But, it is not all depressing or discouraging, in fact I believe it could be a great encouragement and help to us and something that we can learn from as we go through it.

We will actually start tonight just looking at an overview of the book, kind of just getting an introduction to where we are at. This type of message, giving an overview or an introduction to a whole book is a little out of my wheelhouse, so if this seems a little scattered then forgive me, but I do know that the Lord used this truth in my life and because we are opening God’s Word that something will be a help to someone tonight.

Here in Judges, the children of Israel have just gotten into the Canaan Land that God had promised their fore fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God has brought them out of the land of Egypt under Moses’ leadership, they got off track a bit and had to wander in the wilderness for 40 years because of their unbelief, Moses passes off the scene and Joshua takes over and finally leads Israel in to the Promised Land. He has lead them through battle after battle, conquering Jericho, Ai, the Amorites territory which included capturing Jerusalem, overall conquering over 13 cities/territories.

And now, Joshua is passing off the scene, and he is encouraging each tribe to finally claim their part of the inheritance, their part of the land. At long last it looks like Israel is in a good spot, that they are about to finally have their happily ever after story.

After The Text: This is one of the most sobering passages in all of Scripture. To see the people of God, ready to claim to the blessings of God and do what He has called them to do, now so quickly fall into utter failure and corruption, being resisted by God.

We have got to take notice of what happened here… We too, as God’s children, as Eastside Baptist Church, as families, as individuals, aspiring to be all God wants us to be, looking to have God’s blessings on our ministry, on our lives,… We have to be so careful that we don’t fall in to the same failure that the Children of Israel did, that in all of our aspiration and desire that we don’t try to move forward without the Lord. That we would not have Godless aspirations.

Introduction- Well, this year I get to celebrate my 13th year anniversary, no, not of my marriage or of my salvation, but my 13th year of paying taxes. What an exciting anniversary it’s been! I celebrated by talking on the phone with a CPA for a couple hours…

I really started work as a 12 year old boy but I didn’t start paying taxes until I was 13 because no 12 year old boy should be making enough money to pay taxes…

-But, I started out working for a construction company that a man in my church owned there in Stillwater. My job mostly consisted of helping carry heavy things, picking up trash, and on a very rare occasion getting to use the nail gun or skill saw. I have no idea what they were thinking letting me do that as a 13 year old. I get scared just passing a butter knife to one of these 6th and 7th graders.

-But, I remember just being so excited to finally have job. It really was my desire, my aspiration to be the best worker I could, to work harder than anyone else on the job, so I was always looking for things that I could do without being told. Well, on one of my very first days of work, my boss was on the roof of this house putting up some trusses in the 100 degree Oklahoma summer heat and he called down for me to go get his water from his truck. So, again, being the aspiring hardest worker there, I noticed that his water was warm from sitting in the truck and I decided that I would take initiative, dump it out, and get him some cold water from the cooler. And that’s exactly what I did.

-But, come to find out, Bro. Kevin doesn’t like cold water in fact, it gives him a bad headache in the heat, and when he took a sip of it, I was told very promptly to never do that again.

-Another time, I and another worker decided to put some trusses up on our own to take some initiative and unknowingly put them on backwards.

-Another time we were building a dock in this lake and I decided not to take a lunch break and get ahead and I started using my bosses drill and dropped it in the lake.

Transition- Needless to say, I was full of desire and aspiration but many times I acted without direction, I acted without the knowledge and the authority that I desperately needed.

Applied Illustration- We all have tendency to aspire to be something or do something great but then act without the knowledge that we need, without the direction and authority that we need to be successful.

Transition-That is where the children of Israel found themselves in the book of Judges.

(V2:6-7)-The children of Israel are about to receive and become what they have aspired to be, really what God has desired for them to be for hundreds of years.

As we mentioned earlier, God had promised to Abraham hundreds of years earlier that He would make of him a great nation. Then it was passed on to Isaac, and then Jacob, Jacob then spent time in Egypt and God used the captivity of the Children of Israel in Egypt to grow them into a great nation.

Through the slavery in Egypt, through the leadership of Moses, through the wandering in the wilderness, through the leadership of Joshua in the victories like Jericho and the defeat in Ai, through all of it, God is shaping and preparing the nation of Israel to be His people, to bring them into the land that He wants to bless them with.

God’s hand has been so evident in the Children of Israel’s life and journey so far and yet something happened. At the brink of God doing something so incredible with His children, it all falls apart.

(V2:8-10A)-Joshua, their fearless leader has passed away and with him a whole generation that knew the Lord and that feared Lord, they are all gone.

(V2:10B-15)-Now, a new generation has come that does not know the God of their fathers, they don’t how much God has done for them, and this nation that aspired to be great, that had great desires to do great things for their God, has tried to move forward, and failed, fell flat on their face.

(V2:12-15) You know why? Notice how many times it says the word forsook…

V12 “and they forsook the Lord God of their fathers” “they provoked the Lord to anger.”

V13 “They forsook the Lord”

V15 “Whithersoever they went out, the hand of the Lord was against them for evil, as the Lord had said, and as the Lord had sworn unto them: and they were greatly distressed.”

You know what this verse says? God had given them instructions, God had told them what they needed to do, and not just that, He told them what would happen if they did not listen and just like God said, because they failed to follow His instructions for their aspirations, because, as chapter 21:25 says “they did that which was right in their own eyes.” they sacrificed God’s blessing and brought His reproof and His resistance to their lives.

Instead of receiving their long awaited inheritance and fulfilling the aspirations that they had and that God had for their life, they failed, and sacrificed it all and faced consequences for years to come.

Applied Transition-You see, when we try to rise, when we try to move forward without the Lord, when we try to fulfill our aspirations without God’s instructions, we are doomed to fail and bring the reproof and resistance of God on our lives.

Transition-God had given instructions to Israel long before this moment, instructions on how they could succeed and how they could move forward for the Lord and how they could have God’s blessing on the aspirations that He had for them.

I think we would all say that we want the same thing. We want God to bless our aspirations.

That as we move forward as a church, we have His blessing.

As you aspire to raise a Godly family that you don’t do what is right in your eyes but what is right in God’s eyes.

Graduates and teens, as you are now about to step out on your own, I think you would agree that you want to have God’s blessing on your aspirations for the future, on the plans God has for your life.

The key for Israel and the key for us is that we would not follow our own instructions and desires but that we would follow God’s instructions and His aspirations for our lives.

Transition- I believe that we can learn from the instructions that God gave the children of Israel as they tried to move forward with the aspirations that He had for their lives.

(Deuteronomy 6:1-15) Instructions for God’s Aspiration.

V1-These are the things that as Israel moves forward, they need to keep in mind.

V2.- Moses is talking to the first generation coming out of Egypt and he is telling them to teach it to their children which would be the ones that are under Joshua, and then to their grandchildren which would be the Israelites that now don’t know God and don’t know what God has done and have now forsaken Him. So this is directly supposed to affect the people that we are talking about here in Judges.

V3.- God gives His Word that if they will just listen to the instructions, if they will follow God’s plan that He is about to lay out, that it will be well with them, that they will increase mightily. In short, God is letting them know that if they follow His instructions for His aspirations, they are going to be blessed!

God tells us the same thing in many different verses in the Bible verses like Romans 8:28 or Proverbs 3:5-6. When we love God and trust His instructions, when we follow His ways and not our own, He blesses us, He guides us, He gives us His blessing.

Transition-So, what instructions did God give Israel as they moved forward? What instructions do we need to follow as we try to move forward for the Lord as a church, as families, as individuals.

(6:4-5) First, love God and give Him first-claim.

V4-The Israelites needed to remember that there is only one God and He deserves the preeminence, He deserves first-claim in their lives. If they were to stay true to Him, if they were going to move forward with God, they needed to love Him with everything that they had. The problem was that they forsook God and followed after other gods, they put other gods before the One and Only God, they loved themselves, other gods, the people of the land, more than they loved God.

We have a tendency to do the same thing.

We may not have little idols that we worship or go to some temple to worship another God, but we put all kinds of things in our lives before Him.

We can say all we want that we love God, but if our actions, if our works don’t prove it then in all reality we aren’t loving the Lord like we say we do.

I can say that I love my wife but if I don’t talk to her during the day, if I don’t spend time with her, if I don’t make her feel special, if I don’t do things for her and provide for her. My words aren’t going to mean much and I probably don’t actually love her as much as I say I do.

We say we love God but when it comes time to get up in the morning to read our Bibles, our actions say we love sleep more.

We say we love God but when it comes time to come give our tithe or give to missions, our actions say that we love our house, car, or phone more.

We say we love God and yet when the Holy Spirit prompts us to talk to someone about the Gospel or we have an opportunity to go out and invite people, we say that we love our hobby or our to do list more.

We say we love God but when it comes to being faithful to church on a Wednesday night, coming Sunday School, preparing for our lesson, our cleaning ministry, or being faithful to choir , our works say we love our schedule more.

There are so many applications that we could get in to here. Be careful that you don’t get satisfied with saying that you love and follow God but not backing it up with your actions. Your love for the Lord will be proven in your obedience to Him.

Transition-If we want to move forward for the Lord, if we want God’s blessings on His aspirations for our life then we need love God and give Him first-claim

(6:7-9) Second, saturate your life with God’s Word.

If Israel was going to move forward with God’s blessing then they had to prioritize God’s Word, they had to make it apart of their everyday lives so that they would not forget God’s expectations for them.

The first thing I notice about this passage is that there is no area in our lives that should go untouched by God’s Word.

God’s Word ought it be in our heart. We ought to memorize it and commit it to memory. Psalm 119:11 “Thy word have I hid in mine heart, That I might not sin against thee.” Committing God’s Word to memory and taking it in on a heart level is essential to winning the battle over temptation.

God’s Word should be found in our speech as we talk to each other but especially as we talk to the lost.

God’s Word should have a place in your home. More on this in a second…

God’s Word should be on our mind from the time we get up, while we are on our way to work, run errands, go to the grocery, getting gas, even while we go to bed. If we were to be that committed to God’s Word, there is no telling what kind of a difference that would make in our lives but also the livesof those around us!

Parents have a responsibility to teach your kids God’s Word.

The Bible constantly reminds us that children are a gift from the Lord to their parents. It may not always seem like they are a gift but they are your responsibility.

As parents God gave you the responsibility of the moral and spiritual education of your children. It isn’t a school’s job to teach your kid what is right or wrong. It isn’t a church, a pastor, or a youth pastor’s responsibility to teach them about God. The Bible says that it is the parents responsibility to “bring their children up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord” in Ephesians 6:4.

I don’t think it is a stretch at all to say that partially why Israel got to the point where the next generation didn’t know the Lord nor what He had done was because the parents didn’t teach their children.

If Eastside Baptist Church looks completely different in the next 15, 20, 30 years it won’t necessarily be because of a failure in pastoral leadership, it will be because there is a generation of Eastside children that don’t know God, don’t know His Word, don’t know what God has done in the past.

Transition-So parents, you do have a responsibility to teach your children. But children, youth, you also have a responsibility to receive God’s Word and ask questions.

(6:20) Youth have a responsibility to receive God’s Word.

The Israelite parents were not all to blame for the lack of knowledge of God. Because God had the expectation of children that they would ask questions about God’s Word and about what God had done in the past.

Many times parents and churches alike get blamed for having strict rules without reason and children will leave the home or leave church because they just did not understand the rules or did not understand why their parents did this or that or why their church believed this or that. That happens way to often… Youth, don’t leave, don’t complain, don’t blame your parents or your church for something that they believe or expect of you without asking.

If you will genuinely ask for help with some of the questions, concerns, or doubts that you have, I promise that we will do our best to give you answers from God’s Word. Give your parents and church an opportunity to answer your questions before you decide that something else is better.

When God’s Word is taught from your parents or from this church then you’ve got a responsibility to listen and to learn from it.

(6:10-13) Third, remember and be thankful for God’s past blessings.

If the Children of Israel remembered what God had done in the past, where he had brought them from, the fact that they literally would not be here if he had not delivered them, and if they were thankful for His blessings, it would have kept them from trying to move forward without God and make a mess of the present situation.

If we will look back and remember where we were without God, sinners, lost and hopeless bound to spend eternity in Hell for the sin that we so willfully commited. until Jesus came and paid the price for sin and gave of the free gift of salvation. If we would remember where we were in our past without God, it will help us to not try and move forward without Him in the future.

So many times we enjoy the blessings of God and use our time, our money, our possessions how we want to and forget that our time, our money, our possessions, everything that we have isn’t ours anyway so we may as well thank God for them and let Him do what He pleases with them.

(V6:14-15) Fourth, be diligent to keep contamination out of your life.

The Israelites moved into the Promised Land and God told them to conquer and drive out the people that were in the land because if they did’t then they would start to be infected, contaminated with their sinful way of living and worshipping.

Judges 3:5-8 “And the children of Israel dwelt among the Canaanites, Hittites, and Amorites, and Perizzites, and Hivites, and Jebusites: And *they took their daughters to be their wives, and gave their daughters to their sons, and served their gods. And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD, and forgat the LORD their God, and served Baalim and the groves. Therefore the anger of the LORD was hot against Israel,”

Because the Israelites allowed sin and contamination in their life, it turned their heart from the Lord.

The same thing happens to us when we entertain sin in our own lives.

We allow the culture around us to infect us and bring contamination into our lives without even realizing it.

Contamination can come in all forms.

The things that come in on our phone through social media

The music we listen to that we try to justify as not too bad when it has profanity, suggestive themes, and artist that openly oppose the Lord.

The movies and tv shows that are filled with language, inappropriate scenes, full of the homosexual agenda.

We entertain lustful, envious, jealous, bitter thoughts in our head.

On and on the list could go…

Ultimately it all comes down to V3:18 “And thou shalt do that which is right and good in the sight of the LORD: that it may be well with thee,”

The Israelites stopped following God’s instructions, they stopped doing what what right in the eyes of God and started to do what what was right in their eyes.

Because of this, a rising nation with so much potential, on the verge of receiving the long awaited Promised Land from God, about to move forward with God’s blessing, lost it all and instead brought the anger and resistance of the Lord on their lives.

If it can happen to God’s chosen people, it can happen to us.

Conclusion- We need to take heed because I believe that God as something big in store for Eastside Baptist Church, I believe that God wants to do something great with the families in this room and especially with it being youth night, I really do believe that God wants to do something great with this group of teenagers right here.

But, if we are not careful we will be just like the Israelites and sacrifice God’s blessing and His aspiration for our lives if we try to rise, if we try to move forward without God.

If we want to move forward with God’s blessings on our lives as a church, as families and as individuals then we have to do what is right in God’s eyes and not our own, heed His instructions. 1. Love God and give Him first-claim. 2. Saturate our lives with God’s Word. 3. Remember and be thankful for God’s blessing in the past. 4. Be diligent to eliminate the contamination in our life.

Because the Israelites did not heed God’s instructions, because they did what was right in their eyes they received the reproof and resistance of God and they were greatly distressed, they had to face a lot of awful consequences.

We all ought to aspire to do great things for the Lord, we ought to want to grow and be used by Him, but in our desire to move forward lets make sure that we move forward with what is right in God’s eyes and not our own. When we do that, there is no telling what God can do with our lives.