Living with Idols

Judges  •  Sermon  •  Submitted   •  Presented   •  36:47
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Intro

Getting to know you
Getting to know the area
These stories are important
Love of History
Difference between history and nostalgia
Evangelical Historian John Fea talks about nostalgia as a longing for a past that never really was, a frozen past that we look at with rose tinted glasses, a mis-remembering of the past.
Don’t need to live in the past, but if we don’t know where we came from we can’t know who we are, where we are, and where we are going.
GPS
Judges 2:10–19 CSB
That whole generation was also gathered to their ancestors. After them another generation rose up who did not know the Lord or the works he had done for Israel. The Israelites did what was evil in the Lord’s sight. They worshiped the Baals and abandoned the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of Egypt. They followed other gods from the surrounding peoples and bowed down to them. They angered the Lord, for they abandoned him and worshiped Baal and the Ashtoreths. The Lord’s anger burned against Israel, and he handed them over to marauders who raided them. He sold them to the enemies around them, and they could no longer resist their enemies. Whenever the Israelites went out, the Lord was against them and brought disaster on them, just as he had promised and sworn to them. So they suffered greatly. The Lord raised up judges, who saved them from the power of their marauders, but they did not listen to their judges. Instead, they prostituted themselves with other gods, bowing down to them. They quickly turned from the way of their fathers, who had walked in obedience to the Lord’s commands. They did not do as their fathers did. Whenever the Lord raised up a judge for the Israelites, the Lord was with him and saved the people from the power of their enemies while the judge was still alive. The Lord was moved to pity whenever they groaned because of those who were oppressing and afflicting them. Whenever the judge died, the Israelites would act even more corruptly than their fathers, following other gods to serve them and bow in worship to them. They did not turn from their evil practices or their obstinate ways.

Text Intro

Judges follows Joshua
Joshua is about the entry to the pormised land after the wondering in the wilderness
have to wonder in the wilderness because of the failure of nerve to enter the promised land when they first got there
Joshua is on of the only that says that they can enter and take the promised land
That generation has lived and died
Judges 2:10
Judges 2:10 CSB
That whole generation was also gathered to their ancestors. After them another generation rose up who did not know the Lord or the works he had done for Israel.
Sound familiar? Should. this is the beginning of Exodus.
Exodus 1:8
Exodus 1:8 CSB
A new king, who did not know about Joseph, came to power in Egypt.
When people come along who don’t remember the past and what God has done, bad things happen to Israel.
This is what is happening in Judges. A generation has come up that doesn’t remember what God has done for them.
This is the fundamental story of the Israelite people
To not remember it is to not remember who they are

Where we are at

We have a generation or three now that doesn’t remember who they are.
Millennials (my generation) and Gen Z (the one after me) and the one being born now have grown up/are growing up in a world where we are told that there is no such thing as truth.
The defining characteristic of these generations is that we are all digital natives.
Got internet either really early or have had it their whole lives
See the world not as separate things but as a web/network.
relational
We were told that the internet was going to change everything, and boy did it.
Porn - buying and selling of people
Trolling -
Gossip and lies have become “fake news”
each side “telling their truth”
there isn’t your truth and my truth and her truth, there is The Truth.
Instagram getting rid of likes
save the kids
Our kids and young adults have no sense of who they are and it is eating them alive.
But here is the thing - we didn’t do it to ourselves.
Participation trophies
didn’t give them to ourselves
Not just in secular world either, but in the church
kids leaving
why? how did this happen?
we lose sight and don’t pass on when we don’t live out of the abundance of Jesus in our own lives.
One generation believes the gospel, next generation assumes the gospel, and the next generation looses the gospel.
There are all these shiny little things that want our attention.
We always think that its going to be the big thing (renounceing faith)
But it is the small things.
Judges 2:11-13
Judges 2:11–13 CSB
The Israelites did what was evil in the Lord’s sight. They worshiped the Baals and abandoned the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of Egypt. They followed other gods from the surrounding peoples and bowed down to them. They angered the Lord, for they abandoned him and worshiped Baal and the Ashtoreths.
If we don’t know God we don’t just walk away, rather we chase after other gods.
our hearts are made for worship
we will worship something
we will serve something
we will follow something
Even the most devout atheist is worshiping something
status
money
sex
power
some ideology (-isms)
Worship, following, and service are all interrelated.
This is what is happening in Israel and it is what happens to us.
Ecc 1:9
Ecclesiastes 1:9 CSB
What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun.
The people of Israel were in this cycle of disobedience
Does evil (worship idols)
The Lord oppresses Israel
Israel calls out
The Lord delivers (by raising up a leader)
The Lord grants a time of Peace
Cycle starts all over again
We exist inside the same pattern of disobedience
We exist inside a pattern of disobedience
But this isn’t how it is supposed to be
We aren’t meant to be on this tilt-a-whirl
We were created for something bigger and better
Sinfulness always ends in slavery.
Glory = mass
Mass = order and orbit
If we don’t have God and His glory as our center our life spins out of control
But we are locked in the cycle
Jesus breaks the cycle.
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