The Heart of the Matter

Introduction

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Book of Judges

The Effects of the Cycle of Sin

I can do what I want, with who I want whenever I want. As long as it doesn’t hurt anyone.

This is at the heart of the American sin cycle

People in the sin cycle say this, “Don’t judge me!”

God had achieved a great victory through Gideon.

Gideon took an army of 300 men, who weren’t Spartans mind you and defeated an army well over 100,000!

He saw God perform a miracle!

But what is the cycle of sin

Nominal Faith —> Bondage (Cry out to God) —> Judge —> Salvation

We must protect our Heart from Success

Gideon’s Success turns to his Failure

What happens when God pulls you out of the pit your in?

Do you just go back to living life as normal or does something change?

The destruction of Penuel

Tell of Gideon’s decisions in chapter 8.

Judges 8:16–17 ESV

And he took the elders of the city, and he took thorns of the wilderness and briers and with them taught the men of Succoth a lesson. And he broke down the tower of Penuel and killed the men of the city.

Judges

The Golden Ephod

the people ask Gideon to rule over them.

Judges 8:23

Judges 8:23 ESV

Gideon said to them, “I will not rule over you, and my son will not rule over you; the Lord will rule over you.”

Instead of ruling over them, Gideon asks for some of the golden spoils of war the people gained and made an ephod.

Gideon is not the King but he is living as one.

Taxing the people

Killing whom he wills.

Leading the people astray.

Judges 8:27 ESV

And Gideon made an ephod of it and put it in his city, in Ophrah. And all Israel whored after it there, and it became a snare to Gideon and to his family.

Judges 8:

Gideon’s Success led to his failure

Notice what I’m not saying

“Success is bad” - I’m not saying that.

“Success is attached to bad things so therefore we need to destroy the system of success” - I’m not saying that.

When a bad heart finds success then that success will always lead back to bondage.

We must be careful when we find ourselves in the middle of success not to forget the God who brought it to us in the first place.

Gideon, in chapter 8 made friends with the wealth tribe of Ephraim and flatters them and talks kindly to them because he wants to leverage their relationship. He will then go to the lesser tribe who is poor and insignificant and feel disrespected by them and massacre all the men in a town.

Gideon begins to function as a leader, but one word is devoid during his continued success, “God”

in the midst of Gideons success he had forgotten God. When times were tough he tested God, he consulted God he had to put his faith in God, but in the midst of success he had forgotten who God was.

Practical Point:

the cycle of sin takes us through hardship where we cry out to God, God responds with deliverance, we forget God because things are good.

We say, I’m not the king, yet really we live as though we are! We are the king so we no longer need God.

The caution today isn’t necessarily for those who are in the middle of the pit, youre in the struggle, youre crying out to God, keep crying out!

the caution is for those who aren’t in the struggle, you aren’t in the middle of hardship. You looking at your retirement thinking, boy I’m sitting good. You’re looking at the success of your business saying, things are going well. Your a middle class family with a couple kids and things are going alright.

I meet more people coming to church who are going through a tragedy because they need God.

When things are good people tend to move away from church, they move away from prayer, they move away from the scriptures, they move away from the things that help facilitate our relationship with God.

SUCCESS ISN’T BAD BUT BEWARE YOUR HEART IN THE MIDDLE OF SUCCESS

the heart is easily swayed and success can cause you to put your trust in yourself or something other than God.

Gideon did not represent the faith well to his family.

Gideon will pass his failure down to his kids.

Gideon refused to become king yet it didn’t stop him from living like one.

He names his 71st son Abimelech which literally means, “my father is king”

Gideon passed his dysfunction along to his family

Instead of passing down faith, integrity, honor, respect

He passes down pride, jealousy, arrogance and ultimately death.

Heredity is the scientific term to describe the passing down of the physical and characteristic traits from a parent to a child.

If you have a big nose and you are holding your son, you notice that the nose is rather large, what do you say? “Like Father, like son”

This happens with our character and our spirituality as well.

We recreate the cycle in our kids, whether we try to or not.

We are interconnected with our kids and our parents, whether we like it or not.

There are certain character qualities we see in them.

When we have a cycle of sin thats goes untethered or never gets dealt with, it makes the transition to our children that much easier.

But there are also physical traits as well.

This is what we see with Gideon. The transition of the sin cycle from Gideon to Abimelech is easy, its natural, there is no hiccup or roadblock.

They might have our nose, our eyes, our size, our temperment. These are physical traits that get transferred from us to our kids.

Gideon passes on his heart without a fight.

What are you passing on to your kids?

Better yet, what have you received from your parents cycle that you need to step up and say, NO MORE!!

Maybe its the anger, maybe its the alcoholism, maybe its the gambling addiction. Maybe its the anxiety, maybe its the addiction to pornography and sexual sin.

What is it that you need to stand up to today and say enough is enough. No more will this sin plague my family, no more will this bondage hold me back. I will not pass on what was left for me.

Some of you have a past you want to forget, a past that haunts and hinders you from moving into the future.

When Gideon was

You have seen the effects of the sin cycle in your life. You are stuck in your own cycle, but you don’t know how to get out.

Will you take a peak into the center of your heart, you center of who you are and realize there is a problem there?

Sin seeks to take us to the stone of death

Judges 8:33–34 ESV

As soon as Gideon died, the people of Israel turned again and whored after the Baals and made Baal-berith their god. And the people of Israel did not remember the Lord their God, who had delivered them from the hand of all their enemies on every side,

As soon as Gideon dies the people, who were already headed back into sin, they jump head first into their sin cycle.

Watch what happens to Gideon’s son Abimelech.

Abimelech’s Rise to Power

Judges 9:5

Judges 9:5 ESV

And he went to his father’s house at Ophrah and killed his brothers the sons of Jerubbaal, seventy men, on one stone. But Jotham the youngest son of Jerubbaal was left, for he hid himself.

And he went to his father’s house at Ophrah and killed his brothers the sons of Jerubbaal (Gideon), seventy men, on one stone. But Jotham the youngest son of Jerubbaal was left, for he hid himself.

Abimelech follows in his Fathers footsteps.

You move from reality into deception.

Everyone is out to get you.

You have to take hold of the power

Family Heredity

Gideon did not represent the faith well to his family.

Gideon refused to become king yet it didn’t stop him from living like one.

He names his 71st son Abimelech which literally means, “my father is king”

Gideon passed his dysfunction along to his family

Instead of passing down faith, integrity, honor, respect

Internal Oppression.

He passes down pride, jealousy, arrogance and ultimately death.

He inherited a corrupt heart from his father.

This heart would lead him to oppress several tribes of Israel for over 3 years.

This is the first time in this book where the oppression isn’t coming from without, it’s coming from within.

Up to this point Israel had been oppressed on and off for years from outside forces, but now for the first time they are oppressed but one of their own.

The corruption had gotten so bad that now their countrymen have turned on themselves.

Sin distorts and twists reality so instead of seeing how things are, you see what you want to see.

Everything Abimelech does is Canaanite.

He declares himself king.

He is financed by a pagan god

He hires a band of thugs

He executes the competition to his throne

The closer you get to the heart of the cycle of sin, the darker it gets.

Abimelech’s life is marked by darkness.

What is your life marked by?

Are you constantly in a dark place. Are you constantly trying to stay about water?

Will you look into your heart and maybe see if there is a problem there?

What is your Heredity

Heredity is the scientific term to describe the passing down of the physical and characteristic traits from a parent to a child.

If you have a big nose and you are holding your son, you notice that the nose is rather large, what do you say? “Like Father, like son”

This happens with our character and our spirituality as well.

We recreate the cycle in our kids, whether we try to or not.

We are interconnected with our kids and our parents, whether we like it or not.

When we have a cycle of sin thats goes untethered or never gets dealt with, it makes the transition to our children that much easier.

This is what we see with Gideon. The transition of the sin cycle from Gideon to Abimelech is easy, its natural, there is no hiccup or roadblock.

Gideon passes on his heart without a fight.

What are you passing on to your kids?

Better yet, what have you received from your parents cycle that you need to step up and say, NO MORE!!

Maybe its the anger, maybe its the alcoholism, maybe its the gambling addiction. Maybe its the anxiety, maybe its the addiction to pornography and sexual sin.

What is it that you need to stand up to today and say enough is enough. No more will this sin plague my family, no more will this bondage hold me back. I will not pass on what was left for me.

Some of you have a past you want to forget, a past that haunts and hinders you from moving into the future.

You have seen the effects of the sin cycle in your life. You are stuck in your own cycle, but you don’t know how to get out.

Will you take a peak into the center of your heart, you center of who you are and realize there is a problem there?

Abimelech looked more like the culture than he did God.

Everything Abimelech does is Canaanite.

He declares himself king.

He is financed by a pagan god

He hires a band of thugs

He executes the competition to his throne

The closer you get to the heart of the cycle of sin, the darker it gets.

Abimelech’s life is marked by darkness.

What is your life marked by?

Are you constantly in a dark place. Are you constantly trying to stay about water?

Will you look into your heart and maybe see if there is a problem there?The Cycle stops only through Christ.

The Cycle stops only through Christ.

Your Sin will find you Out

Abimelech’s sin eventually caught up with him.

His sin is recorded as started at a stone, where he murders his half brothers and now his life will come to an end at a stone.

Judges 9:51–53 ESV

But there was a strong tower within the city, and all the men and women and all the leaders of the city fled to it and shut themselves in, and they went up to the roof of the tower. And Abimelech came to the tower and fought against it and drew near to the door of the tower to burn it with fire. And a certain woman threw an upper millstone on Abimelech’s head and crushed his skull.

Just as he had taken his half-brothers to the stone of death, a women trapped in the tower drops a stone on his head and kills him,

This isn’t Karma, this is JUSTICE

(Facebook theology) Karma Defined - “action, seen as bringing upon oneself inevitable results, good or bad.”

Abimelech deserved this, Abimelech was a tyrant who defied God and lived according to his own standard.

God executed justice on him.

This wasn’t, he did bad so God allowed bad to happen to him.

This was, he broke God’s standard and so God poured out judgment on him.

The cycle of sin provides the ground for injustice. karma

Gospel Moment

You’re sin will find you out BUT Jesus sought you out in your sin.

Jesus went to the stone, he went to the rock called Golgotha and and allowed the judgment of God to be dropped upon his head.

2 Corinthians 5:21 ESV

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

2 Cor 5:22

Jesus stepped into our cycle, and went to the stone destined for us. The stone where our blood should have been spilled, was covered in Christ’s.

Jesus went to a world, hiding behind the phrase “Don’t Judge Me”; looked to the Father and said “Judge Me”.

He looked at a broken world and said, “No More”, “I will redeem”

Ephesians 2:5 ESV

even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—

Jesus was the leader we needed. He was better than Gideon, he was better than Abimelech.

He didn’t strive for power, he gave it up.

He didn’t step back from the stone and say, “Don’t judge me”

INVITE WORSHIP TEAM BACK UP

Jesus is the leader your heart longs to follow.

The Great Rapper and Theologian Lecrae Moore says this

All men were created to lead but we needed somebody to lead us, More than a teacher, but somebody to buy us back from the darkness, we needed a redeemer.

Have you been redeemed this morning?

Have you allowed Jesus to step into your sin cycle and say no more?

Has Jesus become the standard you live by?

Have you put your life in his hands?