Who's In Charge?

Date:

Scripture: Judges 18:1

Theme: Live to Please the Lord

Introduction: I’ve been studying Judges a lot over the past two and a half months. Judges is an interesting period where the Lord demonstrates His commitment to helping His people in spite of their sin by raising up deliverers. However, Judges 17-18 presents a time that happens before the deliverers in demonstration of just how bad things were in Israel and points us to the need to: Live to Please the Lord.

Judges repeats a statement at the end of the book: “In those days, Israel had no king.”

You see, this happened before the Lord had His prophet, Samuel, anoint Saul or David as king, let alone kingship.

Judges 18:1 also references, “everyone did what was right in their own eyes.”

They were relying on themselves to figure out what was right to do.

They were not relying on the Lord to determine what the Lord thinks is right to do.

These verses then illustrate the disastrous results when we live according to relying on ourselves to figure out what is right.

We’re led away from the Lord (Judges 17).

Micah created an idol that led his family away from the Lord.

Relying on yourself to determine what is right to do won’t draw you closer to the Lord but only lead you away from Him.

Our sin impacts others (Judges 18).

Micah’s household religion became the religion of the tribe of Dan.

Individual sin has a multiplication effect starting out small it quickly expands to influencing others around us.

These chapters teach us that we need to live to please the Lord.

If we’re going to please the Lord, we must submit to Him.

Submitting to His leadership means that we must live according to His Word.

Living according to God’s Word demands that we are faithful to study and be taught from God’s Word.

Living according to God’s Word demands that we humbly confess our sin when the Holy Spirit demonstrates that we’ve been wrong.

The only other option would be to live according to our desires.

Our desires will lead us away from the Lord because of sin.

Our sin impacts more than just ourselves.

Conclusion: This prompts us to consider, “Who are we living to please?” If we’re living to please the Lord then we are going to seek Him and live according to His Word. If we’re living to please ourselves, we will be drawn away from the Lord resulting in destruction. Which will you choose?