Connections (Jake Enns)

This morning our sermon title is Connections.

Let me begin with this question. Why do people want to connect

with God more in hard times than in good times?

I think that's a valid question. Take for instance, the matter of

health. It's fairly easy to want to go

to God and pray for healing, which we should.

But then when times are good, the praise content may not be as

energetic or as emphatic or as driven as the prayer for

healing. I'm not saying it's never the

case, but that often tends to be the case.

We tend to forget. Once things are good, we tend to

forget. I'm not saying we shouldn't pray

for good health and hard times. We should.

There's a Psalm, Psalm 50, verse 15.

Psalms 50:15

The psalmist says these words call upon me in the day of

trouble. I will deliver you and you shall

glorify me. The word glorify me is just as

vital as calling upon him in the day of trouble.

If the prayers in our trouble, the prayers that we pray when

we're in trouble, and the prayers that we pray when we're

rejoicing. If those prayers were sorted out

and put in boxes, which would be the bigger box?

The prayers of healing and the prayers of rescue and the

prayers of deliverance and the prayers of whatever needs to be

met versus the prayers of Thanksgiving and the prayers of

joy and the prayers of glorifying, which box of prayers

would be bigger? I think that's an important

question for us to think about. This morning we are going to

introduce a new sermon series based out of the Book of Judges.

And before we go into the sermon this morning, and this sermon

this morning is an overview, not particular any particular

passage where we're starting out in Chapter 1.

We're not doing that, but I want to give a little bit of an

overview of what this book is about.

And then next Sunday we'll dig into the book and start going

through it. Some might wonder why a sermon

series on this particular book. It's a dark book and the stories

are not easy stories. And some might wonder what's in

it even that makes it suitable to base a sermon series on.

And and why start at the beginning of the year with that

book? It's a book of patience, God's

patience with one people group in their journey of life.

And it shows how they forgot about God again and again and

again. And every time when they were in

a high, that's when they forgot. Never down in the bottom in the

valley. They didn't forget then.

They forgot God when things were good.

It's kind of like us today. We see continual rise and fall,

falling away from God and God sending oppressors and they

would go into this dark valley of despair and oppression and

then they'd cry out to God and they'd repent and then God

rescues them and then come into a high again and then they're

happy again and then they have time of rest.

What this boils down to in this book have one word for this and

it's connection. It's a connection issue and it

does a very good job. This writer of the book does a

very good job of painting a very accurate picture of human nature

and what happens when people disconnect from God.

Every time the disconnect happens, things go bad and often

times it's the hard times God brings in our lives to connect

us back together again. And we see this over and over in

the book of Judges. This last December, someone in

our church and I were having a conversation about some of the

planning to go forward into year 2026, and this individual just

mentioned to me the slogan for 2026.

A good slogan for 2026 would be connections.

And I just paused for a moment and thought about it.

And I said to this person, that's it.

That's what the slogan for 2026 will be, connections.

I had already earlier suggested that we go through the Book of

Judges as our next book to go through, partly because I

believe the message of judges is so fitting and relevant to our

society where we becoming increasingly in our affluent

society, becoming increasingly disconnected from God.

So what's the follow? Well, what the value is coming.

The book of Judges talks a lot about sin, about rebellion,

repentance, rescue, restoration, and so on.

But all of this is tied in with people in the stories, what

they're connected to, what they're connected with and who

they're disconnecting from and so on.

Most of you who are part of this church and have been for years

know me as a person, that my emphasis is always on

relationships. When I was first hired as a lead

pastor here back in 2012, in November of 2011, we had the

interview and, and the interview process, somebody from the

congregation sitting over there somewhere.

So, So what will your thing be? What are you going to push when

you're a pastor here? My response to this person was

to the congregation at the time was I may eventually sound like

a broken record, but my emphasis will always be relationships.

Well, that took place 14 years ago, this last November and it

started in February of the following year, 2012.

And that's coming up to 14 years now.

And I still stand by that. I have not changed.

And in fact, I think it's more relevant, more important now

than ever, given with everything that's happening in our culture,

the disintegration, separation, disconnection from everything in

our society. It's important.

So let's think about this. We'll do a little bit of a

review from the beginning of the Bible and then leading up to

Judges. God's purpose in creating this

place we call our planet, this world, was to create images of

himself, calling them people. Image bearers are replicas of

the one they're made after. We're made after the likeness of

God. God wanted us to reflect him in

this world. We are a resemblance of an

original and God wants you and me to be that.

It happens in little children. One of our nieces is now in her

mid 30s and I remember so clearly when she was just just a

little baby, tiny little bundle, and we have photos of her from

back then. Not that long ago, she had a

baby. She and her husband had a

beautiful little girl. And I saw pictures and I

thought, wow, if I would take an original photo we took back in

the early 90s, late 80s maybe. Forget now when she was born and

a picture of her today. They're identical.

I couldn't tell the difference. She's an image of her mother.

How much of an image of God are we?

God made Adam an image of himself, and we know less are an

image of God either. And the whole idea behind it is

not just to appear like God, but to be like God in the sense how

we live our lives. There's relationship involved.

There's connection. God's plan was that the people

he created would, out of their own free will, reciprocate.

They would give back to God voluntarily what he had blessed

them with. There would be genuine

connections. Relationship consists of

connections. That's what God images do.

And when God created everything, he made this the nature, He made

vegetation, he made animals and he made the man.

And it says that he breathed into him the breath of life and

the man became a living soul and God did something else.

We don't have time to expand on all of that this morning, but

God gave Adam a job and it says in Genesis, it says in Genesis

Genesis 2:19

chapter 2, verse 19, like you can take your devices or Bibles

and read along if you choose. And here it's very, very key

what it says here. It says out of the ground, the

Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the

air and brought them to Adam. Listen to see what he would call

them and whatever Adam called each living creature, that was

its name. So here's Adam, the first human

image of God, a replica. He's given the responsibility

and opportunity to participate in a unique way in the creation

story, and he got to name the animals.

So God give, give Adam a very important part in the process of

creation. He made the animals, God made

the animals. And Adam gets to put the

stickers on or the labels like the finishing touches.

That's hugely important. God did not stop there.

He made him a wife, someone to help him, his equal, also an

image of God, same as him, who would help him to do his job in

creation. And they were both holy and

perfect, God's images, doing what they're created to do.

They were free, moral human beings with responsibility.

It couldn't get better than it was.

Well, we know the story. Sin came into the world through

Satan. He tempted Eve to question God's

command and Eve listen to Satan eating from the forbidden fruit.

She took some, gave it to Adam who was with her, and that was

the entry of sin into creation. So sin broke the connection.

The relationship between God and his people had now been broken.

Their sin brought an end to this connection, to this

relationship. And from then on it would never

be the same again. And it's still not the same.

It's not like it was. Well, Long story short, Adam and

Eve were driven out of the garden and life from that point

on was difficult. And it still is, as we all know

and will continue until Jesus returns and restores everything

that is still to come. Hasn't happened yet, but one day

it will. There's enough evidence in life

that points to this. We don't doubt, we don't

question that Jesus will one day return.

He was sent, lived and died a sinless life, died on the cross

for our sins, and he rose from the dead, is in heaven now.

He's going to come back. But going back to the Genesis

story, we find that as we go further, that sin didn't just

stay at that level, it just amplified and increased and

grew. And God was sorry he had started

the whole thing. I'm sorry I made people.

He said the world had gone bad. He was going to destroy all of

life. But one man found favor in his

eyes. His name was Noah, his wife and

three sons. God said, I'm going to spare

this family. I'm going to start over, told

Noah to build an ark, a large boat, bring one pair of each

kind of animals and seven of the clean kinds.

And so God said, I'm going to start over, you know, and your

family and your sons, your wives going to the ark and I will save

you built the ark. God did everything he said he

would. The flood came, destroyed all of

life except it was in the ark and that was that.

But we find that in Genesis, the the flood story was not the end

of it. Sin continued again after the

story of the flood and God promised he wouldn't destroy the

world again like he had. But then God continued his

journey. In Genesis chapter 12, verse one

Genesis 12 · chapter mention

to three, we have the story where God's started the program

or the the the journey of saving humankind by grace through

faith. Genesis 12 one to three, God

spoke to Abraham and it says, and the Lord said to Abraham to

Abram, get out of your country from your family, from your

father's house to a land that I will show you.

I will make you a great nation. I will bless you and make your

name great, and you shall be a blessing.

I will bless those who bless you.

I will curse him who curses you, and in you all the families of

the earth will be blessed. Now Abraham did not have an easy

life. He had many challenges.

He followed God's command, however, and he was called the

father of the righteous. Fast forward through his life.

Abraham had a son named Isaac. Isaac received the same promise

from God that Abraham had. And then Isaac had two sons,

Jacob and Esau. And through Esau the blessing

was called and Jacob had sons, and from those sons came the 12

tribes of Israel. God had promised to Abraham he

would give him the land of Canaan, and God also told him it

would be difficult. In fact, God told him your

descendants will be slaves in the land of Egypt for 400 years.

That's a long time. Well, that happened.

The children of Israel migrated to Egypt during the famine and

Joseph's time. They grew into a nation, but

they were forced to work as slaves under a new king.

Then after 400 years of slavery, finally under the leadership of

Moses, they were set free. The wilderness experience was a

very difficult experience. They had to go through the

wilderness to the promised land. A lot of learning happened.

All the people who rebelled, they they died.

The desert wanderings came to an end and it was under the

leadership of Joshua that finally the long ago promised

land came, became their land. Maybe wonder why that land?

One speaker I listened to mentioned that if you look at

the map of the world today, in the world that day, the way it

was populated, the land of Canaan was a unique place.

It was not some out of the corner, out of the way place,

hidden somewhere where nobody would go and nobody would be.

Kind of speaks to the testimony of our Mennonite people who

usually wanted to move away from society, away from culture.

God places people in the land of Canaan, and it's an interesting

place to be. If you look on the map, you see

Damascus there in Jerusalem. Now the bottom is Egypt and the

top there's a Syria, the, the, and then there's the Arabian

desert, the Near East. That's all deserts.

So any travel that people would do, they would from the bottom

left hand side to the top right hand side, they would go through

Jerusalem and Damascus. That that valley, that area,

those were the trade routes. That was like the hub, like

Toronto or New York or or any of the major cities where everybody

knew this is the trade route. This is where they go.

God wanted to place his people where the whole world would get

to experience what kind of a God he was.

And that's the land that the children of Israel were given.

Well, initially things did go well.

You read the book of Joshua under his leadership, they

occupied that territory and things did go well, mostly.

There were some things that went wrong, but we'll, we'll just

look at them briefly as we go on.

But they had a very good start. But good starts don't mean good

finishing, good finishes. Just starting well does not mean

ending well. It can and it should.

Anybody can leave the starting line in a race.

Anybody can apply for a job and start a job.

Finishing. That's another story.

As the people of Israel took over the land, the time came

that Joshua died. It tells us in the early part of

the judges that as long as Joshua lived and the elders who

lived with Joshua, things went reasonably well.

But in time people would compromise.

And so this morning we'll pick some key passages, and next

Sunday we'll begin at the beginning of the book, as I said

earlier. So this morning let's read

Judges chapter 2, verse 7 to 10. Judges 2, seven to 10.

Judges 2:7–10

So the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua and all

the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen

all the great works of the Lord which he had done for Israel.

Now Joshua the son of Nun the servant of the Lord, died when

he was 110 years old, and they buried him within the border of

his inheritance at Timnah Harris in the mountains of Ephraim on

the north side of Mount Gash. When all that generation had

been gathered to their fathers, another generation arose after

them who did not know the Lord nor the work which He had done

for Israel. That last part of verse 10 is a

very sad testimony of what would repeat itself numerous times.

And even in our culture we see a repeat of the same thing the

people did as God wanted during the days of Joshua.

The connection held the connection held during that

time, but when Joshua died, it was like the ending of a

chapter. Things had gone reasonably well

under his leadership. And I say reasonably for a

reason, because there were some compromises, small ones, but

there were. And if you read the story of

Joshua and the book of Joshua, we find that taking the land was

a huge, monumental task. God gave them the land, yes, but

they had to work for it. It was just here's the land,

take it it. They had to fight the battles.

And Joshua LED well. The people followed faithfully

under his leadership. Things went well for the most

part, but when he was gone and also the elders of his time, the

people compromised. And it was their compromises,

their disconnect from God that repeatedly got them in trouble.

God wanted a relationship with His people.

He wanted to use them to bless all nations.

Remember what happened, what caused the break in the

relationship? What what caused the disconnect?

What the old generation had experienced and lived through

had not transferred to the young generation.

A break had happened, a disconnection happened.

We know the old generation fought many difficult battles,

but for the young generation, they did not have to fight those

battles. The land was passed on to their

to them as free of work as an inheritance.

Here it is, the old generation had witnessed the power of God

in the desert and the miracles in fighting these battles.

The young generation did not have those experiences and it

wasn't their fault either. The history of the old

generation did not transfer to the young generation.

There was a break this, the disconnect was real.

It severed them from the old generation.

It severed along the lines of knowledge of history.

It severed along the historical values.

It severed along the spiritual lines and the moral lines.

It makes one wonder, what is it that makes this happen?

Why do the spiritual connections sever?

Why does it happen that at one that which was at one time so

healthy, strong and vibrant, pulsing with life?

Why does it fade, decline and wither and die?

Why does the new generation not pick up and take to heart what

the older generation has lived through and trusted in?

I've seen this in my own time. I've read many books on this.

It's been highlighted here and there and often times, even when

the older, the older generation does try to teach the younger

generation their history and does try to instill the values

of the past into the young generation, many in the young

generation simply don't take notice.

It's all about the latest, the newest and whatever shifting

values, newest teachings. Never mind what the foundations

of the older generations were. Let's go back to judges.

Now. We don't know if the older

generation did not teach or did not train the young generation.

What we do know is the old generation was not perfect in

fact. They had taken a few shortcuts

themselves. They shouldn't have.

We'll go into that next Sunday, and we know those shortcuts were

wrong. Even though Joshua was a good

leader, a few things happened that shouldn't have happened

again. We'll look at it more next

Sunday. We'll see in the story of the

judges in the whole book that the biggest struggles would not

come from without. Although there were struggles

from without, the biggest struggles would come from inside

temptations of the heart. It's not the outside problems

that disconnect us from God so much.

It's the response that comes outside of us that reveals how

weak we are. The temptations do not

disconnect us from God, It's our response to the temptations that

disconnect us from God. I think, for instance, the story

of Samson won't spoil it, but if you know the story of Samson, he

was a man who could handle anything and everything that

came against him, but what was in his heart he couldn't control

and he fell. Think of our own country, the

moral values that held for generations, for hundreds of

years in Europe and in and when this land was settled.

Most of them haven't compromised at this time.

There seems to be no sight, no end insight to the compromise.

And it's not just the culture, friend, it's the church as well.

It's becoming acceptable, increasingly so, and we're now

facing a situation in our country where pastors may have

to go to prison for the words they say from the pulpit out of

the Scripture. In the days of judges, the

judges, compromises happened and the things that God had

forbidden were not only allowed, they were celebrated.

I've said this in the past that bears repeating that in our

time, the latter half of my lifetime, first there was the

mantra of tolerance. We should be tolerant.

Allow people to believe what they want to believe.

You don't have to agree. We'd just be friends and you

believe this. I believe this.

We're good. It didn't stay there from

tolerance. It migrated and became

acceptance. I don't want you to just

tolerate. I want you to accept it.

So it's about acceptance. Accept everything and everything

that goes on except at all from from tolerance and acceptance,

it migrated further to embracing.

I don't want you to just tolerate and accept.

I want you to embrace it. Own it.

And then it migrated to participation.

No, you have to actually now do it.

Tolerate it, Accept that, embrace and do it.

If you don't do it, then you discriminate.

Now we're coming to a new step. It's called prosecution.

If you don't do it, we're going to punish you.

When the connections of history are severed, when the past is

forgotten and values are trashed, there's no telling

where this drift will lead to. And one thing we'll find as we

go through judges is these weak points, and they most often

happen when people have a good, when things are going well.

I don't want to destroy this, don't want to jinx it, don't

want to mess it up. In fact, I want it better.

From good to even better entitlement.

It's about myself now. For the people of Israel, it was

when they shifted their focus away from God.

When they compromised their connection with God, that's when

they fell. Some of them said nature abhors

a vacuum. When we disconnect from God, we

don't just live disconnected. We do connect to something else.

Our connection with God and our connections with each other are

key in determining the health and success of our journey

through life. Some people have good, strong,

healthy relationships between them and God and with people.

They have good, solid connections.

Praise God for those. But then there are people who

compromise their relationship with God and with people, and

they draw away the isolate, or worse, the link up with people

who are destructive and help them disconnect even further.

And they live very disconnected, fragmented and scattered lives.

When connections fail, people are exposed and vulnerable to

attack. The less we as God's people

connect, the easier it is for Satan to isolate us and take us

down 1 by 1. You know how?

A bed of coals and a fire, everything that's in the center

is red hot, glowing. But if you take a piece of wood

that's burning or a ember or a coal put off to the side, it

cools off and just dies out. That's what happens to people

who claim to be part of the body of Christ but disconnect

themselves. Hebrews chapter 10, verse 23

Hebrews 10:23

writes, Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without

wavering, for he who promised is faithful.

And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and

good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together

as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another and so

much more as you see the day approaching.

It's about holding steady, staying connected, continuing on

together in unity. And in the book of Judges, we

find in a number of occasions the phrase and they all,

everybody did that which was right in their own eyes.

A commentary that I've been reading to go through the sermon

series is by Terry Brensinger called the Believers Church

Bible Commentary, and he writes, the book of Judges might well

have been written during our own lifetime.

Indeed, the situations described and the themes developed ring

true today with such force and clarity that the modern reader

rarely escapes taking part in the storyline.

With a deepening sense of anticipation, we mount the

stage. We share the joy and utter

excitement of both divine blessing and human potential.

Painfully, so too do we experience the increasing

frustration of watching our own individual and communal dreams

unravel. In many ways, The Book of Judges

is a book for the contemporary world.

The book describes our modern world today.

It clearly illustrates what happens in a person's life and

then end of the in the life of a people group what happens when

they lose their connection with God and their connections with

each other when they start each doing their own thing.

In Judges 17 verse 6, it says in those days there was no king in

Judges 17:6

Israel and everyone did which was right.

What was right in his own eyes. How relevant today.

People just doing what the jolly well please and if you don't

like it in this church, go to another one.

They'll do it whatever flavor style and color and shape and

worship you want or behavior you want or belief you want.

It's all there. But the Bible is being

forgotten. It covers a turbulent time

season in which we Live Today, too.

But you know what also is there? When the people fell, God

allowed them to be oppressed, and they cried out and they

repented, and God would redeem. That's also true.

They went through cycles of highs and lows.

They compromised God's laws, went after the idols, and

repeatedly they disconnected from God.

And one of the interesting things in the story is that they

never compromised their connection with God in the

downtime. Then they they engaged it again.

Those were the times in which they wanted the connection with

God back again. It was always in the easy times

when they abandoned God, when they wandered away.

It was always when they had it good.

It's a sad but true reality. In the easy times, it's easy to

lose their connections. And again, as I mentioned, we'll

see this as we go through it in the coming weeks.

You know how people sometimes do and they maybe lost something or

things went bad and things went South and things went bad.

And then they pray, Lord, if you arrest me, I will never again.

I will always we make all these promises and always in the hard

times, I will always start going to church.

Now I'll start giving now I'll start serving you.

I'll stop my addictions and I'll start loving people.

And I will always we make these. I will always, I'll never again.

Sentences right? They always happen down there.

I'm not saying they can't happen here, but why they always happen

down there. The same commentator makes this

comment here. This Bible commentator says the

Israelites to evil in the eyes of the Lord.

The Lord repeatedly brought upon the people of foreign oppressor.

The Israelites then cried to the Lord for assistance.

The Lord raised up a judge or delivered to rescue the people.

The judge LED Israel to freedom. The land had rest this whole

period of time. The book of judges lasted over

300 years. Then there's always spans a time

spans of good times and time spans of bad times.

We as a country, we as a nation have had it good for a long,

long time. But we're not being a good

people. We read that Joshua died and the

people continue their conquest, but then in chapter 2, verse 7

to 10, we have a rehearsal of the death of Joshua and the

events that followed. See, there's overlap in the

book. And in fact, I just want to

mention this here as well. The book is not a chronological

timeline. That's not how the book is

written In our sermon series. We don't want to focus on that,

but just what God did in these stories.

But the time in which we live now, too, is so similar to their

times. You see, there's never been a

time in history ever before where anybody's had it better on

earth than we do today. And never has so much changed so

fast at such breakneck speed as it's happening today.

We talk of AI, we talk of technology, and the list goes on

and on. The times of confusion have also

never been greater than they are now in terms of moral values.

But let me just say, God is watching.

The same God we find in Judges is still on the throne.

He's watching and as I said before, we'll go through this

whole book starting next week, but there's a passage I want to

read this morning. This happened actually before

Joshua even died. Read with me Joshua 2 Judges 2

verse one to six. Then the Angel of the Lord came

up from Gilgal. Remember, this is not beginning

in the in the story and said, I LED you up from Egypt and

brought you to the land which I swore to your father's, and

said, I will never break my covenant with you, and you shall

make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land.

You shall tear down their altars.

But you've not obeyed my voice. Why have you done this?

Therefore I also said, I will not drive them out before you,

but they shall be thorns in your side, and their gods shall be a

snare to you. So it was when the Angel of the

Lord spoke these words to all the children of Israel that the

people lifted up their voices and wept.

Then they called the name of that place Bochum, and they

sacrificed there to the Lord. And when Joshua had dismissed

the people, the children of Israel went each to his own

inheritance to possess the land. This is a dark part even of the

story of Joshua. They had not done as they should

have. They did a lot of good things.

They did no bad things, just not all the good things they should

do. Think of that for a moment.

We just focus often on, well, I'm not doing bad things, how I

must be OK. Not doing good things is not OK.

One of the good things was to clean out the land, clear out

all the idol worship, get rid of all that dishonored God in the

land. They had not done that.

They did a lot of it, just not all of it.

And then later on, Joshua passed away.

And it does say here at this point in time, they wept.

We don't find that they change their lifestyles.

The question that comes to our mind is if an Angel of God would

walk into our facility this morning, which we don't expect,

but the message is true in the live that He has for us in His

Word, what would He tell us? Maybe our community, What would

He tell our community? He's not so much concerned

about, oh, just get rid of all the bad things.

Are we living up to the good standard that he's given us?

There was an outward appearance of holy living, yes, sure, but

it was just that. Who are we connected to?

God or stuff or culture? We've been given the opportunity

to choose God. Let's go back to the book of

Joshua 2415. This is now before Joshua passed

away. This is there's a bit of overlap

in these stories here. And Joshua says, if it seems

evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day

whom you will serve, whether the gods which your father's served

that were on the other side of the river, or the gods of the

Amorites and whose land you dwell.

They had entered the promised land.

But As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

We're going to be connected to God.

We like the people of Israel in the book of Judges.

We've been placed here on this earth for a season and for a

time. We didn't choose this place.

This time God gave it to us. But we have an opportunity.

We have a privilege and a responsibility, just like Adam

in the Garden of Eden. What are we going to do with it?

God give Adam an opportunity, Eve, Abram an opportunity, gave

Moses and the people of Israel opportunities.

Then Jesus came and died for our sins.

He gave the Israel's opportunities.

In Christ Jesus. We've been set free to connect

with Him, to connect with God and connect with each other and

live in relationship with Him. If you want, this can be yours.

God is calling us. You have the opportunity, the

responsibility to surrender, to commit, and to connect and live

in relationship with Him. And out of that, all the rest

flows. Let us pray.

Thank you, Lord, for this first Sunday of 2026.

Thank you for the grace you gave us as we started this journey.

I pray, Lord, we'll be faithful to you.

Lord, help us to stay connected to you.

Give us wisdom and insight to stay strong.

Help us, Lord, to connect with you in a way you designed us to

connect with you. And as we go through this year,

maybe experience your presence in our lives.

Thank you, Jesus. Amen.