Judges: Everyone Has a Ruler

Well, good morning.

Today we're going to launch into a nine-week study on the book of Judges.

So I know right away you're extremely excited about that.

I mean, Judges is not one of those books we tend to go to, right?

Like you probably hadn't spent a lot of time in it.

I don't know if I've ever spent any time in it.

It's one of those Old Testament books we all tend to skip.

But I know as a Bible-loving church, we're excited, right?

Like you got excited when you heard Judges.

And so here we go.

Years ago, uh John Turney, he wrote this, he wrote this article in the New York Times magazine.

Uh it's entitled, Do You Suffer from Decision Fatigue?

Do you suffer from decision fatigue?

Well, uh, this this might uh hit you.

Decision fatigue can make quarterbacks prone to dubious choices late in the game and CFOs prone to disastrous deliances late in the evening.

It routinely warps the judgment of everyone, executive and non-executive, rich and poor.

Decision fatigue helps explain why ordinarily sensible people get angry that colleagues and families splurge on clothes by junk food at the supermarket and can't resist the dealer's offer to rust-proof their new car.

So Turney says that the more choices you have throughout the day, the harder it becomes for your brain to make sound decisions.

And the point is that we eventually all uh take shortcuts, we eventually all become reckless, right?

You can't believe you sent that email.

Like you can't believe you said that or did that thing or said that to your friend.

At my house at 9 p.m.

we have a rule.

You don't talk to mom about anything legitimate at 9 p.m.

Sweet mom is done.

We call her night Christie, comes out at 9 p.m.

8 p.m., fine.

Everything's great at 8 p.m., 9 p.m., everything changes.

Night Christie is out and you have to wait till the morning.

Now in the morning, don't hit me up.

Don't hit me up in the morning.

I've never woken up with energy in my entire life.

And so I need a warm-up period.

So don't hit me up.

You don't know what's going to happen to you.

I'll just warn you if you hit me early, I cannot be too responsible for what happens, right?

I don't have any willpower.

The willpower hasn't come yet.

Yet, if we think that all of our mistakes, this is where eternity is a little bit off, if we think that all of our mistakes are from weariness, we don't have the full picture.

Right?

Because we both know we've we've made huge mistakes where we have plenty of willpower, where we have plenty of energy, and we still do the selfish thing, we still do the sinful thing.

See, we actually are rightfully diagnosed by the scriptures.

It's very relieving to be rightfully diagnosed as a sinner because it explains you and it explains me.

And this is what Judges will tell us as we get into this story that we are, in fact, sinners.

And God is telling us this.

And then God is moving toward us in our sin and shows us the rescue.

The story here in Judges is that Israel had these strong leaders there early in the Old Testament, where the people were enslaved in Egypt and Moses becomes the leader and leads them out of Egypt, and then Joshua becomes a leader and leads them into the promised land.

And so they're in Canaan, and they get up in Canaan in that promised land, and other people groups had taken over all their land, and it had become a pluralistic society, much like our country, a very pluralistic place to live, right?

We live and work around different religions, people with different beliefs, lifestyles.

Our culture is filled with little G gods.

None of this is new.

None of it is new.

The Old Testament was full of this, ancient biblical times, full of this type of society.

We have gods of achievement, gods of pleasure, money, sex, control, performance, right?

I mean, it's all the mentality that if I have that little g god, if I appease that little g God, then I will be whole, then I'll be okay, then finally I'll be at peace, right?

If I can just get enough of whatever that little g God is for your heart.

And in this way, false religions and the idolatry of our own hearts, they operate the same way.

Right?

They're both an overreach of control to use something other than the creator God and the provision of grace in Jesus to be our functional Savior.

This is where we get point number one.

Our hearts always need the one true judge and king.

Our hearts always need that.

My mentor, Pastor Scotty Smith, he wrote this about God's story for us.

This is one of those quotes I think I've read to you before, and I will never stop reading it to you.

God's story is the story, the meta-narrative from which all human stories originate, and within which all our stories are contained.

So here's the point.

Without this anchoring story of the meta-narrative of God's provisional redemptive rescue of you, we begin to find our lives in lesser stories, little G gods.

I did it recently in like a really, really small, like silly.

I mean, we do it in devastating ways, right?

I have some of those stories too.

I did it in a really silly way just recently.

We just finished renovating our house.

Like during during COVID, during the worst pandemic of the last hundred years, we went from wiping our groceries to letting 15 men a day just be in our house, okay?

So just try that on.

As an anxious person, try that on.

Go from wiping your groceries one day to just like come on in, all of you.

I don't know where you've been, just come on in and rip my house up and be here all day, and then I'll come and live in it in the evening.

That's what was going on for us.

So lots of windows open, lots of cold air through the winter.

And I had been dreaming about a toilet room, right?

Like within your bathroom where you get to go and shut the little door.

It's just I had been dreaming.

We've been in our house for nine years, eight and a half years, and it didn't have a toilet room, just you know, out in the open.

Some of y'all are out in the open, you know what I'm talking about.

Some of you have bigger dreams.

I get it.

You have bigger dreams than a toilet room.

Sounds funny, but every time I was in that bathroom, I was dreaming about a toilet room.

If only this was a toilet room.

Like how different my life could be.

And so we were renovating to get a toilet room, and we got the toilet room, and I'll tell you, it's fantastic.

Like it is, I mean, more quiet time, Christy finds me more attractive.

That's a benefit of the toilet room.

There's great things happening in our marriage because of the toilet room and what it can do for our relationship.

But here's what's also true: my heart hasn't changed.

It didn't provide fulfillment.

Right?

Just like uh more money never has.

I keep thinking that'll work, it doesn't work, or more affirmation.

Right?

What we keep finding, this is this is the lesson that's in Judges.

And what the Bible's teaching us in this meta-narrative that God gives us through the scriptures is when we don't find our lives in the meta-narrative of God.

When we don't find our lives there and that big story for our lives, we accept lesser stories and lesser rulers.

We're all gonna have a ruler.

The Bible's teaching us to accept the ruler that frees us and loves us.

And judges through a very messy story, really messy, is part of this meta-narrative being laid out for us in the entirety of the scriptures.

That speaks of our worth, it speaks of our sinfulness, it speaks of God's justice, and speaks of his grace.

So, Judges 1, 1 through 3.

After the death of Joshua, the people of Israel inquired of the Lord, who shall go up first for us against the Canaanites to fight against them, right?

Because they showed up in this land, and all there's other people here, there's other people in our land.

So who's gonna go up and fight against them?

Verse 2.

The Lord said, Judah shall go up.

Behold, I have given the land into his hand.

And Judah said to Simeon, his brother, Come up with me into the territory allotted to me that we may fight against the Canaanites, and I likewise will go with you into the territory allotted to you.

So Simeon went with him.

So here's what's playing out.

The army of Israel is going up through this land to push these people groups that have come in and established and taken their land to push them out, to defeat them and push them out.

The text even says in chapter one that at one point they catch a leader of the opposing side, they cut off his thumbs, and they cut off his toes.

Right?

So this is violent.

And I'm so tempted to re-preach some sections that we went through in Joshua chapter one.

And I'm gonna refuse that, but I do want to point you to like we're not blind to this issue of violence in the Old Testament.

And we're not also saying that we can solve all of it, but we are saying there's some answers for that.

And you can go listen to that sermon from Joshua chapter 1.

Joshua 1 · chapter mention

This story moves on in verses 19 through 35, and it turns out this army of Israel, they they don't succeed.

Like they don't do the thing that God has asked them.

And so in verse 27, we get this Manasseh did not drive out the inhabitants of Beth-Sheon and its villages, or Tanakh and its villages, or the inhabitants of Dor and its villages, or the inhabitants of Eblem and its villages, or the inhabitants of Megadoh and its villages, for the Canaanites persisted.

So the other side persisted more willpower in dwelling in that land.

So point number two is this even at our best, we are limited in willpower.

We went to the beach for spring break with my mom and my sister's family.

It was a great week.

It was like a really great.

Even like a great Saturday can be where you just have a Saturday where there's nothing, you don't have anything all day.

Right?

The big decisions for that week were do I keep reading my book or do I get up and play bocce ball?

Like that's the decision.

That's the weight.

That's like that's the amount of stress in this moment is bocce ball or walk on the beach.

Like that's the amount of, right?

That's not normal life, right?

Like that would say, whoa, like what an incredible luxury, right?

Like I think I think I wore six articles of clothing all week, right?

I didn't have to make any decisions.

It was like bathing suit or the shorts I wore yesterday.

That's that's it.

Just over and over again.

I didn't own the house.

So, like, there's sand in the garage.

Do I care?

Don't care at all.

Gutters are filled, doesn't matter.

None of these things matter.

Doesn't matter to me.

I have to make any decisions.

What a great week.

What a great day or afternoon that can be where you get just a little bit of time without decisions.

Right?

Now that's actually what Turney was saying in that New York Times magazine that I read to you to start.

Right?

That your willpower will slowly just be worn down over time with the onslaught of decisions.

And here in our text, we have certainly it's always this mixture of an inability to have willpower as part of our sinfulness, and then also just our pure desire to be disobedient.

Like those two things are not separate.

And what happens here is that Israelites just lack the willpower to move them.

These people just persisted.

They just didn't follow through.

They just weren't obedient.

The people just wouldn't leave, and so what happens is this army of Israel does something God didn't ask them.

They enslave the people.

Right?

They do something evil.

It made sense economically, it made sense practically, it made sense because it was easy, but it wasn't what God asked them.

Here's what the response is from God in Judges chapter 2, verses 1 through 3.

Judges 2:1–3

Now the angel of the Lord went up from Gilgal to Bochum, and he said, I brought you up from Egypt and brought you into the land that I swore to give to your fathers.

I said, I will never break my covenant with you, and you shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land.

You shall break down their altars, but you have not obeyed my voice.

What is this that you have done?

So now I say, I will not drive them out before you.

But they shall become thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare to you.

So point number three is this, and we've got to work this out a little bit.

God moves toward our self-deception and calls us toward himself.

See, I actually love this text.

It's really interesting the amount of kind of complexity going on here.

God loves us to move toward us, right?

He doesn't just walk away.

They don't walk away.

He's still talking to them, he's still engaged.

And he gives them truth, right?

We need that.

Like he gives them the truth of what they did and how this will play out.

I mean, how much do we need that?

We just need truth in our lives.

My opinions need to go before the scriptures.

Right?

A good question for us as followers of Jesus: are we willing to place ourselves and our opinions in front of what God has to say about the subject?

Or do we just keep on with what we think?

And then also, how often do we claim we just can't do something?

This is what these people did.

They just said, I can't do it.

We can't, we can't push them out, we can't do it.

So they revert back to what they want to do.

Like, how often do we do that?

I can't, but really it's just like I won't.

I can't forgive, I can't move on, I can't heal, I can't call him.

There's no way I can call her.

I can't stop that.

I can't let go of that opinion.

And on some level, you're right.

Your will is bound through your sinfulness.

And I am too.

But 1 Corinthians 10, 13 tells us there's even more to this story.

No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man.

That's kind of good news, too, right?

Like it just means like we're all experiencing kind of the same thing.

God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability.

But with the temptation, he will also provide the way of escape that you may be able to endure it.

So we have a resting place in God and a power source from beyond our limited willpower and our sinfulness.

So we know the Holy Spirit is in us, which is the one that's helping us.

He is the helper.

And the Holy Spirit is helping the gospel, the good news that we're already justified, already loved, already secure.

We don't have to go and earn that or find that or find another place of satisfaction.

We have all of that already in Christ.

And the Holy Spirit is burying that deeper and deeper into our hearts, which is the very way in which we can say no to temptation.

Yet at the same time, we're not perfect.

Right?

Yet we're not perfect.

The same guy who wrote that wrote in Romans 7, Paul wrote, I want to do one thing, but at the same time I find myself doing the other thing.

I want to do right, but at the same time I end up doing wrong.

So we're not perfect, even though we're called to this sort of life.

And even then, in our failure, God through Christ is the one who welcomes us back, forgives us, calls us again.

So the story in verse 3, an interesting thing plays out here.

Maybe you picked up on it.

So the people fail.

And then God bails.

I mean, this works against all of our theology, especially at our church, because we are sold out to God being unconditional for us, to his promises, that he is covenantal.

And here is a text, a story, a verse you could cite, where God is not.

He says, You did this, so I won't.

That's conditionality.

That's the opposite of what we believe.

And this is exactly why you can't grab one verse.

You can't grab one story.

This is a meta-narrative.

The scriptures is a progression of revelation of God being played out over history and written for us to know.

You don't understand the fullness of God's love till the end of the story.

And here we have early on a story to help us understand God's justice.

God is perfectly just, and in that justice, he cannot overlook our sin or be in right-loving relationship with us.

Unless, thank you for the cross, thank you for what the New Testament teaches us, the meta-narrative, unless his perfect justice is known in his perfect grace.

And then that's what we have in the cross.

He is just and he's loving.

Point number four is this perfect justice and perfect grace are displayed in Christ.

That is where the story always takes us.

Even judges is pointing us toward that.

Last point, point number five.

Remembering God's faithfulness to us is our path forward with him.

It's always our path forward.

Remembering God's faithfulness.

You would say, how in the world could that be?

It didn't look like God was faithful in this text at all.

It looked like he bailed when we failed.

But there's a little clue in here.

The text says that the angel came from Gilgal.

We could read over that so quickly.

But angels don't, you know, it's like the angel live in Gilgal, right?

Like you have an apartment there?

Do you have a house there?

No, no, no.

It's a clue, it's a hint in the text because Gilgal's back in Joshua chapter 5.

Joshua 5 · chapter mention

Gilgal is the place where the Lord and the people make a covenant together.

Gilgal means to roll.

And there, there in Joshua 5, the Lord says, Today I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you.

See, on that day, there in Gilgal, God forgave their sin and entered into a covenant relationship with the people.

See, this text, even in this moment where we're learning about God's justice and response to our disobedience, he hints toward his grace.

And the covenant relationship that's bigger than that.

It's a reminder for these Israelites that the relationship is still based in grace.

That your salvation is always based in grace.

And your faith walk is lived out by grace alone.

So all of that, all of that to say to you this morning as we move into Judges for the next nine weeks.

You live faithful.

We live faithful, non-anxious, present, without fear, loving, compassionate, at peace.

We do that by remembering God's faithfulness and his gracious character to us.

And that his perfect justice is perfectly fulfilled on the cross.

So that what we have from him is a loving Abba.

And our God just keeps pursuing us no matter what condition that we are in.

Let's pray together.

God, thank you for this story where we get a taste of your justice.

That your justice is repelled away from our sinfulness, and yet your grace is there ready to rescue us.

And that the relationship was sealed in grace and is carried on in grace.

And this is just one picture, one picture amidst the great story of redemption.

That you are not a God that bails.

And while your justice leads you to separate from us and our sinfulness, your grace pulls you toward us and you pursue us.

That you actually woo us to yourself.

Help us to turn from all the little stories and the little gods that we play with to try to find satisfaction and wholeness.

That we might come into a greater love and astonishment of how good you are and how much you love us and how you adore us and how you welcome us.

And how in Jesus we are fully we are fully loved and welcomed and accepted.

In Jesus' powerful name we pray.

Amen.